SECTION EIGHT
THE FIRST DIVISION OF THE BRANCHES
OF KNOWLEDGE
CHAPTER 5
Must the starting point be a fact, and
in particular a fact of consciousness?
1475. By 'fact' we mean 'that which is'. Being, from which we affirm that we have to start, is not only a fact, but the principle of all facts. We are not saying therefore that we have to begin from any fact whatsoever, nor from a contingent fact. We must begin from the first fact, the necessary, per se intelligible fact which makes all other facts possible, that is, intelligible.
1476. But the question: 'Must we start from the fact of consciousness' is not without ambiguity, and can therefore be answered both negatively and positively. If by 'fact of consciousness' I mean ideal being conceived together with the subjective feeling that accompanies such an intuition, then in this case we have a fact of consciousness composed of two elements, feeling and idea (cf. vol. 2, 543 ss.). But intellective knowledge cannot have two starting points, nor can it start from other than what is purely intellective. Moreover, subjective feeling is not yet intellectual knowledge; it is only the matter of knowledge, which is rendered knowledge when we perceive ourselves as intelligent by giving it our attention.
If by 'fact of consciousness', we do not mean both the elements composing the fact, but only the intellective element, (the pure light of being, which is simply the term of our interior vision), we can affirm that philosophy starts from the primal fact of consciousness, that is, not from the act of consciousness itself, but from that which consciousness conceives along with that act and, in doing so, testifies to itself that what it conceives is its object.(333)
Notes
(333) All the objections, especially those of the author of Aenesidemus, made against Reinhold, who started from this fact of consciousness, fall with this distinction. It remains true, nevertheless, that the proposition 'systematic knowledge starts from the fact of consciousness' is neither clear nor exact.