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In ‘The Simplest Mathematics’ (1933), C.S. peirce elaborated:

It is a fundamental mistake to suppose that an idea which stands isolated can be otherwise than perfectly blind. He professes to doubt the testimony of his memory; and in that case all that is left is a vague indescribable idea. There is no warrant for putting it into the first person singular. "I think" begs the question. "There is an idea: therefore, I am," it may be contended represents a compulsion of thought; but it is not a rational compulsion. There is nothing clear in it. Here is a man who utterly disbelieves and almost denies the dicta of memory.

He notices an idea, and then he thinks he exists. The ego of which he thinks is nothing but a holder together of ideas.

But if memory lies there may be only one idea. If that one idea suggests a holder-together of ideas, how it can do so is a mystery.

Much has been published on this site regarding the cogito. Notably, I’ve seen in my surfing that users such as Conifold and Alexander S. King, as well as others, make note of minds who objected to the cogito with the likes of Kant and Nietzsche, who argued against the unity of the I, or the self, but didn’t object as hard to the proposition (or conclusion) that “there is thinking”, or that “thinking is occurring” as a base epistemological certainty.

Did Peirce come to the same conclusion as they did when he said “there is an idea?” … “A vague, indescribable idea?” Despite not giving any credence to the idea of the ‘I’, as many others have done in dissecting Descartes’ cogito?

Anthony Klich
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  • You didn't need to repost: just edit the question. – Weather Vane Jul 08 '23 at 15:33
  • @WeatherVane Thank you. – Anthony Klich Jul 08 '23 at 15:51
  • "*Nietzsche, who argued against the unity of the I, or the self*". Could you provide sources for that? If anything, Also sprach Zarathustra indicates the opposie. For instance, in the passage Von den Verächtern des Leibes the self is portrayed as superior and more powerful than the senses and the spirit (Sinn and Geist). Also the references to the "I" weaken or contradict any suggestions against its unity. – Iñaki Viggers Jul 08 '23 at 20:52
  • @Iñaki Viggers I’ve seen the direct quote from one of Nietzsche’s works cited plenty of times before, both on here and on Reddit. I don’t know the specific work it is from. I understand your wanting of citation, but unfortunately, I’m unsure of which work it is from, and I was just trying to find a specific comment section on this forum where I saw it cited, but I didn’t find it. Perhaps a google search of Nietzsche on the cogito would yield the results you hope for. I know his proposition, or conclusion, begins with “I think”… then he either begins a… – Anthony Klich Jul 08 '23 at 22:02
  • new sentence elaborating on the process of thinking, or he continues the same sentence. Perhaps you will see that with how Chris (the other contributor on my post) didn’t doubt my claims about Nietzsche that I’m not just making it up. Thank you for your input. – Anthony Klich Jul 08 '23 at 22:05
  • I never suspected anything in the sense of you making that up. Instead, I think that either there is a misunderstanding of Nietzsche (such as inadvertently taking out of context some statement of his) or, to put it in Hegelian terms, an instance of thesis & antithesis that warrants a synthesis in regard to Nietzsche's thought. – Iñaki Viggers Jul 08 '23 at 22:20

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Q: Did Peirce come to the same conclusion as they did when he said “there is an idea?”

Pierce distinguishes himself by addressing the dimension of time as memory, albeit in passing. Heidegger develops the theme significantly in that time is understood as structurally incorporated in the 'holder-together': i.e. the self is temporal.

From The Principle of Reason (1957) p.12

It is well known that Descartes wanted to bring all human knowing to an unshakable ground (fundamentum inconcussum) by first doubting everything and acknowledging only what presented itself clearly and distinctly as secure knowledge. Leibniz remarked that Descartes’ procedure neglected to specify what was entailed in the clarity and distinctness of cognition that count as his leading principles. According to Leibniz, Descartes had at this point doubted too little. Concerning this, Leibniz said in a letter to Johann Bernoulli on August 23, 1696: sed ille dupliciter peccavit, nimis dubitando et nimis facile a dubitatione discedendo; “but he (Descartes) failed in a two-fold manner, by his doubting too much and by too easily desisting from doubting.”4

and Being & Time (1927) p.45-46

Kant took over Descartes' position quite dogmatically, notwith­standing all the essential respects in which he had gone beyond him. Furthermore, in spite of the fact that he was bringing the phenomenon of time back into the subject again, his analysis of it remained oriented towards the traditional way in which time had been ordinarily under­stood; in the long run this kept him from working out the phenomenon of a 'transcendental determination of time' in its own structure and function. Because of this double effect of tradition the decisive connection between time and the 'I think' was shrouded in utter darkness; it did not even become a problem.

In taking over Descartes' ontological position Kant made an essential omission: he failed to provide an ontology of Dasein. This omission was a decisive one in the spirit [im Sinne] of Descartes' ownmost Tendencies. With the 'cogito sum' Descartes had claimed that he was putting philo­sophy on a new and firm footing. But what he left undetermined when he began in this 'radical' way, was the kind of Being which belongs to the res cogitans, or—more precisely—the meaning of the Being of the 'sum'.1 By working out the unexpressed ontological foundations of the 'cogito sum', we shall complete our sojourn at the second station along the path of our destructive retrospect of the history of ontology. Our Interpretation will not only prove that Descartes had to neglect the question of Being altogether; it will also show why he came to suppose that the absolute 'Being­-certain' ["Gewisssein"] of the cogito exempted him from raising the ques­tion of the meaning of the Being which this entity possesses.

Chris Degnen
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  • So although Peirce doesn’t acknowledge ‘thinking’ as something that happens through ‘time’, he adheres to the belief that there is an ‘idea’ that is undeniable, regardless of our understanding of the passage of supposed ‘time’? – Anthony Klich Jul 08 '23 at 18:15
  • I think he remains with the traditionalists in that respect. Temporality is a necessary part of thought for reflection, one thought reflecting on another. With just one 'idea' there isn't actually any thought. He sees the issue with memory. I don't know if he develops it elsewhere. – Chris Degnen Jul 08 '23 at 18:40
  • I’m sure you’ll gather that I’m a layperson. Thank you for your inputs thusfar :) – Anthony Klich Jul 08 '23 at 18:45
  • To clarify a spelling error made on a previous comment, I’ll rephrase: So all thoughts that Peirce experiences, he would consider them as one, unified, collective ‘idea’ that is real and has ‘existence’? – Anthony Klich Jul 08 '23 at 18:50
  • This one experience without an adjacent thought fits Kant's ‘intuition without thought [*gedankenlose Anschauung*]’. As per [Kant, Non-Conceptual Content, p.85](https://kantstudiesonline.net/uploads/files/SchultingDennis01012.pdf): "[It] would be possible, but it would ‘never [be] cognition, ’ ... ‘One can intuit something without thinking something thereby or thereunder. / All cognitions come to us through thinking, i.e., through concepts; they are not intuitions.’" As described above, thinking requires a cognitive temporality, (note, not necessarily the same as clock-time temporality). – Chris Degnen Jul 08 '23 at 20:21
  • Thank you so much. So in the same way that Nietzsche would assert “It thinks”, Kant perhaps was of the belief that “There is intuition.” Sounds quite similar to Peirce’s solitary “idea”. – Anthony Klich Jul 08 '23 at 21:03
  • Kant's thoughtless intuition is strictly prior to thought; it's the mere reception of the senses, whereas Nietzsche's 'It thinks' is definitely about cognition: "In Nietzsche’s philosophy, “a thought comes when ‘it’ wants, not when ‘I’ want; so that it is a falsification of the facts to say: the subject ‘I’ is the condition of the predicate ‘think’” (BGE 47)." [Nietzsche Re-orders Descartes, p.14](https://aporia.byu.edu/pdfs/monte-Sum_ergo_cogito.pdf). The disconnection of the 'think' from the 'I' is followed through by Heidegger [e.g. here](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/98494/5154). – Chris Degnen Jul 09 '23 at 09:52
  • Re. "There is an idea", in the context this is clearly 'a thought', but a thought in isolation does not go anywhere: Pierce questions the process of thinking by entertaining "memory lies" but it is not feasible. Instead, given 'there is thought' Heidegger has Dasein as world-forming based on shared experience. Each Dasein forms world but it is in our awareness that we share the 'world' (or sometimes one might be in one's own world). Focusing in on one's own particularity makes or finds the ego, the 'I'. These are broad stokes in phenomenology; psychology might say ego influences world-forming. – Chris Degnen Jul 09 '23 at 10:42
  • From *Being & Time* p.151-152: "Perhaps when Dasein addresses itself in the way which is closest to itself, it always says "I am this entity", and in the long run says this loudest when it is 'not' this entity. Dasein is in each case mine, and this is its constitution; but what if this should be the very reason why, proximally and for the most part, Dasein *is not itself*? What if the aforementioned approach, starting with the givenness of the "I" to Dasein itself, and with a rather patent self­ interpretation of Dasein, should lead the existential analytic, as it were, into a pitfall? ... – Chris Degnen Jul 09 '23 at 11:01
  • "The word 'I' is to be understood only in the sense of a non-committal *formal indicator*, ... / "the positive Interpretation of Dasein which we have so far given, already forbids us to start with the formal givenness of the "I", if our purpose is to answer the question of the "who" in a way which is pheno­menally adequate. In clarifying Being-in-the-world we have shown that a bare subject without a world never 'is' proximally, nor is it ever given. And so in the end an isolated "I" without Others is just as far from being proximally given." (1927) – Chris Degnen Jul 09 '23 at 11:08
  • Thank you for all your citations and insights . I asked the question because of curiosities I had regarding the thinking of Descartes, Kant, and Peirce regarding the issue, and its implications on the idea of Ontological Nihlism. If there is an ‘idea’, or if there is ‘thinking’, or if ‘something is occurring, and so is’, I’m curious in how whatever it is that critics of the original cogito postulate as what could be taken away as the conclusion reached from thinking on/critiquing the cogito relates to the idea of ontological nihilism, i.e. ‘nothing exists.’ – Anthony Klich Jul 14 '23 at 21:55
  • Clearly there are beings, so some things exist which preclude nothing existing. However, as cognitively unobservable, the phenomenological source of beings—being—is associated with nothing, e.g. "The nothing is the "not" of beings, and is thus being, experienced from the perspective of beings." [*Essence of Ground, Preface*](http://users.clas.ufl.edu/burt/spliceoflife/Heideggerground.pdf) Being is said to occur rather than exist tho. This is quite nicely covered in Jussi Backman's [*The Absent Foundation : Heidegger on the Rationality of Being*](https://philarchive.org/archive/BACTAF) (2005). – Chris Degnen Jul 16 '23 at 12:06
  • Clearly there are beings? Do you mean that clearly, there is cognition, or awareness? and that constitutes as ‘beings’? – Anthony Klich Jul 16 '23 at 18:51
  • I suppose we have [*Mitsein*](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-heidegger-lexicon/beingwith-mitsein/973FBDDF2038B08AF56CEB8053C449E3) first: "oneself among others", in which we conceive beings, both living and inanimate. (As in one of the comments above: "... a bare subject without a world never 'is' proximally, nor is it ever given.") *Mitsein* develops in association, so 'pure' cognition and apprehension (of beings) are co-arising. I might have to look further into that. – Chris Degnen Jul 17 '23 at 10:41
  • There is, however, a level of unreality to the beings thus apprehended: i.e. "the clearing is pervaded by a constant concealment in the twofold form of refusal and obstructing. Fundamentally, the ordinary is not ordinary; it is extra-ordinary, uncanny [*un-geheuer*]. ... Truth, in its essence, is un-truth. We put it this way emphatically to indicate, with a perhaps off-putting directness, that refusal in the mode of concealing is intrinsic to unconcealment as clearing." [The Origin of the Work of Art](http://users.clas.ufl.edu/burt/filmphilology/heideggerworkofart.pdf) (GA5) 1935/36, p 31. – Chris Degnen Jul 19 '23 at 08:57