Cogito ergo sum. The greatest of all Philosophical blunders!
I think therefore I am.
In his Meditations Descartes 'proves' the existence or at least the irreducibility of the function 'thought'.
However after this glorious triumph of thought upon itself, an immediate ignominious end to the thought, begins with the subsequent pressumption that there is an 'I' who is thinking. This presumption is then followed by the necessary assumption that the 'I' is distinct from the universe, and that thought is generated or manufactured by this thinking I, Gods, souls, and a material Universe all form part of the presumptive sequalae.
Arguably the Cartesian application of the 'I' to the thought, has done the greatest damage to Philosophy in the history of Philosophy?
In his Meditations Descartes 'proves' the existence or at least the irreducibility of the function 'thought'.
However after this glorious triumph of thought upon itself, an immediate ignominious end to the thought, begins with the subsequent pressumption that there is an 'I' who is thinking. This presumption is then followed by the necessary assumption that the 'I' is distinct from the universe, and that thought is generated or manufactured by this thinking I, Gods, souls, and a material Universe all form part of the presumptive sequalae.
Arguably the Cartesian application of the 'I' to the thought, has done the greatest damage to Philosophy in the history of Philosophy?
Comments (49)
It seems to me that "me-ness" is derived from our innate point of view, not something learned or inferred. Same with "other-ness" - that which is not me. If one were to then infer the universe is part of the other, that indeed seems a false inference.
It's not an assumption, it's one pole on the axiom of egology. "Cogito ergo sum" loses the stress put by the French translation "Je pense, donc je suis". Its a bit like Husserl's noema, every thought-act contains an I-pole and a content-pole.
You can reach the same degree of epistemological certainty as the Cogito through other similar methods, all which boil down to the same fundamental axiomatic truth. For example, make it a betting problem : How much is reasonnable to bet on your own existence, at any point in time?
"You really need to read Descartes more closely - or read better commentaries. Until you do, your comments don't really touch anything Descartes said."
Tim
Thanks for the rather pedantic reply and the advice therein. I look forward to your insights on Descartes, beyond the rather avuncular siggestions to me directly.
The discussion at hand refers specifically to Decartes second Meditation. Through the application of the dream analogy, and that of the evil demon, Decartes offers convincing if not conclusive evidence for the uniquivocal existence of thought. All other aspects of experience can be doubted, however one cannot doubt oneself into the belief that thought does not exist, as one must apply the modality of thought in the attempt to prove its non existence.
However the association of the "I" with this thought, is not equally affirmed by Descartes, indeed throughout the Meditations Descartes refers to himself as "what am I only a thing that thinks". There is a significant distance between the concepts of :
1) a thing that thinks
2) a thing that experiences thought
3) a thingless experience of thought
4) an 'I' thinking
From my own reading of Descartes I fail to see how anything more than the assertion at 3, a thingless experience of thought has been effectively reasoned by Descartes.
Neitzsche amongst others has been critical of the presumptions that are invariably added to 3, namely the presence of an 'I' and the notion that thinking is generated by this 'I'.
I have omitted quotations from Descartes as most are familliar enough with the Meditations. Let me know if you remain in the dark Tim and I will be happy to provide some reference points.
M
Is it possible for nothing to have an experience? Is it possible for nothing to have an a thought?
Something must have experienced the thought otherwise you cannot use the word experienced. Events don't happen to nothings.
It has been a very long time since I last read Descartes in anything like a serious fashion but I do not understand how you reached your conclusion.
Descartes established the fundumental doubling of the subject into two different, but coexisting
subjects: the subject of the enunciation and the subject of the statement.
[i]The cogito comes in different forms. "I think, therefore I am." "This proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind."
This part of it, at least, is not rocket science. Note the I. Cogito, ego cogito, both "I think." The idea of a thought without someone (thing) having it is not part of Descartes' thinking. Indeed, it cannot be. If it were possible for there to be thought without it being thought, then Descartes could be fooled as to his being. So he concludes ergo sum, therefore I am. I am a being who thinks.[/i]
The difficulty here is that an active self has been introduced into thought, through the back door without having either an ivitation or any credentials to gain entry to the 'party'.
What descartes has proven is that it is possible for there to be thought, and thought is inescapable through thought itself. But he has not shown the thinking... that he or we are in control of our thoughts. He admits this point in Meditation 5 when he asserts that
"There is certainly further in me a certain passive faculty of perception, that is, of receiving and
recognising the ideas of sensible things, but this would be useless to me
[and I could in no way avail myself of it], if there were not either in me
or in some other thing another active faculty capable of forming and
producing these ideas. But this active faculty cannot exist in me
[inasmuch as I am a thing that thinks] seeing that it does not presuppose
thought, and also that those ideas are often produced in me without my
contributing in any way to the same, and often even against my will; it
is thus necessarily the case that the faculty resides in some substance
different from me in which all the reality which is objectively in the
ideas that are produced by this faculty is formally or eminently
contained, as I remarked before. And this substance is either a body,
that is, a corporeal nature in which there is contained formally [and
really] all that which is objectively [and by representation] in those
ideas, or it is God Himself, or some other creature more noble than
body in which that same is contained eminently."
Neitzsche in aphorism 17 (BG&E) Reiterates Descartes own criticism of himself, with the empirically correct observation that 'a thought comes when it wills' and not when this 'I' thing wills it. Therefore if thought simply comes when it wills, and is not generated by the entirely presumptive 'I', we must conclude that thought is independent of the 'I' and return to the fundamental principle that thought exists apriori. Although this is an unpleasant self negation, there is much evidence empirical and otherwise to point to its truth, and it seems to me that Philosophy all too often appears to fear the implications rather than explore them fully. And this 'fear' has led to much published and convicted nonsense.
When it comes to pure deduction, you don't get much for free (non-ampliative), rather "cogito therefore thinking exists".
Compare: something exists, since otherwise this wouldn't be.
But of course, I don't really need Descartes or anyone else to tell me that thoughts (and I) exist, whatever it all may be. :)
I have avoided Gassendi' objections because he comes at the problem with the same celestial bias that contaminates Descartes thought beyond his second meditation, and (through no fault of his own) Gassendi is unawares of recent relavent developments/observations in the realm of QM.
Nietzsche (for our purposes here) identifies the 'problem' quite succinctly, he obviously brings no particular God-bias to the table and furthermore he addresses the 'problem' to The Philosopher of the Future.
We unquestionably occupy Nietzsche's future and there are indeed a few philosophers here on the forum.
Your previous post in respect of 'that' and 'what', appears to exclude a temporal variable. 'That' .....is atemporal and 'what' is necessarily temporal. The 'that' becomes the subjective 'what' only upon the application of temporality at t+1. Your elephant becomes and begins to run, contingent upon time.
It appears as though Descartes quantum leap from thought to the 'I' includes but does not consider the application of temporality and is a simillar extension from a 'that' to a 'what'.
p = ?x ? S [ ?x ]
is fixed, however the Universe is (apparently|) unfixed.
p(t1) = ?x ? S [ ?x(t+1) ]
?
M
It is impossible that a thought could will itself into existence. It must already exist in order to will anything. So willing itself into existence would mean that it wills itself before it exists, to bring itself into existence. But this is impossible because it would mean that it exists prior to its own existence. This description of a thought is nothing other than a description of a self-caused thing. That's contradiction because it means that the thing must both exist (as the cause) and not exist (prior to the thing's existence) at the same time.
"Cogito ergo sum" is really little more than a proof by assertion since neither the subject "I", the action of "thinking", or the state of "existing" can be defined. If you understand the nature of most "truths" and question them, you will understand they are merely what people want to be true and therefore are assumed to be 'true'when they meet are very limited criteria. However as human beings real "truths" are beyond our resources to find and/or understand so it is a given that we have to make due with these limited truths until we can understand more about the world around us, or do not need "truths" in order to interpret the world around us.
"It is impossible that a thought could will itself into existence."
Why have you left the ball park and started a different game.
The origin of thought, its 'initiation' or coming into existence applies new variables to thought vis an origin and a temporal plane (initiation). These may well be variables that are applicable to thought, however they are 'I' variables and pertain to the existence of a material self and material things.
If thought is indeed apriori the 'I' thing is a composite thing, or a thing animated, given its temporality and its manifest form, through an engagement or relationship with apriori thought.
A pancake is not expected to play by the same rules that might apply to flour and water, it is a composite thing, a new thing.
You cannot expect the apriori to follow the same rules and behave in the same manner that the composite follows and adheres too.
We are starting with the reality that it (thought) exists apriori to the 'I' and as such is independent of the 'I'. That the 'I' is a pancake and subject to the rules of pancakes, brings nothing to the table. (other than a pancake).
Let us attempt to finish this game, before we start desert.
M
OK, we have a thought. Where did the thought come from, what caused it? It is impossible that it willed itself into existence, because that would imply that it existed prior to its existence, in the sense of "self-caused", and that's contradictory. So something else must have caused it. Therefore the thought is not alone, as a solo, isolated and solipsistic entity, it comes from somewhere. Can we agree that this thing which caused the existence of the thought ought to be called "I"?
Absolutely NOT. From where did you pull the chain of assumption that leads you come up with the notion that the "I" is the cause and 'thought' the effect?
This is the very (failed) paradigm that is under scrutiny here. If thought exists apriori the 'I' cannot function as its causation.
You then insist upon the uninvited and unqualified imposition of TIME upon thought, vis the assumption that a cause 'causes' its associated 'effect'. This too is another enormous assumption that is dealt with to some degree by Hume.
If you are dead set on a 'beginning' for the independent thing that is 'thought', then surely it (thought) should be permitted (like every 'thing' else) to share in the Singularity preceding the Bang, and have its beginnings there. The physicist has taken greater liberties with ALL the things of material reality... and apparently gotten away with much nonsense.
You tender the presumption that thought has some temporal quality (it may have) but you have taken the liberty of putting it all together under the assumed supremacy of the 'I'
You are apparently in monogamous love with your pancake.
M
Quoting frank
"TO THE MOST WISE AND ILLUSTRIOUS THE DEAN AND DOCTORS OF THE SACRED
FACULTY OF THEOLOGY IN PARIS.
"The motive which induces me to present to you this Treatise is so excellent, and, when you become
acquainted with its design, I am convinced that you will also have so excellent a motive for taking it
under your protection, that I feel that I cannot do better, in order to render it in some sort acceptable to you, than in a few words to state what I have set myself to do. I have always considered that the two questions respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be demonstrated by philosophical rather than theological argument. For although it is quite enough for us faithful ones to accept by means of faith the fact that the human soul does not perish with the body, and that God exists, it certainly does not seem possible ever to persuade infidels of any religion, indeed, we may almost say, of any moral virtue, unless, to begin with, we prove these two facts by means of the natural reason."
Renes Descartes.
Introduction to the Meditations.
By Jingo Frank: if he was just being 'gentle'... then he was some man for the spoofs!
M
With the rarest of exception: All greatly popular men are necessarily great spoofers. Descartes was a great man who was very popular (partly) because he was a great spoofer, Nietzsche had him figured out. Nietzsche was not a spoofer.
Spinoza was a contemporary of Descartes and he was certainly not a spoofer (he paid the usual price). Interestingly Spinoza pointed out Descartes' spoofing to Descartes (i think he wrote him a letter) but the latter never responded, because he was caught up in the spoofs that are needed to preserve the initial spoof.
I think the only thing God apparently loves more than a trier, is a good spoofer.
M
Their theories and practices can provide evidence that Nietzsche was right: the thought is determined by anonymous and non-personal factors, such as Unconsciousness of Freud and Real of Lacan
1) a thing that thinks
2) a thing that experiences thought
3) a thingless experience of thought
4) an 'I' thinking
From my own reading of Descartes I fail to see how anything more than the assertion at 3, a thingless experience of thought has been effectively reasoned by Descartes."
Could you illustrate all 4 concepts by concrete examples? Who developed them? And if not Descartes,
who was first to introduce the concept of the thinking "I'?
It would be a paradox if Descartes was completely isolated. However, he supported himself by prevailing contemporary discourse ( with all possible connotations) of his time.
I think that is why many of us again and again coming back to Descartes: we try to find some new ground
where we lost all possible grounds, in our thinking or in its absence. That is what Nietzsche did, even when he tried to dismantle Descartes's cogito.
I would bring you Felix Guattari with
his theory of machinic unconsciousness. But even without referring to Guattari, in my personal life I've never met anybody thinking independently in cogito's manner. So, who or what is the source and
the reason of "thinking I"? We are no more as terminals in complicated machinic assemblages!
When you say "thought exists a priori," what do you mean? I suspect from your usage that you do not know what a priori means - can you clarify?
There are a couple of meanings one might apply to a priori and I had expected the context to infer the particular meaning. In the litteral sense, a priori means 'comes before': 'thought exists/comes before the thinking' would perhaps be more clear. The mind does not generate thought but rather experiences thought or engages with it.
There is then the Kantian notion of 'a priori knowledge', knowledge that is independent of all experience. I am considering that knowledge is synonymous with, or at least a derivation of 'thought'. If so, then a priori 'thought' is the source of knowledge a priori or otherwise. I see no great distinction between Shopenhauer's notion of 'will', Kants notion of 'a priori knowledge', or Freud's notion of subconscious instinctual imperatives, but all appear to be contingent upon being antecedant to or coming before the 'thinking I'.
Your Phil Prof might well have written 'No thought no mind' , rather than his assertion 'No mind no thought'
I do not belive that 'thought' is manufactured in the mind (this is simplistic and appealing yet it makes little sense, for reasons alluded to throughout this discussion) rather it (thought) exists as a priori knowledge in both the Kantian and the literal sense.
M
Quoting Marcus de Brun
Well what else would you call it. The thoughts are caused by something which is thinking, and I normally call this thing "I". Don't you?
Quoting Marcus de Brun
I don't see why not. The conclusion that "I" is the cause of the thoughts is a posteriori, but this doesn't mean that the thoughts, which are produced by the thing called I, are not a priori.
Quoting Marcus de Brun
Doesn't the thought have to be about something, or it isn't a thought at all? So why wouldn't the thought be about "where did I come from"? You know that "thought" is the past tense of "think", so the thought must have come from an act of thinking which is in the past. That's logical isn't it? And don't thoughts naturally tend toward making conclusions? So if there was an act of thinking, isn't it necessary to assume that there was something engaged in this act, or else it wouldn't be an act at all? Why not call this thing "I"?
Yes, yes, you've read a book and now you're a all about reading Descartes sensitively. But Descartes largely muddled his way through his own understanding of the Cogito, and gives inconsistent readings of it all through his works. As Jaakko Hintikka rightly points out ("Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference or Performance?", in Hintikka, Knowledge and the Known), Descartes frequently vacillates between understanding the Cogito as either an inference or as a performative, leaning on one and then the other depending on the argument he's dealing with. The fact remains that Descartes tried to leverage cogito ergo sum in order to get to sum res cogitans, and that this move was and remains totally bogus, no matter how generous one in is reading our eponymous Frenchman.
What's wrong with the argument? It's impossible to doubt the existence of a thinker if thought is taking place. To doubt would require a doubter.
Quoting TheMadFool
This is the point or thrust of the current conversation. Does doubt require the doubter? Is thought dependent upon/come after the thinker? Is it 'generated/manufactured by the thinker?
These are all essentially the same question in the sense that the endogenous manufacture of thought is presumed in the affirmative and is undermined in the negative. The positive affirmation is precious in that it is essential to the fixed firm and somewhat essential belief in an autonomous self. Hence it is rigidly adhered to.
Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Spinoza, and to a greater or lesser extent; deductive reasoning and empiricism have all answered a general 'No' to this question. I am not going to list specific quotations to support this assertion but would welcome any evidence to the contrary. In other words if you feel that Nietzsche Spinoza or Schopenhauer were in fact supporters of the Cartesian and general notion of endogenous thought manufacture, I would ask you to offer some evidence. This might facilitate the dialogue to move forward into this 'new' space, rather than backwards over the same ground.
The 'No' represents an entirely NEW direction for Western Philosophy, a view of the cosmos that Spinoza somewhat formalized in his Ethics. Ultimately a priori thought or knowledge (even in the Kantian sense) requires a deterministic view of the Universe. One cannot freely manufacture ones thought if thought is antecedent to the I. It is more complex and requires more presumption upon presumption to proceed with the 'thinking I', than to explore the simpler and more logical path requiring exogenous thought and a subsequently determined Universe.
Recently Gravity, has been found to be a 'wave'. Why must thought be imprisoned within the selfish and primitive notion of a self. If we can set it free from the self it might be examined with a little bit of scientific accuracy rather than the usual selfish and ultimately religious palaver.
My principal reason for beginning this discussion is the fact that recent developments in QM bring us to the point of questioning whether the Universe is determined or not determined.
I suspect that determinism is in essence quite simply another formulation of THE cardinal criticism of the Cogito: vis determinism mandates an antecedence of all thought and sequential behaviors, but not all aspects of thought.
"I" do not think that a negation of the cogito negates a self, and I do not think that determinism lacks the potential for certain freedoms. However I do think that QM mandates a new departure for philosophy if we could only get our proverbial A into G, and stop going over the same ground over and over again.....
M
He wouldn't have a problem with thoughts necessarily being embodied, with a view that includes the whole body in the 'I'. In fact, that was part of his thesis, that the body influenced thoughts... in contrast with mind-body dualism where reason and thoughts sprang from this pure place untainted by the body.
As Deleuze and Gvattari wrote, Descartes’s cogito is self-sufficient set of philosophical concepts.
"To start with, the preceding analysis must be confirmed by taking the example of one of the best-known signed philosophical concepts, that of the Cartesian cogito, Descartes's I: a concept of self. This concept has three components- doubting, thinking, and being (although this does not mean that every concept must be triple). The complete statement of the concept qua multiplicity is "I think 'therefore' I am" or, more completely, "Myself who doubts, I think, I am, I am a thinking thing." According to Descartes the cogito is the always-renewed event of thought. The concept condenses at the point I, which passes through all the components and in which I' (doubting), I" (thinking), and I'" (being) coincide. As intensive ordinates the compo- nents are arranged in zones of neighborhood or indiscernibil- ity that produce passages from one to the other and constitute their inseparability. The first zone is between doubting and thinking (myself who doubts, I cannot doubt that I think), and the second is between thinking and being (in order to think it is necessary to be). The components are presented here as verbs, but this is not a rule. It is sufficient that there are variations. In fact, doubt includes moments that are not the species of a genus but the phases of a variation: perceptual, scientific, obsessional doubt (every concept therefore has a phase space, although not in the same way as in science). The same goes for modes of thought-feeling, imagining, having ideas-and also for types of being, thing, or substance-infinite being, finite thinking being, extended being. It is noteworthy that in the last case the concept of self retains only the second phase of being and excludes the rest."
It is not a matter of attacking cogito due to ignorance or desire to voice a superficial opinion, but just a quest about ourselves: can we still apply Descartes way of self-affirmation? According to Deleuze and Gvattari, philosophical concepts are immersed into the plane of immanence. If the plane of Descartes time has changed, all his perfectly designed cogito does not work anymore.
there is a value and a meaning of Cogito, as of existence, which escapes the alternative of a determined madness or a determined reason...I philosophize only in terror, but in the confessed terror
of going mad.The confession is simultaneously, at its present moment, oblivion and unveiling, protection and expose."
I think that Descartes was about the self-existence, self- affirmation. First of all he was concerned in establishing a new, independent way of being. His interlocutors were God and Demon, and himself. He went through the void, and finally founded a new kind of existence. Nowadays our interlocutors are AI and different machiinic instances, and nobody doubts in his/her "thinking I". The nature of self-establishment has changed dramatically, and as Derrida pointed out there are new, different kinds of Cogito.
theories and interpretations.