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1.2.1.3 Existence Only is CertainVersion 1.0 July 2016                                   (Previous Version) Descartes assumed too much when he said: I think therefore I am.  I can doubt what I am, and doubt that the “I” is a fixed entity. For example, the Buddha taught anatman, that even our selves are not real, despite what we feel. The German philosopher Kant (1724 – 1804 CE) says that it is not possible to infer the 'I' as an object (in Descartes' cogito ergo sum) purely from "the spontaneity of thought". We can doubt that. Perhaps we can be sure that the doubt exists, without imposing arbitrary qualities to the doubter. But more generally what cannot be doubted is that there is existence. We may not know what it is, we can doubt every attribute we apply to it, but we cannot doubt that something exists. 1.2.1.3 The only certain knowledge we have is that there is existence. Everything else can be doubted. more (later)
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