“So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.”
I often ask students why Descartes didn’t just write the famous version of this argument: I think, therefore, I am. It’s actually kind of puzzling. The star of the argument in the version he actually presents here is a proposition, not a self, not a rational being, not a thinking thing, none of usual Cartesian suspects.
The argument is based on a modal property of an abstract object: that some proposition has some modal status such that it is necessarily true on the occasions of its uttering or entertaining in thought. And implicit in the claim is that that abstract object has a peculiar referential property: that it refers to its entertainer/utterer, and that without failure.
In an earlier post I wondered about the tensions between the semantic and the pragmatic in the argument. This other tension I’m noticing is between the content of a proposition, and the object that causes its reference to succeed.
A further wrinkle: the object that causes it to succeed does so categorically (that is, anything/anyone that utters ‘I am, I exist’ must exist, regardless of how the rest of the universe is configured). Referential success is thus a priori. But then how to square that with the contingent character of the cogito: namely, that it is necessarily true on this or that occasion, but not timelessly?
I need to untangle the notion of essence from reference, which I can’t do right now. But this anticipates meditation 5, and Kripke. More later.
About Me
- Stephen Lester Thompson, PhD
- New York City
- Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy, Director, The Laboratory for Research in the Logical Sciences, William Paterson University of New Jersey
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3 comments:
in the quote that you bloged, descartes is doubting the idea that we exist. he doubts everything from our body to our mind. he believes that if we do exist then there is a power, powerful enough to deceive us and if he is deceiving us than we do exist. thats when he then says that i am, i exist must be true. its quite confusing. descartes has so many thoughts and ideas that are puzzling. he's putting everything into doubt throughout the meditations as he did in the discourse. but he also speaks that everything cannot be put into doubt and the fact that we think and perceive things allows us to conclude that we do exist and without our body and mind we are nothing. he argues back and forth on our existence and further more he goes into detail on the mind and body, how our thinking does not belong to the nature of the body.
descartes says we only exist as long as we think, so in a way he said "a think therefore i am" but only in a different phrase
I'm not sure if I understand what is meant by uttering. I believe Descartes believes his basis to be true because he is thinking and not anything can exist that simply says they do. And he does not just use his idea at any given point to suggest that he exists. He suggests that whenever he thinks, which is always, he proves his existence.
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