Cogito, ergo sum relying on clarity, distinctiveness, and self-evidence. Baruch Spinoza in ""Principia philosophiae cartesianae"" at its "Prolegomenon" identified "cogito ergo sum" the ""ego sum cogitans"" (I am a thinking being) as the thinking substance with his ontological interpretation. It can also be considered that "Cogito ergo sum" is needed before any living being can go further in life". Although the idea expressed in "cogito, ergo sum" is widely attributed to Descartes, he was not the first to mention it. Plato spoke about the "knowledge of knowledge" (Greek νόησις νοήσεως "nóesis noéseos") and Aristotle explains the idea in full length: But if life
Cogito, ergo sum itself is good and pleasant (...) and if one who sees is conscious that he sees, one who hears that he hears, one who walks that he walks and similarly for all the other human activities there is a faculty that is conscious of their exercise, so that whenever we perceive, we are conscious that we perceive, and whenever we think, we are conscious that we think, and to be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious that we exist... ("Nicomachean Ethics", 1170a25 ff.) Augustine of Hippo in "De Civitate Dei" writes "Si […] fallor, sum"