Will, I Think, I Am

'A, ergo B' usually signifies a relation of inclusion obtaining between a property represented in A and a property represented in B. Accordingly, Descartes' 'I think, therefore I am' actually expresses a relation of inclusion between two attributes of 'I'--'a thinking being' and 'am'--which he derives from the sundering of the unitary process 'I think' into 'I' and 'think'. If so, then though the explicit sequence of his project is, first, the establishment 'that I am', and, then, the determination of 'what I am', the latter implicitly precedes the former. One alternative case in which the inference is valid is when A and B are identical. For example, insofar as Cogito is, as has been previously discussed, a mode of Will, the assertion that 'I am' and 'I think' are equivalent could be an expression of the thesis that to Exist is to Will, i. e. that to Exist is an indefinite dynamic process, a 'that' that indeed precedes, in the order of Descartes' presentation, its 'what'. However, it seems unlikely that this is the interpretation that he intends.