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
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.
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. — Cavacava
Fair enough, I think our opinions on this are similar enough to not have to argue against you.↪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
Sounds like you are getting all knotted up. — Cavacava
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 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
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.Because thinking is active, it's the realization of being, but what is, what exists is passive because it does not necessarily think. — Cavacava
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