GE-1-Lesson-1 Understanding The Self
GE-1-Lesson-1 Understanding The Self
3. Rene Descartes
Father of Modern Philosophy, conceived of the human person as having a body and a
mind. In his famous treatise, The Meditations of First Philosophy, he claims that there
is so much that we should doubt.
Descartes thought that the only thing that one cannot doubt is the existence of the
self, for even if one doubts itself, that only proves that there is a doubting self, a
thing that thinks and therefore, that cannot be doubted. Thus, his famous, cogito
ergo sum, “I think, therefore, I am”. The fact that one thinks should lead one to
conclude without a trace that he exists.
The self is a combination of two distinct entities, the cogito the thing that thinks,
which is the mind, and the extenza or extension of the mind, which is the body.
The body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to the mind. The human
person has it but it is not what makes man a man. If at all that is the mind.
Descartes says, “But what then, am I? A thinking thing. It has been said. But what is a
thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses;
that imagine also, and perceives” (Descartes2008).