Cogito, ergo sum is "Since I doubt, I think; since I think, I exist"; with rearrangement and compaction, "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am", or in Latin, "dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum". A further expansion, ("…—a thinking thing") extends the "cogito" with Descartes's statement in the subsequent Meditation, , or, in English, "I am a thinking (conscious) thing, that is, a being who doubts, affirms, denies, knows a few objects, and is ignorant of many …". This has been referred to as "the expanded "cogito"". Neither nor indicate whether the verb form corresponds to the English simple present or progressive aspect.
Cogito, ergo sum for thought". In other words, "the only claim that is indubitable here is the agent-independent claim that there is cognitive activity present". The objection, as presented by Georg Lichtenberg, is that rather than supposing an entity that is thinking, Descartes should have said: "thinking is occurring." That is, whatever the force of the "cogito", Descartes draws too much from it; the existence of a thinking thing, the reference of the "I," is more than the "cogito" can justify. Friedrich Nietzsche criticized the phrase in that it presupposes that there is an "I", that there is such an activity as "thinking",