Volume 13, Issue 4, Winter 1969
Thomas Basch
Pages 263-270
Consciousness, Humanism and Metaphysics
Since the tiem of Descartes, attempts to destroy humanism and metaphysics have consisted in attacking the reality and validity of consciousness. In recent times these attacks have taken three different forms: first, a denial of the reality of consciousness; secondly, the limitation of the meaning of consciousness to the strictly biological struggle for survival; thirdly, the charge that the cogito inflicts metaphysics with a fatal egocentrism. The following essay is a reflection on and answer to these attacks.