Fourth footnote to the post titled “Suggestion”

If thinking serves any aim or purpose other than substituting for the unconscious wish, it is to destroy any trust we have in the world of appearances to borrow from Arendt. Hence, the famous “Cartesian doubt” and so forth. Thinking automatically casts doubt over the world of appearances. The world of appearances is a world of error and semblance. Man is “thought made flesh.” Therefore, thought has a direct relationship with reality, in the sense that thought renders the world of appearances as at best having been borne out of a higher or transcendental order. Thought withdraws us from the world of appearances, and as a result, thought has a direct relationship with reality, given that the opposite of the world of appearances is reality. In short, thought forges its relationship with reality by withdrawing from the world of appearances and entering into “solitude with the one” or “union.”