Editing Cogito, ergo sum (section)

== Translation ==

=== "I am thinking" vs. "I think" ===
While the Latin ''cōgitō'' may be translated rather easily as "I think/ponder/visualize", {{nowrap|{{lang|fr|je pense}}}} does not indicate whether the verb form corresponds to the English [[simple present]] ("think") or [[Continuous and progressive aspects|progressive aspect]] ("is thinking").<ref>{{cite book |last=Pope |first=Rob |date=2013 |title=Textual Intervention: Critical and Creative Strategies for Literary Studies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HR7YAQAAQBAJ&q=%22I+think,+therefore+I+am%22+%22present+tense%22+descartes&pg=PA34 |publisher=Routledge |page=35 |isbn=978-1-135-08328-1}}</ref> Following [[John Lyons (linguist)|John Lyons]] (1982),<ref>{{cite book |last1= Lyons|first1= J.|year= 1982|chapter= Deixis and subjectivity: Loquor, ergo sum? |editor1-last= Jarvella|editor1-first= Rovert J. |editor2-last= Klein|editor2-first= Wolfgang |title= Speech, place, and action: Studies in deixis and related topics |pages= 101–224}}</ref> Vladimir Žegarac notes, "The temptation to use the simple present is said to arise from the lack of progressive forms in Latin and French, and from a misinterpretation of the meaning of ''cogito'' as habitual or generic" (cf. [[gnomic aspect]]).<ref>{{cite thesis|last=Žegarac|first=Vladimir|date=1991|title=Tense, aspect and relevance|degree=PhD|url=http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1349786/1/363483.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018113314/http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1349786/1/363483.pdf |archive-date=2015-10-18 |url-status=live|pages=84,85|institution=University of London}}</ref> Also following Lyons, [[Ann Banfield]] writes, "In order for the statement on which Descartes's argument depends to represent certain knowledge,… its tense must be a true present—in English, a progressive,… not as 'I think' but as 'I am thinking, in conformity with the general translation of the Latin or French present tense in such nongeneric, nonstative contexts."<ref>{{cite journal | last= Banfield|first= A. |date= 1998|title= The Name of the Subject: The "il"? | journal = Yale French Studies |issue= 93 | pages = 133–174 |doi= 10.2307/3040735 |jstor= 3040735 }}</ref> Or in the words of [[Simon Blackburn]], "Descartes's premise is not 'I think' in the sense of 'I ski', which can be true even if you are not at the moment skiing. It is supposed to be parallel to 'I am skiing'."<ref name=Blackburn1999>{{cite book | author=Simon Blackburn | title=Think: A compelling introduction to philosophy | year = 1999 | url=https://archive.org/details/thinkcompellingi00bla_kzi | url-access=registration | quote="am thinking, therefore". | publisher=Oxford University Press| author-link=Simon Blackburn | isbn=978-0-19-976984-1 }}</ref>

The similar translation "I am thinking, therefore I exist" of Descartes's correspondence in French ("{{nowrap|{{lang|fr|je pense}}}}, {{nowrap|{{lang|fr|donc je suis}}}}") appears in ''The Philosophical Writings of Descartes'' by Cottingham et al. (1988).<ref name="CSMK III" />{{rp|247}}

The earliest known translation as "I am thinking, therefore I am" is from 1872 by [[Charles Porterfield Krauth]].<ref name=Krauth>{{cite journal|last=Krauth |first=Charles Porterfield |title=Notes in Class — Descartes |journal=The Penn Monthly |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T75OAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA11|year=1872|publisher=University Press Company|volume=3|page=11}}</ref>{{efn|Krauth is not explicitly acknowledged as author of this article, but is so identified the following year by Garretson.<ref name="Garretson1873">{{cite book|author=James Edmund Garretson|title=Thinkers and Thinking|url=https://archive.org/details/thinkersandthin00garrgoog|quote=descartes he affirmed thinking.|year=1873|publisher=J.B. Lippincott & Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/thinkersandthin00garrgoog/page/n187 182]}}</ref>}}

Fumitaka Suzuki writes "Taking consideration of Cartesian theory of continuous creation, which theory was developed especially in the Meditations and in the Principles, we would assure that 'I am thinking, therefore I am/exist' is the most appropriate English translation of 'ego cogito, ergo sum'."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Suzuki|first=Fumitaka|date=2012|title=The Cogito Proposition of Descartes and Characteristics of His Ego Theory|url=https://aue.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=106&item_no=1&attribute_id=15&file_no=1|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180510050634/https://aue.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=106&item_no=1&attribute_id=15&file_no=1|archive-date=10 May 2018|access-date=6 May 2018|website=Aporia.byu.edu|publisher=Bulletin of Aichi Univ. of Education}}</ref>

=== "I exist" vs. "I am" ===
Alexis Deodato S. Itao notes that {{lang|la|cogito, ergo sum}} is "literally 'I think, therefore I am'."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Itao|first=Alexis Deodato S.|date=2010|title=Paul Ricoeurs hermeneutics of symbols: A critical dialectic of suspicion and faith|url=http://www.kritike.org/journal/issue_8/itao_december2010.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324060809/http://www.kritike.org/journal/issue_8/itao_december2010.pdf |archive-date=2012-03-24 |url-status=live|journal=Kritike|volume=4|issue=2|pages=1–17|doi=10.25138/4.2.a.1}}</ref> Others differ: 1) "[A] precise English translation will read as 'I am thinking, therefore I exist';<ref>{{cite thesis |type=PhD |last=del Pozo Baños |first= Marcos |date=2015 |title=My Mind, My Self, My Identity: A Task-Independent Neural Signature for Biometric Identification |publisher=Universidad De Las Palmas De Gran Canaria}}</ref> and 2) "[S]ince Descartes ... emphasized that existence is such an important 'notion,' a better translation is 'I am thinking, therefore I exist.'"<ref>{{cite thesis |type=PhD |last=Carpenter |first=John Michael |date=2012 |title=Remedying Some Defects in the History of Analyticity |publisher=Florida State University}}</ref>

=== Punctuation ===
Descartes wrote this phrase as such only once, in the posthumously published lesser-known work noted above, ''[[The Search for Truth by Natural Light]]''.<ref name="AT" /> It appeared there mid-sentence, uncapitalized, and with a comma. (Commas were not used in [[Classical Latin]]{{Efn|See ''Latin Punctuation in the Classical Age''.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Latin Punctuation in the Classical Age {{!}} Otha E. Wingo, E. Otha Wingo {{!}} download|url=https://u1lib.org/book/2832553/98631c|url-status=live|access-date=2021-12-25|website=u1lib.org|page=16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211225053605/https://u1lib.org/book/2832553/98631c |archive-date=2021-12-25 }}</ref>}} but were a regular feature of scholastic Latin,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Saenger|first=Paul|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w3vZaFoaa3EC&pg=PA1|title=Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading|date=1997|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-4016-6|pages=20|language=en}}</ref> the Latin Descartes "had learned in a Jesuit college at La Flèche."<ref>{{cite book|first=Desmond M. |last= Clarke|chapter=Descartes' Biography as a Guide to His ''Meditations''|editor=Allen Speight|title=Narrative, Philosophy and Life|publisher=Springer|date=2015|isbn=978-94-017-9348-3|pages=177|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_I-aBQAAQBAJ&q=%22the+only+Latin%22}}</ref>) Most modern reference works show it with a comma, but it is often presented without a comma in academic work and in popular usage. In Descartes's [[Principles of Philosophy|''Principia Philosophiae'']], the proposition appears as '''''ego cogito, ergo sum'''''.<ref name="Descartes1644">{{cite book|author=Descartes, René|url=https://archive.org/details/ita-bnc-mag-00001403-001|title=Principia Philosophiae|publisher=apud Ludovicum Elzevirium|year=1644|pages=[https://archive.org/details/ita-bnc-mag-00001403-001/page/n68 30], 31|quote="Ego Cogito ergo sum".}}</ref>