Hrm.

Sounds like you're one of those blasphemous philosophers....

:yikes:

Heh. Thanks. I looked for the blushing emoticon but didn't see it.

Sure!

That gets along with the notion that philosophy should be concerned with the ideas themselves rather than who says them.

I think feedback alone is enough, with maybe a thread after the fact where people share why they thought this or that essay was better, but it's not strictly a competition.

Odd that this is relevant, and weird to quote myself, but in response to @Janus question "Why doesn't the Nobel offer a philosophy prize?""

There is one, we're just still arguing over who has won it and what you get for winning and what it means to win in the first place.

Also, to ensure no one cheats, it's long been decided since Plato that no money will be given to the winner. — Moliere

(There's a thread over there about non-existent objects, but I haven't looked at it. ― No, there's two of them.) — Srap Tasmaner

:D

Well, that takes down my theory. Is it really less real if we already have two threads discussing the curiosity?

Sometimes workbooks for children have a kind of puzzle in them, where you're given a little group of pictures and are told to put them in order to make a story. They often rely on thermodynamics ― you're supposed to know that broken pieces of a vase don't rise from the ground (defying gravity as well) and assemble themselves into a vase on the table.

Let's call the world where that sort of thing doesn't happen "the real world." If you tend to tell yourself and others stories where that sort of thing does happen, then I'd be tempted to say your world is "less real" than mine. And insofar as people's beliefs are real, or at least a useful way of categorizing their behavior, and insofar as their behavior has consequences in the real world, I'd be tempted to say that people are capable of increasing or decreasing the reality of situations they are involved in. (It's like the response to "facts are theory-laden": let's make sure our theories are fact-laden.) — Srap Tasmaner

But this is a better rendition.

I'm thinking now that it's not beliefs relative to states of affairs, as categories, that admits of degrees of reality.

But rather beliefs, relative to one another with respect to reality that admits of degrees of reality. Which makes some sense to me -- I have true and false beliefs, and beliefs which implicate sets of beliefs, and the beliefs which implicate sets of beliefs which have more true statements are the beliefs with "more reality".

Almost literally.

I also have in mind the sort of thing you can see in Peter Jackson's film Heavenly Creatures, where the characters begin to slip back and forth between the real world and their own fantasy world. We all do a bit of this, and it seems quite natural to put how much we do it on a scale. Mistaking a windmill on the horizon for a grain elevator is one thing; mistaking it for a dragon is another. At least grain elevators are real, and windmills and grain elevators are both members of "rural towers". But dragons ... — Srap Tasmaner

And I agree with you that this phenomena is related but different. I wanted to wait until I watched the movie before responding, hence my tardiness.

The slip between fantasy and reality seems to make sense of reality as degrees -- are we playing a part in our imaginative game together right now, or are we talking about the bills?

Yes, this is what I meant.

If anyone puts forth the effort then they can know that at least one person will read and comment.

I clicked "Maybe", but probably should have said "Yes" -- if there are essays then I'd participate as a reader.

See how the argument guarantees knowledge of God, and yet that knowledge depends on faith in the first place? — NotAristotle

Yeah... I just don't think that's the argument Descartes is making.

I'm insistent that he's not appealing to faith at all, but rather is deducing that God exists from the thought experiment.

It's because we live in the time after we've killed God that this inference is seen as implausible, rather than because the argument is obviously fallacious.

Husserl and Frege seem quite similar to me, re psychologism. They both reject the idea that thoughts can only be said to be “caused,” rather than explained or justified. One of the things I see Husserl doing is to separate the fact that thought-terms describe mental/psychological phenomena from the further fact (as he saw it) that phenomena like judgments and syllogisms are also normative. Similarly, a number is not to be understood as a “presentation,” a thought that occurs to me or you. Husserl says, “The number Five is not my own or anyone else’s counting of five, it is also not my presentation or anyone else’s presentation of five.” Frege’s emphasis, as far as I know (I don’t know his work deeply), was more on what we’d call the analytic quality of logical truths. But the point is similar: The psychological origin of subjective (synthetic) and objective (analytic) truths may be the same – they’re all thoughts – but it’s the way we demonstrate them that shows the difference. So, “the psychological is to be distinguished sharply from the logical, as the subjective is from the objective.” (Foundations of Arithmetic) — J

Cool. I'm going to include Sartre in that broad range because while he begins to drift into psychology he does so explicitly and he doesn't start there. I think it's safe to say that his philosophy, at least, is not depending upon a psychology or reducing phenomenology to psychological terms even though -- due to the Cogito's centrality -- psychology must be addressed.

If you're distinguishing between faith and knowledge, you'll have to define those terms. If we accept that knowledge requires a justified true belief, it would seem that the distinction between faith and knowledge would somehow hinge on the justification element. Those who believe in God based upon faith do not admit to having no justification for their faith, but they might use personal conviction, religious text, mystical feeling, or even pragmatic reasons to justify that faith. Some might even suggest an empirical basis (as in their experience of reality leads them to believe there must be a God), so that question is somewhat complicated.

That's not to say there are not differences between the justificaitons used by the faithful and those who are not of faith, but it's difficult to say one "knows" something and the other doesn't. What I think those who question those of faith really are attacking is the "truth" element, meaning they simply think there is no God and there is no way you can "know" something that isn't true. So, if you say Descartes knows there is God, then you are saying there is a God because to know something means it must be true.

My main point here isn't to suggest that Descartes made an intentional argument proving God by arguing that failure to accept God led to an incoherent solipsitic position. I just think that by working backwards and seeing what Descartes required to avoid solipsism you can come to the conclusion that God is necessary for Descartes to avoid that.

I do see the similarities with Kant's approach, but I also see the differences. With Kant, as it pertains to time, he argued that you could not begin to understand something without placing it in time. That is, an object outside of time is meaningless.

With Descartes, there is an private language argument problem that can suggest a complete incoherence to solipsism. https://iep.utm.edu/solipsis/#:~:text=The%20Incoherence%20of%20Solipsism,-With%20the%20belief&text=As%20a%20theory%2C%20it%20is,his%20solipsistic%20thoughts%20at%20all . What this would mean is that if God is necessary to avoid solipsism and solipsism is incoherent, then you need God to avoid incoherence.

Whether you want to go down that road, I don't know. I'm not necessarily arguing that a godless universe would result in a complete inability to understand anything, but, even if I did, I still see a distinction between that sort of incoherence and the one Kant references when he says time is imposed on objects and therefore a necessary element of the understanding.

This whole argument here has expanded as I've thought about it, so maybe there is a good argument that human understanding is impossible without God if one follows Descartes' reasoning. This wouldn't mean there is God. It would just mean you can't know anything without God. — Hanover

I'd put it that faith is outside of the frame of discussion, but not opposed. We can have faith in something we know and in something we do not know, and the inferences of Descartes and Kant aren't appealing to faith. That is, I would not be inclined to put it in opposition to knowledge, and I don't think Descartes or Kant would at least either.

Faith is centrally important to Sartre's metaphysics since he's trying to given the metaphysical frame which explains how it is possible for us to end up in good or bad faith, and Sartre frequently makes references to knowledge -- so they're not opposed there either, though also "faith" in Sartre isn't the same as our everyday notion of "faith", since it's the kind of faith an atheist has (and has no choice in participating with -- it's either good or bad faith)


Given that I think I'd put faith to one side of justification -- the faithful may accept different sorts of justifications from the unfaithful (though my suspicion is that's not quite right -- it's probably how the justifications are used rather than the kind of justifications), but justification isn't the basis on which I'd separate faith from knowledge. I'm tempted to say they are orthogonal to one another such that different views of either can be made coherent.



I've been thinking about a response for too long to wait, but I'm still not sure how to tie this back to the cogito. (Of course, that's not your fault -- the original question has been answered, I'm still stuck on how to develop it though.... but I felt I owed you a response)

I'd read philosophy essays if people submitted them. That's always been the problem before -- essays require more work than posts :D

Yes.

"...exists", as I'm construcing these thinkers, means...

Descartes: A first order predicate which can be deduced from the concepts.
Kant: A predicate without logical significance -- it is only applied to what is given in intuition
Sartre: Precedes essence, which I gather is that existence is prior to predication; there isn't a logically deductive argument, but neither can we infer the existence of God by ourselves "lacking perfection".

And being: I think for Descartes and Kant, at least with respect to the phenomenological turn, are using the same notion of Being as Presence. But Sartre takes up Heidegger's terms and analysis/critique of Being as presence -- rather it's an unfolding of the horizon which discloses itself (and in the disclosure usually there is also a closure)

But whats different between Sartre and Heidegger on Being is that Being is explicitly transphenomenal in Sartre, while I'm not so sure about that in Heidegger (Heidi often gets put into the idealist camp because he's not really clear either way, where Sartre seems to be very clear on the realist/idealist distinction)



Good question (and I'm wrapping around to the other posters still, but this one looked like an easy answer for me): I'd say that there's a two-stepper that goes on. Initially he's looking for an indubitable proposition and from that inference from "I think therefore I am" he notices that these are clear and distinct ideas.

But now Method seems to Require Me to Rank all My Thoughts under certain Heads, and to search in Which of them Truth or Falshood properly Consists.

...

I have yet an other Way of inquiring, whether any of those Things (whose Ideas I have within Me) are Really Existent without Me; And that is Thus: As those Ideas are only Modes of Thinking, I acknowledge no Inequality between them, and they all proceed from me in the same Manner. But as one Represents one thing, an other, an other Thing, ’tis Evident there is a Great difference between them. * For without doubt, Those of them which Represent Substances are something More, or (as I may say) have More of Objective Reallity in them, then those that Represent only Modes or Accidents; and again, That by Which I understand a Mighty God, Eternal, Infinite, Omniscient, Omnipotent Creatour of all things besides himself, has certainly in it more Objective Reallity, then Those Ideas by which Finite Substances are Exhibited.

But Now, it is evident by the Light of Nature that there must be as much at least in the Total efficient Cause, as there is in the Effect of that Cause; For from Whence[37] can the effect have its Reallity, but from the Cause? and how can the Cause give it that Reallity, unless it self have it?

And from hence it follows, that neither a Thing can be made out of Nothing, Neither a Thing which is more Perfect (that is, Which has in it self more Reallity) proceed from That Which is Less Perfect.

And this is Clearly True, not only in those Effects whose Actual or Formal Reallity is Consider’d, But in Those Ideas also, Whose Objective Reallity is only Respected; That is to say, for Example of Illustration, it is not only impossible that a stone, Which was not, should now begin to Be, unless it were produced by something, in Which, Whatever goes to the Making a Stone, is either Formally or Virtually; neither can heat be Produced in any Thing, which before was not hot, but by a Thing which is at least of as equal a degree of Perfection as heat is; But also ’tis Impossible that I should have an Idea of Heat, or of a Stone, unless it were put into me by some Cause, in which there is at Least as much Reallity, as I Conceive there is in heat or a Stone.

.....

Thus, that if the objective reallity of any of my Ideas be such, that it cannot be in me either formally or eminently, and that therefore I cannot be the cause of that Idea, from hence it necessarily Follows, that I alone do not only exist, but that some other[40] thing, which is cause of that Idea, does exist also.

But if I can find no such Idea in me, I have no argument to perswade me of the existence of any thing besides my self for I have diligently enquired, and hitherto I could discover no other perswasive.


.....

Wherefore there only Remains the Idea of a God, wherein I must consider whether there be not something included, which cannot possibly have its original from me. By the word God, I mean a[44] certain Infinite Substance, Independent, Omniscient, Almighty, by whom both I my self, and every thing else that is (if any thing do Actualy exist) was created. All which Attributes are of such an high nature, that the more attentively I consider them, the less I conceive my self possible to be the Author of these notions.

From what therefore has been said I must conclude that there is a God;

Once he infers God must exist the rest is easy. I cut out the bits of meditation to try and get at the heart of the argument (well, the first argument for God. I've read that the 2nd argument is a little different from the first one)

***

Short answer, by my lights, is that the inference "I think, therefore I am" is indubitable in the moment of saying to the point htat even an Evil Demon couldn't deceive me, and so a foundation of certainty is found for knowledge. (Quotes pulled from here)

There is one, we're just still arguing over who has won it and what you get for winning and what it means to win in the first place.

Also, to ensure no one cheats, it's long been decided since Plato that no money will be given to the winner.

That’s what I mean by saying that “I think therefore I am” is not the culmination of cogito qua cogito but of the transcendence of itself viz. the externalization of being through the process of “doubting.” Thinking that thinks itself. — NotAristotle

I think, supposing we were to take up Descartes' side in this back-and-forth, Descartes could reply that Sartre has no right to claim externalization on the basis of his methodological doubt. Whether the process of doubting requires time is beside the point from the metaphysical set-up of the method of doubt.

Which is why I keep coming back to thinking that difference between them is the how they interpret being and "...exists". As well as their overall philosophical goals being very different, since they're in very different times.

Maybe everything is supernatural for Descartes, while Sartre keeps it as an illusion out of distance, focusing on material problems — Gregory

I'd say that neither believe in the supernatural -- and even if we mean "supernatural" in the sense of "outside of nature" Descartes still believes in nature -- res extensa is just as real as res cogitans, and while God may sit outside of nature and we have knowledge of his existence nature still exists.

And, on the other hand, I believe some would be inclined to call Sartre's notion of being-for-itself, and its radical freedom, a superstition in the modern, scientistic use of that term.

Though I believe both are doing philosophy in the sense that they're appealing to reason.

Some additional thoughts on why Kant is relevant to the question of the cogito, and at least Sartre.

The ontological argument is one of the big targets of Kant's epistemology. I'd say the ontological argument Kant criticizes is more Leibniz's version than Descartes, but close enough to count for concepts.

Broad strokes here but with respect to the cogito the differences that pop out to me for each thinker are:

Descartes: existence is a genuine predicate of logic.
Kant: Existence is not a genuine predicate of logic, but is given.
Sartre: The meaning of being is different from what either Descartes or Kant are talking about, and Existence precedes essence. Descartes' reflection is correct, and there's more apodeictic knowledge that comes with it.

Interesting to note, at least to me, is how Kant's cogito is de-emphasized from Descartes', which makes a kind of sense since he's trying to protect the belief in the immortality in the soul from scientific knowledge -- limiting knowledge to make room for faith.

Whereas Sartre has no problem denying such things. Though, simultaneously, isn't coming from a strictly scientific perspective either.

I don't think so. Kierkegaard is the beginning of existentialism. His point was that the the more fully you become lost in the landscape of the intellect, the more disconnected and alienated you'll be from the knowledge that's most direct and intimate: the knowledge of what it feels like to be alive. — frank

Yeah, but Kierkegaard also took up several writing personas to demonstrate a kaleidoscope of thoughts (one I do not claim to understand). Nietzsche wrote a parody of the Bible to expand on original philosophical concepts. These aren't exactly acts of becoming lost in what it feels like to be alive.

Or, more properly, they are -- but they are also acts of intellect.

I don't know if you saw my SEP quotes, but Descartes also points to this as what he meant by "cogito": he is talking about awareness, which is only sometimes of ideas. — frank

I've now read them, and am including them here for reference in the conversation -- but I'm not sure what I've said that disagrees with them.

"Third, the certainty of the cogito depends on being formulated in terms of cogitatio – i.e., my thinking, or awareness/consciousness more generally. Any mode of thinking is sufficient, including doubting, affirming, denying, willing, understanding, imagining, and so on (cf. Med. 2, AT 7:28). My bodily activities, however, are insufficient. For instance, it’s no good to reason that “I exist, since I am walking,” because methodical doubt calls into question the existence of my legs. Maybe I’m just dreaming that I have legs. A simple revision, such as “I exist, since it seems I’m walking,” restores the anti-sceptical potency (cf. Replies 5, AT 7:352; Prin. 1:9)."
— SEP

Also:

"Second, a present tense formulation is essential to the certainty of the cogito. It’s no good to reason that “I existed last Tuesday, since I recall that I was thinking on that day.” For all I know, I’m now merely dreaming about that occasion. Nor does it work to reason that “I’ll continue to exist, since I’m now thinking.” As the meditator remarks, “it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist” (Med. 2, AT 7:27, CSM 2:18). The privileged certainty of the cogito is grounded in the “manifest contradiction” (AT 7:36, CSM 2:25) of trying to think away my present thinking."
— SEP — frank

So what's it all about? What sorts of things should we think are more or less real than other things? — Srap Tasmaner

I'll note that I'm inclined to not grant degrees to reality, so I suppose I fit the mold.

But in trying to think of ways to make sense of it....

When I dream of something that's happened before while the dream is real it makes sense to me to say that it's less real than the event I experienced. And the memory of the event could likewise be thought of as less real.

But then, just to head off notions of minds being less real, in this same way I'd say that the answer to a complicated mathematical expression that I'm seeking is more real than my belief when I've made a mistake -- so there could be something to be said for Universals being more real than my opinion, too.

No apology needed, you did nothing wrong. You're good!

I'm just going to state my confusion and see where that takes us instead of trying to rephrase the question:

I'm tempted by the exegetical hole again -- I want to at least do a side-by-side interpretation with yours.

I see what you're saying as a reasonable interpretation; and to restate it in my own words to see if I have it right: the ontological argument is thrown in there but given its weakness to persuade those who are not already convinced this indicates that Descartes was relying on God. (At least, that seems like something you could say to excuse why the argument is in the text on reasonable grounds)

The interpretation I'm relying upon is to treat the Meditations at its face value -- and at its face value we start with doubt and, through the power of Man's Reason alone, find true and certain knowledge of the self, God, and the world.

So I see Descartes as claiming not faith but knowledge of God's existence -- and this need not even counter faith. Especially at the time scientists and theologians weren't far apart. In a way I'm trying to bring out "the spirit of the times" by focusing on the prima facie meaning to put Descartes in the context of the Enlightenment.

This I think you'd find amenable because of your reliance on Kant. I see a strong through-line to Kant here where a disagreement is clearly spelled out (though in the abstract).

But Kant wouldn't say that knowledge requires faith, either. So I'm left wondering how to interpret you with respect to these two interpretations of the prima facie Descartes and Kant.

I don't see anything wrong with saying an experience ends. Some experiences are episodic.

But I don't think the cogito, even with the structure of temporality -- even though consciousness is being described -- is even at the level of an individuals' experience (at least in the story so far). The structure of reflection is, but the relationship between the general structure of reflection and even a being-for-itself -- which I'd read as still a general category rather than an individual, only more specific than simply being-for-itself -- isn't specified yet. And the individual hasn't even shown up on the scene.

So I'd say that our personal reflections, while we'll be using them to relate to the phenomenological description, are not themselves yet relevant. They are "too close", as it were.

Yes, probably. You're kind of stomping all over the existentialism with your intellectual observations, tho. — frank

I'd disagree here. The flow of time is being presented in a manner which is a flow, but the various existential writers are attempting to be very precise about their topics in the exact way that philosophers have always done -- they have their own particular meanings and such, but it's still very intellectual.

And see Frege on psychologism. — J

I'd be interested in hearing more from you on this comment. (I've read some of Husserl's anti-psychologist arguments and found them amenable, but not Frege's)

To be clear on my end -- by the cogito, even if there is a psychological theory of it, I explicitly mean a philosophical theory. (For some there's no distinction, but for thems that there is one -- pick the philosophy side)

Yes, but it does feel like a "move," and I wasn't suggesting it seriously. — J

Heh. I don't mind things that feel like "moves" -- they all feel like that, really! It's just which move feels right to the reader which chooses what Descartes really meant. :D

In general I like the skeptical hypotheses, so I'd be open to an argument like that. I'm not fully committed to the notion that there even is a self -- so that would be like a nihilism of the cogito -- but it comes up often enough that I think worth thinking about.

Good observation. I think that philosophers who are hostile to phenomenology want this liminal place to be a mistake, an inability to be clear about what the topic is. A more sympathetic reading, starting with Husserl, is that the distinction between metaphysics and psychology must be put into doubt as a first step toward a new conception of doing philosophy in the first person. — J

Yeah. I actually like the move, but because some of it is obscure or has multiple interpretations or just isn't mathematical enough to taste it's easier to designate that side of philosophy as meaningless wankers cosplaying as sages while saying nothing but poetic drivel** while the serious logicians clarify what we utilize everyday and so cannot help but be really right -- language and science and the language of science and the logic that governs such talk.

Though, to be real, it was always about competition over employment. Philosophy isn't given enough budget to fund a whole two different ways of doing it.
:D

One example where it does create confusion, though, is what I tried to straighten out with frank, above. He quite reasonably wanted to know why a thought must occur in time, which leads us into the two common meanings of the term "thought." One is psychological, the other metaphysical. And see Frege on psychologism.

Yeah there's a lot of confusion at first, but I think that's part of what makes it philosophy. Eventually there's a certain clarity even while there are more than one way to interpret the texts.

What the other side says about the Clear Hard Thinkers is that they are clearly lazy navel gazers because they obsess over language and refuse to learn even 2 different languages**.

** Though I roast both because I find that distinction hilarious, and really probably not so relevant now so the roast shouldn't even sting.

It’s material composition, whatever it may be. — Mww

I vote for time being a necessary condition for the cogito to make sense of anything thought about, which is the same as any thought in general, which is the same as thought itself. I am, after all, nothing but my thoughts. — Mww

Am I to infer that the cogito's material composition is thought, then? So when I think about the cogito the object of my thought is thought and the composition of the thought thinking about thought is thought.

Wouldn't this analysis apply to the objects thought about, no matter what? Is the material composition of what is thought about itself always thought, and Time is what seperates out the object thought about from the thought which is directed towards the object?

The notion of past, future and therefore time itself, would be necessary regarding that which I think about, iff it is the case thoughts are always and only singular and successive. — Mww

Also, I'm not sure I'd sign up for the notion that thoughts are always and only singular and successive, which would put me in trouble.

I find foundationalism problematic, and so Descartes problematic on this point.

Subjectivity comes up too often for me to think the cogito, or the philosophical subject/self, is a mistake to attempt to articulate, though. "What is it that makes an individual what they are?" strikes me as a perfectly sensible question, and even Descartes' desire for certainty -- given all the falsehoods he now knows he's believed -- makes a good deal of sense to all of us. It's nice to be certain.

But I see no reason to start with methodical doubt to find certain propositions -- and even if I were to begin with the cogito I'd still build towards a world with knowledge and such that's part of it. Or at least I'd like those things to be addressed in a given philosophy.

Descartes gets out of the solipsistic hole through God, and you have no problem with admitting that all knowledge is faith-based, except perhaps for the certain knowledge of your own existence when thinking the thought "I think". Do you follow Descartes in putting God into the rational frame, though? That's what I think is missed with Descartes, frequently: he's not a skeptic, but a Rationalist who, through a priori reasoning -- due to the power of Reason in Man, to link this to our narrative of the Enlightenment -- deduces the foundations of knowledge. So, given his arguments -- at face value -- he knows God exists, rather than it being faith-based.

How does faith get us out of the cogito?

OK Thanks. That one is making much more sense to me. Chewing it over, will post more if I think of something.

But imagine we could derive something.... :D

Okiedokie. That looks like a terminus, though I think there's more to the cogito than that.

A reasonable inference is that God is necessary in order to avoid solipsism.

That seems to be the larger argument he was making. — Hanover

Descartes, you mean?

That's an interesting read, if so -- a theist twist on the interpretation of the Meditations. If I'm entirely wrong on that, well, then I am but to explain myself: I've heard it argued that Descartes' argument for the existence of God is so bad, and Descartes so smart, that there must be some explanation as to why it's in there when the preceding arguments are so crisp and clean.

I'll call this the "Secret Atheist" interpretation: The idea is he must have been an atheist but because the church was so powerful at the time he had to include proofs for the existence of God, given that it's philosophy after all.

So, if I have you right, you're making the argument that he's more targeting atheists in saying that if they do not believe in God then this is all they can know, and given that they know more than that, they ought consider believing in God. Sort of like the Secret Atheist, but instead he's dressing it up for the church while talking to his contemporaries too.

My question for both Descartes and Sartre is this: Are you offering a psychological story -- that is, a story about actual thoughts -- in which case it must indeed occur in time? Or is the "moment" of the Cogito pointing to a different mode of understanding? — J

I can answer better for Sartre since that's what I'm more mired in at the moment:
tl;dr -- no.

Extended: his is not a psychological story in the sense that he rejects reducing philosophy to psychology and he is pursuing philosophy, and in particular, metaphysics. So knowledge isn't as much the focus, though Sartre relies upon a notion of knowledge (that I'm told is, of course, unique to him -- why make it easy?)

For Sartre the cogito is referring to the three ekstases, which I'm gathering is the past, the present, the future -- but in metaphysical speak. To practice the lingo: I think the cogito temporalizes itself in all three ekstases in any rendition of the cogito. I think therefore I was, am, and will be, and these are not discrete one from another but rather I carry my past into my present towards a future each of which is divided by a nothing.


:D

I hesitate to use the word "transcendental" because Descartes probably wouldn't know how to respond, and Sartre had his own very special understanding of transcendentality in phenomenology. So I'm struggling for words here. What I'm groping toward is the idea that the indubitability of the Cogito doesn't rest on any account that involves time at all. Suppose we all agreed that it's impossible to experience a present moment. I think many psychologists believe this; it's a version of the Achilles-and-tortoise problem. Would that mean that the Cogito is no longer operative? That, since it doesn't report an actual experience, my existence is thrown back into doubt? That doesn't sound right. I dunno . . . pardon me if this is too murky for response. — J

Not too murky at all. This is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for.

I'm struggling with words too -- it's part of why I've been looking for passages -- to force myself to attempt to explain some of these things to others as a "check" that even I'm understanding my own interpretation as I read :D

I think the cogito would still be operative, it only implies more than the singular indubitability which Descartes rested on -- if we accept the cogito, so I'm gathering Sartre to be saying, then we have all three of the ekstases which are metaphysically equal to the objects which they are about.

But it'd be an argument against what Sartre is saying, I think, if you could argue that the cogito was no longer active, due to this move, and so existence is thrown back into doubt -- that'd be an interesting skeptical response.

Does Sartre say that the for-itself is an object of experience, in addition to being the ground for the possibility of experience? I can't remember. — J

No expertise here, just reading it right now. The for-itself is consciousness, and the thing which makes consciousness what it is is that it is about the in-itself. The in-itself is what it is, and the for-itself is what it is not. The for-itself/in-itself are both modifications of Being as such, so they are written Being-for-itself and Being-in-itself in the English translation. That's part of the puzzle he's working through.

No ground for the possibility of experience type argument seems to be going on here -- that'd put him squarely back into the comprehension of being as a given existent, rather than the expanded notion of being which phenomenology relies upon (or, perhaps, merely chases).

So the in-itself is the object of experience, and the for-itself is about those objects, and the cogito secures being-for-itself, being-in-itself, and the three ekstases through which being-for-itself temporalizes itself.

Back to your question on psychology, though: He starts in metaphysics but the part I'm reading now is dealing with questions of how these metaphysical concepts relate to a very highly abstract psychology. So it fits in that funny place phenomenology often does -- between metaphysics, but then sort of drifts into psychology. What I really like on this front, however, is it gives a solid theoretical foundation for rejecting Freudian analysis -- the id/ego-superego are the in-itself, and it's the psychologist who is crafting this in-itself without access to the for-itself except through their own for-itself.

Having said something, one has expressed a distinction that makes a difference.

Descartes' "I exist" is, at best, a tautology; he concludes only what his conclusion already necessarily presupposes. Saying "I exist", therefore, doesn't actually say anything.

Cotard's "I do not exist", a delusion, is a pathology; otherwise, as a statement (rather than a feeling) it's a performative contradiction, which says nothing. — 180 Proof

Do you think anything can be inferred from the cogito, whatsoever? Or is it entirely different from the philosophical subject, or are they one and the same and yet meaningless tautology?

No. It seems as though there is something more to it than the solipsism Descartes allowed in his analysis on the cogito. I think that one can allow skepticism about things like God's intention or even the Will itself. — Shawn

I'm not following how your justifications justify "no" -- I'd almost think you were saying the opposite, even. I've given it a bit to think over but I'm afraid I'm still scratching my head.

(I'm not sure if I'm right to equate pre-reflexion with being-as-such).

An instantaneous cogito implies the structure of doubt, that is, suspension of judgment. But the cogito is committed to more than mere suspension of judgement; it is by necessity interwoven within a time "architecture."

The architecture of doubt is directly mirroring the architecture of the cogito itself, in time, but as a negation.

This architecture is pre-ontological in the sense of not yet truly ontological. That is, it is prior to the formulation of an ontology. The movement from pre-ontological knowing, the cogito, to a pre-reflexive ontology of being-as-such (that is to actually study being), requires transcendence of the cogito, where "doubt" is understood as just the negation of the cogito, ego.

It may be strange for pre-reflective awareness to be after the cogito's pre-ontological mode, but this is just the path of consciousness. Whereas pre-reflection is wholly prior to the cogito, in consciousness it comes after, as it is from the perspective of the negation of the ego that pre-reflection is attainable in a self-conscious way. This is why the saying "I think, therefore I am" is concluded after Descartes' "doubt" meditation. The saying is not the culmination of cogito but its transcendence. — NotAristotle

Can you unpack that more? I've read over a few times and find myself confused lol.

I suppose I'm more persuaded by Descartes argument that in the moment of thinking "I think" that seems an indubitable proposition even though I'm thinking the cogito requires more than solipsism, or perhaps invokes more.

In some way the repetition of "I think" allows for our bodies to be entirely different from what we experience, as well as the world, but the proposition of thinking leads to the indubitability of my own existence. I'd go that far with Descartes.

One thing I can infer from thinking "I think" is that I think.

So if I think then I think.

Indubitability is the easy thing to attack, I think, but in some ways this is to give into the Cartesian impulse -- to look for a certain foundation. So it is easy to point out that just because I think "I think" that it does not follow that "I am" in some kind of logically deductive fashion. It's just something that makes sense: in order for me to do I must be.

The part that doesn't follow from all this is that the "I think" refers to the same "I" as the "I am": in the context of the meditations it makes sense because we're presented with a story of a man who goes to his desk and thinks a few things until he gets tired, then comes back the next time to push his thoughts further. But in the context of Being and Nothingness it doesn't immediately follow because the "I think" is the in-itself, whereas the "I am" is the for-itself. (there's no reliance upon "clear and distinct ideas")

Now it seems apparent to me that Descartes and Sartre don't get lost in the cogito, but rather see certain things as equally indubitable or conceptually interdependent -- the turning point for Descartes, as you hinted at @frank, is God -- going further into the Meditation 3:

Wherefore there only Remains the Idea of a God, wherein I must consider whether there be not something included, which cannot possibly have its original from me. By the word God, I mean a[44] certain Infinite Substance, Independent, Omniscient, Almighty, by whom both I my self, and every thing else that is (if any thing do Actualy exist) was created. All which Attributes are of such an high nature, that the more attentively I consider them, the less I conceive my self possible to be the Author of these notions.

From what therefore has been said I must conclude that there is a God; for tho the Idea of substance may arise in me, because that I my self am a substance, yet I could not have the Idea of an Infinite substance (seeing I my self am finite) unless it proceeded from a substance which is really Infinite.

But I don't see it as magical or faith-based -- it seems to follow from the arguments presented.

Though if we're inclined to believe that being cannot be derived, but must be given, then we'd say that Descartes' argument, more or less, is the ontological argument and since existence is not a predicate it does not follow that the idea of infinity, which is not in me, can only come from God.

But having a benevolent God is how I understand we begin to get out of the solipsistic experiment where all that we are is a thinking thing (and not even our body), based upon the method of doubt.

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It makes me think that the cogito in Sartre does not rely upon ourselves as a thinking thing: If we remove ourselves as a substance which thinks (and is not extended) then there is nothing for the "I think" to refer to -- though "I am" remains true, it's not through the indubitability of the cogito that we come to this. Rather, given that it's phenomenology, existence isn't even attempted to be proven: rather "the things themselves" are described as they are in the phenomenonal capacity


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A point of contention with Kant here @Hanover is Sarte's notion that Being-in-itself is transphenomenal; but there isn't any of the arguments which Kant tries to bring to bear on separating the noumenal from the phenomenal, and usually if something "has being" then it exists. But with the phenomenological turn the meaning of being is in question, and even non-being has its own being such that when Pierre is not in the room then that absence still has being.

We must understand that this being is no other than the transphenomenal being of phenomena and not a noumenal being which is hidden behind them. Itis the being of this table, of this package of tobacco, of the lamp, more generally the being of the world which is implied by consciousness. It requires simply that the being of that which appears does
not exist only in so far as it appears. The transphenomenal being of what
exists for consciousness is itself in itself. — B&N, lxii

So being is transphenomenal, but he's still relying upon the intuitive move that Kant makes -- he just includes time within phenomena, even though being-for-itself is actively synthesizing being-in-itself. The cogito is respected, it's just given more dimensions than a point-like certainty or than a formal "I think..." which can be appended to any judgment.

Fair. Yeah, we can do a whole thread on Descartes, and that's already been done too. I realize there's a lot to Cartesian interpretation which I'm fine with bringing in to the question, I just don't want to get bogged down in arguing what Descartes really meant is all.

So I'd be more than happy to grant that Descartes may escape this charge that Sartre is bringing up, when we consider the whole of his work. I think that all the greats are like this when they speak about one another: We can choose one or the other in defending them because they're just that rich of thinkers.

But with something as... airy?... as the philosophical subject I want something to grasp onto in thinking out the concept.

I think, generally speaking, the trap of skepticism which these thoughts can inspire is worth skipping over, but I'm hopping in and just looking at the dimensions of it. Why is this temptation here? What brings people to the Inn of Solipsism as they travel the philosophy road?

Is everyone on the same page that Descartes gives an argument for his existence from doubt? (link) Some, like ↪frank, seem to be missing this. The "shift from certainty to doubt" is not Sartre, it is Descartes, and it is not a shift from certainty so much as an avenue to certainty. — Leontiskos

By "Shift from certainty to doubt" I mean that Sartre is asking what would remain of doubt if we were only an instant, whereas for Descartes the instant in which one speaks to themself the cogito that is a certainty that even an evil demon could not deceive. Descartes uses doubt, and his doubt is even a genuine exploration, but he's on a search for certainty. Whereas Sartre is trying to explicate the metaphysical structures of a being which can lie to itself, or find itself in bad faith. How is it possible for this seemingly singular unity which flows through time, that seems transparent to itself, can lie to itself? So he focuses on the necessities of doubt in order to divide up the cogito into the tripartite division of time.

But think about why Descartes responded so vehemently to Gassendi when Gassendi made a similar claim. What you are saying is, "Descartes' wrangling with skepticism wasn't real; it was just a charade." If it wasn't real, if Descartes did not really descend into skepticism and really come out, then his meditation is completely worthless. "Descartes came back up with knowledge, therefore he never seriously entertained skepticism," is a really problematic way to assess Descartes' meditation, and Descartes explicitly rejects this problematic/cynical reading. — Leontiskos

Because Gassendi was passing over the important part to his argument. I'm not saying that Descartes' methodological decision is a charade, only that if we keep reading the meditations we eventually get out of skeptical doubt and find knowledge.

Yes! It might take us too far astray, but the notions of continuity are actually deeply related -- the quote here is in the third section on temporality, but the first section on temporality references a definition of mathematical continuity proposed by Poincare as a basis for understanding his ideas about consciousness. He requires a being which is what it is not and is not what it is as its very
being, and he states Poincare's definition as "a=b, b=c, a÷c" -- when I did the dig, because I had no idea what he was on about, what I found was that it's better to read "a÷c" as "a divides from c"; this got along with another rendition of Poincare's definition which made more sense to me: "a=b, b=c, a<c" (where a, b, and c are infinitesimals, which from what could see would be why it's not so popular nowadays since infinitesimals aren't really used anymore, from what I saw)

That "flow" from the past towards the future with a nothing that divides the two as the present is very much what he's getting at rather than a continuous series of instants.

Descartes’ mistake: the subject isn’t as much a different substance than the object, as it is differently conditioned than an object. — Mww

What is the substance of the object (and, thereby, the subject by your sentence)? And what is this different conditioning?

Yeh. Hopefully the above clarified a bit, but to reiterate -- I'm the one bringing in the notion of the skeptic to the notion of the subject by way of Descartes and Sartre. By my understanding, to go towards exegesis (but I'm trying to not fall into a sandpit of exegesis), neither of them are skeptics at all.

I think it's correct to assume that we cannot understand the world without reference to time, and so the Cogito must be understood within the context of time.

However, that does not mean that the Cogito proves that time exists, nor does it suggest that Descartes failed in his attempt to be infinitely skeptical by assuming the existence of time. It only means that an understanding of the world is impossible without placing events within time.

This approach I'm arguing is consistent with Kant's view that time does not necessarily exist outside humans because it is a form of intuition necessary for our perception of reality, but not an inherent property of the world itself. — Hanover

The cogito in Kant is interesting since it's just an abstract appendage to every assertion that one could possibly make. It refers to the transcendental ego -- a necessary feature of any assertion prior even to being baptized in the schematism of time.

I think the phenomenological approach gets by Kant's objections (well... not really objections, since the order of argument started with Kant and a lot of the ideas Kant started are "baked in" to phenomenology as a concern. Perhaps better to sya "gets around Kant's conceptions"). Using Chalmer's idea of the philosophy room: In some sense since we're in the phenomenology room when Kant shows up we can point him down the hallway towards the noumenology room where his points will stand. But since we're only speaking of the phenomena we can leave the things-in-themselves and the various noumena behind and underneath the phenomena, forever locked away.

Some commentators insist that it does, but I'd have to go on an expedition to find those sources. :smile: — frank

My thinking is that the text and some exegesis is there to give us a little something more to dig into than our own thoughts, but I do mean to ask the question about what it is I or we think about the cogito -- what is it we can infer from stating "I think"? Can you infer "I am" by thinking "I think"?

But I don't know how to interpret Descartes as getting stuck on the evil demon since he moves past the evil demon in the meditations. It seems to me that this is a temptation for modern readers because the solution isn't persuasive to us but the problem, as stated, is.

But Descartes didn't get stuck there.

Well, given that Sartre is talking about radical doubt as being given to us only through time reference (something like Kant's intuitions I feel) there is nothing other to hang experience off of is there?

'Rely' is probably the sticky word here. Sartre likes to make words less like words. — I like sushi

Skepticism is something I'm bringing in to thinking about the subject, or the cogito, but Sartre is not a skeptic.

I'm still in the middle of reading it, but yeah the in-itself is not who I am but a kind of facticity (or, at least, historicity -- I'm thinking these things are on the same plane, ie. the in-itself, but I could turn out wrong): the familiar objects of the world but without any synthetic relation which the for-itself brings (though there's a twist, here, because consciousness, the for-itself, is nothing). The for-itself brings its past along but the speaking of my past as an event that I partake in is to make of myself an in-itself, as I understand it.

I'm cool with introducing jargon and technicalities and revisiting these themes. In large part I've been looking for a good quote for entry to force myself to go back over the text from where I'm at and respond to various objections people might bring up with what I've read so far of the text to sort of solidify where I'm at.

I just wanted to avoid them so that the barrier to entry was relatively low.