ABSTRACT
Though the cogito is Descartes' first truth, it does not follow that it is true in any peculiar or unique fashion. If it were we could not derive from it a guarantee of other clear and distinct truths. It is a first truth only because found first, not because of a superior intrinsic credibility. Nothing can be inferred about the self's place in reality from the fact that the cogito is a first truth. In metaphysics, says Descartes, the order of proof is not the same as the order of things. Ontologically, God is the supreme reality, but the analytic method does not require the affirmation of His existence as the first step in metaphysics. The cogito ergo sum is commonly declared to be Descartes' first principle. The cogito is a proposition, which declares that something, namely the self, really exists. Its quality as a proposition is to be true or false.
