Cogito

de Joseph Almog

"Ever since 1637, Descartes' maxim Cogito, Ergo Sum has been spellbinding to generations of philosophers. In his earlier book What Am I?, Joseph Almog focused on the proposition following the Ergo, Sum ("I exist") - what is this I who exists and how does it unite in a given human being, both a mind and a body?" "This sequel volume looks at the proposition preceding the Ergo, Cogito ("I think"). Following Descartes, Almog locates in it what he terms the thinking-man paradox. The very phrase "thinking man" seems to induce, inside Desartes' metaphysics, a contradiction in terms. We have on the one hand an embodied man, part and parcel of material nature, who nonetheless engages in this most immaterial of activities, thinking. Using Descartes' own unificatory, nature-embedded methodology, Almog explains why there is no unbridgeable dualism between thinking and being-in-nature. To the contrary, for Descartes, thinking is essentially nature's own progeny and is an activity of cognizing and understanding that which engendered it." "This book will be of interest to readers in the 17th-century metaphysical systems of Descartes and Spinoza, as well as to readers interested in general metaphysics, the theory of knowledge, and the philosophy of mind."--BOOK JACKET.