Ordering Knowledge by Methodical Doubt: Francis Bacon's Constructive Scepticism

Methodical doubt is usually associated with Descartes. However, it is with Francis Bacon that its function and scope are first recognised - as a preliminary stage in the attainment of knowledge and as an epistemological tool for achieving true knowledge. In this paper I follow the various steps of construction and use of Baconian doubt as it appears in the first book of the Novum Organon and argue that Bacon, in distancing himself from traditional scepticism, will come to conceive methodical doubt not only as a procedure for renovating knowledge but more specifically as a prescriptive condition for identifying what 'mind' is required to pursue the aim of renovating knowledge.