Showing papers in "Review of Metaphysics in 1994"

Heidegger's Method: Philosophical Concepts as Formal Indications

Abstract: To give them as much credit as possible, words possess only sufficient efficacy to remind us in order that we may seek things, but not to exhibit the things that we know by them. Augustine, De magistro.(1) In 1929, after rejecting the suggestion that contemporary Christians may be expected to feel "threatened" by Kierkegaard's criticisms, the Protestant theologian Gerhardt Kuhlmann remarks: But present-day Christianity perhaps is terrified instead about the fact that everything that the spokesmen of its theology put out as revelation, according to the original Christian and reformational understanding of the term, has been set forth by a philosopher devoid of mythologizing, that is to say, exactly and profanely.(2) One of the questions ultimately raised by the following paper is whether Heidegger in his analysis of existence does in fact, as Kuhlmann suggests, purge Kierkegaard's thought of every theological or mythological element.(3) Kuhlmann's remark is part of a broader salvo launched against what he regards as his contemporaries' naive appropriation of an atheistic existential analysis that reduces the phenomena of faith and revelation to the "projection" (Entwurf) of Dasein.(4) The following paper moves along a path similar to Kuhlmann's, but in an opposite direction. The paper is concerned, not with Christian theologians' appropriation of Heidegger's analysis, but rather with Heidegger's appropriation of Christian theology's method. In lectures delivered at Marburg and in others given both immediately before and afterwards in Freiburg, Heidegger specifically outlines a "formally indicatory" method, that is to say, a philosophical method that proceeds by "formally indicating or signalling" certain phenomena. The purpose of the following paper is to reconstruct, principally in light of Heidegger's methodical reflections in his lectures, the genesis and nature of this method and to show, on the basis of that reconstruction, how it is appropriated from what he understands by Christian theology. I Central to Heidegger's criticism of the Western philosophical tradition is his charge that it has repeatedly "passed over" the world as a phenomenon in favor of nature, conceived as a collection of substances or things present.(5) Dominating this prevailing conception, according to Heidegger, is meta-physics, loosely understood as the tendency to regard things as being only insofar as they are in some sense present and thus potentially available and accessible to human concerns. His contemporaries' arguments for the integrity of the humanities and historical studies (Geisteswissemchaften) in the face of the demand for the unity of a single method drawn from the sciences of nature (Naturwissenschaften), come up short in Heidegger's eyes. They come up short, as do the myriad attempts to refute psychologism, because they tacitly subscribe to the same ontological assumption as their opponents.(6) On that assumption, whatever else something may be said to be, what it means for it "to be" is for it to be present or, in other words, to be a scientific object in the broadest sense of the term, namely, something capable of standing over against some knowing or researching subject (gegenuberstehend, ein Gegenstand). Philosophical neglect of the world is thus in Heidegger's eyes the expression of the forgottenness of what "to be" means, which, despite the tradition, is not to be confused with the mere presence of any particular thing or being or collection of the same. Nor can the retrieval of what "to be" means be the provenance of science, at least not a science that concerns itself with some object only insofar as the latter is or can be present. In a muscular historical narrative, the sweep of which the philosophical community has not witnessed since the likes of Hegel or Nietzsche, Heidegger recounts the difficult infancy of this Seinsvergessenheit in the classical Greek idea of a science of being, its dreamy adolescence in the context of the medieval sciences of theology, its maturation in the unabashed subjectivism of the modem scientific project ("mastery of nature") and, finally, its domination as technology in the twentieth century. …

Teleology and Evil in 'Laws' 10

Abstract: THE TENTH BOOK OF THE LAWS, which contains Plato's last word on cosmology and theology, has often been considered as presenting Plato's views in a more exoteric way in contrast with the more esoteric style of the Timaeus. And there are good reasons to think that this view is correct. Whereas the Timaeus stresses that "to find the maker and father of this All is difficult, and, having found it, it is impossible to communicate it to the crowd" (28c),(1) Plato is in Laws 10 intending to establish a "proemium" (prooimion, 887a-b) or rational foundation for his laws against impiety, which are supposed to be known by all. in this proemium Plato tries to argue for three propositions: (1) that the gods exist (887c--899d); (2) that they take care of human affairs (899d-905d); (3) that they cannot be bribed by sacrifices or prayers (905d-907b).(2) The underlying assumption is that learning these facts about the gods will also help to prevent impiety which, like any kind of vice, is often due to ignorance (885b). If this is so, what most surprises us is that Plato does not however have qualms about introducing in this apologetic discourse a reference to an evil soul as acts alternative candidate to a good soul ruling over the universe (896e). This has provoked the most varied reactions, from ancient Platonistss attributing to Plato a dualism that would appear manichean to our eyes, to recent interpreters who have denied that Plato is at all concerned with the World-Soul in the Laws. It has also been very much debated whether the general account of Laws 10 is consistent with the Timaeus. This requires us to examine the status of soul and its connection with evil in Laws 10 against the background of Platb's cosmological account in earlier dialogues. I shall try to show that Laws 10 is to be taken as an emphatic assertion of cosmic teleology--based on the supremacy of soul--that follows the spirit of the earlier dialogues and that involves an explicit rejection of any kind of evil World-Soul ruling over the whole cosmos. This rejection, however, does not do away with the existence of an "evil kind of soul," nor does it do away with the problem of evil in general, about which Plato seems to be worried probably more than ever, though at the same time he wishes more than ever to be convincing about the existence of teleology. This, as we shall see, gives the Laws a fluctuating tone between optimism and pessimism, which could nevertheless be resolved as pessimism about individual human affairs but optimism about the victory of goodness in the whole that will subsume any partial evil. I The priority of soul over body. Why does Plato need to "prove" that god exists? It is obvious that this need arises when god's existence is no longer evident or a matter of consensus, as it used to be (885e-886a), but has now been controverted by modern theories. It will no longer be sufficent to point to the "sun, moon, stars and earth, as instances of divinity," because many people would say "that these things are simply earth and stone" and bulks of inanimate things (886d-e, cf. 12.967c). These matelialists claim the priority of body over soul (891c) and posit nature (phusis), chance (tuche), or chance by necessity (tuche ex anankes) (889c) as the main cause of everything: the random motion, collision, and admixture of opposite properties of water, earth, fire, and air (like hot-cold, wet-dry, soft-hard) gave rise to the heavenly bodies and the universe in general (889b-c). "And all this, as they assert, not by reason (nous), god (theos) or art (techne) but . . . by nature and chance" (889c). It is these materialists, then, who provide the scientific support for atheism. Plato purports to attack them by conversely establishing the priority of soul over body. To phusis understood as chance and necessity, Plato opposes his own principles, namely god and design (techne) and intellect (nous) as things akin to soul (889b-c, cf 892a-c). …

Peirce's Transformation of Kant

Abstract: Although C. S. Peirce is generally regarded as the founder of American pragmatism, the fragmentary and incomplete character of many of his texts makes it hard to glimpse any systematic or coherent philosophy of pragmatism in them. One might respond to this state of affairs by interpreting Peirce in the light of the views of other pragmatists, in particular, of William James. While this interpretive strategy certainly gives one a handle on at least aspects of Peirce's philosophy, it has one decided disadvantage: it leads one to portray Peirce as simply the first in a line of thought which extends more or less continuously through James, Mead, and Dewey to Quine and even Richard Rorty. It is thus fated to obscure such discontinuities of philosophical intention and doctrine as might exist between Peirce and the later pragmatists. We have good reason to suspect the existence of such discontinuities. Late in his life Peirce himself felt that other writers who had begun calling themselves pragmatists had so misunderstood what he meant by the term that his own philosophy was in danger of being confused with theirs; in consequence, he renamed his doctrine "pragmaticism" in order to emphasize its difference from the doctrines of other so-called pragmatists.(1) This fact is a clear indication that we need another strategy of interpretation, one which will reveal a more systematic and coherent side to Peirce's philosophy, in the light of which the difference upon which Peirce himself insisted will become more clearly visible and intelligible. In this paper, I seek to identify just such an alternative strategy and then to sketch with its help an alternative picture of Peirce. Specifically, I seek to show how one might interpret Peirce's philosophy as possessing a decidedly Kantian character or architectonic in virtue of which there must be a fundamental discontinuity between his thought and that of James and those later writers who see themselves as belonging to the one tradition of American pragmatism initiated by Peirce. I will do this by adopting and elaborating the interpretation of Peirce articulated by the contemporary German philosopher Karl-Otto Apel in his book, Charles S. Peirce: From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism.(2) My claim will not be that the Apel-inspired picture of Peirce which I wish to sketch here is the only possible one; the frequent difficulty and incompleteness of Peirce's texts presumably make it futile to hope for a single definitive interpretation of him. Nonetheless, I do believe, first, that such a view of Peirce finds support in at least some, if not all, of his texts; and second, that it portrays him as an interesting and original thinker who is attempting to overcome the traditional concept of theoretical knowledge as episteme(3) while not rejecting, as is currently fashionable, the very idea of theory as knowledge of how things really are. Much of what I say comes from Apel, and where that is the case, I have indicated it. At the same time, Apel's interpretation is itself rather scanty and even obscure; in order to overcome these difficulties, I have engaged in more than a little creative reconstruction of my own. In particular, the account I give in section III of what Peirce means by semiosis is not to be found in Apel, although many things he says suggest aspects of it. Nor does Apel ever explicitly describe Peirce's central problem in the way I do in section IV, namely, as the problem of showing how theoretical inquiry is possible once one has made that break with the traditional concept of theory as episteme which Apel calls Peirce's semiotic transformation of the theory of knowledge. The views expressed in sections VI and VII should not be attributed to Apel. This is particularly true of the claim I make in section VII, namely, that a consensus theory of truth, whether Peirce's or anyone else's, is best understood not as offering an alternative to the traditional correspondence theory, but rather as making this latter criterially relevant. …

Aristotle and Adam Smith on Justice: Cooperation between Ancients and Moderns?

Abstract: I Sympathy in Smith The most wide-spread, but ill-informed opinion about Adam Smith, based on his reputation as the founder of modern economics, makes him out to be a Social Darwinist for whom the most important form of human interaction is competition In fact, the most important principle in Smith's moral psychology is what he calls sympathy, broadly understood as fellow feeling: the imaginative placing of ourselves in the situation of another, representing to ourselves what we would sense, think, and feel were we in his or her situation We not only conceive some idea of what the other is experiencing, but in a weaker degree also feel something like it; for to conceive or imagine that we are feeling something "excites some degree of the same emotion, in proportion to the vivacity or dulness of the conception"(1) Mutual sympathy, a sense of a "correspondence of the sentiments of others with our own,, seems to provide a distinct pleasure of its own: grief can be alleviated and mirth and joy enlivened by being sympathetically shared Teaching, for example, would lose much of its relish, if one could not enter into and enjoy the feelings good students have in being introduced to important and exciting ideas - ideas that may no longer be that exciting in themselves for their teacher Sympathy then, the key notion in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, provides the foundation for Smith's understanding of natural sociality: society, or association, proves to be an association in morality The Wealth of Nations, which for the most part considers human behavior insofar as it is governed by "the desire of bettering our condition" and "the propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another" was first published in 1776(2) The first edition of the more comprehensive The Theory of Moral Sentiments was published in 1759, when Smith was the professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow The last years of his life were spent preparing the sixth edition, which was published in 1790 some weeks before his death The chief motive for the pursuit of riches and place, according to The Theory of Moral Sentiments, is the honor and attention that they naturally draw to their possessors; the chief gratification of those possessors lies in their sense of how others sympathetically think and feel about the joys and exultations naturally connected with their situation The other side of this coin is the depression felt by the visibly poor and unfortunate as they sense the effect of the presence of their miseries on others "It is because mankind are disposed to sympathize more entirely with our joy than with our sorrow, that we make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty" (132) While recognizing this disposition to admire, almost worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise or neglect their opposites, as a natural and necessary psychological engine of social order, at least for any relatively civilized or prosperous society, Smith faces the difficulty that it "is, at the same time, the great and the most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments" (133,418-10) II Fellow-feeling in Aristotle Near the beginning of his treatment of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle speaks of philanthropia, literary affection for humanity, as the human manifestation of a natural affection for members of their own species running through almost all animals (1155a12-29;cf1161b3-8) The Rhetoric provides a more general argument Since what is according to nature is pleasant [cf 1369b33-1370a25], and things that are akin are natural to each other, all things that are akin and alike are for the most part pleasant, as human to human, horse to horse, youth to youth And since everything like and akin to oneself is pleasant, and each self feels this most of all in relation to himself, all men are fond for [or lovers] of themselves more or less, because all such relations [that is, likeness and kinship] belong most of all to oneself …

Does Evil Have a Cause? Augustine's Perplexity and Thomas's Answer

Abstract: IN THE DISCUSSION on education in the Republic, Socrates lays down the principles which those who speak about the gods must follow if they want to avoid the errors of traditional mythology. The first typos of this rational theology is this: "God is the cause, not of all things, but only of the good." For "God, being good, cannot be responsible for everything happening in our life, as is commonly believed, but only for a small part. For we have a far smaller share of good than of evil, and while God must be held to be the sole cause of good, we must look for some other factors than God as cause of the evil."(1) Rightly celebrated, this passage has set the agenda for ages of reflection in Western thought on the cause of evil. In contrast to traditional mythology where the gods are seen as the origin of both good and evil--as Homer says, "Zeus has two jars standing on the floor of his palace, full of fates, good in one and evil in the other"(2)--the divinity is now freed of all responsibility for evil (o theos anaitios). God, who is entirely good, can only be the cause of well-being. If this answer sets God free of all responsibility for evil, it seems to be at the cost of limiting God's power: for God is no longer responsible for "most things in human life," since most of them are evil. What, then, may be the cause or causes of evil? Do bad things have a cause? Or do they just happen? Plato's formulation seems to suggest that he favours a dualistic solution to the problem of evil: God is the cause of all good, but for evil we have to tind other causes. What could those causes be: matter, cosmic necessity, an evil soul? Various answers of this type were developed in later Platonism and in later mythological philosophies (Gnosticism and Manicheism)(3). Without denying that Plato often uses a dualistic discourse and uses elements of it in his cosmology (as in the Timaeus and in the myth of the Politicus), I do think that Plato had something different in mind. After all, he was not primarily interested in the problem of theodicy (which tirst presented itself in Stoicism). For in this passage of the Republic, he is not concerned with the problem of evil in the universe as a whole, which is really the theodicy question, but with evil in "human life," that is, evil insofar as human beings experience it and suffer from it: the fact that we are not at all living well but are instead miserable and unhappy. Who or what, then, is responsible for that evil in our life which, alas, we have a far greater share of than the good? Is it the gods, cosmic necessity, matter, or an evil principle? Plato's answer is given at the end of the dialogue, in a passage from the myth of Er, the most quoted text of Plato in antiquity. In the dramatic structure of the myth, we have arrived at the most crucial moment when the souls, before they will be incarnated and start a new mortal life, have to choose a particular pattern of life. At this moment everything is at stake. As we know, each of our lives is a particular mixture of talents, character, birth and rank, strength and weakness, poverty and wealth, health and disease. It is up to us to choose, by blending the various factors, that type of life which offers the highest human happiness. As a matter of fact, our lives seem to be a mixture of good and evil, and some people seem to be more favoured by fate and hence more "happy" than others. When they are unhappy, people often start "blaming fate and heaven and anything but [themselves] and they forget that the misfortunes are really their own fault."(4) Therefore, at this crucial moment, the prophet solemnly warns the soul that everyone chooses his own fate. The quality of his life, his virtue, and his corresponding happiness depend only upon his own choice. "The responsiblity lies not with God [theos anaitios], but with the soul that makes the choice" (617e). God is not the cause of evil, he only guarantees the inevitable decree of fate: that the man who will make a wrong (that is immoral) decision will pay for it and become a perverted, tormented, and unhappy man. …

John Rawls, 'Political Liberalism.'

Abstract: In a Theory of Justice (1971), John Rawls deployed a social contract theory to vindicate liberal political principles of civil liberty and distributive justice without appeal to a utilitarian calculus. Rawls described his conception of political justice as "justice as fairness." Rational contractors, deliberating behind a "veil of ignorance," agree to a scheme of justice prior to knowing how the scheme materially affects their individual interests or conceptions of moral or nonmoral good(s).(1) Perhaps the most striking and certainly one of the most controversial features of Rawls's Theory was his argument that "the right" subordinates (for purposes of the political order) not only material interests in the economic sphere, but also individuals' fully considered conceptions of the moral good, human flourishing, and final ends.(2) Hence, Rawls's theory of justice was meant to be a systematic alternative both to the economic pragmatism of other modem contract theorists as well as to the classical tradition of perfectionism in political theory. This long-awaited sequel consists of chapters based in part upon lectures and published work over the past two decades. Political Liberalism, however, is not simply a collection of essays.(3) Rawls notes that "I reached a clear understanding of political liberalism--or so I think--only in the past few years" (p. xxxi). Therefore, the book does not just retine and correct the doctrine in Theory but gives an entirely new focus to the project. He calls this new focus "political liberalism." Rawls explains that a "serious" shortcoming of Theory was his failure to adequately distinguish between "a moral doctrine of justice general in scope" and "a strictly political conception of justice" (p. xv). If justice as fairness is based upon a general moral theory, then it would seem that citizens must endorse a comprehensive philosophical doctrine in order to reach consensus about the principles which ought to inform the institutions of the polity. He now points out that this is an impractical expectation. The fact that a doctrine of justice contains a "thin" understanding of moral values, and the fact that it stipulates general moral reasons why perfectionist values must be excluded from the principles and institutions of the political order, does not make the doctrine less "comprehensive" (in the sense given to this term in Political Liberalism).(4) For example, in comparison to Plato or Hegel, Ronald Dworkin's work represents a relatively "thin" and certainly "antiperfectionistic" account of justice. Rawls correctly observes, however, that Dworkin treats justice according to a general theory of moral values. Accordingly the constraints placed upon "public reason" are drawn from the ethical conception of values. To this extent, Dworkin's liberalism is "comprehensive."(5) So, too, was Theory. For two decades friends and foes of Theory read it as a more or less complete "liberal" conception of justice that could compete with other more or less complete theories of the subject. Indeed, almost immediately upon its publication there emerged a considerable body of secondary literature, purporting to detect or develop the implicit ontology and epistemology of Theory in order to make it more serviceable as a comprehensive account of justice.(6) Yet Rawls also had in mind a narrower goal for Theory, which was to show how rational agents can reach consensus about the principles of justice for the purpose of political institutions. Rawls now acknowledges that there is something "unrealistic" about the possibility of reaching a practical consensus when the comprehensive theory itself affords occasion for dispute (p. xvii). A modern democratic society, he notes, "is chaaracterized not simply by a pluralism of comprehensive religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines but by a pluralism of incompatible yet reasonable comprehensive doctrines" (p. xvi). Since no one of these doctrines is affirmed by citizens generally, we cannot expect unanimity. …

The Life of Signs

Abstract: Now spoken sounds are signs of affections in the soul, and written marks signs of spoken sounds And just as written marks are not the same for all men, neither are spoken sounds But what these are in the first place signs of--affections of the soul--are the same for all; and what these affections are likenesses of--actual things--are also the same Aristotle, De Interpretatione, 16a3-8(1) Every sign by itself seems dead What gives it life?--In use it is alive Is life breathed into it there?--Or is the use its life? Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Part 1, [sections]432(2) IN HIS COMMENTARY on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, Garth Hallett records Wittgenstein's extensive reading of Augustine's Confessions By contrast, he remarks that Wittgenstein never read anything of Aristotle However, he also reports Rush Rhees as saying that at the time of his death Wittgenstein had in his possession the first two volumes of a German-Latin edition of Aquinas's Summa Theologiae,(3) containing questions 1-26 of the Prima Pars Question 13 concerns the Divine Names, the first article asking whether a name can be given to God Aquinas begins his answer by referring to the passage from De Interpretatione quoted above: "Since, according to the Philosopher, words are signs of ideas, and ideas the similitudes of things, it is evident that words function in the signification of things through the conception of the intellect"(4) Nowhere, so far as I know, does Wittgenstein discuss Aquinas Famously, however, the Investigations begins with a quotation from Augustine's Confessions, and the passage in question might be thought to presume a view of signification akin to that presented by Aristotle and quoted by Aquinas Augustine writes: When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out Their intention was shewn [sic] by their bodily movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples: the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of voice which expresses our state of mind Thus as I heard words repeatedly used in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learned to understand what objects they signified; and after I had trained my mouth to form these signs, I used them to express my own desires(5) Wittgenstein makes this passage a target of critical discussion, but interestingly the aspect he focuses upon is the suggestion that words are names of objects(6) Here I am concerned with another, and I believe more central, aspect of Augustine's remarks, namely the idea, explicit in Aristotle and Aquinas, that the meaningfulness of utterances derives from that of mental concepts I want to suggest that some version of that view may be defensible, even allowing the efficacy of Wittgenstein's attacks on ideational theories of meaning II Allowing that meaning is independent of speakers in the sense that an individual cannot use a term just as he wishes and still expect to be understood, it is also true that were it not for individuals seeking to express themselves language would not exist In concluding his examination of the debate between theorists of communication-intention and those of formal semantics, Strawson remarks that "as theorists we know nothing of language unless we understand human speech"(7) What he is observing is that we shall not have an adequate idea of the nature of meaning unless we attend to the fact that language exists to express beliefs, intentions, desires, and the like, and to serve their communication between one person and another The compatibility of a view of meaning as involving speakers' psychological attitudes with the affirmation of the relative autonomy of linguistic sense requires an account of speech-acts as formed by and conforming to established patterns of use …

The New "Crisis" Contribution: A Supplementary Edition of Edmund Husserl's 'Crisis' Texts

Abstract: Edmund Husserl's Crisis was not only one of his most important formulations of an introduction to phenomenology, but also the inspiration for a plethora of studies that have helped shape the direction of thought in the twentieth century, from Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomonologie de la perception(1) to Jurgen Habermas's Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns.(2) It is well known that the problematic surrounding the Crisis occupied Husserl during his last years, from 1934 to 1937. The first critical edition of these reflections was prepared by Walter Biemel and published in 1954 as volume 6 of the Husserliana series bearing the title, Die Krisis der europaischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phanomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phanomenologische Philosophie.(3) As one might suspect from a philosopher who bequeathed nearly 45,000 stenographed manuscript pages, however, we have not heard the last of Husserl on the celebrated Crisis issue. The latest installment of the Crisis problematic is a collection of supplementary writings entitled, Die Krisis der euroaischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phanomenologie: Erganzungsband. Texte aus dem Nachlass 1934-1937.(4) There is much to be learned from a text of this sort; it both placates historical curiosity about the extant material on the Crisis and piques thematic interest in topics the Crisis only promised to treat. In the following pages I would like to discuss this new Crisis volume in four stages. First, I will give a basic introduction to the Crisis problematic; second, I would like to discuss the composition of the new Crisis selection and its standing in relation to the first Crisis edition. After offering an overview of the material included in this supplementary volume in my third section, I will conclude by suggesting the direction that Husserl's incomplete Crisis might have taken. I The condition of Husserl's research manuscripts has been explained in many works and need not be repeated in detail here.(5) In place of such an ambitious undertaking, let me simply emphasize some of the salient points surrounding the Crisis collection and, in a more cursory fashion, highlight the circumstances involving its emergence.(6) According to an outline for the Crisis prepared by Husserl's close assistant Eugen Fink (with whom Husserl held daily consultations), the Crisis was to be divided into five parts.(7) The first two parts originally published in an international journal entitled Philosophia,(8) and were later reprinted in the critical Crisis edition. They are entitled, respectively, "The Crisis of the Sciences as Expression of the Radical Life-Crisis of European Humanity," and "Clarification of the Origin of the Modem Opposition between Physicalistic Objectivism and Transcendental Subjectivism." For Part 3, divisions A and B of the Crisis, the situation is somewhat more complicated. Let me explain. After Husserl had assiduously reworked Part 3--already months past his deadline for publication--Fink apparently forwarded the typescript to the editor of Philosophia, Arthur Liebert.(9) After writing more amendments and supplements to this draft, however, Husserl once again rethought the conception of the "most mature results of [his] life's work of over 40 years."(10) In true Husserlian style, by trying to nail down an adequate conclusion to Part 3, Husserl amassed writings that he conceded would far exceed the space of two volumes of Philosophia. According to a letter to his former student, Jan Patocka, sheer length was one reason Husserl thought it necessary to alter his plans for a conclusion to this work, and to reevaluate how the Crisis should be divided.(11) Citing delays in thinking and writing that were due to health, the tremendous difficulties related to the themes in the Crisis, and the formidable task of his new way into transcendental phenomenology--to say nothing of the voluminosity of his text--Husserl requested at the end of June 1936 that Liebert return the typescript. …

Representation, Self-Representation, and the Passions in Descartes

Abstract: THAT DESCARTES WAS INTERESTED from the very start of his philosophic career in developing a method for problem-solving that could be applied generally to the solution of "unknowns" is well known. Also well known is the further development of the method by the introduction of the technique of hyperbolic doubt in his mature, metaphysical works, especially in the Meditations. Perhaps less widely appreciated is the important role that accounts of systems of signs played in the development of his early accounts of a method; it is crucial to the method that the elements of problems be identified and signified by simple and convenient signs that can then be arranged to display the relations among the known elements and the unknown solution. Commentators such as Michel Foucault(1) have brought this interest in signification to our attention and shown the widespread importance of such projects in the seventeenth century. Few, however, have examined the relation between the early projects of signification and the later, metaphysical works. I suggest that one way to understand Descartes' metaphysical turn in his mature work is as an attempt to ground the accounts he has offered of signification in something further: representation, particularly mental representation. From the start, Descartes explains signification by reference to mental representation: a word, figure, or symbol signifies its objects by prompting the mind to think of those objects. Although Descartes offers detailed and comprehensive accounts in works such as the Rules for the Direction of the Mind of what constitutes effective and convenient systems of signification by way of the relations between signifying element, system, and the objects signified thereby, the mental operations that allow signification to operate, especially that of the "intuition of simple natures," is never fully explained. It remains to the mature phase of Descartes' career to crack open the basic operations of our thought by developing the full-fledged doctrine of ideas--a doctrine that makes explicit how an object is represented to a subject.(2) Looking at the doctrine of ideas developed in such works as the Meditations allows us to develop a model of representation, that is, what is involved when Descartes says that an idea "represents" such-and-such an object. What I suggest is that a "representation" is a structural whole embracing several, interrelated component parts. The component parts include what I call the "subject-position," that is, a relation to the first-person subject for whom the representation is a representation. This subject-position is directed at an object, what is represented in the representation (the representatum), through a "vehicle" of representation, which vehicle stands in a particular (and variable) relation to the represented object. This vehicle, I should emphasize, does not as such constitute some tertium quid intervening between the subject-position and what the idea is of; what an idea is "of" is its object, which is directly represented therein. Indeed, in many cases the vehicle is not metaphysically distinct from the object. If, for instance, the object is a substance, it may be represented through some of its modes, which constitute the vehicle. To be sure, we may also talk of representing a chunk of extension through its color or a mode of extension through a line segment, in which cases the relation of representation is--or should be--considered conventional. More generally, the vehicle is formed by the interaction of subject and object. The object can be modified by the vehicle, in the sense that what the object is represented as is a matter of the vehicle through which the object is represented. Although I will not argue the matter further here, I do think there is a great deal of textual evidence for this model--particularly in Descartes' crucial notion of "an idea taken objectively" as well as his use of per, ut, and in the case of materially false ideas, tanquam clauses that modify the represented object as or through something or other. …

Can There Be Texts without Audiences? the Identity and Function of Audiences

Abstract: The audience is the real or imaginary group of persons who are in fact acquainted, could be acquainted, or are meant to be acquainted with a given text. Etymologically, the term "audience" refers to a group of listeners. This meaning of the term goes back to a time when the primary form of acquaintance with the work of an author was through the spoken word. From the invention of the printing press, however, until the time when the use of the radio became widespread, written texts were the primary way of learning about an author's work. Although contemporary media have changed this to a certain extent, in science and the humanities it is still true that the audience for an author's work consists largely of readers. For my present purposes, the distinction between readers and listeners is immaterial and, hence, I often refer to an audience as a group of readers, although what I say about it will apply, mutatis mutandis, to listeners as well. The notion of audience raises all sorts of interesting philosophical issues. Perhaps the most obvious of these is whether texts must have audiences at all. Some authors claim that they need not, because the authors themselves have no audience in mind when they compose a text. If texts are intended to convey meaning, however, it would appear that they must at least be intended for audiences. How is this conflict to be resolved? It appears that in order to do so we must first settle the issue of the audience's identity, but this is not easy. Is the audience whoever is intended, by the author, to understand the text? Is the audience whoever actually comes into contact with the text? Or is the audience whoever potentially could come into contact with the text? I shall begin, then, by discussing the identity and function of the audience. Once these issues are settled I shall take up the question of whether there can be texts without audiences. I The Identity of the Audience. In order to clarify the identity of the audience I shall discuss, first, the different types of audiences that a text may have and, second, the number of persons that may compose them. There are at least five different types of audiences for a text. In order to facilitate their discussion I have named them as follows: author as audience, intended audience, contemporaneous audience, intermediary audience, and contemporary audience.(1) The Author as Audience. From the moment an author has put something down in writing, has said something, or even has thought about the parts of the text he is composing that are already established, even if only provisionally, and goes back to what he has written, said, or thought, he becomes an audience. If the text is written, it acquires a status more independent from the author than if it is spoken or thought. Even a spoken text or a thought text, however, can be ex- amined by an author as an audience examines if when it is recorded on a tape or (in this case) on the author's memory. In all cases, the author who approaches the text he has composed may function as audience insofar as he goes to the text with the aim of understanding it. Indeed, the whole process of composing a text involves a person in a continuous switching back and forth between the roles of author and audience, whether as writer and reader, speaker and listener, or thinker and rememberer. In order to see the effect of what he says and how he says it, he needs to look at it as an observer rather than as a composer.(2) In many ways, the effectiveness of authors depends on their dexterity at this switching of roles and on understanding the needs of an audience. Good writers, for example, say only what needs to be said in order to convey a certain meaning; they use what the audience already knows to determine what to write; they are economical and effective. Bad writers, on the other hand, repeat material the audience already knows and fail to say what is necessary for understanding - they are thus boring or unclear. …

Spinoza's Democratic Turn: Chapter 16 of the 'Theologico-Political Treatise.'

Abstract: AMONG STUDENTS OF SPINOZA it is generally acknowledged that chapter 16 represents a new beginning in the Theologico-Political Treatise. There is, however, considerably less agreement as to what this new beginning signifies. For some it marks a radical new teaching about the state of nature and natural law, while for others it is regarded as derivative of the more fundamental and pathbreaking work initiated by Hobbes.(1) Less often, though, is chapter 16 regarded as the birth place of modern democratic theory. Yet a century before Rousseau, Spinoza embraced democracy as the form of government most consistent with the natural law and in agreement with human liberty.(2) There are several reasons that have contributed to the neglect of the Treatise as a classic of modem democratic theory. In the first place, Spinoza's political theory is buried three quarters of the way through the Treatise and comes to light only after the reader has slogged through a long and painstaking discussion of biblical philology and criticism. Second, Spinoza's defense of democracy is undergirded by a naturalistic metaphysics that is more immoralist than Hobbes and scarcely to the taste of most modem readers.(3) And third, Spinoza remained wedded to certain premodern notions about the difference between the intellectuals and the vulgar which, it is believed, undercut his democratic commitments.(4) Here I want to propose a reconsideration of the Treatise as a neglected source of democratic theory. My contention is that Spinoza's support of democracy is twofold: first as the regime most consistent with the modem "scientific" interpretation of natural law and justice and second as the regime most likely to foster the intellectual and rational capacities of its citizens. At the same time that Spinoza advocated democracy as the most rational regime, I want to show that he was keenly aware of the limitations of democratic rule. While he regarded democracy as the best regime (optima Republica), he did not regard it as the highest good (ens perfectissimum) for the individual. In the end there will always be a disproportion between the democratic citizen and the intensely personal, even solitary, character of the philosophical life. Before examining the arguments of chapter 16, it is necessary to say something about its place in the architecture of the Treatise as a whole. Beginning with a treatment of prophets and prophecy in the first three chapters, Spinoza takes up in succession the themes of the divine and ceremonial law (4-5), miracles (6), and the proper method of scriptural interpretation (7). He proceeds, then, to a lengthy discussion of the order and composition of the books of the Torah (8-11), the status of the Gospels (11-13), and the proper relation of faith and philosophy (14-15). This section of the Treatise culminates in Spinoza's announcement of a new "catholic" or universal religion (fidei universalis) that is said to be nothing more than a distillation of the moral teachings of the prophets and apostles culled from both Testaments. The essence of the Treatise's new moral theology is an unprecedented doctrine of charity and justice interpreted to mean toleration and non-interference with the beliefs of others. Basing this religion on precepts allegedly common to both Judaism and Christianity, this religion is intended to serve as a civil theology for the new democratic state with Spinoza himself as its secular messiah.(5) Chapter 16 begins with the following announcement. "Hitherto [Huc]," Spinoza remarks, "our care has been to separate philosophy from theology, and to show the freedom of thought which such separation insures to both" but "it is now time [quare tempus est] to determine the limits to which freedom of thought and discussion may extend itself in the ideal state [optima Republica: best regime]."(6) Having spent fifteen chapters defending the necessity of freedom of opinion and belief, Spinoza proposes spending the next five showing what, if any, are the limits of that freedom. …

Philosophical Reflections on Coma

Abstract: The primary aim of this essay is to advance discussion on how best to treat comatose patients. Its principal conclusion will be (1) Some purportedly irreversibly comatose humans ought to be kept alive indefinitely.(1) Of course, merely keeping such patients alive is not how best to treat them. How they are being treated while being kept alive is of paramount importance. Note that (1) is compatible with the truth of (2) All comatose humans ought to be kept alive indefinitely. I shall say nothing more about (2). It will serve my present purpose if I can adequately defend (1), where "some" is to be understood in the usual manner, namely, as "at least one." The term indefinitely," as one might surmise, is meant to convey some unspecified period of time. It is my specific hope that this essay will catalyze the revival of what is almost invariably perceived to be a moribund position with respect to the comatose. Presently, any suggestion to the effect that one ought not allow purportedly irreversibly comatose patients to die(2) (given that certain crucial conditions are met(3)) is typically met with incredulity, if not outright derision. Advocating the active killing of such patients is likewise not presently a popular position, but allowing them to die is generally viewed as being morally permissible, if not obligatory in many cases. I intend, in broad outline, to challenge this view. I Let us begin by considering the relatively recent discussion concerning the moral status of discontinuing nutrition and hydration in the case of one Nancy Cruzan, who had been diagnosed as being in an irreversible state of coma. Her case focused national attention on that clinical entity known as "persistent vegetative state."(4) Almost overnight the general public became aware of the fact that "coma" does not denote a monolithic nosological category; rather, there are varieties of coma. Attempting to ascertain what characteristics these varieties have in common will prove to be a valuable exercise in the context of our present inquiry. We shall proceed then by examining some putative essential properties of coma in the hope of accurately characterizing the nature of this variegated condition. The clinical diagnosis of coma is etiology neutral.(5) It is largely based upon the perceived level of a patient's sensorium, which itself is routinely indirectly gauged by the assignment of numerical values to various behavioral outputs. These scores have been standardized in the form of the Glasgow Coma Scale, an indispensable clinical and research tool developed by a team of investigators at the Institute of Neurological Sciences in Glasgow, Scotland.(6) Roughly stated, the scale assigns increasing numerical values to increasingly complex behavioral outputs in each of the following three categories: eye opening (E), best motor response (M), and best verbal response (V). The "coma score" for an individual patient is simply the sum of (E) + (M) + (V) and can range from three to fifteen. It is sometimes stated that patients who score less than eight overall are considered prima facie to be comatose.(7) Of course, not all individuals who score less than eight on the Glasgow scale are in a coma. As with any other medical diagnosis, competing diagnoses must first be ruled out. The list of competing or "differential" diagnoses for coma includes, among other nosological entities, the diagnosis of "locked-in" syndrome, an unfortunate neurological condition which is usually the result of a (typically vascular) lesion in the ventral pons.(8) In severe cases, patients suffering from this syndrome are able only to move their eyelids; all other muscles are completely paralyzed.(9) Yet, tragically, such patients may be fully conscious - able to hear, see, feel, and appropriately interpret much of what transpires around them. It is part of medical lore that in times gone by - and even presently in technologically less sophisticated societies-locked-in individuals have often been taken for dead and interred prematurely. …

The First Principle of Personal Becoming

Abstract: I Personal development has two broad phases: the first is that of infancy, childhood, and adolescence; the second is that of our continuing development as adults. Without excluding the former, I wish to concentrate upon the latter in order to describe what I will argue is a spiritual form of life in the individual human being. Becoming in the order of human personhood arises out of a dynamic source that is not easy to name with accuracy. It has been called the "psyche," or "subjectivity," or "personality," and sometimes "the human spirit," though the latter term often remains rather too vague for philosophical purposes. Aristotle has said that the fruits of understanding come with getting the name right. What, then, is the proper name with which to designate the dynamic principle at the center of the movement of life that is appropriate to the human person? Hegel insisted that the answer to such a question required an adequate concept of spirit (Geist), though he extended the notion of spirit to what he called the Absolute. Under the rubric of spirit he sought to integrate what he took to be the restriction of ancient philosophy with what he took to be the contribution of modern philosophy. He thought that ancient philosophy had understood being as objectivity, while modern philosophy had given primacy to consciousness as subjectivity. My aim is more modest and more traditional, but not less difficult: Is it possible that contemporary philosophies stand in need of a more or less traditional metaphysical concept of spirit? Is it possible that a closer look at such a notion might contribute to what I sense is a growing tendency to understand human reality less mechanistically and less materialistically? When we speak of spirit, however, a certain ambiguity comes to the fore, an ambiguity that needs to be clarified before my present project can get off the ground. There is first the memory of the long Latin metaphysical tradition of spiritus, and second, the newer German postmetaphysical tradition of Geist. The terms are by no means identical, even though translators think themselves forced to treat them as equivalent. In fact, however, the two terms draw about themselves curtains of differing connotation, including different resonances of meaning and assonances of sound. For that reason they function in semantically different ways. To be sure, both indicate an internal dynamic and both secure a certain unity, but the terminus of their efficacy is not the same, nor is the context within which they operate. At present, the Germanic sense of "spirit" dominates those discussions in which the notion of spirit plays a role. It will serve a purpose, then, to compare the Germanic with the Latin sense, and even to see whether the Latin notion has any relevance to a contemporary discussion of personal becoming. At the center of the technical use of spiritus in the Latin philosophical traditions there is the Greek heritage proclaimed by the term eidos. The Greek is not incorrectly translated by, and thereby converted into, the Latin term forma. Forma functions in traditional metaphysics as an immanent specifying principle; it is the constituent factor within a complex entity that gives to the entity a unity of a certain kind.(1) Geist, on the other hand, tends to perform as a totality principle: it brings unity to an even wider context, to a system, horizon, or world. It is a kind of organizing form that brings diverse factors into a complex and more or less internally related arrangement; in a word, Geist provides systemic configuration (Gestalt). To clarify the ambiguity in the use of the two terms, it is fair enough to reduce the consideration of the Latin spiritus to the principle of specificity, and to reduce the German Geist to the principle of totality.(2) In contrast to the specific unity of a metaphysical composite, the unity that results from the dynamism of Geist is an organized totality. …

Aquinas on the Past Possibility of the World's Having Existed Forever

Abstract: THE SCHOLARLY LITERATURE on Aquinas' De aeternitate mundi is considerable;(1) the controversy which has spawned it seems to have involved two major points of dispute. First there is the problem of dating the work; while some commentators believe it to have been written at an earlier stage in Aquinas' career--in the 1250s--the majority view is that it is a much later work, written in the early 1270s.(2) Second, there is the problem of the continuity of doctrine between this work and the other texts Aquinas has left us on the issue of the world's temporal duration. Does he propose the same position in all, or does De aeternitate mundi represent a departure?(3) These two points of dispute come together when scholars discuss the historical context of this work. Thomas Bukowski sees it as an early defence of an unchanging position against the attacks of Bonaventure;(4) Ignatius Brady sees it as a late defence of an unchanging position against the attacks of John Pecham.(5) John Wippel, by contrast, takes it as a late departure from a previous view,(6) and James Weisheipl, concurring with Wippel, attributes this change to Aquinas' study of Aristotle's Physics in the period before his second Paris regency.(7) My chief interest here is to consider the second of the above issues: what is the doctrinal relation between the argument of De aeternitate mundi and the arguments of parallel texts elsewhere among the writings of Aquinas? My conclusions on this score are presented and argued in the opening half of part 2 of this paper; the remainder of part 2 is given over to discussion of the wider issue of the work's historical context. In part 1, however, I begin my discussion with a reasonably detailed reading of the crucial opening passages of De aeternitate mundi(8)--a reading on which will be based much of what I have to say in the ensuing part. I Aquinas is careful about the way he uses the word "eternity" ("aeternitas") in the body of the text; its occurrence, in fact, is all but limited to the title.(9) Instead, he uses the phrase "to have existed forever"; for the world to have existed forever is for it to have had infinitely extended temporal duration--or, more simply, for it to have been without a beginning.(10) Aquinas is, both in DA and elsewhere, quite explicit, and consistent, in maintaining that having infinitely extended temporal duration is not the same as being eternal.(11) Strictly speaking, then, Aquinas is not talking about the world's eternity or noneternity (the title of this work notwithstanding); he is talking, rather, about its infinite, or finite, temporal duration. I shall accordingly make a point of following, where possible, Aquinas' own locution: "to have existed forever." It is important at the outset to be very clear about the position Aquinas is actually trying to establish. It is suggested in the opening sentence of DA: "If we suppose, in accord with Catholic faith, that the world had a beginning of its duration, the question arises whether it could have existed forever."(12) The question is clearly a modal one. The question as to whether the world has existed forever or not is settled by the Catholic faith: it has not existed forever. The question Aquinas intends to pursue is weaker: could it have existed forever? We should note the exact language of this question. The Latin reads: "Dubitatio mota est utrum potuerit semper fuisse."(13) The "utrum"--"whether"--introduces an indirect question; the verb of this question--"potuerit"--is accordingly inflected to the subjunctive mood. What is interesting is that it is also inflected to the perfect form of the subjunctive, not the present; "possit" would introduce a present-tensed possibility, and the question would be whether the world is able to have existed always. However, "potuerit" is used instead of "possit," and introduces a past-tensed possibility; the question is therefore whether the world was able to have existed always. …

Some Reflections on Sartre's Nothingness and Whitehead's Perishing

Abstract: Three philosophers do justice to man as a part of nature: Aristotle, Hegel, and Whitehead. Paul Weiss's observation points directly and succinctly to the very heart of the metaphysical enterprise as I understand it, which is to develop categories that do justice to the rich, multifarious structures and experiences that constitute human nature but which are so articulated that the human nature so described is clearly embedded in, and is a part of, the wider nature that constitutes the subject matter of the physical sciences. Looking back at a few of the giants in the philosophical tradition, there are some, like Hobbes and Democritus, who focus very hard on that wider nature, but I worry that they have not really done justice to human nature in their philosophizing. Other insightful thinkers like Sartre and Heidegger worry me because they turn their backs on science and that wider nature in order to focus, and focus brilliantly, upon the structures of human consciousness. Given this perspective on things, I am inclined to view the investigations of continental thinkers such as Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, and Heidegger as extremely valuable, but as nevertheless lacking the grounding in a conceptuality that coherently weds their insights to an understanding of that wider nature. To the extent that they lack this grounding I see them as flawed. Whitehead has a conceptuality that has taken that wider nature, and the scientific study of it, very seriously; the insights at the heart of the scientific developments earlier in this century are a major source of inspiration for Whitehead's metaphysical categories. Whitehead does have a lot to say about human nature in his works, and I would not want to understate his insights in this dimension one bit. But he does not have quite the dramatic literary style nor the psychological focus of a Heidegger or a Sartre. At the level of the investigation into the structures of human nature, much has been accomplished in the sixty-five years since Whitehead wrote his magnum opus. From these considerations I conclude that if we look at Whitehead and the more dramatic continental thinkers together we will profit in two ways: (1) we will become aware of the disturbing gap in continental thinkers between, on the one hand, their insightful accounts of human nature, and, on the other, what we know about that wider nature of which human beings are a part; and (2) we will see many ways that insights from the continent can enrich that Whiteheadian account of human being that stands so deftly anchored in a conceptuality at home with what we know about that wider nature. One final introductory thought. A great deal of the work that has been done from within the perspective of Whitehead's process metaphysics has been done with the very specific aim of showing how process thought is capable of grounding a modern reinterpretation of the notion of deity, a notion of deity that rests more easily amidst the concepts that engage the modern world than do the more traditional notions of deity. Some of the people I respect most highly in this world are deeply involved in this theistic project, but that project is not, as is quite widely known, my project. I worry that the great attention paid to Whitehead's theistic readjustments has obscured Whitehead's rich availability when attention is turned toward more particularly philosophical issues. If the analyses and suggestions which follow prove to be plausible, perhaps they will encourage more research into ways that Whitehead's categories might be profitably directed upon issues and traditions out there in the wider philosophical world. But now I turn to reflections upon Whitehead, Sartre, and such notions as indeterminism and personhood. Whitehead, Sartre, and James are all very special for me because of their uncompromising commitment to indeterminism, to the idea, as James would put it, that actuality floats in a wider sea of potentiality. …

Remarks on the Argument from Design

Abstract: The argument from design for the existence of God has been subject to assault on all flanks and is often thought to have lost all strategic importance in debates within philosophical theology. Yet it exhibits a remarkable resilience. Not only is it an argument of choice for ordinary believers, but its conclusions, if not its overt procedures, are presumed valid by all theists; one could hardly hold for the existence of a divine providence or plan governing created reality without drawing on the intellectual capital of this argument. Thus a kind of eppur si muove stance has long been in place with respect to this argument. Theists just know it is making the right point, even while they may feel constrained to renounce its philosophical cogency. This situation merits attention. Examination might reveal that the argument has a basis and a fundamental strength which are not clearly conveyed in familiar presentations. To begin with, the concept of "design" itself, which is so central to the argument, seems to be somewhat blurred. We are supposed to take our start from the order exhibited by the universe. This can signify either the order of the universe as a whole or the order in the universe (such as that in living beings). That there is order is taken to be a relatively noncontroversial premise requiring at most a detailed explanation. That this order cannot be a terminus for understanding - that it requires a cause that knowingly brought it about - is the nub of the design argument. A design is thus a deliberate, intended order. Its contrary would be an order that it is not the product of intention - that came about unintended, through mere chance. Chance on this basis would mean the absence of intention. The issue therefore looks straightforward enough: must we invoke an intention (and thus a mind) to account for the order of nature, or is that unnecessary? Yet specifying the issue in terms of design invites a certain ambiguity, for there is an ordinary usage of this word that has a fuller connotation than "intended order." We learn the term primarily from speech in respect to human artifacts. If I take a stroll in the countryside, for instance, I may enjoy the sight of the fields, river, animals, and trees with an undiscriminating gratitude for the bounty of nature. If, however, I notice a house, or a bridge, or an automobile crossing an intersection, my reaction is specifically different: these things are made and I recognize them as such. They differ from the wealth of things I perceive in nature in that they have been put together with definite purposes in mind. My relation to the natural objects need not, and ordinarily does not, even raise the issue of whether they are products of some sort; they are presences, and I welcome them thematically as such. But I cannot recognize an artifact for what it is without recognizing it as made, as a product. In knowing the bridge as such, I know it as made, that is to say, I know it as designed. What marks the artifact off from the rest of nature is precisely the fact that it is met as designed. Thus our primary meaning for "design" has been established in contradistinction to nature as a whole. This is bound to introduce some embarrassment in any later attempt to speak of nature as a whole as designed. If design has been defined precisely by contrast with nature, are we not risking incoherence in declaring that nature itself is designed? As we look more closely, other discrepancies emerge. In the case of artifacts, it is fairly clear that we can distinguish the purpose of the design from the structure that has been produced. Actually, it is only in recognizing that there is some purpose or end to which this structure is oriented that we can recognize the structure as designed. The end of a knife is to cut; of a typewriter to make messages possible; of an automobile to be a means of transporting goods. Unless we knew what it was for, we could not see it as designed - it could be a mere unusual object in nature. …