In this article the author identifies a paradox at the heart of Descartes?
foundationalist project. The components of the paradox are as follows: on
the one hand, ontological certainty of cogito, on the other hand, its
epistemic uncertainty: it is impossible for the solus ipse to establish the
elementary truth: at present it is impossible to determine whether it is now
night or daylight. For Descartes the solution consists of introducing God
and in believing in His existence. But this is no solution whatsoever, for a
subject would require direct contact with God in order to receive clear and
distinct ideas, which are at the same time marks of their truth. The author
concludes the following: firstly, Descartes managed to establish a
foundation for nothing; secondly, the Cartesian project that includes the
necessity of contact with God as a way to attain the Truth, becomes
completed only in Hegel?s philosophy of Absolut Knowledge (in Wiss. der
Logik), along with his justification provided in the Phenoimenologie des
Gesites. The post-Hegelian philosophy, however, has engendered its own
paradox by abandoning Hegel?s own solution despite it being fully Cartesian
in its character. This was the consequence of abandoning God and declaring
Hegel?s philosophy as a deplorable conservative revival of theology;
something that was beyond understanding by modern philosophers. The
abandonment of God had as its consequence the return to the Cartesian
paradox, which reopened the question of truth - connected to the Cogito, and
the question of sense (Sinn) - connected to the sum of human subject. The
neglect of God leads to the departure from ratio-centrism in two ways: the
epistemic perspectivism and relativism, on the one hand, and Nihilism,
voluntarism with decisionism, along with existentialism, on the other.
Consequently, with the death of God, and the fall of Hegel?s system, the
modern metaphysics of subjectivity reveals itself as founded merely on the
Will to power - as a will for God, until Hegel, and a will against God,
subsequently. Thus, Heidegger was right when he said that Nietzsche?s Will
to Power was the end of the Western metaphysics. The author complements this
finding by adding that this kind of metaphysic had already been concealed
within the Descartes Meditations from the start, in the forms of the will
for the Reason and the will for God. Finally, the author concludes that the
modern philosophy completes its own Odyssey of looking for a foundation by
abandoning the Hegelian solution, blind to the fact that Hegel?s solution
was the only consequent Cartesian one. The ultimate result was the fall of
ratio-centrism into nihilism, voluntarism, and existentialism, as promoted
under a thin vail of Picodellamirandolian humanism.
M. Heidegger: Metaphysical character of technical scientific civilisation