Cartesianism is a set of philosophical traditions and scientific attitudes. Metaphysically, Cartesianism is rationalist and Platonic, meaning that certain knowledge is derived by reason from innate ideas. This opposes the empiricist Aristotelian view that all knowledge is probable and is based on sense experience. In practice... Cartesians developed probabilistic scientific views from observation and experiment, as did empiricists. Cartesians had to be satisfied with uncertainty in science because they believed that God is omnipotent and that his will is entirely free. From this it follows that God, who, in addition to the material world, created all truths (such as those of mathematics and the laws of nature), could, nonetheless, given his infinite intellect and his free will, arbitrarily make even contradictions be true.