>
> >
> > your point on the formation of the cogito probably
> > explains why i could never come across the
> original
> > source when searching for 'cogito ergo sum'
> >
>
> Yep :)) . "E=mc2" and "cogito ergo sum" must be the
> two most common misquotes
> in the world :)) .
>
> > as to the point about equivalence rather than
> > consequence, i had always taken the |ergo| to mark
> > rhetorical consequence rather than logical : 'i
> have
> > concluded that i think, i can therefore conclude
> that
> > i am'.
>
> Nope, and Descartes makes it quite clear in his
> answers to the critiques
> towards the Méditations Métaphysiques. The fact that
> "I am" is not concluded
> from the fact that "I think". They necessarily go
> together, as a single
> principle. Descartes himself was extremely unhappy
> to see his original
> statement so often misquoted.
>
> >
> > as to the original language, the reason i pointed
> out
> > that the original was in french was that when i
> was
> > studying descartes i wanted to track down the
> original
> > text ( in the original language ) and was more
> than
> > surprised to discover that it was in french rather
> > than latin. according to the source i got this
> from (
> > and it could well be wrong ) descartes himself
> went on
> > to translate the meditations into latin to give
> the
> > text an audience wider than that which the french
> > version could reach ( ie an international educated
> > audience ). i seem to remember this was published
> in
> > the netherlands
> >
>
> It is true that he published most of his works in
> the Netherlands (where his
> lived 23 years). But if you look at
>
http://agora.qc.ca/mot.nsf/Dossiers/Rene_Descartes
> (in French, sorry :(( ),
> you'll see that it's his "Discours de la méthode"
> which was originally written
> in French (he got very bad press among scholars for
> that :)) ).
> His "Meditationes de prima Philosophia in qua Dei
> existentia et animae
> immortalitas demonstrantur": "Meditations about the
> first Philosophy where the
> existence of God and the immortality of the soul are
> demonstrated" were first
> written in Latin (in 1641) and translated in French
> by Luyne in 1647. There are
> six years between the two versions (other
> translations, usually more accurate,
> have appeared since then), and the Latin version is
> usually the first. I think
> you or your source confused the "Méditations
> Métaphysiques" with the "Discours
> de la méthode" (although the "Discours" is often
> seen as an introduction to
> the "Meditationes", it was published 4 years before
> them).
>
> > this could all be wrong, but it's certainly what
> the
> > source said ( which annoyingly i've forgotten )
> and i
> > remember it clearly because i was quite surprised
> >
>
> Well, this source was definitely wrong. It probably
> confused the "Discours"
> with the "Meditationes".
>