Famously, Descartes holds that the occurrence of
thought guarantees the existence of a thinker. As illustrated early in the
second Meditation, the purported insight has it that though the existence of my
body is subject to doubt, the existence of me — qua thinker — looks to
withstand even the most hyperbolic of doubts. The very attempt to doubt one’s
own existence is an occurrence of thought; in turn, the occurrence of thought
requires a thinker. Descartes regards the cogito
as the "first and most certain of all to occur to anyone who
philosophizes in an orderly way" (Principles, 1.7).

Descartes’ cogito, "I think, therefore I am" has generated an
enormous literature — both pro and con. In Descartes’
Cogito, Husain Sakar introduces a provocative new interpretation of
Descartes that the ancient tradition of reading the cogito as an argument is mistaken. It should, he says, be read as
an intuition as Descartes suggested in Meditations. In doing this, his main
strategy in the book is first to offer reasons why the cogito cannot be construed as an argument, and then proceed to
offer the positive thesis as to what the cogito
is, which, in his own words, "is an experiment. When that experiment is
conducted the mind intuits — learns through an insight — the truth that the cogito expresses" (x).

Through this new interpretative
lens, Sakar reconsiders key Cartesian topics: the ideal inquirer; the role of
clear and distinct ideas; the relation of these to the will; memory; the nature
of intuition and deduction; the nature, content and elusiveness of ‘I’; and the
tenability of the doctrine of the creation of eternal truths

Since the cogito and Descartes’ method are too closely linked to be
understood one without the other, Sakar starts his investigation into the cogito by uncovering the basic structure
of Descartes’ method in the first chapter. In Section 1 of this chapter, he
investigates into Descartes’ claim that only a certain kind of person can
embark on the pursuit of knowledge and come to possess it, and delineates the
making of such an ideal inquirer, who should be armed with a method in his
pursuit. Section II provides just such a rationalist method. After presenting
Descartes’ famous tree of philosophy in section III, Sakar in Section IV
presents the moral code a pursuer of knowledge should abide by and raises the
question of whether Descartes is attempting, in this endeavor, to raise himself
by his own bootstraps.

The second chapter is devoted to
demonstrate that Descartes’ hold on later philosophy has a great deal to do
with its form rather than its content and examine the method of doubt. Closely
linked to this chapter, the subject matter of next chapter is the certainty on
which an entire edifice of knowledge could be constructed. Sakar aims to
illustrate the scope and mode of doubt in the case of cogito by highlighting the use of doubt in other cases.

Chapter IV is an attempt to
construct a sequence of arguments that a skeptic might pose against Descartes’
defense of reason. The central claim of this chapter is embedded in section II,
wherein the argument for the new Cartesian circle is presented. The argument
for the new Cartesian circle shows how Descartes’ attempt to prove the
existence of God is foiled: in order to prove that God exists, Descartes needs
to justify the rules of logic; but in order to establish the rules of logic,
Descartes needs to establish that God exists. Descartes’ system is riddled with
this circular argument. The importance of the argument for the main thesis of
this book lies in showing that before the third Meditation, the rules of logic
have no proper Cartesian anchor; they can be open to serious doubt.

In the following chapter Sakar gives five distinct
ways of reading the cogito as an
argument and argues that despite their different failures, different insights,
each of them bears a striking resemblance to the others and that the core
similarity is defective. Following chapter titled Cogito: Not an Argument is designed to show that this defect, which
is isolated in the previous chapter, is indeed irreparable. After presenting
the core argument that the cogito
cannot be listed as a deduction, that it must be an intuition, something
simple, alongside a host of mathematical things that we clearly and
self-evidently see, Sakar proceeds to prove that Descartes could not claim, and
assuredly ought not to have claimed, that the cogito is an argument.

Sakar is well aware that the strength of an interpretation
lies not only in the interpretation of a core idea, but also in how well it
coheres with Descartes’ other central thesis and ideas. This is what he aims to
do in the last two chapters of the book. Chapter IV focused mainly on the
content of the cogito and aims to
show that his interpretation of the cogito
preserves not only much of what Descartes said about the cogito, but also what he explicitly
maintained on other matters. One such matter is the elusiveness of the ‘I’ as
Sakar puts it, because one is seeking the content of the ‘I’ in the wrong
place. In the last chapter, he continues his pursuit and aims to demonstrate
how interpretations of various philosophical theories of Descartes cohere with
the core interpretation that the cogito is
not an argument. He examines Descartes’ theories about memory, logic and
explanation, and will with the hope that their mutual independence would
strengthen his interpretation of the cogito.

The heart of this book lies in the thesis that
cogito is not an argument, but an intuition. If it were an argument, it would
have to be either an immediate inference or mediate inference. Sakar first
shows that cogito can neither be an
immediate inference nor a mediate inference. Sakar also argues that if cogito were an argument, the ideal
seeker would perforce have to rely on memory as he moved from the premises to
the conclusion. But, memory is unreliable, says Descartes, immediately after
the First Meditation. Ergo, the cogito
cannot be an argument, since it rests on memory. In order to show that, on the
constructive side, cogito is an
intuition, Sakar says, one has to conduct a thought experiment. Engaging in the
process of doubt, one must notice oneself, that one exists even in the utmost
state of doubt. Sakar argues that "this also enables us to understand the
content of the cogito why the ‘I’ is so elusive. Finally Descartes’ theory of
the will makes it impossible for an ideal seeker to deny, while in the
cogito-state, the truth of the proposition of the cogito, while allowing the ideal seeker to doubt even the validity,
let alone the soundness, of the cogito-argument.
Undoubtedly, then, Descartes’ cogito cannot be other than an intuition"
(p. 268).

Sakar’s aim in this book is to reconstruct
Descartes’ ideas, as the title of the book suggests, to save them from the
great shipwreck. Sakar thinks that much of misconception about Descartes’
philosophy stems from reading the cogito as
an argument and consequently, Sakar in his engaging book, invites us to a new
and provocative reading of cogito as
an intuition. This book is especially of interest for academicians and any
philosophy student who wants to further his/her ideas about Descartes’
philosophy. I also found this book very useful for a course on Descartes as
Sakar provides a very extensive treatment of cogito and examines arguments on cogito being an argument, both pro and con before introducing his
own reading of cogito as an
intuition.

 

©
2005 Kamuran Godelek

 

Kamuran Godelek, Ph.D., Mersin University, Department of Philosophy, Mersin, TURKEY

 

Categories: Philosophical