Here Dr. Ellis demonstrates he doesn't know the meaning of the concept 'proof'. His epistemology in rejecting 'our perceptual-cognitive apparatus' seems to be that of knowledge by osmosis. Thus, because man cannot obtain knowledge without thinking and without looking, he cannot obtain knowledge at all. Well, the ideas would disappear if no one were around to think them and prove them, but if people can prove them now then they are true, period. The ideas are man-made, the facts to which they refer are not.
Man is neither.
He is a resident of reality and can obtain knowledge through the use of his perceptual-cognitive apparatus, that is, his brain and his body. The very essence of reasoning is the process of drawing non-contradictory inferences from consistent premises. If one's underlying premises are self-contradictory, all bets are off. Further, formal logic is not equivalent to reason. Formal logic proceeds without meaning and without intentionality.