Chompy Wrote:Also as far as Descartes is... he did prove his own individual existence.
Actually Plato postulated the basis of this thought by having his character Socrates state at his trial for heresy, "the unexamined life is not worth living." Which is more or less a dead ringer for the foundational basis of Descartes's statement "I think therefore I am."
Even the execution of the Allegory of the Cave and the basic Cartesian principle often come to very close and interchangeable examples (Matrix, Sophie's World) much like British empiricism often is interchangeable with simplified Hegel and his theories on the Geist.
Whenever our class would get frustrated we would often create our own postulates. I have five fingers, therefore there must be a five-finger overlord who created us inside a factory before we were born. Everyone has five fingers. Therefore a five-finger overlord must have created the Earth. A number of theories that occurred at the foundation of philosophy including Anixamander and others was often parodied by me to Pokemon. Which caused our Philosophy teacher to become infuriated. I still took the class seriously. I just believe that ancient philosophy doesn't follow the same stringent logic algorithms that contemporary philosophy students are expected to learn and follow.