After reading this piece I wondered who this writer was and I found that he was a philosopher, mathematician and scientist. The idea of “Cogito Ergo Sum” in  Discourse on the Method is one of his most well-known pieces.  Discourse on the Method by Rene Descartes is a pieces separated into six sections. On this piece we are focused on part four. The whole piece is about Descartes’ reasoning on problems he is trying to prove. In part four he suggests the idea “Cogito Ergo Sum” which means, “I am thinking, therefore I exist.” Then he goes on to explain why this is true. At first thought I believe this idea is true because it makes sense.  As I continue to read, Descartes has convinced me that this idea of “Cogito Ergo Sum” is definitely true.

On Page 16 he states that “I decided to pretend that everything that had ever entered my mind was no more true than the illusions of my dreams.”  Then he goes on to say that “I saw on the contrary that from the mere fact that I thought about doubting the truth of other things, it followed quite evidently and certainly that I existed.” So he tried to convince himself that he what he had thought was false, but this only led him to believe even more that he existed. Then he states “I reflected on the fact that I was doubting, and that consequently I wasn’t wholly perfect” this causes him  to contemplate on a being that is more perfect then himself and concludes that god must exist. Furthermore he continues his thoughts on the idea of god and proposes that god the good reason good things exist.

I was quite interesting that he compared a geometric proof to his proof of god’s existence. The proof is as follows “the idea I had of a perfect being, I found that this idea of a perfect being included existence in the same way as—or even more evidently than— the idea of a triangle includes the equality of its three angles to two right angles or the idea of a sphere includes the equidistance from the centre of all the points on the surface. Thus I concluded that the existence of this perfect being, God, is at least as certain as any geometrical proof.” In his conclusion he draws that “•God exists and •is a perfect being, and because •everything in us comes from him.”  I think it is amazing how he is able to take us through his thought process. I was almost as if I was there when he came up with this proof.

Sandy Cheng