cogito

1. (philosophy, often preceded by the, sometimes capitalized) The argument "cogito, ergo sum" ("I think therefore I am") from the philosophy of René Descartes; the mental act of thinking this thought; a conscious being which performs this mental act.Examples: "The Cogito of Descartes and Husserl is an apprehension of fact. […] Such a Cogito is performed by a consciousness directed upon consciousness, a consciousness which takes consciousness as an object."; "But are there not as many consciousnesses or cogitos as there are individuals?"; "An obvious candidate for this class of propositions would be the cogito, whose evidence, Descartes insisted, is not founded on inference."capitalizedsometimesuncountableusually