[Hercuros]

How could you say that your views are aligned with those of Descartes and Kant if you have not seriously engaged with their works and what others have written about them?

All serious works in philosophy (Kant especially) are subject to interpretation. Whole research programmes exist around the works of major philosophers, interpreting and building on their works.

One cannot really do justice to e.g. the Critique of Pure Reason by discussing it based on a high level summary of the “main ideas” contained in it. These works have had a major impact on the history of Western philosophy and were groundbreaking at the time (and still are).

[pinerd3]

I think they basically agree with your point here -- they mention Descartes and Kant to say roughly "I hold basically these ideas, but I don't mention the philosophers' names when I talk about them because 1) I came to them independently, and 2) the people I'm talking to are not familiar with the context so situating our conversation there isn't helpful." Their argument is that you can have philosophical conversations without relying on the context of the canon, and that in a first-level discussion they wouldn't bring up Descartes or Kant.

[mitthrowaway2]

Did I give you the impression from my comment that I haven't read Descartes and Kant? That's not what I intended to say.