I think therefore I exist meaning. I think, therefore I am. Cycle: "Philosophical aspects of human science"

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"SIBERIAN FEDERAL UNIVERSITY"

Lesosibirsk Pedagogical Institute -

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"Siberian Federal University"

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Pedagogy and Psychology

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Psychology and Pedagogy of Primary Education

Essay on the topic of:

"I think, therefore I am"

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Lesosibirsk

"I think, therefore I am"

“I think, therefore I am” is the saying of the great philosopher René Descartes.

In my essay, I want to reveal the whole essence of thinking, and try to prove that thinking actually helps us in life.

Thinking is what distinguishes a person from an animal, determines a person's life, his attitude towards others. If a person stops thinking, he will not be able to navigate the world, choose between good and evil, build his relationships with other people. In what a person can see the true height of bliss, joy, happiness. If this question is asked, for example, to any passer-by, then he will answer without hesitation that the true height of bliss lies in “money”, “love”, etc. And

no one will remember thinking, and it is precisely in it that our happiness lies. Therefore, in order to understand what the height of bliss consists in, it is necessary first of all to understand oneself. But how?

The answer is simple - with the help of the tireless work of thinking.

To answer the second question that I posed at the beginning of my essay. How thinking helps a person in life. First of all thinking person grows, changes. Let us turn our attention to Pierre Bezukhov - this is the hero of the work of L. N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". Pierre is a weak-willed person who always fell under - someone's influence. Having gone through all the influence of the people around him, he feels gross dissatisfaction. Gradually, he came to the truth that life must be connected with the general. The fate of Pierre Bezukhov shows that only those who think independently are capable of truly universal truth. Only by enriching individual experience does the common exist not as an abstraction, but as a living reality.

From the foregoing, we can conclude that thinking is the basis of the human personality. It is often difficult to think for oneself, and it is even more difficult to be understood by others. However, each own thought, each independent act is a step forward along the long ladder of self-perfection.

Rationalist philosopher R ene Descartes(1596-1650), wishing to find the primary truth for constructing the concept of absolute knowledge, formulated the following mental construct - "I think, therefore I am", also known as "Cogito ergo sum". Around the interpretation and refutation of the Cartesian Cogito, the entire European philosophy has developed and built from the middle of the 17th century to the present day.

" is a Latin translation of the statement written in French by R. Descartes " Je pense, donc je suis” (“I think, therefore I am”), first encountered by us in his Discourse on Method (1637).

In Russian scientific literature the translation of “cogito ergo sum”, as “I think, hence, I exist". However, "sum" literally translates as "I am", which is not identical modern meaning the term "existence".

"became a good support for the philosopher who doubted everything. The ingenious formula of R. Descartes acted as the metaphysical basis of the philosophy of modern times. Thanks to it, reliable, according to rationalists, knowledge was repelled by the dominant position of the Subject of knowledge. The argument of R. Descartes speaks of the discovery by the subject of himself in a mental act.

In his reflections, R. Descartes questioned literally everything except his own own existence. The philosopher doubted the existence of feelings, God, the external world, etc. But in the very process of doubt, the author could not doubt. The fact of doubt was an indisputable proof of the thinker's existence. This is how the famous formula arose: “I doubt, therefore I think; I think, therefore I exist”, which was later simplified and transformed into “I think, hence, I exist».

In the analysis of the famous formula, an important role is played by the analysis of the concept of “thinking”. R. Descartes himself understands thinking in a broad sense and identifies the process of thinking with understanding, imagination and desire, considering them as modes of thought. Explaining his thought, the philosopher literally states the following: “By the word thinking (cogitatio) I mean everything that happens in us in such a way that we perceive it directly by ourselves; and therefore not only to understand, to will, to imagine, but also to feel means here the same thing as to think. Rene Descartes considered the awareness of actions to be the most important distinguishing feature of thinking.

No thinking can take place without recognizing the fact of the existence of the human body. The material expression of human existence allows the thinking subject to discover the meaning and logic of thinking in the perceived "action" of thought. Hence the transition of Cartesian thought from "cogito" to the refinement of the essence of man.

The rationalist R. Descartes was one of the first philosophers who sought to smooth out the contradictions between rationalism and empiricism. The philosopher discovered the point of contact in an attempt to combine the concepts of thinking and feeling in the concept of a holistic human spirit.

Rene Descars (Lat. Renatus Cartesius) is a French philosopher, mathematician, mechanic, physicist and physiologist, creator of analytical geometry and modern algebraic symbolism, author of the method of radical doubt in philosophy, mechanism in physics, forerunner of reflexology.
"Discourse on the method ..." (1637)
"Reflections on the First Philosophy..." (1641)
"Principles of Philosophy" (1644)
In the "Principles of Philosophy" the main theses of Descartes are formulated:
God created the world and the laws of nature, and then the Universe acts as an independent mechanism;
There is nothing in the world but moving matter various kinds. Matter consists of elementary particles, the local interaction of which produces all natural phenomena;
Mathematics is a powerful and universal method of understanding nature, a model for other sciences

The physical studies of Descartes relate mainly to mechanics, optics, and the general structure of the universe. The physics of Descartes, in contrast to his metaphysics, was materialistic: the Universe is entirely filled with moving matter and is self-sufficient in its manifestations. Descartes did not recognize indivisible atoms and emptiness, and in his writings he sharply criticized the atomists, both ancient and contemporary to him. In addition to ordinary matter, Descartes singled out an extensive class of invisible subtle matters, with the help of which he tried to explain the action of heat, gravity, electricity and magnetism.

Descartes considered the main types of motion to be motion by inertia, which he formulated (1644) in the same way as Newton later, and material vortices arising from the interaction of one matter with another. He considered interaction purely mechanically, as a collision. Descartes introduced the concept of momentum, formulated (in a non-strict formulation) the law of conservation of motion (momentum), but interpreted it inaccurately, not taking into account that the momentum is a vector quantity (1664).
In contrast to the atomistic mechanism, there is no void in the Cartesian system, and extended matter is conceived as continuous and infinitely divisible. Movements are transmitted by mechanical impacts from body to body, and their sequence is closed in a circle or "vortex". All types of movement taught by Aristotle come down to displacement. Among the laws of motion postulated in Cartesian mechanics are the principle of inertia (“each of the particles of matter continues to be in the same state until a collision with other particles forces it to change this state” ~ ibid., p. 200) and the law of conservation of momentum, the guarantor of which is the Creator of the universe. The Cartesian mechanics of nature is simple and elegant. http://www.xn--80aacc4bir7b.xn--p1ai

Carthusian monastery in Granada, Spain
The philosophy of Descartes was dualistic: the dualism of soul and body, that is, the duality of the ideal and the material, recognizing both as independent independent principles, which Immanuel Kant later wrote about. Descartes recognized the presence in the world of two kinds of entities: extended (res extensa) and thinking (res cogitans), while the problem of their interaction was resolved by introducing a common source (God), who, acting as the creator, forms both substances according to the same laws. God, who created matter together with motion and rest and preserves them.
The main contribution of Descartes to philosophy was the classical construction of the philosophy of rationalism as a universal method of cognition. Knowledge was the end goal. Reason, according to Descartes, critically evaluates experimental data and derives from them true laws hidden in nature, formulated in mathematical language. The power of the mind is limited only by the imperfection of man in comparison with God, who just carries all the perfect characteristics. Descartes' doctrine of knowledge was the first brick in the foundation of rationalism.
Another essential feature of Descartes' approach was mechanism. Matter (including fine matter) consists of elementary particles, the local mechanical interaction of which produces all natural phenomena. For philosophical outlook Descartes is also characterized by skepticism, criticism of the previous scholastic philosophical tradition.
The starting point of Descartes' reasoning is the search for the undoubted foundations of all knowledge. Skepticism and the quest for perfect mathematical precision are two different expressions of the same trait of the human mind: the strenuous desire to achieve absolutely certain and logically unshakable truth.
These doubts and the way out of them he finally formulates in the "Principles of Philosophy" as follows:


Since we are born as children and form various judgments about things before we reach the full use of our reason, many superstitions divert us from the knowledge of the truth; we, apparently, can get rid of them only by trying once in a lifetime to doubt everything in which we find even the slightest suspicion of unreliability .... If we begin to reject everything that we can doubt in any way, and even consider it all false, then although we easily assume that there is no God, no sky, no bodies, and that we ourselves have no hands nor legs, nor a body in general, but let us also not suppose that we ourselves, thinking about it, do not exist: for it is absurd to recognize that which thinks, at the very time when it thinks, does not exist. As a result, this knowledge: I think, therefore I am, is the first and surest of all knowledge, which is encountered by everyone who philosophizes in order. And this - the best way to know the nature of the soul and its difference from the body; for, examining what we are, who assume false everything that is different from us, we will see quite clearly that neither extension, nor form, nor displacement, nothing of the kind, belongs to our nature, but only thinking, which, therefore, is known first and truer than any material objects, because we already know it, but we still doubt everything else.
Vysotsky in addition:
I asked her to make my, Let them sing in dreams and reality! I breathe - and that means that I love! I love - and, means, I live!

Rene Descartes - mathematician, philosopher, creator of analytic geometry and algebraic symbols. The real purpose of his life was the search for truth. This he did, doubting various statements and looking for weakness in wise words. He tried to find a truth that would become the center of all knowledge. Some kind of root and trunk, from which leaves would sprout in the form of other truths and knowledge. And in search of truth, reflecting on many sayings, he realized that if a person thinks, then he exists. We will write our essay about this.

I think, therefore I am

Once the philosopher Descartes uttered a catchphrase that sounded like this: I think, therefore I exist. And this makes some sense. In fact, anyone can exist. After all, there are animals, birds, which nature has not endowed with such an ability as thinking. But they exist. They live according to their instincts and they are good at it. However, it is impossible to deny the correctness of the statement. After all, if we think, reflect, then this confirms that we continue to exist.

I would say more, if we think, then we do not just exist, we live fully. Thanks to the thought that a person brings to life, the world develops and we have the opportunity to live not in a primitive society, and not even in the Middle Ages. We live in the modern twenty-first century. Thanks to thought and his thinking, a person learns to control many processes, becoming the master of the world, which is not subject to, perhaps, nature with its natural phenomena. And here it is important to use Rene Descartes' quote “I think, therefore I am”, to use for good. It is necessary that our thoughts do not turn into immoral. It is important that our thoughts not only help to explore the planet and the Cosmos, but also do not harm nature. Only then will our existence be for the good, and our thoughts will be the impetus to continue to exist. Otherwise, they can lead to chaos and the destruction of all life, including humanity itself.

Author and meaning of the saying

As I wrote above, the saying “I think, therefore I am” belongs to Rene Descartes, who for a long time tried to find the truth, working on doubts in order to establish the meaning of human existence. And then one day, he uttered his thought, which contemporaries perceived as a revelation. What is the meaning of the statement? According to the Frenchman Descartes, the soul and body of a person is what is needed for existence. Without soul and mental activity there can be no man. Mental activity, where thinking is its main attribute, is impossible without the ability to think. The soul is constantly thinking and as soon as it stops thinking, its activity will stop. So the philosopher claims that as long as we think, we exist as long as we do.

The saying "I think, therefore I am" is from the 17th century French philosopher, mathematician and scientist René Descartes, and occurs in his Discourse on Method (1637). He considered reliability as the primary characteristic of true knowledge. Descartes conducted a series of thought experiments based on methodical doubt to find the undeniable self-evident truth expressed in this phrase. The interpretation of the expression has been the subject of much philosophical debate. It reflects the skeptical intellectual climate that characterized the early development of modern philosophy.

Reflections on First Philosophy

As you know, Descartes put forward a very simple candidate for the "first element of knowledge." It was proposed by methodical doubt - the reflection that all thoughts can be erroneous. At the beginning of The Second Meditation, Descartes says that his observer convinced himself that everything in the world - heaven, earth, mind and body - does not exist. Does it follow from this that it also does not exist? No. If he has convinced himself of something, then of course he exists. But what if there is a deceiver higher power and cunning, which deliberately and constantly misleads the observer? And in this case, it certainly exists. And let him be deceived as much as he likes, the observer can never be convinced that he is nothing, as long as he thinks that he is something. So, having considered everything thoroughly, he must finally conclude that the assumption of his existence is true, regardless of whether it is expressed or perceived by the mind.

The canonical form of thought expressed by Descartes is "I think, therefore I am" (in Latin: cogito ergo sum; in the original French: je pense, donc je suis). This formulation is not explicitly mentioned in the Meditation.

Descartes: "I think, therefore I am." The meaning of the phrase

The author considers this statement (standardly referred to as cogito) "the first and most true of all that arise from those who philosophize in an orderly way. Is there much confidence in the need to add to "I think" "I am" or "therefore" (i.e., their logical relation)? Presumably this is necessary if the cogito plays the fundamental role assigned to it by Descartes. But the answer depends on whether the cogito is understood as inference or intuition.

Testing the cogito by methodical doubt involves revealing its unshakable validity. As already noted, the existence of the body is questionable. And the presence of thinking - no. The very attempt to drop thinking is indeed self-destructive.

The Cogito raises many philosophical questions and has spawned a vast literature. The following is a summary of some of the main points.

First person statement

First-person phrasing is necessary for confidence in the cogito. "To think, therefore, to exist" in the third person cannot be unshakably reliable - at least for the observer. Only the presence of his thought has a chance to resist hyperbolic doubt. There are a number of passages in which Descartes refers to the third person version of the cogito. But none of them arises in the context of establishing the actual existence of a particular thinker (in contrast to the conditional, general result, "everything that thinks exists").

present tense

Formulation in the present tense is essential for the validity of the statement "I think, therefore I am." The meaning of the phrase "I existed last Tuesday, because I remember my thoughts on that day" is missing, since it is only known that now this case has remained only in the imagination. The statement that "I will continue to exist as I am thinking now" does not work either. As the meditator observes, "When I stop thinking completely, I will completely cease to exist." The privileged validity of the cogito is based on the "manifest contradiction" of the attempt to think outside thinking in the present.

Cogitatio

The validity of the cogito depends on the formulation from the point of view of the cogitatio of the observer - his thinking or consciousness in general. Any kind of it is sufficient, including doubt, affirmation, denial, desire, understanding, imagination, etc. However, the absence of thinking is not enough. For example, it is useless to argue that "I exist because I walk," because methodical doubt calls into question the existence of my legs. Maybe I'm only dreaming that I have legs. A simple modification of this statement to "I exist because it seems to me that I am walking" restores the anti-skeptical effect.

Connection with dualism

The fact that Descartes rejects formulations that presuppose the presence of a body provides him with no more than an epistemological distinction between the ideas of mind and body, but not an ontological one (as in body-mental dualism). Indeed, after the cogito he writes: “Could it not be true that these things which I consider to be nothing [for example, the constitution of the limbs which are called the human body] because they are unknown to me and they really coincide with the self, oh which I know? I don't know, and for now I won't argue, as I can only judge things that I know."

The cogito does not imply the mind-body dualism of Descartes.

simple intuition

Most of the discussion about whether the phrase "Think, therefore exist" implies a logical conclusion, or is it just a taken-for-granted intuition, is dismissed by two remarks. One remark concerns the absence of an explicit conclusion ergo ("therefore") in the Second Meditation. It seems erroneous to emphasize this absence, as if assuming that Descartes denies any role of logical reasoning, since here the author explicitly defines the line of premises leading to the conclusion about the existence of the observer. In his other treatments, "therefore" is mentioned, and the Meditations expand on it.

The second point is that it is wrong to think that the cogito must either be accompanied by logical reasoning or be intuitive. There is no contradiction in taking a statement with an inferential structure for granted. It is widely believed among modern philosophers that modus ponens does not require proof, although it contains a logical conclusion. Thus, if a statement contains an inference, then this does not mean that its acceptance is based on it, which applies to the cogito. According to R. Descartes, “I think, therefore, I exist” is not derived using a syllogism - the statement is recognized as something taken for granted by the simple intuition of the mind.

Regardless of the status of the cogito, it is worth noting the observation of Barry Stroud: "A thinker can obviously never be wrong when he thinks 'I think'. Moreover, no one who thinks can be mistaken that he exists.”

Detached "I"

Finally, Descartes' reference to the "I" in "I think" does not imply a separate "I". In the next sentence, after the initial statement about the cogito, the meditator says: "But I do not yet have a sufficient understanding of what this "I" is, which is now necessary." The saying "To think, therefore to be" is intended to bring the certainty that I am, because I can think, whatever it may be. The following discussion is intended to help come to an understanding of the ontological nature of the thinking subject.

More generally, questions of epistemological and ontological dependency should be distinguished. In the final analysis, Descartes considers it proven that the dependence of the presence of thought (ontologically) on the existence of a separate "I", namely, the infinite substance, God. But he does not deny that the acceptance of these ontological questions epistemically precedes the cogito: its determinateness must not depend (epistemically) on the metaphysics which, according to Descartes, he ultimately establishes.

Russell vs Hume

If the statement "to think, therefore to be" does not presuppose the existence of a separate "I", then what is the epistemological basis for introducing "I" into "I think"? Some critics have complained that in referring to the "I" Descartes raises a question that suggests what he wants to establish in the expression "I exist". One critic, Bertrand Russell, denies the illegitimacy of the self. Echoing the 18th-century thinker Georg Lichtenberg, Russell writes that Descartes, on the contrary, had to put his statement in the form "Thoughts exist." He adds that the word "I" is grammatically convenient, but does not describe the given. Accordingly, the expressions "Pain exists" and "I experience pain" have different meanings, but Descartes names only the latter.

Self-analysis reveals more than Russell allows - it reveals the subjective nature of experience. From this point of view, the empirical story of the experience of pain contains more than the statement of its existence: the experience includes the feeling of pain, plus the point of view - an empirical complement that is difficult to characterize except by adding that "I" experience pain, which my pain. The consciousness of this subjective aspect of experience does not depend on the consciousness of the metaphysical nature of the thinking subject. If we accept that Descartes uses "I" to denote this subjective character, then in this case he does not bring in what is already there: the "I" of consciousness turns out to be (contrary to Russell) the primary given of experience. Although, as Hume convincingly argues, self-analysis does not reveal any sense impressions suitable for the role of a thinking subject, Descartes, unlike Hume, does not need to derive all our ideas from sense experience. Descartes' idea of ​​himself ultimately relies on internal conceptual resources.

Clarity of perception

But how do ideas derived from the subjective nature of experience justify the basic metaphysical conclusion about the existence of a real "I"? In one plausible line of response, Descartes does not yet intend to establish a metaphysical result. Rather, the initial intended outcome is merely epistemological. At the beginning of the Third Meditation, Descartes says that the epistemological basis of the cogito at this stage is that it is clearly and distinctly perceived. Although the truth about that is yet to be seen. The cogito initially establishes only that we cannot disagree with our existence. A stronger metaphysical result is achieved only by demonstrating the validity of a clear and distinct perception. Such interpretations, of course, imply that the statement "To think, therefore to be" cannot initially be considered full knowledge.