... Descartes, attempting to discover which of the principles he calls 'knowledge' are absolute truths, systematically examines and rejects that which he has previously held to be true. Anything which he has found to be false in the past, he discards, even to the extent of discounting all sensory evidence, on the basis that he has previously been deceived by his senses, and therefore may be fooled by them again. The conclusion of this process of doubt is that Descartes isolates the one thing which he holds to be an a priori truth. He writes: "...having thought carefully about it, and having scrupulously examined everything, one must then, in conclusion, take as assured the proposition: I am, I exist, is necessarily true, every time I express it or conceive of it in my mind." 2 This belief in the existence of innate ideas is the main cause of diversity between rational and empirical epistemologies. In ...

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