Existential doubt according to Saint Augustine

Abstract

Abstract:

This research was concerned with clarifying the doubt in St. Augustine’s existential journey on the lived level, that is, showing the doubt inherent in his life with its fluctuations and changes, by relying on what Augustine reported with his pen in his book Confessions, showing the alternation of doubt and certainty in his life on the one hand, and displaying the methodological doubt that he called the Augustinian cogito. In his attempt to prove cognitive certainty in contrast to doubt, which seemed like an Augustinian theory of knowledge, that is, the endorsement of the theory of Augustine skepticism, which we see as the origin of Cartesian skepticism, while presenting a criticism of some of what Augustine presented in this context