"I think, therefore I Am."

[Zooey]

Seeks God:

I think that is the exact problem: In order to exist YOU have to realize you exist??? JPII was simply stating that (I think…), God is aware of your existance and it is not necessary for an individual to be aware of their existance in relation to God, other than they should be aware of God’s existance.

I also agree that Descartes gives rise to the Culture of Death…

Yes. That is exactly the problem!

 

[AlanFromWichita]

2Rollin'Stoned:

Can I simply say “I don’t think I care therefore I don’t think about it?”

I think you just did! :yup:

Alan

 

[AlanFromWichita]

trailblazer:

I would guess that “I think therefore I am” is incompatable; I believe a more theologically correct way to put it is, “I am, therefore I think!”

Please consider the second isn’t an improvement over the first, but states a separate assertion.

“I think therefore I am” discusses what worldly evidence we have that we exist.

“I am therefore I think” is speculation on conditions necessary for thinking.

Personally I like to take time each day to “unthink” which is the basis for achieving interior silence and inviting contemplation.

Alan

 

[mlchance]

dennisknapp:

Existence is an antecedent to thinking, it cannot come before.

Which was one Descartes points. Descartes, for all of his flaws as a philosopher, didn’t say that thinking is antecedent to existence.

The statement also is not terribly original. Augustine of Hippo made a similar observation in his Confessions.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Genesis315]

If I’m not mistaken, this line of thinking is either a result of or what led him to his ideas about dualism, which is definitely not in line with Catholic teaching.

 

[Verbum]

Hi Slinky,

The Catholic religion, though partial to Scholastic Thomistic Aristotelianism, has not adopted or imposed a particular philosophy. Cartesianism is not, per se,against the faith.

Verbum

 

[batteddy]

philosophy began with the being of God and deduced or inferred its conclusions from
there. That is, philosophical theology, anthropology, sociology and all the sciences
were rooted in metaphysics. Beginning with Descartes, this metaphysical foundation
was set aside and the basis of human knowledge began with speculative reasoning. As
the Pope says:
“After Descartes, philosophy became a science of pure thought. Both the created
world and the Creator remained within the ambit of Descartes’ ‘I think, therefore I
am’ as the content of consciousness. God was reduced to an element within human
consciousness and so God was no longer considered to be the ultimate explanation for
human beings”.
In saying these things, John Paul puts himself in the company of two of the best
minds of the last century: Ludwig Wittgenstein and C.H.Sisson. In his Philosophical
Investigations, Wittgenstein exposes Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” as a piece of
philosophical nonsense. He does this chiefly by means of what has become known as
the private language argument. For Descartes even to begin to be able to say “*I *think,
therefore *I *am” he would need a language. And language is by definition public.
Therefore “I think, therefore I am” is an impossible place from which to start a
programme of philosophical speculation.
These are profoundly serious matters, so it is always something of a treat when a great
mind expresses his views about them in the form of an amusing aside. The
philosopher Anthony Flew told me that in 1949 he was at a meeting of the Moral
Science Club in Cambridge where the speaker began his talk by quoting Descartes’ “I
think, therefore I am”. Wittgenstein turned to Flew and in a loud whisper said, “That’s
a bloody silly place to start!”
C.H. Sisson said, “The ‘therefore’ of Descartes now looks like a confidence trick”.
And so it is. It is a tautology which seeks to prove its point by a piece of mere
repetition: the “I” whose existence Descartes is seeking to prove is simply assumed by
the “I” who asserts it. Wittgenstein again: “It is as if a man should buy several copies
of the same newspaper to find out if what it says is true”.

 

[KBarn]

If thought truly is a consequence of existence, than thinking is merely evidence of existence. We cannot, however, believe that thinking causes existence. So I guess it depends on how “I think, therefore I am” is understood.

 

[MichaelLewis]

batteddy writes:

philosophy began with the being of God and deduced or inferred its conclusions from
there.

Maybe you mean that Catholic philosophy begins or began with God. Greek philosophy certainly didn’t. Perhaps medieval philosophy did in some sense, but medieval philosophers such as Aquinas and Anselm still felt it was worth while to provide proofs for God’s existence rooted in nature or just the mind. If Descartes was wrong, so were they. I’ve mentioned this several times and no one has addressed it.

the** Pope**

says:
“After Descartes, philosophy became a science of pure thought. Both the created
world and the Creator remained within the ambit of Descartes’ ‘I think, therefore I
am’ as the content of consciousness. God was reduced to an element within human
consciousness and so God was no longer considered to be the ultimate explanation for
human beings”.

This simply doesn’t follow from Descartes’ arguments. God was not ‘reduced’ to an element in human consciousness. I don’t know whom the Pope thinks interpreted Descartes in this way, but if such persons exist, it is completely their fault, not Descartes’. As I indicated in a previous post, the Meditations can be read online. It is a short, interesting book (in which the idea of the Cogito is expressed, though the actual phrase does not appear) by one of your fellow Catholics. If you want to understand where Descartes was coming from, take a look at it.

In his Philosophical

Investigations, Wittgenstein exposes Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” as a piece of
philosophical nonsense. He does this chiefly by means of what has become known as
the private language argument. For Descartes even to begin to be able to say “*I *think,
therefore *I *am” he would need a language. And language is by definition public.
Therefore “I think, therefore I am” is an impossible place from which to start a
programme of philosophical speculation.

I could just argue that the private language argument is flawed (it is, I think), but that would be time consuming and unnecessary. If you just look at Descartes argument in CONTEXT you can easily see that it (Wittgenstein’s arguement) is irrelevant. Even if “a language is by definition public” Descartes allowed for a “public”—the evil, god-like daemon that he supposed might be deceiving him. Descartes imagined that this daemon might be deceiving him respecting everything he thought he knew, including the impressions he had of other people (be they actual memories of past direct experiences or artificial memories). Thus Descartes need not have developed his concept of self (which, on the other hand, you probably do need other beings to develope under normal circumstances) in apparent isolation. It seemed to Descartes as if he had been interacting with the “public” his whole life. (I must say, I don’t see how transubstantiation is compatible with Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language. It seems odd that you would evoke it.)

In any case, all Descartes did was observe that he could not coherently suppose that he was being deceived in to thinking that he existed. If I am deceived, I must exist, otherwise how could I be deceived? Is this argument itself flawed (for this is the argument the thread is about)? Could Descartes have been deceived into thinking that he existed when in fact he did not exist?
(cont…)

 

[MichaelLewis]

…cont.

Perhaps the Pope’s real problem was with skepticism itself; Descartes asked too many questions. That’s a different issue of course; the Cogito was one step in Descartes’ escape from skepticism. But the possibility of doubt can’t be ignored; in the long run, at least, it must be addressed. Descartes was trying to build a solid foundation from which to do so. Perhaps he failed (I think he did.) but to blame him for the skepticism of modern philosophy is like blaming a valiant but failed fire fighter for the fire; he didn’t start it, he really tried to stop it, and you have done no better. (Its not as if no one had ever raised skeptical arguments before. Descartes didn’t invent radical doubt; it goes back at least as far as the Greek skeptics.)

I must confess, folk here evoke Aquinas often, but I haven’t read more than a few small exerts of medieval philosophy. (I might consider reading him a little if I ever were to hear an argument attributed to him that holds any water at all. I’m only familiar with his proofs for God’s existence and his attachment to Aristotelian metaphysics.) How would HE respond to skepticism? Could he do any better than ignoring it?

 

[Deus_Solus]

MichealLewis:

Quote:

the** Pope** says:
“After Descartes, philosophy became a science of pure thought. Both the created
world and the Creator remained within the ambit of Descartes’ ‘I think, therefore I
am’ as the content of consciousness. God was reduced to an element within human
consciousness and so God was no longer considered to be the ultimate explanation for
human beings”.

This simply doesn’t follow from Descartes’ arguments. God was not ‘reduced’ to an element in human consciousness. I don’t know whom the Pope thinks interpreted Descartes in this way, but if such persons exist, it is completely their fault, not Descartes’. As I indicated in a previous post, the Meditations can be read online. It is a short, interesting book (in which the idea of the Cogito is expressed, though the actual phrase does not appear) by one of your fellow Catholics. If you want to understand where Descartes was coming from, take a look at it.

I agree that when Descartes is finished with his “Meditations” he has constructed an idea of a God most Christians would find fairly satisfactory, but the vehicle of his argument is what John Paul II was taking issue with. Descartes argues that God exists essentially because Descartes’ cogito has a “clear and distinct” (Meditation IV, part i) impression of God. Thus, he differs from the metaphysical proofs of Anselm and Aquinas by basing the existence of God on the self’s impression of God. Metaphysical proofs leave room for God as the “be all and end all” of all things, while Descartes considerably shrinks the idea of God, instead making Him a necessary construct spawning from Decartes’ own perceived imperfection. The precepts implicit in his concept of the cogito is what the Pope is decrying.

The ultimate problem with Descartes’ argument is that his final perception of God does not necessarily follow from his argument. Perhaps it was the implicit necessity for the existence of God present in culture at the time he was writing, or perhaps socio-political pressures that forced him to “tack on” a proof for God in his “Meditations” in order to submit it for publication.

Perhaps a view more palatable to the Pope would be the esse est percipi of Berkeley, wherein human existence depends on God perceiving us as individuals, but that is a topic for another thread.

Just reading this thread reminds me again of Kierkegaard who believed it was the task of the philosopher “to make difficulties everywhere”.

God Bless.

 

[Deus_Solus]

As an afterthought (and maybe some food for thought as well), here is a quote from William James, the famous indeterminist, from *The Will to Believe *(excellent ready btw):

We feel, too, as if the appeal of religion to us were made to our own active good-will, as if evidence might be forever withheld from us unless we met the hypothesis half-way. To take a trivial illustration: just as a man who in a company of gentlemen made no advances, asked a warrant for every concession, and believed no one’s word without proof, would cut himself off by such churlishness from all the social rewards that a more trusting spirit would earn, — so here, one who should shut himself up in snarling logicality and try to make the gods extort his recognition willy-nilly, or not get it at all, might cut himself off forever from his only opportunity of making the gods’ acquaintance.

Perhaps it is our own “snarling logicality” that allows our intellects to forego faith and get caught up in skepticism, which can end up in Sartrean despair or Nietzschean power morality.

 

[Trelow]

How about: “I AM wills, therefore I am.”

 

[john_doran]

Genesis315:

If I’m not mistaken, this line of thinking is either a result of or what led him to his ideas about dualism, which is definitely not in line with Catholic teaching.

i think this is right on the money - the cogito leads descartes to conclude that he is not his body, but is rather his mind or soul. and that’s the problem, as far as i can tell.

 

[Penitent]

What a timely thread. In Pope JPII’s most recently released book, Memory and Identity, he specifically addresses this philosophy, and in a word, “No,” it’s not possible to reconcile it with Catholicism, or any other Christian religion. He’s quite clear on why. Weird thing–we had a very lengthy homily on Sunday specifically on this topic.

Penitent

 

[Damascene]

slinky1882:

Is this famous line from Descartes “Discourse on Method” compatible with Catholic Tradition, yes or no??? And why???

St. Augustine says the same thing:

But, without any delusive representation of images or phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who say, What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? for it is certain that I am if I am deceived. Since, therefore, I, the person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am. (The City of God, XI, 26)

 

[MichaelLewis]

Descartes argues that God exists essentially because

Descartes’ cogito has a “clear and distinct” (Meditation IV, part i) impression of God. Thus, he differs from the metaphysical proofs of Anselm and Aquinas by basing the existence of God on the self’s impression of God. (my emphasis of “because”)

God doesn’t exist because Descartes has a clear and distinct impression of him; rather Descartes has a clear and distinct impression of God because God exists. Descartes is offering another version of Anselm’s ontological argument; which is also based upon the self’s impression of God.

I quote Anselm:

For it is one thing for something to exist in a person’s thought and quite another for the person to think that thing exists. For when a painter thinks ahead to what he will paint, he has that picture in his thought, but he does not yet think it exists, because he has not done it yet. Once he has painted it he has it in his thought and thinks it exists because he has done it. Thus even the fool is compelled to grant that something greater than which cannot be thought exists in thought, because he understands what he hears, and whatever is understood exists in thought. And certainly that greater than which cannot be understood cannot exist only in thought, for if it exists only in thought it could also be thought of as existing in reality as well, which is greater. If, therefore, that than which greater cannot be thought exists in thought alone, then that than which greater cannot be thought turns out to be that than which something greater actually can be thought, but that is obviously impossible. Therefore something than which greater cannot be thought undoubtedly exists both in thought and in reality.

…

In fact, it so undoubtedly exists that it cannot be thought of as not existing. For one can think there exists something that cannot be thought of as not existing, and that would be greater than something which can be thought of as not existing. For if that greater than which cannot be thought can be thought of as not existing, then that greater than which cannot be thought is not that greater than which cannot be thought, which does not make sense. Thus that than which nothing can be thought so undoubtedly exists that it cannot even be thought of as not existing.

And you, Lord God, are this being. You exist so undoubtedly, my Lord God, that you cannot even be thought of as not existing.

The ultimate problem with Descartes’ argument is that his final perception of God does not necessarily follow from his argument.

Well, no purely philosophical argument for theism actually works. Descartes’ effort is no worse than Anselm’s ontological argument; and certainly no worse than any of Aquinas’s proofs.

 

[MichaelLewis]

john doran:

i think this is right on the money - the cogito leads descartes to conclude that he is not his body, but is rather his mind or soul. and that’s the problem, as far as i can tell.

Catholics ARE dualists, aren’t they? You don’t believe we cease to exist when our bodies die, (as the Jehovah’s Witnesses do) do you?

Perhaps you have some technical problems with Descartes form of dualism (if so, please explain them). In any case, it should be obvious that we ‘modernists’ aren’t on the whole too keen on dualism ourselves, in ANY form. It seems to many of us very likely that the ‘soul’ is something the body *does *(or to put it a little differently, is an aspect of the body) and is as inseparable from it as any form of bodily movement is. Was JPII under the impression that the supporters of his “culture of death” are Cartesian dualists, as opposed to secular materialists?

 

[john_doran]

MichaelLewis:

Catholics ARE dualists, aren’t they? You don’t believe we cease to exist when our bodies die, (as the Jehovah’s Witnesses do) do you?

catholics aren’t dualists in the traditional sense of the word: to a dualist strictly so-called, the person is the immaterial mind or soul. to a catholic, the person is the composite of body ***and ***soul, even thought the soul is capable of independent existence.

catholics are “hylemorphists”.

 

[john_doran]

MichaelLewis:

God doesn’t exist because Descartes has a clear and distinct impression of him; rather Descartes has a clear and distinct impression of God because God exists. Descartes is offering another version of Anselm’s ontological argument; which is also based upon the self’s impression of God.

i think this is right on the money.

MichaelLewis:

Well, no purely philosophical argument for theism actually works. Descartes’ effort is no worse than Anselm’s ontological argument; and certainly no worse than any of Aquinas’s proofs.

depends on what you mean by “works”, i guess.