What Follows from the cogito argument
I can't doubt "I think: therefore I am"
That is the cogito argument
I can doubt that I have a body
So, not true: I = my body
this is a fallacious argument.
compare
I cannot doubt, Pittsburgh is where I teach
I can doubt, Pittsburgh is 100 years old
So, not true: where I teach is 100 years old
the right inference. Not necessarily true, I= my body
i.e. like. I am not necessarily in this 100 year old city
Hobbes' objection
"It seems not to be a valid argument to say 'I am conscious, therefore I am a consciousness'. For I might as well say 'I am walking therefore I am a walk'.... All philosophers distinguish a subject from its faculties and acts, that is from its properties and essential characters....
This really is a grammatical point.
Hobbes doesn't put it exactly that way
Action requires an actor
That is, a verb requires noun
and Nothing more is proven
these are facts about grammar
not truths about world
Descartes' reply:
"There is no comparison here between consciousness and a walk; the term a walk is usually understood only of the act of walking; whereas consciousness is taken sometimes for an act, sometimes for a faculty, sometimes for the subject possessing the faculty."
Compare,
I am conscious
Which identifies what I am, with
I am conscious of that tree
Which identifies what I the conscious subject see
Descartes says:
"It is certain that experience cannot exist apart from an experiencing being, nor in general can any actor accident exist apart from a substance to inhere in.... acts we call conscious, e.g. understanding, willing, imagining, feeling; these all fall under the common concept of consciousness... and we call the substance in which they inhere a conscious being or mind."
Descartes' vocabulary.
Substances are what endure
Some are physical, others spiritual
Properties of substances can change
The wax has a shape, texture, color
Analogously, the soul performs various actions
Thinking, sensing, dreaming, feeling