Title: The Nature of Self and the Power of Deception: A Commentary on Descartes’ Meditations

6. But [as to myself, what can I now say that I am], since I suppose
there exists an extremely powerful, and, if I may so speak, malignant
being, whose whole endeavors are directed toward deceiving me ? Can
I affirm that I possess any one of all those attributes of which I have
lately spoken as belonging to the nature of body ? After attentively
considering them in my own mind, I find none of them that can
properly be said to belong to myself. To recount them were idle and
tedious. Let us pass, then, to the attributes of the soul. The first
mentioned were the powers of nutrition and walking; but, if it be true
that I have no body, it is true likewise that I am capable neither of
walking nor of being nourished. Perception is another attribute of the
soul; but perception too is impossible without the body; besides, I
have frequently, during sleep, believed that I perceived objects which I
afterward observed I did not in reality perceive. Thinking is another
attribute of the soul; and here I discover what properly belongs to
myself. This alone is inseparable from me. I am–I exist: this is certain;
but how often? As often as I think; for perhaps it would even happen,
if I should wholly cease to think, that I should at the same time
altogether cease to be. I now admit nothing that is not necessarily true.
I am therefore, precisely speaking, only a thinking thing, that is, a
mind (mens sive animus), understanding, or reason, terms whose
signification was before unknown to me. I am, however, a real thing,
and really existent; but what thing? The answer was, a thinking thing.
Commentary on this passage, references done in harvard style.