Showing papers in "Review of Metaphysics in 1998"

Kant's Theory of History and Progress

Abstract: As he had done with other branches of philosophy, In his theory of history Kant combined various strands of eighteenth-century thought and gave them a new interpretation. A lifelong supporter of the Enlightenment, he nevertheless resisted the uncritical optimism of the philosophes. The notion of unqualified rational and moral progress, so evident to them, remained highly problematic to him: it had no "intuitional content" and seemed to conflict with experience. All too often history seems "woven together from folly, childish vanity, even from childish malice and destructiveness."(1) Nonetheless, Kant conceded, human behavior shows a certain consistency, as the existence of actuarial tables confirms. Despite prolonged interruptions of irrationality, Kant's own time suggested that our species was finally becoming more reasonable. The fact that some ascending pattern of rationality emerged from individual erratic acts indicated the presence of "a definitive natural plan for creatures who have no plan of their own."(2) The Critique of Judgment, the writing of which coincided with that of several of Kant's essays on history, declared the teleological principle indispensable for any kind of methodological knowledge, though that principle itself remained beyond rational proof. In the natural sciences, the form and structure of organic beings cannot be understood without assuming some teleological orientation of the parts to the whole. A similar orientation toward a rational end seems to rule the behavior of intelligent beings. What distinguishes the natural ordering of humans from that of other organic creatures, however, is that their end surpasses mere survival or the satisfaction of organic needs and desires. Over a sufficient length of time it appears evident that their capacities aim at a goal that lies beyond the organic coordination of the species. In one lifetime no individual can hope to accomplish measurable progress toward the attainment of this goal. A development toward full humanity requires generations. However, is what we call "the end" more than the random effect of random actions? Nature does nothing in vain, Kant responds.(3) Why would the human animal be endowed with reason, if not for climbing beyond the optimal maintenance of its physical existence? Readers acquainted with Darwin's theory of natural selection may not find that answer sufficient. Still Kant carefully avoids presenting the teleology of history as the conclusion of a scientific proof. It remains a postulate, though one that he considers in principle, if not in its specific application, needed for the understanding of rational beings. The question remains, however, whether the teleological principle, indispensable for the scientific knowledge of nature, may be used to justify the idea that the human race progresses morally and rationally. Is Kant entitled to extend the teleological principle beyond the study of the individual organism? The idea of a teleological progression of humanity toward a state of reason is not essential for the knowledge of human nature in the way final causality is for understanding an organic nature. In Kant's defense it must be said that he does more than extend the teleological principle as he had formulated it in the Third Critique. He combines that principle with the postulates of practical reason as they appear in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1795) and in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788). According to those works, reason provides the object of moral obligation with a content and conveys to it an absolute character. For finite rational individuals even an entire lifetime does not suffice for achieving the morally good. (In the Second Critique this fact supported the postulate of the immortality of the soul.) It takes many generations to build up an objective realm of moral goodness. The task may forever remain unfinished, yet the moral imperative does not relent its demand. …

Kant on the Unity of Theoretical and Practical Reason

Abstract: Kant famously asserts that reason is one and the same, whether it is applied theoretically, to the realm of what is, or practically, to the realm of what ought to be. His view that theoretical and practical reason are two different applications of "one and the same reason"(1) is known as the doctrine of the unity of reason. Yet Kant himself seems to contradict this doctrine in two ways. In some passages in the very same works in which he asserts the unity of reason, he also states that this unity has yet to be demonstrated. According to the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, demonstrating the unity of practical and theoretical reason is one of the tasks of a critique of practical reason.(2) In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant further postpones this task by saying that we can expect this unity only to be demonstrated "some day."(3) Moreover, Kant also claims that theoretical and practical reason are "united" through the idea of the purposiveness of nature, suggesting an original disunity.(4) Thus, it seems that Kant defends three incompatible claims regarding the unity of reason. It would seem that he cannot consistently hold at the same time that (1) theoretical and practical reason are one and the same reason, applied differently, (2) that he still needs to show that they are, and (3) that they are united. The assessments in the literature are as divergent as Kant's statements. Some authors have argued that Kant does not give a coherent account of the unity of theoretical and practical reason at all. In his article, "The Unity of Reason: Pure Reason as Practical Reason in Kant's Early Conception of the Transcendental Dialectic," Paul Guyer argues that early in the critical period, Kant wisely realized that the notion of a unity of reason can refer only to completed systematicity in the sphere of practice, thereafter gradually giving up the idea of a unity of theoretical and practical reason, and finally reassigning theoretical reason's regulative ideal of systematicity to reflective judgment.(5) Others, most recently Jurg Freudiger, have argued that Kant does present a coherent account of the unity of theoretical and practical reason, but not until the Critique of Judgment.(6) This view that Kant does not present an account of the unity of reason until the third critique is often based on a stylized view of the three critiques, according to which the first critique establishes the a priori laws of nature, the second critique the a priori law of freedom, and the third critique the harmony between the laws of nature and freedom. In this vein, Henry Allison argues that before the Critique of Judgment, Kant defends "a rigid separation between the realms of freedom and nature," whereas in the third critique, he "now insists on the necessity of a mediating concept (the purposiveness of nature), which would make possible the transition from the concept of nature to the concept of freedom."(7) Despite their differences, these assessments share one assumption, namely, that before the Critique of Judgment (1790), Kant does not adequately address the relationship between theoretical and practical reason. Other commentators, by contrast, argue that Kant does present a coherent account of the unity of reason in his critical work of the 1780's. Susan Neiman and Klans Konhardt maintain that Kant develops this account in the first two critiques. On their view, the unity of theoretical and practical reason consists in the fact that they share structural and functional features.(8) Konhardt also argues that because Kant's account of the unity of reason was in essence ready as early as the Critique of Pure Reason, the Critique of Judgment brings "no essential modifications" in this account at all.(9) In this paper, I propose a new reading of Kant's doctrine of the unity of reason. I argue that this doctrine should be viewed as reaching a coherent form in the 1780's, but for reasons other than those asserted by Neiman and Konhardt. …

Who's Who in Plato's "Timaeus-Critias and Why"

Abstract: "One, two, three--but where's the fourth?" When Socrates counts to open the paired dialogues Timaeus-Critias he points to the three who are present, but he points most emphatically to a fourth who is absent--"sick," Timaeus reports Who are one, two, and three? But especially who, is the fourth, that ostentatiously absent fourth? This paper will ascertain exactly who one, two, and three are through a detailed analysis of the historical information Plato provides in the two dialogues The analysis strongly suggests just who the fourth was and why his absence mattered enough to make it the opening event of dialogues which set forth a whole cosmology and an elaborate tale of ancient Athenian greatness Once all four characters are granted their proper weight, Timaeus-Critias as a whole must be measured anew In the final part of this paper, then, we will begin the more difficult and contentious consideration of just how an appreciation of the characters provides a compelling perspective for interpreting the intention of both the cosmology and the patriotic tale set forth in these great dialogues(1) Our assumption throughout is that it matters who the three are and who the absent fourth was to be or Plato would not have given the issue such prominence An ancient report states that Plato was an assiduous polisher, that he "combed and curled" his dialogues, the openings in particular, constantly revising them(2) It is a true report, judging from the remarkable openings of so many of Plato's dialogues Why did combing and curling the opening of these two dialogues entail counting the three individuals who are present and pointing to an absent fourth? I The Setting The speeches of Timaeus-Critias are all given at a certain Kritias's house,(3) and they have a predetermined theme because of what was said at Socrates' house the previous day Yesterday, when Socrates was host, he entertained his four guests with a speech outlining a city Today's summary of yesterday's speech makes yesterday's city sound like the city built in the speeches of Plato's Republic Once that apparent connection is reflected upon, however, it becomes evident that Socrates' speech yesterday was an incomplete version of the city of the Republic Moreover, it was incomplete in a telling way: Socrates' speech yesterday stopped at the precise point where the Republic took up today's theme, how the city makes war(4) By stopping there yesterday, Socrates also omitted any mention of the theme taken up immediately after the city at war in the Republic: the philosopher ruler This theme too, perhaps the most memorable novelty of the Republic, has direct relevance for the Timaeus-Critias because Socrates flatters today's interlocutors by calling them philosophers and statesmen, men fit to speak on the grave topics of the city at war and its encompassing cosmos(5) Socrates had thus maneuvered, through his abridged account of the Republic, to induce the others to speak on topics on which he himself is wholly fit to speak and had in fact spoken in the Republic Today he asserts his inability to continue, alleging his unfitness to speak about his city at war because he is unable to sufficiently magnify the citizens or city he had described yesterday(6) Furthermore, he states that he is not alone: poets and Sophism are also unfit to praise their cities or citizens Poets are unfit because they are imitators wholly tied to their own things, the things of the city in which they have been raised Sophists--wanderers from place to place who/are neither wise nor politic--are unfit because their uprootedness makes them unable to represent men who are both philosophers and statesmen(7) Socrates, poem, and Sophism are all unfit, but there are present here today, Socrates says, philosophers and statesmen fit to describe the city at war: Timaeus of Locri, Kritias of Athens, and Hermokrates of Syracuse That is the task Socrates assigned them yesterday, having won the right to demand this effort by his own speech, that carefully truncated version of the Republic given yesterday and briefly recalled before today's speeches …

Kant on the Material Ground of Possibility: From "The Only Possible Argument" to the "Critique of Pure Reason"

Abstract: KANT ARGUES AT GREAT LENGTH in the Critique of Pure Reason that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated by means of theoretical reason. For after dividing all traditional theistic proofs into three different kinds--the ontological, the cosmological, and the physicotheological(1)--Kant argues first that the cosmological and physicotheological implicitly assume the ontological argument and then that the ontological argument is necessarily fallacious. By restricting knowledge in this manner Kant notoriously makes room for faith, that is, in this case, for a practical proof of the existence of God, which he develops in the Critique of Practical Reason. Kant's reasons for rejecting theoretical proofs(2) of the existence of God have received considerable attention. In particular, Kant's objection to the ontological argument, namely that existence is not a real predicate, still seems relevant in contemporary philosophy of religion.(3) What has not received much attention, however, is the relationship between Kant's rejection of theistic proofs in his critical period (that is, starting with the publication of the first Critique in 1781) and his views on the matter in his pre-critical period. For throughout his pre-critical period, but especially in his The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God (1763), Kant believes that there is a theoretical proof of the existence of God. One would naturally expect Kant's criticisms of theistic proofs as developed in the "ideal of pure reason" (that is, the third chapter of the first Critique's transcendental dialectic) to apply in straightforward ways to his earlier attempts at a theistic proof. However, Kant rejects the three traditional arguments in The Only Possible Argument just as he does in the first Critique. Further, his reason for rejecting the ontological argument in particular is identical to the one presented in the first Critique: "Existence is not a predicate or a determination of a thing."(2) Accordingly, Kant understood himself to be developing a theistic proof in The Only Possible Argument that is distinct from the three traditional arguments and is also not subject to the objections he raises against them. Given that Kant rejects all theoretical proofs of God's existence in his critical period and given that he did not take his critical objections to the traditional proofs to apply to the theistic proof developed in The Only Possible Argument, what is his justification for rejecting his pre-critical argument for God's existence?(3) In this paper, after first reconstructing in some detail Kant's precritical theistic proof as it is developed in The Only Possible Argument (1), we shall argue that standard answers to this question, which focus on general features of either transcendental idealism or the "critical turn," are inadequate (2). Instead, we maintain that an examination of several passages from the ideal of pure reason is crucial to discerning Kant's subtle position (3). For it reveals that Kant continues to endorse his pre-critical argument, though he weakens its conclusion by positing God as merely a regulative rather than a constitutive principle. By weakening the status of the argument's conclusion in this manner Kant hopes to avoid any conflict with his general claim that the existence of God cannot be proved while still being able to invoke God in certain epistemic contexts. However, the fact that Kant modifies his position in this delicate way does not obviate the original question. For it is still appropriate to ask what Kant's justification is for rejecting the original (or full-strength) conclusion of his pre-critical theistic argument. That is, why does Kant's argument not establish God's existence as a constitutive principle? Although it is tempting to think that Kant could apply his general strategy in the dialectic (as found, for example, in his resolution to the antinomies) to this theological context, we shall suggest that Kant's change of position is ultimately based on, and thus stands or falls with, his unique analysis of reason and the understanding. …

Leibniz on the Indefinite as Infinite

Abstract: I Consider the natural numbers: 1, 2, 3, Unreflectively, we typically take there to be infinitely many natural numbers If pressed, we might offer something like the following reasoning If there were only finitely many natural numbers, then there would be a largest natural number If, however, we denote this supposed largest natural number by the symbol `n', then n+1 is also a natural number, contradicting the fact that n is assumed to be the largest natural number Consequently there are not finitely many, but rather infinitely many, natural numbers It is not my intention to assess the status of this reasoning, which in any case is only meant to describe what I take to be (in the late twentieth century) some of our informal preconceptions about the nature of the finite and the infinite Instead, I would like to set the picture suggested above against an argument that Leibniz uses to show that the number of finite (whole) numbers cannot be infinite The text from which this argument is drawn, "On the Secrets of the Sublime, or on the Supreme Being," dates from early 1676, a period of tremendous intellectual upheaval in the life of Leibniz Leibniz was living in Paris and had just invented the infinitesimal calculus(1) He was engaged in an intensive reading of the Cartesians, especially Descartes and Malebranche, and was to meet Spinoza later that year on his way back to Hannover, where, apart from extended periods of travel, he would reside for the rest of his life Here is the argument that Leibniz gives: If the numbers are assumed to exceed each other continuously by one, the number of such finite numbers cannot be infinite, for in that case the number of numbers is equal to the greatest number, which is assumed to be finite It has to be replied that there is no greatest number But even if they were to increase in some way other than by ones, yet if they always increase by finite differences, it is necessary that the number of all numbers always has a finite ratio to the last number;(2) further, the last number will always be greater than the number of all numbers From which it follows that the number of numbers is not infinite; neither, therefore, is the number of units(3) A full analysis of this proof must wait for another time The point I want to make here is that Leibniz distinguishes between there being no greatest number and the number of finite numbers being infinite That is, Leibniz distinguishes between the indefinite progression of finite numbers, which he here takes to be the case, and the finite numbers being infinite in number, which he here takes to be impossible This is made particularly clear when, directly following the passage cited above, Leibniz goes on to add to the conclusion he has just reached: "Therefore there is no infinite number, or, such a number is not possible"(4) Leibniz discusses this distinction between the indefinitely progressing and the infinite explicitly earlier in the same writing, before reaching the conclusion that an infinite number is impossible Here, focusing on the infinitely small, Leibniz remarks: One must see if it can be proved that there exists something infinitely small, but not indivisible If this exists, wonderful consequences about the infinite would follow Namely: if one imagines creatures of another world, which is infinitely small, we would be infinite in comparison with them From which it is evident that the infinite is--as indeed we commonly suppose--something other than the unlimited(5) Leibniz goes on to remark, too, that since "the hypothesis of infinites and of infinitely small things is admirably consistent and is successful in geometry, this also increases the probability that they really exist"(6) As this last remark indicates, the metaphysical outpourings of 1676 should in large part be understood as motivated by the antecedent success of the newly invented infinitesimal calculus, which had washed over Leibniz's metaphysics with the force of a tidal wave …

The Method of Philosophy: Making Distinctions

Abstract: It is notoriously difficult for philosophers to explain, to people unfamiliar with their discipline, what it is that they do. "I teach." "What do you teach?" "Philosophy." If we were to say "physics" or "history" or even "psychology," our interlocutors would think they had no problem in understanding our profession, but the answer "philosophy" almost always provokes incomprehension and unease. We can evade the issue by saying that as philosophers we study and explain the works of writers like Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes, but this clarification merely puts off the reckoning by one step; what is it that those people have written about? One reason for this difficulty is that philosophy does not have an identifiable, partial domain as its subject matter. It attempts to think about the widest context, that which is not differentiated as one part from other parts. If it were a partial discipline, it could at least be vaguely comprehended as being something other than, say, mathematics or sociology, something that studies this domain as opposed to that. Philosophy does not define itself by such partialization, however. It leaves nothing out, and hence leaves us without the contrasting foil that would allow us to say what it is. People who are unfriendly to philosophy suspect that it is inflated, presumptuous, and nonrigorous; this feeling is an inadequate but understandable way of recognizing the fact that philosophy is not defined by being partial. A second reason for the difficulty in saying what philosophy is lies in its method. The method of philosophical thinking is not obvious; we think we have some idea of the manner in which, say, physicists or linguists proceed in their inquiries, but how do philosophers proceed in theirs? It is hard to say; philosophy appears to be an arcane intellectual discipline, a form of thinking whose ways are esoteric and obscure. How does it come to know what it thinks it knows? I wish to help clarify what philosophy is by discussing its method. I will suggest that the form of thinking proper to philosophy is extremely simple: philosophy is the intellectual activity that works with distinctions. Its method is the making and the questioning of distinctions. Philosophy explains by distinguishing. This does not mean that philosophy just asserts distinctions and lets it go at that; rather, it works with distinctions, it brings them out and dwells on them, dwells with them, showing how and why the things that it has distinguished must be distinguished one from the other. Furthermore, since it essentially works with distinctions, philosophy sometimes will show that a certain distinction that has been proposed or taken for granted is unreal or invalid. Philosophy sometimes obliterates distinctions. Such rejection of distinctions, however, is the negative and refutational aspect of philosophy's work; its positive success consists in achieving a distinction that clarifies a situation or a controversy, a distinction that brings out the nature of a thing. Furthermore, even when denying a distinction, philosophy proceeds by making other distinctions that allow it to deny the one in question. Let me give some illustrations before proceeding to my argument. My claim is that philosophy does not just discuss and define, say, human freedom; rather, it will examine how responsible action is to be distinguished from the nonresponsible. It does not just talk about politics; it will distinguish the political from the economic and from the familial. It does not just examine the nature of numbers; it will show the distinction between the mathematical and the physical, between the mathematical and the logical, between the numerical and the merely collected. Philosophy does not just investigate substance; it develops the difference between the substantial and the coincidental. It does not simply investigate what propositions are; it clarifies the distinctions between propositions and states of affairs, and between propositions and the mental activities that grasp them. …

The 'Republic's Third Wave and the Paradox of Political Philosophy

Abstract: "Unless," I said, "the philosophers rule as kings or those now called kings and chiefs genuinely and adequately philosophize, and political power and philosophy coincide in the same place, while the many natures now making their way to either apart from the other are by necessity excluded, there is no rest from ills for the cities, my dear Glaucon, nor I think for human kind, nor will the regime we have now described in speech ever come forth from nature, insofar as possible, and see the light of the sun. This is what for so long was causing my hesitation to speak, seeing how very paradoxical it would be to say."(1) So goes what socrates describes as the "biggest and most difficult" of the three waves of paradox set forth in book 5 of the Republic (472a4). While he does not pause to justify the latter description when he introduces the third wave, there can be little doubt that this wave is indeed both very big or important and very difficult. As for its difficulty, Socrates mentions no less than four times his hesitancy to state that philosophers must rule or rulers philosophize (472a, 473e, 499a-b, 503b). Moreover, a more subtle, yet perhaps no less telling indication of the importance of the third wave is provided by the fact that it breaks at the exact center of the text as measured by Stephanus pages--a fact that commentators on the Republic seem hardly even to have noticed.(2) There are several reasons to believe that the centrality of the third wave may prove to be a philosophically important detail. First, the general structure of the Republic seems to place special emphasis on its central books. One scholar, Eva Brann, begins her interpretation of the Republic with the observation that this dialogue "is composed on the plan of concentric rings."(3) There are furthermore other dialogues in which Plato has evidently calculated the center of the text quite precisely, and has done so with the intention of indirectly underscoring the fundamental importance of a philosophical conception, argument, or issue. The most striking example of Plates use of this literary device is to be found in the Statesman, in which the Eleatic Stranger introduces the notion of measurement in accordance with the nonarithmetical mean--a notion that is crucial to his account of statesmanship--at the arithmetically-determined midpoint of the dialogue.(4) So too, Plato seems to call special attention to the significance of the Eleatic Stranger's philosophical "parricide" of his teacher Parmenides by placing that dramatic event at the midpoint of the Sophist.(5) While each of the passages cited above requires careful consideration in its own right,(6) these examples perhaps suffice to show that the placement of the third wave at the exact center of the Republic is unlikely to be incidental to our understanding of its significance within the dialogue as a whole. The center of a text is an appropriate place to hide that which is especially questionable as well as to emphasize that which is especially important; in certain cases where the author does not wish to be understood by every reader, these intentions may overlap. In writing on Plato, Leo Strauss took pains to identify the central item in a list as well as the subjects treated at the center of a section or book.(7) Sometimes, he suggested, the center is to be understood as a place of honor suited to that which is most important; on other occasions, what is at the center is questionable in a way that casts doubt upon that which stands at the periphery.(8) Both of these uses, we may note, are confirmed by ancient authors.(9) Both, moreover, coincide in certain texts, especially where the author has reason to write esoterically. A notable example of this coincidence is to be found in Alfarabi's Summary of Plato's Laws, where, Strauss observes, at the "very center" of the Summary and at the beginning of the fifth chapter (which is "literally the central chapter") Alfarabi "does exactly the same thing he did at the end of the fourth chapter: he drops Plato's repeated and unambiguous reference to the gods. …

Abelard's Theory of Relations: Reductionism and the Aristotelian Tradition

Abstract: Due to the influence of Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege, twentieth-century philosophers have devoted a great deal of attention to questions concerning the logic and metaphysics of relations. However, systematic philosophical interest in relations does not originate in the twentieth century, or even in the modern era. On the contrary, it originates in antiquity, dating back at least to Aristotle's short treatise, the Categories.(1) In the Categories, Aristotle identifies relations (or relatives, ta pros ti) as one of the ten irreducible kinds of being, and devotes an entire chapter--the seventh chapter of his treatise--to analyzing their nature and ontological status. Aristotle's discussion in Categories 7 provides the starting point for a long and rich tradition of thinking about relations, one which stems from antiquity, runs through the Middle Ages, and eventually makes its way into the early modern period. What is distinctive about this tradition is the commitment of its adherents to the view that relations are in some sense reducible to the monadic properties of related things. Twentieth-century philosophers typically assume that, if Simmias is taller than Socrates, this is to be explained by an entity to which both Simmias and Socrates are somehow jointly attached (namely, the dyadic or two-place property being-taller-than). By contrast, Aristotle and his followers assume that Simmias's being taller than Socrates is to be explained by a pair of monadic properties, one of which inheres hi Simmias and points him toward (pros) Socrates, and another of which inheres in Socrates and points him toward Simmias. Despite the prominence of the Aristotelian tradition in the history of philosophy, and despite the stature of the philosophers whose support it claims, reductionism about relations is now widely rejected on the basis of broadly logical considerations. Bertrand Russell, for example, has argued that the meaning of relational propositions is unanalyzable;(2) and C. I. Lewis and C. H. Langford have constructed a formal proof which allegedly shows that dyadic relations cannot, without contradiction, be reduced to monadic predicates or concepts.(3) Due to the influence of these sorts of considerations, there is widespread conviction that advances in twentieth-century logic have discredited theories that are in any way reductive of relations. In this paper, I challenge the reigning consensus by examining one theory representative of the Aristotelian tradition. On the basis of this examination, I argue that reductive theories are capable of far more subtlety and sophistication than contemporary philosophers have recognized, and that when properly understood, they can be defended against all the standard logical objections. In what follows I focus on the work of Peter Abelard (1079-1142), an influential medieval logician who developed his theory of relations in the course of commenting on Categories 7.(4) Like other Aristotelians, Abelard accepts the view that relations are reducible to the monadic properties of related things. On his theory, however, the relation between Simmias and Socrates is not to be explained by a set of peculiar monadic properties--say, being-taller-than-Socrates and being-shorter-than-Simmias. Rather it is to be explained by a pair of ordinary heights--say, being-six-feet-tall in the case of Simmias and being-five-feet-ten in the case of Socrates. Indeed, according to Abelard, the relation between Simmias and Socrates is nothing over and above the possession by these individuals of their respective heights. Although Abelard commits himself to a form of reductionism about relations, we shall see that his theory is perfectly compatible with the advances made by twentieth-century logicians. Abelard is careful to distinguish questions about ontology from questions about logic, and to commit himself to reducing relations only at the level of ontology. Thus, he argues that Simmias's being taller than Socrates is nothing but Simmias, Socrates, and their respective heights. …

Pragmatism and Truth: The Comparison Objection to Correspondence

Abstract: The well-known dictum that truth consists in an "agreement" or "correspondence" of thought with its object ... speedily leads to a hopeless impasse, once the question is raised: How are we to know whether or not our "truth" "corresponds" or "agrees" with its real object? For to decide this question must we not be able to compare "thought" with "reality," and to contemplate each as it is apart from the other? This, however, seems impossible.(1) How does the partisan of absolute reality know what this orders him to think? He cannot get direct sight of the absolute; and he has no means of guessing what it wants of him.(2) How can anybody look at both an object (event) and a proposition about it so as to determine whether the two "correspond"? And if one can look directly at the event in propia persona, why have a duplicate proposition (idea or percept, according to some theories) about it unless, perhaps, as a convenience in communication with others?(3) Despite its long and distinguised history, the correspondence theory of truth has recently had to weather a barrage of forceful objections advanced by Rorty, Goodman, Putnam, Kuhn, Davidson, Habermas, and others. In this paper I shall consider one such objection: the venerable "comparison argument," designed to demonstrate that the correspondence theory plays right into the skeptic's hands by making truth epistemically inaccessible. In general terms, we can formulate the argument as follows: If truth were a matter of correspondence with the facts, then we could verify our belief that p only if we could somehow confront p with the relevant portion(s) of reality and confirm that the two "fit" or "agree." Since we cannot possibly perform such a comparison, the intuitively appealing idea that truth is correspondence with reality ironically results in something virtually no-one wants to accept--namely, skepticism. Unless we are prepared to concede that knowledge of the external world is an impossibility, we must give up the correspondence theory in favor of some conception of truth that can do justice to our claims to know. My aim, in what follows, is twofold: first to determine what, if anything, the comparison objection tells us about the correspondence theory of truth; secondly, to explore the objection's relation to the tradition of pragmatism. I begin with the latter project. I The Comparison Objection and Pragmatism From Dewey to Rorty. Even if not peculiar to pragmatists,(4) the comparison objection has been absolutely central to their case against correspondence from the time of the classical pragmatists down to the present day. This is reflected in an obiter dictum of F. C. S. Schiller, the Oxford pragmatist In its logical aspect pragmatism originates in a criticism of fundamental conceptions like "truth," "error," "fact," and "reality," the current accounts of which it finds untenable or unmeaning. "Truth," for instance, cannot be defined as the agreement or correspondence of thought with "reality," for how can thought determine whether it correctly "copies" what transcends it?(5) Among the classical pragmatists, this emphasis on the epistemological consequences of correspondence is nowhere more salient than in the writings of John Dewey. His oft-repeated grievances(6)--that so called "copy" theories of truth make an unfathomable mystery of verification, turning it into an absurd "process of comparing ready-made ideas with ready-made facts"(7)--lies at the center of his exchange with Russell.(8) Dewey sees as fatal to the cause of correspondence the following problem, which he refers to as "a fundamental difficulty that Mr. …

Kant's Theological-Political Revolution

Abstract: Kant ist der Moses unser Nation. --Holderlin I EVERY MODERN THEORY OF homo politicus presumes a theory of homo religiosus. This is a historical observation, not a theological one. Modern political philosophy began in a self-conscious response to the crisis of theological and political authority in Europe, and this response in turn transformed many aspects of our political experience which modern philosophy then had to take into account. Modern political philosophy is not religious today, nor is it exclusively or even primarily concerned with the social effects of religion. Religion, however, is its original problematic. Yet modern theories of homo religiosus originally arose out of dissatisfaction with homo Christianus. It would seem, then, that any investigation into the nature of modern political philosophy--its basis, its development, its strengths and limitations--would have to begin, at least initially, with an examination of how it understood the phenomenon of Christianity. The New Sciences of Christianity. The political crisis of Western Christendom gave rise to two modern schools of thought about the nature of Christianity and, eventually, of religion in general. For the sake of economy, let us call these the Epicurean and existential schools of religious science. In many respects these schools are indistinguishable. Both grew up in an atmosphere of military and psychological warfare being conducted in Jesus's name, and both deplored the fanaticism, obscurantism, and cruelties fostered by the doctrines of the Christian churches. Both schools condemned the struggle for authority among Christian faiths and between Altar and Crown, yet both also appreciated the difficulty of freeing Europe from certain aspects of Christian morality without undercutting public obedience and private morals. Here the similarities between the schools end, however, and the task of distinguishing begins. We must distinguish first between their different diagnoses of Christianity's nature, then between the different therapies they proposed for removing the psychological and political evils it had caused. Religion as Behavior. The modern Epicurean approach to Christianity takes it as axiomatic that this religion did not make all things new, that it is a human phenomenon like any other, subject to the same methods of scientific analysis. This approach, founded by Hobbes and Spinoza, succeeds to the extent that it successfully levels. It first reduces Christianity to the level of "religion," then reduces religion to a form of "behavior," and further reduces all behavior to the dynamic relations among "passions" or "affects." On this basis the modern Epicureans find it possible to explain the existence of religion in modern scientific terms as something at once natural and perverse. Religion is natural because it is bred of the natural passions and ignorance of solitary human individuals; it is perverse because it excites fear and violence among them when they enter society. What do men naturally fear? In the state of nature only nature itself, whose workings appear arbitrary to simple minds unenlightened about its laws. Ignoring true causes, men attribute every turn of fortune to gods whom they make after an outsized image of themselves. They imagine these gods to be creatures endowed with wills and capable of causing effects in the physical world. They also assume that, just as men are subject to flattery, so are the gods. Yet when we try to curry their favor we learn that, again like men, the gods are willful and capricious, and this makes them fearsome. So while religion dissipates natural fear it does not abolish fear altogether. There is a residuum that is transferred from nature to the gods. This artificial fear is then mediated by a class of priests, who have an interest in perpetuating it. Through the miracle of their own escape from ignorance they are able to manipulate the ignorant belief in gods who work miracles. …

The Individuality of Human Persons: A Study in the Ethical Personalism of Max Scheler

Abstract: In his deep and significant study of the thought of Max Scheler, Hans Urs yon Balthasar writes that "the realm of the personal was Scheler`s innermost concern, more important to him than anything else, the sanctuary of his thought.(1) This is why Scheler again and again aligned himself with personalism in philosophy, as we can see from the introduction to his major work, Formalism in Ethics: The most essential and important proposition that my present investigations would ground and communicate as perfectly as possible is the proposition that the final meaning and value of the whole universe is ultimately to be measured exclusively against the pure being (and not the effectiveness) and the possible perfect being-good, the richest fullness and the most perfect development, and the purest beauty and inner harmony of persons, in whom at times all forces of the world concentrate themselves and soar upward.(2) We want to enter into the sanctuary of Scheler's thought by picking out a central theme of his personalism. He himself refers to it in the following: At no point does the ethical personalism to which our investigation has led us reveal its distinctiveness from other present ethical currents to a greater degree than in the position that it allocates to the becoming and being of the spiritual individuality of the person as the bearer of moral value.(3) This is what we propose to examine here: Scheler's understanding of the radical individuality of persons and in particular of the ethical significance of personal individuality.(4) The Antagonists of Scheler. We must first know against whom Scheler is turning in his discussions on personal individuality. I quote again von Balthasar: The basic situation of Scheler results very simply from the twofold negation in which he was involved: the `no' which he spoke to the declining Lebensphilosophie [of Bergson and Nietzsche], the insufficiency of which showed the urgent need to recognize a positive `spirit' that is independent from `life'; and the `no' which he spoke to the old idealism, which was still influential.(5) It is precisely this latter adversary, German Idealism, that puts the individuality of the person in question. Scheler sees in Kant's characterization of the person as Vernunftperson a depersonalizing Logonomie. He means that Kant and his followers tend to conceive of the Vernunftperson as something superindividual. When they relate the Vernunftperson to individual human persons they think of it as one and the same thing existing in all persons. Thus the individuality of human persons becomes a problem in just the way it is a problem for Averroes, whom Scheler repeatedly invokes as an intellectual antecedent of Kant and the German Idealists. As a result these thinkers are driven to offering purely extrinsic explanations of the principle of personal individuation; they say that individuality results from some relation to space and time, or they say that it results from a relation to a body or to the experiences of the person or to the sequence of the person's acts. In each case the principle of individuation remains extrinsic to the person. We shall see how Scheler argues for a radically intrinsic principle. Of course, Scheler does not stop with Kant; he finds the same Logonomie in Fichte and Hegel, of whom he says that "the person becomes in the end an indifferent thoroughfare [gleichgueltige Durchgangsstelle] for an impersonal rational activity."(6) He even finds a similar dissolution of personal individuality in Schopenhauer; despite the fact that Reason gives way to Will in Schopenhauer, individuals are still sacrificed to a superindividual principle: According to him, it is fellow-feeling [Mitgefuehl] which reveals the unity of being underlying the multiplicity of selves. It is this which destroys the illusion to which we are otherwise enslaved, whereby each of us considers himself as having an independent reality. …

Kant within the Tradition of Modern Logic: The Role of the "Introduction: Idea of a Transcendental Logic"

Abstract: IT IS A MATTER OF FACT that logic in the modern age was concerned to a much greater extent with the workings of the mind, that is, with epistemic and even doxastic themes, than with formal problems. Under the heading of `logic' scholars from Ramus to Kant conceived a sort of melting pot containing not just formal logic but also methodology, theory of knowledge, psychology, rhetoric, grammar, aesthetics, hermeneutics, and so on. From the point of view of formal logic all these were informal disciplines. Yet they were also part of the core of logic as a whole. It is necessary, then, to put some question marks upon the arguments adopted for privileging formal against epistemic logic by Bochenski, the Kneales, and Risse in their contributions to the history of logic in the modern age.(1) Kant's distinction between general and transcendental logic provides us with the most crucial case study. One would say, it is a book on the theory of knowledge containing many metaphysical sections as well as logical ones.(2) Yet, of which kind of metaphysics? Of which kind of logic? The aim of this paper is to give evidence for Kant's concern to give a presentation of his new philosophy within the tradition of early modern logic and metaphysics. For this reason I am going to speak of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and particularly of the section named "Introduction: Idea of a Transcendental Logic."(3) I An Academic Program. A decisive clue for the hypothesis that Kant actually thought of teaching directly from his Critique of Pure Reason can be found in the "Introduction: Idea of a Transcendental Logic." This is a section of the Critique of Pure Reason which, on account of its length (a total of 14 printed pages without the frontpiece, that is, approximately a sheet to be folded in octavo for 16 pages if one considers the frontpiece and an empty page at the back) and of the propaedeutic approach adopted by Kant, would have fit perfectly as a separate publication in the genre of the Programs (Programme, Einladungsschriften). Academic programs were very frequent in the eighteenth century and served as a means by which university professors invited students to their courses evidencing some provoking and novel elements. It does not seem unjustified, therefore, to think of a planned and never published program dealing with such an unusual question as the difference between general and transcendental logic which Kant years later incorporated in the Critique of Pure Reason as a section with an introductory function. My hypothesis is that Kant could have prepared the "Introduction" sometime during the seventies with the explicit aim of making a program out of it. From a philological point of view, the separate origin of this section is supported by the interpretation advanced by Hans Vaihinger and Norman Kemp-Smith which consider the Critique of Pure Reason as a `patchwork' of different layers in Kant's thought.(4) It is further supported by Erich Adickes' sententious remark that this section was not even worth a commentary because of its heterogeneity with the rest of the book.(5) From a systematical point of view, however, the hypothesis encounters obstacles, first of all Kant's explicit remark that we "do not enlarge but disfigure sciences, if we allow them to trespass upon one another's territory."(6) It finds a mighty ally, though, in the contention set forth by Tonelli that "transcendental logic in particular, and the Critique of Pure Reason in general, belong to the class of special logic. More precisely, they are a special logic for metaphysics."(7) In fact, Tonelli specified, "the Critique is a work on methodology and, more exactly, on the methodology of metaphysics."(8) The distinction between general and special logic (that is between Categoriae, De interpretatione, Analytica priora and Analytica posteriora, Topica, Sophistica), though made popular by Zabarella, goes back to Averroes' edition of the Organon.(9) Kant was clear on the point that the object of general logic is to have no object at all, since general logic considers only the "absolutely necessary rules of thought without which there can be no employment whatsoever of the understanding. …

Kant’s Practical Reason As Will: Interest, Recognition, Judgment, and Choice

Abstract: IT IS CHARACTERISTIC OF KANT that he interprets pure practical reason as will He thereby revolutionizes the notions of both reason and the will Reason (or rationality) is conceived as interest, a motivating power, even a self-sufficient telos Moreover, the will is understood as a rational power, that is, as initially structured by the form of law, and striving for universality in both its inner operation and the way it ought to shape the outside world For such a will, being rational also means being self-constituting, or autonomous, and self-willing, that is, seeking rationality as end-in-itself Thus construed, the immanent human will becomes in Kant the only valid source of norms and values, whether they are moral, political, or religious The traditional ground, God's will, no longer plays a role in grounding moral precepts, nor political legitimization and institutions, nor even religion itself(1) In Kant's Copernican Revolution (which concerns the will no less than the intellect) it is the finite-rational (that is, human) being whose will takes over all these roles Moreover, the human will is capable of assuming those formerly divine tasks because it is now conceived as practical reason (in Kant's sense), namely, as self-guiding and self-motivating rationality, striving to actualize its universal structure in its own actions, and to imprint it on the social and political environment The practical-rational activity consists in the will assuming its own universal structure and projecting it upon objects, values, intentions, and the very shape of the external world--including social custom, cultural objects, moral awareness, political, and religious institutions On the one hand, practical rationality is self-directed, because its ultimate goal is to realize itself in all these activities In order to do so, though, it must, on the other hand, be an outward-going activity, always directed at something else--an action, an intention, a custom, an institution, and so forth--which it must produce or reshape(2) These two features are not contradictory, because reason's outward self-projecting is performed for reason's own sake Rationality must realize itself in cultural objects like science, morals, politics, and religion, by imparting its own structure to them Only thus can human rationality (or more succinctly, humanity) realize its own end, its inherent teleological destiny; and this makes Kant's concept of reason teleological from the start The same conclusion is reached when analyzing Kant's concept of reason from the standpoint of his meta-philosophical theory This is the so-called "architectonic of pure reason," which I take to be the adequate starting point when trying to understand Kant as a whole, rather than working on his texts in a piecemeal manner only The architectonic of reason actually means: the teleology of reason, the system of reason's "essential ends" which seek to become philosophically explicated and to realize themselves in the life and world of the human race It is therefore from the standpoint of the teleology of reason that we ought also to interpret the Groundwork, that incomplete classic, and Kant's other moral texts, including the language insisting on the "formal" nature of morality The "form" of morality inevitably implies the will's inherent end(3) Another feature of Kant's revolution is that, as pure practical reason, the will does not recognize a good given in advance, but projects and constitutes the good as the rational will's own object The good does not precede the will but is derived from it, as its inherent object This is implied in the Copernican Revolution in morality (and is made textually explicit in the chapter "On the Concept of an Object of Pure Practical Reason" in the Critique of Practical Reason) The rational will does not simply obey or accept a good passively given to it To be (or rather, to become) actually rational, the will must constitute the good which it obeys, as the projection of its own inherent structure, or rational self; at the same time, the good itself becomes good only in so far as it is derived from the rational, self-universalizing will as its product …

Thomas Aquinas and the Axiom That Unreceived Act Is Unlimited

Abstract: Among twentieth-century students of Thomas Aquinas, different aspects have been singled out as central to, indeed, even as holding the key to his metaphysics Thus his metaphysics of essence and existence, his theory of act and potency, his views concerning the analogy of being, his stress on the primacy of existence (esse), his metaphysics of participation in being--each has been emphasized in due course Most recently, Jan Aertsen has greatly stressed the importance of the transcendentals in his thought in a series of articles and now in an important book Each of these aspects does play a significant role in his metaphysical thought, although I would hesitate to assign exclusive primacy to any one of them over the others(1) In this paper I propose to concentrate on what appears to be a special but decidedly non-Aristotelian application of his theory of act and potency within his metaphysics According to the first part of this axiom, as I shall describe it, "Unreceived act is unlimited" However closely related to this is a second part, that "Act is not limited except by a distinct potency that receives it" Reactions to the importance of this principle in Aquinas's metaphysics have varied considerably over the past several decades For some, not only is this principle an essential part of Thomas's metaphysical thought; it is an effective, perhaps his most effective way of establishing real, rather than merely mind-dependent distinction and composition of essence and the act of being (esse) in entities other than God(2) For other interpreters, although the general axiom or principle is present in Thomas's thought, he does not explicitly turn to it to establish the composition of essence and act of being in finite entities The elements for such an application are clearly present in his thinking, it is contended, and this axiom can rightfully be applied to support or establish this conclusion in any systematic exposition of his metaphysics Jean-Dominique Robert gave a good exposition of this view, writing in 1949(3) Still others, however, while conceding the presence and importance of the essence-existence composition in Aquinas's thought, not only deny that he ever used this axiom to establish that distinction They also deny that he defended the axiom as such, at least in terms of its second part According to this reading, most recently proposed by a young Dutch scholar, Rudi A te Velde, in his book on participation in Aquinas, Thomas did not espouse the view that act is unlimited unless it is received and limited by a distinct limiting principle In particular, te Velde denies that according to Thomas the act of being (esse) is limited by a receiving principle(4) Finally, for still others, going back to the earlier decades of this century, Aquinas did not employ this principle at all, or at least never applied it to the essence-existence relationship in finite beings Indeed, he never defended real distinction or real composition of essence and existence in such entities Names such as those of Chossat, Descoqs, and more recently, Francis Cunningham come to mind(5) In light of this background, I would like to explore the following issues in this paper: 1 Is there textual evidence to show that Aquinas accepted the principle that unreceived act is unlimited and that where one finds limited instances of act, especially the act or being, one must account for this by appealing to a distinct principle that receives and limits it? 2 Whether or not Thomas did so employ this principle, is it in accord with his thought to apply it as an argument for composition and distinction of essence and act of being in finite entities? 3 If Thomas does accept and employ this principle, what justification does he offer for it? I In this section key texts from the different major periods in Aquinas's career will be considered in order to give the reader some sense of development, to the extent that there is any, in his treatment of this issue …

The Problem of the a Priori in Sensibility: Revisiting Kant's and Hegel's Theories of the Senses

Abstract: KANT AND HEGEL FIND THEMSELVES ON SIMILAR PATHS toward their respective goals to give a total account of reality. They share a deep commitment to science, Wissenschaftlichkeit, and raise the question: Where does science begin? Similarly, they answer: It begins with sense knowledge yet it is not founded in the senses.(1) This essay attempts to reflect on, with the aim of cautiously reassessing, the nonsensible, universal features of sense experience from an idealist perspective. A study of the "science of sensibility," raised to new levels of interest in recent debates of how the mind works, seems to have lost nothing of its fascination, indeed urgency in contemporary discussions, in the Kant-Hegel scholarship, in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science as well as the natural and cognitive sciences in general.(2) The purpose of this paper is to revisit and confront, through the two foremost idealists, Kant and Hegel, what has been referred to as the "most perplexing, hard problem" in philosophy: how to explain the nature of sensibility and its contact with thought.(3) I add my own inquiry to the chorus of questioners: What is the proper place and role of sense experience in knowledge acquisition, particularly what is the nature of the knowability of the senses in their contact with the physical world? My pretext for this essay is a curiosity about two questions that are repeatedly raised in the scholarship. First, since a scientific account of observed and/or unobserved entities must include an adequate account of the role of our receptive sense apparatus, what is non-sensible about the senses? Secondly, have idealist accounts of the senses still something important to contribute to the debate, particularly for the empirical sciences? My own idealist tendency also asks the question: Would it be fruitful and not an exercise in futility to reexamine and possibly conjoin Hegel and Kant in their theories and methods for determining the a priori, non-sensible structures of the senses for a viable metaphysics for the empirical sciences? I suggest that revisiting the insights of these thinkers as they reciprocally support each another will add considerable explanatory force to contemporary debates about the nature of sense experience. I am encouraged to strike out on this path by recent scholarship which has ever so cautiously moved away from strictly materialistic, "neurophilosophical" explanations of human consciousness(4) toward a more non-reductive stance, allowing the possibility of certain fixed features of the mental faculties in conscious experience. One witnesses a return to Kant's psychology of the a priori elements of consciousness. For example, Patricia Kitcher holds such a strategy useful "to combat skeptical challenges" and as a "new enlightening model of the human epistemic situation."(5) Two recent works, John McDowell's Mind and World and Laurence BonJour's In Defense of Pure Reason, invoke the Kantian apriority in sensible consciousness, appealing to a priori cognitive content in sensuous receptivity. Such a direction seems to eschew materialistic, logico-reductive conceptions of the mind and move toward what one might describe as psycho-ontological justifications of the mind.(6) The relation of Hegel and Kant has on the whole not been well understood and disputes about their differences or affinities remain.(7) The narrow context of this essay precludes an assessment of the extent of Hegel's debt to Kant, how much Hegel's theories depend on transcendental philosophy, whether or not Hegel's criticisms of Kant are justified, and whether or not Hegel expanded and improved on Kant. Despite Hegel's extensive critique it is generally agreed that he embraced, explicitly or implicitly, significant features of transcendental philosophy. He acknowledged his debt to Kant and lauds his accomplishments. In what follows I will focus on both thinkers' expositions of sense knowledge, revealing an affinity between them that strengthens the idealist contribution to the discussion. …

Quest for Transcendence(

Abstract: At mid-century, most philosophical routes to transcendence appeared closed. Philosophers and theologians often cooperated in associating transcendence with dubious metaphysics, the otherworldly and the supernatural. This attitude towards transcendence was captured most sharply perhaps, in the work of the logical positivists, but it was shared for different reasons by the positivists of revelation. The rebirth of idealism in British and American philosophy of religion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, had been widely succeeded by realism and naturalism of the kind that, with some exceptions, tended to be indifferent, if not openly hostile to philosophical and theological talk of transcendent reality. Between the wars, metaphysical utterances were condemned by the logical positivists and their immediate successors to the scrap heap of the non-cognitive. Kerygmatic theologians, with their emphasis upon the ontological difference of transcendence and their appeal to the authority of revelation and faith, joined hands with the philosophers in ruling out any connecting point between transcendence and immanence, between the sacred and the secular in the ordinary experience of persons. The positivists of revelation no less than the logical positivists conferred an independence upon the world. Transcendent reality was reduced either to the non-cognitive, or to the miracle of faith and revelation. The period following the Second World War was one in which philosophers and theologians began talking again. The forces of logical positivism and the positivism of revelation were weakening, and many philosophers and theologians agreed that they lived in a postliberal, postidealist age in which traditional problems had to be faced in new ways. Underlying these discussions was a shift in perspective which leaped into the public eye with a bang in the early 1960s. The question of the meaning and validity of theism became a public event and an event in the community of religious faith itself. Gabriel Vahanian's 1960 book, The Death of God, provided an analysis of western culture and argued that we have entered a post-Christian era. In 1963, John A. T. Robinson published Honest to God, which brought to the attention of the public many issues raised by such theologians as Bultmann, Tillich, and Bonhoeffer in more obscure publications. This was followed by the more radical death of God theology in the United States in which Thomas Altizer argued against the transcendent God of theism and for a kind of religious atheism in which one is liberated from an otherworldy power. The radical theologies, many of them with roots in the Barthian tradition, tended either to reduce talk of God to the ethical, or to empty transcendent reality fully into immanent reality. The quest for transcendence in some other world of the supernatural seemed closed forever. To the extent that there was transcendence, it had to be discovered within the world of empirical and secular experience. For many, including many theologians, God could not be the radically transcendent monarch set over against the world intervening on occasion through disrupting the natural forces of the immanent order. Moreover the process of secularization was not so much an enemy of faith as it was an expression of faith in which persons were freed from an oppressive God and liberated for creative human activity. Although some of the more radical theologies of the early 1960s had a short shelf life, they were symptomatic of many fundamental changes that were preparing the way for much that was to come. Perhaps Bernard Lonergan captured the shift that was taking place as succinctly as anyone when he wrote: "For a century theologians have gradually been adapting their thought to the shift from classical culture, dominant up to the French Revolution, to the empirical and historical mindedness that constitutes its modern successor. During this period there has been effected gradually an enormous change of climate. …

The Anthropology of Aquinas's 'De Ente et Essentia.'

Abstract: While students of Aquinas's metaphysics have long profited from the De ente et essentia(1) students of his anthropology have turned their attention to his more explicitly psychological texts.(2) Yet the De ente et essentia is not without anthropological interest. Much of chapter five's analysis of created intelligence concerns the human soul's form and esse composition; the preceding chapters abound with references to man(3) as a natural composite defined by genus and species. Moreover, the very examination of definition itself constitutes no small part of the opusculum's program. In view of the fact that Aquinas's one explicitly logical and metaphysical treatise is filled with arguments bearing on man and the human soul, this work's anthropological dimension and implications deserve to be carefully studied. At first Thomas appears simply to reiterate Aristotle's definition of man as a "rational animal."(4) In doing so Aquinas would seem to restrict himself to a definition worked out in the terms of classical naturalism. Yet in light of the very metaphysical revolution that the De ente et essentia itself initiates, it would be surprising if this definition of man is his final word. In fact a careful reading reveals that all the "rational animal" passages cluster in chapters 2 and 3.(5) This definition is nowhere found, explicitly or implicitly, in chapters 4 or 5. This sudden silence is doubly surprising in light of the fact that the latter two chapters thematically discuss the human soul; they do so, moreover, in the full light of his esse-essentia analysis. The theme of inquiry in the second and third chapters, on the other hand, is not specifically the soul or man, but any composite ens and its essentia; and the investigation is conducted in the limited light of the matter-form analysis. Aquinas, then, defines man as a rational animal precisely where the human soul is not the specific topic of his inquiry and when his explicitly metaphysical tools of analysis have not yet come to light. The second and third chapters analyze ens and essentia as they first come to sight quoad nos.(6) As such, these chapters are concerned with the principles of composition rather than with the act of existence. From this perspective there is no need--as there will be in later chapters--to differentiate the human soul from the other physical forms. Clearly, the standpoint in these early chapters is natural philosophy, while the horizon of the later chapters is metaphysics. Any interpretation of Thomas's teaching on the human soul in the De ente et essentia which neglects the developmental character of the work, ignores its shift from physics to metaphysics, or treats its initial formulations as final syntheses, distorts his understanding. In this paper I hope to show that Aquinas's adoption of Aristotle's "rational animal" understanding of man is partial and limited. Thomas understands that it is not his last word on the subject but his first word. "Rational animal" is the definition proper to physics; Thomas's fuller anthropology is rooted in his metaphysics. I will argue that, in the larger perspective of metaphysics, he understands man to be an "incarnate (difference) spirit (genus)."(7) My attempt to recover the De ente et essentia's fuller anthropology will proceed in the following steps. First, I will trace the "rational animal" definition back to its roots in physics and logic. Secondly, I will show that Thomas transcends this definition because it is incapable of doing justice to the full human riches discovered by the ascent to esse. Thirdly, I will examine the repercussions of this ascent to esse on his anthropology. Finally, I will show that this opusculum's anthropology is continued in his later writings, especially the Summa theologiae. I Chapters 2 and 3 in the De ente explore essentia in terms of its signification of composite substance and its definition by the logical intentions. …

Philosophy and Art in Schelling's System Des Transzendentalen Idealismus

Abstract: In his System des transzendentalen Idealismus, Schelling describes the philosophy of art as the "key stone" of the entire "arch" of the system.(1) The purpose of the following essay is to explore why this is so, why Schelling's idea of philosophy led him to take up the question of "art" not only as philosophically interesting, but as the key to understanding his system as a whole. That this is an issue in understanding Schelling's System des transzendentalen Idealismus is obvious--in several passages he clearly states that the relation between transcendental reflection and the philosophy of art is decisive. Transcendental philosophy can reach its ultimate goal only when it is in a position to understand the essence of art. Yet what philosophy is actually looking for in art, and what it finds there, is not altogether clear. What does it mean that philosophy, within its own movement of self realization, seeks out something like art, finds it and makes it its own? In order to answer this question it is necessary to engage in methodological considerations having to do with system building, something already suggested by the architectonic metaphor of "Gewolbe"--that is, considerations of how theoretical and practical philosophy are to be presented as an organic, thus systematic whole. We will leave aside the question of the extent to which in the end such an organic whole is achieved, and instead focus on the philosophical mode as such, the activity of constructing the system. In this way our guiding question will be the origin of transcendental philosophy according to Schelling. This, I believe, is where the key lies in understanding the relation between the philosophy of art and the system as a whole. The basic thesis runs thus: the reason why the philosophy of art is so important has to do with the mode of reflection that establishes transcendental idealism as a project of thinking. Specifically, the activity of transcendental reflection is comparable to the production of a work of art; thus the task posed by a reflection on "art" is not only that of understanding the aesthetic world, but of understanding philosophy itself. I The "Inner City" and the "I." However important the role of art may be in the System des transzendentalen Idealismus, the same is not the case when we turn to Schelling's so-called "identity philosophy," first formulated in 1801. Though the philosophy of art is by no means rejected, it no longer has the decisive significance it had in 1800. This in no way implies, however, that the philosophy of identity has nothing to tell us about the role of art in the 1800 system. The opposite is rather the case, and as illustrative let us cite two passages that express succinctly two themes essential in the interpretation of the System des transzendentalen Idealismus. The first passage is found in the lectures Schelling held in 1803 under the title Vorlesungen uber die Methode des akademischen Studiums. It appears near the beginning of the fourteenth lecture, which deals with the place of the "sciences of art" in a philosophically grounded curriculum.(2) Right away Schelling confronts what in the philosophical tradition would appear to be the most virulent objection against the inclusion of the study of art in education: Plato's banishment of the poem from the ideal city in the Republic. What can art teach us--so Plato--when it itself, as we philosophers well know, proffers only a false account of the truth? "It is essential," Schelling replies, "to recognize the particular standpoint from which Plato passes this judgment against the poets," namely that Plato is speaking from the standpoint of the "historical, not the philosophical, opposition" between poetry and philosophy. Historically, the poet as educator is the proponent of a "poetical realism," and this is what Plato reacts against: poetics as realism, or the claim that "truth" is itself something sensible, a part of the sensible world. …

Plato's 'Parmenides': A Dramatic Reading

Abstract: Although modern commentators usually describe Plato's Parmenides as a middle to late dialogue, it contains the earliest Socratic conversation recounted in the Platonic corpus.(1) The young philosopher was approximately twenty years old when he encountered his distinguished Eleatic elder. Socrates had gone with a few companions to the home of Pythadorus in Cerameicus outside the walls of Athens to hear Zeno read his manuscript when he and his teacher Parmenides came to the Great Panathenaea (probably in 450 B.C.).(2) After Zeno finished reading, Socrates put forward his own concept of the ideas as a critique of Zeno's contention that there could not be plurality. However, when Parmenides in turn examined Socrates' understanding of the ideas, the young man proved unable to respond to his elder's critique. Nevertheless impressed by Socrates' love of argument, Parmenides predicted that if he practiced more, the youth would do better. Pressed to demonstrate what sort of practice he had in mind, Parmenides then proceeded to refute his own thesis. Neither Socrates nor Plato explicitly comments on the extraordinary result of the demonstration with which the dialogue concludes. Parmenides' exhibition of eristic argumentation in which first the affirmative and then the negative of the proposition "one is" is refuted was considered to be a sophisticated joke by members of the early academy, especially the skeptics. However, neo-Platonic commentators like Proclus later combined Parmenides' arguments about the "one" with Socrates' teaching about the idea of the Good to form a single Platonic doctrine. Modern commentators have generally followed the neo-Platonists in treating Parmenides' arguments as a version or stage of Plato's metaphysical teaching, although some continue to treat it primarily as an exercise in logic.(3) I shall argue, on the contrary, that the conversation related in the Parmenides sets the stage for all the other Socratic dialogues which follow it in terms of their dramatic dating. In the Parmenides Plato shows, first, how the Socratic teaching about the "ideas" responds to certain difficulties in the Eleatic teaching. Second, he has Parmenides bring out difficulties in Socrates' teaching about the ideas, particularly with regard to the connection between the purely intelligible ideas and sensible things. Finally, in an extremely playful demonstration of logical gymnastics, he has Parmenides present a devastating critique--not merely dramatic, but substantive--of the teaching of the poem written by the historical philosopher.(4) In the Parmenides Plato thus shows why Socrates could not continue on the path laid out by earlier Eleatic philosophers, but had to develop a new and different way of philosophizing.(5) In emphasizing the significance of the dramatic date in determining the significance of the arguments given in the Parmenides, I rely on an aspect of the dialogue that can indubitably be traced to Plato himself rather than on speculations of later commentators about the time at which he wrote it (and the place this dialogue has, therefore, in the development of his thought).(6) At whatever stage in his career Plato wrote the Parmenides, he clearly meant his readers to take it as their first view of a young Socrates. One need not engage in debates about the authenticity of the Second Letter (in which Plato says that he never wrote anything, but that the dialogues are the product of a Socrates made "young and fair") to conclude that the "Socrates" Plato presented here and elsewhere is a Platonic character. Like the Parmenides depicted in this dialogue, Plato's Socrates has some relation to the historical figure by that name. There are, however, serious discrepancies among the historical sources concerning the teachings, if not the character of that famous Athenian philosopher.(7) Rather than try to separate out the historical Socrates, who would necessarily represent something of a composite interpretive construction, from the Platonic Socrates, a figure of the same name who appears in almost all the dialogues, we ought to regard Plato's Socrates as a representative of a certain kind of philosophy, which is not only clearly distinguished from other kinds of philosophy in the dialogues but is also shown to have developed over time and is subjected, as in the Parmenides, to criticism. …