From Self-Constitution to Self-Objectification

Abstract

According to Charles Taylor (1989), the opposition between humanity’s self-determining capacities and nature’s deterministic laws characterizes modernity from the outset. An early and seminal formulation of this opposition can be found in René Descartes’ differentiation of res cogitans (thinking substance) from res extensia (extended substance). Having thus divided the world into ‘immaterial thoughts’ and ‘unthinking matter’ Descartes is concerned to account for how the former can obtain ‘objective’ knowledge of the latter. However, while Descartes’ cogito ergo sum provides the template for subsequent attempts to achieve self-certain knowledge, he is unable to bridge the gap between ‘thought’ and ‘being’ except by recourse to a benign divinity (Descartes 1968, p. 158).