...which is essentially the point Kiekegaard was making, which is to say that 'I' is only assumed to exist. This is to say that "I" is self-created. Being self-created, it is an illusion.
Here is his argument once again:
Søren Kierkegaard's critique
The Danish philosopher
Søren Kierkegaard provided a critical response to the
cogito.
[16] Kierkegaard argues that the
cogito already presupposes the existence of "I", and therefore concluding with existence is logically trivial. Kierkegaard's argument can be made clearer if one extracts the premise "I think" into two further premises:
"x" thinks
I am that "x"
Therefore I think
Therefore I am
Where "x" is used as a placeholder in order to disambiguate the "I" from the thinking thing.
[17]
Here, the
cogito has already assumed the "I"'s existence as that which thinks. For Kierkegaard, Descartes is merely "developing the content of a concept", namely that the "I", which already exists, thinks.
[18]
Kierkegaard argues that the value of the
cogito is not its logical argument, but its
psychological appeal: a thought must have something that exists to think the thought. It is psychologically difficult to think "I do not exist". But as Kierkegaard argues, the proper logical flow of argument is that existence is already assumed or presupposed in order for thinking to occur, not that existence is concluded from that thinking.
[19]
IOW, all there actually is in reality, is thinking itself, via observation. There is no thinker of thoughts, nor observer of the observed. We just assume there is.
So can you answer the question: where is this 'I' that thinks; that fears the grave; that stands up from the dust; that goes on into an afterlife? All of that, including the 'I', is just the product of the imagination, without an 'imagin-er'.
