New York Dada known and controversial across the New York, as well as American in general, art scene. His personality was equally intoxicating as his art; according to Richter, "Duchamp's attitude is that life is a melancholy joke, an indecipherable non-sense, not worth the trouble of investigating. To his superior intelligence the total absurdity of life, the contingent nature of a world denuded of all values, are logical consequences of Descartes' Cogito ergo sum." Most famous amongst the works created by Duchamp in the New York period were his ready-mades, particularly the piece entitled "Fountain". During his time in New York he maintained
Cogito, ergo sum itself is good and pleasant (...) and if one who sees is conscious that he sees, one who hears that he hears, one who walks that he walks and similarly for all the other human activities there is a faculty that is conscious of their exercise, so that whenever we perceive, we are conscious that we perceive, and whenever we think, we are conscious that we think, and to be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious that we exist... ("Nicomachean Ethics", 1170a25 ff.) Augustine of Hippo in "De Civitate Dei" writes "Si […] fallor, sum"