cogito

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Rene Descartes

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is a kind of methodological doubt whereby descartes doubted everything that could possibly be doubted. The only thing that he could not doubted was 'I am doubting' which is to say 'I am thinking'.

At the beginning of the second meditation, having reached what he considers to be the ultimate level of doubt his argument from the existence of a deceiving god Descartes examines his beliefs to see if any have survived the doubt. In his belief in his own existence he finds it is impossible to doubt that he exist. Even if there were a deceiving god (or an evil demon, the tool he uses to stop himself sliding back into ungrounded beliefs), his belief in his own existence would be secure, for how could he be deceived unless he existed in order to be deceived'' (wikipedia)

is a wrong-headed line of reflective thought at a level that can only be acquired after a long time of already being in the world. The fundamental relationship with our world is not one of ''I think' but ''I can', a way of experiencing the world as a body-the long phase of getting to grips with the world physically is thus a neglected theme in philosophy... childhood is for instance scarcely mentioned.

Like Descartes in his philosophical meditations, Merleau-Ponty raises thequestion of the basis of our knowledge, the firm foundation to build upon, ofwhich there can be no doubt. Descartes found this basis through the principleof doubt, where he deduced cogito ergo sum. But Merleau-Ponty states that thisprinciple is presupposing a line of reflective thought at a level that can only beacquired after a long time of already being in the world. And the fundamentalrelationship with our world is not one of ''I think'' but ''I can'', a way ofexperiencing the world as a body-the long phase of getting to grips with theworld physically is thus a neglected theme in philosophy... childhood is forinstance scarcely mentioned.

is, contrary to both Descartes and Kant, entirely intersubjective. That is, when we say 'I think' we are attaining to ourselves in the presence of the other, and we are just as certain of the other as we are of ourselves. Thus the man who discovers himself directly in the cogito also discovers all the others, and discovers them as the condition of his own existence.

Contrary to the philosophy of Descartes, contrary to that of Kant, when we say 'I think' we are attaining to ourselves in the presence of the other, and we are just as certain of the other as we are of ourselves. Thus the man who discovers himself directly in the cogito also discovers all the others, and discovers them as the condition of his own existence. He recognises that he cannot be anything (in the sense in which one says one is spiritual, or that one is wicked or jealous) unless others recognise him as such.(sartre 'existentialism is a humanism' .pdf)

is much like the immovable point which archimedes used to demand to shift the entire earth, descartes' attempt at one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakable.

Archimedes used to demand just one firm and immovable point in order to shift the entire earth... so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakable. (AT VII 24... CSM II 16) (wikipedia entry for cogito)

is not a discovery but a ceaseless task constantly to be undertaken afresh, a task of managing the distance that both separates and links thought-conscious-of-itself and whatever, within thought, is rooted in non-thought.

In the modern cogito, on the other hand, we are concerned to grant the highest value, the greatest dimension, to the distance that both separates and links thought-conscious-of-itself and whatever, within thought, is rooted in non-thought. The modern cogito (and this is why it is not so much the discovery of an evident truth as a ceaseless task constantly to be undertaken afresh) must traverse, duplicate, and reactivate in an explicit form the articulation of thought on everything within it, around it, and beneath it which is not thought, yet which is nevertheless not foreign to thought, in the sense of an irreducible, an insuperable exteriority. (Foucault 'order of things' 324)

is not such a straight conversion of the certainty of the world into the certainty of the thought about the world as descartes would suppose, and it does not replace the world itself by the meaning world. It recognizes my thought itself as an inalienable fact, and it eliminates any kind of idealism by discovering me as 'being-in-the-world'.

The genuine cogito does not define the existence of the subject by the thought he has of existing, and does not convert the certainty of the world into the certainty of the thought about the world, and finally it does not replace the world itself by the meaning world. On the contrary, it recognizes my thought itself as an inalienable fact, and it eliminates any kind of idealism by discovering me as 'being-in-the-world.' (Merleau-Ponty 'what is phenomenology' : 61)

is only able to be performed if the one saying 'I think therefore I am' is qualified in a certain way by society as someone who is not mad.

For instance, in the case of Descartes, the subject can say 'I think, therefore I am' only if he or she is 'qualified in a certain way', that is only if he or she has constituted him or herself and has been constituted by his or her society as someone who is not mad (Foucault 1979-80, p. 96).

is paradoxical in that certainty is found in the 'certainty of the representation of doubt'.

One of the most influential approaches in Western civilization is given by Descartes. In attempting to find an answer to the question of what is the most certain, Descartes came to the conclusion that there is no way to deny the very existence of the doubting self-the Cartesian ego. In this ego we get certainty because the existent appears in front of us as a representation which this ego projects. The existence is understood as objectivity of representation, and truth as certainty of representation. This means that knowledge about anything is known to conform to the process of re-presenting self-consciousness. In short, knowledge can be understood within the domain of the subject-object relationship. It is in this self-consciousness that the nature of human existence has been examined in the tradition of Cartesian philosophy. (Nagami 1981 : 283)

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