Quotation
Last reviewed:
“I think, therefore I am.”
René Descartes · Rationalism · Early modern · 1637
What does it mean?
Even if a deceiver bends every other belief, the usual reading says, the act of thinking shows that a thinker exists, and that existence is the point the doubt cannot dislodge. The sentence is a first foothold, not a completed theory of the world. A rival reading treats it as if it had already proved the existence of bodies, of other minds, or of a moral law, none of which it reaches. In the Discourse the French is public and early, and the Meditations will stage a more careful version of the same discovery.
Did René Descartes really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. The French of the Discourse on the Method, part four, is his, and the Latin of the Principles of Philosophy, part one, article 7, is his as well. The English is the standard translation. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch provide the usual modern English of the Meditations and related works. The sentence is only the first foothold of the argument.
Where it comes from
Discourse on the Method, part 4 (1637); Latin cogito, ergo sum in Principles of Philosophy I.7 (1644)
Approximate date: 1637.
How to use it
When a night shift in a Newcastle hospital leaves someone unsure of every plan made at 3am, the unsureness is still an activity of a thinker, which is the small floor he stands on. That floor does not yet say which memo was accurate, who else is on the ward, or what ought to be done at handover. The foothold is real and very small, and quoting it as a solution to the shift overdraws the argument.
A mindset reading
A foundation is not a house, and people quote the sentence as if the rest of knowledge had already been rebuilt on it. He goes on, immediately, to argue for God and for the reliability of clear and distinct perception, and those steps are where critics have always gathered. Stopping at the foothold and calling the system finished is the most common misuse of a line that is only the start.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is the thinking thing, a mind certain of its existence in the act of doubting, not yet a full account of a human being with a body. The Discourse on the Method gives the French sentence in part four, and the Principles later give the Latin form. The Meditations say, more carefully, that existence is assured whenever the claim is conceived. John Cottingham's English, with Stoothoff and Murdoch, is the standard modern translation of that argument.
- knowledge
- self
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
Even if a deceiver bends every other belief, the usual reading says, the act of thinking shows that a thinker exists, and that existence is the point the doubt cannot dislodge. The sentence is a first foothold, not a completed theory of the world. A rival reading treats it as if it had already proved the existence of bodies, of other minds, or of a moral law, none of which it reaches. In the Discourse the French is public and early, and the Meditations will stage a more careful version of the same discovery.
Did René Descartes really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. The French of the Discourse on the Method, part four, is his, and the Latin of the Principles of Philosophy, part one, article 7, is his as well. The English is the standard translation. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch provide the usual modern English of the Meditations and related works. The sentence is only the first foothold of the argument.
Which work is it in?
Discourse on the Method, part 4 (1637); Latin cogito, ergo sum in Principles of Philosophy I.7 (1644) Approximate date: 1637.