1

The Cogito

1. In the First Meditation, everything that Descartes believed was cast into doubt. He supposes
that he does not exist, that his memory is faulty, that he has no senses, no body, that
extension, movement and place are mistaken notions. For Descartes to build his new system
of connected propositions, however, it is necessary that he finds at least one indubitable
proposition, which can serve him as the premise for his system. If he cannot find an
indubitable premise, then he will conclude that nothing is certain.
2. The ancient mathematician Archimedes observed that with a sufficient long lever and a fixed
point off the Earth, he could move the entire globe. Similarly, Descartes reasons, that if he
could find one single indubitable proposition, he would be able to rebuild a new edifice of
knowledge.
3. Descartes concludes that if there is a demon that is employing all his power to deceive him,
he must necessarily exist. In the second Meditation he says
But had I persuaded myself that there is no sky, no earth, no minds or bodies; was I not,
therefore, also persuaded that I did not exist? No indeed; I existed without doubt, by the
fact that I thought at all. But there is some deceiver both very powerful and very cunning,
who constantly uses all his wiles to deceive me. There is therefore no doubt that I exist, if
he deceives me; and let him deceive me as much as he likes, he can never cause me to be
nothing, so long as I think I am something. So that, after having scrupulously examined
everything, one must then, in conclusion, take as assured that the proposition: I am, I
exist, is necessarily true, every time I express it or conceive of it in my mind.
4. The argument Cogito ergo sum,(I think, therefore, I am) encapsulates Descartes cogito
argument. However, this argument does not appear in the Meditations (it appears in the
Discourse on Method, written in French, and in the Principles of Philosophy, written in
Latin). In the second Meditation Descartes simply says I am, I exist. Why? The argument
I think, therefore, I am is a syllogistic reasoning based on two premises:
a. Everything that thinks exists.
b. I think.
c. Therefore I exist.
2

In the first meditation Descartes had cast everything into doubt. The above argument,
assumes, at least, that the proposition If something thinks, then it exists is true. But
accepting the above proposition as true would breaching the basic rule of his method of
doubt (that nothing should be assumed as true) established in the first Meditation.
5. In his replies to the objections of the Dutch theologian Caterus, Descartes distinguishes
between two operations of the mind inferring something, and knowing it through a simple
intuition of the mind. In this respect, he says:
Now, the dialecticians [= specialists in applied logic] dont usually call awareness of
first principles knowledge. And when we take in that we are thinking things, this is a
basic principle that isnt arrived at through any syllogism.
When someone says I am thinking, therefore I am, or I exist, he isnt inferring existence
from thought by means of a syllogism; rather, a simple intuition of his mind shows it to
him as self-evident. If he had been inferring it through a syllogism, it would have been
this: Everything that thinks is, or exists; I think; therefore I am, or exist. And for this he
would need already to have known the first premise Everything that thinks is, or exists;
but what actually happens is that he learns it by experiencing in his own case that it isnt
possible to think without existing. Constructing general propositions on the basis of our
knowledge of particular ones is something that we just naturally do.
6. If one accepts Descartes distinction between an inference and an intuition of a self-evident
proposition, another problem pops up: is he justified in concluding that an ego, an I exist?
Or perhaps he should have said, thought exists? The eighteenth century German
philosopher Georg Lichtenberg was of this opinion.