Cogito, ergo sum relying on clarity, distinctiveness, and self-evidence. Baruch Spinoza in ""Principia philosophiae cartesianae"" at its "Prolegomenon" identified "cogito ergo sum" the ""ego sum cogitans"" (I am a thinking being) as the thinking substance with his ontological interpretation. It can also be considered that "Cogito ergo sum" is needed before any living being can go further in life". Although the idea expressed in "cogito, ergo sum" is widely attributed to Descartes, he was not the first to mention it. Plato spoke about the "knowledge of knowledge" (Greek νόησις νοήσεως "nóesis noéseos") and Aristotle explains the idea in full length: But if life
Cogito and the History of Madness his point of departure for "Cogito and the History of Madness" is Foucault's 1961 book "Folie et déraison". Derrida's paper primarily relies on two sections of Foucault's work, the original 1961 preface in which Foucault makes a number of general comments about the book, setting forth his intentions and methodology, and two and a half pages at the start of the second chapter where Foucault links Descartes to an historical event that silenced madness at the end of the classical age. Foucault's 1961 text was heavily abridged for a popular edition in 1964 that formed the basis for Richard Howard's