While the justification for this remains in the argument of the brain in a vat assumption, it seems that the only truth in thoughts’ references must be just a brain or soul, something that cannot be perceived. He used this idea to support his thesis that while emotion and senses might be deceptive and provide faulty or even inherently wrong information, the thinking mind connected humans to reality in a unique way. The I from Descartes’ belief that I think therefore I am, refers to the mind’s existence in reference to a person’s temporary being. So, for him, a person who doubts reality must think about it in more honest terms and therefore proves his or her existence in the world of reality. The quote, placed in context of his writings addresses the idea that radical doubt, which he believed was the beginning of all productive thinking, distinguished fantasy, delusion and deception from reality or actual existence. Descartes is looking for an unalterable foundation to build the knowledge, a fixed point from which knowledge could be erected. This quote was taken from the Discourse on Method by Ren Descartes. The only thing that remains true that there is a mind or consciousness doing the doubting and believing its perceptions, hence the famous formulation, ‘I think therefore I am’, or in Latin, the cogito. His philosophy was built on the idea of radical doubt, in which nothing that is perceived or sensed is necessarily true. Originally written in his native French in his book 'Discourse on the Method,' he later translated it to Latin so as to be accessible to a larger audience and published this idea in his later work 'Principles of Philosophy.'Īlthough a plethora of volumes have been written on this idea and what exactly Descartes meant, in brief, he was proposing the idea that a human who thinks, questions reality and therefore must be self aware. I think therefore I am: Descartes’s cogito. Ren Descartes (15961650) was a French philosopher and mathematician, credited as a foundational thinker in the development of Western notions of reason and science. The Latin phrase translates as 'I think, therefore I am.' 'Cogito ergo sum.' This philosophical proposition was first advanced by Rene Descartes, a 17th century French philosopher.

I think therefore i am