Why 'I think therefore I am' is unsound / superfluous

i mak vid

[lazysoviet]

This is strong, made me stare into my laptop for way too long (until the battery warning popped up).
Well done and your expression (?) is very good, even as non-native english speaking dude I got everything you said (I think [or do I?]).

[Torbu]

Exactly what I've been saying "I exist therefore I exist" is no differentttt.

[bleepbloop]

havent gotten to even 10 seconds but I REALLY appreciate you just getting straight into it, no intro, no telling us about what youre gonna do(which we would know because we read titles)

[DevinDTV]

I should have also noted that I was making a steel man argument -- I was arguing against the strongest version of the opposition's argument that I could think of. Des Cartes himself only asserted that, because he was making observations, he must exist. A slightly stronger (but very similar) version of the argument is "to form or evaluate an argument, you must exist", which is what I spent most of the time countering in this vid. Either way, it all comes down to having an _a posteriori_ premise that someone is doing something which tautologically requires their existence, and that you could just make their existence a premise instead; either way, that information comes from observation, not pure reason.

[cobr]

Soundness is a property of syllogisms, but "I think therefore I am" is at best a proposition. A syllogism might be something like:

P1) Thinking implies the existence of the thinker.
P2) I am thinking.
C) I exist.

Do you think this is unsound? If you do, which premise do you reject?

[unlimitedquickworks]

What I argument out of this argument: if I argument I argument, so the argument is not argumentable even when argument I, thus: "argumento ergo argumentum" is superfluous

[paramost]

I think I understand your point, cognito ergo sum is truism. But isn't that the idea behind it? Descartes was looking for a grounding for knowledge from first principles and found this as his only truth. First principles are truism by definitions right? Also famously, he only managed to escape it through god.

[dWHOHWb]

I've always read the cogito argument as just a statement of "all I know for sure is that I exist" or something similar, axiomatically. I don't know how common your reading of it is, but I simultaneously find this argument neither controversial nor particularly interesting.

Also, is this a philosophy channel now?

[iordanneDiogeneslucas]

Thought requires a thinker. Therefore to think oneself doesnt exist must be false.

Nothing else can be proven by thought alone.

[avivastudios]

That's a good point. Saying, "If I think, that means I exist" would be a better statement."

[dismalthoughts]

"We're actually evaluating an argument; we're not evaluating a person making an argument."
The "I" in "I think" necessarily introduces a person making an argument. If you were to attempt to remove the arguer from the statement, you might have "cogitare ergo isse", or roughly "thinking implies existence". You argue that "I think" is an observation and not necessarily true a priori, to which I would say:
1) That's largely semantics. Can one observe without thinking? If you say "no", then we disagree on the definition of "observe".
2) Is knowing that you are thinking truly _just_ an observation? I would argue that this _is_ true a priori. The very definition of thinking requires that the individual think when considering this internally. It is not an argument from Descartes to you; it is an argument from Descartes to himself, which requires thought by definition.

[JefferyHunt]

I disagree. Its the other way around. “I think therefore I am” may be true (well, at least each statement, “I think” and “I am” may be true), but is invalid. It isn’t valid because the conclusion is assumed in the premise. putting the conclusion in a premise is invalid. But, the way I escape radical skepticism and make knowledge claims is by knowing that irreducible axioms are matters of divine revelation.

[michaelb]

a better refutation of "I think therefore I am" is in the catty-corner conversations, i think. Basically, the error is in believing that thought is something separate from everything else (and thus able to be proved on its own). The short summation is that Descartes' argument can be used to prove existence as a whole, but it falls apart once used to try to prove the existence of a specific thinking thing

[GottsStr]

Wait....
I don't think = This idea doesn't exist

If "This idea doesn't exist" is true, it doesn't exists. But if it doesn't exist, it couldn't be true, so it is false. Then it exists, so I think, therefore I am.

[Deavilp]

Is there like a textversion of your argument? I had problems following along without being able to visually "see" the argument.