"Cogito and Temporality

CLAUDIA JÁUREGUI

International Philosophical Quarterly

Fordham University

Lugar: New York; Año: 2001 vol. XLI p. 5 - 16

0019-0365

In this paper, I examine the way in which Descartes establishes the connection between temporality and self-consciousness. My aim is to demonstrate that it is possible to distinguish in Cartesian texts two notions of self-consciousness with two different temporal characters. The first one corresponds to the statement “Cogito ergo sum”. There is here no inferential movement, but a detachment of the necessary self-referentiality of thought in which “cogito” and “sum” are given simultaneously. The second notion corresponds to the statement “Sum res cogitans”. In this case, the ego becomes an object for himself. There is here a reflective movement of self-knowledge in which the reflecting self and the reflected self are given successively.    I try to demonstrate moreover that this reflective movement of self-knowledge involves some metaphysical assumptions that determine that the knowledge of myself cannot be so evident as the awareness of my own existence.