New from Aristotle

This came in this morning’s Aristotle message:
“To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.”
It came as news to me that he had said this. He never mentioned to me before. And if I am remembering the dates right, it must have come before Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.”
(In a more serious vein, I do realize that Descartes’ point on this score was much more fundamental, that it was the starting point, and the only possible starting point, for any other knowledge whatsoever.
Which in turn electrified the challenge raised by the late Paul Feyerabend, our cantankerous and really beloved Philosophy of Science prof at UCB, who argued persuasively that it was not possible to come to know something without already knowing something.)
–David