Man is a questioning being. The kind of questions philosophers ask themselves are not scientific or technical, but fundamental. Life is what moves these philosophers to ask questions as well as having the innate drive to know. This kind of knowledge drive is what we call as philosophy. That is why philosophy is investigative and critical. The ends of philosophy are wisdom and truth. The means are understanding and reflection.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL METHODS:

THE SOCRATIC METHOD: This is where in two interlocutors took turns in questioning and answering. Truth is arrived at by means of this dialectical method of asking and responding, gradually eliminating the questionable.

Excerpt from the Philosophy of Socrates by Nicholas Smith

(1)Socrates is widely regarded as one of the great teachers of all time. There is even a "method" of teaching named after him—the so-called Socratic Method, in which one teaches by asking leading questions that guide students to discovering the subject matter rather than simply telling the students what they need to know. It is easy to understand why this method of teaching is known as "Socratic/" for in Plato's dialogues, what we see Socrates doing most is asking questions. Only rarely do we find him "lecturing" to anyone, though we do see something like this in Plato's Apology, in which Socrates gives three speeches to the jurors at his trial. Yet even in. the Apology, we find Socrates asking questions when he cross-examines his prosecutor, Meletus, In much of the rest of his presentation to the jurors, he talks about how he has spent his life asking questions (and how his doing so has so often annoyed those questioned).

Excerpt from How to Use the Socratic Methodby Max Maxwell and Melete

(2) Education is much more than force feeding information to students and measuring how well they regurgitate that information back to us on command. Education is more than teaching the art of complying with minimum requirements. Living is more than survival. The Socratic method is a powerful tool to inspire students to take a deep interest in their own enthusiastically willful education and thriving in life. This helps students become more attentive and thoughtful as a matter of their natural character. A high quality and persistence of attentiveness is the most fundamental difference between merely existing and expressing the art of living. Human attentiveness is absolutely essential for human survival, creativity and happiness. The absence of human attentiveness is the absence of human living. The persistence of high quality attentiveness through fair weather and foul is the road we must travel to lead an examined life worth living. The Socratic method, within its influence on the structure of communication and participation, inspires people to attentively embrace and express their own original thinking and creative doing as they enthusiastically participate in the art of living an examined life.

Source:http://www.socraticmethod.net/how_to_use_the_socratic_method/using_the_socratic_method.html

THE METHODIC DOUBT

(1) According to Rene Descartes, the first rule is to accept nothing as true which I do not clearly recognize to be so; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitation and prejudice in my judgments, and to accept in them nothing more than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I could have no occasion to doubt it.

(2) To achieve the truth, we must doubt our senses since our senses are fallible and unreliable, that is, we must avoid our perceptual illusion. The objective of Descartes is certainty, and this can be possible through the method of doubt. The opposite of truth is uncertainty. That is why truth is related with certainty. This is what we mean by the skepticism of Descartes.

The Methodic doubt is derived from the idea of doubting a belief. It is not a feeling but rather it is a rational insight.

Below is an example of using doubt in disproving the Existence of God

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

THEIST’S PROOF	ATHEIST’S REPLY
Stated in the Bible	Not all statements in the Bible are true
Experiences God in a vision	Mere hallucination, doesn’t prove anything
Miracle of the Red Sea	Geophysical quirk, not a miracle
Delicate order of nature	Product of natural selection and chance occurrences
The existence of the world	It just happened; otherwise, we wouldn’t be here to discuss it
The victory of the good over evil (in World War II, for instance)	Superiority of Allied forces and a few lucky turning points

Source: The Big Questions

This is an example wherein we cannot prove the existence of God through the empirical truth or based on sense experience. The facts of our experience cannot be the basis of truth. To achieve truth, opinions must be doubted. To achieve wisdom and truth, opinions must be analyzed, scrutinized and not be accepted easily.