/lit/ - Literature

Would Descartes approve of the meme now associated with him?

"I think therefore I am"

Is there anything else in this world that we can be so sure of? What is the next idea you can be sure or almost sure of?

And does anyone have a dissenting opinion on this popular quote?

So, would it be right to say Descartes is nothing but Plato a little more formalized?
I'm almost finishing the Meditations and it's all there: mind-body dualism, mind over body, access of the thing-in-itself/material essence/Form through the use of Reason, Anamnesis, etc.
Of course, Descartes presents a more robust and solid system, less vulnerable to some attacks, like the Third Man Argument. But if there are almost no differences in essence between both (?), then why does Descartes is seen as such a breakthrough in modern philosophy?

Call me vain, but I can't help but judge philosophers, and anyone for that matter on appearances. Not simply if they are physically ugly or attractive, but if they display some sort of upkeep or attention to aesthetic. The slovenly philosopher is a cliche and when I see a man with visible confidence it shines through and reinforces their ideology. So let me ask this... Is this man as based as he looks?

Is it possible to be too educated?
I can't help but feel estranged from my peers when I'm already at a point of condition which they will likely never achieve in their lives. It's easy enough to say "don't be a snob" but I can't myself change the nature of knowledge, which Byron so rightly describes in that famous quote, "Sorrow is knowledge. He that knows the most must mourn the fatal truth. The tree of knowledge is not that of life."
inb4 fedora, this is a very real problem I'm grappling with, and one I suspect many here are as well

Best contemporary arguments for defending Cartesian Dualism?