“I think, therefore I am,” or in Latin, “cogito ergo sum,” is perhaps the most famous saying in the history of philosophy, told by Descartes. But what if we tell you that many people actually misunderstand this saying? The real meaning of this saying is much different than what is first understood. At first glance, we perceive it as a statement about the importance of thinking and the existence of a thinking person. But what is the truth?
The Great Quest of a Famous Mathematician: The Truth
The author of this quote is René Descartes. He is actually one of the most famous mathematicians of his time. His contributions to the field are quite numerous. So, how did Descartes enter the history of philosophy? In Descartes’ time, there was a very common quest: truth. By truth here, we do not mean the truth of a matter in the sense we often use it today.
For Descartes, truth was a direct consequence. One single truth. The only truth that explains the universe. Descartes was determined to get to it. He began to meditate in order to reach this truth. These meditations were not the kind we understand. They were more like intense thought sessions.
Descartes’ Meditations: Intensive Reflection Sessions
At the end of her first session, she realized that she had to erase all the wrongs from her past in order to find her way to the truth. The mistakes her parents told her when she was young, the erroneous knowledge she had about certain subjects, and so on. He had to erase all that. Of course, here he himself soon had to grapple with new possibilities. Descartes thought that even if he managed to do these things, his mind would leave him behind. Small little errors of perception, like the fact that our eyes sometimes see wrong, that dreams mislead us, that we can’t quite distinguish sounds. Descartes especially began to take this illusion of perception very seriously. So much so that he thought that his own mind was playing tricks on him about the reality of certain things. In other words, he began to doubt the truth of what he saw. Moreover, even if he didn’t believe it directly, doubting it in his mind, even by 1%, could get in the way of reality. So Descartes stopped believing in the existence of other things. They could exist or not exist. This was the skepticism that developed with Descartes. Descartes would only accept things that were 100% true.
For Descartes, then, nothing was completely real. Descartes soon found the first real thing, and that was himself. Perhaps he could not be sure of the reality of the person speaking to him, but he could be sure of a mind that questioned all this, his own mind. After all, at least there was Descartes who thought. He could even question his own existence. Of course, this was perhaps not the Descartes he was used to, who had hands and feet and whose name was Descartes, but at least he had himself as a mind. The phrase “I think, therefore I am” is the product of this thought. He existed because he was an inquiring mind. This was certain.
For a mathematician who did so much for mathematics, he even doubted his own proofs. The only truth for him was his own mind. He soon came to embrace a second truth: God. Descartes was convinced that this mind had a creator. Of course, again, he did not know God’s character or how he was, but at least he believed in him as a creator. Even if he believed in these two realities, he ignored everything else.
The End of Skepticism: How Can I Make Sure the People Around Me Are Real?
Here we need to explain the following situation: Descartes did not think that those around him did not exist, but he was not sure. He had no definitive proof of this. Therefore, he would not accept that proof unless he felt it in his hand so that he could reach the truth.
This is exactly where the phrase “Cogito ergo sum” or“I think, therefore I am” came from. This is the story of Descartes. Descartes’ new vision soon filled the philosophical world with questions. The study of perception and reality had completely changed. Especially after Descartes, reality came under scrutiny and many philosophers began to conclude that there was no longer one reality. The number of things that make up reality, such as dualism and pluralism, began to increase.
Descartes revolutionized the world of philosophy, both with his skepticism and his interpretations of the perception of reality. In addition to this, we can say that he became more famous thanks to a meaning that he did not actually mean with the phrase “I think, therefore I am,” which is often not fully understood 🙂
References and Further Reading
Rene Descartes | Biography, Ideas, Philosophy, ‘I Think, therefore I am,’ & Facts. (2023b, October 16). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rene-Descartes/Meditations
Meditations on First Philosophy: Study Guide | SparkNotes. (n.d.-b). SparkNotes. https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/meditations/
Descartes’ epistemology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). (2019b, February 15). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/
