Cogito ergo sum

Prolific French philosopher Henri Lefebvre once wrote that the tendency to reduce space ‘to parcels, to images, to facades that are made to be seen and to be seen from’, is a tendency that degrades the very notion of it. Architecture inhabits space, the concept of which, albeit difficult to grasp is made possible through the interpretations of those who populate it. It is even possible to say that there are as many places as people in a space. This concept is central to the discourse of…

The lack of common sense is not just in government. There is a lot of it in religion too. When we take every verse of the Bible literally without thinking about the assumptions and context behind that verse, we are not using common sense; we are being childish Christians. When we follow a religious tradition for the sake of the tradition without thinking about how it applies to our current life situation, we are not using our God-given common sense; we are being blind followers. Then we wonder…

and trying to bring back ideas that can be known as truth, Descartes comes to a wall. This wall is that only one thing can be known for certain, that thought exists. Since thought exists, he exists. Which leads Descartes to his famous phrase cogito ergo sum, or more commonly known “I think, therefore I am”. Essentially this is the only truth that can be found when doubting anything. In this doubting one comes to the realization that everything can be doubted, but the doubter, which means the…

The Black Jacobins C. L. R. James The Black Jacobins is an excellent book, even though it is highly subjective. James wrote it in 1938, and it delineates the history of The Haitian Revolution which was the first and only successful slave revolution in human history and celebrates the triumph of Toussaint L’Ouverture and other slaves and freed men who made its success possible. Throughout his book he highlights the dialectical interaction between the revolutions in France and Haiti. The…

While both offering insightful and surprising opinions, Augustine and Plato have two different ideas on how people come to know. Plato offers his doctrine of recollection, as well as his theory of form and Augustine presents his theory of illumination. Ultimately, Plato’s explanation of how humans come to know is better because of the giant faith claim that Augustine is making by saying that to learn, one must consult with their inner teacher, Jesus Christ. Plato puts forth the proposition…

The beginning of understanding oneself starts with identity. For centuries, philosophers have contemplated a common issue known as the mind-body problem. The mind-body problem is a philosophical problem that asks the question of what we as people are. Are people a mind, a body, or a combination of the two? There are several major works that pertain to this problem, but this argument will focus on those given by Gilbert Ryle, Rene Descartes, and Richard Taylor. Descartes is the oldest and perhaps…

Jean Piaget’s study of the development of reasoning gives us the best insights into how we develop the self. This is best understood by assessing the insights of Cartesian dualism. ‘Cogito ergo sum’ is Latin for ‘I think, therefore I am’. In contrast, subjective interactionists claim that the “I” is the subjective self, whereas the “me” is objective. The older I get, the better I am at reasoning with my surroundings; even if I consider my body to be part of my environment. I adapt to my body…

x Rene Descartes and John Locke, both seventeenth century philosophers, have their own individual views and opinions pertaining to particular subjects such as the origin of ideas. Both of these philosophers attempt to find answers to many of the same questions in epistemology as well as metaphysics. While Descartes is a rationalist, Locke is an imperialist; his ideas come from experience. Locke and Descartes have differing views on various multiple subjects, but both philosophers support…

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) published a series of thought experiments in 1641 called Meditations on First Philosophy. At the beginning of the Third Meditation, Descartes outlines the Problem of the External World. Predictably, without reading the First and Second Meditations, the problem is difficult to grasp. Therefore, I will provide a summary of what took place before I continue. In the First Meditation, Descartes, contemplates the great number of falsehoods he has come to believe over the…

accomplish it. In The Last Star Ringer said, “I sighed. There was no breaking through. I didn’t blame her, though. If she told me, your father wasn’t an artist and a drunk: he was a teetotaling Baptist Minister, I wouldn’t believe her. Cogito ergo sum. More than the sum of our experiences, our memories are the ultimate proof of reality. The plane’s engines roared to life. I flinched at the sound. I spent forty days in the wilderness without any reminders of the mechanized world.” This continues…