The syndrome of the house taken over

Abstract

To overcome the paradoxical situation in which the modern subject finds itself, on conceptualizing nature in such a way that its very presence in nature becomes inconceivable, modernity has supplied at least four alternatives: a) the first is to defend dualism (Descartes, Kant); b) the second option is to support a monism of nature (Spinoza, Hobbes); c) the third alternative is to defend a monism of subjectivity (Fichte); d) the fourth and last alternative is to support a dialectical monism
(Schelling, Hegel). It is well known that, of these four alternatives to the self-interpretation crisis of modern subjectivity, the first ultimately had a more lasting influence on the philosophical scene, marking, point to point, this last breath of modernity that some call post-modern, which flows into the present situation of “hyperincommensurability” between subjectivity and nature, as diagnosed by Bruno Latour. The crisis of
subjectivity thus becomes a crisis of philosophy, which ends up as a hostage to the syndrome of the house taken over.