I Think, Therefore I Think I Think

4/25/2014

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Rodin's Thinker, begun in 1880 was originally part of a larger commission celebrating Dante's Divine Comedy, but it just as easily could have been dedicated to René Descartes—he of the second most famous line in all of philosophy: cogito ergo sum or I think, therefore I am. (Know thyself is surely #1, though these rankings are just personal speculations and therefore likely wrong.)

Descartes' is known as the "father of modern philosophy" due to the first two of his Meditations on First Philosophy in which he laid out his famous methodic doubt—the systematic process he used of being skeptical about the truth of one's beliefs. Though it may sound familiar, this was actually a more nuanced doubt than the radical nihilism of the Skeptics of Ancient Greece. Descartes did not give up the search for truth believing that nothing could ever be known—he instead tried to reject any ideas that could be doubted in the hopes of finding one solid rock upon which knowledge could be built. Initially, Descartes arrived at only a single principle: thought exists. He wrestled deeply with all his doubts until he concluded in the end that if he doubted, then something or someone must be doing the doubting, therefore the very fact that he doubted proved his existence.

The original Skeptics knew, of course, that this line of reasoning was circular and could not be trusted. Even Descartes' doubt and existence could be doubted. The mind, like the senses, can be fallible. Brain tumors can lead to crimes as heinous as pedophilia. We might merely be part of a dream. Or perhaps we are all in a computer simulation. As I said in tenet #2 of my evolutionary philosophy, all knowledge is probabilistic. By demanding one certainty, Descartes committed himself to proffering several fundamental errors. Because of his insistence though, the philosophical debate of his age was shifted from "what is true" to "of what can I be certain?" Possibly without realising it, Descartes changed the medieval search for an authoritative guarantor of truth from God to humanity, since the traditional concept of "truth" implies an external authority while "certainty" relies instead on the judgment of the individual. This was an anthropocentric revolution, raising the human being to the level of a free agent acting with autonomous reason. It was the basis for modernity in the philosophical sense, and for this we should be grateful.

Here are few quotes of his worth remembering before we test Descartes fully in my survival of the fittest philosophers.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.

The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellencies, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it.

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Rene Descartes (1596-1650 CE) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the father of modern philosophy, and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings.

Survives
Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to develop the natural sciences. For him, philosophy was a thinking system that embodied all knowledge, and he expressed it in this way: “Thus, all Philosophy is like a tree, of which Metaphysics is the root, Physics the trunk, and all the other sciences the branches that grow out of this trunk. By the science of Morals, I understand the highest and most perfect, which, presupposing an entire knowledge of the other sciences, is the last degree of wisdom.” Logic and reason are the fundamental tools by which all experience is turned into knowledge. The questions of philosophy guide our explorations. As we have filled in the tree of life with our knowledge, a picture of morality and wisdom is indeed coming into focus.

Descartes wrote a response to skepticism about the existence of the external world. He argued that sensory perceptions come to him involuntarily, and are not willed by him. They are external to his senses, and according to Descartes, this is evidence of the existence of something outside of his mind, and thus, an external world. Who but the most vain and childish can doubt that the external world exists?

Needs to Adapt
Descartes was a major figure in 17th-century continental rationalism (a view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification), later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought (theory that knowledge arises from sense experience) consisting of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Hume. Descartes attempted to construct a system of knowledge discarding perception as unreliable and instead admitting only deduction as a method. The extreme forms of rationalism and empiricism are just that - extreme. The truth lies in the middle. Knowledge comes from using reason to understand our sense experiences. The iterative nature of the scientific method is what hones this process towards truth. In a large and changing universe, eternal absolutes are extremely difficult to prove. We must act based on the best available knowledge. This leaves us almost entirely with probabilistic knowledge, which means we must act with confidence and caution appropriate to the probability, being especially careful in realms where knowledge is uncertain and consequences are large.

Descartes is also known for his theory of dualism, suggesting that the body works like a machine, that it has the material properties of extension and motion, and that it follows the laws of physics, whereas the mind (or soul), on the other hand, was described as a nonmaterial entity that lacks extension and motion, and does not follow the laws of physics. Descartes argued that the mind interacts with the body at the pineal gland. This form of dualism proposes that the mind controls the body, but that the body can also influence the otherwise rational mind, such as when people act out of passion. Most of the previous accounts of the relationship between mind and body had been uni-directional. Very nearly extinct. At least Descartes proposed a bi-directional relationship between the mind and the body. While the exact way that consciousness arises from the body is still a mystery, a much wider mind-body interaction is universally accepted now.

Gone Extinct
Descartes is best known for the philosophical statement "Cogito ergo sum"; I think, therefore I am. I feel, therefore I am. The universe responds to my actions, therefore I am. Others detect me, therefore I am. There is much evidence for our existence and the existence of others and other things. Our inner thoughts are actually the least convincing of these arguments.

Descartes believed that only humans have minds. This led him to the belief that animals cannot feel pain, and Descartes' practice of vivisection (the dissection of live animals) became widely used throughout Europe until the Enlightenment. How very sad for other animals is the ignorance and hubris of humans.
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20 Comments

Dan

4/26/2014 07:09:55 pm

Rene Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender asks him if he wants a beer. Rene says, "I think not," and he disappears.

@EdGibney link

4/28/2014 01:00:03 am

Ha! Hadn't heard that one before. : )

Dan

4/26/2014 07:12:05 pm

"How very sad for other animals is the ignorance and hubris of humans."

very true, and unfortunate that this will continue to be true for all the foreseeable future.

Shawn link

5/6/2014 09:02:33 am

I never thought about philosophy like this before.Heard about Descartes but Here is the first I learned about him.Great work you guys !!

atthatmatt link

10/10/2015 04:32:30 pm

I don't follow the part where cogito ergo sum has gone extinct. All of those other "examples" depend on the infrastructure of thinking to function, so they aren't equally fundamental. They all presuppose thinking. The whole point of cogito ergo sum is that ALL of the evidence of other things can be doubted and is therefore less reliable than the evidence that something must exist to be doing the doubting.

I'm not an academic, but I am reasonably well informed on the subject, and I've never seen anything that replaced, or seriously threatened, cogito ergo sum as the foundation of philosophy.

I do agree with the critiques which point out that deriving "I" from the act of thinking is technically a step too far. All we know for sure is that thinking is happening, but as long as you're flexible about your identity it's okay to summarize the idea as "I am"

The thing is that cogito ergo sum is not probabilistic. The only uncertainty involved is the lingering question of what reality actually is. Discovering that reality is different than we assumed would cause all of our models to pivot around cogito ergo sum. Maybe our reality is inside of God's mind, so all matter and energy are literally the same "stuff" as thoughts. I suppose maybe "I" would be God, or maybe we're each shards of God, something like that, but cogito ergo sum stands because when God doubts its own reality it knows that it is thinking and therefore that something exists. Not at 99% certainty, at 100% certainty. Everything else is <100% because to entertain it we have to put side doubts.

Cogito ergo sum is the most reliable sentence in all of philosophy so I really don't understand why it's listed as extinct and dismissed with a couple sentences.

@EdGibney link

10/10/2015 05:48:10 pm

I haven't seen anything that thinks cogito ergo sum is the foundation of philosophy. From among the several technical criticisms in the wikipedia entry:

"Many philosophical skeptics and particularly radical skeptics would say that indubitable knowledge does not exist, is impossible, or has not been found yet, and would apply this criticism to the assertion that the "cogito" is beyond doubt."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum#Criticisms)

In other words, I think, therefore I think I think.

atthatmatt link

10/10/2015 09:13:48 pm

Aw, come on, quoting wikipedia? I thought we were better than that.

Also, I'd appreciate it if you could restrain yourself from hitting the "reply" button until you'd had a chance to think about the argument. I made an argument which deliberately includes your points, so please respond to my points. I can check wikipedia on my own.

@EdGibney link

10/11/2015 07:35:23 am

Excuse the brevity. I had a lot going on and was trying to respond quickly rather than extremely thoroughly. And I used wikipedia because I do so to dispatch historical arguments that have already been heavily discussed and annotated by others. I know you *can* check wikipedia on your own, but if you say "I've never seen anything that replaced, or seriously threatened, cogito ergo sum as the foundation of philosophy." -- that makes me think you haven't checked it.

"The thing is that cogito ergo sum is not probabilistic. The only uncertainty involved is the lingering question of what reality actually is."

No. The questions of "I" and "think" and "am" are all still lingering. What am I? When in evolutionary history did "I" first "think"? What does it mean to exist? Just how, as you put it, flexible must I be about identity? 0%?

Look, I don't seriously doubt that I think or that I am, I'm just saying that it's not *the* solid bedrock that Descartes' asserted it was. In the rest of my series on the Survival of the Fittest Philosophers, I don't believe any of the people I examined thought so either. Cogito ergo sum is just not considered the foundation of philosophy.

atthatmatt link

10/11/2015 04:36:21 pm

I was too brief as well. By "I've never seen anything..." I mean that while I haven't made a job out of studying the subject I have seen a lot and none of it has appeared to challenge the solidity of cogito ergo sum. By "the foundation of philosophy" I mean it's my opinion that, since I've never seen anything more reliable, that cogito ergo sum is the foundation whether anyone else admits it or not. The rebuttals listed in wikipedia are a perfect example. I don't see how any of them breaks cogito ergo sum and presumably that's the section where the editors would put the best rebuttals.

The fact that words are imperfect is not a flaw in the theories that depend on words. Of course a sentence as short as "I think, therefore I am" can't possibly be the entire theory. It's a summary. Pulling out each individual word results in 1/4 of a summary. Anything looks uncertain when you do that to it.

Appealing to a majority vote of philosophers doesn't do much either. I've never been all that impressed by the fact that they each seem to have produced one or two really solid ideas mixed in with dozens of shoddy ideas and a couple horrible ideas. It's almost like people who get lost in their thoughts on purpose eventually have a hard time finding their way back to reality.

That's why I didn't say "Descartes was right" I said "cogito ergo sum is the shiznit." I get a much better philosophy by surveying all of the work everyone's done and putting together something consistent than by following any one person "down the rabbit hole."

I'm not sure if you could ever get enough philosophers to agree on something to call it the official(T) foundation of philosophy. Buuuuut.........if you want to even think about having the discussion you have to start with cogito ergo sum. If you want to play devil's advocate you have to start with cogito ergo sum. If you want to commit suicide you have to start with cogito ergo sum. If you want to make a grilled cheese sandwich you have to start with cogito ergo sum. If you don't like the word "foundation" maybe "fountainhead" or "prerequisite" works better? You can't even process this argument prior to rebutting it without starting from cogito ergo sum. It's more fundamental than anything else I can describe. Maybe that says more about my limitations than about cogito ergo sum.

As for the details, I think it's important not to put too much weight on colloquial interpretations of "I" or "think" or "am." If we're trying to describe something that is fundamental to philosophy then those terms carry a lot of weight. Like all theories as the root of a science you describe the inherent uncertainty when you go into detail. But the reliability of cogito ergo sum is in the phrase, not in the individual words. It's the relationship between whatever "I" and "think" and "am" is that's reliable.

It's describing a pattern. The substrate hosting the pattern is unclear but the pattern is clear. Like looking through wavy glass. We don't know what "am" means because we can't get outside of existence, but we know that doubting existence is nonsense because without that host substrate there can't be a pattern. Since we can't get away from the pattern, we know something exists to host it. Focusing on the "I think" part is like leaving a movie in the first act and missing the twist. Patterns (thinking) are just arrangements of something else, which means a pattern is proof that there is something else (am). "I" is just a convenient way to label the awareness that's capable of replicating patterns (imagination) and comparing them. Given how much of philosophy has been hobbled by doubt that anything exists at all, that there is any reference point from which to build a solid model, cogito ergo sum couldn't come soon enough.

@EdGibney link

10/12/2015 09:07:31 am

I really don't like to play the part of the skeptic or the analytical philosopher who's buried his head in language, but both of those are what undermines the intent of cogito ergo sum. Word by word, and as a whole. Again, I agree pragmatically that we all believe "I think" and "I am", and we all must do so to move ahead and get on with our lives, but that alone was not Descartes' intent. He asserted that this was an undoubtable bedrock upon which all philosophy can be built. But that's just not possible. We can never know what we don't know. And because the unknown can even include hypotheses that are untestable (as is in the thought experiment that drove us here), we can never disprove all possible unknowns. We will always be left with some small doubt. Logically, we have to accept that doubt, as slight as it may be.

Some philosophers have looked at this fundamental doubt and turned to nihilism and solipsism. But only in their philosophies. Pragmatically, they still live their lives based on the overwhelming probability that we do exist in a universe with certain rules that we all go on discovering and abiding by. Maybe you would like to say that cogito ergo sum is the best first assumption upon which to build the rest of a philosophy, but that's all it can ever be, just another first assumption. That is why Descartes' insistence that it is Truth (with a capital T) has gone extinct.

But I'm okay with all of this. One of the main tenets that I build my philosophy on is that knowledge is probabilistic. I've embraced the uncertainty, which means all of my assertions are subject to revision in the face of future discoveries. As it must be, even for cogito ergo sum.

Isn't that why you are going on thinking about alternate realities? To try and make sure cogito ergo sum is right? To try to extinguish any doubt? But if Descartes was really right, then you wouldn't feel the need to check. You would already have the certainty that Descartes tried to claim was his.

atthatmatt link

10/12/2015 04:07:11 pm

This might be unfair, but I'm assuming if there was a good source to backup the assertion that serious philosophers consider cogito ergo sum extinct-ish you would have cited it by now. I've looked for such an argument but never found one.

Solipsism and nihilism are great examples of, in my opinion, misinterpreting cogito ergo sum (as far as I can tell an awful lot of mistakes are the result of misinterpreting cogito ergo sum, but whatevs). Cogito ergo sum doesn't actually say anything about the nature of existence. CES describes a Truth about perception, not about reality. CES cannot possibly be a mere assumption because it is re-proved every time we try to doubt it. Something exists because something is thinking.

In what form the thinking thing exists is an open question. That's why I described future insights into the nature of existence causing us to "pivot" around CES. It's like CES is a camera obscura in the wall and we're looking at the projected light that made it through the pinhole. We can track the light back to the pinhole, and we can get some hints about what's on the other side, but we haven't figured out another way to see what's on the other side of the wall yet. We do know that the pinhole is reliable, though.

So, I don't doubt CES. Doubting CES is how you prove CES.

But I also don't misinterpret CES as saying anything about the fundamental nature of reality (like solipsism and nihilism). CES is a Truth about perception. I can try to derive conclusions about reality from it and I can use it as a launching point for investigations into reality that can gather more perceptions.

Radical doubt, or "probabilistic knowledge", is what exposed CES as True because radical doubt actually proves CES.

@EdGibney link

10/13/2015 09:09:28 pm

1. I don't think you'll find anyone using the term "gone extinct" with regard to philosophical ideas other than me. As far as I can tell, it's my invention (and hubris) to catalogue philosophers' ideas by whether they: survive, need to adapt, or have gone extinct. It's my fun way of comparing previous thoughts to my own assertions as a self-described evolutionary philosopher. Obviously the ideas haven't technically gone extinct because we are still talking about them, but so far I still stand by my judgments that concepts in that category don't hold water any more.

2. It sounds to me like your latest argument has descended into a circle, saying, "I doubt therefore I doubt." And without being able to offer any definitions of "I", "think", "doubt", or "exist." And without explaining why mental doubts are special and cannot themselves be doubted to exist in exactly the same way other arguments can be undermined. I can try to make something up to explain how to doubt your "doubt proves existence" argument (e.g. time and space do not unfold the way we think they do and an evil god has tape recorded all thoughts ahead of time to be played into the shared consciousness of the universe that we mistakenly...blah, blah, blah...) but more powerfully, I can point to the fact that maybe we can't yet conceive of the reason how to doubt your "doubt proves existence" but it just might be discovered some day. That's the power of hyperbolic doubt.

3. As for finding a philosopher to cite who agrees CES can be doubted, I waded through the 25,000 words of Stanford's Encyclopaedia of Philosophy entry on this subject and found famous philosophers like Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell weighing in against Descartes, as well as a whole army of less-well-known academic publishers. However (!), if you would please take the time to read through it (I don't want to spoil it for you), I think you'll find that the most damning arguments against CES were admitted by Descartes himself who then attempted a laughably sad justification that God would not deceive him like that.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/

4. Thank you for pushing to tell me where I need to expand my explanations. When I first sketched out my Evolutionary Philosophy, I knew that it could have been a several-thousand-page undertaking if I wanted to thoroughly review every major concept in the history of philosophy but I didn't want to spend the time on things that were generally agreed to by people "on my side." I'm happy to dive in where needed though for readers like you. Especially where first principles are involved as that is so often the root of disagreement.

atthatmatt link

10/14/2015 12:55:27 am

Okay, "I" means the system that is self-aware, "think" means the flow of changes within that system which converts information, "doubt" means the imagination sub-system that hosts hypothetical information, and "exist" means the pattern in reality that allows for I, think, and doubt. At least, that's the short version of how I model them in my grey matter. To be honest, it feels a liiiiiitle bit disingenuous that you'd use that as a rebuttal when you must know that Descartes himself said Cogito was basically an intuition with an obvious inference (I am -> I exist) and that basically everything after that was an analysis of what the words you listed mean.

Also, something that feels disingenuous, is that since you obviously read the essay you linked to you couldn't have helped but notice that your own source says: "there are two main kinds of interpretive camps...The other camp contends that hyperbolic doubt is bounded; that is, that the cogito, and a few other special truths, are in a lockbox of sorts, utterly protected from even the most hyperbolic doubt" so you should at least be framing your dismissal of Cogito as an unsettled argument.

As far as I can tell the name-dropping other philosophers doesn't hold up either because, while they might have disagreed with Descartes, I don't see how they disagree with me. For example, Russell apparently complained that "I" is unjustified, which doesn't concern me since I define cogito ergo sum as proving that something is thinking and exactly what that something is remains uncertain.

I don't have any use for the arguments about whether or not God exists. They're superfluous. The Cartesian Circle, therefore, is irrelevant.

So, at its strongest, your rebuttal is merely that some philosophers disagree...which should be par for the course. I'm definitely not following your logic that Cogito is extinct.

How do you even conceptualize that "something exists" could be wrong without first assuming that something exists? You'd have to define doubt as a thing which does not exist. It's fine to say, like, that a unicorn doesn't exist, but in this case we're talking about thoughts about unicorns, which must exist for us to use them to talk about how real unicorns don't exist.

@EdGibney link

10/14/2015 07:35:52 am

"your own source says: "there are two main kinds of interpretive camps...The other camp contends that hyperbolic doubt is bounded; that is, that the cogito, and a few other special truths, are in a lockbox of sorts, utterly protected from even the most hyperbolic doubt" so you should at least be framing your dismissal of Cogito as an unsettled argument."

1. The key word there is *interpretive* camps. They are camps that argue about how to *interpret* what Descartes believed. Not camps about what those philosophers actually believe.
2. Pretty much ALL main philosophical arguments are unsettled. I don't think I need to caveat that. I'm always just expressing my opinion and justifying it.

"As far as I can tell the name-dropping other philosophers doesn't hold up either because, while they might have disagreed with Descartes, I don't see how they disagree with me."

We aren't talking about you. We're talking about Descartes and whether or not his intended arguments are relevant anymore.

"I don't have any use for the arguments about whether or not God exists. They're superfluous. The Cartesian Circle, therefore, is irrelevant."

Ah but they were necessary for Descartes!!! As he himself said:

"Admittedly my nature is such that so long as I perceive something very clearly and distinctly I cannot but believe it to be true. But my nature is also such that I cannot fix my mental vision continually on the same thing, so as to keep perceiving it clearly; and often the memory of a previously made judgement may come back, when I am no longer attending to the arguments which led me to make it. And so other arguments can now occur to me which might easily undermine my opinion, if I were unaware of [the true] God; and I should thus never have true and certain knowledge about anything, but only shifting and changeable opinions."

As the essayist immediately remarked about this:

"Granted, this indirect doubt is exceedingly hyperbolic. Even so, it means that we lack fully indefeasible Knowledge."

And THAT is what we are talking about here--whether or not CES is indefeasible Knowledge with a capital K as Descartes asserted that it was.

So, as the essayist states:

"What next? How does Descartes think we're to make epistemic progress if even our epistemic best is subject to hyperbolic doubt? This juncture of the Third Meditation (the end of the fourth paragraph) marks the beginning point of Descartes' notorious efforts to refute the Evil Genius Doubt. His efforts involve an attempt to establish that we are the creatures not of an evil genius, but an all-perfect creator who would not allow us to be deceived about what we clearly and distinctly perceive."

And THAT, is precisely where I've made my judgment that Descartes arguments have fallen into the dustbin of extinction. This is no mere "rebuttal that some philosophers disagree." It is in line with the strong argument I have been making repeatedly and all along that doubt about everything still exists.

"How do you even conceptualize that "something exists" could be wrong without first assuming that something exists?"

I told you already that I don't have to. I just have to say that it's possible we can't even conceptualize the problem...yet. The unknowable future renders all present knowledge as subject to some doubt.

I don't mean to just shut down debate, but the case against Descartes and CES is over for me. If you still want to claim that you have Knowledge with a capital K, I will likely just say "probably", and move on.

atthatmatt link

10/14/2015 01:55:26 pm

So how certain are you that it's impossible to be certain about anything?

@EdGibney link

10/14/2015 02:22:50 pm

100%! ; )

That's the right question in general to ask a skeptic, but I'd get around that by saying I'm sure, based on our present understanding of epistemology, logic, and time, that I'm not Certain of anything, but I *might* become Certain someday when something new is revealed.

atthatmatt link

10/14/2015 04:17:05 pm

I agree that my capabilities and resources are limited and therefore insufficient for many challenges. I agree that the ROI on logical analysis demands I do the best I can with whatever certainty I can acquire.

But in everything, even in uncertainty, the "I" is presupposed. You didn't say that there is uncertainty, rather that you are uncertain. Even if you had, the uncertainty itself is absolute proof that something exists, let alone that something is observing the certainty.

Your position sounds like "I am uncertain that I am uncertain". Take the "I am" out and your position is "uncertain uncertainty". Sounds circular or axiomatic to me. I don't see how you think you're escaping the trilemma.

@EdGibney link

10/14/2015 06:47:44 pm

Okay, that's enough. I'm bored and you're just repeating yourself. I've erased two angry draft replies already and really don't want to be provoked into another one. Let's just stop if you aren't willing to admit Descartes and his Certainty is nonsense. You have your own site to talk about that all you like.

atthatmatt link

10/14/2015 07:35:38 pm

Sorry about that. After reading through the whole page in one go I realized I did indeed drift off topic from your opinion on Descartes's written record to my opinion on radical skepticism. It was not my intention to cause any negative emotions. I hope we can continue to discuss interesting ideas in the future.

@EdGibney link

10/15/2015 05:58:09 am

Of course.

I Think, Therefore I Think I Think

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