"Everything is known in comparison": folk wisdom or the apogee of philosophical thought?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

The author of the famous catchphrase "everything is known in comparison" belongs to the great French Cartesian philosopher Rene Descartes.

He is one of those scholars who rejected scholasticism and brought to the fore the power of their own mind rather than the statements of the old books. The saying: "I think, therefore I am" - also belongs to this thinker. If before him the main source of knowledge was faith, then the scientist-philosopher develops the concept of reason as an instrument of knowledge.

Folk wisdom?

Other sources, while challenging this statement, unanimously root the folklore origins of the popular quote. If we accept the fact that this is folk wisdom, then it is best explained by the classic parable "Get a goat, drive out a goat." The hero of the story prayed to the Almighty to expand his living space, he advised the unfortunate man to purchase a restless animal and also place it in the house along with his family. After a year of torment, the man returned to God with a single request - to easesuffering. And when, according to new instructions, he drove the cattle out of the dwelling into the yard, the man was incredibly happy and thanked the Creator. After all, without a goat it became not only calm, but also spacious! The meaning of this legend is that silence and tranquility are perceived as a much greater value after the turmoil than before it. That's really - everything is known in comparison! By the way, this simple technique is often used by the “powerful ones”: they take everything they can from the people, and then return bit by bit, so they immediately become good.

Comparison is the tool of the mind

The phrase "everything is known in comparison" means, first of all, that some signs of an object or phenomenon that are not obvious can be made visual or cognizable in the case when a similar feature is absent from the object, with comparison.

Words: "Im Gegenüber, im anderen Menschen, erkennt nun der Mensch den (individuellen) selben Willen," said Schopenhauer. This means that, comparing himself with other people, each person sees not them, but a reflection of his own will and personality. Therefore, identification will never even allow one to get closer to the truth, since a subjectively thinking individual is not able to give an objective assessment of this or that quality. Any comparison should have its own coordinate system, which is used to measure the presence of a particular quality to a greater or lesser extent. It is not surprising that the intersection of the x-axis and the y-axis was also invented by Descartes. Comparison is a tool, not a moral category, and one must be able to use it.

"Everything is known in comparison": Nietzsche and his vision of the meaning of the statement

Friedrich Nietzsche everyone remembers from the first year of higher education.

Ex-students roughly imagine that he is a theorist of free will and the dominance of the personal over the public, but no one will give a direct answer to the question of why the philosopher said: “Everything is known in comparison”. And did he say that? Zarathushtra is silent. This wise man has another equally interesting quote: “I do not trust all taxonomists and avoid them. The will to the system is a lack of honesty. Systematics is also a tool of knowledge. Intuitive Nietzsche is not ready to talk about pure reason and working with its apparatus, so the quoted phrase, most likely, has nothing to do with the great thinker.

then traditional values (family, homeland) and in response to the question “why” say: “But it’s more convenient for me. After all, everything is known in comparison.” Quote, whatever one may say! And it can be attributed to the German author. send Nietzsche to Solovki, he hardly knew what different readers would do with his name.

How to know the truth

Can one say: "Truth is known in comparison"? More likely no than yes. Knowledge is subject to the presence of one or another quality in an object, and the truth, as the ecumenical patriarch saidAthenodorus, this is not one characteristic, but a combination of their infinite set.

So, the pure truth cannot be found by direct search. There will be its shades, reflections, slips of the tongue, remnants. Even the answer to the simple question of who was the first to say that everything is known in comparison cannot be obtained using today's tools of knowledge. Modern book sources, for example, tend to attribute this phrase not even to Nietzsche, but to Confucius, and it is possible that he had a similar quote, and if it is correctly translated, then we can say that this statement also has Chinese roots.

Today's perception of the maxim

Our time is the time of know-nothings and know-it-alls who are looking for the truth by comparing different brands of cars. The concept of identification only as a tool of knowledge is not quoted. Now the phrase "everything is known in comparison" usually adorns the billboards of shops or restaurants, hotels. Mercantile time, mercantile quotes.