 But this is as much as Cottingham is willing to concede to Sanches, for ultimately Sanches remains for him a man “trapped in the inescapable ignorance of the pre-Enlightenment world” (1998: 9). In some ways this has been the unfortunate fate of Sanches until very recently: to be considered an interesting but insignificant philosopher. This in part is due to the fact that the history of philosophy used to be presented as a series of ex nihilo events bearing the names of Plato, Aristotle,  Immanuel Kant (1724–1804),  etc., as though one day there was nothing and then the next day there emerged, for example, the figure/event we know by the name of Kant. But fortunately philosophy is no longer presented or taught this way. Therefore, if Sanches was not a major philosopher, the originality of his work, for example, combining “medieval epistemological ideas and ancient sceptical habits of thinking” (Yrjönsuuri 2000: 243)—certainly impacted the work of other philosophers of his time and beyond. However, because no else would pay attention, certain early twentieth century Portuguese and Spanish thinkers, often for nationalistic reasons, turned Sanches into the Spanish or Portuguese “precursor” of Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes, and Kant. 