Topics Philosophers

Question Does not Descartes beg the question when he argues "I think therefore I exist?" My problem with Descartes' argument arises from his attempt to treat "existence" as a predicate that can be applied to subjects. When he says "I think", the word "I" will have a referent if and only if I exist. So, if the proposition "I think" is meaningful -that is, if it succeeds in attributing the property of thinking to a subject "I"-, it is trivial that I exist. However, in order for the proposition "I think" to be meaningful, I must exist in the first place. So, Descartes seems to beg the question of "my" existence. One might just as well assert, "I dance the funky chicken therefore I exist" or my favorite "I outgrabe therefore I exist" (a reference to Lewis Carroll). Thanks...

Accepted:
December 31, 2005

Comments

I'm not sure that the sentence 'I exist' would be meaningless rather than just false if there were no referent for 'I', but the worry about question begging remains. And you are in good company with the funky chicken. Thomas Hobbes, in his objections to Descartes, asks why 'I think therefore I am' is any better than 'I walk therefore I am' ('Ambulo ergo sum').

One reply Descartes can make to Hobbes is that although existence follows equally from walking and thinking, Descartes has a certainty about his own thought that he does not have about his own walking (since he doesn't even at this stage know he has legs).

There does seem to be something particularly secure about the belief that one is thinking -- how could one be mistaken? Indeed the belief is self-verifying. To believe one is thinking makes it so, since belief is thought. Believing one is walking, or dancing, does not make it so, sincd believing is not dancing.

Still, I think the worry about question begging remains. For maybe all one is really entitled to be sure about is that there is a thought, not that there is a person that is thinking it. Descartes seems to take it to be obvious that there can be no free-floating thoughts, that every thought requires a thinker. But this is not so obvious. So maybe the premises 'I think' does beg the question of the existence of a person. 'There is a thought' would not beg; but nor would it entail 'I exist', and you don't become a philosophical immortal by propounding arguments like 'There is a thought therefore there is a thought'.