I think, therefore I am?

[Jim_Baur]

What is meant by that statement?

Does he mean, I think myself into existence?

Does he mean, I think therefore I know that i exist?

Thanks!

 

[bbentrup]

You’d probably have to ask whoever said it what he meant by his remark. Why do you need to know what someone was thinking?

If you have a more concrete question about the words themselves, I think you would do everyone a favor by rephrasing your question so we skip hours of pointless debate on existential philosophy.

 

[maize]

the second one.

 

[tee_eff_em]

Suppose that the only way you know anything is because you perceive things – Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches; the lecture of instructors; interactions with others; the very words you are reading now.

Suppose you also know, or have experienced, that it is possible for you to have erroneous perceptions. I thought I heard someone calling my name, but everyone denies doing so. I must have been mistaken.

Suppose there is an Evil Genii, and the Evil Genii’s sole livelihood is to put wrong thoughts into your head and to fool you into believing false things.* Would you be able to tell?

(* If you don’t like the Evil Genii: Suppose your brain is not really in your head, but is being kept alive – in a vat of blood – and all the nerve endings are attached to a computer, which is similarly generating false sensations to fool you into believing false things)

Now: One thing the Evil Genii cannot fool you into thinking is: that you are thinking. If you *think *you are thinking, then you *really are *thinking. And whatever else may be true, you are a thinking thing. A thinking thing that truly exists. Of these things you can be sure.

Now pick up Descartes, and see where he ran with it from there.

tee
I think

 

[martreexcepteda]

for if you can say I AM you are and do exist

 

[Janet_S]

What is meant by that statement?

Does he mean, I think myself into existence?

Does he mean, I think therefore I know that i exist?

Thanks!

It means that thinking precedes being. If you can’t think, you don’t exist.

Not that I agree with this statement, but it seems to be the predominant philosophy these days. That’s why there are so many people in the world who see nothing wrong with abortion, euthanasia, or embryonic stem cell technology.

A better, more common sense way to look at it is: I am; therefore I think.

 

[Steadfast_love]

What is meant by that statement?

Does he mean, I think myself into existence?

Does he mean, I think therefore I know that i exist?

Thanks!

Originaly it was “I doubt, therefore I am doubting.”

That proved (to him at least) that doubt was undoubtable. From there he moved to the more general form: the act of thinking proved that he was thinking. That in turn proved his own existance: he thought, therefore he was (thinking)

Sadly, popular culture has dumbed it down from a snappy-retort against an existential crisis to an blanket excuse to avoid rational thought.

 

[CentralFLJames]

I have never like the stacked non-symmetry of the expression since it favors hubris.

Turn it around and there is no one to ratify its negation.

I think not therefor I am not.

Given the mindless behaviors of the world today in the face of personal context I really question the validity in the underlying assumption that thinking is a necessary criteria for existence. The lack of evidence does not seem to scale…

Perhaps a modification is due:
'I misbehave, sin and do things that will kill me therefor I exist for the time being in spite of myself…"

James

 

[a_priori]

Simply put, Descarte was refuting skeptics who suggested nothing was ultimately knowable. He suggested considering the proposition that man is a thinking being. This is a proposition that, in the act of denying, affirms itself. (One obviously has to think in order to consider the proposition.)

He never doubted his own ontology. He was suggesting that if one thing could be ultimately known then other things could as well.

It’s as simple as that.

 

[Shredderbeam]

a priori:

Simply put, Descarte was refuting skeptics who suggested nothing was ultimately knowable. He suggested considering the proposition that man is a thinking being. This is a proposition that, in the act of denying, affirms itself. (One obviously has to think in order to consider the proposition.)

He never doubted his own ontology. He was suggesting that if one thing could be ultimately known then other things could as well.

It’s as simple as that.

Perfectly summed up, and I must applaud your name, and your signature.

 

[Cajetan]

Does he mean, I think therefore I know that i exist?

This is exactly what Descartes meant.

 

[packermann]

What is meant by that statement?

Does he mean, I think myself into existence?

Does he mean, I think therefore I know that i exist?

Thanks!

Descartes was a rationalist. He taught that if you can think it, it must be true. This why Benjamin Wiker, a devout Catholic, in his book Ten Books That Screwed Up The Word, included Descartes book as one of the ten, even though Descates was trying to argue for the existence of God.

Descates taught that if you can think it, it must be true. But there are many things we can think of that do not exist. We can think of unicorns, but that does not mean that they exist.

But this idea has caught on in our modern age. Have you ever heard of people saying “I like to think that God will allow everyone into heaven” or “my idea of God is …”? This all started with Descartes. Descartes taught against objective truth. Truth is what you think it is. This is why he said “I think, therefore I am”, which is wrong. It should have been stated “I am, therefore I think”.

 

[Anlar]

I remember my college philosophy… I pretty much enjoyed it than my major subjects…

“I think, therefore I am… therefore I exist.”

Human brain is physical matter but thinking is done somewhere, why do we think, where does thinking comes from, does our brain do the thinking or is it I, Me, Myself… So this is why he said “therefore I exist”.

What about those people who lost there sanity, they got brain damaged and they are unable to think. So therefore, the person don’t exist but only in the physical being but the mind and the thinking is trapped somewhere coz of brain malfunction…

 

[tee_eff_em]

Descartes was a rationalist. He taught that if you can think it, it must be true.

This is an incorrect characterization. Descartes did not teach that.

tee

 

[MarcellusW]

I still dont understand how Descartes was or is taken to mean that one cannot really know objective truth. When I first read him, I thought that this guy was great because he proved an absolute, against the scepticism that doubts everything. I thought his intention was that this was the/a building block of other objective truths. Did he become confused by his own proof or is it rather that later philosophers reinterpretted this to say that nothing can really be known other than oneself, and from then on the whole history of philosophy made this relativism stick to Descartes?

 

[thomfra]

Descartes taught against objective truth. Truth is what you think it is. This is why he said “I think, therefore I am”, which is wrong. It should have been stated “I am, therefore I think”.

He is not the only one who taught against objective truth. Think wave partical duality. The observer/the experiment.

 

[a_priori]

I still dont understand how Descartes was or is taken to mean that one cannot really know objective truth. When I first read him, I thought that this guy was great because he proved an absolute, against the scepticism that doubts everything. I thought his intention was that this was the/a building block of other objective truths. Did he become confused by his own proof or is it rather that later philosophers reinterpretted this to say that nothing can really be known other than oneself, and from then on the whole history of philosophy made this relativism stick to Descartes?

I think he had to invent dualism to keep from short-circuiting. He is still in the “good guy” column for me.

 

[mangy_dog]

What is meant by that statement?

Does he mean, I think myself into existence?

Does he mean, I think therefore I know that i exist?

Thanks!

I think, therefore I exist…inasmuch as the great I AM has spoken me into existence and henceforth into eternity.

Only I AM is. As I AM is the source of all that is seen and unseen. I AM is uncaused, otherwise I AM is not I AM.

 

[mangy_dog]

What is meant by that statement?

Does he mean, I think myself into existence?

Does he mean, I think therefore I know that i exist?

Thanks!

In order for this statement to be anywhere near accurate it would have to say, " I AM is - therefore I exist."

 

[starchyp]

You all should use the Latin “Cogito ergo, sum” It sounds way cooler, it shows you know your Descartes, and its Latin, the language of Holy Mother Church. It doesn’t get cooler than that