I’ve always contended that Descartes got it backwards.
In his formulation, thought precedes being. That is incorrect. Being precedes thought.
I disagree, I believe consciousness (thought) preceeds being.
It’s not about which comes first, it’s about provability. He was really taking The Cave as far down the slippery slope as possible, if you assume every single sense input could be a lie a lie, what’s the one truly core undeniable provable thing about you? Well the fact that you’re even contemplating this means you think. And if you’re thinking then clearly there is something out there that is you. You think, therefore you are.
“That is incorrect. Being precedes thought.”
Is sexual arousal considered thought? That’s what it takes
to create a being as in human but none of that matters
because you are all part of my self conscious and only
exist in my head. Nothing is real except me.
We could always check Heidegger's Bohne und Zeit...
P.S. When my daughter went for her first day in Spanish class, I told her to walk up to the teacher and say "como Usted frijole." She did, and the teacher thought she was nuts. I had to have her later explain to the teacher that it was literally "how you bean." Unfortunately my postmodern philosophy professor 25 years ago did not have much of a sense of humor, so I didn't try the Heidegger joke on him.
What Descartes was saying was: I know I think, therefore I know I am.
His mistake was thinking that his knowing he was thinking was somehow prior to all his other knowledge. This is how he got trapped in the “mind-body problem” which has ensnared almost all philosophers ever since.
Descartes was trying to provide a proof for Being and knowledge separate from what we perceive. He was trying to provide a proof for knowledge. An evil genius could project sense data onto our personage so perception itself was not good enough to prove our being but Descartes declared that we can’t doubt the fact that we can doubt. In being unable to doubt our own doubting, he was able to declare “Cognito ergo sum” “I am thinking there for I am” Or “Cognition denotes being”.
I can doubt what I perceive but I can’t doubt the fact that I can doubt. It is this quality, this inner sense that allows me to doubt my perceptions and allows me to have a sense that I have an “I am” place separate from my perceptions! I can doubt reality as it is presented to me through my senses, But I can’t doubt the “me” place that does the doubting...thus I have being and as for knowledge and the truth of perception beyond my senses, only God can guarantee that knowledge.
That is the essence of Descartes’s argument on knowledge and being. In terms of the existence of being, he offers a devastating proof but as for the guarantee of knowledge as being supported by God, Descartes enters the realm of faith.
While I agree with his view of God guaranteeing knowledge, this part of his treatise was his logical weakest. One can’t doubt one’s being but it is still possible to doubt the existence of God; hence the existence of objective reality outside of one’s being must also remain in doubt; that is, if one is trying to divine, by reason and logic alone, the existence of realities beyond one’s own being.
The Reasoning process can only take us so far...only Faith, hope and charity can help us bridge the Gap between self and objective reality.
In Genesis we are told that God has made us in his own image and likeness. An anthropological image of God looking something like a man will come to mind on first reading. Yet when Moses asks God at the burning bush what his name is...God replies “I am that I am....tell them I am hath sent thee!” Thus the real sense of how we are made in His image comes to our minds and hearts. How we perceive and are connected to our inner “I am” sense is but an image and pale reflection of God’s own being and inner consciousness.
God calls himself “I am”! When asked if our name is such and such...do we not say “I am!”? If God should ask “are you accountable for yourself?”, fearful and well considered should our answer be when we reply...”I am!”!
When plumbing the depths of our own being, how astounding, how humbling it is when we realize that the perception of the sensing of our own being is only an image and reflexion of how God perceives his own His holy Being. Yet, more astounding still is the promise of God, that he wishes to make us not merely perfected images of Christ, but literally his sons and daughters.
The old testament tells of God giving to each of his children a white stone with a name known only between God and each individual child of the Father. We become not merely perfected image but we shall each of us flower into our full individual humanity. Yet this full humanity will allow us to be like Jesus Christ for we shall see Christ as HE IS. We will each become more HUMAN (without loss of our individual personalities) than we could possibly ever imagine; a full Humanity that God has longed for each of us;...in full possession of our beings, our “I AM” places if you will, and for ever in fellowship with God!
Remember always what Christ said when asked who he was, that riled the Jews so much....”Before Abraham was , I AM!”
While we will never be able to say “I AM” in the sense that God declares of himself, (for that would be hubris), we will be able to say, “I AM because God redeemed me and made me his child. I have my own name that he has given me and I have my own individuality that he has perfected in me!”
Reason leads me to a knowledge and sense of my own being but Reason, like a woman who will not violate her virginity with bias, can only say to me... “only God can or there is no God that can guarantee knowledge beyond cognition, you must decide...I can have no part in the matter!”. It is only Faith that can lead me to God!
Reason does say” If you doubt there is a God, you must honestly deal with the evidence that points to his existence....if you don’t doubt there is a God, then you must honestly deal with evidence that suggests he doesn’t exist. Yet I can’t help you with deciding the surety of the matter...you must reach for the realities that only Faith, Hope, and Charity...my three cousins can help you connect with. I am their ally but I also stand apart!”