There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are "immediate certainties"; for instance, "I think," or as the superstition of Schopenhauer puts it, "I will"; as though cognition here got hold of its object purely and simply as "the thing in itself," without any falsification taking place either on the part of the subject or the object. I would repeat it, however, a hundred times, that "immediate certainty," as well as "absolute knowledge" and the "thing in itself," involve a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO; we really ought to free ourselves from the misleading significance of words!
What do you believe to be self-evidently and absolutely true?
Descartes believed that, without a doubt, “he thinks."
Schopenhauer believed in desires, or what he called "The Will."
Kant believed in “the thing in itself," or objects independent of experience
These "immediate certainties", Nietzsche argues, contain a contradiction in terms. It is merely the clever uses of language that seduce us into believing in such beliefs.
The people on their part may think that cognition is knowing all about things, but the philosopher must say to himself: "When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: for instance, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking—that I KNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? In short, the assertion 'I think,' assumes that I COMPARE my state at the present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection with further 'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for me."—
While people may accept such “immediate certainties”, the philosopher will not. He will question and dissect them. Here's an example of an investigation that might occur:
“I think” presupposes some being that causes the thinking, namely "I". It also presupposes that this "I" understands what thinking is, but how do we know what this thinking is? How do we know it is not instead a "feeling"? No, thinking is not some specific grounded state of being; it is instead defined through its relation amongst other states. Thinking is complex; we cannot assume it to be self-evident.
In place of the "immediate certainty" in which the people may believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of metaphysical questions presented to him, veritable conscience questions of the intellect, to wit: "Whence did I get the notion of 'thinking'? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an 'ego,' and even of an 'ego' as cause, and finally of an 'ego' as cause of thought?" He who ventures to answer these metaphysical questions at once by an appeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception, like the person who says, "I think, and know that this, at least, is true, actual, and certain"—will encounter a smile and two notes of interrogation in a philosopher nowadays. "Sir," the philosopher will perhaps give him to understand, "it is improbable that you are not mistaken, but why should it be the truth?"
The philosopher reveals for himself a veritable bundle of metaphysical questions from these "immediate certainties:"
Where do I get the concept of thinking?
What gives me the right to speak of an ego?
And so philosophers will attempt to provide answers to these questions. But isn't this searching for some absolute truth also assume that absolute truth exists? Is the philosopher, therefore, doing nothing differently than the people who accepted immediate certainties?
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