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[531] 16. There are still harmless self-observers who believe that
[532] there are "immediate certainties"; for instance, "I think," or as
[533] the superstition of Schopenhauer puts it, "I will"; as though
[534] cognition here got hold of its object purely and simply as "the
[535] thing in itself," without any falsification taking place either
[536] on the part of the subject or the object. I would repeat it,
[537] however, a hundred times, that "immediate certainty," as well as
[538] "absolute knowledge" and the "thing in itself," involve a
[539] CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO; we really ought to free ourselves from
[540] the misleading significance of words! The people on their part
[541] may think that cognition is knowing all about things, but the
[542] philosopher must say to himself: "When I analyze the process that
[543] is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of
[544] daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be
[545] difficult, perhaps impossible: for instance, that it is _I_ who
[546] think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that
[547] thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who
[548] is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally,
[549] that it is already determined what is to be designated by
[550] thinking--that I KNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already
[551] decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I
[552] determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps
[553] 'willing' or 'feeling'? In short, the assertion 'I think,'
[554] assumes that I COMPARE my state at the present moment with other
[555] states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is;
[556] on account of this retrospective connection with further
[557] 'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for
[558] me."--In place of the "immediate certainty" in which the people
[559] may believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a
[560] series of metaphysical questions presented to him, veritable
[561] conscience questions of the intellect, to wit: "Whence did I get
[562] the notion of 'thinking'? Why do I believe in cause and effect?
[563] What gives me the right to speak of an 'ego,' and even of an
[564] 'ego' as cause, and finally of an 'ego' as cause of thought?" He
[565] who ventures to answer these metaphysical questions at once by an
[566] appeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception, like the person who
[567] says, "I think, and know that this, at least, is true, actual,
[568] and certain"--will encounter a smile and two notes of
[569] interrogation in a philosopher nowadays. "Sir," the philosopher
[570] will perhaps give him to understand, "it is improbable that you
[571] are not mistaken, but why should it be the truth?"

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