I think therefore i am?

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What is the Catholic perspective on this?

Is this a proof for our existence?

Following that can we prove God’s existence from ours?–what i mean is, could that be a proof of contingency or motion?

thank you
 
Descartes is post-Christian (although he himself was one). Here is a link from Catholic Encyclopedia:

newadvent.org/cathen/04744b.htm

“No problem on which all men can agree”

Matters how you take it. Consider marriage for example. Some people say you can have 2 wives, or 1, or maybe a hundred or more. In rare cases, women might even have more than one husband. However, no society would believe it okay to just go around screwing like Bonobos. There has to be some kind of formalism before copulation. Even in our society, we acknowledge this and fancy ourselves as “naughty” in a playful way- the original moral law still stands even if we chafe at it.

Now this would not wash with a society of Descartes’ time, they wanted quantitative precision and were not satisfied with mere quality like the Scholastic philosophers (the philosophers of common sense).

So, Descartes decided it was up to him to develop the new, perfect (whole) philosophy.
 
What is the Catholic perspective on this?

Is this a proof for our existence?
Pretty much, yeah. I mean, you have to posit logic, but once you’ve done that, the fact that you have thoughts means that you exist, though “you” may simply be an amalgamation of thoughts.
Following that can we prove God’s existence from ours?–what i mean is, could that be a proof of contingency or motion?
As I recall, his proof for the existence of God is pretty poor.
 
Personally, I don’t see how a mathematically “provable” God could possibly be the God of Christianity. Then there’d be no room for free will, and the whole point of this divine comedy would be made into nothing.
 
If you leave the letter “g” out of the original propostion, it will be even more astute! (I leave it as a homework to solve this simple problem.)

😉
 
Personally, I don’t see how a mathematically “provable” God could possibly be the God of Christianity. Then there’d be no room for free will, and the whole point of this divine comedy would be made into nothing.
This is odd. Especially since you have a St Thomas Aquinas quote in your signature. Aquinas argued the God is a logistical necessity and spent good deal of time proving God’s existence.

Existentialism is the philosopher’s excuse for rationalizing his perversions. Though Descartes was a Catholic and spent a good deal of time trying to proves God’s existence, he ended up doing more for relativism than he realized.
 
This is odd. Especially since you have a St Thomas Aquinas quote in your signature. Aquinas argued the God is a logistical necessity and spent good deal of time proving God’s existence.

Existentialism is the philosopher’s excuse for rationalizing his perversions. Though Descartes was a Catholic and spent a good deal of time trying to proves God’s existence, he ended up doing more for relativism than he realized.
🤷 interesting observation, never thought of it that way. Aquinas’s proofs of God are not that convincing to me, except from his argument from contingency.

Now I have more to think about…
 
🤷 interesting observation, never thought of it that way. Aquinas’s proofs of God are not that convincing to me, except from his argument from contingency.

Now I have more to think about…
Aquinas’s proofs are only useful to those who have already read Aristotle and Augustine’s proofs, and have a thoroughly Catholic understanding of the Bible. Especially John. Read the first verse of John. It is essentially Catholic philosophy in a nutshell.
 
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 I disagree with this premise as being (I am) precedes doing (thinking). What about severely mentally handicapped people. They still have existence. 

I have never actually taken any courses in Philosophy, although I would like to. Rather I was introduced to it via Peter Kreeft. Anything else I know, which isn't that much, has been due to my own research. But this is why I tend to lean towards the Philosophers of common sense like Aquinas. Philosophy can be a difficult subject, but anyone should be able to grasp it's basic concepts. Like I am and therefore I think.
 
I disagree with this premise as being (I am) precedes doing (thinking). What about severely mentally handicapped people. They still have existence.
“Cogito ergo sum” isn’t trying to show a causal relationship, just an epistemological one. “I have thoughts. Therefore, I must have existence.” This isn’t to say that that which doesn’t have thoughts doesn’t exist (though it may not), only that you know you exist because you have the undeniable empirical evidence of your thinking.
 
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 I disagree with this premise as being (I am) precedes doing (thinking). What about severely mentally handicapped people. They still have existence. 

I have never actually taken any courses in Philosophy, although I would like to. Rather I was introduced to it via Peter Kreeft. Anything else I know, which isn't that much, has been due to my own research. But this is why I tend to lean towards the Philosophers of common sense like Aquinas. Philosophy can be a difficult subject, but anyone should be able to grasp it's basic concepts. Like I am and therefore I think.
This describes me too, though most of what I know of philosophy has come from the writings of JPII and GK Chesterton, both of whom were influenced by Thomas Aquinas.

Those with the philosophy of “thinking (I think) preceding being (therefore I am)” are much more likely to go along with abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, etc. than those with the philosophy of “being (I am) preceding thought (therefore I think.)”

Anyway, reading this thread reminded me of something I read in JPII’s book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope:
catholic.net/rcc/POPE/HopeBook/chap6.html
*God, then-the biblical God-exists. But isn’t the objection of many people, yesterday as today, quite understandable? Why doesn’t He reveal Himself more clearly? Why doesn’t He give everyone more tangible and accessible proof of His existence? Why does His mysterious strategy seem to be that of playing hide-and-seek with His creatures?
Reasons certainly do exist to believe in Him; but-as many have maintained and still maintain-there are also reasons to doubt, or even deny, His existence. Wouldn’t it be simpler if His existence were evident?*
The questions you ask-and which many ask-do not refer to Saint Thomas or to Augustine, or to the great Judeo-Christian tradition. It seems to me that they stem from another source, one that is purely rationalist, one that is characteristic of modern philosophy-the history of which begins with Descartes, who split thought from existence and identified existence with reason itself: “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”).
How different from the approach of Saint Thomas, for whom it is not thought which determines existence, but existence, “esse,” which determines thought! I think the way I think because I am that which I am-a creature-and because He is He who is, the absolute uncreated Mystery. If He were not Mystery, there would be no need for Revelation, or, more precisely, there would be no need for God to reveal Himself.
 
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 I disagree with this premise as being (I am) precedes doing (thinking). What about severely mentally handicapped people. They still have existence. 

I have never actually taken any courses in Philosophy, although I would like to. Rather I was introduced to it via Peter Kreeft. Anything else I know, which isn't that much, has been due to my own research. But this is why I tend to lean towards the Philosophers of common sense like Aquinas. Philosophy can be a difficult subject, but anyone should be able to grasp it's basic concepts. Like I am and therefore I think.
Quite an astute observation in my opinion. I believe that Descartes had it inverted as well. Instead of “Cogito ergo Sum” it should be “Sum ergo Cogito”. God gave us the breath of life, therefore we think.
 
Descartes wasn’t questioning his existence. He was merely responding to Skeptics who were suggesting that nothing was knowable.

The central proposition was this: “Man is a thinking being”. Descartes suggested that it could be proved that man was indeed a thinking being and therefore “truth” could be knowable. If something was knowable then other things could be knowable as well.

Man as a thinking being is a proposition that, in the act of denying, affirms itself. (You must think in order to consider whether man is a thinking being.)
 
Descartes was also seeking to say something that was secure and un-mediated by any other set of ideas (no demon/deceiver). The rest of the world, the thinker’s physical existence and what happens to the ‘thinker’ might be all an illusion but the ‘thinker’ could be comforted by the security of knowing that he/she existed - at least during the time in which the thinking was taking place.

From that secure base, the ‘thinker’ could then proceed.
 
Descartes was also seeking to say something that was secure and un-mediated by any other set of ideas (no demon/deceiver). The rest of the world, the thinker’s physical existence and what happens to the ‘thinker’ might be all an illusion but the ‘thinker’ could be comforted by the security of knowing that he/she existed - at least during the time in which the thinking was taking place.

From that secure base, the ‘thinker’ could then proceed.
Very well said.
 
From Nietzsche: “There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are ‘immediate certainties’; for instance, ‘I think,’ …] as though cognition here got hold of its object purely and simply as ‘the thing in itself,’ without any falsification taking place either on the part of the subject or the object. I would repeat it, however, a hundred times, that ‘immediate certainty,’ as well as ‘absolute knowledge’ and the ‘thing in itself,’ involve a contradictio in adjecto; we really ought to free ourselves from the misleading significance of words! …] The philosopher must say to himself: ‘When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, “I think,” I find a whole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: for instance, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an “ego,” and finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking — that I know what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps “willing” or “feeling”? In short, the assertion “I think,” assumes that I compare my state at the present moment with the other states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection with further “knowledge,” it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for me.’ — In place of the ‘immediate certainty’ in which the people may believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of metaphysical questions presented to him, veritable conscience questions of the intellect, to wit: ‘Whence did I get the notion of “thinking”? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an “ego,” and even of an “ego” as cause, and finally of an “ego” as cause of thought?’ He who ventures to answer these metaphysical questions at once by an appeal to a sort of intuitive perception, like the person who says, ‘I think, and know that this, at least, is true, actual, and certain’ — will encounter a smile and two notes of interrogation in a philosopher nowadays. 'Sir,” the philosopher will perhaps give him to understand, ‘it is improbable that you are not mistaken, but why should it be the truth?’"
 
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