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The most notable of Descartes’ contributions was his introduction of a new method for pursuing knowledge in the science that was distinct from the previously accepted method inherited from Aristotle. Descartes had become frustrated with the previous method of the Scholastic European tradition and its dialectical approach to knowledge-seeking, which he charged with plunging him into skeptical doubts whereby he could never be sure what was true and what was not. He writes in Discourse on the Method:

Descartes concluded that if his goal was to attain certain knowledge about the world then the presently accepted method was insufficient and that a new one would be required to satisfy his aims. Method was a central theme in Descartes’ writing and held a central place in Descartes’ epistemology; in fact, one of Descartes’ criticisms of Galileo was that he failed to produce a fully developed method to justify his discoveries.[[CiteRef::Ariew (1986)]] To that end he embraced his sceptical doubts and devised a method based on methodological scepticism; a method whereby he rejects all knowledge that he cannot be certain of, accepts only those propositions which he can accept as certain, and proceed deductively from those axioms according to reason. By this method Descartes hoped to produce a kind of systematized knowledge that could be universally acceptable. As it happened the sole indubitable proposition upon which he would build the entire rest of his philosophical system was his famous ‘Cogito, Ergo Sum’ (also styled ‘Dubito, Ergo Cogito, Ergo Sum’ or simply as ‘the Cogito’); “I think, therefore I am.” From this foundation Descartes deduced his being a created thing, his requiring a creator, that creator being God, the nature of God, and the reliability of his senses and reason, all of which would form the broader foundation of his systematized scientific worldview.[[CiteRef::Newman (2014)]]