The Cartesian cogito is the only absolute truth grounding all other knowledge.

Evidence

And at the point of departure there cannot be any other truth than this, I think, therefore I am, which is the absolute truth of consciousness as it attains to itself. Every theory which begins with man, outside of this moment of self-attainment, is a theory which thereby suppresses the truth, for outside of the Cartesian cogito, all objects are no more than probable, and any doctrine of probabilities which is not attached to a truth will crumble into nothing. In order to define the probable one must possess the true. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 21

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Cartesian cogito as foundationalism — the reader’s prior work on epistemology grounds this move as the existentialist variant of a foundationalist grounding. — connects to: Sartre rejects the Cartesian split of free will from determined passions — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1078; Facticity is only ever graspable as already recovered and freely constructed — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 345; All knowledge is positional, shaped by the thinker’s formation (+10 more)

Related

• Sartre’s concepts change meaning across Being and Nothingness due to his Cartesian method (similarity 0.84)
• Sartre’s Cartesian subject-object split produces his overestimation of matter (similarity 0.83)
• Sartre rejected Cartesian dualism by treating material givens as meaning-sedimented facticities (similarity 0.82)
• Sartre rejects the Cartesian split of free will from determined passions (similarity 0.81)
• 1970s reference theory rejected the self-present Cartesian subject avant la lettre. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• All knowledge is positional, shaped by the thinker’s formation #qualifies (0.75)
• Facticity is only ever graspable as already recovered and freely constructed #qualifies (0.72) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 345
• Sartre rejected Cartesian dualism by treating material givens as meaning-sedimented facticities #complicates (0.72) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 63
• Bantu personhood rejects Cartesian cogito in favor of relational compassion #contradicts (0.72)
• Wonder was displaced by Cartesian doubt in modernity #expands (0.72) — Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 40
• Loss of proprioception reduces one’s self to an abstract Cartesian ghost #complicates (0.72) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 736
• Colonial order and the Cartesian mind both rest on a spectator facing a world-show #complicates (0.70) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 547
• Colonial conquest preceded and founded Cartesian rational thought #complicates (0.70)
• Foucault traces the subversion of the Cartesian subject to Modernist literature and philosophy #complicates (0.70) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 287
• 1970s reference theory rejected the self-present Cartesian subject avant la lettre. #complicates (0.70)
• Sartre’s concepts change meaning across Being and Nothingness due to his Cartesian method #expands (0.70) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 212