[Aaron Hubbard] Descartes/God/Kant (?)

Aaron Hubbard: (…) Descartes grapples with those concepts that arise only with leisure. He questions that which he can really know, that which he can discern from the real, and concludes nothing other than that he thinks. His problems with sun on p.118 arise from the definition on the sign by its relation with other signs, ex. Sun of senses vs sun of reason, wherein the signified is modified by that which surrounds it. Second paragraph of p.110. Only through language does doubt arise, Descartes confesses this with the weakness of his mind (as in Burke) First full paragraph p.121 – ala Burke, only through language can this paranoid conception of the God Also p.55 God contains what we do not. // Kant’s Prolegomena makes a distinction between analytic + synthetic judgments. In the former, the predicate contains nothing that is not implicit in the concept of the subject. Descartes tries to prove the existence of God by analytic judgment. God is perfect, I can conceive a perfection greater than myself: God is the cause of this thought.

Kiarina Kordela: i.e. God was always presupposed in this thought. And this is precisely Lacan’s point: since perfection (God/Other) is logically presupposed in the concept of imperfection (human/Øther) and have hence, since, as you point out, God belongs to the concept of imperfective/(Øther) i.e. to say the concept of the signifier


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