What is called thinking?
Meditating on Descartes' notion of 'thought'
“Socrates: But I’m afraid the argument will not permit both. Still— we must stop at nothing; supposing now we were to set about being quite shameless?
Theaetetus: How?
Socrates: By consenting to say what knowing is like.
Theaetetus: And why should that be shameless?
Socrates: You don’t seem to realize that our whole discussion from the beginning has been an inquiry about knowledge, on the assumption that we do not yet know what it is.
Theaetetus: Oh but I do.
Socrates: Well, then, don’t you think it is a shameless thing that we, who don’t know what knowledge is, should pronounce on what knowing is like? But as a matter of fact, Theaetetus, for some time past our whole method of discussion has been tainted. Time and again we have said ‘we are acquainted with’ and ‘we are not acquainted with’, ‘we know’ and ‘we do not know’, as if we could to some extent understand one another while we are still ignorant of what knowledge is.”
(Plato, Theaetetus, 196d)
I. Introduction: most thought-provoking
We all think, we all think continuously. We think highly of many things, and we think lowly of much more. Yet, “what is called thinking?” This is the question Heidegger ceaselessly posed, and it is the question that we have to think through.
Can we truly understand our own thoughts, and the thoughts of others, if we do not even know what it means to think? Can we truly praise our own thoughts, or critique those of others, if we do not even know what thinking is? We are like Socrates and Theaetetus, daring to inquire about knowledge, without even knowing what knowledge is. We dare to think many things, but as of yet, we do not even know what thinking means. And if we do not even know what thinking means, can we even be sure that we are thinking? Perhaps, it is as Heidegger claims:
“Most thought-provoking in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.”
(Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?, 6)
Has there ever been a time filled with so much thoughts, yet in which there is so little thought? We have no end of thoughts about anything and everyone, yet who can truly be said to be thinking? Everything provokes us to think, and at the slightest provocation, we are provoked to think. But never, are we provoked to ask, ‘what is called thinking?’
With this in mind, I want to look at Descartes. There is perhaps no philosopher more misunderstood, and more abused. We blame him for our destruction of nature, for our disregard for our bodies, for the failures of Western medicine, and for the one-sided intellectualism that has led to the rule of STEM-ideologues, and to the downfall of the humanities. He is responsible for the split between mind and body, a split through which we are falling to our ruin. And all the horrors of egoism, both personal and political, are explained by pointing back to the ‘Cogito’.
And why do we voice these critiques? Because Descartes simply affirmed that the mind is better known than the body. And why, is the mind better known than the body? Because Descartes affirmed, that I can doubt everything, but that I cannot doubt that I am doubting. That is, I cannot doubt that I am thinking, and that thus, I am a thinking thing, a mind. For Descartes, this evidence is much more certain than any evidence we could come up with regarding the body.
If one takes this reasoning at face value, it is easy to be convinced once again of the validity of our critiques. We like to tell ourselves, that we value truth above all else. We are all obsessed with certainty, and if only the mind is known with true certainty, why even value the body? If our own thinking is where certainty lies, then why value the thoughts of the other? And why value emotions? Why value nature? Why value the world; that domain of pure resistance, of pure res extensa, ready to be abused by the pure activity of thought, by pure res cogitans?
Yet here we are once again, thinking about Descartes’ innocent thought, blowing it up to monstrous proportions, without even asking what it means to think. Without even asking, what Descartes meant with thinking. I think, I am. But what is called thinking?
In order to ask this question, we must first admit, that we do not know what thinking means. We must admit, as Socrates did, that we have been going about quite shameless. And we must admit, that up till now, we showed a lack of care, for what it means to think. We are like children, voicing our opinions without considered thought, audacious enough to critique everything and everyone, reckless enough to critique the established thinkers of our tradition. We think we know better. We know, that I am not because I think.
It might well be so, that we are not because we think. But if so, for now, it means nothing, for we do not yet know, what it means to think. We do not know what Descartes meant, for we have simply failed to ask him. We cared more about our own thoughts, than we cared about what thought meant. This attitude of us, self-absorbed, daring to imagine ourselves on the same level as the philosopher of universal doubt, is nothing new. We must know, that in his own time, Descartes was confronted with it ceaselessly. Let us look at what Descartes had to say.
II. Descartes, thought
“I think, I am”, this sounds like the philosophy of a child, of an idiot, perhaps. But perhaps it only seems so, because when we speak it, we think it like children. But how, did Descartes think it? Is it, perhaps, that it sounds to us like an immature philosophy, because we ourselves are immature in the domain of thought? We only question and interpret, but we care not, to think it through. We opine, but do not think. We think ceaselessly, but dare not ask the most simple of questions, ‘what is ‘thinking?’.
Let us admit our shamelessness, and ask Descartes for help. In a letter, dated 1637, Descartes tells us how we should go about understanding his proof that the mind is better known than the body:
“He who doubts everything that is material, is wholly incapable of doubting his own existence; from which it follows that he— the soul, is a being, or a substance that isn’t in the slightest corporeal, and whose nature consists only in thinking, and whose existence is the first thing which we can know with absolute certainty. Everyone who spends enough time on this meditation will gradually acquire a very clear knowledge, a knowledge I would call intuitive, of intellectual nature in general. The idea of which, considered without limitation, represents God to us, and considered with limitation, is the idea of an Angel or a human soul. A reader will never understand what I say about God, unless he starts from this meditation.”
(Descartes, Lettre 1637, Oeuvres I, 537-538)
From this passage, we grasp that we can never understand Descartes, if we do not get a clear knowledge of “intellectual nature in general.” What is this intellectual nature? This is the nature of the soul, “a substance that isn’t in the slightest corporeal, and whose nature consists only in thinking.” We will not understand Descartes, if we do not understand what it means to be a thinking thing. And we will not understand our soul, if we do not understand what its nature is, a nature which consists entirely in thinking. Thus, we will not understand ourselves, if we do not understand what thinking is. And Descartes promises us, that if we truly meditate on this, we will be led to the knowledge of ourselves and of God.
For this thinking nature, taken without limitation, is God. And taken with limitation, is our soul. When we think about Descartes’ argument for the existence of God, we often see it as entirely separate from Descartes’ ‘cogito’ argument, and with good reason. We represent to ourselves the phenomenological reduction, which leads to the cogito. And we picture Descartes’ reasoning for God as a departure from this reduction. The meditation on the soul, we represent as a road of doubt that leads inward, to the essence of ourselves. And the proof of God, we represent as a road that leads outwards, to save us from the wretched doubt in which we know ourselves. In doubt, our knowledge leaves us alone with ourselves. With God, we are saved from this loneliness. But in this letter, there is an intimate connection between the two arguments, and in fact a sort of union. It is one and the same meditation, on what it means to be a thinking thing, that leads to the knowledge of God, and that leads to the knowledge of the soul. The only difference, being whether a limitation is put on this meditation or not. We might return to God later, for now, what does it mean to think?
When we ask this question to ourselves naively, our answer might be something like: ‘thinking is one specific activity in which we as humans can engage.’ I can feel, I can will, I can imagine, but I can also think. What in earlier ages one might call understanding, or what we might call reason or rationality, this is what thinking means. And Descartes seems to say, that because we have this power of understanding, of cognition, that it is that we are. And if this is so, it is evident why we think lowly of Descartes’ famous phrase: “I think, (therefore) I am.” For evidently, why would we be because we reason? Are we not also, because we feel? Are we not also, because we imagine? Or simply, because we are? In fact, Descartes was often met with this objection, and he had to constantly remind people of what he meant with ‘thinking.’ In a letter to Mersenne, we read:
“You infer that, if the nature of man is nothing but thinking, then man has no will. I don’t see how this follows at all; for willing, understanding, imagining, feeling, etc., are only different ways of thinking, all of which belong to the soul.”
(Descartes, Letter to Père Mersenne, 1637. Oeuvres I, 534)
We see here clearly, that for Descartes, thinking is nothing like ‘understanding’, ‘reasoning’, ‘cognition’, etc. Rather, these activities, are only modes of ‘thinking’. And likewise, feeling, imagining, willing, etc., are only modes of thinking. And all of these modes of thinking, belong to the soul. And what is the soul? “a being, or a substance that isn’t in the slightest corporeal, and whose nature consists only in thinking.” It is because our nature consists in thinking, that we understand, feel, imagine, etc. With this in mind, we could reframe Descartes cogito-argument as follows,
I am thinking, and thus I am a thinking thing, therefore I am
Descartes is saying implicitly, that it is only in thinking, that being can be said to be with certainty. If I weren’t a thinking thing, I wouldn’t know that I am. I wouldn’t understand what I am, I wouldn’t feel what I am, I wouldn’t be able to imagine what I am, if I weren’t a thinking thing. It is because I am a thinking thing, that I can say with certainty that I am.
I think = I am. This is what Descartes means.
But, we still don’t really know what it means to think. Thinking is not merely understanding. Rather, understanding, alongside feeling, willing, imagining, etc., is only one activity of thinking. All the usual objections to Descartes, that before we think we feel, etc., they fall apart before our eyes. But, what is thinking? Feeling, willing, understanding, imagining, etc., are all different manners in which our thinking nature explicates itself. It are ways of thinking, but none of these ways taken by itself can be said to be all that thinking means.
III. Thought, sensation, awareness
In article 9 of his Principles of Philosophy, Descartes tells us explicitly what he means by ‘thought’:
“By the term ‘thought’, I understand everything which we are aware of as happening within us, in so far as we have awareness of it. Hence, thinking is to be identified here not merely with understanding, willing, and imagining, but also with sensory awareness. For if I say ‘I am seeing, or I am walking, therefore I exist’, and take this as applying to vision or walking as bodily activities, then the conclusion is not absolutely certain. This is because, as often happens during sleep, it is possible for me to think I am seeing or walking, though my eyes are closed and I am not moving about; such thoughts might even be possible if I had no body at all. But if I take ‘seeing’ or ‘walking’ to apply to the actual sense or awareness of seeing or walking, then the conclusion is quite certain, since it relates to the mind, which alone has the sensation or thought that it is seeing or walking.”
(Descartes, Principles of Philosophy §9, p195)
Thought is then; all of which we are aware that it is happening within us, “insofar as we have awareness of it.” I am aware of myself walking, I am aware of myself willing this or that, I am aware of myself understanding this or that. And this awareness, is what Descartes calls ‘thought.’ Descartes uses the word ‘sensation’; we have the sensation of walking, seeing, imagining, understanding, etc. I see, but I can only be said to see, because I feel that I see, because I am aware of the fact that I see, because I am a thinking thing. Sensation is here the same as awareness, and both sensation and awareness are the same as thought. And feeling, understanding, willing, imagination, etc., are all different modes of thought, different manners in which the mind is aware, in which the mind thinks. When I feel myself walking, my thought extends itself towards this walking, through and by my feeling of walking. And when I will a certain thing, my thought extends its awareness towards this thing, through and by my willing.
In this definition from the Principles of Philosophy, you see why Descartes will be correct in saying with certainty that, ‘I think, (therefore) I am.’ For if I say, ‘I walk, therefore I am’, this is not certain at all. I could be dreaming or hallucinating that I am walking. But, even if I were dreaming or hallucinating, it still stands that I am aware of myself walking. There need not correspond a true external reality, the mere fact that I feel myself walking, that I think myself walking, is still absolutely certain. In the Passions of the Soul, Descartes says that when I am dreaming, I might feel a certain passion, say sadness. And this sadness might not be ‘real’, for I am dreaming it. But even if I am dreaming it, it is absolutely certain that I am aware of this sadness, and thus that “the soul truly has this passion within it”, because the soul is a thinking thing. There might not be a real sadness, but nonetheless it is absolutely certain that the soul has this sadness. (Descartes, Passions of the Soul, Part one, §26) There might not be an object corresponding to the sadness (because I am dreaming), and my feeling of the sadness might be false (because I am dreaming), but it is indubitable that I am aware of my feeling of this sadness. No object is igniting my sadness, whether I truly feel the sadness is uncertain, but my thought remains absolutely certain.
Thought is this pure fact of awareness, and all the different modes of thought: feeling, understanding, imagining, willing, etc., are modes through which this thought reveals itself as it pertains to specific ‘things’; an object that I will, a thing I imagine, my body in walking, etc. These modes, are different expressions of thought, in which thought makes itself known to us, but neither of them fully encompasses the essence of thought by itself. For this essence lies merely in thought.
So, what is called thinking, for Descartes? I understand many things, I see many things, I feel many things. But this is only so, because I understand them, because I see them, because I feel them, which are all modes in which I think. What is called thinking? The awareness that I have of understanding, seeing, feeling, willing, etc, through this understanding, seeing, feeling, willing, etc. I would not know to understand a single thing, or feel a single thing, if I weren’t aware of this understanding or feeling. And most importantly, I wouldn’t know that I was aware, if my essence didn’t fully consist in thinking —awareness. It is because my essence consists entirely in thinking, that I am able to know myself in my awareness of myself thinking, and everything else through the modes of my thinking.
We said that for Descartes, it is because I am a thinking thing, that I am. I think = I am. I can only be said to be, because I think. This is clear to us now. For I would not be able to know anything, there would not be the slightest possibility of saying anything about any being coming into existence, if I wasn’t there to think it, if my awareness wasn’t there to be aware of it. And I wouldn’t be aware of my own existence, if my essence didn’t fully consist in being aware, if my essence didn’t fully consist of thinking. And this cannot be doubted, for such doubt again presupposes my awareness, my presence as a thinking thing.
IV. A knowledge which knows itself
We read in Plato’s Charmides:
“when a person has a knowledge which knows itself, then I imagine he will be a person who knows himself.”
(Plato, Charmides, 169e).
I wouldn’t be able to understand, will, or feel a single thing, if I weren’t already in the possession of a “knowledge which knows itself”, an awareness of myself understanding or willing, i.e. thought. And it is only because I am such a thought, that I know myself to be. I think, I am.
The mind is a sort of self-luminosity; a ‘thing’, thought, that needs nothing else but itself to explain itself. And this is why Descartes is able to call it a substance, which is
“a thing which exists in such a way as to depend on no other thing for its existence.”
(Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, §51)
Thought explains itself through itself, in a perfect self-knowledge. Whereas the things that depend on thought; understanding, willing, imagining, etc., and their corresponding objects, do not know themselves, but are only known by way of thought.
“While imagination, sensation and will are intelligible only in a thinking thing. […] By contrast, it is possible to understand […] thought without imagination or sensation, and so on.”
(Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, §53)
Again, why is thought intelligible by itself? Because it reveals itself by its own powers only, not needing anything else. And this is Descartes’ point; we would not be able to know anything for certain, if we weren’t in the possession of a thought whose essence consists in thinking itself. We wouldn’t know anything, if we weren’t already in possession of this pure power of making known: thought, awareness. And moreover, we wouldn’t be able to know anything for certain, if our essence didn’t consist entirely of this thinking. For, if I were separated from this thought, it would be like something that I ‘had’, that I carried with me, but that was separate from me. But how would I be able to know such a thing, if my essence didn’t already consist in this power of thought or awareness itself? How would I be aware of it, if I weren’t already an awareness? And how would I be able to know myself, if thought was separate from myself? For knowledge happens through thought. Thought would be like a tool, which is wholly unaware of who is using it. And we would be like the user, wholly unaware of himself, for we would have no thought or awareness.
One must thus start with this power of thought, this power of revealing anything whatever, by itself and itself only. In other words, our essence has to consist of thought, it has to consist of awareness, of this pure power of making known, of revealing. For if it didn’t, we would be wholly incapable of understanding, feeling, willing, imagining, doubting, etc. And evidently, we are capable of these things, regardless of whether what we supposedly understand, feel, will, or imagine, truly exists outside of thought. What I believe I understand might be entirely wrong, but nonetheless, I understand. And I can only say that I understand, because I am aware of the fact that I understand. An awareness which is coextensive with the essence of ‘I’. And if our essence didn’t consist of thought, we would not be able to know ourselves. But we do, for we know intuitively, we think, what it means to think.
What is called thinking? It is this pure power of revealing, that needs nothing but itself for its own existence. It is this pure power of revealing, whose nature consists entirely in this revealing. The nature of understanding or feeling, lies in thought. But the nature of thought, lies entirely in itself.
When we think, that Descartes was wrong in positing “I think, I am”, from whence does this judgement stem? It stems from a lack of self-knowledge, in stems from a lack of meditation on what we are. For if we were to follow Descartes’ suggestion, and meditate deeply on what we are, we would realize that we are thought.
One might say, ‘it is because I feel that I am’, but this presupposes an awareness of myself feeling: thought. If one says, ‘I am, because my body is so ordered that awareness might awaken in my brain’, this presupposes thought. One might say, ‘it is because I understand my name and my genealogy that I am’, but this presupposes thought. One might say, ‘it is because I feel myself to be this type of person, that I am’, but this presupposes thought. One might say, ‘it is because I identify with this group, that I am’, but this presupposes thought. It all presupposes I, thought.
We would not be able to know anything, if we did not first think. We would not be able to feel anything, if we did not first think. We would not be able to have anything revealed to us, if we weren’t already in possession of this power of self-revealing. And we wouldn’t be able to be in possession of such a power, or know such a power, if we were not ourselves this power, if we weren’t a thinking substance, i.e., a thinking thing “which exists in such a way as to depend on no other thing for its existence.” For if this power were something separate from me, how would I be aware of this power, if I wasn’t myself such a power? From this reasoning, thought cannot depend on anything else but itself, for all such dependence, would presuppose thought.
This table in front of me, is not known because of itself, it is known because my understanding or feeling knows it, and my understanding or feeling are not known because of themselves, but because I think them, because I am aware of them.
This is what Descartes means, when he says that this knowledge of ourselves as a thinking thing is “a very clear knowledge, a knowledge I would call intuitive, of intellectual nature in general.” The table in front of me is not entirely clear, it is only clear by grace of my understanding and thought. And my understanding of this table is likewise not entirely clear, for it is only clear by grace of my awareness of this understanding, thought. But this awareness itself, thought, is entirely clear in and by itself. It is not explained by anything but itself, rather, it is that which explains itself, and everything else. And hence, this knowledge is intuitive, for we know perfectly what it means to think, for in essence, we are a thinking thing, and nothing else. In the knowledge that I have of myself; the thing grasped by awareness, I, and awareness itself, perfectly coincide. Hence, by meditating on this intuitive certainty, we grasp what “intellectual nature in general” is, we grasp what it means to think.
V. Thinking, thanking
As those who live through any age, we live in a thoughtless age, in that we think, but do not know what it means to think. We think, for how could we —as a thinking thing—, do anything else? Yet we fail to think thought itself. To come back to Plato, we have knowledge of all sorts of things, but we do not have a “knowledge which knows itself”, and thus, we do not know ourselves. For how could we? If we let thought only refer to what is grasped by thought, but not to itself? And we are shameless; we think many things, but fail to know what it means to be a thinking thing. For how could we feel shame? If nothing of what we think ever refers back to our own essence as a thinking thing, if all our thoughts arise only as a response to what is thought, and not as an act of thought itself? If all our thoughts are born from what is other, and not from ourselves? This then, is our thoughtlessness. As thinking things, we think continuously about anything and everything that appears before us, through understanding, feeling, imagining, willing, etc., but we never think thought itself. We never care to think thought itself, and thus, we care not to think ourselves.
Heidegger tells us that thinking is closely related to ‘thanking’. When we think about something, we offer our attention over to it, we thank it for its presence, by giving ourselves over to it in thinking.
“Original thanking is the thanks owed for being.”
(Heidegger, What is called thinking?, 141)
In thinking about some thing, we thank this thing for its being, for its presence. In imagining something, or in understanding something, our thought gives itself over to this thing, affirming it in its being, by giving awareness to this presence. This is thinking, and hence, no thinking is innocent. For all thinking, is a giving, and a thanking. For in thinking we thank, and in thanking, we give ourselves over to the thing we thank. And if Descartes is right, in that something can only truly be said to be, if it is thought by us, then, in thanking, we, as thinking things, give being to what we think about. When we think about something, we let our own essence —thought—, depart from itself and spread its power of awareness over to the thing in question. This pure power of revealing, which can only with certainty to be said to reside in our essence, is offered to something else than this essence.
No thought is innocent, for in thanking, life is given to what is thought about, and, thought can thank the wrong things.
This is our thoughtlessness, to think those things not worthy of thought, and to fail to think, what is most worthy of our attention. It is a question of direction, and a question of judgement of value. We cannot be truly thoughtless; regardless of what we do, we think ceaselessly, for this is our essence. But we can be, in thinking, more or less aware of thought itself. And this is what it means to be thoughtless; to think without thought, to think without awareness of our own thinking. A thought that values what it comes to know, but cares not for itself.
The principal question becomes, what is most worth thanking, what is most worth thinking? We read Heidegger:
“When we give thanks, we give it for something. We give thanks for something by giving thanks to him whom we have to thank for it. The things for which we owe thanks are not things we have from ourselves. They are given to us. We receive many gifts, of many kinds. But the highest and really most lasting gift given to us is always our essential nature, with which we are gifted in such a way that we are what we are only through it. That is why we owe thanks for this endowment, first and unceasingly.”
(Heidegger, What is called thinking?, 142)
What is most worth thanking, is thought itself. For we are, because we think. And it is in and by thought, that our deepest essence as thought is revealed to ourselves. It is because thinking is given to us, that we are what we are. And we give thanks for this gift in thinking thought, for in thinking thought, we give ourselves over entirely to what we are: a thinking substance. We are what we are only through this first-given thought. Conceived without limitation, it is God. Conceived with limitation, it is us. And when thought gives itself over to thinking entirely, and no longer to what it comes to understand, imagine, will, etc., in the world, Descartes promises us, we will know ourselves, and we will eventually know God. We are given many things, and we never fail to have our attention reach outward towards these things. But in doing so, we forget that before these things are given to us, we had first to be given to ourselves. Before we can think about whatever is interesting at the moment, thought had to be given to us. And it is only through this “highest and really most lasting gift”, that we can think about anything else.
What is more important, than this first primordial gift of thought, in which our most essential nature is given to us? What is more important to think about, than thought itself? Things come to be and come to pass. What we seem to understand today, becomes inexplicable tomorrow. What we want this year, repulses us the next. And what we imagine in our dreams, is forgotten when we wake. But what remains, is thought itself. Thought never leaves us, and it never came to us, for it is us, and we can only separate ourselves from it with the greatest difficulty, and even then, only conceptually:
“For we have some difficulty in abstracting the notion of substance from the notions of thought and extension, since the distinction between these notions and the notion of substance itself is merely a conceptual distinction.”
(Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, §63)
A conceptual distinction is
“a distinction between a substance and some attribute of that substance without which the substance is unintelligible.”
(Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, §62)
But this distinction, in our case between thinking substance and thought, need therefore not be real. We have a hard time thinking about our essence as consisting in nothing else but thought, and likewise we have a hard time thinking about thought as being the essence of substance. And hence, we make the distinction between thinking substance and thought. But in truth, they are the same: thought constitutes the nature of our substance, and must
“be considered as nothing else but thinking substance itself.”
( Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, §63)
So, what is more important, than that without which, nothing whatsoever could be of importance? What is more important to thank, than this thought through which we are given being, and through which we can offer being to what comes to stand before us?
In his letter from 1637, Descartes tells us, that this is the way to understand his philosophy. All the later proofs of God, mind, or body, as we know them from the Meditations or the Principles of Philosophy, will never become clear to us, if we do not first meditate on what it means to be a thinking thing, if we do not first ask ourselves, what is called thinking?
“Everyone who spends enough time on this meditation will gradually acquire a very clear knowledge, a knowledge I would call intuitive, of intellectual nature in general. The idea of which, considered without limitation, represents God to us, and considered with limitation, is the idea of an Angel or a human soul. A reader will never understand what I say about God, unless he starts from this meditation.”
(Descartes, Lettre 1637, Oeuvres I, 537-538)
I am what I am, and what I am is a thinking thing. And it is only in this intimate grasping of what it means to think, that we truly offer thanks for our essential nature. And in doing so, Descartes promises us, we will know ourselves, and we will eventually know God.
Sources:
Plato. Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper. Cambridge: Hackett, 1997.
Descartes. Œuvres Philosophiques I. Édition de Ferdinand Alquié. Paris: Garnier, 1988.
Descartes. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Volume 1. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Heidegger. What is called thinking? Translated by J. Glenn Gray. New York: Harper Perennial, 2004.