Of course, it is always possible
sometimes fruitful, to interpret the history of philosophy ac-
cording to this scientific rhythm. But to say that Kant breaks
Descartes, and that the Cartesian cogito becomes a particular case of
the Kantian cogito, is not entirely satisfying since this is, precisely, to
turn philosophy into a science (conversely, it would be no more
satisfying to establish an order of superimposition between Newton
and Einstein). Far from forcing us to pass through the same compo-
nents again, the function of the scientist's proper name is to spare us
from doing this and to persuade us that there is no reason to go down
the same path again: we do not work through a named equation, we
use it. Far from distributing cardinal points that organize syntagms
on a plane of immanence, the scientist's proper name draws up para-
digms that are projected into necessarily oriented systems of refer-
ence. Finally, the relationship of science with philosophy is less of a
problem than that of its even more passionate relationship with reli-
gion, as can be seen in all the attempts at scientific uniformization
and universalization in the search for a single law, a single force, or a
single interaction. What brings science and religion together is that
functives are not concepts but figures defined by a spiritual tension
rather than by a spatial intuition. There is something figural in
functives that forms an ideography peculiar to science and that already
makes vision a reading.
To start with, the preceding analysis must be confirmed by
taking the example of one of the best-known signed philo-
sophical concepts, that of the Cartesian cogito, Descartes's
I: a concept of self. This concept has three components—
doubting, thinking, and being (although this does not mean
that every concept must be triple). The complete statement
of the concept qua multiplicity is "I think 'therefore' I am"
or, more completely, "Myself who doubts, I think, I am, I
am a thinking thing." According to Descartes the cogito is
the always-renewed event of thought.
Cartesian plane consists in challenging
any explicit objective presupposition where every concept
refers to other concepts (the rational-animal man, for exam-
ple). It demands only a prephilosophical understanding, that
is, implicit and subjective presuppositions: everyone knows
what thinking, being, and I mean (one knows by doing it,
being it, or saying it). This is a very novel distinction. Such
a plane requires a first concept that presupposes nothing
objective. So the problem is "What is the first concept on
this plane, or by beginning with what concept can truth as
absolutely pure subjective certainty be determined?" Such is
the cogito. other concepts will be able to achieve objec-
tivity, but only if they are linked by bridges to the first
concept, if they respond to problems subject to the urne
conditions, and if they remain on the same plane. Objectivity
here will assume a certainty of knowledge rather than pre-
suppose a truth recognized as preexisting, or already there.
nere is no point in wondering whether Descartes was right or
wrong. Are implicit and subjective presuppositions more valid than
explicit objective presuppositions? Is it necessary "to begin," and, if
so, is it necessary to start from the point of view of a subjective
certainty? Can thought as such be the verb of an I? There is no direct
answer. Cartesian concepts can only be assessed as a function of their
problems and their plane.
A new syntax, with other
ordinates, with other zones of indiscernibility, secured first
by the schema and then by the affection of self by self (soi par
soil, makes the "I" and the "Self" inseparable.
The fact that Kant "criticizes" Descartes means only that
he sets up a plane and constructs a problem that could not be
occupied or completed by the Cartesian cogito. Descartes
created the cogito as concept, but by expelling time as form
of anteriority, so as to make it a simple mode of succession
referring to continuous creation. Kant reintroduces time into
the cogito, but it is a completely different time from that of
Platonic anteriority. This is the creation of a concept. He
makes time a component of a new cogito, but on condition of
providing in turn a new concept of time: time becomes form
of interiority with three components—succession, but also
simultaneity and permanence. ms again implies a new con-
cept of space that can no longer be defined by simple simulta-
neity and becomes form of exteriority. Space, time, and "I
think" are three original concepts linked by bridges that are
also junctions—a blast of original concepts. The history of
philosophy means that we evaluate not only the historical
novelty of the concepts created by a philosopher but also the
power of their becoming when they pass into one another.
The same pedagogical status of the concept can be found every-
where: a multiplicity, an absolute surface or volume, self-referents,
made up of a certain number of inseparable intensive variations ac-
cording to an order of neighborhood, and traversed by a point in a
state of survey.
