“Effect of Mirror” and Damaged Thought. Article I. Paradox of Reflexion: thinking subject and its twin

Abstract

The article deals with the fragment of polemic between Des-cartes and Hobbes from the point of view of its influence on philosophic thought of modernity. The author makes a hypothesis that this dispute appeared to be a primary demonstration of difficulty, which a present-day thinker came across, taking up a critic position according to “intellectual legacy of the past” and suggesting personal interpretation of its problems. on the base of main works by Hobbes and “Meditations on First Philosophy” by Descartes the author makes an attempt of historico-phylosophical analysis, inside of which he shows that there is a string of misunderstandings in the polemic background - that each of the sides interprets the opponent’s position in a wrong way.

According to the author’s opinion - the reason of this - is a special mechanism which acts obviously in modernity’s intellectual situation, - he calls it “effect of mirror”. This mechanism actions are demonstrated in the context of Cartesian reflexion, where a thinking subject bifurcates and, consequently, appears to be unable to define foundations of autonomous being, because any attempt to answer this question generates s new wreath of reflexion, and thus - a new bifurcation. So, a specific situation appears, in which a critical gesture toward Cartesian heritage leads not so much to a substantial polemic as to constant misunderstandings because the “object” of critique or defense leaves to be undetermined.