15037
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Why does knowledge appear in sudden bursts, and not in a smooth continuous development? [Foucault]
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Full Idea:
How is it that at certain moments and in certain orders of knowledge, there are these sudden take-offs, these hastenings of evolution, these transformations which fail to correspond to the calm, continuist image that is normally accredited?
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From:
Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.114)
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A reaction:
The answer is either in the excitement of a new motivation, which may concern power, or may concern pure understanding - or else it is just that one discovery brings a host of others along with (like discovering DNA).
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7112
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The Cogito depends on a second-order experience, of being conscious of consciousness [Sartre]
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Full Idea:
We must remember that all authors who have described the Cogito have presented it as a reflective operation, i.e. as second-order. This Cogito is performed by a consciousness directed towards consciousness, which takes consciousness as its object.
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From:
Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B))
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A reaction:
Sartre is raising the nice question of whether the Cogito still works for first-order consciousness, which attends totally to external objects. He claims that it doesn't. Contrast Russell, who says (Idea 5380) that it only works when it is first-order!
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7119
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Is the Cogito reporting an immediate experience of doubting, or the whole enterprise of doubting? [Sartre]
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Full Idea:
When Descartes says 'I doubt therefore I am', is he talking about the spontaneous doubt that reflective consciousness grasps in its instantaneous character, or is he talking of the enterprise of doubting? This ambiguity can lead to serious errors.
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From:
Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (B))
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A reaction:
Interesting. The obvious response is that it is about the immediate experience, but that leads to the problem of an instantaneous ego, which can't be justified over time. The 'enterprise' gives an enduring ego, but it is a more intellectual concept.
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