“Reason” in philosophy

5.….”Reason” in language–oh, what an old deceptive female she is! I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.

6. It will be appreciated if I condense so essential and so new an insight into four theses. In that way I facilitate comprehension; in that way, I provoke contradiction. First proposition. The reasons for which “this” world has been characterized as “apparent” are the very reasons which indicate its reality; any other kind of reality is absolutely indemonstrable. Second proposition. The criteria which have been bestowed on the “true being” of things are the criteria of not-being, of naught, the “true world” has been constructed out of contradiction to the actual world: indeed an apparent world, insofar as it is merely a moral-optical illusion. Third proposition. To invent fables about a world “other” than this one has no meaning at all, unless an instinct of slander, detraction, and suspicion against life has gained the upper hand in us: in that case, we avenge ourselves against life with a phantasmagoria of “another,” a “better” life. Fourth proposition. Any distinction between a “true” and an “apparent” world–whether in the Christian manner or in the manner of Kant (in the end, an underhanded Christian)–is only a suggestion of decadence, a symptom of the decline of life…