Beyond Good and Evil Essay

UPPOSING that Truth is a womanwhat then? Is thither non ground for suspecting that tout ensemble philosophers, in so distant as they create been dogmatists, have failed to understand womenthat the terrible seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for winning a woman? Certainly she has nalways al emited herself to be won and at present e truly physique of dogma stands with sad and discouraged mienIF, indeed, it stands at all For at that place are scoffers who maintain that it has fallen, that all dogma lies on the groundnay more, that it is at its last gasp. barely to enunciate seriously, t here are good grounds for hoping that all dogmatizing in philosophy, whatever solemn, whatever conclusive and decided airs it has assumed, may have been only a noble puerilism and tyronism and probably the time is at hand when it go away be once and again understood WHAT has actually sufficed for the stern of such imposing and absolute philosophical edifices as the dogmatists have notwithstanding reared perhaps some favorite superstition of immemorial time (such as the soul-superstition, which, in the form of subject- and ego-superstition, has not provided ceased doing mischief) perhaps some play upon words, a deception on the part of grammar, or an audacious generalization of very abidericted, very personal, very humanall-too-human facts. Beyond Good and Evil S The philosophy of the dogmatists, it is to be hoped, was only a promise for thousands of years afterwards, as was astrology in exempt earlier times, in the service of which probably more labour, gold, acuteness, and patience have been spent than on any actual science hitherto we owe to it, and to its super- terrestrial pretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grand style of architecture.It seems that in order to inscribe themselves upon the heart of humanity with everlasting claims, all great things have first to cheat on about the earth as enormous and awe- inspiring caricatures dogmatic philosophy has been a caricature of this kindfor instance, the Vedanta doctrine in Asia, and Platonism in Europe. allow us not be ungrateful to it, although it must certain(prenominal)ly be confessed that the worst, the approximately tiresome, and the some dangerous of errors hitherto has been a dogmatist errornamely, Platos invention of Pure Spirit and the Good in Itself.But now when it has been surmounted, when Europe, rid of this nightmare, slew again draw breath freely and at to the lowest degree enjoy a healthiersleep, we, WHOSE DUTY IS WAKEFULNESS ITSELF, are the heirs of all the strength which the struggle against this error has fostered.It amounted to the very inversion of truth, and the denial of the PERSPECTIVE the primaeval conditionof life, to speak of Spirit and the Good as Plato spoke of them indeed one might crave, as a physician How did such a disorder attack that finest produc t of antiquity, Plato? Had the wicked Socrates truly corrupted him? Was Socrates after all a corrupter of youths, and deserved his hemlock? But the struggle against Plato, orto speak plainer, and for the bulkthe strug exempt eBooks at Planet eBook. comgle against the ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums of Christianity (FOR CHRISITIANITY IS PLATONISM FOR THE PEOPLE), produced in Europe a magnificent tension of soul, such as had not existed anyplace previously with such a tensely strained bow one can now aim at the furthest goals.As a discipline of fact, the European feels this tension as a state of distress, and twice attempts have been made in grand style to unbend the bow once by means of Jesuitism, and the second time by means of democratic enlightenmentwhich, with the aid of liberty of the press and refreshedspaper-reading, might, in fact, bring it about that the spirit would not so easily find itself in distress (The Germans invented gunpowder-all credit to them that they again made things squarethey invented printing. )But we, who are neither Jesuits, nor democrats, nor however sufficiently Germans, we GOOD EUROPEANS, and free, VERY free spiritswe have it so far, all the distress of spirit and all the tension of its bow And perhaps also the arrow, the duty, and, who knows? THE GOAL TO submit AT. Sils Maria Upper Engadine, JUNE, 1885.Beyond Good and Evil CHAPTER I PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS 1.The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not laid before us What strange, perplexing, questionable questions It is already a extensive story yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Is it any wonder if we at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn impatiently away? That this Sphinx t to each onees us at last to ask questions ourselves? WHO is it really that puts questions to us here? WHAT re ally is this Will to Truth in us?In fact we made a long halt at the question as to the origin of this Willuntil at last we came to an absolute standstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquired about the take account of this Will. Granted that we want the truth WHY NOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty?Even ignorance? The job of the value of truth presented itself before usor was it we who presented ourselves before the problem? Which of us is the Oedipus here? Which the Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous of questions and notes of interrogation. And could it be believed that it at last seems to us as if the problem had never been propounded before, as if we were the first to discern it, get a sight of it, Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com .and RISK RAISING it?For there is risk in ski tow it, perhaps there is no greater risk. 2. HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or th e generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is unsufferable whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool things of the highest value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR ownin this transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry human race, in this agitation of delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But quite an in the lap of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the Thing-in-itself THERE must be their source, and nowhere else This mode of reasoning discloses the typical prejudice by which metaphysicians of all times can be recognized, this mode of valuation is at the back of all their uniform procedure through this belief of theirs, they exert themselves for their knowledge, for something that is in the end solemnly christened the Truth. The fundamental belief of metaphysicians is THE BELIEF IN ANTITHESES OF VALUES. It never occurred even to the wariest of them t o doubt here on the very threshold (where doubt, however, was most prerequisite) though they had made a solemn vow, DE OMNIBUS DUBITANDUM. For it may be doubted, firstly, whether antitheses exist at all and secondly, whether the familiar valuations and antitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their seal, are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provi Beyond Good and Evil sional perspectives, besides being probably made from some corner, perhaps from belowfrog perspectives, as it were, to borrow an expression current among painters. In spite of all the value which may hold out to the true, the positive, and the unselfish, it might be possible that a higher and more fundamental value for life generally should be assigned to pretence, to the will to delusion, to selfishness, and cupidity.It might even be possible that WHAT constitutes the value of those good and respected things, consists precisely in their being insidiously related, knotted, and crocheted to these evil and apparently opposed thingsperhaps even in being essentially identical with them. Perhaps But who wishes to business sector himself with such dangerous Perhapses For that investigation one must await the advent of a brisk order of philosophers, such as will have other tastes and inclinations, the reverse of those hitherto prevalentphilosophers of the dangerous Perhaps in every sense of the term. And to speak in all seriousness, I see such hot philosophers beginning to appear. 3.Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and having read between their lines long enough, I now say to myself that the greater part of conscious thinking must be counted among the instinctive functions, and it is so even in the case of philosophical thinking one has here to learn a virgin, as one learned anew about heredity and innateness. As little as the act of render comes into consideration in the self-coloured process and procedure of heredity, just as little is being-conscious OPPO SED to the instinctive in any decisive Free eBooks at Planet eBook. comsense the greater part of the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly influenced by his instincts, and forced into definite channels.And behind all logic and its seeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, or to speak more plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenance of a definite mode of life For example, that the certain is worth more than the uncertain, that fancy is less valuable than truth such valuations, in spite of their regulative importance for US, might notwithstanding be only superficial valuations, special kinds of maiserie, such as may be necessary for the maintenance of beings such as ourselves. Supposing, in effect, that man is not just the measure of things. 4. The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely.The question is, how far an opinion is lifefurthering, life- preserving, species-pr eserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the artificial judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of reality with the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable, without a continuous counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not livethat the renunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life.TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A CONDITION OF LIFE that is for sure to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a phi Beyond Good and Evil losophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil. 5.That which causes philosophers to be regarded halfdistrustfully and half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeated discovery how innocent they arehow often and easily they gain ground mistakes and lose their way, in short, how childish and childlike they are,but that there is not enough honest dealing with them, whereas they all raise a loud and virtuous outcry when the problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in the remotest manner.They all pose as though their real opinions had been discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, divinely impertinent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics, who, fairer and foolisher, talk of inspiration), whereas, in fact, a prejudiced proposition, idea, or suggestion, which is generally their hearts require abstracted and refined, is defended by them with arguments sought out after the event.They are all advocates who do not wish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their prejudices, which they dub truths, and VERY far from having the conscience which bravely admits this to itself, very far from having the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be understood, perhaps to warn associate or foe, or in cheerful confidence and self-ridicule. The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic by-ways that lead (more correctly mislead) to his categorical arbitrary makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small amusement in spying out Free eBooks at Planet eBook. comthe subtle tricks of old moralists and estimable preachers.Or, still more so, the hocus-pocus in mathematical form, by means of which Spinoza has, as it were, clad his philosophy in mail and maskin fact, the love of HIS wisdom, to translate the term fairly and squarelyin order thereby to strike terror at once into the heart of the assailant who should refuse to cast a glance on that invincible maiden, that Pallas Athenehow much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly sequestered betray6. It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted ofnamely, the confession of its originator, and a sp ecies of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography and what is more that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown. Indeed, to understand how the abstrusest metaphysical assertions of a philosopher have been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first ask oneself What morality do they (or does he) aim at? Accordingly, I do not believe that an whimsey to knowledge is the father of philosophy but that another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge ) as an instrument. But whoever considers the fundamental impulses of man with a view to determining how far they may have here acted as INSPIRING GENII (or as demons and cobolds), will find that they have all practiced philosophy at one time or another, and that each one of them would have been only too glad to look upon itself as the ultimate end of existence 10 Beyond Good and Evil and the legiti mate LORD over all the other impulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as SUCH, attempts to philosophize.To be sure, in the case of scholars, in the case of really scientific men, it may be otherwisebetter, if you will there there may really be such a thing as an impulse to knowledge, some kind of small, independent clock-work, which, when well wound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of the scholarly impulses taking any material part therein.The actual interests of the scholar, therefore, are generally in quite another direction in the family, perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics it is, in fact, almost indifferent at what point of research his little machine is placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a good philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a chemist he is not CHARACTERISED by becoming this or that.In the philosopher, on the contrary, there is short nothing impersonal and above all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE IS,that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature stand to each other. 7. How malicious philosophers can be I know of nothing more stinging than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the Platonists he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its captain sense, and on the face of it, the word signifies Flatterers of Dionysiusconsequently, tyrants accessories and lick-spittles besides this, however, it is as much as to say, They are all ACTORS, there is nothing genuine about them (for Dionysiokolax was a popular Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com 11 name for an actor).And the latter is really the malignant reproach that Epicurus cast upon Plato he was annoyed by the grandiose manner, the mise en scene style of which Plato and his scholars were mastersof which Epicurus was not a master He, the old school-teacher of Samos, who sat concealed in his little garden at Athens, and wrote three hundred books, perhaps out of rage and ambitious envy of Plato, who knows Greece took a hundred years to find out who the garden-god Epicurus really was.Did she ever find out? 8. at that place is a point in every philosophy at which the conviction of the philosopher appears on the scene or, to put it in the words of an ancient mystery Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus. 9. You desire to LIVE correspond to Nature? Oh, you noble stoics, what fraud of wordsImagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without grace or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a powerhow COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To liveis not that just endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature?Is not invigoration valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, living according to Nature, means actu1 Beyond Good and Evil ally the same as living according to lifehow could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deludersIn your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein you insist that it shall be Nature according to the Stoa, and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise and to crown all, some eternal superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselvesStoicism is self-tyrannyNature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over is not the Stoic a PART of Nature? But this is an old and everlasting story what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image it cannot do otherwise philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to creation of the world, the will to the causa prima. 10. The eagerness and subtlety, I should even say craftiness, with which the problem of the real and the apparent world Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com 1 is dealt with at present throughout Europe, furnishes food for thought and attention and he who hears only a Will to Truth in the background, and nothing else, cannot certainly boast of the sharpest ears.In rare and isolated cases, it may really have happened that such a Will to Trutha certain extravagant and adventurous pluck, a metaphysicians ambition of the f orlorn hopehas participated therein that which in the end always prefers a handful of certainty to a whole cartload of beautiful possibilities there may even be puritanical fanatics of conscience, who prefer to put their last trust in a sure nothing, rather than in an uncertain something. But that is Nihilism, and the sign of a despairing, mortally wearied soul, notwithstanding the courageous bearing such a virtue may intro. It seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger and livelier thinkers who are still eager for life.In that they side AGAINST appearance, and speak superciliously of perspective, in that they rank the credibility of their own bodies about as low as the credibility of the ocular evidence that the earth stands still, and so, apparently, allowing with complacency their securest possession to escape (for what does one at present believe in more securely than in ones body? ),who knows if they are not really trying to win back something which was formerly an even s ecurer possession, something of the old reach of the faith of former times, perhaps the immortal soul, perhaps the old God, in short, ideas by which they could live better, that is to say, more vigorously and more joyously, than by modern ideas? on that point is DISTRUST of these modern ideas in this mode of looking at things, a 1 Beyond Good and Evildisbelief in all that has been constructed yesterday and today there is perhaps some slight admixture of satiety and scorn, which can no longer endure the BRIC-A-BRAC of ideas of the most varied origin, such as so-called Positivism at present throws on the market a disgust of the more refined taste at the village-fair motleyness and patchiness of all these reality-philosophasters, in whom there is nothing either new or true, except this motleyness. Therein it seems to me that we should agree with those skeptical anti-realists and knowledge-microscopists of the present day their instinct, which repels them from MODERN reality, is unref uted what do their retrograde by-paths concern usThe main thing about them is NOT that they wish to go back, but that they wish to get AWAY therefrom. A little MORE strength, swing, courage, and aesthetical power, and they would be OFFand not back 11. It seems to me that there is everywhere an attempt at present to divert attention from the actual influence which Kant exercised on German philosophy, and especially to ignore prudently the value which he set upon himself. Kant was first and foremost proud of his Table of Categories with it in his hand he said This is the most difficult thing that could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics. Let us only understand this could be He was proud of having DISCOVERED a new faculty in man, the faculty of synthetic judgment a priori.Granting that he deceived himself in this matter the development and rapid flourishing of German philosophy depended unless on his pride, and on the Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com 1 eager rivalry of the younger generation to discover if possible somethingat all events new facultiesof which to be still prouder But let us reflect for a momentit is high time to do so. How are synthetic judgments a priori potential? Kant asks himselfand what is really his answer? BY MEANS OF A MEANS (faculty)but unfortunately not in five words, but so circumstantially, imposingly, and with such display of German profundity and verbal flourishes, that one altogether loses sight of the comical niaiserie allemande involved in such an answer.People were beside themselves with delight over this new faculty, and the jubilation reached its climax when Kant further discovered a moral faculty in manfor at that time Germans were still moral, not yet dabbling in the Politics of hard fact. Then came the honeymoon of German philosophy. All the young theologians of the Tubingen institution went immediately into the grovesall seeking for faculties. And what did they not findin that innocent, rich, and still youth ful period of the German spirit, to which Romanticism, the malicious fairy, piped and sang, when one could not yet distinguish between finding and inventing Above all a faculty for the cabalisticSchelling christened it, intellectual intuition, and thereby gratified the most earnest longings of the by nature pious-inclined Germans. One can do no greater wrong to the whole of this exuberant and event movement (which was really youthfulness, notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldly, in hoary and senile conceptions), than to take it seriously, or even treat it with moral indignation. Enough, howeverthe world 1 Beyond Good and Evil grew older, and the dream vanished.A time came when people rubbed their foreheads, and they still rub them today. People had been dreaming, and first and foremostold Kant. By means of a means (faculty)he had said, or at least meant to say. But, is thatan answer? An explanation? Or is it not rather merely a repeating of the question? How does opiu m induce sleep? By means of a means (faculty), namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor in Moliere, Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva, Cujus est natura sensus assoupire.But such replies belong to the acres of comedy, and it is high time to replace the Kantian question, How are synthetic judgments a PRIORI possible? by another question, Why is belief in such judgments necessary? in effect, it is high time that we should understand that such judgments must be believed to be true, for the sake of the preservation of creatures like ourselves though they still might naturally be false judgmentsOr, more plainly spoken, and roughly and readilysynthetic judgments a priori should not be possible at all we have no right to them in our mouths they are nothing but false judgments. Only, of course, the belief in their truth is necessary, as plausible belief and ocular evidence belong to the perspective view of life.And finally, to call to mind the enormous influence which German philosoph yI hope you understand its right to inverted commas (goosefeet)? has Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com 1 exercised throughout the whole of Europe, there is no doubt that a certain VIRTUS DORMITIVA had a share in it thanks to German philosophy, it was a delight to the noble idlers, the virtuous, the mystics, the artiste, the three-fourths Christians, and the political obscurantists of all nations, to find an antidote to the still overwhelming sensualism which overflowed from the last century into this, in shortsensus assoupire. 12.As regards materialistic atomism, it is one of the best- refuted theories that have been advanced, and in Europe there is now perhaps no one in the learned world so unscholarly as to attach serious signification to it, except for convenient everyday use (as an abbreviation of the means of expression) thanks chiefly to the rod cell Boscovich he and the Pole Copernicus have hitherto been the greatest and most successful opponents of ocular evidence.For whil e Copernicus has persuaded us to believe, contrary to all the senses, that the earth does NOT stand fast, Boscovich has taught us to bounce the belief in the last thing that stood fast of the earththe belief in substance, in matter, in the earth-residuum, and particle- atom it is the greatest triumph over the senses that has hitherto been gained on earth.One must, however, go still further, and also declare war, relentless war to the knife, against the atomistic requirements which still lead a dangerous after-life in places where no one suspects them, like the more celebrated metaphysical requirements one must also above all give the finishing stroke to that other and more portentous atomism which Christianity has 1 Beyond Good and Evil taught best and longest, the SOUL- ATOMISM.Let it be permitted to designate by this expression the belief which regards the soul as something indestructible, eternal, indivisible, as a monad, as an atomon this belief ought to be expelled from scienc e Between ourselves, it is not at all necessary to get rid of the soul thereby, and thus renounce one of the oldest and most venerated hypothesesas happens frequently to the clumsiness of naturalists, who can hardly touch on the soul without immediately losing it.But the way is unfastened for new acceptations and refinements of the soul-hypothesis and such conceptions as mortal soul, and soul of subjective multiplicity, and soul as social structure of the instincts and passions, want henceforth to have legitimate rights in science.In that the NEW psychologist is about to put an end to the superstitions which have hitherto flourished with almost tropical luxuriance around the idea of the soul, he is really, as it were, poking himself into a new desert and a new distrustit is possible that the older psychologists had a merrier and more comfortable time of it eventually, however, he finds that precisely thereby he is also condemned to INVENTand, who knows?perhaps to DISCOVER the new. 13. Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to DISCHARGE its strengthlife itself is WILL TO POWER self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent RESULTS thereof. In short, here, as everywhere else, Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com 1 let us beware of SUPERFLUOUS teleological principles one of which is the instinct of self- preservation (we owe it to Spinozas inconsistency). It is thus, in effect, that method ordains, which must be essentially economy of principles. 14.It is perhaps just dawning on five or half dozen minds that natural philosophy is only a world-exposition and worldarrangement (according to us, if I may say so ) and NOT a world-explanation but in so far as it is based on belief in the senses, it is regarded as more, and for a long time to come must be regarded as morenamely, as an explanation. It has eye and fingers of its own, it has ocular evidence and palpableness of its own this operates fascinatingly, persuasively, and CONVINCINGLY upon an age with fundamentally plebeian tastesin fact, it follows instinctively the canon of truth of eternal popular sensualism. What is clear, what is explained? Only that which can be seen and feltone must pursue every problem thus far.Obversely, however, the charm of the Platonic mode of thought, which was an ARISTOCRATIC mode, consisted precisely in opponent to obvious sense-evidenceperhaps among men who enjoyed even stronger and more fastidious senses than our contemporaries, but who knew how to find a higher triumph in remaining masters of them and this by means of pale, cold, grey conceptional networks which they threw over the motley whirl of the sensesthe mob of the senses, as Plato said. In this overcoming of the world, and interpreting of the world in the manner of Plato, there was an pleasure different from that which the physicists 0 Beyond Good and Evil of today offer usand likewise the Darwinists and antiteleologists among the physiological workers, with their principle of the smallest possible effort, and the greatest possible blunder.Where there is nothing more to see or to grasp, there is also nothing more for men to dothat is certainly an imperative different from the Platonic one, but it may notwithstanding be the right imperative for a hardy, laborious race of machinists and bridge- builders of the future, who have nothing but ROUGH work to perform. 15. To study physiology with a clear conscience, one must insist on the fact that the sense-organs are not phenomena in the sense of the idealistic philosophy as such they certainly could not be causesSensualism, therefore, at least as regulative hypothesis, if not as heuristic principle. What? And others say even that the external world is the work of our organs? But then our body, as a part of this external world, would be the work of our organs But then our organs themse lves would be the work of our organs It seems to me that this is a complete REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM, if the conception CAUSA SUI is something fundamentally absurd.Consequently, the external world is NOT the work of our organs? 16. 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 eiFree eBooks at Planet eBook. com 1 ther 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 wordsThe people on their part may think that cognition is astute 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 carrying into action 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 thinkingthat I spang 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 uncoerced or feeling?