The authorship of the famous catch phrase “everything is known by comparison” belongs to the great French philosopher-Cartesian René Descartes.
This is one of those scholars who rejected scholasticism and brought to the fore the power of their own mind, rather than the affirmation of old books. The saying: “I think, therefore, I exist,” also belongs to this thinker. If before him faith was the main source of knowledge, then the philosopher-scientist develops the concept of reason as an instrument of knowledge.
Popular wisdom?
Other sources, disputing this statement, unanimously root the folkloric 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 a goat." The hero of history prayed to the Almighty for the expansion of his living space, he advised the unfortunate to get a restless animal and also put it in the house with his family. After a year of torment, the man returned to God with a single request - to alleviate suffering. And when, according to new instructions, he expelled the cattle from the dwelling to the yard, the man was indescribably 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 peace and tranquility are perceived as much more valuable after the mess than before it. That's really - everything is relative! By the way, the “powerful people of this world” are often used by this simple technique: they take away everything that is possible from the people, and then they return it bit by bit, so they immediately become good.
Comparison - 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 knowable when a similar feature is absent in the object with which the comparison is made.
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 the subjectively thinking individual is not able to give an objective assessment of a particular quality. Any comparison should have its own coordinate system, according to which the presence of one or another quality is measured to a greater or lesser extent. It is not surprising that Descartes also invented the intersection of the abscissa and the ordinate. Comparison is a tool, not a moral category, and you need to be able to use it.
“Everything is Compared”: Nietzsche and his vision of the meaning of the statement
Friedrich Nietzsche everyone remembers from the time of the first year of higher education.
Ex-students roughly imagine that he is a theorist of free will and personal dominance over the public, but when asked about why, the philosopher said: “Everything is known by comparison,” no one will give a direct answer. And did he say that? Silent Zarathushtra. This wise man has another no less interesting quote: “I do not trust all the taxonomists and eschew them. The will to the system is a lack of honesty. ” And systematics is also a tool of knowledge. Intuition Nietzsche is not ready to talk about pure reason and working with his apparatus, so the quoted phrase, most likely, has nothing to do with the great thinker.
In any case, it is the winged phrase mentioned above that can help justify the layman’s refusal from some traditional values (family, homeland) and, in response to the question “why,” say: “It’s more convenient for me. no matter what! And it’s quite possible to ascribe it to a German author, and don’t have to mentally send Nietzsche to Solovki, he hardly knew what different readers would do with his name.
How to know the truth
Is it possible to say: “Truth is known in comparison”? More likely no than yes. Cognition is subject to the presence of an object of one or another quality, and truth, as the ecumenical patriarch Athenodor said, is not one characteristic, but the totality of their infinite number.
So, the truth is impossible to find by direct search. There will be its shades, reflections, slip, remnants. Even the answer to a simple question about who was the first to say that everything is cognizable by comparison cannot be obtained by the forces of today's knowledge. Modern book sources, for example, tend to ascribe this phrase not even to Nietzsche, but to Confucius, and it is possible that he had a similar quote, and if correctly translated, we can say that this statement has Chinese roots.
Today's Maxim Perception
Our time is the time of dunno and know-it-alls who seek the truth by comparing different brands of cars. The concept of identification as merely an instrument of cognition is not quoted. Now the phrase "everything is known by comparison" usually adorns the billboards of shops or restaurants, hotels. Mercantile time, mercantile quotes.