Richard Watson (philosopher) Richard Watson (philosopher) Richard A. Watson (born 1931) is an American philosopher, speleologist and author. Watson taught philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis for forty years. He is considered one of the foremost living authorities on Descartes. He is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy for Washington University in St. Louis. He has a degree in geology specializing in "paleoclimatology of 10,000 years ago." This involved the development of agrarian societies in the Fertile Crescent. From July 1965 to July 1967, he was president of the Cave Research Foundation. His book, "Cogito, Ergo Sum: a life of René Descartes" was
Cogito, ergo sum Translation needs a larger context to determine aspect. Following John Lyons (1982), Vladimir Žegarac notes, "The temptation to use the simple present is said to arise from the lack of progressive forms in Latin and French, and from a misinterpretation of the meaning of "cogito" as habitual or generic." (Cf. gnomic aspect.) Ann Banfield writes (also following Lyons), "In order for the statement on which Descartes's argument depends to represent certain knowledge, … its tense must be a true present—in English, a progressive, … not as 'I think' but as 'I am thinking, in conformity with the general translation of