a shamefully easy assignment

This is such a sad little excuse for a philosophy paper that I'm kind of ashamed to post it. But this is my first paper for the modern class. It's basically a response paper on Descartes' ever popular argument for self-existence.

A Critique of The Cogito

The purpose of this paper is to present a critique of the Cartesian argument for existence, which states “I am, I exist is necessarily true every time I utter it or conceive it in my mind” (Meditation Two, 30). In his Meditations On First Philosophy, Descartes offers this argument for self-existence, that the very act of contemplating one’s own existence, is itself proof of that existence, or in its better known phrasing, “I think, therefore I am” (Meditation Two, 30).

This argument has several plausible fallacies, but the particular one that I will consider here is the fallacy of begging the question, or circular reasoning. In an argument that is begging the question, the truth value of the argument is invalidated by the fact that the conclusion is already assumed within the premise. The premise of the Cogito argument is the “I think” statement. However, this statement can only be valid if the argument’s conclusion is assumed to be true. For a being to have the property of thinking, it must first have the property of existence. This is a self-evident truth which seems to invalidate Descartes’ argument. Since a statement cannot be made about a thing without implying that thing’s existence, any argument of this nature must invariably beg the question. A more complete syllogistic presentation of the Cogito argument might be “I exist, therefore I think. I think, therefore I exist. Yet this reasoning is clearly circular and does not provide a valid conclusion. Thus the Cogito is an invalid argument for self-existence.