Tragic doubt. Unamuno, Life 6.3

Real doubt shows us problems outside the reach of purely rational solutions. We want to live for reasons that are not fundamentally rational (in the strictest sense, such that anyone with good logic would recognize and agree with our position).

Esta duda cartesiana, metódica o teórica, esta duda filosófica de estufa, no es la duda, no es el escepticismo, no es la incertidumbre de que aquí os hablo, ¡no! Esta otra duda es una duda de pasión, es el eterno conflicto entre la razón y el sentimiento, la ciencia y la vida, la lógica y la biótica. Porque la ciencia destruye el concepto de personalidad, reduciéndolo a un complejo en continuo flujo de momento, es decir, destruye la base misma sentimental de la vida del espíritu, que, sin rendirse se revuelve contra la razón.

Y esta duda no puede valerse de moral alguna de provisión, sino que tiene que fundar su moral, como veremos, sobre el conflicto mismo, una moral de batalla, y tiene que fundar sobre sí misma la religión. Y habita una casa que se está derruyendo de continuo y a la que de continuo hay que restablecer. De continuo la voluntad, quiero decir, la voluntad de no morirse nunca, la irresignación a la muerte, fragua la morada de la vida, y de continuo la razón la está abatiendo con vendavales y chaparrones.

Aún hay más, y es que en el problema concreto vital que nos interesa, la razón no toma posición alguna. En rigor, hace algo peor aún que negar la inmortalidad del alma, lo cual sería una solución, y es que desconoce el problema como el deseo vital nos lo presenta. En el sentido racional y lógico del término problema no hay tal problema. Esto de la inmortalidad del alma, de la persistencia de la conciencia individual, no es racional, cae fuera de la razón. Es como problema, y aparte de la solución que se le dé, irracional. Racionalmente carece de sentido hasta el plantearlo. Tan inconcebible es la inmortalidad del alma, como es, en rigor, su mortalidad absoluta. Para explicarnos el mundo y la existencia —y tal es la obra de la razón—, no es menester supongamos ni que es mortal ni inmortal nuestra alma. Es, pues, una irracionalidad el solo planteamiento del supuesto problema.

This Cartesian doubt—methodical or theoretical, cooked philosophically on a stove—is not really doubt. I am not discussing such skepticism or uncertainty with you here. No! My doubt is different, a doubt that arises from passion, from the eternal conflict between reason and sentiment, science and life, logic and biology. For science destroys the very concept of personality, reducing it to nothing more than a momentary conjunction in continuous flux: in other words, science destroys the sentimental foundation of the life of the spirit, which then rebels against reason rather than surrender.

The doubt I discover cannot make use of any provisional morality: instead, its morality, as we shall see, must be founded on conflict—a morality of battle that inevitably becomes the foundation of religion. My doubt inhabits a house that is always being destroyed, that it must continually be rebuilding. What I mean to say: our will—the will never to die, never to surrender to death—forges constantly a dwelling for our life, against which reason is ever beating with whirlwinds and torrents.

There is more: the actual, vital problem that we have is one that reason does not even address directly. Strictly speaking, reason does something even worse than simply deny the immortality of the soul, which would be a solution: she does not recognize the problem in the form that our vital desire presents it to us. In rational, logical terms there is really no problem here to solve. Our preoccupation with the immortality of the soul and the persistence of individual consciousness is not rational: it falls outside the realm of reason. As a problem, no matter what solution anyone might offer, it is basically irrational. There is no rational sense in posing it. The immortality of the soul is ultimately, rigorously speaking, just as inconceivable as its absolute mortality. In order to explain the world and our existence—this is the work of reason—it is not necessary for us to suppose that the soul is either mortal or immortal. So the entire question becomes entirely irrational from the beginning.