eter Harrison points out in his The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (10–11) that the Reformation coincided with the rediscovery of ancient skepticism. While the Reformers were undermining traditional Catholic sources of authority from one side, Montaigne and others were corroding certainty from the other. Descartes took this skepticism as a starting point to reconstruct the foundations for knowledge.
This is the thesis of Richard Popkin, and not far from Harrison's own thesis. But Harrison thinks another factor is important: the Reformation's revival of Augustinianism. On the one side, the Augustinian emphasis on the epistemological effects of the fall of Adam could reinforce skeptical philosophies. On the other hand, Augustinians believed that ignorance and uncertainty were contingent, not woven into the nature of things. And if contingent, then resolvable.
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