In strict immanence

The copernician inversion of modernity is turning radical. It does not want to be only methodological. It wants to be metaphysical. It burns at the same time the bridges linking to metaphysics.

The human possibilities assumed themselves in anthropocentric rationality. But in their enclosure in immanence they could not forget their historic and congenital opening to the transcendence of reason. The rationalist systems of the XVII century thus remain more in continuity than in rupture with the large currents of traditional metaphysics.

More specifically `modern' will be the empiricist rupture. Started in the XVII century, it will dominate the next century and inspire largely the other ones. 1690: `Essay concerning Human Understanding' by John Locke. - 1710: `Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge’ by George Berkeley. - 1739: `Treatise of Human Nature' by David Hume. - 1748: `Philosophical Essay concerning Human Understanding' by David Hume - 1754: `Traité des Sensations by Etienne Condillac.

In themselves, those some titles cover a whole program. A critical approach of the understanding. Priority is given to the sensations. The human possibility remains in strict immanence. All `metaphysical', being is expelled. The being and the knowledge are brought back within the strict limits of `physics'. There, within the limits of the immanence, reigns only one materialistic monism. The superior is reduced to the inferior. The whole is reduced to the part. The inferior explains the superior. The part explains the whole.

From now on the human possibility becomes center of the totality. The truth on all things starts from the human thought. It is the foundation of all knowledge. God himself, still guarantor of my obviousness, gets only obvious through the clear and distinct idea of my thought? "I am thinking God who guarantees the truth of my thought", isn’t that a vicious circle? Descartes, however, is not yet completely so far. For him; when we think about what is imperfect and that which is finite we can do it only on a basis of perfection and infinity. We have thus in us the clear and distinct idea of an absolutely perfect being. What is the chance of existence of this perfect being? Just go back to the ‘idea’! The existence is necessarily inherent – the ontological argument - with the idea. But where is this idea coming from? It cannot come from nothing nor can it come totally from ourselves. It is ours, certainly, but at the same time it refers still to elsewhere. How long can such a thinking go on?

Even without being the creator of a clear and distinct idea ex nihilo, it is nevertheless in my possibility that this idea becomes aware of itself. And it is this possibility which from now lodges the doubt. Is there a God? And isn’t he misleading?

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