‖ cogito Philos.
(ˈkəʊgɪtəʊ, ˈkɒ-)
[L., = ‘I think’, 1st pers. pres. of cōgitāre (see cogitate v.); used by Descartes in his Meditations (1641).]
The principle ‘cogito, ergo sum’, or any equivalent formula, by which Descartes claimed to establish his own existence as a thinking being from the fact of his thinking or awareness; loosely, conscious awareness or subjectivity (see quot. 1875).
| 1854 A. G. Henderson tr. Cousin's Philos. of Kant vi. 93 He establishes nothing but..the supposition of an abstract cogito. 1875 W. James Coll. Ess. & Rev. (1920) 10 After every definition of an object, reflection may arise, infect it with the cogito, and so discriminate it from the object in se. 1946 B. Russell Hist. West. Philos. iii. ix. 586 The above argument, ‘I think, therefore I am’.., is known as Descartes's cogito. 1965 Amer. Philos. Q. II. 23/1 Huet analyzed every element of the cogito. |