cogito and its variations

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Cogito and its variations is The Possible Book’s curated family of philosophical, artistic and comic reformulations of Descartes’s I think, therefore I am. The collection juxtaposes doubt, embodied ability, relational personhood, consumption and parody. Its common form enables comparison without making every item a historical proof, a serious doctrine or a position endorsed by the author.

Explanation

The author presents the table as a collection made over years, with attributions and notes attached to particular formulations. Its range includes a Cartesian formula, a doubt-based elaboration, a reversal associated with Nietzsche and a precursor attributed to Pereira. The proposed entry preserves those source attributions without newly certifying their historical details.

Other rows shift from thought to ability or relation: Merleau-Ponty’s I can and a common English encapsulation of Ubuntu appear alongside artistic and comic transformations. RB2 specifically cautions that I can, therefore I am is its condensation of a reversal, not Merleau-Ponty’s verbatim sentence.

The collection’s playful unity should not erase differences between quotation, summary, artwork and anonymous joke. Lichtenberg’s separate passage challenges the already-posited I, while Sontag’s passage has a literary-historical force. Those entries remain independently attributable rather than being absorbed into one anonymous collective argument against the cogito.

Scope and attribution

Retain the comparative collection as a book-specific motif, with row-specific attribution.

AB — The Actual Book

The body’s I can supplies a related philosophical reversal in the author’s own exposition.

Occurrence locators: 106, 108, 110; Thinker register: 228.

PB — The Possible Book

The curated table keeps diverse formulations and named or anonymous attributions together.

Occurrence locators: 4, 5, 6, 99.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

A formula condensing Merleau-Ponty must not be attributed as his exact sentence.

Occurrence locators: 7, 150.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.