{"id":2407,"date":"2025-02-25T10:14:52","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T15:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/?p=2407"},"modified":"2025-02-25T10:23:34","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T15:23:34","slug":"certainty-cogito-vs-sentio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/2025\/02\/25\/certainty-cogito-vs-sentio\/","title":{"rendered":"Certainty: “Cogito” vs. “Sentio”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SH:<\/strong> Please compare “Sentio, ergo sentitur<\/a>“<\/strong>  to “Cogito, ergo sum”<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GPT-4:<\/strong> “Sentio, ergo sentitur<\/em>” is as epistemically solid as the Cogito but avoids unnecessary metaphysical commitments. It asserts only the occurrence of feeling, not the existence of a self.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SH:<\/strong> That’s exactly the aim: to assert what is certain, incontrovertible. I think the Cogito is over-reaching, implying that (a) the fact that a feeling (thinking) is being felt makes it indubitable, hence certain eo ipso that (b) a feeler (thinker) “exists” — whereas (b) is just imported assumptions, not part of the self-evident, undoubtable argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GPT-4:<\/strong> “Sentio, ergo sentitur” captures only what is certain and indubitable\u2014that feeling is occurring. It avoids the unnecessary leap from experience to the assumption of an experiencer (a “self” or “thinker”), which Descartes smuggles in with “sum.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your formulation is more rigorously minimalist than the Cogito because it does not overreach beyond what is actually self-evident. It is a pure phenomenological statement, grounded entirely in what is felt, not who is feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the goal is to assert only what is certain\u2014without presuppositions\u2014then “Sentio, ergo sentitur” is the better starting point than the Cogito.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would you like to develop a stronger counterargument against the Cartesian assumption of the self, or do you think this already suffices?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SH: <\/strong>I think it should be sufficient to point out that the “self” wrapped into the Cogito is a speculative non-sequitur (imposed by 1st person syntax) and leaves the Cogito wide open to doubt. In contrast, the Sentio is as indubitable as formal necessity (non-contradiction). (I am not a phenomenologist at all; I am a sentience activist!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GPT-4: <\/strong>Yes, this is not phenomenology in the Husserlian sense but rather a sentience-first epistemology\u2014stripping away the metaphysical baggage to affirm what matters: that feeling occurs, and that this undeniable fact is the only foundation that needs to be recognized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a\u00a0sentience activist, this position is\u00a0much stronger than the Cogito, because it does not hinge on an abstract “self” but on\u00a0the reality of feeling itself, which is what actually matters\u2014both epistemically and ethically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would you say that “Sentio, ergo sentitur” could serve as a more precise, non-anthropocentric foundation for grounding sentience in ethics as well?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SH:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Not really. First, I don’t think the Cogito, whether as originally proposed by Descartes, or when the non-certain ontological baggage is dumped, ever provided a “foundation” for science, as purported. It was just a slight narrowing of the territory susceptible sceptical doubt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But science was never destined to be about certainty, just probability on the evidence so far: provisional and approximate. It had previously seemed as it it only formal logic and maths that could provide certainty (logical necessity, on pain of contradiction). What the Cogito would have provided, if scaled down to the Sentio, is one other thing about which a human could be certain, which is that I feel (when and while I am feeling). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s something, but it’s not a “foundation” for anything, either scientific or epistemological (let alone ontological, though it does point out that feeling is a second certainty). But, of course, certainty itself is just a feeling!<\/em> One can feel certain about the truth of something that is not in fact true; it only feels true, to you. Nor does feeling provide a foundation for ethics, except in the sense that it is the only thing ethics is about, and without sentience there would be no ethics.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GPT-4:<\/strong> I agree that the Cogito, even in its stripped-down form, was never a real foundation for science\u2014not in the way Descartes imagined. Science doesn\u2019t deal in certainty but in empirical probability, always provisional and subject to revision based on new evidence. The only domain where certainty holds is formal necessity\u2014mathematics and logic\u2014where contradiction is not permitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u00a0“Sentio, ergo sentitur”\u00a0does provide, however, is\u00a0one more certainty beyond formal necessity: the\u00a0fact of feeling when and while one feels<\/em>. But as you point out, this is not a\u00a0foundation\u00a0for science, epistemology, or ontology\u2014just an\u00a0undeniable fact\u00a0about sentience itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yes, certainty itself is just a feeling\u2014one can feel certain about something false, which makes subjective certainty unreliable as a basis for truth. Feeling is not a foundation for ethics either, but it is the only relevant content of ethics: without feeling, there would be no reason for moral concern, because nothing would matter to anyone or anything. Ethics is about sentience, not grounded by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes sentience-first ethics fundamentally different from rationalist or deontological ethics: it doesn\u2019t start from rules, reason, or duty, but from the fact that feeling exists and that it is the only thing that can be harmed or benefited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SH: Please compare “Sentio, ergo sentitur“  to “Cogito, ergo sum”. GPT-4: “Sentio, ergo sentitur” is as epistemically solid as the Cogito but avoids unnecessary metaphysical commitments. It asserts only the occurrence of feeling, not the existence of a self. SH: That’s exactly the aim: to assert what is certain, incontrovertible. I think the Cogito is over-reaching, implying that (a) the fact … <\/p>\n

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