Cogitations: A Study of the Cogito in Relation to the Philosophy of Logic and Language and a Study of Them in Relation to the Cogito

by Jerrold J. Katz

Overview

The cogito ergo sum of Descartes is one of the best-known (and simplest) of all philosophical formulations, but ever since it was first propounded it has defied any formal accounting of its validity. How is it that so simple and important an argument has caused such difficulty and such philosophical controversy? In this pioneering work, Jerrold Katz argues that the problem with the cogito lies where it is least suspected--in a deficiency in the theory of language and logic that Cartesian scholars have brought to the study of the cogito. Katz contends that the laws of traditional logic have distorted Descartes's reasoning so that it no longer fits either Descartes's own account of the cogito in his writings or the role he assigns it in his project. Katz proposes that the cogito can be understood as an example of "analytic entailment," a concept in the philosophy of language whereby a statement can be a formally valid inference without depending on a law of logic. Developing and defending his thesis, he shows us that by grappling with an historical philosophical problem it is possible to make an original contribution to the advance of contemporary philosophy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195363654
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/01/1988
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Lexile:	1510L (what's this?)
File size:	586 KB

About the Author

City University of New York Graduate Center

Table of Contents

I.	Introduction	3
II.	The Cartesian Scholar's Dilemma	11
III.	The Source of the Obscurity	23
IV.	Logical Form, Universality, Linguisticism, and Locke	41
V.	How the Concept Containment Notion of Analyticity was Lost	52
VI.	Regaining the Concept Containment Notion of Analyticity	60
VII.	The Analytic Entailment of Existential Sentences	98
VIII.	The Cogito as an Analytic Entailment	118
IX.	Cartesian Scholarship Revisited	131
X.	The Nature of Analysis	144
XI.	The Cogito and Indubitability	159
XII.	On the Existence of a Thinker	168
XIII.	A Brief Revisionist History of Analyticity	179
	Notes	186
	Index	199

Editorial Reviews

"Offers a refreshing new line of approach from the point of view of a distinguished philosopher of language....Katz's book is bold and ambitious, not only in offering a new account of the cogito, but also in presenting his intensionalist semantics and taking on powerful contrary approaches by Kant, Frege, Wittgenstein, and Quine in the process....I hope that its provocative insights...prove an impetus to more scholarship on this high level of sustained seriousness."—Journal of Philosophy

"This book would serve well for a seminar on Descartes from an analytic or linguistic point of view. In addition, the thinkers considered by Katz: Locke, Kant, Wittgenstein, Frege, Carnap, and Quine, would definitely contribute to the success of such a course."—Teaching Philosophy

"Full of interesting and challenging ideas, presented in a most readable and orderly style and argued for adroitly and fairly."—History and Philosophy of Logic

"A fine book....Level-headed, interesting and clear."—Canadian Journal of Philosophy

"Challenging, and beautifully written. It makes us rethink the Cogito from yet another point of view, and in the process leads us through an updated version, and powerful defence, of the author's semantic theory."—Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

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