{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 20/c02-01/p008","lang":"en","edition":"MP1990","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"With respect to the statement “I think, therefore I am,” one need only say something that seems quite simple if one wants to refute it. This is after all the way with so many thoughts a person incorporates into his world view: they are not dispelled by elaborate objections but rather by noting simple facts. One does not undervalue the thinking power of a personality like Descartes by confronting him with a simple fact. The fable of the egg of Columbus is true forever.[^1] And it is also true that the statement “I think, therefore I am” simply shatters upon the fact of human sleep. Every sleep, which interrupts thinking, shows—not, indeed, that there is no being in thinking—but that in any case “I am, even when I am not thinking.” Therefore, if only thinking is the source for *being*, then nothing could guarantee the *being* of soul states in which thinking has ceased. Although Fichte did not express this train of thought in this form, one can still definitely say: The power lying within these simple facts worked—unconsciously—in his soul and kept him from taking a path like that taken by Descartes.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Idealism as an Awakening of the Soul: Johann Gottlieb Fichte","site_heading":null,"date":null,"location":null,"word_count":193,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/20/c02-01/p008","alignment_confidence":"low","alignment_reason":"no_original_to_compare","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":null,"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["MP1990"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"en","edition":"MP1990","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/20/c02-01/p008"}],"witness_completeness":{"ratio":null,"band":"no_original","note":null,"word_count":3870,"original_word_count":null,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"not_checkable","note":"No verified paragraph alignment covers this passage, so its names cannot be compared with the German."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}