The
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am", is the "
first principle
In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption.
First principles in philosophy are from First Cause attitudes and taught by Aristotelians, and nua ...
" of
René Descartes
René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Ma ...
's philosophy. He originally published it in
French as , in his 1637 ''
Discourse on the Method
''Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences'' (french: Discours de la Méthode Pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences) is a philosophical and autobiographical ...
'', so as to reach a wider audience than Latin would have allowed. It later appeared in Latin in his ''
Principles of Philosophy
''Principles of Philosophy'' ( la, Principia Philosophiae) is a book by René Descartes. In essence, it is a synthesis of the '' Discourse on Method'' and '' Meditations on First Philosophy''.Guy Durandin, ''Les Principes de la Philosophie. Int ...
'', and a similar phrase also featured prominently in his ''
Meditations on First Philosophy
''Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated'' ( la, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur) is a philosophical treatise ...
''. The
dictum
In general usage, a dictum ( in Latin; plural dicta) is an authoritative or dogmatic statement. In some contexts, such as legal writing and church cantata librettos, ''dictum'' can have a specific meaning.
Legal writing
In United States legal ter ...
is also sometimes referred to as the cogito. As Descartes explained in a
margin note, "we cannot
doubt
Doubt is a mental state in which the mind remains suspended between two or more contradictory propositions, unable to be certain of any of them.
Doubt on an emotional level is indecision between belief and disbelief. It may involve uncertainty ...
of our
existence
Existence is the ability of an entity to interact with reality. In philosophy, it refers to the ontological property of being.
Etymology
The term ''existence'' comes from Old French ''existence'', from Medieval Latin ''existentia/exsistentia' ...
while we doubt." In the posthumously published ''
The Search for Truth by Natural Light
The ''Search for Truth by Natural Light'' (') is an unfinished philosophical dialogue by René Descartes “set in the courtly culture of the ‘’ and ‘’.” It was written in French (presumably after the Meditations was completed) but fir ...
'', he expressed this insight as ("I doubt, therefore I am — or what is the same — I think, therefore I am").
[.] Antoine Léonard Thomas, in a 1765 essay in honor of Descartes presented it as ("I doubt, therefore I
think
In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, an ...
, therefore I am").
Descartes's statement became a fundamental element of
Western philosophy
Western philosophy encompasses the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word ' ...
, as it purported to provide a
certain foundation for knowledge in the face of
radical doubt. While other knowledge could be a figment of imagination, deception, or mistake, Descartes asserted that the very act of doubting one's own existence served—at minimum—as proof of the reality of one's own mind; there must be a
thinking entity—in this case the
self
The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhoo ...
—for there to be a thought.
One critique of the dictum, first suggested by
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he also spent much t ...
, is that it presupposes that there is an "I" which must be doing the thinking. According to this line of criticism, the most that Descartes was entitled to say was that "thinking is occurring", not that "I am thinking".
In Descartes's writings
Descartes first wrote the phrase in French in his 1637 ''
Discourse on the Method
''Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences'' (french: Discours de la Méthode Pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences) is a philosophical and autobiographical ...
''. He referred to it in Latin without explicitly stating the familiar form of the phrase in his 1641 ''
Meditations on First Philosophy
''Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated'' ( la, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur) is a philosophical treatise ...
''. The earliest written record of the phrase in Latin is in his 1644 ''
Principles of Philosophy
''Principles of Philosophy'' ( la, Principia Philosophiae) is a book by René Descartes. In essence, it is a synthesis of the '' Discourse on Method'' and '' Meditations on First Philosophy''.Guy Durandin, ''Les Principes de la Philosophie. Int ...
'', where, in a margin note (see below), he provides a clear explanation of his intent: "
cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt". Fuller forms of the phrase are attributable to other authors.
''Discourse on the Method''
The phrase first appeared (in French) in Descartes's 1637 ''
Discourse on the Method
''Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences'' (french: Discours de la Méthode Pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences) is a philosophical and autobiographical ...
'' in the first paragraph of its fourth part:
''Meditations on First Philosophy''
In 1641, Descartes published (in Latin) ''
Meditations on first philosophy
''Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated'' ( la, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur) is a philosophical treatise ...
'' in which he referred to the proposition, though not explicitly as "cogito, ergo sum" in Meditation II:
''Principles of Philosophy''
In 1644, Descartes published (in Latin) his ''
Principles of Philosophy
''Principles of Philosophy'' ( la, Principia Philosophiae) is a book by René Descartes. In essence, it is a synthesis of the '' Discourse on Method'' and '' Meditations on First Philosophy''.Guy Durandin, ''Les Principes de la Philosophie. Int ...
'' where the phrase "ego cogito, ergo sum" appears in Part 1, article 7:
Descartes's
margin note for the above paragraph is:
''The Search for Truth by Natural Light''
Descartes, in a lesser-known posthumously published work dated as written ca. 1647 and titled (''The Search for Truth by Natural Light''),
provides his only known phrasing of the cogito as and admits that his insight is also expressible as ''dubito, ergo sum'':
Other forms
The proposition is sometimes given as . This form was penned by the French literary critic,
Antoine Léonard Thomas, in an award-winning 1765 essay in praise of Descartes, where it appeared as "" ('Since I doubt, I think; since I think, I exist'). With rearrangement and compaction, the passage translates to "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am," or in Latin, "''dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum''." This aptly captures Descartes's intent as expressed in his posthumously published ''La Recherche de la Vérité par La Lumiere Naturale'' as noted above: ''I doubt, therefore I am'' — or what is the same — ''I think, therefore I am''.
A further expansion, ("…—a thinking thing") extends the ''cogito'' with Descartes's statement in the subsequent ''Meditation'', ("I am a thinking
onsciousthing, that is, a being who doubts, affirms, denies, knows a few objects, and is ignorant of many,-- who loves, hates, wills, refuses, who imagines likewise, and perceives"). This has been referred to as "the expanded ''cogito''."
Translation
"I am thinking" vs. "I think"
While the Latin translation ''cōgitō'' may be translated rather easily as "I think/ponder/visualize", does not indicate whether the verb form corresponds to the English
simple present
The simple present, present simple or present indefinite is one of the verb forms associated with the present tense in modern English. It is commonly referred to as a tense, although it also encodes certain information about aspect in addition ...
or
progressive aspect
The continuous and progressive aspects ( abbreviated and ) are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action ("to do") or state ("to be") in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective aspects.
In the grammars of many ...
. Technically speaking, the French lemma ''pense'' by itself is actually the result of numerous different conjugations of the verb ''penser'' (to think) – it could mean "I think... (something)"/"He thinks... (something)", "I think."/"He thinks.", or even "You (must) think... (something).", thereby necessitating the use of the wider context, or a pronoun, to understand the meaning. In the case of ''je pense'', a pronoun is already included, ''je'' or "I", but this still leaves the question of whether "I think..." or "I think." is intended. Therefore, translation needs a larger context to determine
aspect
Aspect or Aspects may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art
* Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company
* Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England
* ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
.
Following
John Lyons (1982), Vladimir Žegarac notes, "The temptation to use the simple present is said to arise from the lack of progressive forms in Latin and French, and from a misinterpretation of the meaning of ''cogito'' as habitual or generic" (cf.
gnomic aspect
The gnomic (abbreviated ), also called neutral, generic, or universal aspect, mood, or tense, is a grammatical feature (which may refer to aspect, mood, or tense) that expresses general truths or aphorisms.
Uses and occurrence
Used to describe ...
). Also following Lyons,
Ann Banfield Ann Banfield, is a professor Emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California ...
writes, "In order for the statement on which Descartes's argument depends to represent certain knowledge,… its tense must be a true present—in English, a progressive,… not as 'I think' but as 'I am thinking, in conformity with the general translation of the Latin or French present tense in such nongeneric, nonstative contexts." Or in the words of
Simon Blackburn
Simon Blackburn (born 12 July 1944) is an English academic philosopher known for his work in metaethics, where he defends quasi-realism, and in the philosophy of language; more recently, he has gained a large general audience from his effort ...
, "Descartes's premise is not 'I think' in the sense of 'I ski', which can be true even if you are not at the moment skiing. It is supposed to be parallel to 'I am skiing'."
The similar translation "I am thinking, therefore I exist" of Descartes's correspondence in French (", ") appears in ''The Philosophical Writings of Descartes'' by Cottingham et al. (1988).
The earliest known translation as "I am thinking, therefore I am" is from 1872 by
Charles Porterfield Krauth.
Fumitaka Suzuki writes "Taking consideration of Cartesian theory of continuous creation, which theory was developed especially in the Meditations and in the Principles, we would assure that 'I am thinking, therefore I am/exist' is the most appropriate English translation of 'ego cogito, ergo sum'."
"I exist" vs. "I am"
Alexis Deodato S. Itao notes that is "literally 'I think, therefore I am'." Others differ: 1) "
precise English translation will read as 'I am thinking, therefore I exist'.; and 2) "
nce Descartes ... emphasized that existence is such an important 'notion,' a better translation is 'I am thinking, therefore I exist.'"
Punctuation
Descartes wrote this phrase as such only once, in the posthumously published lesser-known work noted above,''
The Search for Truth by Natural Light
The ''Search for Truth by Natural Light'' (') is an unfinished philosophical dialogue by René Descartes “set in the courtly culture of the ‘’ and ‘’.” It was written in French (presumably after the Meditations was completed) but fir ...
''.
It appeared there mid-sentence, uncapitalized, and with a comma. (Commas were not used in
Classical Latin
Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later period ...
but were a regular feature of scholastic Latin, the Latin Descartes "had learned in a Jesuit college at La Flèche.") Most modern reference works show it with a comma, but it is often presented without a comma in academic work and in popular usage. In Descartes's
''Principia Philosophiae'', the proposition appears as ''ego cogito, ergo sum''.
Interpretation
As put succinctly by
Krauth (1872), "That cannot doubt which does not think, and that cannot think which does not exist. I doubt, I think, I exist."
The phrase ''cogito, ergo sum'' is not used in Descartes's ''
Meditations on First Philosophy
''Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated'' ( la, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur) is a philosophical treatise ...
'' but the term "the ''cogito''" is used to refer to an argument from it. In the ''Meditations'', Descartes phrases the conclusion of the argument as "that the proposition, ''I am, I exist,'' is
necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind" (''Meditation'' II).
George Henry Lewes
George Henry Lewes (; 18 April 1817 – 30 November 1878) was an English philosopher and critic of literature and theatre. He was also an amateur physiologist. American feminist Margaret Fuller called Lewes a "witty, French, flippant sort of m ...
says Descartes "has told us that
is objectivewas to find a starting point from which to reason—to find an irreversible certainty. And where did he find this? In his own consciousness. Doubt as I may, I cannot doubt of my own existence, because my very doubts reveal to me a something which doubts. You may call this an assumption, if you will; I point out the fact as one above and beyond all logic; which logic can neither prove nor disprove; but which must always remain an irreversible certainty, and as such a fitting basis of philosophy."
At the beginning of the second meditation, having reached what he considers to be the ultimate level of doubt—his argument from the existence of a deceiving god—Descartes examines his beliefs to see if any have survived the doubt. In his belief in his own existence, he finds that it is impossible to doubt that he exists. Even if there were a deceiving god (or an
evil demon
The evil demon, also known as Descartes' demon, malicious demon and evil genius, is an epistemological concept that features prominently in Cartesian philosophy. In the first of his 1641 '' Meditations on First Philosophy'', Descartes imagine ...
), one's belief in their own existence would be secure, for there is no way one could be deceived unless one existed in order to be deceived.
There are three important notes to keep in mind here. First, he claims only the certainty of ''his own'' existence from the first-person point of view — he has not proved the existence of other minds at this point. This is something that has to be thought through by each of us for ourselves, as we follow the course of the meditations. Second, he does not say that his existence is necessary; he says that ''if he thinks'', then necessarily he exists (see the
instantiation principle The instantiation principle or principle of instantiation or principle of exemplification is the concept in metaphysics and logic (first put forward by David Malet Armstrong) that there can be no uninstantiated or unexemplified properties (or univer ...
). Third, this proposition "I am, I exist" is held true not based on a deduction (as mentioned above) or on empirical induction but on the clarity and self-evidence of the proposition. Descartes does not use this first certainty, the ''cogito'', as a foundation upon which to build further knowledge; rather, it is the firm ground upon which he can stand as he works to discover further truths. As he puts it:
According to many Descartes specialists, including
Étienne Gilson
Étienne Henri Gilson (; 13 June 1884 – 19 September 1978) was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy. A scholar of medieval philosophy, he originally specialised in the thought of Descartes; he also philosophized in the tradition ...
, the goal of Descartes in establishing this first truth is to demonstrate the capacity of his criterion — the immediate clarity and distinctiveness of self-evident propositions — to establish true and justified propositions despite having adopted a method of generalized doubt. As a consequence of this demonstration, Descartes considers science and mathematics to be justified to the extent that their proposals are established on a similarly immediate clarity, distinctiveness, and self-evidence that presents itself to the mind. The originality of Descartes's thinking, therefore, is not so much in expressing the ''cogito''—a feat accomplished by other predecessors, as we shall see—but on using the ''cogito'' as demonstrating the most fundamental epistemological principle, that science and mathematics are justified by relying on clarity, distinctiveness, and self-evidence.
Baruch Spinoza in "''
Principia philosophiae cartesianae''" at its ''Prolegomenon'' identified "cogito ergo sum" the "''ego sum cogitans''" (I am a thinking being) as the thinking
substance with his
ontological
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
interpretation.
Predecessors
Although the idea expressed in ''cogito, ergo sum'' is widely attributed to Descartes, he was not the first to mention it.
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
spoke about the "knowledge of knowledge" (
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
: νόησις νοήσεως, ''nóesis noéseos'') and
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
explains the idea in full length:
The Cartesian statement was interpreted to be an Aristotelian
syllogism where is not explicited the premise according to which all thinkers shall be also
beings.
In the late sixth or early fifth century BC,
Parmenides is quoted as saying "For to be aware and to be are the same". (Fragment B3)
In the early fifth century AD,
Augustine of Hippo in ''
De Civitate Dei
''On the City of God Against the Pagans'' ( la, De civitate Dei contra paganos), often called ''The City of God'', is a book of Christian philosophy written in Latin by Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century AD. The book was in response ...
'' (book XI, 26) affirmed his certain knowledge of his own existence, and added: "So far as these truths are concerned, I do not at all fear the arguments of the Academics when they say, What if you are mistaken? For if I am mistaken, I exist." This formulation () is sometimes called the Augustinian . In 1640, Descartes wrote to thank Andreas Colvius (a friend of Descartes's mentor,
Isaac Beeckman
Isaac Beeckman (10 December 1588van Berkel, p10 – 19 May 1637) was a Dutch philosopher and scientist, who, through his studies and contact with leading natural philosophers, may have "virtually given birth to modern atomism".Harold J. Cook, in ...
) for drawing his attention to Augustine:
Another predecessor was
Avicenna's "
Floating Man
Floating man is the proper translation of the verb "yahwā in al-Nafs," which means "to fall down." Flying man is another term used cohesively to describe a floating man. According to Ibn Sina, it is considered a thought experience to determine ...
"
thought experiment
A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences.
History
The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anc ...
on human
self-awareness and
self-consciousness
Self-consciousness is a heightened sense of awareness of oneself. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. Historically, "self-consciousness" was synonymous with "self-awareness", referring to a state of awareness that ...
.
[ Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, and ]Oliver Leaman
Oliver Leaman (born 1950) is a professor of philosophy and Zantker Professor of Judaic studies at the University of Kentucky, where he has been teaching since 2000. He studies the history of Islamic, Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים ...
. 1996. ''History of Islamic Philosophy''. Routledge. p. 315. .
The 8th century Hindu philosopher
Adi Shankara
Adi Shankara ("first Shankara," to distinguish him from other Shankaras)(8th cent. CE), also called Adi Shankaracharya ( sa, आदि शङ्कर, आदि शङ्कराचार्य, Ādi Śaṅkarācāryaḥ, lit=First Shanka ...
wrote, in a similar fashion, that no one thinks 'I am not', arguing that one's existence cannot be doubted, as there must be someone there to doubt.
[ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli. 1948. ''Indian Philosophy'' II. George Allen & Unwin Ltd. p. 476.] The central idea of ''cogito, ergo sum'' is also the topic of ''
Mandukya Upanishad
The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad ( sa, माण्डूक्य उपनिषद्, ) is the shortest of all the Upanishads, and is assigned to Atharvaveda. It is listed as number 6 in the Muktikā canon of 108 Upanishads.
It is in prose, c ...
''.
Spanish philosopher
Gómez Pereira in his 1554 work ''De Inmortalitate Animae'', published in 1749, wrote "''nosco me aliquid noscere, & quidquid noscit, est, ergo ego sum''" ('I know that I know something, anyone who knows exists, then I exist').
Critique
Use of "I"
In ''Descartes, The Project of Pure Enquiry'',
Bernard Williams
Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams, FBA (21 September 1929 – 10 June 2003) was an English moral philosopher. His publications include ''Problems of the Self'' (1973), ''Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy'' (1985), ''Shame and Necessity'' ...
provides a history and full evaluation of this issue.
The first to raise the "I" problem was
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he also spent much t ...
, who in his , as noted by Saul Fisher "points out that recognition that one has a set of thoughts does not imply that one is a particular thinker or another. …
e only claim that is indubitable here is the agent-independent claim that there is cognitive activity present."
The objection, as presented by
Georg Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1 July 1742 – 24 February 1799) was a German physicist, satirist, and Anglophile. As a scientist, he was the first to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics in Germany. He is remembered fo ...
, is that rather than supposing an entity that is thinking, Descartes should have said: "thinking is occurring." That is, whatever the force of the ''cogito'', Descartes draws too much from it; the existence of a thinking thing, the reference of the "I," is more than the ''cogito'' can justify.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
criticized the phrase in that it presupposes that there is an "I", that there is such an activity as "thinking", and that "I" know what "thinking" is. He suggested a more appropriate phrase would be "it thinks" wherein the "it" could be an impersonal subject as in the sentence "It is raining."
Kierkegaard
The Danish philosopher
Søren Kierkegaard calls the phrase a
tautology in his ''
Concluding Unscientific Postscript
''Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments'' ( da, Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift til de philosophiske Smuler) is a major work by Søren Kierkegaard. The work is an attack against Hegelianism, the philosophy of He ...
''.
He argues that the ''cogito'' already presupposes the existence of "I", and therefore concluding with existence is logically trivial. Kierkegaard's argument can be made clearer if one extracts the premise "I think" into the premises "'x' thinks" and "I am that 'x'", where "x" is used as a placeholder in order to disambiguate the "I" from the thinking thing.
Here, the ''cogito'' has already assumed the "I"'s existence as that which thinks. For Kierkegaard, Descartes is merely "developing the content of a concept", namely that the "I", which already exists, thinks.
[ Kierkegaard, Søren. ]844
__NOTOC__
Year 844 ( DCCCXLIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* Spring – Battle of Mauropotamos: A Byzantine expedition under ...
1985. ''Philosophical Fragments
''Philosophical Fragments'' ( Danish title: ) is a Christian philosophical work written by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in 1844. It was the second of three works written under the pseudonym ''Johannes Climacus''; the other two were ''De ...
'', translated by P. Hong. As Kierkegaard argues, the proper logical flow of argument is that existence is already assumed or presupposed in order for thinking to occur, not that existence is concluded from that thinking.
Williams
Bernard Williams claims that what we are dealing with when we talk of thought, or when we say "I am thinking," is something conceivable from a
third-person perspective—namely objective "thought-events" in the former case, and an
objective
Objective may refer to:
* Objective (optics), an element in a camera or microscope
* ''The Objective'', a 2008 science fiction horror film
* Objective pronoun, a personal pronoun that is used as a grammatical object
* Objective Productions, a Brit ...
thinker in the latter. He argues, first, that it is impossible to make sense of "there is thinking" without relativizing it to ''something.'' However, this something cannot be Cartesian egos, because it is impossible to differentiate objectively between things just on the basis of the pure content of consciousness. The obvious problem is that, through
introspection
Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's sou ...
, or our experience of
consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
, we have no way of moving to conclude the existence of any third-personal fact, to conceive of which would require something above and beyond just the purely subjective contents of the mind.
Heidegger
As a critic of
Cartesian subjectivity,
Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...
sought to ground human subjectivity in death as that certainty which individualizes and authenticates our being. As he wrote in 1925 in ''History of the Concept of Time'':
John Macmurray
The Scottish philosopher
John Macmurray rejects the ''cogito'' outright in order to place action at the center of a philosophical system he entitles the Form of the Personal. "We must reject this, both as standpoint and as method. If this be philosophy, then philosophy is a bubble floating in an atmosphere of unreality."
[ Macmurray, John. 1991. ''The Self as Agent''. Humanity Books. p. 78.] The reliance on thought creates an irreconcilable dualism between thought and action in which the
unity
Unity may refer to:
Buildings
* Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building
* Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper
* Unity Buildings, Liverpool, UK; two buildings in England
* Unity Chapel, Wyoming, Wisconsin, US; ...
of experience is lost, thus dissolving the integrity of our selves, and destroying any connection with reality. In order to formulate a more adequate ''cogito'', Macmurray proposes the substitution of "I do" for "I think," ultimately leading to a belief in God as an agent to whom all persons stand in relation.
See also
*
Cartesian doubt
Cartesian doubt is a form of methodological skepticism associated with the writings and methodology of René Descartes (March 31, 1596Feb 11, 1650). Scruton, R.''Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey''(London: Penguin Books, 1994). Leiber, ...
*
Floating man
Floating man is the proper translation of the verb "yahwā in al-Nafs," which means "to fall down." Flying man is another term used cohesively to describe a floating man. According to Ibn Sina, it is considered a thought experience to determine ...
*
Solipsism
Solipsism (; ) is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known a ...
*
Academic skepticism
Academic skepticism refers to the skeptical period of ancient Platonism dating from around 266 BCE, when Arcesilaus became scholarch of the Platonic Academy, until around 90 BCE, when Antiochus of Ascalon rejected skepticism, although indi ...
*
Brain in a vat
In philosophy, the brain in a vat (BIV) is a scenario used in a variety of thought experiments intended to draw out certain features of human conceptions of knowledge, reality, truth, mind, consciousness, and meaning. It is a modern incarna ...
*
I Am that I Am
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Tat Tvam Asi
Tat or TAT may refer to:
Geography
* Tát, a Hungarian village
* Tat Ali, an Ethiopian volcano
People
*Tat, a son and disciple of Hermes Trismegistus
* Tiffani Amber Thiessen, initials T.A.T.
* Tat Wood, a British author
Arts, entertainment, a ...
, "You are that"
* ''
The Animal That Therefore I Am''
Notes
References
Further reading
*
Abraham, W. E. 1974. "Disentangling the Cogito." ''
Mind'' 83:329.
* Baird, Forrest E., and
Walter Kaufmann. 2008. ''From Plato to Derrida''. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson Prentice Hall
Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari ...
. .
* Boufoy-Bastick, Z. 2005. "Introducing 'Applicable Knowledge' as a Challenge to the Attainment of Absolute Knowledge." ''Sophia Journal of Philosophy'' 8:39–52.
* Christofidou, A. 2013. ''Self, Reason, and Freedom: A New Light on Descartes' Metaphysics''. Routledge.
* Hatfield, G. 2003. ''Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Descartes and the Meditations''. Routledge. .
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Kierkegaard, Søren.
844
__NOTOC__
Year 844 ( DCCCXLIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* Spring – Battle of Mauropotamos: A Byzantine expedition under ...
1985. ''
Philosophical Fragments
''Philosophical Fragments'' ( Danish title: ) is a Christian philosophical work written by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in 1844. It was the second of three works written under the pseudonym ''Johannes Climacus''; the other two were ''De ...
''. Princeton. .
* —
846
__NOTOC__
Year 846 ( DCCCXLVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place Byzantine Empire
* Byzantine–Bulgarian War: The Bulgarians violate the peace treaty ...
1985. ''
Concluding Unscientific Postscript
''Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments'' ( da, Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift til de philosophiske Smuler) is a major work by Søren Kierkegaard. The work is an attack against Hegelianism, the philosophy of He ...
''. Princeton. .
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cogito Ergo Sum
Rene Descartes
Arguments in philosophy of mind
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Metaphysical theories
Metaphysics of mind
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