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Cogito, as the first principle of Descartes’ metaphysical system, initiated the modern philosophy of consciousness, becoming both the source and subject of modern Western philosophical discourse. The philosophies of Maine de Biran, Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others developed by answering the following questions? Is consciousness substantial or not? Does consciousness require the guarantee of a transcendental subject? IsCogito epistemological or ontological? Am I a being-for-myself or a being-for-others? Outlining the developmental history of the idea of (...)Cogito from Descartes to Sartre is important for totally comprehending the evolution and development of Western philosophy. (shrink)

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TheCogito and the Mexican Salamander.Philosophy and the Rest of Sciences in the late Merleau-Ponty The article examines Merleau-Ponty’s almost parallel reading – in his last courses at the Collège de France – of the Cartesiancogito and the development of the Axolotl, the salamander studied by American biologist Coghill. My hypothesis is that the metaphysics of thecogito and the biology of the Axolotl represented for Merleau-Ponty two ways of access to the same discovery. Descartes came (...) up against a phenomenon, thecogito, which required the reshaping of metaphysics as a sort of (impossible) psychology of the event or the absolute. Within the field of anatomy, Coghill came up against a phenomenon, the embryogenesis of the Axolotl, which similarly required a sort of conversion of anatomy into embryology. Therefore, bios and psyché, “embryonality” and thecogito, would be nothing but the denomination of the objects that psychology and biology meet along their borders, names for what we could refer to as “event,” “continuum,” “becoming” or, according to an old but still suitable definition, “absolute.” This has countless consequences on the relationship between the so-called human sciences and the so-called natural sciences, their eternally missed dialogue, their false complementarity and the illusion that the famous “two cultures” do actually exist.IlCogito e la lucertola messicana.La filosofia e il resto delle scienze nell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty L’articolo prende in esame la lettura quasi parallela che Merleau-Ponty svolge, negli ultimi corsi di lezione al Collège de France, delcogito cartesiano e dello sviluppo dell’Axolotl, la lucertola studiata dal biologo americano Coghill. La nostra ipotesi è che la metafisica delcogito, e la biologia dell’Axolotl, rappresentino agli occhi di Merleau-Ponty due modi d’accesso a una stessa scoperta. Dall’interno della metafisica, Descartes si imbatte in un fenomeno, ilcogito appunto, che esige che la metafisica si istituisca come una sorta di (impossibile) psicologia dell’eventoo dell’assoluto. Tutta la metafisica sarebbe psicologia, cioè indicazione del luogo assoluto nel quale è inscritto ogni luogo. Dall’interno dell’anatomia, Coghill siimbatte in un fenomeno, lo sviluppo dell’embrione dell’Axolotl, che esige analogamente che tutta l’anatomia si risolva in embriologia. Il vivente sarebbe allora in generale questa condizione di gemmazione e autoorganizzazione, e l’embriologia sarebbe la scienza (impossibile) di questo divenire perfettamenteanoggettuale. Bios e psyché, “embrionalità” ecogito non sarebbero che i nomi di ciò che la psicologia e la biologia incontrano al loro confine, nomi di ciò che infilosofia si chiama evento, continuum, divenire, o, con un vecchio e adattissimo termine, assoluto. Il che comporta innumerevoli conseguenze circa il rapporto trale cosiddette scienze umane e le cosiddette scienze naturali, sul loro dialogo eternamente mancato, sulla loro falsa complementarietà, sull’illusione che si diano davvero le celebri “due culture”. (shrink)

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The present article represents an attempt to argue in the favor of the thesis that, in the First Meditation, in the fragment where the problem of madness is spoken of, Descartes’ view aims to exclude the possibility that the knowing subject, theCogito, could be insane, and not only to avoid the problem of madness because of various reasons or to replace the madness-example with a dreaming-example. In other words, this research aims to expose and to argue for Michel (...) Foucault’s point of view regarding the Cartesian problem of madness, and also to argue against Jacques Derrida’s view on the same issue. More broadly speaking, beyond the highlight of a possible different approach to Descartes’ text or the analysis of the Derrida-Foucault controversy, the main aim of this article is to emphasize a problem maybe less discussed of the act of knowing: beyond the proper usage of a wrong method, the misusage of a correct method or the poor practice of some spiritual exercises, the errors in the act of knowledge could as well follow from a deficiency in the knowing subject itself. (shrink)

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Статтю присвячено дослідженню альтернативних можливостей інтерпретації Декартової концепціїcogito: як авто-референтної структури і як авто-афекційності. Контекстом аналізу виступає трансцендентально-феноменологічний ракурс погляду на картезіанську філософію як на засновок трансцендентального мотиву. Визначено роль принципу авто-референтності в трансцендентальному дискурсі. На ґрунті розгляду перспектив тлумачення картезіанського підходу, запропонованих М. Анрі й Ж.-Л. Марйоном, виявлено моменти іррелевантності авто-афекційної настанови вимогам трансцендентального мислення і втомивовано адекватність авто-референтної моделі його засадам. Авторка доходить висновку, що, попри позірну пріоритетність авто-афекційності для трансцендентального дискурсу, пов’язану насамперед з притаманною їй (...) радикалізацією функціонального аспекту свідомості й усуненням небезпеки субстантиваціїcogito, закладеної в структурі авто-референтності, остання видається відповіднішою вимогам трансцендентального мислення, оскільки передбачає збереження принципу відношення-відмінності, конститутивного для трансцендентальної думки – який в умовах авто-афекційності виявляється редукованим. (shrink)

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Le «cogito, ergo sum » cartésien apparaît depuis quarante ans comme « inférence et performance » (J. Hintikka). Mais de quelle inférence s'agit-il précisément ? Pour le savoir, cet article poursuit deux objectifs : d'abord, montrer que la question pertinente à laquelle il s'agit de répondre ne concerne pas la relation logique interne qui lie lecogito au sum, et qui est une intuition, mais celle, externe, qui lie le «cogito, ergo sum » tout entier (...) au « quicquid cogitat, est ». Ensuite, montrer que cette dernière relation est tout à la fois une induction et une déduction. (shrink)

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That there is an epistemological difference between the mental and the physical is well- known. Introspection readily generates knowledge of one’s own conscious experience, but fails to yield evidence for the existence of anything physical. Conversely, empirical investigation delivers knowledge of physical properties, but neither finds nor requires us to posit conscious experience. In recent decades, a series of neo-Cartesian arguments have emerged that rest on this epistemological difference and purport to demonstrate that mind-brain identity is false and that consciousness (...) is not even realized by or supervenient on physical properties. Where Descartes argued he could clearly and distinctly conceive mind and body as existing separately, contemporary anti-physicalists hold that the conceivability of worlds in which actual world correlations between physical and phenomenological properties fail shows that these correlations are contingent rather than logically or metaphysically necessary. Together with Descartes, they conclude from conceivability that identity, as well as strong supervenience, is false. 1 If the argument of this paper is correct, however, then there is an argument for dualism that arises from the epistemological distinction, is grounded in the Meditations, and is yet distinct from the " 1 " conceivability arguments pursued both by Descartes and contemporary anti-physicalists. Furthermore, the argument is immune to the standard objections to conceivability arguments: its conclusion follows even if there are a posteriori identities between physical and phenomenal properties. (shrink)

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How should we understand both the nature, and the epistemic potential, of Descartes’sCogito? Peter Slezak’s interpretation of theCogito’s nature sees it strictly as a selfreferential kind of denial: Descartes cannot doubt that he is doubting. And what epistemic implications flow from this interpretation of theCogito? We find that there is a consequent lack of knowledge being described by Descartes: on Cartesian grounds, indubitability is incompatible with knowing. Even as theCogito halts doubt, therefore, (...) it fails to be knowledge. (shrink)

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The key mutation of the schizophrenic psyche can be described as a disturbance of the first person-ness of the I-sense, i.e., of the sense of the "I" as personal subject of experience and of action. Under these circumstances, representations of things are not definitively experienced as "my" representations—with the self-evidence of belonging to me. This uncertainty of selfhood, specific to schizophrenia, cannot be reduced to a disability of intellect, logic, judgment, or memory. In the course of developing his argument, the (...) author criticizes philosopher Michel Henry's critique of Heidegger's (1961) interpretation of Descartes'scogito ergo sum. (shrink)

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The philosophy of Descartes is the classical example of a Philosophy as a System intending to found itself on an absolute point of view or to come from an absolute starting point. However, theCogito being regarded by Descartes as the first principle, actually is neither a first nor a definite nor a sufficient principle, leading to further conclusions. Above all Descartes himself, thus becoming the first Anti-Cartesian, compromises this so-called first and greatest evidence by stating that God ist (...) the most evident principle, from which everything has to be deduced. The myth of clarity conceals the true, uncertain and inquiring Descartes. (shrink)

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W. von Leyden; IV—Cogito, Ergo Sum, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 63, Issue 1, 1 June 1963, Pages 67–82, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/.

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Descartes é reconhecido como o fundador da filosofia do sujeito e das representações. É através docogito que o sujeito expressa a constatação de sua existência, e é através das representações que as outras coisas são pensadas por este sujeito. Este artigo pretende desenvolver uma análise sobre a constituição docogito, com a finalidade de refletir se ocogito pode ser pensado como representação. Para tanto, abordaremos duas linhas interpretativas: uma tendo em Heidegger seu expoente e a (...) outra em Ferdinand Alquié. Referências aocogito como representação podem ser encontradas com certa naturalidade na literatura crítica de Descartes. Pretendemos analisar se esta “naturalidade” consiste em uma interpretação adequada docogito cartesiano. (shrink)

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The purpose of this work is to explain how, with the proposition "cogito ergo sum", Descartes contradicts the A axiom from the Theory of knowledge of Leonardo Polo, by accepting the pasivenness of the knowledge and denying it as an operation of knowing an object, in wich the cognizant and the cognizance are one in act.

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RESUMO O artigo analisa o modo como Malebranche apresenta o conhecimento que possuímos de nossa própria alma a partir da noção de sentimento interior. Para tanto, tomamos como ponto de partida a concepção malebrancheana do argumento docogito, opondo-a à de Descartes, tomando-o como uma constatação imediata da existência de algo que sente, sem, no entanto, poder afirmar algo sobre sua essência. O conhecimento da alma torna-se assim algo puramente afetivo, sem nenhum conteúdo positivo, e por natureza distinto do (...) conhecimento propriamente dito. Buscamos desse modo mostrar como, na filosofia de Malebranche, cria-se um campo propriamente humano do sentimento cujo conteúdo é irredutível a qualquer ciência clara e distinta, ao mesmo tempo que é constatado pela experiência vivida.: The article aims to analyze the way by which Malebranche presents the knowledge that we possess of our own soul through the notion of inner sentiment. Therefore, we take as our starting point the Malebranchean notion of thecogito argument, contrasting it with that of Descartes, taking it to be the immediate ascertainment of the existence of something that feels without, however, being able to assert anything about its essence. The knowledge of the soul becomes therefore something purely affective, deprived of a positive content, and by its nature distinguished from knowledge properly understood. We aim thus to show how, in Malebranche's philosophy, a properly human domain of the feeling, irreducible to a clear and distinct science, but ascertained by experience, is created. (shrink)

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Della tesi caretsiana sul continuo pensare in atto viene esaminata l’argomentazione prodotta dal suo autore per sostenerla. Dapprima viene ripreso il ragio¬namento sulla continuità del pensare e del suo essere sempre in atto, e poi si ragiona sulle proposizioni portatrici di quella tesi. Si vedrà che l’enunciato sulla continuità del pensare va incontro a considerevoli difficoltà sia quando afferma che per effetto dell’emendatio ossia la fase in cui la mens si è liberata dalle opinioni dubbie o inganne¬voli le sostituisce con (...) altre migliori, sia per ef¬fetto della temporalità degli atti della mente. L’indagine riguarda dunque quelle formulazioni lessiacali in cui il filosofo ha scritto che la mente semper actu cogitat, e in cui ha impiegato le forme verbalicogito e sum cogitans. (shrink)

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Je soutiens dans cette étude que la notion de connaissance de soi introspective est au centre duCogito de Descartes. À la suite de Hintikka, de nombreux commentateurs, dans la tradition analytique, se sont concentrés sur la justification de l’énoncé « j’existe », en lien avec l’énoncé « je pense », sans chercher à proposer une explication unifiée mettant en évidence la structure de l’argument cartésien ni son lien essentiel avec la connaissance de soi introspective. Par ailleurs, certaines des (...) théories de la connaissance de soi aujourd’hui les plus influentes, en particulier celle de Gareth Evans, se sont développées en réaction à une image supposée « cartésienne » de l’introspection héritée de Gilbert Ryle. Dans ce contexte, l’interprétation duCogito proposée par Christopher Peacocke pourrait se révéler un jalon essentiel dans l’histoire des lectures de Descartes. Selon Peacocke en effet, on peut défendre résolument leCogito tout en rejetant l’idée d’un accès privilégié à un monde intérieur. Je soutiens que l’approche rationaliste de Peacocke permet de reconstruire leCogito d’une façon cohérente et satisfaisante, mais que s’il donne une explication particulièrement convaincante du passage de « je pense » à « j’existe », il échoue à fonder une théorie cartésienne unifiée de la connaissance de soi introspective. (shrink)

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This chapter contains sections titled: Descartes'Cogito Augustine's “Si fallor, sum” Argument (If I Am Mistaken, I Exist).

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Une phénoménologie prenant son point de départ dans l’évidence absolue ducogito est-elle encore possible, ou rejetée dans le passé périmé par les critiques qui en mettent en doute le caractère d’évidence absolue? Mais la méthode de réflexion transcendantale est-elle véritablement d’ascendance cartésienne? Nous tentons de montrer que, qu’il soit ou non interprété comme le résultat d’une démarche de réflexion, lecogito cartésien n’est nullement corrélatif d’une description réflexive des structures de la conscience, mais qu’un tel projet a (...) plutôt ses racines dans la Logique de Port-Royal, chez Malebranche et Leibniz. Puis, analysant la critique de fond adressée par Natorp à la thèse husserlienne de l’accès réflexif de la conscience pure, nous mettons en question cette dernière sur un double exemple (les modes de la conscience sensible et les actes de la conscience mathématicienne), pour montrer qu’à la démarche de réflexion transcendantale (censée saisir directement dans leur effectuation les vécus de la conscience) doit se substituer une démarche indirecte de reconstitution régressive, qui part des objets pour élucider les données et actes qui sont nécessaires à leur constitution. (shrink)

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Quels sont les rapports entre l’éthique et la politique chez Paul Ricoeur? LeCogito herméneutique est-il un sujet du droit? Chez Ricoeur, le passage de l ’éthique à la politique se révèle paradoxale. D’une part, le politique réalise la visée éthique d’une vie bonne : c ’est donc une partie de l ’éthique, un prolongement de celle-ci. De l’autre, le rapport de la politique au pouvoir bouleverse l’éthique : il existe une violence qui ne peut pas être réglée par (...) la morale. Le rapport entre l ’éthique et le politique se configure ainsi à la fois comme une identité et une différence. Ricoeur nous propose la voie d’un kantisme post-hégélien qui trouve sur le plan de la reconnaissance mutuelle et de la logique du don la médiation nécessaire entre éthique et politique. Ainsi, le paradoxe politique assume un nouveau sens créatif.What is the relationship between ethics and politics in Paul Ricoeur? Is the hermeneuticCogito the subject of rights? In Ricoeur, the passage from ethics to politics is paradoxical. On the one hand, the politics achieves the ethical aim of a good life: it is therefore a part of ethics, an extension of it. On the other hand, the relationship between politics and power destroys ethics: there is a kind of violence that cannot be settled by moral rules. The relationship between ethics and politics is configured as both identity and difference. Ricoeur o ffers us the path of a post-Hegelian Kantianism which finds the necessary mediation between ethics and politics in mutual recognition and in the logic of giving. Thus, the political paradox takes on a new creative meaning. (shrink)

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Se proposant de réinterpréter lecogito à partir de l'idée de l'âme et la preuve de l'existence du moi, ce livre montre qu'il existe une théorie psychologique de l'âme qui met l'accent sur les aspects constitutifs ducogito. Parlant de son identité cartésienne, il importe de prendre en compte son contenu propositionnel. A partir de l'explication de notions comme moi, existence ou pensée, l'ouvrage arrive à la conclusion selon laquelle l'axiome 'pour penser, il faut être,' explique et légitime (...) le passage du Je pense au Je suis. Or pour parvenir à la nature gnoséologique de la pensée, il importe de savoir que l'immédiateté existentielle de la pensée se conjugue avec sa complexité logique. Ce propos s'achève sur la question de l'être de la pensée tout en montrant que la généalogie propre aucogito couvre l'exigence d'une investigation sur l'être de Dieu."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

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L’histoire duCogito ergo sum de Descartes montre la problématique de l’esprit moderne. Leibniz et Kant ont insisté sur le conditionnement empirique de la proposition. Fichte l’a défendue, en la rapportant au moi supra- individuel. Schelling et Hegel ont combattu leCogito, qui a introduit le dualisme moderne entre l’esprit et la nature. La critique la plus pressante est celle de Schelling ; cependant Hegel et lui ont reconnu comme un grand événement historique la séparation, opérée par Descartes, (...) entre la philosophie et l’autorité. (shrink)

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 43.4 (2005) 490-491 [Access article in PDF] Husain Sarkar. Descartes'Cogito: Saved from the Great Shipwreck. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xviii + 305. Cloth, $65.00. Descartes's first critics attacked hiscogito, ergo sum as deficient; his present critics attack it as excessive. Either way, it is an Archimedean point in Descartes's world and merits a book-length study. In (...) this book, Husain Sarkar makes a powerful case that thecogito is not an argument, but rather an "experiment," generating an intuition enabling Descartes to retrieve a timber from what Bourdin called the "great shipwreck" of the hyperbolic doubt.Sarkar places the experiment within his own fresh readings of Descartes's philosophy. They will be illuminating to new Descartes scholars. Some readings will seem perverse or cryptic. Constructive passages illuminate more, polemic passages less, as when Sarkar finds seven flaws in Hintikka'scogito interpretation. Despite the polemic excesses, Sarkar writes with modesty, epitomized by his slogan, "Reason with them in the most courteous manner."With verve and imagination Sarkar presents thecogito as an experiment which can be carried out in any world at all and yields an intuition that qualifies as a Cartesian first principle. He suggests various implications of his interpretation—for example, for the epistemic role of will: "The will initially learns the limits that it must recognize only at the foot of thecogito... It is in the state of thecogito that the will learns what it means to be ineluctably inclined toward affirming a proposition, and what it is to be free" (256).What is the content of the intuited 'I exist'? Sarkar calls upon Robert Adams's notion of a "primitive thisness," entirely distinct from a substance's properties or "suchnesses," and upon David Lewis's thesis that besides knowing propositions a person can know a self-ascription of a property. Still, he makes no headway at all. True, the question is extraordinarily [End Page 490] difficult. It has not yielded appreciably to brilliant phenomenologists or brilliant students of direct reference and indexicality or, for that matter, me. The content of 'I' statements is a topic for another book, and no one I know of is writing it.In the book's centerpiece, Sarkar marshals a series of attacks on thecogito as argument. Sometimes they miss—more polemic overkill. Usually they hit home. Their cumulative effect is persuasive.Descartes says that "I think, therefore I exist" is the first principle of his philosophy (VI, 32; VIIIA, 7; V, 147: references are to the Adam and Tannery edition). But if thecogito were an argument, one of its premises would become his first principle.An argument requires movement of thought and that requires reliance on memory (X, 370 and 408), and in thecogito Descartes strips memory of its credentials (VII, 24, superseding the assurances of X, 368).An argument relies on logical principles, but Descartes suspects these and reasoning generally. In the First Meditation he calls into doubt the simplest mathematics; elsewhere he generalizes from mathematics to "self-evident principles" and to "all the arguments I had previously taken as demonstrative proofs" (VI, 32; IXB, 6; similar aspersions are cast in V, 137 and 139). (But see also Mark Olson, "Descartes' First Meditation: Mathematics and the Laws of Logic" JHP 26 [1988]: 407–438.)I'll add a wrinkle. Descartes's mouthpiece Eudoxus says you can use your own doubt to deduce facts that are even more certain than those commonly built upon the great principle that it is impossible that a thing should both exist and at the same time not exist (X, 522). The conclusion of any argument rests on such logical principles. If thecogito were an argument, its certainty could not exceed theirs. Descartes suggests here that it does.Sarkar also cites Descartes's denigrations of "logic," but these often pertain not to reasoning generally but to syllogistic logic. Thus Margaret Wilson took thecogito to be a nonsyllogistic argument. Still, Sarkar effectively deploys... (shrink)

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The article contrasts descartes's and aquinas's theories on truth, Tracing their basic difference to a divergent view concerning the act of judgment. Descartes's '"cogito"' is held to be internally inconsistent precisely because it strives to unite an aprioristic "intellectus" with a reasoning process. Such an attempt is made, It is claimed, Because, Artificially separating understanding and judgment, Descartes misreads the hidden presuppositions of the act of reasoning as a way to fuller understanding. This occurs because descartes, Unlike aquinas, Seeks (...) to ground human knowing upon a theory of pure essences. (shrink)

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Contrairement à ce que peut suggérer l ’ expression de lumière naturelle lorsqu ’ il en est question, lecogito n ’ est pas une vérité de la raison. La raison est révoquée en doute au moment où il survient et ne saurait donc en assurer la vérité. Ce rôle est dévolu à la réflexivité de l ’ acte par lequel la pensée se constitue son propre objet lorsqu ’ elle affirme Je suis : immédiatement accessible à elle-même, c (...) ’ est une chose dans le monde, et par conséquent un existant, qu ’ elle saisit ainsi, non pas une représentation. Lecogito est ainsi inextricablement impliqué dans un acte certes, mais cet acte n ’ est pas le performatif qu ’ a voulu en faire Hintikka. La proposition qui l ’ exprime s ’ apparente en fait à une contingente : selon l ’ analyse ici proposée, il lui est en effet possible d ’ être fausse. (shrink)

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This volume looks at the first half of the proposition--cogito.

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Cette étude entend rendre compte de la conception que propose George Berkeley de la connaissance de mon existence en tant qu’esprit. Il s’agit en particulier d’interpréter sa formulation ducogito : « Je sais ce que j’entends par les termes je et moi-même ». Cette question est liée aux problèmes intrinsèques de la doctrine controversée des « notions » et plus généralement de la sémantique berkeleyenne. On doit accorder une certaine attention aux différences d’accent entre des passages parallèles des (...) Principes de la connaissance humaine, des Trois dialogues et de l’Alciphron VII. Les principales interprétations XXe siècle, usuel dans le commentaire, est une source de simplification abusive. (shrink)

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Perhaps the most famous proposition in the history of philosophy is Descartes'cogito 'I think, therefore I am'. Husain Sarkar claims in this provocative interpretation of Descartes that the ancient tradition of reading thecogito as an argument is mistaken. It should, he says, be read as an intuition. Through this interpretative lens, the author reconsiders key Cartesian topics: the ideal inquirer, the role of clear and distinct ideas, the relation of these to the will, memory, the nature (...) of intuition and deduction, the nature, content and elusiveness of 'I', and the tenability of the doctrine of the creation of eternal truths. Finally, the book demonstrates how Descartes' attempt to prove the existence of God is foiled by a new Cartesian Circle. (shrink)

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Entend dégager l'enjeu philosophique de la pensée augustinienne ducogito, dans " La cité de Dieu " et dans " La Trinité ", en situant la réflexion du saint dans le champ de la philosophie antique, et en rapprochant sa perspective de celles de Descartes et de Husserl.

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Semen Frank (1877–1950) was one of the first and most ardent advocates of the ontological argument in the twentieth century. He proposed an original interpretation of the ontological argument based on its analogy to Descartes’Cogito. Frank believed that it is possible to developCogito ergo sum intoCogito ergo est ens absolutum. In this paper, I analyze his version of the ontological argument. First, I propose a simple reconstruction of his reasoning, paying attention to its hidden (...) premise. Second, departing from the classical logical interpretations of Descartes’ argument, I show that for Frank the claim that God exists had the same logical properties asCogito. As a result, it seems that his argument was formally correct, though based on a premise which could hardly be convincing for a non-believer. This should not be surprising, however, since Frank, as most Russian religious philosophers, was not interested in the project of philosophical theology. His main concern was rather the development of philosophy based on religious premises, which might be called “theological philosophy”. (shrink)

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Borges’ The Circular Ruins tells the story of a magician who turns out to be a character in a dream. Leibowitz (2021) argues that this scenario undermines the rational indubitability of Descartes’Cogito. The magician, he argues, is an unreal appearance and therefore does not exist. I argue that Borges drew a distinction between reality and existence and that he was right to do so. There are various senses of reality and the sense in which a dreamt character is (...) unreal poses no threat to their existence or to the indubitability of theCogito. The magician is unreal because he is a mind-dependent, illusory and fake. Nonetheless, he can be certain that he thinks, therefore he is. (shrink)

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Our use of ‘I’, or something like it, is implicated in our self-regarding emotions, in the concern to survive, and so seems basic to ordinary human life. But why does that pattern of use require a referring term? Don't Lichtenberg's formulations show how we could have our ordinary pattern of use here without the first person? I argue that what explains our compulsion to regard the first person as a referring term is our ordinary causal thinking, which requires us to (...) find a persisting object as the mechanism that underpins the causal structure we naturally ascribe to the self. I thus argue against Peacocke's picture (2012), on which it's thecogito that explains one's knowledge of one's own existence. (shrink)

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The standard interpretation of Descartes's ethics maintains that virtue presupposes knowledge of metaphysics and the sciences. Lisa Shapiro, however, has argued that the meditator acquires the virtue of generosity in the Fourth Meditation, and that generosity contributes to her metaphysical achievements. Descartes's ethics and metaphsyics, then, must be intertwined. This view has been gaining traction in the recent literature. Omri Boehm, for example, has argued that generosity is foundational to thecogito. In this paper, I offer a close reading (...) of Cartesian generosity, arguing that the meditator cannot acquire generosity in the Second or Fourth Meditation. (shrink)

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THIS PAPER PROVIDES A READING OF DESCARTES'COGITO WHICH RESOLVES THE PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED BY THE OTHER PREVALENT ANALYSES OF HIS THOUGHT. I FIRST INDICATE THE WAYS IN WHICH THE INFERENTIAL AND PERFORMATIVE VIEWS FAIL TO ADEQUATELY EXPLICATE DESCARTES' OWN STATEMENTS REGARDING THECOGITO. I THEN SET OUT MY "GENERATIVE VIEW" AND SHOW THAT IT PROVIDES A FULLY CONSISTENT READING OF THESE SAME STATEMENTS. I CONCLUDE THAT THE GENERATIVE VIEW MORE ADEQUATELY REPRESENTS DESCARTES' INTENTIONS.

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What are we to make of thecogito (cogito ergo sum) today, as the walls of Cartesian philosophy crumble around us? The enduring foundation of thecogito is consciousness. It is in virtue of a particular phenomenological structure that an experience is conscious rather than unconscious. Drawing on an analysis of that structure, thecogito is given a new explication that synthesizes phenomenological, epistemological, logical, and ontological elements. What, then, is the structure of conscious thinking on (...) which thecogito draws? What kind of certainty does the experience of thinking give one about one's thinking and about one's existence? What form of inference is thecogito, and what is the source of its validity and soundness? Does thecogito itself lead to an ontology of mind and body like Descartes's dualism? The discussion begins with Descartes's own careful formulations of some of these issues. Then thecogito is parsed into several different principles, the phenomenological principle emerging as basic. In due course the analysis sifts through Husserl's epistemology, Hintikka's logic (or pragmatics) of thecogito, and Kaplan's logic of demonstratives, as these bear specifically on thecogito. (shrink)

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Tim Fisher examines a troubling misconception about philosophy that he noticed his high school students possessed: that when it comes to philosophy, you can never be wrong. He expected incoming philosophy students to hold this belief, but was surprised to learn that even after completing his course, students still held the belief that philosophy had no wrong answers—that all views are equally reasonable. Fisher began to wonder where he went wrong. To rectify this misconception, Fisher details an exercise that he (...) developed for second graders that forces students to justify their beliefs and teaches them to examine why one claim is more or less reasonable than another; the exercise is equally appropriate for high school students. The key to this exercise is to teach students to detach personal opinions from their reasoning. (shrink)

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I argue that George Nakhnikian's analysis of the logic ofcogito propositions (roughly, Descartes's 'cogito' and 'sum') is incomplete. The incompleteness is rectified by showing that disjunctions ofcogito propositions with contingent, non-cogito propositions satisfy conditions of incorrigibility, self-certifyingness, and pragmatic consistency; hence, they belong to the class of propositions with whose help a complete characterization ofcogito propositions is made possible.

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Drawing on Descartes' account of générosité, a reinterpretation of theCogito is offered, emphasizing the role of the will. The paper's first part focuses on Cartesian ethics. It is argued that Descartes can be viewed as a Stoical thinker rather than a Baconian one. That is, he holds that theoretical contemplation is itself the primary ground of human happiness and tranquility of mind – experienced as the feeling of générosité. The paper's second part draws on the first in accounting (...) for the relation between radical doubt and certainty. By engaging with doubt, it is argued, the meditator comes to experience générosité, assert freedom. This experience is not, then, as argued by some, merely theCogito's ethical counterpart. It is rather theCogito's foundation. The meditator's assertion sum follows from – insofar as freedom is, as the definition of générosité asserts, ‘the only thing truly belonging to us', it consists in – the assertion of freedom. (shrink)

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LeCogito n’est pas un raisonnement, mais il est conditionné par la notion « pour penser, il faut être », qui n’est pas une majeure universelle. Cette notion préalable apporte aucogito le caractère des vérités d’entendement : la nécessité, qui ne saurait sortir d’un fait. Le fait ducogito apporte à cette notion une existence qui ne saurait sortir d’elle. Sans la nécessité, pas de critérium de toute vérité surtout mathématique. Sans l’existence, pas de valeur objective.

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Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology has received much attention recently, both critical and constructive, but much less work has been done looking at the relationship between Marion’s work on Descartes and his phenomenological project. The present article begins by making a point of clarifying Marion’s understanding of the meaning of Descartes’scogito, and contrasting it with the standard understanding as found in Leibniz, Kant, and Heidegger. Following the discussion of these various interpretations of thecogito, we examine some of the (...) similarities between Marion’s particular interpretation of Descartes’scogito as a performative exercise and Marion’s particular phenomenological analyses of givenness and the saturated phenomenon. Notably, in Marion’s view both thecogito and givenness overcome incorrect conceptions of objectness and being, both of them exceed the limits of syllogistic logical formulations, and both are irreducible to their apparent constituting parts. (shrink)

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