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Single Idea 3609

[filed under theme 16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 3. Self as Non-physical ]

Full Idea

I concluded that I was a substance, of which the whole essence or nature consists in thinking, and which, in order to exist, needs no place and depends on no material thing.

Gist of Idea

I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support

Source

René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.33)

Book Ref

Descartes,René: 'Discourse on Method/The Meditations', ed/tr. Sutcliffe,F.E. [Penguin 1968], p.54

A Reaction

To me that sounds like "I concluded that I wasn't a human being", which highlights the bizarre wishful thinking that seems to have gripped the human race for the first few thousand years of its serious thinking.

Related Idea

Idea 18462 The soul is everywhere and nowhere in the body, and must be its cause [Porphyry]

The 22 ideas from 'A Discourse on Method'

3600 Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes]
3601 Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes]
1581 Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes]
3602 Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes]
3603 Methodical thinking is cautious, analytical, systematic, and panoramic [Descartes, by PG]
3604 When rebuilding a house, one needs alternative lodgings [Descartes]
3605 We can believe a thing without knowing we believe it [Descartes]
1583 In morals Descartes accepts the conventional, but rejects it in epistemology [Roochnik on Descartes]
3606 I was searching for reliable rock under the shifting sand [Descartes]
3608 I can deny my body and the world, but not my own existence [Descartes]
3607 In thinking everything else false, my own existence remains totally certain [Descartes]
3610 Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes]
3609 I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support [Descartes]
3611 Understanding, rather than imagination or senses, gives knowledge [Descartes]
3612 Clear and distinct conceptions are true because a perfect God exists [Descartes]
3614 A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes]
3613 Reason is universal in its responses, but a physical machine is constrained by its organs [Descartes]
3615 Little reason is needed to speak, so animals have no reason at all [Descartes]
3616 The soul must unite with the body to have appetites and sensations [Descartes]
3617 I aim to find the principles and causes of everything, using the seeds within my mind [Descartes]
3618 Only experiments can settle disagreements between rival explanations [Descartes]
16686 God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes]