Q&A: A Question about Descartes' Cogito
A Question about Descartes' Cogito
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I asked this question in the past, but I don’t feel that I received an answer, so forgive me, but I’m asking again. Maybe something has become clearer to me since the last time I asked it, and my wording will be better:
1. I do not understand how Descartes proves that there is an "I." After all, if the demon can deceive me into thinking that I am thinking, while in fact he is putting thoughts into my head, then by the same token he can implant the intuition/thought that there is such a thing called "I." That is, he created my consciousness just as he created my thoughts. I am intentionally avoiding the word "deceives," because that implies that there is someone being deceived who is separate from the demon. My claim is: perhaps the thoughts and also my consciousness as an "I" are the demon’s creation, and in fact there is no someone being deceived at all—there are only the demon’s creations.
Or perhaps that itself is the proof? Either way: if he created a consciousness of an "I," then there certainly is an "I"; and if I think he did not create it and I only have an illusion that I have one, then in any case there is someone being deluded, and from here it follows that there is an "I"?
2. I do not understand the answer people give to the question about Descartes—after all, his inference is basically logical, and if logic is still in doubt because of the fear of the deceiving demon, how can one infer "I am thinking" and therefore hear "I exist"? Is the point that this is not a logical inference, but some kind of description of a state of affairs? It is obvious that I am thinking, and if I am thinking then it is obvious that I exist?
3. I didn’t understand why Descartes’ inference to the existence of the self follows specifically from the fact that I think. Could one not infer it also from the fact that I am in pain—therefore I exist? After all, that pain must be attributed to someone who is in pain. Even if we say that there is an illusion of pain, there is still pain, and it hurts someone.
Even if the pain is an illusion—whose illusion is it?
Thank you for your books and for the sacred work you do
Answer
A. You answered yourself. If he is deceiving me, then there is an "I" (= someone he is deceiving). Even if the "I" is a product of the demon, I still exist (and I am his handiwork). What difference does it make who created me?
B. Logic is not in doubt. The question concerns only information about the world, not the rules of logic.
C. I addressed this in the prologue to my book The Science of Freedom; here is the relevant passage:
The Principle of the Cogito
At the end of the process, Descartes reached the surprising conclusion that such a proposition does in fact exist.[1] There is a proposition that cannot be eliminated in any way whatsoever—that is, one cannot cast doubt on it. His claim is that a person’s very existence cannot be doubted by that person himself. The consideration that led him to this was his famous cogito argument: "I think, therefore I exist." This is the formulation in his book Discourse on the Method[2] (p. 48). Elsewhere in his writings[3] a slightly different formulation appears: "I doubt, therefore I exist."
If I doubt my very existence, that is a sign that there is someone casting that doubt (or someone thinking it). Therefore it is impossible for me to doubt my very existence. If I am doubting, then I—meaning the one who is casting that doubt—exist, and therefore the doubt itself falls away. Descartes is essentially claiming here that my very ability to doubt is itself the proof of my existence. From this it follows that although I can doubt almost anything, I cannot doubt my very existence.
The Innovation in the Cogito
As many of his commentators explained,[4] this is a partial and inaccurate presentation of the argument. Every logical argument bases its conclusion on a premise, or premises, and if we reject one of the premises then we are not obligated to adopt the conclusion. And in our example, if someone comes and says, "It is not true that I am doubting," or "It is not true that I am thinking," then he is exempt from the conclusion, "I exist." For our attitude toward the conclusion depends on the truth of the premise.
But once we are relying on some premise, one could offer a parallel proof such as: "I am walking, therefore I exist." After all, it is clear that from the premise "I am walking" the conclusion "I exist" follows, no less necessarily than from the premise "I am thinking." For if I do not exist, how can I walk?! So what is special about the premise Descartes chose? Why did he decide to derive his conclusion דווקא from the premise "I am thinking," and not from the premise "I am walking," for example?
Here lies the sting of the argument. Descartes’ main innovation was not the logical derivation of the conclusion "I exist" from the premise "I am thinking." His main innovation is the insight that "I am thinking" is itself a necessary proposition (as opposed to "I am walking"). If I think that I am not thinking, that too is a thought, and therefore I am again thinking. In other words, "I am thinking" is a necessary statement that cannot be denied. Denying it is itself proof of its truth. Of course, this cannot be said of the statement "I am walking." If I think that I am not walking, or if I doubt it, that will not lead me to any contradiction. That is, there is no necessity in the claim "I am walking" (in philosophical terminology, one says that this is a contingent proposition).
To sum up, Descartes’ main innovation is not the derivation of the conclusion "I exist" from the premise "I am thinking," but rather the insight that the proposition "I am thinking" itself is a necessary proposition. Deriving the conclusion "I exist" from this premise is simpler, and in fact there is not much novelty in it.[5] Obviously, if we logically derive some conclusion from a certain premise, then the conclusion too is certain. Therefore what is especially important in this argument is the certainty of the premise.
Discussion on Answer
First, I’m not sure the argument doesn’t include the "I" as well. It proves that I think, not merely that there is a thought. More accurately, there is thinking, and thinking is an action. If there is an action, there is an agent (a thinker).
And in general, even if we assume that all we proved is that what exists is mere thought, who is the owner of that thought? Who is doing the thinking? Thought as such is not a being; it is something attached to a being. That one who thinks is me.
I didn’t understand the second question. If you think that thought is not thought? As the saying goes: the one who wrote Macbeth was not Shakespeare, but his cousin, who was also called Shakespeare.
Thank you very much for the reply. Regarding my second question: when Descartes cast doubt, did he simply think that maybe things just do not exist, and there is no need to find an explanation for why I am nevertheless being deluded, or did he need to come up with some rationale and cause for why we feel that they exist when they do not? If we take option A, then I will simply deny the concept of thought, and it will no longer exist. And when I cast doubt on that, it will not help, because it is nothing challenging nothing. And when the Rabbi asked me, "Do you think that thought is not thought?" then I answer: I do (not) think that thought is not thought. There is only nothingness. Descartes was looking for certain things. Before the cogito argument, there still is nothing certain, and therefore he said that there is no thought with certainty, and that is the required assumption. And according to that assumption, the concept of thought does not exist with certainty. And even when I think about this act of doubting, I am not really thinking with certainty, because there is not really thinking with certainty. However, all this is only according to option A.
I don’t understand any of this. What does "we" mean here? Who are "the things"? What does "there is only nothingness" mean? What does certainty have to do with this?
I’ll just add one remark: Descartes never actually cast doubt. It was methodological doubt, only in order to show that one cannot cast doubt on everything.
Hello, honorable Rabbi. I very much enjoyed reading in the book how the Rabbi also explains how the cogito proves that the rational teaches us about the world. But there is one thing that is still not clear to me, and I would be very glad if the Rabbi would explain it to me fully. How does the cogito prove the existence of the "I"? If I were in René’s place, I would reduce the proof to the existence of thought alone, without the person. I cast doubt on the "I," and if there is a thought that there is no thought, then certainly there is thought. Okay, there is thought—but there is no proof of who thought it. How did I, as the thinker, suddenly appear? Why attribute the thinking specifically to me, and not to the demon, for example?
And another thing I didn’t understand: if I cast doubt on my first thought, then at this stage of doubting I am not relating to that thing as anything at all. It is neither a thought nor anything. And then the cogito argument says that the doubting is a thought, and look, thought is necessary. But if I maintain that the thing called thought, as we know it today, is not really thought, then that assumption cancels all thinking. Even the thinking involved in the act of doubting is a thinking that is not thinking, by force of the assumption we made. Maybe the Rabbi wrote this claim in his book Stable and Unstable Truth?
Thank you very much, and I really appreciate it.