Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 20:12:00 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re:  In dubium revocari


Miichael Eldred (in response to Anthony Crifasi):

>Cologne, 01 July 1998
>
>Anthony Crifasi schrieb u.a.:
>> If my analysis of the above Aristotelian texts is correct, then the reason
>"such
>> representations play no part in Aristotle's discussion" is that he considers
>it to
>> be indubitable that "the thing out there is really there in the way it shows
>itself."
>
>Anthony, we seem to have come somewhat adrift of the starting point of this
>discussion, which was the subject/object distinction. The above formulation
>concerning the =93thing out there=94 which you cite repeatedly does indeed
point to
>the issue we are discussing. I agree with you that Aristotle is concerned with
>necessary truths, so the issue becomes how to interpret Descartes=92
>radicalization of doubt to the point where the only certainty left is the
>cogitating subject itself, the =93fundamentum absolutum et inconcussum=94 of
=93cogito
>me cogitare=94. This subject now underlies (_hypokeimesthai_) all knowledge, and
>the subject can only be certain of its own representations in
consciousness. Not
>only the *appearances* of things which lie before us (_hypokeimenon_) in the
>world can be deceiving, but the very lying-before-us of the _hypokeimenon_
>itself is now put into doubt. This lying-before-us itself comes to be a
>philosophical problem in modernity, as you describe, from Descartes through
>Leibniz and Hume to Kant.
>
>Kant=92s transcendental philosophy approaches this problem by demonstrating that
>pure subjective reason itself is capable (hat das Vermoegen) of
constituting the
>object apriori in its objectivity. What was lying-before-us as the
>_hypokeimenon_ for Aristotle now becomes what is standing over against
>(Gegen-Stand) the conscious subject as an achievement of pure reason. This
shift
>is what Heidegger characterizes as the shift in the historical essencing of
>truth from the adequacy of the statement (_logos_) to the things themselves
>(_onta kath=92auto_), to the certitude for the subject of the object in its
>objectivity. One (and only one) indication of this is that for Aristotle,
logic
>is only formal logic, whereas Kant=92s main efforts are directed at the
grounding
>of transcendental logic.
>
>Heidegger=92s interpretation of Kant=92s _Critique of Pure Reason_ (which in turn
>owes a lot to Husserl=92s phenomenological interpretations of Kant) aims at
>showing that what Kant took to be the achievement of pure reason was that
of the
>pure power of imagination (Einbildungskraft), and that this power of
imagination
>is nothing other than time itself, i.e. that it is not the subject which
>constitutes the worldliness of the world, either through reason nor through
>imagination, but that the subject (Dasein) is always already temporal.

It seems to me that one of the issues here is whether certainty (certitude)
is possible at all in the sense sought by Aristotle or Descartes. They both
sought, in other words, to ground discourse in what Nietzsche termed an
"immediate certainty," i.e., in something that must be taken as being
indubitably true (indubitably certain). It really doesn't matter, it seems
to me, whether one locates what is indubitably true in a direct perception
of what is "out there" (the object) or in a conceptual intuition of what is
"in here" (the subject). The opposition occurs in either case. However, if
one dispenses with the notion of an immediate certainty (of the indubitably
true), then what appears most certain to us need not be either certain or
immediate. The appearance (phenomenon) of certainty, in other words, would
be contingent on other appearances (which would be contingent on still other
appearances). Rather, certainty (or uncertainty) is a judgment we make of
appearances based on their behavior in concert, as belonging to each other,
as forming a constellation or continuum.

Best,

Steve C.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
=A6 Steven E. Callihan            =A6 "It is the stillest words that bring  =A6
=A6                               =A6 on the storm. Thoughts that come on   =A6
=A6                               =A6 doves' feet guide the world."         =A6
=A6 URL: http://www.callihan.com/ =A6 -F. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra,=A6
=A6 E-Mail: callihan-AT-callihan.com =A6 II, "The Stillest Hour"               =A6
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