Faust and the cartesian doubt

Abstract

This work presents an analysis of fundamental themes found in Goethe’s Faust (1749-1832). We aim at elucidating in this analysis Faust’s rising up to the challenge of responding to issues related to modern human condition, such as the one found in angst, helplessness, faithlessness, finitude, relations with nature and the absolute, etc. This text comes basically in two parts: the first includes questions that we consider the initial problem in Faust’s theme, and we focus on doubt and loneliness in the scene entitled “Night”. To our understanding that scene is the emblematic episode of Faust’s transformation according to the Goethean tragedy. It is in that scene that the protagonist launches the foundation for his immoderate existence as long as he allows for doubt to yield to insatiability, as represented by a Mephistophelean Faust, an archetype of modern times. The second part deals with a relation found between Descartes’ Meditations and Faust’s “Night”, a link that is justified by the importance of a philosopher who inaugurates modern thinking and presents, within his vast philosophical legacy, doubt as a lack of knowledge (science) and a demonstration of man’s skepticism when faced with existence foundations.