Descartes’ Cogito: Saved from the Great Shipwreck

Perhaps the most famous proposition in the history of philosophy is Descartes’ cogito ‘I think, therefore I am’. Husain Sarkar claims in this provocative interpretation of Descartes that the ancient tradition of reading the cogito as an argument is mistaken. It should, he says, be read as an intuition. Through this interpretative lens, the author reconsiders key Cartesian topics: the ideal inquirer, the role of clear and distinct ideas, the relation of these to the will, memory, the nature of intuition and deduction, the nature, content and elusiveness of ‘I’, and the tenability of the doctrine of the creation of eternal truths. Finally, the book demonstrates how Descartes\' attempt to prove the existence of God is foiled by a new Cartesian Circle.

• Anything on Descartes from Cambridge is going to be treated seriously • This is a provocative reading of Descartes’ most famous argument

Preface; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; 1. The prolegomena to any future epistemology; 2. The problem of epistemology; 3. The solution: cogito; 4. A skeptic against reason; 5. The five ways; 6. Cogito: not an argument; 7. The content of the cogito; 8. Memory, explanation, and will; Appendices; Bibliography; Name index; Subject index.

‘The first original interpretation of the Meditations to appear since the studies of Margaret Wilson and Bernard Williams in the 1970s. Husain Sarkar’s handling of the Cartesian argument brings a … level of sophistication to the discussion of this classic text.’

– Catherine Wilson, University of British Columbia