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The crisis of the Cogito

Abstract

If Descartes's Cogito can be held as the opening of the era of modern subjectivity, it is to the extent that the “I” is taken for the first time in the position of foundation, i.e., as the ultimate condition for the possibility of all philosophical discourse. The question raised in this paper is whether the crisis of the Cogito, opened later by Hume, Nietzsche and Heidegger on different philosophical grounds, is not already contemporaneous to the very positing of the Cogito.

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References

  • Descartes, René: 1979, Mediations on First Philosophy, Hackett, Indianopolis.

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  • Guéroult, M.: 1953, Descartes selon l'ordre des raisons, Aubier-Montaigne, Paris.

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Ricoeur, P. The crisis of the Cogito . Synthese 106, 57–66 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00413614

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00413614

Keywords

  • Philosophical Ground
  • Philosophical Discourse
  • Ultimate Condition
  • Modern Subjectivity