Experimental Reason, Cartesian Doubt, Empiricism

Copernicus' question, 'What if the spectator were in motion, and the stars were at rest?', does not merely express a doubt of Ptolemaic Astronomy, but, further, initiates a novel investigation of celestial events.  Thus, more generally, implicit in Kant's advocacy of the Baconian experimental method is a rejection of the Cartesian method of Doubt, as intellectually insufficient.  He, therefore, distinguishes himself from not only his Rationalist predecessors, but from the Empiricists--Locke, Berkeley, and Hume--as well.  For, the adaptation of the experimental method entails that even the face value of a sense impression is subject to subsequent reconsideration, i. e. it entails a repudiation of the fundamental principle of that Empiricist tradition.