Cogito, ergo sum (See CSMK III 159, 161.) Another predecessor was Avicenna's "Floating Man" thought experiment on human self-awareness and self-consciousness. The 8th century Hindu philosopher Adi Shankara wrote in a similar fashion, No one thinks, 'I am not', arguing that one's existence cannot be doubted, as there must be someone there to doubt. The central idea of "cogito, ergo sum" is also the topic of Mandukya Upanishad. Spanish philosopher Gómez Pereira in his 1554 work "De Inmortalitate Animae", published in 1749, wrote ""nosco me aliquid noscere, & quidquid noscit, est, ergo ego sum"" ("I know that I know something, anyone who knows
Cogito, ergo sum distinctiveness of self-evident propositions — to establish true and justified propositions despite having adopted a method of generalized doubt. As a consequence of this demonstration, Descartes considers science and mathematics to be justified to the extent that their proposals are established on a similarly immediate clarity, distinctiveness, and self-evidence that presents itself to the mind. The originality of Descartes's thinking, therefore, is not so much in expressing the "cogito" — a feat accomplished by other predecessors, as we shall see — but on using the "cogito" as demonstrating the most fundamental epistemological principle, that science and mathematics are justified by