I’m currently teaching on 8-week online course on Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, so his philosophy is often on my mind. This goes especially for some of the key passages of the work that created an impression upon me during one reading or another.
Among them is his answer to a question raised in the second Meditation. He has determined that, even if there is an evil demon who turns all of his efforts to deceiving Descartes, he must exist if he is being deceived. And then the question naturally arises: “all right, then what am I?” And Descartes has a short answer to that. “I’m a thinking thing.” But what is that?
That’s a question that takes us deeper. A question answering which provides us with a much more substantive understanding of what it is that we are, at least as thinking beings. Descartes’ own answer lists off a number of different kinds of thinking, distinct types of mental activities. That is what he is, and that - at least to the extent that Descartes is correct - is what we ourselves are as well.
So, here’s a short episode setting out the passages where Descartes discusses these matters, and giving you a few of my own reflections on them as well!
Mind & Desire Podcast Episode 10 - Rene Descartes On What A Thinking Thing Is