Cogito Ergo Sum

Cogito ergo sum (pronounced as “Koh-jee-to air-go sum”) is a Latin phrase by French philosopher Rene Descartes. The meaning of Cogito ergo sum in English means "I think, therefore I am" and it has became a fundamental element of Western philosophy.

Rene Descartes was born on March 31, 1596, he was the first of the modern school of mathematics, as well as a scientist and philosopher. He was a contemporary of Galileo and Desargues, and probably the first modern philosopher to stand firmly against the school of skepticism. His famous quotation, ‘I think, therefore I am’ is still widely debated, four hundred and ten years later.

Descartes’s original statement was “Je pense donc je suis” from his Discourse on Method (1637). He wrote it in French, not in Latin and thereby reached a wider audience in his country than that of scholars. He uses the Latin “Cogito ergo sum” in the later Principles of Philosophy (1644). The proposition of “I think, therefore I am” is the first and the most certain which presents itself to whoever conducts his thoughts in order. The argument had become popularly known in the English speaking world as the “Cogito Ergo Sum” argument, which is usually shortened to “Cogito” when referring to the principle virtually everywhere else.

Seventeenth century philosophy introduced the concept of a sharp division between the body and the soul. In Descartes’ book, Discourse on Method, he takes a very geometrical stance. Nothing can be accepted as true unless one can clearly perceive it to be so. The compound problem has to be broken down to the simplest components, or, rather, each thought should be exactly weighed and measured, as Galileo would have wanted it. The reason used to resolve mathematical theory should be used to prove philosophical truths. He started out by doubting everything, one’s own senses. Some of his dreams had inspired him in his mathematical work, and in his book he wrote, ‘How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?’ When dreaming, we experience a reality that is just as convincing as the world we experience while awake. From that impossible beginning, he found that if he doubted then he must have been thinking, and if he was thinking then he must be a thinking being. ‘Cogito ergo sum’.