Discourse on the Method Discourse on the Method Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences () is a philosophical and autobiographical treatise published by René Descartes in 1637. It is best known as the source of the famous quotation ""Je pense, donc je suis"" (English: "I think, therefore I am", or "I am thinking, therefore I exist"), which occurs in Part IV of the work. The similar Latin statement, "Cogito, ergo sum", is found in "Meditations on First Philosophy" (1641) and "Principles of Philosophy" (1644). "Discourse on the Method" is one of the most influential
Cogito, ergo sum in the former case, and an objective thinker in the latter. He argues, first, that it is impossible to make sense of "there is thinking" without relativizing it to "something." However, this something cannot be Cartesian egos, because it is impossible to differentiate objectively between things just on the basis of the pure content of consciousness. The obvious problem is that, through introspection, or our experience of consciousness, we have no way of moving to conclude the existence of any third-personal fact, to conceive of which would require something above and beyond just the purely subjective contents of the mind.