Dear Yuyutsu,
You are correct, of course. However, Latin lends itself to clever sayings, at times seeming almost like shorthand, which is one reason for its use in succinct school mottoes. Cogito ergo sum can be interpreted as I think therefore I am what I am.
"Pergo et Perago", for example, is generally accepted as "I undertake and I achieve" but it is probably an over simplistic attempt. Each of these two words can have several slightly different meanings and the essence may get lost in translation. One educational institution has translated it as "Strive to Achieve". The different meanings for pergo include to continue, proceed, go on with, pursue, press on, make haste etc. Perago could mean accomplish, complete, carry through the end, finish, thrust through, pierce through and so on.

The so called "theological" thinking based on a creator-God idealism is not any different than thinking based on a secular-realist model.
They both have the same foundational base, as described in this essay:
http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/Aletheon/three_great_myths.html

The various essays featured in this book provide all the necessary conceptual and PERCEPTUAL tools for understanding the humanly created world-mummery in this time and place:
http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/ScientificProof/tableofcontents.html

This one essays addresses the one-dimensional nature of the now common Christian mind, especially as dramatized by Protestants:
http://beezone.com/AdiDa/ScientificProof/psychosisdoubt.html
Indeed much/most/all of right-wing or so called conservative religiosity is a a form of individual and collective psychosis.

This essays points out that the much vaunted death-haunted Western mind in both its secular/realist and its "creator"-God/idealist forms share the same basic uninspected presumptions about the nature of Reality: http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/Aletheon/three_great_myths.html

Among other things the various essays in the book featured here describe how exoteric Christian religiosity was a principal causative agent for the secularization of Western consciousness
http://global.adidam.org/books/gift-of-truth-itself

Hey Spinner, Monty had it "nailed" and as simple as; always look on the bright side of life!

I mean, if he was given several ship loads of horse manure he'd start digging for the herd of horses who have had to cause it!

And supported by science or the immutable cause and effect principle!

Or the other one which says energy can neither be created or destroyed, merely transformed!

And doesn't that nicely dovetail in with what a horse can do to perfectly good hay; transform it all into horse Shiite!

Sort of sums up Peter's essay on duality doesn't it?

Tablets of stone? Maybe? (Everything passes with time even tablets of stone/what's wrong with normal aspirin?)

Levity aside, just as long as they're not written in a language that only Peter and one of two of his confidants alone can read/understand!?

Or so heavy as to need a crane and consequently, lift the front wheels of the ute completely off the ground!?

And cause (cause and effect) the missus to give you a piece of her mind, always providing after all these years, she can afford to donate any more of it?
Rhrosty.

Peter,

>>Descartes attempted to ground all knowing on the thinking subject <<

Not only Descartes thinks that there cannot be any knowing without a thinking subject who is its carrier. He “let loose” many ideas that led to Enlightenment and modern science (see e.g. Cartesian coordinate systems).

>> In this new formulation we are what we think, our Being is defined exclusively by our thinking.<<

This is not what his “cogito ergo sum” is all about. It is his candidate for a “first item of knowledge” from which he claimed to be able to derive the rest of what we know. “So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind” (Descartes as quoted in http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/#4 ).

As far as I understand him, Descartes does not claim that “we are what we think” only the IMPLICATION that because I think I am, I exist, is set as a basic certainty (on which he “grounded all knowing” if you like).

Also Cartesian dualism (about the mind being a substance dwelling in the brain/body) is directly unrelated to the certainty of this implication. In other words,
“the success of the cogito does not presuppose Descartes’ mind-body dualism” (ditto).

The rest of the article is essentially a sermon on, among other things, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Mt 7:21) extended to “Not everybody who thinks about the Lord (in theological writings) but those who do what God wants them to do, will be saved”. I failed to see its relevance to Descartes.

As you can see, and could have foreseen, this was not the right “congregation” to address your sermon to.

Hi George,
I was a little apprehensive about this article and you have put your finger on its deficiencies. You obviously have a greater appreciation of Descartes that I and I bow to your opinion. My articles are never addressed to the people who inhabit the comments section, that would be Quixotic. I have a great list of people who read my stuff and rarely comment but give me feedback by email.
I was originally put up to writing this by a friends who pointed out our obsession with what we think and how this leads to duplicity in the absence of the integration of thought with life lived. I may have used Descartes as an inappropriate scapegoat but my point, I think, is valid, as the bible quotation you gave illustrates.

We have become a cerebral culture, thinking is what counts, and is rewarded. I have spent time with scientists who seem to be minds without bodies with dreadful consequences for them and those who are attached to them. I am also frustrated by the silly question about the existence of God,as if theological discussion begins and ends there.

But above all, thanks for your comments.

.

Dear Peter,

.

I agree with George. I’m afraid you have, perhaps unwittingly, denatured the sense of Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum”.

You wrote:

« In this new formulation we are what we think, our Being is defined exclusively by our thinking. »

That is not so, Peter. Descartes does not declare that “we are what we think”. Nor does he “define” our existence “exclusively” by our thinking. He has nothing to say about “what we are” nor does he seek to “define” our existence. He simply seeks to “prove” that he (Descartes) exists.

As George points out: “It is his candidate for a (the) “first item of knowledge” from which he claimed to be able to derive the rest of what we know.”

For Descartes, “knowledge” is conviction based on a reason so strong that it can never be shaken by any stronger reason. (1640 letter to Regius, AT 3:65).

Quite frankly I fail to see how Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum” “drives a wedge between thought and action” but it is evident that the two are different. The “cogito” is determined by the subject’s “awareness or consciousness” and the “action” by his “conscience”.

The remarks of david f on this subject appear to me to be pertinent :

[ Confusion of doing and thinking is the hallmark of tyranny. In a free society we may think anything we like. We may not do anything we like.

If we think of having an adulterous affair but don't have one, we have done nothing wrong. If we confuse thinking of doing something wrong with actually doing something wrong we are afflicting ourselves with unreasonable, neurotic guilt.

Thought-crimes are instruments of control used by totalitarian societies and Christianity (religion) to keep people in subjection.]

To cap it all off, I regret to have to say that I also agree with many of the largely critical comments posted by the other participants on this forum to date.

.