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

This essay is an interpretation of the work of Jean-Luc Godard: Histoire du cinéma. There are two main objectives of the text. First, to analyze audio-visual mediations on the political construction of memory. Therefore, I will study the way Jean-Luc Godard´s films articulate the cinematographic history of the Twentieth century, inspired by a central motif: the idea of failure and mourning. Secondly, I´d like to establish a dialogue between the ‘pathologies of memory’ – as reported by Godard in critical connection (...) with the mass-media comsuption regime – and the ‘policies’ of the images and montage, proposed by Walter Benjamin an his ‘dialectics of seeing’. (shrink)

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)

Borges’ The Circular Ruins tells the story of a magician who turns out to be a character in a dream. Leibowitz (2021) argues that this scenario undermines the rational indubitability of Descartes’ Cogito. The magician, he argues, is an unreal appearance and therefore does not exist. I argue that Borges drew a distinction between reality and existence and that he was right to do so. There are various senses of reality and the sense in which a dreamt character is (...) unreal poses no threat to their existence or to the indubitability of the Cogito. The magician is unreal because he is a mind-dependent, illusory and fake. Nonetheless, he can be certain that he thinks, therefore he is. (shrink)

Le « cogito, ergo sum » cartésien apparaît depuis quarante ans comme « inférence et performance » (J. Hintikka). Mais de quelle inférence s'agit-il précisément ? Pour le savoir, cet article poursuit deux objectifs : d'abord, montrer que la question pertinente à laquelle il s'agit de répondre ne concerne pas la relation logique interne qui lie le cogito au sum, et qui est une intuition, mais celle, externe, qui lie le « cogito, ergo sum » tout entier (...) au « quicquid cogitat, est ». Ensuite, montrer que cette dernière relation est tout à la fois une induction et une déduction. (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)

Статтю присвячено дослідженню альтернативних можливостей інтерпретації Декартової концепції cogito: як авто-референтної структури і як авто-афекційності. Контекстом аналізу виступає трансцендентально-феноменологічний ракурс погляду на картезіанську філософію як на засновок трансцендентального мотиву. Визначено роль принципу авто-референтності в трансцендентальному дискурсі. На ґрунті розгляду перспектив тлумачення картезіанського підходу, запропонованих М. Анрі й Ж.-Л. Марйоном, виявлено моменти іррелевантності авто-афекційної настанови вимогам трансцендентального мислення і втомивовано адекватність авто-референтної моделі його засадам. Авторка доходить висновку, що, попри позірну пріоритетність авто-афекційності для трансцендентального дискурсу, пов’язану насамперед з притаманною їй (...) радикалізацією функціонального аспекту свідомості й усуненням небезпеки субстантивації cogito, закладеної в структурі авто-референтності, остання видається відповіднішою вимогам трансцендентального мислення, оскільки передбачає збереження принципу відношення-відмінності, конститутивного для трансцендентальної думки – який в умовах авто-афекційності виявляється редукованим. (shrink)

That there is an epistemological difference between the mental and the physical is well- known. Introspection readily generates knowledge of one’s own conscious experience, but fails to yield evidence for the existence of anything physical. Conversely, empirical investigation delivers knowledge of physical properties, but neither finds nor requires us to posit conscious experience. In recent decades, a series of neo-Cartesian arguments have emerged that rest on this epistemological difference and purport to demonstrate that mind-brain identity is false and that consciousness (...) is not even realized by or supervenient on physical properties. Where Descartes argued he could clearly and distinctly conceive mind and body as existing separately, contemporary anti-physicalists hold that the conceivability of worlds in which actual world correlations between physical and phenomenological properties fail shows that these correlations are contingent rather than logically or metaphysically necessary. Together with Descartes, they conclude from conceivability that identity, as well as strong supervenience, is false. 1 If the argument of this paper is correct, however, then there is an argument for dualism that arises from the epistemological distinction, is grounded in the Meditations, and is yet distinct from the " 1 " conceivability arguments pursued both by Descartes and contemporary anti-physicalists. Furthermore, the argument is immune to the standard objections to conceivability arguments: its conclusion follows even if there are a posteriori identities between physical and phenomenal properties. (shrink)

Cette étude entend rendre compte de la conception que propose George Berkeley de la connaissance de mon existence en tant qu’esprit. Il s’agit en particulier d’interpréter sa formulation du cogito : « Je sais ce que j’entends par les termes je et moi-même ». Cette question est liée aux problèmes intrinsèques de la doctrine controversée des « notions » et plus généralement de la sémantique berkeleyenne. On doit accorder une certaine attention aux différences d’accent entre des passages parallèles des (...) Principes de la connaissance humaine, des Trois dialogues et de l’Alciphron VII. Les principales interprétations XXe siècle, usuel dans le commentaire, est une source de simplification abusive. (shrink)

The Cartesian cogito—the principle articulated by Descartes that "I think, therefore I am"—is often hailed as the precursor of modern science. At the same time, the cogito's agent, the ego, is sometimes feared as the agency of manipulative domination responsible for all present woes, from patriarchal oppression to ecological catastrophes. Without psychoanalyzing philosophy, _Cogito and the Unconscious_ explores the vicissitudes of the cogito and shows that psychoanalyses can render visible a constitutive madness within modern philosophy, the point (...) at which "I think, therefore I am" becomes obsessional neurosis characterized by "If I stop thinking, I will cease to exist." Noting that for Lacan the Cartesian construct is the same as the Freudian "subject of the unconscious," the contributors follow Lacan's plea for a psychoanalytic return to the cogito. Along the path of this return, they examine the ethical attitude that befits modern subjectivity, the inherent sexualization of modern subjectivity, the impasse in which the Cartesian project becomes involved given the enigmatic status of the human body, and the Cartesian subject's confrontation with its modern critics, including Althusser, Bataille, and Dennett. In a style that has become familiar to Žižek's readers, these essays bring together a strict conceptual analysis and an approach to a wide range of cultural and ideological phenomena—from the sadist paradoxes of Kant's moral philosophy to the universe of Ayn Rand's novels, from the question "Which, if any, is the sex of the cogito?" to the defense of the cogito against the onslaught of cognitive sciences. Challenging us to reconsider fundamental notions of human consciousness and modern subjectivity, this is a book whose very Lacanian orthodoxy makes it irreverently transgressive of predominant theoretical paradigms. _Cogito and the Unconscious_ will appeal to readers interested in philosophy, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, and theories of ideology. _Contributors. _Miran Bozovic, Mladen Dolar, Alain Grosrichard, Marc de Kessel, Robert Pfaller, Renata Salecl, Slavoj Žižek, Alenka Zupancic. (shrink)

How should we understand both the nature, and the epistemic potential, of Descartes’s Cogito? Peter Slezak’s interpretation of the Cogito’s nature sees it strictly as a selfreferential kind of denial: Descartes cannot doubt that he is doubting. And what epistemic implications flow from this interpretation of the Cogito? We find that there is a consequent lack of knowledge being described by Descartes: on Cartesian grounds, indubitability is incompatible with knowing. Even as the Cogito halts doubt, therefore, (...) it fails to be knowledge. (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)

Cette étude entend rendre compte de la conception que propose George Berkeley de la connaissance de mon existence en tant qu’esprit. Il s’agit en particulier d’interpréter sa formulation du cogito : « Je sais ce que j’entends par les termes je et moi-même ». Cette question est liée aux problèmes intrinsèques de la doctrine controversée des « notions » et plus généralement de la sémantique berkeleyenne. On doit accorder une certaine attention aux différences d’accent entre des passages parallèles des (...) Principes de la connaissance humaine, des Trois dialogues et de l’Alciphron VII. Les principales interprétations XXe siècle, usuel dans le commentaire, est une source de simplification abusive. (shrink)

I argue that George Nakhnikian's analysis of the logic of cogito propositions (roughly, Descartes's 'cogito' and 'sum') is incomplete. The incompleteness is rectified by showing that disjunctions of cogito propositions with contingent, non-cogito propositions satisfy conditions of incorrigibility, self-certifyingness, and pragmatic consistency; hence, they belong to the class of propositions with whose help a complete characterization of cogito propositions is made possible.

The Cartesian cogito—the principle articulated by Descartes that "I think, therefore I am"—is often hailed as the precursor of modern science. At the same time, the cogito's agent, the ego, is sometimes feared as the agency of manipulative domination responsible for all present woes, from patriarchal oppression to ecological catastrophes. Without psychoanalyzing philosophy, _Cogito and the Unconscious_ explores the vicissitudes of the cogito and shows that psychoanalyses can render visible a constitutive madness within modern philosophy, the point (...) at which "I think, therefore I am" becomes obsessional neurosis characterized by "If I stop thinking, I will cease to exist." Noting that for Lacan the Cartesian construct is the same as the Freudian "subject of the unconscious," the contributors follow Lacan's plea for a psychoanalytic return to the cogito. Along the path of this return, they examine the ethical attitude that befits modern subjectivity, the inherent sexualization of modern subjectivity, the impasse in which the Cartesian project becomes involved given the enigmatic status of the human body, and the Cartesian subject's confrontation with its modern critics, including Althusser, Bataille, and Dennett. In a style that has become familiar to Žižek's readers, these essays bring together a strict conceptual analysis and an approach to a wide range of cultural and ideological phenomena—from the sadist paradoxes of Kant's moral philosophy to the universe of Ayn Rand's novels, from the question "Which, if any, is the sex of the cogito?" to the defense of the cogito against the onslaught of cognitive sciences. Challenging us to reconsider fundamental notions of human consciousness and modern subjectivity, this is a book whose very Lacanian orthodoxy makes it irreverently transgressive of predominant theoretical paradigms. _Cogito and the Unconscious_ will appeal to readers interested in philosophy, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, and theories of ideology. _Contributors. _Miran Bozovic, Mladen Dolar, Alain Grosrichard, Marc de Kessel, Robert Pfaller, Renata Salecl, Slavoj Žižek, Alenka Zupancic. (shrink)

The article studies the shift of Enlightment in the interpretation of enjoyment, which led to the construction of a particular ethos/nomos enjoyment and transformation in the model of be-ing/thinking. Thus, constituted the transition from the metaphysics of mind, grounded by Des-cartes, to physic of body, presented by Marquis de Sade. This shift or meta/physical gap is carried out at the intersection of two lines: the reason and enjoyment. Given line of reason, the article specifically actualized line of enjoyment, allowing to (...) explore the transformation of the identity of being and thinking which is fundamental to Western philosophy. It sets the place of enjoyment in Cartesian concept of the identity of being and thinking, and the distinc-tion of soul and body. Hence it formulates the maxim of the subject of cogito: it is in thinking that I enjoy being. Approach of Descartes is opposed by the materialistic definition of enjoy-ment and pleasure worked out by de Sade. This conceptualization of the enjoyment enables the transition to physics of body, which recognizes only bodily/physical being hypertrophi-cated by the imagination. Hence the Sadian subject imago constitutes the maxim: it is only by enjoying being that I think. (shrink)

Our use of ‘I’, or something like it, is implicated in our self-regarding emotions, in the concern to survive, and so seems basic to ordinary human life. But why does that pattern of use require a referring term? Don't Lichtenberg's formulations show how we could have our ordinary pattern of use here without the first person? I argue that what explains our compulsion to regard the first person as a referring term is our ordinary causal thinking, which requires us to (...) find a persisting object as the mechanism that underpins the causal structure we naturally ascribe to the self. I thus argue against Peacocke's picture (2012), on which it's the cogito that explains one's knowledge of one's own existence. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, the controversy between conceptualists and nonconceptualists has provided important insights into Kant’s critical project and especially the transcendental deduction. At the same time, the differentiation of the various positions has led to a seemingly unsolvable paradox in interpretation. However, if the intensifications of the debate are withdrawn and the current positions are placed in the context of historical interpretations, it becomes apparent that a nonconceptualism can indeed be developed without coming into (irresolvable) conflict with Kant’s (...) conceptualism. In this sense, Alois Riehl proposes in his Philosophical Criticism (vol. 1) a so-called state nonconceptualism. Even if he does not have the terminology in use today, he can defend this on par with the current debate especially with regard to A 89–90 / B 122–123. In doing so, Riehl’s realistic interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism offers strategies that again question a hasty skepticism towards nonconceptualist interpretations. (shrink)

The key mutation of the schizophrenic psyche can be described as a disturbance of the first person-ness of the I-sense, i.e., of the sense of the "I" as personal subject of experience and of action. Under these circumstances, representations of things are not definitively experienced as "my" representations—with the self-evidence of belonging to me. This uncertainty of selfhood, specific to schizophrenia, cannot be reduced to a disability of intellect, logic, judgment, or memory. In the course of developing his argument, the (...) author criticizes philosopher Michel Henry's critique of Heidegger's (1961) interpretation of Descartes's cogito ergo sum. (shrink)

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

Most materialist responses to the zombie argument against materialism take either a “type-A” or “type-B” approach: they either deny the conceivability of zombies or accept their conceivability while denying their possibility. However, a “type-Q” materialist approach, inspired by Quinean suspicions about a priority and modal entailment, rejects the sharp line between empirical and conceptual truths needed for the traditional responses. In this paper, I develop a type-Q response to the zombie argument, one stressing the theory-laden nature of our conceivability and (...) possibility intuitions. I argue that our first-person access to the conscious mind systematically misleads us into thinking that the distinctive qualities of conscious experience—qualia—are nonfunctional. Qualia, I contend, are functional, even though they do not seem to be. To support my claim, I introduce the “meditations” of Rene Descartes’ zombie twin. This establishes the plausibility of an appearance/reality distinction for consciousness and it undermines various anti-materialist objections based on privileged first-person access. I conclude that the best overall theory posits an appearance/reality distinction for qualia, and this, for the type-Q materialist, is decisive. (shrink)

"Cet ouvrage a pour objectif de proposer une histoire de ce que, après Descartes, on a appelé le cogito, le "Je pense, donc je suis". Le parti-pris est que sa valeur ne tient pas seulement à ce qu'il a pu affirmer de l'ego, de la nature de la pensée et de l'existence, mais à ce qui s'est ensuite écrit et qui peut prendre la forme d'une critique. Chaque étude constitue un échantillon du travail sur le cogito ; elle (...) le déplie selon un aspect de la méthode philosophique ou de la diversité des traditions historiques de la philosophie. L'ouvrage devrait permettre de parcourir les réécritures du cogito, en conduisant à porter une attention renouvelée à la formule cartésienne et en la désenclavant, pour ainsi dire, de ses réécritures."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Une phénoménologie prenant son point de départ dans l’évidence absolue du cogito est-elle encore possible, ou rejetée dans le passé périmé par les critiques qui en mettent en doute le caractère d’évidence absolue? Mais la méthode de réflexion transcendantale est-elle véritablement d’ascendance cartésienne? Nous tentons de montrer que, qu’il soit ou non interprété comme le résultat d’une démarche de réflexion, le cogito cartésien n’est nullement corrélatif d’une description réflexive des structures de la conscience, mais qu’un tel projet a (...) plutôt ses racines dans la Logique de Port-Royal, chez Malebranche et Leibniz. Puis, analysant la critique de fond adressée par Natorp à la thèse husserlienne de l’accès réflexif de la conscience pure, nous mettons en question cette dernière sur un double exemple (les modes de la conscience sensible et les actes de la conscience mathématicienne), pour montrer qu’à la démarche de réflexion transcendantale (censée saisir directement dans leur effectuation les vécus de la conscience) doit se substituer une démarche indirecte de reconstitution régressive, qui part des objets pour élucider les données et actes qui sont nécessaires à leur constitution. (shrink)

Quels sont les rapports entre l’éthique et la politique chez Paul Ricoeur? Le Cogito herméneutique est-il un sujet du droit? Chez Ricoeur, le passage de l ’éthique à la politique se révèle paradoxale. D’une part, le politique réalise la visée éthique d’une vie bonne : c ’est donc une partie de l ’éthique, un prolongement de celle-ci. De l’autre, le rapport de la politique au pouvoir bouleverse l’éthique : il existe une violence qui ne peut pas être réglée par (...) la morale. Le rapport entre l ’éthique et le politique se configure ainsi à la fois comme une identité et une différence. Ricoeur nous propose la voie d’un kantisme post-hégélien qui trouve sur le plan de la reconnaissance mutuelle et de la logique du don la médiation nécessaire entre éthique et politique. Ainsi, le paradoxe politique assume un nouveau sens créatif.What is the relationship between ethics and politics in Paul Ricoeur? Is the hermeneutic Cogito the subject of rights? In Ricoeur, the passage from ethics to politics is paradoxical. On the one hand, the politics achieves the ethical aim of a good life: it is therefore a part of ethics, an extension of it. On the other hand, the relationship between politics and power destroys ethics: there is a kind of violence that cannot be settled by moral rules. The relationship between ethics and politics is configured as both identity and difference. Ricoeur o ffers us the path of a post-Hegelian Kantianism which finds the necessary mediation between ethics and politics in mutual recognition and in the logic of giving. Thus, the political paradox takes on a new creative meaning. (shrink)

RESUMO O artigo analisa o modo como Malebranche apresenta o conhecimento que possuímos de nossa própria alma a partir da noção de sentimento interior. Para tanto, tomamos como ponto de partida a concepção malebrancheana do argumento do cogito, opondo-a à de Descartes, tomando-o como uma constatação imediata da existência de algo que sente, sem, no entanto, poder afirmar algo sobre sua essência. O conhecimento da alma torna-se assim algo puramente afetivo, sem nenhum conteúdo positivo, e por natureza distinto do (...) conhecimento propriamente dito. Buscamos desse modo mostrar como, na filosofia de Malebranche, cria-se um campo propriamente humano do sentimento cujo conteúdo é irredutível a qualquer ciência clara e distinta, ao mesmo tempo que é constatado pela experiência vivida.: The article aims to analyze the way by which Malebranche presents the knowledge that we possess of our own soul through the notion of inner sentiment. Therefore, we take as our starting point the Malebranchean notion of the cogito argument, contrasting it with that of Descartes, taking it to be the immediate ascertainment of the existence of something that feels without, however, being able to assert anything about its essence. The knowledge of the soul becomes therefore something purely affective, deprived of a positive content, and by its nature distinguished from knowledge properly understood. We aim thus to show how, in Malebranche's philosophy, a properly human domain of the feeling, irreducible to a clear and distinct science, but ascertained by experience, is created. (shrink)

The present article represents an attempt to argue in the favor of the thesis that, in the First Meditation, in the fragment where the problem of madness is spoken of, Descartes’ view aims to exclude the possibility that the knowing subject, the Cogito, could be insane, and not only to avoid the problem of madness because of various reasons or to replace the madness-example with a dreaming-example. In other words, this research aims to expose and to argue for Michel (...) Foucault’s point of view regarding the Cartesian problem of madness, and also to argue against Jacques Derrida’s view on the same issue. More broadly speaking, beyond the highlight of a possible different approach to Descartes’ text or the analysis of the Derrida-Foucault controversy, the main aim of this article is to emphasize a problem maybe less discussed of the act of knowing: beyond the proper usage of a wrong method, the misusage of a correct method or the poor practice of some spiritual exercises, the errors in the act of knowledge could as well follow from a deficiency in the knowing subject itself. (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)

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.

Le Cogito n’est pas un raisonnement, mais il est conditionné par la notion « pour penser, il faut être », qui n’est pas une majeure universelle. Cette notion préalable apporte au cogito le caractère des vérités d’entendement : la nécessité, qui ne saurait sortir d’un fait. Le fait du cogito apporte à cette notion une existence qui ne saurait sortir d’elle. Sans la nécessité, pas de critérium de toute vérité surtout mathématique. Sans l’existence, pas de valeur objective.

O presente artigo visa investigar se a afirmação eu sou, eu existo, presente no quarto parágrafo da Segunda Meditação, expressa única e exclusivamente uma existência, ou se é a expressão, também, do conhecimento sobre o que é o Eu que se descobre existente. Para tanto, além dos textos cartesianos, serão abordadas algumas linhas interpretativas que se ocupam desta questão sobretudo as teses de Alquié, Frankfurt e Marion. A partir da discussão realizada, pretende-se defender que o eu sou, eu existo expressa, (...) concomitantemente, o conhecimento da existência do Eu e o conhecimento de que o Eu existe como ser pensante. (shrink)

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)

ABSTRACT E. M. Curley has said that Descartes’ cogito, ergo sum “is as obscure on examination as it is compelling at first glance.” Why should that be? Maybe because the cogito raises so many textual and interpretive questions. Is it an argument or an intuition? If it is an argument, does it require an additional premise? Is it best interpreted as a “performance?” Is it best seen as the discovery that any reason proposed for doubting its success entails (...) the meditator’s existence? And so on. But all these questions typically arise in the wake of worries about the cogency of the cogito when it is treated as an argument and worded in its canonical form, “I think, therefore I exist.” In this essay, I focus on what I take to be the most fundamental reason for questioning the cogito’s cogency when it is so treated—namely that the “I” in its premise is question-begging. I distinguish that reason from other reasons that are sometimes conflated with it, and I argue that it is not a good reason. I then comment on some of the questions mentioned above in light of my defense of the cogito seen in that traditional way. (shrink)

The article contrasts descartes's and aquinas's theories on truth, Tracing their basic difference to a divergent view concerning the act of judgment. Descartes's '"cogito"' is held to be internally inconsistent precisely because it strives to unite an aprioristic "intellectus" with a reasoning process. Such an attempt is made, It is claimed, Because, Artificially separating understanding and judgment, Descartes misreads the hidden presuppositions of the act of reasoning as a way to fuller understanding. This occurs because descartes, Unlike aquinas, Seeks (...) to ground human knowing upon a theory of pure essences. (shrink)

W. von Leyden; IV—Cogito, Ergo Sum, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 63, Issue 1, 1 June 1963, Pages 67–82, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/.