thinking about thinking

andrew w.k.: a 4 hr. spontaneous lecture at NYU

"Thus, because our senses sometimes deceive us, I decided to suppose that nothing was really as they led us to believe it was. And, because some of us make mistakes in reasoning, omitting logical errors in even the simplest matters of geometry, I rejected as erroneous all reasoning that I had previously taken as proofs. And finally, when I considered that the very same things we perceive when we are awake may also occur to us while we are asleep and not perceiving anything at all, I resolved to pretend that anything that had ever entered my mind was no more than a dream. But immediately I noticed that while I was thinking in this way, and regarding everything as false, it was nonetheless absolutely necessary that I, who as doing this thinking, was still something. And observing that this truth, 'I think, therefore I am,' was so sure and certain that no ground for doubt be it ever so extravagantly skeptical, was capable of shaking it, I therefore decided that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking to create." — Discourse of Method, Part IV, Descartes

who are our contemporary philosophers?