Cogito ergo sum: The Cartesian Foundation and the Certainty of the Thinking Self
There are few moments in the history of philosophy that can rival, in sheer radicality and consequence, the one in which René Descartes, secluded in his Dutch stove-heated room, discovered that the very act of doubting contains within itself an unshakeable certainty: whoever doubts, thinks — and whoever thinks, exists. The cogito — formulated in slightly different ways across three major works — became not merely the starting point of Cartesian philosophy but the founding act of all modern philosophy. Through it, human subjectivity installed itself at the centre of philosophical inquiry and has remained there, in various guises, for four centuries. ...