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AN INCAPACITATING PRESUPPOSITION OF

by

PETER A. SCHOULS

"I am afraid," said Pierre, smiling and hesitating between the confidence inspired in him by the personality of the freemason and the habit of ridiculing the articles of the mason's creed; "I am afraid that I am very far from a comprehension -- how shall I say — I am afraid that my way of thinking in regard to the whole theory of the universe is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand one another." "I am aware of your way of thinking," said the freemason. "And that way of thinking is the way of thinking of the majority of men, and is the invariable fruit of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Excuse my saying, sir, that if I had not been aware of it, I should not have addressed you. Your way of thinking is a melancholy error." "Just as I may take for granted that you are in error," said Pierre, faintly smiling. "I would never be so bold as to say I know the truth," said the mason, the definite- ness anddecision of whose manner of speaking impressed Pierre more and more. "No one alone can attain truth." L.eo. Tolstoy, War and Peace (Book Five). The presupposition of Rationalism which I will discuss is the Rationalist's belief in the existence of the natural light of . This belief is funda- mental to the position of all Rationalists. First, I will delimit the denotation of "Rationalism" as I use this concept (Part I). The simplest way to get the relevant elements of "Rationalism" into clear focus is by presenting them by means of representative writings of Ra- tionalists. To do this, I will refer to a popular work of a latter-day Rationalist, Jacques Maritain; and I will provide support for Maritain's statements from a more classical source, Rene Descartes. Next, I will make clear in what sense belief in the natural light of reason is a presupposition (Part II). Third, I will argue that this presupposition is incapacitating because one conse- quence of its acceptance is that it tends to make it impossible for the Rationalist to engage in philosophical argumentation with non-Rationalist philosophers (Part III). Lastly, I will show that this presupposition is in- capacitating by means of a particular example. The example I will use I tae from a set of papers which appeared in recent issues of the Laval T heologique et Philosophique, namely, Professor John King-Farlow's "Mo- nism, and : Can an Atheist's World View be Logi- cally Expressed?" 1 and the subsequent exchange between Paul Langham and King-Farlow in "The I t-T ish Language". 2

1 Laval Theologique et Philosophique, Vol. xxix, No. 2, Juin 1973, pp. 123-142. 2 Laval Theologique et Philosophique, Vol. xxx, No. 1, March 1974, pp. 81-84. 34 PETER A. SCHOULS

In his An Introduction to Jacques Maritain writes that "... in our arguments and in the very structure of our exposition of philosophy, it is not faith, but reason, and reason alone, which occupies the entire ground and holds undivided sway". 3 Given this role of "reason" in philosophy, Maritain can say

"... if the philosophy of , as revived and enriched by St. Thomas and his school, may rightly be called the ... nevertheless it is not pro- posed here for the reader's acceptance because it is Christian, but because it is demonstrably true. This agreement between a philosophic system founded by a pagan and the dogmas of revelation is no doubt an external sign, an extra-philosophic guarantee of its truth; but it is not from its agreement with the Faith, but from its own rational evidence, that it derives its authority as a philosophy". 4 For Maritain, one of the characteristics of philosophy is that it "is the highest of the human sciences, that is, of the sciences which know things by the natural light of reason". 5 Although theology is superior to philosophy because the former is "a science which is a participation by man of the knowledge proper to God himself"," nevertheless "The premises of philos- ophy ... are independent of theology, being those primary truths which are self-evident to the understanding ...". "The premises of philosophy are self-supported and are not derived from those of theology". At least as important: "the light by which philosophy knows its object is independent of theology, since its light is the light of reason, which is its own guarantee". 7 The characterization of philosophy as one of the sciences in which we know by the natural light of reason, and the characterization of reason or the natural light of reason as being its own guarantee, as well as the charac- terization of the object of reason as premises or primary truths which are self-evident, is one way of characterizing philosophy as an autonomous discipline. And one important implication of this characterization of philos- ophy is that it rules out the possibility of genuine communication problems between or among competent philosophers — "genuine" because further argumentation cannot result in a resolution of these problems. It is, as I will show, the ruling out of this possibility which incapacitates the Rationalist in a way which prevents him from enjoying potentially unlimited philo- sophical argumentation with non-Rationalists. Those with whom the Rationalist cannot enjoy sustained philosophical argumentation are philosophers who insist on maintaining that many philo- sophical issues are of such a nature that no agreement can in principle be reached concerning these between them. Such in principle disagreement is impossible for the Rationalist. For Maritain, proper use of the light of reason will make for complete agreement on all philosophical issues. If disagreement comes about this is not, for example, because one philosopher

3 Jacques Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy (New York, 1962), p. vi. 4 Ibid. 5 Op. cit., p. 82. 6 Ibid. 7 Op. cit., p. 84.