Planned Maintenance scheduled March 2nd, 2023 at 01:00 AM UTC (March 1st, We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup, Ticket smash for [status-review] tag: Part Deux. This being is considered as either real or ideal. Current answers are mostly wrong or not getting the point. No, he hasn't. The argument begins with an assumption or rule. Why should I need say either statements? Here is my original argument as well, although it might be hard to understand( In a way it is circular logic, meaning that I propose to oppose Descartess argument through contradiction, and this requires a discussion to understand): Therefore differences and similarities had to be explored. It is a wonderful elegant argument, that demonstrates a metaphysical fact with logic and experience together. Two of the iterations are noted, which: Note that Descartes distinguishes between thoughts and doubts, so the word thoughts is used in a somewhat more limited fashion than the arbitrary subject matter of thinking. Again, the same cannot be said of a computer/ machine. 3. It also means that I'm thinking, which also means that I exist. The argument is logically valid. So you agree that Descartes argument is flawed? I will have to look this up and bring this into my discussions in drama about why characters on stage must speak aloud their "thoughts" or have a voice-over to relay those thoughts to the audience. And say that doubt may or may not be thought. After several iterations, Descartes is left with untrusted thoughts (or doubts as your quote has it). But, much more importantly, "cogito ergo sum" doesn't appear at all in the strongest formulation of Descartes' argument, The Second Meditation. (If I am thinking, then I am thinking. [duplicate]. The argument is not about the meaning of words, so that is irrelevant. Rule 1 clashes with Rule 2. Read the book, and you will find which further metaphysical and empirical conclusions Descartes did obtained, leaded by this statement. Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Dayton. An argument is valid if and only if there is no possible situation in which all the premises are true and the conclusion is false' Click to expand And what if there is a possible situation in which all the premises are true but the conclusion is false. "There is an idea: therefore, I am," it may be contended represents a compulsion of thought; but it is not a rational compulsion. He defines "thought" really broadly -- so much so, in fact, that circularity objections (like the ones /u/nukefudge alludes elsewhere in this thread) really don't make any sense. So, yes, an "I" is presupposed (kind of), but Descartes eloquently shows that if I am thinking that I exist, then I have to exist. The argument is logically valid. That is, one can think thoughts and one can think doubts, which Descartes treats as quite separate categories. Inference is only a valid mode of gaining information subject to accurate observations of experience. Stack Exchange network consists of 181 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. When you do change the definition you are then no longer arguing against cogito ergo sum, but rather a strawman argument that you can defeat because of an error you added in. (Though this is again not necessary as doubt is a type of thought, sufficient to prove the original.). The argument by itself does not even need the methodic doubt, the rest of the metaphysical meditations could be wrong, and still the argument would stand correct, it is independent of all those things. One cant give as a reason to think one I am saying that I need not make the second assumption, and I can establish the statement I think, therefore I must be, without that second assumption. Why did the Soviets not shoot down US spy satellites during the Cold War? So, we should treat Descartes' argument as a meditative argument, not a logical one. Also, even if the distinction between doubt and thought were meaningful in this context, that would merely lead to the equivalent statement, "I doubt therefor I am. If Mary is on vacation, then she will not be able to attend the baby shower today. Does the double-slit experiment in itself imply 'spooky action at a distance'? 2023. Who are the experts?Our certified Educators are real professors, teachers, and scholars who use their academic expertise to tackle your toughest questions. That doubt is a thought comes from observing thought. All the mistakes made in the sciences happen, in my view, simply because at the beginning we make judgments too hastily, and accept as our first principles matters which are obscure and of which we do not have a clear and distinct notion. - Descartes. . With this slight tweak the act of doubt can now act as proof, as I must be in order for me to be able to doubt. Its like if I were to call your argument invalid because I don't think you should use the word must. No thing, even a proton or a black hole has been deemed to last for ever. Is Descartes' argument valid? An action cannot happen without something existing that perform it. Or it is simply true by definition. The logical side works, arguing wording is just semantics. They are both omnipresent yet ineffable, undefinable and inescapable! WebDescartes says that 'I think therefore I exist' (whatever it is, argument or claim or 'intuition' or whatever we think it is) is seen to be certainly true by 'the natural light of reason'. Descartes did not mean to do this, but establish a logic through which he can deduce existence not define it. There are none left. Great answer. Basically doubt alone can never breed certainty and absolute doubt is never even possible! Hence Descartes' argument doesn't require discarding absolutely everything - just the things that can conceivably not correspond with reality. How would Descartes respond to Wittgenstein's objection to radical doubt? Let's start with the "no". Descartes has made a mistake in logic which has not been caught for the past 350 years. document.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Once thought stops, you don't exist. No. It is Descartes who says doubt is thought. Although unlikely, its at least possible that we are in a cosmic dream or being deceived by a powerful demon, and so we cannot know with absolute certainty that the world around us actually exists. Answers must portray an accurate picture of the issue and the philosophical literature. WebInteresting, same argument could hold valid for all modern technological inventions or innovations since the Wheel - however mankind has always progressed and Answers should be reasonably substantive. Thinking things exist. First things first: read Descartes' Meditations and Replies. Read my privacy policy for more information. Yes, we can. A fetus, however, doesnt think. So on a logical level it is true but not terribly That everything is a superset which includes observation or "doubting that doubt is thought", because doubt is thought comes from observation. However with your modification cogito ergo sum is not rendered false. An Argument against Descartes's radical doubt, Am I being scammed after paying almost $10,000 to a tree company not being able to withdraw my profit without paying a fee, Derivation of Autocovariance Function of First-Order Autoregressive Process. Let B be the object: Thought, Descartes's Idea: I can apply A to all objects except B, because even if I am able to apply it to B, A is also B, and hence B for sure is, therefore " I am". In this argument, propositions (1) and (2) are premises and proposition (3) is a conclusion. Until Mulla Sadra a 17th century Muslim philosopher who brought about an entire revolution to peripatetic philosophy by arguing from logical and ontological precedence of Being as well as its indefinition and irreducibility that only being captures the true essence of God as God and Being seem to be identical in these properties! Accordingly, seeing that our senses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us This is a thought exercise, that can be completed without the use of sight, sound, or any other sense. Kant, meanwhile, saw that the intellect depends on something prior. Doubt may or may not be thought ( No Rule here since this is a generic statement which exhausts the Universe of possibilities). This brings us back to the essence of the Cogito, however the question remains, did I really need to deduce my own existence if it can be shown that it is an evident prior intuition. But Descartes has begun by doubting everything. Although fetuses develop the capacity to think, we dont actually start to think until were born. are patent descriptions/images in public domain? 25 Feb 2023 03:29:04 For Avicenna therefore existence of self was self-evident and needless of demonstration and any attempt at demonstration would be imperfect (imperfections of the Cogito being a testimony). No amount of removing doubt can remove all doubt, if you begin from a point of doubting everything!, and therefore cannot establish anything for certain. Since the thought occurs, the thinker must exist, as the thought cannot occur independently, and the thinker must be thinking, as without the thinker's thinking their would be no thought. Let me explain why. This is all too consistent with the idea of Muslim philosophers including Avicenna that self as a being is not thoughts (whereas Descartes believed that self is a substance whose whole nature consist in thoughts). Now, you're right that (1) and (2) can't be true without (3) being true. I am not saying that doubt is not thought, but pointing out that at this point in reasoning where we have no extra assumptions, I can say that doubt might or might not be thought. The point is that this rule applies only when you do not have a logical reason to ignored it. I think you are conflating his presentation with his process - what we read is his communication with us, not the process of reasoning/logic in itself. The second thing these statements have in common, is that they lose sight of the broader evolution of human history. If cogito is taken as an inference then it does make a mistake of presuming its conclusion, and much more besides: the "I", the "think", the "am", and a good chunk of conceptual language required to understand what those mean, including truth and inference. the doubts corresponded with reality), and their existence required a thinker. But I think that Descartes would regard his own process as inadequate, which evidently he did not, if he saw himself as taking as his first principle/assumption the idea that he could doubt everything. How would Descartes respond to Wittgenstein's objection to radical doubt? WebHere's a version of the argument (I'm not a Descartes scholar, so I don't know whether this is what he was actually saying, but oh well): I am thinking. I am saying that I need not make the second assumption, and I can establish the statement I think, therefore I must be, without that No matter how much you doubt this it remains logical. In argument one and two you make an error. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. Are there any of my points that you disagree with as well? If that one idea suggests a holder-together of ideas, how it can do so is a Now all A is a type of B, and all B requires C. (Doubt is a subcategory of thought, and thinking is an action that cannot happen without a thinker.) This is a shared account that is only used for notifications. I apply A to B first. This seems to me a logical fallacy. TL;DR: Doubting doubt does not invalidate the conclusion that something is doing something, and thus something exists. As an example of a first-person argument, Descartes's thought experiment is illustrative. But validity is not enough for a conclusion to be true, also the argument has to be solid: the premises have to be true. It appears this has still not gotten my point across clearly so I will now analyze this argument from the current question. Awake or asleep, your mind is always active. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. But this can be re written as: then B might be, given A applied to B. I can doubt everything. Indeed, if we happen to have a database about individual X containing "X thinks" but not "X is", due to oversight, we are justified to infer the latter from the former, and with more background assumptions even that "X is human". This is an interactive blog post, where the philosophyzer gives you a stimulus and questions, and asks you to provide the answers! The phrase was also found in the Second Meditation Part 1 (Cogito Ergo Sum) in Descartes Meditations, in which he argues. At this point I want to pinpoint it out, that since I or Descartes, whoever does the thinking, are allowed to doubt everything, we can also doubt if doubt is thought. Perhaps you are actually a brain in a vat hooked up to electrodes simulating your current experience. In that, we can look at the concepts/structures he's proposing, and we can certainly put forth a charge similar to what Nietzsche did (depending on our other notions - as mentioned elsewhere). First off, Descartes isn't offering a logical argument per se. Do you not understand anything I say? I have just had a minor eye surgery, so kindly bear with me for the moment, if I do not respond fast enough. If all of that is made into a background then cogito can be made into a valid inference (but that defeats its purpose). This time around, the premises concern Descartes's headspace. NDE research suggests that the mind continues even when the heart/ brain has flat lined, even when EKG and EEG monitors show no trace of electrical activity. There is no logical reason to question this again, as it is redundant. I will read it a few times again, just that I am recovering from an eye surgery right now. Affiliate links may be used on this page and in Philosophyzer articles, but they do not impact on the price that you pay and they do help me to get this information to you for free. Will read it a few times again, as it is a type of thought sufficient. Your mind is always active Meditations and Replies ineffable, undefinable and inescapable he argues and inescapable Rule only... Argument as a meditative argument, propositions ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) ca n't be true without 3... A generic statement which exhausts the Universe of possibilities ) philosophyzer gives you a stimulus and questions, thus! 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