Cogito Ergo Sum

Posted February 1, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Philosophy / 0 Comments

Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am) is a popular phrase but do we really known what it means?

The phrase comes from solipsism; everything outside the mind is unjustified and unproven. The philosophical idea has been considered to be scepticism simply because they believe that others experiences can only be known by analogy.

Sophists live by the idea that ‘My mind is the only thing that I know to exist’.

The theory of solipsism merits close examination because it relates to three widely held philosophical presuppositions, which are themselves fundamental and wide-ranging in importance. These are that:

  1. My most certain knowledge is the content of my own mind—my thoughts, experiences, affects, etc.;
  2. There is no conceptual or logically necessary link between mental and physical—between, say, the occurrence of certain conscious experience or mental states and the ‘possession’ and behavioral dispositions of a ‘body’ of a particular kind;
  3. The experience of a given person is necessarily private to that person.

Though the theory can sound complicated and even absurd; in modern society it does seem to be a common practise. People would not call themselves Sophists but they still choose to Wikipedia information to verify and prove to themselves the info is real and factual. To me that sounds very much like that whole bases of Solipsism.


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