Filosofen som arkitekt : Subjektivitet och metaforik i Discours de la méthode

Sammanfattning:

In this paper, I have proposed a way of interpreting the philosophical subject of the Discours de la méthode that has remained relatively unexplored by contemporary commentators. By investigating the subjectivity that is expressed through Descartes’ use of architectural metaphors, I laid bare some of the difficulties inherent in its discursive structure, as well as suggesting that the cogito in fact repeats and inscribes itself into this structure. In this context, the metaphor of the road (or travel) takes a supplementary role in relation to the architectural metaphor, marking the very conditions of existence of the architectonic subject. The subject, in order that it may establish itself as ”pure” and ”independent” thought, is dependent on a certain ”forgetfullness”; that is, only by forgetting its constitutive dependence on the diversity and historicity that is signified by the metaphor of travel, can it establish itself as its own source. A history of philosophy which takes considerations of metaphors and other literary aspects as the center of its inquiry still needs to be written. This paper can be seen as an example of such an investigation.