Descartes first wrote the phrase in French in his 1637 Discourse on the Method. He referred to it in Latin without explicitly … See more

While the Latin cōgitō may be translated rather easily as "I think/ponder/visualize", je pense does not indicate whether the verb form corresponds to the English simple present or progressive aspect. Following John Lyons (1982), … See more

As put succinctly by Krauth (1872), "That cannot doubt which does not think, and that cannot think which does not exist. I doubt, I think, I exist."
The phrase cogito, ergo sum is not used in Descartes's … See more

Although the idea expressed in cogito, ergo sum is widely attributed to Descartes, he was not the first to mention it. In the late sixth or early fifth century BC, Parmenides is quoted as saying "For to be aware and to be are the … See more

In Descartes, The Project of Pure Enquiry, Bernard Williams provides a history and full evaluation of this issue. The first to raise the "I" problem was Pierre Gassendi, who in his Disquisitio Metaphysica, as noted by Saul Fishe… See more

In the short story, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, by Harlan Ellison, Gorrister, when asked what 'AM' means, says "At first it meant Allied Mastercomputer, and then it meant Adaptive Manipulator, and later on it developed … See more

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