Descartes: "I Think, Therefore I Am" | Highlights Ep.45
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In this Highlight from Hillsdale College’s FREE online course, “Introduction to Western Philosophy,” Dr. Nathan Schlueter explains how René Descartes sought to ground philosophy on self-knowledge by questioning the reality of all his sensory experiences. Since he could not question his own existence, he famously concluded: "I think, therefore I am."
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For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden. Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. ~ Galatians 6:3-7 kjv
Amen!
I don't think this has anything to do with the video. But WTH?
@@pedropenalver4845 I'd say it does in that it's a refutation of I think, thereform I am, using scripture.
For scriptures in particular, I think, therefore I am can even be a touchy subject because of the fact that the Biblical God referred to himself as I AM. There mere fact we think something isn't evidence that, we are the eternal one, or we are doing His will.
I learned alot. I love thay classic Black board and wood shelfing. So comforting.
Wonderful! This is so stirring! Thank you!
It makes more sense to me to say; “I Am, therefore I think”.
You seem to be disregarding the methodological approach of Descartes’ reflections. It seems to me he is coming FROM a state of just sheer philosophical doubt and skepticism, and in order to gain SOME clarity or certainty, he is hoping to grasp onto the one thing [even just one] that he can KNOW without a doubt. Hence why he concludes on this one thing he reckons he is certain of; and to paraphrase, ‘because HE thinks, therefore he KNOWS that he exists’. Hope that helps
@@Tobi_237 it seems in order to have a concept, consciousness must first be in place, is it not iamness that sparks consciousness and the world to arise allowing concept to be formed. The only thing i know for sure is I AM, everything that follows in under investigation.
@@raywkilleen You seem to be getting caught up on the ontology of the self or ‘Iamness’ as you put it, whereas Descartes’ reflections here are primarily epistemological, hence his conclusion.
The ultimate question seems to be: “Who Am I”, how one answer this question makes all the difference.
Another great explanation, absolutely love these short videos!
I think we all discover a creator at some point in our lives, hopefully sooner rather than later so we have time to nourish that relationship. Sadly some people only discover the creator at the end of their lives, when everything else is gone and now it's just you and me.
Beautiful explanation. 👏🏼
Excellent synopsis. Thank you.
Psalm 119:10-12
With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Blessed art thou, O Lord: teach me thy statutes.
Amen
God's Imagination is so solid we can knock on things in it
I loved this. More please : )
They show off to be greater than the best showmanship ( religion, policy, logic )
I can remember having these thoughts when I was about 9 years old , came to the conclusion that is what birth is about .
Thanks for sharing
I am, and I do not know who I am, therefore I think.
The intention has to be to know, not to just keep thinking. Otherwise thought becomes a Prakritic unending activity in itself.
The intention has to be to know, to get into thought, to get to the source of thought. When you realize where your thoughts are coming from, then you know that the solution lies in the source of thought, not at the end point of thought.
Real knowledge has to become life. Knowing has to become being. And if knowing and being are separated, not one, then there is some kind of internal dishonesty or hypocrisy.
I might not know nothing but I think therefore I am
This school will be better than the Ivy League schools 🏕
God bless 🌳
Make this world green and rescue all animals 🏔
All animals should live in perfect freedom in the outdoor and in beautiful green and lush natures with enough rains 🐞
Presuppositionalists and people who find transcendental arguments to be compelling should really study Descartes. I find this to be a robust defeator for those apologists and their arguments.
The earth is what I observe until proven otherwise. I feel no motions of spinning, orbiting, or plummeting. The horizon line is beyond the curve.
'' WONDERFUL DEAR LORDS WORDS '' '' I THINK, THEREFORE I AM ''
Dr. Schlueter does an admirable job of giving the illusion that Descartes makes any sense at all.
You stand on the shoulders of giants and tell them they make no sense
@@orderingfoodwgoogledoxesu3113 there’s a lot of nonsense between Descartes and Kant. I guess doubting your own senses and believing your doubt not acquired by the senses was just the in thing to do for awhile. Never made sense to doubt what my 5 senses were telling me. I was either going to have to believe my senses or not so why believe something that’s senseless meaning minus the senses?
@@brentstewart2150 im not referring to whether or not he was correct in his way of thinking, but suggesting that you don't take lightly the foundations great thinkers like Descartes have laid
@@orderingfoodwgoogledoxesu3113 what are these great foundations that they laid? It’s not that I don’t know what they stood for in just wondering which ones you think are great and why?
It's simple enough to follow. What part of, "I think, therefore I am", did you miss?
One has to exist and then think ... comes with life experience. And thought - is just the rust of reality.
I doubted everything I knew before I even heard of Descartes. You people owe me money for squandering my precious time.
Nothing makes Sense without God.
amen
How so?
There are times I almost think I am not sure of what I absolutely know-oww. Verrry often find confusion in conclusion I concluded long ago-oo.
What is?
A puzzlement.
- sung by Yul Brynner
Can we rethink this ? Rev. 2:9
This comment is off topic however I am taking some of your online classes. Do you have about the modern government and how the system we have now is actually functioning?
Hi Jeanelle--probably the best option on that subject is our "Constitution 201" course, which you can enroll in here: online.hillsdale.edu/landing/constitution-201
Thanks for taking our courses!
Kyle Murnen
Director of Online Learning
Mind blown... And, he was supposedly a devout Christian!
Excellence
The truth starts here.
Upanishads in India goes one step further to question our own thoughts is it induced from my environment or it is out of my own will? And later after analysis and introspection it declares “ I AM”
By what mechanism, does free will emerge, from a deterministic system?
What deterministic system?
Is this how the idea that we live in a simulation is derived?
What book is he referencing to? The book that is in his hands?
Descartes book Meditations.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is great too
I Trek Therefore I am
I would like to hear this contrasted with buddism and advaita meditation. Isnt it quite similar ? Dissolve all doubts until you get to an absolute. And the absolute is effectively God within you.
That does sound interesting but I doubt that a philosophy major will have the remit to do it.
was thinking exactly the same...is he talking about the same "self" as in advaita vedanta...
Is the wrong painting being displayed? I don't see Decartes pointing to himself, rather, he's pointing to a document on the table, and he's on the right side of the painting, not the center. And Bacon isn't pointing anywhere.
If you take the free e course he teaches he explains the painting.
@@brentstewart2150, thanks for the information, Brent.
Think about this for a minute, when Jesus asked his disciples to describe him who got it right? Thomas so the others got it wrong!!! So what’s he pointing out here? Who understands Jesus the best? Then who do we trust to read?❤️
I am in error, and shouldn't see, feel, nor hear workings around me. I was born dead per my mother and blacker than any child ever born. My umbilical cord was crimped, and I was breach, so they broke her pelvis for there wasn't time for a caesarian section. Today I am 70yrs old, someone that would never have been a generation or two removed. I did have early learning disabilities, was hyper as a youth, and was abandoned more than once and put in a boy's home for several years. My mother did come back and take me from the home, only to abandoned me again my senior year. School would not let continue if I were not living with a legal guardian, and I was rejected from military service due to a blind right eye, another gift from a family member. I had to get a GED and although I passed, my vocabulary was only better than 24%. For years after I carried a pocket dictionary with me and began reading more, and not just books but newspapers. I have checked out enough book from the library to fill the back seat of my old junk car. My college hours are few, but I did excel in most classes. I was abandoned by family, community, and country, but not by God. Sometimes looking back, it was just a flicker of light, but our knows what we need, and what is best. I was on last right in 1973 although I'm not Catholic, and everyone that came to visit me, even old high school friends are dead. Were there a way I'd love to take classes at Hillsdale.
Short proof: Those who do not exist cannot ask themselves if they do.
Dissociation
Hello
6th, 15 June 2022
His famous “Cogito ergo sum” has the word order reversed in relation to the Truth; he should have said ‘Sum ergo cogito’ [I am, therefore I think].
We are gifted with Consciousness which flows out of our spirit; which is the deepest reality (human or otherwise).
Animals are real, stones are real, neither thinks, his argument is that his ability to think was proof of his existence, never did it get asked whether his existence proved his thought, nor does it make sense to ask.
He took years to ponder this. Read meditations before arriving at a false conclusion in five minutes.
@@Madonnalitta1 Why do you assume that I haven’t studied him extensively (in French) before you toss my opinion out the window? Are you one of those control freaks that can’t control shitting on other people?
@@feartheghus
Pretty sure animals think
@@matter7864 Yes but do they think about thinking?
Isn't that basin of behind being a christian?
Basin of behind?
The brain in a vat theory would be a hilarious play on humanity, if it were real.
But I am not a noun. As Apollo is to art, so is the self to thought.
" There is a famous dictum of a western philosopher, Rene Descartes: COGITO ERGO SUM - I think, therefore I am. This is absurd: I THINK. therefore I am? It shows that thinking is primary and being is secondary - I think, therefore I am. Thinking is secondary. being is first. First you are, then you think. If you are not, then who is going to think? Thinking cannot exist in a vacuum. If somebody says, “I am, therefore I think”, it is right. But to say “I think, therefore I am” is simply absurd. But still there is a meaning to it: Descartes is the father of western philosophy, and the whole western mind has been influenced by two persons - Aristotle and Descartes. So in the west everything goes through thinking; EVEN BEING GOES THROUGH THINKING. Even being is not a simple fact; you have to think about it first, then you are - as if it is a logical conclusion. It is existential, it is not logical.
So first stop thinking that you are a man or woman. Just know it. Knowing is direct. Somebody else can be in suspicion, but you should not be in suspicion. Somebody else can think about whether you are a man or a woman - and if you live in hippie style, sometimes it can be very difficult… If others are in suspicion as to whether you are a he or a she, it is okay. But you yourself? - then the doubt has entered very deep and has become a disease. Drop that.”
"To be or not to be"(William Shakespeare) is not a question, it is confusion.
“I think therefore I am”
He just said logic can’t be trusted, then goes on to use it, why do you need to exist in order to think in a world with no such rules?
I'm sorry... What?
Nope. He's trying to prove the existence of God. He thinks God is real but what if his own thoughts deceive him? What if he's just imagining reality?
He comes to the conclusion that he, at the least, must be real because he can think "is this real?". I.e. something must be doing the thinking.
Therefore, I think, therefore I am.
Cogito ergo sum.
That's his first concrete starting point, the thing that must be true from which he can form other truths.
@@jessebryant9233 part of decarte’s arguments were that he couldn’t trust logic, couldn’t even be sure that 2+2=4, because it could all be a lie in his dream or whatever the possibly malicious entity controlling his experiences made him think was right. Then he says “I think, therefore I am” that he must exist to think. In a world where 2+2=5 instead of 4, why must existence be necessary for thought?
@@Madonnalitta1 nope. If he’s just imagining reality why must he exist in order to imagine? That’s a constraint that reality provides, without reality why would you be limited in that way?
@@feartheghus
Some people will believe literally anything. You seem to be one of them... I mean, how do you know what reality provides?
Descrate delivered his fanous dictum in French, not Latin:"Je pense,donc je suis."
I must exist to be deceived
Methodological Skepticism
This was an excellent video, very well presented, and narrated. However I must say that Descartes didn't go far enough in his meditations. The step he needed to get to next is simply, I am. If anything it should be I am, therefore I think. The stage after that he should have realized that he is not nor ever was the thinker. He isn't the thinker, or the doer. None of us ever do anything or think anything. The final stage he would have gotten to at the end of his meditations, is that he is actually Consciousness, and Awareness, nothing more. Consciousness is the only thing ( not actually a thing) that exists and everything is merely an expression of Consciousness and all is made of Consciousness. We are a singular Consciousness that has a perceived experience that there are individuals. There are no individuals, no others, just us as a singular Awareness. We exist, people are the dream or illusion. As Consciousness we have no voice, no control, we are the silent witness that notices all thoughts coming and going, all actions the body and mind do of their own accord. The person you think you are, is a collection of conditioning on autopilot and you have as much control over it as you do a character in a movie. You witness the person, body and mind make choices and take actions and believe that you are the one doing it, when there literally is no one their making any decisions or thinking. Since you as Awareness identify with the form of what you think you are, any actions the body and mind make you attribute to you.
Smart people usually prefer sweet potatoes rather than plain Russets or Yukon Golds. These folks might have t-shirts that read, "I Think, therefore I Yam".
Every thought is a lie
I am....therefore I think. By thinking ...therefore I am deceived . Deception comes from the five sense realm..aka the “tree” of good and evil. I “am”....we are...from the “sixth sense “ realm...aka the “spiritual “ realm aka the “tree” of Life .
He's trying to prove the existence of God. He thinks God is real but what if his own thoughts deceive him?
Reality can deceive you after all, we often think we see something when on closer inspection, it turns out to be something else. A dream always feels real when you are dreaming so how do you know that the waking world is real? Could it not just feel real, like a dream?
He comes to the conclusion that he, at least, must be real because he can think "is this real". I.e. something must be doing the thinking.
Hence, I think, therefore I am.
Cogito, ergo sum.
This is the first concrete starting point, the thing that must be true from which he can form other truths.
For more info read Descartes Meditations.
I remember philosophy 101.
He discovered the ultimate error to equate being with thinking. Thoughts move through us like the air we breath. He could have said I breath therefore I am. The self attaching itself to thinking as understandable as it may seem is wrong. Being may well be irreducible. A wave on the ocean is the ocean.
Dream Argument
Evil Genius Argument
Brain in a Vat Argument
You know what always kills me? The Wachowski -brothers- sisters red-pilled themselves! Think about that...
A complete demolition of beliefs is the essence of intellectual humility. This is the start of learning, and the foundation for maximizing Effective Intelligence.
For the moment someone becomes "certain," they stop looking, inadvertently blinding themselves to the evidence which would otherwise prove them wrong. This is the essence of the *_Dumb Genius Syndrome._*
REFERENCES:
*_"Overview of America,"_* JBS video [the real Left-Right paradigm]
*_"Myths vs. Facts,"_* JBS video series [how we got the Deep State and a crazy government]
*_Dumb Genius: How intelligence is sometimes its own worst enemy_* (hardcover, paperback, ebook)
I receive junk mail, therefore I am🤔
You are... annoyed? 😜
Most of my junk mail gets addressed to, "resident".
Causes I think 🚭
Descartes didn’t go far enough. He was onto something when he supposed that he didn’t exist. But he couldn’t resist the temptation of certainty, which he never found, by the way
Spirit of the market place
Stoney ground's
No empathy
Cogitare (to think) = esse (to be) - ergo is related to an existence that is not „ego”. An observer.
Ergo means therefore in Latin.
Ou en fracais, je pense, donc je suis
Descartes is wrong. He is, therefore he thinks.
Descartes philosophy is destroyed when he gets punched, stabbed and beaten. Lol.
Hah?
More garbled jumbo jumbo
It's over your head.
The best part, even if he believed in ‘God’, his view was still a complete non sequitur lol