/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22324919]

So who counterargued "Cogito Ergo Sum" again?

[Anonymous No.22324932]

>>22324919
Lichtenberg
I fucked her btw

[Anonymous No.22324943]

The argument fails because Descartes never defined what "I" means.

[Anonymous No.22324957]

>>22324932
>"her"

[Anonymous No.22324995]

>>22324919
>lust inducing webm

[Anonymous No.22324998]

>>22324919
please refrain from posting my comely though admittedly dimwitted wife

[Anonymous No.22325015]

>>22324919
that whore is slow

[Anonymous No.22325054]

>>22324919
Beheading all narcissists, burning them publicly, making an example out of them. You're really not that interesting. What's it like not to have a soul? Foul scum, blow your brains out. Better yet: let me do it. There is nothing worse on this planet than narcissists. Kill your local narc, today, make the world a better place, tomorrow. Go to hell, all narcissists. There's no inherent value to yourself, the sooner you come to accept it, the sooner you can rope. Die, die, die, die, die. Just fucking die and go to hell, fuck you and die. Kill all narcs.

[Anonymous No.22325065]

>>22324919
Why are these webms always featuring 16 year olds?

[Anonymous No.22325066]

>>22324919
Cogela luego cum

[Anonymous No.22325071]

>>22325065
Because it's mostly teenagers who use TikTok?

[Anonymous No.22325075]

>>22325065
Natural age of procreation, producing best offspring

[Anonymous No.22325294]

Ah OP, you didn't need to try and coombait an answer. What kind of accuracy are we splitting this hair to? The only reason Descartes is still a relevant read is technically because no one has disproven it per se, you can subscribe to schools of thought that don't acknowledge it as a true statement if you want but thinking at the bare minimum does at least prove you exist, if only in your own mind.

[Anonymous No.22325385]

>>22325066
Why are Asian creepiness and pervertness so much worse than any other area? Except maybe India..

[Anonymous No.22325409]

>>22325385
it's because they aren't percieved as physically intimidating
obviously arab/african countries are no better but these men are percieved as real threats

[Anonymous No.22325492]

>tangito ergo sum

[Anonymous No.22325515]

>>22324943
It's whatever does the cogito, regardless of it's nature.

[Anonymous No.22325524]

>>22324919
Descartes, after taking his own mental faculties into doubt, managed to prove his own existence with the help of his mental faculties.

[Anonymous No.22325576]

>>22324919
I know I shouldn't ask. But what's her name?

[Anonymous No.22325663]

>>22324919
/ourguy/

[Anonymous No.22325788]

>>22324932
did you impregnate her? No? Then why are you bragging? You gained nothing.

[Anonymous No.22325818]

>>22325788
false. Genetic material can be preserved by the environment within the thot's void, therefore impregnating a virgin is and has always been the best choice.

[Anonymous No.22325825]

>>22325818
source

[Anonymous No.22325834]

>>22325825
Aristotle

[Anonymous No.22325854]

>>22325576
Blanca Soleir. Nice face, but frail build

[Anonymous No.22325858]

>>22324919
>define I
>define thinking
>define doubt
>define existence

[Anonymous No.22325872]

>>22325858
Define define first

[Anonymous No.22325875]

>>22324919
Thinking presupposes being.

[Anonymous No.22325881]

>>22325872
to define is to show another person in what sense you are using a word such that they can find a concept in their own mind which corresponds to the concept you meant by the word.

[Anonymous No.22325893]

>>22324919
descartes got btfo'd when it was proven that the pineal gland doesn't exist lmao
nobody in philosophy takes him serious anymore

[Anonymous No.22325909]

>>22324919
Guenon

[Anonymous No.22326734]

The Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia discussed with him in letters and prescribed some necessary changes.

Descartes saying "I think therefore I am" appears to imply that action is the precedent of an actor. It is very Platonic in ways because the function of the thinking thing is to think, this is how we develop tools too; we can visualize how a tool will help us do something we cannot do ourselves. Saying the thinking thing is because it thinks is a tautology, but I think that you find that the verb to think cannot believably presuppose an entirely distinct verb to think. So if a thinking thing thinks, then what properties for thinking does it have to have in order to carry out its function and in relation to what does this thinker recognize its purpose? Elisabeth points out that Descartes does not attribute extension to this thinking thing at all. For thinking to accord with Descartes, what does the thinking thing have to be like? The good princess may accept that the action carried out by a thinking thing does not necessitate a body but then how is it even a thing in the first place if it lacks extension?

Descartes took being as a direct consequence of thought, and being in this case is embodied, but Princess Elisabeth notes he never explains how. Princess Elisabeth helped Descartes formulate a system that allows for a nexus between two substances: Material and mental. This nexus is the passions (what we call emotions today) and this lead this collaborative inquiry as to whether this means there are really three substances or only one. (Mind, passion and matter) It does not fully disprove substance dualism as such but it does present a solid argument that because there can be two substances (Descartes actually calls them primitive notions) why not three or a thousand? Is the union between soul and body a transitionary substance? The answer to this is not clear. If it there is only one substance then the ontological argument in the Meditations comes into play and it can be argued that Descartes anticipated Berkeley's and Conway's theological framework which I understand both of these to be monistic. The princess of Bohemia put a good check (no pun intended) on substance dualism because at no point did Descartes suggest there exists a true link where mind and spirit converge. Nor did he establish whether the existence of a being as not contingent on thought was possible. That the pineal gland is a kind of portal for thought to manifest or matter to be fully conceived of has not yet been proven either.

When you study philosophy seriously you'll come to find out there is no "BTFO"ing anyone, a refutation to any argument can be refuted as well. You want to win arguments, join a debate team or learn rhetoric. Logic and philosophy are there to help you and others learn, not to refuse learning by setting rhetorical barriers from other points of view. Be very careful with those activists, who often are nothing but failed, frustrated choreographers

[Anonymous No.22326739]

>>22326734
An entirely different verb: to be*

Did not check that before, my bad.

[Anonymous No.22326745]

>>22326734
>Saying the thinking thing is because it thinks is a tautology
no it's not

[Anonymous No.22326746]

>>22325893
Well duh, everyone knew he was a pseud as soon as he started cooking up his harebrained scheme about vortices. At a certain point you can’t do pure speculative philosophy about physics. You need to experiment like Newton.

[Anonymous No.22326750]

>>22324919
damn girl is that you?? got insta/OF??! u like to read? ;)

[Anonymous No.22326771]

>>22325881
Thank God I'm not a philosophy fag and only stop by now and then to see if anyone's picked up Vico. Posts like these are unbearable

[Anonymous No.22326801]

>>22324919
I was quite literally going to make a thread about this today since I've been reading it recently. The one I've found counter-arguable is his proof of the existence of God. Acknowledging you lack something doesn't necessarily mean that there HAS to be something that has said thing. It might simply mean such a thing is impossible for everything and everyone.
Still, it's entertaining to read, especially considering it's my first philosopy book.

[Anonymous No.22326807]

>>22326745
You're not looking at the bigger picture. I've reported what I make out of this situation between Descartes and the princess. Meditation itself requires detachment, what was Descartes detaching from? The body and he arrived at a confused state where he could not understand himself as anything but a thinking thing. The statement is not written as a tautology, there you are correct but the enigma is how a thinking thing can be by mere virtue that it thinks. That thinkers think is just too obvious, the question herein should be written as "Does the thinking thing have a material property that allows for thought or is thought the first principle in its being that defines everything else about it?" Descartes proposed that there is an abstract idea called "thinking" floating about the inner darkness of the mind which was left there by God. The idea for thinking presupposes the thing's actions, the gerund for the thing's state of being is consequence of there being thought at all. Thought is an important principle in Cartesian doctrine and what princess Elisabeth questions is how thoughts can influence actions. The field of Cartesian ethics considers the possibility that the universe has been set in motion to follow a course of events that cannot be known by human inquiry. The responsibility of a philosopher is therefore to decipher as much as possible in order to align oneself positively with the events that take place.

[Anonymous No.22326839]

>>22326734
>Saying the thinking thing is because it thinks is a tautology
I agree it's a tautology in a rational sense, in that if you suppose the thinker you don't really need to suppose that he's thinking too, for him to exist. However I view it as an empirical statement, by which I mean a statement about the real physical world. The way that a man knows he really exists is the observation of his own thoughts. You can doubt the very existence of yourself through skepticism, but you can hardly doubt the reality of your own thoughts. This is a simple idea, but you can find plenty of people who will try to deny it.

[Anonymous No.22326905]

>>22325881
So by asking someone to define something, you acknowledge both the mind of the speaker and your own mind? I think we're done here.

[Anonymous No.22326939]

>>22326905
No, the other person could be a mindless bot

[Anonymous No.22326949]

>>22326839
Descartes is aware of that in his letters to the princess of Bohemia. He does say it is united to the body. How it is connected to the body is what does not make enough sense for an empirical statement, as a matter of fact Descartes could not be thought of as an empiricist. His epistemological framework necessarily separates between the substances that make up body and the substances that make up soul. Princess Elisabeth explicitly agrees that it is thought that her senses tell her the soul moves the body. It would mean that the answer to the question posed in my post >>22326807
is the latter, namely, that thought is the first principle that defines the being of the thinking thing. It would not BE a thinking thing otherwise, a car can have fully functioning wheels but never be driven, the car being fully fueled and well maintained, driveable and without obstacles of any kind for this to happen does not make the car being driven at all. For Descartes, the car has to be driven by someone, the driver is what decides whether the car is driven or not. It seems like an entirely alien thing takes over so that the car is driven or the thinking thing thinks and that may or may not be God's blessing. I understand what you mean by Descartes making an empirical claim but this is not valid, because as Elisabeth of Bohemia points out in her letters, her senses tell her the mind controls the body. It reads like an empirical statement but it is more of a negative affirmation, one that could also be written: "my senses tell me nothing, it must be something else pushing my actions" either that or her use of the word "senses" is not how we understand it today. The princess concludes extension is not necessary to thought so I opt to believe that there is no empirical way to argue for the presence of a soul, yet it is there.

[Anonymous No.22326983]

>>22326949
More about the car: Maybe there is no physical limitation to the car's drivability, but what if it is impounded? Or tampered with? Stolen? Maybe its would be driver is a young child, or there is a legal imposition that makes any such car as the one in the present example not drivable? Maybe the car is owned by a superstitious person who believes it to be cursed and will not let anyone drive it. Certainty is the key concept in Cartesianism, the senses can give you good a posteriori knowledge about the car's drivability and such experimentation could determine the real state of being of this car. If we say everything about this car is average and there is no accident that can take place nor something that can stop someone from driving this car, as long as it is not being driven there is no empirical nor rational means to determine whether this car is a drivable car.

Hope this helps.

[Anonymous No.22327101]

>>22324919
A little poofpoof in her knickers, and if she gifted them to me I'd always have an olfactory memento to remember her by.

[Anonymous No.22327109]

>>22324919
Nietzsche

[Anonymous No.22327115]

>>22324919
She looks kind of like the girl I have chained up in my basement, or rather her 6 months ago before the change.

[Anonymous No.22327230]

HOW THE FUCK DO I GET A GF?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[Anonymous No.22327264]

>>22327230

[Anonymous No.22327317]

[Anonymous No.22327324]

[Anonymous No.22327418]

>>22327264
That's not very nice anon.

[Anonymous No.22327437]

>>22326905
I didn’t acknowledge that they exist or that I am the mind I was referring to or that the process of defining involves thinking because none of those have been defined.

And anyway why am I the one who has to define define? You are the one making the claim that you exist. You should be the one who wants to make your statement communicable and intelligible, otherwise why say it at all?

[Anonymous No.22327443]

>>22327324
very cool

[Anonymous No.22327455]

Malebranche and Maine de Biran

There's a decent article on Malebranche's attempt by Judith Butler of all people in the Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty

[Anonymous No.22327494]

>>22324943
Pretty sure that’s Nietzsche’s argument in BGE

[Anonymous No.22327505]

>>22324943
I don't understand this counterargument. Regardless of what it means, it still proves existence, which is what actually mattered to Descartes. Trying to BTFO him saying, "okay, you proved it, but not in the way you intended LMAO!" is retarded.

[Anonymous No.22327728]

>>22325409
Women, everyone

[Anonymous No.22327730]

>>22326771
I own The New Science. Haven’t read it yet.

[Anonymous No.22327843]

>>22324919
I jerk therefore I cum

[Anonymous No.22327914]

>>22324919
Coñito ergo cum

[Anonymous No.22327955]

>>22326939
>>22327437
Anon defined "define" as the act of finding a concept in one mind that corresponds to the concept in the original mind. Thus, this presupposes two separate minds. I'm not surprised this is too complex for the average /lit/ poster to comprehend.

[Anonymous No.22328386]

>>22325054
Doesn't count if they're attractive. Attractive people's bodies are commodities.

[Anonymous No.22328396]

>>22327955
No lol , it’s too complex for you to comprehend that didn’t suppose “I” or “thinking” and especially not “existence” in anything when I said mind.

[Anonymous No.22328557]

>>22324943
I never read Descartes but did he define "thinking"?
>>22325294
Doesn't it only prove that you are able to receive something called thoughts? Couldn't that be an Illusion as well? I don't know what he said about feelings or bodily sensations and propriocetion. I mean as a rationalist, he shouldn't argue in favor of these, I guess.
A grape doesn't think, I think, so do grapes not exist?
>>22327494
He also argued that thinking isn't necessarily an active process coming from an "I" and that it's rather "It is thinking" like we would say "It is raining", if I recall correctly
What even are the essential texts of Descartes? I kinda skipped him conpletely because it seemed so mundane to me.

[Anonymous No.22328567]

>>22328557
>A grape doesn't think, I think, so do grapes not exist?
The cogito is Descartes startig point. He goes on from there to try and prove both the existence of god and that of the external world. The latter isn't dependent on every physical object having thoughts.

[Anonymous No.22328576]

>>22328557
>I kinda skipped him conpletely because it seemed so mundane to me
We have a genius here, bros. In his Black Notebooks, Heidegger has a passage just for people like you.

[Anonymous No.22328580]

>>22328557
>What even are the essential texts of Descartes? I kinda skipped him conpletely because it seemed so mundane to me.
Meditations on First Philosophy. It's about 60 pages long, and it's an easy read as far as philosophy goes.

[Anonymous No.22328659]

>>22324919
Who's she? She's probably one of the prettiest lady I ever seen. She's natural.

[Anonymous No.22328669]

>>22327914
Cum ergo sum.

[Anonymous No.22328680]

>>22328659
>Who's she?
Her name's even prettier anon, she's pretty cool :)

[Anonymous No.22328722]

>>22326839
He flirts with solipsism, yes. But ultimately rejects it with the ontological argument. If there is even one thinking thing aware of itself, then geometrical truths, the act of thinking and other innate ideas must exist in others for there to be a consensus on reality. Saying he cannot be certain that there are other minds beside his is misunderstanding the evil genius thought experiment. The evil genius wants you to think everything is not illusion and to trap you in his false world. You can definitely critique Descartes as a rationalist, saying he can never be sure about other minds but even if God Almighty made Descartes the only thinking thing, the fact that others could figure out the formulas of triangle figured must be the consequence of them thinking. A theme of this thread seems to be that the cogito ergo sum occurs within a context of Descartes having entered deep meditation and encountering the problem that by thinking of a scenario where he can only be sure that he thinks he only limits the description of himself as a thinking thing during this moment. This is ontologically mistaken, he is an embodied thinking thing, otherwise he could not be a thing at all; this would invalidate his dualism.

[Anonymous No.22328727]

>>22328722
Correction: the only thinking thing that ever came to the conclusion it is a thinking thing, there is no sufficient content that hints at humans needing to discover this to be thinking things. A frankensteined empirical argument that would have no place in this type of inquiry is less conclusive than saying God is all loving, all good and all knowing therefore He exists because the ideas exist in the inquirer and therefore deceit is not the full true nature of the universe.

[Anonymous No.22328972]

>>22324943
That would only really change it to "Cogere ergo esse", but the problem that thoughts are the only things we can epistemologically rely on remains.

[Anonymous No.22329008]

>>22328557
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Descarte&submit_search=Search

His discourses are his most pertinent works left to us today, he was also noteworthy for establishing that certain geometric problems can be solved algebraically, which was more significant in his time than in ours. His final work was just a bunch of maxims and supposedly was unfinished when published.

[Anonymous No.22329203]

>>22328576
Post it you blue balling faggot

[Anonymous No.22329354]

>>22324919
Hegel

[Anonymous No.22329582]

>>22328396
Define mind