Descartes’ Flash of Insight: Freedom, the Objective World, and the Reality of the Self

ABSTRACT

This re-examination of the cogito is prompted by a substantive question which has not previously been identified: the distinguishability of the I or self. Consequently, its force has not been addressed in the vast literature on the cogito. Failure to identify it is not simply an oversight, but gives rise to persistent misconceptions of the cogito. Descartes’ deepest error is supposed to be the confinement of the self within the perspective of consciousness, preventing it from conceiving even in the abstract of any thoughts happening elsewhere. Nothing in the Cartesian reflection gives us an objective perspective to conceive even in principle a substantial fact: ‘A is thinking’. My central aim is to set up this objection in the strongest form, and then to rebut it, beginning with a resolution of the persistent, fruitless debates regarding the status of the cogito by drawing a distinction between two kinds of order. I argue that, far from confining the self, the discovery of the cogito provides the basis for the self’s distinguishability and demonstrates the self’s conceptual resources to conceive a substantial fact, thus establishing the cogito’s unassailable legacy, and the self’s irreducible reality, freedom, and openness to the objective world.

KEYWORDS:

• Descartes
• cogito
• self
• freedom
• objectivity
• distinguishability

Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy is undoubtedly his masterpiece in metaphysics. It is “an extraordinary work. … It was, and remains, a very unusual work,”¹ and becomes harder, deeper, and richer on each reading. A striking aspect of Descartes’ legacy is his celebrated first and most indubitable truth,² Ego sum, ego existo (AT VII, 25), which still raises, and prompts us to reflect deeply on, a number of issues regarding the self, self-consciousness, and self-knowledge. The metaphysical status of all three remains a serious challenge of our times: the cogito is ahistorical. Descartes writes: “I devoted as much effort [to the Second Meditation] as to anything I have ever written” (AT VII, 137). This is unsurprising, since it grapples with one of the most recalcitrant philosophical problems—that of the self—which involves “some of the profoundest philosophy.”³

The re-examination of Descartes’ most celebrated truth is prompted by a substantive question which has not been identified and, consequently, its force has not been addressed in the vast literature on the cogito: the distinguishability of the I or self. A recurring objection is succinctly captured by Bernard Williams: the cogito confines the self to “the mere perspective of consciousness,” preventing it from conceiving even “in the abstract [such thoughts] happening (so to speak) elsewhere.”⁴ The problem is deemed to arise from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s objection to the cogito. My central aim is to rebut what I have identified to be the strongest force of the objection. I argue that the cogito, far from confining or preventing the self from conceiving any thoughts happening elsewhere, in fact demonstrates the self’s reality, freedom, and openness to the objective world. My rebuttal, by reductio, thus turns Lichtenberg’s objection on its head.

1. The Necessity of Order

A re-examination of the cogito demands a clear understanding of the nature of Descartes’ reasoning. A principal notion in his method, scrutiny, in his metaphysics, is order. He writes to Marin Mersenne: throughout the Meditations “I follow the order of reasoning” not “the order of the subject-matter” (24 December 1640, AT III, 266; CSMK 163). Following the order of reasoning, Descartes’ primary question in the search for a new metaphysics is ‘what is real and true?’ not ‘how can I be certain?’ as we have been accustomed to believe of his philosophy.⁵ Thus his metaphysics-first approach is primarily concerned with the nature and intelligibility of reality simpliciter—including his non-negotiable commitment to freedom. The notion of reality is equivalent to the notion of what is: whatever is clearly and distinctly understood is a true entity which “has a true and real nature just as much as the object of physics itself” (Conversation with Burman, AT V, 160).

Abiding by Descartes’ order of reasoning, I begin my re-examination of the cogito within its proper context, and demonstrate the centrality of freedom to its discovery. Considering it in isolation is unlikely to reveal Descartes’ insight, to overcome the strongest force of the objection, and misplaces its significance. I then draw a distinction between two kinds of order: the order of discovery (in accordance with the order of reasoning) and the order of explanation. The distinction underpins Descartes’ metaphysical enquiries and permeates my discussion of the cogito. On the basis of this distinction, I offer an original resolution to the long-standing debate concerning the cogito’s status.

With these necessary steps in place, I then turn to my central aim by addressing Williams’s diagnosis that when Lichtenberg’s objection is “more closely considered it turns out to share with Descartes his deepest error”: “there is nothing in the pure Cartesian reflection to give us [a third-personal perspective],” allowing us to conceive even in principle “a substantial fact”: ‘A is thinking’.

Lichtenberg’s objection states: “To say cogito [‘I am thinking’] is already to say too much … one should say ‘it thinks’, just as one says ‘it flashes’.”⁶ Responses in the literature demonstrate the incoherence of subjectless thoughts. But the question ‘why is it “too much”?’ has not been addressed. This is what I consider to be a substantive question. In addressing it, I show that failure to identify it is not simply an oversight but gives rise to persistent misconceptions of the cogito. Examining it in some detail not only rebuts such misconceptions, but leads to a much needed and important account: the distinguishability of the I.

I set up this substantive question in the strongest form, as I consider it to be the real force of what I call “the Lichtenbergian objection” (whether or not Lichtenberg intended it in this form). By a reductio ad absurdum I turn Lichtenberg’s objection on its head. I then address Williams’s diagnosis, demonstrating that the self does have the conceptual resources to conceive a substantial fact. If my rebuttal succeeds, it will establish the cogito’s unassailability and the self’s irreducibility and openness to the objective world in “rightly conducting … reason and seeking the truth” (Discourse, AT VI, 1).⁷

2. Cogito and Freedom

The First Meditation closes with reason’s defiance of the deceiver’s wiles and the will’s suspension of assent to what is dubitable—most crucially the principles of Scholastic doctrines. The defiance of, and struggle against, the deceiver form a central premise in assessing the real force of the Lichtenbergian objection.

Pivotal to the discovery of the cogito is the methodic scrutiny, the autonomy of freedom, and its internal relation to the authority of reason.⁸ Freedom is non-negotiable: the question concerning the will was raised right at the beginning of the First Meditation, since freedom from prejudice or from unscrutinised doctrines precedes the freedom to search for a new metaphysics. It requires that the will free itself from ill-formed habits: “it will be a good plan to turn my will in completely the opposite direction. … I shall do this until … the distorting influence of habit no longer prevents my judgement from perceiving things correctly” (AT VII, 22). It is through that very act of the will, and of reason’s stepping back and self-scrutinising that the self is moving towards an objective standpoint. Self-scrutiny, freedom, the search for truth, and objectivity are interrelated. Descartes’ wisdom to doubt was not to enquire whether one has hands and other mundane scenarios,⁹ but to scrutinise preconceived opinions, ill-formed habits, to liberate reason and the will from received doctrines, and to challenge the stifling grip of external authority (Discourse, AT VI, 4–11), in the search for a new metaphysics.

Adhering to the order of reasoning, the first task in the Second Meditation is to ascertain whether the will has freed itself from the fetters of custom and habit, if it is to operate “within the bounds of truth.” It is only then that the meditator can undertake the task of discovering what is real and true. The elenctic process resumes: “It feels as if I have fallen unexpectedly into a deep whirlpool which tumbles me around so that I can neither stand on the bottom nor swim up to the top” (AT VII, 24). If there is a way out, it must lie in transcending this predicament and rejecting the conclusion that helplessness and inefficacy are his ultimate state of being. “I will make the effort and once more attempt the same path which I started yesterday,” he declares—this attempt is a free act of the will; the same path involves the rigorous scrutiny he has been following.

Parallel to the question of the metaphysics of freedom is that of the possibility of metaphysical knowledge (AT VII, 475): is there just one truth that “does not allow even the slightest occasion for doubt?” (AT VII, 24). He must either find such a truth, if he is to step out on the path of his quest, or accept the possibility “that everything that I see is spurious,” with perhaps “just the one fact that nothing is certain” (AT VII, 24). The latter must be the last resort, after he has done everything that can be done; it cannot be complacently accepted, nor supposed to imply stability and lastingness. The task therefore is to find one truth, “however slight, that is certain and unshakeable,” if he is to hope for further truths, not deduced from it, but to which the same kind of indubitability must pertain. Thus a primary reason for such a truth is to serve as a paradigmatic indubitably true informative principle, in contrast to the uninformative logical principles.

3. The Indubitable Truth: ‘Ego sum, ego existo’

The struggle against the deceiver continues: even if an evil demon has twisted my perception and presented me with a picture of all that’s dubitable, must I not be something if am being deceived? Perhaps even this thought is the result of a deceiver, to which the counter-response follows at once: yet may I not perhaps be “the author of these thoughts?” (As we shall see, this flash of insight forms one more premise in my rebuttal of the real force of the Lichtenbergian objection.) “In that case am not I, at least, something? But I have just said that I have no senses and no body. … Am I not so bound up with a body and with senses that I cannot exist without them?” (AT VII, 24–25). No conclusions are drawn given Descartes’ strict order of reasoning. Instead, he probes deeper: “But I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I too do not exist?”

With this question he is now attempting to cast doubt on his existence. This is significant because his existence is a presupposition of the possibility of embarking on such an undertaking. The meditator does not prove his existence, nor does he derive his existence from thought; both are nonsensical since he must exist in order to think or doubt, to struggle, or do anything at all. Descartes’ rigorous scrutiny subjects to cross-examination even that presupposition. Accusations of question-begging by assuming what is established by ‘ego existo’ are therefore unfounded. As I shall demonstrate, the meditator discovers and establishes the indubitability of his existence, not his existence. Descartes’ important distinction and cross-examination have been missed by commentators and critics, past and present.

The counter-response to his question follows with a resounding: “No: if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed” (AT VII, 25). What grounds does the meditator have for making claims about the past? I shall address this in §7. For now, I suggest that the past tense of ‘I certainly existed’ demonstrates: first, that the unity of I across time is a necessary condition for a complete thought to be formed (e.g., ‘Fa’), for two thoughts to be connected and a third deduced, for judging or doubting at all; and secondly, that his existence is a presupposition for embarking on such an undertaking.

The cross-examination is unrelenting. He is not prepared to accept without scrutiny even the strong affirmation ‘if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed’. He counters: “But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me” (AT VII, 25); yet, even if the deceiver “puts into me the thoughts I am now having,” being fully aware that he himself is cross-examining them (AT VII, 246), he triumphantly retorts: “In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me.” What is now established is the indubitability of that presupposition. It is no longer a state of being tumbled around in a deep whirlpool by the deceiver, but an active affirmation manifesting the self’s power. The indubitability of his existence commands the will’s spontaneous assent; it commands assent from anyone who can grasp it, manifesting the highest degree of freedom—“highest” in terms of the quality of freedom, which is of the utmost importance (Fourth Meditation).¹⁰

This is reason’s first discovery of an indubitable substantial truth: I undoubtedly exist. It comes before its affirmation in ‘Ego sum, ego existo’. Such a discovery is cast, with great ingenuity, not purely in the theoretical mode of thinking but concurrently in the active mode of willing, i.e., affirming.¹¹ It is not only a discovery by a thinking I, but this I is also an active being whose will has defied the external forces that tumbled it around. The inextricable link between the self-evident fact that I am thinking and acting and the indubitable fact that I exist, is grasped by a single mental act, an intuitus,¹² non-inferentially, at the very moment of having “convinced myself of something”—the very moment I grasp that I am free from doubt, at least regarding my existence.

No deception can affect this indubitable truth, clearly expressed in the powerful pronouncement: “let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something” (AT VII, 25), for it is impossible¹³ to doubt that I exist while I am doubting, thinking, or being deceived (AT VII, 33, 36): while I am being deceived in that indivisible “continuous movement of thought” (Rule Seven, AT X, 370, 387), I directly grasp the fact that I indubitably exist. The meditator’s cross-examination of this discovery is also a way of ascertaining whether the demon can make him doubt what can be clearly grasped to be the case.

4. Two Kinds of Order

The famous dictum: ‘I am thinking, therefore I am, or I exist’ (Discourse, AT VI, 32) became in the hands of Descartes’ critics a misleading expression of what in fact it is: a simple (unanalysable) proposition. It is grasped in its totality “by a simple intuition of the mind” (AT VII, 140). Descartes did not anticipate that the critics at the time and over the centuries would misunderstand the primitiveness of the cogito to the extent that they have. In the Meditations he formulates it: ‘I am, I exist’, though he doesn’t think that the original formulation was misleading.¹⁴ The two propositions, ‘I am thinking’ and ‘I exist’, are inextricably bound up together: one contains the other inseparably; neither is prior to the other, neither grounds the other. It is thus not possible for either ‘I am thinking’ or ‘I exist’ to be redundant. Whichever one I affirm, both are explicitly present to my attentive mind; whichever one I attempt to deny, their inseparability is affirmed by reinstating the negated one in the very act of denial. I cannot grasp the indubitable fact that I exist without thinking, and conversely I cannot be thinking without existing.

To settle the centuries-old and fruitless debates regarding the status of the cogito, a distinction—which has been missed by critics—must be drawn between two kinds of order: the order of discovery, and the order of effective explanation, exposition, defence, or recapitulation. The distinction I draw and the defence I offer conclusively rebut such debates: the status of the cogito falls neatly and incontrovertibly on Descartes’ defence that it is a simple proposition grasped non-inferentially. It is not based on any syllogism, not only because Descartes abandoned syllogisms in his search for “what is real and true” but because he considers syllogisms as a mode of exposition or explanation.

Following the order of discovery, the self grasps the self-evidently true cogito non-inferentially, and any thinker able and willing to follow the method and pay “sufficient attention to all points … will understand it just as perfectly as if he had discovered it for himself” (AT VII, 155). However, if the discoverer has to give an explanation (to various objectors), an exposition (Principles I 10, AT VIIIA, 8), a defence (reply to Burman), or a recapitulation (Third and Fourth Meditations) of the cogito, he can do so only by means of a formal argument. Descartes is thus prepared to use syllogisms in his replies to objections, in his correspondence, and elsewhere. How else can he attempt to convince his critics other than by providing forms of argument that they can understand, since they find the order of discovery difficult to grasp? If one is unable to follow, or pays insufficient attention to, that order, and is thus led to deny that the cogito is grasped non-inferentially, Descartes has no choice but to explain it in terms of an inference by offering some support for it, such as the bare truth of necessity, “whatever thinks exists,” thereby leading the inattentive critic to the truth of the proposition. But in discovering the cogito, the self neither appeals to, nor needs to know, any principles, implicitly or explicitly (AT V, 147), nor is there any vacillation in Descartes’ mind concerning the non-inferential status of the cogito.¹⁵

The discovery is followed by the affirmation of the famous proposition: “after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally [lay bare/establish¹⁶] that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind” (AT VII, 25). Its necessity is bound by “whenever”—it is time-bound. The proposition expresses a contingent truth grasped a priori, but has an existential import which affords no contradiction while it is conceived or cross-examined: its indubitability is inseparable from the undeniability of its truth.¹⁷

Ego sum, ego existo: esse (sum, being) and ens (entity/notion) are inseparable. In discovering the indubitability of my existence, I am simultaneously discovering the indubitable truth that I am a real being, affirmed in the proposition Ego sum, and that a real being is a true entity.¹⁸ I am not only grasping the conformity of a true thought with reality, the extrinsic denomination of truth; I am also grasping that “truth consists in being,” the intrinsic denomination of truth (Letter to Clerselier, 23 April 1649, AT V, 356; CSMK 377; Letter to Mersenne, 16 October 1639, AT II, 598; CSMK 139), thus grasping a substantial fact: “whatever is true is something” (AT VII, 65), not simply true of something. For Descartes (as for Spinoza and Leibniz, following him) what is real is true, and what is true is real. I clearly grasp non-inferentially that the first indubitably true existent element in the objective world is this I, from whose sum thinking and activity are inseparable, vindicating the efficacy of the will, manifesting its determinate step to freedom from the fetters of external forces and—being at one with reason—thus demonstrating its autonomy. The will’s autonomy, its internal relation to reason, and its power to spontaneously assent to the true and real are pivotal to Descartes’ entire metaphysics.

5. The Triumph of Reason and Freedom

The cogito halts the spiral of deception and marks the beginning of the turning away from that precipice. It demonstrates the triumph of reason and freedom over the deceiver, at least during the continuous movement of thought. Only by pushing the wiles of the deceiver to the limits of intelligibility can I discover what, if anything, is indubitable. The logical point central to understanding the cogito is not whether I or anyone else can or cannot doubt it, but whether it itself is dubitable while it is being conceived, grasped, or entertained.

A significant turn in the metaphysics of mind: Descartes’ rigorous scrutiny extends also to “what this ‘I’ is” (AT VII, 25), and after a long cross-examination he raises the question: “What then am I?”, and answers: “A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (AT VII, 28).¹⁹ The last two conjuncts are not a mere afterthought;²⁰ nothing is an afterthought in the Meditations, everything is rigorously and well thought-out in that strict order of reasoning. They are of ground-breaking, radical significance in the metaphysics of mind, as they challenge the prevailing Aristotelian doctrine of a sharp division between the sensory soul (psyche, or anima) and the intellectual mind (noûs, or intellect) which had dominated the philosophical world for centuries.²¹ And they endorse a move away from that dominance and towards Descartes’ conception that both intellectual and sensory acts are dependent on, and presuppose the unity of, the single mind (mens) (AT VII, 28–29; the emphasis here is on dependence, not essence), which presupposes the unity of the same irreducible I: “Ego sum res cogitans … & sentiens” (AT VII, 28). “I consider the mind not as a part of the soul [anima] but as a thinking soul [mens] in its entirety” (AT VII, 356).

Nor is Descartes widening the term “thought” or redefining thought in terms of consciousness.²² Descartes uses conscius (aware; a cognate of scire, ‘to know’) and conscientia (a form of self-knowledge)²³ and demonstrates what all these acts of the mind have in common: it is the same I that understands, wills, doubts, and senses and imagines (AT VII, 29). Imagination and sensation are not a third category, since they can neither be nor be understood without a mind in which to inhere (‘in’ and ‘inherence’ denote dependence not a spatial/containment relation); they fall “under the common concept of [… conscientia], and we call the [res] in which they inhere a thinking thing or a mind” (AT VII, 176) since “there is an intellectual act included in” what they are (AT VII, 78): they are all modes under the principal attribute of thought. The distinction between them and the mind is thus modal.²⁴ An intellectual act manifests the capacity for self-ascription, self-reflection, and self-scrutiny.

Descartes’ conception of conscientia, self-knowledge²⁵ knowledge of the self as a thinking, acting, sensing being (directly gleaned at first from being aware of, struggling against, and trying to gain mastery over the demon’s wiles), is based “in an order corresponding to my own perceptions” not “in an order corresponding to the actual truth of the matter” with which “I was not dealing at that stage” (Preface, AT VII, 8). He is not arguing about the essence of the self, or that thought is the essential attribute of the self—only that the attribute is inseparable from the self because it cannot be doubted (AT VII, 27). Here he argues that the self is a real existing thing (res).

Descartes commits no logical blunders; his commitment is: “I only know that I am a thinking res,” not “I know that I am only a thinking res” (AT VII, 27; Appendix to Fifth Objections and Replies, AT IXA, 215). A parallel distinction is drawn between “‘belonging to the knowledge which I have of myself’ [and] ‘belonging to me’” (AT VII, 357). On his strict order of reasoning, Descartes’ commitments are, at this stage, epistemological, not metaphysical.

6. The Cogito’s Significance: An Archimedean Point

What is the significance of the cogito? In itself it is startlingly significant, since, amidst the darkness of doubt, it establishes a sought-after indubitable self-evident informative truth. Equally significant is Descartes’ use of the cogito, by means of which he establishes perhaps the most important principle of his metaphysics (for which, see below). Williams, however, argues that if the I cannot be considered from the third-person perspective “it is not a thing with an essence”; if it can be so considered “the cogito cannot show … that its essence consists in thinking” (108–110). Addressing Williams’s challenge compels me to clarify Descartes’ commitments in the Second Meditation in light of common misattributions (including Kant’s Paralogisms).²⁶

As I have demonstrated, Descartes does not argue that the cogito shows that the essence of I consists in thinking, only that the attribute of thought is inseparable from the I since it cannot be doubted. In the Second Meditation only the notion naturam (denoting something real) not essentiam appears, not even naturam sive essentiam, which figures in later Meditations. Williams equates ‘being inseparable’ with ‘his essence consists in thinking’; his challenge is thus misplaced (he is not alone in this). In §7, I shall argue that the self can be considered from the third-person perspective, but, on Descartes’ strict order of reasoning, that does not entail that the cogito establishes the essence of the I. In fact, in the Second Meditation, in a passage invariably ignored, Descartes considers the possibility that the body is “in reality identical with the ‘I’.” He replies: “I do not know, and for the moment I shall not argue the point, since I can make judgements only about things which are known to me. I know that I exist” (AT VII, 27). I come back to this below, but it is already clear that Descartes doesn’t argue from doubt or ignorance, only from what he knows. Abiding by the order of reasoning, he makes this clear: “at [the Second Meditation] I was not yet asking whether the mind is distinct from the body, but merely examining those of its [acts] of which I can have certain and evident knowledge” (Second Set of Replies, AT VII 129). Therefore, Descartes does not argue from such tentative epistemological claims to any metaphysical conclusions of what the essence of the self is. The essence of the self cannot be demonstrated until the Sixth Meditation, by which time the meditator has a clear and distinct conception of the essence of corporeality. Neither conception on its own is sufficient for establishing the Real Distinction between the essence of mind and the essence of corporeality.²⁷

Despite the cogito being the first informative principle to be discovered, Descartes stresses: “one should not require the first principle to be such that all other propositions can be reduced to it and proved by it. It is enough if it is useful [i.e., paradigmatic] for the discovery of many, and if there is no other proposition on which it depends, and none which is easier to discover” (Letter to Clerselier, June/July 1646, AT IV 444–45; CSMK 290). The cogito satisfies all three demands, and it is in this sense that Descartes’ affirmation of accepting it “without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy that I was seeking” (Discourse, AT VI 32), and of taking the indubitability of the being “of this thought as my first principle” (Principles, AT IXB, 10) must be understood.

The cogito is an affirmation of an indubitably true substantial fact, but that is not its only importance: it also confirms the appropriateness of the method;²⁸ it assures the self that he is capable of acquiring true cognitio, and thus the intelligibility of what is real and true is now open. And it serves as the first principle by means of which—i.e., by its remarkable marks of clarity and distinctness (discovered through its cross-examination), indubitability and truth—Descartes lays down perhaps the most important principle of his project: the Principle of Clarity and Distinctness (Third Meditation). It is this principle that enables him to make a decisive move forward and serves as a test of the indubitability and truth of whatever is clearly and distinctly understood (AT VII, 35–36).

Unsurprisingly, Descartes is not using the cogito as a foundation of scientia or as a premise in any argument.²⁹ It is these other “principles which enable us to deduce the knowledge of all the other things to be found in the world” (Principles, AT IXB, 11), and it is his clear and distinct idea of God that forms part of the premises for his principal argument for the existence of God, the ultimate foundation of scientia.³⁰ This rebuts any claims (including Kant’s, at A342/B400) that the cogito is the foundation of Descartes’ metaphysics.

Does the cogito occupy any strategic place in the project? It is the platform, the Archimedean point on which the self stands—something it was unable to do while being tumbled around by forces external to reason and freedom—ready to embark on its monumental task. The Archimedean point is now more objective than the earlier stepping-back standpoint—objectivity allows degrees—and the internal relation of reason and freedom forms the lever that enables the self to begin shifting an entire philosophical landscape, effecting an abidingly significant metaphysical turn.

7. The Force of the Lichtenbergian Objection: A Three-Step Rebuttal

With the necessary premises in place, I turn to my central aim by addressing Williams’s diagnosis. Williams begins by demonstrating the incoherence of Lichtenberg’s impersonal formulation of the cogito: (T1) ‘it is thought: P’. (T2) ‘it is thought: Q’ will never lead to any conclusion: (T3) ‘it is thought: P and Q’, unless “they both occur in the same thought-world” (96–97). Williams’s argument establishes that without the self no two thoughts could be connected and a third inferred. I should add that the same applies, mutatis mutandis, to any putative logically contradictory thoughts, any disjunctive thoughts, etc. Furthermore, not only the unity between thoughts, but also the unity within or compositionality of a whole thought, requires a self. Without the self, no complete thought, no reasoning, no judgement, no doubting, no knowledge would be possible; our entire system of reasoning, thinking, judging would collapse. That is what decisively undermines reductionist theories of the self, showing that the requirement that there be a subject of thoughts is not as blunt as is assumed: the impossibility of subjectless thoughts is metaphysical, not epistemic, psychological, or logico-linguistic.

Williams, however, argues that “more closely considered [Lichtenberg’s objection] turns out to share with Descartes his deepest error” (95). This (supposed) deepest error is what I consider to be the real force of the objection, the first part of which states: “there is nothing in the pure Cartesian reflection to give us [a third-personal perspective]”; that is, of being able to conceive at least in principle that there is a thinker who can be labelled ‘A’ and hence conceive the proposition ‘A is thinking’, which Williams calls “a substantial fact,” rather than the “less substantial” ‘I am thinking’. The second part of the objection questions the “Cartesian reflection [which] invites us into the perspective of consciousness,” and challenges “the coherence of that conception” (100).

My argument involves a three-step rebuttal. Steps 1 and 2 address the first part of Williams’s diagnosis, step 3 the second part. To strengthen Williams’s diagnosis as much as possible, I shall approach its first part by acknowledging that what is required is some background—e.g., an ability to recognise that ‘I’-thoughts must be conceived as instantiable other than simply by the self itself. In the absence of that background, it is possible that these thoughts yield no conception of objectivity until they are embedded in an appropriate structure; moreover, the self would be incapable of forming even “in the abstract” an objective conception. The cogito can acquire an appropriate structure, ‘ξ is thinking’ with ‘I’ in the argument-place, “only when it is related to (at least possible) other exemplifications of the same predicate.”³¹

(1) Grasping the general in the particular, or the many in the one. What needs to be shown is that, in grasping the cogito the self can grasp the intelligibility and be in possession of the concept expressed by ‘ξ is thinking’, ‘ξ exists’, ‘ξ is deceiving’, and which he “must conceive as capable of being instantiated otherwise than by himself”³²—e.g., with the third-person pronoun ‘he’ or ‘she’, or a proper name ‘A’, in the argument-place. Only if this is so can the self’s conception of what it is for someone to satisfy such predicates yield an objective conception.

There are two possibilities: first, the demon could prevent the self from thinking at all; if so, there would be nothing to discuss. Secondly, given that the self does think about his predicament, the crucial question is: can he grasp the intelligibility of that structure being instantiated other than by himself? The intelligibility of that structure gains support from the struggle against the demon: the self is capable of conceiving that structure being instantiated by the demon, ‘ξ is thinking’, ‘ξ is deceiving’, with the third-person pronoun in the argument-place. Indeed, that is exactly the case: “I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me” (AT VII, 25; my emphasis). And, by extension, the self can conceive that structure being instantiated by other thinkers, thus forming a clear conception of himself as one thinker among many in a single objective world, any one of whom can attentively follow and execute the same method of inquiry.

As Descartes argues: it “is in the nature of our mind to construct [or recognise] general propositions on the basis of our knowledge of particular ones” (AT VII, 141). The process is analogous to the way mathematical principles are formed: we can recognise a general principle in the particular.³³ The general principle ‘whatever thinks exists’ is recognised in the particular during the struggle with the deceiver: “let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something” (AT VII, 25; my emphasis).

Furthermore, Descartes anticipates Frege’s subjective/objective distinction. Frege argues: “By a thought I understand not the subjective performance of thinking but its objective content, which is capable of being the common property of several thinkers.”³⁴ Descartes argues: each thinker is capable of grasping the content of the cogito “just as perfectly as if he had discovered it for himself” (AT VII, 155). The act of thinking, doubting, judging pertains to a subject, but the content of any such act, including the content of the cogito is objective, graspable by any thinker who follows the order of discovery, “anyone who philosophizes in an orderly way” (Principles I 7, 10, AT VIIIA, 6 and 8),³⁵ each capable of understanding that it applies to himself but also to each of the others, each capable of conceiving any other thinker who could be labelled ‘A’. All this manifests the objective universality of the cogito and rebuts Williams’s objection that the “Cartesian reflection … invites us into the [mere] perspective of consciousness.” Descartes’ concern is not with the post-Cartesian baggage of subjectivity and the perspective of consciousness, but with what pertains to a subject: its autonomy and power of thinking and acting.

Logically, predication is tied to generality; our understanding of a predicate is exhibited in our ability to think of a range of different entities to which/whom that predicate can be ascribed—Fa, Fb, Fc, etc. Metaphysically, true predication has some foundation in reality. Conversely, if we have a conception of an individual, we must be able to think of it as having ascribed to it a range of different predicates—Fa, Ga, Ha, etc. Predication requires certain complex conceptual capacities which have to do with the structure of propositional content—of what it is for thoughts to be structured.³⁶

The self’s perspective is an ‘I’-perspective that invokes responsiveness to reasons, to normative principles, to modal reasoning directed towards what can objectively be the case. The self is capable of forming “in the abstract” a conception of what would have to obtain for a plurality of thinkers to exist, capable of conceiving of a thought being instantiated otherwise than from his perspective—of understanding things from a wider objective perspective. This is part of the philosophical significance of Descartes’ principle of understanding the general in the particular, enabling the self to reach beyond itself. The cogito is irreducible to any other proposition, but it is not an isolating proposition; to think otherwise is to conflate the act of thinking with its content. Descartes’ insightful conception of the cogito is “that you cannot stay with the first person” in the search for truth. Descartes “is right even here.”³⁷ The search for truth is a basis of the very idea of objectivity.

(2) The intelligibility of the objective world. The second step of my argument draws on Gareth Evans’s requirement: “just as our thoughts about ourselves [our ‘I’-thoughts] require the intelligibility of [the] link with the world thought of ‘objectively’, so our ‘objective’ thought about the world also requires the intelligibility of [that] link.”³⁸ Nothing in the self’s conception fails to conform to Evans’s requirement since the intelligibility of such links is part of the self’s clear conception, nor prevents the self’s conception of the world as an objective world.

Despite the demon’s wiles, ‘I’, unlike any proper name ‘A’, or definite description, is immune to error and doubt; it is immune to referential and identification-failure of the subject of thought and activity. Descartes’ insight lies in grasping that the immunity to error through misidentification relative to the ‘I’ is not simply guaranteed by the perpendicular pronoun, the logic of indexicals, or by “the ordinary ways of talking” (AT VII, 32), but by an ontological underpinning: a real thinking, acting being.

However, at this stage Descartes does not argue that the self is a simple substance, nor does he refer to a simple I, contrary to Kant’s claims (Paralogisms A348 and B411), but only to a simple proposition. Nor does he use the concept of substance; “substance” does not appear until the second part of the Third Meditation. In the Second Meditation, Descartes uses the concept res cogitans, not substantia cogitans. The concept res (thing) is used in the ordinary sense of the word at that period to denote any entity which is not a creature of the imagination: the I is not fictitious but something real. Nor is the I a mere logical/formal subject; logical/formal subjects cannot think, act, judge, or synthesise. The formal ‘I’, or logical self is implied by the real self, not the other way round.

First-person thoughts, I have argued elsewhere, have a double immunity—the second is the immunity to error through misascription which pertains to some first-person thoughts, though all such ‘I’-thoughts are subject to the first immunity simpliciter.³⁹ The (Fregean) sense of the referring singular term ‘I’ is entity-invoking. Yet, despite his insight, Descartes does not argue that the immunity to error through misidentification entails either that I am a bodily thing, or that I am only a thinking thing.⁴⁰ He does not argue even in the Sixth Meditation that the I is disembodied, only that it is a logical possibility (AT VII, 78)—which is missed by commentators and critics alike. The immunity to error through misidentification also extends beyond the present: “let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something; or make it true at some future time that I have never existed, since it is now true that I exist” (AT VII, 36).

In section 3 I raised the question concerning Descartes’ grounds for making claims about the past; now he is making claims about the future. His grounds can be expressed by drawing on Evans’s conception: singular thoughts such as ‘I’-thoughts are distinguished by our capacity to keep track of the subject over time, as we think of ourselves back into the past, or extend our ‘I’-thoughts into the future. What is distinctive about ‘I’-thoughts (unlike other singular thoughts, e.g., ‘thinking of today’, ‘the day before yesterday’, ‘the day after today’, etc., where it’s possible to lose track of the object as our thoughts recede into the past or extend into the future), is that they do not form such dynamic Fregean thoughts. There is therefore no possibility of losing track of the subject of an ‘I’-thought, since there is no possibility of shifting from ‘I’-thoughts, to ‘you’-thoughts, or indeed to ‘it’-thoughts, because they “cannot be connected by expressing a single dynamic thought.” There is “no need for any skill or care (not to lose track of the self) on the part of the subject.”⁴¹ Thus, even at this stage of the Meditations the self has good grounds for thinking itself as persisting in an objective temporal order, manifesting the connection “between its persistence and its existence, and between its existence and [however minimally] the kind of thing that it is.”⁴²

(3) The strongest form of the objection and its rebuttal. The third step of my argument draws not only on the preceding two steps, but on the whole preceding discussion. I set up the objection in its strongest form—(i) the Lichtenbergian objection that “it is too much,” and (ii) Williams’s deepest-error diagnosis—as follows:

In order for the self to be entitled to use ‘I’, he must be able to distinguish himself from something else; otherwise: (i) saying ‘I am thinking’ is “too much”; all he’s entitled to say is ‘it thinks’; (ii) within the self’s perspective “the only coherent way of conceiving a thought happening is to conceive of thinking it [and there is] only one such point of view.”

The force of the objection, I suggested, turns on distinguishability. At least two conditions necessary for distinguishability are: one must be an individual; and, for finite beings, it must be possible that there are others. But to be an individual no condition is required other than sum (being) and its inseparability from ens (entity), denoting a true unity or indivision: a true unity is what makes individuation possible; it itself cannot presuppose individuation. The self, being one in itself, is an individual true unity. Individuation is prior to distinguishability;⁴³ the latter follows from the former, as clearly exemplified in the self’s struggle against the demon.

1. A reductio ad absurdum: Turning Lichtenberg’s objection on its head

Let us suppose that in the midst of doubt there is nothing from which the self can distinguish himself; consequently, he is not entitled to ascribe any thoughts as his thoughts, but only as thoughts occurring. In saying ‘I am thinking’, he is saying “too much”; he should say ‘it thinks’.

Even granting that predicament of doubt, when the self is saying ‘it thinks’, is he simply uttering ‘it thinks’ like a parrot without understanding? Could the self be simply aware of thinking going on, without being aware of his thinking ‘it thinks’? Awareness is not something added to thought—it pertains to the very nature of the act of thinking (AT VII, 232; Principles I 9, AT VIIIA, 7). The self expresses different propositions by ‘I am thinking’ and ‘it thinks’: there is no possibility of shifting from ‘I’-thoughts to ‘it’-thoughts because they “cannot be connected by expressing a single dynamic thought.”

The latter, unlike the former, is not referring to the self but occurring somewhere. Being aware that thinking is occurring somewhere, he’s distinguishing himself from something else, and directly grasping that he himself is indubitably thinking—I am thinking. Even if per impossibile the self is unable to think of anything else, he is directly aware that he himself is thinking ‘it thinks’. Being aware of one’s acts of thinking, doubting, etc., is a necessary condition of rationality, of self-consciousness. How can the self scrutinise his thoughts if they are not his?

• (ii) Descartes’ flash of insight: A preemptive move

Descartes preempts all this when he considers the possibility that such thoughts are put in him by the deceiver (something that is missed by his critics). But being fully and directly aware of them, he triumphantly retorts: “In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me” (AT VII, 25). I too am undoubtedly thinking in considering whether “I am the author of these thoughts,” or are the work of the deceiver (AT VII, 24). While I am considering, doubting, or thinking it is logically impossible that I am not thinking. Thus I undoubtedly know that I am thinking or doubting—which is precisely what it is to be a self-conscious subject: to be aware of his thoughts as his thoughts, to self-ascribe them (AT VII, 533–34).

The ‘it thinks’ is put forward as an objection on the grounds that the cogito states “too much.” But it turns out that the ‘it thinks’ cannot be said without simultaneously presupposing the irreducible ‘I’-thought ‘it thinks’—and immediately reinstating the ‘I am thinking’ in the very act of its denial. Therefore, far from being “too much” to affirm ‘I am thinking’, nothing less and nothing else would do, as my reductio has demonstrated. Far from repudiating the cogito, Lichtenberg’s objection establishes its unassailability. When the objection hits bedrock—the cogito—its spade is turned against itself. The reductio has turned Lichtenberg’s objection on its head.

(iii) Rebuttal of Williams’s deepest-error diagnosis

Williams though stresses that the self is confined in its interiority. His point is “about the coherence of the conception, of what it is one is invited to conceive,” insisting that within the self’s perspective “the only coherent way of conceiving a thought happening is to conceive of thinking it [and there is] only one such point of view.” Williams challenges the very possibility of conceiving such thoughts “happening (so to speak) elsewhere” from another perspective (100–101).

Trivially, when the self conceives a thought happening, he conceives of thinking it. But how does it follow that it would be incoherent to conceive a thought as happening from another perspective? Even if, at this stage, the self can possess indubitability of only one perspective, how does it follow that he is unable to conceive the possibility of other perspectives—and from which such a thought could be conceived? If other perspectives were logically impossible, they would be inconceivable; it would thus be logically impossible to conceive a distinction between one’s perspective and other perspectives, or a thought as happening from another perspective. Williams’s challenge would then be cogent. But what grounds are there for thinking that other perspectives are logically impossible?

As we’ve seen, right from the start of the self’s enquiry there is at least one other conceivable perspective, the demon’s; moreover, on Descartes’ (and Frege’s) view, the subject’s act of thinking is not part of the content.⁴⁴ Although the act of thinking pertains to a subject, it is performed by a subject, the cogito’s content is objective, “capable of being the common property of several thinkers.” Without the objectivity of content the self would not understand and suspend judgement on the demon’s deceptions; yet that is precisely the case. In defying and stepping back, the self is demonstrating its conceptual capacities to draw a subject/objective distinction within the first-person—in addition to the subject/objective distinction between the act of thinking and its content.

Modal notions—necessity, possibility (intelligibility, conceivability)—are undeniably necessary to thinking. The self is in possession of such conceptual resources, which are not impeded even by the demon on pain of losing a grip on what it is to think, understand, conceive, deceive, etc. Indeed, the whole methodic scrutiny is concerned with “What can be called into doubt” (AT VII, 17). The self can conceive that the content of his act of thinking is graspable from other perspectives and thus, contrary to Williams’s objection, truly conceive the coherence of that distinction.

The self not only grasps the possibility of distinguishing between himself and whoever/whatever is distinct from him, but draws that distinction at the very moment of defiance against the demon’s forces that suppress him: the distinction is manifestly evident in the will’s refusal to assent to anything external to reason’s authority. Instead, the self suspends judgement with regard to any attempts at deception by the demon even as early as the closing parts of the First Meditation, demonstrating his ability to distinguish between himself and something other than himself—the deceiver—and hence his ability to conceive that “difference in the abstract,” thus meeting Williams’s demand.

The distinction is then cemented in the Second Meditation by the self’s triumphant retort: “I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something”: ‘I am, I exist’, is an affirmation of an indubitable substantial fact. This fact can also be expressed by appealing to Kit Fine’s formulation of first-person statements: there is “a primitive sentential operator, call it R, whose intended reading is, ‘in reality, it is the case that’ [which commit us] to the reality of tense”⁴⁵—to the reality of first-person facts: holding on to reality, it is the case that I indubitably exist, thinking and acting.⁴⁶

The fact that only his perspective can express—can make known to the objective world—the self that he is, does not entail that his conception or the extent of his (so-called) inner space is self-contained, or that all “thought-events … either happen for [his perspective], or they do not happen.” Williams’s challenge is thus misplaced.

Conclusion

Williams’s deepest-error diagnosis, summarily stated, is: “Descartes thinks that he can proceed from [‘the mere perspective of consciousness’] to the existence of what is, from the third-personal perspective, a substantial fact, the existence of a thinker.” But “the pure point of view of consciousness” gives the self no way of getting to that substantial fact.

As my arguments, distinctions, and discussion have demonstrated, however, there is no such move: the existence of the thinker is a presupposition of embarking on its enquiry. Furthermore, the Principle of Distinguishability has been cogently upheld. The cogito is immune to Williams’s objections and challenges. What is philosophically significant is what is discovered and established: the indubitability of that presupposition—a substantial fact, from both the first- and the third-person perspectives; and a paradigmatic indubitably true informative principle. With the discovery of the cogito, far from being isolated, the self steps on that Archimedean platform, adopting an objective perspective in search for what is real and true. The will to search for truth, the will to defy being deceived, is the will to be driven out of one’s mind.

With the discovery of the cogito, Descartes’ outlook creates no confinement, no separation of self and world, nor is the self set over against reality, since it is itself a real true entity; its reality (like the reality of whatever is clearly and distinctly conceived) is not up to us: “our mind is not the measure of reality or of truth, but certainly it should be the measure of what we assert or deny” (Letter to More, 5 February 1649 AT V 274; CSMK 364). What is real is not simply what is mind-independent but encompasses all that is the case. Objectivity is one way of understanding reality, not a test of reality.

Any question regarding the self’s place in the world is not one of exclusion but of relation, which I must leave for another time. The self is a real thinking being in the objective world as there’s nowhere else for it to be—a subject of thought and activity, or “whatever it is about which a thinker thinks when he thinks about himself.”⁴⁷

My three-part argument has turned Lichtenberg’s objection on its head, rebutted the real force of the Lichtenbergian objection and Williams’s deepest-error diagnosis. It conclusively establishes the unassailability of the cogito, its indelible philosophical significance and legacy, and the self’s irreducible reality, freedom, and openness to the objective world. It is, after all, as Descartes says, reason rightly conducted (AT VI, 1) “which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things” (AT VII, 51), and “allows us to reach vastly beyond ourselves”⁴⁸—towards truth and objectivity.

Acknowledgment

This is a much revised version of a paper I presented at a workshop on “The Cogito—Yes or No?”, Ligerz, Switzerland, 19–23 April 2017, sponsored by the Swiss National Science Federation. I should like to thank Philipp Blum for organising the workshop and for inviting me. I should also like to thank the participants in the workshop for their comments. I wish also to thank Hemdat Lerman for her comments, and Peter J. King for his comments and numerous discussions.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Notes on contributors

Andrea Christofidou

Andrea Christofidou works on metaphysics, the first-person, early modern philosophy, especially Descartes. Her recent publications include Self, Reason and Freedom: A New Light on Descartes’ Metaphysics (Routledge, 2013/2016); “Descartes: A Metaphysical Solution to the Mind–Body Relation and the Intellect’s Clear and Distinct Conception of the Union” (Philosophy 94, no. 369 [2019]: 84–114); and “Descartes’ Dualism versus Behaviourism” (Behavior and Philosophy 46 [2018]: 63–99. Cambridge Core Publications).

Notes

1. Williams, “Introductory Essay,” 247.

2. In accordance with standard usage, all references to Descartes’ works cited in the text are to the second edition of Oeuvres de Descartes, edited by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, abbreviated as AT, followed by the relevant volume and page numbers. The translation used is The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Volumes I and II (trans. Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch), and Volume III: The Correspondence (trans. Cottingham, Stoothoff, Murdoch, and Kenny), cited in the text as CSMK, followed by page number.

Pace Williams, ‘incorrigibility’ and ‘irresistibility’ are not equivalent to ‘indubitability’; nor is Descartes concerned with justification which can be consistent with falsity. By ‘indubitability’ Descartes means what cannot be doubted (Second Set of Replies, AT VII 145–46).

3. Evans, “Understanding Demonstratives,” in Meaning and Understanding, 300.

4. Williams, Descartes, 100. Hereafter page references cited in the text are to this edition.

5. Descartes takes knowledge (scientia) to be metaphysically basic, not subject to reduction or conceptual analysis. Yet misattributions continue among commentators (e.g., Lennon, “Descartes’ Legacy”), and critics alike.

6. Lichtenberg, The Waste Books, K18.

7. Descartes’ “objective reality of clear and distinct ideas” rejects the veil-of-perception thesis (AT VI, 130); the content of such ideas involves a direct contact with their object.

8. Christofidou, “Descartes on Freedom”; Christofidou, Self, Freedom, and Reason, passim. The will is not an accidental faculty of the mind, as Barth (“Sellars on Descartes,” 16) claims; without the will, the intellect cannot assent, or judge.

9. Descartes: If the reader “knows nothing of my ‘metaphysical’ doubt and refers the doubt to [whether I have a body] may think that I am not of sound mind” (AT VII, 460).

10. Christofidou, “Descartes on Freedom”; Christofidou, Self, Reason, and Freedom, chaps. 6 and 7.

11. Understanding and willing are distinct modes of thinking, not radically disparate, as Della Rocca (“Judgement and Will”) argues. See Christofidou, Self, Reason, and Freedom.

12. Descartes’ technical intueri, to apprehend, to grasp non-inferentially what is real and true, requires “the conception of a clear and attentive mind, which is so easy and distinct that there can be no room for doubt about what we are understanding. … [It] proceeds solely from the light of reason” (AT X, 368–69), not the light of grace or divine emanation. Contra Kant, without intueri no first principles can be grasped, no deductive argument can begin, leading to an infinite regress, thereby destroying all reasoning.

13. The impossibility is not psychological; it implies existential inconsistency.

14. Such was the catchiness of the original formulation that it continues to mesmerise critics to this day. See King, One Hundred Philosophers, 89.

15. Contrary to Williams, Descartes, 91; and Wilson, Descartes, 57.

16. The Latin denique statuendum sit suggests ‘let it be established’, i.e., not deduced syllogistically.

17. If a proposition cannot be denied without a contradiction, it doesn’t follow that it’s uninformative or analytic, without conflating necessity and analyticity.

18. See Christofidou, Self, Reason, and Freedom; Christofidou, “Descartes: A Metaphysical Solution,” 88.

19. Criticisms by the phenomenological tradition that Descartes left the sum undiscussed, and never investigated the ego, are unfounded.

20. Cottingham, Descartes, 123.

21. See Christofidou, Self, Reason, and Freedom, chap. 3.

22. Kenny, Descartes, 44–45; Kenny, The Metaphysics of Mind, 9–10, a historiographical and philosophical error. See §7.1 below.

23. On conscientia, see Hennig, Cartesian Conscientia.

24. Sensations, emotions, etc., fall also under the faculty of sensory awareness; they presuppose the mind-body union, they arise from that union. Christofidou, “Descartes: A Metaphysical Solution.”

25. For Descartes conscientia, in terms of the self’s ability to reflect on itself, on its opinions, prejudices, is a case of being able to scrutinise, critically assess, or suspend them—exemplified in the First Meditation. It involves no introspection or “internal sense” which he rejects (AT VII, 76), no Humean theatre, no Wittgensteinian privacy, despite habitual misattributions. His conception differs from contemporary epistemologists’ concern with self-knowledge, e.g., knowing that it is sunny, seeing a tree, etc.

26. See Christofidou, Self, Reason, and Freedom, chap. 3.

27. See ibid., chap. 10; and Christofidou, “Descartes Dualism,” 215–38.

28. On Descartes’ conception of principle, see his letter to Clerselier, June 1646, AT IV 444; CSMK 290; Second Set of Replies, AT VII 140; Principles I 49, AT VIIIA 23; and Christofidou, Self, Reason, and Freedom, chaps. 4 and 8.

29. Although it appears that his existence forms a basis for God’s-existence argument (AT VII, 107), what figures as a premise is his clear and distinct idea of God (Letter to Mesland, 2 May 1644, AT IV, 112; CSMK 232). The “whole force of my proofs depends on this one fact … that [I have] the idea of a supremely perfect being” (AT VII, 107–8).

30. Appealing to God is also a way of expressing notions of fundamentality, totality, completeness. In such cases, Descartes makes use of it only where necessary, and only includes what he can argue for.

31. Evans, The Varieties of Reference, 228 n. 41.

32. Ibid., 226.

33. However, Descartes writes: “the notion I have of the infinite is in me [prior to] that of the finite because, by the mere fact that I conceive being … without thinking whether it is finite or infinite, what I conceive is infinite being; but in order to conceive a finite being, I have to take away something from this general notion of being, which must accordingly be there first” (Letter to Clerselier, 23 April 1649, AT V 356; CSMK 377). I realise that I am finite because I am doubting.

34. Frege, “Sense and Reference,” 215 n. 5.

35. It is the acts “of the will, the intellect, the imagination, and the senses” that are “within us … that we are immediately aware of” (Second Set of Replies, AT VII 160).

36. That some subject-predicate combinations might result in nonsense is acknowledged by Evans, adding “a proviso … but the substantive point is not affected” (The Varieties of Reference, 100 n. 17).

37. Nagel, The Last Word, 67 n. 11.

38. Evans, The Varieties of Reference, 212, 259.

39. See Christofidou, “Self-consciousness,” 539–69; Christofidou, Self, Reason, and Freedom, chap. 2.

40. Contra Strawson’s misattributions in The Bounds of Sense, 163–74.

41. Evans, “Understanding Demonstratives,” in Meaning and Understanding, 295; The Varieties of Reference, 237.

42. Wiggins, Sameness and Substance, 54–55.

43. This is for present purposes, while acknowledging the complexities surrounding individuation. See Gracia, ed., Individuation in Scholasticism.

44. Without the objectivity of content, no two thinkers would contradict each other, since they would not express the same thought, but each its own. Evans (The Varieties of Reference, 15) cites Frege’s Philosophical and Mathematical Correspondence, 80).

45. Fine, “Tense and Reality,” 268.

46. It might be true that everything physical is real, objective, and natural, but the converse is not true. When Descartes refers to “the natural light of reason,” he’s referring neither to anything physical, nor to divine grace or supernatural illumination, but to something real, natural, objective, pertaining to any thinker.

47. Evans, The Varieties of Reference, 259 n. 2.

48. Nagel, The Last Word, 71.