representationalism
Representationalism is the idea that we cannot know the world directly. It implicitly (if not explicitly) draws a sharp distinction between the (“internal”) knowing subject and the (“external”) known object. Once the knowing subject is severed from the known object, it follows that knowledge of the interior life of the mind is more certain than knowledge of external objects. This leads to Descartes doctrine of immediate awareness, which holds that we are immediately aware of our own ideas and nothing else. We can be aware of the “external” world in a derivative sense, but we can have no “immediate awareness” of the external world, and it is immediate awareness that confers the highest degree of certitude. Based on this principle, Descartes went on to formulate his famous “I think, therefore I am” (cogito ergo sum). In other words, according to Descartes, one’s awareness of one’s own thinking is more certain than anything else, including even belief in one’s own existence! The judgment “I think” is prior to the judgment “I am”.
This leads to what has been called the “copy theory of knowledge,” because it portrays all knowledge as a mere mental copy of reality. Reality per se is inaccessible to our knowledge, according to this theory. The best we can hope for is knowledge of a representation (or copy) of reality.