Key Arguments

• He assumes, for the sake of argument, that 'the Cogito reveals a new mode of existence that owes nothing to time', where I discover myself as 'the universal constituent of every being that is accessible to me', a 'transcendental field with no folds and no outside.'
• In such a framework, the distinction between form and matter loses ultimate sense, and 'it is not clear why the mind, reflecting upon itself, could ultimately find any sense in the notion of receptivity or conceive of itself in any valuable way as affected.'
• If 'it is the mind that thinks of itself as affected, then it does not think of itself as affected, since it once again affirms its activity at the moment in which it seems to hold itself back'; likewise, 'if it is the mind that places itself in the world, then that mind is not in the world and self-positing is an illusion.'
• Citing Lachièze-Rey’s idea that whenever the subject thinks it 'again becomes the absolute because that is what he eternally is,' Merleau-Ponty asks: 'But how could there be several absolutes? How could I in the first place ever recognize other Myselves?'
• If the subject can only be experienced by coinciding with it inwardly and 'by definition, eludes the “outside spectator”', then 'my Cogito is, in principle, unique – no one else could “participate” in it.'
• He rejects the idea that it could be 'transferable' to others, because no external 'spectacle' could motivate me 'to posit outside of myself this mode of existence whose sense requires that it be grasped inwardly.'
• Without an inner learning 'to recognize the junction of the for-itself and the in-itself', 'none of these mechanisms that we call “other bodies” will ever come to life; if I have no outside, then others have no inside.'
• He concludes: 'If I have an absolute consciousness of myself, then the plurality of consciousnesses is impossible. It is even impossible to catch sight of a divine absolute behind the absolute of my thought.'
• Such a 'hermetically sealed self is no longer a finite self.' There is 'consciousness of the universe thanks to the previous consciousness of organization – in the active sense of the word – and consequently, in the final analysis, thanks to an inner communication with the very operation of divinity.'
• Thus 'The Cogito ultimately leads me to coincide with God', and 'the constituting consciousness is, in principle, singular and universal', making it impossible to define a finite subject as a monad or to preserve genuine plurality.

Source Quotes

Consequences: the impossibility of finitude and of others.] Before questioning this interpretation of the Cogito in terms of eternity, let us look closely at its consequences, which will show the need for a correction. If the Cogito reveals a new mode of existence that owes nothing to time, if I discover myself as the universal constituent of every being that is accessible to me, and if I discover myself to be a transcendental field with no folds and no outside, then it must not merely be said that my mind “so far as the formal element of all sense-objects is concerned (. . .) is Spinoza’s God,”9 – for the distinction between form and matter can no longer receive an ultimate value, and it is not clear why the mind, reflecting upon itself, could ultimately find any sense in the notion of receptivity or conceive of itself in any valuable way as affected. For, if it is the mind that thinks of itself as affected, then it does not think of itself as affected, since it once again affirms its activity at the moment in which it seems to hold itself back; if it is the mind that places itself in the world, then that mind is not in the world and self-positing is an illusion.

If the Cogito reveals a new mode of existence that owes nothing to time, if I discover myself as the universal constituent of every being that is accessible to me, and if I discover myself to be a transcendental field with no folds and no outside, then it must not merely be said that my mind “so far as the formal element of all sense-objects is concerned (. . .) is Spinoza’s God,”9 – for the distinction between form and matter can no longer receive an ultimate value, and it is not clear why the mind, reflecting upon itself, could ultimately find any sense in the notion of receptivity or conceive of itself in any valuable way as affected. For, if it is the mind that thinks of itself as affected, then it does not think of itself as affected, since it once again affirms its activity at the moment in which it seems to hold itself back; if it is the mind that places itself in the world, then that mind is not in the world and self-positing is an illusion. It is unclear how Lachièze-Rey, for example, could avoid this consequence.

If I ceased thinking and then begin to think again, I come alive again, I reconstitute – in its indivisibility and by putting myself back at the source from which it emerges – the movement that I carry on (. . .). Thus, every time that the subject thinks, he takes himself as his support, he places himself, beyond and behind his various representations, in that unity that, as the principle of all recognition, must not be recognized, and he again becomes the absolute because that is what he eternally is.10 But how could there be several absolutes? How could I in the first place ever recognize other Myselves? If the subject’s only experience is the one I obtain by coinciding with it, if the mind, by definition, eludes the “outside spectator” and can only be recognized inwardly, then my Cogito is, in principle, unique – no one else could “participate” in it.

If I do not learn within myself to recognize the junction of the for-itself and the in-itself, then none of these mechanisms that we call “other bodies” will ever come to life; if I have no outside, then others have no inside. If I have an absolute consciousness of myself, then the plurality of consciousnesses is impossible. It is even impossible to catch sight of a divine absolute behind the absolute of my thought.

It is even impossible to catch sight of a divine absolute behind the absolute of my thought. The contact of my thought with itself, if perfect, encloses me within myself and prevents me from ever feeling transcended; there is no opening to nor “aspiration”12 for an Other for this Myself who constructs the totality of being and its own presence in the world, who is defined by “self-possession,”13 and who only ever finds outside of himself what he has put there. This hermetically sealed self is no longer a finite self.

The contact of my thought with itself, if perfect, encloses me within myself and prevents me from ever feeling transcended; there is no opening to nor “aspiration”12 for an Other for this Myself who constructs the totality of being and its own presence in the world, who is defined by “self-possession,”13 and who only ever finds outside of himself what he has put there. This hermetically sealed self is no longer a finite self. There is only (. . .) consciousness of the universe thanks to the previous consciousness of organization – in the active sense of the word – and consequently, in the final analysis, thanks to an inner communication with the very operation of divinity.14 The Cogito ultimately leads me to coincide with God.

This hermetically sealed self is no longer a finite self. There is only (. . .) consciousness of the universe thanks to the previous consciousness of organization – in the active sense of the word – and consequently, in the final analysis, thanks to an inner communication with the very operation of divinity.14 The Cogito ultimately leads me to coincide with God. If the intelligible and recognizable structure of my experience, when I recognize it in the Cogito, draws me out of the event and places me within eternity, then it simultaneously frees me from all limitations and from this fundamental event that is my private existence, and the same reasons that oblige us to pass from the event to the act, from thoughts to the I, also oblige us to pass from the multiplicity of I’s to one solitary constituting consciousness and prevent me – in an attempt to save in extremis the finitude of the subject – from defining it as a “monad.”15 The constituting consciousness is, in principle, singular and universal. [c.

There is only (. . .) consciousness of the universe thanks to the previous consciousness of organization – in the active sense of the word – and consequently, in the final analysis, thanks to an inner communication with the very operation of divinity.14 The Cogito ultimately leads me to coincide with God. If the intelligible and recognizable structure of my experience, when I recognize it in the Cogito, draws me out of the event and places me within eternity, then it simultaneously frees me from all limitations and from this fundamental event that is my private existence, and the same reasons that oblige us to pass from the event to the act, from thoughts to the I, also oblige us to pass from the multiplicity of I’s to one solitary constituting consciousness and prevent me – in an attempt to save in extremis the finitude of the subject – from defining it as a “monad.”15 The constituting consciousness is, in principle, singular and universal. [c. Return to the cogito.]* If we attempt to maintain that it constitutes in us merely a microcosm, if we preserve for the Cogito the sense of an “existential experience,”16 or if it reveals to me not the absolute transparence of a thought that entirely possesses itself, but rather the blind act by which I take up my destiny as a thinking nature and carry it forward, then this would be a different philosophy, a philosophy that does not draw us outside of time.

Key Concepts

• If the Cogito reveals a new mode of existence that owes nothing to time, if I discover myself as the universal constituent of every being that is accessible to me, and if I discover myself to be a transcendental field with no folds and no outside
• it is not clear why the mind, reflecting upon itself, could ultimately find any sense in the notion of receptivity or conceive of itself in any valuable way as affected.
• if it is the mind that places itself in the world, then that mind is not in the world and self-positing is an illusion.
• But how could there be several absolutes? How could I in the first place ever recognize other Myselves?
• If I have an absolute consciousness of myself, then the plurality of consciousnesses is impossible.
• The contact of my thought with itself, if perfect, encloses me within myself and prevents me from ever feeling transcended; there is no opening to nor “aspiration”12 for an Other for this Myself who constructs the totality of being and its own presence in the world, who is defined by “self-possession,”13 and who only ever finds outside of himself what he has put there.
• This hermetically sealed self is no longer a finite self.
• thanks to an inner communication with the very operation of divinity.14 The Cogito ultimately leads me to coincide with God.
• the same reasons that oblige us to pass from the event to the act, from thoughts to the I, also oblige us to pass from the multiplicity of I’s to one solitary constituting consciousness
• The constituting consciousness is, in principle, singular and universal.

Context

Subsection [b. Consequences: the impossibility of finitude and of others.], where Merleau-Ponty draws out the implications of the 'eternal Cogito' interpretation, showing that it destroys the possibility of the finite subject and of other minds, and tends toward a single divine consciousness.