On Doubt

by Vilém Flusser, Rodrigo Maltez Novaes (Translation), Siegfried Zielinski (Editor)

In On Doubt , Vilém Flusser refines Martin Heidegger’s famous declaration that “language is the dwelling of Being.” For Flusser, “the word is the dwelling of being,” because in fact, in the beginning, there was the word. On Doubt is a treatise on the human intellect, its relation to language, and the reality-forming discourses that subsequently emerge. For Flusser, the faith that the modern age places in Cartesian doubt plays a role similar to the one that faith in God played in previous eras—a faith that needs to be challenged. Descartes doubts the world through his proposition cogito ergo sum , but leaves doubt itself untouched as indubitable and imperious. His cogito ergo sum may have proved to the Western intellect that thoughts exist, but it did not prove the existence of that which one can eliminate thinking and yet continue being. Therefore, should we not doubt doubt itself? Should we not try to go beyond this last step of Cartesian doubt and look for a new faith? The twentieth century has seen many attempts to defeat Cartesian doubt, however, this doubt of doubt has instead generated a complete loss of faith, which the West experiences as existential nihilism. Hence, the emergent emptying of values that results from such extreme doubt. Everything loses its meaning. Can this climate be overcome? Will the West survive the modern age?

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

100 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Vilém Flusser was a philosopher born in Czechoslovakia. He lived for a long period in Brazil and later in France, and his works are written in several different languages.
His early work was marked by discussion of the thought of Martin Heidegger, and by the influence of existentialism and phenomenology. Phenomenology would play a major role in the transition to the later phase of his work, in which he turned his attention to the philosophy of communication and of artistic production. He contributed to the dichotomy in history: the period of image worship, and period of text worship, with deviations consequently into idolatry and "textolatry".

Flusser was born in 1920 in Prague into a family of Jewish intellectuals. His father, Gustav Flusser, studied mathematics and physics (under Albert Einstein among others). Flusser attended German and Czech primary schools and later a German grammar school.

In 1938, Flusser started to study philosophy at the Juridical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague. In 1939, shortly after the Nazi occupation, Flusser emigrated to London to continue his studies for one term at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Vilém Flusser lost all of his family in the German concentration camps: his father died in Buchenwald in 1940; his grandparents, his mother and his sister were brought to Auschwitz and later to Theresienstadt where they were killed. The next year, he emigrated to Brazil, living both in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

In 1960 he started to collaborate with the Brazilian Institute for Philosophy (IBF) in São Paulo and published in the Revista Brasileira de Filosofia; by these means he seriously approached the Brazilian intellectual community. During that decade he published and taught at several schools in São Paulo, being Lecturer for Philosophy of Science at the Escola Politécnica of the University of São Paulo and Professor of Philosophy of Communication at the Escola Dramática and the Escola Superior de Cinema in São Paulo. He also participated actively in the arts, collaborating with the Bienal de São Paulo, among other cultural events.

Beginning in the 1950s he taught philosophy and functioned as a journalist, before publishing his first book Língua e realidade (Language and Reality) in 1963. In 1972 he decided to leave Brazil.

He lived in both Germany and the South of France. To the end of his life, he was quite active writing and giving lectures around media theory. He died in 1991 in a car accident, while visiting his native Prague to give a lecture.

Reviews

[Braden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a profoundly moving read for me. Simply stated, it's an argument to abandon an arrogant and conquering mode of intellectual discovery which is only self-sufficient, and embrace a younger sense of exploration and playfulness with the unknown which will conclude an exhausted era of Western though, allowing us to create new meaning. I had already agreed with some of the sentiments, but the rhetorical argument places this abandonment of the domineering Western thought on such a great height that it has renewed my old perspective on the issue with vigor!

It is so concisely articulated too; I had a great time pausing to think about the text and take it in a direction I thought was my own, only to pick the book up again and discover Flusser was just about to get to that point!

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jag kan inte säga att denna gav speciellt mycket. Flusser konstaterar att tvivel kan vara konstruktivt eller destruktivt, men oavsett vad är grunden för nyfikenhet. Så långt självklart. Därutöver att våra ordval styr delar av vårt sätt att tänka. återigen, det är själva orsaken till att manipulation genom retorik fungerar. Jag misstänker att det finns något slags lager i denna text som går mig förbi... men, som sagt, det går mig helt förbi. För mig förefaller texten trivial, med fler hänvisningar till samtida filosofer än vad slutsatserna meriterar. Detta sagt, är den första essän, ca 20 sidor, väldigt läsvärd, även om resten inte når samma höjd.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Flusser faces a crucial question, tackles it from a unique direction—and yet gets entangled in the very intellectualism he criticises. I wasn't sure whether the middle chapters are to be read as a wity joke, written in the same style he apparntly despises—but this is more difficult to tell than in his German writings. "On Doubt" is one of his few works in English and hence a possible intro for the non-German speakers (unfortunately, many of his works are not translated). Yet, the book lacks the wit, joy and play I learned to love in his German works.

[Allison Church · Rating 3 out of 5]

Takes a lot of focus to understand. Definitely has me second guessing things now.