philosophy: i think, therefore i am

Man can have many doubts. He can doubt that other humans exist, He can even doubt the capability of those humans so long as he has objective proof that they exist-- but man can never doubt there is an “I” who is doing the doubting-- or so thought Rene Descartes. 

Arguably the first great modern philosopher, Descartes found that much of what he had been taught by his Jesuit teachers couldn’t quite be proven. Struggling with the fact that there wasn’t the extent of knowledge out there as he had hoped, he took it upon himself to lay the foundations on which genuine, unquestionable knowledge could be constructed. Employing a technique of radical doubt, he aimed towards discovering one belief he knew was absolute. His method required him to examine each one of his beliefs, abandoning the ones that were possible to doubt. 

This exercise displayed the idea that it’s easy to doubt the truth of our sensory experiences-- for example: we could be dreaming, but we might not be aware of it. Taking that same idea on a larger scale, it could cause man to doubt even the simplest of truths-- mathematics, physics, space, time, you name it. The solace I find in Descartes' method is very simple, however. The very act of doubt REQUIRES an “I” to be doing the doubting. 

“I am thinking, therefore, I exist.”