This
is the opener of the Logic series,
but why logic? I hope that the reader
will immediately see that the main attraction in the great rationalist’s
immortal phrase Cogito, ergo sum (at
least, to me), is the aspect of logic,
or rather of the absence thereof. Having thus sold the store up front, let us
proceed with the details.
One
of the most famous and most uplifting statements ever uttered is the great
Cartesian Cogito ergo sum! It was one of the first Latin phrases I
remember being taught as a small child, and in Russian translation it became
one of the deepest philosophical ideas that I could perfectly comprehend, which
made me happy. It also had a profound didactic effect on me, teaching me about
the life-asserting importance of thinking.
Bravo,
Dèscartes! If ever there was a perfect single-sentence made, here it is. Of
course, its unassailability rests on its declarative strength, that is, its
pep-talk on behalf of thinking, but not at all, it must be said, on its
scientific or logical correctness. As soon as my unquestioning rosy period,
with its addiction to declarative sentences, had come to an end, and a certain
skepticism for life had entered the picture, I remember asking myself, Oh
yes, cogito ergo sum is beautiful, but why does the sum follow from the cogito?
And here is where I got my big help from Nietzsche’s ineluctable Jenseits:
…There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are
“immediate certainties”; for example, “I think,” or as the superstition of
Schopenhauer put it, “I will”; as though knowledge here got hold of its object
as the “Ding-an-Sich,” without any falsification on the part of either the
subject, or the object. But that ‘immediate certainty,’ as well as ‘absolute
knowledge’ and the ‘Ding-an-Sich,’ involve a contradictio in adjecto, we really
must free ourselves from the seduction of words! In place of the immediate
certainty, the philosopher finds a series of metaphysical questions: “From where
do I get the concept of thinking? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What
gives me the right to speak of an ego, and of an ego as cause, and finally of
an ego as the cause of thought?” [Nietzsche’s
Jenseits (16).]
This
is a perfectly legitimate criticism of Dèscartes, and I remember wondering why
his Cogito, ergo sum, had to be true on the flimsiest of logical
foundations, not to mention his non-sequitur leap to the existence of God?
Bravo, Nietzsche!
But
my own criticism of Dèscartes, now that I am older, is history! As a
mathematician, Dèscartes did not have to prove anything, he only needed to
postulate. Thus, existence may be postulated as not by virtue of various
appearances of an external reality (which, by the way, can be postulated as
existing, if a number of independent observers can testify to experiencing essentially
the same thing!), but as by virtue of thinking about existence, thus
making existence as a direct object of thinking, also the reality of thinking.
Next, the existence of God can either be surmised through the same process of
thinking about God, or, as Dèscartes does it, by the following train of
thought:
“…As I observed that this truth, Cogito ergo sum, was so
certain and of such evidence, that no ground of doubt could be alleged, I
concluded that I might accept it as the first principle of the Philosophy of
which I was in search… And as I observed that in the words Cogito ergo sum there
is nothing at all which gives me assurance of their truth beyond this, that I
see very clearly that in order to think it is necessary to exist, I concluded
that I might take as a general rule the principle that all the things which we
very clearly and distinctly conceive are true, only observing, however, that
there is some difficulty in rightly determining the objects which we distinctly
conceive. …But if we did not know that all which we possess of real and true
proceeds from a Perfect and Infinite Being (God), however clear and distinct
our ideas might be, we should have no ground on that account for the assurance
that they possessed the perfection of being true. But after the knowledge of
God and of the soul has rendered us certain of this rule, we can understand
that the truth of the thoughts we experience when awake ought not to be called in
question on account of the illusions of our dreams. For if it happened that an
individual, even when asleep, had some very distinct idea, as if a geometer
should discover some new demonstration, the circumstances of his being asleep
would not militate against its truth. But whether awake or asleep, we ought
never to allow ourselves to be persuaded of the truth of anything unless on the
evidence of our Reason. And it must be noted that I say of our Reason, and
not of our imagination or of our senses.”
(Dèscartes’ Method)
I
think that nothing here can be conclusive without postulation, hence Nietzsche
is partially correct. But my idea of the creator’s right to his own truth
inside his own creation, due to the simple principle of the right of ownership,
holds in this instance. In fact, Dèscartes would have been much better off, in
the sense of being unassailable, had he claimed his creator’s prerogative directly,
rather than doing it indirectly by insisting on his method being his own but
only going this far that he did not recommend his method to be copied by any
follower, who, if an original thinker, must develop his own, and if a
mediocrity, must totally mess it up.
This
here is one of the cornerstones of my philosophical outlook. All possible
conflicts between schools of thought, sciences and religions, concepts and
applications, tools and purposes, etc., can be positively and usefully
reconciled, with the resulting common denominator defying the basic law of
dialectics: necessity of an antithesis to a thesis, for this commonness is so
universally acceptable and desirable, that no tension over it becomes
plausible, and, having nothing to do with either the Jesuits or the democrats,
this thesis of itself becomes such a tall pillar of sheer affirmation, that
Nietzsche’s famously quivering bow is now going to be loosened no matter
what. (That was obviously a very facetious stream of consciousness, as there
always will be excellent causes for mental tension and the quivering bow, but
this one is destined to become a safe harbor for the commonly acceptable
universality, a nice place to relax from all the stresses of affirmations, negations,
and from the horrors of unsettled mental inquiries. There even will be a place
for… the Ding an Sich, and the old Kant’s shadow [I am using
Nietzsche’s epithet here] may finally rest in peace.)
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