The Wounded Cogito

This study shows that the cogito is neither the ultimate foundation, posited by Descartes and Husserl, nor the humiliated subject proposed by Nietzsche. Rather, the subject, though fragile, is a capable human being. Both the over-exhaltation and the humiliation of the cogito are sterile alternatives for they alienate the human being from his concrete human condition. The offshoot of this alienation is the so-called wounded cogito. This study ventures to go "back-to-the-things-themselves, " to restore the wounded cogito or the self to his original state of well-being. Paul Ricoeur's reflection on the wounded cogito articulates the historical reality of the human subject rooted in the French reflexive philosophical tradition inaugurated by Descartes. Ricoeur's approach to subjectivity is both hermeneutical and phenomenological - which seeks to clarify through reflective analysis what is immediately and indubitably given to consciousness : the fact of the subject's own existence. Ricoeur made a hermeneutical turn transforming this reflection as intuition to reflection as interpretation. This approach is labeled as linguistic for it creates space for analysis and interpretation. It is motivated by the basic goal of all hermeneutics - a heightened self-understanding. This heightened self-understanding is seen as the power of human beings to exist creatively, which is a poetic response rooted in hope. Human fragility is not a weakness but a positive sign of our imagination and creativity. Hence, we are not doomed to meaningless. The operative presupposition behind this endeavor is that existence is indeed meaningful. Despite our fragility as humans, there is an over abundance of sense over the abundance nonsense. In this study, the cogito then is no longer seen as an epistemological subject but as the ontological affirmation of the I am in all its capability. Indeed, Ricoeur's rational discourse is guided all throughout by the surplus of meaning which makes his philosophy truly phenomenological and poetic.