Document Type : Research Paper

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Abstract

This article begins with a brief description of Descartes' cogito and its effect on man's authenticity and his development. In fact, by establishing the principle of cogito, and analyzing it as the established basis of the universe, he considers human ego as the real subject because there is an "I" who is doing the thinking. According to Descartes, man is like a machine, and excels other beings. This privileged feature, i. e. self, whose substance is thinking, has been studied from different aspects within the entire thinking of the modern age. Moreover, it is this famous Cartesian principle – I think, therefore I exist – that focuses "subjectivism" in its philosophical system; therefore, "subjectivism" is one of the basic and important issues of Western philosophy that in its evolutionary phases has been epistemologically studied by Descartes as well as Kant and Hegel in the modern age. Finally, "solipsism" as the extreme point of "subjectivism" is dealt with in this article. Of course, Descartes avoids his subjectivism finding a solipsist interpretation in an ideal sense.

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