[quote=Arjen;18212]
René Descartes Initiator of Modern Thought
Out of this short fragment from '
Meditationes'; a treatise on Descartes' way to obtaining 'true' knowledge through meditations (pure thought in Descartes' words) it is easy to come to Descartes' most famous quote:
Dubito, ergo Cogito, ergo Sum
This means: 'I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am'.
Actually, this quote never appears in the
Meditations, or any place else in Descartes I know of. But,
Cogito ergo Sum does appear in the
Discourse on Method. It means, I think, therefore I am. Descartes's argument is, of course, that he could not think (nor do anything else, for that matter) unless he existed. When he was asked by the philosopher, Pierre Gassendi, why thinking was so important, for after all, "I walk therefore I am" was also a valid argument, Descartes replied that was true, but that he could be absolutely certain that he thought, but since walking was a bodily event, and he had already argued that he could doubt he had a body, it was not certain that he could walk. He pointed out that he could be certain he thought because doubting was a form of thinking, so that if he tried to doubt that he thought he would not succeed, since doubting was a form of thinking, and if he doubted he thought he would still be thinking.