Exploring . the . Cogito

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I had not remembered this date since I attached no importance to it. On the morning of 10^th November 1987 (or the evening before ; my notes are not clear on this point) I was meditating as usual. I was thinking about concepts.

Suddenly I had a direct vision – my first and only vision of an intellectual nature that my meditations ever gave me. During the time of the vision its meaning was perfectly obvious, but when I came out of it I found it extremely hard to accurately conceptualise what I had understood.

In pictorial form there was a central circle, which was me, surrounded by smaller circles, some of which were tightly adhering to the central one whilst other circles were only loosely attached. The small circles were concepts.

That was the vision. I call it my cogito vision, since I make the assumption that it was the exact duplicate of Descartes’ one. This is not an impossible claim. After all, mystics share common visions, so why not thinkers ?

These are the notes that I made after coming out of the vision.

The personality is a bundle of concepts.

Desire is a need for a concept. Equanimity means being above concepts, hence above desire. Consciousness, and the unconscious mind, is just a particular arrangement of concepts.

Concepts of physicalness – my body, the world – flow through me ; they do not originate in me. Concepts of emotions, desires, feelings (?, I was not sure about feelings) are produced by me: they originate in me.

For the past year I had been studying philosophical Idealism in the books by Paul Brunton. This philosophy proposes that the world is just a mental concept. My understanding of the cogito vision is in harmony with this view, and verified for me the reality of it.

Comparisons

I compared my cogito with the insight of George Berkeley.

Berkeley : perception is existence. (esse is percipi)

My vision : conception is existence.

I then realised the resemblance to the cogito of Descartes.

Descartes’ cogito : I think, therefore I am.

My cogito : I think concepts, therefore I am.

This, at the time, was only a subtle difference ; yet over the years to follow I always returned sooner or later to the cogito to try to understand it better. The main difficulty initially with the cogito was the fact that my understanding of it diminished once the vision ended. Why ?

Brunton supplied the answer: that fact was the difference between the intellectual apprehension of truth and the feeling of truth.

A vision is an expression of a person’s understanding of something in terms of feelings.

Intuition is similarly based on feelings. So a vision can be considered to be a pictorial intuition.

This answer applies to the vision of Descartes too. His criterion for establishing the truth of a perception was that it must be clear and distinct ; then its truth will be self-evident. However, this applies only to the moment of vision, when the perception is understood by feeling. When that moment passes the perception has then to be interpreted intellectually, and this brings in the possibility of error.

‘I think, therefore I am’ is such an interpretation. It is not a syllogism, and Descartes repeatedly stated that it was not a syllogism. It is an attempt to understand an ontological fact, a fact of existence and being.

Relevance of Cogito

Has the cogito any relevance outside philosophy ? Yes. With a slightly different emphasis it validates my view of dynamic psychology and supports the rationale of psychoanalysis.

I modified the meaning of it much later when I read the ideas of a nineteenth-century German sceptic, Max Stirner. In his book ‘The Ego and His Own’, he gave a critique of Christianity and of Liberalism, focusing on their adherence to rigid, fixed beliefs and fixed ideas. He exerted a deep influence on me. His ideas enabled me to reformulate the cogito.

Now I have a different interpretation of it. In my vision, several concepts had been stuck to the ego ; these can be taken to refer to dominant ideas and fixed beliefs.

My cogito means :

I believe, therefore I am.

or

I have fixed beliefs, therefore I am.

or

I am the sum of my beliefs and fixed ideas.

Some thinkers have defined a person to be what he does ; they have defined him to be his actions. This view was understandable before the advent of dynamic psychology. But it is an erroneous view for today. A person does not change himself by changing his actions. He changes himself only by changing his thinking, by changing his beliefs.

Now we see the cogito’s relevance. The whole rationale of psycho-analysis is to change a person’s beliefs which are causing him distress. Changing a person’s definition of himself will automatically change the quality of his life. My interpretation of the cogito above fits perfectly with the assumptions that underlie psycho-analysis.

Will or Feeling

Arthur Schopenhauer emphasised the central importance of will (see the article Will and Representation), and this importance penetrates even into meditational visions. In general, visions can be interpreted either from a perspective of feeling or a perspective of will. Though perhaps there is a difference of emphasis : meditational visions usually focus on will, whereas mystical visions centre on feeling.

Using a focus on will, I explore the meaning of the cogito vision, both mine and Descartes’ one. The vision is at a level higher than reason. The cogito is a vision of will ; it is a vision of the expression of will.

Descartes’ cogito : I think, therefore I am.

My cogito : I think concepts, therefore I am.

In general,
I think (= idea), therefore I am (= being).

Interpreting this line of thought :

In order to express the will, I think. The limitations imposed by thinking determines the ‘I am’. This then influences the will.

There is a circular process going on between will, thought and being.

At a non-cognitive level (when the person does not understand what is happening to him), as in the infant and in the mystic, the cycle is one of will, feeling and being. In this situation, the will is used to generate the required kind of feeling. Hence, for the mystic, if he had a cogito vision, he is likely to interpret it as: I feel, therefore I am.

Because visions are visions of will they are usually products of desire, and so are bound up with the personal interests of the seer. The clarity of a vision is with regard to the will ; it is not clarity with regard to the intellect. This is why it needs to be interpreted. And it is also the reason that visionaries say that the vision is ineffable !

An exception to the general run of visions is the cognitive type, such as my mathematical satori (which I describe in the article Satori, on my website Patterns of Spirituality. See Links page for the address). In this vision (prolonged for three weeks) my mind was filled with endless forms of mathematical symbols and expressions.

But even then the information within a cognitive vision that is accessible and understandable is usually limited by the individual’s existing state of knowledge. Information that is outside of a person’s range of experience is also likely to be outside of his understanding – this fact applies to visions just as much as it does to ordinary life. The visionary may transmit any information that he does not understand, but he will not be able to explain it. Information that is not intellectually understandable remains only at the level of symbolism, hence at a reduced level of effectiveness.

Reformulating the Cogito

Schopenhauer’s ideas on will enabled me to interpret the cogito in another way. Now the cogito translates into :

I do not think my being into existence.

My existence does not create my thought.

Instead :
I will my being and I will my thought.

Therefore the cogito becomes :

I will my thinking, therefore I will my ‘I am’.

This result is the effect of seeing my cogito as a vision of will. This changes the whole question of whether being or thought is primary. Neither is. It is will that is primary.

I also see that Descartes’ cogito analysis was only half an answer. The full cogito is :

For introverts :
I will my thinking, therefore I will my being.

For extroverts :
I will my being, therefore I will my thinking.

Logic is the manner of using the reason. Psychology is the manner of using the will (and feeling). The study of the psychology of a person is the study of how he uses his will (and feeling). The study of philosophy is the study of how he substantiates and justifies that use of will.

One primary purpose of studying emotion is to enable the person to clear his mind of confusion and thereby empower him to function harmoniously on will.

Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation. Dover Publications, USA, 1969. In two volumes.

Stirner, Max. The Ego and His Own. Translated by Steven Byington. London, 1907. [Also, The Modern Library, USA].

The articles in this section are :

Exploring the Cogito

Synthesis of Mind and Matter

Copyright © 2003 Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved

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Ian Heath
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