cartesianism

philosophy

light bulb joke

cogito

thinking

is wrongheadedly based on the implicit assumption that the mind can only know that which it has itself produced and retains in some sense within itself.

Cartesian reason is entirely based 'on the implicit assumption that the mind can only know that whcich it has itself produced and retains in some sense within itself' (A.N. Whitehead, The Concept of Nature (32 in Arendt HC 283). 'The Cartesian solution of this perplexity was to move the Archimedean point into man himself, to choose as ultimate point of reference the pattern of the human mind itself, which assures itself of reality and certainty within a framework of mathematical formulas which are its own products' (Arendt HC 284).

cartesianism, n.Definitions

cartesianism