"Now if we are to become aware of something, it is necessary for the thing to act on the cognitive faculty by transmitting its semblance to the faculty or by informing the faculty with its semblance. Hence it seems clear that the faculty itself, not being outside itself, cannot transmit a semblance of itself to itself, and hence cannot produce any awareness of itself or, in other words, cannot perceive itself. Why do you think that the eye can see itself in a mirror although it cannot see itself in itself?"
— Gassendi, Pierre (1592-1655)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
Paris
Publisher
Michel de Soly
Date
1641
Metaphor
"Now if we are to become aware of something, it is necessary for the thing to act on the cognitive faculty by transmitting its semblance to the faculty or by informing the faculty with its semblance. Hence it seems clear that the faculty itself, not being outside itself, cannot transmit a semblance of itself to itself, and hence cannot produce any awareness of itself or, in other words, cannot perceive itself. Why do you think that the eye can see itself in a mirror although it cannot see itself in itself?"
Metaphor in Context
What I find strange here is how you can claim that there is no problem about the idea you are said to have of yourself (an idea which is so fertile that it enables you to derive so many other ideas from it). For in fact you either have no idea of yourself at all, or you have one which is very confused and imperfect, as we have noted when commenting on the previous Meditation. The inference which you yourself drew in that Meditation was that there was nothing which you could perceive more easily or evidently than yourself. But since you neither have nor are capable of having any idea of yourself, should we not rather say that you can perceive anything at all more easily and more evidently than yourself?
When I think about why it is that sight does not see itself and the intellect does not understand itself, it occurs to me that nothing acts on itself. Thus the hand (or the tip of the finger) does not strike itself and the foot does not kick itself. Now if we are to become aware of something, it is necessary for the thing to act on the cognitive faculty by transmitting its semblance to the faculty or by informing the faculty with its semblance. Hence it seems clear that the faculty itself, not being outside itself, cannot transmit a semblance of itself to itself, and hence cannot produce any awareness of itself or, in other words, cannot perceive itself. Why do you think that the eye can see itself in a mirror although it cannot see itself in itself? It is because there is a space between the eye and the mirror, and the eye acts on the mirror, transmitting a semblance of itself onto it, so that the mirror in turn acts on the eye by sending its own semblance back to it. Show me a mirror that you yourself can act on in this way, and I promise that, when it reflects your semblance back to you, you will finally manage to perceive yourself--though not by direct but by a reflexive kind of cognition. But since you cannot provide such a mirror, there is no hope of your knowing yourself.
(Fifth Set of Objections, p. 203-4)
When I think about why it is that sight does not see itself and the intellect does not understand itself, it occurs to me that nothing acts on itself. Thus the hand (or the tip of the finger) does not strike itself and the foot does not kick itself. Now if we are to become aware of something, it is necessary for the thing to act on the cognitive faculty by transmitting its semblance to the faculty or by informing the faculty with its semblance. Hence it seems clear that the faculty itself, not being outside itself, cannot transmit a semblance of itself to itself, and hence cannot produce any awareness of itself or, in other words, cannot perceive itself. Why do you think that the eye can see itself in a mirror although it cannot see itself in itself? It is because there is a space between the eye and the mirror, and the eye acts on the mirror, transmitting a semblance of itself onto it, so that the mirror in turn acts on the eye by sending its own semblance back to it. Show me a mirror that you yourself can act on in this way, and I promise that, when it reflects your semblance back to you, you will finally manage to perceive yourself--though not by direct but by a reflexive kind of cognition. But since you cannot provide such a mirror, there is no hope of your knowing yourself.
(Fifth Set of Objections, p. 203-4)
Categories
Provenance
Past Masters
Citation
Descartes, René. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothof, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Date of Entry
10/07/2003
Date of Review
10/23/2003
