Sunday, May 4, 2008

Descartes Cogito argument

In the second meditation Descartes starts out by doubting everything the world around him, his memories and perceptions and so forth. He even starts to wonder about his own existence until he come up with probably the most important and influential statement in philosophical writing the Cogito argument. Descartes starts to think about his existence and everything else’s existence and comes to one important conclusion. That if he is able to doubt his existence then he must exist in at least some for. Even if a demon or divine deceiver was tricking you with what you say, heard, tasted, touched and so on was fake he himself is some form had to exist to be able to think these thoughts. So out of this pondering of existence comes the famous line “I think, there for I am”.