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46.) Unlike Descartes, however, Thomas does not make this truth into a first principle. 8, ad 5 and Summa contra gentiles, III, c. (The same pattern of argument can be found in De veritate, q. So, no one can assent to the thought that he does not exist because in the very act of thinking he perceives that he exists. Alio modo ita quod huic apprehensioni assensus adhibeatur et sic nullus potest cogitare se non esse cum assensu: in hoc enim quod cogitat aliquid, percipit se esse. Sic autem non potest simul in apprehensione cadere aliquid esse totum et minus parte, quia unum eorum excludit alterum. Uno modo ut haec duo simul in apprehensione cadant et sic nihil prohibet quod aliquis cogitet se non esse, sicut cogitat se quandoque non fuisse. Ogitari aliquid non esse, potest intelligi dupliciter. Ergo multo minus potest cogitare Deum non esse. Sed anima non potest se cogitare non esse. …verius esse habet Deus quam anima humana. In this article Thomas asks whether God’s existence is per se notum. It has now become standard to note the similarity between Descartes’s argument and Augustine’s.īut no one seems ever to note the similarity between the cogito argument and certain arguments proposed by St. Consequens est autem, ut etiam in eo, quod me novi nosse, non fallar. Quia ergo sum si fallor, quomodo esse me fallor, quando certum est me esse, si fallor? Quia igitur essem qui fallerer, etiamsi fallerer, procul dubio in eo, quod me novi esse, non fallor. Nam qui non est, utique nec falli potest ac per hoc sum, si fallor.
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Against the suggestion that he might be mistaken about his own existence, Augustine writes: When Descartes’s friend Marin Marsenne read the Discourse on Method he pointed out the similarity between Descartes’s cogito argument and an argument of St.
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