#6: Descartes
René Descartes gave modern philosophy one of its most famous starting points by deciding, very deliberately, to doubt almost everything. Born in 1596 in La Haye en Touraine, France, he lived at a time when science, religion, and old authorities were all being tested in new ways. Descartes wanted certainty, not inherited assumptions. So he asked what could survive the most radical doubt imaginable. The answer, in his view, was the thinking self: if he was doubting, then he must exist as the one doing the doubting.
