HEGEL'S HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY: DESCARTES TO SCHELLINGIntroduction: The opposition of the divine and the worldly was gradually overcome in the Middle Ages, and unity came upon the scene now as an immediate immersion in sensuality, now as eternal truth grafted onto a dry, formal scholastic understanding. Protestantism appeared as a more effective reconciliation of dialectical oppositions -- of thinking and action, of the eternal and the individual mind, and of the individual and the world. Idealism, in general, is concerned with the reconciliation of opposites in the infinite Idea -- the reconciliation of being and thought, of human freedom and "necessity, good and evil, God and existence. Realism tries to make objectivity rise from perception and take on universality, rather than trying to proceed to truth from abstract thought. The English exemplified this, in contrast to the French. Idealism and Realism in unison serve to make explicit in modern philosophy the unity-in-distinction of thought and being. Rene Descartes (1596-1650), along with Spinoza gives us a good example of what metaphysics is all about -- thought reaching out to grasp being and demonstrate that it is fundamentally united with being. Descartes' life is a seesaw between purely theoretical pursuits (periods of intense study and meditation) and practical pursuits (military service and social life), between mathematics (he invented analytic geometry) and science and pure philosophy. Distressed by the lack of certitude in philosophy, he made a vow of a pilgrimage to the Mother of God, if she would help him to make an absolutely new beginning in philosophy. And this is the main thing for which he is noted -- making an absolutely new beginning. 1) Descartes begins with the principle, "De omnibus dubitandum est" -- you must call everything possible into doubt, if you want to arrive at absolutely certain principles. (This is not what is usually called "skepticism," because Descartes' object, unlike that of the skeptics, is to arrive at the truth.) He proceeds, then, to call into doubt the truths of the senses, truths of the faith, and, in general, all purely speculative truths. (Life would become impossible if we subjected practical truths to such searching doubt.) He assumes that we are imperfect (i.e. subject to doubt and error), and that we do not derive truth from ourselves (otherwise there would never be any certainty). And he hopes to arrive at some indubitable principle which is immediately, intuitively certain; and can serve as a starting point. 2) He notes that our nature consists essentially in thought. We can conceive of ourselves without a body, but not without thought. Thus the ego -- as abstract thought -- has a certain priority about it. But what does this abstract thought think about? About itself, primarily; about its own being. In fact, this thought produces its own being, creates itself. The existence of thought is created by thought, and determined by thought. "I think, therefore I exist." This is not a syllogism. We do not begin with a general principle, "all that thinks exists," then go on to the minor proposition, "I think," and finally derive the conclusion, "therefore I exist." Rather, we start of with an immediate certainty which is prior to all syllogisms. And this certainty is paradoxical -- first, because it is a unity-in-distinction of being and thought; secondly, because it is a mediated relationship with itself -- hence immediate (non-mediated). a) In regard to the "I think," we should note that this signifies consciousness in the most general sense, as prior to all other human activities. I cannot say, "I walk, therefore I exist," because this particularizes the content of thought too much. Thus when Gassendi asked Descartes whether he could say "Ludificor, ergo sum" (I am being made a fool of, therefore I exist) -- Descartes answered that existence cannot be deduced from this or that type of consciousness, but only from consciousness in its most general sense. b) In regard to the "I exist," we should note that "existence" here is not a determinate, specific content, but the existence of thought. That is, it is purely subjective existence, the existence of pure self-certainty, which must be the starting point for all statements about reality. For example, even if I say "I do not exist," I would be presupposing that I made this statement, and therefore that I do exist. Or, if I state "my body exists," this presupposes that the ego which possesses the body ("my" body) must pre-exist. 3) In order to proceed from this immediate certainty to truth, we must first realize (says Descartes) that deception (falsity) arises only in regard to external existence. Our concepts only become false when we state that they exist outside of us when they really don't. But there is one concept we have which cannot be "false" in this sense -- and this is our concept of a perfect Being, or God. When we say that this concept exists outside of us (independently of our consciousness), we have a perfect right to do so, since the very concept of God implies necessary existence (unlike the concept of "triangle," or "horse", etc.). This is an innate idea, since our imperfect ego could not create the idea of absolute perfection, or acquire that idea. The ego must have been born with the idea. The systematic steps by which we proceed to the proof of the existence of God, are as follows: a) An infinite being is more real than a finite being. b) An infinite being implies necessary existence, whereas finite beings imply only possible existence. c) a finite ego cannot have Nothing as its cause; d) the cause of the finite ego must contain all the perfections of the ego formally and preeminently; e) the cause of the existence of the finite ego must be the infinite being who exists necessarily and can guarantee the reality of the finite being. Thus Descartes introduces into his a priori metaphysics an hypothesis concerning the existence of an absolute Being or non-ego who can give a guarantee of the ultimate unity of thought and being in an "objective" manner. 4) God is primarily the sole "necessary Being," and all His other "attributes" are dependent upon this primary notion. The first attribute of God, which is connected with His existence, is His "truth" -- the revelation of the infinite to the finite ego in such a way that the finite ego does not fully understand how this revelation is coming about. As long as the finite ego does not go beyond its own clear apprehensions to say that it sees what it really doesn't see -- God will keep it from error. Thus God supplies the "middle" term through which the finite ego solves the problem -- "how can I make true statements about existence?" The answer is this: Existence is already positively united with thought in God; and God will bring finite egos into effective union with existence (the possession of truth), which merely appears in the beginning as something purely negative (a non-ego). 5) Descartes' res extensa is really equivalent to being- as-the-negation-of-thought, although Descartes does not explicitly recognize it as such. Rather, he traces extension back to thought in a rather haphazard way, although it is thought which gives the essential determinations to extended being. Once we get beyond the innate ideas (which are purely logical eternal truths), and give universal determinations to things, we find a) that mind and body and nature are all substances, but dependent on the system of assistance (Systema Assistentiae) of God, who is the absolute uniter of Concept and reality; b) that the essential sine qua non attribute of mind is thought, while the essential attribute of body is extension; c) that body, as effect, is less perfect than its cause; d) that the essential extensivity of body can be used as a hypothesis to prove e.g. that there can be no vacuum (body without extension) or atoms (absolute indivisibles); and e) that the secondary qualities of body -- color, sound, motion, figure, etc. -- are produced by the sensory and perceptual organs, and not by pure thought (Descartes does not recognize that, in trying to distance the production of these sense qualities from thought, he is manifesting the negative movement of thought). Thus Descartes gives us a good example of a philosophical strategy which subordinates empirical data to the purposes of abstract thought. Later, with Fichte, pure speculative cognition which outdistances the various mixtures of philosophy and mathematical physics will come to maturity. 6) Although Descartes' only ethical treatise is De Passionibus, he did come to the recognition of freedom as a certitude of having an unrestricted will. However, quite in consonance with Descartes' general orientation, there is never any reconciliation of freedom and divine prescience, soul and body, etc. Rather, he conceives of organic bodies as machines, without the least spontaneity in them. Since soul and body are both substances, neither can be reduced to the concept of the other. How, then, are they connected? It is God who brings it about that the changes in the soul are echoed in the body and passions -- just as (in Descartes' epistemology) it is God who brings it about that existence really conforms to my thought. Thus God appears here again as an extrinsic third party, not as the synthesizing concept of the reconciliation of opposites. Spinoza (1632-1677) disengaged himself from the Jewish community, to escape theological pressures, and refused a professorship, to escape political pressures. He earned his living by grinding lenses -- an occupation which seems to symbolize Spinoza's intellectual kinship with the emphasis on light-unity to be found in oriental religions. He began where Descartes had left off -- at an unresolvable independence of thought from being, of soul from body -- and brought these into the comprehensive unity of the divine Spirit, or "Substance," as he called it. This divine substance, as the reconciliation of the infinite and the finite, is not just an abstract unity, but a concrete unity which requires the divine substance to become finite mind in order to be living, and which gives rise to Being as real and extended (i.e. explicitly recognized as the negative objectivity encountered necessarily by thought). Spinoza does not give as much attention to the individual as he might have, but he gives us an example of the starting point of the Eleatics and all philosophers -- the necessity of abandoning all appearances of particularity to bathe in the pure ether of the One Substance. (And, much to his credit, he does not obscure his philosophy by encumbering it with natural philosophy in the wrong places -- as does Descartes.) 1) Some Spinozan definitions: a) "Causa sui," the self-causing cause, is that which cannot be thought of as not existing: if it produces its "other," it is only producing itself-as-other, and thus possesses self-contained existence in itself. b) "Finite" means: limited by other things of the same nature, which touch it and have a common sphere with it, but lead out of it. For example, ideas are finite, insofar as they are bordered by other ideas; bodies are finite, insofar as they are limited by one another. But thought and extension are both infinite: i.e. they do not supply determinate borders for each other, since they have no sphere in common. c) "Substance" is the universality of being, which is conceived in itself, and does not depend on anything else for its conception. d) "Attributes" constitute the essence of substance, and give it particularity, specificity, and (as regards our vantage point) reality. This is not to say that an attribute is more real than substance; but only to say that our understanding, which lies outside of substance, grasps the reality of substance only through the attributes. The attributes are two in number -- thought and extension. But the substance which we grasp through these attributes remains a self-identical unity. e) "Modes" are the various "affections" of substance which are conceived of as extrinsic to reality, and as always dependent on the reality of something else. Spinoza depicts the modes as a kind of false individuality, which starkly separates the particular from the universality of substance. If he would have been a little more flexible, he would have discovered that the true individual is ever leading the particular back into the universal in an infinite circular process. But he is so intent on emphasizing universal substance, that he derogates from the modality of individuation. f) "Infinity" is of two kinds: 1) The sensuous infinite or the infinite of imagination, which is infinitely many -- e.g. the infinite number of points which supply the "beyond" to which an actual finite line could be reduced through the negative process of successive divisions. 2) The infinite of thought, or the actual infinite, which is not a negation, and not a numerical multiplicity, and not a beyond at all; but is a positive present containing an absolute multiplicity of (non-quantitative, non-numerical) attributes. Spinoza does not seem to realize that the only way such a "positive" infinity could be reached would be through the "negation of the negation," i.e., through thought's negation of being's negation of thought -- which brings thought into dynamic unity with being. He also fails to realize that his idea of the "causa sui" is the perfect example of such an absolute infinity -- an essence which is in continual conjunction with its existence precisely because it continually negates that negation which its own existence confronts it with. g) "God" is a substance absolutely infinite, in the second sense of infinite mentioned above. It should be apparent by now that Spinoza's "geometrical order" is very defective when it comes to philosophy. The "truth" of his definitions results mostly from the defining process, and constitutes a logical, rather than a real, content. If we follow Spinoza, we do not proceed outward from some initial content, but are continually turning inward, trying to discern what is the "content" that his primordial definitions have to do with. 2) Corollary axioms and propositions: a) There is only one substance -- God. It is this ultimate substance which gives unity to the attributes and modes. If there were more than one substance, we would have to ask, "attribute of what?", "mode of what?" -- i.e. there would be an infinite regress. Nothing would have meaning. This single substance is also indivisible (because otherwise there would have to be several substances with the same nature, or attribute); and infinite (for the same reason). b) God contains the union of freedom and necessity. For Him, there is no unused potentiality: He has no thoughts which are not actualized. But rather, the attributes and modes emanate necessarily from His infinite power. He is not really the cause of the world, however, because every determination is a negation: if He determined the world according to some final cause, this would split Him off not only from His own purposes, but also from the world -- so that He could no longer be the infinite substance. c) God, under the attribute of thought, is "the world of understanding"; but under the attribute of extension God is "the world of nature." These two worlds are really identical, although they are apprehended by us under different forms. (It should be noted here that Spinoza uses "identity" here in a rather haphazard way, not really deducing the necessary connections which would clarify the identity of modes and attributes with their substance.) d) The two modes of the attribute of extension are rest and motion; the two modes of the attribute of thought are understanding (intellectus) and will. These modes fall under the heading of natura naturata -- (the divine substance or natura naturans, as it appears to us.) e) The individual human consciousness is constituted by the idea of body (which renders it an indifferent identity of "idea" and "body") -- but in such a way that body does not affect idea directly or vice versa, but they are both affections of the thinking and extended substance of God. f) The individual for Spinoza, is primarily a thought-unity of various bodies. The important thing from Spinoza's vantage point is to draw discrete things into universal unity. He doesn't realize that universal unity is a mere abstraction, when divorced from the particularity of diversity. 3) Spinoza's moral doctrine: The essence of man, as a mode of God, is to strive (Spinoza's "conatus"). This striving, as referred to the mind, is called "will." As referred to both the mind and the body, it is called "desire." "Affections" in man are a confused type of knowledge, an imperfect type of idea, which are accompanied by feelings of diminution (sorrow) and augmentation (joy) in our faculty of desire, and which are related to the determination of our faculty of will through ideas. There are three kinds of knowledge: a) opinion and imagination, including knowledge drawn from signs, pictorial conceptions, and memory; b) knowledge derived from general conceptions, and adequate ideas of the properties of things; and c) intuitive knowledge, which comes to an adequate knowledge of the essence of things on the basis of an adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God. Moral perfection consists in getting beyond the contingency of affections to see the necessary relationship of things to God, especially through intuitive knowledge, which brings us to the point where we view everything under the aspect of eternity ("sub specie aeternitatis"). Thus moral perfection for Spinoza is in large part an intellective achievement; and is not a manifestation of freedom in the usual sense. How do we explain evil in the world? It is true that there is a fundamental essential distinction between the righteous and the wicked in the world. But this distinction is caused by our way of looking at things. In reality, evil is a privation, and has no positive existence. Since God is only the cause of that which has positive existence, He cannot be the cause of evil, strictly speaking. And why (reasons Spinoza) should we have to offer an explanation for that which doesn't exist? 4) Some afterthoughts on Spinoza: a) Was Spinoza an atheist? The relationship between God and the finite can be expressed in three ways: (i) in such a way that only the finite is said to exist -- and this is what is usually meant by atheism; (ii) in such a way that only God is said to exist, and the finite becomes mere appearance, or phenomenon; (iii) in such a way that we compromise between the two, and say that they both exist. Spinoza was certainly not guilty of (i); and it is to his credit that he did not confuse our notions of "existence" by adopting (iii). Rather, if he is to be called an atheist, as some have called him, it must be in sense (ii). But in the strict sense, this second position is an ultimate intellectual formulation of pantheism or monotheism -- rather than atheism. In other words, there is too much God, such that man and the world are reduced to nothing. b) The mathematical-propositional form of Spinoza's philosophy is perhaps its greatest defect: First, because such a form has to do with existent objects, not with the concepts behind objects. Secondly, because the "is" in mathematical propositions means something quite different from the "is" in philosophical propositions. For example, you can ordinarily change "S is P" to "P is S" in mathematical propositions, but you can't do this in philosophical propositions, where "S is P" does not express a simple identity between universal and particular. Thirdly, because the allegiance to mathematical-propositional form puts Spinoza on the defensive against negation and contradiction. Spinoza rightly realizes that "every determination is a negation." But then, as if in order to avoid such negations, he develops propositions about the finite world which refuse to recognize the determinations of things. Rather than determinate, everything becomes just an unsubstantial shadow of the Infinite Substance -- God. If Spinoza could have gotten beyond the strict logical "law of contradiction," he would have realized that self-conscious human nature must be derived from the negation of the divine substance; and that the "positive" reality of God, which Spinoza emphasizes, is only positive in the sense that it is the negation of a negation. c) Subjectivity, individuality, and personality, i.e. freedom -- is blotted out in the schema of Spinoza. "Thought" is simply the universality of the Divine Substance, not really self-conscious, not really liberty. In other words, everything is simply reduced to the all-encompassing unity of God. Everything is thrown into this philosophical abyss, but nothing ever comes out of it. Spinoza's God is not the Holy Trinity of Persons, neither is it a living Spirit -- it is simply an absolute unity which does not really allow for self-consciousness or freedom. And in refusing to allow the negation produced by freedom, it indirectly is prevented from being free and autonomous itself. That is, Spinoza's God does not have the independence of the Christian God. It was necessary, therefore, that philosophers after Spinoza should accentuate the moment of spiritual freedom, which Spinoza overlooked. And two philosophers in particular did this: Locke, who examines the conception of self-consciousness, and traces its genesis as a mode of thought related to "otherness"; and Leibniz, who develops the theory of the infinite multiplicity of individual monads, in stark contrast to the theories of Spinoza. John Locke (1632-1704), along with Leibniz, represents the reaction against the Spinozoistic preeminence of being, nature, and God; and also against the a priori method of definition in philosophy. Locke turned from scholasticism to Cartesian philosophy; and also completed the study of medicine, without ever going into general practice. Because of the political situation of his financial patron, he was forced to flee to the Continent several times, but he was finally established as the Commissioner of Trade and Plantations, and wrote his famous Treatise on the Human Understanding. Locke's "philosophy", which is a sort of metaphysical empiricism, is a) a defense of the objective actuality of concepts through experience; and b) a defense of the freedom of the individual against abstract monolithic conceptions of being. However, a) he failed to recognize the unity-in-opposition of self-consciousness and being; and b) following in Francis Bacon's footsteps, he overemphasized the psychological phenomenon of "deriving universal concepts from individual instances." In regard to Locke's "innate ideas": If we understand innate ideas to mean "implicit ideas, which are essential moments in the nature of thought, germ-like qualities which do not exist" -- which would be the viable signification of this term -- then the analysis of Locke gives us an insight of rather limited value: It shows us that there can be no determination of such ideas except through sensuous, external conditions. However, Locke goes to the extreme of saying that our mind is like a blank tablet, which receives all of its impressions from external sense experience. And this one-sided view of experience is what we must disagree with. It fails to take into account the fact that experience means presence to consciousness, the subjective apprehension of what is external, the negation of external being, the connection of Being-for-another (the outside) with Being-in-itself (the inner nature of being, which is based on the inner nature of consciousness), and the essential place of Being-itself in the determination of the universality of our concepts. In regard to thought, this is not an object, but has, as its objective, sensuous experience, which is at the top of Locke's hierarchy of values, and which seems to be something with a mysterious independence, exerting an absolute power over human cognition. Thought can be related to this objective experience either passively or actively. 1) The passive reception of sense experience takes the form of a) sensations of color, light, figure, rest, motion, etc; b) reflections about sensations, leading to faith, doubt, judgement, reasoning, the idea of thinking, the idea of willing etc.; and c) the combination of sensation and reflection, which leads to ideas of pleasure, pain, etc. 2) The active combination of sensations and reflections (which is called "understanding") leads to complex ideas, which may take on the aspect either of "pure" modes (such as power, number, and infinitude). or "mixed" modes (such as the idea of causality). All of these operations of thought are only possible in a conscious state. They do not take place while sleeping. Thus they do not constitute the essence of the soul (since, if they were the essence of the soul, then we would have to be always thinking, even in sleep). In regard to "primary" and "secondary" qualities (a differentiation that we also find in Aristotle and Descartes), Locke makes the following observations: Primary qualities are mechanical properties like extension, solidity, figure, movement, and rest. These really exist in corporeal objects, unlike colors, sounds, taste, and smells (secondary qualities), which are purely the result of our own sensory faculties. But in Locke's version this classical distinction turns out to be very confusing. For how can we say that secondary qualities are "less real" because they are produced by our own sensation and consciousness, and also say that the ultimate standard of reality is our sensory and conscious experience? In regard to universal ideas, Locke makes a distinction between real essences (real species) and nominal essences (nominal species). Our would-be object is the real essence, the thing as it is in itself. But de facto, all we have is the nominal essence -- the conventional universal idea that we have abstracted from particular, sensuous reality. These are not really objects, but ways of categorizing reality. And thus it is no wonder that nature is always breaking the universal laws that we set down for it -- e.g. by producing monstrosities. If our universal ideas were really about nature in itself, Locke reasons, there could never be such monstrosities. What Locke seems to be forgetting here is that species, besides being known by our understanding, also exist. And in the sphere of existence they come into relationship, and conflict, with other existent essences or species. This is why monstrosities are sometimes produced. And this is why nature-in-itself is an incomplete idea. In order to see it in its full significance, we have to see it in its relationship to Spirit. Otherwise we are left with the naked being-for-another of nature, which is seen out of its context with being-in-itself (the true essence of nature, which comes from the universalizing power of subjective thought). In regard to tautologies, e.g. A = A, Locke asserts that they are more or less superfluous. Scientists and philosophers do not need to be told that they cannot build the edifice of knowledge on a foundation of contradictions. Some observations about Locke: 1) He is a good example of the English temperament in philosophy. The English are all admirers of Isaac Newton, who showed them the way to derive universals, laws, and forces from material perceptions. This tendency is a good counter- balance to the sophisticated rationalism of Spinoza. However, there is just one problem: It is not really philosophy. It is simply common sense, formulated into a popular philosophy, presented in a manner which is readily intelligible. But it is not worth intelligizing, if one is desirous of grappling speculatively with concepts. Unfortunately the French have not realized this; and, suffering from a scarcity of philosophers, have been following along the Lockean road lately. 2) Locke starts from the presupposition that universality and thought are to be found imbedded in the content of a concrete material world, and his main concern is to show how universality and consciousness are derived from such material sources. But he never addressed his attention to the really important question -- "What is the true relationship between particularity and universality, between existence-for-another and existence-in-self?" Spinoza at least went into the problems of this relationship, and worked out a value system which showed a hierarchical preeminence of subject (represented by God) over objects and things (represented especially by unsubstantial "modes"). But Locke does not even present us with a value system. In fact, his position is a reversion to the comparatively primitive Pre-Platonic epistemology, which had not yet risen to the insight that there is an inseparable, reciprocal relationship between Being and particular determinations, between the infinite and the finite, etc. -- such that we can't consider one side without taking the other into account. But Locke, blissfully ignoring the contributions of Plato, establishes an isolated, single pole -- the pole of determinate, finite, sensuous particularity -- as the "true" -- while forgetting to remember that truth consists essentially in the understanding of the necessary bi-polar relationship of this pole with the pole of infinite, universal, thought-constituted being. In fact, Locke never even really separates the two poles; so that the pole he concentrates on is not even really a pole. In other words, he is in no position to reconcile objectivity and subjectivity, because he never recognizes their separation in the first place. 3) Locke in his enthusiasm for deriving universal complex ideas from empirical sources, gets bogged down hopelessly in meaningless statements, boring enumerations, and tautologies. For example, he takes great pains to demonstrate that we get our conceptions of space from our perceptions of distances. But, since distance = space, all he is really saying is that we are getting our idea of space from our idea of space. This sort of thing explains Locke's popularity with the masses who are looking for philosophy-made-easy; but it does not really offer us much in the way of enlightenment. 4) Almost by accident, Locke got out of the difficulties mentioned above, when he got to his political and social philosophy. For the particular "objects" that one considers in political and social philosophy are not sensuous objects devoid of thought and universality, but human beings, spiritual activity, universalizing consciousness. And one is almost forced to consider the relative hierarchies of subjective values in such a context. However, Locke himself did not seem to realize the epistemological preferability of his political and social philosophy over his epistemology proper. He simply unwittingly helped launch the development of a rational political "philosophy" in England and elsewhere -- a political philosophy closer to philosophy than English epistemology, but still does not precisely deserving the title of "philosophy." Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), along with Locke, is noted for "political philosophy" in the sense just mentioned. In fact, Hobbes claims that the philosophy of the state began with his book, De Cive (On the State). At any rate, he introduced some highly original (though often superficial) views into political philosophy, and is noteworthy for this fact, if for nothing else. The originality of Hobbes consists in two facts: 1) At a time when public opinion was rapidly moving away from ideas of absolute authority, Hobbes championed a type of absolute authority, based on the traditional English conception of the divine right of kings, and the passive obedience of citizens; 2) however, he did not come to his formulations on the basis of tradition or scriptural proofs -- but tried to derive them from a study of natural desires and wants and necessities. In regard to 1), Hobbes theorized that the "condition of law" in society means the subjection of the natural, particular will of the individual to the universal will, as directly expressed by the will of the ruler. All law and positive religion and civic relationships must be placed in subjection to the state, without allowing any recourse or appeal. In regard to 2), Hobbes bases his theory on the hypothesis that political society is derived from a "state of nature," in which all men are selfish, egotistical, ruthless, and cruel, and ready to kill their fellow men at a moment's notice. In such a state, man is living in perpetual fear, and the "equality" of man consists in the fact that all men are equally weak. Even those who have seized power by force must continually be on their guard, lest this power be wrested away from them. Thus, under impetus of fear and weakness, men in the "state of nature" finally decided to make a covenant among themselves, whereby they would transfer their own unified, "universal" will into the hands of a single representative, the political sovereign, in return for protection and security under law. The sovereign, in the light of this contract, had only one responsibility -- the responsibility to uphold the universal will (which implies that he must oppose the will of the individual). Some observations about these theories: 1) Hobbes is criticized for having a very pessimistic view of the nature of man. However, Hobbes himself declares that "nature" has a double significance for man: a) the natural, wild, animal, instinctive impulses that characterize the "natural condition" of man; and b) the spiritual and rational existence of man, by means of which he "went forth from his natural condition" to form the political "contract." 2) Hobbes' books were attacked and banned, because they seemed to encourage despotism and tyranny. However, when an individual man takes on the responsibility of enforcing the universal will, this does not necessarily lead to arbitrary and tyrannical rule. For the universal will is rational, and if it is consistently expressed and determined in laws, this expression and determination constitutes an antidote to individual despotism. 3) There is a basic opposition in the constitutive elements of Hobbes' theory: On the one hand the state is an absolute power, enforcing its will on merely passive subjects. On the other hand, the sum-total of subjects -- i.e. we ourselves, the citizens -- are the ones who have actively created and determined our state, and continue to maintain it as an absolute power. Thus the State for him is a "state of contradiction" which must continually generate this conflicting state of affairs. Gottfried Wilhelm, Baron von Leibniz (1646-1716) was born in Leipzig, Germany. For his doctorate in philosophy, he wrote a dissertation entitled De Principio Individui (On the Principle of Individuality) which was oriented against the monolithic pantheism of Spinoza. He also prepared to take a doctorate in law, but was prevented from receiving his degree, probably because of the animosity of the lawyers who, as always, are terrified of dealing with representatives of philosophical reflection. He engaged in a number of assignments as tutor for distinguished houses, and also as imperial adviser. He travelled widely, and in England made the acquaintance of Newton and other scholars. He invented the differential calculus in 1677, and was promptly attacked by the Royal Society of England, who wished to give credit for the discovery to Newton. He also invented the methods of the integral calculus, established methods for flood-control, dabbled in alchemy, and published some very important works in history. One of his important philosophical works was the Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain (New Essays on Human Understanding) which was a reply to the "empirical" approach of Locke. In other words, although he was sympathetic with Locke in upholding the individual against the universality of Spinoza's divine substance -- he took issue with Locke's watered-down philosophical methods. And from our point of view, we might observe that Leibniz succeeds in establishing, not just the external aspects of existence for-another (like Locke), but also the internal dynamisms of existence-for-self (both of which aspects are germane to the sphere of individuality). Thus his "monad" is a reflection in conceptual form of the absolute essentiality of the individual -- although this insight falls short of the explicit and systematic recognition of the ego in later philosophy. Leibniz also wrote a popular quasi-systematic treatise on his philosophy, the Theodicee, which in large part consists of a justification of the goodness of God in spite of the evil in the world. But perhaps his Principes de la Nature et de la Grace is the treatise in which we find the most systematic exposition of his truly philosophical thoughts. ln general, Leibniz seemed to approach philosophy as a physicist approaches existing data in order to explain them through hypotheses. But the "data" that Leibniz was mostly concerned with was the phenomenon of the existence of the world with its manifold determinations of forces and matter -- and his "hypotheses" are consequently general world views which take on the aspect of a metaphysical romance, but must he judged in the last analysis on the basis of whether or not they help clarify the essential connections and relations to be found in the universe. 1) Leibniz' Doctrine on the Monads: In the development of his "monadology," Leibniz shows an affinity to both Locke and Spinoza. Like Locke, he is intent on accentuating differentiation and individuality; but he does not allow differences ad infinitum to simply fall apart into empirical meaninglessness, after the fashion of Locke. Rather, in the idealistic fashion of Spinoza, he subsumes the differences of the monads into absolute unity; these differences, however, are not simply dissolved as "modes" of a unified divine substance, but the principle of substantial unity becomes intrinsic to each monad of differentiation. This should become clear as we explain the nature of the monad: The monad is the bedrock of simplicity which must be taken as the ultimate explanation for complex substances in the world. The complex must be reducible to the simple. Substances as complex actualities must be reducible to simple actualities. These "monads" must be distinguished from the conception of "atoms" as material, extended building-blocks of matter. They are closer in their conception to the "metaphysical points" of the Alexandrian school, to Aristotle's "Entelechy" (ultimate actuality), or to the scholastic notion of "substantial forms." in order to be truly ultimate and indivisible, they must be completely immaterial (unextended). The monads do not have any causal influence on one another. Otherwise, they would not be ultimate. In other words, if they became involved in causal relationships, this would involve the transmission of some really ultimate particles of actuality -- which would imply that the monads themselves were not ultimate. Neither could they affect one another after the manner of Descartes' "System of Assistance," in which by some miracle diverse substances (extension, mind, nature) are kept in coordination with one another. This would be to bring in a completely extrinsic explanation, an arbitrary Deus ex machina. How are they connected, then? By a relation of harmony, Leibniz answers. This is a relation between completely independent units, shut up in themselves, which come into coordination with each other as result of their very inward orientation. (In order to understand this, we might offer an analogy to Spinoza: in Spinoza's system, the two divine attributes, extension and thought, have no direct influence upon each other, and yet each gives a complete and adequate representation of the divine substance, and in fact are identical with that substance.) But such a harmony is never such as to absorb individual differences. Each monad must have special differentiating qualities which no other monad has. Otherwise, if there were any monad without specially differentiating aspects -- it would simply be identical with some other monad; that is, it could not be a distinct monad in itself. The distinction of monad from monad, however, does not consist in any external superficial differences, or differences in spatial position, etc. It is an absolutely intrinsic kind of distinction. That is, it consists essentially in the fact that each monad distinguishes itself by a natural impulse from others. We have here something analogous to the instinct of self-preservation in animals, which falls into the category of the maintenance of self- distinction. From the very nature of the monads, we must conclude that they have some kind of perception. They are conceived as a multiplicity of differences, each in harmonious relationships with all other differences -- and yet such a variety of differences is locked up in the simplicity of the substance of the individual monad. The monad is difference-in-unity, a group of differences which maintain themselves in unity, in the way that the ego maintains itself amidst the diversity of thoughts. But we must not go to the extent of claiming that each monad is thinking, i.e. conscious. For we do not assume that the differences that are unified by each monad approximate to the clarity and definition of the thoughts which are unified in human consciousness. And so we merely say that all monads have "perception" -- and that consciousness is a further intensification of perception. Thus the monads are conceived as immanent units of cognition, and quasi-consciousnesses. Their essential activity is to change (be different) while still remaining a unity (remaining the same); and to pass from perception to perception through "appetitus" (desire), while never ceasing to be themselves. What about the corporeal, material world? How can this be constituted from purely metaphysical, ideal constituents? Leibniz answers that what we call "matter" is a result of a one-sided aspect of the monads -- their simplicity or unity. When this becomes emphasized in a one-sided way, it amounts to a reluctance to enter into the activity of perceptual differentiation. That is, it amounts to a kind of passive capability -- a moment of inertness or indolence -- which appears to our perception under the aspect of "matter." As regards the bodies that we often call "substances" -- they are mere aggregates of monads (the true substances). But we cannot, strictly speaking, call them "substances" any more than we can call a flock of sheep a "sheep." Finally, as regards space, it has no existence in itself. It exists only in our consciousness, as a way of unifying the relations between substantial aggregates. 2) There are three types of Monads: a) Inorganic monads, constituting bodies which are characterized by something like an external continuity and harmony of these monadic constituents, related to one another by space but not by any internal, intrinsic unity. (Leibniz does not seem to realize that the continuity which penetrates and is penetrated by the monads would do away with the individuality of the monads, as a fluid does away with the characteristic features of its solvents.) b) Organic monads, found in living bodies where one chief monad has a formal priority over the rest, and where there is a hierarchy of monads for the gradual transmission of this formal priority. (But here, Leibniz fails to see that such a formal rule of one over the other would cancel the individual existence-in-self of the subordinate monads.) c) Conscious monads, which are found in certain organic bodies, and which are distinguished by the distinctness of their representations. The distinctness of representations to be found in conscious (human) monads is based (а) on the principle of contradiction, "A = A"; and (б) on the principle of sufficient reason, "everything has its reason." (In regard to these ideas, we should note that Leibniz does not seem to be aware that (i) "to distinguish the undistinguished" is the proper distinction of consciousness itself; (ii) "A = A" is a useless statement in itself, but is simply a manifestation of the distinction (through "=") of the undistinguishable ("A"); (iii) the principle of sufficient reason leads us to analysis of particular entities to discover the universal constituents which they are "identical" with. But the particular is not really identical with the universal. And thus the analyses of identities that are carried out on the basis of the principle of sufficient reason are misleading -- and give a one-sided picture of reality.) 3) Reflections on Leibniz a) Leibniz' system starts from the premise of absolute multiplicity. Because of the preeminence of multiplicity in his system, he downgrades unity, i.e. gives explicit recognition only to a superficial unity, the unity of external continuity among monads. b) There are two types of "Being" in Leibniz' system: one is the existence of God, the Monad of Monads, who is apprehended as the sufficient reason, the ground of intelligibility, for all subordinate monads. The other is Being as the interconnection of opposites -- good and evil, freedom and necessity. But Leibniz only touches superficially on Being in the second sense, and devotes undue attention to Being in the first sense, so much so that he seems to dissolve the individuality of monads in the Supreme monad -- and thus go against the distinctive premises of his own system. c) In response to the question, "why is there evil in the world," Leibniz answers: because everything in the world is finite, and evil is necessarily connected with finitude. But he consoles us by saying that the evil in our finite world is a bare minimum of evil; since God, having all possibilities open to Him would necessarily create the best of all possible worlds. In regard to Leibniz' answer, we might note (а) that he evades the problem of showing connections between the finite and the infinite; (б) that he justifies (finds goodness in) evil and finite events because they serve as means to some greater good -- which is like "explaining" Newton's law of falling bodies by saying that time and space are related as a square: To the Newtonian apologist, we might respond, "Why couldn't they be related in cubic proportion?" To Leibniz we might similarly respon, "Why do evil events have to be a prerequisite for accomplishing greater goods?" (If I go to the market and discover that the commodities there are certainly not perfect, but are the best available -- this may produce a kind of practical satisfaction, but it will still not solve my doubts as to why the commodities are not perfect, when the market is owned and managed by a perfect proprietor!) d) God, in Leibniz' formulation becomes the chief harmonizer. For example, a dog gets a beating; pain develops itself in the dog; the beating develops itself into an activity; the person who administers the beating develops himself into a beater. All of these disconnected independent events are harmonized into unity by the God-hypothesis. Leibniz does not comprehend how all of these events can be harmonized and causally related, so he brings in the incomprehensible -- God, existing just beyond the limits of all units-of-comparison (monads) -- as an arbitrary synthesizing idea, a waste-channel into which one can dump all embarrassing contradictions. e) The main dichotomy that needs to be "harmonized" by Leibniz is the dichotomy of soul and body, thought and organic being. Leibniz says that the dichotomy consists in two laws: on the one hand, the laws of the outer world, which proceed according to efficient causality (orientation to purposefulness), and bring about necessary connections; on the other hand, the laws of thought, which proceed according to final causality (orientation to purposefulness), and bring about the spontaneous connections of consciousness. He tries to harmonize these two laws by comparing them to two different clocks, which are set to the same hour, and keep the same time. Thus the corporeal and intellectual spheres are two separate and independent spheres, which simply "keep in step" with each other, to constitute one universal. This rather evasive explanation is an offshoot of Leibniz' notion of the soul: the soul is determined to make thought-determinations according to the laws of thought. But the soul doesn't formulate its own determination according to the laws of thought-determinations. And the soul arrives at a kind of impasse in its relationship to the outer world. For the laws of thought are spontaneous, but don't seem to be spontaneously connected with the passivity and otherness of corporeal reality; and the laws of the outer world are necessary cause-and-effect connections, but don't seem to show their necessary connection with thought, which is necessary for the creation of universal laws. f) Leibniz says that the whole universe is contained implicitly in every part. For example, a grain of sand, although it emphasizes a certain limited number of perfections, contains implicitly all the perfections of the universe. That is, the grain of sand is essentially the universe. In regard to this statement, we might observe that the essence of the universe is not the universe. Essence must be related to existence, and it becomes so related through thought. Thus the essence of the universe is not to be found so much in a grain of sand, but rather in the thought which develops this essence and adds determinations ad infinitum to it. g) Because of Leibniz' doctrine about the nature of monads, everything has to be considered from a dual point of view: for example, from one point of view, a human being seems to spontaneously emerge from himself, and to come into encounters with otherness; that is, the human being seems to spontaneously become a being-for-another. But from another point of view, and (according to Leibniz) a more fundamental point of view -- no monad, and no human consciousness, ever emerges out of itself. Each monad contains all otherness (and all other monads) in itself. Thus a human being does not really become a being-for-another, but only appears to come into contact with his other. Thus also it would be impossible for that human being to become a being-for-himself -- since the term, "being-for-[him/her/it]self" only has meaning in the context of a contrast with "being-for-another." Bishop George Berkeley (1684-1754), wrote the Theory of Vision (1709), A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1713). He continues in the English tradition of empiricism, but with an idealistic slant. Berkeley's idealism is a kind of skepticism -- not the negative skepticism of the Ancient philosophers, which called reality into question; but a modern version of skepticism which believed generally in reality -- but reduced reality to our ideas about reality. Thus Berkeley is famous for his maxim, esse est percepi ("to exist is to be perceived"). What we know, according to him, are not objects "out there," but our own subjective ideas, which are constructed from a concatenation of feeling-states (extended sensations, internal sensations, imaginations, memories, volitions). Berkeley begins where Locke ended, but departs notably from the doctrine of Locke on two points: a) Whereas Locke admitted the existence-in-self (real existence outside the mind) of primary qualities like extension and movement, Berkeley asks how it can happen that extensions can be large or small, and movements can be slow or fast. These are entirely relative notions, produced by the subjective perceptions and comparisons of the mind. If the extension and movement were absolutes, independent of mind, they could not be characterized by such relative attributes. b) Whereas Locke admitted the reality of substances existing-in-themselves, Berkeley takes an extreme stand regarding them: if the object of our mind is our own perceptions and conceptions, these perceptions (e.g. of color, sound, size, properties) could not exist in a material substratum. Thought cannot come into contact with matter. The only substance which could be a substratum for our perceptions and conceptions would have to be a perceiving and thinking substance -- i.e. an intelligent soul. In regard to this same point (b), Berkeley also argues that it would be ridiculous to claim that there is some substance "out there" which is similar to our conceptions -- for only other conceptions can be similar to conceptions. Some other Berkeleyan notions 1) Berkeley is embarrassed by the idea of being (or substance) coming into contiguity with the mind. Such a thing is inconceivable to him. But one cannot ignore being altogether. In all of our thought, we are constantly confronting being (or "otherness," or "objectivity," or "substance") in the fixed determinations which we make in and through our ideas. What are we to say about this indubitable otherness? Berkeley decided to reduce otherness or being to something within self-consciousness itself. Thus in Berkeley's formulation, the incomprehensible opposites, otherness and ego, are shut up within the individual mind, and thus rendered relatively comprehensible, insofar as their ideas are comprehended in consciousness. But this "solution" leads to problems and contradictions: If being is shut up within self-consciousness, and if self-consciousness is essentially freedom -- how do we explain the independent, stable, inassimilable otherness of being? Why is it not simply reduced to and assimilated by, freedom? Berkeley brings in God, in a vain attempt to save his system. He says that God causes these objective ideas and perceptions, by directly impressing them on our mind. ln other words, instead of a thing-in-itself existing "out there", we have a new in-itself -- God, or heavenly spirits, who bring us into continuity with objectivity. But there can be little doubt that this "solution" of Berkeley's is more confusing than the problem it was supposed to solve. 2) Berkeley continuously presupposes an empirical "content," in the usual sense of that word -- i.e. things and events having properties and aspects and colors and movements, etc. But he fails to show how our concepts come to encompass such a content, or how antagonisms and conflicts can develop within such a content. He enunciates a formal principle, that such a content is identical with our perceptions. But he fails to show how this can be so. In other words, his statements about content are themselves without content, i.e. are formal guidelines which are never established or proved. 3) Finally. we might note that Berkeley reaches an interesting impasse with regard to questions about space. Space, in his formulation, is the sensuous manifold after it has taken on the aspect of universality, and thus is ready to be subsumed into thought. But since sensation and thought are so constantly confused with each other in Berkeley, he never gets beyond the sensuous universality of space, to the pure universality which could be attained in the thought of space (that is, if Berkeley were willing to examine space under the aspect of thought, or in its relationship to thought). David Hume (1711-1776) was another English philosopher who, like Berkeley, took up where Locke had left off. He was man of the world, who spent long periods in diplomatic assignments, but also wrote some notable books on history and philosophy. His historical works are more notable than his philosophical -- but, since we are concerned with the latter, we might mention that his main philosophical writings are A Treatise of Human Nature (1790), and Essays and Treatises on Various Subjects, 2 Vols. Vol. I (1742) contained "Essays Moral, Political, and Literary," while Vol. II (1748) contained "An Inquiry concerning Human Understanding," a further development of ideas adumbrated in Locke's Treatise of Human Nature. Hume, like Berkeley, is a skeptical idealist. He is not very important in himself as philosopher, but is important in the history of philosophy because of the influence he had on Immanuel Kant. Some chief features in his doctrine: 1) Hume distinguishes thoughts or ideas from sensuous perceptions ("impressions") by using a simple criterion: the former are less forcible, less vivid than the latter. Our mind is concerned directly with combining and interrelating these thoughts and impressions -- not with understanding some thing "out there." 2) Locke and others had seemed to take for granted that "necessity" was to be found amidst the contingencies of sense experience. For instance, if we come to form a necessary law from experience -- e.g. the Newtonian law that "every action gives rise to an equal and opposite reaction" -- the necessity of this law must be derived from experience. It certainly could not be derived a priori from human intelligence (a very non-British type of philosophical derivation). Thus (they concluded) if we know anything about this necessity, it must be derived from sense-experience since all our knowledge is based on such experience. Hume denies this. We have come to think that there are necessary cause-effect relationships in sense experience. But this is the result of habit. For example, we habitually connect the idea of fire with the idea of melting ice, the idea of decapitation with the idea of death. But we cannot say for sure that fire necessarily causes ice to melt, nor that decapitation necessarily causes death. And in general, we cannot say that any x necessarily causes any. 3) Hume lodges a similar criticism against the presupposition that there is universality in our experience. We cannot obtain universal ideas from our sense experience, because the sense manifold presents itself to us as completely undetermined, indistinct, certainly not conforming to this or that universal idea. (Hume seems to forget that the "indeterminateness" of sense experience is itself a determination of sense experience; and likewise is only one aspect of sense experience existing alongside the other aspect -- the aspect of determinateness or determinations. But he is right, of course, in observing that no determinateness of sense experience could come from the sense experience itself.) 3) Our ideas of justice and morality are similarly based on habitual associations in experience. For example, in regard to the idea of stealing, I experience the feeling or sentiment that it ought to be punished, and others in my society feel likewise. Therefore we erect our feelings into a moral law, "thou shalt not steal." But we can never justify the supposed necessity or absoluteness of such a law. For different people and different nations may at different times think differently about this "law." And, in fact, studies in anthropology prove that there are cultures which do not disapprove of stealing. 4) In regard to notions of immortality, God, etc. -- such metaphysical conceptions are based on premises which are customarily admitted by individuals. If a large number of people come to customarily admit them, we say that they are "universal" premises, and we go on to talk about the "universal" assent to the existence of a God or immortality. But there is no real universality here. There are in fact whole nations which do not believe in the existence of a God. 5) Finally, Hume recognizes in human nature an antagonism between instinct and reason. Where reason is in doubt, we have an instinct to stick to instinct. If reason had some criterion for understanding the antagonism between reason and instinct -- we might have some way out. But we don't. And therefore we are doomed to an existence which unfortunately can never quite be rational. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) gives us a good example of the tendency of French philosophy in the 18th century to throw aside all chains of authority and superstition and presupposition in order to establish concrete, living thought in its rightful place in human culture. He states that the distinguishing feature of man is freedom. In order for the state or any other institution to be truly human, it must be freely created by individual wills, and be oriented to fostering and perpetuating human freedom for all. Thus the true political state is the result of a "social contract" which the individuals, who make up the state, have entered into. If Rousseau is interpreted as meaning that "the majority rules" -- this is a misunderstanding. The universal will existing in the state is not the result of the sum total of whims and caprices of a majority of individuals in that state. Rather, the individuals who enter into the "social contract" go beyond their individual wills to affirm the basic, universal human freedom which is the only context in which the freedom of the individual can be understood. Rousseau will also be misunderstood if we interpret him to champion freedom, in contradistinction to thought. Freedom in this sense, would be merely the impulse to realize my thoughts in existence. But this is an incomplete notion of freedom. Freedom, in its more complete sense means the unity of thought with itself - - the attainment of which will give an infinite strength to man, since it is an absolute self-generating self-possession on the part of man. This realization of absolute and infinite freedom by means of the self-possession of thought supplied the natural springboard to the philosophy of Kant -- which is largely concerned with thinking about thinking, understanding of the understanding, consciousness of consciousness. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) lived and died in K”nigsberg, Germany without ever having left his native town. Among other books, he wrote a famous trilogy: The Critique of Pure Reason (which examines our faculty of theoretical knowledge), The Critique of Practical Reason (which examines our faculty of will) and The Critique of Judgement (which establishes the faculty of judgement as a middle- ground, connecting theoretical knowledge with will). In the course of his writings, Kant continually repeats the same thing over and over from different points of view. But this stylistic idiosyncracy at least has the advantage of solving our doubts as to what are his main points. To begin with, we might compare Kant with a few of his predecessors: Whereas Descartes in his cogito, ergo sum realized the unity of ego and existence, Kant concentrates on the ego, or subjectivity, as distinct from objectivity, and as being responsible for all distinctions, all distinguishing, all finite determinations. Whereas Hume raised the question, "how can there be universality and necessity?" Kant merely asks, "how can there be universality and necessity in external things?" In other words, he accepts universality and necessity as originating in the mind. Whereas Rousseau and the French philosophers extolled a negative self-moving free thought which was ready to destroy all established political and religious structures; Kant extolled this same independence of thought in the theoretical sphere, being ready to challenge all the traditional principles of metaphysics and theology. Finally, whereas Christian Wolf (his immediate predecessor) was concerned with analyzing the finite determinations of the objective world, Kant was careful to show that such determinations really only had a subjective significance. Here are some preliminary observations about Kant's philosophy: a) He was primarily concerned with demonstrating how our own subjectivity is responsible for the determinations that we seem to find in the objective world. Being and beings are reduced by Kant to activities of the ego. Being disappears into the ego. (One would expect that, as a result, we might find being within the ego, in Kant; but this is not the case.) b) He attacks the determinations of objective metaphysics, but ends up with a subjective dogmatism with new determinations. c) He hits upon the infinite unity of thought and being only in an indirect, negative way. He fails to realize the positive significance of this infinite unity, because he is too concerned with the functions of the finite understanding in creating finite thought-determinations. d) He argues -- "knowledge is our instrument for investigating reality. Before we can come to the truth, we have to first criticize this instrument for discovering truth." He seems to forget that to criticize our "instrument" of knowledge is to know it. We can't criticize our instrument without using our instrument. Thus Kant is like the philosopher who refused to go into the water until he had first learned how to swim! e) One of the major problems for Kant is, "how can we have synthetic a priori judgements" -- i.e. judgements which connect opposite concepts with each other? He doesn't realize that he is implicitly raising a greater question: why doesn't Kant himself recognize the connection (unity-in- distinction) of the two major opposites -- thought and Being? f) Kant gives us a good example of his barbarous terminology with his explanations of the difference between "transcendental and transcendent." To try to make some sense out of this distinction we might go to geometry for an example: The circle consists of an "infinitude of straight lines". To represent the circle as straight is to pass beyond the geometric category of circle -- i.e. to transcend this category. So also, since cause and effect, existence and necessity, quality and quantity, etc. -- are just the result of our subjective categories of understanding, we are transcending these categories when we say that external reality actually contains causes and effects, etc. And likewise, since the proper use of these categories is to regulate our sensuous experience, we are transcending this proper use of the categories if we use them to talk about things beyond our experience, such as God or immortality. In contradistinction to such examples of "transcendence," Kant says that his philosophy is "transcendental" -- concerned merely with demonstrating those universal and necessary elements in understanding which give rise to such perverted attempts at transcendence as we have mentioned above. I. Kant's theoretical philosophy: Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason develops his analysis of knowledge in an empirical, psychological manner. He starts at sensuous consciousness, makes a transition to understanding, and ends with reason, at the ultimate limits of consciousness. A. Sensuous Consciousness: The term, "aesthetic," is usually connected with beauty; but Kant's "transcendental aesthetic" has nothing to do with beauty. It is concerned rather with analyzing our external and internal feelings, to discern what is universal in these subjective intersections with the sense manifold. And he discovers that the universal element, the "otherness" which supplies a context for all such sensuous experience, is our a priori perception of space and time. We have a pure perception of space and time, which is not derived from experience, experience itself being completely void and empty, and requiring an external projection of sensuous determinations in order to receive a content. In regard to these a priori forms of space and time, the following observations are in order: 1) Kant argues that space and time are not concepts derived from outward sense experience. This is true. But we could show the same thing about any concept. There is no concept which it would be possible to experience in the external world. 2) Kant says that space and time are necessary for, and universal in, all sense experience. This is undeniable. However, he concludes from this that our consciousness must have space and time present in it, just as we have mouth and teeth, as instruments for dealing with reality. And we end up with a rather unbelievable picture: outside of us there are things-in-themselves devoid of space and time, while inside of us there is a space which is not a space for anything, and a time which is not a time for any particular thing. What Kant fails to realize is that the universality of space and time does not prevent them from being external universals. 3) Kant says that space and time are not concepts. If they were concepts, they would be like our concept "tree," which refers to an infinite number of individual and separate trees. But "space" does not refer to individual and separate spaces, nor does "time" refer to disparate times. There is only one space, one time. Therefore we do not have a "concept" of space or time, strictly speaking, but a "pure intuitive perception." What Kant seems to forget is that there are many concepts that do not refer to individual and disparate units. For example, our concept of "blue" (a concept of a property, not of a substance) does not signify an infinity of individual blues. There is only one blue, to which we relate the concept of blue. And so also, there is only one space, to which we refer the concept of space. 4) Kant gives yet another argument why space and time are not concepts: all concepts are thought-determinations which refer to individual instances, but don't actually contain these instances. For example, "man" refers to all men, but doesn't actually contain them. But "space" is a unity which actually contains all spaces. Therefore space is not a concept in the above-mentioned sense. We may agree with Kant that space is not a "thought- determination." But as soon as we have a concept of the fact that space is not a thought-determination, we have a concept of space. In other words, in order for us to have a concept of the fact that space is not a "concept", we must have some concept of space. 5) Finally, Kant states that space contains a priori synthetic propositions. For example, "space has three dimensions," "a straight line is the shortest distance between two points," "5 plus 7 equals 12." These propositions are "a priori," because they cannot be derived from individual contingent perceptions. And this we can agree with. But also: these propositions are allegedly "synthetic" because they are concerned with combining opposite sensuous determinations into a unity. And this we cannot agree with. We cannot even apply them in ordinary perception unless we already have a concept of their unity. In other words, they are not synthetic propositions, but analytic. Simply by analyzing the concept of "7 plus 5," I can come to the concept of "12, and then make applications of the concept to perceived reality; simply by analyzing the concept of a "straight line," I come to the concept of "the shortest distance between two points," and can then apply it; and so forth. B. Understanding While sensuous consciousness is the passive faculty whereby we receive sense-data from outside, understanding is the act of spontaneity by which we organize and unify the sense manifold. This unification process takes place through the "transcendental unity of apperception." This transcendental unity differs from the passivity of perception, insofar as it is the transplantation of percepts into the simple unity of the ego. There are twelve modes in which this unification takes place, giving rise to twelve "categories" -- unity, plurality, and totality; reality, negation and limitation; substance, causality, and reciprocity; and possibility, existence and necessity. These twelve modes correspond to the twelve types of judgement in logic: Universal, particular, and singular; affirmative, negative, and infinite; categorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive; problematic, assertive and apodictic. Thus we carry about in our own understanding these twelve modes or categories for the unification of the sense manifold. These modes are pure a priori concepts, just as space and time are pure a priori forms of sensibility, not derived from experience. And just as the pure subjective forms of space and time unify the outer sense manifold, so also the pure categories of the understanding unify the presentations of space and time, in order to formulate ideas of universal species and of the laws of nature. The connection of the categories with the forms of space and time is brought about through the "schemata of the imagination" -- various instrumentalities for bringing about the connection of the categorial with the "aesthetic." These operations of the understanding constitute "knowledge" proper. These can be no knowledge which does not consist in the joining of categories with sense data. But we should not think that knowledge consists in understanding objective "things-in- themselves." Rather, we only know phenomena, and the subjective laws which govern the connection of perceptions. And the objectivity of our knowledge comes from the categories. (It is only through the application of the categories to individual sense data that the sense data become "objective.") Kant's philosophy, insofar as it deals primarily with the determinations of the mind, calls itself "idealism." But Kant takes pains to distinguish his idealism from the empirical idealism of Berkeley, which denies the existence of an external world. Since Kant's categories are determining elements, they have to have something to determine -- the passive, determinable element, or "sense manifold." Neither of these two poles (the internal and the external) would have meaning without the other. "Concepts without sense intuitions are empty; sense intuitions without categories are blind," as Kant puts it. In regard to the above doctrine on the understanding, we should note: 1) Kant's "transcendental unity of apperception" is in reality just the ego, but it is very difficult to recognize the ego in Kant's formulation of it. 2) Kant fails to show how the pure categories are deduced from this transcendental unity of apperception, or how the various empirical categories are derived from them. His reference to the twelve types of judgement in logic is hardly a "deduction." His deficiency here is comparable to his deficiency with regard to the "forms" of space and time, which are not deduced, but picked up arbitrarily from experience, because of their practicability. 3) Since "objectivity" (existence-in-self) is claimed by Kant to reside in the pure categories, and since the pure categories are purely subjective, the categories are not really objective. And neither is the knowledge which results from the union of category and sense content anything objective, because it is only a knowledge of phenomena (things as they appear to us, not as they exist in themselves). 4) Kant's "schemata of the imagination" function beautifully to bring knowledge into function -- creating perceptive understanding, and understanding perception. If Kant would have carried this idea a little further, he would have realized that this resultant unity is a true thing-in- itself -- that special thing-in-itself which constitutes the essence of all reality and all we can say about reality. 5) Although Kant gets beyond the confusion of ego-and- perception which we find in Berkeley, he never does get beyond the confusion of ego with individuality. In other words, he fails to find true universality within the ego, since even his universal categories are construed in a purely subjective way. 6) Finally, we should note that the twelve categories are four sets of triads, and that the third member of each triad is a synthesis of the first two -- which is an admirable reintroduction of the method of "triplicity" which we find in the Pythagoreans and Neo-Platonists, and in Christianity. C. Reason Just as Kant by fumbling around in the soul's bag came up with sensuous consciousness and understanding, so now he rummages around a little more and comes up with a new faculty -- "reason." Kant is the first one to distinguish reason from understanding. "Reason" is contrasted with the "understanding," in Kant's construal, insofar as it does not have to do with the finite union of universal category with the particularity of sense phenomena -- which is a "conditioned" type of knowledge. Rather, it has to do with universal "unconditioned" principles, independent abstract "ideas," which are known "in themselves," and receive their particularity and determinateness not from sense phenomena, but from themselves. For example, we encounter the ideas of God, of the substantiality of the soul, of the infinity of space, etc. All of these "ideas of reason" go beyond sense experience to produce a kind of ultimate theoretical abstract unity -- analogous to the heavenly world of Forms depicted in Plato's Republic. Kant seems to presuppose (a) that particularity comes only from sense data (although it is obvious that each universal category is a particular "universal category," and each universal unconditioned idea is a particular "universal unconditioned idea"); and (b) that unconditioned, infinite ideas such as God would have to be verified in sensuous experience in order to be "real" (which shows that Kant has an extremely limited idea of what the "real" world is -- namely, a candlestick standing here, a snuff box sitting over there, etc.). Since what Kant calls the "Ideals of Reason" fall into three divisions -- the paralogism, the antinomies, and the Ideal -- we will consider each of these separately: 1) The Paralogism The essential paralogism is this: We have no objective experience of the soul, but only come to know of it indirectly, through our thoughts, which impress forms on experience. But we tend to think in terms of categorical syllogisms of the form, S = P: John is a man, Africa is a continent, etc. And so in like manner, we tend to think of the soul as a subject-with-predicates, (as "John" is a subject with the predicate, "humanity"). But the soul is not a subject like other subjects in the world. That is, it is not a concrete, material substance. And therefore it is invalid to formulate an idea of the soul as a "substantial" subject, a "being". Only things are beings. But the soul is not a thing, i.e. a stable unity "out there" in the world, which we can experience through the senses. Kant thus seems to deny that the thinking ego is real. For all practical purposes, the ego seems to be an unreal "thought" possessed by a self-consciousness essentially immersed in the sensuous world, the world of being. What Kant does not realize is that his category of "being" (the 7th category) is a very poor type of being. Being in its ultimate sense is to be found in the thinking soul, in its moment of immediate, abstract self-identity. This is the ultimate "in-itself," from which we derive all subordinate notions of beings, or things-in-themselves. 2) The Antinomies The antinomies result from trying to make the finite, conditioned phenomenal world become infinite and unconditioned, like our ideas. As a result, we get into contradictions, or antinomies between the categories of "limited" and "unlimited", which are supposed to be applied only to phenomena within the world, not to the world as an abstract idea of the sum-total of all phenomena (i.e. as a kind of thing-in-itself). Kant enumerates 4 antinomies (although he could have enumerated more): a) In regard to space and time, if we consider space or time as totality, it seems to be unlimited; but if we consider it according to spatial or temporal progressions, it must have some beginning (i.e., it must be limited). b) In regard to the ultimate constituents of matter, if we consider composite substances as an existent totality, they must be reducible to some ultimate indivisible actual parts, i.e, atoms; but if we consider composite substance as infinitely divisible, there can be no ultimate indivisible constituents. c) In regard to causality, if we consider causality as a totality including man and his ideas, we come up with the notion of "free" causality (i.e., a different kind of causality which limits the range of the "law of causality"); but if we consider causality in terms of individual phenomenal cause-effect reciprocities, all causality is necessary (not free). d) In regard to the existence of the world -- if we consider it as a totality, it must appear as self-necessitating, or as being caused by some Necessary Being; on the other hand, if we consider the world as process, there is no self-necessitation, and all cause-effect relationships are "necessary" relationships of contingencies. In regard to these 4 antinomies, it should be noted that they result from misapplying subjective notions, such as space, time, infinity -- to external phenomena. Kant implies that these apparent contradictions in the external world are reducible to contradictions in the mind. Thus, just as previous philosophers had reduced all contradictions to God, so also Kant reduces them all to self-consciousness. We only wish that Kant could have shown as much sympathy for self-consciousness as he does for the external world. But he doesn't. He simply leaves self-consciousness deranged and disordered, in the throes of a contradiction. ln order to solve this contradiction he would have to have shown how the infinity of the idea-in-itself and the finitude of the category determining phenomena -- are mutually complementary, each contributing to the truth of the other, in a relationship which might be described as a unity-in-distinction. However, since this unity-in-distinction is not made clear, it takes on the appearance of a simple conflict or contradiction. 3) The Ideal The 3rd "Idea" of Pure Reason, is called the "Ideal" -- which means, "an idea which is actually existing." It refers to the concept of God, which gives actuality and "existence" to our idea of the sum-total of all possibilities. Kant turns his attention to Saint Anselm's "ontological" proof for the existence of God, which was elaborated also by Descartes and Spinoza: We have the concept of a perfect being. "Perfection" includes real existence. Without real existence, a being would certainly be imperfect. Therefore God who is conceived by us as the most perfect being -- must have real existence. Kant gives his famous answer to this: The concept for a real hundred dollars, and the concept for an imaginary hundred dollars -- are the same; but please let me have first choice between the two! In other words, in technical Kantianese, a real hundred dollars adds something to the mere concept of a hundred dollars. For in a real hundred dollars, the concept is actually synthesized with sensuous, factual existence. In regard to this answer of Kant's, we might observe that: a) Kant treats of concepts as if they were completely separate from existence. He stands helpless in the face of sensuous existence, hoping at the most to add it to his concepts, but despairing of ever becoming really one with it. Kant would do well to consider the example of hungry animals, who never stand dumbfounded in the face of food, but simply go into action and eat it up. Or better yet, he should consider the example of the average human being, who doesn't rest in the mere imagination of concepts, but brings them into existence through his activity. In other words, Kant should realize that concepts are not autonomous fictions, padlocked forever in the cell of subjectivity but are simply one aspect of a dynamic movement -- the movement towards being or existence. And when we encounter the specific problem of the concept of the necessary existence of God we are implicitly encountering the general problem of the relationship of concept to existence. b) Descartes would deny that a real hundred dollars manifests a synthesis of concept with existence. All finite, sensuous objects in the realm of extension (in Descartes' formulation) are transitory materials, which show no necessary unity with thought or concept. For Descartes, a real hundred dollars would be existence divorced from thought; just as for Kant, an imaginary hundred dollars would be thought divorced from existence. Thus, if Kant really wants bring the problem into the context of Descartes' doctrine about God -- he is using the wrong kind of example. c) The common logic that Kant uses is like Issachar the strong ass in the Bible (Gen. 49:14). Just as this ass could not be made to move from the spot where it was, so also Kant treats sensory existence as something mean and good-for- nothing, a type of existence which can never hope to come into the realm of thought (just as many Christians in their pride hold onto a false humility which is satisfied with abjectness and refuses to rise into the realm of the divine.) -- All in all, with regard to all three above-mentioned "Ideas" of Pure Reason -- we should notice that Kant formulates "Reason" as something purely subjective, an abstract self-identity which can do nothing more than order our ideas, and which is entering forbidden territory when it tries to bring unity into psychological and physical and ontological existence. It is altogether a rather pitiable faculty. II. Kant's Practical Philosophy The theoretical philosophy of Kant looked outward for truth, for the in-itself. We are dependent on this "other" (sensuous experience from outside). Without it, we can have no real theoretical knowledge. The practical philosophy of Kant, on the other hand, begins with freedom in Rousseau's sense, as the abstract self-identity of self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is the in-itself. It contains the criteria for truth within itself (if it will only dig deep enough). Thus it is fully independent. Practical reason (which is identical with "will," in Kant's philosophy) has three postulates: A. It is self-causality, or self-determination (freedom). We begin with the will as pure universality, i.e., as pure self-identity (which involves the law of non-self- contradiction, the cornerstone for all logical universality). But since the will consists of 1) the pure will, and 2) the empirical will (needs, inclinations, and desires -- which are determined from outside self-consciousness), it is rather difficult for it to remain in its pure self-identity. For example, the law of benevolence says, "give your possessions to the poor;" this appears to be non-self-contradictory, but if you carry this out to the letter, you have nothing left to give to the poor; therefore benevolence destroys benevolence, it is self-contradictory. Or again, the law of private property says, "respect everyone's property." This is certainly a self-identical statement, since "property" is "that which one should respect." But all we are really saying is, "if property exists, then it exists" -- which does not really advance the frontiers of knowledge very much. And in general, Kant's moral philosophy consists in this pure formal universality, and the final undigested lump which it leaves in our stomach is the cold, abstract idea of duty trying to remain consistent with itself amid the heteronomous tendencies of the "empirical will." B. Immortality has to be presupposed. Kant's idea of morality is such that it always needs conflict, always needs sensuous desires and inclinations to be opposed to. He seems to realize that if the universal, pure will ever came into unity with the particularity of desires, then his brand of morality (resistance to the senses, etc.) would come to an end. But, on the other hand, who would struggle, unless some kind of a unity of the two was foreseeable? And so he posits immortality as the state in which universal will and particular will finally have a chance of getting together. C. Kant's approach to moral philosophy presupposes the existence of God. If the moral law (duty, or virtue), which is intrinsic to us (existent in-itself, within consciousness) is ever to be harmonized with human nature (our sensuous inclinations, or drive towards happiness)-- we must postulate a harmonizer, or God, to bring about this unity. But God, like immortality, is a "Beyond." Kant of course cannot conceive the idea of God possibly bringing about this harmony right now -- because this would destroy Kant's idea of "morality". Kant claims that the idea of God as a final rewarder will assure additional reverence for the moral law. But this seems to contradict his own assertion that one should respect the moral law simply for its own sake, i.e. not out of a desire for gain, for happiness, etc. If people respect the moral law to placate God and assure their own eternal bliss -- this does not seem to be "respecting the moral law for its own sake." It should also be noted that Kant in his practical philosophy does not start from the presupposition that concepts are completely divorced from sensuous, material existence, as if they were independent forms stamped onto reality. Rather, they are imperfect and dependent; they require an intrinsic unity with sensuous reality or "being," to be perfect. This represents a movement in Kant away from the concept-as-abstract to the concept-as-concrete (i.e. as fully unified with objective being). But since Kant relegates the final unification to an "afterlife" -- the movement towards the concrete is never completed in his practical philosophy. III. Kant's Critique of Judgement -- the bridge between his theoretical and his practical philosophy: In Kant's theoretical philosophy, a natural object is regarded as an unknowable, sensuous thing-in-itself, which receives all its determinations from the supersensuous realm of the understanding. In his practical philosophy, on the other hand, self-consciousness is regarded as a supersensuous thing-in-itself, which makes moral laws for sensuous human nature. This gives rise to three problems: 1) How can we reconcile the sensuous realms of nonhuman and human nature with the supersensuous realms in understanding and practical reason? 2) How can we realize the unity of the thing-in-itself with the sense manifold, so that we are no longer confronted with phenomena-without-intrinsic-purpose (as in theoretical knowledge), or with moral law in-itself, without sufficient reflection in the sensuous world (as in moral philosophy)? and 3) how can we show the basic reconcilability of the thing-in-itself which seems to be beyond the borders of appearances in theoretical philosophy, with that other thing-in-itself which seems to be intrinsic to self- consciousness in moral philosophy? Kant brings about such reconciliations in a completely subjective manner, by focusing on our faculty of reflective judgement, which is a middle ground between knowledge and desire, and which is concerned with two special kinds of objects: a) aesthetic objects, which lead our understanding to universality rather than receiving universality from the determinations of the understanding; and b) the purposefulness of nature, an imminent unity of particularity and universal intelligibility, which must be presupposed before we can impose any determinations on natural phenomena. These operations of judgement which deal with these two specialized objects are called "reflective" (as opposed to "determinative") because they start with the particular and lead it through "feeling" to universality, rather than starting with universal categories and applying them to sense data. a) Aesthetic objects are subdivided into objects of beauty, and sublime objects: (i) objects of beauty are those particulars which take our understanding by surprise, so to speak. Through feeling, we know that they must be in accord with the concepts of the understanding, but we are not sure how. Our feeling of pleasure is an indication that the form of such an object is well adapted to conceptual purposefulness. When such an object is human, and its beauty is a result of its congruence with our own human (conceptual) purposes -- we call it "ideal" beauty, because it seems to embody Pure Reason's own idea of a perfect totality. (ii) sublime objects are those particulars whose form gives rise to a feeling of the inaccessibility and inconceivability of the ideas of Reason, which they are related to. b) the purposefulness, or teleology, of nature: By "purposefulness" here, we do not mean an external adaptation of means to end. For instance, as Kant says, we might take note of the fact that "snow protects the sown crops in cold lands from frost, and facilitates the intercourse of men by permitting sleighing." This is merely "reading purpose into" snow, as a means mechanically and externally adapted to certain ends. But here we are concerned with an intrinsic adaptation of means to end to be found in natural objects themselves. And we are particularly concerned with living natural objects, organisms, which distinguish themselves by the fact that each organism is its own end and its own means for producing itself, and by the fact that every part of the organism is a means and an end for every other part. In other words, there is a complete synthesis of the abstract notions of "means" and "end" in an organism. Our intuitive acceptance of teleology in nature is similar to our feeling of purposefulness in aesthetic objects -- except that in the latter case we are concentrating more on the matter than the form (when we pronounce an object "beautiful," we do not necessarily imply that its matter has intrinsic purposefulness). Thus the teleology of nature is more "objective" than the teleology of aesthetic objects. --In regard to Kant's Critique of Judgement in general, we can make the following observations: 1) He conceives of nature in much the same way as Aristotle, as having intrinsic purposefulness. But he diverges from Aristotle, insofar as he indicates that such purposefulness is merely an external projection conditioned by a subjective need for order. His focus is on the psychic orientation to teleology. 2) Kant gives no indication of where the purposefulness comes from. It could come from God, or from man himself. There is no way of knowing the source definitively. 3) With his theory of reflective judgement, which feels or intuits the universal in the particular, Kant comes just to the threshold of overcoming the separation of abstract concept from abstract sense data, and arriving at the concrete concept (the synthesis of thought and being). However, after he finishes uniting concept with sense data, he diminishes the effect of what he has done by reemphasizing the preeminence of concept over sense data: What we have accomplished, he says, is merely to show a subjective mechanism of presupposing universal in particular, etc; we have not really shown that such a unity exists objectively in reality. 4) Finally, Kant in one place observes that we might possibly find a way out of the thought/being problematic, if we would admit the existence of an "intuitive understanding," which is not restricted to purely formal, abstract concepts, but can enter into the sensuous manifold and find universals objectively existent "out there." But such a faculty is impossible. Why? It's impossible for Kant, because Kant has already enumerated all the faculties: The understanding, which uses the sensuous world to give birth to its concepts and laws, but never really dirties itself by allowing itself to be influenced by this world; theoretical Reason, which busies itself spinning cobwebs out of the brain -- e.g. the ideas of God and immortality; and Practical Reason, which is patiently waiting around for the end of the world, so that its "postulates" can become realities. Besides these three faculties, what further need have we of faculties? And so, at the brink of the discovery of true knowledge, Kant ends all this discussion by taking refuge in his own closed mind. IV. Where is the concrete in the philosophy of Kant? At the end of his Critique of Judgement, Kant proposes a notion of God which represents the highest form of the concrete that we can find in Kant's philosophy: We must postulate the existence of God, he says, to seal a rift. There is a rift between our conception of the Good (infinite purposefulness) and the real world of hard fact that confronts it. Our mind cannot bear this conflict, and our Reason has an insatiable desire to possess things as a systematic unity. Therefore God must be posited as the third factor, the tertium quid, who can reconcile this incessant opposition. Thus once more, in the Kantian philosophy, we arrive at the vestibule of the Idea (the absolute, concrete Concept). God as a postulate here is not an abstract concept (abstract thought) but thought which contains determinateness, particularity, even individuality within it. But then Kant wakes us up abruptly from our reverie: This notion of God is not really the truth, but simply the result of a necessity in our faculty of judgement. And so we continue the incessant process of subjectivism and dualism in Kant's philosophy. If we were to go any further, and talk about the determinations in God, this would be metaphysics, this would be knowledge. But of course (says Kant) it is impossible to have knowledge of anything except phenomena. And so we remain saddled with the vague concept of God as a mere "postulate," and are forbidden to add even one determination to God. For if we added one, there would be two altogether, related mediately to each other -- and this would remove God from the state of abstract immediacy and render Him concrete (mediated). And we don't want such a God, We prefer to revert to the "unknown God" that the Apostle Paul mentions in speaking to the Athenians! To sum up, a) Kant's philosophy is really a non-philosophy. It is too locked in subjectivism and anti-metaphysics to stoop to making any concessions to objective truth. b) Kant gave a great impetus, however, to the method of triplicity -- thesis, antithesis, synthesis -- which is foreshadowed not only in the four triads of categories, but also in his three critiques, in the three ideas of Pure Reason, etc. In general, this method of triplicity proceeds in the following manner: (i) thesis: existence offers itself in the form of other- being (not just object) to consciousness; (ii) antithesis: self- consciousness negates the otherness of this existence, and assimilates it to itself (rendering it Being-for-self); and (iii) synthesis: the two previous moments are concretized in a new unity. c) In the context of the history of philosophy, Kant left two major lacunae which have been filled up by later philosophers: (i) Kantian subjectivism as a philosophical standpoint was incomplete. In order to be completed, one would have to start with the ego, and deduce all thought determinations consistently and with necessity from this abstract ego. -- And this is what Fichte accomplished. (ii) The rationalistic rift of thought from phenomena led to a desire on the part of men for content. We can not remain in the rarified air of pure abstract thought indefinitely; just as we cannot remain satisfied with the concept of the mere existence of God indefinitely, never desiring to know what He is. So the necessity for a content for thought also came to be recognized. And Schelling sought to fulfill this need, as we shall see. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) in the beginning considered his philosophy to be a just a systematization of the principles of Kant's philosophy. And indeed, he was so immersed in Kantian terminology that his treatise, A Critique of All Religion, was at first mistaken for a work of Kant. Fichte responded to a twofold need: the need of self- consciousness to get beyond pure abstract thought (which, like Spinoza's "Substance," does not contain any determinate reality within itself); and the need of consciousness (as represented specifically by the English) to possess the moment of external actuality. As his solution, Fichte comes up with a great new seminal idea for philosophy -- the idea of a new category, the category of the unity-in-distinction of ego and non-ego. This is implicitly the [infinite] ego -- a logical extension of Kant's a priori synthetic judgement -- the ego which is actualized concept and conceptualized actuality, and comes to the explicit comprehension of its function of keeping concept and actuality united in the very act of distinguishing them. Fichte proceeds from this seminal principle to deduce the whole world, and reduce the whole world again to ego. Thus he is a subjectivist like Kant; but unlike Kant, goes beyond mere "knowledge-of" (Erkennen) to knowledge-proper (Wissen), i.e. knowledge through scientific deduction. Fichte does not really elucidate actuality and individuality, but does establish the concept of individuality and actuality. And this is his only concern. For philosophy, according to him, is the knowledge of knowledge, or the consciousness of consciousness (i.e. an artificial consciousness, a consciousness spontaneously constructed not from extrinsic materials, but from spirit itself). If we can only make the categorical union of ego and non-ego explicit to the ego, we will no longer be confronted with the Kantian dilemma -- that the determinations which we make in the non-ego are always outside of consciousness. For when the ego comes to possess its own non-ego or otherness as the object of its knowledge, it possesses an otherness which is, by definition, no longer outside or beyond it. In other words, it has the key to otherness. 1) Fichte's "First Principle": Fichte presupposes that scientific knowledge must begin from some one supreme principle which expresses the form and content of knowledge. From this principle, then, a whole system can be derived; and to this principle a whole system can be traced back. Fichte derives his principle from a Cartesian position: I can doubt everything except my ego; I can mentally abstract from everything except my ego. Thus the ego exists, and existence in the highest sense is the ego. But this ego must be scientifically related, not only to the sense manifold, but also to the "manifold" of conceptions and thoughts. And this is Fichte's peculiar contribution to philosophy. Fichte's First Principle of Knowledge divides into three "moments" or sub-principles: a) Ego = ego: This is the proposition we must begin with, the proposition of absolute self-certainty. In this proposition, the form (the ego) which relates itself to the content, is the same as that content (also the ego) to which it relates itself. Thus form and content are the same, although they are still different insofar as one is "relating" and one is "related." b) ego non-ego: In this proposition, the ego negates itself from the non-ego, but in order to do this has to posit a non-ego. Thus in this act of negation, it is establishing itself as limited, since there is some "other," just outside the boundaries of the ego. The ego is foremost here, however, as the unconditioned form which causes, or gives rise to, or "conditions" the appearance of a "non-ego" as conditioned content. c) ego = and non-ego and non-ego = and ego: This corresponds to Kant's second categorical triad, where reality (ego=ego) and negation (ego non-ego) are synthesized in a final state of determinateness or limitation. The non-ego in the second movement (b) was undifferentiated and undivided; it was simple unity immediately produced by the ego. But now the non-ego takes on a new aspect: it is partly being, and partly subjectivity. And the ego similarly splits into a dual aspect: it is partly subjectivity, partly being. Thus in this third proposition the form is a mutual limitation and negation and conditioning of ego by non-ego, and vice versa; and the content is the unconditioned totality, the mutual identity which results from this mutual negation. And this total content is the ego in a new sense: the ego as containing within itself both ego and non-ego. (Thus we can see that Fichte is just as much a subjectivist as Kant.) We should note, however, that this third proposition (c) has a dual aspect: Insofar as the non-ego limits and conditions the ego, we have theoretical reason; insofar as the ego limits and conditions the non-ego, we have practical reason, or will, which is conscious of limiting or determining objectivity. 2) Fichte's doctrine on theoretical Reason From the standpoint of theoretical Reason, it seems that the non-ego is determining the ego; but in reality it is the ego which determines that the non-ego should determine it; in other words, what seems to amount to the passivity of the ego is really the result of the activity of the ego, and the determinations which we "find" in theoretical consciousness are really determinations that we ourselves have produced. What Fichte means is that all reality is simply a product of the ego. The reciprocity between ego and non-ego which he recognizes is always a finite unity, a unity which takes place through the finite determinations of the ego itself. He never does get beyond this insight to recognize the infinite reciprocity between the ego and otherness as a truly independent pole. Concentrating on the determinations of the object, Fichte makes the first attempt in history to deduce the "categories" rationally: our idea of "reciprocity" results from the mutual determination of ego and non-ego; "causality" results from the fact that the activity of the ego must correspond to the passivity of the non-ego, and vice versa; "substantiality" results from the fact that when the ego is considered identical with all determinate reality, it must itself be self-determining; but when it differentiates itself from this realm of determination, it must itself be determined from without -- and thus the notion of "accident," as opposed to substance, results. But in all these deductions we must not forget the special hypothesis of Fichte: The ego is at one and the same time the "ideal ground" of its concepts, and the "real ground" of the object (which it determines itself to be determined by.). The ego, in going forth from itself, is continually checked and repulsed at the borders of the non-ego, which takes on the aspect of a contingent Kantian Thing-in-itself, which must always be there, to keep us from ever really possessing the otherness of the non-ego. Fichte makes these impenetrable borders fixed and permanent, by designating them as the place where our fixed faculty of the understanding ends, and the non-ego perpetually begins. Thus all the syntheses which we make between ego and non-ego by the use of categories, are never able to bridge the permanent gap between ego and non-ego. Both ego and non-ego appear as absolute indeterminates which are continually falling apart: the ego appears as an indeterminate because it is continually determining the non- ego to determine its own self (the indeterminate but determinable ego itself). The non-ego appears as indeterminate because it is continually and necessarily opposed to the determinate ego. Thus we are doomed to perpetually striving ad infinitum to bridge the gap between two indeterminates through successive determinations which plumb ever deeper into the non-ego, but are ever faced with an infinite remainder. This hypothesis of Fichte's concentrates on the wrong infinity -- the infinity of the futile process of getting out of a pre- determined dichotomy which "ought" to be bridged, but which never really is. And, as was mentioned above, he never does, in his theoretical philosophy, get to the point of recognizing the infinite reciprocity between ego and otherness. The reason for this seems to be that he fails to understand that preeminent type of "infinity" which results from the ego's identity with self-as- other. The reciprocity of ego and otherness can only be understood when the ego truly comes to assimilate, and be reconciled with, independent absolute otherness existing within itself (and not as some impenetrable indeterminate opposite). 3) Fichte's doctrine on Practical Reason In Fichte's theoretical philosophy, there was a contradiction between the fact that the ego was self-identical (self-determining) and yet determined by the non-ego. In Fichte's practical philosophy there is a contradiction between the fact that the ego is considered to be "at home" with itself, and yet at the same time entering into external actuality to determine the latter. Practical reason (i.e. will) is considered to be "free" because, unlike theoretical reason, it is not hemmed in by the borders of the non-ego, but can enter into this world of otherness to work upon it and change it (as we obviously do in our practical activity). Thus we are free from the limits of the understanding. The ego as practical reason posits or determines itself in the act of determining the "other." Thus in one sense it is positing itself and in another sense it is not positing itself. In order to keep these two senses from becoming self-contradictions, we have to distinguish (in a Fichtean manner) between the "ego as finite" and "ego as infinite." The ego as infinite is that which, in all activities in which it appears to be changing or determining the non-ego, is simply, in reality, just determining itself. Thus the ego as infinite is infinite in the sense that a circle is infinite -- without beginning or end in its circumference. The "other" which the ego of practical reason posits is paradoxical: on the one hand it is an absolute thing-in-itself; on the other hand, the ego recognizes that this absolute is just its own creation. Therefore it finds itself dealing with its own creations as if they were things-in-themselves. The relationship to this sphere of absolute otherness is described by Fichte as a yearning or striving. Our religious and aesthetic feelings are based on immediate (non-conceptualized) recognition of this absolute non-ego, and on the fact that, in a very real sense, we are utterly dependent on it (since there could be no ego without a non-ego). But whenever we try to make a more definite idea out of this absolute non-ego (as we do with ideas of God) we are doomed to failure. For the non-ego is, by definition, just outside of consciousness. As soon as, through concepts, it becomes part of consciousness it can no longer be the non-ego. Fichte, in his Science of Morals and his Science of Natural Rights, gives us a more or less self-consistent deduction of the conceptions of justice and morality, provided that we accept his one-sided emphasis on the ego and subjectivity. But there are many failures in these treatises. For example, in his treatise on the Science of Rights, he deduces the existence of organic bodies, from man's need to have a body to give his ego determinate relationships with other egos. Man has to have food, therefore Plants and animals are deduced. Trees have roots, therefore the fertile earth is deduced. And so forth. All these types of pseudo-deductions are caused by the fact that he starts from the ego as the only reality, and tries to rationalize all his deductions in the world of otherness without ever rising to appreciate the absolute unity of ego and non-ego, which alone could give the possibility of unity to the deductions which he makes. Before the time of Kant, it used to be popular among cultured people to dabble in philosophy. After Kant, people gave up. With Fichte, the disinterest of the common consciousness in philosophy became even more pronounced. People used to study philosophy e.g. to find out something about God. "But now that Fichte has shown us we can have only faith in, not knowledge of, God why study philosophy at all?" This sums up pretty well the attitude of the common consciousness, even among intellectuals, in this Post- Kantian era. Frederick Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854) claimed to be a Fichtean, but gradually went beyond both Kant and Fichte to bring the whole development of modern philosophy to some of its logical conclusions. Although his philosophy is defective insofar as it concentrates too much on isolated problems, and never presents these problems in the context of a complete system, there is a certain continuity to be found throughout the Schellingian philosophy: For, taken in chronological order, his various writings give us a manifestation of his own personal philosophical development -- the process by which he started with Kant's and Fichte's insights and gradually came to transcend them. Thus he comes to hold many doctrines that his predecessors would not admit: e.g. that God is a real inseparable unity of the finite and the infinite, necessity and freedom, immobility and consciousness; that God can be known; that the ego is, on the one hand a particular human ego, and, on the other hand the absolute ego, or God. A. Schelling's "System of Transcendental Idealism" presented transcendental philosophy and natural philosophy as two inseparable sides of scientific knowledge. Concentration on the phenomenal world of nature leads us inevitably to the formulation of pure formal laws which are pure products of the intelligence, so that nature becomes an object to itself, by being resolved into intelligence or consciousness. On the other hand, concentration on the sphere of (transcendent) subjectivity leads us inevitably to conscious reflection upon the unconscious (unreflective) activities or productions of subjectivity, as comprehended in their objectivity through the aesthetic act of the imagination. 1) Transcendental philosophy begins from the particular type of knowledge in which form and content are identical; i.e. it begins from self-consciousness, ego = ego, in which the subject and predicate, which are distinguished from each other, are at the same time transparently undistinguished. Thus this is the distinction of the undistinguished. But this particular type of knowledge is not "knowledge in the usual sense of that word. For knowledge ordinarily means the process by which thought and consequently objectivity rise from the ego. But here the ego becomes objective to itself, and thinks itself. To distinguish this process from ordinary knowledge. or "understanding," Schelling calls it "intellectual intuition" -- a quasi-perception which differs from all other perceptions insofar as a) the act of perception here cannot be distinguished from that which is perceived; and b) the perception does not just "find," but in fact creates its own object. This intellectual intuition gives man a privileged position in regard to a vantage point on reality. The man who possesses it, is no longer caught in dichotomies of the finite understanding (infinity vs. finitude, cause vs. effect, positive vs. negative, etc.); nor is he deluded by abstract thought-unities, such as Spinoza's Substance, or Fichte's pure unity of subjectivity. Rather, he possesses the concrete unity-in-distinction of subjectivity and objectivity, without which it is impossible to understand the Concepts of God, freedom, nature, etc. in their true perspective. How does one come to "possess" this intuition? "Possession" here would mean conscious possession of something that was previously unconscious or latent in consciousness. Does every one have this intuition at least latently in their consciousness? It would seem not. Schelling seems to imply that it is something existential, a "gift" that one would almost have to be born with. He certainly does not present it as something universal, and as necessarily connected with consciousness -- although we might note that the principle is implicitly universal, i.e. capable of being presented as a universal. At any rate, those who possess this intuition realize both a) "that the ego is unlimited only insofar as it is limited" (i.e, that the infinite circular becoming of self-consciousness can come into existence only as consciousness, at the borders or limits of the non-ego); and also b) "that the ego is limited only insofar as it is unlimited" (i.e. that "limits" are intelligible only in the context of something that is able to surpass, or get beyond, these limits). The first statement (a) ought to occur to a reflective idealist; the second (b) should occur to a reflective realist; but the transcendental idealist is one who reflects on both sides and sees their interrelationship. Schelling's philosophy (Transcendental Idealism), supposedly encompasses both of these opposite attitudes in its intellective intuition, and is concerned with showing the constant oscillation which takes place between inward and outward nature, consciousness and unconsciousness -- or at least the major moments or "epochs" of this oscillation. Thus we get beyond the abstract ego, or self-consciousness, of Fichtean idealism. Schelling's Principle of intellective intuition insofar as it is the reconciliation of objective and subjective, cannot itself be "objective" in the usual sense, i.e. intelligible through the categories (concepts) of the understanding. How, then, can it come forth to our consciousness, or be proved to philosophers? Is there any sense in which it can be objectified, and, so to speak, be set in the public view for all? Yes, answers Schelling: This intellectual intuition, since it is nothing more than the ego producing itself in order to know itself (the source of all subjectivity and objectivity) -- in an immediate identity. Since it is an immediate identity, it is fitting that it should be set forth in an immediate "objective" perceptual intuition. This takes place in art, which always represents a fusion of subjectivity and objectivity, consciousness and unconsciousness; and also in our "objective" faculty of imagination which brings about the synthesis of art, by means of its own synthesis of thought and sensation. This solution of Schelling's, however, which gives a preeminent value to art over other means of objectification, and to imagination over other subjective faculties -- is unsatisfactory: a) For one thing, this type of "objectivity" does not give an adequate picture of the mutual abrogation of subjectivity and objectivity. We could obtain a much better picture by concentrating on the concept, which is a concrete example of an objective unity which is also a subjective exclusion of other unities (i.e. other concepts). b) For another thing, Schelling simply begins with his intuitive principle of the reconciliation of opposites, without actually entering into reality to demonstrate how difference contains unity, how finitude consists in the absence of harmony between Concept and Reality, how finitude is continually leading us to infinitude and vice versa -- in other words, to demonstrate how every one-sided determination veers into its own negations and oppositions. This would be much better than simply asserting and presupposing the unity of opposites. Of course, if Schelling had demonstrated this dialectic in such a fashion, there might be those who would claim that his result was not in consonance with his purpose. But such critics are speaking from a one-sided, non-dialectical point of view, in which "result" and "purpose" are rigidly separated. But one need not worry about such criticisms. For the dialectic unity of opposites can only be criticized from a dialectic point of view, just as it can only be demonstrated by a dialectic method. B. In his two "Journals of Speculative Physics", Schelling tried to "prove" the absolute unity of opposites in a Spinozistic fashion, following the forms of proof in geometry, starting from axioms and proceeding to deductions. But his proofs prove themselves to be circular arguments. For example, he starts from the assumption that the Absolute is the absolute identity of subjective and objective; and then "deduces" from this the fact that there can be no real differences in the Absolute -- which is just another way of saying that the Absolute = absolute identity. Schelling's goal, in these proofs, is to get beyond the subjectivism of Fichte, which treats of the ego as an object of the understanding, cut off from sensuous objects; and also from the attitude of realism, which treats objects as if they were completely outside of subjectivity. In other words, he wishes to show that subjects are subjective objects, and that objects are objective subjects. In order to show this, he must show that all the differences to be found in objects and subjects disappear into the indifference of the absolute subject-object. The differences that he concentrates on are called by him "potencies"; and he is especially concerned with the Kantian triplicity of thesis, antithesis, synthesis (first, second, and third "potencies"). Most of us think of "difference" as essentially something qualitative. But, according to Schelling, there can be no qualitative differences in the Absolute, which is defined as absolute, formal (qualitative) identity of opposites. Therefore, from the standpoint of the Absolute, all differences must be purely quantitative. Thus, if we take any subject-object (A=B), the differentiation of this subject-object results from the fact that one factor (either A or B) preponderates over the other (that is, we have either (A = B, or A = B). This purely quantitative difference accounts for the existence of the various subject- objects. But to account for their essence or formal ground, we must reduce them to the quantitative indifference of the Absolute, in the following manner: = (A = B ) = ( A = B) A = A In this schema, absolute identity, A = A, is just an abbreviated form for stating that (A = B) = (A = B). The A that is emphasized in the first (A = B) is balanced off by the B that is emphasized in the second (A = B). And in this way their identity, or "indifference" is established in the totality of the universe (expressed essentially by "A = A"). Schelling proceeds to deduce the tri-dimensional material world and its species and properties, by means of an analysis of A = B, in general: Thesis: To begin with, A = B is a relative identity, a linear sameness between A and B, which takes on the aspect of the "first dimension." But this linear aspect is just the starting point, or springboard, to a consideration of a relative totality, the totum of A = B...., etc., in which this identity exists. The relationship of relative identity to relative totality is relative duality -- i.e., the second dimension. But since relative identity and relative duality are mere abstractions which must continually cancel out each other to produce the relative totality as their actuality, we point to this actualized relative totality as the "third dimension," which must be pre-understood to give meaning to the other two dimensions. In the context of this tri- dimensional (extended, material) world, the first dimension now appears as the force of gravitation, which is, as it were, the linear starting point from which the whole edifice of material existence is built up. And this gravitation expresses itself as an alternation between its two poles, attraction (A) and expansion (B). Antithesis: Just as the identity and duality of A = B came to exist only in A = B considered as relative totality, so also the relative totality of A = B is a starting point for existence in a second sense (A2, or [(A = B) = (A = B)]2. In this new context, the totality of A = B becomes a new starting point, a cohesion with two aspects, passive and active. Passive cohesion is of two kinds, the negative passive cohesiveness of iron and other hard and dense metals; and the positive passive cohesiveness of nitrogen and other elements, which do not just form a unity by resisting intrusion, but form a unity in a more positive sense. Active cohesion is magnetism, with its positive and negative poles. This active cohesion, insofar as it is subject to alteration by two different bodies (hydrogen as +E and Oxygen as -E) is electricity. Thus the existence of A2 becomes represented finally as a chemical process. All the above-mentioned forms of cohesion represent the impression of light-energy, in various forms, upon matter. This synthesis of light and the forces of material gravitation results in A3, or the... Synthesis: Here we have the form [A = A] in which the absolute identity of all the opposites is manifest -- the organism, the material composite which represents the synthesis of the gravitational aspects of matter with the cohesive properties of light-energy. In general, in regard to Schelling's philosophy of nature, we might note that : a) physics is determinate thought about the external world; b) the philosophy of nature, in the traditional sense of that word, is also concerned with determinate thought about this world, and only arrives at the vestibule of realizing that concrete thought has a certain independence in itself, and also has certain structures (thought-forms) that are bound to be reflected in any "objective" physics; c) Schelling marks the beginning of the modern philosophy of nature, which gives explicit recognition to the category of Reason (the unity of subjectivity and objectivity), as a thought-form according to which our philosophy of nature must be re-constructed. In Schelling's philosophy of nature, the categorical union of subjectivity and objectivity is expressed as the reciprocity of existence and form. Existence is infinite self-consciousness "before" it has passed into the various forms which are differentiated by subjectivity. In other words, it is self- consciousness as an absolute "in-itself." Form, on the other hand, is the finite determination or existence, through which existence becomes "for-itself." Nature, in Schelling's formulation, is the passing of existence into form, while Spirit is the opposite process the passing of form into existence. Nature considered in abstraction from Spirit takes on the aspect of potentiality, or a ground of reality, rather than as existent forms. Spirit, on the other hand, takes on the aspect of that which, through its positive activity and causality, brings form into existence -- and refers preeminently to the activity of God, who gives absolute form to existence. Nature and Spirit thus represent two opposite processes in regard to the existence-form reciprocity, and the two of them taken together lead us to the Idea of Reason -- which comprehends the two opposite processes in their unity. But even though Nature does not contain explicitly the process of form passing into existence, and even though Spirit does not contain explicitly the process of existence passing into form -- they both contain these "opposite" processes implicitly: a) For example (in the "thesis" (first potency of nature) given above), matter, as gravity, represents the passage of existence into universal mechanical necessity (i.e. form); but in the "antithesis" (2nd potency of nature), light and electricity and cohesion represent the passage of form into existence ("the light which shineth in darkness"). b) As a second example, pertaining to Spirit, we might note that while Spirit is primarily the passage of form into existence (practical activity and will). It is also secondarily and implicitly the passage of existence into form (i.e., knowledge or speculative thought, in which sensuous phenomena pass into the "daylight" of the categorical forms of the understanding). As regards the synthesis or categorical unity of these two opposite processes -- this synthesis is found in a preliminary or implicit way a) in the organisms of nature (cf. the 3rd potency, or "Synthesis" mentioned above), in which matter is manifested as spontaneous subjective form, and this form is manifested altogether as matter; b) in the Spirit's faculty of imagination, through which are created the productions of art, in which material becomes wholly subjective form, and subjective form becomes wholly material. As regards the final or explicit synthesis of these two opposite processes -- this results from the simultaneous recognition that nature as a whole a) is a massive organism (in which Reason can see the synthesis of existence (matter) and form), and b) is a massive work of art (in which the faculty of imagination can perceive "beauty," as the unity of matter and form, infinite and finite, objective and subjective). In regard to Schelling's Philosophy of Nature as a whole, we might observe: 1) that Schelling applies his "three potencies" in a rather formalistic way, and goes into so much detail that he prevents himself from "reconstructing the universe" in its major and essential outlines; 2) that what Schelling has to say about Spirit is an offshoot of his Philosophy of Nature. He leaps from the notion of the organism as an aesthetic synthesis to the notion of the imagination as a subjective aesthetic synthesizing faculty, etc. But he does not formulate the complete and autonomous Philosophy of Spirit that would seem to be necessary to counterbalance the one-sided aspects of his Philosophy of Nature. C. The Relation of Nature to Spirit and God is considered in various other writings of Schelling (although, as we mentioned above, he never did develop a systematic Philosophy of Spirit). Very briefly, the relationship is as follows: God, as infinite intelligence, is not intelligence in abstraction from existence, but rather intelligence which is in concrete unity with existence, and contains its own grounds of existence within itself. Intelligence must have these grounds of existence (i.e. Being) in order to be intelligence. Thought must have something to negate. But this ground of Intelligence, the beginning of intelligence, cannot itself be intelligence. Neither can it be completely unintelligent, since it is a potentiality for intelligence. Therefore, it is something in-between, i.e. it is Nature -- which operates on the basis of an innate, instinctive, blind, and unconscious wisdom. The work of Spirit, in this context, is to abrogate Nature, and thus establish itself explicitly as Intelligence. Final Observations: 1) The deficiency of Schelling lies in the fact that he applies his schemata and potencies in a formalistic way. This seems to be due to the fact that he never grasped the Idea of Reason in its own element, so to speak -- i.e. in the context of an authentic Philosophy of Spirit. If he had done this, he would have been in a better position to show the necessary unveiling and revelation of this Idea in and through Nature. 2) The merit of Schelling lies in two factors: a) In spite of the fact that he did not develop a Philosophy of Spirit, he does grasp the concrete Idea of Reason in the sphere of art and imagination (cf. above, p. 93). Thus he gives explicit recognition to the need for the reconciliation of thought and being -- which is the main need that we find in the whole history of philosophy. b) Unlike some of his imitators, he does not get involved in meaningless verbalizations about the Absolute. Neither does he try to connect the Absolute with sense phenomena by means of pseudo-intuitions (such as we find e.g. in the natural philosophers who observe that the ostrich, because of its long neck, is the fish among birds -- and think that they have said something profound). c) Neither does Schelling get involved in some of the other pastimes of philosophers: looking for specific sensuous forms (like sulphur and mercury) for the universal secrets of nature; playing with mere analogical refections (e.g. "wood- fibers are the nerves and brain of the plant"); or coming out with utterly senseless drivel about the relation of the "indifference point" to polarity, about oxygen and the holy and the infinite, etc. All this sort of nonsense, because of its high-sounding conceit, brings philosophy to a level even below the level of John Locke who, at least, never pretended to be saying anything sublime. |