Sánchez, Francisco

Abstract

Francisco Sánchez (1551–1623) was a physician, philosopher, and author of Quod nihil scitur (That Nothing Is Known in its most accepted translation). He was an original thinker and also a predecessor of Descartes. The use of the methodical doubt by the French comes directly from Sánchez. He also coined the term methodus sciendi (scientific method), a half-century before it was popularized by Francis Bacon. It is a term that will largely determined the philosophical paths of the history of thought from the seventeenth century onwards. Francisco Sánchez and his philosophical writings are much more important and original than previously acknowledged. Despite his writings and his work as a doctor or as singular philosopher and interpreter of skepticism, the question of his biographical analysis distracted the attention of most scholars. Sanchez’s biography, although important, is not essential in the analysis of the intellectual or philosophical composition of his books. More important to our understanding of Sánchez as a philosopher are the aspects of his scientific or epistemological critiques as well as his use of skepticism that made him an evolutionary step in the development of skepticism in the Renaissance and in the history of philosophy.