John/nyc

Wouldn't it follow that "I" is that which thinks?
That "I" is aware of its own thoughts?
That the question just circles around itself?
Perhaps because "I" is a beginning thing like the taproot of a tree????

Just thinkin' here. Don't want to do too much of that least "I" hurt "me."

Pyrrho

All that "Cogito ergo sum" shows is that if there are thoughts, then thoughts exist. But the idea that the thoughts are in a container (the "mind") goes beyond the evidence. Hume had something to say about such things.

Defiant Heretic

Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke Zarathustra are both good ones that present his views on a variety of subjects. Coincidentally, these are the only two that the Gutenberg Project has.

Witt

Witt: "I think" entails: I exist, truth exists, thinking exists.

-Mike: Assuming that thought requires a thinker and that "I" is the thinker, what is "I"?

"I" functions as a variable representing the names of those that read it.

For example:
Descartes thinks therefore Descartes exists.
Mike thinks therefore Mike exists.

Descartes eats therefore Descartes exists.
Mike posts therfore Mike exists.

The issue is existence not thinking.

x has a particular property implies x exists, ie. x has some property.

Witt

NialScorva

Yay! Kant seems to have a huge following compared to Hume. Much of what I've read of Kant seems to be in reply to Hume, but it also seems that Kant read Equiries and argued against them as if it was the whole of the Treatises. It's hard to read page after unconvincing page on the analytic/synthetic a priori/a posteriori when Hume had already laid a firm foundation for rejecting at least two of the four combinations, and strongly questioning Kant's presentation of the others.

the_cave

Well, you just have to bracket (to use a non-Cartesian term) the "I" and then it's fine. So long as you read "I think; therefore, I am" to mean "There is some subject having some experience right now", and not worry about what the subject is other than the observation of an experience, you'll be fine.

I actually think Decartes' ideas about prior concepts can still be interesting, as long as you perform bracketing of this nature. But he did have different notions of causality than we do--I haven't read much about whethe the makes the same distinctions between causes as Aquinas did (formal, efficient, etc.) but that would be interesting to study.

But he was clearly (!) begging the question with his notion of "clear and distinct" ideas, and unfortunately that would leave him stuck with just the Cogito.