Broken Hegemonies

CHAPTER 3: The Torments of Autonomy

CHAPTER 3 The Torments of Autonomy In the twentieth century, we imagine that we have achieved a science of mind through demonstrating that the mind functions like a computer; the nineteenth century invested its hope for an impeccable science of mind in the analogy with the steam engine (as one dreams of a thermodynamic, hydraulic model of the unconscious); the eighteenth century invested such hope in the analogy with a building. Science instructs, because it shelters; it does so according to an order. But which? The only edifying order will be that which reason constructs for itself. Such is the diagram of a programmer or, in a more traditionally modern vein, the plan of an architect (the ideal architectonic in Kant allies itself not with Aristotelian techné, but with ideas such as the “mathematizable society” in Condorcet, his contemporary). The experimental method requires that reason resemble something fabricated rather than a natural organism , such as a tree with its trunk and root. . . . Beginning with the first pages drafted in accordance with the new method (the “Transcendental Theory of Method” in the first Critique) Kant quite clearly announced the goal concerning truth, such as he set it out for himself by reversing the way of thinking. He proposed to establish a system of conditions that are true because coherent, namely, the “architectonic of pure reason” (B 860ff.). In delineating the foundations of self-consciousness,97 then the respective divisions of sensibility and understanding, and finally, the stage of ideas, this critical metaphysician proceeds as Vico had urged him to do. He states that in every experience, it is we who constitute the true—verum factum, that which we make is true. The true and the fabricated are convertible. Here again, it is necessary to bear in mind the multivalences. The self and the ego are facts {faits} of consciousness; the moral law, that is made {fait} by reason; the true that is known because made {fait} by us ourselves. . . . It is a plural ‘makingʼ {faire} in which a freedom that is itself plural manifests itself. The scienti fic philosopher will try out different models. He will put to the test some particular complex representation of multiple processes in which each a priori act is lodged in an ensemble by internal necessity, and he will see whether this subjective domiciling permits him to explain our experiences sensibly. The transcendental subject, such as Kant puts to the test, is indeed composed of mutually supportive acts, each of which depends upon the others and forms a system with them. But as soon as it passes beyond declarations of method, the Kantian sci- 454 PART THREE. THE MODERN HEGEMONIC FANTASM ence of reason can no longer satisfy itself with simple systematic criteria. It will be a science of the subject only if all of the acts also emanate from a unique origin. If they do not, then it will be impossible to examine them by asking “Who?” The transcendental architectonic must envision a conjunction of topical acts for every act of knowledge and for every possible action. Whether these acts determine givens (nature) or the giver (freedom), their conjunction will render them mine. When it comes to the demand for originary unicity, it will be a matter of the new centering of phenomena upon subjective legislation. It will also be a matter of my autonomy. Accordingly, in the crucial passage from the analysis of knowledge to that of action, Kant insists that in both, “in the final analysis, it can be only a question of one and the same reason, differentiated only in its application.”98 To be more precise, it can be a question only of one and the same trans-regional, autonomous freedom. Experimental reason demands a systemic subject which spontaneous reason (which must answer for its acts) can only annul on account of its need for an originary rootedness . A house puts down roots. The question of “Who?” brings to an end the work of plans and diagrams. It leads back to the metaphors of branches, trunk, stems, and roots. On pre-regional unification: the self reconsidered The self answers to the Kantian question of “Who?” and it does so in the middle voice. We know the sensible object by effectuating the synthetic unity of intuitions, and we restrain our inclinations by effectuating an imperative synthesis of instincts. Who is thus efficacious? It is not the “I” known through internal experience which announces itself in the direct voice. This “I...