Good post... made me think about an assignment I got in a philosophy class to answer the question:

What do you know based on your own experience, and how do you know it?

Turns out that what we know based on our own experience is a small set of things that we can examine closely. This is where philosophy and thinking should begin, imho.


There is a philosophical method developed at the turn of the 19th century to examine our own experiences called "phenomenology" that you might appreciate. Their motto is "To the things themselves."


But the attempt to examine what we really can know for ourselves really begins with the father of Modern Philosophy, Descartes. His Meditations is a very readable account of how he went about learning for himself what the basis was for all of what we can know. Hint: It begins with our own certain existence.


Let me know if and how you answer the question of what you know and how for yourself!