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i made a minor edit that should hopefully make the reading slightly more manageable.
my point in making that comment was that descartes was wrong to start with the assumption that he was being deceived by an evil demon and to find a foundation of knowledge and "prove" existence by first doubting the evidence of his senses. "cogito ergo sum" means, essentially, that the fact that he thinks is to be doubted less than his own existence; of course, thinking and any other conscious activity presuppose existence. a thing must exist in order to be conscious; the converse is not true. existence is primary, not consciousness. descartes should in fact have started by assuming existence, which is independent of his cognitive faculties and thus would not have changed even if he were deceived by an evil demon (of course, descartes should have known this since he was not a phenomenalist).
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