Key Arguments

• He includes imagining as a real power of the self even if its objects are false: "for although it may be (as I before supposed) that nothing I imagine is true, still the power of imagination does not cease really to exist in me and to form part of my thought."
• He likewise identifies himself as the one who perceives, describing perception as a kind of seeming through the senses: "In fine, I am the same being who perceives, that is, who apprehends certain objects as by the organs of sense, since, in truth, I see light, hear a noise, and feel heat."
• He concedes that such sensory presentations may be false or dreamt: "But it will be said that these presentations are false, and that I am dreaming. Let it be so."
• He maintains that the phenomenological fact of seeming to sense cannot be false: "At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false,"
• He concludes that this kind of perceiving is nothing but a mode of thought: "and this is what in me is properly called perceiving (sentire), which is nothing else than thinking."

Source Quotes

For it is of itself so evident that it is I who doubt, I who understand, and I who desire, that it is here unnecessary to add anything by way of rendering it more clear. And I am as certainly the same being who imagines; for although it may be (as I before supposed) that nothing I imagine is true, still the power of imagination does not cease really to exist in me and to form part of my thought. In fine, I am the same being who perceives, that is, who apprehends certain objects as by the organs of sense, since, in truth, I see light, hear a noise, and feel heat.

And I am as certainly the same being who imagines; for although it may be (as I before supposed) that nothing I imagine is true, still the power of imagination does not cease really to exist in me and to form part of my thought. In fine, I am the same being who perceives, that is, who apprehends certain objects as by the organs of sense, since, in truth, I see light, hear a noise, and feel heat. But it will be said that these presentations are false, and that I am dreaming.

In fine, I am the same being who perceives, that is, who apprehends certain objects as by the organs of sense, since, in truth, I see light, hear a noise, and feel heat. But it will be said that these presentations are false, and that I am dreaming. Let it be so. At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false, and this is what in me is properly called perceiving (sentire), which is nothing else than thinking.

Let it be so. At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false, and this is what in me is properly called perceiving (sentire), which is nothing else than thinking. From this I begin to know what I am with somewhat greater clearness and distinctness than heretofore.

Key Concepts

• for although it may be (as I before supposed) that nothing I imagine is true, still the power of imagination does not cease really to exist in me and to form part of my thought.
• In fine, I am the same being who perceives, that is, who apprehends certain objects as by the organs of sense, since, in truth, I see light, hear a noise, and feel heat.
• But it will be said that these presentations are false, and that I am dreaming. Let it be so.
• At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false,
• this is what in me is properly called perceiving (sentire), which is nothing else than thinking.

Context

Later in Meditation II, where Descartes subsumes sensory perception under the category of thought to preserve its indubitable aspect while maintaining skepticism about external objects.