If the cogito presupposed 'I', then how is existence proved?
The more I read about Cogito Ergo Sum, the less I understand existence.
Descartes presupposed I; he took existence as a starting point to prove existence. In doing so, he failed.
All I want to know is that I exist. I want to know that my thoughts are my own. But I have found nothing that proves certainty.
Anyone help?
Descartes presupposed I; he took existence as a starting point to prove existence. In doing so, he failed.
All I want to know is that I exist. I want to know that my thoughts are my own. But I have found nothing that proves certainty.
Anyone help?
Comments (13)
Only intuition, whatever that is. There are no words that can satisfy certainty because anyone’s beliefs are ultimately grounded in their own intuition.
I thought we covered this in the other thread..... perhaps not.
Perhaps you misunderstand what philosophy is or perhaps in this case what philosophy is not.
Philosophy provides ideas and guidelines, it does not produce certainty and proofs about personal matters or in fact any matter beyond a formal system.
If you are still troubled by questions regarding your own existence I suggest you consult a psychologist, or psychiatrist; or perhaps your mother would be a good place to start.
All else leads on from this, with less and less certainty.
Descartes did not presuppose the existence of "I". He experienced his thought and that gave rise to the inescapable, irrefutable truth, that he exists; because thoughts can only be thought by thinkers, and if there is no thinker, there is definitely no thought. So the thinker exists, because the thought exists.
This is the biggest thing in the history of all thought. An empirical thing can be proven to be an a priori truth, taking experience (empirical evidence) into consideration.
A philosophical x-over hit, to borrow the term from popular music critics.
The proof is only meaningless to those who can't think. Literally. And I daresay, also figuratively.
Completely agreed!
The 'I' is not a presupposition. It is an affirmation of that which is, and cannot be denied.
The meaning attached to the 'I' is what is usually presupposed. The 'I' never needs any of the types of qualifications that it is given. It is, essentially, always itself by itself and for itself. Basically, "I... AM".
In reality, Descartes did not think that the cogito was a truth of experience in the usual sense of the term. It was a rational intuition that I think and that if I think it is rationally impossible for me not to exist. The negation of the cogito ergo sum would be a blatant contradiction.
Of course, the existence of the ego says nothing about what I am. Therefore, Descartes began his questionable way to the existence of the world with an unjustified deduction: If I am thinking, I am a thinking substance. This is not as evident in itself as the cogito.
Under my current framework, to establish one’s self-consciousness we have to be able to explore all our boundary conditions that ware resonating within and their nature must be accessible/determinable wrt their form, function, or purpose in influencing the landscape that the consciousness agent in question is resonating with and within. Then, the consciousness agent in question would have to observe a time-evolution history path where their ‘thought’ could in-fact modify those boundary conditions and that had a correlated, esp. if *expected*, effect on their conscious state of being to ‘feel’ they are alive and the executive center of the (resonating) system. Then, the consciousness agent in question would have to learn and use those associations as tools to manipulate itself (the best it can) to achieve goal states of being. Towards a definition qualia consciousness, I’m thinking that the degree that the consciousness agent in question can do the above, it has ever higher orders of qualia "I" consciousness.
Out of curiosity, why?
What difference would it make if the truth of that bit was knowable one way or the other?
I agree with the prior post about thinking not implying existing, and as it turns out, it doesn't matter to me or what values I hold.
If only Descartes would have done so.
You are mistaken in two fundamental ways. First, Descartes did not take "existence as a starting point." Instead, he took his "existence as a starting point." And second, he did not take his existence as a starting point "to prove existence." Instead, he took his existence as a starting point precisely because it was the only thing the existence of which he did not have to prove.
I agree. Your position is supported by Descartes characterization of the res cogitans and the res extensa as distinct and self sufficient substances. It is referred to as Cartesian dualism for a reason. Never the twain shall meet.