Re: Query: Boku desu sentence meaning.

Phil wrote:
On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 11:38:52 GMT, Paul Blay wrote:


Nigel Greenwood wrote:

As a matter of interest, what's the standard translation in Japanese
of "I think, therefore I am"?

我思うゆえに我あり



Or コーギトー・エルゴー・スム (ko-gito erugo- sumu: Cogito Ergo Sum). Interestingly, if
you look up the Japanese 我思う、故に我あり in the Kojien, it explains it with the
katakana as follows:

我思う、故に我あり
〔哲〕デカルトの言葉「コギトーエルゴースム(cogito, ergo sumﾗﾃﾝ）」の訳語。

A purist, though, would take issue with the Kojien. Descartes originally
wrote the expression in French and not in Latin, "Je pense, donc je suis"
as you can see in la quatrième partie at this site:

Odd. It's much more obviously a case of begging the question in French than the usual Latin. I've always wondered how he could publish that with a straight face.

Bart
.

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