Descartes: Exploring the famous quote"Cogito ergo sum."

Many of you may have probably heard the famous quote: 'Cogito ergo sum', meaning: 'I think therefore I am'. However, such a simple quote delves into the deep question about knowledge and reality.

How it started

Descartes was a classical foundationalist - meaning that he believed that to acquire knowledge we must first strip our knowledge down to simple a foundational idea on which other knowledge can then be built. Imagine an upside down pyramid where a single block lay on the ground upon which more and more blocks are stacked.

Evil Demon

In his book Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes imagined that an a powerful evil demon was controlling his mind and planting false beliefs in him. As a result, he began to doubt all of his beliefs and attempted to sort through all of his beliefs to find his foundational, belief.

‘Cogito ergo sum’

His eureka moment arrived when he realised ‘cogito ergo sum’ - in Latin meaning: I think therefore I am. He realised that since he was doubting his beliefs, he was thinking. And if he was thinking, ‘I’ must therefore exist. This was his foundational belief which he built upon in an attempt to prove the existence of God and the world.

Challenges

As is with all philosophical ideas, there will be challenges proposed by others. The most famous was proposed by Bertrand Russell who questioned Descartes’ presupposition of the ‘I’ i having thought and suggested a reformulation from ‘I think therefore I am’, to simply ‘there are thoughts’.

Regardless of whether you agree with his thinking, Descartes’ phrase ‘Cogito ergo sum’ will go down in history as one of the most famous quotes in philosophy and now you know a bit more about what’s going on behind the curtain.