Cogito, Ergo Sum

Cogito, Ergo Sum
Author(s): W. von Leyden

Source: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 63 (1962 - 1963), pp. 67-82
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Aristotelian Society
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Meeting of the Aristotelian Society at 21, Bedford Square, London, W.C.1,
on 26th November, 1962, at 7.30 p.m.
IV-COGITO, ERGO SUM
By
W. VON LEYDEN
IN a recent paper, Professor Hintikka has raised, often forcefully
and clearly, a number of valid points in his analysis of Descartes'
Cogito as a performatory utterance.' None the less, I am not
convinced that his analysis is itself free from difficulties. Just as
he charges Descartes with compressing several different argu-
ments into the apparently simple formulation cogito, ergo sum, so
might he be charged with merging some separate issues into each
other and into his apparently simple interpretation of the
Cartesian dictum. I intend to substantiate this claim by first
pointing to the particular issues which in my view Hintikka has not
clearly distinguished from each other. I will then advance a
number of arguments with a view to bringing into the open the
complexity of the problem involved in Descartes' Cogito.
1.
Difficulties in interpreting the Cogito as performatory
It would seem, in the first place, that for Hintikka one
important reason why Descartes' Cogito is to be interpreted as a
performatory utterance is that, if I say that I do not exist, my
saying this shows that what I say is false; hence I refute or defeat
myself by uttering this sentence. Now it is certainly correct to
maintain that the surmise that I do not exist, though not formally
self-contradictory, is absurd in the sense of self-stultifying; and
it is also true that I could not utter the words
"
I do not exist",
unless I existed. But does it follow that for either or for both of
these reasons neither
"
I exist" nor
"
I am thinking
"
can be
regarded as a descriptive phrase, and that they must instead be
classified as performatory utterances? After all, the denial of
"
I
exist
"
or
"
I am thinking
"
is absurd in the sense of self-defeating
even on the assumption-which Descartes would seem to have
1
Jaakke Hintikka, "
Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference or Performance? ",
The Philosophical Review, Vol. LXXI, i (January, 1962), pp. 3-32.
k
68 W. VON LEYDEN
made-that both " I exist " and " I am thinking
" are statements
describing or reporting facts truly and that both " I do not
exist" and
"
I am not thinking" are statements describing or
reporting facts falsely. Accordingly, it might be argued that the
indubitability of Descartes' Cogito insight is not necessarily due
to its performatory character nor that, because I cannot intelli-
gently, i.e., without giving rise to an
"
existentially
"
inconsistent
or self-defeating statement, deny
"
I exist
"
or
"
I am thinking ",
such a denial must be tantamount to at once entering into
and not entering into a commitment or the performance of
an act.
Secondly, it is not clear to me whether Hintikka wishes to
interpret as performatory the whole of the formula cogito, ergo
sum, or only the first part, i.e., the phrase cogito, or again only
the latter half, i.e., the phrase sum. The three types of interpre-
tation merge into each other throughout his paper in a confusing
manner and are also, to my mind, each open to criticism. That
Hintikka intends the first of these interpretations would appear
from the title of his paper and the way in which he often speaks
of the performatory aspect of
"
the Cogito
"
or of the performa-
torily interpreted
"
cogito argument
"
(e.g., pp. 23, 27, and sect. 13
ad fin.) Assuming this is his intrepretation, one might ask
whether the issuing of the performative utterance "
cogito
"
or alternatively
"
I exist" is not by itself sufficient to show the
truth intended by Descartes. For is it not precisely by the mere
utterance of
"
cogito
"
or alternatively of
"
I exist
"
that the
character of Descartes' insight may be said to express itself?
Besides, if the whole Cartesian formula be accepted as performa-
tive in character, an unsatisfactory consequence would appear to
be that by issuing this utterance one would both explicitly assert
something which is true, i.e., that one exists, and at the same time
be expected not to assert anything at all but merely to imply or
to show that one exists.
On the other hand, if Hintikka's intention be to interpret only
the word cogito as performative, as would appear from what he
says on e.g., pp. 17 and 31-32, he would be splitting up the
meaning of a formula which Descartes obviously regarded as
uniform in character. Besides, would not on this interpretation,
COGITO, ERGO SUM 69
contrary to Hintikka's claim (p. 17), the status of " I think ",
which Descartes considered unique, become vulnerable to
competition from other performatory utterances such as " I
promise " or " I
apQlogize ", since the issuing of any of these
might in some sense be held to imply that the sentence " I exist "
is true? If however it is conceded by Hintikka that the status of
" I think" is unique, it is difficult to see how he can hope to
establish this by merely classifying the sentence as performatory,
i.e., without at the same time showing it, on independent grounds,
to be either the only one of its kind or alternatively unique within
its kind. Of these two alternatives, however, while the former
is difficult if not impossible, the latter necessitates a further
analysis of the sentence, over and above its interpretation as
performative.
Yet, in the third place, if Hintikka's intention, as appears
from sections (6), (7) and (13, ii) of his paper, is to interpret only
the sentence ego sum or
"
I exist
"
as performatory, the argu-
ments he adduces to this effect, and particularly his point that
it would be absurd or pointless to deny this sentence, should make
his interpretation also apply to the phrase cogito or " I think ".
For the inconsistency or absurdity of uttering the sentence
" I am not thinking
"
does not seem to differ from that of uttering
the sentence
"
I don't exist ", nor does the sentence
"
I am
thinking
"
seem to be less self-verifying or intuitively self-evident
than the sentence
"
I exist ". In fact, the sentences
"
I am
thinking" and
"
I exist
"
share the important characteristics
that, though they are not logically necessary and therefore may
be denied without self-contradiction even by the person
who happens to utter them, they are nevertheless certain
and indubitable in that their truth follows from their being
doubted or denied by the person uttering them, so that their
denial is absurd in the sense of being self-defeating. Hence
the certainty of
"
I am thinking" can be established by the
same criterion as that of
"
I exist ".2 Perhaps the fact that the
two sentences are in this sense independent of one another was
one reason for Descartes' frequent insistence on the non-
inferential nature of his Cogito.
2
Cf. A. J. Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge (London, 1956), pp. 46-7.
K2
70 W. VON LEYDEN
Moreover, a difficulty would now also arise as to the interpre-
tation of ergo sum: is this to mean the fact that I exist or that
I am certain that I exist? In other words, is Descartes' Cogito
intended as the embodiment of an ontology or an epistemology?
Here, I think, Mr. Hintikka is guilty of a certain confusion. He
says
" the word cogito refers to the '
performance
'
(to the act
of thinking) through which the sentence 'I exist' may be said
to verify itself" (p. 17). But exactly what verifies the sentence
" I exist " ? Surely, on Descartes' view, if fully expanded, it is
only because the performance of thinking shows or makes explicit
that I exist, that the sentence " I exist " can be held to be verifi-
able. I should think that, if Descartes' Cogito is to be in any way
interpreted as performative, the gain of such an interpretation
would be precisely the possibility of saying that the act of uttering
" I think" in the first place shows the fact of my existence or
gives it to be understood that I exist, before it can subsequently
serve as the verification of the sentence " I exist ", or help to
demonstrate to myself that I know that I exist. In my view the
whole point of the Cogito is not so much that the indubitable or
certain knowledge of my own existence depends on my thinking,
as that my existence is indubitable because my thinking (which is
indubitable) depends on it or presupposes it. This point is both
obscured and made ambiguous when Hintikka talks of
"
Descartes's intuitive idea of the dependence of his existence on
his thinking" (p. 22). Clearly what depends on Descartes'
thinking is his certain knowledge of his existence, while his
thinking itself of course depends on his existence.
In this connexion, I believe, it is also important to avoid
underestimating, as Hintikka tends to do (pp. 18 ff.), the role of
introspection and consciousness in Descartes' cogito argument.
Descartes' celebrated passage from scepticism to certainty was
determined by the fact that doubt, even total doubt, was for him
not so much the result of an unshakeable belief as a short-lived
implication of his philosophical method.3 The function of this
methodological doubt was to help in fixing the Archimedean
3
See my " Descartes and Hobbes on Waking and Dreaming ", Revue
Internationale de Philosophie, Vol. XXXV (1956).
COGITO, ERGO SUM 71
point4 of his metaphysics, and this was the fact that, even though
I may doubt, dream, be deceived, or think wrongly, so that what
I am thinking about may be false, it is nevertheless indubitable
that I am conscious of something whenever I doubt, dream etc.,
and therefore I must think and exist. Accordingly, though I fully
agree with Hintikka when he says (pp. 18-19), " the reason why
Descartes could not doubt his own existence is in principle
exactly the same as the reason why he could not hope to mislead
anybody by saying 'I don't exist ' ", I doubt whether he is right
in claiming that
" the one does not presuppose introspection any
more than the other" (p. 19). In my view, as I shall try to
explain later, Descartes' Cogito insight is not wholly separable
from what used to be called acts of introspection or self-awareness.
And it seems to me that it is only by disregarding this aspect of
the question completely that Hintikka has been able to lay so
much stress on an over-all interpretation of the Cogito as per-
formative.
Before advancing my own suggestion for an analysis of the
Cogito, however, I may add here that in connexion with such an
analysis it is important, more so even than Hintikka would seem
to recognize, to distinguish clearly and persistently between three
different issues, namely (a) that of ascertaining the meaning of
the Cogito as intended by Descartes; (b) that of ascertaining what
the Cogito may mean in connexion with any particular philo-
sophical issue, or what it has been held to mean in one or the
other of the hundreds of discussions and interpretations to which
this Cartesian principle has given rise; and (c) that of ascertaining
what it must mean in order for it to be accepted as a proposition
one knows to be true or a piece of reasoning one can show to be
valid.
2. The indispensability of the first-person pronoun
"
I" in the
formulation of Descartes' insight
It has been a commonplace in discussions of Descartes' Cogito
to argue that his use of the phrase " I think ", from his own as
4Second Meditation, ad. init., The Philosophical Works of Descartes, ed.
Haldane and Ross (Cambridge, England, 1931), Vol. I, p. 149; Reply to
Bourdin's seventh set of Objections, Vol. II, p. 271.
72 W. VON LEYDEN
well as from a more general point of view, can mean no more
than "thinking is going on " or "there is a thought now ".
That any reference to a mind or self is illegitimate on Descartes'
own premisses is indicated by the fact that when he first thought
of the cogito foimula or uttered it as the one self-certifying
proposition supplanting his alleged total doubt, he could not then
have used the word " I " in this formula to describe a substance
or spiritual entity that endured as the unitary basis of his mental
life, for all this would have had to remain for him a matter of
absolute doubt. Then there was of course Hume's scepticism
regarding the mind and personal identity, and his inability to
prove that thoughts require a thinker. Accordingly, Russell
suggested5 that the word
"
I
"
should be omitted altogether from
the Cartesian formula. Now this interpretative move would
deprive Descartes' formula of neither its prima facie plausibility
nor its importance. For if his original doubt was twofold, i.e.,
whether anything exists and whether there is any true knowledge,
the incontestable affirmation of such a fact as that there is a
thought now would dispose of both doubts, without reference to
a self or the employment of the word
"
I ".
None the less, it appears that what Descartes claimed as his
insight cannot be made wholly plausible unless it is formulated in
terms of a first-person singular sentence. His own reason for
preferring to express the cogito statement in the first rather than
the third person was not merely that it would have been
grammatically incorrect to say
"
il suis ", or fallacious to talk
of
"
thought thinking ", or that the French language made no
provision for the phrase
"
it thinks
"6
in analogy to the German
"es blitzt". Nor is it easy to concur in Collingwood's7 belief
that Descartes' paiticular formulation was due to the desire to
emphasize the concrete historical fact, the fact of one's actual
5
Cf. Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Philosophy (London, 1927), p. 171;
History of Western Philosophy (London, 1946),
p.
589.
6 For the suggestion of this phrase see G. C. Lichtenberg, Werke, ed.
Goldschmit (Stuttgart, 1924), p. 78, and Wittgenstein's view as reported by
G. E. Moore,
"
Wittgenstein's Lectures in 1930-33 ", Mind, Vol. LXIV
(1955), pp. 13-14. Cf. also P. F. Strawson, Individuals (London, 1959), p. 95,
n. 1.
7
R. G. Collingwood, Speculum Mentis (Oxford, 1924), p. 202.
COGITO, ERGO SUM 73
present awareness, as the root of science. Descartes' reason was
rather, one might say, semantical. He realized, like St. Augustine
and a number of mediaeval thinkers before him,8 that, just as I
cannot doubt concerning that of which I am conscious,9 because
states of awareness are their own guarantee, so are there a number
of first-person sentences, e.g.,
"
I am thinking ",
"
I live ", " I
know some English words ", etc., which it would be in a certain
sense absurd, or at any rate very repugnant to whoever makes the
statement, to deny or to contradict. Whatever it is, for instance,
that I see when I claim to see a hawk, there can be no doubt that
in one sense, though in one sense only, my utterance
"
I see a
hawk
"
is true, even if there is no hawk to be seen, and that one
could not in this sense be said to
"
see falsely . Similarly, the
statement
"
I am thinking" as also the statement
"
I live "
are both in a sense incontrovertible and self-guaranteeing. How-
ever, the peculiar reason for this here is that to doubt or deny
either statement precisely proves it to be true: we think in saying
that we do not think and we cannot but exist while denying our
existence.
It is perhaps chiefly because of this logically unique status in
which certain first-person forms of assertion find themselves that
Descartes rejected Gassendi's charge that his cogito formula was a
syllogism in which the universal major premiss,
"
he who thinks,
exists" (qui cogitat est) had to be supplied.10 For to accept
Gassendi's point would have meant placing the two premisses and
the conclusion of the proposed syllogism all on the same logical
level, thereby losing sight of the indubitable nature of certain
first-person utterances or the self-verifying nature of certain forms
of knowledge. Admittedly, the gain in this case would have
been to make the conclusion concerning one's own existence
appear demonstratively certain. Descartes, however, though he
8
Cf. M. Chastaing,
"
Consciousness and Evidence ", Mind, Vol. LXV
(July, 1956).
9 Second Meditation, Works, ed. Haldane and Ross, Vol. I, p. 153; also
Oeuvres, ed. Adam and Tannery (Paris, 1910), Vol. VII, p. 443. Foradevelop-
ment of this point in the textbook of Cartesian logic see the Port-Royal
Logique, ou l'art de penser (Paris, 1662, 3rd ed. 1668), pp. 380-1.
10 Reply to Second Objection and Letter to Clerselier, ed. Haldane and
Ross, Vol. II, pp. 38 and 127.
74 W. VON LEYDEN
sometimes used the word " conclusion "'1 for his cogito formula,
always considered the principle it involved as a truth known
immediately or by itself (per se nota).'2 He considered it as such,
because he claimed it to be a basic or primary principle'3 and
this claim he could not have maintained with the principle
depending, like a ratiocination, on the acceptance of a major
premiss. But neither could he have declared the principle to be
certain in the sense of being self-certifying without making use
of the semantical rule that the sentence
"
I am thinking
"
cannot
be denied by the person uttering the sentence without thereby
evincing its truth.
Hence the retention of the first-person singular pronoun in
the formulation of Descartes' basic principle, though admittedly
not of the assumption that the use of this pronoun indicates a
self or mind, would seem necessary at least so far as his immediate
purpose is concerned.
3. The question of the logical truth of the Cogito
However, Descartes obviously wished the two statements
"I am thinking" and "I am" to be not only certain but
logically certain, not only psychologically or semantically in-
dubitable but a priori or necessarily true.'4 Now, while a priori
or logically necessary statements are such that their negation is
logically impossible or self-contradictory, my being here or the
fact that I am thinking now are contingent facts and could there-
fore, especially if the personal pronoun is understood descrip-
tively, be denied without self-contradiction. It is true that they
could not be denied meaningfully at any time by myself. For
Oeuvres, ed. Adam and Tannery, Vol. IX, pp. 2, 27; Vol. VIII, p. 7.
12
Cf. here also P. D. Huet's Censura philosophiae Cartesianae (Paris,
1689), Vol I, p. 11, and P.-S. Regis' reply in Re!ponse au livre (Paris, 1696),
pp. 48-53.
13
See Spinoza's Principia philosophiae cartesianae (Amsterdam, 1663),
Part I, Prolegomenon, for the correct emphasis on the basic nature and unique
status of the Cogito in Descartes' doctrine.
14
" I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I
mentally conceive it
"
(my italics), Second Meditation, ed. Haldane and Ross,
Vol. I, p. 150. See also A. J. Ayer, 7he Problem of Knowledge, pp. 45 ff.,
and in Analysis, Vol. 14, No. 2 (December, 1953).
COGITO, ERGO SUM 75
how could such denials actually be made if they were true? The
fact then that they can be made shows them to be false. None the
less, such denials on my part are absurd or inconsistent, not in
the sense that they are formally self-contradictory,'5 but only in
that they are self-refuting, self-defeating, or self-stultifying:
though they are false, and though we can indeed deduce that
what they assert must be false, they are not logically false. Hence
the statements "
I am thinking" and
"
I exist" are likewise not
logical truths. Both Leibnizl6 and Kantl7 were right in this sense
in regarding Descartes' Cogito as a factual or empirical truth only.
Yet it is clear that Descartes persuaded himself to find in it more
than a purely factual or semantical certainty.
The only alternative interpretation, then, for the sake of
satisfying Descartes, would be to suggest that the statement " I
exist" is necessarily true because it is logically implied by the
statement
"
I am thinking ". However, to say this would be to
suggest that the meaning of the first statement merely repeated
that of the second. For neither statement might be said to follow
logically from the other, if
"
I exist
"
meant something different
from
"
I am thinking
"
(as would particularly be the case if
"
I am thinking
"
is understood as meaning
"
there is a thought
now ") and if we accept Hume's notion that no one fact or event
occurring at a given moment points to, or proves the existence of,
any other fact or event in the past, present, or future. So let us
consider the view that
"
I exist
"
does not differ in meaning from
"I am thinking
"
and is therefore deducible from it.
In explanation of this view it has been urged that the word
"I "
in Descartes' formula, just as any personal pronoun or
proper name,
"
is an index sign which cannot be meaningfully
used except to refer to an existent particular. And to say ' this
existent particular thinks, therefore it exists' conveys no more
15
The first to have clarified this point, I think, was Professor Ayer in his
Analysis article, p. 30, and in the Problem of Knowledge, p. 46. See also
J. Passmore, Philosophical Reasoning (London, 1962), p. 60, and Hintikka,
loc. cit., pp. 10-18.
16
Nouveaux Essais, Bk. IV, Ch. ii, Sect. 1, ad fin., Ch. vii, Sect. 7.
17
Critique of Pure Reason, Refutation of Idealism, 2nd ed. (Konigsberg,
1787), p. 274; in Werke, ed. Hartenstein (Leipzig, 1867), Vol. III, p. 197.
76 W. VON LEYDEN
new information in the conclusion than does ' this is a black cat,
therefore it is a cat',"18 Now I believe that such an interpre-
tation of the Cogito would have appeared unsatisfactory to
Descartes for two reasons. In the first place, if the cogito
formula is regarded as tautologous and therefore trivial, it could
not be taken to assert or describe anything, as it would be entirely
concerned with symbols. The statement " I exist" would like-
wise become uninformative and consequently there would be little
force left in the word " ergo ", or " therefore ". It follows that
the character of the whole folmula, which Descartes claimed as
an insight or discovery, would become modified to an extent
incompatible with his original purpose.
4. Is the Cogito an
"
analytic triviality"?
But secondly, the interpretation in question is by no means
incontestable. It depends for its acceptance on the assumption
that the word
"
I ", in its two uses in Descartes' formula, logically
refers to one and the same thing. If it can be shown, at least on
Descartes' own premisses and perhaps also independently of his
own view, that this need not be so, the charge that his famed
cogito, ergo sum is merely an
"
analytic triviality ", and in
addition the claim that the formula is the expression of a logically
necessary truth, must fall to the ground.
The question should be first approached, as is natural I think,
from Descartes' own point of view and particularly in connexion
with that stage of his argument where he shows that he can pass
from any of the basically unguaranteed forms of knowledge to
the indubitable fact of his own existence. His procedure here
depends on the notoriously controversial distinction between the
act and the content of awareness and on the notion that an act of
awareness can be made the content or object of further reflective
acts. He finds that his self or ego always re-emerges as active
and as the life-centre of any subsequent doubt or thought con-
cerning itself or anything else, and that therefore his self or ego
must be real and immune from doubt. Consider now Descartes'
18
D. J. O'Connor, John Locke (London, 1952), pp. 111-12; also J. R.
Weinberg, An Examination of Logical Positivism (London, 1936), pp. 1834.
COGITO, ERGO SUM 77
statement cogito or " I am thinking ". It expresses a case of
self-awareness: it is to the effect that I know or am conscious of
myself thinking. If we distinguish again in this case between the
act and the content or object of self-awareness, we might say
that it is not so much when I am thinking as when I conceive of
myself thinking, or make
myself
and my thinking an object of
thought, that I must exist and can know that it must be true to
say " I exist ".19 Hence it might be suggested that the word
" I "', which occurs twice in Descartes' cogito formula, has two
different senses, without however indicating two
"
I "s or even
two persons. The two senses may be described as
"
the use as
object
"
(Me) and
"
the use as subject
"
(I or Ego).20
In order to substantiate this argument it is essential to show
that a case for the two senses or uses of the word
"
I ", which I
have indicated, can in fact be made out.
There are at least two ways in which it is possible to draw
a distinction between the two senses of
"
I ". One was seized
upon by existentialists and phenomenologists, who have always
hailed Descartes as one of their chief forerunners and his Cogito
as a basic truth.21 Only brief reference to their distinction need be
made here. On the one hand, they argue, there is in every person
a real self or ego, something unique, spontaneous, and active.
This actual fountain-head or core of a man's existence can itself
never become an object of knowledge. It eludes any attempt at
apprehension, by which it is constantly presupposed. Whenever
1I
That Descartes' phrase
"
cogito
"
stands for the content, not the act,
of awareness clearly emerges from Thomas Reid's formulation: " In this
state of universal doubt, that which first appeared to him to be clear and
certain, was his own existence. Of this he was certain, because he was
conscious that he thought, that he reasoned, and that he doubted." (Essays
on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Edinburgh, 1785, Essay II, Ch. viii, p. 129.)
Of course to say " I exist "
in its turn shows that I am now thinking about
my own existence, thereby making this an object of thought; but this in its
own turn again presupposes my existence and therefore the truth of " I am ".
20
Ishould point out that these phrases, as used here, differ in meaning
from Wittgenstein's use of this terminology in The Blue Book (Oxford, 1958),
p. 66.
21
Cf K. Jaspers, Descartes und die Philosophie (Berlin, 1937);
J.-P. Sartre, Existentialisme est un Humanisme (Paris, 1946), pp. 63-4 (Engl.
tr., London, 1948, p. 44).
-
78 W. VON LEYDEN
I observe or reflect on my own being in introspection (or rather
retrospection), I apprehend myself only as an object of conscious-
ness, a " Me ", but never recapture the original " I ", myself
as something really existing, as the subject of experience. On the
other hand, as the object of self-knowledge the self becomes
something altogether different. It loses all the immediacy and
independence, the vividness and activity of the real centre of
consciousness: it turns from something absolute into something
relative. Sartre would in fact say that consciousness is definable
as
"
'etre-pour-soi" (being-for-itself).22 By this phrase Sartre
means something which is what it is not, and is not what it is.23
This existentialist approach and terminology is perhaps best
summed up in Jaspers' pithy saying
"
I am not what I know, and
I don't know what I am."24
5. The concept of
"
I
"
and
"
higher order actions"
Alternatively, one might say, following Professor Ryle,25 that
the concept of
"
I
"
is
"
systematically elusive ", and that what
ordinarily passes as self-awareness and figures so prominently in
Descartes' Cogito is adequately described as the performance of a
"
higher order action " upon a
"
lower order action ". A higher
oider action for him is one that involves the thought of another,
such as when I laugh at myself for an awkwardness on my part,
or further reflect upon my laughing at myself. One might then
argue that we talk of self in two different ways, according to two
different uses of the first-person singular pronoun. The distinc-
tion is admittedly obscured as a result of what Ryle calls the elusive
character of "I ": we seem to be able to recognize the basic
importance and uniqueness of whatever it is that
"
I
"
stands
for, and yet there is a systematic and hence tantalizing lack of
22L'Etre et le Neant (Paris, 1943), Introduction and Part II. Cf. also
E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations (The Hague, 1960),
pp.
25 ff.; also his
distinction between cogito and cogitatum, pp. 31 ff., and his view of the nature
of the alteration implicit in
"
transcendental-phenomenological reflection ",
p.
34.
23
Op cit.,
p. 33.
24
Die Geistige Situation der Zeit (Berlin, 1932), 3rd ed., p. 147.
25
The Concept of Mind (London, 1949), Ch. vi.
COGITO, ERGO SUM 79
success in apprehending and describing it. "Like the shadow of
one's own head, it will not wait to be jumped on. And yet it is
never very far ahead. It is too near even to be within arm's
reach.' 26
The explanation of the last point of course is that every time
one attempts self-description one adds a fact to be described.
None the less, if we regard the statement " I caught myself just
beginning to dream" as expressing the operation of a higher
order action upon a lower order action, not unlike reporting an
event, applauding a performance, or replying to a question, the
statement must be of a logically different type from the state-
ment " I was just beginning to dream". Hence the personal
pronouns employed in the two sentences are being used with a
different logical force.27
I suggest that the second of these two attempts at distinguish-
ing between two senses of the word
"
I
"
has obvious advantages
over the first, which is rather obsolescent in character. On the
other hand, I wonder whether Ryle's explanation does full justice
to Descartes' original intention. In the first place, there is an
existential pre-condition rather than any kind of logical implica-
tion involved in the Cogito, and certainly the " existentialist "
preoccupation in Descartes, as later also in Pascal, is undeniable.
For this reason Descartes' point in the cogito argument seems to
me to be somewhat different from the Rylean point of view of
conceptual analysis. For, as Ryle explains, higher order actions
are
"
in one way or another concerned with
"
other actions and
their descriptions "involve the oblique mention of other
actions."28 He also says that the performance of a higher order
action
"
involves the thought of" another, lower order action.
He attempts to safeguard the meaning of the phrase
"
involves
the thought of" from certain misconceptions,29 using in two
passages the term
"
presuppose "30
in order to indicate in what
sense a higher order action
"
involves
"
the thought of another.
26
Ibid., p. 186.
27
Ibid., p. 190.
28 Ibid., p.
191.
29
Ibid., p. 192-3.
30
Ibid., pp. 191, line 35, and 192, line 7.
80 W. VON LEYDEN
Now while for Ryle the performance of a higher order action
involves the thought of another in the sense of logically " pre-
supposing" it, Descartes' interest is focused upon a rather
different kind of implication, namely that such a higher order
action as for instance the doubting of a belief or statement implies
or presupposes, quite apart from the thought of this belief or
statement, an act of thinking or awareness, and this in turn (even
if it is denied) the fact that he who thinks (or denies that he
thinks) exists. The meaning and force of " ergo " in the Cogito
formula lie precisely in the fact that my existence is a pre-
condition of the truth of " I am thinking
"
and this in turn of the
truth of " I am doubting ". Whereas laughing at myself for an
awkwardness, just like doubting something, presupposes the
thought of a lower order action, an "
object" upon which it is
performed (retrospectively it may be said), doubting something
now on Descartes' view involves, in addition to any such lower
order action, the present performance of an act of thinking in the
sense that, unless doubting is thinking, it is impossible or does not
occur. Similarly, for Descartes, thinking or being conscious not
only involves something to think about, to reflect upon or be
aware of, i.e., a lower order action upon which the thinking is an
operation, but in some further sense also the fact of one's own
existence.
But secondly, in his distinction between higher and lower
order actions Ryle might perhaps have gone further. He has
been criticised3l for assuming that any action or situation which
becomes the
"
object " of a higher order action remains unchanged
in the process. The assumption is perhaps justified in cases
where the higher order action has to do with things other than a
person's self. However, in a case of self-commentary, as when I
reflect or report upon a recent feeling of sadness or a previous
attempt at memorizing on my part, the process of becoming the
object of a higher order action is necessarily correlated with a
change of the notion of self from subject to object. In saying
"
I am laughing at
myself for being clumsy ", I am of course not
talking of two selves; nor am I, as can be seen from the grammar,
31
I. T. Ramsey,
"
The Systematic Elusiveness of
'
I
'
", The Philosophical
Quarterly, Vol. V (1955), pp. 196 ff.
COGITO, ERGO SUM 81
referring to two " I "s or two " me "s: I am talking in terms of
one I and one me (or myself). While the logical status of me
(or myself) is something objective in the sense that for " me
"
we could readily substitute the name of a person, the logical
status of I can be described as that unique area in self-awareness
which is "
observationally elusive ", i.e., of which Hume could
never have obtained the eageily looked-for " perception ". It
follows that no self-commentary can ever be completely or
adequately accounted for, either at the moment when it is per-
formed (for at that stage it cannot be the concern of itself and
hence no account would include it), or indeed at any subsequent
moment when it may have become the object of another higher
order action (for by then it would have lost its actuality and
spontaneity and have become a mere object of reflection).
6. Summary and Conclusion
The upshot of my argument then is that from Descartes' point
of view the distinction between the two senses of the word " I "
in his cogito foimula can be represented in even more radical
terms than is allowed for by Ryle. At any rate the formula as a
whole cannot be considered a tautology nor indeed a logical
truth. Accordingly, its weakness is threefold. If "cogito
"
is taken in the sense of
"
there is thinking ",
"
I exist" does not
follow from it nor of course that there is a self or miDd. Neither
in fact does there seem to remain anything conclusive or self-
certifying in the formula. On the other hand, if the cogito
formula is understood in its ordinary sense of
"
I think, therefore
I am ", to say
"
I think" as also to say
"
I exist", though in
some sense indubitable and true, is not necessarily true, since a
denial of either statement, though self-defeating, is not formally
self-contradictory. However, to regard the whole formula
" I think, therefore I am" as logically certain and necessary is
possible only at the price of rendering it uninformative and
trivial-a price which Descartes would not have been prepared
to pay and which, as I have tried to show, no one can in fact be
compelled to pay.
I may add here that in my view the suggestiveness of Descartes'
Cogito and the challenge it has presented to subsequent generations
82 W. VON LEYDEN
of philosophers arise partly no doubt from the subtlety and
complexity of its implications, but also partly from its inherent
difficulties. And though in fact we may do it justice by explaining
its subtlety and complexity, we cannot, in any of the senses which
Descartes may have had in mind, strictly speaking establish or
vindicate it. As regards my foregoing criticism of Professor
Hintikka's analysis, I will summarize this here by saying that,
though the cogito insight, or one aspect of it, may be interpreted
as performatory along the lines he has indicated (with the proviso
however that in order to be effective such an interpretation must
be free of certain ambiguities), I see no reason for believing that
Descartes himself understood the Cogito exclusively in this way,
nor indeed that it must be so interpreted in order to be plausible.
For it seems to me that whatever is plausible, true or indubitable
in the Cartesian formula is so even without Hintikka's suggested
analysis.

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