"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 either 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 words! The people on their part may
think that cognition is knowing 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 operation 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
thinking--that I KNOW 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 'willing' or 'feeling'? In
short, the assertion 'I think,' assumes that I COMPARE my state at the
present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to
determine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection with
further 'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for
me."--In place of the "immediate certainty" in which the people may
believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of
metaphysical questions presented to him, veritable conscience questions
of the intellect, to wit: "Whence did I get the notion of 'thinking'?
Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak
of an 'ego,' and even of an 'ego' as cause, and finally of an 'ego'
as cause of thought?" He who ventures to answer these metaphysical
questions at once by an appeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception, like
the person who says, "I think, and know that this, at least, is
true, actual, and certain"--will encounter a smile and two notes of
interrogation in a philosopher nowadays. "Sir," the philosopher will
perhaps give him to understand, "it is improbable that you are not
mistaken, but why should it be the truth?"