The Cogito and the Certainty of One's Own Existence

The Cogitoand the Certainty of One's Own Existence Y. N. CHOPRA I. WRITERS ON DESCARTES' Cogito, when they attempt to defend any particular interpretation of it by reference to his writings, show unanimity in one surprisingly important respect. They seem firmly to agree, albeit tacitly and without feeling the need to resort to explicit argument, that Descartes held that there was a coming to know or becoming certain of one's own existence and that he had laid bare the line of argument which showed how this knowledge or certainty can be obtained. I shall maintain in this paper that this assumption is fundamentally mistaken, and I shall do so in terms of two principal arguments. First, neither Descartes' systematic doubt, nor any other philosophical argument or procedure, is capable of showing that the possibility of such a process in fact exists. I shall back this claim by providing some evidence for thinking that the Cartesian scholar's confidence concerning Descartes' own intentions is not justified. Second, I shall draw a distinction between something being certain and showing how or why it is certain, and try to show how important this distinction is to our topic, and in so doing also sketch an account of the nature of the certainty of the Cogito; tkfis will provide additional support for my contention that the exegetical question is still an open one. Since I shall thus be concerned more with the significance of the reasoning employed by Descartes in the argument of the Cogito than with the question how the formula cogito ergo sum ought to be viewed, I shall, in consonance with my aim of bringing into focus an important phi/osophical point in the study of Descartes, keep the exegetical backing for this elalm to the mlnlmum. 2. Let us begin our discussion by recalling some basic facts about the context in which the Cogito is enunciated. Descartes begins his Meditations by an enquiry into "what can be called into question" (Anscombe and Geach) or, alternatively, by setting out to determine, as the Haldane and Ross translation of the first Meditation terms it, "the sphere of the doubtful." And it is no less important to remember that Descartes' doubting is "metaphysical," i.e. it goes far beyond what would be considered legitimate by philosophers who are prepared to employ transcendental (e.g. Strawson) or Wittgensteinian arguments. If we take these two points together it becomes incontestable that what is not subject to metaphysical doubt, viz. his own existence, could never have been taken to belong to the sphere of the doubtful (which in any case is only initially defined and includes in it even what is merely prima Jacie doubtable and may subsequently be shown to be perfectly certain). This means just what it says: what was never deemed to be questionable, not even when exposed to the "hyperbolic" doubt he had employed, was not something that could have become certain, as against being shown to be already certain, in the course of this questioning. [171] 172 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3. I shall now draw a distinction between "I am certain" and "It is certain," which is extremely important for our purposes. Though they are sometimes used merely as alternative locutions, they are nevertheless distinctly different in meaning, not just alternative locutions which differ merely in form (namely the first person and the impersonal form). I might in a certain situation with perfect justification say that I am certain that something is the ease, or that something is such and such. Now subsequently it could turn out to be the case that in fact I was mistaken, and that what I was certain was thus and thus was not as I had believed it to be. But although the facts have proved to be unobliging the only verbal penalty they can exact of me is that I have now to make a change of tense in what I had first said.But if in the same or a similar situation I had said "It is certain.... "then its subsequently turning out that the proposition in question was false would have the consequence that I could no longer say, and...