The crisis of the cogito

Paul RICOEUR

pp. 57-66

in: Synthese 106 (1), 1996.

Abstract

If Descartes's Cogito can be held as the opening of the era of modern subjectivity, it is to the extent that the “I” is taken for the first time in the position of foundation, i.e., as the ultimate condition for the possibility of all philosophical discourse. The question raised in this paper is whether the crisis of the Cogito, opened later by Hume, Nietzsche and Heidegger on different philosophical grounds, is not already contemporaneous to the very positing of the Cogito.

Cited authors

Heidegger Martin

Descartes René

Nietzsche Friedrich