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 the "I" from the thinking thing. Here, the "cogito" has already assumed the "I"'s existence as that which thinks. For Kierkegaard, Descartes is merely "developing the content of a concept", namely that the "I", which already exists, thinks. As Kierkegaard argues, the proper logical flow of argument is that existence is already assumed or presupposed in order for thinking to occur, not that existence is concluded from that thinking. Bernard Williams claims that what we are dealing with when we talk of thought, or when we say "I am thinking," is something conceivable from a third-person perspective; namely objective "thought-events"