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"I think, therefore I exist" -- Rene Descartes
Philosophy, An introduction to the Art of Wondering - Sixth Edition -- pages 36/37 | 1994 | James L. Christian

Posted on 11/04/2002 7:52:21 AM PST by thinktwice

Descartes was a geometrician. He found only in mathematics and geometry the certainty that he required. Therefore, he used the methods of geometry to think about the world. Now, in geometry, one begins with a search for axioms, simple undeniable truths – for example, the axiom that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. On the foundations of such “self-evident” propositions, whole geometrical systems can be built.

Following his geometrical model, Descartes proceeds to doubt everything – de onmibus dubitandum. He will suspend belief in the knowledge he learned from childhood, all those things “which I allowed myself in youth to be persuaded without having inquired into their truth.” Doubt will be his method, a deliberate strategy for proceeding toward certainty. (Descartes is a doubter not by nature, but by necessity. What he really wants is secure understanding so he can stop doubting.)

Descartes finds that he has no trouble doubting the existence of real objects/events – our senses too easily deceive us. And we can doubt the existence of a supernatural realm of reality – figments and fantasies are too often conjured by our native imaginations. But now his geometrical model pays off: in trying to doubt everything, he discovers something that he can’t doubt. What he can’t doubt is that he is doubting. Obviously, I exist if I doubt that I exist. My doubt that I exist proves that I exist, for I have to exist to be able to doubt. Therefore I can’t doubt that I exist. Hence, there is at least one fact in the universe that is beyond doubt. “I am, I exist is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I mentally conceive it.

Descartes thus becomes the author of the most famous phrase in Western philosophy: Cognito ergo sum, or, in his original French, Je pense, donc je suis. – I think, therefore I exist. With roots in St. Augustine, this is certainly one of the catchiest ideas yet created by the human mind.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: descartes; existence; inconsequentiality; maudlinmumbling; myheadhurts; philosophy; proof; renedescartes; startthebombing; winecuresthis
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To: Hank Kerchief; thinktwice; Aquinasfan
Pardon my piquing phrase, "...Rand spins out incongruously into mysticism."

Rand spins out whenever she confronts the philosophically/personally "mystical" in life, i.e., wherever she find anything she cannot explain in dianoetic/practical ways. Effectively she states that any individual must deny anything outside of an experience of material cause and effect. She contradicts herself by saying that while her A=A, what another has found to be A does not equal her A, if he cannot present her its perfect set of natural evidences.

In doing so, she sets up self as her own mystical basis for "objective" truth. (Mystical, because she cannot through her own objectivism necessarily prove that her A is A for someone who is not aware of it, nor that another's A is anything she should believe, until all required natural evidence as been presented her.) Instead of humbly allowing for the possiblity that something not proven to her may yet exist and placing reasonable limits on herself, she sets her sentience up, unreasonably as her own god, her own source. In that way, her code of self-based objectivism becomes her own mystical source. Instead of allowing for what is mystical, she tries to deny anything mystical, but instead, her principle becomes that her own sentience is mystically/inexplicably, her basis for truth.

Concomitantly, she never finds a consistent basis for truth for all, despite propounding her objecivity.

One way of pointing out this absurdity, is to ask what happens to someone's truth, when he gets Alzheimers and forgets the natural evidence of it? (A ceases be A -- hate it when that happens.)

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39bd07f86cb4.htm
301 posted on 02/08/2003 7:20:02 PM PST by unspun ("Who do you say that I AM?")
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To: unspun
#301
302 posted on 02/08/2003 7:39:03 PM PST by unspun ("Who do you say that I AM?")
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To: unspun
I thought #301, therefore I found myself in #302.
303 posted on 02/08/2003 7:40:15 PM PST by unspun ("Who do you say that I AM?")
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To: unspun
I'm still thinking.
304 posted on 02/08/2003 7:42:06 PM PST by unspun ("Who do you say that I AM?")
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To: unspun
I think we are becoming familiar with the phenomenon of those who embrace reality for what it is, and then after they discover their embrace as very little, their neurotic attempt at resisting whatever is not in that embrace. This happens especially to those who against their will are beginning to understand what it is for a human being to die.
305 posted on 02/08/2003 8:26:52 PM PST by cornelis
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To: unspun
Did you catch this thread? Why I Became a Conservative: A British liberal discovers England's greatest philosopher.
306 posted on 02/08/2003 9:40:35 PM PST by cornelis
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To: unspun; cornelis
Oops. In 301: In that way, her code of self-based objectivism becomes her own mystical source dogma.

c. thank for the link, should be a good read. Yes. in addition to trying to avoid the subject of death, God is also ignored. The idea of a Person who has predetermined what is up and what is down, especially morally, is repulsive to one who would assert self over all.

307 posted on 02/08/2003 10:16:13 PM PST by unspun (SOME OF THESE GUYS ARE SADDAM IL....)
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To: cornelis
The question was (there were other questions): does existence = reason?

If you say this is what the question was, it's new to me.

Define 'existence' and then define 'reason' and then tell me if they share inclusively common terms.

If they don't then the equation doesn't work. In other words, if 'reason' is dependent upon existence as an Axiom, as a premise for reason, then they can't be 'equal' can they?

308 posted on 02/08/2003 11:36:54 PM PST by LogicWings
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To: thinktwice
Thank you for the new word (new to me) that must have a significant place within philosophical dialogue. Need I wonder why I've never heard it?

Then I have repaid thee for the ping. As common a fallacy you will never find as this one. It is the father of the thousand camels in the camel yard, as the Arabs used to say.

You have never heard of it because it is used to bury a plethora of philosophical skeletons in countless metaphysical dead end closets. Once revealed it can bump in the night no more.

eudaemonism - sent me diving for my dictionary, but there is a check mark by the root, so I've been there, so hard to keep all these obscure definitions in use.

How far we are from such a concept. How abstract - an emotion generated from right actions taken. A depth of thought rarely conceived of today.

309 posted on 02/09/2003 12:07:34 AM PST by LogicWings
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To: Hank Kerchief
It is a moral issue.

Thanks!




To which he replied, "No, thank you."
310 posted on 02/09/2003 12:09:12 AM PST by LogicWings
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To: unspun
One way of pointing out this absurdity, is to ask what happens to someone's truth, when he gets Alzheimers and forgets the natural evidence of it? (A ceases be A -- hate it when that happens.)

With reference to post 300, The problem in the above statement lies in the fact that you are reifying the concept "truth"; you've assumed that truth is a material object and - in so doing -- you've implied that truth forgotten is no longer truth.

311 posted on 02/09/2003 1:00:17 AM PST by thinktwice
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Comment #312 Removed by Moderator

Comment #313 Removed by Moderator

To: DrNo
"I think I think, therefore, I think I am!"

I think I thunk a thought I think, therefore a thought I thunk I think I am.

314 posted on 02/09/2003 1:50:13 AM PST by slimer
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To: slimer
I thought so.
315 posted on 02/09/2003 4:40:54 AM PST by Cvengr
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To: thinktwice
When, where, why, and from whom did the concept "demon" originate?

When the damned things pop up into our perception, at many varied places over time, because they felt like it and as fallen angels they were originally created by God with independent volition. Go attempt to explain physical phenomenon such as a chest of drawers moving on its own across the floor or knickknacks being tossed about without proximate cause. Rare events, but nonetheless very obviously discernible when they occur.

316 posted on 02/09/2003 4:46:31 AM PST by Cvengr
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To: Hank Kerchief
On what grounds does one who, "might sin all their life," receive any, "reward," at all? What are they being rewarded for?

My statement is easily misunderstood. Obviously we are rewarded for good works after salvation. The point made is that if one gambles to remain unrepentant for most of their life before the first death, and only repent later in life, they afforded less time to remian obedient and failed to take advantage of past lost opportunites to work within His will.

Since we have volition, we can compare how a possible world may have arisen had we remianed obedient to Him rather than fallen away. The former is always preferable. Sa;vation is independent of our good works, but our rewards in heaven will be based upon our evidence and good work. Thank You Lord.

317 posted on 02/09/2003 4:55:34 AM PST by Cvengr
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To: Cvengr
Obviously we are rewarded for good works after salvation

What is factuallly obvious, is that those on earth guaranteeing salvation are rewarded by followers before salvation.

318 posted on 02/09/2003 11:05:41 AM PST by thinktwice
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To: Cvengr
When, where, why, and from whom did the concept "demon" originate?

You've missed the point in my question. Let's start again with just one question. When did the concept "demon" originate in history?

I'd guess that the mental state associated with "demonic possesion" has been with mankind for countless milleniums, but when did that state become associated with the devil?

The Devil -- there's another concept that must have some history, too. The Bible, perhaps?

319 posted on 02/09/2003 11:25:32 AM PST by thinktwice
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To: thinktwice
The Devil -- there's another concept that must have some history, too. The Bible, perhaps?

Umm. . . The Koran, perhaps?

.

320 posted on 02/09/2003 12:29:18 PM PST by GeekDejure
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