Concepto de fenómeno

Lo que se muestra, lo automostrante, lo patente; ϕαίνεσθαι es, por su parte, la forma media de ϕαινω: sacar a la luz del día, poner en la claridad. ϕαινω pertenece a la raíz ϕα‐, lo mismo que la luz, la claridad, es decir, aquello en que algo puede hacerse patente, visible en sí mismo. Como significación de la expresión ”fenómeno” debe retenerse, pues, la siguiente:

lo‐que‐se‐muestra‐en‐sí‐mismo, lo patente

Los ϕαινόμενα, “fenómenos”, son entonces la totalidad de lo que yace a la luz del día o que puede ser sacado a luz, lo que alguna vez los griegos identificaron, pura y simplemente, con τὰ ὄντα (los entes). Ahora bien, el ente puede mostrarse desde sí mismo de diversas maneras, cada vez según la forma de acceso a él.

Se da incluso la posibilidad de que el ente se muestre como lo que él no es en sí mismo. En este mostrarse, el ente “parece…”. Semejante mostrarse lo llamamos parecer. Y así también en griego la expresión ϕαινόμενον, fenómeno, tiene la significación de lo que

parece, lo “aparente”, la “apariencia”

; ϕαινόμενον ἀγαθόν quiere decir un bien que parece tal —pero “en realidad” no es lo que pretende ser.

Para la ulterior comprensión del concepto de fenómeno es de fundamental importancia ver cómo lo nombrado en las dos significaciones de ϕαινόμενον (“fenómeno” = lo que se muestra, y “fenómeno” = apariencia) tiene, por su estructura misma, interna coherencia. Tan sólo en la medida en que algo, conforme a su sentido mismo, pretende mostrarse, e.d. ser fenómeno, puede mostrarse como algo que él no es, puede “tan sólo parecer…”. En la significación ϕαινόμενον, (“apariencia”) se encuentra ya incluida la significación originaria (fenómeno = lo patente) como fundante de aquélla. En nuestra terminología asignamos el término “fenómeno” a la significación positiva y originaria de ϕαινόμενον, y distinguimos fenómeno de apariencia, como la modificación privativa de fenómeno.

“Fenómeno”, como manifestación “de algo”, justamente no quiere decir, por consiguiente, mostrarse a sí mismo, sino el anunciarse de algo que no se muestra, por medio de algo que se muestra.

Manifestarse es un no‐mostrarse

Pero este “no” no debe confundirse de ningún modo con el “no” privativo que determina la estructura de la apariencia.

Lo que no se muestra, a la manera como no se muestra lo que se manifiesta, jamás puede parecer. Todas las indicaciones, representaciones, síntomas y símbolos tienen esta estructura formal básica del manifestarse, por diferentes que ellos sean entre sí.

Aunque el “manifestarse” no es jamás un mostrarse en el sentido del fenómeno, sin embargo, manifestarse sólo es posible sobre la base del mostrarse de algo.

Pero este mostrarse composibilitante del manifestarse no es el manifestarse mismo.

Manifestarse es anunciar‐se por medio de algo que se muestra.

Cuando se dice, entonces, que con la palabra “manifestación” [“Erscheinung”], apuntamos a algo en lo que se manifiesta una cosa que no es ella misma “manifestación”, no queda circunscrito el concepto de fenómeno, sino que ese concepto queda más bien supuesto, pero en forma encubierta, porque en esta determinación de la “manifestación”, el término “manifestarse” se emplea en un doble sentido. Eso en lo que algo “se manifiesta” quiere decir aquello en lo que algo se anuncia, e.d. no se muestra. Y cuando se dice “que no es ella misma ‘manifestación’, la palabra “manifestación” tiene el sentido de mostrarse. Pero este mostrarse pertenece esencialmente a “aquello en que” algo se anuncia. Por consiguiente,

los fenómenos no son jamás manifestaciones

pero toda manifestación está, en cambio, necesitada de fenómenos. Si se define el fenómeno acudiendo al concepto, además poco claro, de “manifestación”, entonces todo queda cabeza abajo, y una “crítica” de la fenomenología sobre esta base es ciertamente una empresa peregrina.

El término alemán “Erscheinung” puede, por su parte, significar, nuevamente, dos cosas:

1. El manifestarse, en el sentido del anunciarse como un no-mostrarse.
2. Lo anunciante mismo —que en su mostrarse denuncia algo que no se muestra.

Y por último, se puede emplear el vocablo manifestarse [Erscheinen] como término para el fenómeno en su sentido auténtico, es decir, como mostrarse.

Si se designa estos tres contenidos diferentes como “manifestación” [“Erscheinung”], la confusión es inevitable.

Si se concibe lo anunciante que en su mostrarse denuncia lo no‐patente, como lo que surge en lo que por sí mismo no es patente, e irradia de éste, de tal suerte que se piensa lo no-patente como lo que por esencia jamás puede ser patentizado, entonces manifestación quiere decir tanto como producción o como producto, pero como un producto que no constituye el verdadero ser del producente: es el “fenómeno” [“Erscheinung”] en el sentido de “mero fenómeno” [“bloβe Erscheinung”]. Ciertamente lo anunciante, así producido, se muestra en sí mismo, pero lo hace de tal manera que, como irradiación de lo que él anuncia, deja a este último constantemente velado.

Pero, por otra parte, este velante no‐mostrar tampoco es apariencia. Kant emplea el término “fenómeno” [“Erscheinung”] en este acoplamiento de sentidos. Fenómenos son, por una parte, según él, los “objetos de la intuición empírica”, lo que en ésta se muestra. Esto que se muestra (fenómeno en el sentido genuino y originario) es, a la vez,

“fenómeno” como irradiación anunciadora de algo que se oculta en aquel fenómeno.

En la medida en que al “fenómeno” [“manifestación”] en el sentido del anunciarse por medio de algo que se muestra, le es constitutivo un fenómeno [en sentido propio], y que éste puede modificarse privativamente convirtiéndose en apariencia, también la manifestación puede volverse mera apariencia. A una determinada luz puede parecer que alguien tiene las mejillas enrojecidas y la rojez que de este modo se nos muestra puede ser tomada como un anuncio de la presencia de la fiebre, y esto, por su parte, sirve, una vez más, de indicio de una perturbación del organismo.

Fenómeno —el mostrarse‐en‐sí‐mismo— es una forma eminente de la comparecencia de algo. En cambio, manifestación significa un respecto remisivo en el ente mismo, de tal manera que lo remitente (lo anunciante) sólo puede responder satisfactoriamente a su posible función si se muestra en sí mismo, es decir, si es “fenómeno” [“Phänomen”]. Manifestación y apariencia se fundan, de diferentes maneras, en el fenómeno. La confusa variedad de los “fenómenos” nombrados por los términos fenómeno, apariencia, manifestación, mera manifestación, sólo se deja desembrollar cuando se ha comprendido desde el comienzo el concepto de fenómeno:

lo-que‐se‐muestra‐en‐sí‐mismo

Si en esta manera de entender el concepto de fenómeno queda indeterminado cuál es el ente que se designa como fenómeno, y queda abierta la cuestión si lo que se muestra es un ente o un carácter de ser del ente, entonces se habrá alcanzado solamente el concepto formal de fenómeno. Pero, si con la expresión “lo que se muestra” se entiende el ente que —dicho kantianamente— nos resulta accesible mediante la intuición empírica, entonces el concepto formal de fenómeno recibe una legítima aplicación. Tomado en este sentido, fenómeno corresponde al concepto vulgar de fenómeno. Pero este concepto vulgar no es el concepto fenomenológico de fenómeno. En el horizonte de la problemática kantiana lo que se entiende fenomenológicamente por fenómeno puede ilustrarse —mutatis mutandis— en la forma siguiente: lo que en los “fenómenos”, es decir en el fenómeno, entendido en sentido vulgar, ya siempre se muestra previa y concomitantemente, aunque no en forma temática, puede ser llevado a una mostración temática, y esto‐que‐así‐se‐muestra-en‐sí‐mismo (“formas de la intuición”) son los fenómenos de la fenomenología.

Porque evidentemente espacio y tiempo tienen que poderse mostrar así, tienen que poder volverse fenómeno, si Kant pretende formular un enunciado trascendental fundado en las cosas mismas cuando dice que el espacio es el “en dónde” a priori de un orden.

Ahora bien, si se ha de llegar a comprender el concepto fenomenológico de fenómeno, cualquiera sea el modo como se determine en forma más precisa lo que se muestra, es indispensable comprender el sentido del concepto formal de fenómeno y su legítima aplicación en la significación vulgar. Antes de fijar el concepto preliminar de la fenomenología, es necesario delimitar la significación de la palabra λόγος, con el fin de aclarar en qué sentido la fenomenología puede ser una “ciencia de” los fenómenos.

Ser y Tiempo

Si el ser debe concebirse a partir del tiempo, y si los diferentes modos y derivados del ser sólo se vuelven efectivamente comprensibles en sus modificaciones y derivaciones cuando se los considera desde la perspectiva del tiempo, entonces quiere decir que el ser mismo —y no sólo el ente en cuanto está “en el tiempo”— se ha hecho visible en su carácter “temporal”. Pero, en tal caso, “temporal” no puede ya significar solamente “lo que está en el tiempo”. También lo “intemporal” y lo “supratemporal” es “temporal” en lo que respecta a su ser. Y esto, a su vez, no sólo en la forma de una privación frente a algo “temporal” en cuanto ente “en el tiempo”, sino en un sentido positivo, aunque todavía por aclarar. Como la expresión “temporal” se ocupa en el uso lingüístico prefilosófico y filosófico en la significación ya indicada, y como en las investigaciones que siguen la expresión será usada en una significación diferente, llamaremos a la determinación originaria del sentido del ser y de sus caracteres y modos, obtenida a partir del tiempo, determinación temporaria. La tarea ontológica fundamental de la interpretación del ser en cuanto tal incluye, pues, el desentrañamiento de la temporariedad del ser. Sólo en la exposición de la problemática de la temporariedad se dará la respuesta concreta a la pregunta por el sentido del ser.

Puesto que el ser sólo es captable, en cada caso, desde la perspectiva del tiempo, la respuesta a la pregunta por el ser no puede consistir en una frase aislada y ciega. La respuesta será incomprensible si nos limitamos a la repetición de lo que en ella se dice en forma de proposición, especialmente si se la hace circular a la manera de un resultado que flota en el vacío y que sólo requiere ser registrado como un simple “punto de vista”, quizás discrepante de la manera usual de abordar las cosas. Si la respuesta es “nueva”, es algo que carece de importancia y no pasa de ser una pura exterioridad. Lo positivo en ella debe estar en que sea lo suficientemente antigua como para aprender a hacerse cargo de las posibilidades deparadas por los “antiguos”. El sentido más propio de la respuesta consiste en prescribir a la investigación ontológica concreta que dé comienzo a la interrogación investigante dentro del horizonte que habrá sido puesto al descubierto. La respuesta no da más que esto.

Por consiguiente, si la respuesta a la pregunta por el ser debe ofrecernos el hilo conductor para toda futura investigación, de allí se sigue que ella no podrá ser adecuada mientras no nos haga comprender el modo de ser específico de la ontología hecha hasta ahora y las vicisitudes de sus problemas, de sus hallazgos y fracasos, como algo necesariamente ligado al modo de ser del Dasein.

Ensayo de Massimo Cacciari

Reason

You ask me which of the philosophers' traits are really idiosyncrasies? For example, their lack of historical sense, their hatred of the very idea of becoming, their Egypticism. They think that they show their respect for a subject when they de-historicize it, sub specie aeternitas--when they turn it into a mummy. All that philosophers have handled for thousands of years have been concept-mummies; nothing real escaped their grasp alive. When these honorable idolators of concepts worship something, they kill it and stuff it; they threaten the life of everything they worship. Death, change, old age, as well as procreation and growth, are to their minds objections--even refutations. Whatever has being does not become; whatever becomes does not have being. Now they all believe, desperately even, in what has being. But since they never grasp it, they seek for reasons why it is kept from them. "There must be mere appearance, there must be some deception which prevents us from perceiving that which has being: where is the deceiver?" "We have found him," they cry ecstatically; "it is the senses! These senses, which are so immoral in other ways too, deceive us concerning the true world. Moral: let us free ourselves from the deception of the senses, from becoming, from history, from lies; history is nothing but faith in the senses, faith in lies. Moral: let us say No to all who have faith in the senses, to all the rest of mankind; they are all 'mob.' Let us be philosophers! Let us be mummies" Let us represent monotono-theism by adopting the expression of a gravedigger! And above all, away with the body, this wretched idée fixe of the senses, disfigured by all the fallacies of logic, refuted, even impossible, although it is impudent enough to behave as if it were real!"

With the highest respect, I except the name of Heraclitus. When the rest of the philosophic folk rejected the testimony of the senses because they showed multiplicity and change, he rejected their testimony because they showed things as if they had permanence and unity. Heraclitus too did the senses an injustice. They lie neither in the way the Eleatics believed, nor as he believed--they do not lie at all. What we make of their testimony, that alone introduces lies; for example, the lie of unity, the lie of thinghood, of substance, of permanence. "Reason" is the cause of our falsification of the testimony of the senses. Insofar as the senses show becoming, passing away, and change, they do not lie. But Heraclitus will remain eternally right with his assertion that being is an empty fiction. The "apparent" world is the only one: the "true" world is merely added by a lie.

And what magnificent instruments of observation we possess in our senses! This nose, for example, of which no philosopher has yet spoken with reverence and gratitude, is actually the most delicate instrument so far at our disposal: it is able to detect minimal differences of motion which even a spectroscope cannot detect. Today we possess science precisely to the extent to which we have decided to accept the testimony of the senses--to the extent to which we sharpen them further, arm them, and have learned to think them through. The rest is miscarriage and not-yet-science--in other words, metaphysics, theology, psychology, epistemology--or formal science, a doctrine of signs, such as logic and that applied logic which is called mathematics. In them reality is not encountered at all, not even as a problem--no more than the question of the value of such a sign-convention as logic.

The other idiosyncrasy of the philosophers is no less dangerous; it consists in confusing the last and the first. They place that which comes at the end--unfortunately! for it ought not to come at all!--namely, the "highest concepts," which means the most general, the emptiest concepts, the last smoke of evaporating reality, in the beginning, as the beginning. This again is nothing but their way of showing reverence: the higher may not grow out of the lower, may not have grown at all. Moral: whatever is of the first rank must be causa sui. Origin out of something else is considered an objection, a questioning of value. All the highest values are of the first rank; all the highest concepts, that which has being, the unconditional, the good, the true, the perfect--all these cannot have become and must therefore be causes. All these, moreover, cannot be unlike each other or in contradiction to each other. Thus they arrive at their stupendous concept, "God." That which is last, thinnest, and emptiest is put first, as the cause, as ens realissimum. Why did mankind have to take seriously the brain afflictions of sick web-spinners? They have paid dearly for it!

At long last, let us contrast the very different manner in which we conceive the problem of error and appearance. (I say "we" for politeness' sake.) Formerly, alteration, change, any becoming at all, were taken as proof of mere appearance, as an indication that there must be something which led us astray. Today, conversely, precisely insofar as the prejudice of reason forces us to posit unity, identity, permanence, substance, cause, thinghood, being, we see ourselves somehow caught in error, compelled into error. So certain are we, on the basis of rigorous examination, that this is where the error lies. It is no different in this case than with the movement of the sun: there our eye is the constant advocate of error, here it is our language. In its origin language belongs in the age of the most rudimentary form of psychology. We enter a realm of crude fetishism when we summon before consciousness the basic presuppositions of the metaphysics of language, in plain talk, the presuppositions of reason. Everywhere it sees a doer and doing; it believes in will as the cause; it believes in the ego, in the ego as being, in the ego as substance, and it projects this faith in the ego-substance upon all things--only thereby does it first create the concept of "thing." Everywhere "being" is projected by thought, pushed underneath, as the cause; the concept of being follows, and is a derivative of, the concept of ego. In the beginning there is that great calamity of an error that the will is something which is effective, that will is a capacity. Today we know that it is only a word. Very much later, in a world which was in a thousand ways more enlightened, philosophers, to their great surprise, became aware of the sureness, the subjective certainty, in our handling of the categories of reason: they concluded that these categories could not be derived from anything empirical--for everything empirical plainly contradicted them. Whence, then, were they derived? And in India, as in Greece, the same mistake was made: "We must once have been at home in a higher world (instead of a very much lower one, which would have been the truth); we must have been divine, for we have reason!" Indeed, nothing has yet possessed a more naive power of persuasion than the error concerning being, as it has been formulated by the Eleatics, for example. After all, every word and every sentence we say speak in its favor. Even the opponents of the Eleatics still succumbed to the seduction of their concept of being: Democritus, among others, when he invented his atom. "Reason" in language--oh, what an old deceptive female she is! I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.

It will be appreciated if I condense so essential and so new an insight into four theses. In that way I facilitate comprehension; in that way I provoke contradiction. First proposition. The reasons for which "this" world has been characterized as "apparent" are the very reasons which indicate its reality; any other kind of reality is absolutely indemonstrable. Second proposition. The criteria which have been bestowed on the "true being" of things are the criteria of not-being, of naught, the "true world" has been constructed out of contradiction to the actual world: indeed an apparent world, insofar as it is merely a moral-optical illusion. Third proposition. To invent fables about a world "other" than this one has no meaning at all, unless an instinct of slander, detraction, and suspicion against life has gained the upper hand in us: in that case, we avenge ourselves against life with a phantasmagoria of "another," a "better" life. Fourth proposition. Any distinction between a "true" and an "apparent" world--whether in the Christian manner or in the manner of Kant (in the end, an underhanded Christian)--is only a suggestion of decadence, a symptom of the decline of life. That the artist esteems appearance higher than reality is no objection to this proposition. For "appearance" in this case means reality once more, only by way of selection, reinforcement, and correction. The tragic artist is no pessimist: he is precisely the one who says Yes to everything questionable, even to the terrible--he is Dionysian.

Vocabulary

1. Handle (verb): To touch, hold or move something with your hands.
2. Grasp (noun): A firm hold of something or control over something.
3. Worship (verb): To love and admire something very much, especially so much that you cannot see their faults.
4. Stuff (verb): To fill the dead body of an animal with material and preserve it, so that it keeps its original shape and appearance.
5. Deceiver (noun): Person which make one believe something that is not true.
6. Mob (noun): A large crowd of people, especially one that may become violent or cause trouble.
7. Wretched (adjective): Used to show that you think that something is extremely annoying.
8. Impudent (adjective): Rude; not showing respect for other people.
9. Insofar as (idiom): To the degree that.
10. The extent to which (idiom): How much.
11. Sharpen (verb): To become or make something better, more skilful, more effective, etc. than before.
12. Encounter (verb): To experience something, especially something unpleasant or difficult, while you are trying to do something else.
13. Lead (verb): To be the reason why someone does or thinks something.
14. Summon (verb): To order someone to appear in a court of law.
15. Underneath (adverb): Under or below something else, especially when it is hidden or covered by the thing on top.
16. Whence (adverb): From where.
17. Naught (noun): Used in particular phrases to mean "nothing".
18. Slander (noun): A false spoken statement intended to damage the good opinion people have of someone.
19. Underhanded (adjective): Secret and dishonest.
    

SUMMARY

The article is about the concept of "Reason" in the Philosophy folk and the basis above all the "supra-concepts" as God, Truth or Science.

This article was written by F.W. Nietzsche, a German philosopher in the nineteenths. So, it's quite interesting to read that kind of things because of the relevance of their works.

Firstly, this article is a part of the book "The Twilight of Idols", the last book that he wrote before his death in 1900. This extract shows the development of the Metaphysics and its relation with the concepts that I mentioned. With a notorious personal style, he demanded not to separate the testimony of the human senses from our consciousness.

Secondly, he talks about "the historical error" which consists in "put the cause as the effect" and "the first as the last" and viceversa. He thinks that all our criterias about Truth or World are conditioned by our Psychology, that is, our power in favour or against Life, our "Dyonisism".

OPINIION

First of all, it's quite difficult to separate his literary fashion from the real meaning of it. So, as much as I understood, Science should be based on the Senses. It's a direct attack against Hegelian philosophical system as well as it provoked the catastrophic ending of the WWII. Many scholars think that all the philosophical systems based on only theoretical thinkings ara wrong and Nietzsche was right criticizing that separation between "Praxis and Doxa".

Finally, I'd recommend this article to all the people who are interested in knowing more about this interesting author and also to all the Philosophy students.

ON MADNESS

(by Arthur Schopenhauer)

The health of the mind properly consists in perfect re collection. Of course this is not to be understood as meaning that our memory preserves everything. For the past course of our life *shrinks up in time, as the path of the wanderer looking back shrinks up in space: sometimes it is difficult for us to distinguish the particular years; the days have for the most part become unrecognizable. Really, however, only the exactly similar events, recurring an innumerable number of times, so that their images, as it were, conceal each other, ought so to run together in the memory that they are individually unrecognizable; on the other hand, every event in any way peculiar or significant we must be able to find again in memory, if the intellect is normal, vigorous, and quite healthy. In the text I have explained madness as the broken thread of this memory, which still runs on regularly, although in constantly decreasing fullness and distinctness. The following considerations may serve to confirm this.

The memory of a healthy man affords a certainty as to an event he has witnessed, which is regarded as just as firm and sure as his present *apprehension of things; therefore, if *sworn to by him, this event is thereby established in a court of law. On the other hand, the mere suspicion of madness will at once weaken the testimony of a witness. Here, then, lies the criterion between the healthy mind and insanity. Whenever I doubt whether an event which I remember really took place, I *throw upon myself the suspicion of madness: unless it is that I am uncertain whether it was not a mere dream. If another doubts the reality of an event, related by me as an eye-witness, without mistrusting my honesty, then he regards me as insane. Whoever comes at last, through constantly recounting an event which originally was fabricated by him, to believe in it himself is, in this one point, really insane. We may ascribe to an insane person flashes of wit, single clever thoughts, even correct judgments, but his testimony as to past events no man will consider valid. In the Lalita-vistara, well known to be the history of Buddha Sakya-Muni, it is related that at the moment of his birth all the sick became well, all the blind saw, all the deaf heard, and all mad people "recovered their memory." This last is mentioned in two passages.

My own experience of many years has led me to the opinion that madness occurs proportionally most frequently among actors. But what a misuse they make of their memory! Daily they have to learn a new part or refresh an old one; but these parts are entirely without connection, nay, are in contradiction and contrast with each other, and every evening the actor *strives to forget himself entirely and be some quite different person. This kind of thing paves the way for madness.

The exposition of the origin of madness given in the text will become more comprehensible if it is remembered how unwillingly we think of things which powerfully injure our interests, *wound our pride, or interfere with our wishes ; with what difficulty do we determine to lay such things before our own intellect for careful and serious investigation ; how easily, on the other hand, we unconsciously break away or *sneak off from them again ; how, on the contrary, agreeable events come into our minds of their own accord, and, if *driven away, constantly *creep in again, so that we *dwell on them for hours together. In that resistance of the will to allowing what is contrary to it to come under the examination of the intellect lies the place at which madness can *break in upon the mind. Each new adverse event must be assimilated by the intellect, i.e., it must receive a place in the system of the truths connected with our will and its interests, whatever it may have to displace that is more satisfactory. "When ever this has taken place, it already pains us much less; but this operation itself is often very painful, and also, in general, only takes place slowly and with resistance. However, the health of the mind can only continue so long as this is in each case properly *carried out. If, on the contrary, in some particular case, the resistance and struggles of the will against the apprehension of some knowledge reaches such a degree that that operation is not performed in its integrity, then certain events or circumstances be come for the intellect completely suppressed, because the will cannot *endure the sight of them, and then, for the sake of the necessary connection, the gaps that thus arise are filled up at pleasure; thus madness appears. For the intellect has given up its nature to please the will: the man now imagines what does not exist. Yet the madness which has thus arisen is now the *lethe of unendurable suffering; it was the last remedy of harassed nature, i.e., of the will.

Let me mention here in passing a proof of my view which is worth noticing. Carlo Gozzi, in the “Monstro turchino” (act I. scene 2), presents to us a person who has drunk a magic potion which produces forgetfulness, and this person appears exactly like a madman.

In accordance with the above exposition one may thus regard the origin of madness as a violent “*casting out of the mind” of anything, which, however, is only possible by “taking into the head “something else. The converse process is rarer, that the “taking into the head” comes first, and the “casting out of the mind “second. It takes place, however, in those cases in which the occasion of insanity is kept constantly present to the mind and cannot be escaped from; thus, for example, in the case of many who have gone mad from love, erotomaniacs, where the occasion of their madness is constantly longed after j also in the case of madness which has resulted from the fright of some sudden horrible occurrence. Such patients *cling, as it were, convulsively to the thought they have grasped, so that no other, or at least none opposed to it, can arise. In both processes, however, what is essential to madness remains the same, the impossibility of a uniformly connected recollection, such as is the basis of our healthy and rational reflection. Perhaps the contrast of the ways in which they arise, set forth here, might, if applied with judgment, afford a sharp and profound principle of division of delusions proper.

For the rest, I have only considered the physical origin of madness, thus what is introduced by external, objective occasions. More frequently, however, it depends upon purely physical causes, upon malformations or partial disorganization of the brain or its membranes, also upon the influence which other parts affected with disease exercise upon the brain. Principally in the latter kind of madness false sense-perceptions, hallucinations may arise. Yet the two causes of madness will generally partake of each other, particularly the psychical of the physical. It is the same as with suicide, which is rarely brought about by an external occasion alone, but a certain physical discomfort lies at its foundation ; and according to the degree which this attains to a greater or less external occasion is required ; only in the case of the very highest degree is no external occasion at all required. Therefore there is no misfortune so great that it would influence everyone to suicide, and none so small that one like it has not already led to it. I have shown the psychical origin of madness as, at least according to all appearance, it is brought about in the healthy mind by a great misfortune. In the case of those who are already strongly disposed to madness physically a very small disappointment will be sufficient to induce it. For example, I remember a man in a mad house who had been a soldier, and had gone out of his mind because his officer had addressed him as Earl. In the case of decided physical disposition no occasion at all is required when this has come to maturity. The madness which has *sprung from purely psychical causes may, perhaps, by the violent perversion of the course of thought which has produced it, also introduce a kind of paralysis or other depravity of some part of the brain, which, if not soon done away with, becomes permanent. Therefore madness is only curable at first, and not after a longer time.

Pinel taught that there is a mania sine delirio, frenzy without insanity. This was controverted by Esquirol, and since then much has been said for and against it. The question can only be decided empirically. But if such a state really does occur, then it is to be explained from the fact that here the will periodically entirely *withdraws itself from the government and guidance of the intellect, and consequently of motives, and thus it then appears as a blind, impetuous, destructive force of nature, and accordingly manifests itself as the desire to annihilate everything that comes in its way. The will thus let loose is like the stream which has broken through the dam, the horse that has thrown his rider, or a clock out of which the regulating screws have been taken. Yet only the reason, thus reflective knowledge, is included in that suspension, not intuitive knowledge also; otherwise the will would remain entirely without guidance, and consequently the man would be immovable. But, on the contrary, the man in a frenzy apprehends objects, for he breaks out upon them; thus he has also consciousness of his present action, and afterwards remembrance of it. But he is entirely without reflection, thus without any guidance of the reason, consequently quite incapable of any consideration or regard for the absent, the past, or the future. When the attack is over, and the reason has regained its command, its function is correct, because here its proper activity has not been perverted or destroyed, but only the will has found the means to withdraw itself from it entirely for a while.

VOCABULARY

1. Shrink (verb): To become or to make something smaller in size or amount.
2. Apprehension (noun): the power or ability to grasp the importance, significance, or meaning of something (formal)
3. Swear to (phrasal verb): To say that something is definitely true.
4. Throw (verb): To direct something at someone/something.
5. Strive (verb): To try very hard to achieve something or to defeat something.
6. Wound (verb): To hurt someone's feelings.
7. Sneak (verb): To go somewhere secretely, often without permission.
8. Drive someone away (phrasal verb): To make someone not want to stay or not want to go somewhere.
9. Creep in/into something (phrasal verb): To begin to happen or affect something.
10. Dwell on/upon something (phrasal verb): To think or talk a lot about something, especially something it would be better to forget.
11. Break in (on/upon something) (phrasal verb): To interrupt or disturb something.
12. Carry out something (phrasal verb): To do and complet a task.
13. Endure (verb): To experience and deal with something that is painful or unpleasant, especially without complaining.
14. Lethe (noun): A dreamy state of forgetfulness or unconsciousness (literary).
15. Harassed (adjective): Tired and anxious because you have too much to do.
16. Cast out something (phrasal verb): To get rid of something, especially by using force.
17. Cling to something (phrasal verb): To be unwilling to get rid of something, or stop doing something.
18. Grasp (verb): To understand something completely.
19. Forth (adverb): Away from a place; out.
20. Spring from something (phrasal verb): To be caused by something; to start from something.
21. Withdraw (verb): To move back or away from a place or situation; to make some or something do this.

SUMMARY

Madness is a subject that couldn't be mentioned without paying attention to the fact that the article was written in the 19^th century.

This article is about the hypothesis that madness is related to willing forgetfulness. Moreover, it brings us some examples in this regard in order to clarify properly the suppossed link between those two phenomena.

In this text, the question of the human will is very important and, additionally to it, the distinction of reason and wish is the key point to understand its great power to change our impressions. Indeed, it can distort our representation of the reality and, eventually, makes us insane.

Another key point is the fact that our senses affect our brain and vice versa. Because of this, some people construct their own representations in order to get rid of "the pain of the World".

OPINION

I strongly believe we are not enough prepared to deal with the most painful situations. Indeed, when we have some problems that are very strong for us, we'd rather forget what really causes them than know and accept their real dimension.

Furthermore, life itself is a kind of non-sense if we don't actualize its opposite state. That is to say, we have to create or find out its sense or, say, its goal. The lack of reason or creativity and, what is more, the creation of a "false world of ideas and beliefs" from our incapacity to endure the most challenging proofs of "self-control" or "self-domination" until the achievement of our most highest hopes or wishes, is the main reason of our mediocrity towards ourselves and any "divine" idea.