”Cogito ergo sum”–that is, "I think, therefore I am"– is the famous sentence that French philosopher René Descartes coined in his work "Meditations.” In essence, it states that thinking is proof of our existence. Even though we might behold false beliefs and deceiving thoughts, the simple fact that we think is evidence for the existence of the thinking subject.
As appealing as this might have sounded to Descartes, this also led to so much confusion, especially in Western philosophy. Because it led to the, more or less unaware, semantic conflation of words indicating very different qualitative experiential phenomena. Phenomena that we perceive in us, instead of out of us.
Words like ‘mind’, ‘consciousness,’ ’feelings,’ or ’emotions’ are much too often thrown into the same pot and are taken almost synonymously. They are often referred to as being the same thing. Suddenly a feeling becomes a thought, consciousness is labeled as a ‘feeling,’ or a thought is assumed to be the cause of a cons…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Letters for a Post-Material Future to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.