“I think therefore I am.”

There are countless questions we contemplate on a daily basis. Why am I doing this? What is love? What’s for dinner?  These inquiries, although ranging in scope and seriousness, are proof that we think and wonder, but does that truly define existence? In The Discourse on Method, Descartes explores what it actually means to be alive. He thinks about his physical body, his thoughts, his dreams, and concludes that “I think therefore I am.” It is interesting to consider what it really means to live, and what defines existing in particular. I find Descartes’ piece of writing quite unique and enticing because it is laced with contradictions, yet these don’t interfere with my comprehension of the piece, but rather encourage me to think deeper. For instance, on the one hand Descartes is contemplating faith and the existence of a higher power, while on the other he is more assuredly stating that God, as a higher being, created us and gave us the ability to think. It is fascinating to watch the narrator’s contradictory dialogue go on as he grapples with what it means to human.

I have never particularly concentrated on the question of what makes us living, or what makes us human. Therefore, to see Descartes devote so much thought and writing to this inquiry seemed silly at first, but the piece is definitely not light-hearted or comical. It’s a serious dialogue within a person, which makes the writing that much more powerful. Since he is writing about how we think as a race and what it means that we are humans with thoughts, it makes sense to read paragraph upon paragraph of a person trying to handle and comprehend the things on his mind. “I observed that while I thus desired everything to be false, I, who thought, must of necessity be something,” Descartes concludes, for if everything around him is not definite, at least his own being must be definite, since he is thinking. Therefore, arises the statement, “I think therefore I am.” Although I do see the logic that he followed in arriving at this conclusion, I am still skeptical about its exclusivity, specifically pertaining to other things around us. Is the only way to prove something’s existence by showing it has thoughts, or is it through my own thoughts that I give life to concepts around me?

Although I come away from The Discourse on Method with plenty of questions, in some sense Descartes has done his job. “Reflecting upon the fact that I doubted, and that in consequence my being was not quite perfect (for I saw clearly that to know was a greater perfection than to doubt),” Descartes states, as he concludes that there are many things we humans do not know, therefore there must be a perfect being, God, who created us all. I find this ending impactful in many ways. Descartes tactfully leads us to the notion of a perfect greater power who created us all, yet also emphasizes that there is little any of us know definitively. This once more drives home the concept of existing simply because we think, since there are countless ideas, tangible and intangible, which we each contemplate on a daily basis. I come away from this piece puzzled, and that is not a bad thing, for in this way I know I am human.

Source:

Puchner, Martin, Suzanne Conklin. Akbari, Wiebke Denecke, and Barbara Fuchs. “From The Discourse on Method.” The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. New York: W.W. Norton, 2014. p. 22-25. Print.