Martin Heidegger and the Last Crusade
In his work Discourse on the Method, Descartes expresses: “But regarding the opinions to which I had hitherto given credence, I thought that I could not do better than undertake to get rid of them [old foundations of philosophical beliefs], all at one go, in order to replace them afterwards with better ones, or with the same ones once I had squared them with the standards of reason” (Descartes, Dis. 26). These two approaches are, undoubtedly, similar in nature, but it is possible to distinguish a major difference—it is Heidegger’s turn this time to bring down this so-called “new and firm footing” (Heidegger 46) that Descartes laboriously establishes. Indeed, Heidegger criticizes the Cartesian proof of existence and the famous expression cogito ergo sum[1] by proving that Descartes fails to support the ontological nature of Being, specifically, “by working out the unexpressed ontological foundations of the ‘cogito sum’, we shall complete out sojourn at the second station along the path of our destructive retrospect of the history of ontology” (46). Therefore, in this paper, I will first present the Cartesian approach to the question of Being. After that, I will show how the Heideggerian argument successfully demolishes the Cartesian foundation—a process that is vital to the understanding of this thousand-year-old Holy Grail of philosophy.
In Discourse on the Method, Descartes introduces his cogito sum with a high level of confidence: “And observing that this truth ‘I am thinking, therefore I exist’ was so firm and sure that all the most extravagant suppositions of the sceptics were incapable of shaking it, I decided that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking” (Descartes, Dis. 36). Here it is apparent that the key to the Cartesian concept of existence is the connection between thinking and existence. Descartes himself would later claim: “I observed that there is nothing at all in the proposition ‘I am thinking, therefore I exist’ to assure me that I am speaking the truth, except that I see very clearly that in order to think it is necessary to exist” (36). This statement shows how Descartes firmly establishes the connection between thinking and existence.
As a profound scientist and mathematician, Descartes obviously takes the utmost care in his process of proving one’s existence, and he is careful enough to dedicate an entire session of his Meditations on First Philosophy to the exploration of the “I”: “But I do not yet have a sufficient understanding of what this ‘I’ is, that now necessarily exists. So I must be on my guard against carelessly taking something to be this ‘I’, and so making a mistake in the very item of knowledge that I maintain is the most certain and evident of all” (Med. 81). Pursuing this adventure, Descartes finally proves that he is inevitably a “thinking thing”: “But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (83). Therefore, when forced to define the “I,” Descartes brilliantly chooses to identify himself as a “thinking thing.” But what exactly is a “thinking thing?” Sadly, he stops short right at that moment and does not go on to pursue what it means to be a “thing”—an invaluable missing piece of the puzzle that later Heidegger would exploit and condemn. I will therefore discuss this point later in this paper, as evidence of how Heidegger calls into doubt the Cartesian philosophy.
Furthermore, Descartes can only come to this conclusion after he has introduced the idea of the “wax.” At first when he observes the wax, Descartes comes into relation with it only through sensory perception: “It [the wax] has just been taken from the honey comb; it has not yet quite lost the taste of the honey; it retains some of the scent of the flowers from which it was gathered; its colour, shape, and size are plain to see; it is hard, cold and can be handled without difficulty; if you rap it with your knuckle it makes a sound” (84). However, as Descartes notes, the relationship between oneself and the wax goes beyond mere senses once the wax is put next to a fire—that is, a transformation has occurred. The wax is nonetheless still a wax, according to Descartes, but he concludes, at that moment, his relationship with the wax is established based not only on mere sensory perception but also by thoughts: “Perhaps the answer lies in the thought which now comes to my mind; namely, the wax was not after all the sweetness of the honey, or the fragrance of the flowers, or the whiteness, or the shape, or the sound, but was rather a body which presented itself to me in these various forms a little while ago, but which now exhibits different ones” (84). Heidegger would later refer to this idea as res extensa, or the thing which extends itself outward in space.
Let me step back and understand this notion of the wax as a res extensa. Originally, the wax itself has the shape and feel of wax, which is familiar to our senses and helps us realize this is a piece of wax. Conversely, when the wax undergoes transformation, that is when we place it next to a fire, it melts, but we still come to understand it as a wax. Thus, the wax extends itself outward with this possibility of taking a different appearance. Descartes believes, with absolute confidence, that this process of thinking would eventually lead one to capture the existence of oneself: “I now know that even bodies are not strictly perceived by the senses or the faculty of imagination but by the intellect alone, and that this perception derives not from their being touched or seen but from their being understood” (86). Sadly, Descartes, in his dedication to prove God’s existence, hastily makes a presupposition that will later backfire and come under scrutiny by many later thinkers; the foremost of which is undoubtedly Heidegger. In his explanation regarding the cause of the idea of God, Descartes quickly concludes: “The only remaining alternative is that it is innate in me, just as the idea of myself is innate in me” (97). Unfortunately for Descartes, Heidegger would later refute not only this innate idea[2] but also all the Cartesian opinions I have revisited.
First, Heidegger reexamines the Cartesian concept of res extensa as mentioned previously: “Descartes sees the extensio as basically definitive ontologically for the world” (Heidegger 122). What I understand from this statement is that through Descartes’s eyes, the world is made up of bodily substances[3] and corporeal things that spread out to a definable space. Later on, Heidegger strikes at the heart of the Cartesian reasoning of the wax, when he proposes: “Matter may have such definite characteristics as hardness, weight, and colour; (durities, pondus, color) ; but these can all be taken away from it, and it still remains what it is. These do not go to make up its real Being; and in so far as they are, they turn out to be modes of extensio” (124). Potentially, this may pose as a problem for Descartes as Heidegger hints in this statement that mere appearance of an object may not allow one to access to its “real Being.” In other words, no matter how long one tries to look at or touch the wax, it relates to us as only a wax and nothing else. Here I should step back and introduce the Heideggerian ideas of the “present-at-hand,” “readiness-to-hand” and their differences in order to better understand the problem.
In Being and Time, Heidegger clearly defines “readiness-to-hand” as: “The kind of Being which equipment possesses—in which it manifests itself in its own right—we call “readiness-to-hand”. Only because equipment has this ‘Being-in-itself’ and does not merely occur, is it manipulable in the broadest sense and at our disposal” (98). Recalling earlier when I addressed the Cartesian problem of failing to pursue the meaning of a “thing,” here in his quest to define the idea of “equipment” and the “readiness-to-hand,” Heidegger successfully pursues the true meaning of this term by outright denial of the Cartesian belief: “When one designates Things as the entities that are ‘proximally given’, one goes ontologically astray, even though ontically one has something else in mind” (96). Afterwards, Heidegger shares his definition, which is clearly more thorough than the Cartesian counterpart:
The Greeks has an appropriate term for ‘Things’: πράγματα—that is to say, that which one has to do with in one’s concernful dealings. But ontologically, the specifically ‘pragmatic’ character of the πράγματα is just what the Greeks left in obscurity; they thought of these ‘proximally’ as ‘mere Things’. We shall call those entities which we encounter in concern “equipment” … Equipment is essentially ‘something in-order-to …’ ” (96-97)
After establishing this connection between equipment and its readiness-to-hand, Heidegger is ready to strike at the foundation of the matter: “No matter how sharply we just look at the ‘outward appearance’ of Things in whatever form this takes [Heidegger considers this to be a characteristic of the “present-at-hand”], we cannot discover anything ready-to-hand” (98). Here Heidegger is clear in attaching the Cartesian approach to mere examination of the present-at-hand and condemning this as a failure to achieve what Descartes himself sets out to prove, which is the relationship between existence and thinking. Pure analysis of the “present-at-hand” poses a challenge to any ontological examination because “ ‘Being’ is not in fact accessible as an entity, it is expressed through attributes—definite characteristics of the entities under consideration, characteristics which themselves are” (127, emphasis added). Thus, no matter how hard one tries to look, touch, smell, or knock on the wax, it returns nothing to oneself in terms of understand one’s existence. Furthermore, Heidegger has also been careful in his critique of Descartes as he admits it may not be fair for him to access any principles that are “beyond his horizon” (131). In order to settle a fair treatment for Descartes, Heidegger concludes:
In his doctrine of the res cogitans and the res extensa, Descartes not only wants to formulate the problem of ‘the “I” and the world’; he claims to have solved it in a radical manner … By taking his basic ontological orientation from traditional sources and not subjecting it to positive criticism, he has made it impossible to lay bare any primordial[4] ontological problematic of Dasein[5]; this has inevitably obstructed his view of the phenomenon of the world. (131)
Here Heidegger clarifies that Descartes, in his haste to prove one’s existence, has neglected his reasoning of Being, and getting himself into a trouble Heidegger labels “pass over”: “A glance at previous ontology shows that if one fails to see Being-in-the-world as a state of Dasein, the phenomenon of worldhood likewise gets passed over. One tries instead to Interpret the world in terms of the Being of those entities which are present-at-hand within-the-world but which are by no means proximally discovered” (93). Therefore, by proving that through mere examination of the “present-at-hand” it is impossible to thoroughly understand Dasein, or Being, Heidegger successfully reveals a fundamental mistake in the Cartesian logical reasoning process, which has reigned over the modern philosophy for centuries.
Despite committing the above mistakes, Descartes should never be disregarded completely, for even Heidegger himself admits that when he starts, Descartes is heading in the right direction: “But if we recall that spatiality is manifestly one of the constituents of the entities within-the-world, then in the end the Cartesian analysis of the ‘world’ can still be ‘rescued’ ” (134). Conversely, Descartes fails to capture the Holy Grail simply because he does not take that last step further and instead creates an illusive presupposition: “Within certain limits the analysis of the extensio remains independent of his neglecting to provide an explicit interpretation for the Being of extended entities” (134). This is a vital lesson to the practice of philosophy since many past thinkers put forth the question of doubt and humility as an essence in the pursuit of wisdom.[6]
In Discourse on the Method, René Descartes lays down several rules on his philosophical methodology. The first of which is, “never to accept anything as true if I did not have evident knowledge of its truth: that is, carefully to avoid precipitate conclusions and preconceptions, and to include nothing more in my judgements than what presented itself to my mind co clearly and so distinctly that I had no occasion to call it into doubt” (Descartes, Dis. 29). Clearly, in his attempt to prove one’s existence, Descartes fails this first rule, and strictly abided by the Cartesian standard, it is not appropriate to move on any longer. He naively creates this connection between thinking and existence by mere examination of the appearance of an object. To Heidegger, this is impossible if one takes into account the concept of the “readiness-to-hand” and its relation to the equipmental totality of Dasein. Regrettably, the greatest defender of the “absolute certainty” method in philosophy has fallen, once again, and so it is suitable and timely to revisit a wake-up call by Friedrich Nietzsche at the beginning of Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer: “This time they are not just idols of the age, but eternal idols, which are here touched with a hammer as with a tuning fork” (Nietzsche, Twi. 466, emphasis added). [7]
Works Cited
Descartes, René. Discourse on the Method. Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings. Trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge UP, 2009. 20-56. Print.
———. Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings. Trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge UP, 2009. 73-122. Print.
———. Principles of Philosophy. Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings. Trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge UP, 2009. 160-212. Print.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Print.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer. The Portable Nietzsche. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Penguin Books, 1982. Print.
[1] I think, therefore, I exist.
[2] This idea leads to a problem commonly known as the “Cartesian circle,” which many philosophers disregard.
[3] Descartes defines “substance” as: “By substance we can understand nothing other than a thing which exists in such a way as to depend on no other thing for its existence” (Descartes, Pri. 177)
[4] That which is closest and most familiar to us.
[5] Heidegger refers to “Dasein” as an entity which is capable of understanding its Being by itself explicitly. (Heidegger 32)
[6] Socrates once said: “ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα” or, “The only thing I know is that I know nothing.”
[7] The author would like to express his appreciation towards Professor Ronald Waite’s assistance during the completion of this work.
