That’s what I mean by saying that “I think therefore I am” is not the culmination of cogito qua cogito but of the transcendence of itself viz. the externalization of being through the process of “doubting.” Thinking that thinks itself. — NotAristotle

I think, supposing we were to take up Descartes' side in this back-and-forth, Descartes could reply that Sartre has no right to claim externalization on the basis of his methodological doubt. Whether the process of doubting requires time is beside the point from the metaphysical set-up of the method of doubt.

Which is why I keep coming back to thinking that difference between them is the how they interpret being and "...exists". As well as their overall philosophical goals being very different, since they're in very different times.

"Descartes could reply that Sartre has no right to claim externalization on the basis of his methodological doubt."

We might ask: Why not? What's wrong with externalization, Descartes? But then we might add that externalization appears to be implicit in methodological "doubting."

"how they interpret being and "...exists"." Could you say more about that?

So I see Descartes as claiming not faith but knowledge of God's existence -- and this need not even counter faith. Especially at the time scientists and theologians weren't far apart. In a way I'm trying to bring out "the spirit of the times" by focusing on the prima facie meaning to put Descartes in the context of the Enlightenment. — Moliere

If you're distinguishing between faith and knowledge, you'll have to define those terms. If we accept that knowledge requires a justified true belief, it would seem that the distinction between faith and knowledge would somehow hinge on the justification element. Those who believe in God based upon faith do not admit to having no justification for their faith, but they might use personal conviction, religious text, mystical feeling, or even pragmatic reasons to justify that faith. Some might even suggest an empirical basis (as in their experience of reality leads them to believe there must be a God), so that question is somewhat complicated.

That's not to say there are not differences between the justificaitons used by the faithful and those who are not of faith, but it's difficult to say one "knows" something and the other doesn't. What I think those who question those of faith really are attacking is the "truth" element, meaning they simply think there is no God and there is no way you can "know" something that isn't true. So, if you say Descartes knows there is God, then you are saying there is a God because to know something means it must be true.

My main point here isn't to suggest that Descartes made an intentional argument proving God by arguing that failure to accept God led to an incoherent solipsitic position. I just think that by working backwards and seeing what Descartes required to avoid solipsism you can come to the conclusion that God is necessary for Descartes to avoid that.

I do see the similarities with Kant's approach, but I also see the differences. With Kant, as it pertains to time, he argued that you could not begin to understand something without placing it in time. That is, an object outside of time is meaningless.

With Descartes, there is an private language argument problem that can suggest a complete incoherence to solipsism. https://iep.utm.edu/solipsis/#:~:text=The%20Incoherence%20of%20Solipsism,-With%20the%20belief&text=As%20a%20theory%2C%20it%20is,his%20solipsistic%20thoughts%20at%20all . What this would mean is that if God is necessary to avoid solipsism and solipsism is incoherent, then you need God to avoid incoherence.

Whether you want to go down that road, I don't know. I'm not necessarily arguing that a godless universe would result in a complete inability to understand anything, but, even if I did, I still see a distinction between that sort of incoherence and the one Kant references when he says time is imposed on objects and therefore a necessary element of the understanding.

This whole argument here has expanded as I've thought about it, so maybe there is a good argument that human understanding is impossible without God if one follows Descartes' reasoning. This wouldn't mean there is God. It would just mean you can't know anything without God.

Descartes believed God is a necessary thing, which he demonstrates by analyzing the idea of perfection. Descartes' Ontological Argument

I know that argument, but that's the stupid argument from logical necessity, like God can be created by syllogism.

My novel contribution to the field of Cartesian analysis that appeared for the first time here argues that God is required in order to avoid to solipsism, an inherently incoherent position. That is, feel free to be an atheist, but your position is incoherent.

Descartes saved us from the unsalvagable pits of eternal and infinite skeptism by reminding us that God would not allow for such. There being no other way out, God becomes the only way for such salvation.

That's my contribution to the field.

I know that argument, but that's the stupid argument from logical necessity, like God can be created by syllogism. — Hanover

I knew a guy who claimed that if we don't go over to the Mayan calendar, the world will end. He wrote letters to the UN trying to explain to them that the word "week" sounds a lot like "weak", and based on that, we need to change the way the days are named. "Like for instance, today is Blue Galactic Monkey day." he said.

"My main point here isn't to suggest that Descartes made an intentional argument proving God by arguing that failure to accept God led to an incoherent solipsitic position. I just think that by working backwards and seeing what Descartes required to avoid solipsism you can come to the conclusion that God is necessary for Descartes to avoid that."

"It would just mean you can't know anything without God."

I think this is a good reading of Descartes.

"So, given his arguments -- at face value -- he knows God exists, rather than it being faith-based"

Maybe Descartes can be interpreted to be making this argument:

If not for faith in God, I, Descartes, wouldn't know anything after methodological doubt. (Knowledge requires faith in God).
If I, Descartes, have knowledge, then God is real.
I, Descartes, have knowledge.
Therefore, God is real.

See how the argument guarantees knowledge of God, and yet that knowledge depends on faith in the first place?

I knew a guy who claimed that if we don't go over to the Mayan calendar, the world will end. — frank

One day the world will end, and we won't know why it will end until it does end. Until then, the jury is out as to whether the guy you knew is correct.

I'd be interested in hearing more from you on this comment. (I've read some of Husserl's anti-psychologist arguments and found them amenable, but not Frege's) — Moliere

Husserl and Frege seem quite similar to me, re psychologism. They both reject the idea that thoughts can only be said to be “caused,” rather than explained or justified. One of the things I see Husserl doing is to separate the fact that thought-terms describe mental/psychological phenomena from the further fact (as he saw it) that phenomena like judgments and syllogisms are also normative. Similarly, a number is not to be understood as a “presentation,” a thought that occurs to me or you. Husserl says, “The number Five is not my own or anyone else’s counting of five, it is also not my presentation or anyone else’s presentation of five.” Frege’s emphasis, as far as I know (I don’t know his work deeply), was more on what we’d call the analytic quality of logical truths. But the point is similar: The psychological origin of subjective (synthetic) and objective (analytic) truths may be the same – they’re all thoughts – but it’s the way we demonstrate them that shows the difference. So, “the psychological is to be distinguished sharply from the logical, as the subjective is from the objective.” (Foundations of Arithmetic)

One day the world will end, and we won't know why it will end until it does end. Until then, the jury is out as to whether the guy you knew is correct. — Hanover

That's good. I want it to be a surprise.

What is the source of Descartes' certainty according to the Meditations?

Yes.

"...exists", as I'm construcing these thinkers, means...

Descartes: A first order predicate which can be deduced from the concepts.
Kant: A predicate without logical significance -- it is only applied to what is given in intuition
Sartre: Precedes essence, which I gather is that existence is prior to predication; there isn't a logically deductive argument, but neither can we infer the existence of God by ourselves "lacking perfection".

And being: I think for Descartes and Kant, at least with respect to the phenomenological turn, are using the same notion of Being as Presence. But Sartre takes up Heidegger's terms and analysis/critique of Being as presence -- rather it's an unfolding of the horizon which discloses itself (and in the disclosure usually there is also a closure)

But whats different between Sartre and Heidegger on Being is that Being is explicitly transphenomenal in Sartre, while I'm not so sure about that in Heidegger (Heidi often gets put into the idealist camp because he's not really clear either way, where Sartre seems to be very clear on the realist/idealist distinction)



Good question (and I'm wrapping around to the other posters still, but this one looked like an easy answer for me): I'd say that there's a two-stepper that goes on. Initially he's looking for an indubitable proposition and from that inference from "I think therefore I am" he notices that these are clear and distinct ideas.

But now Method seems to Require Me to Rank all My Thoughts under certain Heads, and to search in Which of them Truth or Falshood properly Consists.

...

I have yet an other Way of inquiring, whether any of those Things (whose Ideas I have within Me) are Really Existent without Me; And that is Thus: As those Ideas are only Modes of Thinking, I acknowledge no Inequality between them, and they all proceed from me in the same Manner. But as one Represents one thing, an other, an other Thing, ’tis Evident there is a Great difference between them. * For without doubt, Those of them which Represent Substances are something More, or (as I may say) have More of Objective Reallity in them, then those that Represent only Modes or Accidents; and again, That by Which I understand a Mighty God, Eternal, Infinite, Omniscient, Omnipotent Creatour of all things besides himself, has certainly in it more Objective Reallity, then Those Ideas by which Finite Substances are Exhibited.

But Now, it is evident by the Light of Nature that there must be as much at least in the Total efficient Cause, as there is in the Effect of that Cause; For from Whence[37] can the effect have its Reallity, but from the Cause? and how can the Cause give it that Reallity, unless it self have it?

And from hence it follows, that neither a Thing can be made out of Nothing, Neither a Thing which is more Perfect (that is, Which has in it self more Reallity) proceed from That Which is Less Perfect.

And this is Clearly True, not only in those Effects whose Actual or Formal Reallity is Consider’d, But in Those Ideas also, Whose Objective Reallity is only Respected; That is to say, for Example of Illustration, it is not only impossible that a stone, Which was not, should now begin to Be, unless it were produced by something, in Which, Whatever goes to the Making a Stone, is either Formally or Virtually; neither can heat be Produced in any Thing, which before was not hot, but by a Thing which is at least of as equal a degree of Perfection as heat is; But also ’tis Impossible that I should have an Idea of Heat, or of a Stone, unless it were put into me by some Cause, in which there is at Least as much Reallity, as I Conceive there is in heat or a Stone.

.....

Thus, that if the objective reallity of any of my Ideas be such, that it cannot be in me either formally or eminently, and that therefore I cannot be the cause of that Idea, from hence it necessarily Follows, that I alone do not only exist, but that some other[40] thing, which is cause of that Idea, does exist also.

But if I can find no such Idea in me, I have no argument to perswade me of the existence of any thing besides my self for I have diligently enquired, and hitherto I could discover no other perswasive.


.....

Wherefore there only Remains the Idea of a God, wherein I must consider whether there be not something included, which cannot possibly have its original from me. By the word God, I mean a[44] certain Infinite Substance, Independent, Omniscient, Almighty, by whom both I my self, and every thing else that is (if any thing do Actualy exist) was created. All which Attributes are of such an high nature, that the more attentively I consider them, the less I conceive my self possible to be the Author of these notions.

From what therefore has been said I must conclude that there is a God;

Once he infers God must exist the rest is easy. I cut out the bits of meditation to try and get at the heart of the argument (well, the first argument for God. I've read that the 2nd argument is a little different from the first one)

***

Short answer, by my lights, is that the inference "I think, therefore I am" is indubitable in the moment of saying to the point htat even an Evil Demon couldn't deceive me, and so a foundation of certainty is found for knowledge. (Quotes pulled from here)

If you're distinguishing between faith and knowledge, you'll have to define those terms. If we accept that knowledge requires a justified true belief, it would seem that the distinction between faith and knowledge would somehow hinge on the justification element. Those who believe in God based upon faith do not admit to having no justification for their faith, but they might use personal conviction, religious text, mystical feeling, or even pragmatic reasons to justify that faith. Some might even suggest an empirical basis (as in their experience of reality leads them to believe there must be a God), so that question is somewhat complicated.

That's not to say there are not differences between the justificaitons used by the faithful and those who are not of faith, but it's difficult to say one "knows" something and the other doesn't. What I think those who question those of faith really are attacking is the "truth" element, meaning they simply think there is no God and there is no way you can "know" something that isn't true. So, if you say Descartes knows there is God, then you are saying there is a God because to know something means it must be true.

My main point here isn't to suggest that Descartes made an intentional argument proving God by arguing that failure to accept God led to an incoherent solipsitic position. I just think that by working backwards and seeing what Descartes required to avoid solipsism you can come to the conclusion that God is necessary for Descartes to avoid that.

I do see the similarities with Kant's approach, but I also see the differences. With Kant, as it pertains to time, he argued that you could not begin to understand something without placing it in time. That is, an object outside of time is meaningless.

With Descartes, there is an private language argument problem that can suggest a complete incoherence to solipsism. https://iep.utm.edu/solipsis/#:~:text=The%20Incoherence%20of%20Solipsism,-With%20the%20belief&text=As%20a%20theory%2C%20it%20is,his%20solipsistic%20thoughts%20at%20all . What this would mean is that if God is necessary to avoid solipsism and solipsism is incoherent, then you need God to avoid incoherence.

Whether you want to go down that road, I don't know. I'm not necessarily arguing that a godless universe would result in a complete inability to understand anything, but, even if I did, I still see a distinction between that sort of incoherence and the one Kant references when he says time is imposed on objects and therefore a necessary element of the understanding.

This whole argument here has expanded as I've thought about it, so maybe there is a good argument that human understanding is impossible without God if one follows Descartes' reasoning. This wouldn't mean there is God. It would just mean you can't know anything without God. — Hanover

I'd put it that faith is outside of the frame of discussion, but not opposed. We can have faith in something we know and in something we do not know, and the inferences of Descartes and Kant aren't appealing to faith. That is, I would not be inclined to put it in opposition to knowledge, and I don't think Descartes or Kant would at least either.

Faith is centrally important to Sartre's metaphysics since he's trying to given the metaphysical frame which explains how it is possible for us to end up in good or bad faith, and Sartre frequently makes references to knowledge -- so they're not opposed there either, though also "faith" in Sartre isn't the same as our everyday notion of "faith", since it's the kind of faith an atheist has (and has no choice in participating with -- it's either good or bad faith)


Given that I think I'd put faith to one side of justification -- the faithful may accept different sorts of justifications from the unfaithful (though my suspicion is that's not quite right -- it's probably how the justifications are used rather than the kind of justifications), but justification isn't the basis on which I'd separate faith from knowledge. I'm tempted to say they are orthogonal to one another such that different views of either can be made coherent.



I've been thinking about a response for too long to wait, but I'm still not sure how to tie this back to the cogito. (Of course, that's not your fault -- the original question has been answered, I'm still stuck on how to develop it though.... but I felt I owed you a response)

See how the argument guarantees knowledge of God, and yet that knowledge depends on faith in the first place? — NotAristotle

Yeah... I just don't think that's the argument Descartes is making.

I'm insistent that he's not appealing to faith at all, but rather is deducing that God exists from the thought experiment.

It's because we live in the time after we've killed God that this inference is seen as implausible, rather than because the argument is obviously fallacious.

Husserl and Frege seem quite similar to me, re psychologism. They both reject the idea that thoughts can only be said to be “caused,” rather than explained or justified. One of the things I see Husserl doing is to separate the fact that thought-terms describe mental/psychological phenomena from the further fact (as he saw it) that phenomena like judgments and syllogisms are also normative. Similarly, a number is not to be understood as a “presentation,” a thought that occurs to me or you. Husserl says, “The number Five is not my own or anyone else’s counting of five, it is also not my presentation or anyone else’s presentation of five.” Frege’s emphasis, as far as I know (I don’t know his work deeply), was more on what we’d call the analytic quality of logical truths. But the point is similar: The psychological origin of subjective (synthetic) and objective (analytic) truths may be the same – they’re all thoughts – but it’s the way we demonstrate them that shows the difference. So, “the psychological is to be distinguished sharply from the logical, as the subjective is from the objective.” (Foundations of Arithmetic) — J

Cool. I'm going to include Sartre in that broad range because while he begins to drift into psychology he does so explicitly and he doesn't start there. I think it's safe to say that his philosophy, at least, is not depending upon a psychology or reducing phenomenology to psychological terms even though -- due to the Cogito's centrality -- psychology must be addressed.

a two-stepper — Moliere

I have problems with the second step. What is at issue is the problem of judgment, that is, whether the idea, the image in his mind, corresponds to something outside the mind. In order to solve this problem he introduces the idea of God and perfection. But God is not the only possible source of the idea of perfection.

Toward the end of the third meditation he says:

I understand that I am a thing... which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things.

And in the fourth meditation:

I know by experience that will is entirely without limits.

and:

My will is so perfect and so great that I can’t conceive of its becoming even greater and more perfect ...

So, it seems that the source of his idea of something perfect and without limits could come from himself. If an:

... Infinite Substance, Independent, Omniscient, Almighty, by whom both I my self, and every thing else that is (if any thing do Actualy exist) was created ...

is not certain then certainly this cannot be the foundation of the certainty of knowledge. Descartes' certainty of his own existence, established by reason, is his Archimedean point. At the end of the fourth meditation he says:

This is where man’s greatest and most important perfection is to be found ... If I restrain my will so that I form opinions only on what the intellect clearly and distinctly reveals, I cannot possibly go wrong.

He has within himself the ability to become more perfect by avoiding error. Note that he allows for degrees of perfection. His will is perfect and thus the proximate and more likely source of his idea of perfection. But he goes further. It is not just the idea of perfection, but the reality of perfection, as he avoids error and becomes more perfect, that is within him.

neither believe in the supernatural -- and even if we mean "supernatural" in the sense of "outside of nature" Descartes still believes in nature -- res extensa is just as real as res cogitans, and while God may sit outside of nature and we have knowledge of his existence nature still exists. — Moliere

But nature for Descates is separate from the supernatural and is known psychologically. Logically for him i'm saying all that is is supernatural, although he roams around the objects of extension. I have not finished Being and Nothingness, so I better leave that one alone

Assuming an infinite time then Descartes could be the source of perfection. However, at the moment that Descartes is writing his argument he surely is not perfect-- the method of doubt is attractive because Descartes knows he has been in error before. In that moment where else would you say the idea of perfection comes from?

In that moment where else would you say the idea of perfection comes from? — Moliere

Contrary to Descartes' claim, it comes from a lack or want, from a need or desire to improve, to have or be without defect.

With regard to the perfectibility of man, perfect comes from the possibility of avoiding error by limiting what I will to what I know.

In the third meditation he says:

My knowledge is gradually increasing, and I see no obstacle to its going on increasing to infinity. I might then be able to use this increased and eventually infinite knowledge to acquire all the other perfections of God. In that case, I already have the potentiality for these perfections ...

In the fourth meditation:

It is only the will, or freedom of choice, which I experience as so great that I can’t make sense of the idea of its being even greater: indeed, my thought of myself as being somehow like God depends primarily upon my will.

And:

When I look more closely into these errors of mine, I discover that they have two co-operating causes – my faculty of knowledge and my faculty of choice or freedom of the will. My errors, that is, depend on both (a) my intellect and (b) my will.

He asks:

Well, then, where do my mistakes come from? Their source is the fact that my will has a wider scope than my intellect has, so that I am free to form beliefs on topics that I don’t understand. Instead of behaving as I ought to, namely by restricting my will to the territory that my understanding covers, that is, suspending judgment when I am not intellectually in control, I let my will run loose, applying it to matters that I don’t understand. In such cases there is nothing to stop the will from veering this way or that, so it easily turns away from what is true and good. That is the source of my error and sin.

Contrary to Descartes' claim, it comes from a lack or want, from a need or desire to improve, to have or be without defect.

With regard to the perfectibility of man, perfect comes from the possibility of avoiding error by limiting what I will to what I know. — Fooloso4

M'kay; I can go with what you say.

Do you agree with my prima facie reading of the Meditations? That Descartes claims to deduce knowledge of God's existence on the basis of the foundation of certainty he finds in the Cogito?

Interesting thoughts in this thread. St. Augustine has a number of formulations of the Cogito and interestingly some appeal to memory.

From De Trinitate:

For people have doubted whether the powers to live, to remember, to understand, to will, to think, to know, and to judge are due to air or to fire or to the brain or
to the blood or to atoms or to a fifth body (I do not know what it is, but it differs from the four customary elements); or whether the combination or the orderly arrangement of the flesh is capable of producing these effects. Some try to maintain this opinion; others, that opinion. On the other hand, who could doubt that one lives and remembers and understands and wills and thinks and judges? For even if one doubts, one lives; if one doubts, one remembers why one doubts, for one wishes to be certain; if one doubts, one thinks; if one doubts, one knows that one does not know; if one doubts, one judges that one ought not to comment rashly. Whoever then doubts about anything else ought never to doubt about all of these; for if they were not, one would be unable to doubt about anything at all.40

The shorter Cogito in the Confessions is probably more famous, and he builds on the dialectical relationship between being, knowing, and willing much more in the second half of De Trinitate.

I am talking about these three things: being, knowing, and willing. For I am and I know and I will. In that I know and will, I am. And I know myself to be and to will. And I will to be and to know. Let him who can, see in these three things how inseparable a life is: one life, one mind, and one essence, how there is, finally, an inseparable distinction, and yet a distinction. Surely this is obvious to each one himself. Let him look within himself and see and report to me.

For St. Augustine, a key to moving beyond skepticism is "believing so that we might understand," a view St. Anselm takes up. For a good example of what this entails for practical concerns, suppose you wanted to learn about chemistry. Now suppose you doubt everything your professor and textbook says and refuse to accept it until you have drilled through layer after layer of justification. Will this be a good way to learn chemistry? Probably not. The justifications only make sense in a broader context, and one must have some faith in order to make progress towards actually understanding/knowing—and for Augustine this applies to religious practice as well.

As to the denial of the "I" in the Cogito, who is "smeared out across time and changing," e.g. Hume's replacement of the thinking subject with a "bundle of sensation" or Nietzsche's "congress of souls," there is a good quote I found on this from Eddington's "The Rigor of Angels: Kant, Heisenberg, Borges, and the Fundemental Nature of Reality." I think it's fairly "knock down," and Borges' story "Fuentes the Memorious," is a good example of why.

Kant realized that Hume’s world of pure, unique impressions couldn’t exist. This is because the minimal requirement for experiencing anything is not to be so absorbed in the present that one is lost in it. What Hume had claimed— that when exploring his feeling of selfhood, he always landed “on some particular perception or other” but could never catch himself “at any time without a percepton, and never can observe anything but the perception”— was simply not true.33 Because for Hume to even report this feeling he had to perceive something in addition to the immediate perceptions, namely, the very flow of time that allowed them to be distinct in the first place. And to recognize time passing is necessarily to recognize that you are embedded in the perception.

Hence what Kant wrote in his answer to Hamann, ten years in the making. To recollect perfectly eradicates the recollection, just as to perceive perfectly eradicates the perception. For the one who recalls or perceives must recognize him or herself along with the memory or perception for the memory or impression to exist at all. If everything we learn about the world flows directly into us from utterly distinct bits of code, as the rationalists thought, or if everything we learn remains nothing but subjective, unconnected impressions, as Hume believed— it comes down to exactly the same thing. With no self to distinguish itself, no self to bridge two disparate moments in space-time, there is simply no one there to feel irritated at the inadequacy of “dog.” No experience whatsoever is possible.

Here is how Kant put it in his Critique of Pure Reason. Whatever we think or perceive can register as a thought or perception only if it causes a change in us, a “modification of the mind.” But these changes would not register at all if we did not connect them across time, “for as contained in one moment no representation can ever be anything other than absolute unity.”34 As contained in one moment. Think of experiencing a flow of events as a bit like watching a film. For something to be happening at all, the viewer makes a connection between each frame of the film, spanning the small differences so as to create the experience of movement. But if there is a completely new viewer for every frame, with no relation at all to the prior or subsequent frame, then all that remains is an absolute unity. But such a unity, which is exactly what Funes and Shereshevsky and Hume claimed they could experience, utterly negates perceiving anything at all, since all perception requires bridging impressions over time. In other words, it requires exactly what a truly perfect memory, a truly perfect perception, or a truly perfect observation absolutely denies: overlooking minor differences enough to be a self, a unity spanning distinct moments in time.

Do you agree with my prima facie reading of the Meditations? That Descartes claims to deduce knowledge of God's existence on the basis of the foundation of certainty he finds in the Cogito? — Moliere

I agree, but do not think it prima facie. I think all the stuff about God is nothing more than a rhetorical defense to avoid the fate of Galileo. Descartes took his motto from Ovid:

He who lived well hid himself well. (Bene qui latuit bene vixit)

I agree, but do not think it prima facie. I think all the stuff about God is nothing more than a rhetorical defense to avoid the fate of Galileo. Descartes took his motto from Ovid: — Fooloso4

I think your interpretation likely. It makes sense of why he didn't publish The World, after all.

And I thank you for saying my reading isn't prima facie -- I only want to focus on how, by the text's surface at least, we can conclude God exists. At least necessarily, though I don't know how much Descartes' notion of God -- like Leibniz's -- is really "orthodox" either.


For my part here I think modern existentialism, from Husserl on, has taken from Descartes' notion of the cogito and attempted other things.

I'm a bit mired in a confusion of where I'm going with this, though....

For St. Augustine, a key to moving beyond skepticism is "believing so that we might understand," a view St. Anselm takes up. For a good example of what this entails for practical concerns, suppose you wanted to learn about chemistry. Now suppose you doubt everything your professor and textbook says and refuse to accept it until you have drilled through layer after layer of justification. Will this be a good way to learn chemistry? Probably not. The justifications only make sense in a broader context, and one must have some faith in order to make progress towards actually understanding/knowing—and for Augustine this applies to religious practice as well. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Heh. I've certainly wanted to learn about chemistry and my method was not to doubt what they said. i showed up to class wanting what they knew and had no problem with correcting myself -- that's why I was there.

I think Descartes is coming from a place of learning, though -- he's already gone to the greatest colleges and listened to the most learned men in the world and found them saying uncertain things he's already believed and found wrong.

So, yes, there's something to be said for not doubting, but learning. It's only by learning that we learn how to doubt well, perhaps?

As to the denial of the "I" in the Cogito, who is "smeared out across time and changing," e.g. Hume's replacement of the thinking subject with a "bundle of sensation" or Nietzsche's "congress of souls," there is a good quote I found on this from Eddington's "The Rigor of Angels: Kant, Heisenberg, Borges, and the Fundemental Nature of Reality." I think it's fairly "knock down," and Borges' story "Fuentes the Memorious," is a good example of why. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure how the quote is knock down, or what it's knocking down exactly -- but I'll make guesses and respond:

Hume's notion of the "I" is a bundle of sensations, yes, though I don't think it replaces the thinking subject -- coming to Hume from Descartes we could say that Hume's is a rational psychology of the human thinking subject in res extensa. And Kant's theory is not far from this while still accommodating the cogito within his philosophy, just not like... either of them did.


But I've not denied the cogito, at least I don't think I have. I'm more wondering what we can derive from it, metaphysically or epistemically or whatever.

I'm more wondering what we can derive from it…. — Moliere

Derived from “I think”, one relatively well-known philosopher suggests….

“….The “I think” must accompany all my representations, for otherwise something would be represented in me which could not be thought; in other words, the representation would either be impossible, or at least be, in relation to me, nothing. (…) All the diversity or manifold content of intuition, has, therefore, a necessary relation to the “I think,” in the subject in which this diversity is found. But this representation, “I think,” is an act of spontaneity; that is to say, it cannot be regarded as belonging to mere sensibility. (…)

It is in all acts of consciousness one and the same, and unaccompanied by it, no representation can exist for me. For the manifold representations which are given in an intuition would not all of them be my representations, if they did not all belong to one self-consciousness, that is, as my representations (…), they must conform to the condition under which alone they can exist together in a common self-consciousness, because otherwise they would not all without exception belong to me. From this primitive conjunction follow many important results. (…)

The thought, “These representations given in intuition belong all of them to me,” is accordingly just the same as, “I unite them in one self-consciousness, or can at least so unite them”; and although this thought is not itself the consciousness of the synthesis of representations, it presupposes the possibility of it; that is to say, for the reason alone that I can comprehend the variety of my representations in one consciousness, do I call them my representations, for otherwise I must have as many-coloured and various a self as are the representations of which I am conscious.…”

The supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in relation to sensibility was (…) that all the manifold in intuition be subject to the formal conditions of space and time. The supreme principle of the possibility of it in relation to the understanding is that all the manifold in it be subject to conditions of (…) apperception. To the former of these two principles are subject all the various representations of intuition, in so far as they are given to us; to the latter, in so far as they must be capable of conjunction in one consciousness; for without this nothing can be thought or cognized, because the given representations would not have in common the act of the apperception “I think” and therefore could not be connected in one self-consciousness.
(CPR B132-137)

….and even if the cogito is represented as this kind of something from which can be derived that it does this other something, one could still be left to wonder what the “I” itself really is.

That it is, is given; what it is, may be better left unasked.

even if the cogito is represented as this kind of something from which can be derived that it does this other something, one could still be left to wonder what the “I” itself really is. — Mww

Paul Ricoeur also raises this question of the nature of the "I" of the cogito -- whether what it is is self-evident as a consequence of the cogito. Sample passage:

This impregnable moment of apodicticity [the cogito] tends to be confused with the moment of adequation, in which I am such as I perceive myself. . . . I am, but what am I who am? That is what I no longer know. In other words, reflection has lost the assurance of consciousness. What I am is just as problematic as that I am is apodictic. — Paul Ricoeur, 'The Question of the Subject' in The Conflict of Interpretations

Ricoeur attributes this problematic to Nietzschean, Marxian, and Freudian critiques of the identification of the conscious ego with the "I" or self. But it stands on its own as an important point, I think. We can all agree that "therefore I exist" says nothing about whether this thinking "I" is also the primal seat of my self, my agency, even my soul. What guarantees my knowledge of my existence, the cogito, may not necessarily reveal very much about that existence.

Agreed. That consciousness of mine that proves that I am, insofar as its negation is a contradiction, says nothing at all about what I am.

That consciousness of mine that proves that I am, insofar as its negation is a contradiction, says nothing at all about what I am. — Mww

So there are thoughts and feelings, sights and sounds, etc. Why does there have to be a seat of consciousness? Why does there have to be an observer for the observed? A thinker for the thought?

Why does there have to be a seat of consciousness? — frank

There doesn’t have to be; consciousness is not a physical necessity. But, the metaphysical argument, is that it is necessary in order for there to be represented, not so much that which comprehends the relations “thoughts, feelings, sights and sounds” have with respect to their causes, but moreso that upon which the comprehension is bestowed.

but moreso that upon which the comprehension is bestowed. — Mww

Why does the comprehension have to bestowed upon something? I'm not so much arguing with Descartes, just asking the general question.