The problem with this is that 'cogito ergo sum' is only supposedly only valid in the present tense and with the person both saying it and evaluating it, not in the past tense and/or another person evaluating the statement. — dclements

whatever, I don't argue with informal opinions about standard philosophy based on people's own intuition, its a waste of time.

"whatever, I don't argue with informal opinions about standard philosophy based on people's own intuition, its a waste of time."
—ernestm

Then why did you bother to post YOUR OWN INFORMAL OPINION if you believed it doing so would be a waste of time for you and the other people reading it?

I imagine you believe that your opinion may not be as much of a waste of time as the opinions of others, but obviously if that is how you feel it would be a bit of a double standard as it would mean only your opinions mattered and not any others.

Also since the majority of philosophical topics revolve around what people think about them more than what can be proven you would be neglecting many topics even if you were willing to discuss who said what regarding some subject but nothing beyond that as some academics sometimes try to do when they are supposedly 'experts' in such subjects.

I could be wrong, but I imagine your response with 'whatever' is more likely merely a means to avoid dealing with a potential issue with that I have pointed out a fallacy than your unwillingness to consider 'opinions' in regarding various issues in standard philosophy. While I can understand such a method of dealing with such a problem (were you may or may not be willing to think about an issue at a later time), might I suggest another and that is to either not give a rat's backside about making errors and/or have it one of your goals while studying philosophy to find out you are in error in one way or another.

The reasoning for doing this is simple, in philosophy (at least in this kind of setting) there are no grades, no metrics or anything else to really prove one thing or another so actually being 'wrong' from time to time is pretty moot. The only goals I can think of is either to learn yourself, to teach others, or sometimes merely do a sanity check if one has been doing this for awhile. For me I realize I spend enough time merely shooting from the hip instead of worrying about what I'm saying to be overly paranoid about being wrong and/or worrying about what others might think. Also if anyone on a forum believes your position is weaker due to making a mistake every so often, then it is likely they are new to philosophy and/or are too full of themselves anyways so their opinion is moot either way.

IMHO, the almost all the topics in philosophy that DO MATTER are the ones where people have to use their opinions (and overcome biases) in order to better understand the issue at hand. The issues that only require someone to recite text or cook book stuff like it is some kind of scripture too simple because the questions and answers are in the format used mostly in high school and/or college where as many real world problems require the kind of critical thinking were there are no black or white solutions to certain questions and problems.

Sorry ernestm, I didn't realize I was talking to you. :D

We have butted heads enough on similar topics that you can disregard the last post I made. The issue I pointed out is merely a nuance and merely something I pointed out to try and make my point. However since I have troubled you enough in the past, I don't want to cause you any more headaches than necessary.

hinking is always being,
being is not always thinking
—Cavacava

And you know this how? While not living things 'think' as we do, it is a gray area as to at what threshold allows something to be classified as a 'living thing', and from there at what level it has some self awareness, and after that sentience. Whether or not a non-living thing is a being like a living being is other question that really has no answer. While it is kind of safe to assume that something you see exists, I'm unaware of anything of any argument that state that it is a given that the thing-in-and-of-itself exists as we perceive it to exist. Or at least I'm unaware of any good argument that states this.

As far as I know, we do not the attributes that are required to allow something to think nor do we really understand which attributes are required for something to be. While for the sake of simplicity we can make certain assumptions, but it isn't a given that such assumptions are true under all conditions.

Let me ask you, how could you not know this? My desk is very reticent.

You want to say there are ambiguities, but how did we get on to life anyhow? You backtracking or compounding the issue?

"

Well, if you really want my own opinion, I do find the entire focus on 'the self' as the basis of knowledge very solipsistic. Regarding the arguments on Descartes, so many people have already expressed their opinions on it, I have nothing original to add. My own opinion, for whatever its worth, is that people should be less concerned about what they know about themselves, and more concerned about what other people think of themselves. But that is more a topic for psychology than philosophy currently.

I read something just this morning which bears, in an interesting way, on your question. It suggests that what is expressed in the 'cogito' is a synthetic a priori understanding, and not merely an analytic tautology. It is from Deleuze's Difference and Repetition as quoted in Kant and Spinozism Beth Lord page 145:

The entire Kantian critique amounts to objecting against Descartes that it is impossible for determination to bear directly upon the undetermined. The determination (‘I think’) obviously implies some-thing undetermined (‘I am’), but nothing so far tells us how it is that this undetermined is determinable by the ‘I think’. … Kant therefore adds a third logical value: the determinable, or rather the form in which the undetermined is determinable (by the determination).

This third value suffices to make logic a transcendental instance. It amounts to the discovery of Difference – no longer in the form of an empirical difference between two determinations, but in the form of a transcendental Difference between the Determination as such and what it determines; no longer in the form of an external difference which separates, but in the form of an internal Difference which establishes an a priori relation between thought and being.
(DR 85–6)

hahaha. Sometimes when I try to think about Kant, I get lost in another story of Borges' in Labyrinths - The tower of Babel. Somewhere in that library we get lost between determination and the undetermined, so an infinite number of books appear between them -- the determinable in the middle, with the determinable determined on one side, and the determinable undetermined on the other, then in between them again, yet more pairs of books... and yet more...

That's something that Buddhism refers to as the infinite sphere of the knowable unknown around the finite sphere of the knowable in which we live -- and outside both of those, the equally infinite unknowable unknown. At some point in such infinite regressions I end up turning away from Western empiricism as being at all useful in the comprehension, until sometimes Kant pulls me back with a reminder that his idea is transcendental; and those who are cynical of Kant then seem somehow even less comprehensible than Kant, however much any of them delve into obscurantist ideas.

I keep reading the title as:-

"I think, therefore I am a tautology."

Which I will now defend as the only correct understanding. That I think is a fact about the world, to the extent that I am part of the world. However "I think" is a thought, and by the first anti-magical proposition of unenlightenment, a thought cannot oblige the world to be thus and not so. So that I think 'I think' cannot entail that I am part of the world. But this is exactly what a tautology and only a tautology refrains from - saying anything about the world.

Therefore I am a tautology.

Descartes response to Mersenne:

When someone says 'I am thinking, therefore I am, or I exist', he does not deduce existence from thought by means of a syllogism, but recognizes it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind. This is clear from the fact that if he were deducing it by means of a syllogism, he would have to have had previous knowledge of the major premiss 'Everything which thinks is, or exists'; yet in fact he learns it from experiencing in his own case that it is impossible that he should think without existing. It is in the nature of our mind to construct general propositions on the basis of our knowledge of particular ones.

Which I will now defend as the only correct understanding.

What do you mean by "correct", some people think cogito sum is a performative statement which is only 'correct' when it is actually thought.

What do you mean by "correct", some people think cogito sum is a performative statement which is only 'correct' when it is actually thought. — Cavacava

Wow! So you do't have any problem with 'I am a tautology'?

The performance can be described as I think, 'I think' and 'therefore I am'.
But the implication is that I am identified as being, not the performance, but the thought. As in, I am the thought, 'I think', rather than the performance, I think, 'I think' and 'therefore I am.'

So I program my computer to print out 'I print therefore I am.' every now and then. While I don't doubt the existence of my computer, I am unconvinced that its performance has any great significance. A statement has been made, therefore there is a statement.

What do I mean by 'correct', though? I think I mean that I am right and everyone who disagrees is wrong. No, that just says correct means right. I mean, understanding the implications of the cogito, and the rather sharp limitations of them. I mean more specifically that the existence that is demonstrated by the performance is not much of an existence. It is the existence of the thought of existence and no more.

Sounds like you are getting all knotted up. Descartes masin task in the Meditations is epistemological certainty not ontological, what is correct is therefore important to his goal. I have already stated that I don't think 'cogito sum' is tautologous.

↪dclements Well, if you really want my own opinion, I do find the entire focus on 'the self' as the basis of knowledge very solipsistic. Regarding the arguments on Descartes, so many people have already expressed their opinions on it, I have nothing original to add. My own opinion, for whatever its worth, is that people should be less concerned about what they know about themselves, and more concerned about what other people think of themselves. But that is more a topic for psychology than philosophy currently. — ernestm

Fair enough, I think our opinions on this are similar enough to not have to argue against you.

One small nuance is that I think it is 'ok' for debatable philosophical issues to sometimes delve into real world things like psychology, nuclear physics, etc. as long as the issue isn't too much more in the domain of the specialist in that field than the people who study philosophy.

For example one of the topics that seems to be between the middle of psychology and philosophy is something I refer to as the 'human condition'. It can be thought of basically as the various quirks and odd nuances that human beings have to deal with going about in their day to day life, but it can be used as a catch-all phrase to also refer to a lot of the ..not so small issues such as the many, many non-trivial problems we have never been able to solve (and perhaps never will be) and the toll it takes on us in our lives being limited by such a thing.

While there be some nuances that are better left for psychologist to deal with, the issues of the human condition is a problem that I believe is best addressed in both philosophy and psychology.

Sounds like you are getting all knotted up. — Cavacava

A knot of thought is quite a good description of the cogito and indeed the self, but If there is certainty that is not ontological, how can it be anything but tautological?

I read something just this morning which bears, in an interesting way, on your question. It suggests that what is expressed in the 'cogito' is a synthetic a priori understanding, and not merely an analytic tautology. It is from Deleuze's Difference and Repetition as quoted in Kant and Spinozism Beth Lord page 145:

The entire Kantian critique amounts to objecting against Descartes that it is impossible for determination to bear directly upon the undetermined. The determination (‘I think’) obviously implies some-thing undetermined (‘I am’), but nothing so far tells us how it is that this undetermined is determinable by the ‘I think’. … Kant therefore adds a third logical value: the determinable, or rather the form in which the undetermined is determinable (by the determination).

This third value suffices to make logic a transcendental instance. It amounts to the discovery of Difference – no longer in the form of an empirical difference between two determinations, but in the form of a transcendental Difference between the Determination as such and what it determines; no longer in the form of an external difference which separates, but in the form of an internal Difference which establishes an a priori relation between thought and being.
(DR 85–6) — John

It has been awhile since I read stuff about Kant's work on the subject you are talking about, but I remember liking what he wrote and his analyse on thought to be very good for the time he came up with them, and even pretty valid for today. I may be wrong but I remember his methods where more about how thought works, how it is organized, etc. and how visualize and/or create models to better understand issues involving such things. It is kind of reminiscent of classed in programming languages or database management are taught where someone has to be taught to understand some abstract concepts pretty well, but yet may not be able to have the time to understand every detail of the underlining system or code.

I guess part of my frustration in dealing with philosophy is similar to my problems in IT where people would often have issues dealing with dealing with the difference between how they thought it worked and how it actually could work. And people such as myself and other IT staff would get caught in the middle.

Because thinking is active, it's the realization of being, but what is, what exists is passive because it does not necessarily think.

Indeed. Being is, whereas nothing happens.

Couldn't the Cogito be rephrased as something like: "I exist and I think, therefore I exist"? For if the 'I' doesn't exist, then it cannot think.
In this case, it is a tautology in a general sense.

However, I take issue with this statement on a different level, since it supposes that thought is proof of existence; in other words if I do not think, I cannot prove to myself that I exist. It avoids asking what the 'I' actually is, and merely observes that this mysterious 'I' tends to think.

Because thinking is active, it's the realization of being, but what is, what exists is passive because it does not necessarily think. — Cavacava

But doesn't the term "I" require that it is a given that there be some OTHER thing that EXISTS in order for there to be an "I" in the first place. Everything we know about how things come into being is through other things that allow them to be and even if our world was merely a virtual/illusionary world it is pretty much accepted that it to would require something other then the individual itself to exist in order to create the world they live in or to create an illusion of one at least.

I guess one could try to argue that it is plausible for us to be trapped in an illusionary world created by the individual themselves, but if one was trapped in such an illusion the part of themselves creating the illusion would not be thought of as themselves since it is highly unlikely one would want to be trapped in an illusion; even if it is of their own making. Why it is also plausible for some sentient being to happen to be in control of the ENTIRE universe (ie. "God") so that they and the world around them are one and the same, this is NOT a situation that any normal human being would have any experience in nor is it a given that it is even possible.

So in a nutshell, it is a moot point that an individual can consider themselves to exist (even if they may have no idea what they are referring to when they say "I" or "exist") , because we already know that SOME kind of existence is required to create a "thinking-thing" (whether it is a machine or living thing) but it is also a given that this "thinking -thing" will ALSO require something to support i and/or allow it to exist so the external reality outside of the thinking-thing has to be just as REAL as the existence that allows the "I" to exist.

I'm not a tautology. I'm a little ray of sunshine.

Yes 'I think therefore I am' is an instance of the tautology: Gx -> EF(Fx), for all x.

'I think' has the form Gx. I am has the form EF(Fx).

If x has the predicate G then there is a predicate F such that x has that predicate, is tautologous.