When it comes to the senses, philosophers are, as usual, divided. One school, known as the Rationalists, mistrusts the senses. Only our intellect, and the innate knowledge it contains, can lead us out of the cave and into the light. The Rationalist Descartes famously said Cogito, ergo sum. “I think, therefore I am.” Another school, the Empiricists, believe our senses can indeed be trusted, and it is only through them that we come to know the world. Thoreau refused to get twisted in such epistemological knots. Trustworthy or not, our senses are all we’ve got, he argued, so why not use them as
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