Descartes' Discourse marks a watershed in European thought; in it, the author sets out in brief his radical new philosophy, which begins with a proof of the existence of the self (the famous "cogito ergo sum"). Next he deduces from it the existence and nature of God, and ends by offering a radical new account of the physical world and of human and animal nature. Written in everyday language and meant to be read by common people of the day, (...) it swept away all previous philosophical traditions. This new translation is an ideal introduction to Descartes for the general reader. It is accompanied by a substantial introductory essay from Renaissance scholar Ian Maclean that is designed to provide in-depth historical and philosophical context. The essay draws on Descartes' correspondence to examine what brought him to write his great work, and the impact it had on his contemporaries. A detailed section of notes explain Descartes' philosophical terminology and ideas, as well as historical references and allusions. Any reader can feel comfortable diving in to this classic work of Renaissance philosophical thought. (shrink)

One of the foundation-stones of modern philosophy Descartes was prepared to go to any lengths in his search for certainty—even to deny those things that seemed most self-evident. In his Meditations of 1641, and in the Objections and Replies that were included with the original publication, he set out to dismantle and then reconstruct the idea of the individual self and its existence. In doing so, Descartes developed a language of subjectivity that has lasted to this day, and he also (...) took his first steps towards the view that would eventually be expressed in the epigram Cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"), one of modern philosophy's most famous—and most fiercely contested—claims. The first part of a two-volume edition of Descartes' works in Penguin Classics, the second of which is Discourse on Method & Related Writings. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. (shrink)

Cogito ergo sum. "Penso, logo existo." Tal proposição resume o espírito de René Descartes (1596-1650), sábio francês cujo Discurso do método inaugurou a filosofia moderna. Em 1637, em uma época em que a força da razão tal qual a conhecemos era muito mais do que incipiente, e em que textos filosóficos eram escritos em latim, voltados apenas para os doutores, Descartes publicou Discurso do método, redigido em língua vulgar, isto é, o francês. Ele defendia o "uso público" da razão (...) e escreveu o ensaio pensando em uma audiência ampla. Queria que a razão – este privilégio único dos seres humanos – fosse exatamente isso, um privilégio de todos homens dotados de senso comum. Trata-se de um manual da razão, um prático "modo de usar". Moderno, Descartes postulava a idéia de que a razão deveria permear todos os domínios da vida humana e que a apreciação racional era parâmetro para todas as coisas, numa atividade libertadora, voltada contra qualquer dogmatismo. Evidentemente, tal premissa revolucionária lhe causaria problemas, sobretudo no âmbito da igreja: em 1663, vários de seus livros foram colocados no Index. Razão alegada: a aplicação de exercícios metafísicos em assuntos religiosos. Discurso do método mostra por que Descartes – para quem "mente", "espírito", "alma" e "razão" significavam a mesma coisa – marcou indelevelmente a história do pensamento. (shrink)

"Le Discours de la Méthode" (in English, "Discourse on the Method") is a philosophical work written by the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes. This work is considered one of the most influential and foundational texts in the history of Western philosophy. Descartes wrote the "Discourse on the Method" in 1637, and it serves as an introduction to his more comprehensive works, including "Meditations on First Philosophy." The "Discourse" presents Descartes' method of critical thinking and skepticism, which he famously expressed (...) in the statement "Cogito, ergo sum" or "I think, therefore I am." This work is a key contribution to the development of modern philosophy and the Enlightenment. In the "Discourse," Descartes outlines his approach to acquiring knowledge based on reason and doubt, which had a profound impact on the future of philosophy and science. (shrink)

Perhaps the most famous proposition in the history of philosophy is Descartes' cogito 'I think, therefore I am'. Husain Sarkar claims in this provocative interpretation of Descartes that the ancient tradition of reading the cogito as an argument is mistaken. It should, he says, be read as an intuition. Through this interpretative lens, the author reconsiders key Cartesian topics: the ideal inquirer, the role of clear and distinct ideas, the relation of these to the will, memory, the nature (...) of intuition and deduction, the nature, content and elusiveness of 'I', and the tenability of the doctrine of the creation of eternal truths. Finally, the book demonstrates how Descartes' attempt to prove the existence of God is foiled by a new Cartesian Circle. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 43.4 (2005) 490-491 [Access article in PDF] Husain Sarkar. Descartes' Cogito: Saved from the Great Shipwreck. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xviii + 305. Cloth, $65.00. Descartes's first critics attacked his cogito, ergo sum as deficient; his present critics attack it as excessive. Either way, it is an Archimedean point in Descartes's world and merits a book-length (...) study. In this book, Husain Sarkar makes a powerful case that the cogito is not an argument, but rather an "experiment," generating an intuition enabling Descartes to retrieve a timber from what Bourdin called the "great shipwreck" of the hyperbolic doubt.Sarkar places the experiment within his own fresh readings of Descartes's philosophy. They will be illuminating to new Descartes scholars. Some readings will seem perverse or cryptic. Constructive passages illuminate more, polemic passages less, as when Sarkar finds seven flaws in Hintikka's cogito interpretation. Despite the polemic excesses, Sarkar writes with modesty, epitomized by his slogan, "Reason with them in the most courteous manner."With verve and imagination Sarkar presents the cogito as an experiment which can be carried out in any world at all and yields an intuition that qualifies as a Cartesian first principle. He suggests various implications of his interpretation—for example, for the epistemic role of will: "The will initially learns the limits that it must recognize only at the foot of the cogito... It is in the state of the cogito that the will learns what it means to be ineluctably inclined toward affirming a proposition, and what it is to be free" (256).What is the content of the intuited 'I exist'? Sarkar calls upon Robert Adams's notion of a "primitive thisness," entirely distinct from a substance's properties or "suchnesses," and upon David Lewis's thesis that besides knowing propositions a person can know a self-ascription of a property. Still, he makes no headway at all. True, the question is extraordinarily [End Page 490] difficult. It has not yielded appreciably to brilliant phenomenologists or brilliant students of direct reference and indexicality or, for that matter, me. The content of 'I' statements is a topic for another book, and no one I know of is writing it.In the book's centerpiece, Sarkar marshals a series of attacks on the cogito as argument. Sometimes they miss—more polemic overkill. Usually they hit home. Their cumulative effect is persuasive.Descartes says that "I think, therefore I exist" is the first principle of his philosophy (VI, 32; VIIIA, 7; V, 147: references are to the Adam and Tannery edition). But if the cogito were an argument, one of its premises would become his first principle.An argument requires movement of thought and that requires reliance on memory (X, 370 and 408), and in the cogito Descartes strips memory of its credentials (VII, 24, superseding the assurances of X, 368).An argument relies on logical principles, but Descartes suspects these and reasoning generally. In the First Meditation he calls into doubt the simplest mathematics; elsewhere he generalizes from mathematics to "self-evident principles" and to "all the arguments I had previously taken as demonstrative proofs" (VI, 32; IXB, 6; similar aspersions are cast in V, 137 and 139). (But see also Mark Olson, "Descartes' First Meditation: Mathematics and the Laws of Logic" JHP 26 [1988]: 407–438.)I'll add a wrinkle. Descartes's mouthpiece Eudoxus says you can use your own doubt to deduce facts that are even more certain than those commonly built upon the great principle that it is impossible that a thing should both exist and at the same time not exist (X, 522). The conclusion of any argument rests on such logical principles. If the cogito were an argument, its certainty could not exceed theirs. Descartes suggests here that it does.Sarkar also cites Descartes's denigrations of "logic," but these often pertain not to reasoning generally but to syllogistic logic. Thus Margaret Wilson took the cogito to be a nonsyllogistic argument. Still, Sarkar effectively deploys... (shrink)

THIS PAPER PROVIDES A READING OF DESCARTES' COGITO WHICH RESOLVES THE PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED BY THE OTHER PREVALENT ANALYSES OF HIS THOUGHT. I FIRST INDICATE THE WAYS IN WHICH THE INFERENTIAL AND PERFORMATIVE VIEWS FAIL TO ADEQUATELY EXPLICATE DESCARTES' OWN STATEMENTS REGARDING THE COGITO. I THEN SET OUT MY "GENERATIVE VIEW" AND SHOW THAT IT PROVIDES A FULLY CONSISTENT READING OF THESE SAME STATEMENTS. I CONCLUDE THAT THE GENERATIVE VIEW MORE ADEQUATELY REPRESENTS DESCARTES' INTENTIONS.

IT IS ARGUED THAT DESCARTES DREW A METHODOLOGICAL DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE ORDER IN WHICH ONE ENTERTAINS PROPOSITIONS AND THE ORDER OF EPISTEMIC PRIMACY. RECOGNIZING THIS RECONCILES ANY "PRIMA FACIE" INCONSISTENCIES AMONG THE "COGITO" PASSAGES, MOST NOTABLY, THOSE BETWEEN THE "COGITO" PASSAGES IN THE "PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY" AND THE "SECOND REPLIES".

L’histoire du Cogito ergo sum de Descartes montre la problématique de l’esprit moderne. Leibniz et Kant ont insisté sur le conditionnement empirique de la proposition. Fichte l’a défendue, en la rapportant au moi supra- individuel. Schelling et Hegel ont combattu le Cogito, qui a introduit le dualisme moderne entre l’esprit et la nature. La critique la plus pressante est celle de Schelling ; cependant Hegel et lui ont reconnu comme un grand événement historique la séparation, opérée par Descartes, (...) entre la philosophie et l’autorité. (shrink)

In Descartes' Cogito, Saved from the Great Shipwreck, Husain Sarkar convincingly argues that the Cartesian cogito as it appears in Meditation Two cannot be an argument but must be understood as an intuition emerging from the process of ('extraordinary') doubt. Sarkar mentions in the Preface that only the negative part of his thesis in intended to be decisive (X). However, as the book unfolds it becomes evident that his "positive" effort, his interpretation of the cogito as an (...) intuition although not decisive, is no less important. Sarkar shows how his reading of the cogito can account for other aspects of Descartes' writings (memory, the will, the theory of deduction) and offers this as further proof for the correctness of his interpretation. (shrink)

The philosophy of Descartes is the classical example of a Philosophy as a System intending to found itself on an absolute point of view or to come from an absolute starting point. However, the Cogito being regarded by Descartes as the first principle, actually is neither a first nor a definite nor a sufficient principle, leading to further conclusions. Above all Descartes himself, thus becoming the first Anti-Cartesian, compromises this so-called first and greatest evidence by stating that God ist (...) the most evident principle, from which everything has to be deduced. The myth of clarity conceals the true, uncertain and inquiring Descartes. (shrink)

In his logical exegesis of Descartes’ cogito, Hintikka has claimed that, formulated as an inference, it would be question--begging and that it is best understood as a performance, But (1), Hintikka’s discussion of an inferential interpretation omits reference to the possible relevance ofmodalities, and (2), Hintikka assumes that to beg the question is to assume what one is trying to prove. Question-begging is better understood in terms of how evident the premisses are in relation to the conclusion. In this (...) paper I construct a modal inferential interpretation, defend itagainst any charge of question-begging, and outline a system of quantified modal logic which would validate it. (shrink)

In his logical exegesis of Descartes’ cogito, Hintikka has claimed that, formulated as an inference, it would be question--begging and that it is best understood as a performance, But (1), Hintikka’s discussion of an inferential interpretation omits reference to the possible relevance ofmodalities, and (2), Hintikka assumes that to beg the question is to assume what one is trying to prove. Question-begging is better understood in terms of how evident the premisses are in relation to the conclusion. In this (...) paper I construct a modal inferential interpretation, defend itagainst any charge of question-begging, and outline a system of quantified modal logic which would validate it. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: René Descartes' Cogito is an example of a paradigmatic thought experiment, herald of both subjectivism and new science in Europe's Modern Age, that seems to have escaped the attention of thought experiment philosophers. On deep analysis, the Cogito appears as universal instantiation. The Cogito has strong rhetorical effects for it narratively generalizes from I to all human kind, and its historical and philosophical success can be explained from its concise enthymematic structure that rings true in many (...) possible senses. We consider it a preeminent example of a thought experiment as it states the power of thinking as its very contents. From Descartes' methodology of doubt we can conclude that, e.g., on a Wittgensteinian interpretation, the Cogito is a logical thought experiment rather than a psychological one. RESUMO: O Cogito de René Descartes é um exemplo de experimento mental paradigmático, precursor tanto do subjetivismo quanto da nova ciência, na Idade Moderna europeia, o qual parece ter escapado à atenção dos filósofos que estudaram o experimento mental. Na análise profunda, o Cogito aparece como uma instanciação universal. O Cogito tem fortes efeitos retóricos por si mesmo, generalizando narrativamente desde o eu para toda a espécie humana, e seu sucesso histórico e filosófico pode ser explicado por sua estrutura entimemática concisa, que soa através de muitos sentidos possíveis. Consideramos que é um exemplo proeminente de um experimento mental, na medida em que afirma o poder de pensar como seus próprios conteúdos. A partir da metodologia da dúvida de Descartes, podemos concluir que, em uma interpretação wittgensteiniana, o Cogito é um experimento mental mais lógico que psicológico. (shrink)

At first sight one might be tempted to regard Descartes' "cogito ergo sum" as logically true by existential generalisation. This however would neither exhaust the specific epistemic content of "cogito" nor reveal the philosophical peculiarities of "sum" which the author takes to have two ontologically different meanings. The full sense of "cogito ergo sum" finally turns out to be "Credo* me* cogitare ergo scio* me* $\text{esse}_{1/2}$ ". Furthermore this proposition can formally be proved to be true by (...) means of epistemic logic. (shrink)

Descartes claimed that the Cogito is ‘so firm and sure that all the most extravagant suppositions of the sceptics were incapable of shaking it’. This paper aims to demonstrate that this claim is false by presenting a sceptical scenario for the Cogito. It is argued that the story ‘The Circular Ruins’ by J. L. Borges illustrates that one can doubt one’s own existence and that pace Descartes (and many others) the claim ‘I am, I exist, is necessarily true (...) whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind’ is false. (shrink)

Kirsten Besheer has recently considered Descartes’ doubting appropriately in the context of his physiological theories in the spirit of recent important re-appraisals of his natural philosophy. However, Besheer does not address the notorious indubitability and its source that Descartes claims to have discovered. David Cunning has remarked that Descartes’ insistence on the indubitability of his existence presents “an intractable problem of interpretation” in the light of passages that suggest his existence is “just as dubitable as anything else”. However, although the (...) cogito argument is widely thought to be central to the force of Descartes’ indubitability, for his part, Cunning does not consider its relevance and force. Accordingly, this article is concerned with the cogito argument and the question central to Hintikka’s seminal contribution, described by Cottingham as “Perhaps the most debated question,” namely, whether or not the cogito can be construed as a logical inference. Clearly, an inferential account has the potential to explain the certainty of Descartes’ conclusion that he exists. Recently, Sarkar offers what he characterizes as “novel and fairly conclusive reasons why the cogito cannot be construed as an argument,” asserting “the discovery of the cogito can only be an intuition not a deduction.” Obviously, it would greatly support the opposing inferential construal if a remotely plausible logical argument could be proposed. Toward this end, I defend the virtues of my ‘Diagonal’ account of Descartes’ cogito Above all, I show how my analysis meets the requirement that any satisfactory solution to the problem of the cogito would reconcile Descartes’ claim that the cogito is a certain inference with his claim that it is an intuitive kind of knowledge. Through a critical discussion of analyses such as that of Gallois , I show that it is possible to provide a textually faithful analysis that permits seeing the cogito as both inference and intuition because it may be seen as an exercise in the mathematical method of Analysis. Above all, as Feldman requires, I show that the Diagonal account is not only textually elegant, but permits crediting Descartes with a worthy insight, thereby resolving the tension between what Howell has termed the Humean and Cartesian problems, namely, the elusiveness and the certainty of the self. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Descartes' Cogito Augustine's “Si fallor, sum” Argument (If I Am Mistaken, I Exist).

본 논문은 데카르트의 코기토 개념에 대한 알키에와 게루의 논쟁을 중심으로 데카르트 철학의 의미를 규명한다. 알키에는 코기토에서 존재와 사유를 실체와 핵심적 속성으로서 구분하는 반면, 게루는 존재와 사유가 근본적으로 동일하다는 입장을 표명한다. 알키에는 사유로 환원되지 않는 존재의 체험을 강조하고 게루는 지성을 본성으로 갖는 코기토에 의해 단일한 이성적 체계가 구축된다고 본다. 알키에의 관점은 나와 신의 존재가 논리적 차원이 아니라 형이상학적 발견이라는 점을 강조함으로써 우리의 유한성을 직시할 수 있도록 해주는 반면, 존재와 사유, 그리고 형이상학과 과학을 지나치게 구분함으로써 학의 수립을 위한 데카르트의 기획을 약화시킨다. 게루는 (...) 존재를 사유와 일치시킴으로써 데카르트의 학문 수립 기획에 부합하는 해석을 제시하는 장점이 있지만, 진리의 추구 과정에서 획득된 확실성을 인식론적 차원과 존재론적 차원으로 구분함으로써 결국 신의 진실성이 코기토의 존재를 보증한다고 주장한다. 이는 영원한 진리의 창조자 개념을 평가절하하고 이성적 체계의 위상을 과도하게 부각시킨다는 단점이 있다. 본 논문은 코기토가 사유를 통해 자신의 존재 및 사물에 대한 견고한 확실성을 획득하지만, 이런 확실성이 학의 체계로 발전되기 위해서는 코기토의 존재가 아닌, 이미 획득된 진리의 확실성을 보증해주는 신의 개입이 필요하다는 입장에 서있다. 결국 코기토는 유한한 지식의 확실성을 무한자로부터 보증 받아야 하는 실존적 주체로서 형이상학과 과학의 접점이다. (shrink)

Cogito, as the first principle of Descartes’ metaphysical system, initiated the modern philosophy of consciousness, becoming both the source and subject of modern Western philosophical discourse. The philosophies of Maine de Biran, Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others developed by answering the following questions? Is consciousness substantial or not? Does consciousness require the guarantee of a transcendental subject? Is Cogito epistemological or ontological? Am I a being-for-myself or a being-for-others? Outlining the developmental history of the idea of (...) Cogito from Descartes to Sartre is important for totally comprehending the evolution and development of Western philosophy. (shrink)

THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER IS TO REEXAMINE THE ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF THE "COGITO" ARGUMENT, TO NOTE SOME WELL-KNOWN CRITICISMS MADE OF IT, AND TO SUGGEST A FAIRER EVALUATION OF THE CARTESIAN CONTRIBUTION. THE INTERPRETATION OFFERED IS THAT THE "COGITO" IS AN IMPLICATION, TO BE SURE, BUT ONE THAT IS EXPERIENCED RATHER THAN CONCLUDED FROM AN INFERENCE. THUS THE "COGITO" IS SEEN TO HAVE AN EXPERIENTIAL BASIS AND A NUMBER OF TRADITIONAL CRITICISMS ARE SHOWN TO BE INVALIDATED (...) IN THE LIGHT OF THIS INTERPRETATION. (shrink)

This volume looks at the first half of the proposition--cogito.

In a letter to Mesland (1645), Descartes suggests that "a greater freedom" consists in a positive faculty to follow "the worse", although "we see the better". What does such freedom presuppose? A good illustration of this kind of excess of the will, as suggested by Beyssade, is Attila, the "black hero" in one of Corneille's tragedies. This article tries to relate the possibility of that freedom with the very nature of the cogito.

O artigo enfoca duas maneiras possíveis, não necessariamente excludentes, de se compreender o “'penso, logo existo" cartesiano: a primeira, enquanto representação de si, decorre de uma compreensão do eu como sujeito , quer dizer, de um sujeito diante de um objeto e se remete a uma consciência refletida de si; a segunda, como presença a si mesmo, é relativa a uma compreensão do ego como ser ou existência, dados numa experiência originária se remete a uma consciência imediata de si. O (...) artigo pretende também apontar as possibilidades e os limites de cada uma destas leituras. (shrink)

Je soutiens dans cette étude que la notion de connaissance de soi introspective est au centre du Cogito de Descartes. À la suite de Hintikka, de nombreux commentateurs, dans la tradition analytique, se sont concentrés sur la justification de l’énoncé « j’existe », en lien avec l’énoncé « je pense », sans chercher à proposer une explication unifiée mettant en évidence la structure de l’argument cartésien ni son lien essentiel avec la connaissance de soi introspective. Par ailleurs, certaines des (...) théories de la connaissance de soi aujourd’hui les plus influentes, en particulier celle de Gareth Evans, se sont développées en réaction à une image supposée « cartésienne » de l’introspection héritée de Gilbert Ryle. Dans ce contexte, l’interprétation du Cogito proposée par Christopher Peacocke pourrait se révéler un jalon essentiel dans l’histoire des lectures de Descartes. Selon Peacocke en effet, on peut défendre résolument le Cogito tout en rejetant l’idée d’un accès privilégié à un monde intérieur. Je soutiens que l’approche rationaliste de Peacocke permet de reconstruire le Cogito d’une façon cohérente et satisfaisante, mais que s’il donne une explication particulièrement convaincante du passage de « je pense » à « j’existe », il échoue à fonder une théorie cartésienne unifiée de la connaissance de soi introspective. (shrink)

Rene Descartes is the philosophical architect of our modern world.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René DescartesDennis Des CheneRichard Watson. Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes. Boston: David R. Godine, 2002. pp. viii + 375. Cloth, $35.00.Somewhere between hagiography and debunking lies truth. Or so we may think: the biographer's sources are almost always tipped one way or the other, and it is his or her job to establish, or divine, the way (...) of authentic fact and, if facts fall short, then of sturdy sober hypothesis. In general the debunker has more fun, especially when the weight of tradition favors the ennobling, if not the beatification, of its subject.Descartes is a case in point. Until a few years ago, there was in English no satisfactory biography. Now there are three: an "intellectual biography" by Stephen Gaukroger, the Descartes of Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, and Watson's. Gaukroger dwells on Descartes's natural philosophy, especially in the early years. Only after 300 pages does he reach the period of the Discourse, Descartes's first published work. Rodis-Lewis offers a more even-handed treatment, the fruits of a lifetime of study. Her Descartes resembles, not the modern scientist or professional philosopher, but the ancient sage for whom metaphysics is a once-in-a-lifetime affair, and even natural philosophy subordinate to wisdom. Watson's Descartes is an altogether more worldly type, born into a family of lawyers, well-connected, touchy [End Page 113] about his place in social and scientific circles, and not all that interested in what we think of now as philosophy. Nor, for that matter, is Watson: you will look in vain for an analysis of the Meditations, a discussion of method, or a definition of générosité. (Watson does conclude, I should note, with a discussion of Descartes's doctrine on the soul, whose title might well have been "The future of an illusion" if Freud had not used it already.)If you like your philosophy uncluttered by context, if you find it worthwhile to read or write about "Cartesian skepticism" or "Cartesian dualism" without troubling yourself to understand who the historical Descartes was, or what might have moved him to confront the skeptics and save the soul, then Watson is not for you. It is emphatically a Life, not a Life and Works. It is, moreover, a life in the manner of many modern biographers, in which the biographer, rather than conceal himself behind the curtains of scholarly convention, figures into the narrative, retracing the steps of Descartes's passage to Italy, examining the baptismal certificate of Descartes's illegitimate daughter Francine, and eating lunch at the Queen Kristina restaurant "next door to the house in which Descartes died" (303). The quality of a biography thus written depends in part on the personality of its author (and in the case of Cogito Ergo Sum, the author's wife, who intervenes more than once on the side of common sense during their peregrinations). Watson is, to my mind, an agreeable companion, dedicated to the search for biographical truth, impatient with hagiographic fog and time-hallowed error, down-to-earth in his assessment of Descartes's motives and circumstances.One example to show the differences among the three biographies. In November 1618 Descartes met the future Latin schoolmaster Isaac Beeckman in Breda. Beeckman records with enthusiasm their joint endeavors in physico-mathematics over the next few months (Gaukroger has the details). It seems clear that the impetus for studying the various problems mentioned in Beeckman's Journal came from Beeckman, who had been pondering physical questions since 1613 or before. Descartes's contribution, at least at first, was his immense mathematical skill. Their interests lay largely within the "mixed mathematics" of the period, especially hydrostatics and mechanics. They also discussed music, an aspect of the "new science" now often neglected (but see H. F. Cohen, Quantifying Music [Dordrecht, 1984]). On New Year's day 1619 Descartes presented Beeckman with his Compendium musicæ (Gaukroger 74, Rodis-Lewis 51/29). A decade later, Descartes, having heard that Beeckman had appropriated the Compendium to himself, became angry and eventually, late in 1630, dismissed Beeckman with a masterpiece of de haut... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René DescartesDennis Des CheneRichard Watson. Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes. Boston: David R. Godine, 2002. pp. viii + 375. Cloth, $35.00.Somewhere between hagiography and debunking lies truth. Or so we may think: the biographer's sources are almost always tipped one way or the other, and it is his or her job to establish, or divine, the way (...) of authentic fact and, if facts fall short, then of sturdy sober hypothesis. In general the debunker has more fun, especially when the weight of tradition favors the ennobling, if not the beatification, of its subject.Descartes is a case in point. Until a few years ago, there was in English no satisfactory biography. Now there are three: an "intellectual biography" by Stephen Gaukroger, the Descartes of Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, and Watson's. Gaukroger dwells on Descartes's natural philosophy, especially in the early years. Only after 300 pages does he reach the period of the Discourse, Descartes's first published work. Rodis-Lewis offers a more even-handed treatment, the fruits of a lifetime of study. Her Descartes resembles, not the modern scientist or professional philosopher, but the ancient sage for whom metaphysics is a once-in-a-lifetime affair, and even natural philosophy subordinate to wisdom. Watson's Descartes is an altogether more worldly type, born into a family of lawyers, well-connected, touchy [End Page 113] about his place in social and scientific circles, and not all that interested in what we think of now as philosophy. Nor, for that matter, is Watson: you will look in vain for an analysis of the Meditations, a discussion of method, or a definition of générosité. (Watson does conclude, I should note, with a discussion of Descartes's doctrine on the soul, whose title might well have been "The future of an illusion" if Freud had not used it already.)If you like your philosophy uncluttered by context, if you find it worthwhile to read or write about "Cartesian skepticism" or "Cartesian dualism" without troubling yourself to understand who the historical Descartes was, or what might have moved him to confront the skeptics and save the soul, then Watson is not for you. It is emphatically a Life, not a Life and Works. It is, moreover, a life in the manner of many modern biographers, in which the biographer, rather than conceal himself behind the curtains of scholarly convention, figures into the narrative, retracing the steps of Descartes's passage to Italy, examining the baptismal certificate of Descartes's illegitimate daughter Francine, and eating lunch at the Queen Kristina restaurant "next door to the house in which Descartes died" (303). The quality of a biography thus written depends in part on the personality of its author (and in the case of Cogito Ergo Sum, the author's wife, who intervenes more than once on the side of common sense during their peregrinations). Watson is, to my mind, an agreeable companion, dedicated to the search for biographical truth, impatient with hagiographic fog and time-hallowed error, down-to-earth in his assessment of Descartes's motives and circumstances.One example to show the differences among the three biographies. In November 1618 Descartes met the future Latin schoolmaster Isaac Beeckman in Breda. Beeckman records with enthusiasm their joint endeavors in physico-mathematics over the next few months (Gaukroger has the details). It seems clear that the impetus for studying the various problems mentioned in Beeckman's Journal came from Beeckman, who had been pondering physical questions since 1613 or before. Descartes's contribution, at least at first, was his immense mathematical skill. Their interests lay largely within the "mixed mathematics" of the period, especially hydrostatics and mechanics. They also discussed music, an aspect of the "new science" now often neglected (but see H. F. Cohen, Quantifying Music [Dordrecht, 1984]). On New Year's day 1619 Descartes presented Beeckman with his Compendium musicæ (Gaukroger 74, Rodis-Lewis 51/29). A decade later, Descartes, having heard that Beeckman had appropriated the Compendium to himself, became angry and eventually, late in 1630, dismissed Beeckman with a masterpiece of de haut... (shrink)

Given Descartes’ metaphysical and natural-philosophic commitments, it is very difficult to theorize the pregnant human being as a human being under his system. Specifically, given (1) Descartes’ account of generation, (2) his commitment to mechanistic explanations where bodies are concerned, (3) his reliance on a subtle individuating principle for human (and animal) bodies, and (4) his metaphysics of human beings, which include minds, bodies, and mind-body unions, there is no available human substance or entity which may clearly be the subject (...) of pregnancy. The incompatibility of any of the three options found in (4) with (1), (2), or (3), together with other undesirable consequences should any be selected, results in what I call the pregnancy problem. The pregnancy problem (henceforth, PP) is a previously unconsidered problem for the Cartesian philosophy. Given PP, commitment(s) (1), (2), (3) or (4), or a combination of these, would have to be revised for Descartes’ system to avoid a variety of tensions; alternately, counterintuitive consequences may have to be accepted. Ironically, given Descartes’ interest in generation and medicine more generally, the Cartesian framework struggles to accommodate pregnancy in human beings. This may have implications for the systematicity and sex-neutrality of dualist metaphysics in general. (shrink)

THIS PAPER PRESENTS THE INTERPRETATION OF DESCARTES'S "COGITO" IN MY BOOK "COGITATIONS" IN A CONCISE AND SLIGHTLY EXTENDED FORM. THE EMPHASIS IS ON CONVEYING THE ESSENTIALS OF THE ARGUMENT THAT "COGITO ERGO SUM" IS AN ANALYTIC ENTAILMENT, BUT I HAVE TAKEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO IMPROVE MY ARGUMENT IN A FEW SMALL WAYS AND TO RELATE THE EXPLICIT FORM OF THE "COGITO" TO SIMILAR REASONING IN DESCARTES'S "SECOND MEDITATION". MY PRIMARY AIM IS TO EXPLAIN HOW THE (...) "COGITO" CAN BOTH BE THE SIMPLE INFERENCE WE FIND IN DESCARTES'S OWN PRESENTATIONS AND YET BE FORMALLY VALID AS IT STANDS. (shrink)

Both Renaissance Europe and Ming China witnessed an epoch-making declaration of the liberation of the mind, a manifesto that laid the groundwork for the emergence of the modern subjective self. In his Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes declares that there is "nothing else to be in me over and above the mind", and "I'm therefore precisely nothing but a thinking thing; that is, a mind, or intellect, or understanding, or reason".1 In defining my self as a thinking thing, Descartes (...) states, "I have taken the being or existence of this thought as the first principle". By thought or cogito, Descartes means "everything that is in us in such a way... (shrink)