Esprit Scholengroep English and Dutch. The Cartesius Lyceum is named after French philosopher René Descartes and uses his famous quote "Cogito ergo sum" in their logo. In 1954, the Spinoza Lyceum (also part of the Esprit scholengroep) had a lack of space. They added two classrooms in the Western part of Amsterdam. These became the "Cartesius Lyceum" in 1956. A larger school building was opened by former Queen Juliana in 1962. After merging with another school in 1988, the number of students decreased. In 1999 the Cartesius Lyceum moved close to Jordaan where no secondary schools were yet situated. The European School
Cogito, ergo sum and that "I" know what "thinking" is. He suggested a more appropriate phrase would be "it thinks" wherein the "it" could be an impersonal subject as in the sentence "It is raining." The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard calls the phrase a tautology in his "Concluding Unscientific Postscript". He argues that the "cogito" already presupposes the existence of "I", and therefore concluding with existence is logically trivial. Kierkegaard's argument can be made clearer if one extracts the premise "I think" into the premises "'x' thinks" and "I am that 'x'", where "x" is used as a placeholder in order to disambiguate