At the beginning of Meditation Two1, Descartes outlines his quest to discover a basis

for the sciences that is “firm and immoveable”, quoting Archimedes who claimed that he

could “transport the entire globe” standing upon such a foundation. In this essay I will

defend Descartes’ claim to have discovered an absolutely certain truth against two

criticisms. In this essay, Descartes’ “absolutely certain truth” is discussed in the form of

“I am thinking, therefore I exist”2. I will first outline the operation of certainty in

Descartes’ work. I will then consider the argument that the Cogito3 uses linguistic

concepts that implicitly affirm the existence of an external reality. I will then turn to

Lichtenberg’s criticism that the “I” posited is problematic which will lead to a

consideration of syllogistic interpretations of the Cogito. I will conclude that it is with

reference to Descartes’ very important response to the syllogistic interpretation of the

Cogito that Lichtenberg’s criticism can be rebutted.

I must first outline what it is to be absolutely certain. For Descartes, certainty is defined

in relation to doubt. Descartes raises doubt in relation to memory and the senses 4;

certainty is only ascribed to propositions that survive doubt. Descartes proposes that “I

am thinking therefore I exist” is resistant to these doubts.

Descartes’ doubt in general causes some commentators to question the use of linguistic

concepts in the Cogito.5 To use these concepts is apparently to “presuppose a public

1
René Descartes, A Discourse on Method, Meditations and Principles, Everyman, 1994 p.79
2
I have chosen this form as, when Descartes, in the Principles, restates his position in the Meditations
(where there is a rewording of the Cogito) he puts it in the form “I am thinking, therefore I exist”- Gary
Hatfield, Descartes and the Meditations, Routledge, 2002, p.110.
3
As it is generally referred to in the literature, even where there is variation on how exactly it is to be
interpreted.
4
Descartes, p.79
5
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s argument, John Cottingham, Descartes, Blackwell, 1986 p.46
world outside”6 for “all our common notions owe their origins to observation and

tradition”7. This apparently affects the certainty of the Cogito because to use “public

conventions and rules of language”8 does not adhere to the absolutely certain method of

finding truth- a “first-person singular quest”9, not taking into account anything that is

doubtful. In response, Descartes puts forth that in observing particular “corporeal

motions”, the faculty of thought produces “universal notions”. Notions (like “things that

are the same as a third are the same as each other”10) cannot be derived from corporeal

motions alone. Motions are merely individual sights and sound; it is the faculty of

thought that presents general notions. We are not born with a complete set of general

notions available to us like pictures in a gallery 11. However it is by the innate faculty of

thought that we acquire these general notions. To continue De la Forge’s imagery, a

painter is not born with his complete life’s work but he has the artistic talent to create

these works of art. As no corporeal motion alone could be said to have led to the general

notion of, for example, “certainty” it is therefore a product of the faculty of thought

(direct intellectual intuition) and its use is legitimate in the “first person singular quest”.

However Cottingham proposes that remembered intuition cannot be taken as

indubitable; it is necessary to re-experience the intuition in its entirety for it to be

certain.12 To presently intuit as correct each notion within the Cogito as well as the

Cogito itself appears impossible. Cottingham is, importantly, discussing the certainty of

6
Cottingham, p.46
7
Regius’ position, Descartes, p.225
8
Cottingham, p.45
9
Paul Brownsey Descartes Notes 2009-10, 2009, http://arts.moodle.gla.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?
id=50319, p.2
10
Descartes, p.234
11
De la Forge’s imagery is employed here, Descartes, p.235
12
Cottingham, p.36
the Cogito at this point. As such, a possible defence may be found where Descartes

concedes that “I am thinking, therefore I am” entails the knowledge of certainty, thought

and existence. He recognises here that these are not “preconceived opinions”- that have

been denied in the process of doubt. Notions like certainty, thought and existence do not

require affirmation or denial. This form of “existential” judgement is only made by the

Cogito itself.13 The use of these notions alone does not therefore entail implicit existential

judgements susceptible to doubt and does not therefore affect the absolute certainty of the

Cogito.

I will now turn to Lichtenberg’s criticism14 of the use of “I” in the Cogito. Challenging

the Cogito, he argues that the only sound assertion that can be made is that “there is

thinking going on”. It is not valid to deduce “I exist” from “there is thinking going on”,

for the truth of the premise does not entail the truth of the conclusion. Lichtenberg

appears to take issue with the positing of a “persisting subject”, a subject that continues to

exist and generate thought after thought15. Read restrictively, Descartes is taken to allow

for only the affirmation of thoughts and this string of thoughts (the “thinking going on”)

is the “I”, avoiding Lichtenberg’s criticism. However Descartes writes that “it is certain

that a thought cannot exist without a thing that is thinking” 16, which appears to prevent a

restricted reading. If the Cogito is understood syllogistically, the implicit general premise

“thought cannot exist without a think that is thinking” would be a preconceived opinion

subject to doubt, and thus the Cogito would not be absolutely certain.

13
A&P Tannery ed.s, Ouevres de Descartes, revised edition, Paris: Vrin/C.N.R.S., 1964-76, vol.8 p.8, cited
in Cottingham p.41
14
Hatfield, pp.103-105
15
Hatfield, p.104
16
Tannery vol.7 pp.175-6, cited in Hatfield p.105
 The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy17 proposes that the “I” is included to convey

a “phenomenal surplus”. This would suggest that the common “I” within thoughts is the

pre-doubt “I” characterised by sensory perception- a recurrence of body and place, a

linear conception of time, thoughts like “I am walking along Byres Road”, “I turn a

corner” and “I am walking along University Avenue”. This suggests an “I” but not the “I”

at issue in Cartesian philosophy- that is wholly independent of sensory perception.

Descartes’ persisting subject remains, as yet, unjustified.

Descartes’ response to the syllogistic interpretations of the Cogito will now be

considered, for Descartes’ point that “thought cannot exist without a thing that is

thinking” appears to promote a syllogistic interpretation of the Cogito:

1. Whatever is thinking exists (this is the implicit major premise)

2. I am thinking (the minor premise)

3. I exist (conclusion) 18

Gassendi alleges that premise one is a preconceived opinion and is therefore subject to

doubt. Accordingly, premise three cannot be deduced from premise two. In the Second

Replies, Descartes explicitly denies that the Cogito involves the syllogistic deduction of

“I exist” from “I am thinking”.19 However in his Letter to Clerselier (a response to

Gassendi), he does not reject the use of a major premise, only the allegation that it is a
17
“Descartes’ Epistemology” (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/)
18
Pierre Gassendi in the Fifth Set of Objections, cited in Catherine Wilson “Descartes’ Meditations: An
Introduction”, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p.68-69
19
Tannery, vol.7, p.140, cited in Hatfield, p.109
“preconceived opinion”. Here it has been suggested that Descartes is putting forth the

conflicting notions that the Cogito is not syllogistic, but does involve a general premise.20

However Descartes, in the Letter to Clerselier, denies that “knowledge of particular

propositions must always be deduced from universal ones, following the same order of

discovery of learning in Dialectic”21. This is further substantiated by the assertion, “When

someone says “I am thinking, therefore I am, or I exist,”…he recognises it as something

22
self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind.” Intuition is, in this context, “the

conception of a clear and attentive mind, which is so easy and distinct that there can be

no room for doubt about what we are understanding.”23 In this case, by “simple intuition

of the mind” it is recognised as self-evident that “I think, therefore I exist”; the inference

is one single intuition and it is only upon reflection is the tacitly held general premise

separated from the whole self-encapsulated “package” of intuition. In this way, when

someone observes that “I am thinking, therefore I exist” the tacitly held general premise

is learned “from experiencing his own case that it is impossible that he should think

without existing”. It would appear that Descartes’ response defends the certainty of the

Cogito, for it does not rely on “preconceived opinions” that are susceptible to doubt, but

rather direct intellectual intuition.

I put forth that Descartes’ response immediately above critically affects the strength of

Lichtenberg’s criticism. Lichtenberg presupposes that the general necessarily pre-exists

the particular, understanding the Cogito solely as a syllogism. Syllogistic reasoning may

be appropriate where a general principle has been discovered, and it is now applied to
20
Tannery, vol.9A, p.205, cited in Hatfield, p.111
21
Tannery, vol.9A, p.205, cited in Hatfield, p.114
22
Tannery, vol.7, p.140, cited in Hatfield, p.109
23
Tannery, vol.10 p.368, cited in Cottingham p.26
particular cases. However Descartes makes it very clear that the Cogito is not an instance

of the application of a pre-existing general principle to the particular; the particular is

used as the means to become aware of a self-evident general principle24. In the context of

Cartesian doubt, to see the Cogito as an instance of the application of a pre-existing

general principle would of course cast doubt upon it, as the general principle would

appear as a “preconceived opinion”. However when it is seen as the discovery of a self-

evident truth solely by means of direct intellectual intuition, its certainty can be

appreciated. As an illustration of this distinction, Archimedes steps in the bath and

declares “Eureka!” not at the routine observance of evidence confirming a general rule,

but at the sudden revelatory awareness of a self-evident general principle.

Bibliography

Books

Cottingham, J. “Descartes”, Blackwell, 1986

Descartes, R. “A Discourse on Method, Meditations and Principles”, Everyman, 1994

24
Hatfield, p. 115
Hatfield, G. Descartes and the Meditations, Routledge, 2002

Wilson C. “Descartes’ Meditations: An Introduction”, CUP, 2004

Online Resources

Brownsey P. Descartes Notes 2009-10,

http://arts.moodle.gla.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=50319

“Descartes’ Epistemology”, Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy,

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/