Uncertainty. Unamuno, Life 6.12
Unamuno
presents the conflict between our reason, which shows us the limits
of mortality, and our desire, which shows us a vital will to live
that overwhelms every other will we have. Which of these two
faculties will emerge victorious, in the end? We do not know, for
their war in us is coterminous with our human existence. The outcome
of this, for us, is uncertainty.
Nada
es seguro; todo está al aire. Y exclama, henchido de pasión,
Lamennais (Essai
sur l’indifférence en matière de religion,
IIIe partie, chap. 67): «¡Y qué! ¿Iremos a hundirnos, perdida
toda esperanza y a ojos ciegas en las mudas honduras de un
escepticismo universal? ¿Dudaremos si pensamos, si sentimos, si
somos? No nos lo deja la naturaleza; oblíganos a creer hasta cuando
nuestra razón no está convencida. La certeza absoluta y la duda
absoluta nos están igualmente vedadas. Flotamos en un medio vago
entre estos dos extremos, como entre el ser y la nada, porque el
escepticismo completo sería la extinción de la inteligencia y la
muerte total del hombre. Pero no le es dado anonadarse; hay en él
algo que resiste invenciblemente a la destrucción, yo no sé qué fe
vital, indomable hasta para su voluntad misma. Quiéralo o no, es
menester que crea, porque tiene que obrar, porque tiene que
conservarse. Su razón, si no escuchase más que a ella, enseñándole
a dudar de todo y de sí misma, le reduciría a un estado de inacción
absoluta; perecería aun antes de haberse podido probar a sí mismo
que existe.»
No
es, en rigor, que la razón nos lleve al escepticismo absoluto, ¡no!
La razón no me lleva ni puede llevarme a dudar de que exista; adonde
la razón me lleva es al escepticismo vital; mejor aún, a la
negación vital; no ya a dudar, sino a negar que mi conciencia
sobreviva a mi muerte. El escepticismo vital viene del choque entre
la razón y el deseo. Y de este choque, de este abrazo entre la
desesperación y el escepticismo, nace la santa, la dulce, la
salvadora incertidumbre, nuestro supremo consuelo.
Nothing
is certain; anything can happen. Here we run into the passionate
exclamation of Lamennais: “What then? Shall we go to wrack and
ruin, abandoning all hope to plunge blindly into the silent depths of
universal skepticism? Shall we doubt our thoughts, our feelings, our
existence? Nature does not allow us this luxury. She forces our
belief, even when our reason is not convinced. Absolute certainty and
total doubt are equally forbidden to us here. We float on a
foundering tide between these two extremes, between being and
nothingness, for perfect skepticism would mean the extinction of
intelligence and the total death of mankind. But nature does not
grant us power to unthing ourselves. Each of us holds within
something inexorable that resists destruction, a vital faith that
cannot be named or tamed, not even by our will. Whether we want to
believe in this faith or not is irrelevant: we must believe, for it
must act in us, must keep itself intact using us to that end. Reason,
if we listen to her alone, would teach us to doubt everything,
including ourselves: we would perish before proving to ourselves the
reality of our own existence” (Essay on Indifference 3.67).
In
rigorous terms, it is not reason that carries us to total skepticism.
Nay! Reason cannot bring me to doubt my own existence by herself. She
can take me only as far as doubting my commitment to life; better
yet, she carries me to denial. Under her tutelage, I learn not
so much to doubt my consciousness as to deny that it might survive
death. When reason clashes with desire, then I discover doubts about
my commitment to life. As reason and desire come to grips, each is
transformed by the other's embrace: desire becomes hopelessness;
reason turns to disbelief. From this awful alchemy is born
uncertainty, that sweet and holy child, our last comfort and saving
grace.