When Descartes claims that universal doubt can arrive at a clear and distinct certainty (of its own doubt,) he is not making the claim that thought alone can ground itself as such (“I think, therefore (something) thinks”) but rather, that thought splits itself from its own extension. Neither does he make the claim that any action whatsoever demonstrates the existence of the actor-- he makes it clear that it’s not “I eat, therefore I am” or “I work, therefore I am.”
I don’t need to go too much deeper than this to demonstrate that Descartes is in fact proposing a much more radical (and even scientific) claim in the cogito. My question is: how is this idea relevant to today, and why? What does the cogito mean for the future of thought? Have we moved beyond the cogito–and if so, just where exactly are “we”?