PROCEEDINGS
METAPHYSICS 2006
3rd World Conference
Rome, July 6 – 9, 2006
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PROCEEDINGS METAPHYSICS 2006 3rd World Conference (Rome, July 6 – 9, 2006)
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Contents
III Congreso Mundial Metafísica
I. Opening and Closing Sessions
1 FERNÁNDEZ HERNÁNDEZ, JESÚS, MENSAJE DE APERTURA
5 CARD. RUINI, CAMILLO, SALUTO AL TERZO CONGRESSO MONDIALE DI METAFISICA
7 LÓPEZ SEVILLANO, JOSÉ MARÍA, FUNCIÓN MÍSTICA Y ESTÉTICA DE LA METAFÍSICA RIELIANA
15 FERNÁNDEZ HERNÁNDEZ, JESÚS, DISCURSO DE CLAUSURA DEL III CONGRESO DE METAFÍSICA
II. Presentations a. Metaphysics and Personhood
19 APARICIO GARRIDO, JULIÁN, METAFÍSICA DE LA PSICOLOGÍA HUMANA
27 BROWN, MONTAGUE, METAPHYSICS AND FREEDOM IN THE THOUGHT OF THOMAS AQUINAS
36 DE LAURENTIIS, ALLEGRA, LA SOLUZIONE ARISTOTELICA DEL DUALISMO DA PARTE DI HEGEL
43 FRANCESCOTTI, ROBERT, PERSON ESSENTIALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF VAGUENESS
51 GOOCH, AUGUSTA, ONTOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF FLOURISHING LIVES: A CRITIQUE OF EDITH STEIN
57 HEIKES, DEBORAH K., WHAT WAS I THINKING? THE NEED FOR TRANSCENDENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS
63 POSSENTI, VITTORIO, INTERIORITÀ ESTATICA, AMORE, COMUNICAZIONE. SVOLGIMENTI DEL PERSONALISMO ONTOLOGICO
75 REHM, PATRICIA, HOW TO DEAL WITH DESPAIR ROMANO GUARDINI’S REFLECTION ON MELANCHOLY
83 SÁNCHEZ FRANCISCO, LUIS, FELICIDAD Y PSICOLOGÍA POSITIVA (FUNDAMENTOS METAFÍSICOS)
91 STATILE, GLENN, FREE WILL AND ITS DISCONTENTS
97 WOJCIESZEK, KRZYSTOF, SOURCES OF DESPERATION AS THE SOURCES OF NARCOTIC PROBLEMS b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
103 ANDREACCHIO, MARCO, CHAN BUDDHISM: THE UNCONVENTIONAL EDUCATION OF THE METAPHYSICIAN
111 ARANILLA, MAXELL L., THE METAPHYSICS OF LOVE IN DEUS CARITAS EST 113 BADILLO, ROBERT, RIELO’S ELEVATES ST. TERESA’S EXPERIENTIAL MYSTICISM TO PURE ONTOLOGY
119 BERTINI, DANIELE, LA RILEVANZA METAFISICA DELLA LUCE
125 BORDAT, JOSEF, GELÂZENHEIT. DIE ERFAHRUNG DER EINHEIT MIT GOTT BEI MEISTER ECKHART
133 CABANA MORALES, MARÍA ANGELES, DOLOR E INDIVIDUACIÓN EN EL BUDISMO HINAYANA
141 CARERI MUSICÒ, ANNALISA, S. AMBROGIO E IL DE MISTERIIS (IL MISTERO DIVINO)
149 D'AMICI, DANIELA, DIO - LUCE, UOMINI - LUCE E UOMINI - OMBRA. PRINCIPIO DI REALTÀ E PRINCIPIO DI SANTITÀ
157 DRAGO, ANTONINO, TRIANNI, PAOLO, METAPHYSICS IN LANZA DEL VASTO'S THINKING
163 DUPONCHEELE, JOSEPH, GENETIC METAPHYSICS AND RELATIONAL ONTOLOGY, TWO TWIN SISTERS
173 HANCOCK, CURTIS L., PLOTINUS’ ANSWER TO CENTRAL QUESTIONS IN CLASSICAL ONTOLOGY
181 RICO, JAVIER, DESDE LA BINIDAD DEL MODELO GENETICO A LA CUMBRE DE LA CONTEMPLACION DIVINA SEGUN LA MÍSTICA DEL ISLAM
187 SHEN, AIMIN, REFLECTIONS ON SILENCE AND MYSTICISM IN THE TRACTATUS
193 STANLEY, TIMOTHY, HEIDEGGER’S HIDDEN THEOLOGY: REVISITING MARTIN LUTHER’S INFLUENCE UPON MARTIN HEIDEGGER
199 TESZLER, LUCIA ANGELA, LA MORTE E LA RELIGIONE IN C.G.JUNG c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science
207 BAÇ, MURAT, TRUTH RETURNS: FACTUALISM WITH A HUMAN FACE
213 BAHDANAU, VITALI, ZWEI GRUNDSTEINE DER METAPHYSIK: PLATONISCHE IDEEN UND HEGELS ABSOLUTE
219 BROWN, HUNTER, SCIENCE AND METAPHYSICS IN THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN DEBATE
225 DE BLACQUIÈRE-CLARKSON, RICHARD, A NATURALISTIC COUNTEREXAMPLE TO MEREOLOGICAL EXTENSIONALITY?
231 HANSEN, HELMUT, METAPHYSICS AS A PHYSICAL SCIENCE .A PERSONAL REPORT
237 JARAMILLO, ALICIA, FAITH AND REASON IN AQUINAS AND HEGEL: A FUNDAMENTAL DIVERGENCE
251 KAPUS, JERRY, REALISM, TRUTH, AND OBJECTIVITY
245 KIM, JOONSUNG, CARVING UP CAUSAL STRUCTURE
257 KOBOW, BEATRICE, IDEATION, RATIONALITY AND COLLECTIVE INTENTIONALITY: BASIC SKILLS FOR A SOCIAL ONTOLOGY
263 KUZMIN, ALEXSANDER, DIE TRANSVERSALE VERNUNFT IN DER MODERNE DISKURSIVE SITUATION DER METAPHYSIK 271 LORD, TIMOTHY C., A REHABILITATION OF IDEALISM: R. G. COLLINGWOOD’S 1935 LECTURES ON “REALISM AND IDEALISM”
277 MENEGHETTI, ANTONIO, PSICOLOGIA EPISTEMICA E METAFISICA: DALL’ONTOLOGIA ALL’ONTOPSICOLOGIA
281 PANKIN-SCHAPPERT, HELKE, THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN METAPHYSICAL TRUTH AND THE KNOWING SOUL IN ANCIENT AND EARLY MODERN THINKING (PLATO AND DESCARTES)
289 SCHWANAUER, FRANCIS, FEYNMAN'S "QUANTUM WEIRDNESS", A MISNOMER, PROVES MOMENTUM OF A POSITION A MATTER OF REPRESENTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
295 SURKOVA, LIUDMILA, SCIENTIFIC RATIONALITY: CHANGING OF PARADIGM (QUANTUM RATIONALITY AS RATIONALITY OF BEING)
301 TAHKO, TUOMAS, METAPHYSICS IN NATURAL SCIENCE
307 VENTURINHA, NUNO, METAPHYSICS AND NONSENSE IN THE EARLY WITTGENSTEIN d. Metaphysics and Education
315 CASADO, ÁNGEL, DIÁLOGO, EDUCACIÓN Y DESARROLLO MORAL
319 DÍAZ TORRES, JUAN MANUEL, PERSONA Y TIEMPO. METAFÍSICA Y PEDAGOGÍA DE LA INTERIORIDAD
325 HANCOCK, CURTIS L., POSTMODERN IDOLS OF THE EDUCATION TRIBE: THE ABOLITION OF EDUCATION
331 LARA NIETO, MARIA DEL CARMEN, DESDE LA HERMENÉUTICA FILOSÓFICA DE H.-G. GADAMER UNOS APUNTES A LA FILOSOFÍA DE BALTASAR GRACIÁN
337 OBEN, FREDA MARY, EDUCATION’S ROLE IN SPIRITUAL FORMATION, ACCORDING TO EDITH STEIN
343 VAN BUUREN, JASPER, METAPHYSICAL DESIRE AND EXPRESSIVENESS TAKING PLESSNER’S PHILOSOPHY TO ITS BOUNDARIES e. Metaphysics and Ethics
351 ACOSTA AIDE, SANTIAGO, PROBLEMAS DE TEORÍA LITERARIA DESDE UN ENFOQUE ONTOLÓGICO DE LA ESTÉTICA
357 DOKPO, KODJO, SOME METAPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE POSSIBILITY OF HUMAN REPRODUCTIVE CLONING
363 FESTIN, M. LORENZ MOISES J., THE FUNDAMENTALITY OF THE PRAXIS-POIÉSIS DISTINCTION IN ARISTOTLE’S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS
369 PABST, ADRIAN, POST-SECULAR METAPHYSICS AND ETHICS. A REPLY TO TED RYAN
373 PÉREZ ZAFRILLA, PEDRO JESÚS, ¿ES POSIBLE UNA LEGITIMACIÓN METAFÍSICA DEL ESTADO MODERNO? 379 RODRÍGUEZ GUERRO, ANGEL, ETICA Y METAFÍSICA EN TORNO A LA HUMANIZACIÓN DE LA SALUD
387 SAMET-PORAT, IRIT, EVIL AS PRIVATION – FROM ONTOLOGY TO METAETHICS
395 SÁNCHEZ BENÍTEZ, ROBERTO, LA RESPONSABILIDAD ILIMITADA POR EL OTRO f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture
405 BELFIORE, FRANCESCO, REALITY AS AN EVOLVING TRIAD. MADE OF INTELLECT, SENSITIVENESS AND POWER
419 BERNASCONI, REMO, MR. R AND METAPHYSICS. THE CAT AND SELF-REALIZATION, STORIES OF MR. R.
413 BUGOSSI, TOMASO, METAFISICA ANTROPICA: IL PENSIERO OPERANTE E L’AGIRE CONTEMPLANTE
423 CIPRIANI, GERALD, CULTURAL EXPERIENCE AFTER METAPHYSICS: ON THE THOUGHTS OF NISHIDA KITARÔ
429 CORTÉS-BOUSSAC, ANDREA, LA CUESTIÓN ¿QUÉ ES METAFÍSICA? EN HEIDEGGER Y LATINOAMÉRICA
435 DE ANDREIS, SIMONE, "UOMO POLIEDRO" E "UOMO UNIDIMENSIONALE" NELLA METAFISICA ANTROPICA
443 DELFINO, ROBERT A., RACE, ETHNICITY, AND PERSONAL IDENTITY IN THOMISTIC METAPHYSICS
449 EBERL, JASON T., AQUINAS AND VARIETIES OF DUALISM
457 GUIU ANDREU, IGNACIO, EL ITINERARIO METAFÍSICO DE SANTO TOMÁS
465 HANLEY, CATRIONA, LEVINAS AND ARISTOTLE ON PEACE: A METAPHYSICAL DEPARTURE
471 ISLAM, SIRAJUL, SUFI METAPHYSICS: AN APPRISAL IN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE
485 LONGSHORE, JACOB, THE SINCERITY-RELATION IN THE WORK OF ART
491 MANTOVANI, MAURO, METAPHYSICS AND HISTORY. THE PERSPECTIVE OF TOMMASO DEMARIA
497 NOBILE, ITALO, L’ELIMINAZIONE DELLA METAFISICA DI RUDOLF CARNAP
509 NOROUZI, HOSSEIN, CAUSALITY IN GAZZALI AND HUME'S VIEW
517 NOZIGLIA, ANNALISA, LA METAFISICA ANTROPICA:UOMO CENTRO DELL’ASCOLTO
523 RAGA ROSALENY, VICENTE, MIRCEA ELIADE: POÉTICA Y METAFÍSICA
529 ROCKMORE, TOM, METAPHYSICS AND VIOLENCE: RELIGION, ECONOMICS IN 9/11
535 ROSENTHAL, SANDRA B., PRAGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE ISSUE OF FOUNDATIONS
541 SALINAS, FEDERICO, THE ACHILLES HEEL OF SCHOPENHAUER’S AESTHETIC THEORY
549 SCHAUB, MIRJAM, CRUELTY AND METAPHYSICS. ON THE LOGIC OF TRANSGRESSION
557 SCLIPPA, NORBERT, PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS IN SADE
563 SIBEL, KIBAR, AN ANALYSIS OF PHENOMENOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF THE “MASTER-SLAVE DIALECTIC” 569 WALSH, TERRANCE, BONUM EST CAUSA MALI. A PROBLEM AND AN OPPORTUNITY FOR METAPHYSICS IN THE THOUGHT OF THOMAS AQUINAS AND HEGEL
577 WHITE, DANIEL R., THE ART OF METAPHYSICS: NIETZSCHE, THE DEATH OF GOD, AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF LIFE g. Metaphysics, Law, and Society
587 WEDMAN, TREVOR N., THE RULE OF LAW – TOWARDS A NORMATIVE CONCEPTION h. Metaphysics and Global Development
593 KHALILOVA, NARMIN, THE ISSUE OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD
595 MOLLO, GIACOMO, ONTOLOGICAL AS REGULATIVE. ON THE USE OF METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM AS REGULATIVE PRINCIPLE FOR SOCIAL SCIENCES
601 PELMAN, ALIK, AN OUTLINE FOR A GENERAL THEORY OF INTENSIONS i. Metaphysics and Criminology
609 RYAN, EDWARD SCOTT, METAPHYSICAL CRIMINOLOGY: CHOSINNESS AND NAZI TRANSCENDENCE WITHOUT THE TRANSCENDENT
617 STELLINO, PAOLO, LA TRASVALUTAZIONE NIETZSCHEANA DEL CRIMINALE IN SEGUITO ALLA MORTE DI DIO j. Metaphysics – Workshop for Youth
625 ARVIGO, EMMANUELA, IDEOLOGIA E VERITÀ
627 BUCALO, DANIELA, L’IMPORTANZA DI CREDERE NEI PROPRI SOGNI. LA FORZA DI PERSEVERARE NEL PROPRIO IDEALISMO
629 DE GIORGI, DEBORAH, IL DIALOGO: ESPRESSIONE MASSIMA DELLA NATURA UMANA
631 FRISINA, PIERLUIGI, C’È QUALCUNO AL DI SOPRA DEL PIANO?
635 SEBASTIANI, FABRIZIO, DARWIN E GÖDEL: QUANDO LA SCIENZA AIUTA LA FEDE
641 SERONELLO, MONICA, LE PRIME COMUNITÀ CRISTIANE E LA SOCIETÀ DI OGGI
643 VENZA, COLETTA, SI PUÒ PARLARE DI IDEOLOGIA DEL NUOVO MILLENNIO?
Author Index III CONGRESO MUNDIAL METAFÍSICA
La Fundación Idente de Estudios e Investigación, con la colaboración de la Fundación Fernando Rielo, ha organizado el III Congreso Mundial de Metafísica, que se ha celebrado en Roma del 6 al 9 de julio. Los dos primeros Congresos, celebrados en los años 2000 y 2003, reunieron a numerosos filósofos y estudiosos de otros campos para explorar las vías de renovación de la metafísica en el siglo XXI, teniendo en cuenta las aportaciones del pasado. A la luz de estos intercambios con profesores de 27 naciones (Europa, América del Norte y del Sur, Oriente Medio, Asia y Australia) y en consideración con sus intereses y especialidades, se eligieron para este III Congreso las siguientes áreas generales, que son las que se han desarrollado: Metafísica y Cultura; Metafísica y Epistemología; Metafísica y las Artes; Metafísica y Ética; Metafísica y Mística; Metafísica y Pedagogía; Metafísica y Ciencias Experimentales; Metafísica y Derecho; Metafísica y Personeidad; y Metafísica y Desarrollo Global. Este marco parte del supuesto de que todas las dimensiones y actividades humanas están abiertas a una consideración de su fundamento ultimo, e, incluso, la exigen. Ésta es la premisa central de la empresa metafísica: la búsqueda de una concepción válida de lo absoluto en relación con la experiencia y la comprensión humanas. El acto inaugural del Congreso fue presidido por el Cardenal Vicario de Su Santidad, Benedicto XVI, Camillo Ruini, y por el Presidente de la Fundación Idente de Estudios e Investigación y Presidente del Congreso, Jesús Fernández Hernández. En sus palabras el Cardenal Ruini destacó la importancia de que un número importante de estudiosos se encontraran reunidos en torno a la metafísica. Recogiendo aquí sus palabras, destacamos: “Es un placer para mí estar presente en la apertura de este III Congreso Mundial de Metafísica y poderles saludar a todos ustedes, estudiosos llegados de tantos países de Europa, Asia, de Medio Oriente, América del Norte y del Sur. Es siempre una ocasión de satisfacción humana y espiritual cuando numerosas personas se encuentran con la profunda motivación de reflexionar juntas sobre las grandes cuestiones de nuestra existencia, buscando puntos de interés y de mayor comprensión con los que podamos enriquecer la vida, sea de las diversas culturas, sea de cada uno de nosotros singularmente. Les traigo el saludo caluroso y el apoyo personal del Santo Padre, Benedicto XVI, el cual ciertamente desea que un encuentro sobre esta temática pueda dar abundantes frutos para ustedes y para los que puedan recibir después las conclusiones del evento. En el I Congreso, en el año 2000 hice referencia a la Encíclica Fides et Ratio del gran Papa Juan Pablo II. En aquel documento el amantísimo Pontífice subrayaba que “la metafísica no es vista como alternativa de la antropología, ya que es lo propio de la metafísica dar fundamento al concepto de dignidad de la persona por su condición espiritual”. Y puntualizaba: “Si tanto insisto sobre la componente metafisica es porque estoy convencido de que ésta es el camino obligado para superar la situación de crisis que pervive hoy en grandes sectores de la filosofía y para corregir algunos comportamientos erróneos difundidos en nuestra sociedad” La intersección inescindible entre vida y pensamiento, la necesidad de encontrar el justo adecuamiento entre visión y comportamiento plenamente humano, se presenta determinante para este siglo XXI. Benedetto XVI, en su primera Encíclica, Deus Caritas Est, invita a reconocer en los múltiples valores del amor auténtico, coronado por la concepción y la experiencia sobrenatural de la caridad perfecta, la llave de lectura que conseguirá verdaderamente armonizar vida y pensamiento. Dice el Pontifice: “El aspecto filosófico e histórico-religioso que se pone de relevancia en esta visión de la Biblia está en el hecho que, por una parte, nos encontamos de frente con una imagen estrictamente metafísica de Dios: Dios es absolutamente la fuente originaria de todo ser; pero este principio creativo de todas las cosas - el Logos, la razón primordial - es al mismo tiempo un amante con toda la pasión de un verdadero amor”. A continuación el Presidente del Congreso señaló en sus palabras de apertura como primera reflexión, que: “no hay que tener miedo a la palabra “metafísica”, pues designa la ciencia suprema: la que fundamenta y da unidad, dirección y sentido al pensar y actuar humanos sobre una realidad que ha intentado, intenta e intentará ser siempre plasmada en las ciencias experimentales y en las ciencias experienciales. Sin metafísica - continuó el Presidente - todo camina a la deriva; ésta pone a las ciencias en su sitio, las abre a horizontes vastísimos en los que los científicos e investigadores nunca tendrán paro laboral, las compara entre sí, denuncia su reductivismo, su exclusivismo, su autonomismo absoluto, su manipulación, su servilismo, sus intereses, su corrupción, su degradación. Las ciencias, como la sociedad, la historia, la cultura, no se hacen solas; antes bien, las hace el ser humano con su ontológica visión creativa y transformative”. “Pero no - afirmó Jesús Fernádez - la metafísica en sí misma siempre ha gozado, goza y seguirá gozando de buena salud. ¿Dónde está, pues, el problema? El problema reside en la forma que el ser humano tiene de ver la metafísica. Desde hace ya tiempo, el mundo intelectual no la ve con buenos ojos; y esto es preocupante”. “Este Congreso de Metafísica es el congreso del mundo de las vivencias; en ningún caso, de la matematización, de la técnica o del experimento, que poseen su propia metodología. Cualquier mimesis o remedo con la metodología de las ciencias experimentales, cuando tratamos el mundo de las vivencias, es un reduccionismo que sólo interesa a la voluntad de poder de las ideologias, que se caracterizan, - según Fernando Rielo - , por tres perversiones fundamentales: el reduccionismo, que ideologiza al ser humano concibiéndolo como algo inferior a él; el exclusivismo, que hace de las ideologías lugares de rechazo de unos seres humanos que no piensan como otros seres humanos; y por el fanatismo, que ideologizando al ser humano lo hace proclive a la violencia sicológica, moral o física, intentando eliminar al adversario”. “¿Qué es lo único que hay en el ser humano que no reduce, no excluye, no fanatiza? el amor. El amor es la primera realidad, evidente, realizadora, potenciante de la persona. Fernando Rielo afirma del amor que es el motor de la historia, el motor de la ciencia, el motor de la sociedad, el motor de la familia, el motor del arte y, en definitiva, el motor de toda actividad, motivación y creatividad humana. No es el SER lo más importante, sino el AMOR. El amor no es ser abstracto, sino SER +, es comunión entre personas. El amor es, en definitiva, el estado de ser, el acto de ser, la forma de ser y la razón de ser de una persona con otra persona. El amor es la síntesis de todas la virtudes, de todo lo que es positivo en la persona humana; por eso, el ser humano es dialogal, perceptivo, comunicativo, relacional.” La primera ponencia del Congreso la realizó José M. López Sevillano, de la Escuela Idente, quien habló sobre Nuevo paradigma del conocimiento en Fernando Rielo, que sirvió también de introducción al seminario que se dedicó a este místico y pensador español, creador de esta Escuela de Pensamiento y otras varias fundaciones. El resto de los ponentes fueron los profesores: Vittorio Possenti, de la Universidad de Venecia, quien desarrolló el tema Interioridad extática, amor, comunicación. Sobre la metafísica de la persona; Steven T. Katz, de la Universidad de Boston, que habló de Misticismo, Epistemología y Metafísica; Juana Sanchez-Gey, de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid y Directora del Aula de Pensamiento de la Fundación Fernando Rielo, que trató Algunos precedentes de la visión rieliana en el pensamiento español; El vaciado del concepto de ser en la filosofía contemporánea lo desarrolló el Director de la Fundación María Zambrano y Catedrático de la Universidad de Málaga, Juan Fernando Ortega Muñoz; Jesús Conill, de la Universidad de Valencia habló sobre Metafísica y ética; y David G. Murray, investigador de la Escuela Idente, concluyó las ponencias con la titulada La definición mística de la persona humana: nuevas perspectivas para el pensamiento contemporáneo. Se presentaron 146 comunicaciones, encuadradas en las áreas arriba mencionadas, que se desarrollaron en sesiones simultáneas y por grupos lingüísticos: en español, inglés e italiano; aunque había participantes de otras importantes lenguas europeas y asiáticas. Tanto tras las ponencias como tras las comunicaciones, se ha dado un enriquecedor coloquio entre los participantes en el Congreso. En el Seminario sobre Fernando Rielo se desarrollaron distintos aspectos de su original modelo metafísico, como su concepción de la epistemología, de la mística y de las ciencias; como la definición mística del hombre, el paralelismo con algunos autores; la aplicación de su modelo al análisis literario, al diálogo con las ciencias y con la cultura, entre otros aspectos, que han originado un gran interés entre los participantes.
Un aspecto muy interesante del Congreso ha sido la puesta en diálogo de distintas concepciones culturales, religiosas, metafísicas, tratando metodológicamente de partir de una posición de unidad y desde ella apreciar las diferencias, y no a la inversa; por entender aquel camino más fructífero. Se ha dado el encuentro y el diálogo entre las diversas concepciones que parten de la relación entre mística y metafísica. Un aspecto novedoso ha sido la incorporación de un taller-seminario de jóvenes pensadores, que han aportado sus reflexiones en torno al tema de la libertad y el poder de la ideología, teniendo en cuenta la experiencia, con un enriquecedor coloquio posterior.
Antes de las palabras de Clausura del Presidente del Congreso, se pusieron en común las conclusiones de los distintos grupos de trabajo, de entre las que podemos destacar: la pregunta por el problema del hombre y su relación con el Absoluto, como clave para la metafísica; la necesidad de conocer y ordenar el estatuto ontológico del hombre; la relación entre fe, razón y filosofía; valor de la experiencia mística para el conocimiento; y compromiso de buscar una vía de salida al momento crítico del pensamiento.
En sus palabras de Clausura el Presidente del Congreso, afirmó: “La metafísica es - viene a afirmar recientemente Benedicto XVI - ciencia del amor, frente al amor débil, al pensamiento débil, a la voluntad débil. La ciencia del amor es lo que San Juan de la Cruz afirmaba de la mística. De aquí, la relación que tiene que haber entre metafísica y mística, si queremos que la metafísica no quede abstracta, vacía”.
“Hagamos verdadera ciencia, ciencia suprema, fundamentante, de una metafísica que, teniendo como objeto la realidad suprema, cuya intimidad constitutiva tienen que ser personas divinas, nos ponga en diálogo con las diversas culturas, con la sabiduría que nos han legado, como afirma Aristóteles, los que nos han precedido, con los avances de la ciencia, con las diversas formas del arte; pero sobre todo, nos enseñe a valorar la riqueza inconmensurable, sagrada - afirma Séneca - deitática - afirma Rielo - que es el ser humano”.
El Congreso quedó clausurado, dejando ya abierta la convocatoria del IV Congreso, que tendrá lugar en 2009. Opening and Closing Session
MENSAJE DE APERTURA
III Congreso Internacional de Metafísica
Jesús Fernández Hernández Presidente del Congreso
Roma, 6 de Julio de 2006
Señoras y Señores: Como Presidente del Congreso, doy a todos los presentes una calurosa y familiar bienvenida a este Tercer Congreso Internacional de Metafísica, que inauguramos en esta Pontificia Universidad Urbaniana, organizado por la Fondazione Idente di Studi e di Ricerca. Saludo, en primer lugar, a Su Eminencia, el Cardenal Camillo Ruini, Vicario de Su Santidad Benedicto XVI para la Diócesis de Roma y Gran Canciller de la Pontificia Universidad Laterana. Saludo asimismo a todas las autoridades religiosas y civiles, a todos los miembros honorables que participan y asisten a este Congreso, y a todos cuantos, desde la administración y colaboración, han hecho posible la realización de este Tercer Congreso de Metafísica. Mi primera reflexión, sobre todo en un Congreso de estas características, es que no hay que tener miedo a la palabra “metafísica”, pues designa la ciencia suprema: la que fundamenta y da unidad, dirección y sentido al pensar y actuar humanos sobre una realidad que ha intentado, intenta e intentará ser siempre plasmada en las ciencias de la cuantificación o experimentales y en las ciencias de la cualificación o de las vivencias. Sin metafísica todo camina a la deriva; ésta pone a las ciencias en su sitio, las abre a horizontes vastísimos en los que los científicos e investigadores nunca tendrán paro laboral, las compara entre sí, denuncia su reductivismo, su exclusivismo, su autonomismo absoluto, su manipulación, su servilismo, sus intereses, su corrupción, su degradación. Las ciencias, como la sociedad, la historia, la cultura, no se hacen solas; antes bien, las hace el ser humano con su ontológica visión creativa y transformativa. Si queremos que las ciencias dejen de ser ciencias al servicio del ser humano, abandonemos la metafísica, demos muerte a la metafísica y arrojemos sus cenizas al océano del caos, del azar, de la pereza de espíritu, del seudopragmatismo y de la duda. Pero no. La metafísica en sí misma siempre ha gozado, goza y seguirá gozando de buena salud. ¿Dónde está, pues, el problema? El problema reside en la forma que el ser humano tiene de ver la metafísica. Desde hace ya tiempo, el mundo intelectual no la ve con buenos ojos; y esto es preocupante. El profesional del saber o del conocimiento podrá olvidarla, criticarla, rechazarla; podrá cerrar los ojos para no verla o taparse los oídos para no oírla. Podrá afirmar que está enferma, que es insuficiente, abstracta, estática; que, en definitiva, ha muerto. Y ello es muy cierto: la metafísica ha muerto a la sensibilidad histórica del pensamiento débil que la ignora por completo. La metafísica es una entelequia para un neorrelativismo y un neoescepticismo actuales que se arrojan en brazos de un pragmatismo o eficacia que sólo tiene como horizonte las diversas formas del hedonismo. 1 Opening and Closing Sessions
Es cierto que las carencias epistémicas o de cualquier índole del ser humano parecen no haber sido resueltas por la metafísica con sus ciencias afines; no es menos cierto el fracaso estrepitoso de un cientificismo que se alzó durante décadas como la panacea explicativa y comprensiva de todo. Ahí siguen las carencias humanas: la injusticia, la pobreza, la marginación, la violencia, la enfermedad, la soledad, la inseguridad y, al fin, la inexorable muerte. Pueden afirmar algunos que el ámbito de la inestabilidad, de la discontinuidad, de lo imprevisible, aunque no lo resuelvan las ciencias de la experimentación, sí parece quedar dotado de sentido por un lenguaje matemático que se sustantiva en la “teoría de juegos”, en la “geometría fractal” o en la “teoría del caos”. Por otra parte, parece que la metafísica queda sustituida por las diversas formas de ejercer la libertad a través de la actividad social y política; a través de los medios de comunicación e información; a través del dominio científico y de la tecnología analógica y digital; a través del trabajo profesional en una sociedad globalizada; a través de la creatividad artística, deportiva y de los innumerable modos de evasión que encuentra el ser humano. No. No nos engañemos. La metafísica ni ha muerto, ni está enferma. Lo que existe, por parte del profesional del conocimiento, es invidencia; esto es, falta de visión metafísica. El prejuicio, la impotencia, la falta de voluntad y compromiso, el océano de la complejidad y de la incertidumbre, son las dolencias que nublan nuestros ojos incapaces de contemplar el límpido horizonte que podría proporcionarnos la visión metafísica. Lo físico, lo fenoménico, lo cuantitativo o matematizable, no es la única realidad que existe; antes bien, es realidad abierta a lo extrafísico, a lo extrafenoménico, a lo incuantificable. A su vez, lo físico y extrafísico, no son sin la apertura a lo metafísico que los constituye y fundamenta. La metafísica no es lo que está detrás de la física, sino lo que funda: a) en primera instancia, la realidad extrafísica; b) en última instancia, la realidad física. ¿Quién no tiene experiencia del mundo de lo extrafísico y extrafenoménico de las vivencias humanas, irreductibles al lenguaje matemático y a la experimentación? La experiencia humana no puede reducirse sólo al ámbito experimental; hacerlo supondría optar por el carácter invidente y degradante de las ideologías. Este Congreso de Metafísica es el congreso del mundo de las vivencias; en ningún caso, de la matematización, de la técnica o del experimento, que poseen su propia metodología. Cualquier mimesis o remedo con la metodología de las ciencias experimentales, cuando tratamos el mundo de las vivencias, es un reduccionismo que sólo interesa a la voluntad de poder de las ideologías. Las ideologías se caracterizan, según Fernando Rielo, por tres perversiones fundamentales: a) por el reduccionismo, que ideologiza al ser humano concibiéndolo como algo inferior a él; b) por el exclusivismo, que hace de las ideologías lugares de rechazo de unos seres humanos que no piensan como otros seres humanos; c) y por el fanatismo, que ideologizando al ser humano lo hace proclive a la violencia sicológica, moral o física, intentando eliminar al adversario. El poder destructivo de las ideologías es evidente. A este respecto, Benedicto XVI recordaba que “Cristo es de nuevo escarnecido y atacado, de nuevo se está intentando expulsarle del mundo. Siempre de nuevo, la pequeña barca de la Iglesia es azotada por el viento de las ideologías, penetran en ella y parecen condenarla al hundimiento”. ¿Qué es lo único que hay en el ser humano que no reduce, no excluye, no fanatiza? ¿Cuál es el antídoto contra este virus mutante del espíritu?
2 Opening and Closing Sessions
Si hemos de condensar el mundo de las vivencias en un concepto significativo, definiente, no reductivo, no excluyente, este concepto es significativo de una realidad que a nadie deja indiferente: el amor. El amor es la primera realidad, evidente, realizadora, potenciante de la persona. Fernando Rielo afirma del amor que es el motor de la historia, el motor de la ciencia, el motor de la sociedad, el motor de la familia, el motor del arte y, en definitiva, el motor de toda actividad, motivación y creatividad humana. ¿Quién no admite que el amor es lo más importante, lo que define a la persona humana? No es el SER lo más importante, sino el AMOR. El amor no es ser abstracto, sino SER +, es comunión entre personas. El amor es, en definitiva, el estado de ser, el acto de ser, la forma de ser y la razón de ser de una persona con otra persona. El amor es la síntesis de todas la virtudes, de todo lo que es positivo en la persona humana; por eso, el ser humano es dialogal, perceptivo, comunicativo, relacional. Pero el ser humano no es cualquier amor. Debemos llevar nuestra inteligencia, con su razón, a límite; nuestra voluntad, con su compromiso, a límite; nuestra tendencia unitiva, con su libertad, a límite. Díme desde qué posición intenta ver tu inteligencia; díme hasta dónde quieres comprometerte vitalmente; díme a qué o a quién quieres unirte para ser libre…, y te diré cuál es la visión que de ti mismo y del mundo tienes. Sólo llevando nuestra inteligencia, nuestra voluntad y nuestra unión a límite, podremos tener experiencia de nuestro finito amor abierto al infinito de un amor absoluto que, en su intimidad constitutiva, son personas divinas: no menos de dos personas, pues habríamos incurrido en el solipsismo absoluto, en el absurdo de la soledad absoluta o irrelación. La irrelación sería sólo esencia de una nada absoluta que no existe. Que todos los trabajos estén poseídos de la única metafísica posible, la que puede otorgarnos una visión cada vez más formada, la que pueda dar unidad, dirección y sentido a nuestro ser y a nuestro actuar. Es ésta la metafísica del amor absoluto que, constituido por personas divinas, constituye, a su vez, con su presencia, a la persona humana. Esta divina presencia constitutiva del amor absoluto y su visión absoluta en todo ser humano hace que nuestro finito amor con nuestra finita visión queden abiertas al infinito del absoluto que nos constituye. Esta metafísica del amor, vivencial, vivificante, lejos de una razón abstracta, tiene como maestro por excelencia a Jesucristo que nos exhorta a ver la compositividad de la materia y la complejidad del alma desde la simplicidad o sencillez de un espíritu que recibe su estado de ser, su acto de ser, su forma de ser y su razón de ser, de la divina presencia constitutiva del Modelo Absoluto. La razón vivificante de la simplicidad o sencillez, frente a la razón abstracta de la complejidad y de lo caótico, puede formar en nosotros la visión de la realidad que, contemplada desde la transcendencia del amor que nos define, adquiere unidad, dirección y sentido frente al desorden y al sinsentido de una identidad egotizadora que nos sumerge en nuestras limitaciones, condicionantes y resistencias de todo orden. Deseo que este Congreso de Metafísica se caracterice, sobre todo, por el arte de la amistad; más aún, como nos decía Fernando Rielo, por el espíritu de familia, donde nuestra comunicación se realiza en el diálogo de una escucha que escucha y es escuchada. Nada más. He terminado.
Jesús Fernández Hernández Presidente del Congreso
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SALUTO AL TERZO CONGRESSO MONDIALE DI METAFISICA
S. E. Camillo Cardinale Ruini Vicario di Sua Santità per la Diocesi di Roma
E’ un piacere per me essere presente all’apertura di questo III Congresso Mondiale di Metafisica e poter salutare voi tutti, studiosi che siete arrivati da tanti Paesi di Europa, di Asia, di Medio Oriente, di America del Nord e del Sud. E’ sempre un’occasione di soddisfazione umana e spirituale quando numerose persone si ritrovano con la profonda motivazione di riflettere insieme sulle grandi questioni della nostra esistenza, cercando punti d'intesa e di maggiore comprensione che possano arricchire la vita, sia delle diverse culture, sia di ciascuno di noi, singolarmente. Vi porto il saluto caloroso e l’incoraggiamento personale del Santo Padre, Benedetto XVI, il quale certamente desidera che un incontro su questa tematica possa dare abbondanti frutti per voi e per chi potrà recepirli dopo la conclusione dell’evento. Trasmetto anche il cordiale benvenuto della comunità cattolica di Roma, che è lieta della vostra presenza e che vi augura un felice e memorabile soggiorno nella Città Eterna. Già, nel 2000, ho avuto l’occasione di visitare il I Congresso Mondiale, durante il Giubileo delle Università, e vedo con soddisfazione che questa iniziativa va avanti decisamente da allora con i corrispondenti appuntamenti triennali, promettendo così di aprire uno spazio di dialogo permanente sull’importanza attuale del pensiero metafisico, coinvolgendo discipline ed esperienze diverse nel mondo accademico e intellettuale in un colloquio serio e approfondito. Nel 2000 ho fatto riferimento all’Enciclica Fides et Ratio del grande Papa Giovanni Paolo II, con il quale ho avuto la grazia di collaborare strettamente per molti anni. In quel documento l’amatissimo Pontefice sottolineava che “la metafisica non va vista in alternativa all’antropologia, giacché è proprio la metafisica che consente di dare fondamento al concetto di dignità della persona in forza della sua condizione spirituale”. E aggiungeva: “Se tanto insisto sulla componente metafisica, è perché sono convinto che questa è la strada obbligata per superare la situazione di crisi che pervade oggi grandi settori della filosofia e per correggere così alcuni comportamenti erronei diffusi nella nostra società” (n. 83). L’intreccio inscindibile fra vita e pensiero, il bisogno di trovare il giusto adeguamento fra visione e comportamenti pienamente umani, si presenta determinante per questo XXI secolo. Benedetto XVI, nella sua prima Enciclica, Deus Caritas Est, ci invita a riconoscere nei molteplici valori dell’amore autentico, incoronati dalla concezione ed esperienza soprannaturale della carità perfetta, la chiave di lettura che ci consentirà veramente di armonizzare vita e pensiero. Dice il Pontefice: “L’aspetto filosofico e storico-religioso da rilevare in questa visione della Bibbia sta nel fatto che, da una parte, ci troviamo di fronte ad un’immagine strettamente metafisica di Dio: Dio è in assoluto la sorgente originaria di ogni essere; ma questo principio creativo di tutte le cose – il Logos, la ragione primordiale – è al contempo un amante con tutta la passione di un vero amore. In questo modo l’eros è nobilitato al massimo, ma contemporaneamente così purificato da fondersi con l’agape. Da ciò possiamo comprendere che la ricezione del Cantico dei Cantici nel canone della Sacra Scrittura sia stata spiegata ben presto nel senso che quei canti d’amore descrivono, in
5 Opening and Closing Sessions fondo, il rapporto di Dio con l’uomo e dell’uomo con Dio. In questo modo il Cantico dei Cantici è diventato, nella letteratura cristiana come in quella giudaica, una sorgente di conoscenza e di esperienza mistica, in cui si esprime l’essenza della fede biblica: sì, esiste una unificazione dell’uomo con Dio – il sogno originario dell’uomo -, ma questa unificazione non è un fondersi insieme, un affondare nell’oceano anonimo del Divino; è unità che crea amore, in cui entrambi – Dio e l’uomo – restano se stessi e tuttavia diventano pienamente una cosa sola: «Chi si unisce al Signore forma con lui un solo spirito», dice san Paolo (1 Cor 6, 17) (n. 10). E’ precisamente l’amore più elevato, espresso con chiarezza nella vita mistica dell’umanità, che dà sapienza e profondità alle diverse conoscenze umane e alle loro applicazioni nell’agire concreto. Osservo perciò come segno assai positivo che si sta realizzando uno sforzo in questo Congresso — evidenziato, ad esempio, nei temi scelti dai relatori di questa prima Giornata — per includere la dimensione mistica nella considerazione delle questioni epistemologiche, antropologiche, etiche, pedagogiche e culturali di cui vi siete occupati. Voglio ringraziare la Fondazione Idente di Studi e di Ricerca e la famiglia religiosa che la sostiene per impegnarsi con costanza e generosità nel promuovere queste iniziative, che sono un bene comune, sia per la comunità cattolica, sia per la società civile. Desidero vivamente che Fernando Rielo, che, con la proposta della sua “concezione genetica del principio di relazione”, si sforzò tanto di aprire un nuovo dialogo sulla metafisica, e che ora è tornato al seno del Padre, possa veder fruttificare il suo intenso lavoro in questi Congressi e nelle altre attività che realizzate. Vi auguro un Congresso veramente felice, il convivium di persone che condividono la ricerca della verità nell’amore. Buon lavoro!
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FUNCIÓN MÍSTICA Y ESTÉTICA DE LA METAFÍSICA RIELIANA
José María López Sevillano Escuela Idente (Nueva York)
Fernando Rielo tiene, con su concepción genética del principio de relación —expresión, a su vez, de su vivencia personal— una teología elevada a metafísica y una mística elevada a ontología1. No existe, en nuestro castellano poeta filósofo, una metafísica abstracta con su mística especulativa. Autores de la talla de Miguel de Unamuno rechazan todo posible influjo especulativo en nuestra mística: “No parte la mística castellana de la Idea abstracta de lo Uno, ni tampoco directamente del mundo de las representaciones para elevarse a conocer invisibilia Dei per ea quae facta sunt”2. La mística castellana parte, más bien, de la propia y singular experiencia inefable de la persona que recibe este don divino. Esto mismo es lo que sucede con nuestro autor, cuya poesía es el resultado de la experiencia divina en amor y en dolor. ¿Qué es lo que ha vaciado de contenido a la metafísica histórica? F. Rielo sostiene que es el seudoprincipio de identidad el culpable, implícito o explícito, de esta tragedia en el pensamiento humano oriental y occidental. La identidad, diosa de la incomunicación, es la fuerza egocéntrica que deja tullido nuestro espíritu, o es, tal vez, el fatal espejismo que, gravitando oneroso en nuestra inteligencia, la deja inoperante para la connatural o genética contemplación extática. El espíritu humano se transforma, con esta identidad existenciaria y teorética, en un alienígeno, en una seudomística deidad endógena, incapaz para el desarrollo genético de una vida y visión transcendentes que poseen como destino el condominio de la gloriosa apoteosis del éxtasis de amor que se tienen entre sí las personas divinas.
1 La metafísica estudia la concepción genética del principio de relación en su manifestación ad intra en las personas divinas; la ontología estudia la concepción genética del principio de relación en su manifestación ad extra en la persona humana. Para un conocimiento general de la concepción genética de la metafísica en Fernando Rielo, ajena a una concepción biologista o procesualista, véanse sus publicaciones Teoría del Quijote. Su mística hispánica, Porrúa, Madrid, 1982; Homenaje a Fernando Rielo (Georgetown University-Washington D.C., 1989), F.F.R., Constantina (Sevilla), 1990; Fernando Rielo, Un diálogo a tres voces (Libro de entrevistas por la Dra. Marie-Lise Gazarian, Nueva York, 1993), F.F.R., Constantina (Sevilla), 1995; también sus estudios publicados por F.F.R., Constantina (Sevilla): “Hacia una nueva concepción metafísica del ser” en ¿Existe una Filosofía Española? (1988), “Concepción genética de lo que no es el sujeto absoluto y fundamento metafísico de la ética” en Raíces y valores históricos del pensamiento español (1990), "La persona no es ser para sí ni para el mundo" en Hacia una pedagogía prospectiva (1992), "Prioridad de la fe en la educación" en Prioridades y ética en orientación (1993), "Función de la fe en la educación para la paz" en Educar desde y para la paz (1994); “Formación cultural de la filosofía” en Filosofía y educación (1995), “Tratamiento psicoético en la educación” en Educación y desarrollo personal (1996). Véanse asimismo mis estudios sobre el pensamiento de Fernando Rielo: "La metafísica pura en Fernando Rielo" y “Paso de la mística española a la novela en Teoría del Quijote de Fernando Rielo”, en Homenaje a Fernando Rielo (Georgetown University-Washington D.C., 1989), F.F.R., Constantina (Sevilla), 1990; “La nueva metafísica de Fernando Rielo”, en Aportaciones de pensadores españoles del siglo XX a la filosofía, Varios, F.F.R., Constantina (Sevilla), 1990; “Supuestos metafísicos en la obra poética de Fernando Rielo”, en Filosofía y poesía, Varios, F.F.R., Constantina (Sevilla), 1994. 2 En torno al casticismo, IV,I. 7 Opening and Closing Sessions
La eficaz ruptura de la identidad de la persona en su persona es el amor: la identidad, ya lo hemos dicho, es incomunicación. Y si Dios es amor (1 Jn 4,16) y el amor metafísico es comunicación, entrega y donación absolutas, de Dios no se puede afirmar una única persona porque habríase dado el absurdo identitático de un egocentrismo y un espejismo divino obtenido por la reduplicación del amor de una persona en su persona. Radican aquí las deformaciones antropomórficas que se han elaborado acerca de la divinidad porque el ser humano ha dedicado su mayor esfuerzo a realizarse en sí mismo, por sí mismo y para sí mismo: se ha ocupado más de “antropomorficar”3 a Dios que dejarse “deificar” por Él. En esto ha consistido el histórico lastre cultural cuyo resultado ha sido el intento ilustrado de la muerte de Dios con la llamada “teología radical” y su consecuencia necesaria: la muerte del ser humano con el estructuralismo. Ésta es concepción narcisista de una divinidad que, propugnada, contra las posiciones ateas y agnósticas, por los monoteísmos impersonalistas o unipersonalistas, y las diversas manifestaciones del deísmo, ha invadido desde antiguo nuestra cultura. Frente a esta estéril concepción identitática de un narcisismo con vocación a “absoluto”, Fernando Rielo propone su concepción genética del principio de relación: dos personas divinas, Padre e Hijo, que en inmanente complementariedad intrínseca se definen entre sí como única sustancia, única naturaleza, único Dios. A este monoteísmo “binitario” puede llegar una inteligencia culta que debe rechazar como absurdo evidente el monoteísmo unipersonalista o impersonalista, no menos que las ideologías deístas, ateas o agnósticas. Cristo corrobora con su revelación un “monoteísmo binitario” del que Él, como persona divina, forma parte confesándose “Hijo del Padre”. Este monoteísmo es una Santísima Binidad constituida por la relación filial Padre e Hijo: el Hijo es el amor del Padre que engendra; el Padre es el amor del Hijo que es engendrado. El testimonio de esta Santísima Binidad, prefigurada en el Antiguo Testamento, es llevado a su plenitud por el mismo Cristo que muere por confesarse Hijo del Padre (Lc 22,70). Pero Cristo ha ido más allá de una Santísima Binidad: revela a nuestra inteligencia, formada por la fe, que el amor del Padre con el Hijo y del Hijo con el Padre es nueva persona divina que denomina Espíritu Santo. Es el monoteísmo trinitario del credo cristiano cantado por la poesía mística de Rielo: “Tus deseos, oh Padre, me ululan como el viento”, “¿Cuándo, Cristo, en mi herida tu fino dedo adentres?”, “Sólo Tú, Amor, subsistes / eterno esplendor del día”… La función ontológica o mística del modelo es su posición ad extra en virtud de lo cual el ser humano es creado con una divina presencia constitutiva4 que hace de éste ontológica o mística persona deitática de las personas divinas. La persona humana posee, sin duda, el carácter genético
3 El intento de atribuir rasgos humanos a Dios ha sido una constante en todas las religiones. Pero, con frecuencia, se han atribuido rasgos “demasiado humanos”, instintuales, pasionales o “animalescos”. Incluso, los llamados “antropomorfitas” llegaron al extremismo de interpretar inversamente el pasaje del Gen 1,26 que afirma que el hombre es imagen y semejanza de Dios, y no que Dios es imagen y semejanza del hombre; de este modo, llegan a poner cuerpo humano a la divinidad. El mismo Tertuliano, por influjo del estoicismo, concede también cierta corporeidad a Dios. 4 Si queremos hallar precedentes de la “divina presencia constitutiva”, encontramos en la patrística y en los místicos, entre otras expresiones, el Acies cordis de San Agustín (Evang. sec. Joh., Sermo XXXVIII), el apex mentis de S. Buenaventura (Itinerarium mentis in Deo, I), el scintilla rationis de Santo Tomás (II Sent. 39, q. 9, a.1), la lex spiritus de San Juan Damasceno (De fide orthod., IV, 23), la sustancia del alma de San Juan de la Cruz; centro del alma o lo muy hondo e íntimo del alma en Santa Teresa de Jesús … Ahora bien, Rielo hace distinción entre la divina presencia 8 Opening and Closing Sessions de lo divino, el “ontos”5, por el cual, inhabitada aquélla constitutivamente por Dios, disfruta de aquel patrimonio genético que la hace mística u ontológica deidad de la divina o metafísica deidad, esto es, queda constituida en persona finita sub ratione creaturae, abierta al infinito sub ratione divinae praesentiae constitutivae. Por esta razón, la persona humana es sujeto de una naturaleza que dispone de la capacidad de actuación con dirección y sentido en unidad transcendente. La primera manifestación del carácter genético de la persona humana es su filiación constitutiva con relación a Dios, una filiación para todo ser humano que, aunque no fue totalmente destruida por el pecado original, quedó, de todos modos, debilitada; de aquí, su opacidad, su carácter “abscóndito”, presto a la ambigüedad y discusión probatoria. Todos los seres humanos —nos dirá F. Rielo— poseen en su espíritu los caracteres hereditarios del ser divino porque por Él han sido creados a su imagen y semejanza. Somos, por tanto, definidos por inhabitación de la divina presencia constitutiva que, herida por el pecado original, hizo de nuestra naturaleza una filiación esclávica; sin embargo, permaneció aquella categoría deitática confirmada por Cristo: “¿No está escrito en vuestra Ley: Yo he dicho: dioses sois?” (Jn 10,34). Si somos, entonces, místico u ontológico dios del divino o metafísico Dios, llamados estamos por la redención de Cristo a ser elevados de la filiación esclávica a la filiación liberta. ¿Cómo? Reproduciendo en nosotros, por medio de la gracia, la propia imagen de nuestro Hermano divino (cf. Rom 8,29) con el que hemos sido instituidos coherederos (cf. Rom 8,17): “Ya no eres esclavo, sino hijo, y tuya es la herencia por la gracia de Dios” (Gál 4,7)6. Esta constitutividad deitática por la que todo ser humano se define como ser místico es previa a todo credo, a todo comportamiento religioso, por lo tanto, precede al hecho de ser cristiano7, judío, musulmán …, y es, en virtud de la divina presencia constitutiva, por lo que aparece, no sólo el hecho religioso, sino también toda huella cultural en la humanidad. La divina presencia constitutiva —afirmará una vez más F. Rielo— es carácter hereditario que hace de la persona humana mística deidad de la divina Deidad. Reside en este carácter hereditario la constitución filial del ser humano en relación con Dios: porque es “hijo de Dios”, el ser humano tiene el aspecto, el talante, el parecido, en una palabra, “la imagen y semejanza” de Dios. Este talante no es una “máscara” exterior, es rostro divino impreso constitutivamente en tal grado que, ontológicamente, “hace resonar”, personare, a nuestro espíritu. Los latinos manifestaron, con el verbo
constitutiva y la elevación de ésta al orden de la gracia santificante o rango cristológico. La primera es sub ratione creationis; la segunda, sub ratione redemptionis. 5 De la palabra “ontos” viene el concepto rieliano de “ontología”, ciencia que estudia la actuación de la divina presencia constitutiva en el ser humano con el ser humano. 6 Discurso para el XVI Premio Mundial de Poesía Mística, Bolonia (Italia), 12 de Dic. de 1996. 7 He aquí uno de los versos de F. Rielo que indican esta realidad: “Oh beso que me hizo: primero, tuyo; después, cristiano” en “Mi creación amada” del poemario Llanto azul. Los poemarios publicados de Fernando Rielo son los siguientes: Dios y árbol, ed. Rumbos, Barcelona, 1958; Llanto azul, Ornigraf, Madrid, 1978; Paisaje desnudo, Ornigraf, Madrid, 1979; Pasión y muerte, Ornigraf, Madrid, 1979; Dios y árbol, Ornigraf, Madrid, 1980; Noche clara, Ornigraf, Madrid, 1980; Transfiguración, F.F.R., Constantina (Sevilla), 1988; Balcón a la bahía, F.F.R., Constantina (Sevilla), 9 Opening and Closing Sessions
“personare”, lo que yo denomino “acto ontológico personal” hecho posible en virtud de la divina presencia constitutiva8. La divina presencia constitutiva aporta ontológicamente a la persona humana lo que las personas divinas se otorgan metafísicamente entre sí: su éxtasis absoluto de amor en apoteosis infinita de ser, estar y existir. En efecto, la persona humana es constituida místicamente; esto es, queda investida por naturaleza con aquel carácter extático9 de su acto ontológico o energía constitutiva que, rompiendo la identidad de la persona consigo misma, abriéndola por ello a la infinitud, se une con sus semejantes bajo aquella forma de unión con la que la exigencia necesaria de las personas divinas la definen. Si los seres humanos son hijos de Dios, son, a su vez, hermanos entre sí. Si no, ¿de dónde viene al ser humano su fraternidad universal? Seguramente, todos firmaríamos la famosa frase de Dostoiewsky: “Cuando reconozco a un hermano en mi prójimo sólo entonces soy hombre”. El lenguaje común tiene acuñadas expresiones tales como “fraternidad humana”, “fraternidad universal”, “todos los hombres somos hermanos”. Asimismo, las religiones conciben esta fraternidad universal del género humano. Para el judaísmo, el cristianismo y el islamismo, Dios crea al género humano de un solo principio (Gén 1-2; Act 17,26), depositando en el corazón de los hombres la aspiración a una fraternidad en Adán que queda rota con el asesinato de Abel por la envidia y la ira de su hermano Caín. Esta maltrecha fraternidad humana, que ha conocido desde el principio la historia del ser humano en forma de injusticia, guerras, odios, es lo que han planificado restablecer todas las religiones y los hombres que, no adscritos a credos, son de buena voluntad (Lc 2,14). El paradigma cristológico es el modelo místico de Fernando Rielo: Cristo, persona divina, Hijo unigénito10 del Padre, es quien, encarnándose en una naturaleza humana, restaura en sí mismo: a) toda filiación del ser humano en relación con el Padre; b) toda fraternidad de los seres humanos entre sí. La razón es muy sencilla: la fraternidad humana no tiene sentido dentro de un conjunto cerrado. El hecho de admitir que todos los seres humanos como elementos de un conjunto son “hermanos” nos llevaría a la paradoja cantoriana del conjunto de todos los conjuntos, si no admitimos un “elemento” que, fuera del conjunto, define a los elementos del conjunto como tales elementos. Esta apreciación implica dos hechos: a) una fraternidad que, no consumada dentro del conjunto, nos forma hermanos de “alguien” que, transcendiendo al conjunto, nos hace consumar en él nuestra fraternidad;
1989; Dolor entre cristales, F.F.R., Constantina (Sevilla), 1990; En las vírgenes sombras, F.F.R., Constantina (Sevilla), 1994; Los hijos del encuentro, F.F.R., Constantina (Sevilla), 1999. 8 F. Rielo, Formación cultural de la filosofía, Nueva York, 1995 (Inédito). 9 Recuérdese que la etimología de la palabra “éxtasis” [del griego e[k- stasi" (ek-stasis)], teniendo el significado originario de “salir de para ir a”, esto es, de “elevar algo a un referente transcendental que, definiéndolo, lo enriquece”, es ajeno a las patologías significadas por los conceptos de sublimación o de enajenación, cuyo referente es el propio “yo”, donde se generan, en diverso grado de eticidad, distintas anomalías, entre ellas, la de la doble personalidad. 10 Cristo, segunda persona de la Santísima Trinidad, es ad intra Hijo unigénito del Padre y, en ningún caso, “primogénito”. Su carácter primogénito es sólo ad extra; en este sentido, Cristo, con fundamento en la unión hipostática de la naturaleza humana con la naturaleza divina en su persona divina, es, en virtud de tener un celeste Padre común sub ratione naturae humanae, hermano primogénito nuestro. 10 Opening and Closing Sessions
b) una filiación que, no consumada dentro del conjunto, nos constituye en hijos de “alguien” que, transcendiendo el conjunto, nos hace consumir en él nuestra filiación. La primera es la filiación divina que, encarnada por el Hijo, nos hace hermanos del Hijo; la segunda es la paternidad divina que, referida al Padre, nos hace hijos del Padre. En Dios, el ser humano llega a ser, de esta manera, hijo del Padre, hermano del Hijo; por tanto, hermano de su prójimo. No pueden separarse los dos ámbitos de la filiación: ad intra, la filiación divina; ad extra, la filiación mística, que halla su modelo y plenitud en la filiación divina. Sin esta comunicable filiación divina ad intra, que es el único y verdadero modelo absoluto, sería imposible ad extra la comunicable filiación mística que confiere al espíritu humano un estado de ser que, abierto al infinito divino por la omnipotencia del infinito divino, se abre, a su vez, a horizontes ignotos, a la contemplación de seres liberados de la gravidez, de la muerte-vida y de la despersonalización que late implícita en la Ciudad del paraíso de Aleixandre. Hay mucha verdad en las palabras del poeta inglés, Robert Browning, “El poeta ve, no lo que lucha por llegar a ser, sino lo que ve Dios: las ideas de Platón, semillas de creación que reposan ardientes en la mano divina”11. La contemplación extática hace al poeta místico solidario con sus semejantes y con la naturaleza para elevarlos: si se trata del ser humano, a la consecución del destino de una unión mística a la que todos, cada uno a su manera, son llamados por Dios para adquirir el estado amoroso de “hijos del Padre”, “hermanos del Hijo”, “amigos del Espíritu Santo”; si se trata de la naturaleza, la elevación consiste en la transformación final para participar, en grado diverso, del estado glorioso en que quedarán los cuerpos resucitados. La finalidad del arte debe consistir en la expresividad estética de la más alta concepción posible del hombre y de la naturaleza. Las siguientes palabras de F. Rielo, referidas a la contemplación estética, confirman nuestro aserto: ¿Cuál es la finalidad del arte, sino la manifestación más sublime del caminar en esta vida conforme a nuestro celeste abolengo? Este vínculo de consanguinidad con lo divino hace exclamar a San Gregorio Magno que “El arte más exquisito consiste en subir hacia la perfección” (Greg. Mag. mor. 26,19). La razón es obvia: la fe y la esperanza, guiadas por la hermosura del amor, nos hacen traspasar todo horizonte más allá de la inmensidad de la naturaleza, más allá de una razón que excede a todos los universos juntos, más allá de todo nuestro acontecer gozoso o doloroso, más allá de nuestras cotidianas muertes. La hermosura divina se hace, entonces, patente: “Dejemos pasar ante nuestros ojos —testimoniaba San Agustín— la belleza de todo el universo, como quien escucha un poema de un cantor inefable, y, aunque estamos en tiempo de fe, por medio del verdadero culto de Dios saltaremos a la contemplación eterna de su belleza” (Aug. ep. 1,138). Mi enunciado estético es preciso: la poética contemplación mística comienza donde termina la poética contemplación de la naturaleza12. La contemplación estética es asimismo contemplación extática porque el éxtasis es constitutivo de la persona humana en virtud de la divina presencia formante de su espíritu. Existen, en cambio, teniendo en cuenta la complejidad de la naturaleza humana, muchos grados y niveles de
11 Cit. por Luis Cernuda, Pensamiento poético en la lírica inglesa, UNAM, México, 2ª edición, 1974, p. 211. 12 Discurso para el XVI Premio Mundial de Poesía Mística, Bolonia (Italia), 12 de Dic. de 1996. 11 Opening and Closing Sessions contemplación: sensible, imaginativa, intelectual, fruitiva y espiritual; a su vez, estos niveles pueden manifestarse de forma genérica o singular, sublimable o estremecedora, emocionable o vehemente, meditativa o intuitiva … Pero la contemplación extática es siempre espiritual; por consiguiente, es unión abscóndita de amor que puede propalarse a uno o varios niveles inferiores, adquiriendo las más entretenidas formas y matices. Esta unión de amor puede ser: general o constitutiva, propia de todo ser humano; santificante o cristológica, propia del cristiano. Si queremos descender a un ejemplo de la unión santificante o cristológica, signada por la delicadeza y suavidad de las imágenes poéticas de Rielo, he aquí un fragmento del poema “Vírgenes mundos” que, contrapunto del poemario aleixandrino Ciudad del paraíso, se nos presenta esculpido en la personal forma versicular13, donde el autor de Los hijos del encuentro nos comunica, con su filiación mística, su activísima contemplación extática en la que la naturaleza queda transfigurada: Oh mundos, mundos inmensos de inmensas aguas en inmensos cielos que inmortales formas, ingrávidas, me acogieron sin dejarme. Cielos con inmortales perros, inmortales peces, inmortales aves, cenitales aires sin carne, tan puros, tan bellos, tan brillantes que ni decir ni hacer yo puedo […]
Oh universos nuevos, nunca vistos; de hojas revestidos, desnudas hojas, libertas, de la carne que les murió en la tierra que nacieron … De las aves vi sus almas en vuelo. Oí sus trinos callados […] Padre, te marchaste de mí no sin el beso de cada día, no sin darme aquel célebre consejo que hoy, más viejo y más enfermo, todavía recuerdo: Hijo, tener limpias las razones de la vida de toda escoria es el arte de ser conmigo … una misma cosa14. Ya lo vemos. Qué lejos queda el hermetismo cultivado por Mallarmé o Valéry, que hallan su reflejo en el Diario de un poeta recién casado de Juan Ramón, o en la Realidad y el Deseo de Cernuda, o en el Cántico de Guillén, por citar algunos. La contemplación extática de la naturaleza
13 En los poemas extensos de sus primeros libros, Rielo, prescindiendo de las formas clásicas de métrica, suele utilizar, a su modo, la forma versicular whitmaniana —utilizada, entre otros, por Aleixandre, León Felipe, Dámaso Alonso, Gaos, Domenchina, Guillén, Cernuda, Larrea, Hinojosa, Emilio Prados …— con el recurso a los paralelismos, anáforas y repeticiones, adaptada en forma de verso, doblado ad libitum con grafía peculiar a veces, y sin los típicos corchetes. 14 Llanto azul, Ornigraf, Madrid, 1978, pp. 65 y 66. En este poema, Rielo defiende asimismo la inmortalidad de las criaturas irracionales que luego haría, comentando el texto de San Pablo “Las criaturas irracionales esperan ser liberadas de la corrupción para participar en la gloriosa libertad de los hijos de Dios” (Rom 8,21). “Luego, ellos también son inmortales. Los animales quedarán transformados conforme a su naturaleza y reconocen a Dios como su Amo, porque Dios les toca de una forma permanente. Tienen, por tanto, su bienaventuranza propia de carácter preternatural” [Fernando Rielo: Un diálogo a tres voces, op. cit., p. 62]. 12 Opening and Closing Sessions ha sido, además, cincelada por diferentes poetas con características muy varias: renacentismo y bucolismo en Cernuda, exuberancia y armonía en Guillén, alegría y libertad en Prados o Gil-Albert, simbolismo y fusión en Aleixandre, paisajismo y figuración en Gerardo Diego15. Hay, no obstante, una diferencia esencial con el poeta místico: éste no procede por reducción de unas cualidades de la naturaleza para potenciarlas en imágenes poéticas. No es “lenguaje corriente intensificado”, como prefería decir Hopkins. Tampoco es un movimiento de abajo arriba, ni de arriba abajo. Ni un resultado del método inductivo o deductivo. No hay desviación ni oblicuidad de lenguajes. No existe traslación de campos semánticos. El poema, es cierto, no se hace con ideas, pero tampoco se hace, como afirma Mallarmé, con palabras. Tampoco es, como reiteran muchos, visión en la palabra. No. El poema es mística contemplación extática en la unidad de imágenes verbales que tienen como soporte la metáfora, el símbolo y otras figuras de dicción de carácter auditivo, visual, sensorial, intelectivo, emotivo … cuya fusión encierra, por medio de la potenciación estética, la visión del poeta. Esta visión “invocada” en el poema se debe a la inspiración divina: agente, en el poeta; receptiva, en el destinatario. No sólo necesita de inspiración el poeta; también el destinatario participa, aunque de diverso modo, de esta misma inspiración. El mayor grado de potenciación estética se halla, empero, en la imagen mística, que, contraria a toda potenciación reductiva, es “por potenciación cualitativa”. Y es esta potenciación cualitativa la que hace que la imagen mística asuma toda imagen estética definiéndola y elevándola a su máximo carácter místico. La imagen mística recapitula, indubitablemente, toda imagen estética de la misma forma que se dice que Cristo, por su unión hipostática, recapitula16 en su dolor todo el dolor del mundo. Pedro Laín Entralgo coincidía con Unamuno al mencionar, sin pretensiones teológicas, que Cristo es el “divino recapitulador de la historia toda y de cada una de nuestras particulares biografías, la memoria histórica y la memoria individual se hacen ‘flor de la eternidad’ y quedan en Él divinamente salvadas”17. Sin embargo, la recapitulación no sólo consiste, para Fernando Rielo, en salvar al linaje humano redimiéndolo, sino además santificándolo y elevándolo al más alto rango de unión familiar con el Padre concelebrado por el Hijo y el Espíritu Santo. Los niveles metafísico y ontológico del modelo rieliano inhabitan en la expresión estética del mismo porque la metafísica y la ontología o mística son su supuesto. Sin el ámbito esencial ad intra de una metafísica teológica y el ad extra de una ontología mística, la poesía mística habría quedado diluida en el reductivo de un accidentalismo desprovisto de dirección y sentido. Este accidentalismo disgenético, no teniendo carácter absoluto, sustenta, de todas maneras, aquella larvada geneticidad que lo hace propenso —confirmando, aunque oblicuamente, la definición mística del hombre— a hacer causa común con una ideología, con un “eidolon”, que, convertido en seudoabsoluto, dé razón aparente de su esteticidad: una esteticidad que corrobora, a pesar de sus mayores o menores deformaciones, aquella dimensión mística que, indeleble, define al ser humano y, en particular, a su sentir poético.
15 Un ejemplo de este autor en Alondra de verdad: Vivo latir de Dios nos goteaba, / risa y charla de Dios, libre y desnuda./ Y el pájaro, sabiéndolo, cantaba”. 16 La llamada “teoría de la recapitulación” o “teoría mística de la redención”, objeto de reflexión teológica desde la época patrística, la inicia en el siglo II San Ireneo de Lyón fundándose en el ajnakefalaiwvsasqai [= recapitular, reunir] de la carta de San Pablo a los Efesios 1, 10. 17 En “La espera y la esperanza”, Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1957, p. 375. 13
DISCURSO DE CLAUSURA DEL III CONGRESO DE METAFÍSICA
Jesús Fernández Hernández Presidente del Congreso
Agradezco, como Presidente del Congreso, a todos los asistentes las aportaciones que han hecho en estos tres días y medio intensos de sesiones. Si San Juan de la Cruz afirma que un solo pensamiento del hombre vale más que todo el universo, ¡cuánto más —diría— valdrán los muchísimos pensamientos que sobre la realidad se han expresado en estos días para comunicarlos a los demás! Todo nos enriquece a todos: reflexiones de todos ustedes, sus trabajos, sus comunicaciones, sus ponencias …, aunque sólo sea por el esfuerzo y la generosidad en compartir unos con otros lo que cada uno ha realizado. Toda verdad, por muy parva que sea, viene de arriba; por eso, siempre podemos aprender de los demás, digan lo que digan. La razón es clara: si nadie posee el error absoluto, algo de verdad expresa el ser humano cuando intenta comunicar algo que cree importante. No podemos identificar la verdadera comunicación con la escucha; antes hay que reconocer primero la ignorancia propia, nuestra limitación. Fernando Rielo nos ilustra con este extraordinario proverbio: Qué hermosa es la ignorancia del sabio y qué brutal la del necio. Nadie está exento de la ignorancia; pero unos, los sabios, saben hacerla hermosa con el esfuerzo del buen gusto, con el arte de la fundamentación y del compromiso, con el amor a la verdad; los otros, los necios, hacen de la ignorancia un monumento efímero, pronto al olvido, a la pereza, al mal gusto, a la evasión, al amor de sí mismos. Cree el necio que todo lo sabe y se siente satisfecho en su creer saberlo todo. No sabe que los demás esbozan en su interior una sonrisa con un pensamiento: la verdad que me inspira esta persona es que debo saber escuchar incluso en la necedad. Hemos venido a este Congreso para, haciendo arte de nuestra ignorancia, aprender a ser sabios. Permítanme utilizar otro gran proverbio de Fernando Rielo, quien tuvo la iniciativa de estos Congresos Mundiales:
El pájaro tiene el vuelo en sus alas; el sabio, en la mirada.
Si. El sabio sabe mirar a los ojos de la verdad, sin evasiones, sin mirar a otro lado, y lo hace con sencillez, con la transparencia de quien nada teme. El don de temor se lo guarda para cuando le viene la tentación de apartar la mirada a la verdad. No es la duda, que sólo sirve para dudar, el método de la sabiduría; es el don de temor que ama el recogimiento del silencio; sólo así el silencio habla: “El silencio habla si lo amas”, sentencia nuestro autor. En realidad, nos está diciendo: si amas a los demás construirás el mejor discurso que te inspira su silencio. La metafísica es, viene a afirmar recientemente Benedicto XVI, ciencia del amor, frente al amor débil, al pensamiento débil, a la voluntad débil. La ciencia del amor es lo que San Juan de la Cruz afirmaba de la mística. De aquí, la relación que tiene que haber entre metafísica y mística, si queremos que la metafísica no quede abstracta, vacía.
15 Opening and Closing Sessions
Y la ciencia posee modelo y método. El pensamiento débil no es la actitud contemporánea: ya los antiguos hablaban, quizás con mayor sabiduría, de la ignaba ratio. Hagamos verdadera ciencia, ciencia suprema, fundamentante, de una metafísica que, teniendo como objeto la realidad suprema, cuya intimidad contitutiva tienen que ser personas divinas, nos ponga en diálogo con las diversas culturas, con la sabiduría que nos han legado, como afirma Aristóteles, los que nos han precedido, con los avances de la ciencia, con las diversas formas del arte; pero sobre todo, nos enseñe a valorar la riqueza inconmensurable, sagrada —afirma Séneca— deitática —afirma Rielo— que es el ser humano. Que este III Congreso Mundial de Metafísica siga proyectándose en el futuro, no como el mejor y más sabio Congreso, sino como el Congreso que, partiendo de nuestras limitaciones, confía en la actuación inspirativa en nosotros del viviente Modelo Absoluto y en la sincera respuesta que exige este don del saber. Muchas gracias a todos y hasta el siguiente Congreso que celebraremos, Dios mediante, dentro de tres años. Mientras tanto, comenzamos ya, desde mañana, su preparación. Que tengan todos un feliz regreso a sus actividades académicas y familiares.
Jesús Fernández Hernández Presidente del Congreso
16 a. Metaphysics and Personhood Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
METAFÍSICA DE LA PSICOLOGÍA HUMANA1
Julián Aparicio Garrido
El ser humano es entendido por Rielo desde la revelación de Cristo, a quien identifica con el Absoluto, con el Ser personal Metafísico. Cuanto dice su evangelio, sobre la persona, es para Rielo verdad ontológica y manifestación mística y hace de ella, expresión temporal del Absoluto o, en sus palabras, mística deidad de la metafísica deidad. Desde esta perspectiva, el ser humano no es más hombre o mujer, ni la complementariedad temporal-histórica, ni eugenésica; es la expresión teándrica, abierta al infinito. La conciencia de la necesidad de “indefinitud” define al ser humano como teantrópico, teándrico (cfr FR, 47-51) 2. En este contexto en que la persona y su psicología resultan ser dependientes de la identidad ontológica, hablar de metafísica de la psicología de la persona humana requiere, primero, concatenar los dominios de la Moral, Ética, Mística y Metafísica para, en segunda instancia, analizar cómo la Psicología, a través de la Facultad Unitiva de la psique, hace posible el desarrollo humano desde la moral hasta la conducta ética, e instaura la Psico-Ética como mecanismo de superación de las limitaciones de ambas. Instaurada la Psico-Ética avanzará desde la conciencia y actuar éticos hasta la conciencia y actuar Ontológicos. Desde ahí la Metafísica se constituirá en la variable natural-terapéutica de lo que Rielo denomina “disgenesias” de la Psico-Ética y de la vida mística. Desarrollaré estos cuatro acápites: moral, ética, mística y metafísica.
Moral Rielo no hace diferencia entre los comportamientos morales y éticos ni entre los inmorales y anti-éticos; se limita a calificarlos como disgenesias y equipara ambas expresiones de las personas. Así afirma que: Toda acción inmoral es la manifestación de una disgenesia que adquiere las características del autoengaño o de la “mala fe”, malitia cordis, que enmascara y tergiversa toda verdad, toda bondad, toda hermosura (cfrFR, 110). Es frecuente entre los estudiosos de la ética y moral la confusión conceptual al respecto, al mismo tiempo que en textos sucesivos discriminan los términos y contenidos de ambas disciplinas; F. Savater y Bilbeny serían un ejemplo. Desde el punto de vista de la psicología esta confusión acarrea serias dificultades de comprensión, y aplicabilidad terapéutica, pues la moral es la resultante del desarrollo de las inteligencias interpersonal y emocional, en tanto la ética lo es de las inteligencias intrapersonal y
1 Esta comunicación es una aportación motivada de la lectura del pensamiento de F. Rielo hasta ahora publicado. 2 Fernando RIELO, Mis meditaciones desde el modelo genético, editorial Fernando Rielo, Madrid, 2001. En adelante las referencias son de esta obra. e indicamos en el texto la página entre paréntesis (cfrFR, …) 19 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood racional. De estas diferencias dimana la responsabilidad y culpa en el segundo caso y la justificación colectiva y la apatía moral, en el primero. Por la responsabilidad y culpa, la persona se desarrolla sana, mientras que por la justificación y apatía moral la persona se psicotiza hasta límites agudos. La moral como ciencia práctica que se ocupa de la valoración de la conducta individual y del juicio calificativo del comportamiento de los colectivos, está siempre a favor de la praxis política. La moral así plasmada nos miniaturiza porque sólo nos da el valor que nos otorga lo normado. En la historia de occidente, los griegos sintieron pasión por lo humano y sus potencialidades. En este sistema todos eran necesarios en contraposición con el nuestro en el que nadie es necesario. En nuestra psicología clínica y social, parecemos estar asustados por los riesgos de ser diferentes y muchos, porque habrá mayor demanda de igualdad para pensar, crear y competir y, así las mayorías demandantes amenazarían la calidad de vida de quienes ya creen haberla alcanzado o la administran. La moral, como normatividad práctica de la conducta psicológica, difícilmente podrá resolver los problemas entre los seres humanos. Se precisa algo más porque la moral obedece a los grupos de quienes la crean y la administran. Este algo más es tarea de los lenguajes éticos. Superando las limitaciones señaladas de lenguaje, Rielo, en la ética es donde pone el acento de la valoración de la persona, pero evitando definirla por sólo la dimensión ética en detrimento de los valores espirituales, a causa del exceso de norma que conlleva toda valoración ética (cfr FR, 77). Leído desde la psicología histórica coincide con el sentir de los romanos, creadores de la moral: “summa jus, summa injuria”. La ética, desde la psicología profunda del Super-Yo y desde la psicología transpersonal o Super-Yo del YO, está al servicio de la VERDAD en cuanto sujeto de conocimiento, por vía de la intelección intuitivo-unitiva, que luego genera unión intelectivo-cognitiva con las expresiones ontológicas. La perfectibilidad, inherente a los seres humanos, es la base de la ética. Ésta consiste en hacer lo mejor siempre y, mediante la creatividad, lograr lo más perfecto. LA ÉTICA ha de ser entendida, como el arte de hacer LO MEJOR Y MÁS PERFECTO; su motor es la inteligencia crítica o conjugación existencial de tres verbos: denunciar, anunciar y comprometerse. Lo mejor, o capacidad de establecer convenciones, es la consecuencia de la mezcla de estímulos instintivos y racionales, con la finalidad de asegurar la supervivencia y la calidad de ésta. Las leyes en sí son el cuerpo del actuar moral del ser humano = moral consensual, pero la superación de las mismas constituye el comportamiento humano ético; lo más perfecto = superación de la moral. En el paso de la moral a la ética es preciso distinguir entre el psiquismo y el acto psicológico. El psiquismo o comportamientos somáticos, endocrino-cerebrales, se manifiesta por las formas de inteligencia y en él se ubica el acto moral, cuya manifestación punitiva inherente es el temor que induce a la justificación o a la mitomanía. El acto psicológico o conjunto de aprendizajes que nos permiten trascender la moral por la constitutiva acción crítico-creativa de la ética, tiene como 20 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood manifestación primaria la culpa, que impulsa a la perfectibilidad. El actuar critico sobre la moral dispone a la persona para la conciencia y actuar místicos y se alcanza movidos por la culpa, de la que pretendemos escapar creativamente. Para los cristianos, el fundamento ético es la PASCUA que como expresa Bentué tiene su manifestación en la gratuidad del amor, que supera la pequeñez y el ridículo del actuar moral de los seres humanos. Comienza en Dios, se continua en la pequeñez y el ridículo actuar moral de los pueblos y concluye en la superación por la conversión hacia Dios. La PSICO-ÉTICA es para Rielo, ciencia que estudia la acción teantrópica en las estructuras psíquicas y éticas del ser humano, iluminadas por una ontología propia del espíritu cuya fuerza motora es el éxtasis. El actuar psico-ético no se puede dar sin el aprendizaje de la libertad que nace de la acción conjunta del desarrollo de las inteligencias y de la voluntad, guiadas por la conciencia del ser ontológico. Esta conducta sólo es posible por la maduración biológica del cerebro pre-frontal y por la maduración psicológica de la inteligencia volitivo-intencional mediatizada por los aprendizajes de negación, represión o sublimación de toda conducta que impida el actuar ético. El ser y actuar psico-ético, se inicia por el acercamiento al otro a través de la ejercitación de la inteligencia interpersonal para ponerse a su disposición y así ayudarlo en sus necesidades (cfr FR, 75) y se desarrolla a través de la fruición volitiva. Podemos establecer, un paralelismo entre los lenguajes de Rielo y los de la psicología profunda y así afirmar que la conciencia del YO (identidad ontológica) no es posible sin el referente del Super-YO (persona metafísica) que le permite superar las mediaciones del ELLO (egotización instintual y estimúlica). De esta interacción se deriva el adecuado o patológico (disgenesias) modo de vivencia intra- psíquica del complejo de Edipo (sin motivo) (cfr FR, 116). Analizado así, resulta fundada la metodología de Rielo por la que la dimensión mística de la persona es imposible desligarla de la relación extasiológica con el Sujeto Absoluto. El pensamiento de Rielo aporta a la sicología, la conceptualización ontológica de la persona como identidad mística abierta a la identidad metafísica. Para él no hay posibilidad de entendernos como personas sin la videncia de ser portadores de una inteligencia abierta al infinito otorgada por vía genética sin mediación, que nos hace ser a imagen de la realidad metafísica del Sujeto Absoluto. Somos persona por ser portadores del Absoluto en nuestro YO. A esto es lo que Rielo denomina divina presencia constitutiva que nos hace mística deidad de la divina deidad. (cfr FR, 110-120). Por esta participación genética del Sujeto Absoluto define a la persona como espíritu sicosomatizado (cfr FR, 107) portador de tres variables en interacción: espíritu, psique y cuerpo. Preconiza la acción del espíritu, del que dice ser la sede de la unidad de la persona (cfr FR, 135) como es claro también el salto cualitativo que constantemente hace desde lo que denomina dura condición psicosomática hasta la concepción genética del espíritu metafísicamente constituido por la divina presencia y ontológicamente expresado como persona demarcada por el psico-soma y lo trascendente (cfr FR, 135).
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Resulta fácil entender el análisis místico de la persona humana si establecemos un paralelismo entre lo que Rielo afirma sobre la concepción genética del principio de relación y los modos de inteligencia desarrollados por cada una de las variables que la constituyen. La inteligencia se inicia en las expresiones intra-somáticas como inteligencia intuitiva que permite la satisfacción de la supervivencia y desde ella se condiciona la expresión intrapersonal en lo individual e interpersonal en lo colectivo para, en un tercer movimiento evolutivo guiado por la inteligencia racional e intencional, desarrollar la libertad como necesidad pulsional (ELLO del Super YO) de salir de sí y del colectivo, mediante la inteligencia espiritual o Facultad Unitiva. Hemos de afirmar también a favor del espiritualismo intelectual rieliano (cfr FR, 54) y en coherencia con el análisis evolutivo, que nada puede pensarse por generación espontánea y que lo constatado en la fase última debe suponerse como existente en la primera a modo de potencia. Entendiéndolo así es posible afirmar que el conocimiento místico es imagen del conocimiento divino (cfr FR, 55).
LA FACULTAD UNITIVA DE LA PSIQUE, POSIBILITA EL DESARROLLO HUMANO DESDE LA VIDA MORAL HASTA LA VIDA ÉTICA En la psique humana diferenciamos tres potencias o facultades: la INTELIGENCIA, la VOLUNTAD y la UNITIVA. La inteligencia es “fundamentum ut sciere et ut sapere”. El “sciere” se expresa por las INTELIGENCIAS EMOCIONAL y RACIONAL, en tanto que el “sapere” se expresa por la INTELIGENCIA TRANSPERSONAL. LA INTELIGENCIA EMOCIONAL se inicia como un proceso incéntrico y se manifiesta como intra-subjetiva para crecer, luego, como intersubjetiva. Es la base de la conciencia moral. LA INTELIGENCIA RACIONAL se inicia desde el proceso inter-subjetivo emocional para dar paso a la creatividad intercultural. Es fundamento de la conciencia ética. Estos dos modos de inteligencia no son el culmen del desarrollo mental del proceso evolutivo y, por consiguiente puede afirmar Rielo que la única inteligencia del ser humano es la espiritual, en modo alguno la inteligencia sensible; esta dimensión espiritual es extensible a la voluntad y libertad (cfr FR, 54). Pero, evolutivo-intelectivamente hablando hay que aceptar que la intuición está en la base del pensamiento metafísico. Sólo así puede Rielo afirmar que el conocimiento místico es imagen del conocimiento divino lo que nos otorga una inteligencia acotada por la evolución pero abierta al Absoluto (cfr FR, 55). LA INTELIGENCIA TRANSPERSONAL tiene dos expresiones: intercultural y supra-cultural. Como tal es trans-céntrica y su objeto es el desarrollo de la verdad como instrumento de libertad. Es la base de la conciencia mística, de la energía extática del espíritu proyectada por la inteligencia como creencia, quien le concede la potestad de aceptar ser formado por Alguien, que le otorga la categoría de persona. (cfr FR, 80-82). El estancamiento o retroceso en este proceso, condiciona la
22 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood inseguridad del desarrollo afectivo y el temor dando origen a los síndromes tímicos. Se convierte en cosa y queda “cosificado” por aquello mismo que manipula (cfr FR, 85). Desde la inteligencia trans-personal, el pensamiento puede ser formado por la metafísica a través de la que nuestra inteligencia y psique tienen como límite formal el absoluto (cfr FR, 126). LA VOLUNTAD es “movilibus in ordine” del conocimiento, ciencia y sabiduría. El conocimiento actúa en función del “gnoscere”, el método es la observación del YO y de los OTROS, para permitir la progresiva manifestación de la personalidad. La ciencia actúa en función del “aprehendere ut moviliter” El método es la evocación a través del orden consciente, pre-consciente e inconsciente de los síndromes del apego. Conocimiento y Ciencia con los síndromes que pueden acarrear es lo que expresa Rielo al afirmar que existen las disgenesias del espíritu, de la psique y del cuerpo. La consecuencia inmediata es el síndrome del anarcós que conduce al delirio del Yo, con exclusión de toda norma y disciplina generando, al final, impotencia e inapetencia mental o emocional (cfr FR, 110). Espíritu, psique y cuerpo actúan en intrínseca interacción de complementariedad de modo que sus disgenesias se implican mutuamente. Queda reflejado en lo que la OMS define como enfermedad: cualquier disfunción de uno de los componentes del ser humano, patologiza al todo del ser humano. La sabiduría. De las causas y síndromes, “ut unum sint”. El método es la intencionalidad en orden a lograr la identidad volitiva con Dios. Las causas y los síndromes se desarrollan alrededor del “cupere voluntas Dei, noscere” y del, “unitas voluntas Dei, diligere”. El cupere voluntas Dei, noscere, exige ascesis intelectual y aprehensión de la duda desde la fe. Ni si quiera la propia persona puede hacer de sí lo que quiere, ni sus padres ni sus educadores. Se requiere la teantropía mística (cfr FR, 115). El “unitas voluntas Dei, diligere” exige apertura intelectual al misterio, como parte del intelecto humano y aceptación de nuestra historia como expresión del misterio de Dios en nosotros. Sólo cuando los impedimentos o disgenesias sicosomáticas queden reducidos a cero ontológico con la muerte, el Espíritu Santo revelará al bienaventurado la plenitud de la verdad (cfr FR, 118). LA FACULTAD UNIVITA se define como la acción que el Espíritu Santo obra sobre la base de la inteligencia y de la voluntad de la persona, para que tenga conciencia y experiencia de lo que Dios obra en ella y en la humanidad.
El espíritu es la sede de la persona ... posee un + que es la apertura unitiva en que queda nuestro espíritu constituido por la divina presencia, inhabitante, del sujeto absoluto (cfr FR, 124) Por el éxtasis, rompiendo la identidad consigo misma y abriéndose a la infinitud, se une con sus semejantes bajo aquella forma de unión con que la define el sujeto absoluto (cfr FR, 82). 23 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
Es la fuerza dual, primero, de la superación del Súper-YO que impulsa al YO fuera de sí en una espiral social signada por la ética inacabada e inacabable. Y, segundo, es la superación del ELLO rompiendo el condicionamiento de la espiral filogenética y genética inductoras de una moral condenada a ser superada por el actuar libre. El estancamiento o la involución, generan psicopatías, que recogen todos los códigos nosográficos ( CIE y DSM). La facultad unitiva se desarrollará en la medida en que la persona haga evolucionar las facultades de la voluntad y de la inteligencia, mediante el desarrollo intencional de la VERDAD. El + que define al ser humano, le otorga la apertura unitiva que lo potencia espiritualmente para desarrollar la divina presencia del sujeto absoluto, (cfr FR, 124) acción sinérgica, teandrofanía de Dios con la persona (cfr FR, 77).
LA PSICO-ÉTICA, POSIBILITA EL DESARROLLO HUMANO DESDE LA ÉTICA HASTA LA VIDA MÍSTICA El desarrollo de la vida ética, arroja al ser humano fuera de sí cuando se descubre, como expresa Bentué, sujeto de gratuidad y de misericordia. Es la expresión del éxtasis al descubrirse que, como signatum es portador del signans (cfrFR, 68) que se logra por la ejercitación del estudio de la teandrofanía, actuación del sujeto absoluto en el ser humano, con el ser humano o teantropía. (cfr FR, 77). Al descubrirse el ser humano, formado por la misericordia y la gratuidad hace que por la potencia de unión se proyecte desde la libertad hacia el amor y rompe la incentración abriéndose a la infinitud (cfr FR, 83). En esto consiste para Rielo, la educación psicológica en el éxtasis. Ésta se constituye en la clave para superar el actuar ético mediante el amor, para superar la verdad cognitivo-conductual por la verdad-personificada y, así, descubrir la gratuidad y la misericordia del ser persona. El éxtasis, permite descubrir que la ética está al servicio del destino del ser humano (cfr FR, 78) y desarrollar la “actitud óntica” que la otorga la categoría de “persona” y la potencialidad de desarrollar la inteligencia transpersonal con sus dos funciones de inteligir y querer (cfr FR, 80). Este encuadre cognitivo de la psico-ética nos permite superar el equilibrio pragmático de la ética post-modernista. Una ética de la reciprocidad comunicativa, buscando la colaboración y el diálogo, nos permitirá identificarnos “+ que persona” y, por ende, expresión mística del ser metafísico: actuación del sujeto absoluto en el ser humano, con el ser humano (cfr FR, 77).
LA METAFISICA, COMO VARIABLE PSICO-TERAPÉUTICA, POSIBILITA EL DESARROLLO HUMANO SALUDABLE, DE LA PSICOÉTICA Y DE LA VIDA MÍSTICA La conciencia de sacralidad y la mística esencialidad ontológica, no nos eximen de las disgenesias y las terapias somáticas, psíquicas, éticas y psico-éticas no bastan para eliminar los procesos recidivantes ni las involuciones, personales o colectivas. 24 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
Si toda identificación del ser humano ha de asumir la lectura genética de todas sus estructuras, (cfr FR, 125) por coherencia de análisis tendremos que concluir que, las disgenesias de igual modo. En el ser humano el contenido psico-genético (cfr FR, 126) tiene dos variables: la filogenia y la genética que, en primera instancia tienen expresión moral; pero es la ética, con su dinamis intelectivo-volitiva y no la moral, con el statu quo normandis la que tiene posibilidad de dar identidad dinámica al ser humano y hacer sinergia y síncresis con la dimensión ontológica.
La dimensión metafísica es la explicación contingente y necesaria que permite afirmar que el ser humano, es un conjunto de variables semi-acotado: tiene un inicio somato-psíquico generador de la ética, que le permite hacerse síncresis con la indefinición que le otorga expresión ontológica. El ser humano es un “vector y no un segmento”, cuya dinamis son: la ética y la facultad unitiva.
El ámbito metafísico es el que recibe la definición suprema de lo genético. Los demás grados de la geneticidad son imagen y semejanza de la geneticidad metafísica (cfr FR, 126). La conciencia de ser dios místico desarrolla en la inteligencia y en la voluntad los hábitos de la fe, esperanza y virtudes morales que emergen para enfrentar el miedo y la culpa, inherentes a toda patología. La FE emerge de la experiencia de gratuidad para la superación de las patologías de la relación interpersonal. La ESPERANZA emerge de la experiencia de la misericordia para la superación de las patologías intra-psíquicas. Las VIRTUDES MORALES emergen de la experiencia de la misericordia y gratuidad, para la construcción del HONOR en orden a restaurar la estética deteriorada por el pecado social de todos los tiempos y de cada individuo en su tiempo-histórico. Así entendida, la metafísica se constituye en un factor psicoterapéutico imprescindible para que el ser humano se recupere de las dolencias de su crecimiento místico, lanzado hacia la identidad con el ser metafísico. Esta potencialidad metafísica, nos dice Rielo es rostro divino impreso en nosotros en tal grado que ontológicamente “hace resonar” a nuestro espíritu y viene impuesto y supuesto en nuestro actuar, pensar querer y sentir para dar forma de verdad, bondad y hermosura al comportamiento humano (cfr FR, 102-103). Así pues la moral es asumida por al ética; la ética es asumida por la psico-ética; la psico-ética es asumida por la mística y la mística es asumida por la metafísica para hacer que la persona humana pueda ser, desde la gratuidad y misericordia, MÍSTICA DEIDAD DE LA METAFÍSICA DEIDAD. (cfr FR, 106)
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BIBLIOGRAFÍA CONSULTADA
Bentué A. 1997, La experiencia bíblica: gracia y ética, PPC, Madrid Aisensón A, 2001, El desafío moral, Biblos, Buenos Aires Bilbeny N, 1995, El idiota moral, Anagrama, Barcelona Savater F, 1995, Invitación a la Ética, Anagrama, Barcelona Savater F, 2003, El valor de elegir, Ariel, Barcelona
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METAPHYSICS AND FREEDOM IN THE THOUGHT OF THOMAS AQUINAS
Montague Brown
Saint Anselm College
Thomas Aquinas’s major contribution to metaphysics, the distinction between essentia and esse (essence and existence), is essential for a coherent understanding of human freedom, without which there can be no adequate morality or political community. It is not the case that freedom can be deduced from the metaphysical distinction between essence and existence, for freedom is a kind of first principle of practical reason (which judges how things could or should be), and metaphysics is a matter of theoretical reason (which judges how things are). A bad metaphysics, however, can preclude and adequate theory of free moral action and obligation. On the other hand, a good metaphysics can support a good theory of free moral action and obligation. My thesis is that Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysics does just this. In the first part of the paper, I shall examine Aquinas’s breakthrough metaphysical principle, the distinction between essence and existence, and speak about its importance. In the second section, I shall consider a couple of metaphysical theories, namely, materialism and Neoplatonism, which do not comport with an adequate understanding of the human being as free and responsible, and therefore fail to ground an adequate morality and politics. This done, I shall show why Aquinas’s metaphysics succeeds better.
I Let us begin, then, with an analysis of Aquinas’s central metaphysical breakthrough, the real distinction between essence and existence. In making this distinction, Aquinas is following the Aristotelian project of explaining the intrinsic intelligibility of the things of this world by distinguishing potency and act in them (matter/form and substance/accident). In the face the apparent unintelligibility of a changing world, Plato holds that the actuality of the material things we experience exists in a world of Forms apart from the things we experience. Aristotle objects to this because Plato is not explaining this world but a world apart. The reality of the things around us and the meaningfulness of our actions are called into question by Plato’s position. Therefore, Aristotle insists on form as intrinsic principle of act. The individual thing is most real; substance rather than form is the basic unit of reality.1 The problem Aristotle has with making this work is that the principle of individuation of things is matter, but matter has no intrinsic intelligibility. Thus,
1 Aristotle, Categories 1.2&5. 27 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood when push comes to shove in terms of intelligibility, Aristotle falls back into a more Platonic position of making form most real.2 Aristotle holds the species of things, rather than the contingent individual, to be intelligible. Of course, Aristotle is well aware of the importance of the individual human being, in particular, when it comes to explaining moral responsibility. For only intentional wrongdoing is blameworthy.3 But metaphysically, he is certainly unclear about the status of the human individual. Something about us is unique, non-repeatable, and immortal, but it is not clear that it is the individual human being.4 What is uncertain is whether that which survives (the intellect in some form) is one intellect for all or whether each human being is endowed with such an intellect acting beyond matter. But as Aquinas, following Augustine, will point out, it is absolutely certain that we have freedom of choice. Otherwise praise and blame make no sense. And clearly there is no freedom without individual agency. Thus it is that the knowledge of freedom points to the inadequacy of Aristotelian metaphysics to account for the reality of the individual and the individual’s immortality. Aquinas’s insight that there is a deeper level of potency/act—that of substance and existence—allows him to recognize the intelligibility of the individual, whose act of existence is not specific, but unique. But what is the basis for this metaphysical insight? Theologically, Aquinas knows that all things are created by God; that is, things exist only because they are given existence by God. Philosophically, he sees in the potency/act metaphysics of Aristotle (some of which is clearly derived from Plato) principles for a deeper metaphysical understanding of the world around him. Aristotle understands change as accidental or substantial. In accidental change the substance remains the same while the accidental qualities change. Substantial change is the transition of one thing into another by matter receiving a different form. But Aquinas sees another level of transition (if it can be called this) based on a higher act than form—i.e., existence. This is not a temporal transition, but a metaphysical relation—the dependence of everything on God, who is pure existence.5 All things are created ex nihilo. “Creation is the first action because it presupposes no other action, whereas all others presuppose it.”6 Another famous passage in Scripture supports Aquinas’s doctrine of creation. Thomas, following Augustine and other of the Fathers, reads the passage in Exodus where God tells Moses that I AM sends him to the Egyptians, as indicating that God is existence itself, not some kind of existence. How can we make some sense of this philosophically, from our own experience? Thomas Aquinas’s proofs for the existence of God do this, owing much to Plato and Aristotle. Let us take a little time to consider these roots to Aquinas’s metaphysical breakthrough.
2 See Metaphysics 7.17. This is the thesis of Joseph Owens’s The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1978). 3 See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 3.1-5. 4 On the ambiguous position of Aristotle on the immortality of the soul, see On the Soul 3.5. 5 On the doctrine that creation is not a change (accidental or substantial) see ST 1.45.2.2. 6 Summa Contra Gentiles (hereafter CG) 2.21.3, trans. James F. Anderson (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1956), vol. 2, p. 61. 28 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
There are a couple of standard Platonic arguments in favor of Aquinas’s position: the argument from the many to the one, and the argument from a hierarchy of perfection to the most perfect being. The first is summed up succinctly in a passage from the Second Book of the Summa contra gentiles. Of two things, Aquinas observes, either one is the cause of the other, or a third is the cause of the other two.7 One can explain individuals of a kind by pointing to the specific form actualizing matter. But there are many species: the formal cause of the many species is higher than the many species. For example, Aquinas, following Aristotle, says that man and the sun make man.8 But what about these higher causes that the sun represents in our example, that is, the planetary motions for Aristotle (or the separate substances that cause them), or the four forces of physics (to give a contemporary analogue)? As irreducibly distinct, one is not the cause of the other. Therefore, there must be a higher, more universal cause. Ultimately, one must come to a cause that is singular by being uncaused (whether the cause is formal, efficient, or final). This is the cause of all being. As Aquinas says in De Potentia VII, 2, ad 9, “Being is the act of every act, the perfection of every perfection.” The second argument from a hierarchy of perfection is recounted in Aquinas’s fourth way.9 If one thing is more perfect than another, it must be so according to an ultimate source of that perfection. There are two things to be explained here: 1) why the things differ, and 2) why they share in some perfection. The difference is attributable to some particular cause (different species); what is shared must be due to a universal cause. The universal characteristics in which all things share (the so-called transcendentals: being, oneness, truth, goodness, and beauty) indicate the necessity of there being an ultimate source of these characteristics. All things, whatever their differences, exist. Thus, there must be a universal cause of existence—a creator.10 But how are essence and existence related in things? This is where Aristotle figures in a major way. Essence is potential to existence. This does not mean that essences are lying around prior to existence (as grass—through substantial change—is potential cow, or cow is potential human being). As Aquinas says, it is the individual substance that receives being. The point is that, prior to all potentiality, there is actuality. Aristotle understands this. His argument for the unmoved mover is that potentiality implies actuality, and finally pure actuality. 11 Aquinas’s insight, which goes beyond Aristotle’s, is that, prior to the actuality that is pure form (which explains all accidental and substantial change within the world), there is the actuality that is existence (which explains the existence of the world itself). This insight into esse as most basic to all reality means has two important implications for creatures. In the first place, it guards the unique individuality of each creature. The most real principle in a thing is not its specific form whereby it is the same as all others in its species; rather,
7 CG 2.15.2. The argument is also found in De Potentia 3.5&6. 8 Aristotle, Physics 2.2.194b13; Aquinas, CG 1.29. 9 ST 1.2.3. 10 See also the argument from the order of efficient causes in De Potentia 7.2. 11 See Metaphysics 12.6. 29 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood it is its existence, which does not depend on the specific form, since the whole substance is created. In the second place, this insight implies the immediate presence of God the creator to everything. This is true of the existence of each thing, but also of each human thought and choice. Here Aquinas marries Augustine’s theory of illumination to his basically Aristotelian theory of knowledge. The agent intellect in every human being is like a light, and this light is a participation in the mind of God. 12 Aquinas does not mean this to imply that all knowledge is intuition, any more than Augustine does. Aquinas insists on the component of experience.13 But he does want to point out that our knowledge is not restricted. How could it be when the very existence and activity of the intellect are given by God. This dependence on God is even more immediately obvious in our free choices. As we mentioned above, it is the self-evidence of our freedom and the need to account for this metaphysically that, in part, pushes Thomas Aquinas to his famous distinction. As Herbert McCabe says, “My freedom is, so to say, a window of God’s creating.”14 That is, it is in freedom of choice that we see the best analogy of the free creation. Although it is possible for one created intellect to illumine another by providing ideas to that other, it is not possible for one creature to move the will of another creature.15 The act of intelligent choice is free of all creatures. It cannot, of course, be free of God or it would cease to exist. Thus, there is no mediator between our free choices and God’s will. This means that it is always possible for God to move the will toward goodness, nor would this action violate its freedom. 16 As Augustine and Aquinas both insist, God’s will is precisely the guarantor of our freedom.17 Only a metaphysics that recognizes this existential relation of the intellect and the will to God, can coherently explain the intelligibility of thought and the freedom of choice. Autonomous reason, left to its own devices closes down the two factors necessary for inquiry—intelligibility and freedom.18 Explanations of thought and choice in terms of form and matter alone ultimately drain the thought of intelligibility and the choice of freedom. If our thought were merely material, then it would lack the universality and unchangeability required to qualify as thought. As radically particular, it could not understand anything of the relation between things. It could not serve as a hypothesis for a scientific investigation, or as a premise in a logical argument. If, on the other hand, our thought were merely formal, then it would not be about the material world in which we find ourselves, which world includes not just stones, trees, and animals, but ourselves as well.19 As for
12 ST 1.79.4. 13 See ST 1.84.6. Augustine, too, allows for this experiential element; see Confessions 10.8.13. 14 McCabe, Herbert, God Matters (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1987), p. 14. 15 On another being able to enlighten us, see ST 1.111.1; on another not being able to move our will directly, see ST 1.111.2. 16 On the compatibility of free will and divine causality, see ST 1.105.4 and ST 1.83.1.ad3. 17 Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will 3.3.; Aquinas, ST 1.83.1.ad3. 18 This is a large part of the analysis of Donald Keefe’s Covenantal Theology (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1996) pp. 38-39 and elsewhere. Kurt Gödel showed mathematically, that it is impossible to arrive at a closed non-trivial system that does not have an internal incoherence. 19 On impossibility of science if Plato is right, see Aquinas, ST 1.75.2. 30 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood our choices, if they were merely material, then they would be either determined by cause and effect (and as determined, unfree), or they would be random (and as such, equally unfree in any intelligible sense). Aquinas’s distinction between essence and existence, which is his insistence on the immanence of the creator in creation, allows for the free intelligibility and intelligible freedom, as it plays out in his analogue to esse in his theory of knowledge—illumination. Father Donald Keefe argues that the “Thomist version of the act-potency metaphysical analysis … not only can apply to a free reality, but was in fact designed to do so in the case of the Esse/essence correlation, by which the intrinsic intelligibility of finite “substance’ is recognized in Thomism to be free rather than necessary; viz. by which it is created.” 20 The world is intelligible, but not by dint of being necessitated (since it is created). And our actions are free, but not by dint of being arbitrary (which would make them irrational and hence unintelligible). This balance between freedom and intelligibility is difficult to maintain, but without it there are no real and thus intelligible individuals to be known, nor any real (that is, free) moral actions to be done.
II Having introduced Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysics of creation, born in some ways from the obvious need to account for our freedom, and able, therefore, to allow for the possibility of real freedom in morality and politics, let us spend a bit more time on how a bad metaphysics rules out freedom and hence an adequate theory of morality and politics. As we said above, freedom and moral principles are not derived from metaphysical principles. So there is no need to prove metaphysically that we are free and that some actions are always wrong; indeed, such things cannot be proven, not because they are unintelligible, but because they are self-evident. Freedom is a self-evident ground for moral action and community life. Without it, moral judgment and hence responsibility would be impossible. And without moral principles, such judgments would be equally impossible. If no choices are self-evidently wrong, then no particular choices can be demonstrated to be wrong. Hence Aquinas says that morality has its own first principles. 21 However, although we do not need to know metaphysics to know how to act well in the world, a bad metaphysics can make the idea of freedom, and hence of a meaningful ethics or politics, incoherent. Whatever our religious commitments or moral leanings, we will have a metaphysics; so we might as well have a good one. In this section, I want first to argue against a couple of metaphysical theories—materialism and Neoplatonism—which, if consistently applied, destroy freedom and hence the possibility of moral and political action. Second, I want to show how Aquinas’s metaphysical theory supports or makes room for an adequate ethics and politics where the others fail. To accomplish these two things, I shall focus on the essential characteristic of moral action—freedom of choice. If an action is necessitated from below (material conditions of some kind), or from above (God), then it is not
20 Covenantal Theology, fn.29, p. 466. Fr. Keefe, in this monumental work, argues for the centrality of the essence/existence distinction for Thomas’s whole metaphysical project. I have learned much from this splendid analysis of Thomas’s metaphysics. 31 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood morally significant. Only free actions are legitimate objects of praise or censure. In the words of Aquinas: “Man has free will; otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain.”22 Materialism clearly cannot account for freedom and hence for a viable ethics and politics. Materialism comes in many guises, but what is common to all forms is the claim that everything can be explained by matter in motion. The two causes so important in Aristotle—form and final—are rejected. Only individual things are real, and there is no purpose behind the ways things are. In short, it is pluralism: things are many, and they are not really distinct kinds nor do they have any orientation toward some end. Take as an example of the materialist position, the atomism of the Greek philosopher Epicurus and his Roman disciple Lucretius.23 There are an infinite number of atoms falling through infinite space and through infinite time. Somehow, for no reason but as a matter of chance, an atom (or perhaps a few atoms, but one will do) swerves. By so doing, it bumps into other atoms. Given infinite numbers of atoms, space, and time, all manner of things come to be. There is no plan; it just happens. Things are mere quantities of atoms: all qualities, such as heat and cold, soft and hard, good and bad, right and wrong are merely accidental quantitative characteristics. As for things that last forever, only the atoms and the void (necessary so that the atoms can move) are eternal. All other things fall apart. This is true of human beings as well as other things. We are merely accidental conglomerations of atoms. When we die, they disperse, and so we completely cease to be. Even our minds and spirits are made of atoms (finer than other kinds, but atoms nevertheless). This, of course, is primitive compared to contemporary materialist theories, but the same features obtain.24 Scientific method is committed to hypothesis and verification. Since verification requires measurement, science is wedded to quantitative formulations and confirmation. What happens to freedom in such a scenario? In the meaningful sense required to make sense of moral responsibility, freedom is ruled out by materialism. For either our actions are determined by matter in motion (one model), or they all occur by random chance (another model). Either way there can be no intelligent free choice. Without intelligent free choice, there can be no moral actions, that is, actions worthy of praise or blame. On the model of materialism, individuals are accidental, chance outcomes of more basic particles and random forces, or chance. With no substantial individuals, there can be no rational basis for the moral dignity of the individual person, human rights, etc., and hence no basis for real community.
21 ST 1-2.94.2. 22 ST 1.83.1. 23 Hume refers back to Epicurus in his Enquiry, and Darwin refers to the kinds of arguments against design that one finds in Hume and earlier in Epicurus and Lucretius. 24 It is remarkable how the steady state theory of the universe, which was popular in the mid 20th century, posits a constant influx of hydrogen atoms, much like Lucretius’s infinite number of falling atoms. See Jaki, The Savior of Science, pp. 112-13. 32 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
Neoplatonism is also an inadequate metaphysics, but its inadequacy is not because matter lacks sufficient intelligibility to explain the reality of freedom, but because form does. That is, Neoplatonism insists on immaterial reality; indeed, immaterial reality is more real than material reality. In fact, all the intelligibility of the material world pre-exists in one immaterial principle—the One. Thus, as opposed to the pluralism of materialism, Neoplatonism is a monism: what appears to be a diverse pluralism is really one. It is true that, like Aquinas’s doctrine of creation (his essentia/esse distinction), Neoplatonism recognizes the procession of all things from a single source. However, it does not recognize the existential freedom of this procession, and hence of that which proceeds.25 The One must emanate, since it is good, and goodness is naturally fruitful. For Neoplatonism the way up is the way down. To the extent that this means that everything comes from the one source of being and everything seeks that source, this makes metaphysical sense.26 But when it is taken to mean that, since we know something of the way up (why things require a source), we know about the way down (how or why that source produces other beings), it is simply false. Although we know that, if there are two, then either one must be the cause of the other or both caused by a third, we do not know that, since there is one, there must be two (or more). On this point, Neoplatonism holds that the One must overflow because it is good, and it is the nature of the good to communicate itself.27 But it makes no sense to say that the good (the fully engendered) in any sense must communicate itself, for unless it does so freely, we would not call it good, at least not in the morally meaningful sense, which is the root meaning of good. Actions that are necessitated carry no moral worth. If the One must overflow, then this act is morally neutral, rather than good.28 Neoplatonism explains the origin of things as a necessary process of emanation, as distinct from the free act of creation, which Aquinas expresses in terms of the distinction between essentia and esse. If all things (including ourselves) flow with necessity from The One, then personal freedom and responsibility are metaphysically unintelligible. In addition, the fact that what proceeds from the One is less than the One also counts against the idea of the One (as good) being naturally diffusive.29 For if what proceeds from the One is less good, because fragmented and restricted,30 then it does not make any sense to commend the One for communicating this imperfect product.31
25 On processions, Plotinus writes: “There exists a Principle which transcends Being; this is the One, whose nature we have sought to establish in so far as such matters lend themselves to proof. Upon the One follows immediately the Principle which is at once Being and the Intellectual-Principle. Third comes the Principle, Soul.” Plotinus, The Three Initial Hypostases, in Plotinus, The Enneads (London/New York: Penguin, 1991), p. 359. On necessity, Plotinus writes: “The Intellectual-Principle stands as the image of the One, firstly because there is a certain necessity that the first should have its offspring” (Three Hypostases, p. 355). 26 There are very strong arguments with Platonic roots, much like those of Aquinas, in Plotinus’s On the Good, or the One (Enneads VI, 9). 27 “Thus Plato knows the order of generation—from the Good the Intellectual-Principle; from the Intellectual Principle, the Soul” (Three Hypostases, p. 357). 28 When Aquinas makes a similar point about God communicating his goodness, he is careful to include God’s intention. “He [the First Agent] only intends to communicate His perfection, which is His goodness” (ST 1.44.4; 1:232). 29 “All that is fully achieved engenders: therefore the eternally achieved engenders an eternal being” (Three Hypostases, 33 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
As careful as Aquinas is, he is sometimes in danger of falling into one or the other of these metaphysical dead-ends. For example, he often follows Aristotle in saying that we are individuated by signate matter. 32 If this is his entire answer, then he is saying that the basis for human individuality and uniqueness is merely quantitative, which is absurd. Stones are individuated by quantitative matter, too, but this does not warrant the payment of respect for their individuality. Happily there are many places where what he says indicates a much broader and more coherent explanation of individuation.33 As to Neoplatonism, with his many arguments from the many to the one, there is a danger of his turning the argument around and arguing illegitimately from the one to the many. Aquinas insists in many places that our arguments from creatures lead only to the affirmation of God’s existence and not to his nature.34 But it is hard to resist arguing that, since the many lead us to the one, the one must imply the many. Often, for example, Aquinas will explain the real distinction between essence and existence in creatures by starting with God: since God’s essence is existence, and God is unique, in every being besides God, essence and existence are distinct. But one cannot legitimately argue metaphysically from God as cause to creatures as effects.35 The problem is that, as soon as one makes this move, one is bound to the necessitarianism of Neoplatonist emanation. But creation is a free act of God, not a necessary overflowing of goodness or the arbitrary choosing of some possible world over another. Since esse precedes essence, one cannot get behind he who is esse subsistens to say how or why he creates. To the extent that one insists on doing so, one takes away the freedom of the Creator and hence of the creation, which includes, of course, ourselves and our moral actions. For if there is no freedom in the creator (cause), then there can be no freedom in the creature (effect).
Conclusion Whereas neither materialistic pluralism nor Neoplatonic monism has a place for freedom and hence moral meaning, Aquinas’s metaphysics of creation has such a metaphysical place. Aquinas does not try to explain freedom and morality metaphysically. To do so is to explain them away. As Aquinas says in ST 2-2.94.2, morality has its own self-evident principles. However, Aquinas’s metaphysics of creation does allow for the possibility of freedom and moral meaning because it is not a determinism nor a random contingency, but a free intelligible creation. Only if there are freedom and purpose in the cause can there be freedom and purpose in the effect. Neither materialism nor Neoplatonism allows for such freedom and purpose in the cause. Therefore, neither can sustain a meaningful ethics (which requires freedom and purpose). Because Aquinas’s first
p. 354). 30 “At the same time, the offspring is always minor” (Three Hypostases, p. 354). 31 This is a tough problem, solved only by allowing that the communication is free and is, in some sense, not less than the giver. 32 Super Boethium De Trinitate 4.2; De Ente et Essentia 2; ST 1.75.4; ST 3.77.2; CG 2.75.10. 33 See my article "Aquinas and the Individuation of the Human Person Revisited, "International Philosophical Quarterly, Spring, 2003. 34 ST 1.3. prologue. 35 At least one cannot do so philosophically; Aquinas thinks that it is legitimate to argue from revelation of God’s nature (Trinity of three equal persons) to an understanding of creation. 34 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood cause is the free creator of all things, some of those created things can be free and hence morally responsible, and real political community is possible.
35 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
LA SOLUZIONE ARISTOTELICA DEL DUALISMO DA PARTE DI HEGEL
Allegra de Laurentiis State University of New York at Stony Brook
I. L’aristotelismo di Hegel Nella sua opera sistematica, l’Enciclopedia delle Scienze Filosofiche del 1830, Hegel asserisce che il De Anima aristotelico è ‘l’unica opera di interesse speculativo’ nella storia della psicologia filosofica. 1 Trattare la mente o ‘spirito soggettivo’ (subjektiver Geist) in maniera speculativa equivale per Hegel a trattarne nell’unico modo adeguato alla mente stessa, poiché l’essenza di quest’ultima è per l’appunto autoriferimento o ‘speculazione’ (si veda la sezione III). Quasi ad indicare che la caratterizzazione Aristotelica del pensiero (l’attività che definisce la mente) è insuperata, Hegel decide di concludere l’intero sistema con una citazione–senza alcun commento–di un famoso passaggio della Metafisica, di cui si riporta qui solo un estratto direttamente connesso al tema di questo saggio: ... e il pensiero [ho nous; Hegel: Vernunft] pensa se stesso perchè è partecipe del pensato [tou noetou; Hegel: das Gedachte] ... esso stesso diviene un oggetto di pensiero quando è in contatto e pensa i propri oggetti, cosicchè il pensiero e l’oggetto del pensiero sono identici, in quanto il pensiero è capace di ricevere l’oggetto pensato e la sostanza. Ed esso è attivo [energei] quando li possiede (Metafisica Λ, 1072b18-30). La letteratura sul carattere dell’aristotelismo di Hegel data da quasi duecento anni, a cominciare da una rassegna del 1810 della Fenomenologia dello Spirito che chiama Hegel l’‘Aristotele tedesco’,2 e a finire con gli studi critici contemporanei di Klaus Düsing, Michael Wolff, Alfredo Ferrarin ed altri.3 Poiché il punto focale di questo saggio è la filosofia teoretica, il debito di Hegel all’etica aristotelica, evidente nella sua concezione del diritto naturale, della virtù come habitus, e della prassi politica può solo essere menzionato en passant. Riguardo a metafisica ed epistemologia, nonostante notevoli differenze è possibile indicare i seguenti punti di accordo nelle valutazioni degli studiosi.4 a) Da un punto di vista epistemologico e ai fini della conoscenza del vero, Hegel considera l’approccio sistematico di Aristotele superiore a quello di Platone e giudica la propria opera come un’articolazione e completamento del programma sistematico dello Stagirita. b) Per entrambi i filosofi, la logica è determinativa sia della realtà che del pensiero. È quindi legittimo, da parte di Hegel, leggere il realismo aristotelico in chiave ‘idealistica’ nel senso di un ‘realismo delle idee.’ Una delle conseguenze di quest’approccio comune è che entrambi i filosofi
1 G.W.F. Hegel, Enzyklopädie der Philosophischen Wissenschaften (1830) [Enz.], § 378 Annotazione e § 552 Annotazione. Werke in zwanzig Bänden [W] vol. 10. Giudizi equivalenti a questo si trovano nella Scienza della Logica e nelle Lezioni di Storia della Filosofia. 2 C.F. Bachmann, Rassegna di Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes, Heidelberger Jahrbücher 1810; riportato da K. Düsing in Hegel und die Geschichte der Philosophie, Darmstadt 1983, p. 98. 3 Oltre a Düsing (1983) si veda il suo Das Problem der Subjektivität in Hegels Logik (Hegel-Studien Beiheft 15), Bonn 1976; e Hegel e l’antichita’ classica, edito da S. Giammusso, Napoli 2001. Per M. Wolff si veda Das Körper-Seele Problem. Kommentar zu Hegel, Enzyklopädie (1830) § 389, Frankfurt 1992. Per A. Ferrarin, Hegel and Aristotle, Cambridge 2001. 4 Una rassegna ragionata della letteratura sull’aristotelismo di Hegel è contenuta in Düsing (1983), pp. 97-132. 36 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood presentano la materia vivente, o ‘l’organismo’, come paradigma della coincidenza tra logica ed ontologia nonché come ideale illustrazione della continuità tra materia e spirito. c) La teleologia oggettiva che Hegel sviluppa in esplicito contrasto a quanto ritiene sia il soggettivismo di Kant, rappresenta un ritorno esplicito (pur con importanti modifiche) alla dottrina teleologica di Aristotele. d) Hegel connette esplicitamente la propria definizione logica della soggettività (o ‘il Concetto’: der Begriff) come pura attualizzazione dell’essenza dell’essere alla concezione aristotelica del nous attivo come pura enérgeia. Nonostante le ovvie affinità, tuttavia, vari studiosi vedono nella nozione hegeliana un abbandono della lettera e dello spirito aristotelici. Da questo punto di vista, e malgrado le asserzioni di Hegel, il suo concetto di soggettività incorporerebbe il nous aristotelico solo come punto di partenza storico e metafisico. Nel corso della teoria hegeliana della soggettività il nous avrebbe subito un mutamento radicale. e) Vari studiosi individuano un’ulteriore distacco dalla prospettiva di Aristotele nella reinterpretazione hegeliana della relazione tra intelletto attivo e passivo. Hegel li intende come condizioni rispettivamente dello spirito in-se-stesso (an sich) e per-se-stesso (für sich), ovvero come natura (spirito in se stesso, nous patheticós) e spirito soggettivo (spirito per se stesso, nous poieticós). Lo spirito soggettivo, a suo turno, consiste di tre fondamentali attività della materia vivente: l’ anima naturale, la coscienza, e la mente propriamente detta. In Aristotele, tuttavia, nous patheticós non è riferito a physis. Inoltre, alla (relativa) indipendenza del nous patheticós subentra in Hegel la dipendenza (tramite superamento e conservazione: Aufhebung) della natura dallo spirito. Secondo Hegel, nell’individuo vivente questo superamento ha luogo in forma di un graduale prendere possesso del corpo, prima da parte dell’anima, poi della coscienza, e finalmente (in esseri umani) dell’intelligenza e volontà. Nonostante sia invano cercare questo tragitto ‘da sostanza a soggetto’5 nei testi aristotelici, non è altrettanto chiaro che un tale tragitto sia necessariamente incompatibile con il programma generale di Aristotele. Il sistema di Hegel6 include una Scienza della Logica7 (la metafisica del sistema), una Filosofia della Natura 8 ed una Filosofia dello Spirito. 9 Hegel si riferisce a queste ultime come Realphilosophie, la filosofia del reale. La Filosofia dello Spirito a suo turno è costituita da una teoria dello Spirito Soggettivo (filosofia teoretica), dello Spirito Oggettivo (filosofia pratica) e dello Spirito Assoluto (cioè delle espressioni estetiche, religiose e filosofiche dello spirito umano). La filosofia dello Spirito Soggettivo è divisa a sua volta in un’Antropologia dell’anima, una Fenomenologia della coscienza ed una Psicologia della mente. Nella concezione di Hegel, l’insieme di queste tre fornisce il collegamento tra la filosofia della natura e la filosofia pratica. Simultaneamente, esse sono intese come completamento della teoria aristotelica della psyché, perché nel loro insieme costituiscono un rendiconto della natura organica, della sensibilità, della percezione, dell’immaginazione e, finalmente, anche del pensare e del pensiero che pensa se stesso (o pensiero speculativo). Uno degli obbiettivi principali di Hegel è di dimostrare che il cosiddetto vuoto teoretico tra psyché e nous, spesso lamentato da studiosi dell’opera aristotelica, non è né logicamente né metafisicamente necessario—un sentimento evidentemente condiviso da Aristotele quando descrive il nous come una delle funzioni di psyché: ‘E riguardo alla parte dell’anima con cui essa conosce e comprende ... dobbiamo riflettere ... sul modo in cui sorge il pensare [tó noein]’ e ‘Chiamo intelletto [nous] ciò tramite cui l’anima pensa e concepisce’ (De Anima 429a10 e 429a23). Studiosi determinati a leggere il De Anima in chiave naturalistica tendono a separare i primi due
5 Si veda per esempio Phänomenologie des Geistes, W vol. 3, pp. 23 e 28. 6 Vedasi la tavola allegata in Appendice. 7 W vol. 8. 8 W vol. 9 9 W vol. 10. 37 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood libri, accentrati su psyché, dai capitoli del terzo libro che trattano il nous, quasi si trattasse di due opere diverse.10 Altri preferiscono invece una lettura hegeliana.11 Questi ultimi sottolineano che interpretare in chiave ontologica la distinzione logica fatta da Aristotle tra principi esplicativi della natura vivente e quelli del pensiero significa fraintendere radicalmente l’antica concezione predualistica della realtà. È proprio sulla base di un profondo rispetto per il carattere storico del pensiero filosofico che Hegel attribuisce ad Aristotele una concezione unitaria della natura e del pensiero. Prendendo quest’ultima come punto di partenza, Hegel argomenta che il cosiddetto problema della connessione tra mente e corpo, insieme alle sue soluzioni dualistiche o monistico-riduttive, esprime un falso enigma derivato da presupposizioni piú tarde ma non per questo logicamente inevitabili. II. L’anima come concetto Nelle sue critiche al dualismo, mentalismo e materialismo moderni Hegel spesso celebra la filosofia di Aristotele in quanto dotata di una prospettiva da cui la materia vivente, o anima naturale, può concepirsi indipendentemente dal dogma della separazione tra materialità ed immaterialità. Hegel usa questa prospettiva aristotelica per risolvere due ostinati enigmi della filosofia moderna: il problema della ‘comunità’ or azione reciproca (Gemeinschaft come commercium) di anima e corpo, e quello connesso della natura materiale o immateriale dell’anima. Il primo problema si risolve facilmente, secondo Hegel, quando si realizzi che il termine ‘anima’, invece di riferirsi ad un fenomeno indipendente, è il concetto (Begriff ) più adeguato al fenomeno esperito come corpo vivente (il doppio significato Hegeliano di ‘concetto’ verrà spiegato tra breve). Nell’ Antropologia, per esempio, Hegel spiega che la relazione tra anima e corpo è simile alla relazione tra concetto e oggetto, piuttosto che a quella tra oggetti: ‘In verità ... ciò che è [considerato] immateriale si rapporta a ciò che è [considerato] materiale non come un particolare si rapporta ad un altro particolare, ma piuttosto come il genuinamente universale, sussumendo il particolare, si rapporta a quest’ultimo’ (Enz. § 389 Aggiunta). Questa è la versione hegeliana dell’argomento aristotelico secondo cui l’intelletto non può essere un oggetto tra oggetti perché, se lo fosse, nel contatto con essi li trasformerebbe, rendendo impossibile la conoscenza del vero: ‘L’intelletto’ scrive Aristotele ‘non ha altra natura che quella d’essere una potenzialità’ (D.A. 429a21-22). È esattamente in questo senso che Hegel riferisce la nozione di ‘anima’ a quella di ‘corpo vivente’: ‘anima’ è il concetto (o ‘l’universale’) che sussume le manifestazioni (o ‘il particolare’) del corpo vivente, rendendo con ciò insensata l’idea di un loro interagire. Per Hegel, inoltre, la relazione tra concetto ed oggetto non è solo epistemologica ma anche ontologica. Nella sua filosofia teoretica, ‘concetto’ non denota esclusivamente una costruzione mentale. Non è solo il soggetto pensante a sviluppare concetti soggettivi degli oggetti, ma gli oggetti stessi divengono quel che sono grazie al loro concetto intrinsico o oggettivo. Per esempio, fenomeni di cui abbiamo un concetto soggettivo possono rivelarsi ‘non-veri’ (unwahr), per usare un’espressione hegeliana, in relazione al loro concetto oggettivo: un amico si può rivelare un falso amico rispetto al concetto di amicizia; uno stato, una falsa democrazia rispetto al concetto di democrazia; un embrione, un falso esemplare rispetto al concetto della specie, e così via. Nel suo significato soggettivo, un concetto si forma astraendo da tratti considerati irrilevanti all’essenza dell’oggetto. Ma il criterio di rilevanza può solo riferirsi alle caratteristiche necessarie (‘logiche’) dell’oggetto stesso, e cioè a ciò che Hegel chiama l’essenza o concetto oggettivo. Quando l’oggetto in questione è un organismo, il nostro concetto soggettivo si dimostrerà adeguato
10 Si vedano per esempio S. Menn, ‘Aristotle’s Definition of the Soul and the Programme of the De Anima.’ Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, XXII, 2002, pag. 83-139; e Ferrarin (2001) pag. 255: ‘... il De Anima ... è per Aristotele la culminazione della filosofia della natura da cui sono esclusi i capitoli sul nous.’ 11 Si veda per esempio M. Wolff (1992). 38 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood o inadeguato nel corso dello sviluppo organico determinato dal concetto oggettivo dell’organismo stesso. (In questo ragionamento è operante la revisione hegeliana della teoria tradizionale della verità come adequatio rei et intellectus: piuttosto che essere coincidenza tra concetto ed oggetto, la verità è coincidenza del concetto soggettivo e oggettivo dell’oggetto.) Da ciò consegue che l’anima e il corpo vivente non possono ‘interagire.’ Piuttosto, i loro rispettivi concetti coincidono. Con buona pace di Malebranche, di Lamettrie o dei cartesiani, la loro relazione non è un mistero né il risultato di divino intervento. L’alternativa, secondo Hegel, è da trovarsi nelle definizioni aristoteliche dell’anima come stato intrinsico di completezza del corpo o ‘entelechia’: ‘Questa sostanza [l’anima] è un entelechia ... L’anima è la prima entelechia di un corpo naturale potenzialmente vivo’ (D.A. 412a21 e 412a27). Come è noto, Aristotele usa entelécheia, nel contesto della sua teoria della materia vivente, praticamente come sinonimo di enérgeia. Il principio interiore di completamento è concettualmente equivalente alla completa attualizzazione di ciò di cui è principio. In termini hegeliani: l’anima è l’‘idealità’ o il concetto del corpo; il corpo è la ‘materialità’ o realizzazione dell’anima. Nonostante l’anima sia definita come concetto, quindi, questa concezione non è idealistico-soggettiva perché tale concetto (Begriff) è il principio formale (eidos) obbiettivamente appartenente all’organismo. (Nella biologia contemporanea, l’equivalente di questa teoria ottocentesca è la nozione di ‘informazione’ genetica.) D’altra parte, la concezione di Hegel non è neanche materialista perché, come leggiamo nell’ Antropologia, ‘La materia è divenuta vieppiú sottile … finanche nelle mani dei fisici, imbattutisi recentemente in soggetti imponderabili come la temperatura, la luce, e così via dicendo’ (Enz. § 389). Nell’idealismo assoluto, come nella fisica teoretica, materialità ed immaterialità del reale si dimostrano in ultima analisi non-contraddittorie. Pur determinando l’anima come concetto, Hegel segue anche l’uso aristotelico di chiamarla ‘sostanza’ (ousía, Substanz). 12 Ciò indica che, nella prospettiva hegeliana, determinazioni ‘concettuali’ e ‘sostanziali’ dell’anima sono, in un certo qual modo, equivalenti. In effetti, ad un livello sistematico di astrazione più alto (nella Logica), Hegel dimostra che il significato della categoria di ‘sostanzialità’ è riconducibile a quello di ‘soggettività’ e cioè di ‘pensiero’. Mentre l’introduzione alla Fenomenologia asserisce ripetutamente che ‘la sostanza vivente è … un essere che in verità è soggetto’,13 la prova di tale affermazione si trova solo nella Scienza della Logica. Questo saggio non può discutere il successo o insuccesso di tale dimostrazione, ma la tesi dell’identità fondamentale di ‘sostanza’ e ‘soggettività’ può esser resa plausibile da una breve ricostruzione del loro legame logico, la categoria dell’‘essenza’. III. L’anima come sostanza Nella Scienza della Logica Hegel mostra come il significato di ‘essere in se stesso’ (Ansichsein) dipende da quello di ‘essere per se stesso’ o ‘essenza’ (Fürsichsein o Wesen). Riassumendo le conclusioni della Dottrina dell’Essere, in apertura della Dottrina dell’Essenza Hegel proclama che ‘La verità dell’essere è l’essenza’.14 Nella Logica, la categoria dell’essere non si riferisce ad un’entità Parmenidea puramente identica a se stessa. L’‘essere’ di Hegel denota piuttosto un’attività di permanente transizione da potenza ad atto. ‘Verità dell’essere’, quindi, intende la verità o dell’essere potenziale (essenza implicita) o di quello attuale (essenza esplicita). L’essenza implicita, a sua volta, può essere compresa o come falsa apparenza (Schein: mera semblanza) o nel senso kantiano di apparenza verace (Erscheinung: vera manifestazione). L’essenza esplicita invece è chiamata da Hegel wirkliche Substanz: sostanza attuale.
12 Nel De Anima si vedano soprattutto 412a19-21, 412b10-11, 415b8-15. 13 W 3, pag. 23. 14 W 6, pag. 13. 39 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
Vediamo quindi che Hegel tratta la categoria della sostanza nel quadro della logica dell’essenza (Wesenslogik), cioè tra la logica dell’essere (Seinslogik) e quella della soggettività (Begriffslogik). Il luogo sistematico della sostanza nella metafisica di Hegel è quindi funzionalmente analogo a quello dell’anima nella filosofia teoretica: qui l’anima è situata tra natura, il correlato reale dell’essere logico, e spirito propriamente detto, il correlato reale della soggettività logica. Così come l’essenza denota la transizione dall’essere alla soggettività, l’anima denota la transizione dalla natura alla mente. La nozione di ‘essenza’ si ottiene analizzando le relazioni logiche tra connotazioni fondamentali dell’essere, cioè tra qualità, quantità e la loro relazione;15 allo stesso modo, la nozione di ‘anima’ risulta da relazioni fondamentali in vigore tra fenomeni naturali, e cioè tra i sistemi meccanici, chimici ed organici della natura.16 Infine, proprio come essere ed essenza divengono comprensibili solo nella loro unità nel pensiero, natura ed anima possono comprendersi solo nella loro unità nella mente umana (‘Intelligenz’). Nell’ Introduzione alla Dottrina dell’Essenza Hegel traccia le linee generali di questo ragionamento. Il pensare (das Denken) è un’attività di mediazione finalizzata alla comprensione del vero. Ma il contenuto più fondamentale del pensiero, ‘essere’, è sinonimo di ‘pura immediatezza’. (Il mero essere non implica particolari qualità, quantità o relazioni.) Ne consegue che pensare l’essere significa mediarlo con un altro, un non-essere. Quest’ultimo è la verità prossima dell’essere: la sua essenza. Conoscere l’essenza (Erkenntnis) comincia sempre nella familiarità con l’essere (Bekanntschaft). Venire a conoscere l’essenza richiede la penetrazione o interiorizzazione (Erinnern) dell’apparente immediatezza dell’essere. Come succede in ogni tipo di interiorizzazione (inclusa quella psicologica: il ricordo o Erinnerung), il risultato conseguito è un essere passato (gewesen). Conoscere l’essenza (das Wesen) è quindi conoscere uno stato passato—benché, come specifica Hegel, un ‘passato atemporale’.17 Poiché dunque essere ed essenza non si possono comprendere l’uno senza l’altra, troviamo nella Logica un’altra categoria ad esprimerne l’unità. Questa è la categoria dell’ ‘attualità’ (Wirklichkeit). In ‘attualità’ sono comprese sia l’essenza che l’essere da essa fondato, causato o effettuato. ‘Attualità’ denota quindi nella filosofia hegeliana sia l’essenza che le sue manifestazioni. L’attualità fisica dell’universo, per esempio, include sia le forze di attrazione e repulsione che gli stati della materia determinati da tali forze. Forza è l’essenza della materia; l’universo le contiene entrambe. Per quanto riguarda lo spirito, esso comprende tanto l’ interiorità dell’organismo quanto le sue manifestazioni esterne, per esempio le attività di anima, coscienza e mente (Seele, Bewusstsein e Geist). Nello stesso modo in cui le forze e la materia in movimento costituiscono la realtà assoluta dell’universo, l’interiorità e le sue manifestazioni costituiscono la realtà assoluta dello spirito.18 Ciò significa, tra l’altro, che né le forze dell’universo fisico né l’interiorità dello spirito esistono senza le loro rispettive manifestazioni: non c’è causa senza effetto, né sensazione senza stimolo fisico, né buone intenzioni senza giuste azioni. Per ritornare al nostro tema: interiorità ed esteriorità sono tratti dello spirito logicamente
15 Questi sono i principi organizzativi della Dottrina dell’Essere, Scienza della Logica (W 5). 16 Questi sono i principi organizzativi della Filosofia della Natura (W 9). Teorie matematiche contemporanee della necessaria emergenza di forme di vita dallo stato di fatto dell’universo indicano (senza alcuna intenzione da parte degli autori) un interessante ritorno a principi hegeliani. Si veda per esempio J.D. Barrow e F.J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Oxford 1988. 17 W 6, pag. 13. Il paradosso di un ‘passato atemporale’ si spiega in quanto, grazie alla Aufhebung (superamento tramite assimilazione), l’essere resta parte integrale dell’essenza. Per Hegel, investigare la ‘logica’ di oggetti o eventi presuppone un concetto di movimento a-temporale. La logica formale, dopotutto, usa comunemente concetti di questo tipo: le inferenze, diversamente dagli eventi psicologici dell’inferire, non sono processi cronologici ma movimenti logici. 18 Hegel usa il termine ‘assoluto’ nel suo originale significato latino: ab-solutum, cioè sciolto da legami, incondizionato, e perciò contenente le proprie condizioni. 40 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood distinguibili ma ontologicamente identici. Ciò si applica a tutti gli stati dello spirito e perciò anche alla sua realtà più semplice, l’anima naturale.19 Nell’anima, interiorità ed esteriorità, o essenza ed essere, si realizzano insieme. L’anima è la prima realizzazione (Aristotele: próte entelécheia) dello spirito. Essa è l’essenza dello spirito fatta esplicita, la ‘sostanza’ dello spirito, ovvero il corpo vivente. In organismi in cui l’anima si sviluppa attraverso stati di coscienza ed autocoscienza fino a diventare mente o soggettività propria, sorge una costellazione peculiare che Hegel chiama ‘speculativa’. Il concetto oggettivo responsabile dello sviluppo della mente viene a coincidere con il concetto soggettivo della mente stessa, cioè il suo autoconcetto. Una volta emersa dalle sue forme solo naturali, la mente riferisce i propri contenuti a se stessa. In altri termini, la comprensione di qualsiasi contenuto è autocomprensione. Il pensiero è necessariamente speculativo. Nelle parole di Aristotele: ‘il pensiero e ciò che vien pensato sono la stessa cosa … e la speculazione [theoría]20 è l’attività piú gratificante e la migliore’ (Metafisica 1072b22-24). Ovvero: ‘Il pensare stesso è come i pensieri. Ed in effetti, riguardo a ciò che è immateriale, quel che pensa ed il pensato sono identici: la conoscenza speculativa e quanto essa conosce sono identici’ (DA 430a1-5). La natura speculativa del pensiero è proprio la ragione per cui Hegel asserisce che la nozione di ‘essere’ sfocia inevitabilmente in quella di ‘essenza.’ Lo sviluppo che porta dall’immediatezza dell’ ‘essere’ alla mediazione del ‘pensare’ è intimamente connesso con l’auto-mediazione (o interiorizzazione) del soggetto pensante. Man mano che si sviluppa interiormente, la soggettività cerca un’essenza interna all’essere. Come abbiamo visto, l’essenza non è altra dall’essere, ma ‘un movimento dell’essere stesso.’ 21 Poiché l’atto conoscitivo equivale all’interiorizzazione del soggetto conoscente, la conoscenza del vero risulta tanto da un movimento dell’oggetto quanto da quello del pensiero. Un altro termine usato da Hegel per denotare la natura soggettivo-oggettiva del pensiero è ‘l’Assoluto’. L’ultima parte della Dottrina dell’Essenza, intitolata ‘Attualità’, si apre con uno studio dei significati storico-filosofici del termine ‘assoluto’ (inclusi quelli di Spinoza e Leibniz). Hegel passa ad identificare nei concetti di sostanzialità, causalità ed azione reciproca i modi fondamentali di esistenza della realtà assoluta e finisce col dimostrare che tale realtà è una relazione. ‘Sostanza’ significa la relazione reciproca tra ciò che è identico a se stesso e le sue non-identiche manifestazioni; ‘causalità’ significa la relazione reciproca tra cause ed i loro effetti; ‘reciprocità’ significa la totalità delle relazioni di causa-effetto. Questi sono i modi in cui l’Assoluto agisce o si attualizza. La realtà assoluta è in ultima analisi ‘la relazione assoluta’ (das absolute Verhältnis). Nella filosofia hegeliana, perciò, la categoria generale di ‘sostanza’ indica una relazione tra ‘essere’ ed ‘essenza’ che include entrambe. Riferito all’anima-sostanza, ciò significa che quest’ultima è una relazione tra natura e spirito, esteriorità corporea ed interiorità psichica, che include entrambe. L’anima non è pura interiorità né il corpo semplice esteriorità. Essi sono inestricabili come il concavo ed il convesso. Relativamente al corpo, l’anima è l’intrinsicità che lo rende vivente; relativamente alla mente, l’anima è l’estrinsicità che la rende possible: L’anima…è la sostanza, il fondamento assoluto di ogni particolarizzazione ed individualizzazione dello spirito, cosicchè quest’ultimo trova in essa tutto il materiale [Stoff] 22 delle proprie determinazioni, mentre l’anima stessa è la permanente identica idealità di tali determinazioni (Enz. § 389).
19 Hegel spiega le infinite manifestazioni storiche dello spirito soggettivo ed oggettivo come stati dello spirito, cioè come differenziazioni di un’identica sostanza (l’Assoluto), non come differenze tra sostanze diverse. 20 Non solo Hegel e gli hegeliani interpretano theoría come speculazione. Eminenti traduttori e interpreti come W.D. Ross e R.D. Hicks, pur rendendo theoría nella Metafisica con ‘contemplation’, traducono episteme he theoretiké con ‘speculative knowledge.’ 21 W 6 pag. 13. 22 Il tedesco Stoff traduce comunemente il greco hule. 41 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
IV. Conclusione Hegel trova nella filosofia di Aristotele gli strumenti concettuali più adatti alla propria teoria dell’ unità ontologica e differenza logica di anima e corpo. Egli offre una lettura della psyché aristotelica in chiave dinamica: l’anima è ousía nel senso di una relazione tra interiorità ed esteriorità, sensazione e stimolo, percezione e percepito, immaginazione ed immagine, e finalmente pensiero ed oggetto pensato (nous kai noetón: Metafisica 1072b). Queste relazioni consistono nella perpetua trasformazione di uno dei termini nell’altro e viceversa, confermando cosí la loro identità assoluta. Il soggetto della conoscenza percepisce l’anima come corpo vivente ma la concepisce come identità interiore del corpo. Nel De Anima, l’espressione ‘anima nutritivo-riproduttiva’ si riferisce alle attività di assimilazione ed espulsione dell’organismo; ‘anima sensitiva’ o ‘animale’ si riferisce alle attività ricettive e reattive con cui gli organi connettono il mondo circostante all’organismo; anima pensante o ‘intelletto’, infine, si riferisce all’interiorizzazione delle percezioni (tramite l’immaginazione, phantasía) come rappresentazioni e pensieri. Hegel stesso individua i fondamenti della propria teoria dello spirito soggettivo in questa concezione aristotelica. L’anima è sia la forma interna (eidos) grazie a cui la natura dirime se stessa (per esempio, la cellula diventa zigote), sia la materia esteriore (Stoff; hyle) della soggettività. Mentre è vero che l’anima è una potenza naturale, la sua completa attualizzazione non ha luogo in natura. Per Hegel, l’attualizzazione di una potenzialità implica una fase negativa: ciò che si sviluppa nega la propria condizione precedente e la trasferisce nella prossima. L’anima naturale si attualizza quindi tramite negazione e conservazione (Aufhebung) della propria corporeità. Scrive Hegel: ‘In se stessa, la materia non ha alcuna verità all’interno dell’anima; … l’anima si separa dal proprio essere immediato e lo pone in opposizione a se stessa, come corporeità incapace di resistere la propria potenza formativa’ (Enz. § 412).23 La completa attualizzazione dello spirito soggettivo, cioè il sorgere di intelligenza e libera volontà, avrà luogo a sua volta grazie alla negazione e conservazione dell’anima. Come la pura enérgeia di Aristotele, indipendente (o ‘assoluta’) perchè riferita solo a se stessa, lo spirito attualizzato è, nelle parole di Hegel,‘l’esistenza della verità della materia, e cioè che la materia in se stessa non ha alcuna verità’ (Enz. § 389 Annotazione).
23 La einbildende Kraft esercitata dallo spirito sul corpo è il corrispettivo hegeliano dei logoi enhuloi di Aristotele (DA). 42 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
PERSON ESSENTIALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF VAGUENESS
Robert Francescotti San Diego State University San Diego, CA, USA
Abstract Is personhood one of our essential features? Is it inevitable that a person ceases to exist when ceasing to be a person? While Lynne Rudder Baker makes a convincing case that the answer is “yes,” I argue otherwise. I first show (with the help of David DeGrazia’s work) that on any plausible account of personhood, ‘person’ is a vague predicate. Then I argue that the degree of vagueness in the term makes it highly implausible to think it designates an essential property. 1. Introduction According to the doctrine of Person Essentialism, each person is essentially a person. This is not the trivial de dicto claim that, necessarily, if something is a person, then it is a person. Person Essentialism is the significant de re claim that any individual that is a person is necessarily a person. This entails that you (assuming you are a person) have always been a person since the moment you started to exist, and you will remain a person for as long as you continue to exist. The claim, however, is not just about what actually happens during a person’s life. The claim is also about what must be the case in all the different possible situations in which a person exists. According to Person Essentialism, we will remain persons as long as we continue to exist - and things could not be otherwise. A person could not ever fail to be a person without ceasing to exist.1 Against this theory, Eric Olson (1997) contends that the concept of a person is what David Wiggins calls a phase sortal rather than a substance concept.2 Olson claims, To say that something is a person is to tell us something about what it can do, but not to say what it is. To say that something is a person is to say that it can think in a certain way -- that it is rational, that it is ordinarily conscious and aware of itself ... that it is morally accountable for its actions, or the like. But it doesn’t tell us what it is that can think in that way. We might still ask, Is the thing that can think a biological organism? A Cartesian ego or Leibnizian monad? An angel? A machine made of metal and silicon? (1997, p. 32) Lynne Rudder Baker, on the other hand, insists that personhood has ontological significance, where “to say that Fs ... have ontological significance is to say that the addition of ... F is not just a change in something that already exists, but the coming-into-being of a new thing” (2002, p. 378). The idea that personhood has ontological significance in Baker’s sense it is not an uncommon view amongst philosophers. It is tempting to think that a person is a fundamentally different kind of entity than an animal is, even a human animal, and that personhood is not merely a condition that a human animal happens to be in.3
1 If you endorse counterpart modal theory, then interpret this as claiming that no counterpart of any person could fail to be a person. 2 See Wiggins (1967, p. 7). 3 In fact, Olson argues that the most popular view of personal identity -- the Psychological Continuity Account (PCA) -- is committed to the idea that a person ceases to exist when he or she loses the psychological capacities definitive of persons. PCA holds that person x is the same person as person y if and only if x is psychologically continuous with y. Since the requisite type of continuity is typically specified in terms of psychological features that seem definitive of personhood, Olson concludes that proponents of PCA, as the account is usually understood, are committed to Person 43 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
Yet, whatever the appeal of Person Essentialism, I agree with Olson that the thesis is false, and here I aim to prove that it’s false. My line of argument has two main steps. The first step is to highlight the fact that the word ‘person’ is vague, and here I appeal to the work of David DeGrazia (1997, 2006). The second step is to show that the word ‘person’ is vague to such an extent that Person Essentialism is highly dubious. 2. DeGrazia on the Vagueness of ‘Person’ The words ‘human’ and ‘person’ are not equivalent in meaning. The notion of a person implies the presence of certain psychological features and capacities. John Locke, who played a major role in shaping the modern philosophical conception of a person, says that a person is a thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places; which is does only by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking ...4 Related to Locke’s self-awareness requirement is Baker’s idea that a person is a being with a first-person perspective, “a perspective from which one thinks of oneself as an individual facing a world, a subject distinct from everything else” (2000, p. 60). In deciding whether the human fetus counts as a person, Mary Anne Warren (1973) mentions five relevant criteria: consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, the capacity for complex communication, and self-awareness. Harry Frankfurt (1971) requires a very special type of self-motivated activity. Frankfurt claims that persons are distinct from other animals in having freedom of the will, which he describes as the ability to identify the motives causing one to act and either accept or reject those motives. “[I]t is having second-order volitions,” he claims, that is “essential to being a person” (p. 10). The idea of autonomy does seem to be a plausible candidate for personhood, for as Locke notes, ‘person’ is a forensic term, a term that labels an individual as morally accountable for his or her actions (which is why the word ‘person’ is sometimes used to highlight legal and moral agency). While it is easy to cite features commonly associated with personhood, it is not so easy to give a precise definition of the term. One reason for this, DeGrazia notes, is that the word is quite vague. For any one of the person-making features mentioned above, not only does that feature come in different varieties, but each of these varieties admits of many degrees. For example, DeGrazia mentions three different types of self-awareness (bodily, social, and introspective) and notes that “a human dancer has much more [bodily self-awareness] than a frog,” “Vervet monkeys have an impressive degree of social self-awareness, but less than that of a chic Hollywood moviestar,” and “extremely extroverted persons may have a weaker grasp of their motivations and emotional tendencies than do highly reflective persons after successful psychoanalysis,” which makes the latter more introspectively aware than the former (1997, p. 305). The different types of rationality also come in degrees. DeGrazia notes that “a dog who ... intentionally heads toward the dog door as a means to getting outside displays simple instrumental rationality” (2006, p. 42). Dogs, no doubt, can exhibit instrumental rationality more complex than using a door to go out, and of course, the typical human can manage much high degrees of instrumental rationality than the typical dog. Within the human realm itself, the capacity for instrumental reasoning varies greatly from individual to individual (with engineers and CEOs at one end of the spectrum and absent-minded philosophers at the other). Analogous points can be made about the characteristic of autonomy. By ‘autonomy,’ we might mean any one of several different things: acting according to one’s own psychological states, not being subject to external constraints, having the capacity to change one’s higher-order desires, or having one’s actions be causally undetermined. It is easy to see here, too, that each of the different varieties admits of degrees (e.g.,
Essentialism. See Olson (1997, pp. and 1999). 4 From book II, chapter 27, section 11 of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, first published in 1690. 44 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood one might be able to change all, most, many, or very few of one’s higher-order desires, and with varying degrees of control). So the different varieties of the various person-making features admit of degrees. What follows from this fact? It follows that in addition to those individuals who are clearly persons, and those who are clearly non-persons, there is a third class of borderline persons. Within the human realm, one might note infants or the severely mentally disabled as possible examples of borderline persons. Within the non-human realm, DeGrazia mentions the great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans) and whales, including the smaller whales known as dolphins, as candidates for borderline persons (2006, pp. 44-46). The typical members of these non-human species, he notes, “are fairly well-endowed with personhood-relevant properties ...” but “not so well endowed with these traits to qualify clearly as persons” (p. 46). One might question whether these are the best examples or even good examples of borderline persons. Yet, whatever the best examples happen to be, DeGraiza’s point remains. Any plausible candidate for being a person-making feature will come in degrees,5 which means that there are many possible cases in which the question “Is it a person?” does not admit of a definitive “yes” or “no” answer. From the fact that ‘person’ is a vague term, DeGrazia draws some significant conclusions about the moral implications of personhood, claiming that the notion of a person has far less moral significance than is usually thought.6 While he does not explicitly draw any conclusions regarding Person Essentialism itself, it is not difficult to see what conclusions could, and I will argue should be drawn. 3. Implications for Person Essentialism Many sentences we utter regarding objects in the world around us are neither determinately true nor determinately false, simply because the words we use to describe those objects are vague. For instance, there are many individuals for whom the question “Is the person bald?” does not admit of a definitive “yes” or “no” answer. In the case of baldness, it seems, the indeterminacy arises entirely from the word ‘bald’ itself. It seems, in this case, there is no reason to suppose any corresponding indeterminacy in the individual. The vagueness, in this case, seems entirely semantic -- not at all ontological. However, it might be argued that in certain cases, the vagueness of a word mirrors some genuine vagueness in reality, vagueness in the object itself. Suppose, for example, that some predicate ‘F’ denotes the very essence of an object x, and yet ‘F’ is a vague predicate. Since it is not part of one’s essence to have a full head of hair, the gradual onset of baldness need not reflect the gradual demise of the individual himself. However, if ‘F’ denotes the essence of object x, a feature that x must have in order to continue to exist, then it would seem that those cases in which it is indeterminate whether x still exemplifies F are also cases in which it is indeterminate whether x continues to exist. And one might argue that if there are cases where it is indeterminate whether x continues to exist, then we are stuck with genuine ontological as well as semantic vagueness -- vagueness in the object x as well as in the word ‘F.’7 So, then, proponents of Person Essentialism can allow that the word ‘person’ is vague, provided they allow cases in which propositions of the form ‘Person x exists’ are neither determinately true nor determinately false. Perhaps this requires the belief that persons are vague objects; perhaps the category of borderline persons DeGrazia mentions would have to be considered a genuine
5 I say “any plausible candidate,” for there are some implausible suggestions that are quite precise. There is, for example, the conception view of personhood, which tells us that a person begins at the moment of conception. Even if one’s existence did begin at conception, one has not yet even begun to develop any of the psychological capacities usually considered definitive of personhood. There is also the problem that it’s at least logically possible for there to be a person who was not the result of biological reproduction. 6 He thinks it is “unclear whether the concept of personhood has any major role to play in moral ontology and in settling specific moral disputes” (1997, pp. 316-17). 7 I say that it is arguable that this conclusion about vague objects follows. I shall pass no judgment here on whether this line of argument for vague objects is actually a successful one. 45 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood ontological category, a category of individuals who are borderline in themselves. If so, then the oddity of viewing persons as vague objects might count as some evidence against Person Essentialism. But I won’t try to defend any of that here. Let us remain neutral on the issue of whether vague objects exist. The mere fact that the word ‘person’ is vague does not in itself refute Person Essentialism, and if the vagueness of ‘person’ commits Person Essentialists to the belief that persons are vague objects, then let us grant them that belief. Even granting all of that, one might still wonder whether the type and amount of vagueness present is consistent with Person Essentialism. As De Grazia points out, there are three categories of persons to consider: determinate persons, determinate non-persons, and borderline persons. Given the vagueness of ‘person,’ we also have to admit that there is no sharp division between the three categories. This is just a necessary symptom of vagueness. (For any vague predicate ‘F,’ not only is there no precise boundary separating the Fs from the non-Fs, there is also no precise boundary between the clear-cut Fs and the borderline Fs or between the borderline Fs and the definite non-Fs.) There is, however, an additional point to make about the vagueness of ‘person,’ a point that poses a more serious, and I think fatal, threat to Person Essentialism. Not only is there no sharp boundary between borderline persons and either of the other two categories, it also seems that there is no non-arbitrary way of deciding where the range of borderline persons lies. Consider rationality, a prime example of a person-making feature. There are different types of rationality, as DeGrazia notes. So choose your favorite brand of rationality, call it R, and label the various degrees of R, 1 to 100.8 The question arises: how much of R is enough for personhood? Of course, various degrees of the other types of rationality might also be necessary for personhood, not to mention the various degrees of each variety of the other person-making features. But, for simplicity, let us focus just on R for the moment (whichever type of rationality ‘R’ might serve to designate). As far as R-ness is concerned, how much is enough for personhood? We should expect that at many points along the spectrum from 1 to 100, there is clearly enough R present, and we should also expect that at other points there is clearly not enough R. And, certainly, there will be many cases where it is indeterminate whether enough R is present. So the question is: where (from 1 to 100) does this third set of cases, the borderline cases, lie? Given the vagueness, we cannot expect to identify these borderline cases with any great precision. Still, we would like to know, at least roughly, where we might find this gray area, however fuzzy its boundaries happen to be. Somebody might suggest that the R-range that must be crossed to go from clearly not enough R to clearly enough is somewhere between, say, 65 and 72. Let’s imagine that a normal three year-old human toddler has at least 75 degrees of R, clearly enough R for personhood; and suppose that a gorilla, even one clever enough to use sign language, has at most 63 degree of R, clearly not enough R for personhood. And the various borderline cases, suppose, lie between the human child and the language using gorilla. Now, this division does not strike me as implausible. But neither does it seem implausible to think that the clever gorilla is a borderline case, and that one has to go well below 59 degrees of R-type rationality to reach a clear case of non-personhood. So why not suppose that the borderline cases are somewhere between 67% and 55%? We might decide to be even more liberal about the matter. Perhaps we should view the range of borderline cases as somewhere between 55 and 48, so that we can agree with DeGrazia that the sign-language using gorilla is a definitive person,9 and that the ordinary gorilla is a borderline person. The point is that there are many different candidates here, each of which is not implausible, and between which there seems to be no non-arbitrary way to decide.
8 Of course, the numbering of degrees is entirely arbitrary; one can divide more coarsely or one can divide more finely, and either one, in many different ways. 9 See DeGrazia (2006, pp. 46-48). 46 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
This problem does not arise only for rationality. Consider self-awareness. What amount of self-awareness is sufficient for personhood? Of course, there are different varieties of self-awareness. But it seems that for any variety, S, of self-awareness we choose (perhaps S is introspective self-awareness), there is no non-arbitrary way to decide on the range of borderline cases. Consider chimps who are able to groom themselves in mirrors. Do they exhibit a borderline degree of S? Maybe we should say that the degree of S present in those chimps is clearly not sufficient for personhood and that borderline S is nothing less than the amount a normal 4-year old human enjoys. But what about Koko the gorilla? When Koko uses sign language to refer to herself in addition to various objects in her environment, isn’t she exhibiting enough self-awareness for clear-cut personhood? Or is she still well within the borderline range? It is simply not clear how these questions can be decided -- and it seems, not because the answer is too difficult for us to figure out, but because the term ‘person’ is too vague to provide the answers we seek. The different person-making features, De Grazia notes, come in different varieties, each of which admits of degrees. For any variety of any one of these person-making features, we can ask “How much of that is enough for personhood?” Given that all of the different varieties (or at least many of them) admit of degrees, in many cases there will be no definite answer to this question; there will be borderline cases. That’s the point DeGrazia makes. As noted above, however, the presence of borderline cases does not in itself refute Person Essentialism. What proves fatal to Person Essentialism is the stronger point that there is no non-arbitrary way of deciding the range of borderline cases. This was illustrated above with the examples of “R-type” rationality and “S-type” self-awareness. No doubt the worry generalizes to most (if not all) of the other varieties of the different person-making features. So, when all these different factors with all their various degrees are weighed all together in deciding what qualifies as a person, is it likely that the range of borderline persons will be any clearer? That seems highly doubtful, which makes it highly implausible to think that personhood is one of our essential features. (Or if we are essentially persons, it seems we would have to be widely vague objects indeed!) DeGrazia is right to note that “[p]ersonhood-relevant properties do not always go together in nature; there are many creatures who have some of them and not all” (p. 316). It seems that one can have a high degree of rationality, able to solve the most complex logical puzzles, but with his reasoning processes completely programmed, or in a state of total paralysis, thereby lacking any sort of autonomy, and therefore lacking all moral agency. Likewise, one might have self-awareness without any autonomy, perhaps being in a state of total paralysis. It seems that rationality and self-awareness might even come apart. It seems possible for one to be a wiz at abstract reasoning without any concept of oneself distinct from other objects in one’s environment. The fact that these different features don’t always occur together in itself seems reason to think that the questions above – and perhaps in itself is reason to think that the collection is not a unique kind of things. 4. Animalism To cast further doubt on Person Essentialism, it is instructive to compare the theory with other possible claims about our essential properties. The most popular alternative in the philosophical literature is the view that each of us is essentially an animal. This does not mean that every possible person is an animal; it’s at least logically possible for there to be persons who are not animals (disembodied persons perhaps, or persons made of metal and silicon). The claim, instead, is that you and I, who happen to be persons, are essentially animals. With the notion of an animal, or a living organism in general, we are on much firmer footing. Olson (1997) notes that biological “[l]ives are well-individuated events: there is usually a definite answer to the question whether a given particle is or is not caught up in a particular life” (p. 136). He notes that biologists have had a great deal to say about what makes something an organism. “A number of interesting features distinguish bacteria, earthworms, rosebushes, goldfish, human beings, and other living organisms from non-living things” (p. 127), features including teleology, metabolism, and
47 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood organized complexity. 10 It’s probably foolish to think there’s a perfectly precise boundary separating living organisms from dead matter. In most cases of death, I suppose, there are brief moments at which it is indeterminate whether the organism is still alive. Yet, the amount of vagueness here is far less drastic than it is in the case of personhood. While some may have trouble deciding whether the trimester fetus counts as a person, or whether it isn’t a person until it’s a neonate, or a one-year old, there is no question about any of these qualifying as a living organism.11 The lesser degree of vagueness, I suggest, is due to the fact that group of functions considered definitive of a living organism (and an animal in particular) go together in a way that the features associate with personhood do not., which in itself is some evidence to think that being a living organism or an animal is a better candidate for making one the kind of thing one is. I am not suggesting that Animalism is the correct account of our essence. I mention the view only to show what the concept of a person would have to be like if Person Essentialism were to be at all plausible. I could have, instead, used the view that we are essentially material objects.
10 11 In fact, on the basis of the features biologists consider definitive of life, Olson speculates that the human organism comes into existence when the embryo has developed out of the fertilized ovum -- about sixteen days after fertilization (2007, p. 91)). This is a rather precise measurement indeed! 48 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
REFERENCES Baker, L. R. (2000). Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Baker, L. R. (2002). “The Ontological Status of Persons,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 55, 370-393. De Grazia, D. (1997). “Great Apes, Dolphins, and the Concept of Personhood,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, vol. 35, 301-320. De Grazia, D. (2006). “On the Question of Personhood Beyond Homo Sapiens,” in P. Singer (ed.), In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave (Oxford: Blackwell), 40-53. Frankfurt, H. (1971). “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 68, 829-839. Olson, E. (1997). The Human Animal: Personal Identity without Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Olson, E. (1999). “Reply to Lynne Rudder Baker,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 41, 161-166. Warren, M. (1973). “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” The Monist, vol. 57, 43-61. Wiggins, D. (1967). Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity (Oxford: Blackwell).
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ONTOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF FLOURISHING LIVES: A CRITIQUE OF EDITH STEIN
Gooch Augusta Calhoun Community College
When we ask about the flourishing of human life, we are asking about the good, the true, and the beautiful in living. We ask not only about our social situation and our communal bonds. We also ask about what is the metaphysical basis upon which such flourishing exists. Edith Stein is an important resource for exploring such ontological issues. I refer here to her masterwork, Endliches und Ewiges Sein, which she completed before she died at Auschwitz in 1942. An English translation by Kurt F. Reinhardt has been recently (2002) published as Finite and Eternal Being. Many contemporary feminist philosophers recognize Edith Stein as a forerunner of contemporary feminist philosophy. First of all, she was an acknowledged outstanding student of Edmund Husserl. She worked with him on his late work, Ideen. Secondly, she was well-known across Europe and published several books before the Nazi's condemned works by Jewish authors. Thirdly, her work has been influential because of her use of the phenomenological method. Finally, her life has been influential because of her catholic spirituality. Although she worked with Martin Heidegger when they were both students of Husserl, her own philosophical vision is more similar to another of Husserl's students, Dietrich von Hildebrand. Both Edith Stein and von Hildebrand are serious students of philosophia perennis; both have deep respect for human spiritual and communal life; both have built their philosophical ideas within a firm metaphysical tradition; both take seriously community, emotions, and faith. For Edith Stein, the flourishing in human life points our eyes in the direction of Being. Being as such (Seiendes als solches) becomes the font from which goodness and beauty flow. But what accounts for this beauty and goodness that permeates human life? According to Edith Stein, goodness emanates from Being itself, that is, from a transcendental foundation. No naturalistic account of human life is rich enough to explain the layers and depths of finite flourishing. "What is," has the potential to be good, to flourish as human existence, thus, to actualize its ontological potential. Edith Stein blends her early phenomenological training with her later Thomistic influences. She calls this intellectual challenge Auseinandersetzung (EES, xii), "a coming to grips" of ideas. Describing the lebenswelt (the world of lived experiences) and the socio-political world of community, she says these are the unfolding (Entfaltung) of what it means to be human. But, empirical unfolding cannot subsist without a foundation, that is, a structural support and meaning for these events. She uses the metaphysical tools of act and potency, form and matter, essence and existence to provide the needed scaffold of reality. To fully understand what it means to be human - what flourishing means in spiritual dialogue with others, finite and eternal - one needs metaphysical building blocks. Human life flourishes because it unfolds in its essential metaphysical character. (EES vi:2) To explain this metaphysical character, she uses tools inherited from Aristotle and Thomas. These tools include "the seven transcendentals," the basic structures of Being as such. They are: ens, res, aliquid, unum, bonum, verum, pulchrum. --ens refers to being itself
51 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
--res refers to thisness --aliquid refers to being distinct --unum refers to unity These aspects of Being occupy most of her metaphysical reflections - a challenging sequence of deliberations linking the finite and the eternal. My concern in this paper is with the articulation of the metaphysical significance of bonum, verum, and pulchrum. For Edith Stein, these three are a metaphysical link between the finite world and a divine plan. Human life flourishes - because it can. And, it can because of bonum, verum, and pulchrum. Historically, the transcendentals are a peculiar aspect of metaphysics because of their generality and thus, flexibility of interpretation. The purpose of the transcendentals themselves is to focus our attention on actualizing ontological promise. Thus, the depth and splendor of the finite world reveals the ontological structures insofar as it exists. "To be" is not an empty, dry assertion. Being as such has its own intelligible aspects. A being which is, is itself; it is not another; it is unified as it is; it is something; it is knowable, desirable, vibrant. Bonum, verum and pulchrum, historically have been defined narrowly and technically. Edith Stein tries to overcome their technical significance in order to produce a richer interpretation by linking them with her understanding of the creaturely and the divine. Verum refers to the intelligibility of what is real - that is, its link to knowing minds. "Truth" is the logical result of verum, the transcendental foundation of reality itself. Transcendental truth means: being ordained to a knowing spirit, human and divine. Bonum has been historically defined "in relation to." What is good in being as such means related to a will. Bonum is the good as striving toward perfection. Finite reality is necessarily linked to perfection. Pulchrum is not recognized by all as a transcendental characteristic of being as such. As Plotinus says, without beauty, what would become of being. Maritain calls beauty the "radiance" of the transcendentals themselves. Edith Stein emphasizes "what is pleasing" or "what is satisfying" - that is, once reality is known, its Verum/Bonum characteristics are pleasing, thus, beautiful to the spiritual eye. Pulchrum is the result of the mind knowing the true and the will desiring the good. As she says, pulchrum is the elimination of disquietude as it stretches toward divine perfection. (EES 321) The splendor of Being as such is the revelation of the divine in this world. Edith Stein's elaboration of the transcendentals is short. All together, bonum, verum, pulchrum take up less than 50 pages out of 500. Admittedly, she is concerned with many other metaphysical issues: ousia, form, act and potency, essence and existence, the divine and the creaturely. And, historically, from Aquinas to Gredt to Maritain, the transcendentals are interesting but not usually central in a broad metaphysical context. My concern is the philosophical consequence of these limiting abstractions. Edith Stein builds a metaphysics within a very contemporary and phenomenologically sound notion of the unfolding (Entfaltung) of human life in its socio-political context. Her philosophical exploration of the living human experience and its social community is one of the strengths of her overall philosophical work. Seeing the "life" of a human being in its spiritual-psychological layers is a central theme of this unfolding. Yet, in her explanations of the transcendentals, she reverts to formulas which are not consistent with her quest for understanding the meaning of human life. First of all, let us look at verum. In terms of Being as such, the concept verum focuses our eyes on the knowability of reality - not only to the divine mind, but to the creaturely mind. To be human means having that contact and quest for knowledge of what is reality. So, verum is strictly a
52 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood transcendental characteristic of what is. It is not the case that transcendental verum needs to be defined primarily in terms of divine perfection, human striving, or spiritual radiance. It is strictly about the intelligibility of Being as such. It is the transcendental explanation for logical truth, artistic truth, and ultimately, divine truth. But first it is the transcendental character of being as such. Her explanations for bonum and pulchrum become formulaic and obtuse. Her clarity of explanation disappears and her focus shifts from Being as such. The consequence of this shift is the loss of the finite, hence, the loss of contact with human flourishing as being human. These transcendentals become vehicles for "added" concepts which cannot be phenomenologically justified. Thus, her metaphysical vision of finite being unfolding is diminished. If bonum has a transcendental character, then it should mean something about Being as such. Bonum should be the feature of being that highlights its "appealing character." Being is "appealing" as it is in itself. Similar to the argument against suicide: life is precious in itself. As "existing," it is good. Fundamentally, Being is enriched, it is good, it is bonum-filled, its has inherent preciousness. (Edith Stein hints at the relation between bonum and what the phenomenologists call "value," but does not build any explanation of this relation. See an elaboration of value in Dietrich von Hildebrand, Ethics.) An explanation of bonum that focuses on the preciousness or value built in to reality itself seems to be consistent with her vision of unfolding human life. The preciousness of Being is linked with the human kind of being. Ultimately, the human kind has a moral mission - its moral aim is already grounded in the transcendental good. Its overflow of the mystical presence of the divine is the result of the good. Human being flourishes because of a metaphysical framework which includes transcendental good. Phenomenologically, we know about human life from inner access to our experiences and to the patterns we can derive from these. By experience, interior awakenedness, and observation, we can describe activities, emotions, and spiritual bonds. Phenomenologically, I can be aware of my existential interior; I can evaluate my existential inquietude; I can feel empathy for a fellow human being; I can love my beloved; I can have faith in sacred revelation. Metaphysically, we can know human life is finite and fragile. Because human life comes in to being and goes out of being, it is clearly finite. Because human beings live within uncontrolled natural and social events, life is fragile. As a subject, I have freewill to make decisions. As an object, I am overwhelmed by reality around me. I have some control of determinations within my nature, but no control outside my personal and social influence. To be finite means: I am a speck in the universe. To unfold the good and the beautiful means: I am fundamentally linked to the eternal. Theologically, we can say with Augustine that a human being is not fully itself till it returns to its spiritual home. We can believe that our human nature can achieve some perfection in its teleological direction. We can affirm its bond to the divine and to the splendor of the sacred. We can interpret various theological visions as giving us the true path of the human spirit. We can even construct weighty, intricate, ingenuous explanations for human flourishing in the eyes of the divine. But, the transcendentals do not provide any of these kinds of explanations. Transcendentals do not yield phenomenological insight into our interior life. Transcendentals do not solidify our understanding of teleological perfection. Transcendentals certainly do not help us conceptualize a revelelation of the divine. At most, the transcendentals provide a strong argument for the necessity of ontological foundations for the empirical world. Transcendentals are categories of Being as such. In and of themselves, transcendentals do not add to our awareness of the human interior drama, to our human moral purpose, nor to our spiritual bond with the divine. By using the transcendentals in these ways, Edith Stein diminishes her own vision of what it means to be human. To be human means awakenedness to the eternal - but not because transcendental beauty defines the splendor of divine perfection. To say this overlooks the goodness and beauty of
53 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood the finite world as it is. Edith Stein uses the example of a blind person - that is, an imperfection of being human. But, the child who is blind, still sees with her heart and mind. The mother still loves and protects her blind child. The teacher compassionately builds her lesson appropriate for her blind student. These finite moments are good and beautiful - not lacking! The loved child is beautiful; the loving mother is beautiful; the caring teacher is beautiful. This is the philosophical way to see the character of transcendental goodness and beauty: in their embodiment. Being reveals its own light through the finite. Ultimately, it is through the finite light that the mystic sees the divine. It is not because the transcendentals can be defined in terms of divine will, knowing mind, or excellence of perfection. It is because the finite radiates with the eternal in its fragile finitude. In the sense that philosophy has intellectual integrity, the transcendentals have a very limited purpose in metaphysics. In the sense that Edith Stein seeks to unite the divine and the creaturely, I can understand her combining transcendentals with non-metaphysical issues. More importantly, though, the fullest sense of divine goodness and beauty is not through the transcendentals themselves. Goodness transcendentally is not about striving, but the preciousness of finite being. Beauty transcendentally is not about divine perfection, but about finite being embodied in this world. It is through looking at the human condition in its interior awakenedness, in its moral aspirations, in its communal dialogue, and in its socio-political situation that the luminous divine overflows. Transcendental bonum refers to metaphysical preciousness built in to reality, especially its human presence: the living awakenedness of human consciousness; the individual movement of the heart; the human artist's vision; the delicate kiss; the inspiring word; the spiritual gesture - these fleeting moments of human experience are the ways that the divine presence is revealed. Similarly with transcendental beauty: it is not a static formula of divine perfection, divine plan, or divine overflow. The mystically sensitive individual sees the finite mystery built in, not the splendor of transcendental perfection beneath. It is just the opposite of her explanation: transcendental beauty is the metaphysical foundation of the radiant beauty of the finite. It is not the transcendental that reveals the divine. It is the finite, the living, the creaturely wherein the splendor is seen with the eyes, felt with the heart, known with the mind, spoken with the word. Without the embodiment of the finite, the transcendental would unfold nothing. Flourishing means: the human, the finite, the embodied world unfolds its reality, an empirical reality with a transcendental structure. The transcendentals are our academic way to explain, but they are not the metaphysical center of unfolding. To summarize: Edith Stein is an important voice in contemporary philosophy for two specific reasons. She emphasizes the socio-political situation of the individual with its descriptive task of inner life. She recognizes the need for ontological structures to make sense of a naturalistic world ordained beyond the empirical. I contend that it is important to distinguish tools for describing our contingent world from tools for describing an ontological structure of Being as such. This way, Edith Stein can unfold a vision of ordination of being to eternity.
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Bibliography Augustine, Confessions tr. E. B. Pusey (London & N. Y.: Everyman's). Baseheart, Mary (1997), Person in the World (Dordrecht: Kluwer). Gredt, Joseph (1929), Elementa Philosophiae 2 vols., 5th ed. (Freiburg: Herder). Kaminski, S., eds. (1980), Theory of Being to Understand Reality (Lublin: Catholic University). Maritain, Jacques (1953), Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (New York: New American Library). Plotinus, The Enneads [tr. Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page 1930] (New York: LP Classic Reprint Series). Reinhardt, Kurt F. (1944), A Realistic Philosophy [2nd ed. 1962] (New York: Frederick Unger). Reinhardt, Kurt F., tr. (2002) Finite and Eternal Being [by Edith Stein Endliches und Ewiges Sein] (Washington, D.C.: ICS). Stein, Edith (ph. 1950), Endliches und Ewiges Sein: Versuch einer Aufsteigs zum Sinn des Seins (Louvain: Nauwelaerts, 1950; Freiburg: Herder, 1986 [as vol II Edith Stein Werke]). Thomas, Aquinas, De Ente et Essentia [tr. Armand Maurer 1949], (Toronto: Institute of Medieval Studies). Von Hildebrand, Dietrich (1953), Ethics (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press).
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Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
WHAT WAS I THINKING? THE NEED FOR TRANSCENDENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Deborah K. Heikes Department of Philosophy University of Alabama in Huntsville
Consciousness has at least two aspects. First is the obvious and uncontroversial aspect as a naturalizable object of scientific investigation. Second is the much more problematic and controversial transcendental aspect. That which is transcendental is non-empirical but establishes the possibility of experience, and I believe the possibility of consciousness depends on features that go beyond what we can empirically articulate. Thus, while I do not discount the significance of the naturalizable aspects of consciousness, I do argue that a fully naturalized consciousness is insufficient to explain the phenomenon of consciousness in its entirety. We need not weld ourselves specifically to a Cartesian cogito or Kant’s transcendental apperception, but philosophers should not dismiss the explanatory significance of the transcendental elements of consciousness. Unfortunately, “consciousness” is a term lacking a clear definition, a situation probably made much worse by the fact that consciousness is an incredibly rich phenomenon that functions at many levels and across various species. My concern here is with consciousness not as bare awareness but more broadly as a rational awareness of the world. I address consciousness insofar as we are aware of it and its various states. However much scientific investigations are necessary for a complete account of consciousness, naturalism on its own falls short both in its treatment of the structural framework and unity of the rationally conscious mind. What consciousness is may be a matter of dispute, but that there is consciousness is unassailable. The issue here is why the empirical arguments of naturalism fail to ground the epistemic framework and mental unity of consciousness. In defense of my claim that consciousness has a transcendental aspect, I begin with a reductio argument. Assume for a moment that consciousness is indeed thoroughly empirical or phenomenal, both in its underlying nature and in our access to it. Assume that our only understanding of consciousness (at least at the level of awareness) is through the individual sights, sounds, feelings, or experiences of which we are aware. The logical implication of holding this view is that our knowledge of consciousness must be based on empirical methods of investigation and argument. And, of course, this is one of the central tenants of those who claim consciousness is fully naturalizable. Scientific observations, including those concerning consciousness, are designed to serve as data for some hypothesis. But not just any sort of observation gets to count as data. Observations must be intersubjectively verifiable and must be organized according to accepted methods.1 In most areas of knowledge, but most strongly in science, how things are for me, within my conscious experience, must be subjected to rigorous standards before counting as an objective observation. What is clear, especially in cases of scientific observation, is that such objectivity is generally provided by communal agreement and standards.2 Scientists accept certain sorts of observations as data relevant to supporting a hypothesis while rejecting other sorts of observations. In order to confirm the
1The problem of the objectivity of observation is obviously the sort of problem Logical Positivists ran into while attempting to construct observation sentences. A more recent discussion of this problem can be found in Code and Longino. 2See Moser, Putnam, and Nelson. 57 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood objectivity of our observations, we typically appeal to certain social criteria such as intersubjective standards or communal agreement as the discriminator between so-called subjective and objective observation. For example, if we all see a blue cup on the table, my reported observation of the cup is, evidently, objective. However, if I am the only one who sees the ghost in the corner, this experience is not deemed objective and is not allowed to count as good scientific data. As a matter of science, I may legitimately use my observation of the blue cup but not my observation of the ghost in the corner. The rules that allow the cup-observation to count as objective and rules out the ghost-observation are complex, but broadly speaking they rely on communal agreement, or the lack thereof.3 The result is that our shared scientific commitment to certain standards of objective observation eliminates much of the subjectivity of the individual. So what about our observations of consciousness? With respect to phenomenal consciousness and its contents, observation is no less subject to the idiosyncrasies of physical and psychological conditions. Furthermore, such observations are also subject to standards of objectivity, but here the problem is more pronounced since there is less opportunity for communal agreement. In the case of my seeing a ghost, others can explain that no one else sees a ghost and can easily dispute the authority of my experience. However, that I have such an experience is more problematic. The naturalist has an epistemic roadblock to objective observations of consciousness. For example, after eating with friends, I announce that I am quite hungry. They look at me incredulously since they just saw me eat a full meal, but, I insist that I am, in fact, still feeling hunger. There are no social criteria for observation that will eliminate the subjectivity here. After all, consciousness of one’s own mental states is entirely subjective. And while the naturalist will not dispute the subjectivity of conscious states of awareness, the increased distance from the social constraints on subjectivity is significant. The realm of consciousness begins to reduce to how things appear to me, from my perspective. While the veracity of my conscious states may be questioned, the contents of my consciousness are what I take them to be and are exhausted by the empirical associations I make among them.4 The naturalist now has an epistemic quandary. In order for my beliefs to count as knowledge, it cannot be entirely up to me how I arrange data presented through my senses or how I formulate judgments based on this data. I cannot be credited with knowledge if I hear blowing wind and infer a ghost is present. Conscious states of awareness are not epistemically neutral. They provided the contents of consciousness, and it is the contents of consciousness that guide us through the world. As active states that help us navigate our world, they cannot be simply what we take them to be. Instead, conscious cognition must conform to certain standards, regardless of where these standards originate. So how can a naturalist account for these standards? If they are purely empirical, as the naturalist maintains, if they emerge solely from what we agree upon as objective or “rational,” then the only normative standards available for what one believes about consciousness (or any other topic of cognition) will be communal assent. Communal assent will take us part of the way in providing an epistemic justification for our beliefs about consciousness, but it cannot overcome the possibility of global bias or, to put it differently, of “rubber-stamping” what we already believe. In the realm of consciousness studies, for example, we can articulate the various explanations of consciousness, of standards of objectivity, and of warranted belief. What we cannot articulate from a naturalist perspective is whether any of these views is correct in any substantive way. That is, outside of the empirically agreed upon criteria for how we should approach the study of consciousness, we have no way of claiming whether these are the criteria we ought to use. The threat here is that we may not recognize our own biases. Even more threatening is the fact that in reality there is much more disagreement than there is agreement about the nature of consciousness. I
3A more complicated story can be told here, but it would be more appropriate to discussions of justification within philosophy of science. For part of the more complicated story see Quine and Nelson. 4See Hume, 10-13 and 251-263. 58 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood take as a fundamental premise that not all views are equal and not all connections among phenomenal experience yield knowledge. Merely having a theory of consciousness does not guarantee epistemic worth. There must be some ground for evaluation. How can we possibly determine which views are better or worse accounts if each discipline has its own internal standards and methods for investigation? If consciousness is thoroughly empirical, that is, if the connections among cognitive states are governed by merely empirical associations, there is no way to go beyond community agreement. There is nothing else to which we can appeal. Transcendental arguments concerning consciousness may have their difficulties, but they need not be content with consciousness being either individually or communally subjective. The difficulty of epistemic grounding attaches to all areas of naturalistic inquiry. But consciousness raises a further metaphysical difficulty that goes beyond the problem of epistemic grounding, namely, unity. Phenomenal experience is segmented, sequential, and largely accidental: having one set of experiences rather than another requires only my being in a certain place at a certain time. This is entirely contingent. However, that I am consciously aware of the world is not contingent in this way. As Kant shows us, our theories of consciousness must show how consciousness persists and is unified across all possible experiences. 5 The result of standard Humean arguments concerning the mind show the empirical, phenomenal nature of consciousness is disunified.6 While it may in principle be possible to be aware of some kind of unity to my own consciousness, there are gaps in experience. Phenomenally, we experience moments of thought, belief, desire, feeling, and so on, but we have no experience of what holds the phenomenal elements together. If the conscious subject were merely a phenomenal subject, this ability to link all my thoughts together within a mental unity is difficult to explain for the phenomenal self (i.e., the self which is an object of empirical knowledge) has no single state that is constant across all of its various representations or cognitive states. In addition, my phenomenal awareness of the world is, in many instances, quite different from the phenomenal awareness others have of the world. The connections that I draw among my experiences are often different from the connections you draw. My empirical consciousness does have a subjective validity that grounds my experience, whether it be of blue cups or ghosts. Yet because there are differences among the phenomena we experience and the connections we draw among those phenomena, empirical consciousness is not objective. There is no normative element in phenomenal consciousness that dictates how I should represent the world. What the empirical subject allows is a subjective awareness of one's representations in a way that acknowledges the phenomenological character of consciousness and the subjective nature of experience. It acknowledges that there is something it is like to be me. Nonetheless, consciousness not only has contents, it is also responsible for actually unifying them into a coherent experience.7 Phenomenal states of consciousness are the content, not the subject, of awareness. Unity of consciousness cannot be established empirically, but it is a necessary precondition for the possibility of rational thought. Of course, an immediate objection is this: why can the brain not provide for mental unity?8 That the brain is necessary is hardly disputable. Nonetheless, while the experiencing of phenomena and the linking and synthesizing of mental representations certainly occurs in the brain, merely having a brain is not sufficient to assure that one makes sense of experience. The data about the world that the brain takes in through sensation is not self-interpreting or determinate. However, experience is a product of a mental synthesis at several levels of organization. Each level involves various concepts that can be applied differently, and our representations and thoughts about the world are not clearly determined by the brain. Many philosophers offer promissory notes claiming that once we
5 This is something Kant understood quite clearly in his response to Hume. See The Critique of Pure Reason, A119-123. 6 Hume 204, 635-36. 7 For an argument of this points see Kant, A116-117 and B131-135. 8 For more on the unity of consciousness and why the brain does not provide for this unity, see von der Malsburg. 59 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood understand the brain, we will understand consciousness, but in these promissory notes, there is nothing to suggest that they will be cashed out. Even if we are one day able to provide a complete map of the brain that explains cognitive synthesis and our consciousness of it in purely mechanistic terms, such explanations will be complex and unwieldy. Surely we would still need to rely on the same folk psychological explanations we now utilize. While we certainly cannot ignore the role of brain states and the neural correlates of consciousness, one of the key premises of this paper is that consciousness is not exhausted by its neural correlates. Part of my reason for this claim lies in the epistemological and metaphysical difficulties I have highlighted. More broadly, however, I believe that non-scientific forms of discourse are essential to understanding human values, emotions, goals, and pursuits. Consciousness is at the heart of human existence, and science is not the only (or even the best) tool for understanding every aspect of human existence. As Mohanty states in the introduction to his book defending transcendental philosophy: “Transcendental philosophy seeks an understanding of the broad categorical features of our experience and of the world in terms of the structure of (human) subjectivity which is taken as the ultimate underlying principle, the source of all structurings and orderings, of meanings and interpretations.”9 The broad feature under consideration here is human consciousness in the form of cognition and our awareness of it. While empirical studies of the brain may explain the facts of consciousness, it cannot explain the meaning of consciousness. To explain consciousness in toto, we must include a more substantive understanding of the concept—and that is the value of transcendental consciousness. Take a similar case of a naturalizable object, i.e., water. There is no single concept of or level of explanation that exhausts our concept of “water.” We know a great deal about the chemical and atomic makeup of H2O, but when I want to know, for example, if the water before me is safe to drink, a description of the atomic or quantum properties of the water will not help me. I am asking for a higher-level explanation, although this explanation will still be scientific. Unlike the case of water, consciousness has a level of explanation that cannot be brought completely under the heading of “science.” This is the level concerning the meaning and significance of consciousness. We human beings do not only care about the neural correlates of consciousness (in fact, I venture to guess that very few humans care about this aspect of consciousness). We also care quite deeply about what consciousness means for our lives in a social, moral, and spiritual world. Such issues cannot be resolved by explaining the mechanism of consciousness. To return to the issue of mental unity, while it is certainly true that my awareness of my own mind and its mental states is constantly shifting and changing, I do not experience these states as disjointed. I may have no particular experience of some ultimate unity of my mind; however, I unquestioningly assume this unity for I do experience the connections among my cognitive and emotive states of mind. In fact, I must assume such unity. To fail to do so is to engage in a “crazy making” kind of behavior. I cannot effectively function in the world if I fail to assume a mental unity that goes beyond what I can explain phenomenologically. In other words, conscious thought requires a psychological unity, and while the brain allows for a material unity, it is not at all clear that a material unity is sufficient to explain the psychological unity of the conscious mind. Even if we thoroughly understood the mechanisms of the brain, we would not have an account of the cognitive contents of consciousness and how they hold together in a way that allows us to engage with the world with which we humans must cope. Consciousness must be understood as a part of beings embodied and engaged with the world. Of course, if what we mean by consciousness is mere awareness, the conditions for consciousness are quite minimal, and there is little need for any transcendental arguments regarding is preconditions. When we link consciousness to rational, self-aware beings who have an ability to produce highly structured
9Mohanty, xvii. 60 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood thoughts and complex interactions with both a material and social world, the need for transcendental arguments becomes greater. The capacity for conscious thought cannot be separated from the holistic activity of consciousness. Studies that focus simply on the mechanism of the brain cannot entirely explain this activity, particularly the psychological elements. Mental content is formed with purpose, and much of this content results from an engagement with a highly complex material and social world. The mental representations and beliefs that we synthesize are intended to help us organize our experience so that we can negotiate the symbolically rich and diverse world in which we live. The phenomenal aspects of consciousness and their active engagement in the material and social world are possible due precisely to the unifying presence of transcendental consciousness. We may study the particular aspects of consciousness, or we may study its unity: neither can be studied without assuming the other. This interdependence is where the interaction of the dual aspects of consciousness is best investigated. The phenomenal aspect of consciousness refers to the individually determined contents of experiences. These are evidence of my relation to the world “out there.” The transcendental aspect of consciousness, on the other hand, refers to the underlying conditions and capacities, the foundational structures that makes experience possible at all. It guarantees objectivity in the structure of phenomenal elements of consciousness. Conscious states require both empirical content and the structural apparatus to order that content. In the absence of either its phenomenal aspect or its transcendental aspect, consciousness cannot occur. And any view that fails to take into account the full range of consciousness will fail at providing a satisfactory explanation of consciousness. The advantage of transcendental consciousness is that while it does not discount or diminish the significance of consciousness as a natural phenomenon, it provides a framework for understanding both the subjective and objective elements of consciousness and its contents. In every instance of intentional, phenomenal consciousness, I must be capable of regarding that situation as a situation for me. Rational consciousness must be more than phenomenal and the principles or rules governing cognition must be more than social constraints. Surely, I make numerous subjective connections among my phenomenal representations, but in the absence of some further ground for these epistemic relations, the concept of objectivity reduces to little more than what we communally agree upon as our epistemic goals, standards, and practices. The problem is that if epistemic justification amounts to what we agree upon, there is a truly slippery slope to an extreme relativism. Transcendental consciousness can offer a more objective epistemic ground by unifying mental content and by specifying the general conditions that must be met in how this content is unified. Fully rational consciousness (as opposed to mere awareness) cannot occur in the absence of mental unity, nor can it occur in the absence of some overarching constraints on how consciousness operates. What should be noted here is that a commitment to transcendental consciousness need not beg the mind/body question. We can be ontologically neutral with respect to what instantiates transcendental consciousness. What we cannot be neutral about is that there must be a unified, objective grounding for the empirical aspects of cognition; that is, there must be something to provide the structure within which subjective aspects of consciousness are intelligible. By focusing on the actual activity of cognition and the conscious awareness that gives rise to it, the phenomenal and transcendental emerge as mutually necessary to account for the full range of its subjective and objective contents, regardless of what the further details of consciousness turn out to be.
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Bibliography Code, Lorraine (1993), “Taking Subjectivity into Account,” Feminist Epistemologies, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge), pp. 15-48. Kant, Immanuel (1965), Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin’s Press). Longino, Helen (1993), “Essential Tensions—Phase Two: Feminist, Philosophical, and Social Studies of Science,” A Mind of One’s Own, ed. Louise M. Antony and Charlotte Witt. Boulder (Colorado: Westveiw Press), pp. 185-225. Heikes, Deborah (2004), “The Bias Paradox: Why It’s Not Just for Feminists Anymore,” Synthese 138: 3. - (2003), “Schema, Language, and Two Problems of Content,” Journal of Mind and Behavior, 24: 2. Hume, David (1978), A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Mohanty, J.N. (1985), The Possibility of Transcendental Philosophy (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers). Moser, Paul (1993), Philosophy After Objectivity: Making Sense in Perspective (New York: Oxford UP). Nelson, Lynn, (1993) “Epistemological Communities,” Feminist Epistemologies, ed., Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge), pp. 121-53. Pippen, Robert (1987), “Kant on the Spontaneity of Mind,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 17, pp. 449-476. Putnam, Hilary (1981), Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge UP). Quine, W.V.O. (1960), Word and Object (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press). Von der Malsburg (1997). “The Coherence Definition of Consciousness,” Cognition, Computation, and Consciousness, ed. Maso Ito, Xasushi Miyashita, and Edmund T. Rolls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 193-204. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1958), Philosophical Investigations, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.).
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INTERIORITÀ ESTATICA, AMORE, COMUNICAZIONE SVOLGIMENTI DEL PERSONALISMO ONTOLOGICO (*)
Possenti Vittorio Università di Venezia
E’ sempre arduo avere a che fare con l’esistenza: questa regola vale anche per il filosofo, tentato dal volgersi solo al pensiero astratto allontanandosi dall’essere reale. Aprendo gli occhi dinanzi all’esistenza, l’uomo ne incontra molte forme. Presto si accorge che la più alta ed enigmatica è l’esistenza della persona, dove la riflessione incontra un nucleo inesauribile. In certo modo bisogna trasferire nella persona il centro della filosofia, perché là si trova un nucleo sempre nuovo di vita, libertà ed azione; perché là sta una cifra essenziale dell’essere. Pensare l’essere e pensare la persona si collocano sullo stesso asse per un duplice fondamentale motivo: il livello più alto dell’esistenza è l’esistenza in forma personale, nel senso che la persona costituisce l’essere più perfettamente essente (la persona è quanto di più perfetto si trovi nell’esistenza, scrive Tommaso d’Aquino); la persona esiste e non può che esistere se non nella forma della conoscenza, comprensione e apertura all’essere. Con questi assunti, che si collocano alla base del Principio-persona, non intendiamo sostenere che la metafisica della persona costituisca un terzo paradigma ontologico accanto a quello dell’Uno e a quello dell’Essere, poiché la persona è nell’essere e ne costituisce la più alta concretizzazione. Il Principio-persona non fa che portare a compimento il paradigma della metafisica dell’essere. Interiorità e amore Quale soggetto sostanziale di natura spirituale, dotato d’intelligenza, libertà, autocoscienza ed interiorità, la persona vive nell’apertura alla totalità dell’essere, secondo una proprietà radicale che è la capacità dell’anima (mente e volontà) di porsi in rapporto intenzionale con tutte le cose. Essa si presenta soprattutto come un centro di unificazione dinamica che procede dall’interno, un’unità che dura nel tempo al di sotto dei flussi psicologici e dello sparpagliamento dell’io: questa è l’interiorità, ossia la capacità di ‘tenersi in mano’, di ritornare su se stessi attraverso un’autoriflessione compiuta e di scendere in se stessi possedendosi attraverso un’azione immanente. In virtù del privilegio dell’interiorità (concetto che non va inteso in senso primariamente spiritualistico ma ontologico), l’io non è principalmente determinato dall’esterno ma si determina a partire da se stesso, rispondendo attivamente agli stimoli esterni e operando scelte. L’interiorità non possiede una portata soltanto psicologica avente a che fare con la coscienza e la memoria; costituisce una modalità d’essere e una “rivelazione” del fatto che, non essendo tutto in superficie secondo estensione e durata, esiste la dimensione del profondo e dell’intimo. Con la persona viene a manifestazione una profondità di ciò che è individuale ben maggiore di quella riscontrabile negli individui esclusivamente materiali: questi non possiedono alcuna interiorità, la persona sì, e ciò rivela un nuovo volto dell’essere. Qui inizia un cammino mai finito verso l’unità delle manifestazioni della persona (esperienza che la sapienza indiana chiama col termine ‘advaita’): raggiungere nei registri psicologico, affettivo, dell’agire e del pensare quell’unità che l’uomo possiede in radice, che gli è già data e che consiste nell’unità ontologica del suo atto d’essere. L’uomo deve diventare (psicologicamente, moralmente) quello che è già ontologicamente. Interiorità significa altresì, permanendo in se stessi, esistere dinanzi all’altro e attivare l’esteriorità della relazione con lui. Senza forzature si può sostenere che la relazione interpersonale è incontro 63 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood nell’esteriorità di due interiorità. Raggiungere l’interiorità è per ogni uomo tornare verso il centro di se stessi, operando un controesodo o un ‘controesilio’. Ogni persona è in esilio da se stessa. E’ un Ulisse che cerca costantemente il sentiero verso il proprio paese natale, che è in cammino verso Itaca, il proprio luogo interiore. Quando il viaggio ha successo, l’io riposa nel proprio centro, di cui durante il tempo anteriore conosce qualcosa nei simboli, nei segni, negli eventi del proprio esistere. Itaca come manifestazione del centro è il luogo dove l’io può incontrare la Realtà Ultima. In quanto la persona sussiste in una natura intellettuale, essa ha nello spirito la sua propria radice. Vivendo della vita dell’anima, la persona si espande in azioni e manifestazioni: quali sono quelle che più radicalmente la denotano, che costituiscono con maggior diritto i segni della persona (signa personae)? Tra gli atti della persona i più gelosamente propri sono il conoscere e l’amare: con il primo il soggetto personale può portare in se stesso, nel fuoco dell’identità intenzionale tra conoscente e conosciuto, la totalità dell’essere ossia l’Intero; col secondo egli esce ekstaticamente verso l’oggetto amato per riposarvi. L’amore compiuto muove dalla persona e va verso le persone. Poiché la persona è capace di amore, e l’amore ne è la manifestazione più immediata, universale e transculturale, il sostare presso le forme dell’amore può rivelare la vita propria della persona, forse più di altre sue manifestazioni quali il linguaggio, l’azione sociale, l’arte, la fabbrilità e la tecnica. La più alta forma di realizzazione della persona si istituisce nell’amore, perché esso va non solo o principalmente a idee o oggetti universali ma a persone singole: non si può amare en masse, né essere persona en masse. L’essere persona in quanto determinazione del singolo può costituire nell’amore l’altro come il proprio tutto e donarsi a lui. Si può donare ciò che non si possiede? L’esistere della persona nel modo del dono esige prioritariamente l’autounificazione dell’interno, l’autopossesso e l’apertura all’altro. Sono qui in gioco qualificazioni più alte del solo richiamo alla prassi trasformatrice degli oggetti mondani, cui una corrente notevole del pensiero moderno ha voluto ricondurre l’esistenza personale, lasciando nell’ombra i suoi atti più radicali. Interiorità ekstatica: esistere dinanzi a qualcuno Definita dall’amore, l’interiorità personale è “ekstatica”. Mediante le forme dell’amore la persona esce da se stessa verso l’alterità, perché l’amore decentra, delocalizza. Questo accade in prima battuta tanto nel bell’amore come nell’amore egoista. Nell’estasi di amore il soggetto “esce” verso la cosa amata, per amarla di un amore di dilezione e rimanere presso di lei nel primo caso, d’un amore rapace e finalizzato solo a se stesso che esce sì da sé per andare verso l’altro, ma con lo scopo di ritornare a se stessi, nel secondo caso. Che l’amore produca l’estasi (ekstasis, da existemi) significa che fa uscire la persona da se stessa per cercare la similitudine e l’unione con l’amato. Si dà dunque un’essenza ekstatica della persona in cui questa, a partire dalla sua esistenza quale atto d’essere radicale dell’anima, esce da se stessa per vivere e dimorare con e nell’amato. È la dialettica d’amore (eros e/o agape), sia esso attratto verso il Bene e il Bello forse impersonali come nel Simposio platonico, al vertice della scala ascendente cui Socrate è incamminato da Diotima, oppure dal volto dell’Altro come nella filosofia di Lévinas. Quale dei due movimenti è più originario: l’ascesa verso la suprema contemplazione dell’oggetto immenso (il Bene e il Bello), o l’appello che scaturisce dal volto dell’Altro e che accende il desiderio dell’Altro? “Prima dell’Eros c’è stato il Volto; e l’Eros stesso è possibile solo tra volti”, scrive Lévinas (1), con un asserto in cui il platonismo è ad un tempo ridimensionato e oltrepassato verso l’ultima vetta dell’esperienza d’amore, in cui eros è infine trasceso in agape. Nella meditazione sulla persona non può mancare il riferimento essenziale al volto, a quello dell’altro: esistere è esistere dinanzi a qualcuno; esistere in maniera personale è esistere dinanzi al volto dell’altro. Di questa esistenza massimamente personale la Bibbia ci offre esempi in abbondanza, in specie nella forma dell’esistere dinanzi a Dio nella chiamata. Mosé è chiamato e sta dinanzi a Dio; pure Samuele è chiamato; Elia nell’Horeb vede Dio. Diciamo che l’uomo vive in una relazione io-tu, non solo io-es, per cui la vita reale è incontro, relazione fra uomo e uomo prima che col mondo. Il nesso io-es designa l’ambito dell’esperienza degli oggetti che restano estrinseci 64 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood all’uomo, il quale anela ad una relazione vitale con persone. Soltanto nel rapporto col tu l’uomo diventa un io, e nel tu è compreso quello assoluto: “Le linee delle relazioni, prolungate, si intersecano nell’eterno Tu, che per la propria natura non può diventare Es” (2). Completando forse Lévinas, occorre aggiungere: l’eros è universalmente possibile tra i volti se si presuppone agape. Pur non escludendo eros, la relazione personale umana riuscita ha bisogno di agape. Nella sempre nuova meraviglia della maternità agape presiede al rapporto tra la Madre e il Figlio. L’elemento originario è che eros e agape non si rapportano in ugual maniera all’altro e al suo volto. Nell’uscita ekstatica dell’interiorità verso l’esteriorità sotto la spinta di eros, la persona muove verso ciò che ha già valore, bene e bellezza e che perciò attrae: è il risplendere di un volto carico di fascino e di un oggetto desiderato che dà l’avvio alla dialettica di eros e al movimento del desiderio. Ma quando il volto dell’altro è povero, debole, addirittura sfigurato e senza nulla di desiderabile? Qui eros è impotente e tace; si ritrae, distoglie lo sguardo, lasciando il campo ad agape. Il movimento supremo di agape, di quella divina e di quella partecipata dell’uomo nella charitas, non è polarizzato dal risplendere di valore o bellezza già esistenti, ma li crea e li diffonde negli esseri e nelle cose. Con perfetta misura Tommaso d’Aquino e Lutero hanno espresso la legge dell’amore agapico. “Amor Dei est infundens et creans bonitatem in rebus”; a queste parole dell’Aquinate fa eco Lutero: “Amor Dei non invenit sed creat suum diligibile, amor hominis fit a suo diligibili. Et iste est amor crucis ex cruce natus, qui illuc sese transfert, non ubi invenit bonum quo fruatur, sed ubi bonum conferat malo et egenoˮ (3). Un volto nuovo di agape si svela a chi medita sulla differenza che intercorre tra l’esistere per qualcuno e l’esistere con qualcuno. Noi esistiamo per qualcuno se ci impegniamo per lui, lo aiutiamo, difendiamo la sua causa. Questo è necessario, ma a un livello più radicale spesso gli uomini hanno bisogno, più che di qualcuno che esista per loro, di qualcuno che esista con loro. Possiamo infatti esistere per qualcuno senza riuscire ad entrare in reale comunicazione intima con lui. Su queste sensibili frontiere si manifesta la duplice forma dell’amore di dilezione, che è, sì, amore di donazione e perfino di sacrificio in favore di qualcuno, ma a un livello più profondo e radicale è amore che si svela e si dona nel rapporto io-tu e nel dialogo allo scoperto, nella comunione delle due soggettività. Anche questo secondo amore, più raro e più decisivo del primo, e di cui gli uomini hanno speciale bisogno, rintraccia la propria sorgente in Dio, il quale ama gli uomini di un amore di dilezione tanto inviando l’Unigenito come vittima di espiazione per l’uomo, quanto rivelando all’uomo qualcosa della propria vita intima e chiamandolo al dialogo. Senza scindere l’atto di un amore indiviso, possiamo dire che nel primo caso Dio esiste per l’uomo, nell’altro che esiste con lui. Digressione su eros e agape. L’italiano, che pur si pone come una delle lingue più ricche che esistano, a proposito del termine ‘amore’ manifesta una povertà lessicale notevole. Disponiamo quasi solo di questo termine per significare una grande latitudine di significati a scapito della pregnanza e precisione (esiste anche il termine ‘dilezione’, ma è di uso sempre più rarefatto). Ricorriamo ad ‘amore’ tanto per designare l’amore di Dio quanto per dire ‘facciamo l’amore’ nel senso più banale e corrente del termine. Dunque è necessario procedere fin dall’inizio a una purificazione linguistica e concettuale: in questo ci vengono in aiuto i termini latini e greci, che manifestano una maggiore ricchezza. I greci disponevano di eros e agape, i latini di charitas o dilectio e amor. Tuttavia la cultura ellenistica impiegava assai poco agape, per cui furono gli autori del Nuovo Testamento a dover ‘reinventare’ un termine imprimendogli un nuovo significato per dire l’assoluta novità dell’amore divino che si effonde sugli uomini, un amore che non è eros. Il Dio dei filosofi greci è amato e desiderato da tutte le cose, ma se ne sta in sé e non ama altri che se stesso perché per il Greco amare significa desiderare, aver bisogno, dipendere, ed è perciò l’atto proprio del non-perfetto, di colui che manca di qualcosa. La reinvenzione del termine ‘agape’ da nessuna parte appare con tanta chiarezza come nella Prima lettera di Giovanni, dove ad indicare l’amore di dilezione o agapico manifestato da Dio per l’uomo 65 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood si legge secondo la traduzione della Vulgata: “Ipse prior dilexit nos” (4,10), non “Ipse prior amavit nos”. Dobbiamo perciò distinguere – pena l'incomprensione del problema – tra amore di desiderio e amore di carità o di dilezione. Eros, in un senso; agape, nell’altro. Per intenderci e procedere a fissare i concetti, occorre chiarire la differenza che intercorre tra eros e agape, tra amore di desiderio e amore di carità. Le loro dinamiche sono diverse ed entrambe legittime: non si tratta di squalificare una delle due forme di amore. Quando noi amiamo qualcuno o qualcosa di un amore di desiderio/eros, partiamo dall’esperienza di una privazione che è in noi: manchiamo di qualcosa (persona e/o oggetto) e questa carenza mette in moto la dialettica del desiderio che muove verso il possesso e la fruizione della cosa desiderata e amata, la quale prima del possesso dimora nella distanza e nella disequazione rispetto al soggetto desiderante. Il moto di eros parte dal soggetto che esperimenta una carenza, va verso la cosa desiderata e amata per farla propria, e torna al soggetto desiderante: è un moto circolare in cui la cosa desiderata viene riportata a noi stessi. Inoltre noi amiamo ‘eroticamente’ qualcosa non solo nella misura in cui ne manchiamo, ma nella misura in cui questa cosa è preziosa, attraente, ha valore per noi; non possiamo desiderare ciò che non vale nulla. L’amore di eros tende a un oggetto (cosa o persona), che manifesta apparenza di grandezza, di valore, di bellezza. L’agape è diversa: non è un amore di desiderio, ma di sovrabbondanza, un amore di dilezione, che parte non da una privazione che sia in noi e che liberi il movimento del desiderare, ma da una pienezza; e ha il suo vertice nell’amore divino. L’amore divino è un amore agapico o di dilezione; non un amore di desiderio, come se Dio mancasse di qualcosa. L’amore di dilezione è un amore gratuito di sovrabbondanza, che non si mette in moto, come l’amore di eros, perché la cosa verso cui si rivolge è di per sé bella e buona: magari si rivolge a cose che non sono né belle né buone, per versare in loro bellezza, bontà e verità. Perciò il moto di agape, nel suo vertice divino, discende dall’alto verso il basso, come una eterna fontana che sovrabbonda, mentre il vettore dell’amore di desiderio è orizzontale o ascendente: partendo da ciò che a me manca, tende verso qualcosa che sta al mio livello o più in alto. Il Simposio platonico è forse il paradigma perfetto della dinamica di eros. Qualcosa però ci sorprende in esso. Eros ascende verso l’Idea, dunque l’universale, mentre agape si indirizza al volto concreto dell’altro. Quale amore delle cose belle e buone, difficilmente eros è nel Simposio amore della persona, che viene oltrepassata nel moto di trascendimento che va verso l’alto. Nella sua forma più alta eros esprime fiducia nella filosofia, nell’uomo, e per ciò stesso è per pochi, mentre in agape traluce tenerezza per l’universale fragilità umana. Andando col suo supremo moto di trascendimento verso l’idea del Bello e del Bene, eros fatica a conoscere l’amore e l’amicizia nel senso radicale e fondamentalmente umano in cui due persone stanno di fronte, si riconoscono, si donano l’uno all’altro allo scoperto, ponendo il proprio tutto nella soggettività dell’altro. In ciò si ravvisa un limite che angustia la filosofia erotica di Platone. L’eros platonico è insieme grande per la forza delle sue intuizioni, e fanciullo per la limitatezza dell’esperienza dell’umano che veicola. Eros è proiettato in modo fondamentalmente positivo verso il futuro e verso l’alto, talvolta perfino con esultazione, in ogni caso con un eccesso di confidenza. Platone nacque troppo presto in questo mondo, fu troppo “giovane”, per maturare una sufficiente esperienza del male e del negativo, della notte da cui l’uomo non può da solo liberarsi; per intendere che ogni autentica liberazione si raggiunge al prezzo della croce e del sangue. Il simbolo centrale dell’amore agapico, riconoscibile nel servo sofferente che incarna un amore che non può essere estorto ma solo offerto, che dà la vita per i suoi amici, non è solo simbolo immediatamente accessibile: evoca un nucleo esistenziale cui eros non giunge. A che cosa si rivolge amore?
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Rivolgendosi all’altro, a che cosa si rivolge amore: alla persona o alle sue qualità? Pascal risponde optando apertamente per il secondo corno, e qui forse il suo esprit de finesse viene meno. "Che cosa è l'io? Un uomo che si mette alla finestra per vedere i passanti, se io passo di là posso dire che si è messo per vedermi? No, perché non pensa a me in particolare. Ma colui che ama qualcuno per la sua bellezza, l'ama veramente? No, perché il vaiolo che ucciderà la bellezza senza uccidere la persona, farà che egli non l'ami più. E se mi si ama per il giudizio o la memoria, si ama il mio io? No, perché posso perdere queste qualità senza perdere me stesso. Dov'è dunque questo io, se non è né nel corpo né nell'anima? e come amare il corpo o l'anima, se non per queste qualità, che non costituiscono punto ciò che fa l'io, poiché sono periture? Si potrebbe amare la sostanza dell'anima di una persona, astrattamente, e quali che siano le qualità presenti? Ciò è impossibile e sarebbe ingiusto. Non si ama dunque mai la persona, ma solamente delle qualità" (4). Pascal, mentre sembra intendere che l'io è un nucleo intimo che non si risolve nelle sue qualità, nega che esso come tale possa valere come oggetto di amore. E' così certo che egli abbia ragione? In realtà l'amore umano autentico, che è possibile chiamare il bell'amore, va soprattutto all'esistenza stessa dell'essere amato, gioendo che esso esista e cercando di coglierlo nel suo nucleo più interno, quello che le sue qualità ad un tempo rivelano e velano. Poiché certe qualità oggi ci sono e domani possono venir meno, l'assunto di Pascal preso alla lettera renderebbe impossibile l'amore umano autentico e duraturo: come sarebbe possibile continuare ad amare e ad avere cura dell’altro quando questi è malato, indebolito, sfigurato, se non fosse che il nostro amore va allora più intensamente alla sostanza dell’altro e non solo o non più alle sue qualità? Tale amore appartiene alla categoria dell'amore di amicizia, in cui si ama l'altro in quanto altro, si vuole non solo il bene dell'altro, ma bene all'altro amato per lui stesso, differentemente dall'amore di desiderio, in cui l'amato è cercato per il bene dell'amante. Forse Pascal è stato vittima di un equivoco, in certo modo riducendo la latitudine dell’amore umano ad eros, ad amore di desiderio, e lasciando da parte l’amore di amicizia e di benevolenza che si collega ad agape. Nella sua essenza ekstatica l’amore è tanto più forte e vero quanto più, facendo uscire da se stessi, non si arresta alle qualità che appaiono ma raggiunge il soggetto personale nella sua interiorità. Poiché la sostanza dura nell’essere, l’amore umano riuscito, il bell’amore, si dirige verso l’interiorità sostanziale dell’altro al di là delle vicissitudini delle qualità, distendendosi nella dimensione della permanenza e della fedeltà. La conoscenza dell’altro Attraverso il cammino di eros e di agape diventa possibile affrontare il grande problema della conoscenza reale dell’alterità. L'amore si apre una strada verso l'interiorità dell'altro, l’amore cerca di conoscere l’altro. Questi è qualcosa di esterno a noi, non è la parte oscura di noi stessi; è l’altro nella sua costitutiva velatezza che si nega e si nasconde proprio nell’atto in cui si lascia in parte raggiungere. Se solo l'amore va verso la soggettività altra, la sua strada si pone come infinitamente preziosa, perché senza di essa l'altro come tale rimarrebbe ultimamente inattinto. Come comprendere meglio il tema qui alluso, che stabilisce una dialettica delicata su cui occorre sostare? Fissiamo dapprima il problema. Se si trascura la via dell'amore che ci porta nel cuore dell’alterità, è possibile conoscere mediante concetti (di cui è intessuta la conoscenza umana e di cui non si può fare a meno nel conoscere oggettivante e universalizzante) la soggettività in quanto tale? La risposta si presenta negativa. L'intelletto conosce solo oggettivando e universalizzando, mentre l'universo dell'interiorità personale è ultimamente inoggettivabile. La conoscenza umana avanza mediante concetti e nozioni universali, appoggiandosi su oggetti di pensiero che lasciano da parte l'individuale, mentre qui si tratta proprio di conoscere la soggettività e l'interiorità individuali, che sfuggono per definizione a ciò che conosciamo tramite concetti. Come uscire da questa impasse, attraverso cui si tramanda il retaggio di non poter rendere vera giustizia alla persona? Se attraverso l'intelletto conosciamo come oggetti i soggetti personali, noi non rendiamo loro giustizia, perché non adeguiamo mai l'intuizione, oscura ma reale, che ogni soggetto ha di se stesso in quanto 67 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood soggetto; intuizione esistenziale che forse non possiamo concettualizzare pienamente neppure a noi stessi (5). Solo nell'amore mi è rivelata in qualche modo la soggettività dell'altro: quell’amore che produce una conoscenza per affectum et sympathiam. Il concetto oggettiva, l'amore (di dilezione) soggettiva, nel senso che raggiunge oscuramente ma realmente l'interiorità dell'altro. Ma questo genere di amore è raro. Quando esso accade, si può con ugual verità sostenere tanto il ‘soi-même comme un autre’, quanto il ‘un autre comme soi-même, per fare riferimento al noto titolo di un’opera di Ricoeur. Una filosofia idealistica della soggettività rappresentante rende difficilissima l’esplorazione dell’abisso senza fondo della soggettività, nonché l’accesso all’altro come altro. In proposito l’idealismo paga lo scotto di un errore fatale nell’intendere la conoscenza, secondo cui rappresentarsi una cosa significa assimilarla a sé, includerla, negarne l’alterità riconducendola all’identità dell’io: riportata all’io conoscente, l’alterità viene digerita e contraffatta, e ciò rende impossibile in un idealismo conseguente, come fu quello di G. Gentile, la conoscenza dell’altro come altro. Conoscere non è però riportare a sé e identificare all’io, ma – al contrario – divenire intenzionalmente o immaterialmente l’altro (fieri aliud in quantum aliud), dimorando in se stessi carichi del contenuto intelligibile dell’altro. La dottrina realista della conoscenza incorpora il riconoscimento dell’altro, il primato dell’esteriorità, dell’alterità, della non-identità: è ad essa che occorre rivolgersi per un accesso all’altro mantenuto nella sua alterità, non ricondotto e “digerito” dall’io. Mentre l’amore è ek-statico, la conoscenza è in-statica: l’oggetto conosciuto è conosciuto entro lo spirito, e questo non deve uscire da se stesso per assimilarsi all’ente. È dall’interno del suo atto immanente che lo spirito conosce. Riconoscimento Aprendosi la strada verso l’altro, l’amore incontra quell’incoercibile bisogno di riconoscimento che erompe nel soggetto e che è fondamentale per il raggiungimento della vita buona, e cerca di corrispondervi. Conoscere in giusta luce l’uomo è dargli riconoscimento. Appropriatamente sottolinea questo punto Ch. Taylor: “La tesi è che la nostra identità sia plasmata, in parte, dal riconoscimento o dal mancato riconoscimento, spesso, da un misconoscimento da parte di altre persone, per cui un individuo o un gruppo può subire un danno reale, una reale distorsione, se le persone o la società che lo circondano gli rimandano, come uno specchio, un’immagine di sé che lo limita o sminuisce o umilia … Un riconoscimento adeguato non è soltanto una cortesia che dobbiamo ai nostri simili: è un bisogno umano vitale” (6). Ed è attraverso una prassi di riconoscimento che si crea nella vita delle comunità e in specie nella famiglia una catena intergenerazionale in cui relazioni, senso della comunità e ‘legature’ - per usare il termine adottato da Dahrendorf (7) - sono vitali per il raggiungimento della vita buona. Un progetto di vita buona implica che le generazioni comunichino: e questo suggerisce che vi siano bambini cui parlare e da amare, contrariamente all’evento per cui oggi i bambini - la vita nuova che fiorisce - si vedono con notevole parsimonia. Se scompare agape, se vengono meno i volti, siamo indifesi dinanzi ad un possibile esito antifraterno dell’azione. La fraternità non rappresenta un concetto derivato di cui si possa fare a meno; insieme ad agape appare il più alto fattore disponibile per il miglioramento della condizione umana, la matrice di un’etica universale di liberazione, oltre l’etica procedurale autonoma cui guardano numerosi autori politici del postmoderno. Queste prospettive sulla filosofia dell’amore fanno apparire in luce nuova la questione dell’autonomia e dell’eteronomia. Dopo Kant è divenuto un luogo comune assegnare accezione solo negativa alla seconda, e vedere strettamente congiunte persona e autonomia. Eppure nella relazione d’amore l’interiorità si fa ekstatica e pone il proprio centro nell’altro, nell’amato, facendosi autonomamente (ossia liberamente) eteronoma. “La soggettività, in quanto responsabile, è una soggettività che è di colpo comandata: in qualche modo l’eteronomia è qui più forte dell’autonomia” (8). Il senso profondo dell’amore in quanto estatico è di far uscire la persona da se 68 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood stessa, di decentrarla verso l’altro. Nel bell’amore l’amato è elevato a centro dell’amante, di modo che la pienezza dell’autopossesso interiore coincide col libero donarsi della persona: paradossale identità di autonomia ed eteronomia, paradossale coincidentia oppositorum. Il contrario dell’amore estatico è il narcisismo: non aprirsi agli altri, ad un ‘io altro’ in un atto di comunione, ma vedere riflessa sempre e solo la propria immagine. Reinvestimento sull’io in una autocontemplazione compiaciuta, il narcisismo è lo scacco dell’amore, l’impossibilità di uscire dalla solitudine. Comunicazione Nel movimento ekstatico d’amore dell’“io” verso il “tu” le due soggettività comunicano. Il variopinto spazio della comunicazione umana si dischiude allo sguardo, proprio a partire dalla filosofia dell’amore e della persona: sulle sue basi si può stabilire con pieno diritto una filosofia della comunicazione umana e dello scambio con l’altro. In quanto atto più fondamentale e ricco del solo informare che è processo unidirezionale, il comunicare comporta la bidirezionalità ossia il coinvolgimento dei due poli della comunicazione; nel comunicare si trasmette qualcosa di se stessi all’altro in uno scambio personale, raggiungendo una almeno parziale fusione tra le due soggettività. La comunicazione umana riuscita è rischiarata dall’amore agapico, sotto il cui calore l’isolamento si spezza e le persone si incontrano nel mutuo riconoscimento. Ben al di là del momento del “si dice” e della chiacchiera, gli uomini entrano realmente in rapporto solo attraverso l’essere e le sue proprietà trascendentali: unità, verità, bontà, bellezza. Una coerente dottrina della comunicazione non può non considerare la comunicabilità di quanto esiste, la cui radice sta appunto nell’essere e nei trascendentali, e che differisce fondamentalmente dalla dialettica delle autocoscienze come analizzata da Hegel nella Fenomenologia dello spirito. L’autocoscienza qui si pone come pretesa al riconoscimento di se stessi da parte dell’altro, invece che come reciproco riconoscimento, ossia dell’altro e di se stessi con l’altro. L’autocoscienza vincente toglie invece la dimensione dell’alterità come tale, il signore sottomette il servo e gode del suo lavoro, ma l’io dell’uno e dell’altro rimangono un che di estraneo e di lontano. La relazione con se stessi e la relazione con l’altro, ossia l’autorelazione e l’eterorelazione, si separano senza rimedio, e una notte profonda sbarra l’accesso all’interiorità della persona. Il nucleo di una filosofia della comunicazione viene dischiuso dall’inizio del Vangelo di Giovanni: “In principio era il Logos”, ossia il Verbo, ossia la Parola. Poiché la Parola parla a qualcuno, e non può che parlare indirizzandosi a qualcuno e comunicando con lui, che in principio essa fosse implica un altro asserto: “In principio era la Comunicazione” o anche “in principio era la Persona”, poiché non sono note forme di comunicazione e di dialogo se non fra soggetti personali. Dio è unico, ma non è solitario. Nel perfetto circolo della relazione trinitaria le tre Persone instaurano una comunicazione infinita che rimane come eterno, asintotico modello per ogni comunicazione umana. Dio comunica entro se stesso nella vita trinitaria; Dio comunica se stesso agli uomini nella rivelazione fatta di eventi e parole. La comunicazione è riuscita quando, andando da coscienza umana a coscienza umana, transita e riconosce il proprio baricentro nella comunicazione originaria divina. Ogni autentico comunicare fra uomini è un processo triangolare, che non può non passare per la Trascendenza. In ciò sono come precontenuti l’umanesimo dell’altro uomo e l’attenzione al volto dell’Altro. Con questi assunti ci si colloca su rive lontane da chi afferma che in principio era il Mondo, o l’Azione o la Tecnica, forme in cui si configura un predominio nel Neutro con la conseguenza che non vi siano nel cosmo veri soggetti personali, né quello umano né quello divino. Un carattere notevole della comunicazione umana non consiste nel passaggio dall’”io” al “tu” e al “noi”, ma viceversa dal “noi” all’“io”; ossia dalla comunicazione data nel mondo quotidiano della vita alla comunicazione personale liberamente guadagnata. Questo rimane un compito per ogni uomo, reso non facile dalle false forme di comunicazione e dal rischio di integrazione funzionalistica, in cui le persone valgono solo come ruoli interscambiabili. L’osservazione ha il suo rilievo anche per la teoria della
69 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood democrazia, dove si può domandare se una sua esclusiva identificazione con le regole del gioco salvaguardi la natura comunicativa del rapporto politico. L’interesse che attualmente si dispiega nella filosofia mondiale verso le etiche comunicative potrebbe ricondurre la ricerca verso questioni prossime a quelle qui sfiorate. Questo sarebbe possibile a patto che le etiche comunicative scendessero più in profondità di quanto accada oggi, non si mantenessero cioè per l’essenziale entro il quadro dell’egologia moderna nel tragitto che va da Cartesio a Kant ed oltre, e cercassero di riprendere contatto con la filosofia della persona, dell’interiorità e dell’amore di cui mancano in modo sorprendente. Sviluppatesi entro il grembo della filosofia del linguaggio del ‘900, esse sembrano da un lato volte alla ricerca del consenso intersoggettivo nella comunità illimitata del dialogo e della comunicazione, e dall’altro più o meno consapevolmente tributarie dell’assunto che la mediazione espressiva dell’interiorità si realizzi nel linguaggio (o solo nel linguaggio), piuttosto che nell’amore. Chi potrebbe negare che il linguaggio sia un grande veicolo di interpersonalità e di comunicazione? Il fatto è che l’amore lo è di più, in modo più universale, potendosi esprimere anche senza parole e segni, e potendo raggiungere nell’uomo strati ontologici più profondi di quelli attinti dalla parola. Chi considerasse le odierne più notevoli etiche del discorso, quali quelle di Apel e di Habermas, avvertirebbe che esse costituiscono una consapevole ripresa del programma kantiano sulla ragion pratica, nel senso di fondare una filosofia morale cognitivista, universale, formale-procedurale -, riformato per quanto riguarda il passaggio dalla centralità dell’“io” a quella del “noi”. Riformulando la dottrina morale kantiana sulle norme attraverso la teoria della comunicazione, le suddette etiche del discorso lasciano da parte l’ontologia della persona, dell’interiorità, dell’amore. Se esse hanno il merito di aver superato il postulato humeano e positivista della grande divisione tra essere e dover essere, ristabilendo la possibilità del cognitivismo morale, non hanno però esaminato la relazione tra linguaggio e essenza comunicativa della persona. Il rapporto dell’umanesimo secolare con la condizione umana Un ultimo punto concerne la parziale impotenza di un umanesimo ateologico o compiutamente secolare nel conoscere la reale situazione esistenziale dell’uomo: un umanesimo pienamente laicizzato ignora la grandezza dell’uomo e parimenti la sua miseria. Un umanesimo teistico conosce meglio la condizione umana se evita di considerare solo il potenziale di bontà e di grandezza della persona oppure solo il suo potenziale di abiezione. Una conoscenza non può andare disgiunta dall’altra, se vogliamo evitare tanto l’enfasi dell’orgoglio, quanto il suo capovolgimento nella delusione e nel duro trattamento inflitto ad un materiale umano ingrato e refrattario alle nostre pretese. Il passaggio dalla filantropia alla misantropia è breve. Messa da parte agape, il più grande rischio di ogni umanesimo positivo è di nutrire in partenza un senso alto e trionfante dell’umano e poi, giunti dinanzi agli uomini in carne ed ossa, pervenire dalla delusione, al disprezzo e al ricorso alla coercizione per obbligare la pesante pasta umana a ricevere nell’illibertà la forma che le si vuole imprimere. Un umanesimo pienamente secolarizzato e privo di agape può produrre orrori più crudeli di quelli che la critica illuministica ha imputato alle società di cristianità del passato. La modernità ha inteso che il compito della politica fosse di alleviare la sofferenza nel mondo e creare prosperità, dando avvio ad azioni di solidarietà e aiuto al debole che rappresentano un nucleo centrale nelle società democratiche. L’umanesimo secolare nutre una giusta indignazione contro l’ingiustizia e l’oppressione e chiede imperiosamente di sanarle. Esso accoglie dall’eredità cristiana l’appello alla benevolenza, alla solidarietà, al rispetto verso l’altro che promanano dalle intuizioni evangeliche e che fanno spesso parte del discorso pubblico ‘laico’ e dell’etica pubblica: di ciò siano rese grazie. Ma tale umanesimo non si rende conto di porre con le richieste del suo idealismo laicizzato un aggravio morale non sopportabile – i costi pesanti dell’attenzione all’alterità - su soggetti che non sanno come portarlo. L’etica della dignità umana e della benevolenza colloca sulle persone reali pesi morali, che difficilmente possono essere onorati senza l’apertura alla Trascendenza e il ricorso all’agape. Ciò produce la conseguenza che alle richieste di concreta 70 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood solidarietà i soggetti rispondano spesso volgendo le spalle: come onorare quelle pur giuste esigenze, se non si partecipa ad una fonte adeguata di vita in cui esse possano trovare sostentamento e il fardello etico possa venire considerato non schiacciante? Riemerge l’antico e sempre inquietante interrogativo se, tolta ogni fede religiosa motivante, sia possibile obbligare moralmente in vista di valori e ottenere dagli uomini in carne ed ossa un’azione conforme. Se manca l’agape, che l’umanesimo secolare non è in grado di rendere disponibile, il cammino può sfociare in un esito antifraterno e in un declino del discorso dell’etica pubblica della solidarietà senza trascendenza per un ritorno al privato, al tecnico, all’oblio dell’altro. Una filosofia pubblica che non può non essere rivolta a rischiarare il cammino dell’agire, incorre in un limite grave quando non si interroga sulla realizzabilità dell’azione proposta in premessa; quando si riduce ad un’essenza incapace di passare all’esistenza per il buio antropologico in cui dimora. Questa fondamentale difficoltà – spesso aggirata mediante l’escamotage di metterla da parte – circola a mio avviso in quei tentativi di trarre dal cristianesimo, dapprima debitamente laicizzato ossia privato del suo contenuto trascendente, uno stimolo umanistico per la solidarietà interpersonale ed un’etica del finito amica dell’uomo. S. Natoli che non si definisce cristiano, si è posto il problema. Egli riconosce che il nucleo centrale del cristianesimo è la carità/agape, aggiungendo però che il cristianesimo difficilmente è riconoscibile senza l’incarnazione, la resurrezione dei morti, la vita eterna e la visione di Dio, ossia senza il contenuto del Credo. A questo egli si sottrae nel senso che cerca di reinterpretarlo all’interno di una visione umanistica senza trascendenza. Natoli è persuaso che “la secolarizzazione ha vinto e che il cristianesimo può sopravvivere alla fine della cristianità, se non unicamente certo plausibilmente, in una sua versione profana”: un cristianesimo senza fede, senza trascendenza, senza vita eterna, ma capace di non abbandonare la terra e di non smentire l’agape, la fraternità., il dono. Un cristianesimo di cui si cerca di raccogliere il meglio del suo passato per il nostro futuro. Una posizione sollecitante, che culmina nella frase: “E Dio s’incarna davvero ogni qualvolta gli uomini diventano capaci di dono”. Ma possono gli uomini donare e donarsi nell’agape, se prima Dio non si è incarnato? Una prassi agapica senza Dio riposa su impossibili illusioni e vane speranze. E’ a partire dalla fede in un Dio crocifisso e risorto, è dalla corrente di agape che da qui si diparte, che l’uomo può amare l’uomo (9). L’immanentismo sogna molto. La negazione della trascendenza non solo pone sulle spalle dei soggetti concreti un fardello troppo gravoso, ma pone a rischio i guadagni e le idealità positive dell’umanesimo secolare, la sua pietas verso il finito, l’intento di ridurre la sofferenza nel mondo e di accrescere la vita. Un umanesimo separato corre appunto il doppio rischio di non saper raggiungere i valori umanistici che ama, e talvolta di regredire verso il disprezzo per l’uomo. Se l’intento è di preservare la vita e di non cedere ai criteri dell’utilità e dell’efficacia tecnica, vi è bisogno di un umanesimo eroico che vada oltre quel rimpicciolimento di orizzonti e quell’’io minimo’ che viceversa ricorrono di frequente nelle nostre latitudini occidentali (10). Essi possono mettere in pericolo importanti conquiste della modernità quali i diritti umani e la giustizia. Pur lasciando in sospeso se effettivamente ci attendono secoli bui dove un nuovo san Benedetto sia da attendere, come ritiene McIntyre in Dopo la virtù, possiamo legittimamente auspicare molti nuovi san Benedetto nell’epoca della scienza e della tecnica, affinché i dottori dell’efficacia non prevalgano sui monaci dell’amicizia e dell’agape. Conoscenza dell’altro e perennità del fenomeno religioso Le verità teologiche sulla persona possono svolgere un compito essenziale per riconciliare nell’esistenza i liberi scopi umani, dotati di autonomia e determinatezza, con la coscienza religiosa, affinché i primi nella loro molteplice varietà mondana siano fecondati dal divino e ad esso ricondotti. Uno dei massimi compiti del personalismo nella tarda modernità sta nel raggiungere un nuovo equilibrio tra conoscenza di Dio e conoscenza mondana, affinché la crescente estensione 71 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood delle attività terrestri e dei fini mondani, in cui consiste lo spirito dell’illuminismo, non renda irrilevante la conoscenza religiosa. L’elemento teologico risulta essenziale non solo per l’integra custodia del concetto di persona, tanto più necessaria in un’epoca in cui i totalitarismi politici e l’impiego ideologico della scienza hanno costituito e costituiscono una permanente minaccia per l’uomo -, ma più radicalmente per la custodia del mondano. Sostenere questo assunto rinverga con l’idea che in una forma o nell’altra il soggetto religioso non verrà mai meno; e che nessuna cultura o filosofia potrà mai sostituirlo. Di questa impegnativa tesi si possono avanzare due giustificazioni l’una discendente, l’altra ascendente; l’una pensata in termini di evento trascendente; l’altra di struttura trascendentale. Dal primo lato l’homo religiosus non scomparirà, a dispetto di ogni tentata secolarizzazione integrale, in quanto Dio continua a chiamare l’uomo. La rivelazione cristiana si sviluppa tra la creazione e l’incarnazione, due eventi che dipendono dalla libera iniziativa di Dio, e che sono indeducibili da qualsiasi struttura: il ricondurre l’evento a struttura, lo storico all’astratto costituisce la tentazione perenne del razionalismo, che come tale si mostra inadeguato a cogliere lo spessore della storicità. Se invece consideriamo l’uomo dal lato della sua struttura essenziale, del suo apriori antropologico, che segnala in lui l’esistenza di una trascendentalità apriorica, scopriamo in lui il desiderio incoercibile e indistruttibile di essere riconosciuto da un’altra soggettività: che vi sia qualcuno che possa rivolgersi alla mia soggettività precaria e riconoscerla, che vi sia qualcuno che avvicinando la mia soggettività fragile e ondivaga, le renda giustizia, e la colga in un’esperienza di misericordia. Questo è quanto offre la religione nella sua più pura natura. L'essenza della religione, per cui essa sta costitutivamente al di là della scienza e della filosofia, consiste in un rapporto assoluto con l'Assoluto, in un dialogo tra persona e Persona, con tutti gli smarrimenti, le delizie, le fughe e le riprese di un colloquio fra due soggettività. E' cosa alta vivere secondo l'etica e la ragione; ma è cosa più alta esistere dinanzi a Dio. Sperimentata da Mosè e dai profeti, tale è l'esistenza assoluta che sta al di sopra dell'esistenza autentica, di cui ci parla Heidegger. L'esperienza religiosa non potrà venir meno, perché l'uomo avverte che in essa non è oggettivato, ma compreso nella sua soggettività più profonda, incontrato in una esperienza di misericordia e dunque riconosciuto. La filosofia e la scienza – abbiamo detto - oggettivano anche il soggetto, perché lo conoscono solo in quanto lo pongono come oggetto, attraverso l'astrazione, l'universalizzazione, il concetto. Questi eventi, non dipendendo dalla buona o cattiva volontà dei singoli, bensì dalla struttura della condizione e conoscenza umane, non sono volontari, ma insuperabili e inerenti. La più fondamentale esigenza umana è quella di essere riconosciuti. Può darsi che con molta fatica l'uomo possa rinunciare o moderare la spinta verso la felicità; non può però spogliarsi del bisogno primordiale di essere compreso, ossia che esista qualcuno che gli renda giustizia. L'esperienza che non vi sia qualcuno, né uomo, né altro, che possa rendere giustizia alla mia soggettività singolare, precaria e ferita, riconoscendola e comprendendola, è per l'uomo l'ingresso nella disperazione e una specie di anticipo dell'inferno. Il rapporto religioso autentico possiede una peculiarità che non hanno la maggior parte degli scambi umani: in esso ha luogo un'esperienza di dialogo e di misericordia, in cui il mio io, la mia soggettività più nascosta non è obiettivata e perciò universalizzata, ma compresa nella sua singolarità. Conoscendo la mia singolarità debole e fluttuante allo scoperto, fin nelle sue più intime pieghe con le sue nobiltà e viltà, Dio mi conosce più di quanto io mi conosca. Egli mi rende giustizia, almeno nel senso che di fronte a Lui la mia soggettività non è resa astratta, ma colta nella sua esistenza propria. Egli mi comprende, così che il mio io può uscire dalla solitudine e dal rapporto inautentico. Può darsi che Wittgenstein avesse presente anche questo aspetto quando scriveva: "Noi sentiamo che, persino nell'ipotesi che tutte le possibili domande scientifiche abbiano avuto risposta, i nostri problemi vitali non sono ancora neppure sfiorati" (11). 72 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
Il desiderio di riconoscimento di cui si è detto, radicato in una struttura antropologica invariante che postula ed aspira alla relazione tra Dio e l’uomo, rappresenta dal lato dell’uomo la possibilità trascendentale della permanenza della religione. E’ sempre difficile aver a che fare con l’esistenza, ed ancor più difficile incontrare e riconoscere la persona che costituisce la forma più alta di esistenza. La strada dell’amore agevola il cammino, e conduce non solo vicino all’essere ma vicino e perfino ‘entro’ la persona.
NOTE (*) I temi qui trattati ricevono ampi sviluppi in V. Possenti, Il Principio-persona, Armando, Roma 2006, in corso di stampa. (1) E. Lévinas, “Filosofia, giustizia e amore”, n. 209-210, settembre-dicembre 1985, p. 12. (2) M. Buber, Il principio dialogico, Milano 1958, p. 67. (3) S. Th., I, q. 20, a. 2; Lutero, WA 1, p. 365: le sue parole sono tratte dalla Disputa di Heidelberg (1518), tesi 28. (4) Pensées, ed. Brunschvicg, n. 323. In un breve saggio attribuito a Pascal e intitolato “Discours sur les passions de l’amour”, si legge: “Malamente si è tolto il nome di ragione all’amore, e lì si sono opposti senza un buon fondamento, poiché l’amore e la ragione non sono che una medesima cosa… Non escludiamo la ragione dall’amore, poiché essa ne è inseparabile”, in Oeuvres complètes, Bibliothèque de la Pleiade, Gallimard, Paris 1980, p. 545. (5) Su questi aspetti cfr. le pagine profonde di J. Maritain Breve trattato dell’esistenza e dell’esistente, Morcelliana, Brescia 1965, p. 58 ss; e le nostre riflessioni in Filosofia e Rivelazione, Città nuova, Roma 2000, 2° ed., pp. 94-98. (6) Ch. Taylor, in J. Habermas, Ch. Taylor, Multiculturalismo, Feltrinelli, Milano 1998, p. 9s. (7) Cfr. R. Dahrendorf, La libertà che cambia, Laterza, Bari 1980. (8) E. Lévinas, “Filosofia, giustizia e amore”, p. 10. Sulla filosofia dell’amore cfr. anche Vl. Soloviev, Il significato dell’amore e altri scritti, La casa di Matriona, Milano 1988. La poesia forse più della filosofia rimane il luogo in cui la forza dell’amore è meglio intuita. Sull’amore divino intensa è la poesia di George Herbert (1593-1633): L'Amore mi accolse; ma l'anima mia indietreggiò, colpevole di polvere e peccato.Ma chiaroveggente l'Amore, vedendomi esitare fin dal mio primo passo, mi si accostò, con dolcezza domandandomi se qualcosa mi mancava. "Un invitato" risposi "degno di essere qui". L'Amore disse: "Tu sarai quello". "Io, il malvagio, l'ingrato? Ah! mio diletto, non posso guardarti". L'Amore mi prese per mano, sorridendo rispose: "Chi fece questi occhi, se non io?" "E' vero, Signore, ma li ho insozzati; che vada la mia vergogna dove merita". "E non sai tu" disse l'Amore "chi ne prese il biasimo su di sé?" "Mio diletto, allora servirò". "Bisogna tu sieda," disse l'Amore "che tu gusti il mio cibo". Così mi sedetti e mangiai. (9) Dio e il divino. Confronto col cristianesimo, Morcelliana, Brescia 2000, p. 10 e p. 53. (10) Cfr. V. Possenti, Religione e vita civile, Armando, Roma 2002, 2° ed., pp. 150-156. (11) Tractatus, 6. 52. Ho qui impiegato un brano di una mia opera non più in commercio: Razionalismo critico e metafisica. Quale realismo?, Morcelliana, Brescia 1996, 2° ed., p. 121s.
Annesso – Cena platonica e ultima cena Per tessere il discorso sull’amore, l’enciclica Deus caritas est ricorre opportunamente anche a pensatori greci: Platone ed Aristotele sono espressamente citati. Benedetto XVI non è un deellenizzatore che voglia congedare Atene e la filosofia. Li stima, senza nascondersi che Gerusalemme sta più in alto. Di Platone l’enciclica nomina il Simposio, dove emerge eros, non la differenza biblica dell’agape. Il raggiungimento, arduo ma in linea di principio possibile, del Bello/Bene in sé accade a partire dall’uomo e dalla spinta di eros. Supposto che nel cammino d’ascesa si configuri un itinerario di liberazione e salvezza, queste si danno come autoliberazione e autosalvezza. Diversamente nei Vangeli e nell’ultima Cena, dove l’iniziativa radicale della salvezza è presa da Dio e l’atteggiamento da parte dell’uomo è di rimanere a Lui unito, dimorare nel suo amore. Senza di me non potete fare nulla, insegna Gesù. Entro un’affinità di situazioni ed entro la presenza di uno schema in certo modo soterico nel Simposio, la dialettica d’amore si presenta diversificata nelle due narrazioni. Preso atto delle differenze, le analogie sono vivide, anzi impressionanti. Il discorso platonico su eros e quello dei Vangeli su agape hanno luogo entrambi durante una cena: la prima con il dialogo a più voci che vi si svolge e che culmina nel discorso di Socrate-Diotima; l’ultima cena del giovedì santo quando Gesù, prossimo ormai alla cattura e alla crocifissione, rivela più profondamente se 73 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood stesso ai discepoli, trasmettendo nella prossimità del distacco il senso ultimo della verità e dell’amore. La mente è portata a considerare l’enorme rilevanza umana e simbolica dell’assumere cibo in compagnia, conversando e dialogando. La convivialità, il pasto in comune è un elemento tipico dell’uomo. Mangiare costantemente da soli è cosa triste. Due cene: una di festeggiamento per la vittoria in un concorso letterario, l’altra di commiato dagli amici nella vicinanza del sacrificio. Esse si svolgono ad Atene e a Gerusalemme, città storico-mondiali, ove transita tanto del nostro destino. Delle due cene sappiamo approssimativamente anche il luogo: la casa di Agatone e quella di cui parla il vangelo di Luca (22, 10). Esse si svolgono al calar del sole, quando le ombre si allungano sul terreno, ed è prossima a subentrare la notte e l’oscurità. Forse quest’aspetto non riveste un significato specifico per la cena platonica, mentre è essenziale nei Vangeli, in specie quello di Giovanni fortemente giocato sulla polarità fra luce e tenebre, fra opere della luce ed opere delle tenebre. In certo modo l’incombere delle tenebre rende più facile il tradimento di Giuda: nel momento in cui questi esce per guidare poi i soldati alla cattura di Gesù, l’evangelista nota: erat autem nox. Notte sul mondo, notte nei cuori, notte per il tradimento di Giuda e lo scatenamento delle forze del male. La notte dunque come figura dell’irrazionale, delle forze del male. Entrambi i racconti suggeriscono la ciclicità del tempo, dell’alternarsi del giorno, della notte e poi di nuovo del giorno. Il convito platonico si scioglie all’alba; nel racconto del Vangelo all’alba del venerdì si tiene l’interrogatorio di Pilato. Nel Simposio si dà voce ad un dialogo a più voci che culmina nel discorso di Socrate, mentre nell’ultima cena chi parla è quasi solo il Maestro. Ed è degno di meditazione che lui e Socrate stiano muovendo verso un esito non lontano: verso la morte, che Gesù incontra il giorno dopo e Socrate più avanti, come se coloro che svelano all’uomo qualcosa del mistero d’amore siano dei condannati in anticipo. Ma entro un terminale differenza, poiché Socrate con l’aiuto di Diotima ascende alla contemplazione dei misteri d’amore da solo (monos pros monon), mentre i discepoli di Gesù sono da lui invitati ad una comunione di vita e di agape col Maestro divino. Nelle due cene è presente il vino. Impiegato per abbondanti libagioni ad Atene, è a Gerusalemme la materia dell’eucaristia e della transustanzione (“questo è il calice del mio sangue …”). Il vino che rallegra il cuore e il vino–sacramento che salva. In entrambi i casi vale il detto: in vino veritas. Verità che è salvezza e deificazione a Gerusalemme, e verità che è ascesa umana ad Atene. Il detto in vino veritas si applica ad entrambe le cene, ma a Gerusalemme occorrerebbe aggiungere: in vino salus, in vino Deus. Un ulteriore elemento su cui meditare è costituito dai commensali. Gli ospiti di Agatone sono personaggi rilevanti, impegnati nella vita politica e nelle professioni (Pausania è medico) di una Atene ancora vicina all’età di Pericle e dunque al suo massimo splendore, dove apportano l’esperienza e la saggezza del loro rango. I commensali dell’ultima cena, gli apostoli, non sono greci, ma ebrei. Provengono da un ambiente rurale e di pescatori, non hanno che una cultura limitata, sono gente del popolo. Hanno seguito Gesù non perché intendessero apprendere la filosofia, ma in quanto lui solo ha parole di vita eterna, come dichiara Pietro. Nella cena platonica eros aspira ardentemente al divino e all’eterno, li troverà solo nell’umiltà dell’Eucaristia.
74 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
HOW TO DEAL WITH DESPAIR ROMANO GUARDINI’S REFLECTION ON MELANCHOLY
Patricia Rehm Internationale Maurice Blondel, Forschungsstelle für Religionsphilosophie Johannes Gutenberg – Universität, Mainz
Despair and melancholy are emotional states that are frequently summarized under the term depression and analyzed and treated by psychologists. However, putting despair and melancholy together under a single term that presents the same concept may miss the fine line between the meaning of both conditions since despair describes a feeling that can occur temporarily caused by certain contingent facts or circumstances while melancholy describes a prolonged and more intense state of despair or a continuing depression. Since Romano Guardini (1885-1968) reflects in Vom Sinn der Schwermut (The Meaning of Melancholy) on Søren Kierkegaard’s Schriften und Aufzeichnungen (Papers and Notes) and Die Krankheit zum Tode (The Sickness Unto Death), it must be assumed that he took Kierkegaard’s concept of despair as a synonym for his concept of melancholy.
First we will outline Kierkegaard’s concept of despair. To Kierkegaard, man is spirit and as such he is the self.1 However, this self of man means that his existence remains in “relationship to God.”2 As man exists only through God he is always religious. Since God put the self upon man, this self comprises the temporal, the being-in-the-world, as well as the eternal, the divine, the metaphysical. Every man’s life, his existence in the world is then only related to his own self, and it is man’s task to become a self within his life. But it is precisely this task that causes man’s despair. Kierkegaard distinguishes two types of despair, assuming that despair is set in every man – consciously or unconsciously. On the one hand, it is the “despair of refusing to be oneself”3 or the desire to get free of oneself, as Kierkegaard put it. Man does not want to fulfill his task to become a self, since he either is not aware of it or he is not able to fulfill it. Therefore he escapes by giving up the responsibility for himself, assuming that for example he only could live if he lives in a certain way or together with a certain person. If this condition is not fulfilled, man despairs without realizing his chance of becoming himself. On the other hand, Kierkegaard defines the “despair of wanting to be oneself.”4 In this case man recognizes an “infinite self”5 – namely God – and he endeavors to reach this state and fulfill it. However, here he makes two mistakes. First, he assumes that this infinite self would be the infinite possibility for man to establish the self by himself. He believes that he can set the self through his own power, and thus becomes himself. It has to do with wanting to shape the self himself, which
1 Cf. Sören Kierkegaard. Die Krankheit zum Tode. In: Sören Kierkegaard. Der Begriff Angst. Die Krankheit zum Tode. Ed. Thomas Sören Hoffmann. Wiesbaden 2005. p. 207-349. p. 214: „Geist“, „Selbst“ 2 Cf. Kierkegaard. Krankheit. p. 287 3 Kierkegaard. Krankheit. p. 215: „Verzweiflung, nicht man selbst sein zu wollen“ 4 Kierkegaard. Krankheit. p. 215: „Verzweiflung, verzweifelt man selbst sein zu wollen“ 5 Kierkegaard. Krankheit. p. 277: „unendliches Selbst“ 75 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood actually prevents him from becoming that infinite self. Man commits the mistake of not finding and accepting the self that God gave him. In trying to fulfill himself within the immanence, man turns away from God. Secondly, man commits the mistake of wrongly regarding every difficulty or suffering he bears in life as the fundamental sense of his life. Suffering becomes the meaning of his life. Here too man also turns away from God. However, since God is capable of anything, he can save man from suffering. This salvation would mean liberation and redemption, and concretely the deliverance from his sense of life, which now becomes invalid. This liberation by God, however, would be a humiliation, because man made suffering his sense of life and created his own self from that. For Kierkegaard, despair means also “the loss of the eternal and oneself.”6 In this respect, the essence of despair is based on a purely immanent and existential conception of life with no room for the metaphysical. However, in Kierkegaard’s view, despair can only be overcome through God, for whom everything is possible, and through faith in God. For the moment, this seems to be for Kierkegaard the path to deliverance from despair. But, on the one hand, despair is existential to man and thus deeply rooted in his essence. On the other hand, Kierkegaard considers despair a “sin”7 before God. This means that ultimately there is finally no way out of this situation of despair in Kierkegaard’s thinking.
For Romano Guardini, despair or melancholy is neither a medical nor a psychological problem, which would affect only a certain group of people8 considered to be “ill” and hence degraded by society. Guardini, rather, understands melancholy as a phenomenon that concerns not only these people, but every man. Guardini describes melancholy in a phenomenological way. He derives the German word “Schwermut” (“melancholy”) from Middle High German “swere muot” – heavy mind.9 A burden weighs upon man’s mind and depresses his mood and energy. It refers to thoughts and inner drives as well as to activities pointing towards the outside such as accomplishing work or facing a task. Guardini seems to understand this burden as a consequence of external factors. It is imposed on man and his mind and is not engendered by internal factors. However, the pressured mind is no longer able to fight against or defeat this burden. On the contrary: an “inner bond”10 rises from man’s mind and weakens, hinders and even suppresses any energy. But life means being active, taking initiative and being progressive. The melancholic is no longer able to progress – the bond hinders him. Every task that demands any initiative becomes an insurmountable mountain to him because it is exactly this initiative that the melancholic person is missing. In addition to the inner bond, the melancholic feels a strong “vulnerability,”11 which, however, does not come from a lack of resistance towards the outside life or life in general. Rather, the inner life of the melancholic is impressed upon by a great abundance of thoughts and feelings. The melancholic experiences a multitude of inner opposing views which express themselves as contradictions in his attitude toward the world, his demands or standards and turn him into a highly
6 Cf. Kierkegaard. Krankheit. p. 270: „dass man das Ewige und sich selbst verloren hat“ 7 Kierkegaard. Krankheit. p. 286: „Sünde“ 8 Cf. Romano Guardini. Vom Sinn der Schwermut. Kevelaer 2003. p. 23 9 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 24 10 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 24: „innere Fessel“ 11 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 27: „Verwundbarkeit“ 76 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood sensitive person12. This distinctive sensibility causes him suffering about the way the world moves forward and how living creatures are sometimes run over by this progress. The melancholic, who suffers with everything and from everything loses his resistance13 to defend himself and becomes even more helpless since he suffers inappropriately in relation to its known cause. Everything turns into pain, including his own existence, even existence in general. The lack of resistance towards suffering leads also to a “loss of self-confidence.” 14 The melancholic is a priori convinced that he has more failures than others and he is inferior in comparison to others. He has a low opinion of himself and tries precisely to reinforce this negative feeling. The melancholic succumbs to the pressure to torture himself. 15 He wants to destroy himself. His activity is not driven by reorganizing ideas but by his “utmost [self-] contempt”16 and his own “destruction.”17 This destructive will works as a suggestive power because the more he sees things negatively, the more negative they become. To the melancholic, everything becomes more negative until he realizes that he is caught in this negative condition, which makes everything appear in an even more negative way.18 Here Guardini recognizes that which makes the phenomenon of melancholy so puzzling: namely that life turns against itself. 19 He has no answer why someone pursuing a positive mode of existence suddenly turns against personal initiative and even life itself and experiences a desire to punish himself by destroying himself, finally finding satisfaction only in destruction. The melancholic seeks loneliness.20 On the one hand, this results from his vulnerability. Since he suffers within the active life, he retreats into passiveness, where the general suffering does not afflict him. He still does suffer from his own existence, but he does not have to bear the suffering of others. On the other hand, he is afraid of imposing suffering on others, which he in return would have to bear doubly. A third reason that drives the melancholic into loneliness is “the problem of expression.”21 He is not able to put his rich and overflowing inner life into words since these are abstract concepts and this would squeeze the experiences into limited meanings. The melancholic cannot overcome this discrepancy between the rich inner life and the limited word. Because he suffers from this impairment, he must retreat into loneliness. This retreat may be a real retreat from the world, but also may be just a construction of façades. Guardini calls it a “life full of scenes and masks,”22 in other words a life of appearance in which “the real life hides behind the unreal.”23 The melancholic may appear as a happy person in public, but his true nature and his suffering are concealed by a mask. His essence is hidden behind something that appears to be his true nature, but isn’t. To Guardini, these façades as well as the impairments of expression represent the experiences of the melancholic. This is the “metaphysical emptiness,”24 as the melancholic himself is looking for the essential thing behind the unreal. He hopes to find the same inner richness also within the
12 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 25 13 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 27 14 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 28: „Mangel an Selbstvertrauen“ 15 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 30 16 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 29: „große [Selbst-] Verachtung“ 17 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 33: „Untergang“ 18 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 30 19 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 33 20 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 34 21 Guardini. Schwermut. p.38: „das Problem des Ausdrucks“ 22 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 38:“Dasein voll Kulissen und Masken“ 23 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 38: „Eigentliches hinter Uneigentlichem“ 24 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 26: „metaphysische Leere“ 77 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood outside world. He searches for a metaphysical fulfillment, but he only finds a limited finiteness without a rich content. This experience must become a disappointment. The melancholic’s search for metaphysical fulfillment extends to everything. Thus values become important, as they are – viewed purely as an idea – positive. Applied within the limited world, however, they may have a negative and destroying effect.25 It appears to the melancholic that he strives for the positive, for higher values, but that he can only reach them by destroying himself. Striving for the higher is at the same time an urge for inwardness and profundity. 26 The melancholic does not search for what is visible to everybody and easy to recognize. He searches for the metaphysical significance, which is difficult to recognize and to comprehend, the “darkness,”27 as Guardini puts it, that belongs to everything and completes it. For Guardini, the melancholic has the “deepest relation to the richness of existence.”28 In spite of life’s paralysis, the melancholic experiences a deeper insight into the existence of things and the world and thus, of the existence of himself; he recognizes the richness that existence offers the man who does not progress or pass in a certain way, but through standing still reaches profundity. This desire for profundity is expressed in the “longing for love,”29 for the platonic “Aim of Eros,”30 the greatest good. He desires and searches for a deep, essential and all-embracing love that has no beginning or end and sets no conditions. It is the eternal, the absolute and the metaphysical that he hopes to find within love. In the world he simply finds the limited love between human beings, which does not satisfy him since it is final and passes away. This limitation and restriction of love causes his despair. It is the same for the melancholic with beauty. Here also he seeks the absolute, the metaphysical, but finds the final and transitory. For the melancholic, love and beauty are the highest values that are attainable, because they hold the ideal of the absolute and thus the highest fulfillment of life. The inability of these ideals to be attained in the world convinces the melancholic of his despair in the world, so that his downfall and the end of his human existence is the only solution. For Guardini, these two movements – striving for fulfillment and the downfall – are the “basic driving forces of life.”31 For the melancholic, these basic drives become particularly decisive. Even when he is striving for the absolute, his highest aim, he knows that it is impossible to reach it. Here again come the deep suffering and vulnerability since the melancholic suffers particularly from the awareness of his futile striving. Since he cannot be objective, he experiences only his own human error. For him this personal failure that causes his breakdown, is also responsible for his desire to destroy himself. Despite everything, Guardini sees meaning in melancholy. According to him, it is a “sign that the absolute exists.”32 The melancholic’s striving for the absolute proves that it really exists; however, he is aware that neither he nor the world are absolute, they are only restricted. Nevertheless is he able to perceive the existence of the absolute. At this point, Guardini ends his pure philosophical speculation and adds a theological component to broaden it, in which he gives the absolute a name: God. Therefore, the meaning of melancholy consists of man’s experience of direct closeness to God. In this respect, Guardini reverses the negative impression of melancholy into something positive, the knowledge of the possibility to exceed one’s own limits.
25 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 30 f. 26 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 41 27 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 42: „Dunkel“ 28 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 43: „tiefste Beziehung zur Fülle des Daseins“ 29 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 44: „Sehnsucht nach Liebe“ 30 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 45: „Ziel des Eros’“ 31 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 46: „Grundtriebe des Lebens“ 32 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 48: „Anzeichen, dass es das Absolute gibt“ 78 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
At the same time, for Guardini, melancholy is also a call from God to man.33 Recognizing the absolute or recognizing God is possible for man only because God wants to be recognized by him. Hence it is God who asks the melancholic to take Him into his life. 34 Since Guardini bases melancholy in religion, it becomes clear that for him the sense of melancholy lies not only in the metaphysical, but above all in religious faith. The melancholic is conscious of limits, namely his own limitation and those of the knowledge of the absolute, and, he suffers under them because he experiences this as an unease35 in the form of an inspiration and threat36 at the same time. Inspiration because of the knowledge of the eternal, threat because of the pain caused by breaking through this limitation. Guardini not only carries out an analysis of the problems of melancholy, he also provides concrete hints for how this condition can be overcome. Referring to Kierkegaard, he distinguishes “good” and “bad” melancholy.37 Guardini approaches melancholy in a “good” way by identifying and examining the nature of melancholy. He acknowledges that the striving of the melancholic for the absolute is a part of his personality, as is the translation and realization of the absolute into action, since the absolute strives for realization, too.38 This is true for every action, every decision and for every upheaval in life. Awareness of the absolute reflects also in man’s behavior. In particular, the transformation of the eternal into the concrete is achieved by a creation and becoming, therefore a creative act. Here again the hindrance of the melancholic becomes visible, as the creative, who offers life in his own way, feels shameful toward the man who is not melancholic.39 It is again the melancholic’s feeling of inadequacy, despite his ability to create that differentiates him from the man who is processing. This sense of worthlessness is caused by the fear of the abundance of possibilities offered by the absolute, which the melancholic is capable of creating and yet which he must set into the limited finiteness. The melancholic is able to cross from the finiteness to the absolute by creating something new. If he cannot accomplish this task, his “good” melancholy will turn into the “bad.” The melancholic realizes that he could not fulfill the realization of the absolute. He understands that he has failed his purpose, 40 and this happens not only once, but constantly. Thus “bad” melancholy causes hopelessness and an everlasting despair.41 Guardini calls this deeper type of melancholy a hopeless melancholy. The melancholic can only escape this cycle by taking responsibility for his failure and acknowledging it. For Guardini, this failure, which is guilt of omission, may only be overcome through religion, namely by repenting before God.42 Only repentance of his failure of not having accepted God in his life helps the melancholic to achieve a new beginning of progress, which will always be asked of him.
In his effort to become aware of the absolute and fulfill it, the melancholic suffers in many different ways. He puts himself in danger by underscoring this reality. On the one hand, he is tempted to retreat into pure immanency and devote himself only to finiteness, and on the other hand
33 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 48 34 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 48 35 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 49 36 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 50 37 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 50 38 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 50 39 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 51 40 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 51 41 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 52 42 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 51 f. 79 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood he opens himself only to the transcendent, the absolute by forgetting the world. 43 Such one-sidedness into one or the other direction does not compensate for the richness of life the melancholic feels inside and recognizes outside. The melancholic feels the existence of the absolute in a rather painful way since he knows that the striving for the absolute is limited by the physical. Guardini sees the meaning of life and the sense of human presence in being the “living line”44 between the immanent and the transcendent, between the limited reality and the unlimited absolute, and the physical and the metaphysical. The peculiarity of the melancholic is that he is well aware of this life at the “border area,”45 but he does not know that in this way he experiences his sense of life. For Guardini, the experience of melancholy is fundamentally human. Every human being is aware of the multitude of possibilities concerning metaphysical experiences or existential development. He knows also that he progresses into a certain direction by making his own decisions. Every man also comprehends the limitation within his existence to be able to realize all his possibilities. This limitation should not cause despair. On the contrary, man should admit to his limitation by knowing that it is possible to broaden the own horizon and set his own limits. In this respect, the metaphysical experience is an enrichment of life and should be understood and accepted as such. The best way to deal with melancholy and with life in general is the following: learn to accept yourself with all your peculiarities and make the best of it! – or, as Guardini expressed it in his later essay – Die Annahme Seiner Selbst (The Acceptance of Oneself): “I have to want to be who I am; really to be myself, and only myself.”46
43 Cf. Guardini. Schwermut. p. 53 ff. 44 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 56: „lebendige Grenze“ 45 Guardini. Schwermut. p. 49: „Grenzbereich“ 46 Romano Guardini. Die Annahme seiner selbst. In: Romano Guardini. Die Annahme seiner selbst. Den Menschen erkennt nur, wer von Gott weiß. Mainz 2003. p. 7-35. p. 15: „Ich soll sein wollen, der ich bin; wirklich ich sein wollen, und nur ich.“ 80 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
Literature:
Sören Kierkegaard. Die Krankheit zum Tode. In: Sören Kierkegaard. Der Begriff Angst. Die Krankheit zum Tode. Ed. Thomas Sören Hoffmann. Wiesbaden 2005 Romano Guardini. Vom Sinn der Schwermut. Kevelaer 2003 Romano Guardini. Die Annahme seiner selbst. In: Romano Guardini. Die Annahme seiner selbst. Den Menschen erkennt nur, wer von Gott weiß. Mainz 2003. p. 7-35
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FELICIDAD Y PSICOLOGÍA POSITIVA (FUNDAMENTOS METAFÍSICOS)
Luis Sánchez Francisco
La búsqueda de la felicidad mundana es, además de trágica, estéril. (Fernando Rielo, Transfiguraciones) Quijote y Sancho, indicaron pautas de felicidad en sus diálogos, que imbuidos en mística, amor, trascendencia, humor y superación, fundieron algo más que etiquetas de idealismo quijotesco y realismo panzesco. Hace unos meses Santiago Zabala ha editado bajo el título El futuro de la religión (2005) los sorprendentes diálogos en Paris entre Rorty y Vattimo; a sus polémicos conceptos de felicidad y amor cristiano, volveremos más adelante. Iniciamos nuestra aportación señalando y reafirmando algo constante del devenir filosófico del siglo XX: el diálogo. En el anterior congreso de Metafísica (2003) ya incidí sobre la tesis de que el auténtico diálogo, para y desde la visualización del modelo metafísico, se da entre personas, no entre culturas. Las ideas que siguen son diálogos a modo de mosaico sobre la felicidad, ese motor escurridizo de la historia. Todas las utopías, sean políticas, religiosas, empresariales o personales comparten esta misma finalidad. Cada ser humano la anhela sobre cualquier cosa para sí mismo, y quizá incluso para los demás. Es el nirvana, el paraíso, y el colorín colorado de todos los cuentos infantiles: la felicidad. Resulta paradójico, que mientras la ciencia investiga el genoma y las galaxias hasta producir detalladísimos mapas y códigos, ha permitido que sobre este aspecto tan fundamental de la experiencia humana circulen los más infundados prejuicios, supersticiones y mitos. Martin Seligman, en su obra La auténtica felicidad [Seligman, M.E.P. (2002). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. New York] resume autobiográficamente el recorrido del denominado cambio de paradigma de la Psicología, definida como psicología positiva. Durante casi todo el siglo XX la misión prioritaria de la psicología se dirigió a la curación de las enfermedades mentales: depresión, esquizofrenia, ansiedad … En los años 60 surgieron pléyades de libros y sistemas tratando de guiar el potencial humano de la “autoayuda”. A pesar de sus aparentes limitaciones, el enorme éxito de este sector editorial y educativo hacía intuir que alguna verdad debía hallarse detrás de todo ello. En los 90, algunos pioneros publicaron los resultados de nuevos estudios que comenzaban a aplicar una metodología más científica a estos temas: La Inteligencia Emocional de Daniel Goleman, Experiencia Óptima de Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi o Aprenda Optimismo de Martin Seligman. Desde el primer momento, la denominada “Psicología Positiva” tuvo un enorme impacto entre los profesionales de la salud mental, que algunos no tardaron en calificar de “revolución”. ¿Por qué siempre estudiando a los enfermos deprimidos, y no a los que están felices, para ver cómo hacen? Seligman señala tres principales tipos de felicidad. Al primero, que seguramente los epicúreos descubrieron bastante antes, lo llama “la vida agradable” fácilmente identificable con la vida hollywoodense o de campañas publicitarias, donde estelares figuras sonríen ante cámaras vendiendo una felicidad efímera. El nombre del segundo tipo de felicidad parece brotado de un clásico de Fellini: “la buona vita”. Es la felicidad que nace en cada uno cuando disfrutamos haciendo algo en lo que somos buenos, o incluso talentosos. Pero el estadio superior de la felicidad Seligman lo llama la “vida con sentido”. Es la mejor felicidad porque es la que más dura, se trata de encontrar aquello
83 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood en lo que realmente creemos y de poner todas nuestras fuerzas a su servicio. Es este tercer estadio, tiene ya talante en una concepción metafísica. Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi (1997) ha acuñado el término “flujo” para describir un estado natural de conciencia, un estado de “experiencia óptima” que se produce cuando conseguimos estar totalmente embebidos en la actividad que nos ocupa. Durante estos ratos nos olvidamos de los relojes e incluso dejamos de sentir el paso de las horas, para la persona que fluye, el tiempo “vuela”. La violinista durante un concierto, el marinero con sus velas y la niña que juega no analizan lo que están haciendo. Se funden con la actividad misma y pierden la conciencia de su propia definición. Simplemente “son” y “están”. Constatación fenomenológica y psicológica de momentos extáticos. A diferencia de los placeres sensuales, como zamparse un helado, no se trata de consumir pasivamente sino de aplicar un conocimiento o una habilidad a un nuevo reto: una montaña que escalar, un enrevesado problema matemático que resolver, un arriesgado discurso que pronunciar. Los efectos también son distintos. Saborear un helado genera una serie de sensaciones deliciosas, pero que duran sólo hasta acabarse la punta del cucurucho (o incluso antes). Tras ese fugaz destello de placer, no queda nada más que un bonito recuerdo, algo de energía física y quizás alguna carie o un poco de grasa acumulada. Por el contrario, el escalador que “fluye” no es consciente de ninguna emoción positiva durante su escalada. De hecho puede experimentar momentos de tensión o incluso pánico antes de llegar a la cumbre, aunque al finalizar se dará cuenta de haber disfrutado y puede sentir ganas de repetir la hazaña. Pero al afrontar ese desafío, el escalador habrá aprendido algo nuevo, habrá realizado parte de su potencial, habrá crecido. El flujo es la señal de esa conquista psicológica. La Psicología Positiva aconseja desarrollar las virtudes personales y aplicarlas en los distintos ámbitos de la vida para así maximizar los momentos de flujo. Sin embargo, como todos sabemos, escoger el camino del crecimiento, con su esfuerzo y sus riesgos, sobre la vía del placer inmediato, no resulta siempre tan fácil en la práctica. Y menos aun en una sociedad cada vez más hedonista y comodona, que nos brinda en todo momento cincuenta canales de televisión, una infinidad de destinos turísticos y un variadísimo menú de antojos culinarios… La Psicología Positiva ha comprobado que existen seis virtudes universalmente apreciadas por toda la humanidad: 1. Sabiduría (conocimiento), 2. Valor (coraje), 3. Justicia, 4. Templanza (autocontrol), 5. Amor, 6. Espiritualidad (Trascendencia). Para obtener una vida plena y llena de significado, hay un paso adicional fundamental poner los puntos fuertes de tu perfil de virtudes al servicio de una causa superior. “La buena vida consiste en obtener una felicidad auténtica empleando sus fortalezas características todos los días en los principales ámbitos. La vida significativa añade otro componente: utilizar dichas fortalezas para fomentar el desarrollo del conocimiento, el poder o la bondad. Una existencia semejante se halla cargada de sentido, y si Dios llega al final, se trata de una vida sagrada”. (Seligman, 2005: 377). Ya para Kant la felicidad es la recompensa merecida por la virtud, al contrario del estoicismo que identifica felicidad con virtud. En la búsqueda de la felicidad auténtica, que sacraliza nuestra vida, al inicio del pasado siglo, después de la llamada crisis de fin del XIX, siguió un cierto renacimiento del pensamiento cristiano. En ese periodo muchos hombres y mujeres se plantearon las preguntas fundamentales sobre la existencia humana y sobre la visión del mundo, y llegaron a la conclusión de que era necesario volver a una concepción espiritual y trascendente de la persona humana. Chesterton, hay otros muchos, será uno de los grandes protagonistas de este renacimiento e influirá notablemente con sus escritos, mucho antes de su conversión al Catolicismo en 1922. Chesterton se mueve en una sociedad donde imperaban las ideologías del escepticismo y del evolucionismo, y en donde el cientificismo decimonónico parecía lo suficientemente fuerte para sobrevivir a la crisis. Chesterton, que comenzó lejos de posiciones cristianas, terminó convirtiéndose en uno de sus mejores apologistas. En su Autobiografia (1936) va mostrando las distintas fases de su vida. Se han definido cinco. La cuarta etapa está caracterizada por un acercamiento a la teología cristiana, la quinta y última está determinada por su conversión. En el último capítulo nos presenta la figura encantadora 84 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood del Padre O’Connor, quien inspiró a nuestro autor al célebre Padre Brown. La Iglesia Católica penetraba en el fondo de los corazones humanos como nadie sabía hacerlo y solucionaba los problemas espirituales del hombre, y entre estos la búsqueda de la felicidad. Éste fue uno de los elementos decisivos que lo llevaron a la conversión. Para Chesterton los dos grandes pecados, que impiden la felicidad, son el orgullo y la desesperación. El primer recuerdo de infancia Chesterton, fue el de un caballero que se dirigía a un castillo cruzando un puente con una llave dorada. Era un recuerdo de un teatro de títeres que tenía en su casa. Con ese recuerdo, pone punto final a su Autobiografía: esta convicción arrolladora de que hay una llave que puede abrir todas las puertas, me trae de nuevo, ante mí, destacándose a la memoria mi primer atisbo del glorioso don de los sentidos, y la experiencia sensacional de esa sensación. Y surge de nuevo, como hace tiempo, la figura de un hombre que cruza un puente llevando una llave (…) y que esas llaves le fueron dadas para atar y desatar, cuando era un pobre pescador en una provincia lejana, junto a un pequeño mar un tanto misterioso. (Ref: Obras Completas, I, Plaza y Janés, Barcelona 1967, p. 309 y ss). Para Chesterton, una de las grandes figuras retóricas sobre las cuales Cristo fundó la Iglesia es la de las llaves. La fe católica es vista por él como reconciliación, como posibilidad de encuentro de la felicidad anhelada, porque es la realización de la mitología y la filosofía. Es una historia, una novela, y en ese sentido, una de cien novelas; sólo que es una historia verdadera. Aunque la vida hoy en este inicio de nuevo siglo se caracteriza por la decisión humana a una determinación insólita: la inapetencia de Dios o el denominado “eclipse de Dios” (Auschwitz)que el hombre culto juzga ilustre, pragmática o neohermenéutica, quiero apreciar en el presente (las tendencias a la absoluta felicidad nos acompañan como esqueleto que articula nuestro vivir) un hecho similar al del siglo pasado, en el diálogo de Paris entre Rorty y Vattimo, donde desde posiciones posmetafisicas (sin aceptar la idea de un Dios personal, de momento) aparecen ideas de que la secularización del pensamiento no es un fenómeno anticristiano, y ni siquiera poscristiano, sino una fase del propio cristianismo, algo así como una purificación de éste que lo devuelve al núcleo central de su doctrina -la caridad-, tal como lo demuestra la propia encarnación humana de Dios en la persona de Cristo, un hecho que constituiría el acto secularizador por excelencia; y, segundo, creyentes débiles, esto es, personas que no afirman “creer”, sino “creer que creen” en Dios, humanizan su relación con los no creyentes y se vuelven menos agresivos ante quienes profesan credos religiosos diferentes. Todo un síntoma como apuntaba. En El futuro de la religión, Vattimo habla desde sus raíces cristianas, mientras que Rorty lo hace desde la perspectiva de quien no tuvo formación religiosa alguna. Pero ambos coinciden en que un futuro exitoso del cristianismo depende de que éste se aleje de la proclamación de la verdad y la violencia del dogma para echarse en brazos de la caridad, la solidaridad y, aun, la ironía. El cristianismo prevalecería así antes como doctrina sobre el amor que como fuente de la verdad. Esta es su perspectiva, lo cual no deja de ser una falacia pues ¿cómo se puede amar auténticamente lo que no sea verdad? “Nuestra única posibilidad de supervivencia humana reside en el precepto de la caridad”, dice Vattimo, mientras que Rorty concluye que su “sentido de lo sagrado está relacionado con la esperanza de que algún día, en algún milenio determinado, mis descendientes podrán vivir en una civilización globalizada en la que el amor será, con mucho, la única ley”. Y ambos coinciden también, con ironía, en que si la de Vattimo es una “gratitud injustificable”, la de Rorty es una “esperanza injustificable”. Personalmente más que “creer que creo” espero esperar que les suceda lo que me gustaría denominar el “efecto Chesterton” en la búsqueda de la felicidad, del amor en definitiva, de ese amor que deja alcanzar la felicidad al crápula de Don Juan por mediación de Inés. Pero posiblemente Rorty y Vattimo no se hayan dado cuenta, que más que el diálogo de personajes literarios, o de autor con su obra, o con el lector, son ahora dos personas quienes dialogan, que en definitiva quieren ser felices. Y el propio Cristo brinda la llave o la clave de esperanza si se prefiere: “Cuando dos o más estén reunidos en mi nombre, yo estaré con ellos”. La justificación metafísica de la felicidad es tan difícil como cualquier realidad sicológica, que no admiten demostración sino experimentación y vivencia personal. La felicidad es campo de las
85 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood ciencias experienciales1. La conciencia es la única testificación de los estados sicológicos, por lo que se considera a los mismos absolutamente subjetivos, lo que no impide que sean tan reales como la vida misma del sujeto que los vivencia. Hablar de la entidad de la felicidad supone un ejercicio de definición del paradigma de la autosatisfacción derivada de la realización personal. La satisfacción puede derivar de muy variados estímulos, desde el apaciguamiento de los estados de ansiedad de las apetencias sensuales, hasta la sensación mental de éxito derivado de la reafirmación social de las propias ideas. Si denominamos felicidad al más alto grado de satisfacción que infiere en la raíz de la persona de modo estable y que le proporciona el mayor grado de realización como ser. La esencia de la felicidad sería lo que hace al ser humano estimarse como ser personal en dialogo con otra persona. Nos define un diálogo interpersonal. Estamos en relación abierta con un absoluto. Si este no está ubicado sobre la base de una ciencia metafísica por razón de absolutizar lo que no es absoluto al no llevar la reflexión a su límite, ni someterme a la leyes del buen pensar, ni seguir las sugerencias de mi ser extático, tendré diferentes absolutos que dificultarán e impedirán vislumbrar la auténtica felicidad ¿Quién es el absoluto de tu diálogo? Habla con quién dialogas y sabrás quién eres y la felicidad que te espera, sino te habrás quedado en la búsqueda o ahogado en el bienestar posible, más que proyectarte en la felicidad alcanzable. Hay que distinguir los dos términos. Bienestar es, sobre todo, una sensación pasiva, la ausencia de mal o perturbación sobre la mente, y se produce en su mayor dimensión por la neutralización de los estados de urgencias o emergencias anímicas más inmediatos: ambiente, apetito, sexualidad, éxito, salud, etc. Podríamos resumir que el bienestar es neutralización de todos los estados de inquietud sensibles o mentales que afectan a la persona. La felicidad, en cambio, corresponde a una sensación mucho más profunda en la que, con independencia de tener satisfecha las inquietudes, la persona se siente satisfecha de ser el ser que puede hacer lo que hace. Es un reflejo de la naturaleza de la propia actividad que se valora por lo que puede hacer. De aquí que la felicidad esté muy en dependencia del bien, no tanto en cuanto cualidad que nos perfecciona, sino en cuanto de bien hacia los demás se sigue de nuestra propia operación. Si la conciencia del hombre es capaz de analizar el bien que hace, también lo es de conocer el bien que no hace, el que le faltaría por realizar e incluso el bien que nunca podrá conseguir ejecutar u omite. Dada la limitación personal, el hombre no puede alcanzar el límite de ese proceso, pero ello no quita que en cada momento de su vida alcance un punto de correspondencia. Dado que todo es mejorable, no es que el hombre no alcance la felicidad, sino que permanentemente se encuentra en una posición del proceso en el que disfruta de la felicidad en una porción determinada. De este modo la felicidad siempre estaría en potencia de una mayor realización. La felicidad es la vectorial del más. Es evidente que la felicidad absoluta es una utopía, pero una utopía posible si consideramos que la felicidad no es un estado estático sino un proceso dinámico y vivencial. Goethe comprendía lo que es una parte esencial de la experiencia óptima de este proceso dinámico y extático: el correr por tales momentos sin estar consciente de uno mismo, in allen angenehmen und guten Guständen verliert die Seele das Bewußtsein ihrer selbst. Pero en Werther hay dos almas en conflicto, la una resulta trágica para la otra, en definitiva un diálogo consigo mismo, aunque sea entre razón y sentimiento. En el mito de Don Juan hay una temática también destructiva en el insaciable y perenne búsqueda de felicidad. Don Juan es la ruptura absoluta de todas las normas y reglas preestablecidas. Ni la moral de la iglesia ni la justicia de los hombres tienen valor alguno, únicamente la vida como juego y disfrute tiene sentido. Ese es posiblemente uno de los sueños más antiguos del ser humano: una vida vivida en absoluta libertad, para poder ser feliz y esa es la mayor pesadilla imaginable para la rígida mentalidad de la España de la Contrarreforma. Si el burlador de Sevilla acaba trágicamente abrasado por el fuego del infierno, el Don Juan de Zorrilla, tan caro a la
1 F. Rielo distingue acertadamente entre las ciencias experienciales y las ciencias experimentales. Tema ampliamente debatido y estudiado ya en el II congreso de Metafísica (2003). 86 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood conciencia hispánica, muere tras arrepentirse, redimido por el amor, porque hay diálogo más allá de su pasión una con Inés ya celestial. La felicidad pertenece a la ciencia experiencial. Las ciencias clásicamente se han construido únicamente con lo experimentable, lo experienciable, la metafisica y su lógica vivencial es vía, método a lo perdurable, donde estamos incluidos, en cuanto personas, todos: los científicos de laboratorio, los artesanos de las palabras o los ladrilleros del campo... El diálogo con Dios es esencial y fundamentalmente metafísico, somos autobiografía del divino, como ya propuse en el anterior congreso de Metafísica. El diálogo entre hombres es consustancial sólo cuando compartimos aquello que Dios escribe en nosotros, cuando no es así, y eso se da cuando no hay experiencia extática, nos comunicamos sentimientos e ideas que a lo sumo son metáforas de aquello que aspiramos y carecemos. Solo facilitamos bienestar. Cuando así sucede la infelicidad continua y como tenemos que dar una explicación a esta “tendencia al absoluto” se promueven nihilismos, escepticismos, relativismos ... Históricamente la conceptualización de la felicidad halló hitos y raíces en la filosofía/filología greco-romanas y en la teocracia/teología egipcio-judeo-cristiana, pasando por el tamiz del primor humanista del Renacimiento y la pirotecnia del Barroco, para fundirse en el crisol de la Ilustración. Entre los estoicos joviales como Diógenes, buscar la felicidad desesperadamente consistía en no estar a su espera. Felicidad es también palabra larga y de historia enrevesada: los latinos llamaban Felix al hombre afortunado, al tocado por la buena suerte, pero el hombre feliz era Beatus, hasta que el cristianismo atrapó el término y le atribuyo un significado: beato, santo. El librepensamiento irrumpió en la historia con una idea tomada descaradamente del humanismo cristiano: la promesa de felicidad dirigida a la humanidad entera, que habría de cumplirse no ya en un paraíso futuro, sino en los límites de esta tierra. Ciertamente, toda auténtica visión eudemonológica privilegia lo espiritual sobre lo corporal; pero privilegiar no es negar la realidad de las necesidades materiales. El utilitarismo de Jeremy Bentham, encuentran eco en Cesare Beccaria, «la massima felicita divisa nel maggior numero», que a su vez traen causa au matérialisme des Lumières y continúan hasta encontrar su mejor expresión en el fundamento teórico de toda intervención legislativa o gubernamental dedicada a incrementar el bienestar colectivo. Ahora cuando estas utopías y no sólo han muerto o desvanecido, cuando el progreso ya no es una concepción abstracta, cuando la metafísica vuelve en su búsqueda de origen y fundamento, la felicidad se hace un apremio. La enfermedad posmoderna no es padecer el mal sino la patología de no encontrarse bien o, como insignia máxima, estar deprimido. Al esencializar bienestar o placer existe un vínculo olvidado e intacto entre la felicidad y la repetición de las cosas que producen placer. Ahora bien, debemos recordar que no son lo mismo el hedonismo o el eudemonismo. Aristóteles estima que la felicidad es un fin en sí mismo, y distingue la felicidad del placer. Y Csikszentmihalyi hace una nueva matización, entre el placer y el deleite. Nos deleitamos con una actividad siempre que ésta, por falta o por exceso del reto, no resultase particularmente frustrante o aburrida. El deleite es un mecanismo psicológico claro de autoalimentación. Una actividad que produzca el deleite debe permitir a la persona evaluar su aptitud de resolver el reto. Como ya señaló Séneca, lo que deseamos muchas veces exige dolor. A lo largo de la vida, la incesante lucha se centra, más bien, en la construcción de los más preciados valores del espíritu; realmente, los primitivos cristianos no se habían equivocado. Al concentrarnos en el deleite de una actividad es cuando cimentamos y edificamos aquello que vale. San Juan Crisóstomo sugiere que la pureza y la serenidad del alma existe en el dominio propio, idea que halla eco Spinoza: la felicidad reside en que el hombre pueda conservar su propio ser. ¿Pero cual es mi ser? Las definiciones se han doblegado con frecuencia ante el monismo materialista; el dualismo cartesiano entre el cuerpo y el alma asigna, en cambio, al alma la facultad humana de movimiento: el hálito vital que mueve al cuerpo. Dentro de la dirección del pensamiento platónico entraba incluso la interpretación de esta facultad de movimiento como un gobierno del alma sobre el cuerpo. Pero de la soledad agustiniana, de la intensa pugna dentro del alma misma, 87 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood nada se sabe, pues el combate entablado no es entre razón y pasión, entre dos facultades humanas diferentes. En la vida se encuentra ante el dilema de propiciar la construcción de la felicidad propia, de realizar el proyecto del yo mejor de cada persona. La filosofía racional (sogar mit einem praktischen Imperativ) está demasiado alejada de los ardorosos impulsos del corazón que también mueven al hombre. Si la filosofía racional no es una guía para caminar en pos de la felicidad, y menos aun el objetivo en sí mismo, ni es finalidad que debe regir nuestras actividades. Dante recuerda la imagen de las palomas, estableciendo un símil con los individuos, que sólo han de encontrar una felicidad transitoria a través de la filosofía. Estas formidables aves voladoras, capaces de surcar los cielos, cuando escuchan la canción filosófica de Casella —Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona— abandonan el deleite súbitamente. Descartada la filosofía racional como guía, y lejos del pájaro dionisíaco de Nietzsche, san Agustín nos exhorta [a] buscar a Dios infatigablemente. Repensando a Jorge Santayana, resulta más sensato, en términos existenciales, San Cipriano de Antioquía de la pluma de Pedro Calderón de la Barca, que el goethiano doctor Fausto. Blas Pascal, convencido de que la fe religiosa era una gracia divina no alcanzable por la simple razón, consideraba, sin embargo, poco racionales a los ateos que se conducían como si Dios no existiera. A fuerza de buscar y rebuscar el goce de Dios, absorbiéndonos en su plenitud creadora, haciéndonos parte de Él y Él uno de nosotros, nos enfrentamos a los grandes retos de cualquier imposición o dictado que nos impida el paso de una moral heterónoma (externa e impuesta) a otra autónoma (propia) que es la que realmente dignifica al ser humano. Dionisio, uno de los más significativos dioses menores, a diferencia de los mayores que pueblan ese fastuoso Olimpo y que son indiferentes a las acciones de los hombres, experimenta una solidaridad con el destino humano. Quien vive ahora un día feliz, dilata la pena pero no se escapa de ella; no se sustrae de pensar en el eterno retorno de lo mismo, convencido de que eso ya lo ha vivido, ni de la torrencial discordancia frente a un destino inapelable. De la doble moral del vegetariano Pitágoras, san Agustín elaboró un orden de hábitos y costumbres reacio a las necesidades del cuerpo. Cristo no fue un triste asceta, ni dejó de disfrutar lo que estaba a su alrededor; sintió todos los afectos humanos y se gozó con ellos. Pero para llevarnos constantemente al más: su Padre, nuestro Padre. Adán y Eva violaron con su arbitrariedad egolátrica la mística potestad de la naturaleza humana para, saboreando por sí mismo el bien con su felicidad del vivir, y el mal con su dolor del morir, hacer de nuestra mística deidad una deidad herida, deprimida, sujeta al dolor y a la muerte. Pero Cristo, con su encarnación, restauró e inició también la Psicología más Positiva que pueda existir. Cierto que somos seres de carne y hueso, no espantapájaros de todo placer. Entonces, ¿no debemos redescubrir el jardín terrenal en el cual vivimos por la obra redentora del nuevo Adán y fomentar el disfrute para todos sin exclusión? La transformación en Cristo, que no es otra cosa sino un cohabitar en un medio divino en el que existe plena conciencia de lo humano, precisa de una comunión con los hombres: con el prójimo en cuanto al otro. La otredad consiste en todo el que vive en un universo cerrado al nuestro, aparentemente extraño; sin cara pero con el rostro profundamente humano. En un mundo plural y poroso, la felicidad depende en gran medida de la capacidad que tenemos de hacer feliz al prójimo. Y Cristo nos revela el camino del amor y de la autentica felicidad: “dar la vida por el amigo” es puerta a una felicidad, que en su misterio, se abre a la eternidad. ¿Llegará a visualizar esto la llamada posmodernidad, la etapa de la anunciada muerte de la metafísica de los citados Rorty y Vattimo, y demás pléyade de pensadores? Creo que sí, es el reto y cuestión de tiempo, porque lejos de ser un dato cultural sería interesante descubrir qué tan posmodernos somos tú y yo. Porque en el fondo conoceríamos qué tan libres somos. Al menos en el pensamiento. Esto sin olvidar que la idea tiende a la acción. Vivimos en la época del yo-ismo. Pero también en el sentimiento. Otros autores señalan, entre sus notas fundamentales, al homo sentimentalis, al nihilismo y al ocaso del deber (una nueva moral). Efectivamente a lo largo de los siglos se ha hablado del ser humano como homo rationalis, homo faber, homo viator ... Hoy nos dicen que predomina el homo sentimentalis. Es decir, la emoción se convierte en criterio de verdad, donde lo fundamental es sentirse bien, no estar bien. Esta persona busca emociones, sentimientos, nunca es bastante para satisfacer sus ansias de placer, de bienestar. Vive frecuentemente entre dos
88 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood polos: el placer y la depresión. El placer equivale a una carga estimulante de sensaciones, y la ausencia de las mismas acarrea la desmotivación, la melancolía, el aburrimiento y la pesadez (o sea, la depresión). “Porque me latió”, “no me nació”, “haz lo que sientas”, “lo que te dicte el corazón”, son expresiones frecuentes que denotan el gobierno de lo sentimental en nuestras vidas. El problema es que, más que gobierno, es anarquía. Porque, para sorpresa de muchos, no somos libres de sentir, sólo somos libres de consentir, encauzar u orientar ese sentimiento. Y en esta libertad de dar orientación, dirección y sentido a la razón, al sentimiento, y la tendencia unitiva la libertad constitutiva de nuestra persona refuerza el amor de la genial definición mística del hombre de Fernando Rielo. Ratzinger, pienso que no ajeno a la profecía de que nuestro siglo XXI será un siglo místico, en su primera encíclica señala como “el hombre, viviendo en fidelidad al único Dios, se experimenta a sí mismo como quien es amado por Dios y descubre la alegría en la verdad y en la justicia; la alegría en Dios que se convierte en su felicidad esencial” (“Deus caritas est” 2005, 9). Es en el dialogo personal con Dios donde hallaremos la felicidad esencial, que siempre puede aumentar porque si iniciamos haciendo referencia al cuento, terminamos rompiendo otro mito tan querido de los cuentos que bien se precien: “el final feliz”. Para el tema de la felicidad no existe un final feliz. No puede existir un final feliz para esta comunicación, final y felicidad entran en oposición. Cuando la felicidad tiene final, no es felicidad. No puede existir un final feliz, si el final se da ya no existe la felicidad, porque el amor –la felicidad– no tendrá fin (Cfr. 1Cor. 13, 8).
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FREE WILL AND ITS DISCONTENTS
Statile Glenn St. John’s University
1) DOOMED TO BE FREE The French existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre was wrong about many things. He was wrong about Marx, wrong about God, wrong about Being, wrong about nothingness, but somehow managed to be right on the money about human freedom. For Sartre, however, such a freedom, to which he says we are doomed, is endemic of the perennial condition of a human nature that is tossed about in a godless universe. To stand before creation and proclaim ecce homo with nothing but a Sartrian outlook on life to offer is surely a sorry task. But since Sartre’s demise approximately a quarter of a century ago, researchers in the sciences which deal with both the brain and the mind have made claims which would strip him unceremoniously of his utterly Pelagian pretensions. At the same time such claims also strike at the Christian doctrine of free will. With its demolition there remains but a short and slippery slope to the utter annihilation of all that we so firmly confess as true. Benjamin Libet has demonstrated that the cerebral timeline of volition is sometimes at odds with the sequence of what we might call our volitional common sense. What this means is that the timeline of willing can stand in direct violation of what might appear to be a necessary priority principle. According to Libet’s experimental revisionism: specific act-related electrocortical activities in the brain sometimes precede our conscious awareness of the choice needed to initiate the corresponding so-called voluntary act, in an outright reversal of the customary expectation that the choice to act precede all material aspects of an act. This common sense priority principle was the logical starting point adopted by both John Eccles and Karl Popper in their research pertaining to the calculus of volition. Libet’s experimentally determined conscious awareness of a choice to act, to which we attribute our volitional powers, is therefore arguably only an illusion which crops up in the midst of a cerebrally predetermined process. To his credit however Libet has labored to salvage the status of free will, albeit in a way which is still limited by experimental conditions that do not allow for its normal range of powers. Toward that end he refers to the veto power of some mysterious mental force that can somehow reject the implementation of behaviors whose causal origins nonetheless still reside in the material operations of the brain. Daniel Wegner also views free will as involving a dose of psychological legerdemain, whereby we are somehow tricked ex post facto into thinking that we ordain what we do. He labels this strategy, to outwit ourselves into believing that we direct our destiny, the “intention invention.” In the next two sections of this essay I will briefly consider the positions of Libet and Wegner, and demonstrate that a metaphysical commitment to the existence of free will is in no way logically undermined as yet by these psychological and psychoneurological discontents. Finally, I will sketch the operation of free will within the spiritual structure of human nature according to the absolute metaphysical model of Fernando Rielo.1 While both St. Augustine and St. Thomas have long since demonstrated to the satisfaction of many that a faculty of free will must exist as a prerequisite for moral life, Fernando Rielo takes up the task of unmasking its essence. If, with Rielo’s help, we can
1 See Fernando Rielo, The Genetic Model in my Thought (Madrid: Fernando Rielo Foundation, 2004). Please note that the term genetic is not used by Rielo in any Darwinian sense, but as a means to describe the metaphysical and interpersonal dependencies of the persons of the trinity from the perspectives of both reason and revelation. 91 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood discern the precise manner by which humans embody the principle of imago dei, then it will no longer be plausible to read the following lines of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a set of similes motivated by a Thomistic sense of mere analogy: “in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god!”. In John 10:34 Jesus tells us that we ourselves are gods. The thought of Fernando Rielo ensures free will a permanent place upon the map of the human person. In an age of post-modern doubt Rielo teaches us that we need not be afraid of what Jacques Maritain once called the scientific magisterium, which would prefer to deform the faculties of the soul into a terra incognita far beyond the reach of any Socratic dictum to know thyself. The revelation inspired reflections of Fernando Rielo expose the lie which pronounces that we are sons and daughters of Prometheus alone. According to Rielo, we are free to abandon ourselves to the inner logic of our being, who is God within us. 2) THE CHALLENGE OF BENJAMIN LIBET Under experimental conditions Benjamin Libet has demonstrated that a Readiness Potential (RP) to act can sometimes be detected in the human brain prior to any conscious awareness of a seemingly spontaneous decision to perform the action to which the electrical signal is said to correspond.2 One does not need then to be a card carrying skeptic of free will in order to sense the threat to an important tenet of the Catholic, though not only Catholic, understanding of the human person. Our sense of freedom in the cerebral scenario described by Libet is demoted to a mere accompaniment or afterthought of a predetermined action that is triggered by the material brain. G.K. Chesterton once described his relationship to his younger brother Cecil by saying that although they would always argue they would never quarrel. Libet’s work not only opens up a Pandora’s box of skeptical anti-volitional possibilities, but also serves as a potential if perhaps unwitting catalyst for the purpose of transforming what ought to constitute a healthy philosophical argument between brain science and religion into a nasty quarrel between the religious advocates and atheistic enemies of free will. I assume that none of us here would wish to incite or perpetuate such an unhealthy state of affairs. About these matters I hope that we will remain content to argue and not quarrel. Fortunately, there are gaps in the skeptical position which touts the view that free will has been thoroughly and scientifically debunked by Libet-like experiments. Libet asked subjects to spontaneously flex a finger or a wrist at will. The aforementioned RP appeared approximately 550 msec., or slightly more than half a second, on the average, prior to the act itself, while conscious awareness of any intention to initiate the allegedly cortically predetermined act would occur, roughly speaking, midway between the RP and the act. In any case we can question the actual spontaneity involved in the overall logistics of the experiment. While the experimental situation devised by Libet might be counted as spontaneous from the perspective of when an act would occur, it definitely was not spontaneous as to exactly what type of activity was to be performed. Such specificity might be important, for the brain may be able to ready itself to perform actions in advance if it already has advance notice of what action is to be performed. Consider the following scenario from America’s national pastime, the sport of baseball. A major league pitcher hurls a baseball towards a batter approximately 60 feet away at 100 mph. According to the calculations, this would entail that the ball will arrive at the plate in about 1/3 of a second. The bat of the competent hitter is not swung randomly, since chance swinging of the bat is tantamount to swinging with one’s eyes closed. In such a situation, unlike the Libet experiment involving an indiscriminate movement of a finger or wrist, the swing plane of the bat is of the utmost relevance. The knowledge of which swing plane to choose however is not ascertained, and is therefore delayed, until a fraction of a fraction of a second prior to making contact with the ball. It
2 Benjamin Libet, Mind Time: The Temporal Factor in Consciousness (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004). See chapter 4, pp. 123 – 156. Also see Libet bibliography on pp. 232 – 234. 92 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood would seem foolish here, even for the most virulent skeptic of free will, to insist that inference to the best explanation would cover this set of facts by claiming that the brain could predetermine exactly where and when to position the bat in order to maximize the chances of making solid contact with the ball. If the brain could forge an automatic act-triggering RP after computations of where to position the bat have been concluded, then, according to the aforementioned experimental timetable discovered by Libet, both the conscious illusion of a batter’s choice as well as the swinging of the bat itself would not occur until after the ball has been safely tucked away within the catcher’s mitt. It would seem then that the best explanation to cover this set of facts is that the batter was able to, in some non brain induced way, freely choose the swing path best suited to achieving the desired result of hitting the ball. For many reasons Libet-like experiments do not as yet pose any serious challenge to belief in the existence of free will. Among these reasons are the following: a) RP’s do not precede every act. Therefore, to borrow the lingo of the great skeptic David Hume, there is no constant conjunction between RP’s and subsequent acts. b) Not all choices are immediately followed by subsequent actions. For example, a Lee Harvey Oswald might decide to kill the president in October, but not actually pull the trigger until November. c) The RP does not even come close to providing a map of the total brain activity that might be relevant for understanding the cerebral correlates, or antecedents, of human actions. 3) THE CHALLENGE OF DANIEL WEGNER An important distinction between the work of Libet and Wegner is that the former’s focus has mainly to do with the neurophysiological activity of the brain whereas the latter’s area of inquiry is more traditionally psychological. In his book entitled The Illusion of Conscious Will Wegner reports on both his work and that of many others, including that of Libet.3 To complement his own position that free will is an illusion Wegner offers a quote from The Devil’s Dictionary of Ambrose Bierce in which a falling leaf attributes its descent, not to gravity, but to the fulfillment of its own whims. All rhetoric aside, Wegner is able to demonstrate that a conviction to the effect that we are responsible for performing an action is not a sufficient condition for our having done so. This is not exactly a revelation and does not mean that voluntary actions do not and cannot occur. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is in part a play about a young nobleman who could not make up his mind. To a volitional skeptic, however, in the final analysis the young Hamlet did not have any choice in the matter whatsoever. Such a consummation is not devoutly to be wished. Wegner reviews the not so innocent history of the infamous Ouija board. When the stylus glides across the surface of the game board, is this due to: 1) Some demonic power guiding our hand; or 2) To the involuntary twitching of the nerves in the hand; or perhaps, 3) To the physical manifestation of conscious or unconscious desires? As regards possibility #3, Fernando Rielo discredits the very possibility of an unconscious dimension within the mind. This is because an understanding of human nature which is built upon the foundation of a constitutive divine and Trinitarian presence within us does not allow for a complete absence of psychic awareness. There are varying degrees of conscious or mystical attunement to God’s constitutive presence within us, but never total detachment. According to Father José Maria López Sevillano, even the damned continue to harbor the constitutive presence of God within them while dwelling eternally in hell, but this presence has been maximally diminished to the point of ontological zero.4
3 Daniel Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002). 4 This was Father José Maria’s response to a question at a seminar on Rielo’s thought which he conducted at St. John’s University on October 8-9, 2005. 93 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
Wegner and Wheatley (1999) updated the example of the Ouija board by substituting a computer screen for the board and a computer mouse for the moveable stylus or planchette. In their experiment a subject in light manual contact with a mouse witnesses the movement of a screen cursor. This motion is then attributed as being the expected and corresponding result to the causal action which they vigorously believe and feel to have been initiated by themselves, in those cases when they had been thinking about the movement of the cursor just prior to perceiving its actual motion. In reality however, and unknown to the subjects, the mouse was actually caused to move by a confederate of the experimental team, thus proving that one can be mistaken in regard to one’s own causal role or non-role in relation to certain material results. This means that we are not infallible when it comes to our knowledge of whether we have freely performed an act, because the sense of volitional responsibility can be falsely manufactured to fit our volitional expectations. This, and nothing more, is what Wegner’s experiment teaches us. While, culinarily speaking, for example, we may know what we like and could never be wrong about our own individual gastronomic love affairs with Italian cuisine, it is decidedly not the case that our sense of volitional responsibility for what we have and have not done is equally keen. It is interesting to note that Wegner’s subjects invented their volitional stories after the fact whereas the subjects of Libet experienced a sense that they were controlling their own actions prior to their actualization. It can be claimed that the underlying rationale for providing a voluntarist explanation for the movement of the cursor as self-caused in Wegner’s experiment, or the movement of the finger and wrist as self-caused in the case of Libet, was due to a need to comply with the priority principle which stipulates that a performance thought always precede a voluntary action. What then, we might ask, prompts us to be guided by the priority principle in the first place? Over thirty years ago José Delgado was able to demonstrate that electrical stimulation of localized areas in the brain could deceive subjects into believing that certain of their actions were self-caused when they were not.5 While the results of Delgado, Libet, and Wegner most definitely qualify as skeptical ammunition that can challenge any naïve affirmation of free will, they do not disprove it. After all, our everyday sense that we determine what we do is not the result of any exotic neurological deception. It is a given that the mind can be tricked into false ascriptions of free will at work. This however does not entail that free will does not exist, just as misinformation does not entail that knowledge doesn’t exist, or an hallucination prove that there are not times when we can truly see. Voltaire once quipped that if God did not exist then it would prove necessary to invent him. I think however that it would be exceedingly difficult for the mind to ever fictionally envision that some actions are self-caused if that were never the case. 4) FERNANDO RIELO AND FREE WILL Experimental science has revealed that the epistemological route to a confirmation of free will presents a plethora of problems that do not leave it completely unscathed. The faculty of volition was first systematically introduced into the post-Hellenic treatment of the human person by St. Augustine in order to account for the existence of sin, evil, morality, and the overall economy of salvation. We might nominate this Augustinian justification for volition as the logical route to the existence of free will. If there is no free will, then there is no sin. Since, (if we are not begging the question), there is sin, (for otherwise Christianity is out of business); then there must be free will. Fernando Rielo’s explication of the essence of human freedom pushes past this logical or existential starting point, and comprises but a small part of his comprehensive metaphysical project to fully and rationally establish the godly credentials of each human person. Rielo argues that the vacuity of the principle of identity (a = a) in all its guises points reason towards an awareness of its proper metaphysical foundation, which is both relational and interpersonal. As human persons we are constituted by the presence of the holy trinity within us in a
5 J.M.R. Delgado, Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1969). 94 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood way which is sufficient to the task of enabling a proper psychosomatic actualization and integration of our authentic spiritual patrimony. For Rielo the human capacity to both consciously and voluntarily initiate a course of thought or action is part of the overall configuration of a human personhood that is made in the image and likeness of the triune God. Rielo makes a distinction between human willing and human freedom. Consistent with this, he thus rejects the Thomistic relegation of the theological virtues of both hope and love to the faculty of will.6 In his Introduction to The Genetic Model in My Thought López Sevillano writes that “human will is mystical will in the image and likeness of divine will; and human freedom is mystical freedom in the image and likeness of divine freedom.”7 The constitutive presence of the trinity within us thus serves as the ontological root which grounds and structures all of our human powers. Since imitation is a form of flattery we might genuinely say that Fernando Rielo’s mystical description of the human person in light of his Genetic Model indicates that we are innately equipped with our very own genetic Readiness Potential. Such a view is not to be confused with any kind of transcendental determinism. Through the charismatic power of an interpenetrating communication, or communicatio amoris, Rielo teaches that each human person channels ecstatic energy: through the faculty of intelligence by means of revelation; through the faculty of volition by means of fruition – the divine power which shapes desire; and through the unitive faculty, wherein our disposition towards freedom resides, by means of unction – the divine power which shapes freedom. Moreover, as unction enjoys a primacy among the powers of divine love which empowers our human faculties, freedom predominates in the structure of the human spirit over intelligence and will, which are its manifestations under the guidance of the mystical power of union. In Rielo’s application of the Genetic Model to human personhood all that is properly human reflects the trinity. Both in the distinctions between and among each individually identifiable human power, as well as in the unity of the interdependencies which tie them together, we are carefully scripted and created in the image of the almighty and all merciful God. Here I must end. Otherwise I might be tempted to keep you here longer than your patience will allow. Luckily for you I am not another Oscar Wilde, who once boasted that he could resist everything except temptation.
6 Rielo, op. cit., p. 65 7 Rielo, p. 31. 95
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SOURCES OF DESPERATION AS THE SOURCES OF NARCOTIC PROBLEMS.
Krzysztof A. Wojcieszek Ph.D. Janski School in Warsaw, Poland
Introduction Narcotic problems are present in contemporary world as the effect of use such substances as: alcohol, nicotin, 4THC, cocain, heroin, LSD, amfetamine and many others. All such substances are psychoactive and can change human neurological functions causing dependency and many other difficulties and terrible results. The significance of that kind of risk behaviour, especially in rich countries, for the human health and social welfare is extreme large. We can see it in the data of WHO preparing special report about the significance of any factors on human health from the global viewpoint. Last report shows that using psychoactive substances is one of the most 1 dangerous element of contemporary life . In such situation many specialist is looking for the best methods of prevention, therapy and rehabilitation. Most of the efforts is based on psychology, sociology, epidemiology and other such disciplines. Are there any conections with philosophy, especially with metaphysic? I think so and I think that only classical metaphysic can help us to understand the main topics of the matter. The nature of risk and protective factors Specialist working on this area decided to develop a kind of "pragmatic theory" to describe and understand the sources of narcotic problems. It is known as "theory of risk and protective factors". The key element of the theory is the list of empiric correlations between narcotic problems and some life events and situations (risk factors) and between the lack of problems in the presence of 2 some other situations and circumstances (protective factors). From the practical point of view in the short perspective it is not necessary to answer some fundamental questions as the nature of narcotic problems, but it is enough to be able to reduce risk and enforce protection by the influence on any factor from the list. Despite that fact it is interesting to answer such questions because a better theory can improve our procatical prevention efforts. Just in this point I see the role of metaphysical reflection. Psychology and sociology can see the problem only from the point of view of their specific methodology with their specific bounderies. What is the nature of risk and protection? The list of risk factors shows such elements as lack of the knowledge about substance use results, bad normative believes, peer influence, modelling by adults, social environment influence, genetic vulnerability and especially availability of substances. At the first look this list has no any more universal fundament, but detailed analysis shows that there is such common feature: the lack of the truth in any sense of this word. Using substances has special time distance between the moment of use and user pleasure experience and between the terrible results, as dependency or casualties. So only intelectual reflection can explain the order of action. Using only material, sensual activities is unproductive for the user as the base for responsibility. Contemporary irrationalism (lack of realistic thinking) can be the main cause of such
1World Health Report 2002, Reducing Risk, Promoting healthy Life, World Health Organisation 2002 2Hawkins D.J., Catalano R.F., Miller J.Y. , Risk and Protective Factors for Alcohol and Other Drug Problems in Adolescence and Early Adulthood: Implications for Substance Abuse Prevention, Psychological Bulletin, 1992, 112 (1), 64-105 97 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood mistakes. Only person can overcame sensual data and see the source of pleasure as the source of the danger. But is our culture the place of intelectual work? Are people using their all dispositions? Sometimes it is even the aim of companies and bussines forces to leave people on the first level of knowledge, sensual - not intellectual. The truth meance the freedom, especially in the modern production/consumption society. More interesting are protective factors. The list of them is shorter but very impressive: strong bonding to the parents, school bonding, good religious experience and life, good relations with social background and traditions, positive peer group bonding, some psychological skills. Is there any common base? Yes, there is, but nearly invisibile for the psychologist. That common basement are human personal relations to the family, friends, God and other people. What it is: human personal realtions? Is it not the same as simply emotions? No. Emotions are connected with material side of the human person, with our physiology. Relations are non - material, but real. Only in the classical description of human person as dualistic it is possible to understand that kind of personal bonding, so contemporary psychology, as positive science (in the sense of A. Comte) is not in position to understand that kind of objects. Special kind of risk factor: desperation On the list of risk factors is not present that special main risk factor as the serious and giant lack of protective factors - the desperation. The word "desperation" is commonly understand as human emotional situation. But metaphysical sense of that word is a little different. In the deeper sense the state of desperation is the result of the deep crisis of personal relations. What are "personal relations"? Polish philosopher M. Gogacz define them as the answer to "transcendentalia" - the answer to act of being of the other person. So the most important are not the answers to any features of the Other, connected with his or her essence, but the answers to the center and fundament of being - act of existence, act of being (in the sense of Sain Thomas Aquinas 3 - actus esse). Only person, in this case - human person, can answer to the act of being of the other person. The effect of the personal meeting is a set of the three main personal relations on the deepest level of human substance. Relations are the subject of free acceptation, but they starts just at the moment of any real personal contact. We only can find them and we can to accept them or not. Despite the fact of acceptation or non-acceptation some influences of the other person are eternal in our internal structure. In the case of the positive acceptation of personal relations we can use them as the specific bridges between us. Without personal relations it is not possible to built any community: family, university, nation. The importance of relations is extremaly great, because they join our 4 main "parts" - our acts of being . Such "transcendentale" as the truth producing relation of faith, such "transcendentale" as the good producing the relation of hope, and such "transcendentale" as the reality producing the relation of love. Love is the most strong and the most important for any human being. Why it is so important? Because reality is in any substance the trace of God - pure act of being, Esse Subsistens. Love as personal relation is a kind of stable adaptation to another person act of being. In community, in love person has an occasion to overcame her own bounderies. The personal relations are in this way a real home of human being.
The damage of "real human home"
3Gogacz M., Cz³owiek i jego relacje, Warszawa 1985 4Andrzejuk A., La theorie thomiste des relations personelles, in: Proceedings of the International Congress on Christian Humanism in the Third Millenium: The perspective of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Vatican 2003, vol. 1, pp. 275-287 98 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood
Relations are only bridges to another person, but there are some circumstances when they can be damaged. At first they are personal that meance free, so somebody can cut them. Sometimes an emotional attack produce disturbances in relations. Any sin or moral mistake can destroy the relational construction. The most dangerous are such events as death of the lover. Unpresence of the relations partner can stay an extreme danger, but not for everybody and not in every case. It can start the desperation process, but only in some circumstances. For example the death is not the end of relation for people with authentic religious faith for resurrection or with philosophical knowledge about human eternal life. Generaly, the presence in community with other people and with God allow us to overcame the desperation temptation. When you are not in the contact with God and other people the love break can move you to the desperation process, with some stages. At first you will lose your quiet and you feel in the danger. At the second stage you will lose your "aims of life". At the last stage you will lose the motives for the self-defence. Your life has no value for you, so it is common reaction to look for simple pleasures, especilly narcotics. Your pain is too big and it is not possible to change it to any constructive force. Especially emotions in the state of desperation, which have normally the role of helping the body balance, are not ordered and not concentrated by intelect and will. So your physical safety is weaker and weaker - to the death. The general model for such reaction is "dark night of the love". In spiritual life some adepts have special stages, phases of their way, when relations with God are not visible. Such state is extremally painfull and can be the source of the desperation in the same way as the death of your relative. Moreover, such stages are not only the priviledge of saints and mistics. It can be common experience of young people at the moment of faith crisis. So from many causes our "real human home", personal relations and the community, can be damaged and the desperation process can 5 start. The important condition of the desperation process is the absence of wisdom. Wisdom has the power for prevention, even for desperation prevention. When we have the truth about even the most painfull situation we can built the motives for future life and hope. So the risk of desperation depends on "wisdom level" in individuals and in the culture. Culture - the most important factor Especially culture has play a central role in the matter. When we can find in the culture helpfull informations about our difficulties, about the nature of love and about the human nature, we can not be damaged by somebody death, absence or by loneliess. In the most cases religion is the source of our wisdom, but without classical philosophical background even the religion is weaker. From this point of view metaphysical knowledge is essential part of mature culture, culture with prevention potential. Modern societies produce often such type of the culture which is not helpfull in the case 6 of desperation danger . Some forms of desperation, "cold desperation", "acedia", "melancholy" can damage nearly all societies, nearly all members of some nations. One of the main signs of such dangerous situation is large using psychoactive substances by the members of such "society in desperation". So the answer in prevention is not only on the territory of psychoeducation or prohylactic 7 8 procedures , but in the culture with some necessary ingredients . Among them is classical think - metaphysic of men and of all reality, especially of God. In the culture without elementary knowledge about the God existence, the human personal nature, the intelect and the will presence in
5 mdetailed description of desperation process in philosophical aspects is in: Gogacz M., Ciemna noc mi³oœci, Warszawa 1985 6 see the desperate reaction on the tsunami catastrophe in some european countries 7 which are rather popular and supported by the public funds 8 especially interesting example is famous Uganda success in HIV prevention: Green E.C., Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Success in Developing Countries, 2003, Westport, Praeger Publishers 99 Metaphysics 2006 – a. Metaphysics and Personhood human person, people are in great danger of desperation because they can not to develop and to 9 understand their own love and the history of their life. Such cultures are not teaching the love , not preparing for love. And the simple result of such lack of wisdom is self-damage by alcohol, nicotin 10 and other drugs use.
9 in polish school practice we have some interesting experiences and observations about connection between teaching on love and reducing drinking, see: Grzelak S., Profilaktyka ryzykownych zachowañ seksualnych m³odzie¿y, Warszawa 2006 10 Wojcieszek K., Na pocz¹tku ny³a rozpacz, Kraków 2005 100 b. Metaphysics and Mysticism Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
CHAN BUDDHISM: THE UNCONVENTIONAL EDUCATION OF THE METAPHYSICIAN
Marco Andreacchio
If the metaphysician investigates being as a whole in its general or essential features, his exposition of being rests upon a hidden ground. What is exposed in metaphysics? What is hidden or presupposed therein? These questions are of capital importance to the student faced with choosing among a variety of competing accounts of being. Where each account claims to expose being in the broadest or most authoritative way, which account deserves our approval? In order to answer this question in all seriousness we learn to inquire into the relation between metaphysical exposition and its presuppositions - between what is said and what in speech is necessarily left unsaid 1 . This latter inquiry into the relation between exposition and its presuppositions is successful only in proportion to the clarity or comprehensiveness of the exposition it considers. As long as exposition’s object remains a particular aspect of our experience, inquiry into exposition’s presuppositions remains inconclusive. It is only where exposition takes as its proper object experience as a whole or as such, that its presuppositions may be laid bare with the rigor and clarity necessary for us to discover the true relation between exposition and its presuppositions. Insight into that relation is made possible by a special exposition we call metaphysical. But does not metaphysical exposition presuppose inquiry into being as a whole, i.e. into the nature of being? And does not that “whole” or “nature” comprehend the relation between exposition and its presuppositions? Exposition: that which is revealed to us in speech, in logos. Presuppositions: that which remains hidden or presupposed in logos. Logos stands between what is exposed and what is hidden; as a luminous mirror, it “shows” all things on the basis of a comprehension of all things. Exposition presupposes a turn “back to things themselves” - introspection, silent contemplation, an underlying active intuition into the nature of all things, or of experience as a whole. The problem is that inquiry into being as a whole seems to presuppose being’s exposition. The very possibility of a critique of metaphysics rests upon a metaphysical exposition. Is this not the a
1 “The knowledge that comes from the sciences usually is expressed in propositions and is laid before us in the form of conclusions that we can grasp and put to use. But the ‘doctrine’ of a thinker is that which, within what is said, remains unsaid, that to which we are exposed so that we might expend ourselves on it” (Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth.” 1999 [1967]. Pathmarks [Wegmarken]. Translated by Thomas Sheehan. Edited by William McNeill. Cambridge UP: Cambridge, New York, Melbourne; 155). 103 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism priori any critique of metaphysics attempts to uncover—namely the original or natural exposition of being? And is not this exposition the answer to the question concerning the right metaphysical exposition? We are faced with the need to distinguish two senses of metaphysical exposition: one is historical or relative; the other is natural or absolute. In the first case we may speak of “Plato’s metaphysics,” or of “Aristotle’s metaphysics,” etc. In the latter case, we are faced with the challenge of recovering the natural disclosure of being as a whole in logos. But is that disclosure immune to presuppositions? What is meant, for instance, by the declaration “in the beginning is the logos” (en archē ēn ho logos)? We confront the logos as a mirror mediating the relation between the visible and the invisible, exposition and its presuppositions. The logos marks the beginning of what is visible, and thus of the distinction between exposition and its presuppositions. As Laozi’s 道 dao, the logos is intuited through the distinction between what is present (有 you) and what is absent (無 wu). That distinction is the occasion, not the ground, of our recovery of the logos/dao. Speech, in its metaphysical dimension, discloses everything to us, but in such a way as to force us to draw a distinction between what is revealed in speech and speech’s presuppositions: speech shows us the whole “cut into half,” as it were - in Plato’s terms, it offers us but an accrued “interest” or single offspring (tokous) of being itself.2 How do we know that what logos exposes, at best “annunciates” being as a whole? It is the context of speech that reminds us of “something” left unsaid. That “remainder” promised to us in logos forces us to resist the temptation of abdicating our quest for being in the face of any metaphysical exposition. I paraphrase Laozi. He says: the logos that can be predicated, is not the natural logos. In the Chinese, the term I render here as logos appears as 道 dao (dao is both “creative way” and “speech”); what is “by nature” is always or for the most part—it is constant (常 chang). The “way” of all things as a whole is uncreated - it is not exposed as its own object. Remaining between exposition and its background, it is called the middle way (中道 zhong dao). On this note, I turn to a “foreign” exemplification of the dialogue between metaphysical exposition and its presuppositions, by way of answering a question I have left unanswered: is there an original or natural or presupposition-less exposition of logos/dao? I shall refrain from appealing to Augustine’s otherwise inspiring answer to the question of the end of time - that blessed end which is without end. But I shall so refrain only for the sake of the truth Augustine’s answer stands for.3 Here I am immediately concerned with the relation between what announces itself in Logos and what remains hidden in Logos - a relation comparable to that between time and eternity.
2 Plato, Republic, 507a. 3 “I know all too well that I am utterly unable to convey to you what in the best possible case, in the case of any man, would be no more than a faint reproduction or a weak imitation of our prophets’ vision. I shall even be compelled to lead you into a region where the dimmest recollection of that vision is on the point of vanishing altogether—where the Kingdom of God is derisively called an imagined principality—to say here nothing of the region which was never illumined by it. But while being compelled, or compelling myself, to wander far away from our sacred heritage, or to be silent about it, I shall not for a moment forget what Jerusalem stands for” (Leo Strauss, “What is Political Philosophy?” Lecture delivered at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, in 1954. In 1989. An Introduction to Political Philosophy. Edited with an introduction by Hilail Gildin. Wayne State UP: Detroit; 2). 104 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
There are two terms at the heart of classical Chinese: one is 中 zhong or “center;” the other is 道 dao or “way/speech.” The two terms have several parallels in the Chinese language; the question raised by their relation is a constant one. The relation between dao and zhong—logos and its center or “mind”—is typically referred to as 德 de or “virtue.” Whether we are studying a Confucian, Daoist, or Buddhist classic, we are pointed directly to the activity through which the center of speech is related to the whole: the whole is manifest in dialogue with the center. That dialogue is awakened as a virtue, an “attaining” (得 de) or “completing” (cheng 成) in which and through which the student is transported into the original sense (本意 ben yi) of the dao. The whole is disclosed at the center; the center points directly back to the whole. In Buddhism this relation reappears in terms of the 華嚴 Hua Yan teaching (教 jiao) and 禪 Chan’s direct pointing (直指 zhi zhi) to the “root/unity” (宗 zong) of the teaching. The teaching is the teaching of Buddha or mind - at once noēsis and noēma.4 The teaching is twofold: it is the teaching of the “double truth [of the teaching]” (二諦 er di). The first dimension of the teaching is said to be eternal (transcending appearance, it is 無相 wu xiang); the second dimension of the teaching is said to be temporal (it appears relatively to its subjects). To be sure, what is said is, in both cases, apparent. In the first case, it becomes manifestly true that the teaching transcends its exposition; in the second case, we find that it is in the realm of appearances that the teaching is apparent - not in itself. In short: in logos, the hidden manifests itself as that which transcends the manifest, while the manifest points back to or relies on its hidden presuppositions (依他 yi ta). The rejoining of the two - the hidden and the manifest - will be represented by the Buddhist school named “Esoteric Teaching” (密教 mi jiao). Here the hidden “whole” is manifest as mystery (玄 xuan), while the manifest “part” points back to its hidden whole. The part appears at the center of a mysterious world (man d ala), while being directed back to the hidden nature of that world. The world itself qua mystery revealed in “mysterious speech” (mantra) helps bring the particular into focus by summoning it to the center of life - to the clearing whence alone the whole presents itself in its hidden-ness. The esoteric teaching’s rejoining of the hidden and the manifest is prepared by the dialectic between the definite or all-comprehensive teaching (圓教 yuan jiao) of Hua Yan, and the Chan recovery of the presuppositions or “root” of Hua Yan. Chan points back to the principle (理 li) or mind (心 xin) or center (中 zhong) of the whole manifested in or by Hua Yan. The manifested whole—the visible universe (horatos topos or mundus sensibilis) - is somehow incomplete; the radiant whole tends to blind us to its center. Chan liberates the pious student of Hua Yan who is lost in the radiance of the comprehensive teaching of Hua Yan. Freedom is here recovery of the center of the whole; it is the return to the source of exposition. The comprehensive teaching is understood to be the word of Buddha, the teaching of the sage (聖人 sheng ren); the return to the hidden intent/meaning (深意 shen yi) of
4 Reading the terms with Husserl (cf. his 1913. Ideen au einer reiner Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, inter alia §85, 94, 128-129). 105 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Buddha is the path of the noble (賢 xian). The sagely Buddha is said to be in perfect harmony with the noble bodhisattva or patriarch (祖 zu). All Chan patriarchs point back to the Buddha hidden in Buddha’s teaching. Buddha is the whole manifest in the teaching; the patriarch is the center hidden in Buddha. The unity of patriarch and Buddha is the mystery, not merely the exposition, of the whole. The mystery of the whole is not an object of reflection/imagination or deliberation (不可思 議 bu ke si yi). The mystery of the whole is the identity of two paths - one is manifestation (陽 yang), the other is concealment (陰 yin); one ascends to visibility (往相 wang xiang), the other descends into the invisible (還相 huan xiang). Anabasis and katabasis - yes? The wholly visible is the whole; the invisible is the part. Manifestation is “departing from appearances;” concealment is “returning to appearances.” “Ascending to full visibility”: this is Heaven, the completion of all things. We are back to the 周易 Zhou Yi, the Classic of Change, opening with the exposition of the four characteristics of Heaven. Heaven (乾 qian) is the archē (元 yuan), the telos (亨 heng), the harmonia (利 li), the orthotēs (貞 zhen) - the principle, path, harmony, and order of all things. What is the activity of Heaven? Heaven transports (載 zai or 乘 cheng). What does Heaven transport? It transports the manifold content (萬物 wan wu) of Earth. Earth (坤 kun) is the cradle or host (備 bei) of all things. It is in Earth that beings arise - beings who are awakened out of “thing-ness” by Heaven’s silent call (感 gan). Heaven calls beings to respond (應 ying) to Heaven; beings (眾生 zhong shen) are the respondents to the call of Heaven.5 Earth is the occasion (緣 yuan) for beings’ response to Heaven: Earth gives us life (生 sheng) by following (順 shun) Heaven; it gives us life so that we may ascend to Heaven, the reason (理 li or 因 yin) of beings. Heaven is the fully visible, the completion of exposition - it is the fullness of the activity of 龍 long, the dragon. But the dragon’s course (行 xing) ends in concealment, and out of or within concealment unfolds the course of 馬 ma, the horse.
The horse is the way of Earth; the dragon is the way of Heaven. Originally, the two ways are one, but in speech or through speech, they are two. Now, Earth is the grounding force (地勢 di shi) allowing the gentleman (君子 junzi) to collect a virtue (厚德 hou de) enabling him to carry all things (載物 zai wu) back to Heaven. Man’s participation in the activity of Heaven depends upon Earth, where Earth is what follows directly from Heaven. It is within or through the gentleman that the dragon/course of Heaven reemerges with vigilance and prudence (惕 ti or 慎 shen), out of earthly latency (潛 qian). The reason of life emerges out of the occasion of life; the occasion of life reveals itself as the reason of life. This revelation entails a transformation (化 hua) of life forms - an ascending of beings to Heaven through the mediation of the legislating sage (聖人 shen ren). While the sage is the standard of rectitude (modeled—法 fa—after Heaven, which is modeled after Heaven’s nature, or 自然 zi ran), the gentleman (君子 junzi) points back to the standard - he “attains to the standard by abiding in the center” (居中得正 ju zhong de zheng). The gentleman hides his virtue so that it may become manifest in the sage, whereas the sage manifests his luminous virtue (明明德 ming ming de) so that it may be returned to (歸 gui) by the gentleman. However, in
5 Cf. esp. the preface to the Book of Odes (詩經 shi jing), where man’s response to Heaven takes the form of speech. 106 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism manifesting his Heavenly virtue, the sage conceals the center out of which the gentleman may then recover the hidden unity or essence of Heaven. In the words of Song dynasty 范仲淹 Fan Zhongyan (989-1052), 蒙者處晦而弗曜、正者居中而弗群。正者居中而弗群、守晦蒙而靡失、養中正而可分。處 下韜光、允謂含章之士; 居上棄智、斯為抱一之君。聖人以設彼易文、授諸君子、考其在蒙 之象、得此養正之理。 “The ignorant is placed in darkness and does not appear in the light, the righteous abides in the center and not among the many. By guarding dark ignorance he does not waste or lose it; by cultivating the center he sets a standard of right that can be implemented.6 Placed low concealing the light [of virtue],7 he may be called the official of inner beauty;8 abiding on high, casting away his ‘wisdom,’ 9 this is the gentleman embracing unity. 10 The sages established the writing of the Zhou Yi [Classic of Change] for the education of all gentlemen,11 so as to examine their image in ignorance, and attain to the principle of this cultivation of righteousness.”12 The sage serves as the living basis for the gentleman’s cultivation. While the sage manifests his virtue in the words of the Classic of Change, those words conceal the essence of his virtue as long as the gentleman does not recover their center. Now, the center of speech is recovered only in ignorance - in Socratic ignorance, if the reference is allowed here. As in Confucius’ case, the gentleman raises no claim to sagely knowledge; he merely points back to the principle of the sage’s speech preserved in the early canonical books of the gentleman’s legal tradition. The gentleman carries us back (述 shu) to the standard or virtue set by the sage; the gentleman does not attempt to replace the sage’s words - he merely brings us back to their original light or life. This return to the principle (理 li) of the sagely words springs (發 fa) from the principle itself latent (潛 qian) within the words: the words are the occasion for the recovery of their principle; the principle is the reason for the ordering of the words back to their original light/meaning (大意 da yi). The principle or “dragon” is latent in the occasion or “horse,” while the latter arises out of the former. Reason (因 yin) and occasion (緣 yuan) - as verum and factum - are articulated in such a way as to awaken beings into the original mind or unity of both reason and occasion. I return to Chan Buddhism, which, in pointing directly to the center of the whole, assumes
6 “分、施也” “To split is to implement” (玉篇). 7 聖人韜光、賢人遁世“The sage conceals [韜 tao] the light, the nobleman flees the world” (陶靖節集序 [Praface to the Collection of Tao jing jie]). 8 章、美也。內含章美之道。 “Zhang is beauty: the way to contain beauty within” (易:坤, 疏). 9 Cf. Daodejing, XIX, where 棄智 qi zhi is the ruler’s “casting away the ‘wisdom’智 (or ‘knowledge’)” that is an obstacle to the welfare of the people. 10 The expression 抱一之君 bao yi zhi jun, echoes the Zhuangzi (庚桑楚 geng sang chu, “Tender Mulberries of Geng) and the Daodejing, XXII. By “embracing unity” the sage is able to benefit his people. 11 “When it is not I who seek ignorant pupils, but ignorant pupils who seek me, I respond out of natural impulse[志]” (易:蒙, Yijing: “Ignorance,” 彖 tuan). 12 六蒙以養正賦 Sixth Fu on “Cultivation of Righteousness out of Ignorance.” In 范仲淹賦評注 [Fan Zhongyan’s critically annotated Fu’s]. Annotated by 洪順隆 Hong Shunlong. Zhonghua Congshu. 國立編譯館 Guoli bienyi guan: Taipei, Taiwan; 115. 107 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism that the awakening of beings (始覺 shi jue) to the original meaning or life of Buddha’s teaching (the teaching of the sage or 聖人 sheng ren) is none other than the original awakening of Buddha (本覺 ben jue). In truth, what awakens is not “me” or “you,” but mind out of the sense-certainty of “me” and “you.” “We” are the provisional form of “the awakened one,” i.e. Buddha. Yet, as the provisional form of mind, “I” am the persona arising out of mind itself: the potentiality of mind arises out of mind’s actuality. Mind’s actuality is so constituted that in exposing itself, it leaves a “residue” behind its exposition. It is that “residue” or latent “seed” (種子 zhong zi) that re-enters the visible universe (the whole) from the imperceptible margins of experience (微 wei or 機 ji), navigating towards its center. Once potentiality gains its place at the center of life, it begins blooming into the actuality it had first “fallen” out of. What had remained latent recovers its original fullness. This recovery is none other than the activity of dispersion (薰習 xun xi) through which actuality recedes into latency: what appears as occluding the understanding - namely, the visible universe in its particularities - is now revealed in its universality or in its original light or order as the manifestation or emanation of the understanding itself. In the words of the Confucian classics, the luminous virtue illuminating all things (明明德 ming ming de) can be recovered or returned to only through the dialectic of the center (中 zhong) and the way (道 dao, 庸 yong, or 為 wei). The center brings the way to a halt (止 zhi) - it functions as the fulcrum over which the way turns back onto itself (轉依 zhuang yi), revealing itself as non-dependant (不依他 bu yi ta), original (原 yuan), constant (常 chang) and immutable (無為 wu wei) mind. Chan Buddhism prepares us to see the universe as a whole, or in its original light. It does so by interpreting the comprehensive words of Hua Yan teachings. Those words manifest the whole universe in its generality - in its essential dimension. But the essential blinds us to the existential as long we approach the essential from the side of particularity, or as long as we are lost in the midst of words, or as long as we rely on the words of the teachings. Chan is a “return” to the existential import of the essential features of the universe as manifest in the words of Hua Yan - the sagely words of Buddha. The recovery of the existential import of Buddha’s teaching proceeds through the recovery of the center of sagely speech - the center empty of words, the clearing of the understanding. It is in or out of that center that words are “alive” (活 huo), and the sage’s original meaning/intent is manifest in its entirety. It is in order to understand the original meaning of sagely words that Chan refrains from relying upon those words. The price to be paid for the sake of gaining full vision of or insight into the essential features of the universe is blindness to them. The Chan student must learn to remain blind to the letter of the teachings for the sake of the living letter or spirit of the teachings; he must learn to relinquish his (sense-)certainties concerning Buddha’s teachings, for the sake of discovering their truth. But how is the student to “depart” from the letter of sacred teachings without losing his way? He must above all trust (信 xin) that the letter is more than what he has hitherto believed it to be; he must doubt himself in order to discover the true letter on the “other shore” (彼岸 bi an) of desire for 108 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism subjective appropriation. Embarking on the quest for the recovery of what the Esoteric Teaching school calls “true speech” (真言 zhen yan), at last the Chan student returns to the essential features of reality manifest in Buddha’s teachings: but whereas earlier, he had imagined those features in a generality leaving things behind, now he sees things themselves in their natural or original generality; now he sees the universe through the contemplative eye of the mind (佛眼 fo yan), through which all things arise in order or types (類 lei).
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THE METAPHYSICS OF LOVE IN DEUS CARITAS EST
Rev. Fr. Maxell Lowell C. Aranilla
Benedict XVI’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est expresses the heart of Christian Faith: Love of God and Love of Neighbor. He emphasizes that eros (love of passion and ecstasy) is disciplined and purified by agape (love of others). This being realized when Christ became the Incarnate Love of God, and elevated marriage, the epitome of love, to the level of sacrament. And to this kind of loving, where there is a “union of beings” everyone is called. Man’s experience of Love, of loving and being loved, affirms his very own existence as explained by the following reflective propositions: First, I AM LOVING AND BEING LOVED. This affirms my subjectivity and objectivity being the giver and the receiver of love respectively. These experiences are so real, taking space and are within time. Second, I AM LOVING AN-OTHER REAL BEING AND AN-OTHER REAL BEING IS LOVING ME. There is always the subject and object of love. When I am loving, I am loving someone. When I am being loved, I am being loved by someone. That someone who is an-Other is neither an imagination nor illusion but a real existing being (person). Third, I AND AN-OTHER ENTER A GENUINE DIALOGUE. This leads to self communication, self revelation and self transcendence. The Love I and an-Other give to and share with each other affirms and even builds a new meaning to our respective existence(s). Therefore, the act and experience of Love affirms the existence of God and man, both the lover and the beloved in respective ways. The participation of the two distinct real beings in the same (man-man) or different (God-man) essential mode(s) of being is being affirmed and further revealed through the experience and dialogue of Love.
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RIELO’S ELEVATES ST. TERESA’S EXPERIENTIAL MYSTICISM TO PURE ONTOLOGY
Robert P. Badillo, Ph.D., Asian Delegate International Institute for Metaphysical and Mystical Studies (currently teaches philosophy at Sacred Heart Philosophical College, Kerala, India)
INTRODUCTION Given the specifically Christian elements of St. Teresa’s mysticism, this paper proposes to indicate the manner in which Rielo provides the metaphysical ground that elevates these elements to genetic or pure ontology, i.e., an ontology whose ground is genetic metaphysics. Thus Rielo’s genetic metaphysics, or science of the Absolute, must account for a Trinitarian conception of God or of the Absolute Subject, in contradistinction to the traditional scholastic view of God understood, at best, as consisting in a monotheistic unipersonalist absolute in terms of an identitatical conception of substance. Moreover, Rielo’s genetic ontology, or science of the vital relationship between the Absolute and the human person, must account for an understanding of the human person as homo mysticus, i.e., a being inhabited by the Absolute, in contradistinction to the traditional view of the human being as an individual supposit of a rational nature, likewise in terms of an identitatical notion of substance. Further, what is implied in St. Teresa’s conception of God and of the human being is that creation is possible and that it is possible for God - the absolute, infinite and eternal - to be in relation with the human being - the relative, finite, and temporal. Rielo explains the nature of this relation within a genetic conception of the connection between the Absolute Subject and that which is not the Absolute without having recourse to the traditional notions of the analogy of being and causality, while invalidating—though not explicitly considered within the limits of this paper - all forms of absolutisms, static or dynamic forms of pantheism, metaphysical dualisms, nihilisms. CONSTITUTIVE ELEMENTS OF ST. TERESA’S MYSTICISM St. Teresa of Jesus’ mysticism, as articulated in her monumental Interior Castle, provides the essential or constitutive features of Christian mysticism. In the following passages, regarding the spiritual marriage, as experienced by those souls brought into the “seventh dwelling,” i.e., the epicenter of the human spirit where the Godhead dwells, St. Teresa maintains: [1] “…. Each one of us has a soul, but since we do not prize souls as is deserved by creatures made in the image of God, we do not understand the deep secrets that lie in them. May it please His Majesty, if He may thereby be served, to move my pen and give me understanding of how I might say something about the many things to be said and which God reveals to the one whom He places in this dwelling place. [2] “…. Thus you will understand how important it is for you not to impede your Spouse’s celebration of this spiritual marriage with your soul, since this marriage brings so many blessings, as you will see.… [3] “When our Lord is pleased to have pity on this soul…, He brings it … into His dwelling place which is this seventh [dwelling]. [4] “…. When the soul is brought into that dwelling place, the Most Blessed Trinity, all three Persons, through an intellectual vision, is revealed to it through a certain representation of the truth. First there comes an enkindling in the spirit in the manner of a cloud of 113 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
magnificent splendor; and these Persons are distinct, and through an admirable knowledge the soul understands as a most profound truth that all three Persons are one substance and one power and one knowledge and one God alone…. Here all three Persons communicate themselves to it, speak to it.”1 From these texts the specifically Christian elements found in the mysticism of St. Teresa involve a very definite understanding of God and of the human person:2 God is understood here as Trinity [4], as three distinct divine persons constituting one sole Divinity [4]; as communicative [4]; and as the source of knowledge [1]. The human person is understood as created in the image of God [1]; as inhabited by the Trinity [4], who dwells in the “seventh dwelling” [3]; as oriented to communion, i.e., mystical union or marriage with the Trinity [2]; and as capable of communicating and collaborating and with God [2]. INSUFFICIENCY OF TRADITIONAL SCHOLASTIC METAPHYSICS Jean L. Mercier, in his The Philosophy of the Absolute, 3 after considering the doctrine of analogy, asks whether one can metaphysically attribute the predicate “person” to the Absolute. Mercier’s interest in this derives from the fact that religions, such as Christianity, speak of a personal God, while others conceive of the Absolute as impersonal. Mercier seeks to determine if the religious language ascribing personhood to God is philosophically justifiable. This amounts to an analysis of the concept ‘person’ in order to determine whether the personal mode of existence is a simple or mixed perfection. Since the concept of ‘person’ involves three characteristics: that a person is (1) an individual substance, (2) endowed with with cognition and volition, and (3) existing in relation to one or more persons, Mercier concludes that the first two characteristics can be predicated of God, viz., that God is a substance, verily the transcendent one, without implying any limitation, in whom the simple perfections of consciousness and freedom are found eminently. Mercier, however, denies that God can be said to be necessarily related to other realities such that the concept ‘person’ can only be said of God as a “mixed” perfection, i.e., one allegedly implying the imperfections of a finite mode of existence. Mercier states, “If the absolute reality is said to be ‘personal,’ it is only metaphorically.”4 At the same time Mercier is not willing to speak of the Absolute as impersonal, as somehow subhuman or a non-conscious reality. On what basis does Mercier hold that the Absolute fails to meet the exigency of the relational or intersubjective character of the predicate “person”? The answer is rooted in a certain conception of the Absolute that is traditionally upheld in philosophy, rooted in the pseudoprinciple of identity, i.e., the conception of the Absolute Subject as a self-same identity, the unum simpliciter. This amounts to a certain understanding of God conceived as a unity which excludes relation rather than as a unity constituted by relation. In contrast, Fernando Rielo introduces the genetic conception of the principle of relation that is constituted on the intellectual level by two persons - the Binity - in genetic relation. The genetic conception of the unity of these two personal beings is of a profoundly enriched sense of unity or oneness, viz.: the unum geneticum.
1 St. Teresa of Avila, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Vol. Two, The Interior Castle, trans. by Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D., and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D. (Trivandrum, Kerala, India: Carmel International Publishing House, 2001), pp. 427ff. 2 St. Teresa’s notion of God and of the human being supports the Biblical account as found in Genesis: God said, “Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves...” (Genesis 1:26-27) The initial phrase “Let us...” is profoundly revelatory for God emerges as constituted by at least two, relational and communicative persons - what Fernando Rielo terms the Binity. Second, the phrase - “[Let us] make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves”—is crucial for it reveals that human beings are replica of God, such that they too are relational, communicative, loving. 3 Jean L. Mercier, The Philosophy of the Absolute Reality (Bangalore: ATC, 2000), pp. 34ff. 4 Ibid, p. 38. 114 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
RIELO’S METAPHYSICAL ABSOLUTE AS BINITY For Rielo the comprehension of the Absolute has been hampered by the pseudoprinciple of identity, by which reality is understood in terms of itself, “A is A.” Rielo rejects the tautological character of this principle which render metaphysical and ontological relation impossible, and, instead, proposes the genetic conception of the principle of relation or the genetic principle.5 For Rielo the reasonableness of this principle becomes evident once the absurdity of identity, as a putative metaphysical principle, is made manifest.6 For Rielo the root problem of historic metaphysical proposals derives from the tendency to elevate simpliciter to absolute an aspect of reality expressed by a notion, a mental construct, an a priori, for example, “being,” “consciousness,” “existence,” 7 that, expressible in tautological formulae is vitiated by identity.8 For Rielo, if the metaphysical Absolute is a single notion or term, then such a construct elevated to absolute would be entirely without relation ad intra, i.e., within itself, and therefore without relation ad extra, i.e., outside of itself. From such a hermetically-sealed absolute no-thing whatsoever can possibly proceed for the only exigency with which such a notion would be affected is to be utterly itself and that absolutely. The lack of any relational dimension could not be more devastating for traditional conceptions - both western and eastern - that have been proposed historically as the metaphysical Absolute. Such constructs incur in the fallacy of the petitio principii for when asked, what grounds such a-relational absolutes, the answer is that they ground themselves, rendering them as wholly self-certifying and hence as rationally unacceptable. For Rielo, then, the metaphysical Absolute is not constituted by Being but, by Being more (+), or, more technically, by the genetic conception of the principle of relation, or, more simply, the genetic principle. In this respect, Rielo rejects the formulation of the Absolute as “Absolute Being,” which is an elevation to absolute of a single term in self identity, say being - “Being is Being” - in favor of “Absolute Subject,” which is constituted on the intellectual level by at the very least two terms or beings, and not less than two because one would incur, in this case, in the pseudoprinciple of identity.9 Metaphysically this means that an absolute conceived in terms of a unipersonalist monism - a single person or self-conscious reality in absolute self-identity - does not exist. Moreover, the two beings must be personal beings because the person, for Rielo, is the maximum expression of being, yielding the formula of the genetic principle as follows: [P1 complementary to 10 P2]. The principle of relation consists in that each of the two Divine Persons constituting the Absolute serves as the ground of the other, such that the principle is not self-certifying. For Rielo one person is defined by another; in no case is the person defined by the same person or by something inferior to the person. Further, the two personal beings are wholly open and indwell each other, for in the contrary case they would be related to each other extrinsically as two self-same identities without possible relation metaphysically. As such the two terms are complementary and therefore constitute sole
5 Fernando. Rielo, “Concepción genética del principio de relación,” III Congreso Mundial de Filosofía Cristiana (Quito, July 9-14, 1989). 6 Fernando Rielo, “Hacia una nueva concepción metafísica del ser” in ¿Existe una filosofía española? (Seville: E.F.R., 1988), pp. 119-120; henceforth “Hacia.” 7 Edward Alam agrees with Rielo: see “The Heavens Proclaim the Glory of God,” in Prajna Vihara: The Journal of Philosophy and Religion, vol. 3, no. 1 (January—June 2002), p. 92. 8 Fernando Rielo: Dialogue in Three Voices, trans. by David G. Murray (Madrid: F.F.R, 2000), p. 128; henceforth Dialogue. 9 See Rielo, Dialogue, pp. 132ff. Cf. José M. López Sevillano, Introduction, in Fernando Rielo, The Genetic Model in My Thought, trans. by David G. Murray (Madrid: E.F.F.R., 2004), p. 29; henceforth: Genetic Model. 10 The formula is read [P sub one in immanent intrinsic complementarity with P sub two], where “P” refers to a divine person. The term complementarity signifies that the two personal beings, [P1] and [P2], while being really distinct, nonetheless are necessary one to the other in order to constitute the absolute unity of a sole Absolute Subject and sole absolute act. 115 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Absolute Subject. Moreover, the geneticity of the genetic principle signifies that [P1], as agent action, transmits or confers its genetic patrimony or hereditary character to [P2], while [P2], as receptive action, actively receives this patrimony. This genetic relation between [P1] and [P2], that arises as complementary, open, dialogical, communicative, generous, loving, may be understood as signifying absolute openness or, equivalently, the metaphysical expression of absolute love. Accordingly, Rielo rejects the view of a unitary notion of substance understood in terms of simple unity in favor of a binary understanding of substance as the congenesis of two beings constituting sole Absolute Subject. The genetic principle, constituted by two personal Divine Persons, is also termed by Rielo the Binity,11 i.e., the unum geneticum, accessible to reason without the aid of theological faith. While, for Rielo, the intellectual or metaphysical conception of the Absolute Subject is of a Binity, his genetic metaphysics envisions an intellectual index in favor of the existence of a third Divine Person.12 Rielo’s genetic metaphysics, thus, provides a grounding for, at the intellectual level, of an Absolute that is Binitarian yet oriented toward being Trinitarian, and this in congruence with St. Teresa’s personal mystical experience of the Divinity. GENETIC CONCEPTION OF WHAT IS NOT THE ABSOLUTE SUBJECT For Rielo, given that the Absolute Subject, as nonidentitatical, is constitutively open and relational, it is relational ad extra, in the realm “outside” of the Absolute Subject, i.e., the “void” of being. The Absolute Subject with its ad extra presence eradicates any possibility of a self-same identity of “void of being is void of being” by eternally being present in that realm and forming it according to its possibilities as the “locus” for a free creation,13 ex geneticae possibilitate. For Rielo, with the repudiation of identity as a principle of the real, it becomes clear that nothing defines itself, “x is x,” but rather all created reality, even in the case of the void, is defined by something other than itself, viz., by the (+) indicative of the divine presence that structures beings and things. Within a genetic conception of the Absolute Subject, the rift between the absolute and the relative, the eternal and the temporal, is no longer tenable metaphysically, for neither the Absolute nor the realm ad extra to the Absolute is understood as closed identities; rather the Absolute Subject with its ad extra presence renders the void open to the Absolute and to its creative influence. Rielo argues that the analogy of being cannot be invoked as a way to overcome the so-called problem of the “one and the many,” given that this conumdrum only becomes so once reality - be it divine or created - is understood in terms of the a-relationality endogenous to the pseudoprinciple of identity. For Rielo, the primary analogate, conceived identitatically, and hence as bereft of relation, cannot be understood, at the same time, relationally, i.e., as participating the analogues causally in existence. Further, a genetic conception of creative activity, for sure, does not proceed in accordance with the mechanical model of causality and its implication of necessity and determinism; for Rielo, such a model is better restricted to the more limited sphere of physical phenomenon. The creative activity of the Absolute Subject is always free and understood in terms of grace, benevolence, munificence on the part of the Creator. For Rielo the essence of creatures, supposing their creation, is ontologically defined by the degree of the ad extra divine presence (per praesentiam) of the absolute act in the created entity rather than by “participation,” given the pantheistic overtones of this traditional notion within a discourse of identity.
11 Rielo, Dialogue, p. 133. 12 For Rielo there is an intellectual index in favor of the revealed datum of a third being/divine person [P3] that, although, a metaphysical surplus, has metaphysical validity, as a result of the functions that it fulfills (Rielo, “Hacia …,” p. 123). With [P3] the Binity is elevated to Trinity (ibid.). 13 See Rielo, Dialogue, p. 159. 116 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Accordingly, the metaphysico-ontological ground for the very possibility of creation and hence of mystical experience, in conformity with St. Teresa’s conception, is provided by means of Rielo’s genetic conception of what is not the Absolute that makes possible the free creation of beings and the presence of the Absolute in the created realm, the ground for mystical experience. HUMAN PERSON AS HOMO MYSTICUS For Rielo, the human person can be defined genetically as human person (+), as human person “more,” the more referring to that reality which defines it. Since the person is the supreme expression of being, the human person cannot be defined by anything inferior to a person, such that the human person must be defined by another person. Whereas the divine persons mutually define each other, for Rielo the human person is defined by the divine constitutive presence, ad extra aperture, of the Absolute Subject in the created element of the human subject, defining the human person as a homo mysticus, as a finite being open to the infinite. Human persons, then, are a reality composed of two elements: one, created, referring to a psychosomaticized spirit, and the other, uncreated, referring to the divine constitutive presence, that, by conferring upon them its very own hereditary character, make human persons ontological or mystical deities of the metaphysical or divine Deity.14 Further, the divine constitutive presence makes a constitutive act of presence - which is not created because the Absolute cannot create its own presence - in the human subject from the moment of its biological conception. Since the non-identitatical character of the human person is contingent on the presence of the divine constitutive presence that defines the essence of the same human person, to deny this presence from the moment of conception is tantamont to viewing the human person as possessing at conception one essence then at some later time another essence, which is ontologically absurd. This indwelling presence of the Binity communicates its own genetic patrimony rendering the human person a being in the imago dei. If this aperture to the Absolute is denied, the human being would fall, hopelessly closed within itself, into the absurdity of a human person insofar as it is a human person, a solus ipse. As in the Absolute Subject, Rielo rejects a unitary conception of substance in humans in favor of a binary one wherein they are conceived genetically as constitutively relational beings necessarily formed by the presence of the Absolute. Additionally, the divine constitutive presence in human beings does not mean that they are created in a state of sanctifying grace given that the constitutive presence fundamentally constitutes them as finite beings open to the infinite. Human personhood, moreover, is not contingent on whether or not human persons are capable of employing, for instance, their cognitive or volitional faculties given that the touchstone of human personhood derives from the divine constitutive presence regardless of whether one or more faculties are present or not. Rielo states: “It is Christ’s merit to have provided this sublime, transcendent, and ontological definition of the human being on corroborating this mystical deity with his words: “You are gods” (Jn 10:34) ... If we deny the deitactic, constitutive and sanctifying character of human persons, we amputate not only what is best in them, but also their reason for being and existing: their communion with the Absolute, which determines, … , the essence of their behavior and communication with their fellows.”15 To the question of why this presence seems so ineffectual in human beings in the light of evil and suffering, one may answer that if one accepts Christ as [P2], then it becomes possible to be open to the Judaeo-Christian Bible. In Genesis Adam and Eve supplanted the divine will with their own dysgenesic one, rendering the divine constitutive presence diminished, hidden and vulnerable in the human being.16 Christ’s work as universal redeemer of humanity provides the gratia redemptionis
14 Rielo, Dialogue, p. 144f. 15 Rielo, “Psychoethical Philosophy” in Genetic Model, pp. 148-49. 16 Rielo, Dialogue, p. 164ff. 117 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism whereby the divine constitutive presence is elevated to the transverberans or Christological order. Hence, Rielo distinguishes between two levels or degrees of the divine constitutive presence in the human person: (1) the deificans or ecumenical level which is common to all human beings, and (2) the transverberans or Christological level which is proper to the baptized.17 For Rielo, it is precisely the divine constitutive presence that grounds religions, humanitarian enterprises and all transcendent human acts. The divine constitutive presence is what endeavors, as agent action, to lead human persons, as receptive action, to mystical union with the Absolute and to the creation of communities and cultures in which generosity and love are genuinely fostered. When the human being freely resists this formative influence, ideological forms of behavior and assembly emerge that yield personal and social disequilibria. Thus, by means of his genetic conception of the human person as a homo mysticus, formed intrinsically by the divine constitutive presence, Rielo provides the metaphysico-ontological ground for St. Teresa’s understanding of the human being as oriented to mystical union. CONCLUSION Finally, in view of Rielo’s genetic conception of the Absolute Subject and of the human person, St. Teresa’s experiential mysticism, i.e., her understanding of God as Trinity and of the human person as indwelt constitutively by the Trinity and oriented to mystical union - finds intellectual endorsement. Rielo’s elevation of mysticism to pure ontology, moreover, was accomplished without recourse to traditional metaphysical notions impaired by their incorporation of the pseudoprinciple of identity.
DOXOLOGY TO THE GOD ACCESSIBLE TO ALL Oh Holy Binity! pristine ecstasy indwelling how Thou hast loved us since eternity … Is it any wonder we remain an inquietum cor? until we recall Thy kiss impressed upon our spirit in our conception as children in Thy image to soar with Thee and finally discover the life of the Three in whom we are one forever rapt in Thy embrace ……
17 Rielo, Dialogue, p. 147. 118 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
“LA RILEVANZA METAFISICA DELLA LUCE”
Daniele Bertini
L’opposizione dialettica fra luce e tenebre è la figura normativa dell’esperienza spirituale; vale a dire che l’essere della mia esistenza è un restare situato nel brillare auto-manifestantesi della totalità, nel mostrarsi offerentesi dell’eventualità, nell’apparire avveniente che è luce determinata in quanto processione dall’orizzonte trascendente della luce increata. Il dettato evangelico presenta al riguardo un passaggio fondativo, la narrazione del fenomeno della trasfigurazione di Gesù. Il testo è simile nei tre sinottici (Mc, 9,2-9,13; Mt, 17,1-17,13; Lc, 9,28-9,36), mentre è assente nel quarto vangelo. La narrazione chiude un momento argomentativo complesso dalla struttura tripartita, e pertanto deve essere letta a partire dalla comprensione di questa struttura: a) inizialmente Pietro risponde alla domanda di Gesù circa la sua identità, affermando la fede nella messianicità di Gesù (Mc 8,29: ς; Mt 16,16: ς, ς , ς; Lc 9,20: ); b) quindi Gesù chiama a sé le folle e le esorta a seguirlo, al fine di salvare la propria vita nel suo nome anche a costo di perderla; c) infine Gesù conduce Pietro, Giacomo e Giovanni su un alto monte, e mostra loro la propria vera natura, divenendo luce e intrattenendo una discussione soprannaturale con Mosè ed Elia. Ora, si potrebbe forse negare la necessità di leggere congiuntamente i tre momenti come un unico brano. Tuttavia che questi tre passaggi costituiscano un’unità di senso è reso evidente, a mio avviso, dall’uso delle congiunzioni che fanno da raccordo fra i tre momenti. Dal primo al secondo si legge infatti in tutte e tre le versioni un’indicazione temporale che riferisce la relazione dell’uno all’altro secondo l’ordine della successione1. I redattori sono dunque interessati a cucire assieme la confessione petrina con l’esortazione all’abnegazione, dato che se il materiale fosse semplicemente posto in successione senza particolari motivi, anche nell’ipotesi che provenga da un'unica tradizione secondo questo ordinamento, difficilmente avrebbe conservato nell’atto redazionale la medesima unità concettuale che i testi attualmente mostrano proprio nell’uso delle congiunzioni, da una parte, così come nell’assenza di materiale di infraposizione che muti la progressione narrativa in uno dei tre sinottici2. Ancora più chiara, invece, la situazione nel passaggio dal secondo al terzo: si legge infatti una precisa indicazione temporale (sei giorni dopo in Marco e Matteo, otto in Luca, con enfasi sul dopo) che colloca, con la temporalizzazione della salita al monte rispetto al passo precedente, l’episodio della trafigurazione in relazione diretta al discorso esortativo. Se ne deve concludere, a mio avviso, che la trasfigurazione sia allora il completamento rivelativo della messianicità di Gesù. Attestata per fede da Pietro, tale condizione può anche essere evocata nell’invito alla sequela nella folla; proprio perché la comunione di vita con Gesù ha già dato in Pietro i suoi frutti. Gesù è il Cristo del Dio vivente, e in quanto tale via, verità e vita (Gv, 14,6). Se tuttavia solo la fede di Pietro fa in questo caso da testimonianza, Gesù rafforza prodigiosamente il convincimento di chi è pronto a seguirlo con la manifestazione autentica della propria vera natura: quella di essere luce del mondo (Gv 8,12; 9,5). La struttura di senso dell’intero passaggio è perciò volta alla Rivelazione dell’identità messianica di Gesù per mezzo della manifestazione della propria
1 Si legge in Marco, con il senso di poi; in Matteo, da allora; sempre in Luca. 2 Si noti infatti che in Matteo, proprio nel primo passaggio argomentativo, è presente una sicura aggiunta redazionale relativa al presunto fondamento scritturistico del primato ecclesiologico petrino; mentre in Luca è assente l’accusa di Gesù a Pietro, riferita invece da Marco e Matteo. 119 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism divinità, e più profondamente, della propria autentica natura increata di luce: Gesù è il Cristo, e nell’intenzione dei redattori il lettore deve esserne persuaso perché alla fede esemplare di Pietro, fa eco l’invito alla fede nella folla, e quindi la manifestazione autentica dell’essere divino del Figlio. Le tre versioni differiscono nella definizione del fenomeno per la diversa costruzione della frase. I redattori del testo di Marco e Matteo presentano al lettore l’uso di un verbo che indica l’azione compiuta da Gesù, il trasfigurarsi, per poi descriverne la modalità di effettuazione: vesti e volto cambiano il proprio apparire fenomenico divenendo luce. Il redattore del testo di Luca invece omette di porre l’attenzione sul fare di Gesù attraverso la predicazione verbale, perché passa direttamente alla descrizione dei mutamenti fenomenici delle vesti e del volto. Nel complesso tuttavia la narrazione è equivalente, perché pone l’attenzione sul cambiamento dall’apparenza ordinaria della corporeità a quella dell’autentico essere della stessa: ossia modificazione formale della luce. Luca del resto esprime comunque l’alterità effettuale dell’apparenza corporea e dell’apparire attuale della trasfigurazione per mezzo dell’ del versetto 9,29, che esprime proprio la sostanziale e radicale differenza fra le qualità di cui si predica l’essere éteron. Ora, il verbo utilizzato dai redattori, , è composto dal prefisso meta, che nelle composizioni verbali assume il senso dell’ulteriorità, dell’essere oltre, dell’essere superamento, e dal verbo morfòo, dare forma, formare, e anche rappresentare. Letteralmente la trasfigurazione in cui si rivela l’autentica natura del figlio (che in tutte e tre le versioni è affermata come tale da una voce proveniente da una nube) è un dare a sé forma altra, ulteriore: forma che allora sta oltre quella attuale. L’importanza metafisica di questo passo sta tutta nella rivelazione ontologica della struttura d’essere-luce della verità. L’agire della verità è infatti un dare a sé forma ulteriore che si manifesta come evidenza del suo essere, e per questo deve essere appresa come luce. Nella determinazione la verità si presenta nell’apparenza, perché l’apparenza è quell’apparire determinato il cui essere è un essere nella forma concreta con cui si viene a figurazione, a rappresentazione (uno dei significati del dare forma, del prendere forma). La verità non è però solo questa forma determinata: Gesù non è solo il suo corpo, il suo corpo nell’immagine figurata delle sue vesti, nella rappresentazione di un uomo. La verità è un prendere altra forma, è un darsi altra forma, è un superamento della determinazione dell’apparenza nell’orizzontalità ontologica dell’apparire. Gesù dunque modificò in luce la propria apparenza, ossia la propria verità determinata, il proprio essere ora: volto e vesti divengono splendore e candore (Mc 9,3), oppure splendore solare e luce (Mt 17,2), o ancora biancore sfolgorante (Lc 9,29); in quest’ultimo caso amplificato, se così posso esprimermi, da un secondo fenomeno di lucentezza, la gloria (doxa) nella quale appaiono Mosè ed Elia (Lc 9,31: ς ). La trasfigurazione è perciò un movimento dall’apparenza all’apparire, in cui la determinazione dell’apparenza si mostra come modificazione dell’orizzontalità dell’apparire. Lo spirito è teso fra questi due domini d’esistenza: nell’apparenza si mostra determinato nell’immanenza; nell’apparire si manifesta come trascendenza. La verità così come si presenta allo spirito è il processo di autodeterminazione con cui la trascendenza dell’apparire, nel cui orizzonte di luce il fenomeno si attualizza come modificazione della luce stessa, ossia come affermazione della propria evidenza, del proprio farsi manifestazione, del proprio mostrarsi, si sovrappone all’immanenza del determinato. La trascendenza è cioè quell’immanenza determinata che nell’assolutezza della determinazione allude all’oltre da sé, che è autenticità dell’Assoluto. In quanto tale la verità non è dunque né pura trascendenza, né pura immanenza; o meglio non è né apparire né apparenza: piuttosto terreno d’incontro, darsi del determinato nella autoformazione della mediazione fra l’apparire della luce e l’apparenza della modificazione della stessa; terreno mediano nella cui immanenza si affaccia il riferimento trascendente dell’essere ora della determinazione. La verità è il dominio dell’apparenza che lascia intravedere, che allude, alla trascendenza dell’apparire. Gesù, in quanto verità che lo Spirito comunica, è questa apparenza che si muta in apparire, qualificando
120 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism l’autenticità del proprio essere come luce, perché auto-evidenza, auto-manifestazione, auto-mostrarsi apparente della mediazione di immanenza e trascendenza. Ci si fa innanzi però a questo punto una questione ermeneutica fondamentale. Se Gesù dà a sé una forma ulteriore di quella apparente, ossia si muove dall’apparenza all’apparire, dalla verità determinata nell’esperire all’apertura verso il trascendente che il vero determinato rende effettuale, come intendere il suo qualificarsi ontologico come essere-luce? Si deve intendere in senso prettamente metafisico, come una sorta di costituente formale sovra-fenomenico che dia realtà al fenomeno? Oppure nel senso cosmologico del costituente attuale? O ancora nel senso etico-religioso a cui il fenomeno della luce inerisce essenzialmente? Ossia, come intendere la qualificazione della luce nella dialettica di apparenza e apparire che si palesa struttura d’essere dell’esperienza spirituale? In che modo, in sostanza, pensare teologicamente la luce? È necessario rivolgere il pensiero alla considerazione di ulteriori determinazioni. Il quarto vangelo presenta proprio determinazioni di questo genere. I passi che prenderò in esame sono due: Gv 3,19-3,21, e Gv 8,12. Il secondo enuncia la verità escatologica che investe la realtà di Gesù. Così parla il testo: “Io sono la luce del mondo ( ς ). Chi mi segue ( ) non cammina mai nella tenebra ( ); bensì avrà la luce della vita ( ς ς ς)”. È a partire da questa esplicita affermazione che deve essere compresa la natura ontologica della verità. Il redattore comincia infatti la frase con una formula rituale: ego eìmi. Questa formula è un titolo divino, che ha due diverse occorenze in Giovanni: in forma assoluta e in forma nominale. Nel primo caso richiama l’uso antico-testamentario della formula di identificazione divina, secondo la consueta qualificazione dell’essere-divino per mezzo del ricorso alla natura dell’essere, o della sostanzialità, o più in generale dell’ambito di realtà autentico, vero e necessario (Es 3,14)3. Nel secondo caso invece la formula rappresenta una determinazione dell’assolutezza della forma di identificazione altrimenti usata, mostrando nell’immanenza del determinato un possibile modo d’essere del divino4. Con la frase io sono la luce del mondo, il redattore intende dunque qualificare esplicitamente Gesù come Dio (forma assoluta della formula), secondo una particolare prospettiva di comprensione, quella dell’essere fonte della luce (forma nominale della formula). È allora necessario capire cosa significa essere “luce del mondo”, perché nella formula di identificazione determinata, si compie la Rivelazione della natura ontologica del divino. Il termine il cui senso è da determinare è quello di kosmos. Nella lingua greca classica significa ordine, ordinamento, disciplina, e per traslazione, dato che il carattere della totalità ontologica per la cultura classica è l’ordine, anche universo, mondo o appunto cosmo. La nozione di kosmos è pertanto banalmente cosmologica, ed esprime il carattere di totalità interrelata da un ordinamento di tutto l’esistente. Ora, sebbene un’attitudine analoga potrebbe essere in qualche modo testimoniata nella letteratura neotestamentaria, relativamente alla qualificazione della creazione in opposizione al Creatore, è invalso l’uso, ormai divenuto tradizionale, di intendere cosmos in senso morale, piuttosto che cosmologico. Le versioni tradotte del Nuovo Testamento riportano infatti generalmente la traduzione mondo, intendendo con essa non tanto il carattere ontologico della creazione, quanto la qualificazione morale della stessa, secondo l’equivalenza fra mondo e la connotazione etica del medesimo: la mondanità5. Se così stanno le cose l’essere luce del mondo avrebbe un senso di carattere eminentemente morale, ed esprimerebbe l’essere l’orientamento etico
3 Cfr. A.Casalegno, «Perché contemplino la mia gloria» (Gv 17,24), Cinisello Balsamo: EDIZIONI S.PAOLO s.r.l., 2006, pp. 213 e seguenti. 4 Cfr. H.Zimmermann, “Das absolute ego eimi als die neutestamentliche Offenbarungsformel”, Biblische Zeitschrift, 4, 1960. 5 Cfr. R.Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, Tübingen: J.C.B.Mohr, 1977 (7a ed.); ed.it. a cura di A.Rizzi, Teologia del Nuovo Testamento, Brescia: Editrice Queriniana, 1992 (2a ed.), pp. 242-247, 348-350. 121 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism della condotta, ossia l’essere quella luce che dà visibilità al cammino giusto, alla retta via, che lo spirito deve percorrere al fine di ottenere la propria salvezza. Tuttavia la questione pone, a mio avviso, troppe problematiche per essere risolta in modo così apodittico. In primo luogo vorrei notare che il fascino speculativo che la nozione di luce esercita sullo spirito va ben oltre quello attestato dalla sua riduzione al vocabolario etico-morale. Lo spirito pensa spesso religiosamente la salvezza in termini di conquista di una luce; conquista che non ha niente a che vedere con la funzione pedagogico-illuministica dell’orientamento verso il vero, bensì con l’ambizione a una rigenerazione definitiva in una dimensione trascendente e fondamentale. In secondo luogo già nei commentari patristici a Giovanni è ben marcata la tendenza a dare alla persona del Figlio un ruolo cosmologico nella creazione del mondo; ruolo che si esplica proprio nel senso della partecipazione attuale al creato, nel senso di un agire allo scopo della realizzazione effettiva di ciò che viene chiamato all’esistenza6. In terzo luogo proprio il forte radicamento ebraico del quarto vangelo, testimoniato dallo studio stilistico e linguistico, è motivo di dubbio sul senso in cui vengono utilizzati i termini, quello di kosmos in particolare 7 . Se infatti la cultura antico-testamentaria non mostra una distinzione fra dimensione cosmologica e morale della creazione e della relazione salvifica fra spirito e Dio, questo può essere inteso duplicemente: a) la mancata astrazione del cosmologico e del morale manifesta una insignificanza della Rivelazione per la problematica cosmologica; b) dato il carattere concreto, sintetico, compatto della Rivelazione essa unisce una molteplicità di prospettive, che il pensiero logico ambisce invece a scindere. Ora, a me sembra evidente che la seconda opzione sia quella più sostenibile, visto che non sembra congruente la logica del primo argomento. La mancata distinzione attesta infatti soprattutto un interesse sincretistico dei redattori dei testi canonizzati, attesta un’incapacità di astrazione che non orienta il discorso speculativo verso un ambito oppure un altro: piuttosto palesa un interesse di carattere assoluto, perché rivolto alla determinazione fondamentale del tutto dell’esistenza; e dunque simultaneamente morale, politico, religioso, filosofico e cosmologico. Nell’essere luce del mondo non si deve allora pensare eticamente in senso dualistico, ossia nell’opposizione fra convergenza a Dio dell’uomo spirituale, perché rigenerato come luce nel Signore (Ef 5,8) dalla sua prassi teo-morfica, e opposizione a Dio della creazione, del mondo, perché assenza di Dio nel determinato che indulge a sé stesso; ma piuttosto pensare in senso teologico la relazione esistenziale fra spirito e Assoluto. Pensare in senso teologico significa ricondurre la questione dell’esistenza alla problematica religiosa che si impone allo spirito. L’esistere è chiedere il perché dell’essere così e così del nostro esperire, alla ricerca di una comprensione che sia esperienza assoluta di ogni prospettiva ontologica della totalità: ossia salvezza della mia singolarità perché relazione d’inerenza fondativa alla fonte trascendente il mio proprio. È allora evidente che la questione dell’essere luce del mondo travalica gli angusti confini disciplinari del pensiero logico, e si mostra come sintesi delle diverse direzioni di intellezione spirituale delle problematiche. Con il termine kosmos il lettore è perciò obbligato a intendere l’orizzonte teologico dell’esperienza spirituale, prima che la sua determinazione cosmologica o morale. Il mondo è lo spazio ambientale in cui lo spirito si costituisce come tale; ossia, in cui l’esistere si sostanzializza a partire dal riconoscimento della propria inerenza ontologica nel divino che si mostra nell’immanenza e si trascende di fatto nell’assolutezza della determinazione. Il mondo è cioè un insieme di significanti interpretati, di situazioni emotive, di interessi personali, di esperienze di
6 Cfr. Agostino, Commento al Vangelo di Giovanni, I, §§ 13 e seguenti; II, §§ 10-12. 7 Cfr. G.Ghiberti, “Introduzione al Vangelo di Giovanni”, pp. 45-47, in G.Ghiberti ed altri, Opera Giovannea, Leumann (Torino): Editrice ELLEDICI, 2003. Poche pagine dopo l’autore richiama il particolare intendimento giovanneo della fede, equiparata a un fenomeno sensoriale, e spesso compresa come una forma di visione o di ascolto (cfr. op.cit., p. 56); ancora dunque in connessione con la luce intesa come medium percettivo dell’essere evidente. Su questo si veda anche Bultmann, op.cit., pp. 401 e seguenti. 122 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism salvezza, di felicità conquistate e perdute, e soprattutto di una comunione originaria all’altro da me, perché in relazione costitutiva a me. Non oggettività naturale dell’universo fisico, ma ambiente emotivo del mio esistere, in cui tutto significa qualcosa. L’affermazione io sono la luce del mondo va intesa perciò come un’auto-rivelazione in cui Dio palesa il proprio essere il fondamento della manifestazione, dell’evidenza acquisita da ogni situazione fenomenica, della chiamata all’essere apparente, di ogni essere così e così; ossia dell’essere senso del ciò che viene esperito dallo spirito nel proprio esistere. L’essere luce è questa donazione di essenzialità, è questo sostegno ontologico, che rende effettivo il determinato perché nell’illuminazione, vale a dire nell’apparire dialetticamente inerente all’apparenza, questo è reso evidente, perché mostrato, perché fatto emergere nell’orizzonte d’esistenza della totalità. Ecco allora che il cammino di chi segue Dio si fa vita in senso assoluto, perché evidenza dell’orientamento esistenziale che non conduce all’assenza di fondamento, ma all’istanziazione della propria determinatezza nella fonte della vita stessa. L’opposizione luce-tenebra, che compare direttamente nell’affemazione auto-rivelativa, è opposizione di immanenza dello spirito in Dio, e assenza di Dio. La luce della vita è infatti esperienza assoluta di ogni essere nella sua interrelazione al tutto altro: esperienza che il dettato evangelico intende possibile solo nella mediazione di Cristo. La Rivelazione conduce proprio all’affermazione di questo: evidenza, e perciò manifestazione, di ogni ente è il suo essere; ma tale evidenza è data solo nella luce, nell’orizzonte di apparenza dell’ente, ossia nell’apparire indeterminato alluso dall’essere ora che l’ente è. L’essere luce del Figlio si pone perciò come condizione di realtà di ogni essente. Si può allora affermare: tutte le cose () vennero all’essere () tramite Lui, e senza di Lui neppure una sola fu ( ). Ciò che è stato fatto in Lui era vita ( ), e la vita era la luce degli uomini (Gv 1,3-1,4). L’essere vita della luce significa proprio che nella verità (ossia per il dettato evangelico in Gesù il Cristo) l’ente è nella relazione al tutto altro, perché evidenza del suo proprio nel non essere l’altro, simultaneamente al suo essere comunione al tutto che si dà nella situazione fenomenica di apparenza dell’essente. La luce è l’essere apparenza nell’apparire dell’ente: ossia verità dell’ente, sua realtà ontologica. La vita è l’essere comunione di ogni essente nell’essere ogni determinato ora, perché immanenza nella condizione orizzontale dell’essere stesso, vale a dire immanenza in Dio, assegnazione dello spirito al divino8. Torno allora al primo dei due passi di Giovanni richiamati, Gv 3,19-3,21, per dare forza testuale alla precedente argomentazione. Il passo pone una problematica decisiva nella postulazione di due diverse modalità ontologiche in antagonismo, l’essere del mondo (incline alla tenebra) e l’essere della luce (principio ontologico del mondo stesso): se la verità è condizione d’essere di ogni essente, poiché solo per mezzo della sua natura, l’essere luce, l’essente può manifestarsi, mostrarsi, rendersi evidente, come si rende possibile una divaricazione ontologica fra luce e tenebra? Nella misura in cui l’essere è un apparire determinato che si offre perché modificazione della luce nella luce, la tenebra come assenza di luce sembrerebbe un puro non essere. Cosa significa allora che la luce si è fatta innanzi nel mondo? Come poteva essere altrimenti? Se la luce è verità del mondo, come il mondo può rifiutare la luce, come è possibile amare più le tenebre della luce? Poiché la normatività ontologica del vero è qualcosa di più di una semplice affermazione speculativa, è chiaro che la tenebra può valere solo come concetto limite: ogni ente è dunque luce, e non potrebbe essere che così. L’ente esiste infatti secondo una peculiare relazione fondativa all’Assoluto, all’originarietà oltre-ontologica, appunto perché origine assoluta, dell’essere vero stesso. Se dunque il mondo è l’ambiente della relazione teologica fra spirito e Assoluto, la verità
8 Cfr. Agostino, Commento al Vangelo di Giovanni, XVIII, § 1: “Redi ad cor; vide ibi quid sentias forte de Deo, quia ibi est imago Dei. In interiore homine habitat Christus, in interiore homine renovaris ad imaginem Dei, in imagine sua cognosce auctorem eius”. 123 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism costituisce la totalità ontologica perché nel suo essere, l’essere luce, mostra l’evidenza degli essenti nella originaria comunione spirituale del tutto. In questo senso chi opera la verità ( ) opera in Dio ( … ), perché ambisce a quella relazionalità costitutiva all’altro, che è il vivere assoluto in cui la relazione a me e all’altro è mediata dal riconoscimento della sussistenza trascendente in cui lo spirito inerisce. In questo vivere siamo sempre immersi, perché modificazione della luce nella luce, perché determinazione apparente dell’apparire, perché immanenti nella verità. Il mondo non può allora rifiutare la luce, perché da essa costituito. Ora, proprio perché essenti il cui essere è questo apparire mediato, sostenuto dall’essere vero dell’apparire, ogni essere ora, ogni determinata situazione fenomenica, è un essere assoluto, è un essere definitivo come essere ora in Dio. Questo nostro sussistere può tuttavia manifestarsi come tale, e dunque condurre l’essere alla verità, perché comprensione dell’apparire nell’apparenza, riconoscimento della mediazione fra spirito e Assoluto, evidenza nel chiarore della luce, apertura della trascendenza sentita nell’immanenza; oppure restare nella assenza di fondamento, nell’assenza di relazione, e perciò nella tenebra, perché sussistere che, gettato nell’assolutezza dell’ora, non è in grado di accertare il suo essere in Dio. È questo mancato accertamento che toglie essere e sostanza e vita alla tenebra e la colloca al limite dell’apparenza. Quanto più l’ente si mostra nella luce, infatti, l’unione all’Assoluto è unione alla totalità ontologica: vita perché interrelazione al tutto altro, sostanzializzazione del mio mostrarmi nell’evidenza della totalità. La tenebra invece, in opposizione a questo sussistere nel chiarore, è quell’indulgenza dell’ente alla assolutezza del proprio determinato che risulta incapace di ricondursi alla propria inerenza in Dio. Per questo l’ente che sussiste nell’irrelatezza dell’immediato è allora tenebra, assenza di vita: perché pur essendo come luce apparenza determinata, si situa tuttavia fuori dall’orizzonte trascendente dell’apparire e si distingue dall’altro senza costituirsi a partire da esso. La luce si mostra così qualcosa di altro rispetto a una semplice categoria dell’esperienza religiosa. È l’essere della verità, nel riconoscimento di una dialettica di apparenza immanente e apparire trascendente, in cui lo spirito sente la sua relazione all’Assoluto, e risolve la propria esistenzialità in essa.
124 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
GELÂZENHEIT. DIE ERFAHRUNG DER EINHEIT MIT GOTT BEI MEISTER ECKHART
Josef Bordat Berlin
Vorbemerkungen Gelassenheit – Begriff unserer Zeit Gelassenheit ist ein Modewort unserer Zeit. Es ist im Trend, locker, ruhig, entspannt, „cool“ zu sein. Wenn wir uns den Gelassenheitsbegriff ansehen, wie er alltagssprachlich Verwendung findet, dann scheint er eine gewisse Unangreifbarkeit zu beinhalten, dann erscheint er wie eine trotzige, fast schon ignorante Treue zur eigenen Position, die unbeeindruckt ist von Welt und Wirklichkeit und damit auch die Zwänge der Zeit zu verkennen droht.
Zur Notwendigkeit einer genauen Bestimmung Sich nicht aus der Ruhe bringen zu lassen angesichts widriger Umstände, das ist nur ein Aspekt des Gelassenheitsbegriffs, wenn auch der, der sich im heutigen Sprachgebrauch des Deutschen durchgesetzt hat. Ich möchte nun aber die Geschichte dieses Begriffs nachzeichnen und wenn ich sage, dass sie eng mit Meister Eckhart verbunden ist, dann ist klar, dass es nicht nur um Coolness geht, sondern um tiefe Religiosität, um Spiritualität. Meister Eckhart – Leben und Werk Meister Eckhart wird um 1260 als Sohn des Ritters Eckhart von Hohenheim geboren. Sein Leben ist geprägt von Gott und der Welt, denn die Aufgaben des früh, vermutlich um 1275 in den Dominikanerorden eingetretenen Eckhart, bestanden nicht nur in der Kontemplation, sondern auch in Forschung, Lehre und Organisation. Einige Stationen, die ich hier mal kursorisch anführen will, belegen dies.1 Von 1277 bis 1289 Studium in den Studiengängen artium, naturalium, solemne und generale – also eine sehr lange und breite Ausbildung, was damals aber nicht unüblich war. U. a. studierte er in Köln, höchstwahrscheinlich auch bei Albertus Magnus. Anschließend Priesterweihe. Um 1290 geht er als Magister nach Paris und wirkt einige Jahre als Lektor der Sentenzen des Petrus Lombardus. 1294 wird er Prior des Erfurter Dominikanerklosters,2 in dieser Zeit entstehen die Reden der Unterweisung. 1302 lehrt er wieder in Paris. 1303-1310 übernimmt Meister Eckhart die Leitung der neugebildeten Ordensprovinz Saxonia. 1311-1313 folgt ein zweites Magisterium in Paris, eine Auszeichnung, die zuvor nur Thomas von Aquin erfahren hat. 1314 wird er Generalvikar des Dominikanerklosters in Straßburg, aus dieser Zeit stammt ein Großteil seiner bekanntesten Schriften, der „Deutschen Predigten“. 1322 übernimmt Meister Eckhart die Leitung seiner alten Ausbildungsstätte, des Studium generale in Köln. Dort wird er 1325 durch Mitbrüder beim Kölner Erzbischof Heinrich II. von Virneburg wegen angeblich häretischer Glaubensaussagen denunziert. Eine Liste mit zunächst 49 inkriminierten Sätzen wird 1326 nach Überprüfung auf 28 reduziert. Um vor dem Scheiterhaufen bewahrt zu bleiben, widerruft Meister Eckhart 1327 vorsorglich öffentlich
1 Mehr zu Leben und Werk in Winkler, N.: Meister Eckhart zur Einführung. Hamburg 1997, S. 29 ff. 2 Ab dann wird auch die Quellenlage besser und die Erkenntnis über sein Leben gesicherter. 125 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism seine Thesen, was ihm nicht allzu schwer gefallen sein dürfte, waren doch gerade die kritischen Passagen vielfach falsch tradiert worden.3 Meister Eckhart stirbt 1328, entweder auf einer Reise an den päpstlichen Hof zu Papst Johannes XXII. nach Avignon oder – kurz nach seiner Rückkehr – in Köln. Für Meister Eckhart ist der Begriff des Gelassenheit zentral gewesen, sowohl hinsichtlich seiner Theologie der Erlösung durch den mystischen Stufenweg hin zur Einheit mit Gott, als auch in der Autoapplikation des Konzepts, denn dieses mag ihm angesichts der Verfolgung geholfen haben, mit unveränderter Beharrlichkeit seinen Predigtdienst zu verrichten. Bevor ich auf das eckhartsche Konzept der Gelassenheit eingehe, möchte ich einen Blick in die Begriffsgeschichte werfen, denn vor der Wortschöpfung durch Meister Eckhart wurde der Begriff Gelassenheit in seinen Facetten umkreist, die später das Gerüst der Konzeption bilden, aber ihren semantischen Kern – zumindest in der Ausdeutung bei Meister Eckhart – nicht zu treffen vermögen. Geschichte und Bedeutungsnuancen des Begriffs Gelassenheit bzw. seiner „Vorgänger“ Demokrits euthymia (gutes Gemüt) Der griechische Philosoph Demokrit (460-371 v. Chr.) gilt als Vertreter eines atomistischen Materialismus. Er vertrat die Ansicht, dass die Materie aus kleinsten, unteilbaren Teilchen, den Atomen, zusammengesetzt sei. Jedes dieser Atome sollte fest und massiv, aber nicht gleich sein, weil die Dinge auch nicht gleich sind. Aus diesen Verschiedenheiten ließen sich alle Mannigfaltigkeiten der Erscheinungswelt erklären. Entscheidend ist der Analogieschluss von der sichtbaren auf die unsichtbare Welt: Auch die Seele ist bei Demokrit eine Ansammlung von Atomen, d. h. etwas Körperliches. Diese Seelen-Atome seien dabei die vollkommensten Atome, die man finden könne. Man solle sich daher mehr um die Seele als um den Körper kümmern, also mehr um den „Seelen-Körper“ als um den „Körper-Körper“, denn die Vollkommenheit jenes richtet die Schwäche dieses auf. Wer die Gaben des ersten liebe, liebe das Göttliche, wer die des zweiten liebe, das Menschliche. Wenn man sich also um seine Seele kümmert, dann erreicht man in einem Dreischritt jene ruhige Haltung (ataraxia), die das Wohlgemutsein (euthymia) hervorbringt. 1. Die Seele macht Erkenntnis möglich. 2. Erkenntnis führt zur Überwindung von Angst. 3. Überwindung von Angst führt zur Ruhe und zum guten Gemüt. Senecas tranquilitas animi (Seelenruhe) Seneca (4 v. Chr. – 65 n. Chr.) greift den euthymia-Begriff auf und übersetzt ihn mit tranquilitas animi. Er sah die Seelenruhe als oberste Tugend an. Das höchste Gut ist für ihn die Harmonie der Seele mit sich selbst. Seelenharmonie führt bei Seneca zur Seelenruhe. Neben Marc Aurel und Cicero zählt Seneca zu den wichtigsten Vertretern der römischen Stoa. Erwähnenswert ist in diesem Kontext die stoische apátheia als Freiheit der Seele von den Affekten, die damit gleichsam die Voraussetzung für die tranquilitas animi bildet. Besitzt die Vernunft nicht die nötige Stärke, so stimmt sie Vorstellungen zu, die Triebe und Gefühle wider ihr natürliches Maß übersteigern: Der Trieb (hormé) wird zum Affekt, zur Leidenschaft (páthos). Die kranke, leidende Seele ist das „sittlich Schlechte“, das einzige Übel des Menschen. Wer sittlich schlecht handelt, erleidet seelische Qualen und kann damit nicht zur Ruhe kommen. Man beachte: Der schlecht Handelnde hat zunächst selbst das Problem, das Böse fällt auf ihn zurück! Hier ist das christliche Gewissenskonzept nahe. Helfen kann dieser leidenden Seele aus Sicht der Stoiker nur die Philosophie der Stoa, welche gerade das Ziel der Affektlosigkeit verfolgt.4
3 Es handelte sich bei den Texten um Mitschriften von Ordensfrauen, in deren Klöster Meister Eckart gepredigt hatte. Entsprechend ungenau bzw. verkürzt wurden manche Thesen wiedergegeben. 4 Dies erinnert an Schopenhauers Willensverneinung und es steht der Idee einer Überwindung menschlicher 126 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Platons theoria und Plotins henosis (göttliche Einigung) Platons (427-347 v. Chr.) theoria als Ideenschau der Seele, vom Neuplatoniker Plotin (205-270 n. Chr.) zur henosis (göttliche Einigung) erweitert. Die Seele ist in der Lage – wenn sich der Mensch nur bemüht – die Ideen zu schauen, nicht nur deren Abbilder (Höhlengleichnis). In dieser theoria erfährt der Mensch also etwas über diese ontologisch und epistemisch höherwertigen Entitäten und gelangt so durch die Ideenschau in den Zustand des Wissens. Das entscheidende Moment der platonischen theoria liegt in der Wende hin zur Ethik und Ästhetik: Die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse geben einem Menschen nicht nur Einblick in das Wahre, sondern auch in das Gute und Schöne. Wahr, gut und schön fallen zusammen. Daraus entwickelt der Neuplatoniker Plotin seine Idee der henosis, in der das Denken des Einen, zu dem hin alles gewendet ist („Universum“) und als dessen Ausströmung (Emanation) alles ins Dasein gelangt, die Annahme einer Wesensgleichheit von göttlicher und menschlicher Seele impliziert. Erst der Eigensinn des Menschen trennt ihn von Gott. Plotin hat damit stark auf die Patristik (etwa auf Augustinus) gewirkt und so die Lehre der Kirche nachhaltig beeinflusst. Theoria und henosis nehmen den Transzendenzaspekt des eckhartschen Gelassenheitsbegriffs vorweg. Bei Demokrit und Seneca ist es die irdische „Coolness“, die dem Gelassenen jetzt und hier angesichts von Schwierigkeiten Glück verschafft, sie geben etwa Antwort auf die Frage: Wie halte ich es neben einem Menschen aus, der schwer zu ertragen ist? Bei Platon und Plotin kommt der Gedanke der Einheit mit Gott ins Spiel, hier bekommt die „Coolness“ der stoischen Weisheit in ihrem Nutzen für die menschliche Seele eine neue, eine weiterreichende Dimension. Für den Christen liefert diese erst die Begründung für Gelassenheit. Plotin liefert in gewisser Weise die Motivation – traditioneller gesagt: die Kraft –, um die Unerträglichkeit zu ertragen. Demokrit und Seneca bleiben diese Kraftquelle schuldig, bei ihnen ist Gelassenheit mehr eine Forderung bzw. eine Tugend des Weisen, aber das reicht nicht, denn auch der Weise braucht ein Rückzugsgebiet, wo er seine Seele baumeln lassen kann. Und das wäre eben das Bewusstsein einer Einheit mit Gott. Hinzuweisen ist noch auf die aristotelische eudaimonía (geglücktes Leben) auf Basis der arete (Tugend) des „Maßhaltens“ sowie auf Epikurs galenismós (Meeresstille), der eine zentrale Metapher des Gelassenheits-Topos einführt und ferner den Rückzug ins Private proklamiert, nachdem Platon und Aristoteles nur im zoon politikon, im geselligen Lebewesen, den wahren Menschen erblickt hatten. Der Rückzug ins Private ist sicherlich für die Gelassenheitstechniken der Kontemplation und Meditation wichtig, andererseits ist die Gemeinschaft im Kloster und der Gang an die Öffentlichkeit entscheidend. Das hat Meister Eckhart vorexerziert, wie ich nun darstellen möchte. Lâzen, gelâzen hân, gelâzen sîn, gelâzenheit. Meister Eckhart als Entwickler des Gelassenheitsbegriffs Das Deutsche als Sprache der Mystik5 Meister Eckhart gilt als wichtigster Vertreter der so genannten Deutschen Mystik. 6 Das Deutsche diente ihm als Sprache der mystischen Unterweisung im Dienst seiner Rede von der
Willensschwäche durch geeignete Lebensführung in der christlichen Morallehre nahe. Der Begriff der Affekthemmung sollte dann in der Ethik der Hochaufklärung ein zentraler werden, etwa bei Christian Wolff. Bei Wolff gelingt die Affekthemmung durch die Vernunft und damit durch die Einsicht in das Schlechte am Affekt. Auch das wird von der Stoa schon vorweggenommen. 5 Vgl. dazu auch Bordat, J.: Zur Entwicklung der deutschen Sprache im Mittelalter und in der Aufklärung. In: N. W. Gorbel / E. J. Zipkina (Hg.): Interkulturelle Kompetenz. Sammelband mit Artikeln, basierend auf Materialien der internationalen Konferenz „Interkulturelle Kompetenz in der professionellen Persönlichkeitsentwicklung“ an der Karelischen Staatlichen Pädagogischen Universität. Petrosawodsk 2006, S. 335 ff.. 6 Nur einige Autoren stellen die Eigenschaft Meister Eckharts als „Mystiker“ in Frage, so etwa Kurt Flasch (Meister Eckhart. Versuch, ihn aus dem mystischen Strom zu retten. In: P. Koslowski (Hrsg.): Gnosis und Mystik in der 127 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Einheit mit Gott. Ihm war es stets daran gelegen, das Streben der Seele nach Einheit mit Gott (unio mystica) zu befördern. Dabei wollte er möglichst viele „Seelen“ erreichen und konzipierte aus diesem Grund seine Predigten für das gemeine Volk in der Sprache des Volkes, auf deutsch. Damit bildet er eine Ausnahme in der Kirche seiner Zeit, denn die Mehrheit des Klerus zieht es vor, dem Lateinischen in Wort- und Schriftverkündigung treu zu bleiben.7 Auffälligstes Kennzeichen des von Meister Eckhart geprägten Deutsch ist der mystische Soziolekt, die bildhafte Sprache, die tiefsinnige und zugleich anschauliche Metaphorik.8 Er ist sich darüber im Klaren, dass man der Unfassbarkeit Gottes nur in Bildern nahe kommen kann. Meister Eckhart greift seine Bilder v. a. aus dem Leben der Menschen und bedient sich höfischer Episoden ebenso wie Metaphern, die dem Minnesang entnommen sind. Er spricht von Gott als dem „hôhe fürste“, von der Seele als der „minnewunt“ und seine im Zentrum aller Predigten stehende mystische Entrückung wird zur „hovereise“.9 Auch spielt das Bild des Flusses eine herausragende Rolle, wenn es darum geht, Gottes Wirken verständlich zu machen: Mit dem Begriff „götlicher inflûz“ abstrahiert er den Einfluss auf eine Ebene, die Macht und Wirkungsfülle suggeriert. Meister Eckhart orientiert den Zuhörer auf die Einheit von lêre und leben in der Soteriologie des mystisch erprobten christlichen Glaubens, indem er sich selbst mit ihnen eint, dadurch dass er sich verständlich macht. Meister Eckharts „Abgrenzung von der systematischen Schultheologie“10 erfolgt somit in erster Linie durch die deutsche Sprache seiner Predigten, die eben nichts für den universitären Bereich, sehr wohl aber etwas für die Kanzel sind, weil sie den Ungelehrten, d. h. insbesondere des Lateinischen Unkundigen, ze einer lêre werden können: „Diz enist niht gesprochen von den dingen, diu man sol reden in der schuole; sunder man mac sie wol gesprechen ûf dem stuole ze einer lêre.“11. Es geht darum, die Differenz von lêre und leben gerade in der eigenen Praxis der Lebensgestaltung aufzuheben. Die Bedeutung der Einheit von Lehre und Leben, die Meister Eckhart mit seinen Predigten verdeutlichen will, indem er die Einheit zum Inhalt seiner Lehrpredigten macht („Swenne diu sêle tritet in daz bilde, dâ niht vremdes enist dan daz bilde, mit dem es ein bilde ist, daz ist ein guot lêre.“12), kann aber nur dann glaubwürdig untermauert werden, wenn die Sprache der Lehre aus dem Leben kommt. Daher ist es nur konsequent, wenn Meister Eckhart seine Predigten auf deutsch hält. Neben dem Ziel, eine Einheit von Lehre und Leben zu erreichen, vertritt er mit der Verwendung des Deutschen ferner den innovatorischen Anspruch volkssprachlicher Wortschöpfungen, die eine erstaunliche Differenziertheit offenbaren. Die Entdeckung neuer Aspekte der Semantik zentraler Abstrakta wird erst durch das Verlassen (sic!) eingefahrener Wege, also durch die Aufgabe bestehender sprachlicher Konzepte möglich. Integration und Differenzierung, Einheit und Vielschichtigkeit, diese Aspekte der Eckhartschen Heilslehre konnten nur im Deutschen so vollendet formuliert werden. Die unmittelbare Ansprache des Publikums schafft zudem eine Atmosphäre der Einheit von Lehrer und Schüler, die den Inhalt
Geschichte der Philosophie. Zürich / München 1988, S. 94 ff.). 7 Seine Predigt- und Erbauungstexte zählen zu den wenigen Stücken mittelhochdeutscher Literatur des 11.-14. Jh. (vgl. Wolff, G.: Deutsche Sprachgeschichte. Tübingen 31994, S. 78). 8 Vgl. dazu auch Schmoldt, B.: Die deutsche Begriffssprache Meister Eckharts. Studien zur philosophischen Terminologie des Mittelhochdeutschen. Heidelberg 1954. 9 Vgl. Wolff: A. a. O., S. 87. 10 Köbele, S.: Bilder der unbegriffenen Wahrheit. Zur Struktur mystischer Rede im Spannungsfeld von Latein und Volkssprache. Tübingen / Basel 1993, S. 41. 11 Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke, hrsg. im Auftrag der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft. Deutsche Werke, hrsg. v. J. Quint, Bd. I, Stuttgart 1958, 270, 6 ff. 12 Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke, hrsg. im Auftrag der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft. Deutsche Werke, hrsg. v. J. Quint, Bd. II, Stuttgart 1971, 341, 1 f. 128 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism des Vorgetragenen formal unterstreicht. Festzuhalten bleibt, dass „[d]ie Eckehartische spekulative Mystik das erste große Bad [ist], dem der deutsche Wortschatz vergeistigt entsteigt.“13 Ich möchte die Vielschichtigkeit des Ausdrucksvermögens, das Eckhart mit den im Deutschen entstehenden Interpretamenten gewinnt, am Beispiel der Begriffskreation „gelâzenheit“ darstellen.14 Vom biblischen „Lassen“ zum mystischen „Lassen“ „Gelâzenheit“ – oder neuhochdeutsch: Gelassenheit – ist der zentrale Begriff der Eckhartschen Mystik.15 Als wichtigste Voraussetzung für die Gottesgeburt in der Seele und die Einheit mit Gott, die unio mystica, muss der Mensch gelâzen hân, um schließlich gelâzen zu sîn. Er muss dazu verdinglichte Denk- und Handlungsstrukturen überwindet und alle Weltbindung aufgeben. Er muss sich selbst und die ganze Welt lâzen. Insoweit ist Gelassenheit bei Meister Eckhart als Haltung oder Befindlichkeit das Ergebnis eines Vollzugs. Meister Eckharts Ausgangspunkt ist das neutestamentliche Lassen,16 das omnia relinquere, von dem im Evangelium bei der Berufung der ersten Jünger die Rede ist.17 Hier zeigt sich deutlich die Breite des Verlassenheitsbegriffs. So erscheint er teils negativ (im Stich lassen), teils positiv besetzt (den Neuanfang wagen), teils materiell (Haus und Hof, Dinge lassen)18, teils personell (den Vater, die Mutter, die Frau, den Mann lassen) und schließlich – in der Mystik Meister Eckharts – spirituell (sich selbst lassen). So gelangt der Mensch über das Lassen zur Gelassenheit. Meister Eckharts Gelassenheitsbegriff Mit seiner Wortschöpfung gelâzenheit stellte Meister Eckhart der deutschen Sprache ein Konzept zur Verfügung,19 dass die Vielschichtigkeit eines Sachverhalts anzeigt, in dem Ruhe, Versenkung, Anbetung, Demut, Hingabe und – wie wir gleich sehen werden – auch Weisheit mitschwingen und welcher schließlich in der Erfahrung der Einheit mit Gott kulminiert. Es wird deutlich, dass er mit diesem Begriff den semantischen Wert der lateinischen Ausdrücke resignatio und tranquilitas ebenso sprengt wie den der griechischen Begriffe euthymia und henosis. Diese Begriffe kreisen den viel komplexeren Begriff der Gelassenheit nur ein, ohne seinen Kern zu treffen und ohne seine semantische Dichte und Fülle vollständig zu erschließen. Das gelingt erst mit der eingedeutschten Form der Konzepte, die all diese Nuancen vereint, denn Gelassenheit beinhaltet sowohl das Aufgeben und Loslassen (resignatio), die Ruhe (tranquilitas) als auch ein gutes Gemüt (euthymia) sowie schließlich die Einheit mit Gott (henosis), die Meister Eckhart zur unio mystica weiterdenkt. Zu erwähnen ist ferner die Bedeutung des Gelassenheitsbegriffs für die eckhartsche Ethik, der Nächstenliebe als Ergebnis von Gelassenheit betrachtet. Interessant wird das v. a., wenn man das etwa mit Leibnizens Gerechtigkeitsbegriff vergleicht: iustitia est misercordia et sapientia. Das legt
13 Quint, J.: Die Sprache Meister Eckeharts als Ausdruck seiner mystischen Geisteswelt. In: DVfLG 6 (1928), S. 685 f. 14 Vgl. zu Meister Eckharts Gelassenheitstheorem auch folgende Neuerscheinungen: Panzig, E.: Gelâzenheit und abegescheidenheit. Eine Einführung in das theologische Denken des Meister Eckhart. Leipzig 2005, S. 54 ff. und Voigt, D. / Meck, S.: Gelassenheit. Geschichte und Bedeutung. Darmstadt 2005, S. 83 ff. 15 Dies, obwohl Meister Eckhart das Substantiv gelâzenheit nur an einer Stelle verwendet, und zwar in der Rede der underscheidunge, wo es heißt: „Wan, ez kome von trâcheit oder von wârer abegescheidenheit oder von gelâzenheit, sô sol man merken, ob man sich hier inne vindet, als man sô gar von innen gelâzen ist [...]“ (Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke, hrsg. im Auftrag der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft. Deutsche Werke, hrsg. v. J. Quint, Bd. V, Stuttgart 1963, 283, 7 ff. Wesentlich häufiger benutzt er das Verb lâzen bzw. das Partizip gelâzen. 16 Panzig: A. a. O., S. 57. 17 Mt 4, 18-22. 18 Interessant ist in diesem Zusammenhang, dass in Peter Dinzelbachers Wörterbuch der Mystik unter dem Stichwort „Gelassenheit“ auf den Begriff „Armut“ verwiesen wird (Vgl. Fraling, B.: Gelassenheit. In: P. Dinzelbacher (Hrsg.): Wörterbuch der Mystik. Stuttgart 1989, S. 185). 19 Dass Meister Eckhart den Begriff gelâzenheit entwickelt hat, legt der Umstand nahe, dass er vor ihm nicht belegt ist (vgl. Panzig: A. a. O., S. 54 und die Verweise auf verschiedene Wörterbücher ebd., Anm. 125). 129 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism mithin eine Verbindung von sapientia (Weisheit) zur Gelassenheit nahe, die den spirituellen Ingredienzien ein rationales Regulativ beifügt. Dabei müsste das Konzept der Weisheit allerdings noch mal genauer analysiert werden, um es richtig verorten zu können im Spannungsfeld von Offenbarungswissen, Erfahrungswissen und der Intellektualität, die zu dem führt, was wir heute im engeren Sinne als „Wissen“ bezeichnen. Die Erkenntnis Gottes als Grund für Gelassenheit ist die Weisheit, an die Meister Eckhart denkt, eine Weisheit jenseits des enzyklopädischen Wissens. Bei Meister Eckhart führt die Fokussierung auf den Begriff der Gelassenheit allerdings am Ende zur Übersteigerung des Konzepts, wenn er fordert, nicht nur von den weltlichen Dingen und Geschöpfen sowie von sich selbst zu lassen, um die mystische Einheit mit Gott zu erreichen, sondern schließlich sogar „um Gottes Willen“ von Gott selbst zu lassen: „Daz hoehste und daz naehste, daz der mensche gelâzen mac, daz ist, daz er got durch got lâze.“20 Radikaler kann man die Gelassenheit, die zur Einheit mit Gott führen soll, nicht auffassen. Probleme des Gelassenheitsbegriffs Zirkelbezüglichkeit Gibt es überhaupt einen analytischen Zugang zu mystischen Texten oder muss das Projekt scheitern, den Begriff „Gelassenheit“ zu verstehen? Kann man ihn am Ende nur erfahren? Und wenn dem so ist, entsteht nicht ein Zirkel, weil für die Erfahrung der Gelassenheit bereits Gelassenheit erforderlich zu sein scheint?
Das scheint auch eine Schwäche des Zugangs zu sein, den Dieter Voigt und Sabine Meck wählen. Zwar nennen die Autoren mit äußerer und innerer Ruhe, Freiheit von Angst, Weisheit u. a. zahlreiche Komponenten, die mit dem Gelassenheitsbegriff konnotiert werden und den Weg Richtung Gelassenheit zeigen, doch lösen sie damit das Problem der Zirkularität des Verhältnisses dieser Teilaspekte zum Ganzen nicht, denn innere Ruhe etwa ist Bedingung für Meditation und Kontemplation, welche ihrerseits Methoden darstellen, zur Gelassenheit zu gelangen, als deren Folge wiederum innere Ruhe in Erscheinung tritt.21 Hier zeigt sich, dass jeder systematische Zugang zur Gelassenheit auf eine Grenze stößt und auch mit der Darstellung einer hierarchischen Struktur verschiedener Begriffskomponenten, bei der Gelassenheit ganz oben steht, 22 nicht überwunden wird, weil die Möglichkeit, die Tipps zur Erreichung der angedeuteten Stufen auf dem Weg zur Gelassenheit zu beherzigen, schon viel von dem voraussetzt, was eigentlich erst erlangt werden soll: Gelassenheit. 23 Zumindest partiell liegt dem Suchenden somit das Ziel bereits am Start im Rücken; wünschenswerte Folgeerscheinungen sind zugleich Bedingungen ihrer Herbeiführung. Was einerseits positiv als eine sich selbst verstärkende Aufwärtsspirale zu immer mehr Gelassenheit gedeutet werden kann – im Gegensatz zur Abwärtsspirale immer neuer Scheinbedürfnisse mit immer kürzerer und schwächerer Befriedigungswirkung -, stellt anderseits die Schwierigkeit des Begriffs Gelassenheit vor Augen: Er lässt sich in seiner komplexen Natur nicht restlos analysieren und bleibt in seiner Selbstbezüglichkeit unfassbar und unerklärlich. Alltagstauglichkeit Wie lässt sich im christlichen (Alltags-)Leben das Verhältnis von Gelassenheit, Aufmerksamkeit sowie Verantwortungs- und Handlungsbereitschaft so bestimmen, dass im Ergebnis weder
20 Meister Eckhart: A. a. O. [I], 196, 6 f. 21 Voigt / Meck: A. a. O., S. 171 f. 22 Voigt / Meck: A. a. O., S. 177 (Abb. 4). 23 Vgl. zur Analyse des Ansatzes von Voigt / Meck auch Bordat, J.: Rezension zu Dieter Voigt, Sabine Meck: Gelassenheit. Geschichte und Bedeutung. In: Marburger Forum. Beiträge zur geistigen Situation der Gegenwart. Jg. 6 (2005), Nr. 4. Online seit 28.07.2005 (URL: http://www.marburger-forum.de/mafo/heft2005-4/Bordat_Gelass.htm). 130 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Aktionismus noch Fatalismus bzw. Gleichgültigkeit steht? Gibt es „Regeln“ für eine zeitgemäße Operationalisierung der eckhartschen Gelassenheit im Alltag? Diese zu finden verlangt wiederum, sich der Lebensgeschichte Meister Eckharts zuzuwenden, aus der heraus deutlich wird, wie wichtig eine Ausgewogenheit von kontemplativer Verinnerlichung und öffentlichem Wirken ist und wie fruchtbar dieses sein kann, wenn es gelassen geschieht. Und sicherlich gehört dazu angesichts der überwältigenden Probleme, denen wir uns gegenübersehen, auch eine weitere Tugend, die aus Gelassenheit gewonnen werden kann: die Ausgelassenheit.
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DOLOR E INDIVIDUACION EN EL BUDISMO HINAYANA
María Angeles Cabana Universidad de Chulalongkorn, Bangkok
Introducción La respuesta que los seres humanos nos damos ante el gran interrogante sobre el significado del dolor del que todos tenemos experiencia constituye, a mi parecer, uno de los temas que más influyen en la tradición cultural de los pueblos. Tengo la alegría de vivir en Tailandia desde hace varios años. Cuando llegué me sorprendió observar en sus gentes una actitud ante el dolor y las contrariedades cotidianas de la vida diferente a la que solemos adoptar en occidente. Más tarde descubrí que tal actitud obedecía a una forma diferente de entender la existencia, a unas tradiciones enraizadas en criterios filosóficos bastante distantes, desde su punto de partida, de los de nuestra cultura occidental. Dado que Tailandia es un país de tradición arraigadamente budista, en este breve trabajo comentaré algunas de mis reflexiones a lo largo de estos años acerca del significado del dolor y de la persona humana según el budismo. Con ello quisiera al mismo tiempo expresar mi respeto y gratitud al - para mí - muy querido pueblo tailandés. Buda y su encuentro con el dolor La vida de Sidharta Gotama, fundador del budismo, con todos aquellos aspectos que pueda tener de legendaria, es muy significativa respecto al tema del dolor. Sidharta, hijo de un rey del clan de los Sakyas, en el sur del actual Nepal, vivía en su palacio, protegido de toda infelicidad. La felicidad y el placer le rodeaban. Este primer momento de su vida, que llena su niñez y juventud, deja la engañosa impresión de que se puede estar en este mundo y permanecer al mismo tiempo ajeno al dolor. Sin embargo, en su corazón, Sidharta guardaba una insatisfacción: quería saber. Un día salió de su palacio. Al parecer no había en él meditación previa sobre el dolor, ni atisbo de sufrimiento, excepto esa cierta melancolía por querer saber. Fue entonces cuando tuvo un encuentro repentino con el sufrimiento inevitable del existir humano. Desde ese momento, su vida quedó marcada y, a los 29 años abandonó su palacio, a su mujer y a su hijo para dedicarse a buscar un camino, una clave que liberara al hombre del dolor. Esta liberación supondrá un largo y penoso caminar, ya que una sola existencia no será suficiente. Consideraciones generales sobre el budismo Lo primero que conviene destacar es que el budismo comprende varias escuelas y corrientes. Aunque todas ellas ofrecen una mayoría de puntos en común, también hay que decir que difieren en varios aspectos filosóficos y doctrinales, algunos de importancia. Hay corrientes budistas que hablan de un absoluto; otras han llegado a una cierta divinización de su fundador. Unas apuntan a un Buda o Bodhisatva, que ya ha alcanzado la iluminación, pero que retrasa su extinción última con el fin de ayudar a los otros hombres en el camino de la liberación, es decir, una especie de mediador; otras nos dicen que cada hombre debe recorrer su propio camino y alcanzar su propia meta, sin que sea posible tal mediación; y varias diferencias más que se podrían añadir.
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En la actualidad, algunas escuelas definen el budismo como una religión no teísta, en cuanto que se presenta como ciencia del hombre que intenta dar una respuesta sobre el sentido último de todas las cosas, evitando toda referencia a un Absoluto trascendental. Para estos autores, las religiones no teístas son más espirituales y superiores a las religiones teístas porque están despojadas de elementos antropomórficos y culturales.1 Sin embargo, para otros representantes del budismo, el planteamiento filosófico cede el puesto al interés fundamental por emprender el camino presentado por Buda para alcanzar la total liberación del dolor. Los que defienden esta postura se basan en una metáfora atribuida al mismo Buda, según la cual la existencia del ser humano es comparable con un hombre herido por una flecha envenenada y que, antes de buscar remedio a su herida, se pusiera a indagar quién disparó la flecha, quién la fabricó, por qué, cuándo, etc. Seguramente – añade la metáfora - ese insensato moriría antes de poder encontrar respuestas a sus preguntas. Todos concuerdan, sin embargo, en que la cuestión verdaderamente fundamental es que el ser humano tiene una herida grave que le hace sufrir y a la cual el budismo ofrece remedio. En este breve estudio nos vamos a referir a la corriente hinayana 2 que es la del budismo que se practica en Tailandia, considerada la más antigua y original. Creemos que esta escuela ha elaborado un sistema filosófico-religioso muy meritorio y consecuente. El sentido de inmanencia en el budismo En el budismo todo es inmanente al ser humano y todo tiende hacia esa inmanencia. Fuera del hombre no hay que buscar ninguna referencia. El existir y acontecer del hombre se realiza en el hombre, por el hombre y para el hombre. El sentido Ultimo de las cosas, en el budismo, es el Dharma.3. EL Drama es la Ley del sentido Ultimo de la Naturaleza Original4, el empírico particular y el sentido Ultimo absoluto al mismo tiempo5. Definido también como “dinamismo original, energía ni material ni inmaterial, porque está más allá de estas distinciones convencionales”. En él caminan los seres particulares hasta su total realización; no es transcendente al ser humano, está en la profundidad del sentido último de todas las cosas, que puede descubrir solamente el sabio. Nada en el budismo va más allá de la existencia del hombre; ni siquiera la ley suprema original o Dharma. Todo está incluido en el existir del hombre. Incluso, la iluminación y el estado de nirvana, la serena meta del budismo, se realizan desde el hombre mismo. En el budismo todo lo que existe son fenómenos y, por lo tanto, la inmanecia se mueve igualmente en el campo de los fenómenos. Cuando se habla, por tanto, de realidades o entidades que para el pensamiento occidental Antropología fenomenológica en el budismo Según el pensamiento budista, el ser humano es un compuesto de cinco agregados: 1º la forma, que es la corporeidad o materia; 2º la sensación; 3º la percepción; 4º los apetitos o tendencias de la voluntad y 5º la consciencia.
1 Un bouddhiste dit le christianisme aux bouddhistes.p . 72 2 Llamada tambien ¨pequeño vehículo o Theravada¨. 3 Un bouddhiste…p. 204 4 La palabra “original” en este indica que la “Naturaleza” no se refiere en este caso al conjunto de leyes particulares propias del empírico particular, que tiene un sentido convencional relativo; sino del sentido último absoluto. (cf Un boudhdiste….p.73) 5 Un bouddhiste …, p. 72. 134 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Los cinco agregados aparecen y desaparecen en una rápida sucesión, es decir, no permanecen los mismos en distintos momentos sucesivos. La combinación de estos agregados es lo que se llama "nacimiento"; al existir de esos agregados como un solo haz o conjunto se le dice "vida"; la muerte es la separación o disolución de esos agregados.6 El primero de ellos, la forma o corporeidad, es un agregado físico. Los otros cuatro agregados son psíquicos. A este compuesto físico-psíquico se le suele llamar individuo o "yo". En la consciencia se realiza la unidad de todos estos agregados; es lo que podemos llamar "unidad de consciencia" en cuanto que se hace presente a la consciencia que todos esos componentes forman un solo individuo. Ahora bien, la consciencia individual o “yo” no puede ser asimilada a nuestra noción occidental de “persona” porque los cinco componentes físico-psíquicos, para el budismo, son fenómenos. Dado que el existir del hombre se enmarca en la sucesión de un conjunto de experiencias y que fuera de esas experiencias no podemos hablar de existencia humana. podemos considerar la concepción budista sobre ser humano como una antropología fenomenológica. El budismo hinayana niega la existencia de un "yo" sustancial o atman. Para esta escuela, no hay nada permanente bajo la sucesión de fenómenos de la experiencia.7 Por consiguiente, cuando el budismo emplea los terminos “existir del ser humano”, “ser humano”, simplemente “hombre”, o algún concepto de significado semejante se está refiriendo al ser humano en cuanto compuesto de agregados, que son fenómenos; y a su existir, como una sucesión de experiencias fenomenológicas. El “yo”, para el budismo, no es sino una engañosa ilusión porque el hombre padece el espejismo de una sobrevaloración de sí mismo. Este espejismo le lleva, por una parte, a proyectarse como un absoluto y, por otra, a no ver los fenómenos como tales fenómenos sino como entidades. De la absolutización del “yo” nacen el egocentrismo y la agresividad hacia lo que obstaculiza la propia satisfacción, así como la tendencia a abandonarse a ceguera de los instintos en una cadena de condiciones desgraciadas dominadas por el “yo”.8 Que el budismo considere al ser humano exclusivamente como un agregado de fenómenos, sin un "yo" permanente que sirva de soporte, quizás suponga para el pensamiento occidental un reduccionismo, porque se niega toda entidad real en el hombre y su esencia. Sin embargo, para el budismo, que no admite otra realidad sino la de los fenómenos, su concepción del hombre no supone un reduccionismo, sino una visión justa de lo que el hombre es. Admitir otra cosa sería una supervaloración engañosa del hombre o, lo que es lo mismo, expresion de su ignorancia. Sin embargo, una primera pregunta surge desde nuestro punto de vista a este respecto: ¿Cómo es posible combinar la negación de un “yo¨ sustancial y el hecho de la unidad de consciencia en la que consiste el quinto agregado? Por otro lado, si la muerte es una disolución de los cinco agregados fenomenológicos, ¿cómo podemos explicar el hecho de la reencarnación? ¿“qué” o “quién” se reencarna? ¿“qué” o “quién”, como veremos más tarde, decide emprender el camino de la liberación del propio dolor? El dolor en el budismo hinayana Jesús López-Gay, hablando del sentido del dolor en el budismo, nos dice: "No se trata de un dolor sensible o psíquico, sino metafísico. Es la contingencia misma del ser manifestada en la dependencia, la transitoriedad y el sufrimiento”9; pero tendríamos que preguntarnos lo que puede
6 Buddhism for human life: Life is uncertain, pp. 15-17. 7 La mística del budismo, pag. 17. 8 Dukkha: Es el término budista empleado para designar el sufrimiento, la miseria, el dolor y el mal ocasionados por la impermanencia y el estado de condicionamiento de toda realidad individual fenoménica. (cf. Un bouddhiste…p. 204). 9 .La mística del budismo, pág. 16 135 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism significar "metafísico" en el texto mencionado, cuando se ha negado claramente la existencia de un "yo" sustancial y la existencia consiste en una mera combinación de agregados fenomenológicos a nivel físico-psíquico. En realidad, a la luz de la antropología fenomenológica que estamos viendo, más bien parece que el dolor, según el pensamiento budista, está en relación con la experiencia de cambio o transitoriedad y con la de limitación; experiencias éstas que, a su vez, imponen el sentido de individuación en cuanto se refiere a una existencia transitoria concreta, delimitada, demarcada, sin ninguna proyección trascendente. Dicho de otro modo: la experiencia consciente o el tomar consciencia de los fenómenos de la existencia origina el sentido de individuación y, con él, la percepción de los sentidos y sus sensaciones. Estas sensaciones despiertan los deseos y pasiones, esto es, los apetitos de la voluntad, que en el budismo son las llamadas fuerzas o tendencias kármicas10, a las cuales nuestro existir queda condicionado. Se explica de este modo, la acción, la cadena de reencarnaciones, el existir transitorio e impermanente. Estas experiencias existenciales de cambio, transitoriedad, límite son la causa próxima del dolor humano. La causa remota es la ignorancia, que para el budismo significa el desconocimiento que el hombre tiene sobre sí mismo y los fenónemos de su existir. La liberación del dolor El budismo hinayana solamente permite una solución al dolor de la existencia del hombre: acometer la liberación de ese dolor y conseguir el estado de nirvana que el hombre alcanza cuando ha logrado una total desindividuación. De no darse esta liberación, el destino del hombre sería padecer continuamente ese dolor, sin ningún sentido ni significado, en una cadena eterna de reencarnaciones. Si el sentido de individuación suponía, como hemos visto, límite, cambio o transitoriedad, sujección al encadenamiento, al ciclo de existencias sucesivas o reencarnaciones; el proceso de desindividuación significará, por lo tanto, no-límite, no-acción, no-retorno a la existencia. Cuando se alcanza esta meta se ha llegado al nirvana, al “estado de quien ha llegado a la superación de toda individualidad, a la verdadera naturaleza original, al vacío de sí, al puro incondicionado o Anatta"11. A veces se habla de nirvana como "meta de salvación" para el hombre.12 Del nirvana se podría decir comparativamente que es una meta, pero no de salvación. El nirvana no salva al hombre. Identificar en el budismo liberación y salvación no es apropiado. Se trata más bien de que el dolor, una vez que el hombre logra su desindividuación, no tiene - por decirlo así - ningún asidero en el que hacerse experiencia. Este es para el budismo el sentido de "liberación". El proceso de la liberación del dolor El proceso que conduce al hombre a la liberación del dolor como experiencia de su existir es conocido con el nombre de “óctuple camino” o camino de ocho estadios o etapas. Los primeros cinco estadios se refieren a la disciplina moral que el hombre debe acometer. Con el sexto estadio comienza la disciplina o ascesis mental.
10 En el budismo karma significa acción. Cada hombre está sujeto al ciclo de nacimiento, muerte y reencarnación según la ley del karma. Esta ley es una ley de causalidad unida al mérito o demérito de las acciones realizadas por el hombre. Un buen karma o acción produce un efecto bueno que se concretará en una existencia posterior mejor o de un nivel superior. Un mal karma o acción supone efectos negativos que hacen que la existencia posterior sea peor o de un nivel inferior. Esta cadena de reencarnaciones recibe el nombre de "samsara". 11 Un bouddhiste..p. 89 12 La mística del budismo, p. 20. 136 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
En este sexto estadio, que podríamos llamar del recto esfuerzo, la voluntad tiene un cometido: la dirección y control de la mente, ya que todavía se da una relación entre el mundo externo y el mundo interno del hombre a través de los sentidos. Una falta del recto esfuerzo en la dirección y control de la mente puede despertar el mundo de los deseos y de los pensamiento y, con éstos, sufrimiento e insatisfacción. La recta atención o recta consciencia es el séptimo estadio del óctuple camino. Toda esta etapa es un proceso de interiorización hacia la total concentración mental. Se refiere, en primer lugar, a los actos y posiciones del cuerpo: respiración, diferentes posturas, posición correcta de brazos, manos y piernas etc. Es un estado de atención, no de dirección o control. En segundo lugar, a los sentimientos, acciones o mociones psíquicas. El tercer campo de atención se dirige a la mente: se trata de tener atención o consciencia de los estados mentales como, por ejemplo, la serenidad de la mente, el equilibrio mental, el recogimiento etc. Hay un cuarto campo de acción de la recta atención, que es el de la relación entre lo que va aconteciendo y las enseñanzas de Buda sobre el dolor, la impermanencia etc. Podríamos decir, comparativamente, que es una actitud didáctica, de serena comprobación. En este estadio se proponen, como método, una serie de objetos que sirven de ayuda para la meditación. Al meditar sobre estos objetos, el hombre no quiere buscar ni descubrir el significado o la verdad de estos objetos; los usa solamente como práctica para lograr una disciplina mental adecuada, un método que ayude al asceta a adquirir una adecuada concentración y una disposición mejor. Estos objetos de meditación pueden ser de diversos tipos. Pueden ser externos, como la tierra, el agua, el viento, círculos de colores, etc. Pueden ser objetos desagradables como las etapas de descomposición de un cadáver, la muerte, etc. Pueden ser positivos, como la generosidad, la bondad, las cualidades de Buda, etc. Los objetos de carácter externo ayudan al asceta a permanecer con fija atención en el objeto elegido, sin distraerse en las cosas que están alrededor. Los que son más repulsivos o desagradables son útiles para disminuir la sensualidad, el placer o los deseos caprichosos del asceta. Los que son positivos sirven para contrarrestar las malas tendencias y vicios; por ejemplo, meditando sobre la generosidad se va olvidando el egoísmo. También, para adquirir virtudes; por ejemplo, meditando sobre las cualidades de Buda, el asceta puede desarrollar su compasión. La octava etapa es la recta concentración. También dentro de esta etapa, podemos hablar de diferentes momentos o estadios. En el primer estadio de la recta concentración se manifiesta todavía el sentido discursivo de la mente. Hay un movimiento mental enlazando o separando conceptos e ideas. Todavía se da el raciocinio y la argumentación. En el siguiente estadio desaparece este aspecto discursivo de la mente; sin embargo, hay como un estado de cierta satisfacción por el progreso alcanzado. No es que el asceta se sienta orgulloso del progreso conseguido; sino que ese estado en sí mismo proporciona satisfacción. Si el asceta se entretiene en esta satisfacción, puede suponer un retroceso, una forma de caída o, al menos, un detenerse en ese estado. La satisfacción, aunque en sí misma no significa deseo, puede producir deseos en el hombre. En el estadio siguiente desaparece esta satisfacción. Se da un estado de imperturbabilidad, de imparcialidad ante las cosas. Ya nada es capaz de atraer o mover a la mente, no hay simpatía, ni gusto, ni afecto por nada; tampoco sus contrarios: antipatía, disgusto y desafecto. En el último estadio de la recta concentración se manifiesta un proceso gradual de vaciar la mente de lo determinado o concreto. Se experimenta la totalidad; todavía se mantienen las nociones de espacio y tiempo, pero es espacio total; tiempo total. El asceta debe evitar pensar en un solo
137 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism objeto; todo aparece como totalidad. En un segundo momento, el asceta abandona la noción de espacio-temporalidad, pero queda la percepción de consciencia en un sentido general. Finalmente, el asceta se concentra en la vacuidad; ya no tiene percepciones ni ideas, su concentración carece de objeto, se concentra en nada. No se siente ligado a nada existente. Ha superado la barrera de los sentidos, de las ideas, de los condicionamientos espacio-temporales y de la percepción. Ha llegado a la contemplación pura. El resultado de todo este proceso es el logro de la sabiduría. La sabiduría Aunque el tema de la sabiduría según el budismo no entra propiamente en el marco de este trabajo, hablaremos brevemente sobre ésta ya que ayuda a comprender mejor el camino de la liberación del dolor. La sabiduría para el budismo es intuición y visión penetrante. La sabiduría, dicho de modo sencillo, consiste en percibir el camino de la completa liberación del dolor y la insatisfacción de la vida. En los primeros momentos del budismo, la sabiduría significaba la realización de las cuatro nobles verdades de la doctrina de Buda (la existencia es dolor, las causas del dolor, liberación del dolor y el óctuple camino para lograr esta liberación). También debemos tener presente que la iluminación budista es algo inseparable de la sabiduría; pero con ello hay que entender que la iluminación es el estado mental en el que la sabiduría se realiza. K. Sri Dhamananda expone la diferencia entre conocimiento y sabiduría13. El conocimiento. según este estudioso, se puede adquirir después de escuchar, leer u observar diferentes cosas; pero este conocimiento no es sabiduría en sentido propio. La sabiduría aparece en el entendimiento cuando los obstáculos e impurezas mentales han cesado. Sin embargo, este mismo autor aclara que no es suficiente una mente purificada; para que exista verdadera sabiduría debe darse una firme y apropiada comprensión de las cosas, fruto de una profunda meditación. Lo que nos quiere indicar K. Sri Dhamananda es que, aunque el asceta haya logrado una purificación mental adecuada, si éste duda y alguien puede hacerle cambiar de criterio con cierta facilidad, no posee la sabiduría. El conocimiento se mueve en el campo de lo fenomenológico y solamente conoce lo fenomenológico, mientras la sabiduría solamente se logra después de haber superado las diferentes etapas del óctuple camino; esto significa, por una parte, que la sabiduría se da en el entendimiento mismo; por otra parte, que sabiduría y virtud budista van unidas. Sin sabiduría no existe virtud; sin virtud no existe sabiduría. Sabiduría es el estado propio de los perfectos o arthat. La sabiduría se alcanza en la vacuidad. Es “recta visión” de la realidad de las cosas; pero esta “recta visión” no es la misma “recta visión” de la primera etapa del óctuple camino. La “recta visión” como primera etapa del óctuple camino es visión empírica; la “recta visión” de la sabiduría es visión penetrativa, simple e intuitiva y se da en el ámbito de la vacuidad, de lo no-existente y a su vez es el ámbito de lo real. Es donde se da el estado de nirvana. El nirvana es un estado en el que reina lo no-condicionado. Estado en que el hombre se ha liberado ya de la cadena sin fin de causas y efectos que le mantenía sin paz ni sosiego. Libre ya de cualquier percepción, vulnerabilidad e influencia de cualquier objeto. Libre de todo sufrimiento o dolor y libre también de toda relación exterior a sí mismo.
13 Buddhism for Human Life, Knowlwedge and Wisdom, pag. 43. 138 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
El vacío es algo que el hombre budista busca y encuentra cuando abandona la noción de espacio-temporalidad. Este vacío hace posible que el asceta llegue a la sabiduría, es decir, a poseer la visión simple e intuitiva de la realidad.
Epílogo Abordar el tema de la individuación, es decir, del ser humano y su dolor, desde una perspectiva budista, nos ha llevado a considerar el papel que juega en el budismo el sufrimiento humano a causa de la proyección de un “yo” fenomenológico e ilusorio que tiende a absolutizar y a absolutizarse. Dado que para el pensamiento budista los seres humanos no son personas sino agregados de fenómenos, no hay espacio en su metafísica para acoger la existencia de un Ser Absoluto personal. Desde el pensamiento budista, si se admitiera la posibilidad de un Ser Absoluto personal, éste estaría sometido a la individuación y con ella a todas sus limitaciones y condicionantes. Ese Ser Absoluto tendría que aspirar a la desindividuación, al vaciamiento de su propio ser para identificarse con la Ley Suprema del Dharma. Y por lo tanto no sería el Absoluto. A partir de estos presupuestos metafísicos, el budismo explica su visión sobre el sentido de lo que las religiones monoteistas quieren expresar al referirse al Sujeto Absoluto diciendo que las religiones, a menudo, hablan de “Señor”, refiriéndose a un “Espíritu puro” y hablan también de los difuntos que están en Dios como si fueran espíritus o almas. Ahora bien, se trata de un lenguaje popular, convencional. Sin embargo, cuando se habla en relación con el sentido último, las palabras deben ser utilizadas en su sentido doctrinal o “dhármico” correcto. A este nivel, desde sus comienzos, el budismo prefiere no hablar en términos de “cosas”, de “substancias”, de “esencias”, sino de cualidades, de estados.14 Para alcanzar la meta del nirvana, según el budismo, el hombre ha de recorrer un arduo camino purificativo en el que debe descontaminarse de la influencia de las exigencias del “yo” que le causan dolor e infelicidad. Se ha de esforzar en practicar las virtudes que aumentan el karma positivo, especialmente el amor de benevolencia y piedad y el generoso olvido de sí mismo, puesto que “si uno no se mira a sí mismo, espontáneamente ama a los demás”.15 Como en los grandes sistemas filosóficos que tratan de dar una respuesta a los profundos interrogantes de la vida humana, el budismo pone el acento en hacernos sentir una gran realidad que nos es común a todos: que los seres humanos somos compañeros en el sufrimiento y que toda superación del influjo dominante del “yo” pasa siempre a través de la benevolencia y la generosidad.
14 Cf. Un bouddhiste… p. 118. 15 Un bouddhiste…p. 158. 139 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
BIBLIOGRAFIA LOPEZ-GAY J. La Mística del Budismo, B.A.C., Madrid, 1974. MANICH JUMSAI M.L, Understandng Thai Bouddhism, Office of the Nacional Culture Comisión, September 1996. BIZOT F., Le Bouddhisme des Thais, Ed. des Cahiers de France, Bangkok, 1993. BUDDHADASA V., Un Bouddhiste dit le Christianisme aux Bouddhistes. Ed. Desclée, Paris 1987. SRI DHAMMANANDA, Bouddhism for Humain Life, The Corporate Body of the Buda Educational Foundation, Taiwan 1998. LEDI SAYADAW MAHATHERA, The Buddhist Philosophy of Relations, Sandy, Sri Lanka 1986. PHYA ANUMAN RAJADHON, Popular Buddhism in Siam, Thai Inter-Religioux Comisión for Development Suksit Siam, Bangkok 1986. Alabaster Esq. Henry, Buddhism, The Wheel of the Law, Ch´eng Wen Publishing Company, Taipei 1971. RENARD J. Responses to 101 Questions on Buddhism, Paulist Press, New York 1999.
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COMUNICAZIONE. S. AMBROGIO E IL DE MISTERIIS (IL MISTERO DIVINO)
Annalisa Careri Musicò
Brevi accenni alla produzione letteraria di S. Ambrogio Uomo d’azione, Ambrogio riuscì a conciliare la sua vita religiosa con quella politica, instancabile studioso e proficuo scrittore con numerose opere esegetiche e morali che contribuirono, grazie alla sua vasta cultura, sia sacra che pagana, all’ampia diffusione della dottrina cristiana nel mondo latino. Sempre preso dai tanti impegni che la sua Chiesa gli procurava1, Ambrogio racchiude in sé una sintesi di moralità e perizia oratoria, come dice Cicerone: “Vir bonus, dicendi peritus”. Rifacendosi ad Origene, si esercitò nello studio del triplice significato delle Scritture: storico (letterale), morale e mistico (allegorico). Egli fu non solo grande oratore, non solo santo, ma anche fervente promotore della cultura latina ed il primo fra i quattro Dottori della Chiesa latina (Ambrogio, Agostino, Girolamo e Gregorio Magno) e con la sua umanità e la sua ricchezza spirituale, può a giusta ragione essere definito anche un mistico. Nei suoi scritti tratta ampiamente temi come la Trinità, l’Incarnazione, la Penitenza, il Credo, i Sacramenti. Ritroviamo quindi in questo genere il De fide ad Gratianum Augustum, De Spiritu Sancto, De incarnationis Dominicae sacramento, De paenitentia, Explanatio symboli ad initiandos, mentre dogma e liturgia trovano fondamento nel De sacramentis e nel De mysteriis2 Tematiche del De sacramentis e del De mysteriis. Il De sacramentis e il De mysteriis sono due opere molto legate fra di loro, in quanto l’ultima è frutto della prima e illustrano, oltre i grandi temi in esse trattati, anche la catechesi mistagogica. Il De sacramentis3 è un’esposizione in sei discorsi dei sacramenti “dell’iniziazione” cristiana, in particolare del Battesimo e della celebrazione eucaristica, spiega l’importanza dei sacramenti, sentiti come vera discesa e presenza dell’azione di Dio, facendo continui riferimenti alla Scrittura. Il De mysteriis nasce, al contrario della precedente opera, con l’intento di essere pubblicato direttamente, l’argomento trattato è incentrato sulla grandezza e sull’importanza fondamentale del sacramento battesimale, sullo spiritale segnaculum e sull’Eucarestia. Ambrogio prende spunto dalle omelie del De sacramentis per approfondire ciò che più si addiceva al tema del mistero divino.
1 Agostino ci informa di lui nelle Confessiones, . Conf., VI, 3; cit., p. 117. 2 L’editio princeps delle opere del santo, stampata a Milano nel 1474, a Venezia nel 1485. L’edizione critica maggiormente curata, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. per l’edizione critica dei testi: Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 3 Il testo risale ad un archetipo perduto del VII secolo, che ha poi originato i codici di San Gallo (VII-VIII sec.) e del Vaticano (IX-X sec.). 141 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Il De mysteriis si articola solo secondo l’ordine del piano salvifico di Dio, secondo una lettura teologico - spirituale del mistero. I primi sette capitoli sono interamente dedicati al Battesimo; il solo paragrafo 42 è dedicato allo “spiritale signaculum”, che rappresenta quello che sarà dopo la canonizzazione il Sacramento della Confermazione; alla polemica dell’anteriorità cristiana rispetto ai giudei è dedicato tutto l’ottavo capitolo; mentre l’ultimo capitolo è dedicato all’Eucaristia. Il mistero, fin dall’inizio è presentato nella sua bivalenza: visibile e invisibile, ed è proprio l’elemento invisibile ad essere messo in risalto perché più importante ed efficace sulla natura umana4. La parte visibile consta degli elementi naturali che fanno parte del rito: l’acqua, la parola e l’olio; l’ostia ed il vino; rispettivamente per il sacramento del Battesimo e dell’Eucaristia. La parte invisibile invece è rappresentata dall’azione salvifica di Dio sull’uomo attraverso la discesa e l’azione dello Spirito Santo. L’ Eucaristia. Il capitolo ottavo si apre con la polemica sull’anteriorità dei sacramenti cristiani rispetto ai precetti giudaici, introdotta da un tema fondamentale che consiste nel rivelare l’importanza della parte invisibile del sacramento che agisce nell’anima dei cristiani in maniera più efficace delle cose che si vedono con gli occhi e non può fare a meno di introdurre la prefigurazione del sacramento cristiano per eccellenza: l’Eucaristia, nella quale è racchiuso tutto il bene spirituale della Chiesa, cioè lo stesso Cristo e insiste quindi sull’anteriorità di tale sacramento già prefigurato da Melchisedec5. Tutti gli esempi presi dall’Antico Testamento servono ad Ambrogio per far capire la potenza della grazia divina esercitata dagli uomini di Dio, che ha la capacità di modificare la natura delle cose: “Constatiamo dunque che la grazia agisce più efficacemente della natura, e tuttavia misuriamo ancora la grazia della benedizione profetica. Che se la benedizione di un uomo fu così potente da trasformare la natura, che diciamo della stessa consacrazione divina, in cui agiscono le parole stesse del Signore? Infatti questo sacramento, che tu ricevi, è prodotto dalla parola di Cristo. Se la parola di Elia fu così potente da ottenere il fuoco dal cielo, non riuscirà la parola di Cristo a trasformare le qualità degli elementi?” 6 Anche la Chiesa invita i suoi fedeli a cibarsi del corpo di Cristo e a bere il suo sangue, perché questo è il solo modo di avere una rigenerazione spirituale costante, partecipando del mistero della nascita, morte e risurrezione di Cristo, vero nucleo del mistero cristiano. Il mysterium Il mistero, secondo la credenza cristiana, è quell’incontro mistico - esperienziale tra il divino trascendente e l’uomo, che avviene attraverso un’epifania del mistero stesso da parte di Dio, senza la quale l’esistenza umana rimarrebbe terribilmente vuota. Nella storia esso è collegato all’esperienza viva dell’uomo che pratica un culto, che determina e caratterizza l’atteggiamento dell’uomo religioso: la conoscenza e l’imitazione del divino. Sarà proprio nella qualità del cambiamento la differenza del mistero pagano da quello cristiano: il primo propone una speranza per il futuro, il secondo cambia da subito la vita umana, proponendo un mutamento qualitativo già sulla terra, facendogli vivere il cielo già dalla terra (F. Rielo)
4 De myst. pp. 91; 96; 107. 5 Gen. 14, 14-18. Melchisedec è figura di David e di Cristo. 6 De myst. pp. 111-112. 142 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Il termine greco mysterion, derivato da myo che significa “chiudere la bocca”, indica ciò che non deve o non può essere detto, mentre al plurale è usato quasi esclusivamente nell’antichità per designare un tipo di riti pagani. Nei LXX il termine mysterium appare solo negli ultimi libri come traduzione dall’aramaico raz, che significa una realtà segreta.7 Esso è usato sia in senso generico per indicare il culto degli dei pagani8, sia per indicare segreti che non possono essere svelati o discorsi intimi, riservati e perciò anche segreti. Nel Nuovo Testamento, il termine mysterion compare soprattutto nelle lettere paoline, mentre non è presente in Giovanni ed appare una sola volta nei Sinottici nell’espressione: “mistero del Regno di Dio”9. Nell’Apocalisse di Giovanni il termine ha significato escatologico10. Mentre nel contesto paolino il termine è in stretto rapporto con il progetto di Dio, concepito da sempre, nascosto al mondo ed ora svelato in Cristo, anzi, divenuto evento con la sua morte e resurrezione, infatti in Lui il mistero diventa ricapitolazione della creazione intera11. Al mistero di Cristo si affianca anche il mistero della Chiesa che lo rivela ai credenti e quindi anche la rivelazione all’uomo diventa parte costitutiva del mistero. E’ in questa tradizione che si colloca anche Ambrogio. Il culto di Mithra Mithra nasce, secondo il mito, dalla roccia o dalla vegetazione tenendo nelle mani un coltello (simbolo della sua capacità di distinguere il bene dal male) ed una torcia (metafora della sua natura illuminante) per rigenerare il mondo dopo aver cacciato e distrutto il toro, alla fine dei tempi, simbolo del male12. Fra i riti dei misteri di Mithra vi era l’iniziazione, il bagno rituale alla fine del quale si praticava una marchiatura o tatuaggio sulla fronte ed il banchetto sacro, il cui pasto era costituito da pane ed acqua e prevedeva un giuramento di fedeltà al dio (sacramento), significava vivere con il proprio dio il suo mistero che diveniva comune mistero. Gli iniziati inoltre erano impegnati a praticare una vita morale corretta come fratelli del principio buono, nella lotta contro quello cattivo. Sicuramente con il culto misterico di Mithra si possono trovare più analogie con il mistero cristiano, ma siamo ancora distanti dalla profondità della rigenerazione battesimale in Spirito ed ancora più lontani dall’idea del sacrificio di Cristo per l’umanità e soprattutto della sua Risurrezione. La caratteristica principale dei culti misterici è la segretezza dei riti stessi e delle esperienze vissute, è la “disciplina dell’arcano” 13 , da ricercare nella radice stessa di mysterion da myo, mantenere il segreto e indicibile era la sostanza o la verità propria del mistero. Le religioni misteriche nei loro riti e nelle loro promesse di un futuro simile a quello delle divinità, sono servite da propedeutica al cristianesimo14.
7 G. Francesconi, Storia e simbolo. Mysterium in figura, la simbolica storico sacramentale nel linguaggio e nella teologia di Ambrogio di Milano, Brescia, 1981, p. 31. 8 Sap. 14, 15; 12, 5. 9 Mc. 4, 11. 10 Apoc. 10, 7; 17, 5. 11 Ef. 1, 9-10; 3, 9; Rom. 14, 25. 12 P. Scarpi, Le religioni dei misteri, cit., p. 352. 13 M. Adriani, Misteri e iniziazione, cit., p. 182. 143 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Ma, c’è una libertà sconfinata nel mistero cristiano che i misteri pagani non conoscono, c’è la presenza della Carità, dell’Amore incondizionato, a cui mai nessun culto si era neppure avvicinato. L’amore di Dio per l’uomo e l’amore dell’uomo per il suo prossimo: messaggio di Cristo che nella sua passione, morte e resurrezione, vince la morte e salva tutta l’umanità. Il mysterium in Ambrogio. Ambrogio riprende sicuramente dalla tradizione latina il significato di mysterium15 e da Paolo la concezione del mistero cristiano, rispetto alla sua categoria storico – salvifica; non si trova in lui una speculazione astratta o filosofica, perché il suo punto di riferimento è sempre la Scrittura, da cui trae la sua visione storica, liturgica e spirituale. Centrale nella concezione del mistero ambrosiano è sicuramente il mysterium Dei (trinitatis), in quanto la prima definizione del mistero è innanzitutto Dio, il Creatore, Colui che è all’origine dei tempi e dal quale parte l’iniziativa della rivelazione all’uomo. Il mistero trinitario è per Ambrogio fondamento della fede cristiana, esposto nel De mysteriis nel contesto battesimale, dove la confessione di fede nella Trinità occupava un posto del tutto centrale ed essenziale: “Sei sceso nel fonte, ricorda ciò che hai risposto! Che tu credi nel Padre, credi nel Figlio, credi nello Spirito Santo.”16 La prima realtà del Battesimo è il perdono delle colpe e di conseguenza una rigenerazione totale dell’anima, in cui vi è ora la presenza costante (dello Spirito) di Dio: regenerationis mysterium. Il mysterium historiae è l’iniziativa che proviene da Dio, si sviluppa nella storia, nella quale si rivela in molteplici segni. Il mysterium Christi è il centro assoluto del progetto di Dio, tale da ritenere che tutto debba essere spiegato a partire da Lui. E’ soprattutto nel passato che Ambrogio scorge ovunque mysteria che nascondevano e al tempo stesso annunciavano il mistero di Cristo. Parlando del passaggio degli Ebrei del Mar Rosso, del miracolo del profeta Eliseo17, attraverso la spiegazione liturgica della rigenerazione battesimale, illustra l’azione effettiva della grazia dello Spirito sull’uomo, capace di cambiare la natura delle cose. Premessa la potenza dell’azione divina sulla natura umana, Ambrogio introduce il mysterium incarnationis, l’unione del divino con l’umano e la realtà sia umana che divina di Cristo. Di fronte a questo mirabile evento, la mente umana fatica a coglierne il senso, e Ambrogio parla del mistero della nascita di Cristo da Maria, come ne avesse fatto un’esperienza reale: “... mediante i misteri dell’incarnazione dimostriamo la verità del mistero. Forse la consuetudine di natura ha avuto la prevalenza quando il Signore Gesù nacque da Maria? Se cerchiamo l’ordine naturale, la donna è solita generare dopo essersi unita ad un uomo. E’ chiaro dunque che la Vergine generò al di fuori dell’ordine di natura”18. In questo contesto, che va oltre la natura, viene introdotta anche la spiegazione del realismo dell’azione di Dio nell’Eucaristia.
14 L. Bouyer, Mysterion, dal mistero alla mistica, cit. p. 33. 15 Il Thesaurus Linguae Latinae dà di mysterium questa definizione:“sacramentum, id est absconditum sacrum. Sacrum, id est absconditum. Secretum Occulta praefiguratio.” Bisogna distinguere il significato di mysterium da quello di sacramentum. Il mysterium già in origine includeva essenzialmente un momento cultuale, mentre sacramentum indicava per lo più un fatto etico-religioso. In Ambrogio i due termini saranno spesso correlativi. 16 De myst. pp. 97 - 100. 17 De myst. p. 92 -111. 18 De myst. p. 112. 144 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Segue il mysterium passionis et resurrectionis, sottinteso in ogni parte dell’opera, dal contesto pasquale agli accenni durante la spiegazione dei sacramenti dell’iniziazione: “l’acqua senza l’annuncio della croce del Signore non serve affatto per la futura salvezza; ma quando è consacrata dal mistero della croce salvatrice, allora s’addolcisce per essere spirituale lavacro e bevanda di salvezza”. Il mysterium ecclesiae è rappresentato dal passaggio dell’iniziativa di Dio all’uomo attraverso la comunità dei credenti unisce l’azione divina e l’azione umana, in quanto Cristo consegna i suoi misteri alla Chiesa, che a sua volta li custodisce per tutti gli uomini li esorta “ad accorrere tutti insieme ai sacramenti ...”19 Dio va costruendo e rivelando il suo disegno di salvezza che ha come fattore decisivo la vita stessa di Cristo, poiché la storia della salvezza si struttura in un “prima” prefigurativo (l’Antico Testamento) e in un “dopo” Cristo, che ne continua e ne estende l’efficacia fra gli uomini (la Chiesa). Sono proprio i mysteria che garantiscono il progetto salvifico di Dio sugli uomini, mediante il primo di tutti i misteri: il mysterium fidei. Aspetti esegetici ed uso della Scrittura. Gli aspetti esegetici del De mysteriis sono strettamente correlati all’uso dei testi scritturistici, e la premessa necessaria per capire il pensiero esegetico di Ambrogio parte dalla sua visione della Scrittura. Il testo Sacro e cioè l’insieme di Antico e Nuovo Testamento è per Ambrogio di origine divina20, cioè l’unico autore è Dio e ciò è rinvenibile in ogni parte di esso, tanto che la lettura delle Scritture diventa per l’uomo il mezzo per avere un incontro con Dio ed il luogo dove poter trovare, attraverso la voce stessa di Dio, quello che di sé Egli ha voluto dire all’uomo. L’origine divina della Scrittura dà esito alla conseguente convinzione che in essa vi sia la verità e che ad essa sia impossibile errare, infatti Ambrogio ritiene immune da errore anche l’agiografo, in quanto uomo di Dio, e laddove vi fossero apparenti imprecisioni, bisognerebbe ricorrere ad un’interpretazione spirituale. Lo scopo delle sacre Scritture, infatti, è quello di istruire moralmente e di avvicinare l’anima del lettore alle profondità dei mysteria. Il fine ultimo dell’agiografo è quello di far conoscere la rivelazione divina ed insegnare ciò che giova alla vita eterna21. Da qui nasce la necessità di Ambrogio di esaminare il discorso divino sotto tutti i suoi aspetti, intuendone gli stili, i generi letterari, i sensi esegetici, l’armonia dei Testamenti e la spiritualità dei loro argomenti. La Scrittura per Ambrogio partecipa sempre delle prerogative del Verbo e come lui diviene operans22 ed ha la capacità di stimolare l’anima ad un incontro, per chi lo ricerca attivamente, attraverso la lettura. I sensi esegetici. Per Ambrogio i sensi esegetici si sviluppano su tre livelli interpretativi: senso letterale - senso morale - senso mistico. Il primo senso è quello ovvio che sembra suggerire immediatamente il testo con il suo tessuto di parole: la lettera (littera).
19 De myst. pp. 94 -115. 20 Explanatio Psalmorum XII, I, 4; CSEL vol. LXIV, p. 4: “La Scrittura in ogni sua parte esala la grazia di Dio” 21 Expositio in psalmum CXVIII 12, 20; CSEL vol. LXII, p. 263; Cfr. H. de Lubac, L’esegesi medievale, cit., p. 88. 22 De sacr. IV, 4, 15; cit, p.52: “Vedi dunque quale argomento efficace sia Cristo.” 145 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Il senso letterale, punto di partenza dell’ermeneutica cristiana, è il primo gradino dell’esegesi ed è di grande importanza per l’analisi delle Scritture, ma non deve mai sfociare in un letteralismo esagerato che ne vanificherebbe il senso. Questo primo livello esegetico è seguito dagli altri due sensi esegetici, che sono caratterizzati dalla presenza di un piano intellegibile, che ha il compito di preparare il terreno ad un’interpretazione più elevata e dispone al senso morale e mistico. Il senso morale ha la caratteristica di essere quel livello intermedio che racchiude in sé parte della “lettera”, in quanto a volte può essere insito nella lettera del testo, e parte del senso mistico in quanto altre volte si eleva ad un piano superiore di interpretazione. Inoltre ha il compito di dissolvere le durezze e la fisicità della lettera e di portare il discorso alle altezze del senso mistico. Ambrogio predilige il procedimento che vede lo sviluppo dal senso morale al mistico, attraverso l’allegoria ed il sensus altior23, che introducono al senso mistico, e fanno intuire lo spirituale già sul piano del sensibile. L’ultimo gradino dell’ermeneutica è l’interpretazione mistica del Testo sacro. Il senso mistico è il fondamento di tutti i sensi precedentemente accennati, perché presuppone la fede in Cristo ed una “visione” globale di tutta l’azione di Dio attraverso i testi scritturistici, ricapitolando e completando la lettera e il senso morale in una visione cristocentrica. E’ proprio la lettura cristocentrica della Scrittura e l’attenzione ad una lettura globale dell’economia della salvezza operata da Dio nella storia, la caratteristica più frequente del senso mistico, che ormai abbandona tutto ciò che è fisicistico per elevarsi alla pienezza spirituale e alla profondità del mistero di Cristo24. Conclusioni Si può dedurre chiaramente che Ambrogio mette in risalto i sacramenti dell’iniziazione cristiana, in particolare il Battesimo e l’Eucaristia, come mysteria non totalmente nuovi, ma piuttosto come la continuazione più piena di una presenza e azione salvifica da tempo preannunciata in Cristo-Messia, sono il mezzo con cui viene rigenerato lo spirito dei neofiti e il tramite per divenire suoi discepoli e accedere alla vita eterna. La partecipazione al mysterium avviene attraverso la mediazione degli elementi sensibili quali, appunto, l’acqua, l’olio, il pane ed il vino, affinché la potenza invisibile di Dio agisca attraverso la povertà della realtà umana.25 I sacramenti fanno rinascere lo spirito umano “dall’alto”, dandogli impulso a vivere una nuova e santa vita. Così nel De mysteriis Ambrogio non si perde in fuorvianti ricerche filologiche, ma cerca di portare ogni esempio scritturistico, specialmente nel caso dell’Antico Testamento, direttamente ad una “visione” più ampia e spirituale. Non si sofferma ad analizzare in maniera letterale il testo scritturistico, ma passa velocemente a spiegarne il senso completo (mistico), che ritrova negli scritti neotestamentari.
23 H. de Lubac, L’esegesi medievale,cit., p. 1224. 24 Cfr. Pizzolato, La dottrina esegetica di sant’Ambrogio, Milano, 1978, p. 257. 25 G. Francesconi, Storia e simbolo. Mysterium in figura, la simbolica storico sacramentale nel linguaggio e nella teologia di Ambrogio di Milano, Brescia, 1981, p. 50. 146 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Ecco perché insiste sul concetto che il testo veterotestamentario sia prefigurazione del Nuovo Testamento, affinché sia più facile interpretare quest’ultimo, che per lui è tutto intriso di senso mistico26. Un mistico dei nostri giorni, Fernando Rielo, riprende nei suoi scritti alcune concezioni che riguardano il senso del verbo « vedere », come “forma di visione” o stato di “visione ben formata” che l’intelligenza possiede in virtù della sua apertura, per mezzo dell’intuizione, al Soggetto assoluto, poiché essendo la persona creata ad immagine e somiglianza del suo Creatore, ha in sé un “carattere genetico ontologico (mistico), che è la divina presenza costitutiva del Principio assoluto, il quale penetrando il nostro essere ci definisce come persone, facendo sì che il proprio io non è un io simpliciter, ma è un “io+”, che si scopre aperto a un principio assoluto27. Questa conoscenza mistica della divina presenza costitutiva del Soggetto assoluto nella persona è testimonianza della mistica universale.
26 De myst. pp. 110-112.
27 F. Rielo Un diàlogo a tres voces: Pensamiento 147 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Bibliografia M. Adriani, Misteri e iniziazione in Oriente, Firenze, 1978. L. Bouyer, Mysterion, dal mistero alla mistica, Roma, 1986. G. Francesconi, Storia e simbolo. Mysterium in figura, la simbolica storico sacramentale nel linguaggio e nella teologia di Ambrogio di Milano, Brescia, 1981. H. de Lubac, L’esegesi medievale, Roma, 1972. L.F. Pizzolato, La dottrina esegetica di sant’Ambrogio, Milano, 1978.
F. Rielo, Un diàlogo a tres voces, Madrid. 1995 P. Scarpi, Le religioni dei misteri, Milano, 2002.
148 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
DIO – LUCE. UOMINI - LUCE E UOMINI – OMBRA
Daniela D’Amici
Principio di realtà1: 1. la stanza illuminata Supponiamo che ci possiamo mettere ad osservare un gruppo di persone, che stanno in una stanza ben illuminata. Possiamo vedere come ognuno di loro si muove a suo agio, padrone dei propri movimenti e del proprio spazio: cammina con sicurezza, non teme gli ostacoli: li vede, li scansa o li supera, li sposta o li salta, ecc ... si guarda attorno e scopre di non essere solo: altri gli sono accanto. Può accostarsi a ciascuno di loro e con loro interagire, scambiare, cioè, una comunicazione di intenti e di sentimenti. Si avvia così un processo di relazione interpersonale che può diventare, via via, sempre più ricco e profondo, aumenta la vastità del pensiero e del sentimento, poiché l’altro, fuori di sé, è apportatore di visioni e sentimenti nuovi ma anche simili, come simili sono i caratteri somato-fisici delle persone. Infatti tutti gli esseri umani sono dotati di un apparato visivo, uditivo, ecc., anche nei casi di difformità o discrepanza, dove osserviamo la mancanza o la deformazione di ciò che avrebbe dovuto esserci. La somiglianza è qualcosa che si inizia ad osservare quando si mette in funzione proprio l’apparato visivo, con un minimo di luminosità percettiva. Le persone, quindi, all’interno di una stanza ben illuminata, possono osservarsi tra loro e relazionarsi, perché si riconoscono come simili, capaci di un linguaggio simile che le porta a comprendersi e a scambiarsi pensieri, emozioni, effusioni, affetti. Sono accomunati nella luce. E’ possibile per loro poter vedere tutto ciò che sta nella luce, ma se guardano fuori della stanza illuminata, nel buio, cosa accade? Gli occhi, organi del tutto adatti a funzionare alla luce, non rispondono più a questa nuova esigenza e la persona non vede, resta cieca. 2. nel buio Supponiamo ora che fuori, nel buio, c’è un altro gruppo di persone, che non ha mai visto la luce. Non si sono mai incontrati nella luce, ma solo nel buio più assoluto. Posto che anch’esse siano persone, se ne deve dedurre che abbiano i medesimi apparati somato-fisici di coloro che stanno nella luce, cosa accade quando si incontrano tra loro? Possono parlarsi, toccarsi, ma non vedersi. Possono, forse, immaginarsi, e riconoscersi, però solo limitatamente, poiché non si sono formate immagini mentali visive.
1 S. Freud, Al di là del principio del piacere, 1920 149 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
I movimenti sono impediti, lenti, prudenti, tutto può divenire un ostacolo improvviso, pericoloso per la propria incolumità e quando ci si imbatte nell’altro si fatica a riconoscerlo. Nel buio tutto può avere anche una dimensione diversa: il tatto non dà alla psiche le stesse misure degli occhi, né l’atmosfera emotiva può essere la medesima di quella nella luce, poiché nella luce predomina la sicurezza mentre nel buio predomina l’incertezza. Una certa uguaglianza la conservano il senso dell’udito, del gusto e dell’olfatto, anch’essi però fortemente regolati dalla diversa dominanza emotiva: la sicurezza rende la calma e la fiducia; l’insicurezza rende l’ansia e il sospetto, per cui ogni cosa, ogni incontro è sempre carico di diffidenza e distanza emotiva. Nel buio ci si conosce toccandosi, ma non ci si riconosce mai come simili: l’altro è sempre un qualcosa fuori si sé, fuori di un riconoscersi per somiglianza, e la relazione interpersonale appare sovraccarica di emotività (sembra il lettino dello psicoanalista!), che impedisce una relazione vera e profonda, autenticamente fondata sulla fiducia di sé e dell’altro fuori di sé. Il linguaggio usato, di conseguenza, non ha somiglianza, poiché il sovraccarico di emotività lo rende pieno di proiezioni della propria emotività sull’altro e di introiezione dell’altrui emotività (un’empatia malata?), senza riconoscimento sostanziale. La relazione interpersonale è quindi offuscata dalle proprie proiezioni e introiezioni. Sono simili, ma non sanno di esserlo. E se costoro guardano verso la luce? Prima ne restano abbagliati, accecati, poi distinguono tutte le forme, ma non sanno che cosa siano, non possono collegare le proprie immagini mentali, formate dal tatto, con quelle nuove formate con qualcosa che non hanno mai usato. Come accade nei ciechi nati, se acquistano la vista all’età adulta, rimangono incapaci di usare questo nuovo senso, e continuano a comportarsi come se non lo avessero, poiché il mondo attorno a loro offre un contrasto tra le informazioni visive e quelle tattili, che diviene inconciliabile, né si possono formare nuove immagini mentali, in breve tempo, per sostituire le precedenti ormai cristallizzate. Quindi, coloro che sono nella luce sono impossibilitati a comunicare con coloro che sono nel buio, perché non li vedono; mentre coloro che sono nel buio non possono, perché pur vedendo, non li riconoscono. Tutto ciò può capitare parlando di una dimensione psico-biologica dell’individuo e fisica della luce e del buio, che segue leggi biologiche, fisiche e naturali. Sarebbe diverso se alla percezione, alla luce e al buio si desse una dimensione spirituale? “Siete dei” Dice Isaia (42,14): siamo tutti il frutto della “Gestazione divina”, “parto divino”, cioè, come dice F. Rielo “prendiamo vita personale con un atto assoluto ad extra della SS. Trinità”; “partoriti” per mezzo dello S. Santo; “fuoriusciti” per aver vita personale come il figlio con i genitori, fuoriuscito dal padre e dalla madre per mezzo di un concepimento, prima, e di un parto materno (da cui il padre non è escluso), poi, ma che ha vita propria e personale solo quando incomincia la sua esperienza nel mondo, camminando pian piano da solo. Parlando della formazione del linguaggio e del pensiero, ossia della conoscenza, Lambert dice che “segno” è tutta la caratteristica data facilmente ai sensi per mezzo della quale si dà a conoscere l’esistenza, la possibilità, la realtà o altra proprietà di una cosa casuale, che tale caratteristica ci permette di eseguire poi le operazioni dell’intendimento. E Rudolf Haller ribatte che si tratta di uno
150 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism sforzo per ridurre la teoria delle cose alla teoria dei segni; il segno è, in questo modo, un principio di conoscenza per mezzo del quale un essere pensante può ragionare sulla cosa significata. Dice F. Rielo2: “La mia teoria della conoscenza si oppone a queste supposizioni che hanno i propri precedenti nel -nulla è nell’intelletto che prima non fu nei sensi-. Il mio asserto è preciso: l’ uomo conosce, non attraverso i sensi, però non senza la dura condizione dei sensi”. Dice Gesù ai farisei ed ai sadducei in Mt.16,4: “sapete discernere l’aspetto fenomenologico dei simboli e dei segni; però non sapete discernere la dimensione trascendente del segno". Se Cristo, confermando le Scritture, dice “siete dei” (Gv10,34), l’uomo è deità ontologica, o mistica, della divinità metafisica, o assoluta3. F. Rielo utilizza i termini “divino” e “metafisico” per riferirsi “al corpo di leggi all’interno della concezione genetica del principio di relazione formata da due divini Esseri personali, che affermano, con la medesima forza, sia la propria unità di natura, sia la propria reale distinzione”, ossia si riferisce alla divina binità: Padre e Figlio; e si riferisce alla divina Trinità con la rivelazione di Cristo del terzo Essere personale: lo Spirito santo. Mentre riferisce i i termini “mistico” e “ontologico” a ciò che è ad extra dell’assioma assoluto: la persona umana, definita come mistica deità, in virtù della presenza costitutiva dell’atto assoluto nel suo elemento creato. La persona umana ha quindi nell’elemento (spirito umano) creato da Dio (soggetto assoluto) la presenza costitutiva dell’atto assoluto (azione dello Spirito Santo ad extra della Santissima Trinità) in questo elemento creato, che la costituisce mistica deità della metafisica divinità4. Lo specifico della trinificazione consiste nella partecipazione, per mezzo delle processioni mistiche, alle processioni divine. Dice ancora F. Rielo5: “devo concludere con una parola che sembra proverbiale: l’essere umano è l’ombra di Dio, perché partecipa di ciò che è proprio di Dio, come a dire, della sua divina presenza costitutiva ... Menzionerei, senza entrare in maggior analisi, varie sentenze della patristica: “Il Verbo divenne uomo perché noi divenissimo dei” (S.Atanasio); “... Dio divenne uomo perché l’uomo divenisse dio” (S.Agostino Sermo 128,1)”. Cosa c’entra tutto questo con delle persone alla luce, o al buio? Dio - Luce Se Dio è luce, e nello spirito dell’uomo c’è l’azione costante dello Spirito di Dio (inabitazione), allora anche nello spirito dell’uomo c’è luce. A questo punto torniamo alle persone, che prima erano in una stanza illuminata esternamente a loro, e poniamole in una stanza illuminata questa volta dal loro stesso spirito, infuso loro da Dio, origine della luce stessa.
2 F. Rielo, Esperienza mistica e linguaggio, 1995 3 - id. “La mistica tradizionale non spiega, in termini di ontologia e metafisica, la definizione deitatica, rivelata da Cristo, dell’essere umano. S.Teresa del Gesù e S.Giovanni della Croce, che sono coloro che più si approssimano a questa definizione, utilizzano intuitivamente alcune espressioni della filosofia scolastica che permangono tuttavia in una insufficiente descrizione: “il più profondo e il più intimo dell’anima” (Dimore VI 11,2), “centro dell’anima o spirito” (Dimore VII 2,10), “porzione superiore dell’anima o dello spirito” (Salita del M.Carmelo III 26,2), “profonda sostanza dello spirito” (Notte II 9,3), “l’interiore dello spirito” (Cantico spirituale 40,5). Lo specifico della trinificazione consiste nella partecipazione, per mezzo delle processioni mistiche, alle processioni divine”.
4 F. Rielo Un diàlogo a tres voces: Pensamiento 5 F. Rielo, Esperienza mistica e linguaggio 151 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Per cui più lo Spirito di Dio è nella persona, più la persona riceve luce da Lui, più la persona è illuminata, più dona luce intorno a sé, una luce che nasce dal profondo di se stessa, che emerge dal suo intimo, dal suo cuore, dal suo spirito. In una stanza così illuminata ogni essere riconosce la luce dell'altro come la sua stessa luce, poiché ne riconosce la medesima natura. Non sono le persone che vengono investite da una luce fisica esteriore, ma quelle che emanano luce, alimentata da una profondità che le unisce al Divino. I loro occhi, non ricevono semplicemente le onde elettromagnetiche che definiscono immagini e colori, ma possono illuminare tutto ciò che è intorno a loro, ed anche di più, per cui possono vedere anche ciò che accade nel buio, possono vedere tutte le persone, anche quelle la cui luce si è notevolmente affievolita, ma mai spenta, poiché lo spirito, vivificato dalla presenza della Trinità, non muore: ne vedono le forme ed anche lo spirito che emana la fioca luce e ne comprendono la lontananza da Dio: “Vedono e sanno”. Invece, le persone che si trovano al buio, hanno oscurato la luce divina in sé, hanno fermato l’azione della presenza costitutiva dell’atto assoluto in sé e hanno reso i loro occhi incapaci di vedere, così l'oscurità li ha abituati a credere che la visione che si può avere è solo quella data dalla penombra: forme indefinite, lievi lumicini che si muovono in uno spazio senza dimensioni. E' un muoversi agitato dal vento, dove non vi è chiarezza assoluta, non c'è fine, né senso: ci si scontra e si arraffa quello che si può, poiché tutto sembra e tutto appare un solo istante, ma nulla è. Non vi è durevolezza nel tempo, tutto è fugace, relativo, instabile, incerto. Difficilmente le persone-ombra potranno riconoscere la luce, poiché i loro occhi non sanno più “vedere” e difficilmente potranno essere risanati (Gv 12,40). Così, quando incontrano persone-luce si possono scatenare imprevedibili reazioni, dal “negare” la luce perché non la si conosce (Gv 8,19), dall'”odiarla” perché non la si possiede (Gv 3,20), dal “disprezzarla” perché la si invidia (Gv3,19), al “ricercarla” per semplice opportunismo, oppure … seguirla per incamminarsi con lei e divenire nuove persone-luce. Dice Frankl, al punto 6: “La persona è espressione dell’io e non dell’impulso … Alla Fede e a Dio io non vengo infatti spinto, devo piuttosto decidermi per Lui o contro di Lui. La religiosità o è espressione dell’io, o non è nulla”6. La religiosità, la scelta del Bene, l’accoglimento della Luce è un momento in cui facciamo esperienza di un tempo, che non appartiene già più al tempo fisico, ma non è ancora eternità7, è esperienza del trascendente, perché il trascendente abita in noi. E diviene consapevolezza di una comunicazione amorosa che supera ogni barriera psicologica, della quale non sempre ci accorgiamo, e scende fino al “cuore”; è comunicazione nel silenzio, tra uno spazio e l’altro dei nostri pensieri. Principio di santità8 il destino comune Se l'uomo, creato da Dio, ha in sé anche una natura divina nel suo spirito per mezzo della presenza costitutiva, allora ha anche una capacità di amare propria di questa natura: infinita e oblativa.
6 V.E. Frankl, Dieci tesi sulla persona, 1/99 – N.3 7 Vidal, Sacro, Simbolo, Creatività 8 D. D’Amici, Comunicazione, in Atti del I Convegno Internazionale di Metafisica, Roma 2001 152 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Ma ha in sé anche una natura corruttibile, legata ad un principio ed una fine, ad un tempo relativo, e ad una capacità di amare propria di questa natura: relativa ed egoistica. La persona, l’io+, è chiamato alla scelta tra queste due nature, ma la scelta è sempre un'azione legata alla difficoltà tra un desiderio e l'altro, quindi è condizione di sofferenza. Nell'ateismo non vi è questa scelta, poiché non vi è un fine all'esistenza umana, né principio né fine, la sofferenza resta immanente su se stessa, come il suo fine resta immanente su se stesso, non ha valore, non ha trasporto, è condizione fine a se stessa: soffro per soffrire. Si nasce per soffrire e dopo aver sofferto si muore soffrendo. Il Leopardi spiega molto bene, col suo pessimismo, personale prima e cosmico poi, questa assenza di fine alla condizione umana e cosmica: “mirando all’altrui sorte, il mio pensiero: forse in qual forma, in quale stato che sia, dentro covile o cuna, è funesto a chi nasce il dì natale”9. Non vi è riscatto, né premio, né punizione e il tentativo di uscire da questa condizione è fatuo; si può essere onesti, oppure no, ricchi o poveri, sani o malati, buoni o cattivi: è indifferente. L'indifferenza nella sofferenza schiaccia e impedisce ogni sogno di uscire da questo soffrire, è morte prima di morire. E la scelta di valori morali, pur sempre scritti nell'intimo dell'uomo, si può legare all'intelligenza, alla visione storica della condizione generale di sofferenza umana, alle leggi psicologiche di accondiscendenza sociale, ma non dà mai né aspettative, né premio. La scelta dei non-valori è legata alla non-intelligenza (che non vuol dire stupidità, ma mancanza di intelligenza spirituale, di quella visione data dalla luce interiore), all'egoismo, alla identificazione con figure mitiche asociali e non dà mai né aspettative, né punizione, tutto si conclude con la morte. La sofferenza la si può solo subire e la fine, la morte, sarà solo liberazione. Nella Fede la sofferenza è una condizione di passaggio, derivata da un castigo per una colpa originaria, è un attraversamento per raggiungere un fine: Dio, al quale tutto è presente ed eterno. La condizione del soffrire personale dell'uomo rappresenta la sostanza della cosa, il motivo della sofferenza è la forma, poiché i motivi possono essere tanti e mutabili nel tempo, mentre il dolore è ciò che rimane comune a tutti. Ma cercando un fine, uno scopo, a questo dolore scopriamo che questa sostanza appartiene a Colui che contiene tutto, al sempre presente, a Colui che è Amore, poiché il fine è raggiungere Dio, unire la nostra sofferenza a Lui, a quel Dio che, per riscattarci dalla nostra colpa originaria, ha generato da sé un Figlio, lo ha lasciato nascere, vivere e morire con noi e per noi, in tutto e per tutto uguale a noi, eppure Suo Figlio, cioè Dio lui stesso: il Cristo, che ci ha insegnato ogni cosa, che ci ha svelato il Padre e che rimane l'esempio di Figlio perfetto del Padre, esempio da imitare. Da ciò si può capire che l'uomo nella sua natura spirituale (intelligenza spirituale) va verso il proprio Fine, che è Dio, che è la sostanza di questo Fine, mediate la sua natura corruttibile, il corpo, fatto di sofferenza e forma.
9 Leopardi, Canto notturno di un pastore errante nell’Asia, vv.140-143 153 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
Lo spirito appartiene alla sostanza, che è immutabile, il corpo alla forma, che è cangiante. Il dolore appartiene allo spirito, la sofferenza al corpo. In questa dimensione vi è quindi un riscatto, dato dall'offerta, per cui la scelta tra il Bene ed il Male, tra la Luce e l’ombra, ha valore fondamentale: soffrire, sapendo che l'offerta della nostra propria sofferenza sarà il riscatto alla nostra natura corruttibile, diviene gioia e amore della sofferenza stessa. La scelta del Bene-Dio-Luce non è fatta mediante l'intelligenza psico-corporale, ma mediante l’intelligenza spirituale, infusa dall'amore, che è dono dell'Amore assoluto al nostro spirito, è la nostra somiglianza a Lui, che ci dà mistica visione della divina visione. E’ qualcosa che si vede e si comprende con il “cuore”, perché molto più profondo, o più alto, della psiche umana. Qualcosa che non si avvale dell’intelligenza, o della razionalità, né dei vari processi consci o inconsci dell’io10. E’ l’intima relazione che l’IO divino ha con il mistico tu della persona umana, e che altro non è che l’io+ di cui ci parla F. Rielo. La scelta del Male-contro Dio, dell’ombra, appartiene invece alla persona perché, pur sollecitato dallo spirito (dall’intelligenza spirituale) a scegliere il Bene, si rifiuta per appagare il proprio egoismo, e la sua visione rimane limitata all'apparenza di se stessa, diviene incapace di estensione di sé verso l'altro, di generosità, di identificazione, e quindi diviene incapace di un rapporto relativo all'altro (io - tu). Dunque con la Fede la sofferenza non viene subita ma agita e offerta e la morte rappresenta non la fine ma un passaggio, è un abbraccio, fusione e gioia infinita di essere tornati al Padre e l'offerta della nostra vita è il nostro bagaglio. I santi alla morte e dalla morte emigrano non sono come gli uomini che a niente credono dopo la morte. I santi lo smentiscono: non sono ombre, sono vite che accompagnano la morte. Fernando Rielo Conclusioni La Comunicazione non ha alcuna pretesa di essere esaustiva in merito a temi che travagliano il cuore dell’uomo da sempre, o almeno sin da quando ha deciso di lasciare tracce sulla pietra, nelle caverne, a testimonianza della propria esistenza. Vuole solo riflettere e far riflettere, condividere e approfondire, cercare, trovare, ribaltare e … ancora domandare. Forse è ricerca dell’estasi, di quell’estasi che costituisce nella persona quella dimensione trascendente e la fa uscire dall’immanenza del narcisismo nevrotico ed egolatrico. Che la conduce alla capacità dialogica e relazionale con Dio. Al linguaggio mistico con le tre Persone divine, al linguaggio nel silenzio “sonoro”, fatto solo di Amore. E se chiediamo a “Colui che tutto è”: chi è l’uomo per te? Forse, ci sentiremo rispondere “Mio figlio sei tu, io in questo giorno ti ho generato!” (salmo 2,7).
10 Vysaslavcevb, Il cuore nella mistica indiana e cristiana. 154 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism
BIBLIOGRAFIA D. D’Amici, Comunicazione in Atti del I Convegno Internazionale di Metafisica, Roma 2001 F. Rielo, Esperienza mistica e linguaggio in Atti del Congresso “Semantica del testo mistico”, L’Aquila, 1995 F. Rielo, Un diàlogo a tres voces, Madrid. 1995 F. Rielo, Sesto Premio Mondiale di Poesia Mistica, Roma, 1986 S. Freud, Al di là del principio del piacere, 1920. Perugia 1974 V.F. Frankl, Der Willezum sinn Ausgewahite Vortrage uber Logotherapie, trad. it. A cura di E. Fizzotti in “Attualità in Logoterapia”, in Rivista internazionale dell’Assoc. Logoterapia e Analisi Esistenziale Frankliana, 1/99 – N.3. Vidal, Sacro, Simbolo, Creatività, Milano, 1992 Vysaslavcevb, Il cuore nella mistica indiana e cristiana, a cura di Centro Aletti, Roma, 1995
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METAPHYSICS IN LANZA DEL VASTO'S THINKING
Antonino Drago, University of Pisa, Paolo Trianni, Rome
Abstract. Lanza del Vasto (1901-1981) was the only one catholic disciple of Gandhi, and then one of the most authoritative teacher of non-violence. Since his youth he ever developed a philosophical system which united the human features to the aspects of God. In particular we examine his main philosophical book, La Trinité Spirituelle, which in his intentions build an entire philosophical system, uniting together ethics, science and art. With respect to the main distinction of metaphysics in two branches, i.e. ontology and henology, he apparently tended to the latter one. This sentence is supported by us by means of an analysis on his several definitions of God. Moreover, his system presents all metaphysical subjects, ranging from matter to God, by means of a list of triads, whose logic wants to improve the first version of dialectics given by Nicholas from Cusa. This metaphysical system is then compared by Lanza del Vasto with Indian religious tradition of Veda. He obtained a point of conjunction which is of the highest relevance, owing to both the long effort by some Christian monks (e.g., Le Saux, Monchanin) to obtain an intimate link between Christianism and Induism, and the present inter-religious effort for improving a mutual understanding. 1. Biographical notes. Lanza del Vasto (1901-1981) was the only one catholic disciple of Gandhi, and then one of the most authoritative teachers on non-violence. Born in an aristocratic family, graduated in Philosophy at Pisa University (1928), he experienced an artist life and even a globetrotter life. In 1936 he felt the imminent starting of a further world war; he thanked that the only one man capable to answer why people recurrently fall in wars was Gandhi. He went in India, where he became his disciple. In a by foot pilgrimage to Gange's sources he was vocated to come back in Europe to found Gandhian communities. His first community started in 1948 in France and then several more communities in Argentine, Canada, Spain and Italy born. He called them Ark communities according to both the Ark of Noah as a symbol of people's salvation from the modern deluge upon spiritual life, and the Ark of Alliance, as a symbol of a new alliance of mankind with God through non-violence. He became well-known as a musician of middle ages songs, poet, dramatist. 2. Literature by Lanza del Vasto. His literary production includes almost twenty books concerning the subjects of mainly nonviolence, dramas, songs. Since his youth he ever developed a philosophical system centred upon the Trinity, and at last the notion of "relation". His M.D. Thesis in Philosophy at Pisa University in 1928 was titled "The spiritual Trinity". There he developed his system in a way which is not so much different from the final version. To which he arrived after different revisions, the last one aimed to make easier and appealing the subject to those who have no cultural interests in philosophy; he reduced to almost 200 the potentially very great number of pages he planned to write on the subject. This book was edited in 1971 and resumes his philosophical thinking of an original Trinitarian kind.1 He moreover wrote an autobiography which in his intentions had to integrate the
1 G. LANZA DEL VASTO, La Trinité Spirituelle, Denoel, Paris, 1971. 157 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism previous book, being an history of his thinking on the subject;2 indeed, this book illustrates in which way his system and his metaphysical direction are born. Moreover, in 1968 he wrote a theological book about Genesis; 3 where he starts from the interpretation of World Creation and then he compares all Christian interpretations of Original Sin, among them and with his own too. After his death, some short papers, already published in the monthly review Nouvelles de l'Arche of his community have been collected in three books, among which the most relevant for our purpose is Les Quatre Piliers de la Paix, chapter 1.4 However we have accomplished an inspection on all the books he wrote upon doctrinaire subjects, in order to corroborate the following quotations useful to our purposes. 3. Henological metaphysics. Our main purpose is to focus the attention on a basic feature of Lanza del Vasto's metaphysical thinking and then locate it inside the background of the main metaphysical attitudes. Inside metaphysics we see a main distinction in two branches, i.e. ontology and henology; shortly, the former one puts the notions in an abstract idealistic realm, whereas the latter one sees all notions to converge to unity. The former one represents a common attitude in Western philosophy, whereas in Eastern philosophies and religions is more frequent the henology, i.e. the metaphysics based upon the Unity. With respect to this distinction, apparently Lanza del Vasto tended to the latter one. The main character of Lanza del Vasto's metaphysics is well-presented since the first raws of the Common Prayer of Ark, his prayer which is recited by the companions of the Ark Community, i.e. the non-violent and inter-religious community by him funded: ‹‹Oh God of Truth,/That the different men call through different names,/But that are the One, the Unique and the Same,/That are the One-who-is,/And You are in the union of all that unite themselves/ …›› Here, the tension to the One is expressed with respect to the multiplicity of the several persons, the different locations in space and the different moments in time; in other words, with respect to all primitive categories of our mind. This idea is emphasised when he comments this prayer: < 2 G. LANZA DEL VASTO, Viatique, du Rocher, Monaco, 1991. Remarkably, the first book was titled Enfance d'une pensée, (first edition, Denoel, Paris, 1970). 3 Lanza del Vasto: La montée des Ames Vivantes, Denoel, Paris, 1968. 4 G. LANZA DEL VASTO, Les Quatre Piliers de la Paix, Édition du Rocher, Monaco, 1992. 5 G. LANZA DEL VASTO, La Montée des âmes vivantes. Commentaire de la Genèse, Denoël, Paris 1968 (also in Oevres Complètes, Denoël, 1977, tome II) p. 158. 6 G. LANZA DEL VASTO, La trinité spirituelle, Édition du Rocher, Monaco 1994, p. 149. A more elaborated definition can be found out in his posthumous book, Les Etymologies imaginaires: vérité, vie et vertu des mots, Denoël, Paris 1985, at the issue "God": 158 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism This primary role played by the unity (or one-ess) concerns the spiritual life, as we saw in previous quotation; indeed, the search of the himself is the basic work of a person, according also to the first vow of a companion of the Ark community. It is also the first basic feature of even the human reason. "The pure Reason is the submission of the spirit to its own laws. The reason is fashioned by three principles: The unity Principle,[...] The Unity Principle is enounced in this way: All that is, is one. In order to be understood, all that presents itself as multiple, various, say opposed, must be unified, put in mutual relationship, assembled into the one.>>7 Moreover, the unity is presented as the best aim which the persons can substantiate in the mutual relationships: <<... the unity of God is not an abstract one and it is not a singular, this unity is in itself Relation, this unity is not plainly unity, rather is union. There, where two or three meet themselves in my name, two or three terms are put and the relation is put by itself, this relation is the Name in name of which these two or three are meeting themselves.>>8 Furthermore, the unity is seen as the best characteristic feature of the society too. As he often puts it: < 7 Ib., p. 62. 8 G. LANZA DEL VASTO, Commentaire de l’Evangile, Denoël, Paris 1951 (4° edizione Le Rocher, 1994), p. 228. 9G. LANZA DEL VASTO, La trinité..., op. cit., p. 103. 10 Ib., p. 15. 11 Ib. p. 17. 159 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism Under this light his reflection seems to come from Mario Vittorino, who, in his turn, was inspired by Porfirius, whose Isagoge was translated by him. Likely to Vittorino, indeed, also Lanza del Vasto identify the triad being-life-thinking with the Trinity of the divine Persons. Furthermore, in order to explain how the “trinity” is possible inside of the “oneness”, Lanza del Vasto appeals to the theological formulas funding the niceno-costantinopolian symbol; here, showing a preference for the Greek terminology, mentions “an essence and three hypostases”. His anthropology too covertly recalls this complex. Lanza del Vasto, indeed, distinguishes inside the human spirit three faculties: Sensibility-Intelligence and Will; by means of them he proposes a scheme synthesising the mystical movement of the triple human spirit which, from the sensible, meant as a basic element, grows up tu the spiritual union with the Absolute. Although, as we will see later, the relation of the man with the divine does not means for Lanza del Vasto identity, as well as the identification inside the divine cannot be confused with a true and total ontological identity. About this point his reflection is quite clear: ‹‹We do not have the being, we received it. We are not our being. We have the life and we leave it because we are not our life. We have the spirit and we are not it››.12 However, Lanza del Vasto's metaphysics is very close to the onto-henological vision of the neo-Platonism, whose shares more elements, as the central role played by the triad and the necessity of a circular dynamics which form the multiplicity bring back the reality to the One. Such aspects, indeed, were already present in the same Porfirius, whose philosophy distinguishes the activity of being (identity with the One), living (procession or movement outside) and thinking (conversion or coming back to himself). However, the specific feature of the Lanza del Vasto's metaphysics is not the appeal to the Greek philosophy, but to have united the language of the Greek-Roman neo-Platonism with the Indian thinking. This synthesis is manifested in one of the more characteristic philosophical sentence: ‹‹There is nothing else than an One, the Himself-in-himself››.13 Indeed, the Lanza del Vasto anthropology distinguishes a “myself”, a “Himself-in-myself” and a “Himself-in-himself”; by means of the latter notion he, though referring to the Indian tradition of the ātman (himself), form one hand preserves the “ ontological difference”, and from the other hand he avoids a very dualism, just through the circularity, or better, through his language, , the “alternateness” of the spirit, capable of going through the physical and the metaphysical and hence to be alternatively present in both. Such an ontological communication is possible because, as he puts it, the spirit is relation and it is net of relations.14 He maintains indeed that ‹‹Between the appearance or complex of the sensible relations of the surface and the Substance or deep relation which underlies it, the passage is possible››.15 In his conception of a person Lanza del Vasto relates the psychological I to “being”, and nevertheless he states that in the spiritual relation with the divine it “Is”. < 12 Ib., p. 16. 13 G. LANZA DEL VASTO, La montée des ames vivantes, Denoël, Paris 1968, p. 159. 14 Cfr. G. LANZA DEL VASTO, La trinité spirituelle, cit., p. 209. 15 Ib., p. 208. 160 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism Same, the Spirit? the spirit does not go to fuse with the Spirit, since it recognise itself as essential and freed from all the remaining things?››16 Thus in this metaphysics , the spirit is also and overall relation, inasmuch as it is principle of unification and cause of evolution towards the One. In an historical perspective his philosophical reflection may have be inspired not only by Greeks, but also by Hindu thinking of Aurobindo. The metaphysics of the latter one is indeed funded upon the śakti, the divine energy which is characteristic of the tantrism. It is no a chance that the latter one was translated by Henri Le Saux, as "spirit". The theology of this Benedictine monk, a pioneer of the inter-religious dialog with the Induism was known by Lanza del Vasto, as well as that of his brother Jules Monchanin. He not only quotes their monastic initiative in India, called Trinity āśram or Saccidānanda, but he claims, by ignoring to have be preceded by Brahmabandhav Upādhyāyā, to have be the first to perceive in which measure Indian concept of saccidānanda can be associated to that of the Christian Trinity.17 However, the Lanza del Vasto's reflection on metaphysics does not adequately study in depth the relationship between the Christin Trinity and Indian Trinity, as well as it does not make explicit the linkages between the “spirit” and the Saint Spirit. Always are meaningful his quotations from the writings by Aurobindo and Jules Monchanin (who wrote a paper emphasising the affinities between neo-Platonism and Aurobindo religious thinking). Beyond some unavoidable differences, Lanza del Vasto legitimises such parallelisms: ‹‹This vision well agrees with Sri Aurobindo's vision. According to him, as well as according us, create is an involution act and the evolution is a coming back››.18 Indeed, he, whereas otherwise manifests a critical attitude about the modern conception of the progress, by him defined lacking of both direction and scope, accepts instead it as development, whose ‹‹its final term is the same Principle››. 19 Moreover, according to Lanza del Vasto the evolution is even the shaping principle of the creation: ‹‹the evolution is the form assumed by the creative act in the living matter. “It is written: I send my Verb, and He does not comes back to me without bringing fruits”. The living being are the fruits of that return of the Verb››.20 This emphasis on the “return” actually recalls Plotinus, but from a Christian perspective. Indeed, also in Lanza del Vasto's theological and philosophical vision plays a central role the moment of the “conversion”; which however is meant under the light of his interpretation of the Original Sin; this sin, as he puts it, is essentially an inversion of the original knowledge, which was contemplative in nature. Indeed Lanza del Vasto is the author of a Comment to Genesis 3 where he, inspired by Teophilus of Antioch, maintains that the tree of the knowledge of the good and the evil was made for the contemplation; which was turned upside when the fruit was eaten, from the lovely neutrality, to the personal enjoying and profit. On the other hand, in his metaphysical vision, the infinity is achieved ‹‹in the supreme conversion alone, or Return to the Principle, when the intelligence addresses itself to God in the act of faith and adoration. When our spirit contemplates God which is the One, the Infinite, the Absolute or Infinite-in-the-One, the Being, the Life, the Spirit››.21 By considering that the contemplation, does not include a knowledge far from practical and egoist aims, we see that in Lanza del Vasto “contemplation” and “politics” are not opposite terms as they are in the common use, and moreover we see the Gandhian non-violent activism, by him considered as a “ social conversion” originates from his meditation upon the ancient thinking. This Lanza del Vasto's implicit preference for the Greek philosophy helps us to recognise one of the main reasons of the critical opposition since its beginnings of his metaphysics to the modern 16 Ib., p. 202. 17 Cfr. . G. LANZA DEL VASTO, La trinité spirituelle, cit., p. 23 and La montée des ames vivantes, cit., p. 46. 18 G. LANZA DEL VASTO, La montée des ames vivantes, cit., p. 119. 19 Ib., p. 130. 20 Ib., p. 123. 21 G. LANZA DEL VASTO, La trinité spirituelle, cit., p. 140. 161 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism philosophies of Descartes, Kant and Hegel. It is constituted upon triads which want show both the circularity of the real and the unitarian nature of anything. Particular attention deserves the triad which he considers at all a “category” and he calls “relation in itself”: form-substance-truth. Through such a category, and in distinction from even vedānta śaṅkariano, he funds the real existence of the real and its knownability. Indeed, in his philosophical system the third element, the truth, corresponds to the spirit or will, whose role is exactly to complete and unify the real. Without this third element the nature, or sensible world is by him described as a thing in itself, a noumenous lacking reality and substance. Indeed, when Lanza del Vasto distinguishes matter and form, considers as substance the latter alone. Moreover, he maintains that without form the matter is devoid of any ontological degree, and he suggests that it can be associated to the eastern doctrines which include the “illusion” or the“void”. In conclusion, Lanza del Vasto's metaphysics result to be neither dualist, nor materialist, nor idealist, because it maintains that the relationships which guarantee the real existence and the knownability are located inside neither the man nor the world, but rather the man and the world are inserted inside the unity of the Relationship: in this maxim is expressed the last meaning of the Lanza's henology. His whole metaphysics is a development of such triadic relationships; which originated in Proclus and in Hegel, but which by him is reinterpreted in a an original way by relying upon the dialectic method of Nicholas from Cusa. A chain of such triadic relationships, ever less relative, allows him to achieve, as a return to the Origin, an Absolute Relationship or God. ‹‹The relationship can become the term of a higher relationship and hence less relative. All relationships thus are relatively relative and at the same time relatively absolute; except for one, which is absolutely absolute››.22 In this way the triadic relationship becomes the key and the unique “category” of Lanza del Vasto's philosophy; whose main statement, in an opposite direction to common thinking and even the buddhism, put the relationship inside the being and hence inside the Absolute: ‹‹If all is relative, the Absolute puts itslef by istelf: is the Relationship››.23 Let us recall that this statement was the premise for Lanza del Vasto's conversion to Christianism; stimulated by a passage of St.Thomas' De Trinitate, he perceived the identification of his idea of an Absolute Relationship with the Christian Trinity. 22 G. LANZA DEL VASTO, Les étymologies imaginaires, Denoël, Paris 1985, p. 25. 23 G. LANZA DEL VASTO, La trinité spirituelle, cit., p. 208 162 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism GENETIC METAPHYSICS AND RELATIONAL ONTOLOGY, TWO TWIN SISTERS A COMFORTING MEETING Duponcheele Joseph After a philosophic pilgrimage of 50 years, I have just discovered, six months ago, the thought of Fernando Rielo. It was a real intellectual shock to meet a contemporary thinker who, as me, rejected the monolithic conception of being, sketched by Parmenides and detailed with a lot of obedience by the different schools of the western philosophy. In front of the thought of Fernando Rielo, I had the impression that I recognized, as in a mirror, the fundamental intuition of my relational ontology started in l956. Afterward, I presented in 1958 its first developments in a preparatory report to the doctorate of the catholic University of Louvain. The subject was there « Les formes transcendentales de l’unité selon saint Thomas d’Aquin ». My historical approach of this question was accepted by the examiners, but my speculative solution « The link of the one and the many in being » was excluded from my statement. I thus left Belgium for France. In absence of equivalences of diplomas between the Belgian State and the French State, I had to return as a simple student to the University of Bordeaux, to take new exams and obtain all the necessary diplomas according to the French legislation. I so followed a double classical training. I know thus well the ideas from which I distance myself. Gradually, the intuition of my youth developed into a real system, solidly built, which I presented to the doctorate of the University of Nancy under the title: La relationnalité de l’être ou le pouvoir de faire être. Ses implications dans la théorie de la connaissance, en ontologie, en éthique et en religion. Afterward, I was published by “Les Editions du Cerf” : - In 1992, L’être de l’Alliance. “Le pouvoir de faire être” comme lien philosophique et théologique entre le judaïsme et le christianisme, Cogitatio fidei, N° 170, three books in a single volume, 988 pages. - In 2005, Comprendre l’homme pour penser Dieu. Dialogues critiques sur la raison pure croyante dans les monothéismes, Cogitatio fidei, N° 241, 392 pages. - Soon should be published also: Les paraboles qui parlent de Dieu. Essai d’exégèse fiduciale trinitaire. This subject of the relationality of being also inspired my thirty three years of teaching. On the philosophical plan, the points of agreement between Fernando Rielo’s perspective and mine are so numerous and so fundamental as I wish I had met this thinker in his lifetime, to unite my efforts with his for a real revival of philosophy and if possible also of theology and the evangelisation of our modern world. The differences result from unfinished convergences and not from differences which would get worse and worse because of incompatible ground directions. This incompletion in the convergences is due: 163 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism a) Either in the fact that the cultural and psychological places of starting point of our reflections are different: thomistic tradition and German transcendental philosophy as for me; Spanish religious tradition and English-Saxon context for Rielo, if at least, I do not make a mistake! b) Or in the fact that our walking forward progressed at different paces; for example, as regards the theological consequences of such a philosophic conversion. c) Or in the fact that our human experience of life makes us more sensitive to such or such an aspect of the relationality of being; for example whether we are a bachelor or a husband, a father and a grandfather. Anyway, our common agreement on the field, while we ignored each other, is an eloquent sign which should consolidate us in the ideas which we share. The unfinished convergences are mainly differences of vocabulary touching the notions of absolute subject, of complementarity, relational structure, binity, of mutual immanence of the subjects, of forms of unity and of the ternary nature from the relationality regarding its aspect of perfection, both according to its absolute perfection in God and in his relative perfection in mankind. As philosopher of the being’s communicative relationality, I position myself now beside Fernando Rielo to place, to defend and to develop our speculative theses with regard to the Greek-classic positions. THE ESSENTIAL FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS Human knowledge blooms according to five methods. The first one is turned to the observable world in its fabulous variety, that of the physical, biologic, psycho-sociologic objects, etc.. We can qualify it as intentional, objective, empirical in its simple forms, experimental in its elaborated forms and finally as scientific in the common sense of the term. The second method is centered on the subject according to all its necessary and constitutive activities: among others on the subject as knowing, and thus on itself and on our intentional knowledge of the world and also on the three other methods. We can thus consider it as reflexive, subjective, transcendental and finally as philosophical. The third method is opened to the knowledge of this Reality sui generis that other subjects - of whom it is necessary for us to assert reflexively the existence: men or God - make exist for us and reveal us, because they commit themselves freely to us for our fulfillment. We can qualify this method as revealing, intersubjective, relational and finally as fiducial. These three objective, reflexive and fiducial methods can be called existential or concrete, as each contains a part of the Reality which is appropriate for them. The fourth method is abstracted, formal and constructive. It is the mathematically logical method. The fifth method is synthetic. By virtue of a historically given philosophy, from which the principles and the conclusions are considered as rules and references of interpretation, this method realizes a certain unification, not of the previous methods of knowledge, but of acquired sciences by them, by experiment, by reflection, by formal construction and by « faith in a revelation ». This method is knowledge about “knowledges”. We can thus consider it as synthetic, epistemic-logical, and finally as interpretative or hermeneutic. Theology comes under this method. These methods are different and complementary. Neglecting, or even underestimating one of these five methods is mutilating our consciousness of the Reality and making the human reason dependent on the “so irrationally” reserved methods The sciences which result from this 164 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism irrationality become then “passionate” and “aggressive”, because they want to be exclusive and do not admit the presence of the other methods of knowledge. To appreciate the services of the eye or the touch, shall we throw back the services of the ear? It wouldn’t make sense, it is necessary for our body to use all its senses! So, it is necessary for our consciousness to use all its ways of knowledge. Making interfere such or such a method in the others is producing a vague and erroneous knowledge, proceeding by superficial mixtures. It is necessary in the application of our various forms of knowledge, not to anticipate the synthetic work of the hermeneutic method. HISTORIC DIFFERENTIATION OF THE METHODS OF KNOWLEDGE The requirements of common life direct people at first to the knowledge of the outside world. The past and the present of human history are marked by a magnificent and very useful development of sciences and techniques. When man begins to be interested in what is human, it is at first also how his fellow man can be useful for him. He is as privileged object among objects. To know himself really “as subject of his acts with others in the world”, he has to reach a way of thinking different from that of his objective empirical knowledge. To be able to use things, by conversing about them, we just have to indicate them by a word, according to their common properties, as often as necessary, to establish similarly links between them, without needing to mean that we selves, permanently, are making these operations. The relational aspects of our intentionality and the situations of dialogue are not thus expressed. This cultural fact, which occults our acting and focuses us on its objects, leads the philosophical reflection, in its previous history, to mime our knowledge of things, by means of the enunciated language. As a consequence, the properties of our intentional and empirical knowledge impose their characteristics, as by atavism, upon the lived reflexive knowledge which we have of ourselves. Instead of recognizing reflexively itself in its intentional movement towards things and towards its fellow men, the human consciousness conceives itself as if it was “isolable in front of itself”, as a “undivided object for itself”, an object on which it projects its own individual identity with itself, an object juxtaposed beside the others. The conscious subject is thought from this fact to be able to remain solitary, deprived of any constitutive relationality. See the Cartesian “cogito”! Man also speaks about himself as he speaks about things according to an identity of nature in which he also projects his own identity of nature. So was formed the first orientation of the philosophy, with an objectivistic and substantialistic look, in the Greek cultural environment from the 7th century BC. At the same time in Israel, more exactly in the small kingdom of Judas on the borders of Assyrian and Egyptian influences, was formulated a narrative understanding of the world and man, more sensitive than among the Greeks to the relationships which men have between them and with the divinity. The fiducial dimension of the consciousness expressed itself in the form of a “history”; a “holy” history for that precise reason. However, this relational aspect of human consciousness also remained in its beginnings widely dependent on unitarian and identicist representations of things. A God identical to himself in his individual unity, a projection in the absolute of the personal unity which each feels in himself. Nevertheless this unique God is thought in relation of creation with the world and in relation of alliance with his people, Israel, considered in his collective unity. Although the prophets and the sages in Israel were not until asking if their God’s idea agreed completely with the action of creation and the commitment of alliance - by virtue of which they liked him and observed ethical commands - the constitutive fiduciality of the human consciousness, such as it was lived in Israel, 165 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism was grown enough so that God could pursue his work of generosity by revealing what was its own relational internal life and how he intended to make the whole humanity participate in it. By divine initiative, begun in the creation, the relation of revelation, fitted to the fiduciality of the human interpersonal consciousness, had reached its historic plenitude in Israel, in the person of Jesus, while, in the Greek world, the philosophical reflection remained chained to the unitarian and identicist references. The Greek philosophy, which ignores the fiducial dimension of the consciousness and for which the relation is the most insignificant accident of the substance, was thus inappropriate for the intelligibility of the relations of immanent revelation in the creation and transcendent revelation in the Incarnation. The consequence was there that the revelation and the faith were perceived as incompatible with reason - listen: with reason in its Greek and classical form, passing wrongly to be the absolute reason - From then on, during two millenniums, the truths of revelation were or rejected by those who presented themselves as “rationalists” or considered superior to reason by those who proclaimed themselves as “believers”. So, in the history of mankind, the fiducial consciousness took with Jesus a good length beforehand on the reflexive consciousness, pulling a distortion in the understandability which man has to give himself of himself and of God. The word “mystery” to speak about revealed divine realities is symbolic of this distortion. The reflexive consciousness now has to “catch up” the fiducial consciousness by recognizing entirely its place in existence. The “reflection” will then allow the “fiduciality”, as well itself, to consolidate each other. They mutually will protect each other against their own abnormalities due to identicist atavisms which they still transport with them. In this purpose, a methodological jump is required in the philosophic reflexive order, as it was carried out in the fiducial order of the evangelic revelation and the faith. The transcendental philosophic reflection owes to recognize the Reality in the perfection of its relationality, so that the revelation, a relational reality above all, can be received in its full rational intelligibility within the framework of its theological hermeneutics. OPPOSING TO THE CLASSIC PHILOSOPHY BY COMPLETING IT Completing the classic philosophy is adopting logically contradictory positions in its exclusive classic theses. It is not a question of rejecting the classic philosophy separately in each of its theses, but as far as it claims to be an autosufficient totality, although diversified, under the law of the unitarian identity. It is thus necessary to show its incapacities and to expose the answers which bring a genetic metaphysics, in other words, a relational ontology of the communication of being. For the classic philosophy, any distinction in being is dependent on an imperfection in the Reality. The dead ends of the classic philosophy, which all take their sources in this assertion, show obviously its error. Let us form then a proposition which is in logical relation of strict contradiction (relation of excluded middle) with it: “there is at least one distinction in being who is in link with its perfection”. By asserting it, so we assert a truth. This truth does not send back to a unique reality identical with itself. The logical principle of identity thus has no exclusive totalitarian ontological jurisdiction. Claiming it nevertheless is making of the principle of identity a pseudoprinciple. THE IMPASSE OF PARMENIDES Are we obliged to read the poem of Parmenides according to the only criteria of the analytical philosophy of language? If do so– it is possible – the assertion that being is and non-being is not is a simple tautology, that is a sterile assertion. I do not think that this analytical reduction is a good reading. Behind this tautology in the terms, there is a poetic opening. There is a hidden modal judgment which says there is a necessity of existence in what we think as “being”. A certain absolute in being is thus asserted. Being is not under the threat of nothingness, either not to have 166 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism been either to be likely not to be more. “Being exists!” There is by Parmenides a certain debut of recognition of an absolutely necessary being, a God. However, by qualifying being in its totality as one, eternal, and unchanging and by comparing it with a sphere rounded off well and balanced in all its parts, Parmenides turns us to a judgment of essence which, in its form, expresses itself as an identity: “A is A; being is being ». Can this monolithic vision of the Reality be set up as a logical rule? No, because it is false. Mixing the ontological conception of Parmenides with the logical principle of identity is either guaranteeing a totalitarian metaphysical error by a partial logical truth, although universal, either transforming a universally valid partial logical principle into a totalitarian ontological pseudoprinciple, obviously false. This confusion results from a platonising reading of the Parmenides’ poem. It is the reading which was imposed in the history because of the authority of Plato and Aristotle. How did it take place? We can say: “quite naturally!”. Indeed, the concept of being is fascinated by the status of “separated” objectivity proper to the expressed language and not by the exercised language, considered as an addressed word, as a place of expression to the fiducial engagement. The expressed language, the pronounced sound, or the written word are indeed what in the exercise of the thought looks like most of the things which we use. Meanwhile the pronounced words look like things without having the materiality of it. The empirical man who begins “thinking” considers them as demonstrations of a spiritual world. About our concepts, Plato will speak about an intelligible world of forms, about the “ideas”. The spiritual realities, superior to the material realities, will thus have the properties immediately received from the enunciation of our concepts, that is from their “intellectual contents”. For example: cats, those which catch mice, are material and they are multiple. The concept “cat” is spiritual and it is unique. The cat in itself, intelligible is also unique. Similarly, the concept “being”, a concept among the other concepts, is spiritual and unique. The intelligible being in itself will thus be thought as unique and identical with itself. In the Platonic theory of the participation of the sensible from the intelligible, the identity of the concept with itself amalgamates with a “spiritualised” thing, thought in identity with itself by projecting on it the identity of the thinking subject with itself. The same conception of the identity of meaning of a concept merges with the identity of a being with itself. The doctrine of act and power in the aristotelian hylemorphism diversifies this fusion, but also strengthens it by making it plausible. As our discursive thought orders the variety of the Reality according to more and more general concepts, up to the concept “being” who contains all other concepts, the identity of meaning of the concept “being” recovers all beings. Being in itself is thought then as unique, eternal, unchanging, as one, truly, and good, intelligible and desirable, in identity completed with itself. The distinctions between beings, or are pure appearance, or are due to their imperfections. So, for Aristotle, the pure being's Act is a being who with perfect identity or unity can only think itself and want or will itself. It is “noesis noeseôs, boulesis bouleseôs” totally foreign to the world and men with whom it has no relation; otherwise it would not be any more a God. But man longs for it! That is really the last straw! Such is the idea of God which classic theology inherited from the Greek philosophy. So absolutised, the concept “being” is the worst idol of the absolute Being, God. We understand, in that case that the main truths of the biblical and evangelic revelation, such as the creation, the Trinity and the incarnation, are declared “mysteries” for the reason. With the Greek philosophy as an instrument of interpretation, the Christian theologians couldn’t but be taken in a bow net and to save the intelligibility of the revelation, they were forced to declare its truths “superior” to the reason. These truths are certainly “outside” the field of comprehensibility 167 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism of the Greek reason, but not “beyond” reason in itself as God’s creature. Claiming it is introducing a contradiction in God’s work. Hanging on to Greek reason, as if it couldn’t be excided, and in order to avoid making God responsible for this contradiction, many theologians looked for the cause of its incapacities in an “original sin” … a new impasse of which it is very difficult to go out… DIFFERENTIATING WHAT WAS AMALGAMATED The assertion “being is being” becomes a pseudoprinciple when the enunciated thought merges on the transcendental plan two forms of unity, that of ipseity and that of formality and ignores the relational unity of structure. The unity or the identity of ipseity. We have the intuition of it in our own consciousness and in the recognition of that of others. In reference to the experience of our own unity and that of others, we appreciate the degree of unity of each other object. The unity or the identity of formality. It is the identity of nature or form that we perceive intuitively in any meeting with others as our fellow men. By analogical extension with it, we appreciate the identity of nature of all things in the world. The unity of relational structure. We perceive it intuitively as far as we seize that we are according to all our personal being not in a particular given relation, but are constitutively relational in others, according to a ternary communication of being. Already on the psychological plan, we can observe that the presence of a “third one” is required to avoid the fusion of a “duality”. The loving « We two » is fusional and identicist. For this reason it runs to failure, because it’s a dream. It aims at nonsense. Similarly some mystical tendencies in the line of Plotinus. These three forms of units or identities are complementary and form the composite unity of our discursive thought. We can put them in evidence in the transcendental analysis of our conscious activity. We can arrange these forms of units in a triangular diagram. Ipseity Formality structure Any ipseity is ipseity in structure of ipseities of a given nature. Any form or nature is form of ipseities in structure of ipseities. Any structure is structure of ipseities of a given nature or form. Now if we grant to the song of Parmenides a poetic inspiration – why not do so? – then it is not possible to make him underestimate totally the relational aspect of our being. We can indeed recognize a feature of our constitutive relationality there even where it seems forgotten: in the existential negation, in the negation of the existence of the non-being which comes to strengthen his assertion of being. “being is and non-being is not”. The negation is very real in his act to assert that non-being is not. Something as non-being in front of being does not exist! Nothing can be thus thought except being. It follows that the negation is inevitably thought in the being as necessary, in the being who exists inevitably. Here is what makes “burst” at the same moment the assertion of a monolithic being! This monolithic totality is imperative only because of empiricism still influential of our objective thought. The negation, instead of being thought as a “distinction” and as constitutive of the Reality, is thought as “destructive” of being, and as “nothingness” in its absolute form. 0r, it is 168 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism what Parmenides rejects. Non-being as nothingness cannot be thought, but the negation can well be in the poetic act. The negation of non-being is not a simple verbal artifice. Where from would come us the intelligence of the negation in order to make this verbal artifice? The logical principle of non-contradiction is no longer a verbal artifice to present us under negative form the only principle of identity. Again, where from would come to us the intelligence of negation as negation? In the same intelligent intuition, we seize in an exercised way several “beings” in relation in “being”, that is in a relational structure of beings. We thus have to formulate the logical principle of identity, either of ipseity either of formality, in connection with the principle of non-contradiction, which asserts that the one is not the other one, or in their ipseities or in their formalities. The distinctive negation, constitutive of being, is the radical antidote against a monolithic vision of being in its perfection and against an exclusive pseudo-principle of tautological identity. THE ONTOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF OUR LOGICAL DISCURSIVITY. These three points of our discursive thought: ipseity, structure, formality, are based on the living unity of a ternary communication of being. Communication from the One to the Other and from the One and the Other to the Third. What man thinks inevitably, either in the logical order, or in the ethical order is thought according to his ontological constitution. We represent it in diagram as follows: The One The Other The Third This ternary structure, at first according to a simple relation and after according to a double or joint relation is due to the role of the transcendental distinctive negation and is the ontological foundation of the logical principle of non-contradiction, as well as of the universalising character of any concept and relation of concepts. In this relational interpersonal structure, the One, the Other and the Third cannot be said “complementary”, because nobody “completes” the others. Where there is “complementarity”, there is imperfection under an angle or under the other one, as the word itself indicates . The unity of structure between the One, the Other and the Third is “beyond” complementarity. Indeed, the One is, by all its being, communication of being. It is willing the Other and the Third as he thinks and will itself what it is, that is power and act to make be. He cannot think and will itself as being in act to make be without thinking and willing the Other and, with the Other, the Third. We understand that the relational unity of the One and the Other with the Third is “beyond” complementarity, without including any imperfection. A unity by complementarity would suppose an imperfection to be surmounted, a lack to be filled, a need to be satisfied, a desire to be realized, or something similar. When we assert, neither« I is I » nor « the divine is the divine », but “being is and is being”, it is necessary to ask the question to know which being it is about. It wouldn’t make sense to understand the term “being” only as the general synonym for “something” and to say “something is something”. It is not either about a being - ipseity, of a “one” such as the “I” or the “you”, nor about the nature or the formality of a being, such the human being or the divine being, but about being, about the being of a being – being-ipseity, certainly – but as it exists in its being’s activity according to all its essential and constitutive features, namely the relationality. This question, which is put on the transcendental plan of the metaphysical reflection, includes two levels: the order of the absolute of being in its perfection and the order of the non-absolute 169 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism being, in reference to the infinite, in becoming according to its finity and thus always inevitably affected by an aspect of imperfection whatever its fulfillment is. It is necessary to answer that being in its absolute perfection is a ternary structure of communication of being. We name it God. In God, the One, that we also call the First — because of the discursivity of our thought, but not because of a successivity in the absolute in being — will that the Other “is” and “is” as the Second perfectly distinct from him, who is first. It is nothing of the being of the Second which belongs to the being of the First. The One is not the Other and the Other is not the One. The negation-distinction is completed between them. The negation is “in the being” without being “a being”, neither a decrease of perfection in being, nor an absence of being. On the contrary! The distinctive negation is constitutive of the relation of communication of being. It is the sign of love to the other one, not for oneself –which would take us back to an identicist fusion – but for the other one himself. It is the sign also that giving oneself to the other one is not to ceasing to be oneself, but being oneself by giving the other one to himself. The irreducibility between the One and the Other, according to the relational originality of each is sign of perfection. Fusion is the destructive negation of love. Fusion is the negation by deficiency of the distinctive negation as interpersonal ontological perfection. So, personally, I avoid the preposition “in” because of its fusional ambiguity and of its empirical scheme of contents to containing: “I am in you; you are in me”. This report is totally unthinkable in its reciprocity. The bucket contains the water, but the water cannot contain the bucket… These expressions like as compensatory curvatures of the spine… Nevertheless, as long as we haven’t understood that the being's communicative relationality is constitutive of the being as such, we are obliged and so to speak forced to resort to this absurd objective image to convey an experience of loving consciousness and freedom. It shows once again how much an exclusively objective thought and its utilitarian language are unfit to join and to translate the reflexive and fiducial realities. Jesus was not able himself to escape from that use, by saying himself being in the Father and the Father in him. As regrettable consequence of this inappropriate empirical language, we see that its use, by wanting to express the narrow union of the One and the Other, blocks the road to the recognition of the Third. A Route that the intuition of the intelligibility of the distinctive negation opens widely for our biggest enjoyment… THE RELATIONAL UNITY WITH THE THIRD Indeed, the One-First will that the Other-Second “is” and is in equal perfection as him, thus relational to an other one, like he is by all his being, and that this other one “is” perfectly distinct from him as relational also, that is relational to a “new”other one than him who is first. The perfection of the distinction in the communication of being from one to another excludes an immediate reciprocity. In immediate reciprocity, the Other who is distinct in his personal substantiality of the First would not be distinct from the First in his relationality. The interpersonal distinction would not be completed and there would be an ontological fracture in the person of the Second between his substantiality and his relationality. By willing the Other for himself perfectly distinct from him, the One will that the Other “is” relational communicative of being to a Third, to a Third distinct from them, distinct from him first and of the Other second. The reciprocity of love is been realized through the Third, towards whom the One turns the Other by wanting him perfectly distinct from him as relational as much as substantial. It is possible only if the relationality of the Other-Second is not a “return” towards the “First” – a return which the personality of the First excludes – but indeed a movement of communication of being to the Third, together with the One-First who will that the Third “is” in himself, as term of a relationality of love which he communicates to the Other-Second. The generous love to the other is not to neglect or to lose oneself, but direct the loved other one with oneself towards a third one. 170 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism An interpersonal relational reflexive ontology asserts rationally that God is a trinity of persons. We are speaking about an ontological Trinity, a condition of possibility of God’s creative activity. The creation of the universe, the world of life and the society of spiritual man living in the world is an activity of communication of being. Such an activity would be impossible for a separated God from everything and blocked in Itself in a solitary identity, as the God of Aristotle: “Thought of its only thought and will of its only will”. If we lock God into the idea of a solitary being, we can attribute to It no creative power. Aristotle was logical with himself. And this logic of the Greek philosopher shows the incompatibility of his philosophy with the biblical assertion of the Creator God and a fortiori with the reality of the incarnation, with the evangelic revelation of the saving Trinity, and with the realization of Its work of deification of mankind freeing it, beyond death, from any evil and from any possibility of evil, an evil still inherent to the first times of Its creation. But if we recognize God as creator, it is necessary to recognize that its “power to make be” is not a potentiality, but a perfect actuality. God cannot have such a quality without possessing it perfectly. God is perfect and absolute communication of being in Itself. The image of a solitary potter has no reflexive intelligibility. GOD, MAN AND WORLD IN TERNARY CORRESPONDENCES Rejecting the exclusiveness of a pseudoprinciple of identity and the totalitarian conception of the idea of undivided unity, accepted both as regulators of the thought by classical philosophy is in fact choosing their contradiction, by recognizing to the distinctive negation all its place in being, without wanting to carry it, in a absurd way of destruction, upon “the being as being”. This option will be a relational ternary structure of ipseities according to their perfection of being. Thus in God, it will be a perfect trinitary structure. In the order of the finity, it will be ternary structures affected by indefinity, because of the imperfection of being which is constitutive of them. What are they? It is the duty of “objective” knowledge and of experimental sciences to discover them. It will be the discontinuity of matter, the male and female sexual polarity in the order of life, the family structure in the spiritual human order. The relationship of man-husband to woman-spouse has been presented to us with valid correctness in the biblical myth of the creation of the human being, at the top of the creation, in the image of God acting in plural: “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness”. This grand vision is then put “in an imagery story”. Firstly, Adam, the male man and secondly and by begetting, according to a simple and direct relation, carried out by God, from Adam to Eve, whose existence Adam ratifies with admiration by naming her, according to their conjoint relation to the third, which is proportioned to them, the child. « Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh … She is “ishsha” for out of “ish” ... the mother of all who live” So the child in a family is “image of the Holy Spirit”. What difference from the Greek myth of the androgyne! This one is broken into two by the boss of the Olympus to defend his power. It is a profound intellectual perversion to read the full of imagery story of the Genesis with the identicist presuppositions of the androgyne. A plurality out of generosity? Yes! A plurality out of division? No! Although the family structure is realized in space and time according to its stages and its ups and downs, this structure is given at once: spousality, paternity, maternity and filiality are given in the same relational unity. The family structure is just like the divine interpersonal structure. Which allows us to say by analogy that God is a family relational being. God Father in spousality God Verb in spousality and paternal and maternal 171 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism God Spirit in filiality The One, the Father, engenders spousaly his “Other one” in face of him, the Verb, willing him relational in communication of being to the Third one. Both, the Father only engendering and no-engendered and the engendered Verb as engendering engender conjointly, the One paternally, the Other one in a motherly way, the Spirit which is only engendered and no-engendering. The engendered Verb indeed communicates himself only to be engendered like he is. And so the Spirit is engendered by the Father and engendered by the Verb and is only engendered. This double begetting is not a rehearsal or a re-production of the “same”. THE TERNARY RELATIONALITY AND THE ORDER OF REVELATION Let us change now the methodological register. Let us say a few words on the theological interpretation of the revealed given that we receive by the person of Jesus. Also according to this ternary and trinitary structure it is advisable to understand the creation of the world conjointly by the Father and the Verb, accepted by the Spirit, the incarnation of the Verb at the instigation of the Father in Jesus, attracted by the Spirit, our deification in brotherhood of grace in the Spirit, by the resuscitated incarnated Verb, under the initiative of the Father, after our death, as well as our trinitarisation at the end of all times, that is the assumption of all the humanity by the divine persons in their family eternal relations. What will be so at the end of all ends, is what the divine Persons conceived from all eternity to realize in order to reveal themselves by communicating the being in a work, an image of themselves. A completely developed genetic metaphysics or a complete relational ontology are capable of recognizing the originality of the created fiducial consciousness and of determining consequently the conditions that such a “revelation” can be recognized deserving well the Creator. They can thus take a rational discernment about the evangelic revelation and formulate critical judgments on the other historical claims to be a revelation. At the same time, such a philosophy is conscious that it is methodologically not possible for it to assert the specific truths of our salvation in Jesus Christ. There is in it an analogy with the fact that the philosopher can make, by reflection, a valid analysis of the conjugal and family human love, but that he can deduct in no way the fiducial commitment of the fiancés and the fidelity of the parents. Besides, a conception of the communicative relationality of being is able to propose the conditions a priori of intelligibility to understand and adhere in faith to the work of God's maternal Verb, incarnated in a human complete way in Jesus Christ, son of man, unique son between all the men sons of the Creator God, and so unique Son of the eternal God. On these last subjects, I hope that my book « The parables which speak about God » will value with dignity the evangelic texts. I thank you for your attention. 172 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism PLOTINUS’ ANSWER TO CENTRAL QUESTIONS IN CLASSICAL ONTOLOGY Curtis L. Hancock Rockhurst Jesuit University, Kansas City, Missouri, USA Someone (I don’t remember whom) once observed that Plotinus’ Enneads are the Summa Theologiae of Greek and Hellenistic wisdom. I take this observation to mean two things: (1) Plotinus seeks to understand the philosophical achievements of his predecessors, and yet (2) in the end he is an original thinker, synthesizing the contributions of his predecessors into a unique Neoplatonic vision of metaphysics, something akin to the way St. Thomas Aquinas synthesized Greek, Moslem, and Jewish wisdom into his Christian philosophy. Whether this comparison is exact need not distract us. The important point, and one readily evident in the writings of Plotinus, is that his philosophy is largely a response to the metaphysical insights of his predecessors, especially Plato and Aristotle. Plotinus is like Plato and Aristotle in that he regards the history of philosophy as an indispensable part of philosophical method. So it is no surprise that examination of Plato and Aristotle, the greatest of ancient metaphysicians, would frequently occupy his attention in the Enneads. In these thinkers, he sees the development and refinement of early Classical Greek ontology. In my judgment, it is not an exaggeration to say that his metaphysics is a reaction to the specifications of this ontology. My task here is to show how he agrees and disagrees with Plato and Aristotle in key respects, and, in the end, transcends them. By transcending Plato and Aristotle, Plotinus alternatively answers the chief questions of classical ontology: (1) what is being? (2) what causal relationship is primary among beings? (3) how is matter a kind of being? and (4) what is it to be a human being? Plotinus struggles to answer these questions as he accommodates Plato’s and Aristotle’s ontology. He answers them, in the end, by developing an original philosophy that I describe as a “mystical monism.” One might wonder why I speak of “ontology” rather than “ontologies.” After all, when we think of Plato and Aristotle, different, even contrasting, ontological principles come to mind. A simple reminder of their disagreement about the nature of matter, the human condition, and the status of Forms (whether in a separate world or not) suggests that it is odd to speak of them as subscribing to a common ontology. Whether odd or not, Plotinus insists that Plato and Aristotle subscribe to a common ontology. While he certainly concedes that Plato and Aristotle differ on many details, he insists, nonetheless, that they agree on the nature of being. For both Plato and Aristotle being is a determinate intelligible nature. In other words, being (to on) is form (intelligibility; eidos) and entity (a self-subsisting thing with a distinct nature; ousia).1 Moreover, Plato and Aristotle hold that being is reality. By so defining reality, they are ontologists. One would think that this is to state the obvious—that to be real is to be. But it is precisely here where the plot thickens, for Plotinus agrees that being is form and entity but disagrees that being is reality. Plotinus is an henologist, not an ontologist. For him, to be real is to 1 Here I follow Joseph Owens in translating the Greek word, ousia, as entity, not as substance, which commonly occurs in English. Since the word “substance” is laden with modernist associations, especially in the philosophy of John Locke, Owens advises avoiding “substance” in preference for “entity.” Joseph Owens, “Aristotle on Categories,” The Review of Metaphysics. 14 (1960), pp. 73-90. 173 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism be one (to hen). Since being signifies form, being implies a measure of differentiation, distinction, separation, otherness. For every form, as a determinate nature, is different from other forms. But differentiation is disunity. If to be real is to be one, being represents a partial separation from reality. Henology is fundamental to Plotinus’ metaphysics, and it situates his account of being. The following quotation from VI, 9 (9), 1, 1-10 illustrates the primacy Plotinus gives to unity. It is by the One that all existents are existents. This is equally true of those that are primarily existents and those that in some way are simply classed among the things that are real, for what could exist were it not one? Not a one, a thing is not. No army, no choir, no flock exists except it be one. No house, even, or ship exists except as the unity, house, or the unity, ship; their unity gone, the house is no longer a house, the ship is no longer a ship. Similarly quantitative continua would not exist had they not an inner unity; divided, they forfeit existence along with unity. It is the same with plant and animal bodies; each of them is a unity; with disintegration, they lose their previous nature and are no longer what they were; they become new, different beings that in turn exist only as long as each of them is a unit.2 Once one grasps that Plotinus is an henologist, it becomes relatively simple to understand his philosophy. However, if one fails to detect that for Plotinus to be real is to be one, his philosophy becomes formidable and inaccessible. This is a point made effectively by Leo Sweeney, S.J. in an excellent article, “Basic Principles in Plotinus’ Philosophy.” By recounting the central message in Sweeney’s essay, I can begin to make clear how Plotinus answers classical ontology by absorbing it into a “higher” monistic metaphysics. Sweeney maintains that three principles form the cornerstone of Plotinian metaphysics: (1) reality is unity; that is to say, to be real is to be one; 2) unity is perfection; to be one is to be good; (3) to be prior in the universe is to be superior to what comes afterward. This last constitutes a causal principle in Plotinus’ metaphysics. Of course, the first principle, taken to its logical conclusion, makes Plotinus a monist.3 In one way or another, these principles are always operative in Plotinus’ writings. Their most conspicuous expression is in his account of emanation. Emanation explains how the absolute unity and perfection of the One generates subsequent natures and appearances in the universe. This is not 2 I follow the conventional citation of Plotinus’ Enneads. The Enneads (from the Greek enneas, meaning nine) refers to 54 treatises arranged by Plotinus’ student, Porphyry, into six books of nine treatises each. Accordingly, VI, 9 (9), 1, 1-10 refers to the ninth treatise of the Sixth Ennead, although chronologically the ninth treatise that Plotinus wrote (as indicated by the number bound by parentheses), first chapter, lines 1 through 10. In his biography of Plotinus, Porphyry tells us the chronological order of Plotinus’ treatises and in what way his editing takes liberties with this chronological sequence. The above quotation, except for a couple of adjustments, follows Elmer O’Brien, The Essential Plotinus (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co., Inc., 1978), p. 73. 3 Leo Sweeney, S.J., “Basic Principles in Plotinus’s Philosophy,” Gregorianum 42 (1961), pp. 511-512. 174 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism a doctrine of creation, according to which out of nothing something comes. For Plotinus, like the other ancient Greek philosophers, creatio ex nihilo makes no sense. Instead, the universe is the product of generation in which the ultimate reality (the First Hypostasis), the One/Good, communicates its perfection out of itself. He relies on the principles Sweeney has enumerated to express this mystery as far as possible. The Good necessarily radiates its goodness outside itself. This is another reason that emanation is unlike Christian creation. Whereas creation occurs as a free act of divine will, emanation happens by necessity. Plotinus believes that ordinary experience teaches that perfections do not grudge communicating themselves outwardly. For examples, fire radiates heat; snow conveys cold. Since it is easy to multiply such examples, they support a reasonable metaphysical belief: perfections do not isolate themselves, but produce effects manifesting their reality (unity), a conviction the Latin Schoolmen would later express as bonum difusivum sui. If this communication of goodness describes the simple perfections and behaviors of physical things, it surely applies to the infinite Good.4 Since Plotinus recognizes that physical things emanate their own natures, he uses physical analogies frequently to suggest emanation on the metaphysical level. The sun and its light is his analogy of choice. Just as the light of the sun radiates in a gradually diminishing way, so that near the sun, light is brilliant and intense, but farther away, it is less intense, so the One emanates a hierarchy of existents. Those beings closer to the One are greater unities than those farther away, a view of production that coheres with the third principle that Sweeney specified. So, the realities that first emerge from the One/Good approximate more its absolute perfection than the realities emerging much later.5 By this account, Plotinus presents the Neoplatonic “great chain of being,” versions of which are common in the history of philosophy. However, it is crucial to recognize that at the top of the chain there is not being, for the One/Good is not a being, but exists beyond being. To give historical authority to this judgment, Plotinus refers to Plato’s cryptic remark in the Republic (509 b) that the Form of the Good is epekeina tēs ousias (“beyond entity”). Since emanation must begin from absolute perfection, the source of being cannot be a being but must transcend being. Since multiplicity is the contrary of unity, multiplicity always represents a falling away from reality. So, no matter what one’s standard of being, whether Platonic Forms or Pure Actuality (Aristotle’s God), being cannot signify supreme reality. Non-unity, along with unity, is implicit in Form and in the divine nature of Aristotle’s supreme being. Form has determinate identity (tauton) by being a nature differentiated (heteron) from other forms. This combination of sameness-in-difference is an essential property of any being, as Plato argued in the Sophist. Being is intelligibility (eidos), and knowing what is implies knowing what is not. Platonic Forms, therefore, are a universe of unity-in-difference, not pure unity. Since difference cannot be constitutive of unity, the One is not subject to this analysis. Nor can Aristotle’s God qualify as supreme reality. As self-thinking thought (noēsis noēseōs), Aristotle’s God, irrespective of its perfection otherwise, is a duality of subject-object. Even if its object is itself, it is nonetheless a combination of knower and known. Duality, however minimal, is a kind of multiplicity. Hence, it is not the ultimate reality; it only approximates it. With these remarks in place, it will be clearer how emanation specifically unfolds. As I identify the stages of emanation, I can indicate how Plotinus answers the chief questions of classical ontology. Both in his account of emanation and in his answer to these questions, Plotinus relies heavily on Aristotle’s doctrine of act and potency. His reliance on Aristotle’s distinction between act and potency is unequivocal in Ennead II, 5, “On Potency and Act,” the twenty-fifth treatise that 4 V, 4 (7), 1, 34-36. 5 VI, 9 (9), 4; II, 4 (12), 5; III, 5 (50), 2, 32; IV, 8 (6), 4; V, 3 (49), 13. 175 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism Plotinus wrote. Moreover, it is a distinction that saturates the Enneads. In fact, Plotinus uses the words potency (dynamis) and act (energeia) more often than Aristotle does.6 Since the One necessarily radiates its perfection, emanation commences. Of course, Plotinus insists that this “commencing” is not temporal. Since the One is not in time, such usage as “commence,” “end,” “before,” and “after” is merely a way of talking. Plotinus laments that philosophy is so limited, but in coping with such mysteries, the philosopher is discussing an existent outside the boundaries of language. The old jest that metaphysics tries to “’eff-‘ the ineffable” applies appropriately to Plotinus. In VI, 9 (9), 7, he remarks that our language about the One is virtually bankrupt. And yet, it has value because those who have not enjoyed mystical experience, whereby a person “knows” this reality directly, can nonetheless benefit from the vocabulary of classical philosophy. Struggling to philosophically discuss the One can give us an indirect glimpse of ultimate reality. By considering the One’s relationship to the universe that emanates out of the One, we can know what the One is not, the universe of beings, of which we ourselves are a part. This attitude is suggestive of negative theology (apophasis), and much of the medieval tradition borrows this suggestion from Plotinus. Negative theology, Plotinus explains, is even operative in choosing the very names he offers for “the One/the Good.” While these names look like positive ascriptions (kataphasis), they are actually negations. “The One” expresses negatively that the First Principle is “not many.” Plotinus salutes the Pythagoreans for observing that the first Greeks who coined the name “Apollo” for God must have appreciated the primacy of unity. The Pythagoreans reduce the name to its component parts: “a,”the alpha privative, and polla, the Greek word for many. Combined, God means not-many, even in the ordinary Greek language (V, 2 [32], 6, 27-30). As to the name, “The Good,” this is indirect language as well, saying what God is not. For “the good” in ordinary language signifies desirability. So when we speak of the Good, we are really acknowledging our own impetus toward the Supreme Reality, not the Good in itself. Regardless of this excursus into philology, the One is ineffable and requires negative theology. Accordingly, philosophy becomes more sure as it concerns objects in the universe that are beings. Beings are intelligibles and thus are accessible to human intelligence. Of course, natural beings are the most accessible of all. As the human mind seeks to know higher beings—Soul, Divine Intelligence, Platonic Forms—it is pushed to its limits. Beyond these higher beings, there remains that which can only be known by “not knowing.” Only unitive mystical experience attains that object. Plotinus’ philosophical description of emanation is as follows: The infinite perfection of the One “pours forth” (procheō), like an inexhaustible spring (ek pēgēs . . . ouk analōtheisan; III, 8 (30), 10, 4-7). The First Product of this coming forth (prohodos) is a great reality, but lesser than the One. Inspired to contemplate its source, this First Effect turns back (epistrophē) out of love. Comprehending its object in a way that conforms to its diminished (yet ontologically supreme) nature, it fragments its inaccessible object into a plurality of intelligibles. It contemplates eternally these intelligibles as it ponders the contents of its own mind. At once, this First Effect and First Being is analogous to Plato’s universe of Forms and Aristotle’s God. Plotinus names this Second Hypostasis, “Divine Intelligence” (Nous). It is a synthesis of the principal elements of Platonic and Aristotelian ontology. Plotinus appropriates Aristotle’s principles of act (energeia) and potency (dynamis) to explain the nature of the Second Hypostasis. The Divine Intelligence is Pure Act, just as Aristotle describes his God. But Plotinus specifies the objects of Pure Act’s divine contemplation. These objects are Plato’s Forms, each of which is itself an act. As a result, for Plotinus, being is form (eidos), entity 6 Plotinus uses energeia 768 times compared with Aristotle’s 537 instances. See George A. Blair, Energeia and Entelecheia in Aristotle, Ph.D. Dissertation. Fordham University, 1964, p. 103. 176 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism (ousia) and act (energeia), just as it is for Aristotle. Plotinus also adopts Plato’s bold conclusion in the Sophist that life (zōē) and motion (kinesis) belong among the intelligibles. He interprets this to mean that each Form or Intelligible (Noēton) is also (Nous), an Intelligence. Accordingly, the Divine Intelligence as a whole is a community, a universe, of perfect beings, “boiling with life,” where implicit in the cognition of each Form is the universe of all Forms. Union with this universe of absolute beings yields a stage of perfect intellectual awareness in mystical experience. This employment of Aristotle’s doctrine of energeia in a Platonic, indeed, Neoplatonic, metaphysics is remarkable. However, Plotinus shows his originality in another respect. Whereas Aristotle argues that act is prior to potency in the universe, Plotinus holds that potency exists before act. Emanation requires this, since energeia is being, and the One is beyond being. As my earlier remarks indicate, Plotinus’ God is not Aristotle’s Pure Act. Pure Act is relegated to the second tier of reality, defining the Divine Intelligence. To reinforce this difference, Plotinus refers to the One in terms of potency, or in terms of active power, to be more exact. In V, 4 (7), 1, 25, he calls the One “the primal power” (dynamis hē protē) of everything. In III, 8 (30), 10, 1, he refers to the One as “the productive power of all realities” (dynamis tōn pantōn). Clearly, Plotinus is slavishly following neither Plato nor Aristotle but is adapting their ontology to his overarching monism or pantheism. The relationship of active power and actuation continues as emanation proceeds. For the Divine Intelligence, like the One, is a perfection. Its nature will overflow. There is another procession (prohodos), this time out of Nous, and a subsequent epistrophē, a turning back to contemplation. This act of contemplation forms the Cosmic Soul, the Third Hypostasis. The Soul is comparable to Nous, except it contemplates the Forms through Nous, and its weaker nature is a temporal life. The Divine Intelligence, on the other hand, is eternity. The One, since beyond being, transcends time and eternity. Plotinus invokes Plato’s doctrine of participation (metechein) to express the relationship of the lower hypostases to the higher ones. Each hypostasis is a logoi, which is the manifestation of a higher reality on a lower level. Since anything whatsoever is real to the extent it is one, everything, by participating in unity, is a logos of the One. However, Plotinus prefers to use the word, logos, to refer to beings. Hence, he reserves logoi, as a rule for beings on a level lower than Divine Intelligence, the perfect, eternal universe of beings. Consequently, the third Hypostasis, Soul, is a logos of Divine Intelligence, while all the particulars in the sensible world are logoi of Soul. Emanation exhausts itself in the sterility of matter, which represents the dying out of unity or reality, just as utter darkness represents the termination of radiated light. Plotinus adopts Aristotle’s language of prime matter, devoting an entire treatise to the subject of matter: II, 4 (12). But while matter is a real principle in Aristotle’s ontology, it becomes sheer unreality (pure multiplicity) in Plotinus’ metaphysics. Matter’s unreality combined with the diminished reality of sensible forms makes the sensible world “a phantom on a phantom” (III 6 [26], 7, 24). Plotinus also describes matter as absolute passive potency. Hence, his vision of the hierarchy of the universe employs two contrasting notions of potency: at the top of the universe is the active power of the One/Good; at the bottom is the utterly unreal passive potency of matter. Thus far I have delineated Plotinus’ monism, indicating the dynamic character of this monism by outlining emanation. What remains to discuss is Plotinus’ corresponding doctrine of remanation, which combines his mysticism with his doctrine of emanation, making his philosophy comprehensively a mystical monism. Remanation is the reversion of emanation. Emanation looks at the universe from a descending perspective. Remanation takes an ascending vantage point, the standpoint of the human knower, who aspires to his or her good. If human beings are to be happy, they must ascend mystically the great chain of realities. In this context, Plotinus answers the question, “What is a human being?” In short, the human person is a spirit in the world. A spirit conjoined to matter, at the threshold of 177 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism unreality itself. Because of this negative circumstance, the human person must embark on a long and daunting mystical journey. While difficult, it is the Neoplatonist’s prescription for happiness. This mystical dimension of Plotinus’ thought echoes the ascent Diotima recounts to Socrates in Plato’s Symposium. In detailing this ascent, Plotinus relies on his own experience. His student, Porphyry, records that Plotinus reported four unitive mystical events during the years Porphyry resided with him.7 Philosophy, for Plotinus, is just a way of expressing alternatively what he knows directly from mystical ascent and eventual union with the One. The Enneads detail this ascent. After apprehending information from sense experience, the soul turns to its own interiority and grasps the significance of spiritual existence and truth. As the human soul concentrates on this truth, it becomes more intimate with it. Eventually, it becomes united with Soul and Intelligence, as its ability to intuit the objects of natural and transnatural intellection becomes profound. This profundity of insight is directly proportionate to increasing unification of the soul. As it becomes more like the One, it becomes more powerful. The first stage of this empowerment lies in union with the Soul. Then the human soul achieves perfect intellectual illumination as it mystically migrates to the level of Nous, which mystics often describe as the penultimate stage in mystical ascent. To make the final ascent, to achieve literal mystical union with the One/Good, requires the courage to leap beyond being itself. The mystic loses her identity as a person and a spirit, for these are characteristics of being. Something akin to the “Dark Night of the Soul” follows as the soul loses its anchor in being and achieves an awareness of the supreme Object that is most perfect, but not knowable in the ordinary sense. It is a step into “luminous darkness,” as Gregory of Nyssa says.8 This union is a knowing that is “not knowing.” It is sheer happiness, but unfortunately it does not last. Perhaps at death, free from the encumbrances of the body—liberated from the wheel of rebirth, as the Buddha would say—mystical union will be permanent.9 Summary and Conclusion With this brief but relatively comprehensive account of Plotinus’ metaphysics, I can summarize how he answers the classical problems of ontology. To the question, (1) “what is being?,” Plotinus answers that being is not reality (unity). Being is one-in-many, primarily a determinate nature and an intelligible that, by virtue of existing as an object of Divine Intelligence, implies the duality of knower-known. Being properly signifies the noetic act of Aristotle’s God, comprehending the Forms of Plato’s ontology. Furthermore, since Form is the fullness of a being in its specific perfection, Form signifies act. Hence, being means form, entity, and act. “Act” precisely means (1) the active cognition of Divine Intelligence and (2) its actual objects. To the question, (2) “what causal relationship is primary among beings?,” Plotinus’ response is threefold. First, being comes into existence by the power of the higher reality of the One. Being, therefore, is an effect of reality, not its cause. Ontology is subordinate to henology. Secondly, the Second Hypostasis, as a universe of intelligibles and intellections, is being and the sum total of all beings. Thirdly, all subsequent beings—beings on the level of Soul and on the level of physical particulars—are manifestations of the higher beings comprising the Second Hypostasis. As Plato argues, they participate in Forms occupying the intelligible world. For Plotinus the Forms are the 7 Porphyry, On The Life of Plotinus, translated by A.H. Armstrong (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 71. 8 Gregory of Nyssa’s paradoxical expression Plotinus would appreciate. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, translated by Abraham Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), p. 95. 9 Plotinus’ expresses a certain exasperation at the transience of mystical experience in his treatise, “The Desscent of the Soul” (IV, 8 [6], 1. William James isolates transience as a necessary property of mystical experience in The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Longmans, Green, 1902). 178 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism contents of the Mind of the Second Hypostasis. Lower beings Plotinus calls logoi, referring to the appearance of Divine Intelligence on a lower level. To the question (3) “how is matter a kind of being?,” Plotinus answers that matter, while a condition for physical things to be, is itself not a being but a privation. Matter is absence of intelligibility, entity, actuality. Whereas being is one-in-many, matter is only many, the pure multiplicity that “exists” as the depletion of emanation. Hence, matter is neither real nor a being. Matter, indeed, is a paradoxical feature of Plotinus’ metaphysics, as he indicates.10 To the final question (4) “what is it to be human?,” Plotinus answers that the human person finds her or his true home in literal mystical union with the One/Good. This requires a spiritual ascent (1) from the sensible realm (2) to the intellectual realm and finally (3) beyond being to the realm of the One/Good, which is beyond personhood, spirituality, eternity, life, and being. Paradox emerges again: one finds ultimate happiness or fulfillment by ceasing to be. By ceasing to be, one becomes real. 10 See II, 4 (12), chs. 10, 13, and 16. 179 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism DESDE LA BINIDAD DEL MODELO GENETICO A LA CUMBRE DE LA CONTEMPLACION DIVINA SEGUN LA MÍSTICA DEL ISLAM Javier Rico Aldave Missionari e Missionarie Identes Doctor de Filosofía por la Sorbona (París) Preliminares En 1992 aparecía en Ediciones Cerf, en París, una obra singular. Su título : « Genèses de la Modernité »-« De la Cité de Dieu a la Nouvelle Atlantide»-. Autor de la misma es el conocido profesor de la Sorbona, Paris I-Pathéon, Dr. Maurice de Gandillac, recientemente fallecido (20.04.06) junto a París, en Neuilly-sur-Seine, a sus 100 años de edad. Las 3 obras maestras literarias de la reconstrucción de Europa serían, según el Profesor De Gandillac : La Ciudad de Dios de S. Agustín, la Nueva Atlántida de Francis Bacon y la Ciudad del Sol de Campanella. Estas obras presentarían los fundamentos contractuales y consensuales de la sociedad en la búsqueda de un espíritu europeo que fue consolidándose hasta formar la así denominada identidad europea. Este insigne profesor se interroga en la primera parte de la obra por el problema de la «decibilidad o innombrabilidad» de los nombres divinos, ya que según él, éste sería un hecho que serviría para establecer un diálogo fructífero entre las dos grandes religiones del libro : Cristianismo e Islam. De Gandillac cita, como autor relevante del diálogo interreligioso, al conocido místico musulmán, Mevlana Rumi1. Este sufí turco-iraní afirma en el capítulo 64 de su libro en prosa “Fihi-ma-fihi” (el Libro del Interior) que “la vida mística es la ciencia de las Religiones (ciencia de la certidumbre). Las otras ciencias (experimentales) constituyen las ciencias de la certeza, pero no la certidumbre misma. Esta está reservada a la mística2. Es decir él da una primacía a la mística sobre las otras ramas del saber, sobre todo cuando se trata de explicitar la vivencia de Dios y del Absoluto. Es así que la invocación ritual y genérica :”No hay de Dios más que Dios” que recoge Mevlana en el capítulo 26 de su obra “Fifi-ma-fihi”, se traduciría para las almas amantes en la siguiente afirmación: “No hay de El más que El”3. En la citada obra, Maurice de Gandillac subraya el cambio sustancial que se da cuando se deja de aludir al Dios de la creencia abstracta por el Dios de la experiencia personal o vivencia del mismo en la propia alma, n otras palabras la alteridad amante, puente o nexo vinculativo entre Dios, visto como el Amado, y el alma enamorada de la hermosura de ese Dios personal. ¿Qué quiere mostrarnos el místico de Konya, Mevlana Rumi, con esta afirmación y qué consecuencia tiene esto cuando nos proponernos establecer un diálogo interreligioso-místico entre el Islam y el Cristianismo? En las siguientes partes de la presente comunicación intentaré responder a estas preguntas. 1 El nombre turco de Celaleddi Mevlana o simplemente Mevlana, es muy conocido y altamente respestado en Turquía. La palabra Rumi designa el centro de este país (Konya). A Mevlana se le llama también el Maestro del Rum. La fecha de su nacimiento no se sabe, se supone que fue anterior al 1207. La muerte de Mevlana Rumi tuvo lugar el 17.12.1273. Cf. Mehmet Önder, Musée de Mevlana, p. 3, ed. Ajanstürk, Konya 1963. 2 F. M. F.= Fihi-ma-fihi (El libro del Interior), edición en francés por Eva V. Mayerovitch, ed. Sindbad, Paris, 1975. Mi tesis doctoral en Paris, Sorbona, 1983, se centró en el análisis de esta obra de Mevlana Rumi. 3 Maurice de Gandillac, Génèses de la Modernité, p. 56. 181 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism APUNTE CRITICO SOBRE LA MISTICA MUSULMANA La mística es patrimonio común de toda creencia religiosa. Como ha ocurrido en la mística cristiana y judía, también la mística musulmana ha tenido gran figuras en sus letras y en la experiencia interior religiosa. Ya el conocido islamista francés Louis Massignon dejó consignado la siguiente afirmación : « Nous devons penser qu’en tout milieux religieux où il y a des ames sincères et réfléchies, des cas mystiques peuvent étre constatés. Le mysticisme ne saurait donc étre l’apanage exclusif d’une race, d’une langue, d’une nation »4. Echemos una rápida mirada a la historia del sufismo musulmán en su mayor apogeo. Los siglos más significativos de la historia de la mística musulmana han sido el V°-VI° de la hégira (S.XII-XIII). Este fenómeno de experiencia interior se presenta en este período bajo dos ópticas diferentes: A/ la primera corresponde al grupo de místicos que defienden con radicalidad la unidad psicológico-ontológica del alma con Dios y que podríamos calificar de monismo transcendental (si Dios está presente en todas las cosas, inclusive en mi propia alma, se sigue que todo es Dios). El máximo representante de esta posición es el místico murciano MUHJI AL-DIN IBN-ARABI, formado en la horma sufíe de la España musulmana de finales del siglo XI y muerto en la ciudad de Damasco en 1240. B/ La segunda óptica, más equilibrada en su expresión literaria y sobre todo mucho más humana es la del místico turco-iraní, Jelal-ud-din-MEVLANA RUMI. Eminente poeta y de brillantes recursos literarios, este sufí muere en la ciudad turca de Konya el 17 de Diciembre de 1273. Autor de excepcionales dotes musicales, más pedagogo que filósofo abstracto, su mística la podríamos calificar de « unidad humano-divina », debiendo ser interpretado el quehacer humano y el mundo que nos rodea desde una visión espiritual donde todo resulta ser Dios, es decir « lo humano fundido en lo divino ». Por tanto, su monismo es más mitigado que el de Ibn-Arabi y sólo se produce éste en el último estadio de perfección religiosa. Su bondad, su sentido de la belleza y su universalismo de creencia han causado en el pasado y causan en nuestros días la admiración y la simpatía de todos los que se esfuerzan por encontrar auténticos valores religiosos. Mevlana Rumi explica en sus obras el paso de la transformación del alma a través del fuego sanante de la purificación, hacia una unidad con el absoluto o como él lo llama, con el Amado. ¿Qué significa para la mística musulmana vivir una experiencia religiosa y hasta qué grado puede interiorizarla el alma? En la mística musulmana aparecen 2 realidades que indican un grado excelso de amor de Dios: 1. El estado de unión con el Absoluto que los sufíes denominan el HAL (unicidad del ser humano con Dios). Representa éste un grado de presencia y de acción de Dios en el alma. Este « estado místico » más pasivo que activo es fruto consecuente de la exigencia moral ejercida por el alma y describe vivencialmente un sentimiento de permanencia del Absoluto en la misma. En esta experiencia vive sabrosamente el alma la belleza y los atributos divinos. Se da un crecer en el amor y es así que el alma viene preparada paulatinamente por Dios en el denominado “maqam” (etapa ascensional). En el “maqam” predomina el esfuerzo del asceta por alcanzar la visión de lo divino. La fidelidad a este esfuerzo (Maqam) garantiza el HAL, o la unidad con el Absoluto. 2. El llamado WAJD o éxtasis. Para Mevlana Rumi, la unión con Dios se realiza o se encuadra en una estructura de éxtasis. Este comprende un fuerza superior, sobrenatural y divina capaz de elevar al alma a un estado de luz o conocimiento, de apetito y deseo de unirse con al Amado, puesto que el alma humana ha sido convocada por Dios a compartir el manjar de la belleza divina y suprema sabiduría. Si la oración prepara el terreno para 4 Massignon, L. Essai sur les origines du lexique tecnique de la Mystique musulmane, Ed. Vrin, Paris 1968, pgs. 63-64. 182 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism alcanzar la experiencia extática y por consiguiente la unión con Dios5, la soledad y el silencio crean el clima que favorece la consecución del éxtasis6. El éxtasis, según el místico de Konya, provoca la absorción o pérdida del alma en Dios7. Por otra parte esta absorción en Dios comporta, según Mevlana: a/ Un estado pasivo por parte del sujeto: “La persona se instala fuera de sí misma”8; b/ una embriaguez del alma debida a la sobreabundancia de dones y gracia recibidos de Dios9; c/un sumergirse en Dios y que se manifiesta por la gran paz y gozo que el alma respira10; d/ La unión que se verifica entre el alma y Dios viene acompañada por un sentimiento de impecabilidad11. Es en este contexto doctrinal que podría situarse la siguiente afirmación del místico de Konya, no exenta de error dogmático, al menos en cuanto a su formulación: “Para quien ha llegado a aniquilarse en Dios, el pecado no es pecado y el crimen no es crimen, ya que el ser humano ha sido ya dominado y absorbido por El” 12 ; e/Rumi afirma la existencia en todo ser humano de una capacidad o disposición natural para el éxtasis divino, favorecido por la nobleza y la sinceridad del alma13. La interpretación plena de la unión del alma con Dios, a nivel de éxtasis, se nos da en la Vida Eterna. En el capítulo 25 de su obra en prosa, “Fihi-ma-fihi”, declara Mevlana: “El deseo de Dios, la embriaguez espiritual y el éxtasis son los arquitectos del otro mundo”14. Según Mevlana conseguir esta unidad con Dios/Allah, en el denominado “Hall”, viene interpretada en la mística musulmana como existencia sin individualidad en Dios. La persona humana se perdería como una gota en el océano. Si el sufí conservase su propia individualidad en este estado de unión con el Absoluto, no podría, por lo tanto, alcanzar el pleno “Hal” (unidad) o “Tawid” (unificación) con Dios, como otros místicos lo denominan. JUICIO VALORATIVO DE LA UNIÓN DIVINA SEGÚN EL MISTICISMO MUSULMAN DESDE LA INTERPRETACION DE LA CONCEPCIÓN GENETICA DEL PRINCIPIO DE RELACIÓN DE FERNANDO RIELO ¿Qué es el modelo genético según el conocido metafísico Fernando Rielo? ¿Este nuevo sistema metafísico puede ser considerado un idóneo instrumento de trabajo cuando se habla de la mística en general, y la mística entre la Religiones monosteístas, entre ellas el Islam? Presentamos brevemente algunos puntos importantes del pensamiento metafísico de este autor : La originalidad del pensamiento de Fernando Rielo se cifra en hallar una nueva concepción de la Metafísica basada en el principio de relación y las potencialidades que encierra el así denominado por este importante metafísico “ser”15. Con esto se propone el autor evidenciarnos que el ser+ es un símbolo que nos permite afirmar que queda abolido el principio de identidad parmenídico “ser es ser” por considerarlo un pseudo-principio, inmóvil, estéril e insustancial16. En efecto, así como el principio de identidad se basa en estructuras generales o proceso abstractivo, el principio de relación abogado por Fernando Rielo define dos seres singulares personales de carácter absoluto que, en inmanente complementariedad intrínseca, se erigen en un único Sujeto Absoluto (P1÷P2). 5 F. M. F. , op. cit. capítulo 3. 6 Ibid. cap. 10. 7 Ibid. cap. 10 y 42. 8 Ibid. cap. 11. 9 Ibid. cap. 55. 10 Ibid. cap. 11. 11 Ibid. cap. 11. 12 Ibid. cap. 11, 47 y 60. 13 Ibid. 12 y 23. 14 Ibid. 11. 15 Ver Fernando Rielo: Mis meditaciones desde el modelo genético, ed. Fernando Rielo, Madrid, 2001; Fernando Rielo: Un diálogo a tres voces (Entrevistas con Marie-Lise Gazarian), Ed. F.F.R., Madrid 1995. 16 F. Rielo, Mis Meditaciones...op. cit. p. 158. 183 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism Una noción bien formada eleva necesariamente, según Fernando Rielo, a absoluto el concepto de relación, rompiendo evidentemente la identidad y excluyendo a fortiori el campo fenoménico. Es de esta forma que queda constituido el Sujeto Absoluto: en el ámbito intelectual o dianoético, por dos y sólo dos seres personales en inmanente complementariedad intrínseca (P1÷P2); en el ámbito revelado o hipernoético, por tres y sólo tres seres personales en inmanente complementariedad intrínseca (P1÷P2÷P3). Por lo tanto, asevera Fernando Rielo, el concepto de “analogía” queda anulado y sustituido por el concepto de “comunicación”. Y esta comunicación se da en todas los ámbitos de la realidad : biológico, sicológico, moral, ontológico y metafísico. Por otro lado el modelo absoluto – nos precisa Fernando Rielo - puede visualizarse en los dos ámbitos: a) racional y b) revelado. Afirmar esto significa decir que la Binidad (P1÷P2), formada por dos seres personales con el nombre proprio de “Padre” e “Hijo”, puede ser aceptada en recto orden intelectual por todos. Esta Binidad dada en el ámbito racional, sin embargo, no es, en virtud de un indicio intelectual que se presenta, satisfacible en el orden metafísico. Una tercera persona (P3) puede también ser, por tanto, aceptada de algún modo por este indicio intelectual que se presente cumpliendo determinadas funciones en la Binidad. Si nos referimos al ámbito revelado, sostiene Fernando Rielo que “el hecho, no obstante, de que P2 sea Cristo y P3 reciba el nombre de “Espíritu Santo » no puede ser conocido, de ningún modo, por la sola inteligencia humana: es necessario que ésta sea informada por la fe teologal17. Podemos decir, por lo tanto, que esta realidad tiene una gran importancia en el ámbito ecuménico, y que consiste en afirmar, como lo hace Fernando Rielo, que no existe, en virtud de su carácter tautológico, el monoteísmo absoluto unipersonalista o impersonalista en las grandes religiones. Cuando Fernando Rielo habla del Ecumenismo religioso se refiere principalmente al ecumenismo metafísico y ontológico por el hecho mismo que el primer ámbito de la concepción genética del principio de relación puede ser aceptado, sin el dato de la infusa fe teologal, por la inteligencia humana. Este sería para Rielo el fundamento cultural para un ecumenismo religioso, no sólo entre iglesias cristianas, sino también entre todos los credos. La raíz de esta “ecumene”, aportada por la concepción genética del principio de relación, es, cuando menos, la Binidad de dos seres personales en inmanente complementariedad intrínseca. Es decir la concepción genética de la metafísica según Rielo tiene : dentro del ámbito racional (P1÷P2), valor ecuménico; dentro del 18 ámbito revelado (P1÷P2÷P3), la pertenencia exclusiva a la fe cristiana . Una creencia bien formada visualiza, desde la concepción genética del principio de relación, un monoteísmo binitario, y desde el ámbito de una fe bien formada un monoteísmo trinitario. Tanto la Binidad como la Trinidad que parecen incompatibles con las grandes religiones monoteísticas por su creencia en único ser divino, pueden ser admitidas, en especial la BINIDAD, de un modo culto por los indicios que presentan estas mismas religiones. Esta breve información sintética del Modelo genético o Concepción genética del Principio de Relación de Fernando Rielo nos da pie para argumentar un poco en el sentido de encontrar términos o un pensamiento adecuado que nos permita establecer las bases de un diálogo positivo y profundo entre el cristianismo y las religiones monoteístas, en nuestro caso con el Islam. Esto nos permitiría afirmar lo siguiente : 1. Se da en el Islam, en especial en los amantes del Dios revelado en esta religión, un monoteísmo BINITARIO o una BINIDAD en la creencia. 2. Los místicos mayores del Islam (Ib-Arabi, Mevlana Rumi, Al- Hallah, Attar) se colocan en un ámbito de fe y experiencia religiosa, superior a toda disquisición meramente 17 F. Rielo, Un diálogo a tres voces, op. cit. p. 141. 18 Ibid. P. 135. 184 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism intelectual. Se trataría de un Dios de carácter personal dentro de su religión y lo manifiestan en su vida y en sus escritos a través de la experiencia del Extasis. 3. Esta verdad es de capital importancia para establecer un diálogo entre el Islam y el Cristianismo. Como hemos visto el Modelo genético de Fernando Rielo establece una clara base intelectual para admitir esta realidad. Es decir la metafísica genética podría ser catalizadora del diálogo interreligioso entre estas dos religiones. 4. Algunos místicos del Islam, según atestiguan sus obras literarias, han llegado al sumo grado de experiencia religiosa que les permite su credo religioso. Y este supremo grado es, como hemos visto precedentemente la experiencia religiosa del éxtasis. 5. De aquí se colige que sería un campo fecundo de diálogo interreligioso el hablar de esta realidad: el éxtasis, tanto en el ámbito de la religión musulmana como cristiana. 6. Este diálogo llevaría consigo, en primer lugar, un enriquecimiento de los valores afines a ambas religiones y un aprendizaje interior de las riquezas que Dios mismo revela al ser humano. 7. Cuando el cristianismo presenta, debido a la revelación de Cristo, un monoteísmo TRINITARIO, muestra con ello una distinción esencial con el Islam. CONCLUSION Nos podríamos preguntar si no habrá llegado el momento para iniciar un diálogo religioso entre el Islam y el Cristianismo, basado en la experiencia religiosa, vivida por el creyente, más a nivel místico que a nivel teológico especulativo, fruto ciertamente del amor a Dios y puesto al servicio de los demás19. ¿No tendríamos que entrar de lleno en las riquezas místicas de estas dos religiones portadoras de valores perennes para la persona humana y en beneficio de nuestra sociedad postmoderna? Podría organizarse, por ejemplo, encuentros de teología mística entre miembros de ambas religiones con el fin de dialogar, entre otros, sobre los siguientes puntos : a. La oración interior en ambas religiones, recogiendo textos tanto del Corán, tratándose del creyente musulmán o de la Biblia y Nuevo Testamento, si se trata del cristiano. b. El proceso de purificación del alma-espíritu según la interpretación de ambas religiones. c. Momentos descollantes de la unión del alma con Dios. ¿De qué nivel de experiencia hablan el Islam y el Cristianismo? d. Valor del éxtasis en ambas religiones. Entresacar textos y compararlos. e. ¿Con qué medios cuentan ambas religiones para llevar a cabo esta perfección o santidad? ¿Qué puede entender el Islam de la Gracia santificante que utiliza y vive el cristianismo? f. Si sólo a través de Cristo y transformados en El podemos vivenciar y hablar del monoteísmo trinitario, ¿qué puede ocurrir cuando la gracia opera en almas que no pertenecen al cristianismo y sin embargo alcanzan un grado excelso de perfección de vida? g. ¿Qué conlleva la afirmación: hay santos también en la religión musulmana? 19 El arzobispo de Viena, Cardenal Christoph Schönborn se ha hecho eco de esta idea cuando recientemente respondía a una entrevista con los siguientes términos: “Tendríamos que dialogar con el Islam sobre las grandes preguntas que conciernen a las dos religiones. Las palabras amistosas que intercambiamos con el Islam son hermosas pero no bastan, sobre todo teniendo en cuenta las dificultades reales que padecemos actualmente“ Cf. Kath.Net-Club del 3.08.2006. 185 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism h. ¿ Por último cómo favorecer una sincronización de los 2 foros predominantes del quehacer ecuménico entre el Islam y cristianismo: a. Ecumenismo teológico y b. Ecumenismo místico? Creemos sinceramente que el verdadero diálogo interreligioso a nivel de los valores místicos puede ser promocionado mucho más entre el Islam y el Cristianismo y que este hecho sería portador de muchos dones para la convivencia entre adeptos de las dos religiones. En realidad, todo ser humano tiene el deber y derecho a experimentar en su corazón la bondad de ese Dios personal, nuestro Padre Celeste, que ha creado precisamente a la persona humana para hacerla partícipe de Su vida y de su felicidad eterna. Ciencias tan importantes con la educación, la sociología y en general las ciencias del espíritu recibirían un nuevo esplendor ayudando al resurgimiento de una paz y concordia duraderas entre todas las culturas, los pueblos y las religiones. 186 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism REFLECTIONS ON SILENCE AND MYSTICISM IN THE TRACTATUS Aimin Shen Philosophy Department Hanover College Although much has been said about the role of the concept of nonsense in Wittgenstein's Tractatus, these commentaries have not revealed the role of nonsense in the logical order of our thinking. That role provides the indispensable place of the concept of nonsense in the Tractatus, and for Wittgenstein personally. We may say that Wittgenstein's Tractatus has still not been properly understood. I shall offer some observations in this paper on Tractarian nonsense and its importance for the doctrines of silence and mysticism in the Tractatus. I treat the totality of the doctrine of silence as consisting of a stated and of an unstated part. Tractarian nonsense is the unstated part of doctrine while the stated doctrine is in proposition 7. Let me begin with mention of two widely held views on Wittgenstein's doctrine of silence, each of which may be associated with a prominent commentator. One view is that which cannot be grasped by knowledge is the mystical. The mystical demands a "commandment of silence" (Rudolf Haller). The other view I wish to mention is that to speak is to make meaningful statements. Where no meaningful statements can be expressed, one should remain silent. If one attempts to express them, one is speaking nonsense (Joachim Schulte). This view ties meaning to sense and meaninglessness to nonsense. And, commentators in general seem to take the view that sense and nonsense are logical contraries. In contradistinction, I argue that Tractarian nonsense is that which makes the measure of propositions possible: the possibility of truth-falsity is Tractarian logical sense. To elaborate, logical sense must have the two poles of truth-falsity while actual sense has only a single pole. The phrase "propositional sense" in the context of the Tractatus may cover both logical sense and actual sense. What makes measurement possible must be logically prior to the measurement itself, and also must have something in common with the measurement. For example, Wittgenstein uses the image of a yardstick as a measure (Notebooks, p.38e). The yardstick must have something in common with that which makes it possible. The same analogy can be used to describe Tractarian logical sense and Tractarian nonsense. Logical sense is the measurement of propositions of states of affairs, as measured by truth-falsity. Wittgenstein calls the former the possible sense with two poles; and the latter, the actual sense with either the true or false pole. Logically speaking, nonsense is prior to logical sense. Nonsense is that which makes logical sense possible. They have something in common, but propositions, as they are true-false in nature, cannot represent "that something." To attempt to "propositionalize" that which makes logical sense possible is to speak nonsense. Tractarian nonsense, therefore, means what is beyond logical sense, i.e., beyond what can be expressed by propositions and beyond the measure of truth-falsity. I have arranged the propositions and comments in the Tractatus to clarify the structure of the whole work and the place of nonsense in it. This arrangement is based on Wittgenstein's footnote to the Tractatus in which he explains the decimal numbers. His numbering system indicates the logical importance, as he says that n.1, n.2, and n.3 are comments on no.n; and n.m1, n.m2, and n.m3, on n.m. The reader may notice that in all propositions of 1 to 6, there is a comment numbered .13 except for proposition 4. That is to say, there is no comment 4.13 in the Tractatus. Since Wittgenstein was obviously very careful and logical in his use of his decimal system, I see the 187 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism omission of 4.13 to be significant. The significance of 4.13 is revealed by 4.12. Comment 4.12 states that propositions, although they can represent the whole reality, cannot represent what they must have in common with reality. A yardstick can measure an object as well as a proposition can measure states of affairs, but it cannot measure what it has in common with that which is logically prior to it. Once comment 4.12 is stated, and understood, Wittgenstein cannot continue with a further sequential comment on it. As 4.112 states, "Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries." To propositionalize a comment 4.13 would be for Wittgenstein to put himself outside Tractarian logical sense, and therefore, would be to speak nonsense. Nonsense and logical sense are boundaries of each other. Wittgenstein is showing the boundary between logical sense and nonsense. What can be shown, cannot be said (4.1212). I believe that this is the reason why there is no comment 4.13. Following the Tractarian logic, Wittgenstein is silently "nonstating" the doctrine of silence by not propositionalizing that which is beyond Tractarian logical sense. Proposition 7 is a stated doctrine of silence while the omission of 4.13 is an unstated doctrine and is implied silence within the text. The logical form that has something in common with the proposition cannot be represented by the proposition because logical form is prior to propositions. To represent the logical form is to step outside propositions as well as outside logical sense. That will lead to Tractarian nonsense. Any further comment beyond 4.12 Wittgenstein could make would be a violation of his own theory of propositional sense. His theory states that logical sense with bipolarity is the measure of the actual sense of either truth or falsity. Let us consider Wittgenstein's metaphor of a yardstick again. A yardstick is supposed to measure objects or things. A yardstick says such an object is one yard long or not. It would be absurd to use a yardstick to measure a yardstick. Analogously, logical sense is supposed to measure states of affairs. It says such a state of affairs is true or not. Unlike a yardstick, a logical sense measures the state of affairs by means of language. As a consequence, the measuring and the measured become one and the same, i.e., we use language to measure language. Logically speaking, it would be as absurd to attempt to propositionalize Tractarian nonsense as it would be to attempt to use a yardstick to measure a yardstick. What makes the measure possible is logically prior to the measure. Propositional language is insufficient to express that which has logical priority to it. As Wittgenstein says, "most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical." They are not false because they are not, and cannot be, subject to the measure of states of affairs, the actual sense which is either true or false but not both. They are beyond the measure of propositional sense, and therefore nonsense. However, Wittgenstein does not say that they are meaningless, as Schulte and some others have held. Wittgenstein continues, "most of the propositions and questions of philosophers arise from our failure to understand the logic of our language." (4.003) I maintain that to fail to understand the logic of our language is to fail to recognize the boundary between logical priority and logical posteriority in our use of language. In the Tractatus, the logic of our language follows this order: actual sense, possible sense, nonsense. Actual sense is logically posterior to possible sense which is logically posterior to nonsense. In a reverse order nonsense is logically prior to possible sense which is logically prior to actual sense. But both actual sense and possible sense constitute Tractarian sense. To understand nonsense as necessarily prior to sense is to understand the logic of language. Tractarian nonsense is the boundary of Tractarian possible sense. Tractarian possible sense is the boundary of Tractarian actual sense. Tractarian nonsense and Tractarian actual sense share no boundary. To summarize the situation with respect to silence in the Tractatus, let us remember that in contrast to the stated doctrine of silence in proposition 7, Wittgenstein shows the unstated doctrine of silence as a logical priority. Comment 4.13 is one in which Wittgenstein is silent in order to show 188 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism that anything expressed would be nonsense. He thereby practices his doctrine of silence as well. However, Wittgenstein is not suggesting that nonsense is not important, or even that it is less important than sense. Far from it. In a letter to Ficker, Wittgenstein reveals: "My work consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one" (Proto-Tractatus p.16). We have seen that the second part gives rise to the possibility of the first part. It follows that Tractarian nonsense is the thing that gives Tractarian sense its sense, but the converse is not the case. It does not follow that Tractarian sense gives Tractarian nonsense its nonsensical status. Tractarian nonsense shows us the logical order of thinking (although not necessarily the temporal order), and therefore, the logic of our language. We should follow logical order whether in our attempt to understand the Tractatus, or in any other thinking. Now we can understand the Tractatus aright. Proposition 7 expresses a strict logical priority of whereof one cannot speak and thereof one should remain silent. "There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical" (6.522). Mysticism arises from the logical consequence of the inexpressibility of the ultimate reality, which calls for silence. This mystical view of silence has been anticipated by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu. In his Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu states in the first line that the Tao which is uttered is not the real Tao, and the Name which is named is not the real name. In other words, what really is, just is; and no words can adequately describe what really is, because there is no logical necessity in calling an X an X other than for our use and convenience. Lao Tzu sees silence as Nature's nature, maximizing what it has and minimizing waste and the unnecessary. Nature does not speak nor does it distinguish this from that, yet everything in Nature is orderly and this and that are in harmony. The exposition of the conception of mysticism by Lao Tzu and Wittgenstein shows that inexpressibility is a necessary and a priori element for all our experience. Mysticism as the showing of the inexpressible is therefore an important feature of metaphysics. Metaphysicians should recognize the mystical as the logically prior order of our thinking. Now is the time to have the proper logical order restored and to understand Wittgenstein in a new light. 189 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism REFERENCE LIST Haller, Rudolf. 1988. Questions on Wittgenstein. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching. Schulte, Joachim. 1992. Wittgenstein: An Introduction, trans. William H. Brenner & John F. Holley. Albany: State University of New York Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1922. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. C.K. Ogden. 1st ed. London:Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. - 1969. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Notebooks, 1914-1916, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe. New York: Harper & Row. - 1971. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. D.F. Pears & B.F. McGuinness. 2nd ed. New York: The Humanities Press. - 1971. Prototractatus, eds. B.F. McGuinness, T. Nyberg & G.H. von Wright. Trans. D.F. Pears & B.F. McGuinness. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. TRACTATUS 1 The world is everything that is the case. 1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things. 1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts. 1.12 For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case. 1.13 The facts in logical space are the world. 1.2 The world divides into facts. 1.21 Any one can either be the case or not be the case, and everything else remain the same. 2 What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts. 2.1 We make to ourselves pictures of facts. 2.11 The picture presents the facts in logical space, the existence and non-existence of atomic facts. 2.12 The picture is a model of reality. 2.13 To the objects correspond in the picture the elements of the picture. 2.2 The picture has the logical form of representation in common with what it pictures. 2.21 The picture agrees with reality or not; it is right or wrong, true or false. 3 The logical picture of the facts is the thought. 3.1 In the proposition the thought is expressed perceptibly through the senses. 3.11 We use the sensibly perceptible sign (sound or written sign, etc.) of the proposition as a projection of the possible state of affairs. The method of projection is the thinking of the sense of the proposition. 3.12 The sign through which we express the thought I call the propositional sign. And the 190 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism proposition is the propositional sign in its projective relation to the world. 3.13 To the proposition belongs everything which belongs to the projection; but not what is projected. Therefore the possibility of what is projected but not this itself. In the proposition, therefore, its sense is not yet contained, but the possibility of expressing it. ("The content of the proposition" means the content of the significant proposition.) In the proposition the form of its sense is contained, but not its content. 3.2 In propositions thoughts can be so expressed that to the objects of the thoughts correspond the elements of the propositional sign. 3.21 To the configuration of the simple signs in the propositional sign corresponds the configuration of the objects in the state of affairs. 4 The thought is the significant proposition. 4.1 A proposition presents the existence and non-existence of atomic facts. 4.11 The totality of true propositions is the total natural science (or the totality of the natural sciences). 4.12 Propositions can represent the whole reality, but they cannot represent what they must have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it - the logical form. To be able to represent the logical form, we should have to be able to put ourselves with the propositions outside logic, that is outside the world. 4.2 The sense of a proposition is its agreement and disagreement with the possibilities of the existence and non-existence of the atomic facts. 4.21 The simplest proposition, the elementary proposition, asserts the existence of an atomic fact. 5 Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.) 5.1 The truth-functions can be ordered in series. That is the foundation of the theory of probability. 5.11 If the truth-grounds which are common to a number of propositions are all also truth-grounds of some one proposition, we say that the truth of this proposition follows from the truth of those propositions. 5.12 In particular the truth of a proposition p follows from that of a proposition q, if all the truth-grounds of the second are truth-grounds of the first. 5.13 That the truth of one proposition follows from the truth of other propositions, we perceive from the structure of the propositions. 5.2 The structures of propositions stand to one another in internal relations. 5.21 We can bring out these internal relations in our manner of expression, by presenting a proposition as the result of an operation which produces it from other propositions (the bases of the operation). 191 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism 6 The general form of truth-function is: [ ]. This is the general form of proposition. 6.1 The propositions of logic are tautologies. 6.11 The propositions of logic therefore say nothing. (They are the analytical propositions.) 6.12 The fact that the propositions of logic are tautologies shows the formal - logical - properties of language, of the world. That its constituent parts connected together in this way give a tautology characterizes the logic of its constituent parts. In order that propositions connected together in a definite way may give a tautology they must have definite properties of structure. That they give a tautology when so connected shows therefore that they possess these properties of structure. 6.13 Logic is not a theory but a reflexion of the world. Logic is transcendental. 6.2 Mathematics is a logical method. The propositions of mathematics are equations, and therefore pseudo-propositions. 6.21 Mathematical propositions express no thoughts. 7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. 192 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism HEIDEGGER’S HIDDEN THEOLOGY: REVISITING MARTIN LUTHER’S INFLUENCE UPON MARTIN HEIDEGGER Timothy Stanley Religions and Theology, The University of Manchester Dividing Theology from Metaphysics When it comes to how Heidegger understands theology, Martin Luther was instrumental in his early formulations. Heidegger’s interpretation of Luther leads him to descry theology as a discipline best left unfettered by metaphysics and this attitude is carried right through Heidegger’s career. In 1951 Heidegger responds to the question, “May Being and God be posited as identical?” as follows: “Some of you perhaps know that I came out of theology, and that I harbor an old love for it and that I have a certain understanding of it. If I were yet to write a theology - to which I sometimes feel inclined - then the word `being' would not be allowed to occur in it. Faith has no need of the thinking of being. If faith has recourse to it, it is already not faith. Luther understood this. Even in his own church this appears to be forgotten.”1 By explicating Luther’s influence upon Heidegger’s early Freiburg lectures from 1919-1923, we can raise an important question about the nuanced way Heidegger construes Luther’s theology. Although the influence of Luther upon Heidegger has been well documented,2 what I am interested in is the difference between Luther and Heidegger’s way of relating theology to metaphysics. What I am contending is that although Luther and Heidegger share a fundamental criticism of scholastic metaphysics, they distinctly differ in their understandings of a constructive relationship between metaphysics and theology. Whereas Luther and Protestant theology continued a theologically informed metaphysics, Heidegger argues that this was a mistake which is inconsistent with the early Luther’s theology. In Heidegger’s early lectures he himself points out these nuanced interpretive issues, and it is this aspect of Heidegger’s work which I will focus on in this essay. Heidegger’s Luther Heidegger had the following words carved above the door of his house in Freiburg: “Behüte dein Herz mit allem Fleiß; denn daraus geht das Leben.” The citation is taken from Proverbs 4:23 in Luther’s translation of the Bible.3 It is thought to have been carved by his wife Elfride, but it offers an allusion into the ephemeral influence Martin Luther had on Heidegger.4 Heidegger receives a 1 Martin Heidegger, "The Reply to the Third Question at the Seminar in Zurich, 1951," in Heidegger's Atheism: The Refusal of a Theological Voice, ed. Laurence Paul Hemming (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 291. 2 See Theodore J. Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), Theodore J. Kisiel, "The Missing Link in the Early Heidegger," in On Heidegger and Language, ed. Joseph J. Kockelmans (Washinton D.C.: University Press of America, 1988), John Van Buren, "Martin Heidegger, Martin Luther," in Reading Heidegger from the Start: Essays in His Earliest Thought, ed. Theodore J. Kisiel and John Van Buren (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), John Van Buren, The Young Heidegger: Rumor of the Hidden King (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), ch 7 and ch 16 in particular. 3 "Guard your heart with all dilligence because from there springs life." This citation and translation is taken from the following website: http://www.freewebs.com/m3smg2/FrontDoor.html. For a picture of Heidegger’s door see http://www.freewebs.com/m3smg2/HD9.jpg 4 Van Buren lists the references in Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe in Van Buren, "Martin Heidegger, Martin Luther," 439, n4. 193 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism copy of the Erlangen edition of Luther’s works in 1921,5 and there are accounts of his intense study of Luther’s works as early as 19206 which are corroborated by his explicit references to Luther in his early lectures from 1919 to 1922. He is even said to have assisted Gerhard Ebeling, who consulted Heidegger for his 1961 work on Luther's Disputatio de Homine.7 A number of accounts of Heidegger’s early work illustrate the way Luther’s terminology found its way into Heidegger’s thinking.8 For instance, John van Buren notes how “Heidegger studied closely here the treatment of the ‘fall,’ ‘care,’ ‘anxiety,’ ‘death,’ ‘flight,’ and ‘conscience,’” in passages “from Luther’s Lecture on Romans, in his Heidelberg Disputation, and in his Commentary on Genesis, Chapter 3.”9 But when it comes to van Buren’s discussion of how Heidegger’s “own deconstructive repetition of Aristotle”10 is founded in Lutheran theology, confusion arises between Luther and Heidegger’s thinking. Van Buren cites Ebeling in support of his interpretation of Luther as one for whom philosophy was not an evil and called his followers to “philosophize well.”11 But he goes on to cite Luther’s “non-Scholastic appropriation of Aristotle’s concepts of physis, kinesis, dynamis, steresis, etc.,” as if his use of these terms was in true Heideggerian fashion. He justifies this reading by citing Heidegger’s influence upon Ebeling, which does appear evident in Ebeling’s work.12 The issue I am raising however, is the degree to which van Buren’s interpretation of Heidegger’s Luther can be maintained. As recent Finnish scholarship has pointed out, “Luther's notion of faith does possess some understanding of the structure of being ... the antimetaphysical aspect of Luther's thought is a result of his understanding of love but not an indication that he would abandon the use of the concept esse in the proprium of theology.” 13 The debate concerning Luther’s understanding of metaphysics and its relation to theology is tenuous and ongoing, and Heidegger’s own engagement with Luther demonstrates this point. In fact, Heidegger recognizes that Luther did not abandon metaphysical inquiry as radically as Heidegger himself calls for. Extricating Luther from Heidegger Let me therefore make it explicit how Heidegger appropriated Luther’s thought from his early war emergency lecture of 1919 through to Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity in 1923. As I have already said, it is clear Heidegger is studying Luther intensively in 1920. In his war-emergency lecture “The Idea of Philosophy and the Problem of Worldview,” we find Heidegger developing “the idea of philosophy as primordial science.”14 In doing so, he explicates the difficulties which arise in conceptualizing how diverse sciences such as mathematics and 5 Ibid., 159. citing, Julius Ebbinghaus, "Julius Ebbinghaus," in Philosophi in Selbsdarstellungen, ed. Ludwig J. Pongratz (Hamburg: Felix Meiner), 33. 6 Van Buren, "Martin Heidegger, Martin Luther," 159. citing, Karl Jaspers, "On Heidegger," Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 7 (1978): 108-9. 7 See Van Buren, The Young Heidegger: Rumor of the Hidden King, 150 for his assistance to Ebeling's "1961 work on Luther's Disputatio de Homine. 8 See note 2 9 Van Buren, "Martin Heidegger, Martin Luther," 170. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., 169. citing Gerhard Ebeling, Luther: An Introduction to His Thought, trans. R. A. Wilson (London: Collins, 1970), 89-92. Ebeling’s interpretation of Luther 12 Van Buren, "Martin Heidegger, Martin Luther," 169. In particular Ebeling cites Luther’s interpretation of Paul contra Greek metaphysics, “Luther considers that the way the apostle philosophizes about things is quite different from that of the metaphysicians… It is only with regard to their existence in time that creates can be regarded as creatures.” Ebeling, Luther: An Introduction to His Thought, 88-89. 13 Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdman's Publishing Company, 1998), 135. 14 Martin Heidegger, "The Idea of Philosophy and the Problem of Worldview: War Emergency Semester 1919," in Towards the Definition of Philosophy: With a Transcript of the Lecture Course "On the Nature of the University and Academic Study" (New Brunswick: Athlone Press, 2000), 18. 194 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism physics can “be brought under a common concept.”15 During this discussion he arrives at theology “which as the doctrine of God as the Absolute could be called primordial science, is a particular science.”16 Even at this early stage Heidegger has begun to think of the difference between what he here is calling primordial science (later he will call this metaphysics) and theology. Even at this early stage Heidegger sees an inherent deficiency in theology which needs to be corrected. His philosophy therefore sets out to correct theology by taking both further than they have heretofore gone. Heidegger mentions Luther as part of his narration of the history of philosophy in “The Idea of Philosophy and the Problem of Worldview,” but only in passing as the instigator of a religious consciousness which gained a new position in relation to Descartes’s “radical self reflection of knowledge.”17 Heidegger believes that high Scholasticism’s way of holding philosophy and theology in harmonious tandem was conflated as the original motives and tendencies of their differences were lost in mysticism. “In this unchecked run-off of original motivations, the two life-worlds come into conflict.”18 Even in this early reference, Heidegger juxtaposes Luther in an oppositional relationship to Descartes, as religious consciousness opposes Cartesian epistemology. This early appraisal of Luther is carried forward in Heidegger’s lectures of 1920-21 published in English as Phenomenology of Religious Life. Here Heidegger demonstrates how a basic differentiation is manifested between primordial Christian religion and metaphysical thinking. It is on the way to recovering “primordial Christianity,”19 that Heidegger’s construal of Martin Luther’s theology as antimetaphysical is drawn upon to greatest effect. In these lectures Heidegger is both critical of Luther, and inspired by him. Luther inspires Heidegger in so far as he attempted a return to primordial Christianity. In a discussion of Romans 1:2020 Heidegger points out that the patristic interpretation of this text as an affirmation of Greek Pauline thinking was a misunderstanding.21 Heidegger believes that the patristic Augustinian22 reading of Paul’s letter is a classic example of Christianity’s misunderstanding of the primordial Christianity Paul was trying to express in opposition to Greek thinking. Although Heidegger faults Luther for being too dependent upon Augustine in other places,23 on the interpretation of Romans 1:20 he thinks Luther is the only theologian to have apprehended Paul’s intention. “Only Luther 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., 22. 17 Ibid., 15. 18 Ibid. Heidegger goes on to explain in broad brushstrokes how this conflict took shape. This demonstrates the foreshadowing of the way Heidegger will separate theology from philosophy later “Phenomenology and Theology.” See also, Heidegger, "The Idea of Philosophy and the Problem of Worldview: War Emergency Semester 1919," 15-16. 19 This is the term Heidegger uses for what he uncovers in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Martin Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004), 49. 20 “Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse.” NRSV 21 Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life, 212. 22 It is important to keep in mind that similarly to his adaptation of Luther, Augustine is mined for his own elucidation of primordial Christianity. Most notably his notion of curare which Heidegger exegetes from chapters 28 and 29 from the Confessions. Ibid., 151ff. This requires that Augustine not only be extricated from Platonic thinking, but the interpretations of Troeltsche and Dilthey as well. Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life, 115ff. For Heidegger’s interpretation of Augustine see Theodore J. Kisiel, "Heidegger on Becoming a Christian," in Reading Heidegger from the Start: Essays in His Earliest Thought, ed. Theodore J. Kisiel and John Van Buren (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 184ff. and Merold Westphal, Overcoming Onto-theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001), 43ff. 23 Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life, 47. “Medieval theology is based on Augustine. The medieval reception of Aristotle was able to assert itself—if at all—only in a sharp confrontation with Augustinian directions of thought. Medieval mysticism is a vivification of theological thought and practical-ecclesiastical religious ritual which, in essence, goes back to Augustinian motifs. In his decisive years of development, Luther was under the strong influence of Augustine. Within Protestantism, Augustine remained the most widely esteemed Father of the Church.” Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life, 115. 195 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism really understood this passage for the first time. In his earliest works, Luther opened up a new understanding of primordial Christianity. Later on, he himself fell victim to the burden of tradition: then, the beginning of Protestant Scholasticism sets in.”24 In one sense, Heidegger’s Luther is an untrustworthy interpreter of Paul25 because he depends upon Augustine, and eventually fell victim to the exact kind of Greek metaphysical inculcation that Heidegger is trying to extricate from primordial Christianity. But in another sense he is vindicated insofar as his early theology attempts an anti-Greek, antimetaphysical theology.26 He even goes so far as to cite at length Luther’s Heidelberg Dissertation, theses 19, 21, and 22 which explicitly state “The presentation [Vorgabe] of the object of theology is not attained by way of a metaphysical consideration of the world.”27 Heidegger likes the Luther who rages against Aristotle,28 but simply dismisses the later Luther who sought to redeem Greek thinking insofar as it could be put to the proper service of his theology. Christian theology therefore would be conceived by Heidegger in terms of religious experience without metaphysics, and it is this direction which Heidegger wishes to take what he sees as Luther’s unfinished project. Heidegger continues to cite Luther in the coming years both in Freiburg and after his move to Marburg, but he drops the more nuanced critical construction he adduces in his 1920-21 lectures on religious life. In Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle he again notes how Luther was corrupted by Aristotle as Melanchthon re-scholasticized him.29 But it is clear by Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity, that Heidegger has simplified the admission of his debt to the Reformer. “Companions in my searching were the young Luther and the paragon Aristotle, whom Luther hated.”30 These citations tend to conceal the more critical appropriation of Luther’s thinking which Heidegger developed in his 1920-21 lectures. Furthermore, the loss of this more nuanced reading of Luther is accompanied by Heidegger’s distance from his Freiburg Catholicism soon after arriving in Marburg. One wonders whether Luther’s inspiration went beyond academic inspiration to include Heidegger’s need to reconcile his relationship to his Catholic roots.31 In a lecture he gave for Bultmann’s seminar on St. Paul’s ethics,32 “The Problem of Sin in Luther (1924),” Heidegger self-referentially comments, “What is evident from these remarks is how Luther’s orientation regarding sin is totally different vis-à-vis Scholasticism, and how he understands Scholasticism as a fundamental antithesis to faith.” 33 This echoes his discernment between Protestantism and Catholicism in his lectures of 1920-21 on the phenomenology of religion, when he discusses their noetic and noematic “fundamental differences.”34 But Heidegger is critical of both Catholicism and Protestantism, and in the end he synthesizes a critical interrelationship between them. “Protestantism is only a corrective to Catholicism and cannot stand alone as normative, just as 24 Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life, 213. 25 “If one wants to use the aid of a translation, Luther's shouldn't be chosen, for it is all too dependent upon Luther's own theological standpoint.” Ibid., 48. 26 Ibid., 67. 27 Ibid., 213. 28 Ibid., 67. 29 Martin Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle: Initiation into Phenomenological Research (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 7. 30 Martin Heidegger, Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 4 from the Forward, which was not delivered in the course. 31 A point noted by Hugo Ott, Martin Heidegger: A Political Life, trans. Allan Blunden (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993), 121. 32 Martin Heidegger, Supplements: From the Earliest Essays to Being and Time and Beyond, ed. John Van Buren (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 8. 33 Ibid., 110. 34 Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life, 236. 196 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism Luther is Luther only on the spiritual basis of Catholicism.” 35 This may give insight into Heidegger’s way of holding together his own sense of the two traditions. Heidegger sees a parallel between Luther’s corrective relationship to Catholicism and his own understanding of non-metaphysical religious experience. As Otto Pöggeler notes, “to be sure, this distancing from the theological origin signified a radicalization rather than a turning away from theology.”36 In order to make sense of Luther’s later metaphysical writings, however, Heidegger interpreted Luther in terms of his own interest in a primordial science – in what would later be announced as a divide between theology and metaphysics in lectures like “Phenomenology and Theology.”37 Clearly, he saw himself recovering and explicating lost interpretations of Protestant theology, even recovering the “principle of Protestantism” itself in his Luther lecture.38 In order to maintain his interpretation of Luther however, Heidegger has to divide him off into two distinctive historical periods. For Heidegger, the earlier Luther simply failed to finish the radical divide between metaphysics and theology which he initiated in his early deconstructive theology. As such, the early Luther offers an incomplete breakthrough which Heidegger realizes and seeks to carry forward. Heidegger’s Theology? Heidegger’s engagement with Luther’s theology emphasizes the degree to which Heidegger recognizes the critical contradictions his interpretation of Luther creates. In recovering primordial Christianity Heidegger construed Protestant thinkers such as Luther in order to support his project. Does Heidegger’s rarified Protestant ideal cohere with Luther’s theology? Although I do not have the space in this essay to answer this question comprehensively in Luther’s own terms, Heidegger’s own early work demonstrates the problem of interpreting Luther’s theology as antimetaphysical. Though Heidegger’s later work conceals his nuanced engagement with Luther, this mustn’t dissuade us from raising critical questions concerning the theological roots of Heidegger’s thought. Rather, “the theologian must ask, before he reimports his original product: what have you done with my little ones? ... Can I take them back from you? and what, if I take them, will I take with them?”39 35 Heidegger, Supplements: From the Earliest Essays to Being and Time and Beyond, 110. 36 Otto Pöggeler, Martin Heidegger's Path of Thinking, trans. Daniel Magurshak and Sigmund Barber (New York: Humanity Books, 1987), 265. 37 For Heidegger, theology as a positive science is “absolutely, not relatively, different from philosophy. Our thesis, then, is that theology is a positive science, and as such, therefore, is absolutely different from philosophy.” Martin Heidegger, "Phenomenology and Theology," in The Piety of Thinking, ed. James G. Hart and John C. Maraldo (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976), 6. 38 In particular in his lecture on Luther, Heidegger continues to criticise the Protestant tradition which has lost the Lutheran notion of sin. “Contemporary Protestant theology does not generally exhibit the above-sketched understanding of sin and of the relation of God and man involved here, and when it is once again explained in the latest theological movement, one underestimates it and fights against it out of a fear of what this understanding amounts to, betraying thereby the principle of Protestantism.” Heidegger, Supplements: From the Earliest Essays to Being and Time and Beyond, 110. 39 Hans Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 243. 197 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism Bibliography Braaten, Carl E., and Robert W. Jenson. Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdman's Publishing Company, 1998. Ebbinghaus, Julius. "Julius Ebbinghaus." In Philosophi in Selbsdarstellungen, edited by Ludwig J. Pongratz. Hamburg: Felix Meiner. Ebeling, Gerhard. Luther: An Introduction to His Thought. Translated by R. A. Wilson. London: Collins, 1970. Heidegger, Martin. "The Idea of Philosophy and the Problem of Worldview: War Emergency Semester 1919." In Towards the Definition of Philosophy: With a Transcript of the Lecture Course "On the Nature of the University and Academic Study". New Brunswick: Athlone Press, 2000. - Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. - Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle: Initiation into Phenomenological Research. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. - "Phenomenology and Theology." In The Piety of Thinking, edited by James G. Hart and John C. Maraldo. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976. - The Phenomenology of Religious Life. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004. - "The Reply to the Third Question at the Seminar in Zurich, 1951." In Heidegger's Atheism: The Refusal of a Theological Voice, edited by Laurence Paul Hemming, xi, 327 p. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002. - Supplements: From the Earliest Essays to Being and Time and Beyond. Edited by John Van Buren. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Jaspers, Karl. "On Heidegger." Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 7 (1978). Jonas, Hans. The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Kisiel, Theodore J. The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. - "Heidegger on Becoming a Christian." In Reading Heidegger from the Start: Essays in His Earliest Thought, edited by Theodore J. Kisiel and John Van Buren. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. - "The Missing Link in the Early Heidegger." In On Heidegger and Language, edited by Joseph J. Kockelmans. Washinton D.C.: University Press of America, 1988. Pöggeler, Otto. Martin Heidegger's Path of Thinking. Translated by Daniel Magurshak and Sigmund Barber. New York: Humanity Books, 1987. Van Buren, John. "Martin Heidegger, Martin Luther." In Reading Heidegger from the Start: Essays in His Earliest Thought, edited by Theodore J. Kisiel and John Van Buren. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. - The Young Heidegger: Rumor of the Hidden King. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. Westphal, Merold. Overcoming Onto-theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith. New York: Fordham University Press, 2001. 198 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism LA MORTE E LA RELIGIONE IN C.G.JUNG Teszler Lucia Angela In a traditionalsociety, death means the ful filment of life. Life does not disappear through death, on contrary, the conscience of death makes life worthly of being lived and seen as a duty, as process of perfecting. For Freud,the need to believe, the principle of any religion is the fear of death, both the fear of the end of his own life, and the terror of the terrible power of dead. For Jung, thingsa are different: religion, the religious feeling is a gift, human being is born whit it in soul and it is connected to the capacity to marvel and it is expressed – aware of it or not- through symbolical activity. Significant is that for Jung a Geist – Spirit concepts exist while it did not exist for Freud. But how does this Spirit manifest itself and what is its connection to death in Jung opinion? Jung is obsessed with the passage between life and death. His licence paper is about occultism. An essential part of the soul remains alive thanks to the collective unconsciousness. The fact that his guru was Filemone, a gnostic wise man dead thousand years ago, is not an accident. On the other hand the confrontation with the unconsciousness, the nekya, means for Jung the departure for the dead world. The collective uncounsciousness follows other rules than those of cause and effect, it follows those of syncronicity. All this talk about death let us see- in Jung’s opinion- a supposed apriori faith in a kind of immoratlity. I would like to analyze these complex interconnections betweemn these experiences and death in Jung’s theory. Per motivi di migliore sistematicità ho scelto di approfondire il rapporto complesso religione -morte- immortalità in Jung paragonandola con lo stesso rapporto religione - morte in Freud. In fondo i due, uno il maestro e l’altro il discepolo prediletto hanno costruito le loro concezioni sulla religione confrontandosi l’uno con l’altro La paura della paura della morte e il bisogno di credere in Sigmund Freud Per Sigmund Freud la religione è una forma di illusione, illudersi che le sofferenze hanno un senso, che il mondo e condotto da un Dio buono, paterno e da una Provvidenza. Il bambino, e similmente a lui tutti i uomini e tutte le culture primitive costruiscono l’immagine di Dio sul modello del padre 1 che protegge, impone le regole e perdona. Questi meccanismi difensivi- l’illusione di essere protetto, perdonato, sono per Freud le punti chiave della religione. Infatti tre sono i compiti fondamentali del Dio e degli dei: esorcizzare le paure sentite davanti alla natura, riconciliarlo con la crudeltà del destino, in particolare modo quando questa si manifesta attraverso al morte e infine rappacificarlo con le regole imposte dalla società2. Probabilmente il secondo compito della religione, quello di dare senso a un destino crudele e alla morte è il compito più difficile, e spesso l’uomo rimane tragicamente deluso, con il presentimento che nemmeno gli Dei, o Dio possono cambiare il destino. Infatti nella Grecia antica le Moire, che tessono e poi tagliano il 1 Sigmund Freud- L’avenire di un illusione, Opere complete vol. XVIII, p.346 2 Sigmund Freud- L’avenire di un’illusnone, Opere complete vol. XVIII, p.339 199 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism filo del destino, stano sopra gli dei, e cosi anche gli dei hanno un destino alcune volte doloroso ed ineluttabile. Freud considera che la negazione della morte, la sublimazione della paura della morte in religione avviene in diverse forme: attraverso la nascita della credenza negli spiriti dei defunti3 che sopravvivono in una forma o altra; attraverso il sacrificio, sacrificio che rende senso all’esperienza della morte e attraverso il mito della resurrezione. Cosi il concetto di Dio, di Sacro nasce come negazione della tragicità della morte, cosi un nulla assoluto, un nonsenso, l’esperienza dell’enigma par l’excellence, l’enigma della morte, vengono compensate con un tutto assoluto, con la pienezza del significato, la nonesistenza assoluta viene compensata con una esistenza suprema4. Ma con l’illusione protettrice che ce la offre della religione l’uomo rimane sempre un bambino, che si nasconde dietro l’immagine del padre per esser protetto dalla morte e dal proprio destino. Freud da vero erede degli illuministi5 e del positivismo considerala paura della morte come un residuo delle epoche precedenti di cui l’uomo moderno deve liberarsi, e le religioni, gli spiriti e le oscure ombre dell’inconscio sono appunto le malattie portate da rimanenze di uno stadio pre-cosciente , paure che la condizionano negativamente e di cui si deve eliberare. Invece Freud non ci spiega cosa si dovrebbe fare, come si dovrebbe gestire questa paura. Nelle sue opere tardive6 lui stabilisce addirittura che dentro di noi accanto alla pulsione erotica, che cerca la soddisfazione degli impulsi e dei desideri, c’è anche il principio tanatico, la pusione di morte cioè la ricerca inconscia della rovina e dell’autodistruzione. Questa pulsione si nasconde spesso dietro discorsi di valori della vita, per esempio del motivo della guerra (independenza, libertà), il gusto del gioco di azzardo o gli sport estremi. Attraverso questo istinto siamo noi stessi che desideriamo provocare la nostra morte. Jung e la religione Non mi propongo qui di dare un’immagine complessiva della religione in C.G. Jung, che comunque sarebbe un lavoro molto più impegnativo, vorrei solamente sottolineare che il punto di origine dell’esperienza religiosa in Jung è radicalmente diverso da quello di Freud. Seguendo anche in Jung l’esperienza religiosa primaria vediamo la sua autobiografia. La sua prima esperienza scombussolante del sacro, a quattro anni è il sogno dove ha la visione del dio fallo sotterraneo interpretata cosi dell’autore. Chi parlava in me? Quale spirito aveva immaginato quelle esperienze? Quale intelligenza superiore operava? (…) Chi congiungeva il mondo celeste con il mondo sotteraneo e poneva le fondamenta di tutto ciò che avrebbe agiato la seconda metà della mia vita con tumulti appassionati? (…) Chi se non quel ospite straniero venuto sia del mondo celeste che da quello degli inferi?7 (RSR, p.40) Certamente si tratta dell’interpretazione di Jung ottantenne e non del vissuto di Jung bambino. Comunque vediamo che l’esperienza religiosa originaria è interpretata come l’irruzione di qualcosa di estraneo nella coscienza ovvero nel sogno del fanciullo. Questo “ospite straniero”, non appartiene al proprio, al familiare, ma è qualcosa totalmente diverso, un “ganz andere” , di un’età immensa che impone con un senso indiscutibile di oggettività la sua presenza. La rappresentazione del Dio come phallos cioè come uno spirito fecondatore verrà approfondita da Jung in Wandlungen der Symbole. Nel ricordo è risentito come uno spirito superiore che stravolge ed affascina sia il bambino sia 3 Sigmund Freud- Totem e tabu, Opere complete, vol 4 Sophie de Mijolla Mellor- Le besoin de croire. Métapsychologie du fait religieuse, Dunod, Paris, 2004, p33 5 Peter Gay-Un ebreo senza Dio. 6 Sigmund Freud- Al di là del principio del piacere 7 C.G.Jung- Ricordi, sogni, riflessioni, ed Rizzoli, 2004, p.40 200 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism l’anziano Jung che ricorda e che interpreta questo sogno come una sacra iniziazione, un collegarsi del cielo con il mondo sotterraneo, un momento sacro che lo porta fuori dal tempo, per mostrargli in noce tutta la opera futura della sua vita, tutta la sua vocazione. Jung avrà ancora molti sogni in cui il mondo del sacro gli si impone scombussolando la concezione comune della religione, ma nessuna di queste esperienze è collegata con qualche forma di paura della morte. I sentimenti con la quale sono descritte le esperienze religiose sono tutt’altre. Per esempio come fanciullo, lui scopre che oltre la sua personalità infantile cangiante lui è anche un altro, ha una seconda personalità descritta cosi. Oltre al suo mondo scolaresco: esisteva un altro regno, un tempio nel quale chi entrava si sentiva trasformato e di colpo soprafatto da una visione dell’intero cosmo, si da dimenticare se stesso, vinto dallo stupore e dall’ammirazione. Qui viveva “l’Altro” al quale Dio era noto come un segreto nascosto, personale e al tempo stesso più che personale; qui nulla divideva l’uomo da Dio, come se la mente umana potesse mirare la Creazione all’unisono con Lui (RSR, p.74)8 Jung scopre che c’è una parte profonda in noi per la quale la vicinanza del Sacro è naturale, anzi che veste alcuni tratti del sacro, che trasforma e rende invincibili. Sembra che infatti al questo livello si vive in una vera unione segreta permanente tra dio e uomo. Certamente questo sentire e questa scoperta deve rimanere segreta. Proprio questa è l’età quando il piccolo crea legami segreti con il fuoco che diviene attraverso un investimento animistico il “fuoco eterno, con la sua pietra che diventa lui stesso, con un bambolotto da lui costruito, il cui facsimile lo scoprirà molto più tardi in un tribù africano. Il ricordo di queste esperienze fanciullesche non lo porteranno alla conclusione che l’esperienza religiosa primaria sia qualcosa di infantile, al contrario, che esiste una oggettività nelle metamorfosi, nelle vicende dello psyche che si manifesta attraverso simboli religiosi universali. Il fatto che l’ investimento animistico spontaneo del mondo in aura sacra risentita come miracolosa, scioccante e segreta è una proiezione della nostra anima non riduce il suo valore poiché non possiamo in nessun caso banalizzare o semplificare l’anima, ovvero lo spirito umano. I sentimenti dominanti dell’esperienza religiosa sono lo stupore- lo scombussolamento degli comuni criteri del sentire religioso e nello stesso tempo l’ammirazione, il sentimento che qualcosa grandioso e miracoloso ci si manifesta, tutte queste avvolte in un segreto nella quale le più belle rivelazioni individuali devono essere avvolte. Cosi Jung rimane con il sentimento che al di la del’ esperienza religiosa comune “c’è qualche altra cosa, una cosa assai segreta di cui nessuno sa niente (p.48). Se prendiamo come riferimento la definizione dell’esperienza religiosa di Rudolf Otto 9 , possiamo dire che Freud accentua l’importanza del sentimento creaturale- il sentirsi polvere e cenere avanti al padre- creatore, e del tremendo- della paura angosciante, nella nascita della religione (come risposta a queste angosce ) mentre Jung accentua l’elemento fascinans, la fascinazione e l’energia. L’inconscio e l’anima mundi, l’eredità romantica dello psicoanalisi. La psicologia analitica di Jung, come la psicoanalisi di Freud è tardo erede del romanticismo10, solo che i loro modi di elaboralo sono diverse. La sola psicoanalisi invece è l’erede del positivismo, dello scientismo e del darwinismo, e rinuncia al livello cosmico dell’inconscio dove secondo il romanticismo la natura e lo spirito ritrovano i loro sorgenti comuni; La psicologia analitica rifiuta l’illuminismo e ritorna alle fonti originali della psichiatria romantica e della filosofia della natura. 8 C.G. Jung- Ricordi, sogni, riflessioni, ed Rizzoli, 2004, p.74 9 Rudol Otto- Das Heilige) 10 Ellenberger, p. 759 201 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism Questa differenza determina chiaramente anche la loro diversa visione dello spirito e della morte. D’altronde secondo Barnaby e Acierno la differenza fondamentale tra Jung e Freud è proprio il fatto che mentre per Jung esiste un concetto dello spirito mentre per Freud no. Vediamo in poche righe cosa intendeva il romanticismo con lo Spirito e da qui si vedranno chiaramente le somiglianze con il concetto dell’inconscio collettivo di Jung. Il romanticismo, in opposizione con l’illuminismo affermava i valori dell’irrazionale, di qui l’interesse per le manifestazioni dell’inconscio: sogno, genialità, malattia mentale, miti e simboli – che non erano concetti astratti o errori della storia ma forze vitale e realtà. Cosa è l’inconscio nel romanticismo? I romantici ritenevano che il fondamento della natura è lo stesso fondamento dell’anima umana, per loro c’è un unità fondamentale tra l’uomo e natura. “La natura è spirito visibile, lo spirito è natura invisibile” diceva Schelling. L’anima del mondo ha prodotto la materia, la natura vivente e nell'uomo la conoscenza. Secondo Carus11, che ebbe un’influenza decisiva su Jung l’inconscio è il vero fondamento dell’essere umano, essere le cui radici affondavano nella vita invisibile dell’universo e perciò era il vero legame dell’uomo con la natura. Per Schopenhauer la cosa in se kantiana è uguale alla volontà e all’inconscio. Questa è una forza dinamica cieca che regna nell’universo e che guida l’uomo, ma che lo inganna anche, guida i nostri pensieri ed è l’antagonista dell’intelletto. Infine, per Eduard von Hartmann l’inconscio, è intelligente anche se cieco, fa da struttura portante all’universo visibile e veste tre forme; inconscio psicologico, fisiologico e l’inconscio assoluto- che è la sostanza dell’universo. Nel pensiero antropologico e psicologico di Schopenhauer e poi nel pensiero neoromantico di Nietzsche possiamo trovare molti termini, concetti, discorsi simili a quelli di Freud, ma nella rappresentazione dell’inconscio Freud esclude quell’elemento romantico che collegava l’anima umana con l’intero universo. Jung invece ristabilisce questo legame tra anima individuale e anima mundi attraverso l’inconscio collettivo. Il romanticismo aveva un’attrazione anche verso la morte, che attraverso quest’anima mundi o grund assicurava la sopravvivenza dell’anima. Jung e la morte Nel pensiero razionale-illuministico freudiano, anche se il ruolo della ragione è quella di svelare i meccanismi irrazionali – fin’allora negati - e togliere i nostri pregiudizi su noi stessi, non per trovare il senso positivo, profondamente umano a questa irrazionalità e alle pregiudizi, come fa l’ermeneutica, ma per poterla considerare una cosa infantile, oscura, da oltrepassare. Alla fine togliendo diritto di cittadinanza di tutto ciò che è irrazionale, l’uomo perde il legame con la propria mondaneità e con la sua anima, che è molto più della razionalità ovvero della coscienza umana, la paura, l’angoscia avanti alla morte aumenta e appare in diverse forme nevrotiche, poiché la morte sembra insensata, non sembra più una meta o un compimento12 della vita. La religione è una preparazione alla morte, e le idee mitologiche-religiose non sono imposte da un pensiero razionale ma ci assalgono dalla profondità dello nostro più profondo strato psichico, che non ha a che fare con la coscienza. Le verità religiose ci assalgono come rivelazioni., proprio perché sono prodotti spontanei dell’inconscio e perché hanno una storia considerabile. Essi sono lentamente cresciuti, come piante, nel corso dei millenni, quali manifestazioni naturali dell’anima dell’umanità.13 11 Ellenberger- La scoperta dell’inconscio 12 C.G.Jung –p.436 13 CG.Jung- Anima e morte, Opere complete, volVII, op cit, 439 202 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism E loro ci aiutano a capire, ad accettare come vicenda naturale dell’anima, che la morte è proprio il compimento della vita. Cosi come la traiettoria di un proiettile termina al bersaglio, la vita termina nella morte, che è quindi il bersaglio, lo scopo di tutta la vita.14 Jung e ossessionato dal passaggio vita morte le mie opere sono stati tentativi sempre ripetuti di dare una risposta al problema della correlazione tra “al di qua” e “al di là” (RSR p.354) ma nelle sue opere possiamo parlare dell’angoscia della morte solo come una forma malata di paura del vivere. Lui ha scelto di scrivere la sua tesi di laurea sull’occultismo- proprio perché lui credeva apriori, grazie alle proprie esperienze, in una certa forma d’immortalità dell’anima. Poi non dobbiamo dimenticare la sua nekya, la discesa nel regno dei morti e il dialogo gnostico Septem Sermones ad mortuos che collegano la vita con la morte attraverso l’inconscio collettivo. Come studente nelle conferenze di Zoofingia Jung ipotizzava già l’esistenza di un anima: immateriale, trascendente, fuori del tempo e dello spazio, da sottoporre a un’indagine scientifica attraverso lo studio del sonnambulismo, l’ipnosi e le manifestazioni spiritistiche. La sua opera mira tal scopo, a dimostrare con mezzi scientifici, attraverso l’empirismo e fenomenologia, l’esistenza di questa anima eterna. Il punto di partenza per Jung per formarsi una opinione sulle basi scientifiche sulla vita dell’aldilà è costituito dagli indizi che ci vengono dall’inconscio per esempio nei sogni, anche se una tale teoria sarà costruita sulla intuizione e rimarrà sempre ipotetica, ma ci potrebbe rendere piena la vita. Dalla sua esperienza psichiatrica, dai molti analisi dei sogni dei moribondi o dei malati Jung osserva quanto poco conto l’anima inconscia facesse della morte.15 L’inconscio si preoccupa tanto che l’uomo che sta per morire diventa cosciente dalla vicinanza della morte, è una grande differenza che la coscienza vada a pari passo con l’anima, oppure si abbrachi ai pensieri che il cuore ignora. Ma una volta coscientizzata la vicinanza alla morte i sogni diventano normali, comuni. Come se la morte fosse una cosa non tanto essenziale, al massimo una tappa che si deve conscientizzare. Poiché “la morte significa uno stato di estinzione della coscienza e quindi una sospensione totale della vita psichica nella misura in cui questa è capace di coscienza.”16 Sembra che l’inconscio, cioè l’anima umana si preoccupi di più del modo in cui si muore che del fatto effettivo che si muore. Tutto questo perché solo la vita consciente smette di esistere ciò che presuppone che ci sarà un’altra parte , la parte inconscia dello spirito, l’anima umana, che abbiamo visto possiede una certa autonomia prosegue la sua strada. Per essa la morte non coincide con la conclusione di un processo ma uno tra i molti eventi lungo la via dell’individuazione. Anima e eternità Nelle sue introduzioni al Libro tibetano dei morti e al Libro tibetano della grande liberazione critica il pensiero Occidentale per aver rinunciato dopo il medioevo al ragionamento analogico, alla credenza in uno Spirito attraverso il quale l’anima individuale sia legata all’universo, e all’anima del mondo17. E la conseguenza dello sviluppo della filosofia occidentale di aver staccato lo spirito “dalla sua originaria unità con l’Universo” “L’uomo ha smesso di essere microcosmo” la sua anima non è più “la scintilla consustanziale di questo né una scintilla dell’anima del mondo 14 C.G.Jung – op.cit. p.438 15 C.G.Jung – Anima e morte, p.441 16 (Jung, 1946, p.263) 17 C.G.Jung - Libro tibetano della grande liberazione (1939) OC:XI 203 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism Chiaramente risulta che il mondo umano viene costruito dalle proprie credenze, più che di una verità razionalistica. La sua nostalgia e le sue intenzioni si inquadrano nella filosofia romantica della natura e nella psichiatria neoromantica ma non significano meno desiderio di ritrovare il legame dell’anima con la natura profonda delle cose. Lui vuole ricollegare lo spirito umano con la sua originaria unità con l’universo. L’Oriente, al contrario dell’Occidente non ha rinunciato allo Spirito, come dimostrano i libri da lui introdotti. Jung dichiara di non aver nessun presupposto metafisico bensì la sua teoria dell’inconscio collettivo é una forma di Anima Mundi collegata con lo spirito individuale, vestita e spiegata in panni scientifici. La sua teoria dell’inconscio collettivo è una dimostrazione scientifica dell’esistenza di uno spirito oggettivo, autonomo, fondamento delle immagini dell’anima. In effetti, anche se usiamo spesso il termine anima, spesso con connotazioni riduzioniste “né sappiamo, né supponiamo di sapere che cosa sia lo psichico”. I simboli religiosi, o le proiezioni animistiche provengono dallo Spirito inconscio, dalla psiche ma l’essenza della psiche si estende in tenebre che sono molto al di là delle nostre categorie intellettuali18 (AM, p.444). La coscienza individuale è considerata come espressione momentanea e caduca di un’altra sostanza che invece perdura. Quando riflettiamo sull’incessante sorgere e decadere della vita e della civiltà, non possiamo sottrarci a un impressione di assoluta nullità, ma io non ho mai perduto il senso che qualcosa vive e dura oltre questo eterno fluire. Quello che noi vediamo è il fiore che passa, ma il rizoma perdura.19 Per circoscrivere il modo di esistere di quest’anima che perdura, oltre la vita individuale, Jung mette in discussione la validità, i limiti della validità dei concetti spazio, tempo, causalità. Infatti lui considera le categorie kantiene della coscienza come categorie apriori che si limitano a definire la coscienza, imponendole i limiti di funzionamento, dando un fondamento valido alla sua idea sulla esistenza di una parte dell’inconscio che non entra in quelle categorie cioè nell’esistenza dello spirito extra spazio – temporale. RSR 360 Comunque sono indicazioni nei sogni, miti, fantasie, che almeno una parte della psiche non è soggetta alle leggi dello spazio e del tempo- prove di esperimenti di percezioni extra- spaziali, la psiche a volte funziona al di fuori della legge di causalità spazio –temporale. Uno degli argomenti più forti per dimostrare la realtà dell’anima fuori dello spazio-tempo sono gli eventi sincronici, modello elaborato di Jung in collaborazione con il fisico W. Pauli, che ha aggiunto fatti provenienti dalla fisica elementare. Gli eventi sincronici sono legami acausali tra eventi oggettivi ed eventi soggettivi, la significativa coincidenza o corrispondenza tra un accadimento psichico ed uno fisico. Il loro legame non può essere ridotta a una causalità nello spazio tempo, ma hanno un’unità di senso. Cosi: Dobbiamo prendere in considerazione il fatto che il nostro mondo- con tempo, spazio e causalità- è in rapporto con un altro ordine di cose (che si cela sotto o dietro di esso), nel quale né qui e li, ne prima e dopo hanno un significato20. Come conclusione ovvia a questi fatti per Jung si impone il fatto che: AM, p445 La psiche partecipa profondamente a una forma di realtà extra- spazio –temporale e appartiene a ciò che in modo simbolico viene detto “eternità”. 18 C.G.Jung- Anima e morte, op cit, p. 444 19 C.G.Jung, 1961, p.28 20 C.G.Jung- RSR, p.360 BUR 204 Metaphysics 2006 – b. Metaphysics and Mysticism Intendiamo attraverso questo temine eternità, non solo una sopravvivenza temporale dopo la morte, ma il fatto che l’anima nello stesso tempo che in maniera conscia vive nello spazio tempo, la sua parte che appartiene all’inconscio collettivo o all’anima mundi, vive la sua condizione che trascende lo spazio e il tempo. 205 c. Metaphysics, Epistemology and Science Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science TRUTH RETURNS: FACTUALISM WITH A HUMAN FACE* Murat Baç Bogaziçi University, Philosophy Department, Bebek-Istanbul, 34342 Turkey 1. Introduction: Kant’s legacy and the problem of objectivity Truth has been in a process of philosophical recuperation for a while now. In the eternal battle between the realist and his opponent, there came a point in the history of ideas when the antirealist or relativist camp deservedly had the onto-epistemic upper hand, chiefly because of the formidable problems of radical externalism that seems to underlie the traditional realist perspective. This was a time when the good old adaequatio that had once been presumed to take place conveniently between what belongs to parts/aspects of the realm of being and what resides in the human mind was seriously questioned and eventually did lose its captivating air of philosophical obviousness. Although the original heroes of the counter-movement are generally spotted in the second half of the 19th century (Nietzsche and James), one actually has to go as far back as Hume, Berkeley and Kant to trace the history of the ontological demise of the customary conception of veritas. Of course, the last of these three philosophers occupies a rather peculiar and important position in the debate between the realist and antirealist about the nature of veritas, for his empirical realism cum transcendental idealism opens up some new ways of thinking about the extent of “externality” of the object-end of human knowledge. Kant takes the Berkeleyan claim that only an idea resembles an idea to the next level with his version of idealism while believing that ordinary objects of human knowledge and the sort of veritas that interests finite cognizers like us are not merely inbred offspring of perceptual data where one could not talk about anything mind-independent. Kant is best characterized as a realist whose ontology is critically enlightened and whose epistemology is rendered reasonably humble. A considerable number of philosophers understandably balk at the idea that Kant was a realist. The Kantian sort of idealism is often taken to directly entail subjectivism - of course not in a complimentary sense of the term. The etymological root of ‘realism’ (‘res’) reveals that the realist invariably turns his gaze to what is out there objectively, in a manner totally unaffected or unmodified by the inner workings of the human mind. The realm of existence constitutes, forms, and situates itself without any contribution from the mental capacities and functions of finite cognitive agents. Kant’s contention that the objects we can recognize as objects gain that ontological status only by virtue of being in conformity with humans’ cognitive limits and possibilities is often interpreted as saying that those objects somehow depend on cognizers for their existence - a contention that seems to violate our deepest, strongest intuitions about objecthood. But this attitude misses a significant sense of objectivity that is present in Kant’s transcendental account. The mere fact that the forms of perception are provided by our cognitive capacities does not entail for Kant that the objects given to cognition are inside our heads or that we are in total control of the contents of our minds. Nor is it implied that what appears to us at any given moment is automatically elevated to the status of “real.” A stick may look bent when immersed in a glass of water, but, as far as Kant’s empirical realism is concerned, we are always entitled to maintain that certain “appearances” we are presented with are actually not veridical. Such a “reality-check” is * My research in this field has been supported by the Boğaziçi University Research Fund, Turkey, and the Killam Foundation, Canada in 2005-2006 and 2001-2003 respectively. I am grateful to both institutions for their generous support. 207 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science possible principally because empirical truths and the ontological makers of such truths - namely, ordinary phenomenal states of affairs—are somehow anchored to a mind-independent, in-itself reality that is absolutely not mind’s creation. Consequently, Kant denies not only the traditional realist thesis that the common objects of our cognition are autonomous enough to metaphysically sustain themselves in the total absence of knowers who provide ontological or transcendental limits, but also the “subjectivist” claim that the phenomenal world given to human cognition lacks a metaphysical anchor to what putatively lies beyond cognizers. During the last few decades, neo-realist philosophers have capitalized on the transcendental aspects of Kant’s philosophy, explicating and elucidating the norms and limits of veridicality not cognitively but linguistically. Those thinkers who produce onto-alethic accounts under the influence of the post-Wittgensteinian enlightenment distance themselves from traditional sorts of realism while rejecting the idea that objects are simply mental creations. According to neo-realists, the states of affairs of our phenomenal world are constrained in a multitude of ways, and, contra some extreme claims of metaphysical anti-realism, there is nothing philosophically repulsive about the thesis that one sort of constraint has to do with “objectivity” (or mind-independence) in the traditional ontological sense of the term. I believe it must be conceded that this realist element is no stranger to Kant’s ontological account. Furthermore, I think that the gist of another important and relatively recent component of contemporary literature on truth and reality, namely, the idea of plurality of conceptual schemes through which phenomenal truthmakers (say, states of affairs) present themselves, can also be found in Kant’s philosophy despite the well-known fact that Kant advocated a universalist ontology. In other words, while the notion of a mind-independent reality and empirical realism tell us, from the Kantian point of view, that human knowledge is objective, a form of pluralism or relativism, which are fairly familiar characteristics of today’s ontological accounts, is also present in Kant’s onto-epistemic theory in a concealed and peculiar way. To state it in a nutshell, I am suggesting that Kant was a realist, and actually a relativist one at that: If the conditions of the possibility of knowledge are essentially indexed to already existing mental capacities of finite knowers belonging to a certain species, possible alterations in those conditions or constraints must yield, using the modern terminology, different sets of objects of experience and thus different truthmakers. Of course Kant thought that there was a single, universal set of constraints pertaining to objects of our world. My point is that it must yet be borne in mind that transcendental idealism delivers a serious blow to the project of characterizing the external reality as some sort of self-sufficient, autonomous “metaphysical author” who creates a phenomenal world by employing nothing but in-itself, noumenal building blocks. In this sense, the world can only be co-authored, one author being the subject. Change the possibilities or limits or the onto-epistemic identity of the “co-author” residing on the subject-side of the relation and you will get, according to the Kantian account, a different phenomenal world. Kant’s universalistic philosophy harbors, in a surprising way, an element of ontological relativity. This is the reason why Kant provides inspiration for neo-realists who are frankly objectivists and relativists at the same time. The underlying idea here is that our ordinary states of affairs are individuated as a joint product of the mind-independent reality, human cognition, and, last but not least, the linguistic tools of human agents. The natural result of this onto-semantic move is that both the traditional forms of metaphysical realism and extreme anti-realism fail to give convincing accounts of the ontological nature of our phenomenal truthmakers. The truthmaking relations are definitely constrained by a mind-independent reality and they are relative to cognition and human discourse. 2. Alvin Goldman’s ontological wardrobe Let me display this whole issue on a contemporary example. According to Alvin Goldman (1986, 1999), who has consistently tried to reconcile a realist perspective with a pluralistic outlook, the early Putnam’s internal realism was an example of anti-realism in that it was based upon such 208 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science epistemic considerations as justification under ideal (or sufficiently good) epistemic conditions. The common problem about the claims of Putnam and Dummett is that it is circular to characterize truth in terms of epistemic justification or verification because propositional truth is a basic concept by means of which we define justification and evidence. For instance, [o]ne has stronger evidence for [an empirical proposition like] p to the extent that the evidence makes p more likely. But ‘more likely’ must mean ‘more likely to be true.’ (Goldman 1986, p. 147) Especially those realists who advocate a reliabilist or truth-conducive account of epistemic justification share this kind of intuition. P. Kitcher argues that if truth is formulated in terms of ideal justification, it becomes impossible to get a clear understanding of the latter concept for it now “seems that one difficulty has given way to two” (Kitcher 1993, p. 165). The principal difference between a realist like Goldman and the verificationists like Dummett is that the latter approach the issue about propositional truth from a standpoint that prioritizes human understanding and meaning. By contrast Goldman holds that in the case of many if not most physical object statements, their truth certainly appears to be possible independently of human verification. For example, it might be true that such-and-such happened in the Andromeda galaxy although no human beings were (or are) in a position to verify it. (To hold otherwise would involve an untenable form of speciesism.) Moreover this modal fact seems far more certain than any (interesting) doctrine in the theory of meaning. (Goldman 1986, p. 151) Although Goldman believes that a correspondence theory of truth has the promise of filling the realist bill, he has no intention to revive the idea that our world is “prestructured into truthlike entities.” The quasi-Kantian alternative Goldman instead has in mind can be spelled out by using the metaphor of “fitting.” Accordingly, the truth-bearers resemble garments which do or do not fit the “body” (the world) and this means that the correspondence or fitting relation can be envisaged in a multiplicity of ways. To give an example, the reality itself does not dictate a choice between such footwear as sandals, slippers, or basketball shoes. But in-itself reality is surely not a construction: a shoe cannot be worn as a hat. Now we can articulate the fundamental problem of anti-realism by employing the fittingness metaphor: the proponent of the epistemic theory of truth conflates the manufactured garments and the body. For a realist like Goldman, the truth conditions of our statements are to be found in the world; but our world is not a noumenal object in the sense of being independent of human conceptualization. Although the fitting between a certain part/aspect of the world and a truth-bearer is not decided simply by what we all might believe and agree upon, still the terms and conditions of such “correspondence” are laid down in a manner comprehensible to human cognizers. Therefore, we are never cut off from the world we try to understand. Without a doubt, Goldman’s metaphor of fittingness is a significant improvement upon the customary correspondence truth. It is nonetheless a somewhat ambiguous one. The main source of difficulty is about the exact identity of the “body” in that analogy. Goldman explicitly says that what he calls “the world” is not an unconceptualized, noumenal entity (Goldman 1986, pp. 152-154). But if the ‘body’ is meant to denote the conceptualized world, it cannot be as objective or “garment-independent” as Goldman’s analogy initially suggests. To put it differently, our (conceptualized) world is one that is ex hypothesi always already dressed-up. This blurs, and detracts from the strength of, the body-garment contrast Goldman aims to depict in his discussion of the fittingness relation. Moreover, now it seems right, to ask from whose point of view the world has been conceptualized. Goldman’s analogy becomes confusing as a result of his failure to specify the extent and nature of garment-independence (e.g., objectivity, ontological robustness, etc.) that he wishes to attribute to that body. His portrayal of the world as a single body which different garments could fit retains the externalist realist’s idea that the world, unlike those garments, has a unique form and determined ontological structure. But the metaphor loses its coherence and 209 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science credibility once he pronounces that his focus of attention in this context is actually the phenomenal world rather than some in-itself, unconceptualized reality. Viewed from a slightly different perspective, Goldman’s predicament seems to spring from two conflicting tendencies. On the one hand, he wants to preserve the objectivity of the fitting relation by rendering the “object side” of it as non-conceptual as possible - hence, the notion of a single, objective body. On the other hand, he is aware of the fact that he cannot turn that body into a pre-structured noumenal realm - for this would be to repeat the common mistake of the traditional correspondence theories. The philosophical upshot of this tension is that Goldman’s fittingness metaphor is marred with some ontological ambiguity and a question about the explanatory potential of his analogy. One notable aspect of Goldman’s (1999) alethic view is that it is presented as a “descriptive success” theory. The measure of success for a truth-bearer is, as before, fitting or corresponding to a mind-independent reality. But Goldman doubts that the traditional realist’s favorite truth-makers, viz., sentence-like facts, are plausible candidates for such a task. There are various sorts of truths (e.g., negative truths) which apparently have no obvious truth-maker(s). So Goldman contends that “[a]s long as anything that makes a proposition true is part of reality - construed as broadly as possible - this fits the correspondence theory as formulated” (Goldman 1999, p. 62). This idea is different from what is conveyed by the traditional correspondence theory of truth-making in that the latter position “embeds” the makers of our ordinary propositional truths in the mind-independent reality instead of basing the phenomenal realm ontologically upon it. In my opinion this is a remarkable point and shows why, despite his theoretical difficulties at times, Goldman’s approach to truth and ontology is on the right track. 3. Conclusion Instead of struggling with Goldman’s “body-garment” model of truth-making, we can perhaps give up the whole project of reading the aspects of our states of affairs into the in-itself reality and pursue a different kind of project, to wit, that of capturing and characterizing truth-making relations at the level of “occurrences” that can be identified in the situations belonging to our life-world. This seems like a reasonable move considering the variety of contexts we use the predicate ‘true’. Moreover, it is the phenomenal realm that we must turn our gaze into if we wish to find the dwelling place of our truth-makers - even though a mind-independent reality must be admitted as a postulate of reason in order to make sense of the ultimate metaphysical ground of all phenomena. As Kant rightly said, we do not wish to accept an absurdity like “there can be appearances without something that appears.” Nonetheless, that ground lying behind “appearances” cannot by itself manage to arrange the realm of existence to generate truths about snow, rabbits, governments, and concertos. Thus, neo-realism seems to have a strong point when it insists that total extensionalization of the truth conditions of our empirical statements creates an implausible philosophical picture. Taking all these points into account, I think we can safely say that nowadays truth returns to the philosophical scene - this time accompanied by factualism with a human face - and that there is actually no need to sacrifice the best intuitions of either realism or idealism/pragmatism. This “synthetic” approach is favored today by those who consider the neo-realist (or neo-Kantian) perspective as a constructive step away from extreme relativisms and absolutist forms of realism. 210 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science BIBLIOGRAPHY Alcoff, L. M. (1996) Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory. Ithaca: Cornell University. Armstrong, D. M. (2004) Truth and Truth-makers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baç M. (2003) “The Ontological Status of Truthmakers: An Alternative to Tractarianism and Metaphysical Anti-Realism,” Metaphysica 4, no. 2, 5-28. Baç M. (2006) “Pluralistic Kantianism,” The Philosophical Forum, vol. 37, issue 2, 183-204. Davidson, D. (2001) Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Dummett, M. (1978) Truth and Other Enigmas. London: Duckworth Press. Goldman, A. I. (1986) Epistemology and Cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Goldman, A. I. (1999) Knowledge in a Social World. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Goodman, N. (1978) Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Horgan, T. (2001) “Contextual Semantics and Metaphysical Realism: Truth as Indirect Correspondence,” in M. Lynch (ed.), The Nature of Truth. Cambridge: MIT Press. Kant, I. (1965) Critique of Pure Reason, New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kitcher, P. (1993) “Knowledge, Society, and History.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23, 155-178. Langton, R. (2001) Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lynch, M. P. (2005) True to Life: Why Truth Matters. Cambridge: MIT Press. Putnam, H. (1986) Reason, Truth, and History. London: Cambridge University Press. Putnam, H. (1994) “Sense, Nonsense, and the Senses: An Inquiry into the Powers of the Human Mind,” Journal of Philosophy. vol. xci, no. 9, 445-517. Quine W. V. (2000) “On What There Is,” in J. Kim and E. Sosa (eds), Metaphysics: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell. Rorty, R. (1991) Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, R. (2005) Take Care of Freedom And Truth Will Take Care of Itself: Interviews With Richard Rorty. Editor: Eduardo Mendieta, Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press. Searle, J. (1995) The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Free Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1958) Philosophical Investigations, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Wittgenstein, L. (2002) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London: Routledge. 211 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science ZWEI GRUNDSTEINE DER METAPHYSIK: PLATONISCHE IDEEN UND HEGELS ABSOLUTE Vitali Bahdanau Dipartment of Philosophy 1.Das Allgemeine als eine Synthese Laut Kant hat Metaphysik „mit synthetischen Sätzen a priori zu tun“, und „allein die Erzeugung der Erkenntnis a priori sowohl der Anschauung als Begriffen nach, endlich auch synthetischer Sätze a priori, und zwar im philosophischen Erkenntnisse, macht den wesentlichen Inhalt der Metaphysik aus.“ (Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können, http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/kant/prolegom/prolegom.htm). Es ist nicht nötig, zu beweisen, dass die Metaphysik ein apriorisches Wissen erzeugt, das ist selbstverständlich. Der synthetische Charakter der Metaphysik dagegen ist nicht evident. Als Synthetisch ist dasjenige zu bezeichnen, das nicht auf seine Momente zurückzuführen ist (vgl. Kantische Bestimmung der Synthese in seiner Kathegorientafel: die dritte Kategorie allenthalben aus der Verbindung der zweiten mit der ersten ihrer Klasse entspringt“, aber „dazu ein besonderer Aktus des Verstandes erforderlich sei“, also ist die Synthese nicht auf seine Momente zurückzuführen). „Synthetisch“ ist nicht ein Gegensatz zum Einfachen, was keine Momente enthält, sondern ein Gegensatz zur Totalität, deren Momente analytisch aus ihr folgen. In diesem Sinne gibt es in der Philosophiegeschichte zwei paradigmatische Synthesen: platonische Ideen und Hegelsche Absolute. Platonische Idee ist das Allgemeine, das auf seine einzelnen „Abbildungen“ nicht zurückzuführen ist (vgl. Platons Dialog“ Hippias“: Die Idee der Schönheit ist etwas ganz anderes, als ,,eine schöne Jungfrau und ein schöner Topf" (S. 76 unten), darin liegt der synthetische Charakter der Allgemeinheit. Es ist wichtig zu verstehen, weil man gewöhnlich unter dem Synthetischen nur das Konkret-Empirische versteht, weil das Konkret-Empirische auch existiert. Die Existenz des Einzelnen ist etwas Synthetisches, was sich aus dem Allgemeinen nicht ableiten lässt. Das Allgemeine aber ist ebenfalls synthetisch, weil das Allgemeine nicht aus der Vielheit der Einzelnen ableitbar bzw. nicht in die Vielheit zurückführbar ist. Der unableitbare Charakter der Platonischen Ideen wird evident, wenn man berücksichtigt, dass die Platonische Idee nicht einfach das Allgemeine ist, sondern das abstrakte Allgemeine, also das Allgemeine, das sich zufällig (akzidental) zum Einzelnen bezieht. Das Zufällige aber ist nicht ableitbar. Gerade diese Zufälligkeit des Abstrakten Allgemeinen wurde im Hegelschen Begriff des Absoluten aufgehoben. Das Absolute ist das Konkret-Allgemeine, also das Allgemeine, aus dem seine Momente ableitbar und dem seine Momente immanent sind. Diese Ableitbarkeit der Momente führt dazu, dass das Allgemeine zu einer Synthese a priori wird, weil seine Momente ganz a priori aus ihm hervortreten. Weiter beschreibe ich verschiedene Arten des Allgemeinen und zeige mehr ausführlich, wie unterscheidet sich das Konkret-Allgemeine von anderen Arten des Allgemeinen. 2.Arten des Allgemeinen 213 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Die Allgemeinheit entsteht bei einer inhaltlich-qualitativen Zusammenstellung von Einheit und Vielheit (vergleichen Sie dazu Kantische Tabelle der Kategorien). Wenn man sich eine „Allgemeinheit“ vorstellt, meint man eine Vielheit verschiedener Elemente, aus denen eine Einheit gebildet wird. Die Allgemeinheit, als solche, ist eine Einheit, die aus Vielheit entstanden ist. Hegel selbst zählt drei verschiedenartige Auffassungen der Allgemeinheitsidee auf, von denen nur das Konkret-Allgemeine als das einzig-wahre gilt. Die erste, die schlechteste Abart ist die empirische «Allgemeinheit». Bei dieser Auffassung wird derjenige Inhalt als «allgemein» bezeichnet, der in vielen oder in allen einzelnen empirischen Erscheinungen durch den Vergleich der existierenden Dinge oder die «Erscheinungen» aufgefunden wird. Der Inhalt ist «beständig» und darum «allgemein» für mehrere Dinge. Diese Beständigkeit kann als zeitliche Dauer einer bestimmten Eigenschaft im Vergleich zu anderen, rasch verschwindenden Eigenschaften auftreten oder darin bestehen, daß irgendeine Eigenschaft vielen oder sogar allen empirischen Sachen zukommt, und zwar so, daß diese Sachen voneinander getrennt bleiben und nur durch diese ephemere und schlechte «Gemeinschaftlichkeit» gewissermaßen zusammengefaßt werden. Bei dieser oberflächlichen «Zusammenfassung» oder Gruppierung wird die «gemeinschaftliche» Eigenschaft von den «konkreten» Sachen nicht abstrahiert, so daß den Inhalt der entstehenden sinnlichen, empirischen «Allgemeinheit» - die einzelnen, empirisch-konkreten Sachen selber ausmachen. Die Reflexion geht nicht zu der Abstraktion über; sie sucht nur «die Vielen» zu erfassen, vielleicht auch, wenn es geht, die «Allheit» zu umfassen; und die «Allgemeinheit» gestaltet sich hier zu einer empirisch-konkreten «Ganzheit», zu einem sinnlichen «Aggregat».Diese «Allgemeinheit» ist eine diskrete Vielheit sinnlicher Dinge, eine oberflächliche Zusammenfassung dieser Dinge in zufällige und ephemere Gruppen, also ein Produkt der empirischen Beobachtung. Verhältnismäßig besser ist die Abart der Allgemeinheit - die Verstandesabstraktion. Diese «Allgemeinheit» entsteht auf demselben Wege, wie die erste; sie ist aber ein Produkt der Vollendung der Arbeit der Abstraktion. Eine gewisse beständige oder sich wiederholende Eigenschaft der empirischen Dinge wird durch das Verstandesdenken fixiert und in ein abstraktes «Prädikat» für die vielen Einzelheiten verwandelt. Es entsteht ein sogenanntes Gattungsmerkmal, welches den einzelnen Elementen als etwas für sie «Äußerliches» entgegengesetzt wird. Die «Allgemeinheit» dieses schlechten Begriffes besteht in seiner Fähigkeit, allen Elementen der subordinierten Sphäre beigelegt, zugeschrieben, praediziert zu werden. Hier erscheint die Allgemeinheit nicht mehr als eine Gesamtheit empirischer Einzelheiten; sie ist herausdifferenziert, sie steht über ihnen; die einzelnen Dinge bzw. Erscheinungen sind in ihr «nicht enthalten», sondern stehen in einer Beziehung zu ihr, als wäre sie etwas Äußeres. Diese «Allgemeinheit» ist natürlich nichts anderes, als der formal-abstrakte Begriff des Verstandes. Die verschiedenartigen Erscheinungen bleiben in einem diskreten Zustande, "außer dem Begriffe; und die Allgemeinheit selbst, fest und unveränderlich", wie sie ist, bleibt eine analytische Einheit, bleibt irreal und «unwirklich» - eine bestimmungslose, abstrakte Allgemeinheit. Die allgemeine Gattung schließt in sich die untergeordneten Arten und Abarten nicht, sondern schwebt über ihnen. Diese «Allgemeinheit» ist das Produkt des formellen Verstandes. Die spekulative Philosophie darf diese Allgemeinheit nicht zu ihrem grundlegenden Prinzip machen; sie schafft eine neue, eine spekulative Allgemeinheit, welche eigentümlicherweise die Vorteile der ersten zwei in sich schließt, von ihren Defekten jedoch vollständig frei bleibt. Die spekulative Allgemeinheit ist allgemein, wie das Abstrakte Allgemeine, aber auch synthetisch, wie das Konkret-Empirische. 3. Das Konkret-Allgemeine als eine Synthese, die von der Kantischen Synthese a priori stammt 214 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Lassen Sie mir mehr ausführlich den synthetischen Charakter des Hegelschen Absoluten erörtern. Hegel im Vergleich zu Kant versteht die ursprünglich synthetische Einheit nicht nur als Prinzip des Verstandes, sondern auch als Prinzip der Anschauung. So schreibt Hegel in „Glauben und Wissen“: „Eine und ebendieselbe synthetische Einheit … ist das Prinzip des Anschauens und des Verstandes; der Verstand ist allein die höhere Potenz, in welcher die Identität, die im Anschauen ganz und gar in die Mannigfaltigkeit versenkt ist, zugleich als ihr entgegengesetzt sich in sich als Allgemeinheit, wodurch sie die höhere Potenz ist, konstituiert.“ Hegels Umdeutung der synthetischen Einheit der Apperzeption ist vor allem Umdeutung der Ableitung der Kategorien als ein Prozess, wo sich ein Akt der Intellektuellen Anschauung vollzieht. Kant hat keinesfalls diese Kategorienbildung als eine Form der Intellektuellen Anschauung betrachtet. Er bemerkt lediglich, dass die dritte Kategorie für ihre Entstehung ein besonderer Aktus des Verstandes bedürfe. Alle Kategorien sind «Arten der synthetischen Einheit der Apperzeption», aber die dritte Kategorie ist eine besondere Synthese. Wie besonders ist diese Synthese? Ist die Besonderheit dieser Synthese so groß, daß diese Synthese nicht nur als ein Aktus des Verstandes, sondern auch das der Anschauung ist? Kant hat leider äußerst kurz die Besonderheit dieser Synthese erläutert. In zweitem Anmerk aus Paragraf 11 KdrV B schreibt Kant: „Daß allerwärts eine gleiche Zahl der Kategorien jeder Klasse, nämlich drei sind, welches eben sowohl zum Nachdenken auffordert, da sonst alle Einteilung a priori durch Begriffe Dichotomie sein muß. Dazu kommt aber noch, daß die dritte Kategorie allenthalben aus der Verbindung der zweiten mit der ersten ihrer Klasse entspringt“. Kant hebt hervor, dass die dritte Kategorie kein bloß abgeleiteter und ein Stammbegriff des reinen Verstandes sei. Denn die Verbindung der ersten und zweiten, um den dritten Begriff hervorzubringen, erfordert einen besonderen Aktus des Verstandes, der nicht mit dem einerlei ist, der beim ersten und zweiten ausgeübt wird. So ist der Begriff einer Zahl (die zur Kategorie der Allheit gehört) nicht immer möglich, wo die Begriffe der Menge und der Einheit sind (z.B. in der Vorstellung des Unendlichen), oder aus der Verbindung des Begriffs einer Ursache und den einer Substanz noch nicht sofort der Begriff der Einfluß, d.i. wie eine Substanz Ursache von etwas in einer anderen Substanz werden könne entsteht. Daraus erhellt, daß dazu ein besonderer Aktus des Verstandes erforderlich sei. Der entscheidende Vermerk auf Besonderheit der dritten Kategorie ist der Vermerk, dass die dritte Kategorie (z.B. der Begriff einer Zahl ) nicht immer möglich, wo die zwei erste Kategorien (Begriffe der Menge und der Einheit) vorhanden sind. Die Besonderheit der dritten Kategorie liegt darin, dass sie keinesfalls ein notwendiges Produkt des Verstandes ist (alles, was kommt von Verstand, ist notwendig), sondern durch (aufgehobene) Möglichkeit vermittelt wird. Wäre die Möglichkeit nicht aufgehoben, dann hätten wir eine aposteriorische Synthese. Bei der aufgehobenen Möglichkeit haben wir mit einer Synthese a priori zu tun. Gäbe es keine Möglichkeit, dann hätten wir überhaupt keine Synthese. Es steht eine Annahme nahe, jede Synthese als eine Synthese der Art zu betrachten, wie die dritte Kategorie ist, und in der Tat, bei Hegel sind alle Kategorien derart synthetisch. 4.Das Konkret-Allgemeine als eine Idee der Vernunft Obwohl die Entstehung des Konkreten Allgemeinen bei Hegel sich am besten als Erweiterung des Kantischen Prinzips der ursprünglich synthetischen Einheit interpretieren lässt, möchte ich noch einen weiteren Vorschlag der Interpretation der Entstehung des Konkreten Allgemeinen anbieten. Mein Vorschlag besteht darin, die synthetische Einheit a priori (d.h. transzendentale Einheit der Apperzeption in Kants Wortgebrauch) als exklusives Produkt der Vernunft zu betrachten, und den Bereich des Verstehens nur auf zufällige (d.h. gewonnene aus der Erfahrung mit Hilfe des Prozesses 215 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science der Abstraktion) Allgemeine und auf Operationen mit Urteilen begrenzen, die solche abstrakte Allgemeine (als Prädikate) einschließen. Der Grund für den Vorschlag besteht darin, daß die synthetische Einheit a priori eine vollständig neue Art des Allgemeinen ist, die unbedingt ist, und stimmt folglich mit Ideen der Vernunft überein. Die wichtigste Eigenschaft der synthetischen Einheit a priori ist Unbedingtheit. Wenn eine vollständig (und unbedingt) gegebene Bedingung einmal da ist, dann tut der Verstand jeden Schritt abwärts, von der Bedingung zum Bedingten, von selber. Die Vernunft, im Gegenteil, steigt in der Reihe der Bedingungen, bis zum Unbedingten auf, um die absolute Totalität der Synthesis auf der Seite der Bedingungen zu erreichen. Diese Totalität der potentiell endlosen Reihe der Bedingungen kann als aktuelle Unendlichkeit bezeichnet werden. Kantische Ideen der Vernunft sind Arten dieser aktuellen Unendlichkeit. Es gibt drei Ideen: 1) die absolute (unbedingte) Einheit des denkenden Subjekts, 2) die absolute Einheit der Reihe der Bedingungen der Erscheinung, 3) die absolute Einheit der Bedingung aller Gegenstände des Denkens überhaupt enthält. Ich betrachte das Unbedingte ziemlich anders im Vergleich mit Kant. Ich glaube, dass das Unbedingte nicht eine Totalität der Bedingungen ist, sondern ein besonderes Urteil, welche innere Struktur so notwendig ist, dass dieses Urteil keine andere Bedingung hat, um die Verbindung zwischen Subjekt und Prädikat zu rechtfertigen. Warum es ist notwendig, nach einer Bedingung eines Urteils zu suchen? Weil im Rahmen des (aposteriorischen ) Urteils Prädikat nicht notwendig aus dem Subjekt folgt, und es gibt nur die einzige Möglichkeit, die Relation zwischen Subjekt und Prädikat zu begründen: diese Relation soll als notwendige Schlussfolgerung aus der Prämissen eines Prosyllogismus demonstriert werden. Die Begründung mittels des Prosyllogism braucht man nur für Urteile, die keine innere Notwendigkeit haben, sondern diese Notwendigkeit der Verbindung von Subjekt und Prädikat von außen bekommen, vermittelt durch den terminus medius von Syllogism. Es war aber Kant, der eine Art Urteil entdeckte, welches die innere Notwendigkeit hat, weil das Prädikat des Urteils nicht von draußen kommt, sondern a priori prädiziert und deshalb notwendig ist. Solches Urteil ist ein synthetisches Urteil ein priori. Aus diesem Grund sollte die synthetische Einheit a priori als unbedingt und folglich als Idee der Vernunft betrachtet werden. Das wichtigste Merkmal einer transzendentalen Idee ist, daß sie weder logisch abgeleitet noch ein Faktum der Erfahrung sein kann. Logisch kann man nur eine Unendlichkeit der Prämissen ableiten, nicht aber das Unbedingte. Es gibt Ähnlichkeit zwischen Relation von Kategorien des Verstandes zu den Perzeptionen der Sinne auf einer Seite, und der Relation von Ideen der Vernunft zu den Kategorien des Verstandes auf der anderen Seite. Die synthetische Einheit von Apperzeptionen kann nicht in den Vorstellungen gefunden werden, aber kommt vom Verstand, und synthetische Einheit a priori kann nicht durch den Verstand erreicht werden, aber entsteht von der höheren Fähigkeit, der Vernunft. Die Synthese a priori ist eine neue (und höhere) Art der Synthese, die ganz verschieden von den Kategorien des Verstandes ist. Entsprechend der oben vorgeschlagenen Deutung des Unbedingten, ist eine Idee der Vernunft Subjekt eines synthetischen Urteils ein priori, und Kategorien des Verstandes sind akzidentale Prädikate der empirischen Dingen. Dialektische Methode bringt Notwendigkeit in synthetische Urteile, und dadurch unterscheidet sich dialektische Logik von der formalen Logik, in der letzten gibt es zwar einen notwendigen Zusammenhang zwischen den Urteilen, aber nicht im Urteil zwischen den Begriffen. Aus dem Standpunkt der formalen Logik kann man ein synthetisches Urteil auch zusätzlich auf logischer Weise begründen, und zwar mittels des Prosyllogismus. Die Reihe der Prosyllogisme aber ist unendlich, und Kant hat postuliert, dass es ein Urteil gibt, in welchem die Notwendigkeit der Verbindung des Allgemeinen mit dem Besonderen nicht aus der notwendigen Verknüpfung der 216 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Urteile in einem Syllogismus folgt, und noch weniger auf der Erfahrung gegründet ist, sondern notwendig aus sich selbst ist. Es ist die Aufgabe der Vernunft, die Bedingung zu finden, die selbst unbedingt ist. Es ist das synthetische Urteil a priori, das unbedingt wahr ist und weder von anderen Urteilen, noch von der Erfahrung bedingt ist. Die Vorgeschlagene Interpretation der Vernunftideen ist kein Vorschlag, die historische Entstehung des Hegelschen Begriff des Absoluten als Weiterentwicklung der Kantischen Ideen der Vernunft zu betrachten. Allerdings, glaube ich, dass es ein logischer Zusammenhang zwischen der Ideen der Vernunft und dem Begriff des Absoluten gibt. Es soll diesen Zusammenhang geben, weil die Idee der Vernunft auch absolut ist. Die Absolutheit der Idee der Vernunft besteht darin, dass sie unbedingt ist. 5. Unableitbarkeit des Einzelnen aus dem Allgemeinen in der Antike vs. Unableitbarkeit des Endlichen aus dem Absoluten bei Hegel Obwohl die Zufälligkeit des abstrakten Allgemeinen im Begriff des Hegelschen Absoluten aufgehoben wurde (siehe Part.1), tritt eine andere Unableitbarkeit zu Tage: die Unableitbarkeit des Endlichen aus dem Absoluten. Auf dieses Problem hat vor allem Schelling aufmerksam gemacht und versucht, die Abkunft der endlichen Dinge aus dem Absoluten zu erweisen (s. „Fragment einer Abhandlung zur Struktur des Absoluten“ in Loer, Barbara, „Das Absolute und die Wirklichkeit in Schellings Philosophie“. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1974). Es ist nicht zufällig, dass die Aufhebung der Unableitbarkeit des Einzelnen aus dem Allgemeinen, wodurch das Absolute entsteht, zu einer weiteren Unableitbarkeit führt, nämlich zur Unableitbarkeit des Endlichen aus dem Absoluten. Es ist m. E. notwendig, dass die Aufhebung der Unableitbarkeit in einem Aspekt zur Unableitbarkeit in einem anderen Aspekt führt, sonst wäre alles ableitbar, was dem beobachteten Stand der Dinge widerspricht. 217 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science SCIENCE AND METAPHYSICS IN THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN DEBATE Hunter Brown King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario Clashes between evolutionists and religious believers have been taking place ever since Darwin=s work appeared, and the Intelligent Design (ID) debate is essentially one more skirmish in that ongoing history. I will outline what is distinctive about this most recent episode and then comment briefly on some implications of it for Catholicism and for metaphysical thought regarding the nature of God. The ID movement first appeared on the scene in an organized way in the 1990's at the initiative of Philip Johnson, a professor of law at Berkeley in California specializing in legal reasoning. In 1991, Johnson published a book entitled Darwin on Trial, and he subsequently brought together a number of qualified scholars to support him in the advancement of his position. That position did not challenge the idea of natural selection as such. If, Johnson said, the idea of natural selection is used to draw inferences which clearly track the Aobservable effects [of adaptation] upon the distribution of characteristics in a population, [then] there really is nothing to dispute.@1 What he did wish to dispute, however, is the explanatory scope of natural selection. His message was essentially that of a social critic attacking the ways in which he felt that the methodological naturalism of the sciences had become a Trojan horse for a rapidly spreading metaphysical naturalism that is both anti-theistic and socially destructive. The biological underpinnings of such a position are best seen in the work not of Johnson but of Michael Behe and William Dembski. The subject to which Behe and Dembski have devoted much attention is a phenomenon known as irreducible complexity. Irreducible complexity is purportedly to be found in cellular structures which involve Aa multipart subsystem (i.e. a set of two or more interrelated parts) that cannot be simplified without destroying the system=s basic function.@2 Various nonbiological examples have been offered by ID theorists to illustrate this idea, including most popularly, by Behe, a mouse trap, all of whose parts are said to be required in order for the trap to perform its basic function. Explaining the evolutionary emergence of irreducibly complex biological systems through adaptation might not be a problem, admits Dembski, if such systems were simple. They are not all simple, however, as one can appreciate in the case of the poster organism of the ID movement, the bacterial flagellum. The bacterial flagellum is a long, tubular filament of protein ... loosely coiled, like a pulled-out ... spring, or perhaps a corkscrew, and it terminates, close to the cell wall, as a thickened, flexible zone, called a hook because it is usually bent. ... The hook extends, as a rod, through the outer wall [of the cell], and at the end of the rod, separated by its last few nanometers, are two discs [which hold it in place].3 Often likened to a tiny outboard motor, the flagellum is capable of spinning bidirectionally at 1. Philip E. Johnson, "Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism," Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics, ed. Robert. Pennock (MIT Press, 2001), 60. 2. William A. Dembski, "Irreducible Complexity Revisited," Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design, 3.1 (November, 2004), 2. 3. John Postgate, The Outer Reaches of Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 160. 219 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science between 10,000 and 100,000 rpm B a rate necessary for it to be effective, given certain properties of the fluid environments in which the bacteria involved find themselves. The proper assembly and operation of the flagellum involves about 50 proteins all of which are indispensable to its proper function. The feature of such a mechanism, and others like it, which is of special interest to Behe and Dembski is the fact that its function does not exist prior to the final integration of all the parts that are necessary for the emergence of that function. It is this fact, they claim, which determines the explanatory limits of natural selection in understanding such phenomena. Natural selection can select only in connection with existing function, and there is no room in conventional evolutionary thinking for any teleological orientation toward a longer-term, future function. What we need to consider, then, according to Behe and Dembski, is how evolution could produce irreducibly complex mechanisms apart from any such teleological foresight. It has been suggested by opponents of ID that irreducibly complex mechanisms are what remain after redundant features of previously, more complex mechanisms have ceased to exist. The emergence of irreducibly complex systems in this way, Dembski replies, would require the successful completion of a number of interdependent steps. There would have to have been (a) the availability of all the necessary parts, (b) their availability at the right time, c) their ability, if necessary, to become separated from the systems in which they currently function; (d) their ability to accomplish this separation without being accompanied by other elements that would be incompatible with the new function; (e) their ability to interface tightly and in a highly efficient manner, in the right order, and in an irreducibly complex relationship with one another. The probability of such mutually interdependent steps all occurring successfully on the scale required to explain the many irreducibly complex systems in the world makes implausible, argue ID theorists, appeal to development through such indirect evolutionary pathways. Those indirect pathways are no more capable than direct ones of anticipating future function. Fortuity, therefore, not selective adaptation, must remain the central feature of all such developments, according to conventional evolutionary thought, for, as ID theorists repeatedly emphasize, the normal processes of adaptation can act only upon existing function. The scientific community, according to ID depictions of it, has provided lots of theories about how such irreducibly complex systems might have emerged, but has not provided anything by way of specific, concrete details concerning exactly what precise steps would have been involved in such an emergence. AInvariably,@ to use Dembski=s words, Awhen it comes to irreducibly complex systems ...[such pathways] are left unspecified, thus rendering them neither falsifiable nor verifiable.@4 It is Anot just that we don=t know of such a pathway for, say, the bacterial flagellum ...@ he protests. AIt is that we don=t know of such pathways for any such systems.”5 Indeed, if specific accounts of such pathways were available from the scientific community, Dembski points out, Acritics of intelligent design would merely need to cite them, and intelligent design would be refuted.@6 We do, however, know a great deal about the pathways involved in the emergence of some irreducibly complex systems -- systems, that is, which are human artifacts. We can see in such cases the fully sufficient explanation for those systems, namely, foresightful human intelligence. Surely, therefore, ID theorists argue, there is here an analogy worth attending to in scientific discussion and debate about biological mechanisms. The gist of the response from the scientific community to such a proposal has been to 4. Dembski, "Irreducible Complexity Revisited," 17. 5. Ibid., 15. 6. Ibid., 14. 220 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science acknowledge that current evolutionary theory has significant shortcomings such as those identified by ID proponents, but to insist that future scientific developments will provide the answers to such gaps in our understanding without the invocation of an intelligent Designer analogous to a human artificer. Moreover, in response to Johnson, it is replied that if, in the process of seeking such answers, some scientists sponsor a covert philosophical naturalism, they do so on their own personal initiative without the endorsement of the scientific community whose commitment is to a much narrower methodological naturalism only. Catholics have not been as deeply involved in this fray as some other believing communities. This is in part because of Catholicism's position regarding the relation between natural and supernatural causalities, a position which has made the church more generally evolution-friendly than some of its fellow religious communities. The first Catholic magisterial statement on evolution appeared in Pius XII=s encyclical letter Humani Generis, in 1950. That document recognized the need for a scientific exploration of the matter, insisting upon exemption, from natural evolutionary influence, only for the human soul. In 1996, John Paul II, in a letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, acknowledged that in the intervening decades, evolutionary theory was no longer simply a hypothesis. Recently, a substantial document was issued by the International Theological Commission, headed by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, subjecting evolution to a more searching analysis which acknowledged the ID movement explicitly, but responded that at its core, this debate must look to scientific resolution, and is beyond the scope of theology. This deference to the scientific process, by Catholicism, has contributed a good deal to marginalizing the Church from the ID debate, a marginalization which accounts, perhaps, for some of the surprise that was aroused in July of 2005 by Christoph Schonborn, Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, when he expressed concern, in the New York Times, about evolution. Schonborn's position and some of the Catholic responses to it, reveal, I think, some interesting features of Catholicism's position which deserve further thought. Schonborn's New York Times piece was not really deserving of the controversy it aroused, for he did distinguish between a broad scientific evolutionary position, including common ancestry, which he accepted, by contrast with a completely materialistic philosophy according to which all development is to be understood entirely in terms of necessity and chance. This latter position would preclude any teleological pattern in nature on the basis of which reason could reflect upon the natural order with a view to its potential religious significance. It is this which Schonborn criticized for being contrary to Catholicism's position on faith and reason. What is deserving of closer scrutiny, however, is the sort of thinking that was exemplified in a less publicized catechetical lecture given by Schonborn after the New York Times piece, a lecture entitled ACreation and Evolution: To the Debate As It Stands.@ Here, Schonborn tried to adapt the idea of an intelligent Designer to Catholicism's depiction of the cosmos as initiated by God then followed seamlessly by continuous divine support. This standard Catholic position he described in the following way: AGod is not only a creator who at the beginning set the work in motion, like a watchmaker who has fashioned a time piece that will tick on forever. Rather, he preserves and guides it toward its goal.@7 The choice of a metaphor involving a timepiece and its designer is reminiscent, of course, of William Paley and his famous Design Argument. This metaphor served Schonborn's purposes reasonably well when he came to describe the relationship between Christianity and the sciences. The Jewish tradition of creation adopted by Christianity, he observed, paved the way for the natural sciences by de-mythologizing ancient worldviews. This demythologization allowed for the deployment of the idea that created beings have a genuine autonomy which admits of a level of 7. “Cardinal Schonborn on Creation and Evolution from the German ‘Creation and Evolution: To the Debate as it Stands’" (October 2, 2005), 2, www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p91.htm. 221 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science legitimate comprehension that is methodologically independent of an acknowledgement of their status as created. Such autonomy has a real intellectual, as well as religious significance, said Schonborn, which described in the following way: AReason tells me that plan and order, meaning and goal exist, that a time-piece does not come into being by accident@8 Eventually, however, Schonborn=s timepiece metaphor began to fail him, pushing him toward the very deism from which he had tried to distance himself and Catholicism. He needed to describe the divine, ongoing, sustaining support, by God, of a cosmos which he had hitherto portrayed as a mechanism. Instead of abandoning his mechanistic metaphor, however, or qualifying it more clearly, he stuck with it, shifting to rhetorical and effusive language which paid homiletic tribute to the immeasurably wonderful character of this great cosmic mechanism. Well, he was, after all, speaking in a church, and such language no doubt warmed the hearts of many in attendance at St. Stephen=s. Such pastoral considerations aside, however, Schonborn's mounting conceptual problems attest to the difficulty of trying to make the metaphor of a designed mechanism square with Catholicism's position about the ongoing dependence of the universe upon its divine initiator. The cosmos may be a fascinating, beautiful, marvelous mechanism, but mechanisms like timepieces work pretty well on their own. Schonborn=s metaphor, in other words, doesn=t serve him very well in portraying the Catholic position with regard to divine sustaining, and homiletic adornments cannot save that metaphor in this respect. Nor does the metaphor work particularly well, many have pointed out, in a post-Newtonian world understood with the aid of quantum physics. Schonborn's presentations predictably evoked responses from Catholic scholars who wished to clarify the church’s understanding of providential influence upon the natural order. Such influence does not function, it was said, as in the deistic model of a mechanism, or as ID proponents would have it as an efficient cause within the natural order compensating for the shortcomings of the evolutionary process. Rather, as the Catholic physicist Stephen Barr put it: True contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality are radically different in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a purely contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God=s providential plan.9 Barr augments this position with an affirmation of divine omnipotence, advising that, in his words: Awe cannot settle the issue of the role of >chance= in evolution theologically, because God is omnipotent and can therefore produce effects in different ways@10 B something which God is assisted in doing, Barr adds, by the fact that, as he puts it, God Aknows all the details of the universe from eternity.@11 This is a familiar scholastic position. As Neil Ormerod has described that position recently, because God is the sustaining origin and font of being itself, Athere is,@ says Ormerod, Ano need to bring God into the picture as a causal agent alongside any other causal agent. God does not explain any particular thing,@ Ormerod continues, Abecause God explains everything.@12 In other words, he says, God Aactualizes both the formally necessary and contingent, and so his providence is certain.@13 The problem with ID, on such a view, is that it cannot help but Areduce God to a 8. Ibid., 8. 9. Stephen M. Barr, "The Design of Evolution," First Things (October, 2005), 11. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Neil Ormerod, “Intelligent Design or Divine Providence?” Ethics Education, 11.2 (2005), 28-29. 13. Ibid., 28. 222 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science secondary or formal cause within the created order.”14 The idea, in Barr, Ormerod, and others, of a providential sustaining influence compatible with, but distinguishable from the autonomous order of natural secondary causality, makes room, in Catholicism, for a much broader accommodation of evolution. And so one finds Catholics like George Coyne, head of the Vatican Observatory, arguing that the directionality of the process of chemical complexification in the history of the universe does not require postulating a supernatural person intervening directly in the process, as ID proponents would have it. Rather, Ait is,@ says Coyne Athe fertility of the universe and the interaction of >chance= and >necessity= in that universe which are responsible for ... [such] directionality.@15 Science, he says, Aneed not, and in fact cannot methodologically invoke a designer, as those arguing for Intelligent Design attempt to do.@16 The postulation of a designer by the ID community is even more repugnant theologically than it is scientifically, Coyne adds, for it undermines, in the concept of God, the divine accommodation of the fertility of a universe which arises out of that universe=s exercising of the divine gift of self-determination. Religious believers, therefore, says Coyne, Amust move away from the notion of ... a designer God, [away from] a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly.”17 Such movement away from this famous metaphor, however, involves, for Coyne, a shift which goes to the heart of the positions described by Barr and Ormerod. God, Coyne proposes, should be thought of not by analogy with a designer who initiates, and then in some mysterious way goes on to sustain his artifact, but should be thought of by analogy with parenthood. On this view, the universe, as Coyne puts it, Ahas a certain vitality of its own like a child does ... A parent must allow the child to grow into adulthood, to come to make its own choices, to go its own way in life.@18 In other words, AGod lets the world be what it will be in its continuing evolution.@19 The shift from a mechanical to a parental metaphor is no small matter, however. What really distinguishes a parental from a mechanical metaphor, as any parent in the room would acknowledge, I think, is the inability, not just the unwillingness, of a parent to prevail upon the child=s will. The metaphor works only if a real analogous limitation of power is extended to the divine. Otherwise, the parental metaphor collapses, and one slides from analogy into equivocation on the subject of power. The shift of metaphor from design to parent raises questions, in Coyne's mind, about the adequacy of the scholastic pattern proposed by Barr and Ormerod according to which, as Ormerod put it, the efficacy of providential influence Ais certain@ at every level because, to cite Barr once again, Adivine causality and created causality are radically different in kind and not only degree@ -- the former being unqualifiedly effective in its influence upon the latter because of its roots in omnipotence and omniscience. Coyne, however, is not so sure. Here is what he has to say: If we confront what we know of our origins scientifically with religious faith in God the Creator -- if, that is, we take the results of modern science seriously B it is difficult to believe that God is omnipotent and omniscient in the sense of many of the scholastic philosophers. For 14. Ibid., 30. 15 . George Coyne, “God's Chance Creation," The Tablet (August 6, 2005), 4, www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/register.cgi/tablet-01063. 16 . George Coyne, "Infinite Wonder of the Divine," The Tablet (December 10, 2005), 4, www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/register.cgi/tablet-01118. 17. Coyne, "God’s Chance Creation," 5. 18. Ibid., 6. 19. Ibid. 223 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science the believer, science tells us of a God who must be very different from God as seen by them.20 This suggestion by Coyne is reminiscent of just what the young earth creationists -- not ID theorists – predicted would emerge from a Christian accommodation of evolution, namely, a God limited significantly in its sustaining influence by the constraints involved in the use of an evolutionary instrument of creation.21 In the end, I think, Catholicism's resistance to the ID movement is rooted in the failure of a mechanistic/ designer metaphor to accommodate Catholicism's insistence upon the inclusion, in the concept of creation, of sustaining as well as initiating. Coyne's shift to a parental metaphor is effective in this respect, but is so at the price of raising difficult questions about the adequacy of Catholicism's position as articulated by Barr and Ormerod. If that Catholic position is going to meet such a challenge it will need to articulate more clearly and concretely the relation between natural and providential causalities and it will also need, within this context, to clarify what it means by omnipotence and omniscience. It will need also to integrate the distinctive incarnational character of the relation between creator and natural order in Christian belief. This has been a long-standing challenge for Catholicism's classical theism. Decades ago, Karl Rahner expressed his doubts about the capacity of such theism to accommodate real incarnationalism. In recent years the same warning has been heard from Elizabeth Johnson, Sally McFague, Walter Kasper and others. Kasper in particular, I think, has been especially effective in this area on account of his fluency not only with the scholastic tradition of classical theism but with biblical, patristic, and more recent philosophical schools of thought as well. Such fluency has allowed him to interpret Catholic classical theism in ways which make possible some serious proposals regarding the inclusion of a kenotic incarnationalism. In the end, I think, Catholicism accurately recognizes the philosophical naïveté of the attempt, by the ID movement, to integrate the causal influence of a designing God into the natural order by way of inserting that influence at the level of secondary causality. The work of Coyne and a number of theologians, however, exposes unfinished business in the Catholic household. Catholicism still needs to articulate more clearly and more concretely just how it is that providential and natural causalities dovetail, and to do so in a way which fully accommodates the distinctive incarnational terms of reference of Christianity. Until it makes progress in this area, I think, it will not provide a truly viable alternative to the ID movement, nor to the secular naturalism against which both the Church and the ID movement are opposed. 20. Ibid., 5. 21. Henry M. Morris, "The Vital Importance of Believing in Recent Creation," b-c, www.icr.org/pdf/btg/btg-138.pdf. 224 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science A NATURALISTIC COUNTEREXAMPLE TO MEREOLOGICAL EXTENSIONALITY? Richard de Blacquière-Clarkson University of Durham How many non-identical objects can be made out the same parts? The answer given by classical mereology is one, on the grounds that any two wholes which share all and only the same parts are therefore identical. Numerous counterexamples to this principle of ‘extensionality’ have been suggested, but they invariably involve entities of questionable ontological status such as teams or groups. I propose that a counterexample to mereological extensionality can be drawn from the chemical phenomenon of molecular isomerism. Optical isomers are molecules which are composed of the same atoms, yet have demonstrably different chemical properties. By Leibniz’s Law, despite sharing their parts these two wholes are not identical, thus mereological extensionality should be rejected for at least some cases. How many non-identical objects can be made, or ‘composed’, out of the same parts? The answer given by classical mereology, which studies the relationship between parts and wholes, is that there is only one. The theory, originally advanced by Leonard & Goodman (1940) and by Lesniewski (1916) as a nominalistically acceptable alternative to set theory, is standardly developed axiomatically, and models the part-whole relation as follows. Parthood is taken to be a partial ordering, that is it is reflexive, antisymmetric and transitive, and to this is added the strong supplementation principle which states that if one object fails to have a second amongst its parts then either the second or some part of it fails to share one or more parts with the first (there is a ‘remainder’).1 It is a theorem of this formal system that any two (non-atomic) objects which share all and only the same parts are in fact identical, which entails that there is no structure to the way composite objects are composed from their parts. This principle is known as mereological 1 The name of this principle is taken from Simons 1987. As noted, mereological theories are standardly developed axiomatically, in the following way. Given predicate logic with identity, and suppressing universal quantifiers, we can add the following axioms: (A1) Pxx Reflexivity (A2) (Pxy & Pyx) → x=y Antisymmetry (A3) (Pxy & Pyz) → Pxz Transitivity (A4) ¬Pyx → z(Pzy & ¬Ozx) Strong Supplementation Call this system Extensional Mereology (EM); defining proper parthood as PPxy =df Pxy & ¬ Pyx, EM entails the theorem zPPzx zPPzy) → (x=y ↔ z(PPzx ↔ PPzy)). In fact, so-called classical mereologies are stronger systems in that they also include the general sum axiom from which (A4) can be derived: for any formula φ, xφ → zy(Oyz ↔ x(φ & Oyx)). As EM is a weaker system, any arguments against it will likewise apply to stronger variants. 225 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science extensionality (hereafter just ‘extensionality’), and we shall call systems which share all of the features mentioned above extensional mereologies. Whatever the status of nominalism in contemporary philosophy, mereology as described above has endured as a popular account of the relationship between parts and wholes, either in its classical form (see e.g. Lewis 1991) or under some variation which preserves the features mentioned (see e.g. Casati & Varzi 1999 and Smith 1996, who supplement classical mereology with topological elements), and given this popularity a significant critical literature has grown. Within the literature numerous intended counterexamples to extensionality have been proposed, but they have failed to achieve widespread acceptance. Drawing on molecular chemistry, I will propose an alternative counterexample, and argue that it shows that any extensional mereology should be rejected for at least some cases. Since parthood is a ‘formal’ relation, one which applies to every category of being - or, in less provocative terms, one which is topic-neutral - it is not surprising that putative counterexamples to extensionality have been suggested invoking a wide range of objects, including cats, statues, orchestras, and sentences. What they do have in common, however, is the form ‘objects A and B share all and only the same parts but are nevertheless not identical, as they bear different (perhaps temporal or modal) properties’.2 We can substitute various kinds of entities for A and B, and different sorts of properties, but the basic format remains the same. Thus, particular symphonic and wind orchestras may in fact share all the same members, yet serve different functions (perhaps they perform distinct repertoires on separate occasions), or a given statue may be composed of the same matter as a given lump of clay, but the two nevertheless have quite different persistence conditions.3 I won’t rehearse the reasoning behind these sorts of cases, but for discussion of the former see in particular Simons (1987), and the for latter see e.g. Baker (1997), Lowe (1989), Sanford (2003), Wiggins (2001). So why have these intended counterexamples failed to command universal, or even particularly widespread, assent? A plausible reason, I think, is that advocacy of extensional mereology generally goes hand in hand with some form of ontological austerity. In the light of such prior commitment the intended counterexamples lack force. One might, for example, believe there are principled reasons to doubt the existence of orchestras – at least as being anything over and above their members – on the grounds, perhaps, that composition is in fact identity (see e.g. Lewis 1991, Sider 2006). Similarly one might believe that there are no such things as statues, or even things like hands (for defence of these views see Van Inwagen 1990 and Olsen 1995 respectively). Thus we are presented with what may be a clash of intuitions, of starting positions – the intended counterexamples to mereological extensionality may well be persuasive to a philosopher who is already committed to the sorts of entities which figure in them, but not at all to others who lack these commitments – thereby generating an impasse. 4 To bridge this divide, and argue more persuasively against mereological extensionality, we would need a counterexample involving entities of relatively uncontroversial ontological status. Just such a case can be drawn from the chemical phenomenon of optical isomerism.5 Optical isomerism is a structural phenomenon which can occur in certain types of molecules – typically including at least one carbon atom – such that its atoms may be arranged in either of two 2 Admittedly, Rescher’s (1955) intended counterexample of the sentences ‘John loves Mary’ and ‘Mary loves John’ may not fit as neatly into this characterisation, but it is widely regarded as failing since the words in each sentence may be regarded as distinct tokens of the same three types. Furthermore, the sentences plausibly do not have all the same parts: ‘John loves’, for example, features in one sentence and not the other. 3 I ignore here the possibility that membership of an organisation or group may be a distinct relation to parthood. 4 For ease of exposition I leave aside the alternate possibility that it may not be over a question of commitment to entities, but to certain sorts of properties, that the impasse arises. 5 Comparable counterexamples can be drawn from other forms of isomerism, but optical isomerism presents a particularly clear case. 226 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science configurations, with one being the mirror image of the other. Thus in figure 1 below (A) and (B) are optical isomers of each other: Figure 1: A schematic example of optical isomerism. The four bonds connecting W, X, Y and Z to the carbon atom C are (roughly) equidistant in three dimensions, with the four letters each representing different groups of one or more atoms. As with our left and right hands, neither molecule can be superimposed on its mirror image. Nor can they be rearranged by any process – such as rotation – which does not involve disassembly and reassembly. Optical isomerism is relatively common in organic chemistry, being exploited by many living organisms. For example, the quite different flavours of orange and peppermint oil are produced by optical isomers of the hydrocarbon limonene (C10H16). Both isomers are found in turpentine, which – I suspect – tastes quite unlike either orange or peppermint. A better known, and more serious, case is that of thalidomide (C13H10N2O4), a drug which in the form of one optical isomer produces an anti-emetic effect, whereas the other isomer is a teratogen – it produces severe malformations in unborn infants when taken by pregnant women. All optical isomers can be individuated as either type (+) or (-) according to whether they rotate plane polarised light clockwise or anticlockwise, as seen by a viewer towards whom the light is traveling. It is my contention that the phenomenon of optical isomerism provides a counterexample to extensional mereology of the same form as those intended counterexamples mentioned above, but differs in that it makes use of entities which feature in all but the most austere of ontologies. This rests on two claims: optical isomers differ in their physical properties, yet share all and only the same parts. Hence, by the contrapositive of Leibniz’s Law they are not identical. Optical isomers have different physical properties. But how are we to tell the difference between two molecules? Perhaps the most obvious way is by their chemical formulae. Hence CO2 is different from NaCl but, being composed of the same atoms, isomers share the same formula. To include some principle of organization amongst atoms, or to exclude such a principle, would beg the question at issue. However, it is plausible that we can tell the difference between two molecules without doing so. We might take it to be a property of individual molecules that, in combination with others, they produce certain effects. 6 Thus, (+)-limonene has the property of having the flavour of orange in combination with enough equivalent molecules, whereas (-)-limonene does not. Whether this is accepted or not, as mentioned above the (+) and (-) configurations of optical isomers differ in the direction in which they rotate plane polarised light. This is very plausibly a property of the individual molecules themselves. Thus optical isomers do not share all their properties, and so are not identical. 6 I would like to thank Jennifer Hornsby for suggesting this to me. 227 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Optical isomers may have exactly the same parts. There are at least three ways this statement may be interpreted – diachronically, synchronically involving modal properties, and as involving qualitative as well as numerical identity. On the diachronic interpretation a single optical isomer may over time be disassembled and reassembled in the alternative form; both molecules share all and only the same parts, hence by mereological extensionality are identical. But many advocates of extensional mereology are also perdurantists who may then respond to the first claim in the following way: both optical isomers are in fact temporal parts of a single entity extended across space and time, hence are not identical to each other as they occupy different ‘time slices’ of the entity they are parts of. I shall not, and indeed need not, use the diachronic interpretation here; incorporating heavyweight metaphysical assumptions about the nature of time into the discussion would be beside the point, and I do not wish to beg the question for or against the issue by doing so. On the synchronic interpretation every optical isomer possesses the distinctively modal property of being able to be rearranged (without addition or loss of parts) in the alternative configuration, which would thus share all and only its parts with the original. I am inclined to believe this is the correct way to characterise optical isomerism, but will not adopt it here, as it arguably begs the question against those advocates of extensional mereology who wish to deny modal properties. To avoid any vicious circularities, we should instead be neutral between interpreting the issue at hand either exclusively synchronically or diachronically, and avoid recourse to modal properties. To do so I shall characterise the example of optical isomerism in the less restrictive terms of qualitative rather than numerical identity: the (+) and (-) configurations of optical isomers may have qualitatively identical parts. The central argument in this paper, then, is not designed to provide a rigorous proof that extensionality is false, but rather to issue a challenge to its adherents, that of how to give a satisfactory extensional account of optical isomerism. As we have seen, the (+) and (-) molecules themselves are qualitatively non-identical as they have different physical properties: at a minimum, they rotate plane polarised light in different directions. Since they are (I take it) composite entities, adherents of mereological extensionality must take their parts to be numerically - and presumably qualitatively - non-identical as well. Plausibly, however, the atoms which compose each optical isomer may themselves be qualitatively identical: they may have the same atomic number, atomic mass number, and so on, and thus the same physical properties. 7 We would naturally expect qualitatively identical parts to have the same (in this case, actual physical) properties, and so - if mereological extensionality is true - that the wholes they compose should also be qualitatively identical. They clearly aren’t. But perhaps molecules have parts other than atoms – bonds, say – and it is these parts which differ in cases of optical isomerism. After all, conversion from one configuration to the other requires the breaking of existing bonds and the forming of new ones, which just might be neither numerically nor qualitatively identical to those existing previously. On this view, compatible with extensionality, optical isomers share some parts but not others, which would explain their differing properties. But are bonds really parts of molecules? No doubt there is a sense of ‘part’ in which they are, but is this one which can be accommodated by an extensional mereology? After all, bonds are one-sidedly dependent upon the atoms they constrain: there can be atoms without bonds, but no bonds without atoms. This follows from the composition of atoms and bonds themselves. Atoms have as their parts electrons, neutron and protons (which have further parts themselves), whereas bonds are constituted by electrons only, and by those same electrons which are parts of the atoms. Collectively, one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms possess ten electrons, while one molecule of hydrogen dioxide possesses ten electrons and two bonds. If they are parts at all, what do the bonds add to the molecule? 7 In cases of conversion from one optical isomer to the other, I suspect that they atoms involved are also numerically identical, but in the interests of providing a fair argument we should not dwell on this point. 228 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Perhaps extensional mereology could countenance bonds as parts of molecules which share all of their parts with, or ‘overlap’, the atoms, but given their respective compositions it is far from clear how this might accommodate the bonds being qualitatively non-identical when the atoms themselves are qualitatively identical. It is not possible to individuate bonds according to which specific electrons constitute them, as in some cases the electrons may be ‘delocalised’ across a number of bonds and atoms.8 Whatever the promise of accommodating bonds in this way, considering more fundamental parts of molecules allows us to rephrase more forcefully the challenge to extensionality that optical isomers present, in a way which avoids countenancing bonds altogether. As with optical isomers’ constituent atoms, the electrons, neutrons and protons which compose them may plausibly be qualitatively identical (to reiterate, I believe that in some cases they may be literally numerically identical, but recognise that I have not argued for that here), yet the molecules they compose have different physical properties. If we reject mereological extensionality we may readily explain this by appealing to differences in the way the parts of these molecules are structured – the different ways that the electrons, neutrons and protons, and hence the atoms and bonds, may interact and hence fit together is what creates the different physical properties of the (+) and (-) configurations. The challenge to advocates of extensional mereology is to provide a satisfactory explanation which does not do so.9 8 An example of electron delocalisation is to be found in benzene, which has a ring-like structure with bonds connecting its atoms of a length and strength between what would be expected for either single or double bonds. Benzene rings are present in many optical isomers. 9 Thanks for comments: Robin Hendry, Jennifer Hornsby, Jonathan Tallant. 229 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Bibliography Baker, L. R. (1997) ‘Why Constitution Is Not Identity’ Journal of Philosophy 94: 599-621. Casati, R. & Varzi, A. (1999) Parts and Places: The Structures of Spatial Representation. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press. Hornby, M. & Peach, J. M. (1993) Foundations of Organic Chemistry. Oxford: OUP. Leonard, H. S. and Goodman, N. (1940) ‘The Calculus of Individuals and Its Uses’ Journal of Symbolic Logic 5: 45-55. Leśniewski, S. (1916) ‘Foundations of the General Theory of Sets. I’ (trans. by D. I. Barnett) in S. Leśniewski, Collected Works, ed. S. J. Surma, J. Srzednicki, D. I. Barnett, and F. V. Rickey, Dordrecht: Kluwer, Vol. 1, pp. 129-173. Lewis, D. K. (1991) Parts of Classes, Oxford: Blackwell. Lowe, E. J. (1989) Kinds of Being: A Study of Individuation, Identity and the Logic of Sortal terms. Oxford: Blackwell. Olsen, E. T. (1995) ‘Why I Have no Hands’ Theoria 61: 182-197. Rescher, N. (1955) ‘Axioms for the Part Relation’ Philosophical Studies 6: 8-11. Sanford, D. H. (2003) ‘Fusion Confusion’ Analysis 63: 1-4. Sider, T. (2006) ‘Parthood’ (work in progress, available at http://fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu/sider/papers/parthood.pdf). Simons, P. M. (1987) Parts: A Study in Ontology. Oxford: Clarendon. Smith, B. (1996) ‘Mereotopology: A Theory of Parts and Boundaries’ Data and Knowledge Engineering 20: 287-303. Van Inwagen, P. (1990) Material Beings. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press. Wiggins, D. (2001) Sameness and Substance Renewed. Oxford: Blackwell. 230 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science METAPHYSICS AS A PHYSICAL SCIENCE. A PERSONAL REPORT Helmut Hansen 1. Introduction The central subject of traditional metaphysics was the assumption of something absolute and transcendent. This subject was considered as the foundation of the whole universe. According to modern philosophers, especially logical positivists, metaphysics is no science, because there is no method of verifying the existence of its supposed subject. This approach had the effect of making metaphysics as far as modern physics is concerned totally meaningless. But if we are deeply convinced of the existence of the Absolute then metaphysics has actually to be the central discipline of modern physics. In this report I will show how the first steps in this direction could look like. It may sound paradoxical but the very first step to carry metaphysics into the heart of modern physics is the acceptance of the transcendent character of the Absolute. Only by this step metaphysics can scientifically grow. Otherwise we are completely trapped. If something is really transcendent then there is in principle no way to prove it empirically. Hence, the first step towards a modern metaphysics is the acceptance of this transcendent nature of the Absolute. If we can take this methodological decision, then we will discover that the only way how we can develop a metaphysical theory of reality is to turn around our usual perspective and to look at the physical universe. If we think more intensively about a foundation of the universe which is entirely invisible we will discover sooner or later that transcendence must be a very restrictive condition with respect to the structure of the physical universe. When the physicist Albert Einstein developed his theories, he wondered whether God had a choice in the creation of the universe or not. By looking at things from the perspective of God he tried to find out whether the universe had to fulfill certain conditions, for example the condition of logical simplicity, or not. If one starts to think about transcendence in this way, then an interesting research line comes up: If God wanted to set up the universe so that He remained completely invisible on its stage, then the universe must have unavoidably a very special structure. If it would be possible to precise the specific conditions of this conspirational structure in a physically predictable way then we can empirically check whether our universe does have such a structure or not. 2. The discovery of the »threshold area« or: being in Plato’s cave Inspite of this interesting approach to transcendence for the first time I fell in the same trap as all philosophers before. And I was faced with same problems. I will give you an example in order to make it clear. Following this line of thinking I tried to answer the question: Which conditions must the physical universe fulfill in order to base upon something omnipresent? I chose this attribute of omnipresence, because it was an almost classical attribute of the realm of transcendence. But in the beginning there seems to be no chance to answer this question in a meaningful way. 231 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science If the structure of the universe should actually to be compatible with the concept of omnipresence, then it had to guarantee that this foundation was present in a similar manner at all places of the visible world, because this was exactly the inner meaning of this concept. But this meant - in the inversion of this argument -, that none of these places was in any way metaphysically preferred. Consequently, there didn't seem to be any specific place that lent itself to proving the existence of the transcendent branch of reality in a non-trivial way. A trivial way was near at hand: If an omnipresent foundation of the physical universe is supposed, then you can of course state, that all places of the world were proving the existence of this foundation. This argument is not false, but it is meaningless. In order to get a more meaningful argument it was necessary to find a somehow specific place. But following the metaphysical term of omnipresence no place of the universe seemed to be better than an other. In brief, I was faced with the same old and still unsolved problem of metaphysics. Why did all scientific attempts to prove the existence of the Absolute fail in such a radical manner? After a while I found the reason for that. Actually all philosophers including me tried to get in touch with the empirical universe by using a term, like the term of omnipresence, which was by its epistemological nature unsuitable for that, because such a term was of non-empirical character. It was at home on the transcendent side of reality. If there was really something like a conspirational structure of the universe then this structure as well as all therewith connected conditions could exclusively be discovered on the empirical side of reality, i.e. in the physical universe. This insight was the very moment where I suddenly saw that there was in fact a specific place in order to prove the existence of Transcendence scientifically. This place was the area near to the limit of the realm of transcendence. This area, which I call the »Threshold Area«, was quite the best place, in order to work with the transcendent branch of reality in a scientific way, because here two specific conditions came together. First: There was no other area of the physical universe, in which the distance to the realm of transcendence was so small than here. If there was any area in our universe, in which we could see the »shadow of Transcendence« in the most clear and direct way, then just in this area. Second: In spite of this vicinity to this completely non-empirical branch of transcendence in this »threshold area« we can expect at least a few empirical data, because it is still part of the empirical side of reality. Out of these two specific conditions the threshold area appeared as the most interesting place to prove the existence of the Absolute in a scientific way. As I studied this area more intensively, I discovered, that I was not the only person, that was interested in this strange twilight-zone at the edge of the universe. Actually some researchers of the past had studied this area too - and they had even found some very interesting insights. One of the most important insights was made by Nicolaus Cusanus, a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, friend of two popes and certainly one of the most influential philosopher of the 15th Century. It described precisely which specific condition the universe must satisfy in order to base upon something omnipresent. 3. Cusanus’ Conjecture or: The first metaphysical prediction Although Nicolaus himself was not looking for a scientific proof of God he recognized as well that the threshold area was the best place for getting reliable insights about this transcendent part of reality, because it was still accessible to rational thinking. Nicolaus strategy can be paraphrased like this: “If I have got a clear notion of the structure of this area, may be I got a clear notion of God as well.” 232 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science To find out the inner structure of this area, Cusanus used a characteristic feature of the visible world, especially the relation of smaller and larger. Cusanus clearly saw that this relation governed the visible universe throughout all levels. As in the visible world nothing could be larger than the Largest - and nothing smaller than the Smallest, Cusanus posited, that the threshold area must be described by these two terms of the Smallest and the Largest. As these two terms were of the same nature - they were both superlatives - he concluded in a further step of reasoning, that they must »coincide«, too. This coincidence of the Smallest and the Largest was - and is the most important insight of his theology. This insight is also known as the doctrine of the coincidence of the opposites (or in Latin words: coincidentia oppositorum). By a systematic usage of this doctrine Nicolaus hoped to understand what God really was. But with his one-sided perspective, essentially oriented to the transcendent side of reality, he overlooked that his doctrine itself was still part of the empirical side of reality - and therefore usable for a scientific purpose. If one looks closer to the coincidence of the Smallest and the Largest, then one can see that it is a theoretical package that shows how the metaphysical attribute of omnipresence is physically »coded« in the structure of the universe. Or in other words: It is a »condition of conspiracy«. To uncover this meaning, no difficult theoretical operations are necessary: It can be directly derived by this coincidence itself. If an object area shall be the omnipresent basis of the whole universe it must satisfy two conditions: At first it must contain all things of the universe. Secondly, it must also be contained in all these things. Only if an object area satisfies these two conditions it can be the omnipresent foundation of the universe. The coincidence of the Smallest and the Largest includes just these conditions. If something is the Largest it can contain all things of the universe. If something is the Smallest, it can also be contained in all these things. At first sight it seems that an object area can already be considered as an omnipresent foundation of the universe just by being the Smallest and the Largest. But actually that is not enough. There must be a third condition. It is the demand of the coincidence of both conditions. Only by this further condition the omnipresent basis can also be transcendent. But why does Cusanus’ coincidence secure the transcendent character of the Absolute? It is because the relation of the Smallest and the Largest is the very last difference that the universe can epistemologically take. The universe cannot, in principle, have a difference which is more extreme than the relationship between the Smallest and the Largest. If we solve this last difference by the demand of coincidence then our next step will lead us directly into an invisible realm because no further difference of the visible world is left. If we put together all these insights about the coincidence of the Smallest and the Largest, then we can see that it is a highly effective condition: It connects the physical universe with the Absolute in such a way, that it is everywhere in the universe but no one can see it. Omnipresence Cusanus’ coincidence Transcendence But this insight is not yet the essential point. It is merely a more transparent model of Cusanus’ thinking. It gives a clear and modern account to his philosophy. The essential point is – and actually until today no medieval or modern thinker has seen it clearly – the following conclusion: As the coincidence of the Smallest and the Largest is still related to the visible, or let’s say, physical side of reality, there must be a corresponding empirical coincidence in our physical universe, if something transcendent is really existing. This prediction, which we can call »Cusanus’ conjecture«, has never been formulated in this clarity. This possibility makes the coincidence of the Smallest and Largest to the certainly most 233 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science elegant code that nature has ever used. In his book Dreams of a Final Theory the physicist Steven Weinberg describes an elegant code as something by which an impressive result is given with a minimum of unnecessary complication.1 This description fits perfectly to Cusanus’ conjecture: It shows us by a theoretically very uncomplicated construct how the most wanted subject of humanity could be empirically imprinted in the structure of our universe. And in fact: If we look at our universe, going to its outermost edge we can see that there actually is an empirical coincidence which remarkably corresponds to the coincidence of the Smallest and the Largest. 4. An uncanny coincidence or: About an anomaly Physicists have observed that the local inertial compass coincides with the frame of the most distant galaxies and quasars. The German physicist Hermann Weyl described this coincidence briefly as the coincidence of the inertial and the stellar compass. Although physicists have knowledge of it since more than one hundred years it is still unexplained. Even very advanced theories like the general theory of relativity, established by Albert Einstein in 1915, failed to explain this fact. This circumstance caused the physicist Friedrich Hund to designate this empirical coincidence even as uncanny.2 The most popular physical hypothesis to explain it is called Mach’s Principle. This term was coined by Albert Einstein in 1918. It refers to the Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach (1838 – 1916), because he was the first thinker who pointed out that the coincidence of the inertial and the stellar compass is everything but trivial. Mach’s Principle in its modern form states that it is the gravity of all the masses of the distant galaxies and quasars that forces the local inertial compass to point to the ‘place’ of all these stellar objects. But until today there is no physical theory which satisfies this principle. The coincidence of the inertial and the stellar compass is one of the great unexplained facts of contemporary physics. It is something what Thomas Kuhn would have called an anomaly. The comment of the physicist Ray d’Inverno stresses this view: He called it a highly suspicious fact pointing that ‘something fundamental is going on’.3 And in fact, if one looks at this empirical coincidence from a metaphysical point of view like the one I have already presented one can make a breath-taking discovery: It is actually possible to interpret the coincidence of the inertial and the stellar compass as the »shadow of God«. If we look behind the expressions ‘local inertial compass’ and the ‘frame of the most distant galaxies and quasars’, then we can see that both physical expressions are spatially related to the smallest and the largest scale of our universe. Smallest: The local inertial compass is directly related to Newton’s first »law of inertia«. Although modern physics follows the general theory of relativity and excludes therefore a preferred global frame of reference, this old-fashioned law is still considered valid - at least within an infinitely small region of space. Largest: And if we look at the other expression of this coincidence - the frame of the most distant galaxies and quasars – then we can see that this frame is actually related to the »largest« scale of 1 Weinberg, Steven, Dreams of a Final Theory, N.Y. 1993. (I have used the German version: Der Traum von der Einheit des Universums, München 1993, S. 141) 2 Hund, Friedrich, Grundbegriffe der Physik, Mannheim 1979, p. 42 3 d’Inverno, Ray, Introducing Einstein’s relativity, Oxford 1992, p. 123 234 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science our universe, at least to the point to which we can observe the universe. And just these two expressions coincide to a very high accuracy: 2,5 x 10-4 arcsec in a year. 4 The conclusion of this relation is obvious: If the coincidence of the local inertial compass and the frame of the most distant galaxies and quasars is really the empirical counterpart of the coincidence of the Smallest and the Largest, then something transcendent and absolute exists as well. By using the term of an inertial frame of reference it is possible to give this proof a more physical shape but it leads to a whole complex of fundamental problems of modern physics. For the sake of a greater transparency of my personal report I have dropped this technical details. Instead of that I like to make some concluding remarks about this proof and its relation to modern physics. 5. The linkage of the very Small and the very Large At the first moment this proof may physically sound unbelievable, but modern physicists are already in close touch with it. I quote: “Although we can all recognize the strong pervasive unity of form in the universe, there is a compulsive desire to search for a deeper cosmic unity, one which weaves together our own local region with the grand totality in some intimate way. Linking the large and the small … has a strong appeal because it makes us feel at one with all creation, a mystical objective common to most of the world’s religions.”5 This is a comment from the well known physicist Paul Davies about Mach’s principle (i.e. the coincidence of the inertial and the stellar compass). As this exemplary comment shows, in modern physics the coincidence of the inertial and the stellar compass is already linked with the notions of the small and the large. The difference between physics and metaphysics at this point is only gradual. Physics is talking about the very small and the very large, metaphysics goes one step beyond that: it is explicitly talking about the smallest and the largest. The real difference between physics and metaphysics lies elsewhere: It is the interpretation of this linkage. Modern physicists interpret this linkage as the result of an internal structure of the universe, especially of the global distribution of matter. Against that the here presented proof interprets this linkage as the result of an external and invisible entity: It shows how the universe must look at its edge if it bases on something absolute and transcendent. Clearly no two interpretations could be more different then these. However, if we concentrate on the purely theoretical part of the metaphysical proof – i.e. Cusanus’ conjecture - we can see that it is, technically spoken, a »boundary condition«, because it is talking about how the universe has to look at infinity. And the discussion of such boundary conditions at infinity is a natural topic of modern physics. Even Albert Einstein contemplated about such conditions. As he already discovered in 1916 that his theory of general relativity did not satisfy Mach’s principle, he actually intended to overcome this problem by implementing boundary conditions at infinity in his theory. Finally Einstein rejected these conditions, because they included a far-reaching limitation of his theory with no important physical reason at hand.6 As Einstein did not find such an important physical reason, he rejected them. Maybe a modern metaphysics gives us such an important reason: If we assume the 4. Pfister, Herbert; Dragging Effects Near Rotating Bodies and in Cosmological Models in: Barbour, Julien; Pfister, Herbert (ed.), Machs Principle, 1995, p. 325. 5 Davies, Paul, Superforce, N.Y. 1984, p. 209 (Mach’s principle: linking the large and the small) 6 Einstein, Albert in: The Meaning of Relativity, Princeton, New Jersey 51955, p. 99, 100. The first edition of this book was already published in 1922. It bases on some lectures that Einstein gave at Princeton University in Mai 1921. Einstein’s struggle with such boundary conditions at infinity is historically highlighted in the paper Einstein’s Formulation of Mach’s Principle by Carl Hoefer in: Barbour, Julien; Pfister, Herbert (ed.), Machs Principle, 1995, p. 65 – 90 235 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science existence of the Absolute then we are explicitly forced to suppose such boundary conditions at infinity. 236 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science FAITH AND REASON IN AQUINAS AND HEGEL: A FUNDAMENTAL DIVERGENCE Alicia Jaramillo Saint Michael’s College Introduction This paper intends to argue that Hegel’s rejection of supernatural faith is a symptom of his inability to conceive the infinite as totally transcendent. It is well known that Hegel stands at the apex of modern philosophy’s tendency to subordinate religion to rational investigation such that philosophy is able to accomplish a complete absorption of religious truth. What has not been examined, however, is the way in which Hegel’s solution of the problem of faith and reason is itself rooted in Hegel’s metaphysics of the infinite worked out in his logical system. That is, Hegel’s peculiar understanding of the nature of the infinite object that both faith and reason intend precludes an understanding of the supernatural nature of religious truth, that is, its exceeding the competence of rational investigation. It is in connection with this Hegelian challenge to faith that this paper will consider the way in which the thought of Thomas Aquinas can offer a resolution to the modern problem of the infinite.Aquinas’ own Catholic faith cannot countenance the idea that the infinite and totally transcendent God of Scripture, ‘who dwells in inaccessible light,’ could be comprehended by human reason, and, what is more, he is able to demonstrate philosophically this incomprehensibility. At heart of sacred theology as conceived by Aquinas lies a metaphysics of the finite and infinite that enables him to conceive rationally the total transcendence of the infinite God and defend reason’s need for the supernatural. With this problematic in mind, this paper asks several key questions. How does Aquinas manage to speak rationally about the infinite without submitting it to a rationalistic totality? Is there a beyondness that can be affirmed as intelligible when we endeavor to think about that which is totally transcendent? Can we show by means of reason that the divine object of religious thinking is indeed totally transcendent and beyond the grasp of reason? Finally, can one envision the infinite rationally such that a supernatural revelation presents itself as that which is truly above reason and yet helps reason to meet its destiny, that of knowing the truth in its totality? I will begin with a brief presentation of the context for thinking about faith and reason in modern philosophy, as interpreted by Hegel in the text Faith and Knowledge. Then I will examine the dialectic of the finite and infinite in Hegel’s Science of Logic, in order to highlight the precise concept of the infinite that Hegel is working with. Then I will move on to Aquinas’ demonstration of the total transcendence of the infinite as presented in the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae. Finally I will show how Aquinas’ concept of the infinite harmonizes with the ordering of philosophy to theology and of reason to faith. I. The modern problem of faith and reason is presented by Hegel in the text Faith and Knowledge1 and his mature resolution of the problem is worked out in the Phenomenology of Spirit2. According 1 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Faith and Knowledge. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977). 2 Hegel, G.W.F, trans. Arnold Vincent Miller. Phenomenology of Spirit. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977). 237 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science to Hegel, modern philosophy’s option for thinking about the infinite presents itself as a binary opposition between faith and reason. On the one hand, we have Kant’s critical philosophy which exiles reason from knowledge of the infinite and absolute; and on the other hand, we have the sentimental faith of Romanticism, which rejects rationality in its search for the Absolute. For Hegel, this shows that here, religious consciousness has renounced its claim to absolute truth and merely appears as the ‘other side’ [jenseits] of reason and therefore as irrational. Reason, on the other hand, has limited itself in order to ‘make room for faith,’ but in doing so has renounced the vocation of reason to think the truth of the absolute. Hegel envisions the reconciliation of faith and religion, on the one hand, and reason and philosophy on the other, in the ascent to absolute knowing in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Here, Hegel shows in successive stages how the beyondness of God is overcome by consciousness. In the penultimate stage, we have the manifest religion of Christianity, which by the Incarnation reconciles man to God and God to man. However, because this reconciliation takes the form of a representation of the action of God, it is inadequate to the demands of reason and consciousness itself. Reason must see this reconciliation to be its own achievement; indeed it must render conceptual, that is rational, what religion only represents. In this respect, there is no place for any truth that would transcend the immanent competence of rational investigation. Indeed, faith in the supernatural must be interpreted in Hegel’s system only as a symptom of what he calls the unhappy consciousness, that is, a split consciousness that projects the truth into the beyond, such that consciousness is alienated from this truth and thinks of it as an unknowable other. Absolute knowing, the final stage of the Phenomenology, has dismissed this dualism of religious thinking by rendering the truth conceptual, that is, originating in form and in content from reason itself. II. Having reached absolute knowing , reason is able to think the Absolute in terms of the logic that, in Hegel’s own words, expresses the ‘mind of God before the creation of the world.’ The infinite appears as the culmination and result of the opening dialectic of Dasein or determinate being in the Science of Logic3, which itself begins with the thought of pure, abstract being and goes through the process of rendering this concept more and more determinate and concrete. We find that determinate being must be thought as finite, that is, as having a limit and an other. This other is conceived simultaneously as infinite, that is, not finite, and, because of this exclusion, itself finite. For Hegel this reveals a contradiction in the finite understanding itself. It is true that the infinite must be conceived literally as the negation of the finite: that is, the infinite is the negation of the negation that the finite is in its essence. However, this does not mean that the true infinite is that which lies beyond the finite. The lower faculty of knowledge, which Hegel calls the understanding or Verstand, attempts to transcend the determinacy of finite limitations in order to arrive at the infinite. However, the infinite that it seeks is always beyond any determinate result that may be reached. As a ‘beyond’ it is in principle unreachable. This movement of the understanding takes the form of the perpetual progress, an endless transcending of limits. However, what the understanding is seeking is only a bad or spurious infinite, one that is abstract because it is conceived only as that which lies beyond the determinate being of the finite. For Hegel, reason or Vernunft, the supreme cognitive faculty, is able to take a higher viewpoint and comprehend this play of oppositions between the finite and its beyond. This means that what the understanding or Verstand perceives as a perpetual progress, reason or Vernunft rightly comprehends to be an alternating determination of the finite and its limiting other. This is a circular rather than linear or progressive movement, and as such is able to be comprehended. This dialectical interplay of the finite and its beyond is what Hegel calls the true or affirmative infinite, and it is the model for the way Hegel thinks about the relation of finite and the infinite, as well as 3 Hegel, trans. Arnold V. Miller. Hegel's Science of Logic. (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1989). 238 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science the relation of God and the world. This means that God cannot be thought of as ultimately beyond the world, or rather, that this God is a completely abstract Idea that must be comprehended by Absolute Spirit, alone able to conceive the negative identity of finite and infinite. This dialectic bears concrete consequences in Hegel’s appraisal of modern philosophy of religion. According to Hegel, any notion of the transcendence of the divine in terms of an unsurpassable beyond betrays an inadequate notion of the Infinite. This is the essence of Hegel’s critique of the Kantian way of thinking about the infinite, which excludes the infinite from the competence of philosophy and imagines it as an abstract beyond. Kant’s notion of God must be thought of as a spurious infinite, because He can only be conceived as a ‘regulative ideal’ for theoretical reason or as a mere ‘practical postulate’ for practical reason. What is more, such an infinite of the beyond would ultimately have to be thought of as itself finite and limited, since it would let the finite rest alongside it as supposedly ‘autonomous,’ whether in reason’s pursuit of theoretical knowledge or in its regulation of human activity. The inadequacy of this viewpoint is most easily seen in Kant’s configuring of the relation between morality and religion. For Kant, autonomous human action as obedient to the immanent moral law ought not to be motivated by religious concerns or the desire for happiness. And yet Kant felt the need to postulate in the beyond the existence of an infinitely powerful God who could reconcile the opposition between duty and happiness, something that reason itself is powerless to do. In contrast, for Hegel the true or affirmative infinite is nothing other than the immanent transcending by reason itself of these finite oppositions: as for example in the dialectic of mutual forgiveness between finite subjects at the transition from morality to religion in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Here Hegel refuses to posit God in the beyond, but rather identifies the moment of communal reconciliation with, in Hegel’s words, ‘God appearing in the midst of those who know themselves as pure knowing.’4 Only within this movement of finite spirits is God himself said to be Spirit. Theologically, what this amounts to for Hegel, is that God cannot be God without the activity of finite subjectivity; for as such he would only be the abstract Concept, a Jenseits of actuality. Hegel is not a pantheist, for the world is not God; however, he conceives the relation of the world and God in terms of what he calls a negative identity, where one is not the other, but both are comprehended in the totality of the Absolute Idea, which is the true absolute. This conceiving of God as being within totality is in effect to deny his absolute transcendence. What is more, this means that reason, which is conceived as able to comprehend this negative identity, is able of itself to know the infinite, since it is reason itself that performs the dialectic that comprehends the finite and its beyond in the result that Hegel calls the true infinite. As such, any knowledge of God that claims to be ‘supernatural’ must inevitably be conceived as coming from the beyond of reason and therefore as sub rational. Hegel’s critique of the Kantian dismissal of the Absolute from the purview of philosophical inquiry attests to Hegel’s conviction that it is philosophy’s task to think about the Absolute. But does reason’s vocation to think the Absolute mean that any philosophy that attempts to conceive the infinite concretely, rather than abstractly like Kant’s beyond, ends by identifying reason itself with the infinite, as we witness in Hegel’s philosophy? Before we proceed to Aquinas’ resolution of the problem, we make one remark. At the root of the modern approach to the infinite - whether it be Kant’s skepticism or Hegel’s rationalism - lies the assumption that the human mind has a more or less clear idea of what it is trying to grasp. What is suspect in this approach is that from the outset reason is seeking after a reality whose idea it has itself determined, without any reference to actual being. However, this forecloses ipso facto upon the possibility of arriving at the idea of an infinite that transcends reason’s own conceptuality and encloses the infinite within the immanence of finite reason. But does this mean that we simply cannot think rationally about the infinite? And wouldn’t that place us directly in the category of the beyond that Hegel so devastatingly critiques? 4 Phenomenology of Spirit, 409. 239 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science III. Aquinas overcomes this dilemma by bypassing this method altogether. The problem of the infinite surfaces for Aquinas in the context of the five ways for demonstrating the existence of God as presented in the Summa Theologiae. In these demonstrations, Aquinas does not begin from an idea of God whose real existence would have to proved. Aquinas does not believe that such an idea of an infinitely perfect being is self-evident to finite knowers, or, as he puts it, per se known. Therefore, he must begin from what is evident to us, namely, the actuality of finite beings. He begins from the sensible and intelligible properties of beings in the world - such as their being moved, caused, contingent, as well as their transcendental perfections and finality or ordination to an end - and thereby infers the existence of something that is completely other than these beings in that it does not share these properties and is somehow the cause of these properties in finite beings. What is central to keep in mind in this approach is that Aquinas has not assumed that he knows what he is trying to demonstrate, that is, he does not claim to know what God is. Nonetheless, at the end of the five ways, Aquinas has an affirmation of a first uncaused cause of the beings known in experience, and he knows that this cause must be totally unlike the beings it causes. Only now does he deem himself properly equipped to ask what this being is. This is Aquinas’ order of questioning in the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae, which asks what this first cause is only after it has demonstrated rationally that it exists as other than finite being. Before discussing the attributes of God, including his infinity, Aquinas prefaces the discussion with this caveat: “Now that we know that God is, it remains for us to inquire what he is, or rather in what way he exists. However, because we cannot know what God is, but only what he is not, we are unable to consider in what way he exists, but only in what way he does not exist.”5 Why does Aquinas insist that we cannot know what God is? The ground for the affirmation of God as First Cause is our knowledge of finite being. However, any knowledge of the finite, however complete and penetrating, could not be adequate for leading us to an understanding of what the infinite is, as Kant pointed out in his critique of the physico-theological proof for the existence of God. However, to deny that we know what God is, because of the absolute disproportion between the first cause and the effects by which we know it, does not imply that we cannot inquire into this cause’s attributes as first universal cause and underscore the chasm that separates its mode of being from that of its effects. What this means is that we can arrive at a more nuanced understanding of what God is not. It is only within this context that Aquinas speaks about the infinity and other attributes of God. The infinity of God is a particularly difficult attribute to grasp, because of our tendency to associate infinity with limitlessness and formlessness, and in general with imperfection - in effect with an abstract beyondness. This is one of the reasons that Aquinas does not venture to discuss God’s infinity until he has first considered God’s simplicity and perfection. In the discussing God’s simplicity, Aquinas shows how we may think of the First Cause as absolutely transcendent, in that it is absolutely free of any composition of act and potency such as we find in finite beings. He shows that God cannot exist as a composition of matter and form, or even of essence and act of being, and that God does not enter into composition with other beings either. Now, since our understanding of being is predicated on the materially concrete and composite, and since we know beings not in isolation but in community with one another, such a purely simple God must be conceived as transcending anything that we can imagine or understand. Aquinas’ teaching on simplicity promises to leave us with a pure abstraction unless it is complimented by a further teaching on the perfection of the First Cause. This perfection is analogous to, but higher than, the perfection we predicate of finite beings. The perfection we must ascribe to God as esse per se subsistens is not any limited perfection of a certain order, but the universal perfection of being itself. Aquinas shows that both 5 Summa Theologiae Ia q.3, prologue. 240 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science the simplicity and the perfection of the First Cause are consequent upon its being pure act of being, without any potency, that is, free from the dimensions of becoming. Only with this dialectic of simplicity and perfection in place is Aquinas prepared to discuss the divine infinity. Aquinas’ purpose in affirming the infinite as simple and perfect is to distinguish it from the privative infinite that is first given thematic consideration in Aristotle’s Physics. This privative infinite is the apeiron or boundless element discussed in ancient philosophy, and may also be thought as making its appearance in the indefinite regress of causes which for Hegel is an instance of the spurious infinite. This infinite is generated conceptually by taking one thing after another in an indefinite succession such that this sequence is never completed. This element is called infinite from the fact that it is lacking a terminus or completion required for it to have actual existence, and thus must be thought of as imperfect. It is called privative because it is how we must conceive it: as matter lacking form, that is, matter under privation. Aristotle showed that this infinite cannot be thought of as the first principle of all things, primarily because the privative infinite is never fully actual and therefore cannot give actual existence to anything else. The ancient natural philosophers thought of the privative infinite as the principle or cause of all things because they confused it with the whole, the hen kai pan that is the universe. We suspect a similar confusion operating in Hegel’s dialectic of the finite and infinite, that is, in understanding his affirmative infinite, that totality beyond which there is nothing, as the rational comprehension of the spurious infinite. In configuring the relation between totality and the bad infinite in this way, Hegel does not properly free the affirmative infinite - which is the kind of infinity Hegel ascribes to the Absolute - from the understanding’s indefinite transcending of limits. In effect, Hegel has identified the infinite movement of reason with the actual Infinity of being. It is from the privative infinity of matter that Aquinas distinguishes what he terms the ‘negative infinity’ of God. God’s infinity is negative not because it implies the lack of a limit or determinate form that would give actuality, as in the case of matter under privation, but rather because His act of being is thought to be free from any limits or determinacy whatsoever. In effect, God’s infinity is said negatively because it is thought of as a kind of double negation, or as the negation of negation. In other words, God’s infinity is conceived as the negation of the determinate modes of being in finite beings. In reality, this infinity of God, which is the absolute infinity of esse, is absolutely affirmative. The infinity of God must be thought of as absolutely transcending the ordered totality of the universe. As pure being unlimited by any determinacy whatsoever, the infinite transcends reason’s mode of understanding, which always operates by way of delimiting and determining. This is why reason is only able to arrive at the idea of this simple affirmative infinite by way of a complex negative concept. Reason indeed has a capacity of its kind for the infinite, but this is an infinite potency, and not the infinite actuality that is God’s own being. In contrast, by identifying the true or affirmative infinite with the dialectical movement of reason, Hegel in effect conflates these two infinities of distinct orders. Aquinas’ affirmation of total transcendence is not a positing of an abstract beyond. Reason’s knowing of the infinite is grounded in the analogy of being, which it is able to glean from the beings it knows in experience. In contrast to Hegel’s configuring of the relation of the finite and the infinite, of the world and of God, in terms of a negative identity or a complimentary opposition of otherness, Aquinas conceives the universe as an ordered community of being, where higher beings are conceived not as the opposites of lower beings, but rather as encompassing all the perfection of these lower beings and bringing these perfections to a higher level. At the summit of this scale of perfection, although in some sense standing apart from the totality and the order of the universe, is that Being who is absolute in perfection and the cause of perfection in all others. Such a Being - God as self subsisting being, esse per se subsistens - must also be seen as ‘recapitulating’ the perfections of the created order in an absolutely eminent way. Contrary to the attenuation and abstraction of the Kantian beyond, the Thomist beyond is the fullness of infinite perfection. 241 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science IV. We return to the questions that we asked of Aquinas’ metaphysics in the beginning: How does Aquinas manage to speak rationally about the infinite without submitting it to a rationalistic totality? Is there a beyondness that can be affirmed as intelligible when we endeavor to think about that which is totally transcendent? Can we show by means of reason that the divine object of religious thinking is indeed totally transcendent and beyond the grasp of reason? Finally, can one envision the infinite rationally such that a supernatural revelation presents itself as that which is truly above reason and yet helps reason to meet its destiny, that of knowing the truth in its totality? We have an answered the first three questions in our presentation of Aquinas’ approach to the infinite. Now we may consider the last question, which is of course a question about the possibility of envisioning an intelligible harmony between faith and reason. Having arrived at the end of our inquiry into Aquinas’ idea of the infinite, we may make two remarks. One, that reason is able to affirm the total transcendence of the Infinite. Two, that despite its ability to reach the affirmation of this infinite, reason must judge itself to be absolutely incapable of knowing what this infinite positively is. Reason can never extricate itself from its own methodology of dependence on concrete and finite beings, and therefore philosophy cannot treat of the infinite except as it is the First Cause of these beings. However, this means that philosophy can treat of the infinite only in terms of what it is not, and God will always enter into philosophy as primarily unknown. As Aquinas remarks in the Summa Contra Gentiles, our most perfect knowledge of God consists in an ever greater awareness of our inability to grasp Him6. Nonetheless, reason has been able to affirm the existence of this unknown, and it is this very affirmation that ignites the desire of reason itself to know what it paradoxically cannot know. This paradox is what Aquinas calls the natural desire to know God in his essence.7 Aquinas follows Aristotle in affirming that once the existence of a cause is known, there arises a natural desire to know the essence of the cause. In effect, the affirmation of a totally transcendent cause intensifies our apprehension of the necessity of a power higher than natural reason, if we are to grasp what this cause is. This idea of a ‘higher power’ is how Aquinas conceives the light of faith, which in Aquinas’ understanding is a supernatural strengthening of the faculty of human reason. Faith, therefore, is not concerned merely with an abstract and irrational beyond, because the being that is illuminated by this supernatural light is the very being that reason seeks in its philosophical inquiry. Because theology is able to know through a higher light the universe of being that philosophy investigates, it is not a domain that is ‘beyond’ reason without being at the same time an elevation of that faculty. A claim to the rational necessity of the supernatural, however, which is what we are arguing for here, does not mean that this proposal originates from the immanent dynamism of reason. Reason can only offer the idea of the supernatural as a hypothesis. This hypothesis states that if a solution to the problem of the Infinite were to be offered from the Beyond of reason, then reason would be bound to submit to this offer in order to remain true to its own destiny, that of knowing the Absolute. With this awareness of the reasonableness of such a hypothetical solution, reason is able to give itself freely and intelligently to a Revelation originating from the Infinite itself. It is this freedom of a reason able to meet its destiny that overcomes the dualism of the unhappy consciousness. Conclusion In conclusion, we can now see how the fundamental divergence in Aquinas’ and Hegel’s respective understandings of the relation of faith and reason is grounded in completely different understandings of the infinity of the divine object of faith. For Hegel the judgment about the adequacy of reason to the infinite has in a sense been decided from the beginning. The infinite of 6 Summa Contra Gentiles I, c.5. 7 Summa Theologiae Ia q.3, a.8 242 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science the Hegelian system must be comprehended by reason because it is in a very real sense the infinite transcending power of reason itself. However, an acquaintance with the metaphysics of the infinite that undergirds Aquinas’ theology leaves us with the suspicion that the true infinite of being has escaped the Hegelian dialectic. Hegel rightly diagnosed the malaise of modern metaphysics as an unhappy suppression of the infinite desire of reason to know the Absolute. But it is Aquinas’ metaphysics that does not try to cut short this desire in a dubious ‘speculative Good Friday’. Rather, to use Aquinas’ hylomorphic language, reason’s desire is the matter or potency that longs to be formed by an intellective union that cannot be achieved rationally. As finite spirits, we must be educated to this vision of the totally transcendent by the Infinite itself. And it is precisely in terms of education that Aquinas understands faith. In his answer to the question ‘Whether it is necessary for salvation to believe anything above natural reason,’ Aquinas explains in the manner of the master teacher that he is: “Now man acquires a share of this [supernatural] learning [that is, the vision of the Infinite], not indeed all at once, but by little and little, according to the mode of his nature: and everyone who learns thus must needs believe, in order that he may acquire science in a perfect degree.”8 In Aquinas, the reconciliation of faith and reason results not in the Aufhebung or overcoming of the one by the other, as we see in the options provided by modernity, but rather in their ordered collaboration for the perfection of human intelligence. 8 Summa Theologiae IIa IIae q.2, a.3 243 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science CARVING UP CAUSAL STRUCTURE JOONSUNG KIM SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY 1. Introduction Consider a causal claim “A dose of medicine X causes patients’ recovery Y.”1 Assuming that indeterminism holds in the world, two theories of probabilistic causation explicates the causal significance of X for Y in two seemingly different ways. The standard theory of probabilistic causation2 explicates the causal significance of X for Y as follows: X is a positive causal factor for Y if and only if X has positive probabilistic significance for Y in 3 each i of the background contexts Ki, i.e., Pr(Y｜X&Ki) > Pr(Y｜－X&Ki), for each i. On the other hand, the ternary theory of probabilistic causation4 introduces a conditional probability distribution function fi(x) = Pr(Y = y｜X = x & Ki), and contrasts different real numbers of the random variable X with regard to a random variable Y. “i ”of fi(x) represents each i of the background contexts Ki, so that the function fi(x) may have different shapes, depending on what background context it is relative to. Suppose that real numbers of the random variable X take doses of medicine determined as the result of a random experiment, real numbers of a random variable Y take occurrence of recovery, and the random experiment is relative to, for example, a background context K2. If the probability of Y given X = 2 (e.g., a moderate dose of medicine) is greater than the probability of Y given X = 1 (e.g., a placebo), then X = 2 tends to cause Y when compared with X = 1. If the probability of Y given X = 3 (e.g., a strong does of medicine) is greater than the probability of Y given X = 2, then X = 3 tends to cause Y when compared with X = 2. Thus the function fi(x) has a shape of probability increasing relative to the background context K2 such that f2(l) < f2(2) and f2(2) < f2(3), assuming that f2(1) = Pr(Y｜X = 1 & K2) = 0.2, f2(2) = Pr(Y｜X = 2 & K2) = 0.4 and 5 f2(3) = Pr(Y｜X = 3 & K2) = 0.9. If the above random experiment is relative to another 1 This causal claim is a type-level causal claim concerning the relation between such abstract entities as properties or factors. On the other hand, the causal claim “Simpson’s smoking caused him to get lung cancer” is a token-level causal claim concerning the actual causal relations between actual individual events. 2 The theory is developed by Suppes(1970), Cartwright(1979), Skyrms(1980), Eells and Sober(1983) and considerably articulated by Eells(1991). 3 Two roles of background contexts are worth noticing. First, background contexts enable us to assess the salient causal significance of X for Y, many other factors than X being causally relevant to Y. All the factors, which are, independently of X, causally relevant to Y, being held fixed in background contexts, the causal significance of X for Y should be assessed relative to each of the background contexts. X has positive, negative or neutral causal significance for Y if and only if Pr(Y｜X&Ki) >, <, = Pr(Y｜-X&Ki), for each i. Otherwise, X is causally mixed for Y. We see how the causal significance X has for Y changes across the background contexts. Second, background contexts enable us to distinguish causal relations from statistical correlations. Suppose, for example, that smoking V seemingly has causal impact on lung cancer Z, i.e., Pr(Z｜V) > Pr(Z｜–V). Suppose again that a genetic factor W is a common causal factor for both V and Z. If the common causal factor W is not held fixed in background contexts, then V is seemingly a positive causal factor of Z. Let W be positively held fixed in background contexts. Smoking V turns out to be a neutral factor for lung cancer Z, i.e., Pr(Z｜V&W) = Pr(Z｜–V&W). See Eells (1991, 80-107) to examine issues about background contexts. See Eells (1991, 80-107) to examine more issues about background contexts. 4 The theory is first proposed by Holland(1986) and is considerably articulated by Hitchcock(1993: 349-353). 5 y, which supposedly represents different non-negative values of the random variable Y, will not appear in f2(x). For, in this example, Hitchcock considers only two cases of effect, i.e., recovery and not recovery, so that Y has only two values 1 and 0. 245 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science background context, then fi(x) may have a shape of probability decreasing or a shape of probability not changing. The relations, f2(l) < f2(2) and f2(2) < f2(3), convey the information about the function fi(x) such that the probability of Y increases from X = 1 through X = 2 to X = 3.(Hitchcock 1993, 350-351) Hitchcock claims that only the ternary theory conveys the information about the function fi(x), and is superior to the standard theory. In this paper, I argue that the standard theory also conveys information about the probability of Y increasing from X = 1 through X = 2 to X = 3. My argument for the standard theory is expected not only to show that the standard theory and the ternary theory both carve up the same causal structure in two conceptually different but consistent ways but also to reveal the versatility of the standard theory such that casual role is relative to populations. 2. CAUSAL ROLE TO RELATIVE TO POPULATION We should notice that the standard theory is also a ternary theory: it says that a factor X is a causal factor for another factor Y relative to a population P. The causal significance of X for Y depends on which population we are considering. This is understood in two ways. First, a population P always exemplifies a population type Q. The causal significance of X for Y depends on which population type Q the population P is taken to exemplify.6 For example, smoking may have a positive causal significance for lung cancer in a population of middle-aged human beings. But smoking may not have positive causal significance for lung cancer in a population of teen-aged human beings. Second, a population P, in which a factor is a causal factor for another factor, is basically taken as a homogeneous subpopulation. Causal role may be different, depending on which subpopulation we are considering. For example, if X is a positive causal factor for Y in a homogeneous subpopulation, then X may be a negative causal factor for Y in another homogeneous subpopulation. If this causal information is true, then X is causally mixed for Y in a subpopulation into which the two subpopulations are combined. Let us see how this feature of the standard theory conveys information about the function fi(x) the ternary theory alone allegedly does. Consider, for brevity, only the three cases of the experiment relative to K2 introduced in the previous section, f2(1) = Pr(Y｜X = 1 & K2) = 0.2, f2(2) = Pr(Y｜X = 2 & K2) = 0.4 and f2(3) = Pr(Y｜X = 3 & K2) = 0.9. Let X = 1, X = 2, X = 3 be in turn X1, X2, X3, which constitute a partition of doses of medicine. See Figure 1. －Y － －Y Y 0.4 0.9 0.2 Y Y Y X1 X2 X3 Figure 1 According to the standard theory, the relations between X1, X2, X3 and Y relative to the background context K2 are Pr(Y｜X1&K2), Pr(Y｜X2&K2), Pr(Y｜X3&K2). These three conditional probabilities are in turn equivalent to f2(1) = Pr(Y ｜X =1 & K2) = 0.2, f2(2) = Pr(Y｜X =2 & K2) = 0.4, f2(3) = Pr(Y｜X =3 & K2) = 0.9. Consider, relative to K2, a subpopulation whose individuals 6 See Eells (1992: Chapter 1) for details. 246 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science have the property of X1 or X2. That is, a population type of the subpopulation is X1 or X2. (The shaded parts in Figure 2 are the relations between X1, X2 and Y in the subpopulation X1 or X2.) －Y －Y －Y 0.9 0.4 0.2 Y Y Y X1 X2 X3 Figure 2 1 1 Let the subpopulation relative to K2 be K 2. In the subpopulation K 2, X2 is not only the absence 1 of X1 but also only alternative to X1. Therefore, in the subpopulation K 2, Pr(Y｜X1) < Pr(Y｜－X1), that is, Pr(Y｜X1) < Pr(Y｜X2). Again, consider a subpopulation whose individuals have the property of X2 or X3. (The shaded parts in Figure 3 are the relations between X1, X2, and Y in the subpopulation X2 or X3.) －Y －Y －Y 0.9 0.4 0.2 Y Y Y X1 X2 X3 Figure 3 2 2 Let the subpopulation be K 2. In the subpopulation K 2, X3 is not just the absence of X2 but also 2 only alternative to X2. Therefore, in the subpopulation K 2, Pr(Y｜X2) < Pr(Y｜－X2), that is, Pr(Y｜X2) < Pr(Y｜X3). Again, consider a subpopulation whose individuals have the property of X1 or X3. (The shaded parts in Figure 4 are the relations between X1, X3, and Y in the subpopulation X1 or X3.) 247 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science －Y －Y －Y 0.9 0.4 0.2 Y Y Y X1 X2 X3 Figure 4 3 3 Let the subpopulation be K 2. In the subpopulation K 2, X3 is not just the absence of X1 but also 3 only alternative to X1. In the subpopulation K 2, Pr(Y｜X1) < Pr(Y｜－X1), that is, Pr(Y｜X1) < 1 Pr(Y｜X3). Let us follow the transition of the probability of Y from the subpopulation K 2 through 2 3 the subpopulation K 2 to the subpopulation K 2. Then it is easy to see that f2(l) < f2(2) and f2(2) < f2(3), so the probability of Y increases from X1 through X2 to X3. The increase of the probability of Y conveys the information exactly about f2(x) such that Pr(Y｜X=1 & K2) < Pr(Y｜X=2 & K2) < 1 2 3 Pr(Y｜ X=3 & K2). By considering each of the three subpopulations K 2, K 2, K 2 as the third relatum, the standard theory shows that the comparison between Pr(Y｜X) and Pr(Y｜－X) conveys the information about f2(x). 3. MULTIPLE WAYS OF CARVING UP CAUSAL STRUCTURE Let us generalize the relation between the ternary theory and the standard theory. The ternary theory and the standard theory both explicate the same relations of causal relevance in each i of Ki. On the other hand, the two theories carve up the same causal structure in two different ways. In each single background context, the ternary theory considers, as a third relatum, a third non-negative value that a random variable takes, while, in each single background context, the standard theory considers subpopulation as a third relatum. There is no conflict between the two ways. In each single i of Ki, the unanimity theory and the ternary theory both carve up the same causal structure in two conceptually different but consistent ways. In this sense, the standard theory coheres with the ternary theory. 4. CONCLUSION I conclude that Hitchcock’s criticism of the standard theory gives us a chance to confirm the versatility of the standard theory such that casual role is relative to populations. 248 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science REFERENCES Cartwright, N. 1979. Causal Laws and Effective Strategies. Nous 13: 419-437. In Cartwright, N. 1983, How the Laws of Physics Lie, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Eells, E. 1991. Probabilistic Causality, Cambridge Univ. Press. Eells, E. and Sober, E. 1983. Probabilistic Causality and the Question of Transitivity. Philosophy of Science50: 35-57. Hitchcock, C. 1993. A Generalized Probabilistic Theory of Causal Relevance. Synthese 97: 335-64. 1996. Farewell to Binary Causation. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26: 267-282. Holland, P.W. 1986. Statistics and Causal Inference (in Theory and Methods). Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 81: 945-960. Papineau, D. 1989. Pure, Mixed, Spurious Probabilities and Their Significance for a Reductionist Theory of Causation. P.Kitcher and W. C. Salmon, Scientific Explanations, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XIII: 307-56. Skyrms, B. 1980. Causal Necessity, Yale Univ. Press. Solomon, F. 1987. Probability and Stochastic Processes. Prentice-Hall. Suppes, P. 1970. A Probabilistic Theory of Causality, North-Holland Pub. 249 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science REALISM, TRUTH, AND OBJECTIVITY Jerry Kapus University of Wisconsin-Stout Realism is sometimes characterized by the claim that sentences are true or false in virtue of their ‘fit’ with reality. Stathis Psillos provides a recent example of this type of semantic characterization by claiming that “the concept of truth is required for a sensible understanding of the metaphysical commitments of scientific realism.” 1 In response to the semantic characterization of realism, philosophers such as Michael Dummett and Hilary Putnam have argued that realism is committed to a conception of truth conditions that outstrips our ability to make sense of and to know when these truth conditions obtain. 2 A natural response to this debate over realism and truth is to separate the metaphysical and semantic issues. This is the approach to realism advocated by philosophers such as Michael Devitt and Paul Horwich.3 Devitt and Horwich rely on a deflationary view of truth to argue that realism can be properly formulated and defended without recourse to a substantial theory of truth, such as the correspondence theory. In a paper presented at the Metaphysics 2003 conference, I argued that the deflationary view of truth is inadequate for showing that a more substantial conception of truth is not needed for understanding and defending realism.4 However, the deflationary theory of truth highlights the problem with clearly showing how a robust conception of truth enters into the metaphysical question of realism. In this paper, I take up this problem and indicate where a robust conception of truth is connected to realism. In section I, I briefly discuss the deflationary conception of truth and its relevance to the issue of realism. Section II examines Devitt’s formulation of realism. Contrary to Devitt, I argue that a robust conception of truth is needed in order to make sense of the independence and objectivity dimensions of realism. In the final section, I argue that a substantive conception of truth is needed as part of the realist explanation of how our beliefs contribute to our success in achieving our goals. Given the intricacies of these issues and the time limitations for this presentation, I will only present a broad outline of the issues and my arguments. I. The Deflationary View of Truth and Realism The deflationary view of truth appears to support the idea that the concept of truth is not central to realism. The intuitive idea behind the deflationary view of truth is expressed by Quine: The truth predicate is a reminder that, despite a technical ascent to talk of sentences, our eye is on the world. This cancellatory force of the truth predicate is explicit in Tarski's paradigm: ‘Snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white. Quotation marks make all the difference between talking about words and talking about snow. The quotation is a name of a sentence that contains a name, namely ‘snow’, of snow. By calling the sentence true, we call snow white. The truth predicate is a device of disquotation.5 1 Psillos, Stathis, “Scientific Realism and Metaphysics,” Ratio, 18: 2, (2005). 2 See Putnam, Hilary, Realism and Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1983) and Dummet, Michael, Truth and Other Enigmas, London: Duckworth, (1978). 3 See Devitt, Michael, Realism and Truth 2nd edition, Princeton: Princeton University Press, (1997) and Horwich, Paul, Truth 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1998). 4 See Kapus, Jerry,“Realism Absence Truth,” in Proceedings of Metaphysics 2003 Second World Conference, vol. 1: 374-381, Fondazione Idente di Studi e di Ricerca: Rome, (2006). 5 Quine, W. V., Philosophy of Logic, Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, (1970), 12. 251 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science On the deflationary view of truth, the truth predicate for a language is typically defined by the infinite conjunction of Tarskian T-biconditionals for that language. The main idea is that this definition amounts to saying that p and ‘p’ is true are equivalent in meaning. Given this equivalence, what is the value of truth? As Quine notes, the truth predicate allows us to express generalizations such as, any statement of the form ‘p or not p’ is true. The bearing of the deflationary view of truth on realism is that it allows us to interpret uses of ‘true’ in the formulation and defense of realism as convenient generalizations. For example, if the formulation of realism amounts to the claim that our scientific theories are true then this is simply a convenient way to express the conjunction of the statements that make up our scientific theories. Similarly, if the defense of realism rests on the truth of our scientific theories then this is simply a convenient way to explain the success of these theories in terms of the conjunction of the statements of the theories. This view of the role of truth in formulating and arguing for realism is plausible only if we read the deflationary view of truth in a very strong way, namely, that a generalization is not simply materially equivalent to the conjunction of its instances, but that the generalization has the same meaning as the conjunction of its instances. As Anil Gupta has argued, this strong reading of the deflationary view of truth is false.6 Consider the following example: (1) All people are mortal. (2) Gina is mortal and Marcello is mortal and ... etc. Clearly, (1) and (2) differ in content. A person could grasp the meaning of (1) without knowing which individuals, in particular, are mortal. Also, a person could understand (2) without knowing that (1) follows since (2) does not explicitly tell us that it contains a conjunct for each person. Further, (1) carries implications concerning counterfactual situations that are not contained in (2). Similar points apply to generalizations involving truth and the related conjunctions of the instances of the generalizations. What this tells us is that the T-biconditionals might fix the extension of “true”, but they do not define the sense of “true”. The implication of this failure in meaning for realism is that we cannot claim that truth is only being used as a device for expressing a convenient formulation of realism. The use of truth may carry additional meanings relevant to the formulation and defense of realism. However it should be noted that even if we accept the claim that the strong reading of the deflationary view of truth is incorrect, it does not follow that the concept of truth has a significant connection to realism. We need an argument for this. II. Truth, Independence, and Objectivity In order to identify a significant role for truth in the formulation of realism, let us consider Devitt’s formulation of realism: “tokens of most current common sense and scientific, physical types objectively exist independently of the mental.” 7 The reference to common sense and scientific, physical types is merely a convenience which could be paraphrased away by listing all the types. On its surface, this formulation of realism does not contain semantic terms. It appears to be a straightforward statement of what exists together with a general statement about the nature of this existence. To say that a thing objectively exists is to say that its nature (what it is) is not determined by what we believe or think about that object. Objects also exist independently of the mental, e.g., a cat's existence does not depend on being perceived. A cat is neither an idea nor a sense datum. Objectivity and independence characterize the kind of existence that physical objects have for Devitt's realist. Devitt specifies both an objectivity and independence dimension in his formulation of realism. His notion of independence includes implications that go beyond objectivity, and this is crucial to 6 Gupta, Anil, “A Critique of Deflationism,” Philosophical Topics, 21: 57-81, (1993). 7 Devitt, Michael, op. cit., 23. 252 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science identifying an unacceptable narrowness in his brand of realism. He recognizes that some forms of idealism involve a sense of objective mental states, and he wants his brand of realism to be distinct from this. The problem with this is that the independence restriction takes materialism (or physicalism in its modern form) as the only correct expression of realism, and this should be avoided. We should not rule out by definition the possibility of being a realist concerning mental states, such as feeling pain. The formulation of realism should be sufficiently broad to characterize the various plausible forms of realism whether this involves a commitment to mental states, colors, universals, or numbers. This is an important point to consider since Devitt argues that semantic considerations do not imply his particular brand of realism. Devitt recognizes that a correspondence theory of truth captures the objectivity dimension of his formulation of realism, but it fails to capture the independence dimension. His conclusion follows automatically since the independence dimension restricts realism to physical objects while a correspondence theory can obviously apply to both physical and non-physical objects. However, if we reject equating realism with physicalism then the issue of whether the formulation of realism involves semantic considerations rests on our understanding of the concept of objectivity. To see how semantic considerations enter into our understanding of objectivity consider that both a realist and an antirealist can claim that cats exist and electrons exist, etc. What distinguishes these positions is our understanding of these existence claims. The difference in our interpretation of the realist's and anti-realist’s existence statements need not be explained as a difference in their ontological commitments. How then are we to explain the difference between a realist and anti-realist interpretation of existence claims? The difference in interpretations hinges on our understanding of the sense of objective existence. It is in explaining this understanding that semantic theories are relevant to the interpretation of the realist's existence claims. If, for example, we interpret the existence claims in terms of warranted assertibility then we have an anti-realist interpretation of these claims since we do not have the strong notion of objectivity required by realism. As realists are willing to point out, realism is trivially semantic in the negative sense that objective existence is not a matter of warranted assertibility. However, realists tend to think that they do not need a positive characterization of objectivity in their statement of realism since they think that this objectivity is part of the ‘face value’ of existence statements. What we have here is a case of placing the burden of proof on those who oppose realism. However, I do not think that the face value of these statements is as clear as some realists, such as Devitt, take them to be. The realist's ontological claims do not carry their realist interpretations on their sleeves. If an object exists objectively then how can we capture this fact? One way that a realist can do this is by explaining objectivity in terms of a truth-conditional theory of meaning. On the surface, realism can be formulated without explicit reference to semantic concepts. However, semantic concepts are relevant to understanding the realist’s sense of objectivity. To make sense of the realist claims about objective existence we need to make sense of how the formulation of realism in a language is linked to objects in the world. In response to this line of reasoning, it could be pointed out that the mundane claim that a theory can be expressed only in a language applies equally to the statement of any theory and yet we do not think that it shows, for example, that theories in physics are dependent on semantics. It would then seem that we should equally hold that realism is not dependent on semantic considerations. I think that the difference in the relevance of semantic questions to realism and physics arises from the difference in the interests we attach to these theories. In physics we are interested in explaining specific phenomena such as the motion of physical objects. As long as a theory does this then semantic considerations are beside the point. However, with realism our interest is in providing a comprehensive and general account of the nature of the world which underlies ours common sense beliefs and scientific theories. This comprehensive account includes an account of the objectivity of the realist world. Semantic considerations are relevant for our ability to understand the claims of the realist and hence our ability to provide the type of comprehensive theory that realism claims to be. Objectivity is not a transparent concept. 253 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science III. Realism, Truth, and Success The previous section focused on whether semantic considerations are relevant to the formulation and understanding of realism. I now want to consider whether the concept of truth is relevant, in an important way, to the argument in favor of realism. The approach that I take follows the familiar argument that the truth of realism is part of the best explanation of the success of science and of how language contributes to our success in achieving practical goals. I will focus on the case of practical goals and respond to those realists who claim that this type of a success argument relies only on a deflationary conception of truth. If this is correct then truth does not play an important role in this argument for realism. Consider the following situation. I am trying to find Carole so that I can ask her if I can borrow her car to pick up a friend at the airport. Bob says, "Carole is in her office."I go to Carole's office, find her there, and ask if I can borrow her car. Carole agrees to let me use her car and says, "The car is in the south lot in space 10." I set off for the south parking lot. I find Carole's car and drive to the airport to pick up my friend. How do Bob’s and Carole’s utterance contribute to my success in picking up my friend? It should be noted that situations such as the above are quite common. In order to get what we want we often talk to each other. This linguistic behavior appears to contribute to the success of our actions. For cases such as the above, our problem is to provide a general account of this contribution. Following Fred Dretske, I think that the most plausible approach to explaining this contribution is expressed by the metaphor that language is a map.8 The map metaphor explains success in terms of the representational content of the map, our ability to guide our behavior in virtue of this content, and the accuracy of the representations. The notion of representation can be understood in terms of truth-conditions, and the accuracy of a map is the obtaining of these truth-conditions or the map being true. What Dretske adds to the familiar map metaphor in an account of truth conditions. For Dretske, the elements of a representational system have their content or truth condition in virtue of acquiring an indicator function. It is the function of an element in the system to represent or indicate a feature of the world. An element of the system is supposed to perform this function by covarying with the situation that it indicates. For example, a ringing telephone indicates that a person is calling because the ringing normally occurs only when a person dials the number of the phone. However, if the notion of an utterance expressing a truth-condition is to have an explanatory role in cases of success, we need an account of how we use the truth-condition of an utterance to guide our behavior. Such an account is given in Dretske's explanation of structuring causes. Dretske distinguishes two questions concerning the causes of behavior. These questions distinguish between what Dretske calls triggering causes and structuring causes. Questions concerning triggering causes deal with specific bits of behavior. They seek to explain why A occurred at a certain moment. For example, why is the phone ringing now? It is because someone is calling. In addition to asking why a specific bit a behavior occurred, we can also ask why events of kind A cause events of kind B. We want to know the cause of A's causing B's. Questions of this kind involve structuring causes. In the case of the phone, we want to know why someone pushing certain buttons causes the phone to ring. This is because we designed or structured the buttons and phone in this way. The important point to notice is that it is the structuring causes that explain why the ringing of the phone indicates that someone is calling. Similarly, it is the structuring causes of language that explain why statements possess their truth conditions that indicate a given state of affairs. Let us now consider how the explanation of truth and success outlined here differs from deflationist explanations of success. A deflationist approach makes use of semantic notions such as 8 Dretske, Fred, Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, (1988). 254 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science believing that p or saying that p. This appears to involve a notion of truth-conditions. Further, a deflationist can agree with me that an utterance is true if and only if its truth-condition obtains since this seems to say nothing other than that `p' is true if and only if p. Paul Horwich provides the following example of a deflationary explanation of success.9 Consider Bill's success at getting a beer in the following way. Bill wants a beer, and he believes that if he nods then he will get a beer. Bill's belief together with his desire for a beer causes him to nod. Furthermore, Bill's belief is true. Given the appropriate instance of the disquotation schema for Bill's belief, If Bill nods then he will get a beer' is true iff if Bill nods then he will get a beer, we can infer that if Bill nods then he will get a beer. Since Bill nodded, he was successful at getting a beer. It seems that the above account gives the content of Bill's belief a significant role in explaining Bill's success. For our purposes, we can think of the content of Bill's belief as its truth-condition. But the deflationist obviously wants to deny the concept of truth a significant explanatory role. How are we to understand Horwich's example? If the concept of truth is understood in a deflationary manner, it seems we cannot explain Bill's nodding in terms of the truth-condition of his belief nor can we see the truth of his belief as directing him towards the appropriate kind of action needed to obtain a beer. If Horwich's example is to be interpreted in a deflationary manner then we are left simply with an identification of a sequence of events ending in Bob's getting a beer, that is, the explanation gives us a sequence of triggering causes. This sequence of events includes Bob's belief that if he nods, he will get a beer. However, the truth condition of his belief is explanatorily inert since the explanation does not appeal to the idea that the belief is intended to indicate a certain state of affairs. What is missing in this type of explanation is an understanding of why the items in the sequence are related as they are. This type of explanation appeals to structuring causes. Horwich’s use of a deflationary view of truth to explain the contribution of our linguistic behavior or of our beliefs to the success of our actions, since it fails to explain the structuring causes of these utterances or beliefs leading us to act in ways that are successful. Providing these structuring causes provides the concept of truth with an explanatory role. Thus, if we want to defend realism by appealing to these types of success arguments (and I think that this is the best way to support realism) then a substantial notion of truth and truth conditions is part of the argument. I wish to close with some brief remarks on how these types of success arguments bear on the anti-realist claim that realism is committed to what Putnam calls the “God’s eye view.”10 As Boyd has argued, realism should be viewed as an empirical hypothesis that is confirmed as part of the best explanation of the success of science. 11 Similarly, realism is an empirical hypothesis that is confirmed as part of our best explanation of how our beliefs and use of language enable us to achieve our practical goals. In these explanations, truth should be viewed as a theoretical concept that is a crucial part of the explanation of how beliefs and language model the world and allow us to represent an objective world. This mapping is constrained by natural relations such as structuring causes. Although we cannot attain a God’s eye view of reality, we can make sense of an objective world and we can have reason to think that we have gotten it right. This type of naturalistic approach to realism does not commit realism to a God’s eye view of reality. 9 Horwich, Paul, op. cit., 23-24. 10 See Putnam, Hilary, Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1981). 11 Boyd, Richard, “On the Current Status of the Issue of Scientific Realism,” Erkenntnis, 19: 45-90 (1983). 255 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science IDEATION, RATIONALITY AND COLLECTIVE INTENTIONALITY: BASIC SKILLS FOR A SOCIAL ONTOLOGY Beatrice Kobow Berkeley Leipzig, Germany What basic skills do participants need to master in order to understand and negotiate their society and act in it? This is the main question of my paper. I am investigating the necessary ground-level proficiencies for a social ontology. This conception of social ontology is based on the premise that societies are made up of human interactions, and that most intentional actions in a societal context depend on the mastery of certain skills. It can be assumed that a high level of proficiency of these skills leads to a better participation in a better working society. John Searle describes the building block for a society in his book “The Construction of Social Reality”. Central are the two formulae “x counts as y in context c” and “we recognize (x has the right (x does y))”. They describe how status-functions are collectively transferred to objects/people and how these status-functions translate into deontic rights and/or obligations of group-members. For example, if George W. Bush counts as the president of his country in the context of his society, then it is recognized by the other group-members that he has the right to do certain things such as delivering the State of the Union address to Congress. Social reality is shaped by agents through institutional facts and institutions. The brute reality which exists without the participation of the agents is the matter out of which and onto which humans build societies; it is important to note, here, that social facts depend on their recognition not by individual agents, alone, but on the recognition of a group, because the first formula “x counts as y in context c” could be held by me alone without giving me deontic rights or obligating me beyond a private habitualized behavior. The functioning of language and thereby, the limitation of language to the public realm is a good example of this. Although private expression through naming of objects is possible, these “expressions” do not facilitate communication and the instrumental nature of language for agents to achieve goals communicatively is not given. The basic skills for participation in society are rationality and collective intentionality, on the one hand, which allow agents to reach their goals in a societal context. I outline this thought in the first part of my paper. Collective intentionality enables an individual agent’s rational choice in acting, whereas the understanding of social norms as understanding a proto-type free method of production – the procedure described as ideation – allows for the common deliberations of these norms. Ideation is the description of a priori synthetical knowledge which is necessary for the negotiation of societal standards among the participants. I will explain this idea in the second part of my paper. My essay adds to other ontological models in the way that it describes the most basic skills of participants which then fit into the models of the setting-up and generation of social facts and society and their functioning, such as John Searle’s model. These basic skills are practical skills of episteme broadly defined – of how to know things about our perceptions and actions in a social context. (Maybe we could say that this is where poiesis as the process of making and continuing the world meets episteme and becomes part of it as the practical ways of achieving knowledge.) Knowledge thus broadly defined can be had in intentional 257 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science and pre-intentional states; an agent has such knowledge either in the form of beliefs (and other intentional states), or in the form of skills, capacities and proficiencies. In John Searle’s theory these skills and capacities are counted as pre-intentional states into a “background” which enables all intentionality. The proficiency in or knowledge of background skills is the basic fundament underlying all of the intentionality necessary to construct a social reality. Part I Rationality and Collective Intentionality: In which way is my experience of acting in a society of others necessary for the formation of my intentions for acting? There are two assumptions coming out of a Searlean account of single minds in a shared world: 1) There is a reality of a shared world. 2) Intentions are only had in the heads of individual agents. One has to consider which implication this internalist account of intentionality has for an action theory, and what importance and logical status the presence of others as actual or potential agents has in this model. If it is the case that one epistemically needs the experience of society, that is, the epistemic gratification of we-intentions via successful collective action, in order to form further we-intentions and I-intentions, then which logical status does this insight have? Let us consider the following claim: In order to conceive of oneself as a potentially successful social agent, one has to operate on the assumption of successful we-intentions. This argument comes in two flavours: Strong and Weak. The strong version would be to claim that for every intention we need a basis of we-intentions. In the weak version, one would claim that only for a certain class of intentions, namely those concerning actions in the socially negotiated world, we need to assume underlying we-intentions for the formation of I-intentions. The weakest form of the argument goes like this: If I hold that there is a genuine kind of we-intentions which is irreducible to I-intentions (like Searle does), then I have to phrase a certain class of intention-in-action and prior intentions as dependent upon the overarching we-intention. Only I-intentions motivate my body to move. I am here disregarding forms of absorbed coping as described by Hubert Dreyfus. He argues that no intention is eliciting the bodily movement in certain cases, but rather that it is a response to an environment. As an agent, I have to explain some of my actions as part of our action. To employ Searle’s example, I am stirring because we are making a Sauce Hollandaise. This class of I-intentions is dependent on the overall we-intention. However, beyond this weak form, I want to say more: I claim that the I-intentions concerning the social world (that is those involving any status-functions) are predicated on we-intentions. This has to do with the basic skill of collective intentionality necessary for societal contexts which underlies I-intentionality. My argument can be made either as an epistemic argument or, and this is most interesting, as a logical argument. This argument concerns only my I-intentions in relation to the we-intentions logically required for these I-intentions. It is not required to think of me as acting in the presence of others (I can be alone), or acting for the sake of others (I can be selfish), or to presently hold a we-intention (I do not have to act jointly). This last question of participation raises some interesting 258 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science issues such as my participation in institutions of which I am a victim, or my reinforcement of power-structures without my ‘direct participation’ in them. These issues need to be discussed elsewhere in more detail. Excluding, perhaps, basic perception and basic actions such as, for example, moving my body from A to B in order to gather food, which I could also perform as an animal not living in a society, I am now talking of I-intended actions in the socially constructed reality. Those I-intended socially constructed actions depend on several different things: 1) I must believe that by doing x I can achieve my action goal. 2) I must intend to achieve that goal and, by extension, also want to do x. 3) I must do x. Believing, intending and doing are three basic terms needed for an action theory. In explaining an action, we do not take into account the causal chain of bodily movements that lead to a result, but we explain the action in terms of the agent’s subjectively rational reasons for acting which (in overcoming ‘the Gap’, as Searle calls it) lead to her ‘making up her mind’ and ‘performing the action with an intention-in-action’, and we refer to the agent’s beliefs and desires and resulting from those, of her reasons for acting. For example, I believe that by buying a plane ticket I can achieve my goal to travel to England. I must intend to travel to England and therefore, I must also want to buy the ticket. I must buy the ticket. The first condition is called the condition of success. I perform my action only because I hold the belief that it will be successful. This belief is subjectively rational, that is, it does not matter whether it is, from a third person perspective, really rational to believe that doing x will bring about my goal, it is sufficient and it is necessary that I hold this belief. As an agent in a social circumstance, I must hold some additional beliefs which are predicated on the notion of we-intentions and therefore logically dependant on them. I must believe that I can do x. That is, using the same example, I must believe that there is a shared world in which things like plane-tickets and countries named ‘England’ exist and that I can travel there. These institutional facts only exist because of their collectively agreed upon status-function and they make up our social reality. They only exist because we believe them to exist, but I, as a single participant in the collective, cannot by myself discontinue them. (I can opt out of some parts of my society, such as the garbage disposal system, or perhaps, with some difficulty, even out of the taxation of my income.) The point of the argument is that I cannot opt out of the assumption that there is a socially constructed world in order to act in it. This is a necessary condition, because it is part of the condition of success which is logically necessary for the description of action. In an epistemic argument for this claim, one would phrase this in terms of the necessity of the experience of action-success. I now support the stronger claim, that to even form an intention to act in a social circumstance (which includes 99 % of our actions), one needs to believe in the potential success of the action. One of the conditions of satisfaction of this belief is that there is a social world constructed by social players. This is not only an epistemic notion, since I could be a brain in a vat, or my intentions could be frustrated all the time. In order to form an intention to act, I would have to assume that my action could be successful and thus, the formation of my intention would be predicated on the belief of prior we-intentions, such as the formation of a society and collectively agreed upon institutional facts. This is a variation of the realism-hypothesis: It does not make any sense for me to act in the world, at all, were I to believe that this world does not exist. Were I to hold this solipsistic-sceptical position and were I to still go around acting in the world, I would belie my own hypothesis. In Searle’s frame-work these additional beliefs are part of the background. They are non-intentional assumptions which facilitate intentional action, he might say. I assume that in an 259 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science action theoretical account, the conditions of satisfaction of the condition of success are part of the intentional action and thereby part of the logical prerequisites of intentions. I have so far only made the argument for I-intended actions in social circumstances. Since the world we encounter is never just a world of brute facts, and since we can never perceive the world relevant for our actions in terms of how it is made up of brute facts, we always act in the social world. There is no other world to be encountered in action. The rationality involved in judging action-success and in acting is the rationality of “practical reasoning”; it guides our intentional actions. In order to be able to act intentionally in a world other than the world of brute facts and in order to apply rational judgments in the process of long term decision making, it is not only our individual intentionality based on cognition and volition, but rather our ability to understand collective intentionality and hold we-intentions which facilitates such intentional action. One final point: In order to act successfully, we also need to be able to divert the burden of factual verification about the world as social world; that is: we need to make sure that we are “right” in our perceptual judgments and the only way we can do so is by transferring the performance of verification to others. For an individual agent’s actions to succeed, and for her to expect this success, this agent has to build on the presupposition of collectively shared intentions. She has to master the skill of rationality in action which, at the very least in a societal context, depends on the skill or the knowledge of collective intentionality. Part II Ideation: A method of understanding social norms Following Kant, there are two kinds of judgments: those which are a priori and analytical, for example those we come to in our studies of logic and math, and judgments which are a posteriori and synthetical, namely the findings and results of any empirical science. “Allein Urteile mögen nun einen Ursprung haben, welchen sie wollen, oder auch, ihrer logischen Form nach, beschaffen sein, wie sie wollen, so gibt es doch einen Unterschied derselben, dem Inhalte nach, vermöge dessen sie entweder bloß erläuternd sind, und zum Inhalte der Erkenntnis nichts vergrößern, oder erweiternd, und die gegebene Erkenntnis vergrößern; die ersten werden analytische, die zweiten synthetische Urteile genannt werden können.” (Kant, Edition Weischedel 1968, 125) In addition to Kant’s classical formulation, Janich and Lorenzen have proposed a third category of judgments which are a priori and synthetical; Janich describes our understanding of geometry as the understanding of a manufacturing process which can be reproduced without the use of a prototype; it is simply a procedure of ideation defined by different steps of ‘making’ a geometrical figure. Such a methodology transforms the common sense term ‘level’ into the geometrical term ‘plane’ and enables us to come to an a priori judgment which does not depend on an actual representation of a geometrical figure, but, unlike an analytical judgment, adds more in content to our understanding than an analytical judgment would. Kant considers that there can be judgments which are synthetical and a priori certain, but they require another principle, namely experience. To understand a synthetical judgment by a priori means always requires another synthetical judgement prior to this one. In geometry, “Anschauung” is what needs to help out in order for us to understand the terms (Kant, Edition Weischede 1968, 127 und 128). How can this third kind of judgment be applied to an understanding of social norms, that is, how does this theory translate into a skill necessary for the participation in the social world? Ideation is a way out of a purely empiristic understanding of moral judgements. It describes a form of knowledge concerning actions. Thus, participating in society is a way of acting and of 260 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science knowing things about actions. This concerns the skill necessary for the participants to negotiate, reshape and change their social reality. Ideation, according to Janich, shows primarily how not only logical (formal, mathematical) statements or empirical statements (those achieved through measuring and experimentation) are scientific (Janich 2001, 148). This idea of a third kind of judgment can be applied to an ontology of the social world. The ability to grasp a method of producing a judgment concerning actions in the social world without having a prototype at hand, here: without having the knowledge of a similar situation, is a basic skill for participants, not only specialists, to negotiate the social world. Case law, for example, is based on the premise that decisions are informed by previous decisions. Also, the notion of a common sense moral which is learned by way of knowing other examples is a conception of moral knowledge as empirical knowledge. The good or right decision is one which is “like” the decision which serves as a prototype. Without a prototype, there would be no way to decide. If one understands ideation as a skill, this skill describes how agents can come to moral decisions in new situations by way of applying a method of constructing such decisions that guides their actions. The categorical imperative and other formula, also rules of thumb, can maybe seen as blueprints of such a method. Yet, the process of ideation is not so much the knowledge of rules or rule-like structures, but rather the ability to exercise a skill, that is, of knowing “how to make” a judgment. We can understand formulae for moral decision-making then not as systems of rules, but as production-instructions fit for application in various contexts. What I am putting forth is not an evaluation of these different suggestions to the ideation of social normative decisions; here, I am merely suggesting that the form in which we are able to understand moral judgment is as a priori synthetical judgments. Most of the time the decisions we make on a interactive societal level are informed by our local, cultural background – the norms established in our society-, and partially by our deep or biological background – that we can act cooperatively with other people is an ability of our deep background. This is, we have a “moral intuition” which is largely shaped by learning via examples. Yet, if we want to negotiate the social standards of our society, we will try to come up with judgments according to a prototype free method of reproduction. Moral judgment is based on the social reality which in turn is based on collective agreement. It is possible to come to a moral judgment which is contrary to the majority opinion of one’s society because it can be formed according to the knowledge of a prototype free method of decision-making which is not practiced by this majority. Collective intentionality enables an individual agent’s rational choices in acting, whereas the understanding of a methodology of social norms (the procedure of ideation) allows for common deliberation on these norms. 261 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Literature: Janich, Peter, Logisch-pragmatische Propädeutik – Ein Grundkurs im philosophischen Reflektieren, Velbrück Wissenschaft: Weilerswisst, 2001. Kant, Immanuel, Schriften zur Metaphysik und Logik, Werkausgabe Band V, herausgegeben von Wilhelm Weischedel, Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1968. Searle, John R., Intentionality – An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Searle, John R., The Construction of Social Reality, New York: The Free Press, 1995. 262 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science DIE TRANSVERSALE VERNUNFT IN DER MODERNE DISKURSIVE SITUATION VON DER METAPHYSIK Alexsander Kuzmin Novgorod State University, Russia Ganz schien es vor kurzem offensichtlich, dass solcher Begriff in die Philosophie, wie die Vernunft, erwünscht und selbstausreichend ist. Wobei das Feuer der Kritik, das auf die Vernunft nach der kopernikanische Umdrehung Kant’s hereinstürzt, obwohl seine Reputation stark anbrüchig werde, aber kaum konnte seinen Status wie des höchsten Begriffes der Philosophie und der Hauptform der alle vermehrte Menge der Rationalität ändern. Zum gegenwärtigen Tag hat allen sich anders. Die Tonalität der alten Passage hat, ziehend die neuen Sinne, wie in Bezug auf die Geschichte der Frage, als auch in Bezug auf die Formierung der modernen Weise der Vernunft geändert. Schon historische Aufzählung der gewählten Stellen aus den philosophischen Theorien der Vernunft wird unseren Weg viel zu lang zum erwünschten Ziel machen. Deshalb werden wir den philosophischen Geschmäckern unserer Kollegen anvertraut werden und wir werden nur ihre Klassifikation anbieten. Die historischen Konzeptionen der Vernunft kann man auf die Folgenden unterteilen: 1. hierarchisch (die Vernunft ist ein höchster Begriff), 2. formal (die Vernunft ist ein abstrakto-allgemeiner Begriff), 3. Grundsätze stiftend (die Vernunft ist ein universeller Begriff). Allen diesen Konzeptionen ist ein jener eigentümlicher Strich eigen, dass sie versuchen, die Vernunft wie die Fähigkeit zu verstehen und zu durchdenken, die Begriffe zu bilden und ganz in jener oder anderen gegenständlichen Sphäre zu strukturieren. Und dadurch wird die Vernunft den Verstand assimilieren. Sie wird eben Superverstand verglichen, d.h. die Fähigkeiten zum Besitz vom ganzheitlichen Wissen. Solche Mutationen der Vernunft konnten nicht für ihn spurlos gehen. In XX Jahrhundert der Rigorismus der klassischen Formen der Kritik der Vernunft wurde von der ungehemmten Neigung für das Entdecken der repressive Striche und der zerstörenden Folgen der verzehrende Vernünftigkeit umgetauscht. Die Umschaltung der Aufmerksamkeit auf der repressive Charakter der Vernunft in Bezug zur Individualität und seine zerstörenden Handlungen in den Beziehungen des Menschen mit der Natur, und dann und auf die Selbstvernichtung des Denkens des modernen Menschen, als ob die Philosophie von der Notwendigkeit des strengen Folgens den Kanons der klassischen Kritik befreit. In seine Zeit haben die großen Kants "Kritik" den Anfang dem Streit über die Grenzen der Vernunft gelegt, was den starken Eindruck auf die nachfolgende Philosophie erzeugt hat. Doch beobachten heute wir, wie man zusammenbrecht der Grenze und, schon fallte «die letzte Bastion», sagen kann. Der Grundlage der auf den vernünftigen Anfängen gebauten Zivilisation ist ruinieren. Von den ersten Opfern waren Abendlandezentrismus, Phallozentrismus, die “Hühnerblindheit” in Bezug auf Anderen und Scientizm. Dann sind auf die Vorbühne die Offenbarungen anlässlich der Technologien des Krieges herausgekommen, die, angeblich, die logozentrischen Kräfte gegen den einzigartigen Spezialbetrieb des Menschen führen. Der bürgerliche Krieg zwischen der Ausschließlichkeit, der Einmaligkeit und der Vernünftigkeit, der Totalität befindet sich im Höhepunkt. Und eine Stelle solcher Schlachten, ihrem Hypozentrum, wird die Alltäglichkeit oder die Kultur der Alltäglichkeit. Das ist in Habermas' Worten: “Die Kritik der instrumentellen Vernunft, die den Bedingungen der Subjektphilosophie verhaltet bleibt denunziert als Makel, was sie in seiner Makelhaftigkeit nicht erklären kann, weil ihr für die Inegrität dessen, was durch instrumentelle Vernunft zerstört wird, eine hinreichend geschmeidige Begrifflichkeit fehlt. Freilich haben Adorno und Horkheimer einen Namen dafür, Mimesis. [...] Angespielt wird auf eine Beziehung, in der die Entäusserung des einen an das Vorbild des anderen nicht den Verlust seiner selbst bedeutet, sondern Gewinn und Bereicherung. Weit sich das 263 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science mimetische Vermögen der Begrifflichkeit von kognitiv-instrumentell bestimmten Subjekt-Objekt-beziehungen entzieht, gilt es als das bare Gegenteil der Vernunft, als Impuls.” [1] Um unsere These zu verstärken, wir wenden uns an die ziemlich standfeste Praxis der Betrachtung solches sozialekulturellen Konfliktes, in dem die Teilnehmer den Konservatismus und der Liberalismus auftreten. So bietet, zum Beispiel, moderner westliche Soziologe Niklas Luhman [2] für die Analyse der ähnlichen Konflikte die Logik der Präferenz, wie einzig möglich im Falle der binären Beziehungen an. In den binären Oppositionen, und den Konservatismus und der Liberalismus sind diese, keine der Seiten des Binomes kann wie selbstausreichend vorgestellt sein. Die Besonderheit der binären Beziehungen besteht darin, dass die binären Oppositionen nur im Rahmen des gegenseitigen Zuschreibens der negativen oder positiven Qualitäten einander existieren können. Infolge dessen bewirkt jede Binarität die gegenseitige Mißgunst und die Entfremdung, laut der wir erzwungen sind, mit ihrer Anwesenheit zu gelten. Auf solche Weise, ist der Konservatismus und der Liberalismus nicht zwei Seiten des Konfliktes, und das Binom, der wirft sich der Logik der Präferenz unter. Also zieht das Wachstum der konservativen Tendenzen mit der Unvermeidlichkeit die negativ motivierten Schritte zur Seite der Formierung der attraktiven Weise des Liberalismus. Und umgekehrt. Die Geschichte der Logik der Präferenz zeigt uns auf, dass schon in den Mittelaltern die positive Präferenz der Macht bis zu ihr Vergöttlichung wuchs. Doch hatte dieser Prozess auch die rückgängige Seite. Wie man aus den Quellen in der Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Kultur sehen kann, die Erniedrigung der Macht war mit der negative Präferenz verbunden, die sich vom Bankrott aller Institute der Macht und die Formierung der Strategie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft umgewandt hat. Das Letzte, seinerseits, nicht lossagend von der Logik der Präferenz, hat vom Möglichen gefunden, in einem Binom die negativen und positiven Tendenzen, wobei ohne offensichtliche Vorteile einen von ihnen zu vereinen. D.h. den Konservatismus und der Liberalismus können die vorwiegende Ideologie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft kaum sein. Doch stößt sich in Russland allen anders, da die Logik der Präferenz der Macht bei uns auf der besonderen Temporalität der historischen Ereignisse, die sich der unglaublichen "Gezwungenheit" unterscheiden. So kann, zum Beispiel, wenn wir eine negative Präferenz sagen werden, das Übergewicht über anderem jahrelang haben. Aber als etwas anderen im Vergleich mit westlicher Temporalität der Entwicklung des russischen Kodes der Macht soll für die Unterschiebung der binären Oppositionen antagonistisch im angeblich vorhandenen sozialen Konflikt kaum zugrundeliegen, wie es Polittechnologen in seinen ideologischen Zielen oft vorstellen. Darauf, eigentlich sagend, ist die Technologie der Aufzucht wie der politischen, als auch der sozialekulturellen Konflikte eben gebaut. Auf solche Weise, darf man die binären Oppositionen des Konservatismus und den Liberalismus wie der Konflikt der entgegengesetzten Tendenzen der Evolution der Macht und der Gesellschaft nicht betrachten. Es ist eine Diachronie der synchrone Binäre einfach, von der die Logik der Präferenz zeugt. Eben dies ist die unvermeidliche russische Reaktion auf die Achse der Zeit, die sich außerhalb des Raumes Russlands hinzieht. Wirklich, der Schluß liegt nahe, die moderne Weise der Vernunft verdammt auf das Lavieren zwischen diesen Extremen? Oder sie ist man möglich, mindestens, auszuwiegen, die Abstände zwischen ihnen zu verringern, die Geflechte zu nähern und die transitiven Zustände in den Punkten der möglichen Berührung zu finden? Zugleich hat das diagnostizierenden Problem, das auf den Fordergrund erscheint, auch anderen Sinn. In den neuen Bedingungen ist es schwer, die Idee der Einigkeit der Vernunft zu unterstützen, da und die gnoseologischen Situation nach der Entfaltung der philosophischen, methodologischen und wissenschaftlichen Typen der Rationalität nicht in solche Stufe mit den diachronieschen Verbindungen zwischen ihnen, wie mit den synchronen Verbindungen bedingt ist. Die Idee der ganzheitliche Vernunft buchstäblich auf den Augen wird auf die unabhängige Menge der Typen der Rationalität verstreut. Und trotz dem verbreiteten zum gegenwärtigen Tag Blick auf die 264 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Homogenität der Vernunft und der Rationalität, hat ihre Wechselbeziehung die jahrhundertealte langwierige Geschichte, die wie von den Meilensteinen der Annäherung ihrer Positionen bezeichnet ist, kommend fast bis zu der Identität (übermäßig eine Erhebung der Vernunft in die Spekulationstradition der Philosophie, seit Р. Descartes), als auch der Divergenz, die im Postulat über das endgültiges Differenzieren der Vernunft auf der verschiedene Rationalität (die Erniedrigung der Bedeutung der Vernunft für die menschliche Kultur insgesamt im Namen der philosophischen Projekte von Th.Adorno und Horkheimer, Habermas und Lyotard, Deleuze und Wittgenstein, Foucault und Derrida etc. geäussert ist). In diesem Zusammenhang ist die Nutzung des Begriffes der transversale Vernunft in der philosophischen Studie des Postmodernismus vom deutschen Philosophen Wolfgang Welsch [3] neugierig anzuschauen. Für ihn wurden die theoretischen Implikationen der Vernunft seit kurzem unter dem Einfluss der Bedingungen der Kultur des Modernismus im Grossen und Ganzen invertierte. Wie es zum gegenwärtigen Tag ist nötig, die Vernunft zu verstehen, wenn in die Realität die moderne Epoche nach seiner Anordnung des Geistes in den Termini des Pluralismus, der wechselseitigen Verbindung und «des rationalen Chaos» charakterisiert sein kann? Für Welsch ist offensichtlich, dass das Zerkleinern der einheitlichen Vernunft auf der kognitive, moralisch - praktische und ästhetische Rationalität (unternommen noch von Kant) nur erster, aber keinesfalls den wichtigsten Schritt auf dem Weg zu der Neigung der pluralistische Erläuterung der Vernunft ist. Hingegen, ist das Hauptargument Welsch’s zugunsten des Pluralismus auf die Klärung der Unvermeidlichkeit der weiter Zerfall jeder der Messungen der Rationalität auf die noch grössere Menge der divergenten und konkurierenden "Paradigmen" gerichtet. Die nicht überschaubare Heterogenität der Rationalität, zu deren Ausdruck bei Welsch den Begriff des Paradigmas Kuhn’s wie das Merkmal der Demarkation der Modelle und Metadiskurse strebend dient, in der familiären Ähnlichkeit der radikalen Rationalität zu vereinigen, nach dem Inhalt ist selbstausreichend nicht, und nach der Struktur reich ist an den Verweisungen zu Interparadigma. Auf solche Weise, werden ein Thema der Diskussion bei Welsch der paradigmatisch demonstrierende sich wie das haltbare Geflecht der Netze Rationalität, die die ungleichartigen Intentionen unlogisch verbinden, die Kreuzungen und die transitiven Zustände. Von diesem Standpunkt der allgemeinen, invarianten Bedeutung, das man jener oder anderen Rationalität zuschreiben könnte, existiert nicht. D.h. sie verfügen, im guten Sinn des Wortes, «über die rationale Ordnung» nicht. Wobei wird die nicht letzte Rolle der ästhetischen Rationalität oder ästhetischer Diskurs, sich befindend in die ständige Verflechtung mit ethischen und kognitiven Diskursarten der Praxis, dabei abgeführt. Die Durchsichtigkeit der Grenzen dieser Diskursarten bedeutet seinerseits, dass kein von ihnen die sichere Stelle des universellen Bürgen der interdisziplinären Synthese beanspruchen kann. Doch sieht nicht aller so einfach mit dem Verständnis des ästhetischen Diskurses aus. Seit unvordenklichen Zeiten der Veröffentlichung 'Des allgemeinen Programms des Systems des deutschen Idealismus' wird die Verschwisterung der Wahrheit und des Wohles vom Möglichen nur im Schönen erklärt, und die ästhetische Handlung wird wie die höchste Tat der Vernunft wahrgenommen. Die Gesamtabsorption der Ästhetischer aller anderen Diskursarten der Praxis erlaubt nicht, seine Besonderheit zu zeigen. Eben ist eine erste Gruppe der Probleme, die für die Erörterung Welsch anbietet. Die ästhetische Rationalität bei Welsch stellt die Ähnlichkeit der Hybridgebilde wie “ein Komplex aus moralischer Grundierung, ästhetischen Vollzügen und kognitiven Perspektiven” [4] vor. Gleichzeitig wird auf solche Weise auch die Anlage der modernen Epistemologie auf die ästhetische Relevanz, d.h. auf den allgemeinen Ästhetizismus des Wissens, der Wahrheit und der Wirklichkeit verborgen. Der protoästhetischen Bahnsteig der modernen wissenschaftlichen Rationalität kann wie die Formel “des ästhetischen Denkens”, als auch der Formel “der ästhetischen Wendung” geäussert sein. Es bedeutet, dass dahinter oder anderem wissenschaftlichen Diskurs die reale Möglichkeit der ästhetischen Option, die sich bei den Beweisen auf die Argumente aus dem Gebiet der ästhetischen Strukturen oder der abgesonderten Elemente des ästhetischen Wissens stützt immer, verborgen wird. Zugleich keinesfalls ist nötig es 265 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science nicht, die Rede über “den neuen ästhetischen Fundamentalismus” zu führen. Schneller, tritt im Gegenteil die Negation irgendwelchen Fundamentalismus eben die Bedingung der Absonderung der ästhetischen Rationalität als die selbständigen, eng verflechtungen mit anderen Typen Rationalität. Ist Welsch einverstanden, und die Vernunft in Bezug auf die gegebene Situation soll sich ändern. Sie soll transversal werden, berücksichtigend wie die Unterschiede, als auch der Einigkeit zwischen den rationalen Komplexen. Also, die Vernunft kann den gewöhnlichen und spezifischen, seine ändernde gewohnte Vorausbestimmung Gebrauch haben. Die Vernunft benutzet man als transversal dann, wenn es sich ungenügend die gewöhnliche, orientierten auf die Gegenstände Vernunft für den Ausdruck jene oder anderen spezifischen Fragen zeigt. Von ihm auswählen sich der Implikation, der Verbindung, der Tiefstrukturen, die querlaufenden Wechselbeziehungen, verschiedener Gattung der Entlehnung und der Analogie, die zwischen den bestehenden auf der seine partikuläre Perspektive Rationalitäten gegründet werden. Bei der Entstehung der Streite und der Differenzen zwischen den Rationalitäten wenden sich zu der transversale Vernunft, da sie sich als die gnoseologisch neutrale Fähigkeit, die nicht für die inhaltsreichen Fragen zutrifft, und analysierend nur der paradigmatischen Wechselbeziehung von den Mitteln der Logik benimmt. Die transversale Vernunft ist deshalb "rein", unangetastete der orientierten auf die Gegenstände Sphären des Wissens Vernunft. Sie besitzt seinen analytischen und reflexiven Kompetenz nach der Übersetzung der Rationalitäten aus der einfach verständnismäßigen Form in vernünftig universell. Aus seiner eigenen Dynamik folgt auch seine Beziehung zu der Totalität. Sie hält an der Idee der Ganzheit konsequent fest, wobei sich ihre Klärung zum vorliegenden Moment auf der Diversifikation oder die Vielfältigkeit, die Unordentlichkeit und die Unbegreiflichkeit der unendlichen Konkretheit der Vernunft stößt. Deshalb ruft die Frage über die Ganzheit der Vernunft die sehr formale Antwort über die Natur seiner Einigkeit herbei. Der Ganzen der Vernunft besteht nicht aus identisch ihr, und aus heterogen. Schließlich, geben solche Eigenschaften der transversalen Vernunft ihr des merkliches Vorteiles über der partikulären Rationalitäten. Und sie zeigt sich vom Vermittler in den Konfliktsituationen, korrigiert Mikro-und Makroformen der Rationalitäten, aufstellend ihre Beschränktheit, rekonstruierend die Strukturen der Paradigmen und aufzeigend ihre wechselseitige Abhängigkeit und die Verflechtung. Außerdem hat sich auch das Ziel der Vernunft geändert. Sie sagt sich von der Errichtung der allumfassenden Höchsteinigkeit allen Rationalitäten los und wendet sich an die Erhaltung «der rationalen Gerechtigkeit». Die transversale Vernunft trägt zur gegenseitigen Anerkennung bei und garantiert das Recht auf die Existenz der widerstehenden einander Paradigmen. Sie öffnet und kritisiert die Haltlosigkeit der Ausnahmen, und auch Majorisierung und Totalitarismus in den Beziehungen zwischen den Rationalitäten. Über die Garantien der rationalen Gerechtigkeit muß man die Rede und bei der Wahl zwischen den nicht äquivalenten Optionen der Rationalitäten führen. Da jeder der Rationalitäten die Alternative für andere darstellen kann, so soll die Vernunft alle unter dem Zweifel gelieferten Alternativen und aufmerksam berücksichtigen, auf die Angemessenheit der Situation bei der Abgabe der Argumente zugunsten einer von ihnen zu folgen, auf die Haltbarkeit die Schlussfolgerungen und die Durchsichtigkeit der Vorbedingungen zu prüfen. Das Thema der Übergänge, der transitiven Zustände zwischen den Rationalitäten wird eine zentrale Form der Bewegung der transversalen Vernunft. Sie gründet den Kern der Konzeption der transversalen Vernunft. Die exklusive Dominante zwingt nach dem Entdecken der Übergänge zwischen den heterognen Paradigmen die Vernunft, dialektisch und transversal, ausschließlich die Möglichkeit der linearen und continualen Beziehungen zwischen ihnen zu gelten. «Parteilos und neutral" begangenen Übergänge zwischen den Rationalitäten erlauben der Vernunft, wie die Momente ihrer Übereinstimmung in etwas, als auch des Unterschiedes zu öffnen. Sie erprobt ihre Ansprüche auf der Divergenz, d.h. die Divergenz ihrer Hauptmerkmale im Laufe der Evolution vorsichtig. Auf solche Weise, begeht die transversale Vernunft die Übergänge dort, wo Möglichkeit für die Übergänge ausgeschlossen ist. Dabei läßt sie für Heterogen das Recht auf die Heterogenität 266 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science ohne Synthese der Gegenteile und der Unterschiede. Und dadurch die transversale Vernunft demonstriert, in seiner Findigkeit, in seiner Fähigkeit tief zu empfinden die Situation, die angebornen ästhetischen Striche. Anderes Problem, das Welsch beachtet, ist ein Problem des Verhältnisses der Vernunft und des Subjektes, der Kritik der Vernunft und der Kritik des Subjektes. Welsch behauptet, dass ohne der transversalen Vernunft auch «erfolgreiche Subjektivität» unmöglich ist. Da sich in den modernen Bedingungen, die vom Pluralismus der Meinungen und der Positionen aufgegeben sind, Selbstidentität des Subjektes mit Hilfe der Transversalität ausprägt. Das Subjekt trotz der Tradition der transzendentalen Philosophie in der inneren Weise wird ein plurales Subjekt. Und es kann konstituieren sich als das einheitliche Ganze nur infolge der Eröffnung in sich der Fähigkeit, die Übergänge zwischen in Raten seinen beanspruchend auf der Selbstidentität des Inhalts des Bewusstseins zu begehen. Wobei Welsch eindeutig erklärt, dass «in der gegenwärtigen Subjektdiskussion generell nicht mehr die Frage reflexiver Selbstgewinnung oder präreflexiven Selbstbesitzes steht, sondern das Problem des inneren Pluralität und möglichen Transversalität im Zentrum» [5]. Aber was es für die Reflexion bedeutet? Sein kann, hingegen, gerade dann, wenn die Vernunft wie die Fähigkeit der Verwirklichung der transversalen Übergänge zwischen den verschiedenen Rationalitäten interpretiert wird, der Begriff der Reflexion erwirbt die neue Bedeutung und die methodologische Bedeutung. Die Idealisierung der Reflexion trägt als die Quelle und der Weise für die Ausdrücke von der menschlichen Persönlichkeit ihrer freien Erscheinungsformen den wichtigen Teil der Belastung für das verschärfte Interesse für sie seitens der Forscher. Der letzte Umstand ist mit jener Tatsache verbunden, dass die Reflexion für den wichtigsten Mechanismus der Wechselwirkung, die der Natur die Funktionieren solcher Sphären die Lebenstätigkeiten des Mensch wie ökonomisch, politisch usw antwortet, früher anerkennen. In diesem Zusammenhang entsteht die rechtmässige Frage. Über welchen, eigentlich sagend, Reflexion geht die Rede bei den Autoren der zahlreichen Verweisungen dazu Concept? Antwortend auf diese Frage, unvermeidlich kommst du zur Schlussfolgerung, dass unter den Bedingungen des Pluralismus der Formen der Rationalität den Sinn hat, und die Möglichkeit des nicht reduzierten Pluralismus der transversalen Strukturen und der Konfigurationen der Reflexion zu besprechen. Sie ist, wohl, wie den Isomorphismus der traditionellen Reflexion nicht so offensichtlich. Noch, kann man senkend der Häufigkeit, das Wesen der neuen Forderung im Folgenden äussern: die Reflexion soll sich von der Person zu den Errungenschaften der transversalen Vernunft umdrehen. Für Welsch die Transversalität ist eine Form des Lebens, und nicht die Form der Reflexion. Die transversale Vernunft ist nicht eine neue Vernunft, und das neue Verständnis der Vernunft. Die transversalen Übergänge zwischen den Rationalitäten existierten und früher. Aber sie beachteten nicht. Deshalb ruft Welsch beharrlich zur Arbeit des Verständnisses auf, wenn er von der transversalen Vernunft fordert, die Rekonstruktionen eine beliebige Beziehung zwischen den divergenten Paradigmen unterzuziehen. Doch, hat sich ausgeschlossen die Reflexion aus der Zahl der transversalen Formen des Lebens, Welsch in der sehr schwierigen Lage eingefunden. Doch ist die Paradigmen nicht einfach ein Prototyp der Theorie, und sie verfügen eine rational-theoretische Beanspruchung, d.h. der Reflexivität. Wenn der Rationalität nur wie die Abarten der Theorien, die in seinen Inhalt und sich als die Formen der reflexive Begründung der eigenen Handlungen und des Wissens aufnehmen, verstanden würden, d.h. als die Metatheorien, so der Unterschied zwischen den lokalen Paradigmen der Rationalitäten und der ihrem übertreffend reine Gesamtvernunft wäre künstlich. Die Reflexivität der Rationalitäten soll nicht dem Zweifel die Tatsache der Existenz die transversale Vernunft unterziehen. Aber eine solche Reflexivität soll transversal sein. Doch wünscht es Welsch nicht, zu besprechen, da die Reflexion von ihm nur im Rahmen des Paradigmas der Philosophie der Neuen Zeit wahrgenommen wird. Auf solche Weise, zeigt sich die transversale Vernunft von der Vernunft ohne Reflexion, und der Rationalität ohne theoretische Reflexion über sich ist der erste Einwand, den die Konzeption der transversalen Vernunft Welsch's herbeiruft. 267 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Zweitens, Idee – im Falle der Konfliktsituationen, auf die Haltbarkeit alle zur Verfügung stehenden Alternativen zu erproben, auf der Notwendigkeit des Verständnisses der divergenten Theorien, der Formen des Lebens oder der Hierarchien der Werte zu bestehen, die Überspitzung und die Ausnahmen zwischen den Systemen der Überzeugungen – nicht zu verhindern ist ganz neu. Obwohl die Idee der Transversalität der unverwandtesten Aufmerksamkeit seitens der Forscher der modernen Kultur verdient. 268 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Notes 1. Jürgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Frankfurt a.M. 1981. S. 522. 2. 2.S.: Niklas Luhmann 1975, Macht, Enke Verlag, Stuttgart. 3. 3.S.: Welsch W. Unsere postmoderne Moderne. 3 durchges. Aufl. Weinheim: VCH, Acta Humaniora, 1991; Welsch W. Vernunft. Die zeitgenцssische Vernuftkritik und das Konzept der transversalen Vernuft. Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main, 1996. 4. Welsch W. Vernunft. Die zeitgenossische Vernuftkritik und das Konzept der transversalen Vernuft. Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main, 1996. S.484. 5. Ebd., 831. 269 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science A REHABILITATION OF IDEALISM: R. G. COLLINGWOOD’S 1935 LECTURES ON “REALISM AND IDEALISM” Lord Timothy C. Heratland College Introduction: The history of Anglo-American philosophy often is presented and taught as if the refutation of idealism was completed in one fell swoop in 1903. The story goes something like this.A young and precocious G. E. Moore, originally having been converted to the idealism of F. H. Bradley by his Oxbridge education, gallantly challenged metaphysical orthodoxy and disproved—no annihilated—idealism with the sheer philosophical force of the first of his many important contributions to what would become known as analytic philosophy1. Moore’s utilitarian moral philosophy, published in the century’s first major ethical treatise, Principia Ethica, in that same momentous year, provided an important bridge to the work of the greatest English philosopher of the nineteenth century, John Stuart Mill. Thus, in the first decades of the twentieth century, Moore, with the aid of the logical wizardry of Bertrand Russell and the analytical genius of Ludwig Wittgenstein, effectively eliminated the adherents of nineteenth century idealism such as T. H. Green, Bernard Bosanquet, and F. H. Bradley from the philosophical landscape. Or so the story told by historians and teachers of philosophy seems to go. And while I recognize that this story is a caricature, it is, more or less, the view that seems to be current in the discipline of philosophy. So did Moore refute idealism? The real question is “Did Moore refute the idealism of Bosanquet, Bradley, and McTaggart?, i.e., the idealism that Moore was educated into, that was still prominent in England at the turn of the century, and that he was so anxious to destroy. A cursory look at Moore’s “The Refutation of Idealism” would not inspire much confidence that the then current idealism had been refuted. Bradley is mentioned only once, but nowhere are any criticized doctrines specifically ascribed to him, while Bosanquet and McTaggart are not mentioned at all. Hegel is chastised for contributing to philosophy the “fallacy” of the “principle of organic unities” (“RI” 443), and errors and falsities are attributed to both Kant and Berkeley. The clearest target seems to be Berkeley, as Moore states that the main object of his refutation is the proposition that “esse is percipi,” which he interprets as “whatever is, is experienced” (“RI” 436). The error that Berkeley ultimately commits, Moore contends, is “identifying blue with the sensation of blue,” and he maintains that “modern idealists”—he names nobody—make the same mistake (“RI” 445). Moore concludes that, contra all idealism, blue and the sensation of blue are distinct, and that knowledge can be distinguished from the thing known. Moore’s aim was to refute all idealism. If blue and the sensation of blue are distinct, and if all knowledge can be distinguished from the thing known, perhaps he has. Yet what if some forms of idealism accept a distinction between knowledge and the thing known? In An Autobiography R. G. Collingwood states that “A Refutation of Idealism” “purported to be a criticism of Berkeley. Now the position actually criticized in that article is not Berkeley’s position; indeed, in certain important 1 G. E. Moore, “The Refutation of Idealism,” Mind 12 (1903), 433-53. Hereafter “RI.” 271 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science respects it is the exact position which Berkeley was controverting.”2 Furthermore, Collingwood claims in The Idea of Nature that Moore is wrong to assert “that according to Berkeley ‘experience of green is entirely indistinguishable from green,’” acknowledging that “Berkeley is not named, but seems to be meant.”3 Collingwood adds that Moore’s realist counterpart at Oxford, Professor of Logic John Cook Wilson, was Bradley’s main critic, known for his quip that “knowledge mak[es] no difference to what is known” (A 22, 44). Yet in Cook Wilson’s lectures “he constantly criticized Bradley for views which were not Bradley’s” (A 22). Collingwood notes that this was a common problem for Bradley, whose Appearance and Reality was regularly misinterpreted, partly because of its obscurity and partly because Bradley had no students to whom he could teach his intended interpretation.4 Observing that Bradley rejected the label of “idealist” (A 19), Collingwood rather startlingly describes him in an Oxford lecture as the founder of modern realism and reinterprets his relation to his critics: Modern realism is supposed to be a revolt against Bradley, led by people like Cook Wilson here and Moore at Cambridge who had begun their philosophical careers as his followers. I venture to say that this is a misunderstanding of the position; these early realists were not so much revolting against Bradley as revolting against the phenomenalist philosophy which in the early chapters of Appearance and Reality he held up to criticism (“NMS” 370-1). Collingwood’s claims about Berkeley and Bradley imply that Moore’s refutation is, in his view, no refutation of idealism at all. No serious idealist, Collingwood asserts, denies the distinction between the act and object of knowledge.5 Collingwood was the last important idealist to hold an Oxbridge chair in philosophy. He was appointed to the Waynflete Professorship of Metaphysical Philosophy in 1935, a time at which perhaps no one particular philosophical school dominated England, and the time, give or take about three years, that his works I am using in this paper were written. Collingwood’s first lectures presented after being appointed to the Waynflete Professorship were titled “Central Problems in Metaphysics: Realism and Idealism.”6 By the 1930s he generally repudiated the designation “idealist” in his published writings (A 56-7),7 yet these lectures to Oxford students—still as yet unpublished—reveal an unreserved commitment to idealist metaphysics. Clearly these lectures are intended as an answer to Cook Wilson’s realism and Moore’s so-called “refutation of idealism.” They are meant to be a rehabilitation of idealism. My analysis of “Realism and Idealism” is 2 R. G. Collingwood, An Autobiography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939), 22. Hereafter A. 3 R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of Nature, ed. T. H. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945), 8. These originally were lectures, presented Michaelmas term, 1934. Hereafter IN. 4 R. G. Collingwood, “The Nature of Metaphysical Study,” An Essay on Metaphysics, Revised ed. edited and introduced by Rex Martin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 365-6. This work consists of two lectures presented in January, 1934. Hereafter “NMS.” 5 R. G. Collingwood, “Notes Towards A Metaphysic,” (1933). Unpublished Manuscript, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Dep. 18/3, 10. These were preparatory notes for the lectures that eventually became The Idea of Nature. 6 R. G. Collingwood, “Central Problems in Metaphysics: Realism and Idealism,” (1935). Unpublished Manuscript, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Dep. 20/1. Hereafter “CPMRI,” cited according to Collingwood’s organizing system. With gratitude, I thank James Connelly for a copy of his transcription of these lectures, and I thank Teresa Collingwood Smith for permission to quote from them. 7 Perhaps it is the label “idealist” rather than the metaphysical view per se that makes Collingwood apprehensive. Given Moore’s attack on idealism, the turning tides of British philosophy, and Ayer’s critique of metaphysics in Language, Truth and Logic, by the mid-1930s Collingwood was nervous, at least in his published work and sometimes in his correspondence, about being lumped together with earlier idealists and summarily dismissed. Certainly, throughout his writing career he is an anti-realist, and these lectures are important because he embraces idealism more explicitly here than anywhere else in his works. It is interesting to note that in correspondence with Gilbert Ryle about a month after these lectures were written, Collingwood contended he had never called himself an idealist in any publication or lecture! See “The Correspondence between R. G. Collingwood and Gilbert Ryle,” An Essay on Philosophical Method, Revised ed. edited and introduced by James Connelly and Giuseppina D’Oro (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 256. 272 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science designed to determine exactly what sort of idealism Collingwood adopts and to what extent it is defensible. My comments are divided into three sections. Section One sympathetically outlines Collingwood’s critique of realism. Section Two analyzes and defends Collingwood’s own idealism, objective idealism. I conclude by arguing that in these lectures Collingwood is most indebted to Bradley (who goes unacknowledged), reinterpreting Bradley’s absolute idealism into a new form of idealism that is still viable today. Collingwood’s Critique of Realism: Collingwood immediately admits that some forms of realism—perhaps he is thinking of Bradley’s here—are similar to the idealism he has adopted. The form of realism he wishes to criticize, that of Cook Wilson and Moore, Collingwood calls “naive realism” (CPMRI A.VI.1, A.VII.1). Naive realism makes two claims: (1) there are material objects, and these material objects are independent of our sensations of them, and (2) these material objects are sensed as they really are independent of sensation. In other words, to use Moore’s example, a blue object is blue regardless of whether or not it is sensed, i.e., secondary qualities exist in objects (“CPMRI” A.VII.1). In Cook Wilson’s language, (1) knowledge is distinct from what is known, and (2) knowing makes no difference to what is known. The naive realists’ aim, of course, is to deny that what is matter is in actuality mind (Moore, “RI” 450), that what is objective is in any sense really subjective. Collingwood’s argument seems to be that this clean break between the objective and subjective worlds must break down: knowing does make a difference to what is known. What does it mean, for Collingwood, to say that knowing makes a difference to what is known, and how does he demonstrate it? He states in The Idea of Nature that idealism explicitly denies “that nature is in itself mental, made of the stuff of mind,” or “that nature is an illusion or dream of mind, something non-existent” (IN 7). Clearly Collingwood himself distinguishes material objects from our sensations of them, as previously noted, but he also argues, as I delineate shortly, that our knowing can in some cases affect the object known. Collingwood first makes plausible his claim that knowing does make a difference to the known by demonstrating that Cook Wilson’s argument is fallacious. If we know that knowing makes no difference to the known, as Cook Wilson assumes, we must know what an object is like both when we know it and when we don’t know it, and we must know that there is no difference in the object in either case. Obviously, this scenario calls for us to know something when we don’t know it, which is not possible. The realists’ refutation of idealism hinges upon the theory of perception, Collingwood realizes, and particularly on the problem of secondary qualities.8 But whereas Moore, he thinks, assumes that perception is a kind of passive intuition or apprehension (A 25), Collingwood maintains that perception is active, a mental and physiological act that affects an object to an extent determined by that object (“CPMRI” A.VIII.3). That is, a mind may develop or complete an object in the sense that certain secondary qualities may be possessed by that object potentially, becoming actualized only by perception (“CPMRI” A.VIII.3, A.VIII.19). Collingwood provides an example of active mental and physiological perception in the case of music. The sound of a flute, for example, emits vibration rhythms that are reproduced by the ear. These vibration rhythms make up a particular note which heard in conjunction with other sets of vibration rhythms make a series of notes. Each separate note is heard bodily and passively as a sound when its vibration rhythms force themselves upon us, but we must engage ourselves mentally 8 It is worth mentioning that Collingwood later rejects realism as a theory of knowledge because of its emphasis on perception and knowledge of the physical world. It cannot account, he thinks, for non-perceptual knowledge such as historical knowledge (A 84-5). For Collingwood, knowledge includes knowledge of art, religion, history, politics, etc. Our world is a world of thought and to change those thoughts is to change the world (A 147). Hence, knowing makes a difference to the known. 273 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science to hear the note as a note or to hear the pattern quality or melody of the series of notes. Without a perceiver to hear them, the vibration rhythms exist; however, the notes do not. Secondary qualities exist before and independently of perception, but are actualized only by perception. Knowing makes a difference to what is known (“CPMRI” A.VII.5-19). Collingwood’s Objective Idealism: While it would be instructive to survey earlier idealist views—particularly Hegel’s objective idealism—and Collingwood’s agreement and disagreement with them, space necessitates that I move directly to Collingwood’s idealist metaphysics. So how does Collingwood extend Hegel’s objective idealism and make it his own? First, he clarifies that objective idealism is a metaphysical theory which affirms immaterial ideas or principles as logically prior to and governing the world of nature, which is derived from and dependent upon those principles. Objective idealism is only secondarily an epistemological theory, and in that regard it is realistic: it contends we know objects as they really are, and that mind recognizes the material world as intelligible (“CPMRI” B.IX.1).9 Second, as a metaphysical theory objective idealism, despite the contrary claims of naive realists such as Moore, can assert that the material world is distinct from and independent of perception or any perceiving mind. Contra a strict, consistent materialism, objective idealism also can account for the logical necessities that are behind matter, undergirding and directing the natural world, which must conform to them (“CPMRI” B.IX.2). Third, despite his proviso that objective idealism is only secondarily a theory of knowledge, Collingwood makes a number of epistemological assertions, some of which are related to criticisms of realism. Collingwood notes that modern realism adopts a pluralistic metaphysics and views the material world as a collection of isolated entities, each existing in its essential nature independently of others (“CPMRI” B.IX.7). All propositions about the world, then, are either true or false, and true or false in the same way (“CPMRI” B.IX.4). They provide, it is claimed, pure knowledge or pure falsehood (“CPMRI” B.IX.5). Collingwood states. When [Moore] takes for an adequate example of knowledge ... the proposition that this brown surface which I see is part of a table, and means by this that the table has this brown surface independently of whether I see it or not, he is taking for real knowledge something which is in part error, for the brown colour of the table is something which does not exist in the table independently of my sensing it (“CPMRI” B.IX.5). At least some of our so-called knowledge is actually a mixture of truth and error, Collingwood maintains, where error is not so much falsity but confusion or lack of clarity (“CPMRI” B.IX.6). So Collingwood’s objective idealism implies a partial truth theory in which coming to knowledge entails eliminating confusion. Objective idealism also “regards things as real [Collingwood means knowable here, I think] only in their relation to other things, calling into question the pluralistic emphasis of realism without rejecting pluralism outright (“CPMRI” B.IX.7, B.IX.17). The upshot of his assertion is that there is an “ideal of perfect knowledge.” This involves knowledge in its most complete form, both knowing that something is true and knowing why it is true (“CPMRI” B.IX.13, B.IX.14). Philosophical knowledge most closely approximates this idea (“CPMRI” B.IX.14)—in Hegel’s terminology it entails mind coming to know the Idea—whereas the knowledge of apparently isolated facts seemingly unrelated to others falls fairly low on the scale of knowledge. Thus, objective idealism has a monistic tendency that views knowledge as more closely related to other knowledge as it approaches the ideal of perfect knowledge. It is worth adding that not only does the sort of 9 A qualification is perhaps necessary here. Collingwood seems to mean that we know objects as they really are in the sense that our ideas of them are not generally or in ordinary circumstances illusory. Insofar as we bring secondary qualities to objects, however, we do not experience objects as they really are independent of sensation. 274 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science knowledge privileged by realism—knowledge of isolated facts unrelated to other facts—fall low on the scale of the ideal of perfect knowledge. This low-grade knowledge also is the sort of knowledge which sometimes feasibly can be conceived of as pure knowledge without any error or confusion (“CPMRI” B.IX.15). Objective idealism hence recognizes the importance of both pluralism and monism in metaphysics. A myriad of individual things exist and must be known in their individuality, yet there also are relations between these things and others which constitute them (“CPMRI” B.IX.16). In the end, objective idealism is neither monistic nor pluralistic, but incorporates both of these tendencies within itself (“CPMRI” B.IX.17). Reality is both one and many. And the fact that objective idealism integrates both monism and pluralism is homage to Plato, the first great synthesizer of monism and pluralism. Conclusion: I summarize Collingwood’s metaphysical theory of objective idealism as follows: (1) there exist immaterial ideas or principles which are logically prior to the material world; (2) the material world of physical things really exists distinct from and independent of mental activity; (3) reality is both one and many; (4) there is an ideal of perfect knowledge; and (5) knowledge is a mixture of truth and error. This idealism is a long way from the idealism purportedly refuted by Moore, who attributes to modern idealists the belief that whatever exists is mental as a ground for arguing that all reality is spiritual. Neither of these views is Collingwood’s, who clearly distinguishes mind and matter. Before concluding, it is pertinent to discuss the noteworthy absence from these Oxford lectures of any acknowledgement of the work of F. H. Bradley, in 1935 still the most influential English idealist, whose phantom looms large over Collingwood’s rehabilitation of idealism. Why is Bradley’s Appearance and Reality ignored, especially since, as a perceptive reader may have noticed, some tenets of Collingwood’s objective idealism, e.g., his claim that knowledge is a mixture of truth and error, sound quite Bradleian? Perhaps the best answer is that Collingwood simply assumed his audience would recognize Bradley’s influence, yet he was unwilling to align his own objective idealism too closely with Bradley’s absolute idealism because he saw himself as moving toward a new kind of idealism. Certainly Collingwood’s indebtedness to Bradley is obvious, however, in regard to his claims about metaphysical monism, an ideal of perfect knowledge, and knowledge as a mixture of truth and error. But Collingwood was attempting to reinterpret these principles in such a way as to move beyond Bradley to a new form of idealism that might curb the advances of realism and analytic philosophy. (While Collingwood’s attempt in “Realism and Idealism” is not wholly successful, we see him in these lectures feeling his way toward his mature views as later outlined in An Essay on Metaphysics.) Like Bradley in Appearance and Reality, Collingwood argues for a monistic metaphysics,10 but unlike Bradley, he recognizes that a viable metaphysical theory must combine both monistic and pluralistic tendencies. Also, Collingwood accepts Bradley’s notion of “degrees of truth and reality” (AR 318-38), agreeing with Bradley that error stems from a lack of comprehensiveness, yet he emphasizes that error also stems from confusion or lack of clarity. Furthermore, while Collingwood philosophizes an ideal of perfect knowledge and is amenable to Bradley’s claim that knowledge of isolated facts is merely appearance and thus rather low-grade knowledge (AR 123), he avoids any metaphysical or ontological talk of the absolute. As the absolute, according to Bradley, is the totality of reality and experience (AR 127), Collingwood’s reluctance to acknowledge it is perhaps a foreshadowing of his later rejection in An Essay on Metaphysics of metaphysics as ontology or a “science of pure being.”11 10 See F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), 127. Hereafter AR. 11 R. G. Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics, Revised ed. edited and introduced by Rex Martin (Oxford: Clarendon 275 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science This is not the place to address Collingwood’s mature metaphysical views. It is sufficient to state that his later views do advance the tradition of idealism well beyond the idealism of Bradley, as he responds to the challenges posed by logical positivism and other forms of philosophical naturalism. But one stepping stone to that mature metaphysics must certainly be “Realism and Idealism,” as it is in these lectures that he explicitly and in detail rejects realism and embraces an idealism that is influenced by but not quite that of either Hegel or Bradley. To conclude, one purpose of this paper has been to rethink Moore’s “The Refutation of Idealism.” I have undermined Moore’s thesis by rehabilitating an idealism he has not refuted. At the same time, I have brought to light the unexplored idealistic metaphysical reflections of R. G. Collingwood, which are certainly unfamiliar to most contemporary philosophers.12 Press, 1998), 17. 12 The objective idealism of “Central Problems in Metaphysics,” because unpublished, is even less known to philosophers than the more familiar yet still relatively unknown theories of An Essay on Philosophical Method, Revised ed. edited and introduced by James Connelly and Giuseppina D’Oro (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005) and An Essay on Metaphysics. 276 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science PSICOLOGIA EPISTEMICA E METAFISICA: DALL’ONTOLOGIA ALL’ONTOPSICOLOGIA. Meneghetti Antonio Spesso si usa il termine “metafisica” senza sapere cosa significhi. Propriamente la metafisica è la razionalità elementare che riguarda l’essere. L’ontologia pura è metafisica. Tutto il resto è invenzione, è gratuito, è opinione. Il termine “metafisica” si usa propriamente soltanto per i modi mentali in relazione all’essere, quei modi mentali che sono capaci di reversibilità. L’intelletto riflette ciò che è e questo modo dell’essere si formalizza nell’immagine che l’intelletto segna. Nel proprio modo di esistere, capire, vedere, toccare, sapere, dubitare, vivere o morire, nell’esperienza quotidiana – stupida o intelligente – c’è un elemento primordiale, un semplice strutturale senza il quale non si può fare nulla. Si tratta di una realtà semplice, quotidiana, continua, totale: è o non è. Qualunque cosa si correla a questa copula – è – a questo ente (in greco , : ente, vero), ossia al dato primordiale della razionalità e dell’esperienza umana, che non è costituito dai sensi, dalla materia, o dal soggetto, bensì da “è”: o è o non è. Prima del dovere ci vuole l’essere. Sia il filosofo che l’ignorante prima devono essere. Qualunque modo o è fondamentato nell’essere o non ha senso. La mente umana deve quindi cominciare a capire che cos’è. Si può provare con la logica, con l’intelligenza più alta possibile, a capire che cos’è. Però per cominciare a capirlo, è necessario analizzarlo, perché anche per se stessi, prima di sé davanti allo specchio, davanti alla coscienza o davanti agli altri, è implicita la categoria trascendentale di essere. Metafisica o ontologia è quindi la disciplina, l’atteggiamento, la trattazione che riguarda l’ente e che lo studia in tutti i suoi aspetti. “Ontologia”: la logica dell’essere, la conoscenza dell’essere, il modo dell’essere. Si studia l’ontologia ricercando l’essere. Alla conclusione di questa ricerca, ogni grande scienziato arriva faccia a faccia con ciò che è la dinamica del sacro nell’essere mondano, ma non diventa mai religioso, non diventa mai un legato, un costretto: lo spirito della vita è lui in quanto il “lui” ne è fenomeno e lui deve operare in tal senso. L’uomo ha la responsabilità del mondo e della vita: questo significa collaborazione con il sacro cioè con ciò che urge l’in sé dell’essere. La religione “uccide” questa relazione con il sacro. Mentre per il sacro tutto è madre, tutto è fratello, tutto è amore, tutto è forza, tutto è denaro, tutto è pericolo, la religione impone che solo “questa” è tua madre, cioè uccide il grande evento del perenne gioco della natura. La religione complessuale cioè isola in concreto l’individuo dall’azione olistica dove tutto è “manitù”, tutto è “tao”. Senz’altro, la religione ha avuto una sua validità storica perché se uno non capisce fa bene ad essere religioso poiché in essa può trovare delle associazioni che lo aiutano ad affrontare la vita. Ma oggi, nella migliore delle ipotesi la religione è una logoterapia: un essere umano che si sta rovinando, attraverso la fede, acquisisce un progetto, un mandato e sta in pace. Purtroppo oggi in tutti i grandi congressi scientifici si sta notando in più modi e in più parti una specie di salvezza della scienza dietro la fede. Molti considerati scienziati qualificati dal sistema logistico, verbalizzano esplicitamente – anche in pieni congressi scientifici – l’appello a tornare a una sacralità religiosa. Sono persone che smentiscono la possibilità intrinseca della scienza e la fenomenologia reversibile. La scienza invece è propedeutica alla verità. Ma la scienza di chi? Dell’uomo scienziato? Dell’uomo indio? Dell’uomo schizofrenico? Dell’uomo povero? Dell’uomo mongolo? Dell’uomo occidentale? Dell’uomo orientale? 277 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science “Verità” è una parola atroce, bisogna revisionare il vasto vocabolario delle nostre interlocuzioni, che fanno comodismo ideologico per vivere in una costellazione sociale. Così la “scienza”, quale scienza e di quale uomo? Quando facciamo filosofia o scienza, il nostro vocabolario, la nostra interazione, fa “senso”, “ ”, “emozione”. Quali categorie ha ciascun uomo nella sua mente? Come afferra? E chi è? Dove sta il categorico del vero? Bisogna arrivare al principio. Il principio è il costituente dell’essere, del reale, di ciò che è. Intimo nell’ontico, il principio attivo del comunque esistere o essere. Occorre fare trascendenza, cioè fare una catarsi di tutte le epoché possibili. La cosa più difficile è riuscire a trascendere gli archetipi dei miti sociali e i copioni familistici. Quando un soggetto dice “Io”, si chiama per nome, pensa, fa esercitazione critica, cosa usa? Non usa l’originale di se stesso ma un costruito – in buona fede – ad immagine e somiglianza di una società transeunte. Bisogna avere la capacità di trascendere anche questo, per entrare in quella bianca urgenza dove l’essere è. Per Antonio Meneghetti il vero problema è stato quello di fare trascendenza in maniera clinica, operativa, collegare la coscienza sulla virtualità seminale di come si viene costituiti e differenziati in quanto uomini, al di là delle origini storiche. Per far questo, si è reso necessario inverare una psicologia epistemica, affinché fosse l’interdisciplinare-base a tutte le altre scienze. Questo è ciò che è configurato come Ontopsicologia. L’Ontopsicologia pertanto si propone come psicologia epistemica, interdisciplinare a tutte le altre scienze, una psicologia capace del principio. Se l’episteme è l’in sé della cosa, tutte le logiche di questa identità sono il criterio o unità di misura. L’ente, in quanto esperienza esistenziale, o è o non è. Nell’evidenza di sé l’essere umano esistente, quale modo di intelligenza, si confronta con il reale e lo coglie nella misura in cui coglie in se stesso il principio ontico che lo definisce “Io sono”. Infatti la visione proposta dall’Ontopsicologia è: l’uomo protagonista responsabile basato su una virtualità capace di attuazione personale nell’essere. Per problema, situazione, tensione, il protagonista responsabile è l’uomo. L’essere umano è basato su una virtualità che ha già dei criteri insostituibili. Tale virtualità ha la capacità, in senso fisico e ontico, di farsi persona nell’essere. L’Ontopsicologia però rimane scienza in quanto utilizza dei principi primi razionali e prosegue con un processo razionale. Essa ha un oggetto di studio, un metodo e un fine. Fa sue scoperte, possiede un criterio, utilizza strumenti di analisi e di intervento. Oggetto di studio dell’Ontopsicologia è l’attività psichica inerente la fenomenologia ontica. Per “attività psichica” si intende il noumenon, il sé di ogni sé, il formale che forma il successivo e lo specifica come capace al rientro dove il valore dell’essere è esclusivo. Non possiamo fare metafisica se prima non riscontriamo una coscienza esatta. Psicologia epistemica significa anche capacità di evidenziare le relazioni tra le cose, tra i reali e, soprattutto, coscienza ed essere. Ora, come tutta la psicologia dimostra, la coscienza dell’io è un fascio di stereotipi, copioni, abitudini, emozioni, istinti dispersivi, etc. L’Ontopsicologia ricostituisce le coordinate semplici di riflettere il reale. È una metanoia tecnica dove si attua la capacità della reversibilità tra essere e immagine. Ciò si realizza attraverso training individuale, un processo di verifica aperta, finchè l’evidenza dà l’unità tra la percezione e l’oggetto. Quindi una psicologia capace di sapere l’essere nel molteplice e nel teleologico, dove la logica è capace del fine ultimo. Senza Ontopsicologia, senza coscienza esatta, non c’è esattezza neppure per l’essere, quando l’essere incontra l’uomo e si fa uomo. Il pensiero di Antonio Meneghetti è racchiuso in numerosi testi. Di questi ne presentiamo quattro che avviano ad una reimpostazione critica della metafisica come ontologia viva nel qui e adesso del nostro oggi, nella globalizzazione storica: l’incarnazione in atto dell’essere come valore per la diaspora esistenziale. Nel testo “Fondamenti di Filosofia” l’autore si espone nelle logiche perenni del semplice immediato tra le cose e l’uomo. Definisce il modello base della razionalità e il modello elementare 278 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science del procedere scientifico, secondo i principi che consentono il pensiero logico nel reale. In sostanza, si tratta dei principi elementari, della strumentazione base per ragionare. Questa filosofia è definita “elementare” o “perenne” perché è il codice fantasma che sta sotto tutti i codici nozionistici, conoscitivi o modelli di comportamento della mente. “Genoma Ontico” propone l’Ontopsicologia come psicologia epistemica e come metodologia interdisciplinare per autenticare sia il conoscente che il conosciuto. Questo significa l’inveramento della capacità conoscitiva dell’uomo e la rifondazione epistemica della scienza. Pertanto, equivale ad avere controllo concreto sul materico esistenziale. Recuperato il principio, genoma di qualsiasi possibilità esistenziale, la conoscenza viene adeguata sulla logica della natura. Genoma Ontico è un testo di studio che serve non per avere l’assoluta verità ma una via d’uscita, innanzitutto per chi fa ricerca, poi di riflesso per le scienze: medicina, politica, economia, psicologia, etc. In “Filosofia Ontopsicologica” Meneghetti afferma che il punto che caratterizza l’Ontopsicologia è la premessa esplicita del significato ontico dell’uomo come originario metafisico che si individua nell’esistenziale. L’essere per noi è comprensibile e percepibile solo in quanto antropocentrico. L’Ontopsicologia è la scienza che studia la struttura base della psicologia dell’uomo. È uno studio che non si preoccupa di cogliere tutte le flessioni discorsive dell’uomo, ma solo i rapporti fondamentali che in definitiva possono spiegare le motivazioni psicologiche e si propone di ricollegare i diversi del particolare psicologico all’intero dell’originario metafisico dell’uomo. Nel “Manuale di Ontopsicologia” l’autore definisce tutta la teoria della scienza ontopsicologica con lo scopo di dare, a quanti decidono di intraprenderne lo studio, l’impostazione scientifica generale e globale, sia nell’aspetto teorico che nell’aspetto pratico. L’Ontopsicologia è l’analisi dell’evento uomo nel suo fatto esistenziale e storico. Essa indaga i formali e i processi che strutturano il concreto uomo nell’iso di natura che gli è proprio, ne individua i formali essenziali e ipotetici annessi fenomenologici, Attitudine, metodo, strumenti, ricerca, processi, sperimentazione, confronti, risultati, induzioni, verifiche, etc., sono basati su due criteri: esattezza del ricercatore in quanto unità di azione conforme all’iso di natura; identità e funzionalità accretiva dell’oggetto uomo in questo mondo della vita. Inoltre essa consente il nesso ontologico: la conoscenza operatrice nell’essere del mondo, il nesso che mette insieme il simbolo con la causa reale. L’Ontopsicologia si propone esattamente come il nesso ontologico tra le scienze. 279 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN METAPHYSICAL TRUTH AND THE KNOWING SOUL IN ANCIENT AND EARLY MODERN THINKING (PLATO AND DESCARTES) Helke Pankin-Schappert Universität Mainz The historians of philosophy seem to agree: early modern thinking commences with a new concept of the subject. In ancient and medieval philosophy the knowledge of truth has an ontological ground: our thinking takes place in the truth of being. In the philosophy of modernity, to the contrary, the subject itself lays claim to bring about the being of its objects, as well as the standards of truth and reality.1 Truth is not to be sought in essence and being, but is considered to be a construction by our subjective understanding. The act of knowing and metaphysical truth are no longer regarded as equivalent. This paradigm shift is often characterized as liberating the knowing consciousness from the chains of metaphysical truth2. Consequently, modern thinking is interpreted as the autonomy of our thinking, which has led to the belief of the subject setting itself in the place of God and relieving itself of the burdens of metaphysical questioning. However, we are still left with the problem of an exact characterisation of the relationship between metaphysical truth and knowing subject, a relationship that holds the key to our comprehension of the modern consciousness. Does the subjectivisation3 and autonomy of the early modern consciousness imply that metaphysical truth has lost its claim of validity? Is metaphysics therefore meaningless? Or to formulate the question sharply: Does the early modern age begin with a radical repudiation of metaphysical truth? It seems to me that these sorts of interpretations of the turn to early modernity, which are not uncommon in the analyses of the history of philosophy4, do not treat the issues judiciously. In ancient thought the relationship between metaphysical truth and knowing soul is indeed characterised by an original unity, and this unity is dismissed in the early modern age. However, this does not mean that metaphysical truth and knowing subject now stand in opposition to one another. For this reason, I wish to address my remarks directly to the question as to how we might describe the paradigm shift from antiquity to modernity, without recourse to the cliché about substituting ancient metaphysically-constituted veritibility of knowledge with modern subjective and autonomous certainty of knowledge. We will pursue this matter by reference to two exemplary representatives of their ages, Plato and Descartes. We begin with the question as to how Plato designated the relationship between metaphysical truth and the knowing soul. 1 So z.B. Kaulbach, Friedrich: Erkenntnis. In Theologische Realenzyklopädie, vol. 10, p. 148. 2 Schüssler, Ingeborg: La question de la vérité Thomas d´Aquin-Nietzsche-Kant-Aristote-Heidegger. Lausanne 2001, p. 44. 3 Kreimendahl, Lothar: René Descartes: Meditationen über die Erste Philosophie (1641). In: Hauptwerke der Philosophie. Rationalismus und Empirismus, Stuttgart 1994, p. 17. 4 Cf. Habermas, Jürgen: Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Frankfurt 1985, p. 27. 281 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science I. The unity of metaphysical and epistemological truth in the ancient thinking of Plato That aspect of Plato’s metaphysics which has proven most influential in Western thinking is his concept of the two worlds: he separates the world of sensible perception which is oriented toward the ephemeral and the changeable from the intelligible world of ideas which are immutable and real. The world that we experience with our senses is not the true reality; it is merely appearance and must be understood as the expression of another, inalterable metaphysical truth of being. In his allegory of the cave Plato describes the reorientation toward the world of ideas and toward the idea of the good as a transformation of the soul5. Hence, grounding the visible world on the world of ideas is not only an ontological claim, but also an epistemic claim6. Relating this statement to our initial question concerning a more precise articulation of the relationship between metaphysical truth and the knowing soul, we note that for Plato the possibility of knowing the truth is based on the very nature of being. The increase of light that we experience when we turn away from the world of shadows is a symbol for the increase in the truth of being, but also of the clarity of knowledge. Just as we only see in the light, so also we can only know in the truth of being. Metaphysical truth is at the same time of epistemological relevance. The truth of being the clarity of knowledge are understood dialectically: the truth of ideas does not exist merely for itself, but rather comes to be as the soul approaches the world of ideas. This transformation of the soul, which also leads to greater assurance of the truth, is both cause and effect of an alteration of the truth of being. The activity of the soul must be understood as an expression of something prior and unknowable. In the allegory of the sun Plato writes: When [the soul] is firmly fixed on the domain where truth and reality shine resplendent it apprehends and knows them and appears to possess reason; but when it inclines to that region which is mingled with darkness, the world of becoming and passing away, it opines only and its edge is blunted, and it shifts its opinions hither and thither, and again seems as if it lacked reason7. Just as the eye can only see through the aid of light, so also reason can only think through the aid of truth. The knowing soul does not produce truth, but experiences truth when it turns its gaze toward that which reveals truth and being. Knowing the truth is an activity that cannot be randomly produced, since it has its cause in the truth of being. Only by participating in the truth is the clarity and certainty of knowledge possible8. What is the implication of this transformation of the soul for the object of knowledge, if indeed the truth of being and the certainty of knowledge stand in a dialectical relationship? Plato does not share the common understanding that the truth of knowledge takes place when an appropriate connection between subjective knowing and the object of knowledge is attained. The certainty of knowledge is experienced passively through the truth of being; the world of things are not materially present, but are identical with their logos. The very nature of being has a rational structure and brings about the certainty of knowledge. Being and being-thought are therefore one and the same. When someone intuits the world of ideas, this leads to the knowledge that the objects in the world of sensible perception do not exist for themselves, but that being and the truths of the world 5 Plato: Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969, 518 b-d. 6 Cf. Schmitt, Arbogast: Das Schöne: Gegenstand von Anschauung oder Erkenntnis. Zur Theorie des Schönen im 18. Jahrhundert und bei Platon. In: Philosophia 17/18 (1987/8), pp. 272-296. 7 Politeia, 508d. 8 Politeia, 511 e. 282 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science of thought reveal themselves through these objects. The light in the cave is an artificial light that we no longer need once we have seen the sun. The shadows of the cave are no entirely false; they are a reflection of the higher world. The nature of a thing is its own logos, so that things do not exist on their own9. When our natural consciousness turns to the world of ideas, there is no longer such a thing as a material world that exists on its own – it disappears. Concerning our initial question as to a correct understanding of the relationship between metaphysical and epistemic truth, we can say: Plato understood the activity of the soul as passivity or suffering10. Objects correspond to (Politeia, 511 e), which can be translated as conditions or passions in the soul, but not as existing entities. The soul “suffers”; something happens to it: a pathos, . It suffers an impression, but in this passivity it becomes an activity of knowing. The soul is led to knowledge insofar as it acquiesces. Our perceiving and our comprehending are not valid in themselves, but when they occur the idea of the good shows itself. Metaphysical and epistemic truth stand in a dialectical relationship that is brought about by an original, incomprehensible unity. When the material world is properly understood, it is an expression of an intellectual world. Hence, there are not two worlds, the visible and the intellectual, but rather both are expressions of one active ground, the idea of the good as a condition of the possibility of being and knowledge. The idea of the good impresses itself upon the soul, which viewed in itself is unknowable, and in this way sensible perceptions and intelligible ideas are produced. Both the appearance of the world of sensible perception and the being of the ideas of the intelligible world are expressions of the passions of the soul that result when it is acted upon by the idea of the good. The passions of the soul refer to a meaning, the idea of the good as the highest a priori, which is more originary than the recognition of truth. When the soul intuits the idea of the good, it understands that metaphysical truth of being and certainty of the knowing soul are merely contingent. This also implies that truth does not exist in and of itself. The idea of the good remains just as infathomable as the nature of the knowing soul. The unity of truth is experienced in an incomprehensible manner. Let us take stock of what we have achieved so far. In Plato’s conception the knowing soul remains passive with regard to the idea of the good, and the unity of metaphysical and epistemic truth is emphasized. Now we may ask: How has modern thought conceived of the relationship between metaphysical and epistemic truth? II. Descartes’ Dualistic Theory of Truth: Metaphysical and Epistemic Truth Philosophers of the early modern age are skeptical about the notion of truth as it prevailed in antiquity. According to the thinking of classical Greece, we are already thinking in the truth insofar as the act of knowing is grounded in the very being or essence. For Descartes, on the other hand, certain and indubitable truth that goes beyond the apparent certainty of sensible knowledge11 must first be sought. In his Second Meditation Descartes emphasizes that it is doubt itself that has the quality of certainty. This certainty is of the form that all contents that can be thought can also be assessed by doubt to be insufficient for expressing the truth. Both the certainty of sensible perception and the certainty of the a priori sciences of mathematics and geometry show themselves to be uncertainties. Since all heretofore accepted truths can mislead us, Descartes designates with intention all objects 9 Heidegger, Martin: Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit. Bern 1947, p. 46; cf. also Schüssler, Ingeborg: La question de la vérité. Lausanne, 2001. 10 Cf. Kopper, Joachim: Erscheinung. In: Handbuch philosophischer Grundbegriffe. ed. by Herrmann Krings, Michael Baumgartner und Christoph Wild. München 1973, vol. 2, p. 412. 11 Descartes, René: Meditationes de Prima Philosophia (John Veitch Translation 1901), 1. und 2. Med.. 283 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science of thinking as false. But even if the content of all our knowledge is materially false, he arrives at the new truth, “I think”. The proposition, “I am, I exist”12, is necessarily true, every time it is spoken or thought. Therefore, the possibility of knowing the truth is no longer grounded on being, as with Plato, but is produced directly by the knowing subject. Descartes is generally regarded as the father of early modern philosophy, because in his work philosophy for the first time is based on the transcendental13. According to the Second Meditation, truth is no longer the metaphysical truth of being, but rather the pure formal truth of a proposition. The certainty of knowledge and the truth of being no longer have a natural bond, as in the metaphysics of light in Platonic thought. According to Plato the mere opinions of sensible perceptions in the cave can also be true, to the extent that they are reflections of the world of ideas; but the sentence “I am, I exist” can only be true when it is thought or spoken. The certainty of knowledge, which for Plato is passively experienced, is transformed into a spoken formal truth that is brought to expression by the cogito. This is where the shift from ancient to modern thought takes place. For Plato the soul’s manners of knowing are originally related to objects and consequently the activity and certainty of knowledge is a kind of passivity that comes from the truth of being. For Descartes, on the other hand, knowing the truth is an activity and a certainty that does not correspond with an existing object. For Plato thinking is already conditioned by truth, for Descartes truth has to be found out by the clarity and disctiction of thinking. According to Plato, the activity of knowing is a suffering or acquiescence, brought about by something more original which lies outside the soul and which directs the soul to something beyond itself. In this way epistemic truth has metaphysical significance. Descartes, to the contrary, begins with the activity of the soul and excludes passivity from the appraisal of the process of knowing – that is, he strictly rules out the kind of suffering or acquiescence which is the hallmark of Plato’s metaphysical truth and certainty of knowledge. The act of knowing brings about the truth, while at the same time the objects of knowing are experienced as unavailable. Subject and object are separated from one another, with the consequence that modern thought is faced with the task of explaining how, if possible, the concepts of the subject can be related to the object14. The subjective certainty of the process of knowing no longer has a metaphysical basis, as with Plato. It is formally abstract and hence no longer a sufficient criterium for truth, but must itself be justified. For Descartes, the question of truth is first posed when the knowing subject goes beyond the mere truth of judgments and asks whether its concepts correspond to their objects15. The objective reality of those concepts is no longer certain: the concept of God, an unconditional truth, cannot be thought by means of the cogito16. Metaphysical truth takes place in such a manner that it is not comprehended. How then is it possible to attain to metaphysical truth in modern philosophy, if the truth that the knowing subject produces and comprehends has neither objective nor metaphysical significance? How could the subject possibly attain to metaphysical truth, if it is no longer an object of knowing? Faced with the problem of having no direct conceptual connection to metaphysical truth, the knowing subject seeks another approach towards it. This approach is no longer the passive one of an incomprehensible suffering or acquiescence that originates in the truth of being, and can be 12 Cf. Meditationes, 2, § 3. 13 Cf. Krüger, Gerhard: Die Herkunft des philosophischen Selbstbewusstseins. In: Ders., Freiheit und Weltverwaltung. Aufsätze zur Philosophie der Geschichte. Freiburg/ München, pp. 11-69. 14 Röd, Wolfgang: Zur Problematik der Gotteserkenntnis bei Descartes. In: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 43, 1961, pp. 128-142. 15 „But the chief and most ordinary error that arises in them consists in judging that the ideas which are in us are like or conformed to the things that are external to us“ Meditationes, 3, §6. 16 Meditationes, p. 123 284 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science perceived and known by the soul. Much rather, metaphysical truth takes place in the activity of the knowing soul (independently of being and essence) and comes to knowledge through a transcendental discernment. God is the condition of the possibility that thought can take place at all. The concept of God is itself God’s “signature” on the cogito17, which allows it to be seen as something that is produced. That is, the cogito is the manner in which God shows himself and knows himself as human knowledge18. So God is not one object among many, but a process in human knowing, whose truth cannot be verified by the contents of our thinking. Metaphysical truth, from which our knowing has always originated and which is known through transcendental reflection, can no longer be directly related to our actual experiences, as Plato taught. However, the common assumption that Descartes does not go beyond the formal abstract truth of the Second Meditation is not true; this sort of truth leads to a quandary that cannot be harmonized with the certainty that we experience in our lives. Indeed, Descartes rehabilitates our factual understanding of the world at the end of his Meditations. If we begin with our natural, pre-philosophical consciousness, we are not confronted with the question of the objective reality of our concepts. Descartes writes: And, in the first place, it cannot be doubted that in each of the dictates of nature there is some truth: for by nature, considered in general, I now understand nothing more than God himself, or the order and disposition established by God in created things; and by my nature in particular I understand the assemblage of all that God has given me19. There is a truthfulness in our sensibility, which shows itself for example in our experiences of hunger and thirst. In such negative sensations the certainty of our corporeal nature is expressed, independently of our comprehension of it. Thinking means being a body. That which nature teaches us, is certain. In spite of the confused state of our sensible perception, a truth occurs without recourse to the distinction between body and soul, between metaphysical truth and knowing soul. A metaphysical truth originating in God reveals itself in nature through a pre-conceptual experience, and this divine truth vindicates Descartes at the end of his path of philosophical reflection. In this manner Descartes rehabilitates the existence of the material world. Beyond all the deep-seated doubt that lies at the core of the teaching of the Second Meditation, certainty does take place and is brought about through the synthesis of body and soul. The certainty of our corporeal nature is an expression of a truth that is not theoretical and is not produced by the process of knowing; it is an incomprehensible truth, a truth of nature, that is experienced passively, as in Plato’s teaching. In our sensible experience a pre-conceptual understanding of self and world that precedes the rupture between metaphysical truth and the knowing soul shows itself. Early modern philosophy cannot explain the truth of our knowing (the objective meaning of our thought contents) by reference to the harmonisation of metaphysical truth and our understanding. Plato’s identification of logos and object is no longer possible. And yet Descartes acknowledges another kind of truth in addition to the formal abstract truth of his teachings, the incomprehensible truth of corporeality, in which an original truth reveals itself. In the experience of one’s own physical impressions a new approach to metaphysical truth is opened up, an approach that is a necessary presupposition for the transcendental truth of the Second Meditation. Through this 17 „And, in truth, it is not to be wondered at that God, at my creation, implanted this idea in me, that it might serve, as it were, for the mark of the workman impressed on his work“. Vgl. Meditationes, 3,§ 38. 18 Cf. Röd, Wolfgang: Gewissheit und Wahrheit bei Descartes. In: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 16, 1962, p. 357. 19 Meditationes, 6, §11. 285 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science immediately experienced corporeality an a priori truth and certainty is achieved non-conceptually, and it lies prior to the distinction between thought and sensibility or body and soul. Conclusion Plato regards both the idea of the good (as that which makes the truth of being possible) and the knowing soul (as that which makes certainty of knowledge possible) as incomprehensible. The unity consisting betweeen the truth of being and the certainty of knowledge is conditioned by a transcendental principle, the idea of the good, which we cannot comprehend. In its apprehension of the idea of the good, the soul knows that is is founded on a condition, on an antecedent beginning, a transcendence. The path of consciousness leads through the ideas toward their unconditioned cause, since the world of ideas and of metaphysical truth is dependent on this antecedent condition. The ideas must be overcome in the hiddenness of their cause. The absolute a priori exists beyond knowing and being as the incomprehensible. The world of ideas and of reason, of truth and certainty, is a merely cognitive world. The logos recognizes truth, but is constituted itself by the idea of the good as an unconditioned a priori, of which no more can be said about. By contrast, Descartes’ conception is the starting point for the distinction between ideas within our consciousness and the reality of things outside of our consciousness, between subjectivity and objectivity – a distinction that is not present in this form in ancient or medieval thought. Because the knowing subject has precedence over metaphysical truth, this makes the unity of the certainty of knowledge and the truth of being impossible. In the one case there is the abstract certainty and truth of a doctrine, in the other an immediate corporeal experience. Although his standpoint of the self-verification of knowledge leads to uncertainty with regard to the metaphysical questions of the existence of God, soul and world, for Descartes there is nonetheless an a priori certainty in our corporeality and hence in our existence, in which an original, but incomprehensible unity of metaphysical and epistemic truth is revealed. This interpretation of the constitution of the early modern consciousness distinguishes itself from the more prevalent readings, which often ignore the fact that in its activity the early modern consciousness remains bound up with an incomprehensible metaphysical truth, and hence cannot be described as possessing an absolute autonomy. What marks Descartes as a thinker of early modernity is his anticipation of transcendental philosophy, to the extent that knowledge forms itself as sensible, concrete, human knowledge. Descartes remains a traditionalist, when he claims that human knowledge is the means by which God realizes himself. In addition to the transcendental truth that arises from the negation of doubt and yet remains a merely situated and abstract truth, Descartes seeks a non-conceptual approach to metaphysical truth. In fact, the goal of his Meditations of 1641 is the proof of the existence of God and the immortality of the human soul20. Metaphysical truth, in the age of modern philosophy, is no longer merely theoretically known, but reveals itself in an incomprehensible corporeal form of knowledge. Consequently, it is not entirely accurate to designate the philosophy of the modern age as absolutely subjective and autonomous, although this claim is repeatedly made.21 As we have noted, the Cartesian consciousness of early modernity is rooted in metaphysical thinking. Cartesian dualism offers only the appearance of an autonomous consciousness, since its self-certainty is conditioned by an incomprehensible metaphysical truth. Hence, the autonomy of the early modern consciousness is also its weakness. The challenge facing Descartes’ successors was how to reunify incomprehensible metaphysical truth and the knowing subject – something which does not seem to be resolveable by means of reason. The paradigm shift leading toward early 20 Meditationes, p. 23. 21 Cf. Benz, Hubert: Individualität und Subjektivität. Interpretationstendenzen in der Cusanus-Forschung und das Selbstverständnis des Nikolaus von Kues. (Buchreihe der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, ed. by Klaus Kremer u.a. vol. XIII) Münster, 1999, p. 19. 286 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science modern thought brings about both the knowing subject capable of producing the truth and a non-conceptual approach toward metaphysical truth. The new status of the knowing subject, although it is now capable of producing within itself truth and reality, is still subordinate to a metaphysical truth of corporeality. To put the matter somewhat flippantly: the historians of philosophy are correct, but in another manner than they think. The paradigm shift of modernity does indeed reveal itself in the altered valuation of the knowing subject. But it is not the liberation of the subject from metaphysical issues, but rather the task of founding the relationship between metaphysical truth and knowing subject in an new way, that marks this beginning. 287 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science FEYNMAN'S "QUANTUM WEIRDNESS", A MISNOMER, PROVES MOMENTUM OF A POSITION A MATTER OF REPRESENTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE. Francis Schwanauer University of Southern Main A. The non-linear-dynamical malleability of action in the causal nexus*a physical (or mathematically inclined and scientific) way to say that we are metaphysically free or capable of self-determi-nation--presupposes that facticity (facio, facere, feci, etc.) is predated by conscious reference (cp. 'What is s/he up to? Does s/he [inclusive of God] know what s/he is doing?'). This most recent interpretation of transformational change (reaching from Planck's quantum, h, to the all-pervading universal field) sees energy--contrary to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory (CIQT) and the more recent String Theory (ST)*as a product of position (space) and momentum (time) in the grip of some unknown variable (UV) qua supervening consciousness or parent particle. Supported by the Yang-Mills Theory (YMT)--as well as Bell's theorem--this recent interpretation of energy prudently reconciles positive mass (qua in space) and classical waves at the speed of light (qua in time), without which as a means even the lowest level of intel-ligence in any representational apparatus (RA) such as our brain is impossible. In most expediently switching fundamental assumptions, from separability to inseparability of position and momentum, so as to avoid bending geometry a la the ST, the YMT not only harks back to Parmenides and Kant, who clearly deemed such categorical extremes as space and time as conditions of understanding (long before quan-tum mechanics of the 21st century came to the very same conclusion), but also makes the observation of the long suspected shadows of the Higgs boson in Cern, as well as Feynman's quantum weirdness, both logically accessible and plausible. The mathematical reconciliation of position and momentum within their superposition finally allows for the long due understanding of the necessary correlation between 'implication' as the endowed momentum of a position on the one hand, and 'inference' as the rate of the conscious transformation of its endowing superposition on the other. In short, this inseparability between position and its momentum (qua daughter particle) and their combined inseparability from their superposition (qua parent particle) is clearly corroborated by the recent observation of properties in—but not deducible from--these daughter particles. B. No longer able to detach implication qua conditioning from inference qua causation, i.e., no longer able to separate the mo-mentum of a position from the rate of change of its more or less conscious parent particle qua superposition (cp. Feyman's quantum weirdness), physics advances from a passive witness of a represen-tational report on facticity to the rank of an intelligent and active controlling agent in and of reality. By shedding part of its old (cloak in the form of) Newtonian determinism, its new cloak in the form of non-linear-dynamics not only allows it to move more freely, but also to make use of every bit of information as a means to enhance a best of all possible worlds by way of its now consciously functional and free decision procedures. In sum-mary, it seems to tilt toward a more than a two-and*a-half-thousand-year-old idea about the 'psyche' qua motion within change as inseparable from motivation and intentionality. This in turn gives it (cp. Aristotle's reference to 'anima') the drastically new and curious appearance of conscious 289 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science energy in charge of its identity as a gravitational field. C. In short, the UV qua 'factor' or deciding super-position is the one and only entity with the teleological monopoly on the life cycle of any item. This monopoly presupposes control of and the conscious overcoming of positive entropy in the present (cp. Aristotle's 'mover of the moved') on the one hand, and memory of the past as well as anticipation of the future by means of its representational apparatus (RA), on the other hand. In other words, since this UV (cp. Bell: "Les chaussettes de M. Bertlmann [qua pink and not pink] et la nature de la réalité") displays the identity or the nature of a semantical relation between symbol and symbolized (or truth and reality), it turns out to be the basis of inference and comparison of the best of all possible worlds, and hence in charge of [its] reality, qua non-linear-dynamical causa-tion. D. Thus it becomes the picture of a future fact that must enter comparison by some parent particle (qua preferring and deciding mind) to count as a possibility or candidate for reality. As such, it has to pass muster to achieve even its lowest possible rank in existence and be earmarked as the best candidate for reality. Without this transition of a possibility to 'a chosen candidate for reality' a possibility becomes reference-less, drops out of the RA in any conscious-ness, and is relegated to oblivion. The means to achieve this within the gravitational field of a parent particle--as is observable both in our brains and the depth of space*is collapse, chaos, positive entropy, density, and (extreme) gravitation. As must be obvious, the harshness of these means strictly corresponds to the drama of choice (qua separation, ac-ceptance, and rejection) by the non-lineardynamically free parent particle. In this, our superposition enforces and reasserts its self-determination by way of a rigorous 'threshing floor' for a harvest called the past, by rejecting all remnants of negative entropy but keeping and maintaining 'position and momentum' as its legitimate inheritance in terms of gravitation and inertia. As supervenient, it avails itself of the remaining space and time and superimposes its will by way of negative entropy. E. The comparison is based on the connection or common element be-tween the connected as the gravitational members within the gra-vitational field (qua superposition). The common element*often re-ferred to as the universal in philosophy (and as boson in phys-ics)*has informative character and presents itself in the form of the so-called rest-mass-less graviton, and is determined by the product of the vectors (photons) by way of the shared inertia of the relating relata. Far from being irrelevant or less relevant than any other distinguishing characteristic, and contrary to the prevalent assumption of its rest-mass-less-ness in physics (cp. graviton and photon)and its nominalist interpretation in meta-physics (cp.universal), it has the identity of 'shared reality', and its mass corresponds to the weight of information between the gravitating items of a set involved in communication. Yielding to some recent observations which hark back to Euler's 'beta-func-tion' as regards the coextension (or final unity) of quantity and quality on the subatomic level quantum physics is forced to couch bosons as an 'equivalent' rather than as a conjunct to 'motion' in the form of a position with (a) momentum. In doing this quantum physics has become the unwitting though epistemological first to explain the first personal origin of 'qualia' as a product of position and momentum in the grip of some more or less conscious parent particle qua superposition. To make a long story short, Planck's h (the quantum), Heisenberg's h/2* (the uncertainty prin-ciple), and all the other prominent mathematical elaborations on the quantum are really elaborations on quantum information. As such they prove our Logos, i.e., our whole chemistry down to the DNA, and the synthetic charcteristics in genes, a matter of com-munication. This centrality of communication bridging such ex-tremes as physical cybernetics with its bites of information on the one hand and metaphysical elaborations such as "in initio erat verbum" on the other hand was already hinted at by 290 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Parmenides 2.500 years ago, but without thebenefit of the observation of the shadows of the Higgs boson in Cern, and Feynman's quantum weird-ness somewhere in California. F. In short, scientific or referential thinking by way of the gra-vitational and inertial mass of the brain cannot possibly become ethically preferential without some non-lineardynamical superpo-sition in charge. The hitherto still unknown fact that information is not a conjunct but an equivalent to what moves and gravitates in the preferential grip of its reigning parent particle explains both positive and negative entropy (cp. such as collapse in our brains and the birth of super novas in the depth of space). What Einstein and others mistook for absolute, the speed of light, turns out to be no more than the highest speed in its lowest in-terrelation a local RA such as our brain can handle. Thus, unless a number of quantum items (at least 2) slow down to the speed of light in order to accommodate the idling rate of the brain in its juxtaposition of memory and anticipation, our mind can neither register nor take advantage of it as a useful and necessary infor-mation in its active determination of any parcel of the future. Therefore, even though light allows for maximal representational quantum flexibility in our RA, it remains local and should not be considered as the ultimate standard within the transformational idling rate of the all-pervading universal field (cp. the sudden mass transference in the depth of space). G. In conclusion we may throw some light on some of the discre-pancies which pinpoint a seemingly hidden but grievous fault-line between the rather practically inclined physicists on the one hand and the more mathematically disposed on the other. 1. All theories as regards the non-linear-dynamical passage of time (qua freedom integral to causality) have been corroborated both by the observation of ultimate density as followed by super novas in the depth of space and as pivotal collapse here in our brains. 2. The lack of divergence between qualia and quanta as a product of position and momentum seems pivotal as it proves the prevalence of a non-liner dynamics under the control of reigning parent particle qua superposition. 3.Both anesthesia and non-linear-dynamics portray a decision pro-cedure as a 'process' which makes memory and anticipation integral to every bit of consciousness. In short, the supervenience of the unknown variable whose consciousness surpasses the scope of aware-ness delivered by the senses also contains those two thirds of the life cycle of a thought qua 'thinking' which are no more and not yet privy to the senses. In a nut shell, both physics and metaphysics portray the unknown variable as the one and only entity coming across as both conscious and in control. 4. Russell's doubts as regards the supremacy of self-inclusive sets and as regards the nature of the set of all sets as a self- inclusive set are now being resolved. As it turns out, the YMT, Schrödinger's wave function, and also the teleology of Aristotle make the momentum of a position not only causally transitive but logically implicative within the awareness of the parent particle qua supervenient superposition. Where this continuous energy in the form of transformation cannot be deemed as other than synthetic (cp. Our super computers and/or Hegel) it stands to reason that conscious news as implied must have a beginning but not an end (cp. Kant's antinnomies). 291 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science INDEX OF TERMS: connotative: distinguishing characteristics of a member of a set. daughter particle: used as a means to trace or guess at the hard to observe parent particle denotative: common characteristics of the members of a set. different: in reference to members of any class (self-inclusive and non-self-inclusive) displaying a connotative property: dissimilar; in this context, the earmark or monopoly of any member of a set to be connotational and essential or irreplaceable as a basic constituent of reality. difference: restricted to any self-inclusive set displaying n+1 different members, with the 1 in n+1 qua conscious comparison, dissimilarity; in this context, the reflexive nature of identity qua self-inclusive set with n+1 members. evolutional: in this context, an instantaneous vector subservient to the rational intentions of a self-inclusive superposition for the benefit and survival of all of its positions. Feynman's quantum weirdness: The (seemingly weird) hypothesis that (according to Greene): "in traveling from the source to a given point on the phosphorescent screen each individual electron actually traverses every possible trajectory simultaneously". What seems to resolve this quantum weirdness is emphasis on the befuddling and hence neglected distinction between (the same) information as presentational on the one hand and as representational on the other. Thus, whereas the former is an exclusive disjunct or one reality, the latter is an inclusive disjunct, or one among many possibilities. This in turn throws light on Feynman's "sum-over-paths" approach as a so-called "quantum weirdness". Frege, Gottlob: (1848-1945): German mathematician and philosopher. ravitational: pertaining to the force of mutual attraction between all bodies; in this context, anything divergent enough to be registered in some brain or representational apparatus. gravitational field: region of detectable gravitational effects caused by mass (in this context, reduced to minimal divergence to allow for a common denominator (between such as rest and velocity) and to signify its mathematical accessibility). h/2p:Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (allowing for the admixture of the observer and the observed; a clue to both the observed and the observer as someone with a first person perspective). Heraclitus: A Greek philosopher who flourished c. 500 B.C. Higgs boson: immediate or timeless messenger between the simple and the complex, i.e., between types and hierarchies reaching from the quark to the all--pervading universal field inertial: the property of matter by which it retains its state of rest or its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted upon by an external force. incompleteness theorem: the notion that for any member of a certain class of formal systems there is a sentence formulable in its language, that it cannot prove, but that it would be desirable for it to prove: here with the proviso of its possible resolution by referring to systems as sub-systems. local: spatio-temporal or concrete and non-self-inclusive, as opposed to the non-local, supervenient, and self-inclusive. momentum: impetus (in this context, qua mathematically reconciled with position, only 1/3 of the curriculum of a position, or the very least in time (cp. photon) noumenon: Kantianism: that which can be the object only of a purely intellectual, non-sensuous intuition; a thing-in-itself: as distinguished from a phenomenon or thing as it appears parent particle: possible origin of properties observable in daughter particles, yet not deducible from the daughter particles (in reference to synergy based on nonlinear mathe-matics), i.e., some entity incapable charge of what it consists of 292 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Parmenides: Greek philosopher active in Elea (an Ionian Greek colony in souther Italy) in the early fifth century B.C. position: the very least in space, a Euclidean point (cp. gravi-ton, carrying the inertia of a momentum). qualia: so-ness on a minimal scale (plural). quantum: the smallest quantity of radiant energy. res cogitans: thinking substance, as opposed to res extensa: extended substance. Russell, Bertrand: British Philosopher, logician and social reformer (1872-1970). representational apparatus: actual location of observable past and future in terms of analogies such as memory and anticipation. self-inclusive: in reference to a set with itself as an additional member, i.e., with n+1 members (cp. Russell's class of all classes). Here, however, also speaking for the hitherto unobservable parent particle qua responsible for the synchronicity among its daughter particles. simple: not an agent, uncomposed, incapable of internal change, the least of what is moved, a base component of consciousness qua object of attraction or repulsion singularity (benign): in this context, standard nothing-encounter in the causal nexus qua necessary buffer between the old and the new in all transformation and change. superposition: unknown variable, seemingly privy (or somehow attached) to each position. unified field theory: any theory that describes all four forces and all of matter within a single all-encompassing framework. 293 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science BIBLIOGRAPHY Bell, J.S., Speakable and unspeakable in quantum mechanics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989. Greene, Brian, The Elegant Universe, Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., New York, 1999. Gregory, Richard L. (ed.) The Oxford Companion to the Mind, Oxford University Press Oxford, New York, 1987. Heraclitus, (533-475 B.C.) Fragments. Kaku, Michio & Thompson, J. Beyond Einstein, Anchor Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., New York, 1995. Plato, Republic, Parmenides, Jowett translation. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1961. 294 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science SCIENTIFIC RATIONALITY: CHANGING OF PARADIGM (QUANTUM RATIONALITY AS RATIONALITY OF BEING) Liudmila Surkova I Consciousness in the quantum world: the new dialogue of philosophy and science 1. The “escaping” consciousness. 2. Philosophy and physics: pleasure and difficulty of anew meeting. 3. The way to the meeting. 4. The dialogue (what language should we use?) 1. The “escaping” consciousness. In his wide-known monograph “The Emperor’s New Mind”, published in 1989, mathematition Roger Penrose advanced a revolutional idea that in quantum theory the fundamental element is absent. This is consciousness. From the point of view of R. Penrose, the phenomenon of consciousness is in close causation with physical processes that occur on quantum level. That is the most difficult place in quantum mechanics, the sphere of disagreement between N. Bor and A. Einstein, the sorce of “principle of complementarity”. Phenomenon of consciousness, according to R. Penrose, is connected not with that “subjective” reduction, which is under research of physicists, but with so called “objective” reduction. In that case quantum system, when it is free from research, nevertheless, may reveal the macroscopic characteristics and choose the one chance from many others. May be just here there is the weltanschauung kernel of revolutionary idea of R. Penrose – the idea of quantum “birth” of consciousness? When and where consciousness appears? According to R. Penrose, it appears in some special place and moment, where and when certain rules were not given beforehand and there comes the necessity to find out the new decisions, to formulate the new ideas. Thus, it is obvious that, according to R. Penrose, consciousness appears (i.e. we can find its appearance) in the sphere where it shows itself as quantum phenomenon. But, when showing itself as quantum phenomenon, it brings in its comprehension real uncertainty, brings duplicity, duality, supplementarity of levels. Consciousness, according to R. Penrose, that is, at the same time, comprehension. But comprehension of what is he talking about? On the main, R. Penrose interprets comprehension as understanding of opinion. Consciousness is called for forming the conception on “common sense”, the notion of “objective truth”, “comprehension”. Consciousness is not in use when there is any “automatic activity”, or “mechanistic keeping the standing rules”. Thus, according to the author, it turns out that the notion of consciousness denotes more limited field than the one concerning thinking. Here we find some confusion of notions of thinking, consciousness, comprehended and non-comprehended. Understanding of the process of forming of our deliberate ideas, according to R. 295 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Penrose, turns out to be impossible without bringing the confusion about. Here is the interruption of logics that brings R. Penrose to a deadlock. Appearing of consciousness escapes reflexion. There comes the situation ‘between”, comes to life some hole, so called “a black hole” that appears impossible to be overcrossed in any way. In the second part of his book “The shades of mind: in search of knowledge about consciousness” R. Penrose looks at the matter the other way round-from the aspect of the problem of Time. He says that, according to the results of the experiments, there is some unavoidable interval of time between the deliberate act and the action caused by it. Hence the author comes to a conclusion that the problem of consciousness will not be comprehended until we change the course of our Today’s conception of the infinite, time, substance, and our understanding of nature in the whole. To the same conclusion, per se, came the American scientific researches R. Jan and B. Dann (the laboratory of the School of engineer and applied sciences of the Prinston University, while working in the 80th at the program of studying “Man-machine” system interaction. They formulated the new theoretical model of “quantum theory of consciousness”. As a result of such experiments, just considerable influence of operator’s consciousness on the flow of physical process was established. Geometry of reality, wavy nature of consciousness, and quantum mechanics of human experience became the postulate of new model of quantum theory of consciousness. Quantum mechanics may, according to the authors, be used for explaining consciousness only as some complex of metaphors. Analogous conclusion we can see in newly published work of E.V. Danilevsky “Structures of collective unconscious: Quantumlike social reality”.( Danilevsky I.V. Structures of the collective unconscious: The quantumlike social reality. Ed. 2-nd, revised and researted. – M.: ComBook, 2005). The author, as it clear from the title of the work, considers quantum theory as a certain analogy for explanation of collective unconscious. But again something prevents the apparatus of quantum mechanics from direct application. Again there is some obstacle. We can say, that, actually, again the questions concerns fixation of the fact of special “inaccessibility” of consciousness for integral reflexion through apparatus of physical science, about its “escaping” the analysis somewhere in the sphere of “transcendent”. So where is the basic idea to be footing? 2. Philosophy and physics: pleasure and difficulty of anew meeting. In fact, such idea proved to be revealed just in physics, and it is connected not with known Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, but with the other, and most “incomprehensible” its interpretation – so called “many-worlds” interpretation of Hugh Everett (Everett H. III Rev. Mod. Phys. 29 454 (1957), reprinted in (1959). According to interpretation of Everett (if we shall use non-physical language), there is some, equal in rights, different classical realities or classical worlds exist. With that, consciousness of the observer as if splits, as if exfoliates, and so he becomes able to see things and events that take place in each of classical worlds. That is the very conception which presents the difference between the interpretation of Everett and the general (Copenhagen) interpretation, where, as a result of reduction, there remains only one alternative, or only one of potential worlds. In conception of Everett each classical world presents in itself only one “classical projection” of quantum world. Those classical projections appear in the consciousness of the observer, when, at the same time, the quantum world, as it is, exists autonomously, not taking into consideration any observer, whatever he is”. And moreover, according to Everett, “all the alternatives are in realization, and consciousness of the observer is to be divided among all the alternatives. At the 296 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science same time, individual consciousness of the observer perceives reality subjectively, as if there is only one alternative where he exists. In other words, consciousness in the whole is separated between the alternatives, but individual consciousness realizes its choice (selection) of one alternative subjectively. Thus, in Everett’s interpretation of quantum mechanics we see just the very basic idea, that manifests the real connection, real identity of both complexity of the world and complexity of consciousness. This interpretation “opens the door” for coming in touch with newly arised philosophy of consciousness. And, really, here we call for just new philosophy of consciousness. And we can say that such philosophy is already in use now, tracing, actually, its roots back to the antique philosophical tradition. That is not the established for textbooks and many modern books on Philosophy stratum of Philosophy of consciousness. That is the approach to the consciousness from position of Being. As the form of Being. 3. The way to the meeting. M. Heidegger was the one who had nowadays the most notable impact on the theory of Being. And also on the science in its essence. Is there any limit in science as a theory (the science expressed in the form of a theory)? And how can such limit be defined? As we see, it might be defined just as a theory “on the very brink of metaphor”. In modern physics, there is some very good example of that, as we think, that is a newly appeared theory, known as the theory of superstrings. The author of the world-known science-popular bestseller on the subject, entitled “The elegant Universe: Superstrings, the latent dimensions and the search of the final theory”, Brian Green, in his book shows the potentialities through which this theory demonstrates the explanation of the physical world. But the author says that some of the new nations are too “difficult to comprehend”. And because of that there essence can be understood only “with the help of deeply perceived analogies”. Then “these ideas will let us see quite new, staggering perception of our Universe”. In his book B. Green, then, more than once, manifests the fruitful effectiveness of analogy and metaphor. Metaphor helps to make the step to the answer of the question of Leibnitz: why there is “something”, but “nothing” is out of usage”. Here we are. Again we came to the problem of Being and to the concept of Heidegger. Just “it”, you see, and only “it” is at real Being. “It” truly is at Being there. And also there is “the truth”. It was quite the thing Heidegger told us about. But today, “Being” by Heidegger is perceived in some other aspect, in the standpoint of just the problem, that is still not solved by us. That is the problem of “the escaping consciousness” and the chance to “catch” it – by means or what? Of the Science? Of the Philosophy? Of something else, some new? We give the answer – by means of the substance adequate to Being. Adequate to conception of Being. And that is the conception of the quantum world. Why do we think of just such comparison? Let’s turn to Heidegger. Actually, Being, as he say, is of the same characteristics, which are inherent in quantum reality: uncertainty, probabilistic nature, fluctuations, etc. “Being” by Heidegger – is “the light, that shines behind the shade”. That is practically the same 297 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science as the light behind the walls of “the grotto” of Plato. That is “the transcendent”, that appears in quantum world as such “non-manifestation”, which is fraught with “the manifestation” and “manifests” in probabilistic way, but never completely does. Just in that there is the essence of the consciousness. As it “is”, and as it is the Being. Consciousness as Being is the consciousness of quantum world. And like that world, it is uncertain, probabilistic, multi-dimensioned. In modern world among many attempts let’s single out one more, the attempt of quantum conception of being and consciousness – in the philosophy of Merab Mamardashvily (Mamardashvily M. K. The classical and non-classical ideals of the rationality. M.: Labyrinth, 1994), who excellently develops the idea of multidimensioness, proceeding with the phenomenologo-existentialistic tradition of M. Heidegger and E. Gusserl By their special mode in science to the correlation of the ontological and quantum interpretation of the consciousness developed both the philosophy and, in its way, the physics. Physics in its outstanding scientists as M. Planck, M. Born, A. Einstein, V. Heisenberg, and the others left us as the inheritance not only a number of theories, but the philosophical works either, according to which we can form a complete opinion of the conception of these scientists on the consciousness. And, nevertheless, as we see it, theories of these physicists were of more use in understanding of the given problem, than there philosophical works. Not a bit detracting from there importance, I would like to say, that, apparently, there is some inner logic of philosophy into which they somehow penetrated through their works. At that time such logic did not bring to the conclusions which we are extrapolating today. And here, with that, there comes the necessity of the turning our attention to the conception of M.B. Mensky (Mensky M.B. Conception of consciousness in the context of quantum mechanics. Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk. 175 (4) 413-435 (2005)). To our mind, the author of the conception was the first who, from the point of the physics, comprehended and explained consciousness just through the form of Being. And he did it in the way allowing him, with that, not to destroy the physical context of the whole work. To such condition, in fact, brought him the inner logic of the development and interpretation of the conception of Everett. In that logic the quantum world might be correlated only with the ontological (≡≡quantum) perception of consciousness, and no other way. Consciousness, by M.B. Mensky, separates the alternatives, existing simultaneously in the quantum world as in “the horizon” (Gusserl). The quantum world becomes to be the universal “horizon”, the integrity, the sphere of the non-manifest from which “the gleam” appears, as if coming to the birth. And “the gleam” here is the manifestation of Being as “the background” of the present classical world, that is as if “the lighting” of the consciousness, as if “a sudden” reveal of the source of light behind the shade. The conception of M.B. Mensky is somehow the point of the coming together, of the combination, and, better to say, of the correlation of the quantum theory and the philosophic-ontological interpretation of the consciousness. Here by now they correlate as just the forms of Being. And here, in my opinion, it is possible to manifest the reason for the considering of the dual (corpuscular-wave; local – non-local) apprehension of the consciousness in the light of the appearing “quantum metaphor” ( i.e. “the quantum rationality”?). So, what is the result of the undertaken by us analysis, and is it possible to say, that the way for the new physics-philosophy dialogue is already made? 4. The dialogue (what language should we use?) To my mind, the three languages of science might be quite possible. That is just the science 298 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science language, then, the language of the science as the phenomenon of the culture, and at last, the language of the science as the form of Being. And so, the third very language appears as a sort of some “common denominator”, it embraces the first two ones through the correlation of the grounds of the supplementation, on the basis of their locality-nonlocality, their mutual transition, their “leaving-reverting” (in the terms of A. Toynbee) from each other, where, to my mind, the abyssal essence of the dialogue of “consciousnesses” as the dialogue of the conceptions, paradigms, theories, scientific and artistic pictures of the world – and all that in the context of the dialogue of the human feelings and passions. But such thinking is, for certain, a result of the inner dialogue (in the context of the culture) with V.S. Bybler (Bybler V.S. From sciencelearning – to the logic of the culture: The two philosophical introductions into the twenty first century. – M.: Politizdat, 1990; Bybler V.S. Culture. The dialogue of the cultures (The experience of the definition). The problems of the philosophy, 1989, N 6, a. o. works). Unfortunately, that is the dialogue with the already left this world thinker. That is “the dialogue of the logics” inside us – by the highest standards, of the two logics – the logic of science and the logic of culture. Where did he see their distinction? In science, as he wrote, “every next stage turns to be higher than the previous one, somehow absorbs it in itself, develops all the positive …”. In such ascent all the preceding looses its own being “in the upper knowledge and ability, more veritable”. But as to the culture, so it forms and develops itself quite different. Here “The ideas of Sophocles can’t be perceived without the artistic creation of Shakespeare, and, as a matter of fact, Shakespeare is impossible without Sophocles, just and vice versa, Sophocles is impossible without Shakespeare, without the inner roll-call, repulsion, re-comprehension”. In culture “the formerly” and “the later” are correlative, simultaneous, precede each other, and, at last, they are “the radical” of each other”. The world of the culture by V.S. Bybler is like the quantum world. But, nevertheless, that is yet, if only agree with Hiedegger, the world of subsistency, but not of Being. That is the world of that “exists” as the thing, the phenomenon, the sound, the colour. That is – “the shade”, but still not the light that appears from behind the shade. But nevertheless, the world of culture generates such situations and forms from which “the gleam” may appear, and connection with the Being may be realized. And the next our step may, evidently, be to consider the correlation of science and culture (the logic of science and the logic of culture) as the dialogue of the forms of Being, that, in fact, is becoming just not only the dialogue in the “synergetic” understanding of “the dialogists” (as the self-developing process of the intertransformation of the substances), but as the quantum phenomenon, where there is “the plunge” into the nonlocality and “the returning” from it. It might be a probable conclusion that “the plunge” into the nonlocality and “the returning” quite into the other locality (into the other “classical world”, according to the conceptions of Everett and Mensky) – these are just the very moments of the “comprehending” of the true by the consciousness, or “the moments of the true” characterizing Being of man. So, what language both philosophy and physics might put in use for their dialogue, and also philosophy and science in general? They will probably be different, i.e. changing with the situation, the language used in the diapason from the just the logical (till there the science is, and will evidently be in the nearest future as “the theory of the real”) till the language of “the interfrontier states”, i.e. the states “between” the comprehended and non-comprehended. It’s clear that the gift for such intercourse is not in the possession of everyone and not 299 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science immediately. But the primary formations of it, as a special need, must be developed within the process of the reasonable practical activity of the humanity. II SOME CONCLUSIONS: 1. The new scientific rationality is quantum rationality, which includes classical (subject-object) and non-classical (relativity) paradigms of rationality as mutual complementary parts. Quantum rationality covers, therefore, reality of classical logic (thinking) and reality out of thinking (consciousness as a whole). 2. We see changing of the subject of thinking (“subject” of consciousness) in quantum rationality and give the foundation of multi-dimensionality of consciousness on the basis of ontological philosophical interpretation of consciousness (consciousness as “Being-in-the-world”- M.Heidegger). 3. We introduce the notion of multi-dimensionality of the “subject” of consciousness to the scientific picture of the world as quantum world. So we correlate complexity, multi-dimensionality of consciousness with complexity of the real world as quantum world. 4. The foundation of this correlation from the side of science is quantum mechanic. More exactly – so cold “many-worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanic by H.Everett. But this interpretation “requests” by analogy multi-dimensional interpretation of consciousness because objective reality by H.Everett is identical to reality of consciousness (consciousness divided to many “worlds”). 5. Every from these identical spheres – quantum mechanic (in the H.Everett’ interpretation) and consciousness (in ontological interpretation) – has two complementary dimensions (parts): classical (logical) and non-classical (out of logic). But the paradox is: Reality of consciousness is described (in ontological interpretation) as existing in classical space and time (classical dimension) and, at the same time, in non-classical space and time (non-classical dimension). But the quantum reality is described as existing only in classical space and time (even in the many-worlds interpretation by H.Everett). 6. What consequences are going out of this paradox? We can take the quantum world by analogy with consciousness as the world existing in classical and non-classical space and time simultaneously, as mutual complementary (let it be taken as only reality of consciousness – it does not matter, because quantum reality and reality of consciousness are identical for us). This conclusion is important for physics, psychology, medicine, neuro-surgery ect. From the other side, we can use this paradox in philosophy for limitation of so-cold main question of philosophy by the sphere of gnoseology. We can define quantum rationality as the rationality of non-classical, complex subject (as compared with the simple subject of classical rationality), subject of paradoxical consciousness, identical with Being. So, quantum rationality is rationality of Being. 7. The new dialogue between philosophy and science is going not only on the level of gnoseology, where philosophical generalizations are possible only before or after scientific research, but also on the level of ontology, where philosophy and science through the ontological taking of consciousness, becoming mutual complementary. 300 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science METAPHYSICS IN NATURAL SCIENCE Tuomas E. Tahko University of Durham The difference between metaphysics and natural science, or anything involving empirical research, is usually considered to be as clear as the difference between day and night. There is a rather obvious reason for this: it is because the term 'metaphysics' is often connected with armchair philosophy, pure a priori reasoning, whereas natural science and empirical research are considered to be very much a posteriori, based on experiments. What I am suggesting is that this sharp distinction between metaphysics and natural science is ungrounded and misleading. This is partly because the view that metaphysics deals only in terms of a priori knowledge and that natural science deals only in terms of a posteriori knowledge is simply wrong, as we will see. However, the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge as such is also problematic, as the fact that these two methods of inquiry are in a constant boot-strapping relationship has been neglected. As a matter of fact, they cannot even operate completely separately, contrary to how they are often dealt with. But before going into the details of this, let's take a brief historical look at the relationship between metaphysics and natural science. As we very well know, metaphysics and natural science weren't always quite as distinct as they might seem to be today. Consider for example Democritus, who is best known for his atomic theory. Not only was his theory a piece of remarkable philosophy, but his basic idea of an indivisible basis for all physical bodies, an atom, has survived even in modern physics. Of course, now we know that the particles that we call atoms do have an internal structure, but this does certainly not mean that there could not be some more fundamental, indivisible particles; these are what modern physics now takes quarks and leptons to be. In addition, Democritus' theory also contained a form of the principle of conservation of energy, as he considered atoms and motion to be eternal. Not to mention that he made some contributions to geometry. Democritus is of course only one example, almost all the philosophers of his time could be said to have been scientists of some sort, and they performed experiments as well. Take Archimedes or Pythagoras, who were certainly scientists in modern terms, but also philosophers in their time. Perhaps Archimedes and some other ancient philosopher-scientists were not very much involved with metaphysics, but the ideas of those who were no doubt influenced others as well. The best example is probably Aristotle, who was maybe the ultimate philosopher-scientist. But it is clear enough that philosophy and natural science once walked hand in hand. It might be a harder task to show that they still do. To defend this view, let's take a look at some great breakthroughs in natural science and consider how exactly did they come about. We could start with Galileo's thought experiments, which, incidentally, showed what was wrong with some laws of Aristotelian physics. One of the best known of Galileo's ideas is the idea that the velocity at which physical bodies fall does not depend on their weight, which is opposite to what Aristotle thought. Galileo's law of fall states that the distance travelled by a falling body is directly proportional to the square of the time that it takes for the body to fall. Galileo did verify this result by empirical experiments, but at that point he already believed in this law. The basis had no doubt been mathematical, drawing on Archimedes, whose follower Galileo considered himself to be. The method is even clearer with Galileo's hypothesis of acceleration – that a falling body accelerates uniformly – as this was harder to verify empirically. So, what I am here suggesting is, quite simply, that Galileo did not just randomly test how physical bodies behave when they fall, instead he 301 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science engaged in a priori reasoning and tried to figure out how they could possibly behave, constructed a mathematical formula for this, and then went on to test if his hypothesis corresponded with the reality, as it did. What then, does this have to do with metaphysics? Well, it seems to me that what Galileo did was not very far from what Aristotle did. It might be that Aristotle failed to test his ideas about motion, as Galileo showed them to be incorrect by empirical means as well, but the mistake was obviously made already in the a priori part of Aristotle's reasoning, for Galileo pointed out that there was something inconsistent in his reasoning. This inconsistency was revealed by Galileo's famous criticism which considers a large and a small stone becoming connected in the middle of their fall: by Aristotle's reasoning, the composite stone should speed up, but he also thought that when a faster object joins a slower one, the faster will slow down, thus it also follows that the composite stone should slow down, which creates the paradox. Aristotle and even Galileo did not have too much empirical, a posteriori knowledge to build on compared to what we have now. But this is what Galileo struggled to change and the situation was already getting better when Newton was active. Thus, Newton was able to use Galileo's verified empirical results (but recall that these were a priori results before they were verified) when he came up with the hypothesis that the moon's motion in orbit could be understood by using the principles that Galileo introduced when considering projectiles, i.e. the parabolic path that a projectile forms when it falls. Newton had a thought experiment of a cannon placed on a high mountain: when the cannon ball is fired at a sufficient speed (imagine the mountain being so high that the air resistance can be ignored), we have to start considering the curvature of the earth to determine where it will fall, if it will fall at all! This thought experiment represents how the gravitational force of the earth could be able to hold the projectile on earth's orbit and Newton realized that this might be how the movements of the moon could be explained. However, what is interesting to us is the methodology of this kind of reasoning: Newton took Galileo's empirical results regarding projectiles and applied some a priori reasoning to them, thus reaching a possible case for explaining certain natural phenomenona. The mathematical applications of this are familiar enough, but note that all this was introduced before anything had actually been empirically verified. What we have described here is in fact the method of scientific progress: we introduce hypotheses a priori, we then test these hypotheses empirically and establish verified a posteriori results. Then, from this established ledge, someone else leaps towards possible explanations, once again with the help of a priori reasoning, but from an a posteriori ground. This is the boot-strapping relationship of a priori and a posteriori knowledge that is necessary for scientific progress. My claim is that this is also exactly how metaphysics is done, indeed, it could be said that this is metaphysics. Let's take a moment to consider how the process of a priori reasoning works here, as a priori reasoning is the clearest methodological connection between metaphysics and natural science.1 First of all, it seems clear that we have to abandon the idea of certainty, which is often associated with a priori knowledge. This is obvious if we look at the earlier examples: Democritus was certainly involved with a priori reasoning, but it turned out that although he had some promising ideas, some of them were in fact incorrect, that is, empirical information falsified them. This was the case with atoms, which, after all, turned out to have an internal structure. But how should we deal with cases like this, a priori reasoning which produces incorrect conclusions? Were they a priori in the first place, and if they were, how can we explain why they failed? Well, it seems to me that we have to distinguish between two errors here. The other one is rather straightforward, namely an error in internal consistency somewhere along the line of a priori reasoning. This is clearly a 1 It is impossible to go very deeply into the wide debate about the nature of a priori reasoning here, in this connection I merely wish to point out that the classical account of it is ungrounded and a new account is needed. If additional motivation is desired, a recent collection of essays on the matter might help (Boghossian and Peacocke 2000). However, my case here relies on the provided examples. 302 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science human error and we could say that a piece of reasoning like this was not a priori after all. However, we obviously have plenty of examples of pieces of a priori reasoning which, although empirically defeasible, are nevertheless consistent and perhaps even quite correct in certain contexts. Such is the case with the gravitational theory and the three laws of motion introduced by Newton. Now we know, thanks to Einstein, that Newton's gravitational theory breaks down when very strong gravitational fields are in effect and similarly Newton's three laws of motion break down when velocities approach the speed of light. Still, Newton's original ideas are evidently very much correct. What has happened here? The explanation is that this is the second type of error in a priori reasoning and it is clearly not very devastating. My suggestion is that, strictly speaking, Newton's theory turned out not to be actual and now it would seem that Einstein's is. This is because a priori reasoning deals with possibilities. It is possible that the actual world would have been constructed like Newton suggested, but there turned out to be some underlying relativity which he failed to consider. Despite this, there is no need to say that Newton's theory was wrong, as it quite adequately describes the world, save the special cases mentioned above. It just needed some revision; and this is crucial: a priori knowledge is revisable. It is revisable, because we can never know for sure that we have in fact reached the actual description of reality. It might be that Einstein's theory is, yet again, just another non-actual possibility which happens to correspond with the actual reality rather well, and indeed this seems to be what quantum mechanics suggests. In either case, it is quite unlikely that we would abandon Einstein completely, even if it would be clear that Einstein's theory fails in some contexts. Theories need not be discarded when we realize, as in Newton's case, that they apply only to limited cases. This is because the a priori reasoning behind these theories might still be locally correct, although not sufficient for a complete description. The upshot of this is that rarely, if ever, can a theory be complete; it can certainly be a part of a complete description, but the complete description itself is in a constant state of revision, as it consists of a number of theories which are, of course, themselves revisable. This is indeed why we need philosophers and scientists to keep thinking about radically different possibilities and interpretations which might lead to more accurate a priori results and thus help us to reach yet a bit more complete description of the world. In fact, some very important discussions in science have been purely a priori in nature. This does not mean that there aren't any experimental, a posteriori grounds for such discussions, because, as I have pointed out already, there are always some a posteriori grounds which serve as an established ledge. However, what is remarkable about some scientific discussions is that they do not necessarily even aim to verify or falsify the a priori results by empirical means. Such was Einstein's and Niels Bohr's discussion about the interpretation of quantum theory. Their debate was over the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, which Einstein accused of inconsistency. It is impossible to go into the details of the debate, but basically Einstein tried to show that the incompleteness of the Copenhagen interpretation is ungrounded.2 The 'incompleteness' in this case refers to the idea that we can only demonstrate either the particle-like or wave-like properties of quantum particles at a time t, but not both simultaneously. Rather than engaging in empirical experiments, Einstein constructed a thought experiment which was supposed to show that, in principle, it is quite possible to demonstrate both the particle- and wave-like properties of quantum particles simultaneously. This led into an extensive discussion between Einstein and Bohr, in which they developed several arguments relying purely on a priori reasoning. After some revisions of what is now known as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen, or EPR experiment, Einstein thought that he had successfully established that the Copenhagen interpretation's incompleteness caused a logical paradox when applied to this very experiment. However, this time he was apparently wrong, as later on real experiments about inequality by John Bell presented results which were in favour of the Copenhagen interpretation. Nevertheless, none of this would have been possible without the a priori 2 The details of this debate can be found, for example, from Baggott 2004: 120 ff. 303 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science work by everyone involved. Interestingly, quantum mechanics has once again united natural science and metaphysics in a way that would have been hard to imagine some hundred years ago. For one thing, it has made physics uncertain, indeed, it has made physics a discipline which has to consider some wild possibilities based on nothing else than a priori reasoning. Of course, I think that a priori reasoning has been a crucial part of natural science all along, but during the 200 year period before quantum theory was discovered, physicists and other scientists tended to have a sense of security which they have now lost. Things like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle were introduced and suddenly leading physicists were debating over what do we really mean when we talk about quantum particles such as electrons which, although still measurable, are affected by the measuring devices so that we necessarily lose some information in the process. In fact, as John Bell's experiments verified, there is something very spooky going on indeed, for the reality of the physical properties of photons, which the experiment concerns, seems not to be established before a measurement is even made. It is not hard to see that this shakes the very grounds of a discipline such as physics which is traditionally considered to be purely experimental, its task being simply the observation of the phenomenona of the physical world. If the reality of some of these phenomena is only established after the experiment, it makes the traditional conception of physics simply impossible. However, it seems to me that this has only revealed the true nature of natural science: it is inevitably tied to metaphysics. This is indeed the case when physicists try to explain these strange results, as suggestions such as the string theory seem to be completely beyond the reach of empirical research. All this makes the suggested pattern of acquiring scientific knowledge apparent in an undeniable way. To provide yet another example, many of the particles which are now considered elementary were predicted by a priori means long before their existence could be empirically verified, one of them was the quark with the peculiar name 'charm'. It is revealing that the people who predicted the quark charm and other elementary particles were awarded the Nobel prize (1979) before the existence of these particles was empirically verified (Baggott 2004: 54). Alas, perhaps even us philosophers have some hope of being awarded this distinguished prize, as apparently it may be awarded for outstanding a priori reasoning! Be that as it may, it is clear that right now, natural science is more in need of metaphysics than perhaps ever before, as sometimes metaphysical a priori reasoning is all we have. In the light of these examples, we can make a couple of important conclusions about the relationship between metaphysics and natural science. Firstly, the involvement of metaphysics in natural science is associated with the progress of science, with the method of reaching new theories, not so much with basic research, which tends to form the empirical part, i.e. the a posteriori basis and verification of the a priori results. Secondly, the interpretation and meaning of scientific theories is also a question for metaphysics. This has been quite apparent since the introduction of quantum theory. Thirdly, the revisability of scientific theories is, perhaps surprisingly, based exactly on the revisability of the a priori results. Moreover, although empirical results are of course crucial for falsifiability, they are not always sufficient for pointing out errors in a priori reasoning. As we noted in the example of the debate between Einstein and Bohr, it was an inconsistency in an a priori passage which was the issue. Even when empirical results seemed to be in favour of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, there was still the need to analyse the situation in terms of metaphysical a priori reasoning, as the problem wasn't so much with the empirical data, but with what it means. This implies that metaphysical research, in terms of a priori reasoning about the possible, is indeed necessary, not only for scientific progress, but for any kind of explanation of what scientific theories in fact mean and how we should go on about interpreting empirical results. A possible objection to this approach might be suggested by those who would be content just with describing the world and limiting interpretation to a consistent mathematical scheme, which 304 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science perhaps describes the limits of what is measurable.3 But if we were content with this, it would, so it seems to me, mean the end of progress in science. For did we not just see that considering different possibilities is crucial for scientific progress? It thus seems that an intellectually honest scientist, not to mention a philosopher, should boldly dwell in considerations of this sort and 'stretch' the limits of what is possible, see if there are alternative interpretations to be found. This also means that there is a genuine need for cooperation between philosophers and scientists. Since the methodology for a priori reasoning is the same in both disciplines, there is certainly some information to be exchanged. At the very least, we as philosophers should be aware of what is happening in natural science, especially on the cutting edge of the theoretical branch, as that is where most of the work in a priori reasoning is done. On the other hand, it would be wise for the theoretical scientists to consult philosophers every once in a while, as they are certainly most experienced in the kind of reasoning that the theoretical scientists need. I should note that there is some literature which discusses the issues that I have raised, both in favour of my own views (Sorensen 1992) and against them (Atkinson 2003, Peijnenburg and Atkinson 2003), but here I wish to raise only one matter: the relationship between scientific and philosophical thought experiments. It has been suggested, namely by David Atkinson, that the methodology of thought experiments is usually different in philosophy and in science and that philosophical thought experiments, and even some scientific thought experiments, are “bad ones” (ibid.). Obviously, I don't agree with this. I haven't discussed purely philosophical thought experiments here, because it seems to me that once the a prioricity of scientific thought experiments is established, they themselves are necessarily philosophical in nature. Thus, my contention is that all thought experiments are philosophical. Some of them might be bad because they apply bad a priori reasoning or beg the question, but this hardly touches my arguments. Another issue which I cannot discuss in sufficient length here is the exact methodology of a priori reasoning. I have pointed towards the view that a priori reasoning deals with possibilities and I am inclined to say that the possibilities in question are metaphysical. What requires further discussion is the relationship with metaphysical possibility and the a priori and a full explanation also calls for an account on modal epistemology. These are issues that I have to address at another time, but I hope that the examples that I have discussed speak for themselves, as I believe that my description of the a priori reasoning in them has been accurate and implies an underlying continuity between metaphysics and natural science. 3 This is how Heisenberg supposedly saw his principle of uncertainty, see Baggott 2004: 38. 305 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science References Atkinson, D. (2003) 'Experiments and Thought Experiments in Natural Science', in M.C. Galavotti (ed.), Observation and Experiment in the Natural and Social Sciences, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 232: 209-225, (Dordrecht: Kluwer). Baggott, J. (2004) Beyond measure: Modern physics, philosophy, and the meaning of quantum theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Boghossian, P. & Peacocke, C. (eds.) (2000) New Essays on the A Priori (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Peijnenburg, J. and Atkinson, D. (2003) 'When Are Thought Experiments Poor Ones?', Journal for General Philosophy of Science, Vol. 34: 305-322. Sorensen, R. (1992) Thought Experiments (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 306 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science METAPHYSICS AND NONSENSE IN THE EARLY WITTGENSTEIN Nuno Venturinha New University of Lisbon In the antepenultimate proposition of the Tractatus, originally outlined on 2 December 1916, Wittgenstein famously wrote: The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other – he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy – but it would be the only strictly correct method. (TLP, 6.53) It is not without relevance that this proposition was first written down in MS103, the third of the wartime Notebooks we possess. But it is much more relevant to our purposes here that in MS104, such proposition, or better propositions, viz. 6.53 and 6.531 (the latter forming the second sentence), were preceded by proposition 6.431, the 6.45(1) of the final version, which states that “[t]he contemplation of the world sub specie aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole”. In fact, this proposition constitutes a ramification of the 6.43, numbered 6.522 in the Tractatus - where it precedes the 6.53 -, which refers that “[t]here is indeed the inexpressible”, that “[t]his shows itself”, that “it is the mystical”, something specified by proposition 6.432, the 6.45(2) of the Tractatus, which refers in its turn that “[t]he feeling of the world as a limited whole is the mystical feeling”. Now, it is precisely between propositions 6.531 and 6.432 that the last 6’s, 6.54 and 6.55, do appear in MS104, reading in the Tractatus a single penultimate proposition as follows: My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as nonsensical [unsinnig], when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. (TLP, 6.54 [translation slightly emended]) Wittgenstein then concludes his book by notably saying: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. (TLP, 7) The surmounting Wittgenstein alludes to has been classically interpreted in two diametrically opposed ways: i) as corresponding to the elimination of metaphysics itself, on the ground of its nonsensicality; ii) as corresponding to the apperception of the untenability of metaphysical talk, in virtue of what it involves could not be entirely graspable. The first interpretation assembles the proponents of the positivist reading of Wittgenstein, which has in the members of the Vienna Circle and in the analytical commentators associated to them their representatives. The second interpretation brings together, on one hand, those who do not identify themselves with such philosophical reductionism, even though they share with the positivists the analytical ideal, and, on the other hand, those who see in Wittgenstein’s thought eminently an existentialist concern, something which only began to be pointed out in the 1960s, after the publication of the Notebooks (the recto pages of MSS101-3). 307 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science When the understanding of Wittgenstein’s early philosophy – and consequently of its development after 1929 – seemed to me doomed to an eternal dispute between these two (or three) antagonist positions, a new interpretative programme, under the lead of Cora Diamond, came to light in the 1980s, claiming that none of the variants in question is correct. To Diamond and her followers, nonsense has to be literally taken, as a genuine impossibility and not as a possibilitant or impossibilitant possibility of sense, which is what happens in the second(s) and first readings, respectively. In the essay which properly marks the outset of the New Wittgenstein, suggestively entitled “Throwing Away the Ladder”, Diamond begins by making reference to “[Wittgenstein’s] insistence that he is not putting forward philosophical doctrines or theses”, more, “that it cannot be done” (1991, p.179). According to Diamond, “that view of philosophy […] has to be seen first in the Tractatus if it is to be understood in its later forms, and in the Tractatus it is inseparable from what is central there, the distinction between what can be said and what can only be shown” (ibid.). Taking as point of departure the genetic determination Peter Geach makes of that distinction, locating it in Frege, namely in relations like those of “function” and “object” (cf. 1976), Diamond, defending a decisive influence of Frege upon Wittgenstein, rejects – against Geach’s Frege – that there can be “features of reality” about which one cannot speak but which show themselves in language (cf. 1991, pp.180-1). She says that “[o]ne thing which according to the Tractatus shows itself but cannot be expressed in language is what Wittgenstein speaks of as the logical form of reality”, arguing that the only apparent fixed character of it would be revealed when the ladder would be effectively thrown away – otherwise we will remain in what she denominates “chickening out” (ibid., p.181). What Diamond incites us to do is “to throw away in the end the attempt to take seriously the language of ‘features of reality’”, letting go of also the presumption that, for Wittgenstein, there is not a “real nonsense”, a “plain nonsense”, resulting such intermediate structure in an “ineffable truth” (ibid., p.182). Diamond then points out the potentialities of a Begriffsschrift, where terms like “function” or “object”, being replaced by adequate signs, would disappear from the “philosophical vocabulary” (cf. ibid., pp.182-3). And she claims that, if Frege has tried to replace “certain parts of the philosophical vocabulary” by an adequate notation, Wittgenstein’s goal is a replacement of “the whole philosophical vocabulary”, ergo “including that of the Tractatus itself”, in such a way that what cannot be said, for instance “the possibility of a state of affairs”, would show itself symbolically – and only then we would “genuinely have thrown the ladder away” (ibid., pp.183-4). In this manner, Diamond criticizes the pretension of “[throwing] away the ladder while standing firmly, or as firmly as one can, on it”, giving as an example the way Peter Hacker in (the first edition of) Insight and Illusion realistically sees the irreducibility of logical categories to any definitory scheme, defending Hacker that such formality manifests itself in the midst of the propositional variability. What she does not accept is, exactly, that one may say that such view corresponds to “the correct philosophical perspective”, just adding that “only [one] cannot put into words what is seen from there” (ibid., p.196). At stake is what Diamond considers to be “the illusion of a perspective”, based on the conviction that there are “ontological categories” grounding what is “thinkable” and “sayable”, which, by their nature, are purely unsayable but, nevertheless, representable in a certain way (cf. ibid.). This illusory standpoint is exemplified by the transcendent nonsense of formulations like “A is an object”, something which, seeming to be contained in the “intelligibility” of the proposition, thus expressing something inexpressible, is, in the opinion of Diamond, “simply nonsense” (ibid., p.197). Now, to demarcate explicitly what can be thought through what can be said, seeing what exteriorizes that significant sphere as an illusion, is the central topic of another outstanding study of Diamond: “Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus”. She commences this commentary alluding to Wittgenstein’s effort of clarification in the preface. He writes there: 308 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science The book deals with the problems of philosophy and shows, as I believe, that the method of formulating these problems rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of our language. Its whole meaning could be summed up somewhat as follows: What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent. The book will, therefore, draw a limit to thinking, or rather – not to thinking, but to the expression of thoughts; for, in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to think both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought). The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense. (TLP, p.27) This quotation seems to lend support to Diamond’s argument, since thought, formulating itself linguistically, should put aside any representations which exceed a discursive clearness – that would be “simply nonsense”. But the question is: why do we insistently go beyond the boundary of sense? That is, why do we not confine ourselves naturally to a significant discourse? Is that tendency sickly? Diamond and the New Wittgensteinians actually interpret the Tractatus as a therapeutic work, which intends to liberate us from a certain conceptualization. However, does such conceptual imagery correspond to what they have in mind? The first difficulty Diamond faces in that article is precisely related to the prevalence of a (supposed) sense in Wittgenstein’s propositions. And this is why she isolates what she calls “the frame of the book”, sc. the preface and the concluding remarks, stressing that in the penultimate proposition Wittgenstein affirms that it is him who has to be understood and not “that his propositions serve as elucidations in that whoever understands them will recognize them as nonsensical” (2000, pp.149-150). This aspect is of utmost importance because if there is any (in)intelligible reading, any effect will come out from it; that is to say, the text can only be recognized as nonsense if it has been apparently significant, otherwise it would be, tout court, understood in itself as such (cf. ibid., p.150). And it is in this direction that Diamond introduces the ethical debate. After asserting that “[a]t the end of the Tractatus, there are about two pages of remarks which are explicitly ethical” and that “there are also, at the end of the notebooks […], a number of related remarks, also explicitly ethical”, she evokes a famous letter Wittgenstein wrote to Ludwig von Ficker, at the end of October 1919, while submitting the Tracatus to the cultural periodical Der Brenner. In that letter, Wittgenstein alerts Ficker to the circumstance that “the content will seem quite strange to [him]”, making clear that “[i]n reality, it isn’t strange to [him], for the point of the book is ethical” (LLF, p.94). And he goes on: I once wanted to give a few words in the foreword which now actually are not in it, which, however, I’ll write to you now because they might be a key for you: I wanted to write that my work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one. For the Ethical is delimited from within, as it were, by my book; and I’m convinced that, strictly speaking, it can ONLY be delimited in this way. In brief, I think: All of that which many are babbling today, I have defined in my book by remaining silent about it. (…) For the time being, I’d recommend that you read the foreword and the conclusion since these express the point most directly.- (Ibid, pp.94-95) There are various issues in this letter but I shall go into Diamond’s interpretation. She understands the Tractatus as taking “an austere view of nonsense”, so that “an ethical proposition has no more sense than ‘piggly wiggle tiggle’” (2000, p.153). Her idea is that the book “supposes a kind of imaginative activity, an exercise to share imaginatively the inclination to think that one is thinking something in it”, identifying Diamond this “use of imagination” with what takes place in metaphysics (cf. ibid., pp.157-8). Accordingly, she insists on the rejection that certain nonsensical propositions will be closer to be true than others, emphasizing that the distinction which has to be made is between different imaginative uses. Wittgenstein’s nonsense-sentences are, Diamond 309 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science thinks, “in the service of an imaginative understanding of persons”, in an elucidation of that illusory picture, as opposed to “the propositions of the metaphysician”, which, to her mind, “are the result of a sort of disease of imagination” (ibid., p.160). We may ask: but how can Diamond draw out from that therapy such intentionality, if the liberation she ascribes to it requires an abandonment of any hypostatization? In truth, the isolation of the book’s frame and the correlate letter to Ficker is so essential as incongruous to an interpretation of its nonsense. It results from there that, evidently, all that we may imaginably conceive is not nonsense. This is an aspect which seems to escape to her or perhaps one she cannot escape to. And so “philosophical nonsense” is paradoxically distinguished from “ethical nonsense”, consisting the latter, after all, of a sense which is merely passible of being shown (cf. ibid., p.161). Keeping her “austere view of nonsense” notwithstanding, Diamond is compelled to place herself far off “the view of logical positivists like Ayer and Carnap, and their understanding of ethical sentences as nonsensical” (ibid., p.162). What she categorically refuses is their “meta-ethics”, a theoretical model in which concrete ethical situations are reduced to abstract linguistic analyses, in the presumption that – and this is Diamond’s main point – in that realm one can speak about such a thing. The irreducible character of the positive discourse to the phenomenon in question is actually what constitutes the corner-stone of Diamond’s articulation, irreducibleness which she sees systematized in the Tractatus through the cancellation of any ethical propositions. This negativity of ethics, emphasizes Diamond, is analogous to the one of logic, reason why she claims that the Tractatus does contain “no remarks about logic” (ibid., p.164). She puts in relief the notion of “transcendental” in order to precise the core of her approach, referring that, contrarily to Kant, “[w]hen logic or ethics is said by Wittgenstein to be transcendental, this does not mean that it is concerned with the activities of some transcendental subject” (ibid., p.168). It is clear that Diamond does not want to accept any metaphysical substantiation, but it is not clear how, when she identifies, accurately, the “transcendental” with “the general form of a proposition” (ibid.). The pervasive employment of the expression “general form of a proposition” instead of “general form of proposition”, which is the one we find in Wittgenstein’s texts, does not change anything in relation to the formal nature of that constituent structure of our conscience, unified in what is called “I”. The term “transcendental” refers, in effect, to a possibilitant transcendence of the presentation, without whose universal fixity there could not exist what we designate by “experience”. Is that a focus imaginarius, to speak with Kant? Maybe; nonetheless, it is the only one we have, corresponding it to the very idea of humanity. Summing up, to the question “[i]n what sense is the aim of the Tractatus ethical”, Diamond replies that it is “‘to see the world in the right way’”. This to her is “a matter of not making false demands on the world, not having false expectations or hopes”, i.e., that “our relation to the world should not be determined by the false imagination of philosophy” (ibid., pp.168-9). Going further, Diamond stresses that this “[f]alse imagination is not directly tied to what we say or do, but may be recognized in what we say or do, how we live, by an understanding that draws on another use of imagination” (ibid., p.169). Does she only have in mind the philosophers, the metaphysicians? Certainly not. Diamond holds that the plan of access we are in is already determined by that “false imagination”. It is on these grounds that she is able, in the first ending to the paper, to imagine a content to “the book’s ethical intention” – seeking refuge in the argument that “[t]he book’s ethical intention includes the intention of the book not to be interpreted” -, but also, following the second ending, that one may realize an ethical sense in Grimm’s Fairy Tales, when, she argues, the value conveyed there is absolutely “unapproachable” (ibid., pp.169-171). It is obvious that any description of that “transcendental” domain is, in toto, unrealizable. And this is exactly why Wittgenstein recommends us to pass it over in silence. Nevertheless, what we should not speak about has to correspond, albeit diffusely, to the idea we have of that, otherwise we could not know what not speak about. Such and such conception is what we recognize as belonging to a background which has to be preserved, that is, whose uttering is self defeating. 310 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science In order to conclude, I shall comment on a last point of Diamond’s view of Tractarian nonsense. Recall that she distinguishes between “philosophical” and “ethical” nonsense, claiming that “[t]he attractiveness of philosophical sentences will disappear through the kind of self-understanding that the book aims to lead to in philosophers”, whereas “the attractiveness of ethical sentences will not” (ibid., p.161). Diamond reads therefore in the same way both Wittgenstein’s logical and ethical propositions, that “self-conscious uses of nonsense intended to liberate the metaphysician” (ibid.). The (pseudo)metaphysics of the Tractatus is thus generalized to the whole of the work, insisting Diamond in problems like the employment of the adjective “green” and the proper name “Green” (ibid., pp.159-160) – or, as was already mentioned, of the formulation “A is an object”. But is this insistence exclusive of Diamond’s investigations – and of her followers? Of course not. It is because a certain metaphysical topiké of the Tractatus favours this kind of questions that an author like Hacker may be viewed, as Diamond does, as a metaphysician. Now, it was precisely Hacker who has most strongly criticized until now the “post-modernist” or “resolute” reading led by Diamond. Thus it is not surprising that in his article “Was he Trying to Whistle it?” he stands on such formal problems, hanging upon them an “internal evidence” for a criticism of that interpretation (cf. 2001, pp.105ff.). He considers in fact “implausible to suppose ironic or ‘transitional’ the fourth remark from the end of the book”, the 6.522, “which Diamond excludes from what she calls ‘the frame’” (ibid., p.125). Hacker reminds the reader, citing from the Pears/McGuinness translation, that “‘[t]here is, indeed, things that cannot be put into words’”, that “‘[t]hey make themselves manifest’” (ibid.). But he leaves behind the final sentence, viz. that “[t]hey are what is mystical”, something which is by no means accidental, since in Insight and Illusion the stance that Wittgenstein’s mysticism is not central to an understanding of the Tractatus is favourably argued. Hacker will have obviously avoided the uneasiness he experiences in referring to that dimension. However, as it may have turned out notorious, this is a misfortunate strategy. In reality, the negligence of the “mystical” does not represent merely an hermeneutical error; there is in addition an “internal evidence”, to use Hacker’s own words, that the philological study of the Tractatus provides us, already advanced, although slightly: is to the mystical sphere that metaphysics refers in Wittgenstein, that is what we should keep silent about. Let me put this in short. Proposition 6.522 of the Tractatus is identical with the 6.43 of p.75 of MS104. If we look for the proposition which follows we will arrive at p.85, where in the sixth entry stands the 6.431, corresponding to the 6.45(1) of the Tractatus. We verify then that the subsequent proposition of that Prototractatus, the 6.432, equivalent to the 6.45(2) of the Tractatus, is solely preceded by five remarks, the last not being numbered. The four numbered remarks are 6.53, 6.531, 6.54 and 6.45, 6.53a, 6.53b, 6.54(1) and 6.54(2) in the Tractatus numbering. It may me argued that if we have the chance to investigate the final output of that work, why shall we lose time with an earlier version? We may then look again at proposition 6.522 of the Tractatus. Which proposition do follow from it? The 6.53 and 6.54. What does it mean? That the “metaphysical” in 6.53 proceeds from the “inexpressible” or the “mystical” in 6.522, vindicating Wittgenstein’s elucidation of its nonsensicality in 6.54 a surmounting of the propositionality which confers it (in)intelligibility. Hence, the analysis of the Prototractatus only helps us to throw more light on Wittgenstein’s intentions. It makes clear that what is only susceptible of being shown is the content of the “contemplation of the world sub specie aeterni”, that is, of its “contemplation as a limited whole”, so long as it is such “feeling of the world as a limited world [that] is the mystical feeling”. There we see clearly that the understanding of the “inexpressible”, of the “mystical”, of the “metaphysical” only depends on a synaesthetical apprehension of the world, which is neither more nor less what is at stake in ethics. There are plenty more philological-philosophical connections to be traced in MS104, as well as in MS103; but these lie outside my scope here. 311 Metaphysics 2006 – c. Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science References Diamond, Cora 1991 (1988) “Throwing Away the Ladder: How to Read the Tractatus”, in: The Realistic Spirit. Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp.179-204. - 2000 (1991) “Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus”, in: Crary, Alice; Read, Rupert (eds.), The New Wittgenstein. London: Routledge, pp.149-173. Geach, P.T. 1976 “Saying and Showing in Frege and Wittgenstein”, in: Hintikka, Jaakko (ed.), Essays on Wittgenstein in Honour of G.H. von Wright. Acta Philosophica Fennica 28, pp.54-70. Hacker, P.M.S. 1986 (1972) Insight and Illusion. Themes in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press. - 2001 (2000) “Was he Trying to Whistle it?”, in: Wittgenstein. Connections and Controversies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp.98-140. Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1933 (1922) Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, tr. by C.K. Ogden. London: Kegan Paul. (TLP) - 1996 (1971) Prototractatus. An early version of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, ed. by B.F. McGuinness, T. Nyberg and G.H. von Wright, tr. by D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuinness. London: Routledge. - 1979 “Letters to Ludwig von Ficker”, ed. by Allan Janik, tr. by Bruce Gillette, in: C.G. Luckhardt (ed.), Wittgenstein: Sources and Perspectives, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, pp.82-98. (LLF) 312 d. Metaphysics and Education Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education DIÁLOGO, EDUCACIÓN Y DESARROLLO MORAL Ángel Casado Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 1. Introducción. Diferentes circunstancias, desde los brotes de violencia que vive nuestra sociedad, hasta el pluralismo que ocasiona el “encuentro” entre culturas, han avivado el tema de los valores, del que derivan importantes consideraciones sobre la dinámica actual de las sociedades abiertas y democráticas. Preocupan los valores de la sociedad, los de la infancia o los de la juventud; se habla de cambio o crisis de valores, de pérdida de valores positivos o de la aparición de valores emergentes. Quienes expresan esta preocupación lo hacen desde la convicción de que los valores constituyen un ingrediente fundamental de la vida humana, y de que es necesario defender ciertos valores indispensables para la convivencia social en general 1 . La creciente bibliografía especializada de los últimos años es buena prueba de ese interés generalizado, casi siempre con amplias referencias a la importancia de la educación en valores. La presencia de los valores en la vida humana, junto a su poder para orientar y “dar sentido a la existencia humana” (M. Scheler), son, entre otras, razones que avalan la importancia de los valores en educación. De algún modo, esa referencia al mundo de los valores viene a mostrar el “sentido social” del quehacer educativo, así como la amplitud de expectativas formativas que despierta. 2. Educación y “competencia moral”. La compleja relación entre los dos términos del binomio valores-educación es una constante en la historia del pensamiento filosófico. Si en tiempos de Sócrates y Platón el problema formaba parte del debate más amplio sobre “la enseñanza de la virtud”, en nuestros días esta parcela educativa es objeto de especial consideración, como uno de los ejes que dan coherencia y sentido al conjunto del currículo2. Tal circunstancia, basada en la ligazón histórica entre educación y progreso humano, justifica que desde diversas instancias se reclame una atención prioritaria a la educación en valores. Es preciso, insisten algunas voces lúcidas, crear un marco apropiado de reflexión individual y colectiva que favorezca la “competencia moral” de los alumnos, esto es, su capacidad para analizar y evaluar críticamente los “discursos” morales de nuestro tiempo (valores, juicios, decisiones…), en la perspectiva de un cuidado permanente por la calidad de vida personal y comunitaria. Sean cuales fueren los principios y estrategias a utilizar en ese “marco de reflexión”, habrán de ser coherentes con el objetivo de formación plena de la persona. Así lo recoge la Comisión Internacional sobre la educación para el siglo XXI, presidida por Jacques Delors, en una de sus recomendaciones: la educación “debe contribuir al desarrollo global de cada persona: cuerpo y mente, inteligencia, sensibilidad, sentido estético, responsabilidad individual, espiritualidad…”3. 1 “… mas allá de todas las incertidumbres y relativismos de la sociedad posmoderna, si educamos es porque creemos que hay conocimientos, valores y, en suma, competencias más deseables que otras” (Pozo, J.I. y Morena, C., “Estas diez competencias se encierran en dos”, Cuadernos de Pedagogía, 298, 2001, p. 79). 2 Ahí está, por ejemplo, la ampliación del currículo nacional en Suecia, a partir de 1994, con la inclusión de una quinta área fundamental: “Valores cristianos y humanitarios” (Cfr. Schleicher, A. La mejora de la calidad y de la equidad en la educación. Santillana, Madrid, 2005, p. 31). 3 Informe a la UNESCO de la Comisión Internacional sobre la educación para el siglo XXI, Santillana/UNESCO, Madrid, 1996, p. 106. 315 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education Cierto que esas referencias al carácter integral del proceso educativo, contrastan a menudo con el importante déficit que se detecta en la realidad de la enseñanza, restringida muchas veces a un cúmulo de adquisiciones intelectuales, con escasas referencias a una perspectiva finalista y moral. Ahora bien, si hablamos en serio de educación integral, con lo que implica de atención al conjunto de dimensiones y capacidades humanas, el corolario de una actuación que aliente el cultivo de aquellas cualidades y valores que forman el soporte de lo que llamamos sociedad “humana” (tolerancia, libertad, originalidad, autonomía de juicio moral y político), se sigue como supuesto inexcusable. Según lo anterior, en sentido estricto, el proceso educativo no se justifica por la mera transmisión de información y conocimientos, sino, precisamente, por su decidida contribución al logro de una creciente autonomía moral, que haga posible “el ejercicio de la libertad no solo de actuar, sino de pensar y de querer, y el ejercicio de la responsabilidad no sólo legal sino auténtica”4. La puesta en marcha de una propuesta de este tipo requiere abandonar viejas posiciones, centradas en la idea de educación como “reproducción” de la cultura, para pasar a otras más acordes con las exigencias de nuestro tiempo, en las que la práctica educativa se conciba como la ocasión de que cada sujeto asuma reflexivamente los logros de una tradición cultural, más como forma de humanidad, que como una forma de conocimiento instrumental o de dominio técnico. En esa línea, hay una creciente unanimidad respecto a que los sistemas educativos, además de atender al desarrollo de las destrezas cognitivas del alumno, se impliquen decididamente en acciones destinadas a conseguir otro tipo de capacidades humanas que permitan vivir y construirse como persona: lo que hemos dado en llamar valores morales. Consecuentemente, la exigencia de “autonomía moral” (capacidad para efectuar juicios morales autónomos, que permitan afrontar críticamente las sugestiones-imposiciones del entorno), se presenta como un objetivo educativo, no ya necesario, sino imprescindible en nuestros días. El problema consiguiente es cómo lograr el necesario equilibrio entre los dos procesos: inserción-integración y emancipación-liberación, que forman como el telón de fondo de la problemática educativa, sin olvidar atender a las demandas e implicaciones de ambos5. En otras palabras: cómo evitar que el proceso de “integración” social devenga en mera adaptación pasiva o conformista; o que, de otro lado, el objetivo de “autonomía” personal, consustancial al proceso educativo, se conciba de espaldas a todo “compromiso” con la sociedad de que se forma parte. Así, pues, no se trata sólo de hacer al hombre más libre y autónomo, sino también más solidario, remediando de esta forma la dolencia que aqueja a la sociedad actual, de la que es típico, en palabras de Fromm, “afectar simultáneamente al hombre de dos maneras: por un lado, le hace más independiente y crítico, y por otro, más solo, aislado y atemorizado”6. He aquí, pues, un segundo punto de reflexión respecto al binomio educación y desarrollo moral: romper la dicotomía entre autonomía y solidaridad, para llegar a posiciones superadoras, a través de la búsqueda de actitudes autónomas y, a la vez, solidarias7. Esa dimensión social y solidaria, propia del pensamiento filosófico, se hace patente en la respuesta de Sócrates cuando Glaucón le hace ver que, si se hace retornar a la caverna al prisionero liberado, éste se verá perjudicado, con lo que los “mejores” vivirán peor: “Te has vuelto a olvidar, querido amigo, de que a la ley no le interesa en absoluto que haya en la ciudad una clase que goce de particular felicidad, sino que se esfuerza porque ello le suceda a la ciudad entera” (República, 4 Martínez, M., “La educación moral: una necesidad en las sociedades plurales y democráticas”, Revista Iberoamericana de Educación, núm. 7, 1995, p. 17. 5 V. Camps ha subrayado la mutua implicación de los dos procesos: “Ni la libertad ni la autonomía serán reales sin una integración social que implique la conciencia de la igualdad así como de la diferencia de todos los ciudadanos” (Virtudes públicas, Espasa-Calpe, Madrid, 1990, p. 129). 6 El miedo a la libertad, Buenos Aires, 1965, p. 137. 7 Cfr. Cortina, A.: Ética sin moral, Tecnos, Madrid, 1990, pp. 273-297. 316 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education VII, i, 5). A la preocupación por las destrezas y habilidades “cognoscitivas”, que suscitan el interés de padres, profesores y responsables académicos, ha de unirse la búsqueda de una mayor “competencia moral”, desde la que joven pueda ampliar su perspectiva, no sólo en términos de liberación de las viejas o nuevas “cadenas” (ignorancia, discriminación, dogmatismo …), sino de responsabilidad personal y social. Impulsar el razonamiento crítico y facilitar el ejercicio del juicio autónomo – objeto y objetivo de la educación moral - será, a fin de cuentas, la mejor garantía de una opción lúcida, coherente y solidaria 3. El diálogo y la “comunidad de indagación” Ocurre, sin embargo, que no hay un método o “sistema” que garantice por sí mismo la competencia en el ámbito de la educación moral, o que nos indique, fuera de toda duda, que hemos escogido la opción adecuada. La amplitud con que las cuestiones de valor se presentan en la vida social y cultural, exige contar con amplio abanico de habilidades y destrezas, tanto en el plano de la razón como en el de la sensibilidad. Por otra parte, lo realmente importante no es sólo desarrollar ciertas habilidades de razonamiento en torno a valores cívicos o morales, sino, ante todo, profundizar en su ejercicio efectivo, de forma que, gradualmente, lleguen a ser vividos en el espacio escolar como un estilo ético de convivencia. En este punto, conviene recordar que los valores no se adquieren sólo ni principalmente a partir de conocimientos teóricos: se trata de un “saber practico”, que se enseña de muy distintas maneras y constantemente. Difícilmente pueden tener éxito en este campo los procesos “instructivos” al uso, o las áridas lecciones “magistrales”. El contexto, en el ámbito de la educación en valores, constituye un factor vital. De ahí que muchas propuestas de “educación moral” recurran a ejercicios o prácticas más o menos complejas (juegos de simulación, dilemas, etc.), e incluso a “historias” edificantes, que ejemplifican las virtudes que se pretenden promover8. No es casual, igualmente, el recurso a “modelos” (personas, instituciones, prácticas corporativas …), de indudable influencia, que ejemplifican ese carácter del valor como algo “vivido” y no sólo “sabido”. Pero, sin negar la virtualidad de tales procedimientos, parece claro que son insuficientes. Por dónde empezar entonces..? Una vez más, cabe el recurso a una tradición cultural tan antigua como la propia filosofía occidental: el diálogo socrático, que en su sentido de “búsqueda constructiva”, presupone la investigación comunitaria de criterios y su comprobación por el grupo. En efecto, esa indagación en común, escribe E. Lledó, es “el reconocimiento de que, tal vez, la verdad, la justicia, la belleza no están sólo en un individuo, sino que sean patrimonio escondido de la colectividad, que la mayéutica de Sócrates colabora en alumbrar”9. La pregunta por lo que hay –o lo que “vale”- no es algo que pueda responderse aparte de la relación y el diálogo con los demás. Uno de los pasajes de la Carta VII de Platón es esclarecedor al respecto: “Sólo después de haberse acercado por mucho tiempo a estos problemas y de haber vivido y discutido en común, su verdadero significado se enciende de improviso en el alma, como una luz” (341, c). Después “de haber vivido y discutido en común …”; por tanto, no hablamos sólo de una conexión intelectual/racional, sino también cordial/emotiva, como Machado escribe en su Juan de Mairena; “… no basta la razón, el invento socrático, para crear la convivencia humana; ésta precisa también de la comunión cordial, una convergencia de corazones en un mismo objeto de amor”10. Al hilo de la propuesta machadiana, de honda intimidad poética, se hace patente el interés que la relación dialógica, de discusión abierta, supone para el tema que nos ocupa. Una educación “comprensiva y dialogal” en valores, escribe Guillermo Hoyos, “prepara mejor, no sólo por sus 8 Cfr. Bennet, W., The book of virtues, Simon&Schuster, New York, 1993. 9 La memoria del logos, Tecnos, Madrid, 1984, p. 94. 10 Juan de Mairena (Ed. de José Mª Valverde). Castalia, Madrid, 1978. p. 105. 317 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education contenidos, sino sobre todo por sus procedimientos comunicativos, para una sociedad civil que aspira a ir superando el autoritarismo, la intolerancia y la frivolidad, gracias a un mayor compromiso y a más pluralismo en la participación de una democracia, cuya eticidad signifique más justicia, más equidad y mayor solidaridad”11. Más allá de recurso metodológico, el verdadero diálogo implica un nivel de autenticidad ética, en el que se desarrolla el cuidado (care) por los procedimientos de indagación moral, y por el crecimiento personal en libertad y responsabilidad de cada miembro. En el proceder dialógico, sometido a reglas, los participantes llegarán a interiorizar gradualmente los valores y principios fundamentales de la vida en comunidad, que han alumbrado en una búsqueda cooperativa: aprenderán a escucharse mutuamente; a compartir e intercambiar ideas e informaciones; a ofrecer las razones de sus propios puntos de vista y pedir las de sus compañeros; a apreciar, en fin, la diversidad de propuestas planteadas por otros miembros que amplían la propia perspectiva. Desde la afirmación de la “competencia comunicativa” de todos los intervinientes - sobre la base de reconocer en el “tú” una dignidad similar al “yo”-, será posible hablar y debatir todo aquello en lo que no estamos de acuerdo, esforzándonos por conseguir claridad y tratando de aproximarnos a una situación de consenso, deseable, pero no imprescindible12. Como a tantas otras cosas, a dialogar se aprende … dialogando. Y el aula puede ser ese lugar privilegiado en el que pensamientos, deseos y aspiraciones vayan cobrando forma a través del delicado instrumento de la comunicación. Una vez que los valores se han “encarnado” o “entrañado” (Mª Zambrano) en gestos, palabras y acciones, pierden el carácter abstracto/ideal de las cosas “transcendentes”; surge entonces una nueva realidad: el ambiente de aula, es decir, el entorno concreto en que el profesor trabaja con sus alumnos: un espacio de atmósfera distendida y de apoyo mutuo, donde todos afrontan, desde la escucha y el respeto por lo diferente, los problemas morales cotidianos y dialogan sobre ellos. Al viejo lema platónico (“pensar en común”), se añade aquí el “learning by doing” de Dewey, en su doble vertiente: social y solidaria. Porque esa “investigación en comunidad” supone hacer efectivo el requisito básico del modelo de escuela pluralista: no quedarse en los modelos de fundamentación y argumentación teórico-académica, sino ejercitarse y profundizar en la vida democrática, plasmando lo que cada uno piensa a través de la propia conducta. * * * La comunidad, “puente” entre el individuo y la colectividad, implica primariamente un acto continuado de comunicación e interacción, no sólo cooperativa (supuesto del beneficio común) sino también solidaria (comprensión y simpatía con los desfavorecidos y marginados; prioridad del compartir sobre el competir, etc.). La virtualidad más importante de la razón dialógica (y por ende, de la “comunidad de indagación”), radica precisamente en su capacidad para suscitar una interrogación permanente con vistas a orientar nuestra vida, no sólo como individuos, sino en tanto que personas capaces de contribuir, libre y solidariamente, en la construcción de la sociedad que deseamos. 11 “Ética comunicativa y educación para la democracia”, Revista Iberoamericana de Educación, 7, 1995, p. 89. 12 El producto de la discusión, observa J. Buchler, “no necesariamente asume la forma de una conclusión asertiva; puede ser una enumeración de perspectivas posibles, la definición más completa de un problema, o el crecimiento de la concienciación, puede ser más un mostrar que un afirmar…” (Cir. En Garza, T.: Educación y democracia, Visor, Madrid, 1995, p. 89). 318 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education PERSONA Y TIEMPO. METAFÍSICA Y PEDAGOGÍA DE LA INTERIORIDAD Juan Manuel Díaz Torres Universidad de La Laguna, España Tanto la vida como el amor y la muerte trascienden el ámbito de lo problemático. Ni la vida, ni el amor ni tampoco la muerte se agotan en su aparición, esto es, en su existencia puntual y efímera. De ahí proviene tanto la inquietud que originan como su carácter de misterio. No se vive sin contingencias, sin imprevistos, sin acontecimientos; pero la vida concreta, la de cada persona, no se identifica con un puro y simple devenir de contingencias, de imprevistos y de acontecimientos. Éstos son lo que son, y nada más. Por eso mismo, la persona puede anticiparse a ellos, sufrirlos, gozarlos y recordarlos, o desear olvidarlos. Pues ella es la que permanece y, como consecuencia, la que los asume, muestra, niega, rechaza, oculta o deforma. Aunque también es cierto que la propia persona puede hacer todo ello consigo misma: aceptándose, mostrándose, negándose, rechazándose, ocultándose o deformándose. El tiempo de la historia es tiempo de las personas, esto es, de los actos y obras de las personas. Tal tiempo es tan concreto como éstas y, a la vez, tan misterioso como ellas. Los proyectos son concretos, los ideales son concretos, pero los proyectos y los ideales participan de la complejidad de quienes los proponen, edifican, enmiendan, arruinan o restauran. Sentido de la existencia, contingencias, anhelos, finitudes, necesidades, abstracciones, concreciones y valores resultan inviables y hasta incomprensibles extemporáneamente, extrahistóricamente; ahora bien, no resultan diáfanos al margen de la Filosofía y del esfuerzo perfeccionador del pensamiento pedagógico. 1. Experiencia y clausura Canta Homero en la Odisea el suplicio de Tántalo. Ulises cuenta haber visto a Tántalo en las profundidades de la lóbrega cárcava padeciendo crueles tormentos. De pie y sumergido en agua hasta la barba tenía sed y no conseguía beber pues cuantas veces intentaba acercar sus labios al líquido elemento, éste desaparecía absorbido por la tierra. Colgando encima de él había árboles que le ofrecían sus frutas, pero Tántalo no podía coger ninguna pues cuando alzaba las manos para hacerlo una fuerte brisa se las llevaba hacia el cielo. Imaginamos a Tántalo no con labios, no con manos; le imaginamos siendo labios y siendo manos; le podemos imaginar no como teniendo sed, sino como siendo sed por ser ésta inextinguible. Tántalo es él mismo y sus máscaras; es y, además, representa su papel, el que le ha tocado vivir muriendo sin morir jamás. No sólo tiene sed, no sólo desea: es sed, es deseo. Personaje por destino, asume el papel de sí mismo. Su plenitud, su perfecto acabamiento, consiste en ser negándose. Es un ser desesperado, es desesperación todo él; pero no por ello deja de ser intención sin fin, tendencia desesperanzada eternamente insatisfecha a colmar su sed y su deseo. Contradicción, absurdo perenne con vida eterna que teatralmente representa una vida que es no-vida pero que tampoco es muerte. Deseo vano, existencia huera, Tántalo vive negándose en la nada de todo; vive autodestruyéndose en su propio vacío metafísico, que es vacío de sí, vacío de todo, vacío de todos; vive castigándose, siendo continuo suicidio siempre incumplido, siempre fracasado. Tántalo es 319 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education quimérico deseo de autoaniquilación imposible. Sin meta, sin camino hacia un término, sin itinerario que sea colofón, su ser es su no-ser tanto como éste es aquél. Si se pudiese penetrar en el corazón de Tántalo quizá no se escucharía ninguna clase de lamento por las atrocidades que le condujeron al horco; lamentaría sólo la pena impuesta porque la sufre sin fin, pero no lloraría su culpa. Si fuésemos capaces de penetrar en la mente de Tántalo quizá hallaríamos infinitas preguntas, cuestionamientos que se agolpan sin orden, sin estructura, a la manera de un grito desquiciadamente estremecedor. Tales preguntas vivirían sólo el instante en que se retira el agua, sólo el instante en que se retira la fruta. El momento del ansia de beber y el momento del ansia de comer es el no-instante de las preguntas; y dado que aquellos dos instantes son íntimamente consecutivos hasta el infinito, las preguntas son, además, tan efímeras como un gemido y tan ciegas a la respuesta como la misma visión de Tántalo en el averno. De todas formas, quizá podamos hacerlo; tal vez podamos penetrar en el corazón y en la mente de tal atormentado ser-no-ser. Es posible que no tengamos que ir lejos. Es posible que cada uno no tenga la necesidad de salir de sí mismo para poder ver-le y escuchar-le. Tántalo puede resultar tan cercano y familiar como uno mismo para sí; acaso, quién sabe, cada ser humano lleva en sí un Tántalo o, lo que es lo mismo, una parte, estrato, dimensión u oquedad tantalizados. Sólo que, a diferencia de él, aún podemos permitirnos el lujo de mantener cierta distancia con respecto al suplicio que corresponde al querer beber y no poder estando rodeado de agua, y al desear comer y no poder hacerlo hallándose rodeado de fruta. Y ello es lo que nos permite fundamentar posiciones negativas con respecto a lo que anhelamos. ¿Está el infernado Tántalo en un período postmetafísico? Él ya no se ocupa, en tales momentos eternos, sino de lo que desea y de lo que no desea, de lo que sólo puede experimentarse: sed, hambre. Posiblemente Tántalo ha dejado de hacerse preguntas por el ser de las cosas. Limitado como está, limita sus preguntas y resultan así limitadas también sus respuestas. Está encerrado, sufre. El Tántalo postmetafísico sólo podría hablar de lo más inmediato, de lo que siente o experimenta. Lo demás ya no tiene cabida en él. A diferencia de Tántalo, el ser humano tiene remedio. Puede desear no ser lo que es con miras a ser quien debe ser –lo cual supone un proceso de crecimiento personal- o, por el contrario, puede desear no ser lo que es en aras a ser mucho menos de quien es, lo cual supone una infrahumanización. 2. Filodoxa constituyente Sigue inquietando observar a quienes sólo tienen palabras de vehemente condena para los comportamientos de exclusión entregarse ferozmente a éstos cuando se trata de neutralizar a sus propios contradictores. Cabe preguntarse entonces si es la verdad o un conjunto determinado de verdades –filosóficas, pedagógicas, científicas o religiosas- las que convierten a quienes las conocen o creen conocerlas en seres con pretensiones totalitarias o, si por el contrario, cada ser humano busca legitimar su mala voluntad de poder a través de cualquier excusa, llámese verdad –o verdades-, certidumbre o fe, aunque también podría recibir el nombre de relativismo e incluso el de nihilismo. Si estimamos que el conocimiento de la verdad o las verdades es lo que despierta en el ser humano su lado más perverso, entonces haríamos bien en cobrar distancia respecto de tal verdad o sistema de verdades a fin de probar el aserto. Pero ¿qué pasaría si negásemos lo anterior, esto es, si afirmáramos que cada uno de nosotros –unos más que otros- busca legitimar su mala voluntad de poder, su mal amor de sí, su ambición, a través de cualquier medio al alcance? ¿De qué serviría entonces esforzarse en neutralizar la posibilidad de desvelamiento de verdades con carácter absoluto si hasta con relativizaciones y negaciones escépticas podemos producir monstruos, generar 320 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education leviatanes, construir verdades? ¿Para qué afanarse en desactivar aquello mismo que nos constituiría, es decir, la voluntad de poder? También estremece la extendida propensión a no discernir –o a no querer hacerlo- entre un pasado y otro pasado, con lo que el pasado es todo y nada a la vez. ¿Efecto de tal amalgama? La más completa confusión que imposibilita todo análisis serio y todo diálogo fructífero. Con tal miscelánea se consigue difuminar para homogeneizar con la finalidad última de rechazar el bloque entero; en otras palabras, con tal operación de ingeniería mental se consigue tomar la parte por el todo. Y quien así amalgama suele elegir de tal pasado-uno lo que más le conviene para su argumentación y hasta para su propia vida. Sea cierto o no, se corresponda o no con la realidad, idealizado o demonizado, lo frecuente es que lo entresacado de tal pasado se convierta en centro de irradiación de múltiples teorías sobre todas las cosas: sobre el bien, la verdad, la belleza, el hombre, Dios, la religión, la ciencia, la educación, la filosofía, la historia, el porvenir, el progreso, el ser y la nada. Quien así confunde podría pensar que ha alcanzado la sabiduría, y que tal sabiduría se destila en aserciones tales como que la verdad no existe y que, por lo tanto, todo es relativo, que hay que vivir y dejar vivir, que todo pasado fue peor, que hay que ser optimista, y otras complicadísimas complejidades por el estilo. No hace falta probar que tras el enunciado de proposiciones como éstas suelen esconderse muy frecuentemente actitudes tales como el deseo arrogante de no querer ser imparcial, la camuflada ignorancia de no saber cómo ser objetivo, la estulticia culpable de querer ser indiferente y la pretensión de justificar cualquier cosa que a uno le apetezca. Alguno, incluso, en tal tesitura se atrevería a decir que sólo sabe que no sabe nada, y quizás éste sea el único que acierte acerca de sí mismo porque lo más seguro es que no sepa nada de nada; y por lo que respecta a quienes creen saber algo de modo absoluto –éstos abundan entre los sacralizadores del relativismo dogmático, pseudognoseólogos que niegan de modo absoluto todo absoluto-, hay que decir que al menos creen que saben algo, aunque a continuación dirijan sus diatribas contra las creencias de quienes creen saber algo, sin percatarse de que, en el fondo, están procediendo contra sí mismos. En definitiva, mientras que unos no saben nada de lo demás, otros no saben nada de sí mismos. Mentes así urden el territorio de las tribus, espacio espiritual propio más allá del cual todo es ajeno y hostil. Dentro, una sola voz amplificada por muchos que creen que su voz es su propia voz y no la voz de su amo; nihilistas justicieros sin ninguna aflicción, limpios de corazón, negadores de toda realidad natural o adscrita, sabiéndose conciencia moral, casi ángeles en la tierra con la perspectiva de un dios que ha muerto, apariciones etéreas que custodian la no-verdad-de-nada. Porque si ha sido negada una razón capaz de sustraerse a la lógica de la dominación y de la alineación ¿cómo es posible, entonces, que alguna razón particular y concreta postmoderna, nihilista, pueda situarse en la exterioridad de tal lógica de relaciones estratégicas? 3. Contingencia e irracionalismo Afirmar que en el hombre nada hay que sea absoluto y que todo en él es finitud puede significar mucho o, en el extremo opuesto, casi nada. Depende de la pretensión que acompañe, subyaciendo, a tal tesis. Tal afirmación puede significar mucho si entendemos que con ella se está pretendiendo sostener que el hombre no está en condiciones –por carecer su naturaleza de tales atribuciones y hasta por carecer de naturaleza- ni de absolutizarse parcial o totalmente ni tampoco de absolutizar nada de lo otro distinto de sí. Claro que, entonces, la pretensión que subyace aquí no se referiría tanto al orden del ser como al orden del deber, con lo que más bien se estaría afirmando que el hombre no debe creerse con la capacidad de absolutizar/absolutizarse o de ser y hacer lo que no es y no puede. Por otra parte, innumerables acontecimientos históricos además de otros silenciados darían buena prueba de las terribles consecuencias de tales pretensiones y de tal proceder. 321 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education Pero hay algo más. Que en el hombre nada haya que sea absoluto puede querer decir que su constitutiva contingencia es infranqueable de modo absoluto, esto es, que el hombre sería un ser imposibilitado para proyectar y para trascender, para proyectarse y para trascenderse. Es decir, que tal ser, limitado a sólo a sentir, a tener experiencias de sí, del otro y de la realidad circundante viviría absolutamente en una pura contextualización espacio-temporal, esto es, en estado de clausura, sin presente auténticamente propio y sin porvenir previsible, sin racionalidad ni razonabilidad, sin poder alguno sobre sí, sin posibilidad de preguntarse por el ser de las cosas y, por tanto, sin responsabilidad. Si la propia identidad, si la vida de cada ser humano, es sólo resultado de la incertidumbre, de los acontecimientos inesperados, de la contrariedad, del riesgo y de los imprevistos, es decir, de lo que no podemos cambiar -contingencia por destino (que no contingencia por arbitrariedad, que es el tipo de contingencia que hace referencia a lo que podría ser de otra manera si quisiéramos, por propia voluntad)-, entonces nuestras intenciones y pronósticos se desvirtúan. ¿Qué necesidad habría de tomar las riendas de la propia vida? Si todo se nos va a torcer, si nada va a acontecer como tenemos previsto, entonces ¿qué necesidad tendríamos de seguir haciendo uso de la razón en aras de la propia responsabilidad? ¿Me exonera, acaso, mi vida –así considerada- de mí mismo? Por supuesto que no siempre somos lo que hemos deseamos ser o hemos proyectado ser; pero de ahí a afirmar que entre el plan o proyecto personal de vida y el resultado vital va siempre un abismo resulta excesivamente arriesgado no sólo por lo injustificado de la generalización sino también por las consecuencias que tiene el indultarse uno de su propia vida. Afirmar que la propia vida o que la situación actual o final a la que cada uno se ve conducido no tiene el carácter de un producto o de una realización -aunque se hiciese lo que uno quería- y que, por tanto, nuestra identidad personal se realiza siempre a pesar de nosotros mismos, dejaría en el aire la cuestión de la necesidad o conveniencia de querer darnos una vida; y tal vez, sólo tal vez, ello podría inducir a la justificación de todo resultado vital, sea cual fuere. Si uno no es dueño de sus actos ¿cómo podría ser responsable de las consecuencias derivadas de ellos? El vivir humano es incierto, vulnerable, promisorio y abierto. De la apertura del vivir humano no se infiere con necesidad que el ser humano sea espera pasiva y confiada de inesperados acontecimientos configuradores de la propia identidad. El ser humano, contingente, finito, limitado, imperfecto, no puede eliminar la contingencia; no puede eliminar ni la suya, ni la de quienes le rodean ni la de lo que le rodea. Pero el ser contingente que es el hombre no se caracteriza sólo por tal contingencia constitutiva. En él necesidad y libertad se armonizan, y de ahí que no puede dejar de querer ser feliz aunque ninguna técnica vital se lo garantice. Responsabilizar al hombre tanto de sus actos como de su propia vida no implica hacerle reo de su solo entendimiento y de su sola voluntad; de su proyecto, en definitiva. Decir vida humana es decir acontecimientos que nos marcan imborrablemente, circunstancias, situaciones, atenuantes, aunque también agravantes. Precisamente porque el vivir humano no es unívoco, el vivir humano está sometido al más y al menos fundamentalmente en el orden práctico. La autonomía moderna arrojó al hombre ante sí mismo. La Ilustración surgió como una construcción de la razón frente a las incertidumbres de una vida temporal no plenamente realizada pero llamada a estarlo fuera de sí. La absolutización del hombre le arroja a su propia autodisposición, absolutizando también su responsabilidad y, con ella, sus acciones negativas y errores. La iluminista potenciación del hombre por el hombre habría tenido como consecuencia la hiperpotenciación de su culpabilización. Claro que tal responsabilización necesaria del hombre no es posible de facto. El hombre no es, estrictamente hablando, causa de sí. Y no lo es porque tal sujeto es finito, es contingente, siendo una prueba más de ello el hecho de no haber previsto no sólo lo casual, sino, además, que la pretensión de autoabsolutizarse conllevaba la responsabilidad de autoculpabilizarse por tanta atrocidad habida. 322 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education Sin embargo, la solución no puede venir de la mano de otra absolutización: la que correspondería a finitizar o contingentizar –casualizar- al hombre más allá de donde se sitúa; la solución no puede aportarla, pues, el relativismo ético y la moral de situación, que son otros tantos engendros devoradores del hombre mismo. 4. Interioridad y fecundidad Ha de sostenerse en calidad de principio que no puede haber indagación plena que suponga la desconsideración absoluta de una parte del objeto a indagar. Tanto el filósofo como el pedagogo están obligados por su misma ocupación a acotar el ámbito de estudio y de reflexión. Ahora bien, acotar no es señalar una línea que excluya de la realidad lo que quede en su cara exterior, sino que exige aceptar que la labor investigadora se ha de limitar, concentrándose en algunos aspectos concretos. De donde se sigue que acotar no quiere decir negación alguna que recaiga sobre el objeto de estudio en cuestión, sino simple autolimitación epistemológica y metodológica que se impone quien trata de acercarse a él. Por tanto, generar una clausura tal que excluya la solución, esto es, renunciar previamente a dar con la verdad debe, pues, resultar excluido a priori a no ser que se pretenda herir de muerte al acto de conocer. Estimo que la huída -antifilosófica, por otra parte- de los filósofos frente a lo absoluto, lo universal y lo necesario -en definitiva, frente a la verdad- por temor a fomentar recaídas totalitarias a través de autoabsolutizaciones o autodivinizaciones por parte del hombre carece de densidad filosófica en sentido estricto. De nuevo la confusión entre el todo y la parte. Si hay que despedir principios, deberán ser los principios idealistas, inmanentistas, pero no todo principio. Habría que justificar antes la razón de la exclusión de todo principio, no valiendo para el caso el rechazo de una serie de principios inscritos en un determinado o concreto sistema filosófico. Lo que no resulta admisible es que el rechazo de la filosofía idealista así como de sus derivados y subordinados suponga el rechazo de la filosofía. Discernir es, pues, conveniente, mientras que la confusión y la amalgama pueden engendrar nuevas monstruosidades. Puestas así las cosas, una pedagogía que quiera ser fecunda ha de poder dar respuesta a las necesidades y a los anhelos del ser humano, evitando esquivar tal respuesta mediante prejuicios insertos en esquemas discursivos ideologizados y empobrecedores tanto del propio sujeto como de la vida colectiva. Si el educando es todo-el-educando, completo, la pedagogía no puede no atender dicha totalidad situándose por debajo de la altura de la persona. Entre las dimensiones del ser humano más destacadas por su centralidad en relación al problema que nos ocupa están su vulnerabilidad, su inquietud, su carácter mistérico así como su apertura a la trascendencia. Desde esta perspectiva una pedagogía plena, multidimensional y, por ello mismo, integral y profundamente liberadora ha de tener presente la importancia que tiene el equilibrio autoconceptual, pues no se desconoce que una autopercepción personal centrada y ajustada a la realidad de uno mismo consigue evitar tanto las dramáticas y hasta trágicas hipertrofias del yo como las depresiones emocionales asociadas al peso de una realidad no tomada en su justa medida. Además de ello, tal pedagogía debería sentar las bases de una acción educativa que, en lugar de cerrar expectativas a través de cierres categoriales o de cierres experienciales, cultivara la posibilidad del relanzamiento de la inherente inquietud del educando, inquietud que es tanto activa como contemplativa, y tanto horizontal o científico-tecnológica como vertical, esto es, metafísica, interiorista, religiosa y trascendentista. Así, desde una pedagogía del sentido, la atención pura y exclusiva a tal horizontalidad, activista y utilitaria, no es más que un lamentable acto de descentramiento y de desintegración del educando; acto que degrada el esfuerzo convirtiéndolo en un sinsentido y que, además, convierte la constatación de los propios defectos y limitaciones en un fracaso irremediable para el propio sujeto que los padece –que, en el fondo, es cada uno de nosotros-. 323 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education La solución a los graves problemas educativos del presente quizá deba comenzar, pues, por no desatender a la persona humana. Resulta necesario partir del sujeto mismo con la finalidad de que pueda alcanzarse a sí mismo. Quizá esto sea más difícil de pensar que todo el enjambre de estrategias y de contenidos de todo tipo. Pero que sea difícil no implica su abandono. Sin esta pedagogía del alma, al margen del autoconocimiento practicado serenamente, no sólo es fácil incurrir en el sentimentalismo –con sus razones de corazón veleidoso y, por ello mismo, esclavizante- o en el racionalismo –con razones de una razón inhumana y pretendidamente absoluta-; además, difícilmente podrían sentarse las bases de una educación humana auténtica y plena que esté en disposición de suministrar los elementos necesarios para educarse como persona completa, esto es, como alguien liberado de la cosificación operada tanto por el tipo de hombre exteriorista y abstracto de la modernidad como por la provocada por el individuo disuelto y descentrado de la postmodernidad. No hay que olvidar que el Tántalo experiencialista y postmetafísico del horco vive, ya sin remedio, infrahumanizado: no vive, no ama, nunca muere. 324 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education POSTMODERN IDOLS OF THE EDUCATION TRIBE: THE ABOLITION OF EDUCATION Curtis L. Hancock, Rockhurst Jesuit University, Kansas City, Missouri, USA Occasionally, people I know will express bewilderment at the cultural landscape that postmodernism has fashioned. They wonder how postmodernism could fascinate intellectuals and attract other agents of cultural change. Since I have an interest in the history of philosophy, these friends, acquaintances, and colleagues will ask me to opine on the genesis of our postmodern academic and social world. These inquirers are not only philosophers, by the way. They include people from many walks of life, such as primary and secondary educators, clergy, students, social scientists, and liberally educated observers of culture. To the extent they understand postmodernism, they sense that it represents the ultimate surrender of philosophy as classically understood (i.e., as philosophy according to the ancient Greeks, who first discovered and developed the discipline). They often express concern, even alarm, at whether education, as classically understood (i.e., as a disinterested pursuit of truth) can survive postmodernism. Isn’t postmodernism, one colleague asked, the abolition of education? I will suggest here ways to answer this question in the affirmative. In these remarks, I will discuss (1) what postmodernism is and (2) how postmodernism insinuates itself into contemporary education. Finally, I will (3) test postmodernism for cogency and (4) suggest ways to restore alternatives to post-modernism in the academy and the wider culture. In nine-and-a-half pages, I cannot discuss these matters in depth, but, at least, I can make some observations as a springboard for our panel discussion. In commenting on these issues, I will identify certain postmodernist themes, especially the themes of skepticism and tolerance. These themes, among others, I refer to as “idols of the education tribe,” because, in my judgment, they have become axiomatic in today’s academy. The Nature of Postmodernism Advisably, postmodernism is not a subject that one should define. It covers a broad spectrum of theories. Yet there are traits that postmodernists share. Most notably, postmodernism is (1) neo-Heraclitean, (2) skeptical, and (3) reactive. By “neo-Heraclitean” I mean that experience labors under such flux that neither objects of knowledge nor the knower have identities sufficient to establish objectively justifiable knowledge. “Identity,” or the lack thereof, is a principal postmodern motif. This motif is especially evident in the work of Jacques Derrida, who states that identities, presences, or predications exist only by virtue of what they are not. Experience is fluid because its objects (presence) are constituted by what they are not (a realm he refers to by the neologism, différance). Every identity depends on something other than itself. We cannot access these differences, because if they are absent, they, obviously, are not present to us. “The self identity of the signified conceals itself unceasingly and is always on the move.”1 It follows that presence is a construction, primarily of language. Since we are born into a culture that has inherited linguistic structures, philosophy begins with their deconstruction. 1 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, p. 49. 325 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education I call postmodernism “neo-Heraclitean,” so as to distinguish it from the ancient variety. Postmodernism is anti-realist, meaning that the mind does not grasp real (extramental) things, but its own objects (intramental states), which are constructed by culture, language, and psychology. This, of course, differs from the actual followers of Heraclitus, who, being Greek cosmologists, were realists, confident that the mind was in contact with reality (even though a reality in constant flux). Perhaps, to continue the play on ancient philosophy, one could speak of postmodernism as “neo-Protagoreanism,” since the movement is committed to Kant’s conviction that the measure and “fixity” of knowledge is not provided by awareness of the real but by the mind’s own constructions. (2) This neo-Heracliteanism implies a radical skepticism, of course, because consciousness cannot grasp reality. It must be content with its own constructions or those it has inherited. Neither the knower nor the known abide so as to secure a stable object. Anti-realism compounds this skepticism, as postmodernists radically develop the implicit skepticism of the moderns that the objects of consciousness are its own states. Since consciousness is itself predication, postmodernism is essentially linguistic. It is nominalism. In light of these remarks, postmodernism radically extends and develops certain characteristics of modernism: skepticism (Descartes and Locke), nominalism (Hobbes, Berkeley, and Hume), and anti-realism (Kant). (3) Nonetheless, postmodernism reacts to modernism, for early moderns did not recognize the implications of their skepticism. In spite of their skepticism, early moderns were confident that reason somehow could objectively justify answers to many, if not all, practical and speculative philosophical problems. To the contrary, postmodernism asserts that knowledge, including awareness of goodness, rightness, and the human subject, is a cultural construction. Since there are no objective standards, nor human nature to establish natural law to dictate how human beings ought to behave, reason is a rule for self-invention. Once reason recognizes that it is self-justifying, it transcends finally its “self-incurred immaturity,” as Kant put it. Reason is, at last, autonomous. For Richard Rorty, postmodernism represents the last stage of the Enlightenment Project, which has already passed through Rationalism and Romanticism. We are now in a third stage, bringing to a close the Enlightenment Project. This last stage he labels “ironic,” because, while philosophical claims to objective truth are empty, each self has its best opportunity to live autonomously on the pretense that talk about truth matters. This serious talk about what, in the end, must be play is ironic. Since everyone’s interest is served by these conditions for democratic discourse, social solidarity can exist. Rorty believes that there are no standards of justification for our narrations. All we have are the constructions of our narrations themselves. “Truth,” to the extent the word should be used at all, is relative to social consensus. Through its narration, each self seeks novelty. This pursuit of novelty without standards to adjudicate differing narrations is central to postmodernism. Postmodernism takes Kantian autonomy and radicalizes it. Accordingly, philosophy is not bound by objective standards, nor can it pursue public truth, except as a will to power. In such a state of affairs, the aggregate “we” trumps the individual. Still, postmodernists, like Richard Rorty, insist that the solidarity of community depends on tolerance. Since one cannot ultimately justify one worldview or moral behavior over another, one must demonstrate unlimited openness. For postmodernists intolerance is added to the original list of deadly sins. Social dialogue, along with institutions that support it, is a social priority. Since toleration makes autonomy and open discourse possible, toleration is a necessary condition for the self-invention that is the postmodernist’s project. Postmodernism “substitutes Freedom for Truth as the goal of thinking.”2 Democracy is prior to philosophy. Postmodernists disagree whether tolerance is negative or positive. For Richard Rorty, tolerance is a condition for liberal democracy. But for other postmodernists, such as Michel Foucault, tolerance requires that we make the world safe for tolerance. This view calls for a liquidation of all 2 Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, p. xiii. 326 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education cultural bases of intolerance. Intolerance is defined as willful perpetuation of our self-imposed immaturity, to use Kant’s language again, and something we must transcend, perhaps with the aid (or coercion) of others, as enlightened participants in historical progress, to use the language of Rousseau. Hence, curiously, postmodernism is, for some, supportive of democratic politics; for others, collectivist politics. Postmodern Idols on Campus Among educators, one will detect these postmodern attitudes in conversation, practice, and policy. This is especially evident in the prevailing (1) multiculturalism, (2) skepticism, and (3) political direction in today’s schools. (1) Multiculturalism conforms to the postmodern belief that the content of worldviews and moral attitudes is unjustifiable. Tolerance demands it. Accordingly, “no judgments” about individual values and cultural differences is the watchword. (2) No more conspicuous casualty exists on campus than the word “truth.” Expressions ranging from bemusement to horror will appear on the faces of academics when the dreaded “t-word” occurs in conversation, especially if one uses it in the classical sense to suggest that education is about conveying objective truth to students. In the postmodern worldview, truth becomes relativistic and arbitrary. One may have her “truth,” as an assertion of her will and her self-invented reason, but truth that is objective and arguable by publicly rational standards is an illusion. (3) Since an authentic human being ought not to make judgments, and since there is no way to adjudicate the truth-content of such judgments, education devolves into the will to power. A vision of enlightened postmodern society is put forward as the consensus for an educational standard. Hence, the political indoctrination in schools abounds, an annoyance to some parents who see their children imbibing values and politics that may radically differ from their own. I should add that, as a rule, educators do not argue for these beliefs. They are assertions more than arguments. They are uncritically accepted as the consensus. Multiculturalism, skepticism, and postmodern politics are the zeitgeist. An Assessment of Postmodernism I dare say that the postmodernists themselves do little more than assert their views. This is not so much a criticism of their positions as a description. They themselves admit that they have abandoned the “metaphysics of demonstration” and embrace poetic expression to suggest their worldview. In this way, they claim to elude criticism. Of course, this will not do. By this strategy, postmodernists find themselves in a quandary. On the one hand, if they argue for their position, they contradict themselves. On the other, if they do not, what reasons do we have philosophically for accepting their worldview? In other words, the standard criticism of postmodernists is that they suffer self-refutation. Postmodernists try to avoid this by demurring to offer another theory of reality. Their philosophical vision is put forward poetically. Hence, it is not bound by the standards of logical truth or falsehood, according to which to assert “x” implies denying “not x.” However, this response appears to be more of a dodge than an adequate answer. “Any theory, thesis, viewpoint, etc., whatever it is, and however one conceives and presents it, is telling us how things really stand, or how things really are. Insofar as it does this, it is a substantive thesis, and must be firmly within the metaphysics of presence.”3 When Derrida says that the mind can mistake constructions for reality, because reality is differentiated and elusive to cognition, and that, therefore, the mind must resign itself to its own constructions, he is making claims about the reality of the human condition and knowledge. So not only does Derrida not avoid the metaphysics of presence, it is logically 3 Brendan Sweetman, “The Deconstruction of Western Metaphysics: Derrida and Maritain on Identity,” in Postmodernism and Christian Philosophy (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic Unviersity of America Press, 1997), pp. 241-242. 327 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education impossible to avoid the metaphysics of presence due to the nature of reality and its relationship to thought. Derrida might reply that his writings are not vulnerable to logical difficulties because logic itself is precisely what his work calls into question. But if this is the point about logic that he is supposed to be establishing, he cannot beg the question and dismiss a priori our use of logic to evaluate his effort. The demolition of logic has to be an outcome of his view. He cannot presuppose its destruction initially. Similarly, Rorty’s work is unconvincing because he uses public reasoning against the possibility of public reason. In spite of his protests, his writings abound in truth claims. But, like Derrida, he maneuvers against charges of what he calls “self-referential inconsistency” by saying such charges rely on standards that retain theology and metaphysics. Since he is deconstructing theology and metaphysics, his work cannot be measured by such standards. All we have are motives, not reasons. Philosophy has been replaced by poetry, and the “strong poet” asserts his or her motives as matters of will. Language is not a “mirror” representing the way the world is, but only a tool for dealing with it. Rorty declares that he is a pragmatist and that his mentor is John Dewey, although, for Rorty, pragmatism is not a “faith,” merely a method. But the primacy of will shows his more distant mentor is Nietzsche, for whom what matters is that one can say about one’s life: “I willed it!.” This will is not arbitrary because it is a reaction to fear; fear that oneself will be forgotten; fear that oneself will lack novelty and just repeat “the coinage of his predecessors.” “Ironist theory is thus a ladder which is to be thrown away as soon as one has figured out what it was that drove one’s predecessors to theorize.”4 Once the ladder to the past has been kicked away, one is not bound by those standards. Life is about managing the resulting contingencies of this historicism, about having the courage, as Freud said, to “treat chance as worthy of determining our fate.” Ultimately, the only standard is the will of the self itself. “Charges of inconsistency or moral relativism do not apply to the ironist who does not acknowledge the referents by which inconsistency or relativism might be determined.”5 Of course, I may still object in the same spirit as I did with Derrida. First, Rorty implies metaphysical claims when he declares himself a pragmatist. Pragmatists frequently overlook this fact, making them vulnerable to the barb that “pragmatism doesn’t work.” While it is a tired criticism, it still has legs: a tool works because implicitly it refers to the way the world is. A fork is a tool because I know really what it is to eat and to open my mouth. Tools are parasitic on awareness of what is the case. Hence, pragmatism implies a metaphysics. Beyond this, Rorty regularly enumerates numerous things he believes are the case and, to compound his difficulties, draws logical conclusions from them. Richard John Neuhaus makes this criticism effectively: He knows that people do and do not fear, he knows that Freud has given us a way to understand human behavior that is more adequate than earlier descriptions, he knows the course of history toward maximizing freedom, goodness and truth will take care of themselves. He even knows that “scientific dis-coveries” have discredited belief in an immortal soul. The ironist’s final vocabulary turns out to be not so formal as it appears; it is filled with contents that other people call facts, and about which, contra the first article of his ironist’s creed, Rorty gives no indication of having “radical and continuing doubts.”6 Even these brief critical remarks suffice to indicate that postmodernism—if Derrida and Rorty are its representatives—is unconvincing and incoherent. A Final Word on Postmodern Idols in the Schools 4 Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. 5 Richard John Neuhaus, “Joshing Richard Rorty,” First Things, December, 1990, p. 19. 6 Ibid., p. 19. 328 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education In light of the incoherencies of postmodernism, its influence on education is unfortunate. In today’s academy pronouncements about policies, practices, and pedagogies rely commonly on postmodernist language. This influence is especially manifest in the earnest regard for certain icons of postmodernism evident in primary, secondary, and university teaching today: These icons include especially tolerance, relativistic discourse, lack of standards, pragmatism, autonomy in private virtue, and collectivism in civic virtue. Having shown how problematic postmodernism is, we ought to challenge educators’ reverence for these icons. A recovery is called for. This recovery consists in a classical realism and a virtue ethics and the philosophy of the human person that justifies them. In short, this is a return to “common sense,” an expression much maligned in both modern and postmodern philosophy. Of course, skeptics have to deride common sense. Once the consensus among intellectuals is to accept beliefs that are counterintuitive to people untrained in departments of philosophy, their criticism and bemusement can be dismissed as the doubts of the unsophisticated. This fosters a Gnostic culture, as Eric Vogelin explains, in which modern and postmodern intellectuals seek to create a Magisterium of secular intellectuals. This is the consensus of Enlightened intellectuals who qualify for what Kant called “public speech,” by which even common sense is criticized. In this way, modern and postmodern intellectuals can use education and other arms of culture to monopolize discourse about their definition and interpretation of the social contract. They can protect public speech from intolerance. They can root out intolerance wherever it occurs. People who are not qualified for “public speech,” that is, those who live by the guidance of common sense, can be forced to be tolerant, just as Rousseau said Enlightened leaders can force citizens to be free. In education and in practice, this is political correctness, another idol of the postmodern pedagogical tribe. 329 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education DESDE LA HERMENÉUTICA FILOSÓFICA DE H.-G. GADAMER UNOS APUNTES A LA FILOSOFÍA DE BALTASAR GRACIÁN María del Carmen Lara Nieto Universidad de Granada, Departamento de Filosofía ¡A las cosas mismas! el imperativo fenomenológico servía a Heidegger, comenta Gadamer, como el gran eje de su proyecto filosófico. Pero en ese caso el descubrimiento de la cosa pasaba por elucidar, en la medida en que ello era posible, la pregunta: ¿Qué significa ser? (Gadamer 2002). La Filosofía para tal tarea debía recurrir al Logos en su significación primigenia, “lo que se muestra en sí mismo”, “hacer patente”, lo “manifiesto” (Heidegger 1977, 42 y ss.), y este proceso no conduce al establecimiento de una pura subjetividad al estilo cartesiano ni al sujeto trascendental del creador de dicho imperativo; el proceso nos aboca al reconocimiento del ser-en-el-mundo, es a partir del ser-ahí (Dasein) desde donde es viable una ontología fundamental. Gadamer sigue esta crítica y su filosofía constituye una ruptura con los principios de la filosofía moderna. El autor de Verdad y Método, en el prólogo a su segunda edición, se cuida de perfilar las intenciones de su plan y después de reconocer el interés de la ocupación metodológica en las propias ciencias del espíritu, destaca que cualquier referencia y reivindicación de la especificidad de las ciencias del espíritu frente a las ciencias de la naturaleza, puede ocultar su verdadero objetivo que se concentra en una “pregunta filosófica” que no se dirige ni a unas ni a otras ciencias, “su interpelado es el conjunto de la experiencia del mundo y de la praxis vital” (Gadamer 1988, 12; 2001, 10). Experiencia que se incardina en la “analítica existencial” heideggeriana, ya que como afirma Gadamer “la analítica temporal del estar ahí humano en Heidegger ha mostrado en mi opinión de una manera convincente, que la comprensión no es uno de los modos de comportamiento del sujeto, sino el modo de ser del propio estar ahí”, es el sentido que otorga este autor a la Hermenéutica; y continúa afirmando: “designa el carácter fundamentalmente móvil del estar ahí, que constituye su finitud y su especificidad y que por lo tanto abarca el conjunto de su experiencia del mundo” y el propio carácter de la comprensión “abarcante y universal no es arbitrariedad ni inflación constructiva de un aspecto unilateral, sino que está en la naturaleza misma de la cosa” (Gadamer 1988, 12). Es el comprender el espacio en el que acontece la verdad, “estamos ya siempre en el lenguaje y en el lenguaje «viene a palabra» lo que es. En el lenguaje el ser «se temporaliza» ... acontecer no es una actividad de la conciencia sino un modo en que acontece el ser” (Zúñiga 1995, 276), experiencia que ontológicamente antecede a cualquiera otra, ya sea la comprensión de las ciencias del espíritu o la explicación de las naturales y de ello se desprende la “pretensión de universalidad de la Hermenéutica”, que no es sino “trasunto de la fundamentalidad ontológica de la comprensión” (Sáez 2001, 198). La Hermenéutica no reconoce como límite los “modos de ser extrahistóricos” (Gadamer 1988, 12), en referencia a que “algunas formas no tienen un lugar bien definido, como las que no son históricamente” (Gadamer 2002), es el caso de la “atemporalidad de los hechos matemáticos”, la “atemporalidad de la naturaleza” y la “atemporalidad del arco iris del arte”. Mas no los reconoce como límite, pongamos por caso la obra de arte, el mundo al que pertenece tiende su arco hasta el nuestro, constituyendo ambos mundos parte de un único “universo hermenéutico”, es más, la propia comprensión “pertenece a la historia efectual, esto es, al ser de lo que se comprende” (Gadamer 1988, 14), escuchando lo que el pasado también puede sugerirnos (Gadamer 331 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education 1997, 443-442), en un diálogo en el que la interpretación se muestra como el ámbito de manifestación de la tradición (Zúñiga 1995, 271). Las condiciones propicias para el desenvolvimiento de las ciencias del espíritu no son precisamente las que establece la propuesta metodológica moderna. Esta consideración ya la había formulado Helmholtz que pese a estar imbuido por dicho planteamiento, como reconoce Gadamer en las primeras páginas de Verdad y Método, destaca la honda significación de las citadas ciencias. Indica una serie de condiciones que afectan a estas disciplinas como la autoridad, la memoria y el tacto psicológico (Gadamer 1988, I, 36). Se pregunta, si estriba precisamente en ellas, en especial en el tacto psicológico, frente a la conclusión autoconsciente basada en la razón, las circunstancias favorecedoras de la labor científica de las ciencias del espíritu sobre las que conviene ahondar. La vuelta a los conceptos del Humanismo posibilita recuperar una nueva relación con la tradición y abrir un nuevo paso a la pretensión de verdad de las llamadas ciencias del espíritu, en concreto en la experiencia del arte. En ella la comprensión se realizaría no mediante el concepto ni mediante una concepción predicativa de la verdad, sino a través de la captación del sentido o significado de la obra de arte. Dicha experiencia no supone el subsumir lo concreto en una serie conceptos; es en este sentido como podemos aplicar la noción de tacto que entiende Gadamer como “una determinada sensibilidad y capacidad de percepción de situaciones, así como para el comportamiento dentro de ellas cuando no poseemos respecto a ellas ningún saber derivado de principios generales” (Gadamer 1988, I, 45), esta circunstancia no supone negar su misión verdad, de aquí que considere que esta sensibilidad que opera en las ciencias del espíritu no “se agota en ser un sentimiento inconsciente, sino que es al mismo tiempo una manera de conocer y de ser” (Ibídem) Se consuma en lo concreto por lo que no puede remitirse en su hacer a “reglas y conceptos”; como una modalidad del juicio reflexivo kantiano “comprende en lo individual lo general bajo lo cual debe subsumirse. Tanto el gusto como la capacidad de juicio son maneras de juzgar lo individual por referencia a un todo, de examinar si concuerda con todo lo demás, esto es, si es «adecuado». Y para esto hay que tener un cierto «sentido»: pues lo que no se puede es demostrarlo” (Ibídem , 70). Preguntémonos por esas condiciones que hacen posible el desenvolvimiento de las ciencias del espíritu, para ello es preciso dirigir nuestra atención a las grandes nociones del Humanismo, el que pervivía en el clasicismo alemán decimonónico. Una de éstas nos conduce al concepto de buen gusto en la filosofía graciana, ya que como afirma Gadamer: “En el origen de su historia se encuentra Baltasar Gracián” (Gadamer 1988, I, 66), debe referirse al “gusto relevante”, título del Primor V, de El Héroe, el tema también aparece en el aforismo 65, Oráculo Manual, titulado “Gusto relevante”. Aproximación a las condiciones que posibilitan las ciencias del espíritu El gusto sigue al sentido que acompaña a todos, el tacto, que como afirma Helmholtz, representa la manera de trabajar de las ciencias del espíritu. Pero el medio en el que labora es el concepto de formación, el ideal de perfección que representa la filosofía graciana es un magnífico exponente de lo que subraya Gadamer. El buen gusto de este modo es una facultad estimativa que posibilita relacionarme con lo extraño, en un proceso, al modo como lo expone Hegel, que nos permite integrarlo, descubriendo en ello las cualidades cognoscitivas, morales y estéticas de las cosas; en el caso de Gracián “convirtiéndose así en objetos adecuados de nuestras facultades superiores: entendimiento, voluntad y estimación” (Ayala 1999, 59). El buen gusto actúa como un cedazo, integrando todo aquello que lo atraviesa, de tal modo que el conocimiento se ve comprometido por el gusto: “Hay cultura de gusto, así como de ingenio. Entreambos relevantes son hermanos de un vientre, hijos de la capacidad, heredados por igual en la excelencia” (El héroe, V). 332 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education Parte del presupuesto antropológico de la perfectibilidad, los sentidos son perfectibles, es el gusto educable; y en ese proceso llega a convertirse en “buen gusto”, “tienes buen gusto”, “realza el gusto” (El Criticón I, 3). Ya Addison en The Spectator asume perfectamente el objetivo de difusión de la cultura, convirtiéndose en un referente para otros países, como por ejemplo sucede en España con el semanario El Censor, ofreciendo un material susceptible de configurar una nueva sensibilidad, al servicio de un nuevo ideal formativo. Gadamer reconoce en el concepto de “formación” del XVIII, una de sus ideas más brillantes, que pervivirá en el XIX, la formación supone el ideal graciano del hombre culto (el discreto): el que consigue la libertad de la distancia de modo que sepa distinguir y elegir con superioridad y conciencia, estableciendo las bases de una comunidad ideal basada, como afirma Gadamer, en la comunidad de sus juicios, lo que le sitúa en un plano de superioridad sobre la regulación por la moda. El buen gusto reúne el disfrute de la experiencia concreta con la vocación de esencialidad generalizable, se trata por ello de partir de lo concreto y aspirar a la generalidad, en un proceso de formación integral: “No debe un varón máximo limitarse a una ni a otra perfección, sino con ambiciones de infinidad aspirar a una universalidad plausible, correspondiendo la intención de las noticias a la excelencia de las artes”(El héroe, VI) El ideal formativo remite al ser humano al horizonte de la verdad, búsqueda que conjuga las dimensiones epistemológica, ética, a la que se suma la gratificante experiencia estética, como ya por cierto expresara Addison: AEl Hacedor ha acompañado un placer secreto a la idea de toda cosa nueva o poco común para animarnos a adquirir conocimientos y empeñarnos en investigar las maravillas de la creación. A este fin, cada idea nueva lleva consigo un placer tal que nos compensa de las penas de su adquisición; y que de consiguiente es motivo para excitarnos a emprender nuevos descubrimientos” (Addison 1991, III, 149). El carácter indefinible de la persona graciana queda asegurado en el acceso a lo nuevo: o bien a través de las aventuras intelectuales de los otros, que son recreadas y reapropiadas consiguiendo una nueva formulación peculiar; o bien, la apuesta personal, propuestas creativas que no se someten el imperio de la moda, o son capaces de sellarlas con su impronta, cabría incluso la posibilidad de hablar del estilo, que se concretaría en las trazas personales que permitirían la reapropiación de los modelos ofrecidos por la moda: “Es, pues, destreza no común inventar nueva senda para la excelencia, descubrir nuevo rumbo para la celebridad. Son multiplicados los caminos que llevan a la singularidad, no todos sendereados. Los más nuevos, aunque arduos, suelen ser atajos para la grandeza” (El héroe, VII) Se configura el contenido a través de la forma, el acceso al primero es posible a través de la circunstancialidad de lo real: A ... Tanto se requiere en las cosas la circunstancia como la substancia; antes bien lo primero con lo que topamos no son las esencias de las cosas, sino las apariencias; por el exterior se viene al conocimiento de lo interior, y por la corteza del trato sacamos el fruto del caudal, que aun a la persona que no conocemos, por el porte la juzgamos@ (El discreto, DXXII). La variedad de facetas, la novedad que irrumpe, exige un esfuerzo permanente de recomposición en un cañamazo que las conjunte y articule. La mejor disposición consiste en ASaber gozar de las cosas@, todo tiene algo bueno, la cuestión está en la proporción (Oráculo manual, ' 140). Parece una cuestión ardua el gozar de cada cosa en su punto. 333 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education Como siempre Ava el gusto adelante@, imperiosamente seleccionamos, el tamiz exige elección y juicio, y para esto no contamos con norma previa, el sujeto no se acomoda mecánicamente a un código estético, estaríamos en un plano semejante a la moral como estructura de Aranguren, el buen gusto actúa como “facultad estimativa” (Ayala 1999, 59) que se nutre a sí misma en la experiencia y crece en su mismo ejercicio; lo universal es inmanente y se comprende como manifestación, como afirmaría Gadamer “uno se apropia por entero aquello en lo cual y a través de lo cual uno se forma ... lo incorporado en la formación no es como un medio que haya perdido su función. En la formación alcanzada nada desaparece, sino que todo se guarda” (Gadamer 1988, I, 40), lo que es propio de las ciencias del espíritu. En la filosofía graciana, como afirma Hidalgo Serna: “La verdad no es ... una mercancía que se regala en el mercado libre de la vida, o que se somete a elección; más bien es un desvelamiento de los objetos que requiere un proceso cognoscitivo de carácter inventivo. Sin este primer paso cognoscitivo del ingenio y del gusto sería la elección totalmente arbitraria” (Hidalgo 1993, 33). Esta apreciación llevada a la experiencia artística consistiría en el desvelamiento, ahora ya hablando de la hermenéutica filosófica, quizás exista un “cierto paralelismo entre “lo oculto” de Heidegger y “el ser anterior de lo representado” de Gadamer, entre “desocultación” y “transformación hacia lo verdadero” (Leal 1997, 142). Gadamer advierte que Kant “limpió la ética de todos los momentos estéticos y vinculados al sentimiento”. En cambio Gracián entendía que transitar por un Anuevo@ camino, no sendereado, es también posible a través del sentimiento, que se convierte en un acceso privilegiado a la verdad. Ayala cataloga al buen gusto como una categoría premoral, se inclina por un cierto emotivismo moral, esto es, la emoción indica de entrada que lo propuesto a nuestra consideración es bueno, Aintuición o connaturalidad de la persona con un valor moral: lo que se debe hacer, el disgusto o rechazo ayuda a la razón práctica a juzgar sobre la corrección e incorrección de las acciones ... una acción fea, con valor moral y estético”, esto parece apuntalar la idea de ese sentimentalismo: “La fealdad moral tiene sentido estético por ser una apreciación sentimental”. Gracián se anticipa a Hutcheson, autor que defendió la existencia de un “sentido moral”, también de un “sentido estético”. Gracián también se referirá la elección entre el buen y el mal gusto. La satisfacción frente a la insatisfacción se convierte en prueba incontestable de que hemos obrado bien o mal. El juicio del gusto asume lo personal sin incurrir en el subjetivismo, asumiendo la perspectiva y posibilitando el acceso a los valores comunes. Y en esa complejidad, que no caos, se destaca el hombre de buen gusto, el hombre excelente que no rehuye sus circunstancias, conversa con ellas en un saber vivir que se concreta en saber ser, saber estar y saber actuar. Como ya hemos indicado la formación aspira a lograr la universalidad, no se anula lo concreto en lo universal, su referencia al todo le otorga sentido, sólo así la búsqueda de la verdad, el bien y la belleza, son desveladas como la melodía última que a modo de variación se patentiza en el descubrimiento de lo concreto: “Una vez que quiso el cielo dar un plato sazonó el maná, cifra de todos los sabores, bocado para todos los paladares, en cuya universalidad proporcionó la del buen gusto” (El discreto, VII). Explicar la experiencia estética pasa por no reducirla a meras reglas, ni por reducirla a una serie de procesos psicológicos que muestren su génesis; mas bien se trataría de “que lo viviera en su pura intuición y fuera sobrecogido por ello. En el siglo XVIII este pensador es Shaftesbury y, por eso, su teoría será la primera en ofrecer y cimentar una filosofía verdaderamente amplia e independiente de lo bello” (Cassirer 1972, 342). Y para terminar esta comunicación nos referimos al sublime moral, que encuentra eco en la filosofía graciana. Para Gracián el bien es indefinible: 334 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education “... lo bueno es que no se puede definir porque no se sabe en qué consiste; o si no, digamos que son las tres Gracias juntas en un compuesto de toda perfección” (El discreto, XXII; El héroe, XII) Pero admiten las acciones una calificación estética, afirma en El discreto, II: “... que la sublimidad de las acciones la adelanta al doble la majestad en el obrarlas”. La estética del XVIII recoge también esta apreciación sobre la sublimidad moral, como lo expresa un tratadista como Blair: “Las virtudes heroicas son la fuente más copiosa y natural de la sublimidad moral” (Blair 1804, I, III, 66-67, 69). Gadamer afirmará que “lo bello en la naturaleza y en el arte debe complementarse con el ancho océano de lo bello tal como se despliega en la realidad moral de los hombres” (Gadamer 1988, I, 71). 335 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education REFERENCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS ADDISON, Joseph (1991): Los placeres de la imaginación y otros ensayos de The Spectator, Visor, La Balsa de Medusa, 37, Madrid. AYALA, Jorge María (1999): «Gusto y prudencia en Baltasar Gracián», en Simposio filosófico-literario sobre Agudeza y conceptos de Baltasar Gracián, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Calatayud. BLAIR, Hugh (1804): Lecciones sobre la Retórica y las Bellas Letras, traducción de José Luis Munárriz, Imprenta Real, Madrid, 4 vols. CASSIRER, E. (1972): Filosofía de la Ilustración, F.C.E., México GADAMER, H.-G. - (1997): «¿Qué es la verdad?» págs.431-444, en Teorías de la verdad en el siglo XX, Nicolas, J.A. y Frápolli, M.J. editores, Tecnos, Madrid - (1982): «La verdad de la obra de arte», en Los caminos de Heidegger, Herder, Barcelona. - (1988): Verdad y método. Fundamentos de una hermenéutica filosófica, Sígueme, Salamanca. - (2001): Palabra e imagen: «así de verdadero, así de óntico», en Antología, Sígueme, Salamanca GARCÍA LEAL, J.(1997): Arte y conocimiento, Universidad de Granada, Granada HEIDEGGER, M. (1977): El Ser y el Tiempo, F.C.E., México HIDALGO SERNA, Emilio (1993): El pensamiento ingenioso en Baltasar Gracián, Anthropos, Barcelona. LARA NIETO, María del Carmen (2003): «El buen gusto en la educación estética: Baltasar Gracián y Joseph Addison», en Revista de Educación, núm 15, 2002, Universidad de Granada, Granada. SÁEZ, L. (2001): Movimientos filosóficos actuales, Trota, Madrid. ZÚÑIGA GARCÍA. J. F. (1995): El diálogo como juego. La Hermenéutica filosófica de Hans-Georg Gadamer, Universidad de Granada, Granada. 336 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education EDUCATION’S ROLE IN SPIRITUAL FORMATION, ACCORDING TO EDITH STEIN Oben Freda Mary In the early 30’s at The German Institute of Scientific Pedagogy, Edith Stein was lecturing on the person. Education was state controlled, and she met with authorities to reform the entire system in Germany. She asked that the structure be changed from an encyclopedic view to the formation of the person. She writes that an honest search for truth is common to all philosophies. As a student of Edmund Husserl, she uses the phenomenological method for a meaningful analysis of the human constitution. As a student of Max Scheler, she is with him a forerunner of personalism, advanced by John Paul II. She was also the avid learner and translator of Thomas Aquinas; she writes, “St. Thomas found a reverent and willing disciple” (Finite and Eternal Being xxvii). She attempts to bring his concepts into line with modern thought. Stein believes that philosophy needs revelation to present total reality. “Rightly understood and employed, the theological and philosophical approaches are not in competition; rather, they complete and influence each other” (Essays 185). Her approach becomes a wedding of metaphysics, theology and science. And she recognizes a close affinity between phenomenological intuition and Thomistic abstraction in the analysis of essence. Together, philosophy and theology represent truth in an all-inclusive unity. However, a simple faith is closer to divine wisdom than both philosophy and theology. For this reason she will be the Christian Philosopher whose main task is to prepare the person in the way of faith. In order to gear the human being for a meaningful world, the goals of education must be set by faith and supplemented by reason. Stein defines the term education: the process that induces the spiritual disposition into a formed configuration; the personality resulting from this process; the formed soul itself; and the materials utilized. Education is to consider the nature of personality, humanity, and individuality. She writes, “Education is not an external possession of learning but rather the gestalt which the human personality assumes under the influence of manifold external forces, i.e., the process of this formation.The first fundamental formation happens within the soul. Just as an inner form resides in the seed of plants, an invisible force making a fir tree shoot up here and a beech there, there is in this way an inner mold set in human beings which urges the evolution into a certain direction and works towards a certain gestalt in blind singleness of purpose, that of the personality which is mature, fully developed, and uniquely individual” (Essays 130). Stein reveres human life as a manifestation of God, and it is this life that education forms. Each person has a unique way of receiving and appropriating the offered educational material. She is concerned with how education influences physical and psychical pre-dispositions and the person’s inner formative powers. For “The soul in its interior feels what it is and how it is … the determination of what it is to become—by virtue of what it receives and by virtue of what it does.” (FEB 422) That which impresses itself upon the intellect and body is informed by the soul aided by grace. How educate the person according to bestowed human nature? She describes the five elements of personal structure which constitutes a oneness: the pure “I”, consciousness, body, soul, and spirit. The “I” inherent in the person is understood as personal life fashioning itself freely. The person as 337 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education an image of God is a rational being whose intellect is illumined by the light of God Himself. “And we call a creature rational or endowed with an intellect when it can understand the lawfulness of its own being and can act accordingly.” The most authentic form of personal life is the free act because “the person as such must possess reason and freedom” (FIB 362). She uses the Aquinas concept of the being who “stands in and upon itself” (Summa I, q.29,a.3) in her phrase Bei Sich Sein. The conscious and free “I” governs body and soul and retains a self-engagement: it can say “yes” or “no” to knowledge, to its own being, to all of creation, and to God. Thus human aspirations and intentions materialize depending on the human will. Personal essence comes to the highest development of being in the ability to realize self through doing. Human development and the training of volition become an exalted mission of education. In her last work, The Science of the Cross, Stein speaks of “a lifelong effort to grasp the laws of spiritual being and of life” (Science 5). The undeniable fact of the consciousness of one’s existing being is her starting point. In her major philosophical work, Finite and Eternal Being, she blends the phenomenological and Thomistic concepts of consciousness as an access to her study of being. The Analogia Entis provides the relation of temporal and eternal being. The human creature receives its being and is in relation to First Being. My present being is actual and potential, real and possible at the same time. Every human being unfolds according to what it is destined to be by nature: “… all the what and all the how of this particular person … grows out of one single root … A totality—which is this and thus—unfolds itself in the individual traits and in the entire life of the particular human being, constituting his individual essence” (FIB 156-7). There is meaning in the unfolding of corporeal, psychical and spiritual being. The human being is aware of self and knows what is beneficial to it, finding delight in striving, knowing, and becoming. The personal self develops as the “I” possesses, reflects and transcends itself in the drive for real being. This posits an excellence of being, for the greatest unfolding possible is the efficacious reach for God. Surrender to God in this drive for fulfullment is the highest act of freedom. In freedom, the person is also consciously responsible for others. “Having-oneself-in hand” implies that the person acts freely in forming the world. And harmony of soul is found in a balance between freedom and moral practice, i.e., in the exercise of justice. Empathy between the “I” and the “other” is the basis of social relationship. The inter-subjective experience as core of relationship becomes for her the pivot of social meaning. The preparation of the student in relation to the world and its peoples is an educational imperative. She asks: “Who is our neighbor?” We recognize ‘the other’ as a fellow human being created by God in His image. This implies respect for the other no matter of what religion, culture or race. Our common human meaning creates human solidarity. Bigotry is taught: others condition us to dislike the one different from ourselves. She expresses wonderment in a passionate poem, “der Naechste” (Neighbor), that the human being can find it so hard to identify with another human being because of differences in background, education, race, or complexion. The quality of justice, rendering each person his due, is formed through education and right example. The person develops under external impressions. Also, revelation and natural law present the moral principle of justice. The created creature holds responsibility for Divine Justice and Divine Rights, and thus honors the human rights of his/her neighbor. Nature determines what is true for the human good: the mind directs the will in compliance with reality. As an equal image of God, each creature is entitled to equal human rights, for the natural law inscribed eternally in the human heart identifies this “Pure Right” due to all human beings in time and space. And God’s creature is intended to image His qualities of mercy, compassion, justice and love, for there is no justice without love for neighbor. 338 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education Community is a living organism, from the family as smallest to that of total humanity. The person, in free act and moral value, is its dynamic. That means that every act intended for the common good is a personal spiritual act. Such persons shape cultural and social life, in empathy with other communal neighbors. This living connection is vitalized through a spiritual meaning leading to the world of values. And the common motivation regarding these values creates community. Can the soul be taught values? Stein distinguishes between qualities inherited by the individual, such as innocence, goodness, purity, and nobility, and those qualities formed and developed existentially, such as intelligence, volition, justice, and self-sacrifice. Virtues and vices can be learned under ‘good’ or ‘bad’ examples. Others’ positive and negative attitudes affect us, such as love, trust and gratitude versus hatred, distrust and aversion. Other qualities that develop in social contact are humility or pride, servility or defiance, affability or lust for power. Qualities of soul are reflected through action. A person does what he/she is, for actions are motivated by a meaningful context. Inborn or acquired qualities create a constant spiritual attitude termed habitus. This inner form, consisting of divine virtues that can be acquired or lost, constitutes the holiness of a human being. Personality is identified by its domain of values. And every understanding of the ‘other’ person becomes the basis of value; otherwise, we are blind to the beauty of others. Recognition of values is induced by emotional response to stimuli, such as joy in beauty and disgust for the base and vulgar. The cultivation of value through human emotional response is an educational goal. The intellect must direct the pure emotional reaction through value judgements into action. The student can be taught to perceive beauty and goodness and the distinction between right and wrong. Stein pioneered for a curriculum that would develop the intellect, discipline the emotions, school the will, and develop independent value judgements. The faculties depend on each other and an inner balance must be maintained. She warns that ‘the intellectual type’ could be viewed as a strange being separate from the ordinary crowd and should learn to think, feel and speak like them to win their confidence. Cultural and scientific disciplines develop the mind and introduce the student to the world and total humanity; an objective knowledge in all human institutions and traditions should be encouraged, including the student’s own traditions. Abstract studies are vital for knowledge of reality: the metaphysical tendency is encouraged in the study of philosophy and religion. Stein was especially interested in the cultivation of the spoken word as a direct manifestation of God and the human soul. Thought and speech constitute one process. “What one cannot express remains dark and gloomy in the soul, and whoever is unable to express himself is imprisoned in his own soul; he is unable to liberate himself and cannot relate to others” (Essays 231). The correct and appropriate use of speech, therefore, becomes a vital factor for both personal relationship and communal communication. The curriculum is to form personalities who are healthy, balanced, and achievement oriented. Equal attention is to be given to physical and psychical development. Stein pays full attention to practical considerations of vocation, but even here she stresses the import of spirituality in professional ethos. The student finds his/her unique vocation and role as a contribution to society. She defines the human species as a dual one, masculine and feminine. If education is to consider personal structure, it must recognize possible differences between the masculine and feminine mind as well as the meaning of sexuality to being. Man and woman relate differently to God and mirror Him differently. Thus, the sexual relationship has its own meaning and value to foster total humanity. In the early 30’s, this avant garde thinker wrote, found in Essays on Woman: “The setup of a genuinely Catholic broad-minded approach to marriage and sexuality and the educational 339 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education principles to be derived from this should therefore be considered as an urgent problem in contemporary education” (Essays 150). Yet she stresses that it is only in the Catholic concept that the institution of marriage will survive. In this Christian pedagogy, Stein stresses that the core of the curriculum is religious studies. Right relationship to others is possible only in right relation to God. Also, faith involves the total person and perfects all faculties. She writes again, “It is not inanimate material which must be entirely developed or formed in an exterior way, as is clay by the artist’s hand or stone by the weather’s elemental forces; it is rather a living formative root which possesses within itself the driving power (inner form) toward development in a particular direction: the seed must grow and ripen into the perfect gestalt, perfect creation” (Essays 98). The seed to be developed to a perfect Gestalt is the image of Christ in the person. She writes, To begin with, where do we have the concrete image of total humanity? God’s image walked amongst us in human form, in the Son of Man, Jesus Christ. We therefore achieve total humanity through Him and, simultaneously, the right personal attitude. Whoever looks to Him and is concentrated on Him sees God, the archetype of all personality and the embodiment of all value” (Essays 258-59). We are each called to be the Spouse of Christ. “ … that is the deepest, most spiritual meaning of purity” (Essays 203). In Christ we can understand ourselves, the world and God, whose call to holiness is humanity’s primary vocation. God’s call is witnessed in history and the doctrine of salvation. Stein presents Christian Anthropology, describing original, fallen, and redeemed human nature. In original creation, perfect order and harmony existed within each person, and in personal relationship to others and to God. The first community was one of love, establishing the highest personal function. But through errors of judgement and action, corruption set in. Yet God intends that all things be restored to harmony , through Christ, in the redeemed order. Although total perfection is won only through grace, the educational goal is to guide the student to the predestined image of God within. Harmony once restored between the faculties, there would be peace and joy within the soul. And harmony between human beings would also restore the complementarity of the sexes as intended by God. The more man and woman are in a state of redemptive grace, the more easily they work out their role and relationship. This is won only by personal co-operation with Christ through a self-giving. And we learn from Mary. She is “the paragon of the whole Church and of all the redeemed” (Essays 203). An understanding of all the truths of the Christian faith wins a deeper image of God within the self. Personal union with the Triune God is the ultimate community and also sets the paradigm for human relationship. There is a likeness of the three Persons in the human soul: the person images the Father by creating in a flow of divine life out of self and by providing the source of life; Christ is the “inner word” forming the shape of the lived-body in His image; the Holy Spirit moves within us in free acts of love. The response of Christ to the Father in the Holy Spirit explains also the human trinity: in the freedom of our soul, we react with love to another. “To be perfect, love thus demands a mutual self-giving” wherein knowledge and happiness are also won (IEB 453). The sacraments of the Church provide formational growth, opening up “the entire abundance of the supernatural world.”(Essays 139). The person who lives a liturgical life is formed through Christ to Christ. Reception of the Eucharist is an essential pedagogical act, one of collaboration between God, the Master Educator, and His creature through the gift of divine life. Prayer is cited as an exalted act of freedom, and prayer for others as a communal responsibility. She describes the prayer of intercession in her concept of Stellvertretung: through the power of prayer, each person is proxy 340 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education for the salvation of others as well as of self. Thus a spiritual meaning penetrates conditions of injustice as we pray that the wielder of injustice turn away in contrition from his sin. The general educational goal is to incorporate young people into the Mystical Body of Christ. Stein believes that all Humanity constitutes this body, excepting those in deliberate sin. She writes that she cannot believe that salvation depends on adherence to any one church. Christ is head of all humanity, and every human being is born to be a member of this body for the perfection of Humanity. For Humanity is one being in the process of growth. Each human being is to attain full stature in order to progress this growth. This is an urgent educational goal. Not only each human being, but every generation contributes, and the quality of a given time depends on each person. Man and woman together were given God’s mandate to know the world, care for it, enjoy it, and creatively make it better. As sexual evolution advances, there is a potentiality for change: man and woman as species are only to be realized in the total run of history. Varying types of human nature tend to come and go, and different educational goals are necessary for the changing types. What is the educator’s role as person in the formation of the student? First, he/she has the mandate to bring Christ’s image in their own hearts into the classroom. With Aquinas, she classifies teaching as a spiritual work of mercy. Personal experience and salvific history teach us that “the Lord’s method is to form persons through other persons” (Essays 126). Mysteries of faith can transform the student’s life if they first permeate the being of the educator; the student is afforded a living experience in the presence of a fully developed human being who is obviously formed by the gospel. On the other hand, the student is hindered when he/she sees that the educator lacks patience, love, and self-offering. Above all, the educator must first want to challenge and motivate the students, respecting the individual’s self-autonomy and mystery. To do so, knowledge is needed of human personality in general, the uniqueness of individuality, characteristics of gender, cultural traditions, and norms of spiritual and intellectual life. Yet, “Human pedagogy is only a tool in God’s hand” (Reifenrath 302). Only He has the individual’s goal before His eyes and knows the way to lead him to it. 341 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED Kevane, Eugene. Msgr. “St. Thomas Aquinas and Education”. The Catholic University of America Bulletin April 1961: 1, 6-8. Oben, Freda Mary Oben. “Edith Stein as Educator.” Thought June 1990: 113-126. The Life and Thought of St. Edith Stein. New York: Alba House, 2001. Reifenrath, Bruno H. “Die Vorbildwirksamkeit in der Erziehung” Edith Stein Jahrbuch.Wurzburg: Echter, 1999. Vol. 2: 297-305. Schweighofer, Rudolf. Erziehung im Sinne Edith Steins. Speyer: Edith Steins Gesellschaft Deutschland, 1996. Stein, Edith. Essays on Woman. The Collected Works of Edith Stein II. Trans.Freda Mary Oben. Eds. L. Gelber and Romaeus Leuven O.C.D. Washington, D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1996. Finite and Eternal Being. CWES 1X. Trans. Kurt F. Reinhardt. Eds. Lucy Gelber and Romaeus Leuven, O.C.D. Washington, D.C.: ICS, 2002. The Hidden Life. CWES 1V. Trans. Waltraut Stein. Eds. Lucy Gelber and Romaeus Leuven, O.C.D.Washington, D.C.: ICS, 1992. On the Problem of Empathy. CWES 111. Trans. Waltraut Stein. Washington, D.C.: 1989. Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanitites. CWES V11. Trans. Mary Catherine Baseheart and Marianne Sawicki. Ed. Marianne Sawicki. Washington, D.C.: ICS, 2000. The Science of the Cross. CWES V1. Trans. Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D.Washington, D.C.:, 2002. Self-Portrait in Letters 1916-1942. CWES V. Trans. Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D. Eds. L. Gelber and Romaeus Leuven, O.C.D. Washington, D.C.: ICS, 1993.Henry Regnery Co., 1952. Thomas Aquinas. The Disputed Questions of Truth. Trans. Robert W. Milligan, S.J.Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1952. Summa Theologica. Trans. English Dominican Fathers. Westminster, Christian Classics, 1981. 342 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education METAPHYSICAL DESIRE AND EXPRESSIVENESS TAKING PLESSNER’S PHILOSOPHY TO ITS BOUNDARIES Jasper van Buuren My paper will address some of the topics suggested by the organization of this conference: religion, personhood, art, epistemology and ethics (the latter in a very broad sense). First of all it deals with the philosophy of Helmuth Plessner, as expressed in his Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (shortly Stufen).1 My intention is to explain and build on Maarten Coolen’s interpretation of this work, and to elaborate on his criticism.2 In Plessner’s writings the notion ‘boundary’ plays a central role. Interestingly, the term also applies to his own existential and philosophical situation at a certain point. In the course of his work as a whole, Plessner undergoes a development that is best characterized as a process of secularization. In the Stufen he is at the point of refuting what he calls the “jump into faith”3. This concerns the decision by which one surrenders to the belief in God as ground of the world, and ignores the demand of agnosticism in these matters, that follows from the human nature as Plessner explains it. But if we take the Stufen seriously, which I think we should, we find ourselves in a situation that offers no alternative answer to our fundamental existential questions. By the end of the Stufen, it seems that a metaphysical desire, a desire for meaning in life, indeed remains unanswered. If this would be the unavoidable outcome of consistent philosophical thinking, we might have had to accept it. But it isn’t. As we will see there are also logical objections to the unsatisfactory end of the Stufen. On the other hand, as I will try to make clear, Plessner’s Stufen seems to prepare for an alternative ending. It seems to formulate the preconditions for thinking in a more positive way about existential meaning. It’s as if Plessner unconsciously left the door slightly open for a conception of transcendence, alternative to the religious one he refutes. Plessner thus seems to be on the boundary of discovering a new positive way of thinking about existential meaning. It is this boundary situation, and the philosophical problems involved in it, that I would like to sketch out for you today. I will have to make a detour, for two reasons. Firstly, Plessner’s Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch is a work of philosophical anthropology, which means that it attempts to understand man by taking him primarily as a living being. The implication is that we can only understand the human condition if we first go into the stages of living beings that precede the stage of man. Secondly, the problem Plessner is struggling with, only becomes apparent in the last sections of the Stufen. But in the preceding sections, especially in his discussion of human expressiveness, we find purchase for a way out of this philosophical predicament. To prepare my proposal for this way out, I will go into that part somewhat more elaborately. 1 Plessner, H., Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch; Einleitung in die philosophische Anthropologie, Gesammelte Schriften IV, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 2003. 2 My elaboration on Coolen is based on: Coolen, T.M.T., De antropologische noodzaak van de transcendentie, in Subliem niemandsland; Opstellen over metafysica, intersubjectiviteit en transcendentie, edited by W.F.C.M. Derkse, A.J. Leijen and B.M.J. Nagel, Damon, Best, The Netherlands, 1996. 3 Plessner, Stufen, p. 420. I use double quotation marks for quotations and single ones for other purposes. 343 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education But first, I will briefly discuss the stages of life according to Plessner, starting off with the difference between animate and inanimate things. The notion that marks this difference is ‘transcendence’. Only animate things actively realize a relationship to that which transcends them. According to Plessner, a certain tension between immanence and transcendence occurs on all stages of life, not only on that of human existence. A self-realized openness to what is outside is characteristic to as primary a living being as a plant. At the level of the difference between animate and inanimate things Plessner uses a principle that remains valid throughout the project of the Stufen: the principle that a relationship to something transcendent implies ‘inner transcendence’: a development in the inner structures of a being, that mediates the relationship to the other. The central term that explains this principle is “mediated immediacy”.4 The plant for instance realizes an immediate relationship to the medium simply by being organized the way it is. The stress on ‘being’ refers to the passivity of the plant. The being organized points to the relationship as mediated by internal differentiation and by the boundary. The plant embodies mediation, we could say, but it doesn’t mediate in the sense that it actively uses means to pursue its goals. With the animal this is different. The processes regulating what is coming in and what is going out that is passively undergone by the plant, is internalized in the animal. This renders possible that the body of the animal gets instrumental value for this living being itself. In a typical Plessnerian expression: it is its body, and it has its body.5 It can actively use its muscles, joints etcetera, for instance to catch a prey. (Plessner does make further distinctions, for instance between lower and higher animals, which I won’t discuss here). The animal is a center of mediation, Plessner says, but this center is hidden to itself. In this respect human being forms yet a higher stage on the ladder of living being. In the case of man we can not only say that he is his body and that he has his body; we should add that he has this being and this having. In other words, man “is a body, is in his body [in a transitive sense], and is outside his body, as the standpoint from which he is both”. 6 This triple positionality Plessner calls ‘eccentricity’; it defines human being as person. In man the living being becomes fully reflexive. While the animal loses itself in the here-now in which it lives, man has a position in the world, but at the same time is not just in that position. He is “without any position”, “placeless”.7 On the level of man ‘mediated immediacy’ gets new meaning. It refers to the fact that human being can distinguish between appearance and reality. This distinction is even unavoidable. Man discovers the immanence of the contents of his knowledge. He learns that these contents are in his consciousness. But immanence is not absolute. It is to be regarded as mediation: mediation between ourselves and transcendent reality. It is the way we are in direct contact with the outer world. (This of course doesn’t rule out the possibility of deception.) The boundary between appearance and reality, we can say, marks man’s brokenness: it is the objective ‘correlate’ of his eccentricity.8 This structure is essential to our epistemic relationship to the world. But in Plessner’s view, something similar holds for the way we express ourselves in the creation of artifacts. As an eccentric being, man doesn’t ‘just live’, but needs to make himself to what he is. He needs to actively lead his life. Also, man needs artificial complements that have their own objective weight, to balance out his unstable existence. Human being is “artificial [...] by nature”, Plessner says.9 This need is the ground of expressiveness, and of the creation of artifacts as part of that. 4 Plessner, Stufen, p 229 and p. 400 ff. 5 Plessner, Stufen, p. 297. 6 Plessner, Stufen, p. 365. 7 Plessner, Stufen, p. 364. 8 On immanence in our epistemic relation to the world: Plessner, Stufen, p. 407. 9 Plessner, Stufen, p. 385. 344 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education Let us look a bit closer at the nature of expressiveness. In regard to our epistemic relation to the world Plessner resists the absolutization of immanence. In respect to expressiveness, we usually tend to make the opposite mistake. We think we express ourselves by simply realizing our designs. But here Plessner’s notion of mediated immediacy means that we can only succeed in our striving to express ourselves, if we accept the broken relationship to reality. Reality resists our attempts to control it, says Plessner, and only if in our attempts we accept the struggle with reality, fulfillment of our intentions is possible. But in Plessner’s view, we are then still vulnerable. Plessner says that this fulfillment is to “come from there, not from here”, and that fulfillment is that which can “fail to occur”.10 So the attempt to express ourselves in objective artifacts is a matter of realizing merely insufficient conditions for something to happen. Success occurs in a “glücklichen Griff”.11 But these observations do not hold for all kinds of creation to the same extent. Plessner distinguishes between two kinds of creation of artefacts. In the first, one knows in advance what the result will be. Fulfilment is more or less guaranteed. In the second, one doesn’t know exactly what will come out, and therefore here, fulfilment is much more uncertain. The eccentricity of man structures his epistemic relationship to the world and his expressiveness. But it also marks his reflection on himself and the world as such. On this level of reflexivity, the eccentricity of man becomes apparent in his ability, as Plessner expresses it, to become aware “of the futility of himself and correlatively of the futility of his world”12. This is how according to Plessner the question regarding a last ground of the world arises, i.e. regarding the absolute or God. But man’s eccentricity implies that he cannot fixate his own place, nor that of the world. So on principle, he cannot confirm the existence of any absolute reality. According to Plessner, man is bound to remain a being without ground. If he wishes to force a decision, the only option left for him is to jump into faith. But the definite answer that religion claims to provide is not reconcilable with man’s eccentricity. In Plessner’s view, the answer religion offers can only be illusory. We have now come to the point that I referred to in the beginning. A fundamental problem occurs in Plessner’s thinking, that he himself seems to have overlooked. Maarten Coolen has pointed it out. The problem is a logical one. Is it thinkable that human being be troubled by a question, by a desire that defines his very essence, that can on principle not be answered? Plessner himself describes this situation as an unsolvable contradiction. But he thinks that this contradiction is what we have to accept and to live. The question we are confronted with, is whether we can indeed, and whether man can be understood in this way ... Coolen’s main criticism of Plessner is that this cannot be the case: a contradiction cannot be lived. As Coolen points out, Plessner attributes an idea of the absolute to man, that has no objective correlate, no content, no realization whatsoever. And “because in his category of eccentricity, Plessner absolutizes the idea of possibility, the fulfillment of the human possibility of transcendence must fail to occur”.13 In other words, with his idea of the absolute Plessner has created an absolute possibility: a possibility that can never be realized. Metaphysical desire will ever remain unanswered. I think Coolen is right in his criticism. But Coolen thinks that it is possible to find a solution to the problem on the basis of other passages in the Stufen. Coolen demonstrates that with his conclusion, Plessner actually deviates from the direction that he has followed throughout the Stufen, up to the last sections. This direction clearly recognizable in the discussion of expressiveness. First I will explain Coolen’s proposal for a solution. Then I will build on this by sketching an alternative way to get rid of the crucial contradiction. 10 Both quotes: Plessner, Stufen, p. 413. 11 Plessner, Stufen, p. 397 and 413. 12 Plessner, Stufen, p. 419. 13 Coolen, De antropologische noodzaak van de transcendentie, p. 321. 345 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education We have seen that in Plessner, the fulfillment of a striving is essentially connected to the objectivity of things, to the weight these things have independently of us. Coolen suggests that we introduce this way of thinking in the domain of transcendence. People not only wish that things exist independently of us, he says. Besides that, they want these things for their own sake. They not only want their striving to succeed, they also want the results of their strivings to be worthwhile, in a way that transcends their function as means to fulfill our needs. The fulfillment of this desire as well, is to come from there, not from here, Coolen says.14 Our desire for transcendence, according to Coolen, is not to be explained as a longing for a last world ground, but as “a desire for a sense and a meaning that we haven’t created ourselves, and that occurs or presents itself as a perfection in what we are concerned with or in the situation we are in”15. Coolen stresses that such a ‘perfection’ is not a definite answer to our questions, but rather appears in what we could call ‘the perfect moment’, that is bound to fade away. There are two reasons to further elaborate on Coolen, and correspondingly I will do so in two steps. The first reason is that I think we can increase our understanding of the problem, and of the possibility of a way out, by focusing on the notion ‘world’ in Plessner. Secondly, Coolen’s point that besides expressiveness, human being has a metaphysical desire that cannot on principle remain without any kind of answer, opens a further interesting question: how is the relationship between expressiveness and metaphysical desire to be understood? If it is right that we not only wish success in our striving to objectify what’s in our mind, but also wish these objects to have a value in themselves, what does this imply for the process of creation itself? Suppose that the creation of artifacts can indeed be accompanied by metaphysical fulfillment: does this hold for all kinds of creation to the same extent? Can we find purchase in Plessner’s discussion of expressiveness for the thought that metaphysical fulfillment is immediately involved in the process of creation, and not only in our relationship to the result of that creation? In a moment I will try to show that Plessner’s discussion of the fulfillment of striving in the process of creation is very remindful of how tend to think about metaphysical fulfillment. But first, let us turn to Plessner’s notion of world. Let us focus on the question that according to Plessner defines our most fundamental self-reflection. What is the ground of the world? There’s something about the question itself that seems to lead us in the wrong direction. I think it’s this. The question presupposes a concept of world, that is not only untenable, but also contradictory to Plessner’s own concept of world. In other words, there are two concepts of world in Plessner, one of which leads to the contradiction that we are struggling with. Let us turn to the first concept of world – the good one so to speak. When Plessner describes the way a thing appears to us, and when he describes the double aspect of immanence and transcendence of our relating to the world, he presupposes a concept of world that amounts to ‘appearance of reality’. World has a fundamental ambiguity about it. It signifies that reality itself appears, but only in adumbrations. We only see appearances, but we take these as appearances of thing or world. This double aspect, we could say, is the correlate of excentricity, the way the brokenness of man shows itself on the objective side. It implies that we never have absolute knowledge of reality, because reality never appears purely as it is in itself. So the double aspect of immanence and transcendence determines the finitude of man’s ability to know and control the world. I will return to the concept of world that leads to contradiction. According to Plessner, our predicament is such that on the one hand we have a position in the world, yet on the other hand, due to our self-consciousness, we stand in nothingness. We are ‘placeless’. Plessner says that man can 14 Coolen, op. cit., p. 322. 15 Coolen, op. cit., p. 322. 346 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education thus experience his own futility and correlatively the futility of the world. I think this is the source of the problem. Is it possible to speak of the futility of the world, at the same time retaining the ambiguity inherent to Plessner’s first concept of world? Is the claim that the world is futile not a way of taking position above it? What is then left of the finitude of our relation to that world? The first – good – concept of world convinces us that the reductive concept of world is a denial of our finitude, and is therefore false. But let us dwell with Plessner’s thought about the futility of the world a little while longer. The contradiction in Plessner’s use of the concept ‘world’ should not distract us from the fact that at the basis of this way of thinking could be a genuine experience of the world as futile, as mere immanence, as ‘empty’ and unfulfilling. The implication of this is that the thought about the futility of the world stems from a real experience that is to be taken seriously. It may even embody an essential human possibility. But what we shouldn’t do, is absolutize the claim about the world in which the purport of this experience can be expressed. Only if we see the relativity of this mode of being – the experience of the world as futile – we can relativize it and rehabilitate the possibility of the fulfillment of metaphysical desire. As noted, Plessner himself gives us a starting point to explore this possibility. So we return to the issue of expressiveness. In Plessner’s discussion of the creation of artifacts we find traces of a fulfillment beyond that of mere striving. Like our epistemic relationship to the world, expressiveness is characterized by mediated immediacy. According to Plessner, expressiveness entails that we have to compromise with stubborn reality, to be able to succeed in our strivings. We need to find solutions to problems that we cannot predict. The properties of matter will always keep surprising us, as will the unforeseen side-effects of the workings of our constructions. Even if we accept this, we remain vulnerable in our dependence on the world. Fulfillment of our striving is that which can always “fail to occur”. Fulfillment is to “come from there, not from here”.16 We could say that in Plessner’s view, our pursuit of successfully expressing ourselves in objective artifacts is a matter of realizing the merely insufficient conditions for something to happen. Success, Plessner says, depends on a ‘glücklichen Griff’.17 Coolen observes that the glücklichen Griff expresses the dimension of immediacy of expressiveness. That is an interesting thought. How can we understand it in relation to mediation? We could explain it this way. Mediation is our attempt to create the conditions – the means – for something to happen that transcends our powers. This means that we do need to create the conditions. But it also means that our finitude makes us dependent on a reality beyond our grasp. But these remarks should be qualified. They do not hold for all kinds of creation to the same extent. As noted, Plessner distinguishes between two kinds of creation of artifacts. In the first, one knows in advance what the result will be. Fulfillment is more or less guaranteed. In the second kind, one doesn’t know exactly what will come out, and therefore here, fulfillment is much more uncertain. When Plessner speaks of the ‘meeting’ of human being and thing, we preferably think of the second kind of creating. If we take this interpretation a little further, it occurs that especially when we try to create something of which we don’t know the resulting form in advance, the fulfillment involved is of a higher sort, than if we realize an existing design. If we would try to think of examples of the second kind of creation, most of the examples that spring to mind, seem to belong to the domain of artistic creation. It would take more time to work out systematically the place of art in this whole picture, but it seems that the kind of freedom, vulnerability and openness that are involved in it, is particularly characteristic of art. We find indications in Plessner that in the process of the creation of artifacts, the fulfillment of striving can go together with the fulfillment of metaphysical desire. But how is this to be explained 16 Both quotes: Plessner, Stufen, p. 413. 17 Plessner, Stufen, p. 397 and 413. 347 Metaphysics 2006 – d. Metaphysics and Education metaphysically, i.e. in terms of immanence and transcendence? I can on this occasion only limit myself to some preparatory remarks. The two kinds of creation that Plessner distinguishes need to be explained in terms of the ambiguity of our concept of world. In Plessner’s view, there’s a boundary between immanence and transcendence. We could say that in a sense, the world itself is this boundary. Note that we cannot think of this as a line between two domains, as if the relationship between the two would be symmetrical. We are only on this side of the boundary. Now, if we create something according to an existing design, or acting according to mere routines, reality as transcendent becomes subordinate to our creating activity or to this routine. However, if we create the conditions for letting a new design come into being in the process itself (for instance in artistic creation), this can be taken as an attempt to give back a voice to reality, i.e. to the world as transcendent. In other words, this is an attempt to adopt metaphysical openness, that awaits a fulfillment, in Plessner’s words, that comes from there, not from here. 348 e. Metaphysics and Ethics Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics PROBLEMAS DE TEORÍA LITERARIA DESDE UN ENFOQUE ONTOLÓGICO DE LA ESTÉTICA Santiago Acosta Aide Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador Sede Ibarra La variedad de modelos interpretativos de la obra literaria revela un panorama dominado por la fragmentación y dispersión epistemológicas. Se requiere un esfuerzo de síntesis y el replanteamiento de las bases teóricas de la disciplina. La síntesis teórica solo es posible desde un enfoque ontológico de la obra literaria, que no impida los desarrollos metodológicos diversos y que recoja la verdad que contienen los mismos, pero que, además, les proporcione un fundamento sólido. 1. Fundamento metafísico y carácter ontológico de la estética La necesidad de una ontología del hecho literario ha sido señalada por Roger Fowler1 quien, sin embargo, se queda corto, pues concibe una extraña ontología de corte conceptual que genere un amplio consenso de términos descriptivos. Por el contrario, en nuestro juicio, la ontología es ciencia del ser personal; solo considerada como tal, puede brindar soporte último a la estética. Fernando Rielo, desde su modelo genético, proporciona una definición de ontología como formada por la metafísica, ciencia ésta del modelo2. La explicitación del fundamento ontológico de la estética, sobre la base del modelo rieliano, ha sido desarrollada por José María López en Apuntes para una concepción estética del modelo genético de F. Rielo, del que extraeremos las claves conceptuales principales: “inspiración” y “tertio incluso”3. 1.1 La inspiración. La estética posee un carácter ontológico, pues el sujeto estético -el ser humano- está definido ontológicamente por la divina presencia constitutiva, dentro de la concepción genética de la metafísica de F. Rielo. De este modo, las ciencias humanas, la estética entre ellas, se hacen comunicables con la metafísica4. La divina presencia constitutiva otorga al ser humano una inspiración constitutiva, necesaria para el desarrollo de cualquier actividad. Esta inspiración tiene (entre otras5) una función estética, y es la raíz originaria de la obra de arte. La inspiración estética es el nexo con el carácter ontológico de la obra de arte. Por eso, la naturaleza de la inspiración artística ha sido siempre tan difícil de explicar, y muchos teóricos han preferido negarla, para afirmar, en su lugar, el trabajo, la dedicación, la pericia, la técnica. Ninguno de estos términos es incompatible con la inspiración; antes al contrario, la exigen. 1.2 El tertio incluso. El tertio incluso es el que da forma de apertura a todos los términos de la relación: (a) A y B, en el nivel metafísico; (b) los múltiples términos de relación, en el nivel ontológico. El modelo absoluto es el tertio incluso en el nivel metafísico. En la estética, el tertio 1 Cf. “La estructura de la crítica y el lenguaje de la poesía: crítica lingüística”, en Malcolm Bradbury y David Palmer: Crítica contemporánea, Madrid: Cátedra, 1974, p. 212. 2 Fernando Rielo: un diálogo a tres voces, Constantina: F.F.R., 1995, p. 144 (en adelante, Diálogo). 3 Esta investigación (en adelante, Apuntes) de J.M. López es un trabajo todavía inédito. Como realiza un desarrollo más específico de la concepción estética basada en el modelo genético, nos eximirá de entrar en detalles exhaustivos acerca de la misma, para poder así centrarnos en la elucidación de diversos problemas literarios desde dicha interpretación ontológica. 4 Cf. Diálogo, op. cit., p. 145. 5 Cf. Apuntes, pp. 11-12. 351 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics incluso, esto es, el término que, referido al modelo absoluto, da apertura metafísica a las múltiples relaciones estéticas, es la inspiración. La inspiración dota a la obra literaria de una dirección y sentido trascendentales. Esta trascendentalidad ha sido reiteradamente afirmada respecto de la obra literaria, de forma tal que todos los intentos de autoclausurarla han sido vanos. Dicha trascendentalidad hay que entenderla no únicamente en términos de referencia biográfica (referida al autor), social (a la sociedad y las ideologías) o de efectos pragmáticos (al lector), sino en términos ontológicos (referida al Absoluto que forma, con su presencia constitutiva, al sujeto estético). 2. El tertio incluso y su importancia para el planteamiento de diversos problemas literarios. El tertio incluso, la inspiración constitutiva con su función estética, tiene una relevancia fundamental para dilucidar diversas cuestiones estéticas. 2.1 El concepto de ‘arbitrariedad’ y autonomía. Tales conceptos derivan de la reducción de la literatura a lo textual, es decir, a sistemas de signos que se sujetan al principio de arbitrariedad del signo lingüístico, formulado por Saussure. Desde este enfoque, la literatura no es sino lenguaje, y participa de la arbitrariedad de todo signo. Quienes aplican la arbitrariedad a la obra literaria ya no ven en la misma una expresión de la realidad, un acontecimiento, ni tampoco de la personalidad del autor. Esto es, se establece la noción de la obra literaria como “sistema autónomo de estructuras, es decir, independiente de la función referencial del lenguaje”6. De una obra de arte así considerada solo podemos decir que funciona como un sistema semiótico coherente. La actividad crítica tendrá que limitarse a explicar las condiciones de funcionamiento de dicho sistema. Desde este análisis, la obra aparece como un artilugio, que puede ser desmontado y reconstruido. Han sido, precisamente, algunos estructuralistas disidentes de esta visión radical quienes han recuperado la dimensión existencial de la obra literaria, que no es solamente texto, sino un verdadero producto cultural7, y que remite inevitablemente a la existencia humana. La obra literaria no existe en sí misma, ni se refiere a sí misma8. Desde luego, hay que intentar rescatar lo que de verdad metodológica tiene el enfoque inmanentista, depurándolo de su extremismo: no puede reducirse la obra de arte a mero “síntoma” del autor; de lo contrario, leeríamos las obras para conocer a sus autores. Se requiere afirmar una cierta autonomía en la obra de arte que no sea resultado de una supuesta arbitrariedad. La arbitrariedad, como el azar, no es origen de nada. La arbitrariedad es un término inapropiado para pretender referirse a la plurivalencia significativa de los textos literarios, signos semánticamente complejos. La obra de arte nunca puede ser arbitraria, obedece a multitud de motivaciones: como signo, es intencional; es también expresivo. La noción de arbitrariedad, aplicada a la obra literaria, haría legítima cualquier interpretación de la misma, incluso las contradictorias: la arbitrariedad haría arbitraria la propia actividad crítica. Hay que establecer un término que funde una idea recta de autonomía: no la autonomía por la autonomía, que lleva a una concepción cerrada de la obra, sino una autonomía que no contradiga el carácter abierto de la misma. Las nociones de autonomía y apertura necesitan de un tertio incluso que haga síntesis de ambas y las sujete. Este tertio incluso es la inspiración estética. La inspiración, aunque entregada al autor, no se limita a éste, sino que se transfiere a la obra, la dota de entidad propia. Además, también la posee el lector. Presente en los distintos elementos de la comunicación 6 Riffaterre resume así la postura de los que él llama “formalistas franceses”: Ensayos de estilística estructural, Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1976, p. 320. 7 Se habla, además de estructura, de conciencia estructurante; de sistema de la obra y de principio sistematizador; de signo y del aliquid al que ese signo apunta; de las estructuras literarias como entidades intencionales; de una semiótica que conduce a una semántica (Vid. Aguiar e Silva: Teoría de la literatura, Madrid: Gredos, 1984, p. 471 ss. 8 “Una obra de arte -importa poco que rechace o ignore la sociedad- está profundamente arraigada en ella. Tiene significados culturales masivos. No existe nada parecido a ‘una obra de arte en sí misma’.” (R. Hoggart, “Los estudios culturales contemporáneos: literatura y sociedad”, en M. Bradbury y D. Palmer, op. cit., p. 196. 352 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics literaria, no se agota en ninguno de ellos, y los vincula dinámicamente entre sí, de forma que siempre será posible considerarlos en su relativa autonomía sin impedir la circulación de implicaciones recíprocas. La inspiración, por otro lado, no sustituye a la técnica, sino que la reclama: una mala técnica ahoga la inspiración, la desfigura. Pero la técnica sin inspiración solo acierta a hacer del arte una actividad mecánica, sin aliento. No, la técnica no es, como pretendía Roland Barthes, el ser mismo de toda creación9. 2.2 El carácter ficticio de la obra literaria. La calificación de “ficticia”, aplicada a la obra, tiene que ver con la afirmación de una autonomía anómala, que hemos rebatido anteriormente. Ya que, establecida la pretendida arbitrariedad del texto literario, se niega toda referencia a la realidad. La obra nada tiene que ver, entonces, con el mundo. La ficción es, así, el término que, opuesto a la realidad, constituye el ámbito de lo literario. La literatura deviene, bajo esta concepción de lo ficticio, mentira bien construida, embuste verosímil: “Lo cierto es que la ficción es, por definición, una impostura -una realidad que no es y sin embargo finge serlo- y que toda novela es una mentira que se hace pasar por verdad […]” 10 . La oposición ficción-realidad parece estar destinada a garantizar la independencia del arte literario respecto del mundo, para desechar de este modo una visión simplista de la literatura como puro reflejo de la realidad. Los hechos de ficción, se dice, no existen, son una mera ilusión, por lo que no hemos de sentirnos tentados a buscar sus referentes en la realidad externa. Probablemente, que las obras literarias, especialmente las novelas, recreen el mundo de las relaciones humanas ha hecho que se vea el universo estético como aspirante a suplantar la realidad objetiva, o por lo menos a mimetizarse con ésta. De ahí la insistencia en declarar ficticia la literatura. Sin embargo, que las historias sean inventadas no implica que a la literatura haya que colocarla en el territorio de lo ficticio. Cuanto el ser humano inventa pasa a ser objeto real, y no hay razón suficiente para escatimarle a la literatura dicho estatuto de realidad. Lo que sucede es que se trata de una realidad estética: la obra no miente, sino que abarca un mundo creado que no debe verse como alternativa del mundo objetivo ni en contradicción con el mismo. La falta de un término que sustente la verdad y realidad de la obra ha hecho que ésta haya quedado abandonada al limbo de la ficción. La ficción no expresa el ser de la literatura: una vez creadas, las obras existen con vida propia, y esta vida está también regida por la inspiración estética, que viene a ser, entonces, el término que invalida lo ficticio en el arte literario. En virtud de la inspiración estética, la obra de arte recibe entidad propia, enriquece la vida de los individuos, dilata su visión de la realidad. Ello no debe invitar a caer en la tentación del realismo ingenuo: ver la obra como simple espejo de la realidad, como si la literatura fuera una curiosa efervescencia de la vida11. La relación entre lo real y lo literario está sujeta a la acción de múltiples filtros mediadores que dotan al universo estético de valores propios. La literatura es, vista así, creadora de realidad. A la pregunta de si lo que ocurre dentro de una obra es verdad, hay que contestar afirmativamente: es verdad dentro de la misma obra12, porque la inspiración a la que responde es también verdad, una verdad mucho más sugerente para el ser humano que la mera realidad externa de los acontecimientos. La inspiración no lleva al fingimiento o la simulación, sino a la expresión de las verdades más hondas de la persona humana, plasmadas de forma perenne en la obra, si es que ésta es de calidad. 9 Vid. Ensayos críticos, Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1967, p. 258. 10 Vargas Llosa, Cartas a un joven novelista, Santafé de Bogotá: Planeta, 1997, p. 29. 11 Los propios creadores sientan razón de este hecho. Así, Carlos Fuentes: “La novela no muestra ni demuestra al mundo, sino que añade algo al mundo” (Geografía de la novela, México: F.C.E., 1993, p. 18). 12 Son relevantes las aseveraciones de Vargas Llosa: “la verdad de la novela [depende] de su propia capacidad de persuasión, de la fuerza comunicativa de su fantasía, de la habilidad de su magia. Toda buena novela dice la verdad y toda mala novela miente” (La verdad de las mentiras, Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1990, p. 10). 353 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics 2.3 El problema de la identidad entre lenguaje literario y lenguaje natural. Esta cuestión conforma un falso problema, porque pone en oposición dos tipos de lenguaje que no están contrapuestos. Las oposiciones (realidad-ficción, autonomía-apertura) no son hábiles para dar cuenta del fenómeno literario. Constituye un atolladero enfrascarse en la tarea de plantear la relación entre lenguaje literario y lenguaje natural en términos de identidad o diferencia. Es evidente: la obra literaria está hecha de lenguaje, es posible estudiar una obra como un gran texto que podamos descomponer en diversas unidades, podríamos analizar nociones como trama, personaje, argumento como estructuras de lenguaje13. Pero ni la identidad ni la oposición pueden explicar la esencia del lenguaje literario: porque éste es lenguaje y más que lenguaje, y porque la propia obra literaria, estando construida de tejido lingüístico, es más que tejido lingüístico14. Este “más que” es el que debe explicarse para evitar caer en las contradicciones de la identidad y la diferencia. La cuestión no radica en intentar encontrar un criterio para distinguir ambos lenguajes o identificarlos, sino en ver de qué manera el lenguaje natural se transforma en literario. La inspiración como tertio incluso responde también a este interrogante: la inspiración potencia el lenguaje natural para constituirlo en lenguaje literario. Éste es, en virtud del tertio incluso, el lenguaje natural potenciado para poder expresar los valores poéticos o literarios. De este modo, se evita el reductivismo de identificar ambos tipos de lenguaje, y el absurdo de intentar encontrar una diferencia esencial entre ellos, lo cual no ha podido conseguirse15. Los mecanismos de potenciación deben ser objeto de un estudio específico, pero cabe indicar que la imagen estética desempeña un papel singular: “La imagen estética es, en virtud del tertio incluso, por potenciación; es decir, adquiere aquella intensidad merced a la cual las palabras que sustentan la imagen nos dicen mucho más de lo que es su mera connotación semántica”16. Esta intensificación que persigue la imagen es mucho más que la impresión máxima que, a juicio de Sklovskij, provoca la imagen poética17. La inspiración estética es el término que recupera los elementos del hecho estético sin dispersarlos ni romper la fuerza de gravitación que la obra ejerce sobre los demás elementos. La obra es el punto de encuentro de todos ellos: la inspiración estética, convenientemente trabajada por el autor, mediante procedimientos técnicos adecuados, produce una obra que será de valor artístico en la misma medida en que ambos factores, inspiración y técnica, cristalicen en un universo literario de hondas significaciones y riqueza estilística. La obra queda entonces conformada inspirativamente, y posee la capacidad de producir en el lector una experiencia también inspirada. Es así como el tertio incluso promueve una visión completa del hecho estético sin desequilibrios ni distorsiones. 2.4 Las metodologías críticas y su atención a la relación autor-obra-receptor-entorno social. La obra literaria es el nudo en el cual se articulan los distintos elementos que intervienen en la creación estética, mas no debe olvidarse ninguno de ellos, so pena de caer en el reductivismo. Tampoco puede desplazarse el centro de gravedad de la obra a cualquier otro de los puntos de la cadena, porque aquella quedaría menoscabada como entidad estética para convertirse en simple pretexto para indagaciones biográficas, sociales o culturales. Desde el objeto artístico debemos integrar los demás factores. Sin embargo, diversas metodologías han segmentado el fenómeno literario global para quedarse con solo uno o alguno de los elementos. El resultado es el 13 Vid. Graham Hough: “La crítica como una disciplina humanística”, en Crítica contemporánea, op. cit., p. 67. 14 “[…] la novela no es sólo lenguaje, y menos puro enunciado, como las gramáticas narrativas querían. Es el desarrollo complejo de un acto de habla básico para el que tan importante como el discurso ya elaborado es el circuito comunicativo de enunciación-recepción constituido a tal fin” (Darío Villanueva,“La novela como lenguaje”, en Marina Mayoral (coord.), El oficio de narrar, Madrid: Cátedra/M de Cultura, 1989, p.49. 15 Vid. Fowler, op. cit., p. 221. 16 José M. López, op. cit., p. 7. 17 Vid. Tinianov y otros, Formalismo y vanguardia (1), Madrid: Alberto Corazón Editor, 1973, p. 91. 354 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics empobrecimiento del hecho artístico, la creación de oposiciones, el sesgo ideológico o de escuela18. Todo texto requiere un contexto, sin el cual no es ni siquiera legible de modo satisfactorio, y la obra de arte como objeto requiere de la implicación de los sujetos estéticos (autor y lector)19, porque ningún objeto cultural (el estético inclusive) existe por sí y para sí, sino para alguien. 3. Conclusiones. La consideración del tertio incluso, dentro de una fundamentación ontológica de la estética, proporciona una apropiada visión del hecho literario. Ayuda a superar las metodologías excluyentes que conducen a reductivismos interpretativos. Sin embargo, el tertio incluso, la inspiración, no anula las perspectivas diversas de acercamiento al texto literario, y proporciona un criterio de síntesis de nociones contrapuestas que, al excluirse, impiden comprender íntegramente la obra y su vinculación con los sujetos estéticos y el contexto extraliterario. 18 Valga como ejemplo la reducción que realiza el estructuralismo genético de corte marxista con respecto al autor individual, al que considera un mero mediador entre la obra y el verdadero sujeto de la creación: el grupo social (Vid. Lucien Goldman, Para una sociología de la novela, Madrid: Ciencia Nueva, 1967, p. 224. 19 Cesare Segre argumenta: “Mientras que el autor es el garante de la constitución semiótica del texto, el lector es el garante de su actividad semiótica” (Principios de análisis del texto literario, Barcelona: Ed. Crítica/Grupo Editorial Grijalbo, 1985, p. 18. 355 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics SOME METAPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE POSSIBILITY OF HUMAN REPRODUCTIVE CLONING Dokpo Kodjo Université de Sherbrooke 1- The Problem The question of the admissibility of human reproductive cloning has sprung many discussions since the announcement of the birth of Dolly on February 23, 1997 by the newspaper The Observer which started a true media storm. Ewe genetically identical to its mother, Dolly was the first mammal cloned from somatic cells. The news made the turn of the world and astonished people familiar of discovered molecular biology who did not expect such a prowess. On the side of public opinion, the agitation was considerable because the birth of Dolly has been preceded by several debates on the human reproductive cloning. In fact, the birth of Dolly opened the fourth era of this debate whose three first are respectively located in the years 1970, 1978 and 1994. As states it Campbell who reports the debate in the theological area, a judgment that is valuable for the cloning debate in general: It is possible to identify four overlapping time frames in which theologians and religious thinkers have engaged the scientific and ethics of human cloning debate. The first phase of consideration occurred in the mid-1960s […] A second distinctive era began in 1978, which was notable for two events, the birth of the first IVF baby, Louise Brown, and the publication of David Rorvik's In His Image, an account alleging the creation of the first human clone. […] The blastomere separation of human embryos at George Washington University in 1993 initiated a third era of religious discussion. […] The fourth and most recent stage of religious discussion has come in the wake of the successful cloning of ‘‘Dolly’’ by Scottish researchers.1 Dolly became thus the most famous ewe hitherto and caused a crowd of comments which, far from dwelling on the ewe itself, rather agitated the spectrum of the human cloning as the promise of this prowess. Indeed, the biological fraternity of the mammals makes it possible to transpose this technique of “singular” reproduction from the ewe to mankind. It is thus that the spectrum of cloning profiled itself on human condition. The response to this scientific discovery was very prompt. On April 22, 1997, an evaluation report of France National Consultative Committee of Ethics is published at the request of President Jacques Chirac. One can read there that: Human cloning deserves only one vehement ethical judgment, categorical and final as such a practice blaming autonomy and dignity of the person in a radical way, would constitute a serious moral involution in the history of civilization. It is therefore necessary to wonder whether it would not be advisable to qualify juridically the net example of degrading attack of human condition that reproductive cloning constitutes for its universal prohibition.2 1 C. S. CAMPBELL. «Religious perspectives on Human Cloning», in NBAC. Cloning Human Beings, Volume II - Commissioned Papers. Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, Rockville, Maryland, 1997, D3 - D5. 2 CCNE. Réponse au président de la République au sujet du clonage reproductif, N°54, http://www.ccne-ethique.org/francais/start.htm, 22 avril 1997. 357 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics Likewise, UNESCO, The Council for Ethics near the European Commission, the American National Advisory Commission on Bioethics (NBAC), The World Health Organization and Catholic Church, among others, sustained this condemnation. However, at the First World Conference on human cloning which was held on March 8, 2001 in Roma, professors Severino Antinori and Panayiotis Zavos, both famous specialists in the fight against sterility, declared to the international press their intention to clone a human being to cure the sterility of couples not having another means of surmounting it.3 On March 29, 2001, it was the turn of Raël to present to the Board of Inquiry on the Human Cloning of the Room of the representatives in Washington the cloning undertaking of a ten months old baby deceased at the time of a surgical operation of the heart on which Clonaid, the company related to his sect, was working actively.4 These media feats draw their force from the perception of human cloning as a border of human reproduction which it would be regrettable to cross. The controversy is thus sharp between its promoters and its detractors. However, as a result of the point of view of the different institutions mentioned above, human cloning has been banned by almost all government5. This quasi-universal prohibition of human reproductive cloning is comprehensible because of the novelty of the breakthrough, its potential risks and hazards for human condition, briefly because of the precautionary principle which stipulates that when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.6 Nonetheless, this quasi-universal prohibition cannot be taken for granted, well-founded since human cloning practice would not be problematic in numerous cultures as the writings of anthropologists like Marc Augé and Robin Fox show that the biological event of cloning is only a concretization of antecedent cultural elaborations among these cultures. 7 Consequently, the universal prohibition of human cloning is not yet culturally granted. This situation entails its 3 Note de l’éditeur. «Cloner n’est pas jouer», Science &Vie, N°1002, mars 2001, p. 1. 4 P. RICHE. «Les apprentis cloneurs invités au Congrès américain», Libération, 30 mars 2001, p. 21. 5 Robyn S. SHAPIRO, «Legislative Research Bans on Human Cloning», Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 12(4), Fall 2003, p. 393-400. 6 Julian SAVULESCU & John HARRIS, «The Creation Lottery: Final Lessons from Natural Reproduction: Why Those Who Accept Natural Reproduction Should Accept Cloning and Other Frankenstein Reproductive Technologies», Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, vol. 13 (1), 2004, p. 92: «One of the major objections to any current attempt to clone a human being is that, in the case of Dolly (the first cloned mammal), only one clone was successfully produced after 277 attempts. Cloning is inefficient and involves very high embryo wastage» 7 M. AUGÉ. «Des individus sans filiation», dans H. ATLAN, Le clonage humain, Paris, Seuil, 1999, p. 144 : L'anthropologue dispose d'un certain « matériau » et il n'est sans doute pas indifférent aux yeux des observateurs les plus scientifiquement avertis de pouvoir comprendre comment, à partir d'observations empiriques non appuyées sur un corpus et une tradition scientifiques, des spécialistes locaux de l'interprétation ont pu élaborer et diffuser des « théories » explicatives de la réalité. En effet, tout ce que le développement biotechnologique permet ou promet aujourd'hui a déjà été élaboré, sur un plan purement symbolique, par l'imagination sociale de ces spécialistes. Ainsi trouve-t-on, en Afrique notamment, des exemples de mariages entre femmes donnant à la femme «époux» (celle qui a payé la dot de l'autre, de l'épouse) les droits du père sur la progéniture de cette dernière (ce type d'union n'a aucune connotation sexuelle et l'identité du père biologique des enfants est en principe sans importance). On rencontre également des exemples de naissance d'enfants d'un père mort de longue date, des exemples de greffe d' «esprit» ou d' «âme» […] D'une certaine manière, on pourrait dire que la pensée symbolique a anticipé les possibilités de la technologie. R. FOX, Anthropologie de la parenté. Une analyse de la consanguinité et de l'alliance, Paris Gallimard, 1972, p. 34 : Certains peuples croient que le père et la mère contribuent différentiellement à la formation de l'enfant, l'un donnant le corps, l'autre l'âme, ou l'un le sang, l'autre les os; ou que l'un seulement d'entre eux intervient directement dans l'acte procréateur; ou encore que la mère fait fonction d'incubateur à l'intérieur duquel le père plante la graine qui deviendra l'enfant; d'autres conçoivent l'enfant comme ayant été entièrement fabriqué par la mère, le rôle de père se bornant à «ouvrir le passage» ou quelque chose d'approchant. 358 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics possible practice by some people without any moral qualms.8 So, if one agrees with Terence’s humanism that “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto”- (I am human, and consider nothing human alien to me), then this possibility of human cloning concerns us as it has numerous implications, among which one can find metaphysical ones. 2- Two metaphysical implications of the possibility of human reproductive cloning The first metaphysical implication to indicate seems to be that the possibility of human cloning undermines some assumptions of the current philosophical anthropology, namely the conception of human dignity as incorporating biological uniqueness. 9 This assumption appears indeed to be unreliable because of the natural existence of identical twins who are not at all considered as devoid of human dignity. Far from it! As states it the late biologist Stephen Jay Gould: We have known human clones from the dawn of our consciousness. We call them identical twins and they are far better clones than Dolly and her mother … Identical twins share at least four additional (and important) properties that differ between Dolly and her mother. First, identical twins also house the same mitochondrial genes […] Second, identical twins share the same set of maternal gene products in the egg. Genes don’t grow embryos all by themselves. Egg cells contain protein products of maternal genes that play a major role in directing the early development of the embryo. Dolly has her mother nuclear genes, but her surrogate’s gene products in the cytoplasm of her founding cell. Third and now we come to explicitly environmental factors – identical twins share the same womb. Dolly and her mother gestated in different places. Fourth, identical twins share the same time and culture (even if they fall into the rare category, so cherished by researchers, of siblings separated at birth and raised, unbeknowst to each other in distant families of different social classes. The clone of an adult cell matures in a different world […] So identical twins are truly eerie clones – ever so much more alike on all counts than Dolly and her mother […] Identical twins provide sturdy proof that inevitable differences of nurture guarantee the individuality and personhood of each human clone.10 Another implication of human cloning is that its mere possibility undermines the Christian anthropological philosophy, namely the origin of human soul. In fact, in Christianity, especially the catholic one, human beings’ soul is assumed to be directly created by God when couples carry out the physical progenitive act: «From the moment of conception, the life of every human being is to be respected in an absolute way because man is the only creature on earth that God ‘wished for himself’ and the spiritual soul of each man is ‘immediately created’ by God.11» But, like artificial fertilization, human cloning does not admit of this latter. As states it Huber: The basic objection of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to artificial fertilization is that the coincidence of marital intercourse and the possibility of 8 Seymour W. ITZKOFF, «Intervening with Mother Nature: The Ethics of Human Cloning», Mankind Quarterly 44 (1), 2003, p. 31: The possibility of creating cloned human identical with the parent cells has mobilized officialdom, philosophers/ethicists, and theologians, from around the world. The rightly fear the banning cloning in United States and in much of the West will not be enough. Other, dissenting and developed nations might not see cloning as a priori negative. In China, Israel, Russia, Japan, nations with the medical and technological wherewithal to attempt to clone a human being, the issue is still open. 9 S. LEATHER, «Human Cloning – What Should We Really be Frightened of?», Clinical Medicine 4 (4), July-August 2004, p. 301: «Kant famously ascribed three characteristics to human dignity: autonomy, identity or singularity, and freedom. All three would be undermined by reproductive cloning while therapeutic cloning might enhance them.» 10 S. J. GOULD. «Dolly’s Fashion and Louis’s Passion», in G. E. PENCE, ed., Who’s Afraid of Human Cloning? Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc, 1997, p. 119. 11 Cf. Donum Vitae, quoting Gaudium et spes, in Thomas A. SHANNON and Lisa SOWLE CAHILL, Religion and Artificial Reproduction, New York, Crossroad, 1988, p. 147. 359 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics conception - that is, of “becoming a human being” - is interrupted. These doubts were well articulated at the 1976 Carcow Symposium, when the then Cardinal Wojtyla, now His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, invited several Polish scientists to discuss contraception and abortion. At that time the arguments given constantly emphasized that fertilization must always be connected with the physical marital sexual act, viz., that the generative aspects and the unitive aspects of marital sexual intercourse must always exist in a single act of physical marital intercourse. This argument, given in a discussion about contraception, is now being applied to reproductive medicine where both the theological and biological complexities of animation are many and demand consideration. God creates the soul but he only will do so, it was postulated at the Cracow Symposium, when couples carry out the physical progenitive act. This is the reason why the connection of “becoming a human being” on the one hand, and marital intercourse, on the other hand, is very rigidly sustained.12 Nevertheless, would eventual people resulting from it be subhuman beings or wouldn’t they be human beings at all? We are allowed to sustain that they will be human beings in the full sense of the word and with all the dignity human beings deserve because, «as copies of other human beings» as they are assumed to be, they inherit all human attributes of their originals. If this is granted, where is God and his almighty soul creation undertaking? In fact, as it is taught that He does create souls only when couples carry out the physical progenitive act, one might expect that the results of those undertakings devoid of it be null. It won’t be the case however as already shown above. It seems therefore clear, at least on a logical basis, that the principle that sustains the “becoming human being” must be located not directly in God action but elsewhere, namely both in human gametes and almost every human cell as cloning seems to prove it. It is then possible to infer that the official hominization doctrine hold by Catholicism seems wrong. As such, it needs a revision. That is what Howard M. Ducharme advocates when he writes that «if one's moral claims and theological beliefs are inconsistent and incoherent, it is imperative to correct them by thinking more deeply, more carefully, and more honestly.13» This revision has been however a permanent undertaking of numerous catholic thinkers. In fact, the ensoulment debate that pervades the history of Catholicism and opposes the proponents of immediate hominization and the proponents of delayed hominization is a proof of this endeavour.14 But there seems to remain a certain malaise, at least for a non- Christian or non-catholic observer, due to the commitment of these thinkers to reconcile necessarily divine act, be it remote or immediate, to the developments of human embryo.15 Honesty however leads to assert that the supposed divine intervention in the creation of human soul is not at all necessary. It is at least what report Thomas Shannon and Allan Wolter when they write that: Philosophically speaking, we have every reason to believe that the dynamic properties of the organic matter–the elements of the fully formed zygote–owe their 12J. HUBER, D.D.R., «Possible Modifications of Artificial Fertilization Techniques: Biological Considerations Which May Influence Theological Considerations», in E. D. PELLEGRINO et al., eds. Gift of Life. Catholic Scholars Respond to the Vatican Instruction, Washington, Georgetown University Press, 1990, p. 70-71. 13 H. M. DUCHARME, «The Vatican's Dilemma: On the Morality of IVF and the Incarnation », Bioethics 5 (1), 1991, p. 57. 14 Thomas A. SHANNON & Allan B. WOLTER, «Reflections on the Moral Status of the Pre-embryo», Theological Studies 51 (4), 1990, p. 603-604 : «One of the hallmarks of the Catholic tradition, with certain conspicuous exceptions, has been to be in dialogue with the philosophy and science of its day and to use insights in articulating the vision of Catholicism. Such efforts have been done better and worse» 15 This can well be seen in the self-transcendence theory by which Karl Rahner tries to reconcile the official teaching of the Church and a deep philosophical apprehension of the predicamental action of God in the creation of the individual human soul. Cf. Karl RAHNER, Hominisation. The Evolutionary Origin of man as a Theological Problem, Montreal, Palm Publishers, 1965, p. 93-101. 360 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics existence to their organizational form or the system. Important to note is that “where there are only material powers–that is, the ability to form material systems–, there is only a material nature or substance”. Thus the material system or form of the developing body can explain its own activity. We conclude that there is no cogent, either from a philosophical or still less from a theological viewpoint, why we should assert, for instance, that the human soul is either necessary or directly responsible for the architectonic chemical behavior of nucleo-proteins in the human body.16 Rationally speaking, this analysis can be pushed to its limits and let suppose that materialism, namely the emergentist one locatable for example in the critical realism of Roy Baskhar17, seems sufficient to explain human soul’s origin. But if one is not satisfied with this limitation to facts only, it can be assumed in any case that theism, contrary to deism, does not seem to be a reliable framework or a neutral one for explaining the origin of human beings18. As states it Cohen: Just as the possibility of human cloning challenges our belief that humans are created in God's image, it also challenges our image of God as our Creator - our "Parent" or "Father." Of course, advances in genetic knowledge will not solve the great mystery of where the universe in toto came from, but because it suggests that we can "autocreate", it does seem likely to affect our own relationship to the creative power of God. Again, it seems, we could turn to the transformative view of creation, augmented by the view that we participate in the transformation. Perhaps, instead of seeing God as an agent who acted in the distant past, we will see God as the Power of Creation, and hold that we too share in that power. If asked whether we are "playing God" by engaging in human cloning, we might respond, "Yes, for God is in us too." We might even stress that creation lies not merely in changing the world, but in changing it for the better. It is easy to imagine the ideological earthquake this inference represents. One can then understand why the religious reaction about human cloning has been so strong. But as we are stuck with technoscience that produces and is able to produce many other possibilities like human cloning which have the ability to reveal some hidden potential of human beings and to change the conceptions we have from ourselves, it will be judicious to find a sort of anthropology suitable to the unceasingly groundbreaking conceptions of ourselves we will be obliged to manage. This anthropology can be framed as the negative or apophatic anthropology, a term coined by Pierre Antoine, a French Jesuit and professor of philosophy19. 3- Negative or Apophatic Anthropology Negative or apophatic anthropology is a counterpart, in its kind, of what was negative or apophatic theology for theology. It stresses the fact that human nature cannot be assumed to be totally known. A great amount of knowledge about it is still to be gained. In other words, as 16 Thomas A. SHANNON & Allan B. WOLTER, art. cit., p. 620-621. 17 Roy BHASKAR, The Possibility of Naturalism: a Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences, Harvester Wheatsheaf, London, 1989. 18 J. R. COHEN, «In God's Garden. Creation and Cloning in Jewish Thought», Hastings Center Report 29 (4), 1999, p. 10-11: 19 P. ANTOINE, Morale sans anthropologie, Paris, Épi, 1970, p. 13-14 : En dépit des exagérations polémiques de certains de ses promoteurs, le thème actuel de la fin de l’humanisme recouvre une constatation manifeste qui doit être comprise. Ce n’est pas la fin de l’homme, car il est clair que l’homme, avec ses joies et ses peines, ses craintes et ses espoirs, ses recherches tâtonnantes, ses échecs et ses réussites, ses combats et ses amours, existe toujours, aujourd’hui comme hier. C’est la fin d’une image de l’homme, et l’impossibilité de substituer une nouvelle image à l’ancienne. Affirmer dogmatiquement que l’homme est image de Dieu, ici, ne résout rien, - ou plutôt devrait nous manifester que, de même que nous ressentons le besoin, après des certitudes trop rapides et des représentations trop naïves, d’une sérieuse cure de théologie négative, il nous faut aussi accepter de rentrer en même temps dans la nuit obscure de ce qu’on pourrait appeler une anthropologie négative. 361 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics apophatic theology is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation, an attempt to gain and express knowledge of God by describing what God is not (apophasis), rather than by describing what God is, negative or apophatic anthropology is an attempt to gain and express knowledge of human beings by describing what they are not, rather than what they are. As such, it is neither agnosticism nor nihilism. If it has any target at all, the latter is only dogmatism. 362 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics THE FUNDAMENTALITY OF THE PRAXIS-POIÉSIS DISTINCTION IN ARISTOTLE’S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS Rev. Fr. M. Lorenz Moises J. Festin San Carlos Seminary, College of Philosophy Makati City, Philippines Introduction Through centuries Aristotle’s ethical teachings have been subjected to divergent interpretations that are not necessarily congruent with one another. One concrete example of such is his doctrine concerning eudaimonia. Is the Aristotelian eudaimonia to be understood purely as a theoretical activity? Or does it also have a practical dimension? Opinions are conflicting. And while we can reduce these to two clearly opposed tendencies – for example, the inclusivist and dominant interpretations1 – , the diversity of perspectives can hardly be ignored. In this paper, I intend to consider one fundamental differentiation that Aristotle makes in his ethical discussions, namely the praxis-poiésis distinction (translated in English as act or action and making respectively). I will argue that such a differentiation can help us clarify not only the problem surrounding our reading of Aristotelian eudaimonia, but also and more basically the question concerning moral perspectives, which I believe represents the sticking point among the various ethical theories. I have divided this paper into three parts. First, I begin with an analysis of Aristotle’s praxis-poiésis distinction as enunciated in the Nicomachean Ethics. In the second part, I delve into the implications of the distinction on some basic points in Aristotle’s philosophy, particularly his theory concerning entelechy and actualization. And in the third, I attempt to employ the distinction to explain the difference between Aristotelian ethics and other ethical theories. The Praxis-Poiésis Distinction Aristotle, in the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, asserts that praxis and poiésis have both similarity and difference. At 1140a1-5, he states, “Among things that can be otherwise are included both things made and things done; making ( ) and acting ( ) are different […], so that the reasoned state of capacity to act is different from the reasoned state of capacity to make.” What distinguishes praxis from poiésis, however, is not clear in the text. It becomes specific only at 1140b4-7 when Aristotle offers a definition of practical wisdom. He writes, “it is a true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to things that are good or bad for man. For while making has an end other than itself, action cannot; for good action itself is its end.” At first glance, the differentiation seems to be clear. Praxis differs from poiésis in that the latter has an end or a good beyond itself, while the end of praxis is found in itself. This implies that if we are to assess our activities, the norm we have to employ for a poiésis type of activity is different 1 See W.F.R. Hardie, “The Final Good in Aristotle’s Ethics,” Philosophy 40 (1965). Hardie coined the terms Dominant and Inclusivist to refer to the two basic interpretations. 363 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics from that of a praxis type. A poiésis type of activity is to be judged in terms of the product it generates, whereas praxis should have a norm internal to it because its end is itself. Thus, to assess the activity involved in a poiésis, say building a house, we need only to look at the end result. In this case it would be the house. We need not take into account the process of building. As long as the house is well made, we can have a positive appraisal of the activity that generated it. The case of praxis would be different. For here we would have to look at the activity itself, since its end is not a separate entity. Thus, it appears that the praxis type of activity is not interested in bringing about anything other than the activity itself. The praxis-poiésis differentiation is quite fundamental. It serves as the basis for the distinction not only between practical wisdom and art, which are two of the five intellectual virtues named by Aristotle, but also and generally between the realm of morality and that of productive pursuits. While morality is concerned with the ethical value of an act, productive pursuits are interested in the products to be generated. The main difference between praxis and poiésis lies in their structure. Poiésis is structured in such a way that it simply aims at a result beyond itself, which can be assessed independently of itself. In contrast, the structure of praxis is such that if it were to receive a positive appraisal, it has to have a certain perfection in itself. Whatever issues out of praxis does not receive as much importance as it does in poiésis, for the focus is the act itself. The distinction between praxis and poiésis may become clearer if we consider another differentiation. In Book Two Aristotle points out how moral virtues differ from arts. And again, the difference is based on the praxis-poiésis distinction. At 1105a26-30, he writes, “Again, the case of arts and that of excellences are not similar; for the products of the arts have their goodness in themselves, so that it is enough that they should have a certain character, but if the acts that are in accordance with the excellences have themselves a certain character it does not follow that they are done justly or temperately.” Aristotle further specifies the requirements necessary for acts to be considered excellent or virtuous. At 1105a30-33, he states, “The agent must also be in a certain condition when he does them; in the first place he must have the knowledge, secondly he must choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes, and thirdly his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character.” Aristotle’s distinction in Book Two is consistent with what he says in Book Six. For it maintains, and even builds on, the fundamental point that Book Six asserts with regard to the structural difference between praxis and poiésis. What Book Two adds to this is the suggestion that praxis is inextricably tied up with its agent. Hence, it must not be evaluated in isolation from the agent. Praxis can be understood only in relation to the agent that accomplishes it. We might thus ask, why does Aristotle employ the example of poiésis to explain the nature of praxis? Why would he in the first place introduce the craft analogy by which he makes a comparison between the two if their structures are essentially diverse? There are a number of commentators who ask similar questions. And often they regard the employment of the craft analogy as having the opposite effect of obfuscating what Aristotle intends to say about praxis. Sarah Broadie, for one, sees in Aristotle someone who came under the influence of “a deeply entrenched way of thinking which he has to fight to resist.”2 Claiming that such an analogy is traceable to the Socratic and Platonic influence, Broadie argues that though well 2 Sarah Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 191. 364 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics aware of its flaws Aristotle nonetheless employed the analogy with the effect of obscuring his treatment of praxis. I would however take exception to Broadie’s claim. Analogies, after all, compare things that are not similar but different. We cannot therefore expect total equivalence between the things that analogies compare. Hence, what is important in the craft analogy is not so much the similarity between praxis and poiésis as their difference. Energeia-Kinésis Distinction The praxis-poiésis distinction also runs parallel to the difference between kinésis and energeia, that is, between movement and activity or actualization. Although Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics does not make an explicit distinction between the two, I believe that the differentiation can help clarify the praxis-poiésis distinction, if not further accentuate its fundamentality and importance in ethics. In his treatment of pleasure in Book Ten, Aristotle argues that pleasure cannot be considered a kinésis. At 1174a14–21, he states, Seeing seems to be at any moment complete, for it does not lack anything which coming into being later will complete its form; and pleasure also seems to be of this nature. For it is a whole, and at no time can one find a pleasure whose form will be completed if the pleasure lasts longer. For this reason, too, it is not a movement ( ). For every movement (e.g. that of building) takes time and is for the sake of an end, and is complete when it has made what it aims at. If pleasure is not a kinésis, then what should we consider it to be? And if it is at any moment complete, would that in any way amount to an instance of energeia? Again Aristotle is silent about the matter. He does not explicitly state that pleasure is a case of energeia. Nevertheless, he does connect the two. Explaining why pleasures are varied, he writes at 1175b24-27, “Now since activities differ in respect of goodness and badness, and some are worthy to be chosen, others to be avoided, and others neutral, so, too, are the pleasures, for to each activity there is a proper pleasure.” The contrast Aristotle makes between pleasure and kinésis on the one hand and the connection he establishes between pleasure and energeia on the other suggest a difference between energeia and kinésis. The question now is: if kinésis is an incomplete event at every moment of its occurrence, which explains why pleasure cannot be a kinésis, would this mean that energeia, with which Aristotle associates pleasure, is complete at every moment? A passage in Metaphysics might help us here. At 1048a30-35, Aristotle writes, “Energeia means the existence of the thing, not in the way we express by ‘potentially’ ( ); we say that potentially ( ), for instance, a statue of Hermes is in the block of wood and the half-line is in the whole, because it might be separated out, and even the man who is not studying we call a man of science, if he is capable of studying. Otherwise, actually ( ).” The differentiation in this text is not between energeia and kinésis, but between energeia and dunamis (or potency in English). Nonetheless, it supplies us with a very important point about energeia, which can help explain its difference with kinésis. For contrasted with dunamis or potency, energeia emerges as the fulfillment or actualization of what used to be mere potentiality. In this case, energeia would really be different from kinésis. For insofar as it is an actualization, it is complete at every moment of its occurrence, whereas kinésis remains incomplete until it is ended. Energeia is complete at every moment because it simply signifies the coming to be of something that used to be mere potentiality. And that would be immediate. 365 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics This is what takes place when one performs one’s ergon (or characteristic function in English). When one carries out one’s proper energeia, one actualizes one’s ergon. And Aristotle characterizes energeia as nothing but the actualization of ergon. In Metaphysics at 1050a21–23, he thus writes, “[For] the action ( ) is the end ( ), and the actuality ( ) is the action ( ). Therefore even the word ‘actuality’ ( ) is derived from ‘action’ ( ), and points to the fulfillment.” Interestingly, that is what Aristotle suggests in Book Ten of the Nicomachean Ethics. At 1176a3-4, he writes, “Each animal is thought to have a proper pleasure, as it has a proper function ( ); viz. that which corresponds to its activity ( ).” Aristotelian Ethics vs. Other Eudaimonist Ethics As we have seen, Aristotle’s assertion in Book Ten that pleasure is not a kinésis leads him to tie it up with energeia. According to Julia Annas, this makes Aristotle quite different from a hedonist, “because he cannot hold that pleasure is one single independently specifiable end which everyone pursues regardless of how they set about it.”3 Similarly, Amélie Rorty describes a self-indulgent person as someone who “separates his pleasures in an activity from the nature of the activity; he pursues his pleasure in the activity rather than finds his pleasures in pursuing the proper end of the activity.”4 Far from being a hedonist, Aristotle sees pleasure not as some end separate from the acts that pursue it, but as something that is inherent in the energeia upon which it supervenes. For this reason, he maintains that each energeia can have its proper pleasure. He states at 1175a29-31, “each of the pleasure is bound up with the activity ( ) it completes. For an activity ( ) is intensified by its proper pleasure.” The difference between Aristotle’s conception of pleasure and that of a hedonist is reminiscent of the praxis-poiésis distinction. As in the structure of poiésis, pleasure for a hedonist is viewed as some end quite separate from the act or activity that brings it about. By identifying pleasure as an end in itself, a hedonist is likely to look at it as some end product generated by the execution of certain acts. The tendency then would be for pleasure to acquire some objective reality such that it comes to be viewed as a commodity for trade and commerce. Pleasure from the Aristotelian perspective, on the other hand, matches the structure of praxis in that, just as the end of praxis is said to be intrinsic to the act, so is pleasure seen as something that is inherent in the act or activity it completes. Hence, just as praxis should not simply be appraised in terms of whatever end result it may bring about, so is pleasure, in Aristotle’s view, not to be assessed independently of the act, as if it were some product or commodity. Indeed, like Aristotle’s ethics, hedonism is a type of eudaimonist ethics, whereby happiness is a major consideration for judging the moral value of an act. Any act that leads to the achievement of eudaimonia is positively appraised. Accordingly, since hedonism identifies eudaimonia with pleasure, any act that generates pleasure – whatever this would eventually consist in – receives a positive assessment. Aristotle conceives eudaimonia quite differently. In Book One, at 1098a16-17, he defines it as “activity of the soul ( ) in conformity with excellence ( ’ ).” Its difference thus with the hedonist conception is not simply in identifying what eudaimonia is. More basic than that is the manner in which eudaimonia is 3 Julia Annas, “Aristotle on Pleasure and Goodness,” in Amélie Rorty’s Essays On Aristotle’s Ethics (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), p. 288. 4 Amélie Rorty, “Akrasia and Pleasure: Nicomachean Ethics Book 7,” in her Essays, p. 272. 366 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics considered in relation to the acts that bring it about. While hedonism tends to look at acts as means to an end (i.e., happiness in the sense of pleasure), Aristotle sees in acts the very actualization of eudaimonia itself. Aristotle’s employment in Book One of the term energeia to describe eudaimonia is quite significant because it underlines the actualization that happens in eudaimonia. This means that eudaimonia is not to be understood as something that is achieved only at the end, as when all pertinent acts have already been carried out and completed. For every act itself can be considered an instance of eudaimonia, as long as it is an actualization of the human ergon. Furthermore, by identifying eudaimonia as energeia, Aristotle renders his brand of eudaimonism unique, making it distinct from other forms of eudaimonism, such as utilitarianism, which identifies happiness with the maximum possible utility or advantage, and consequentialism, which measures the moral worth of an act in terms of its consequences. It’s true, like any other forms of eudaimonism, Aristotelian ethics can be characterized as teleological in its approach. In its assessment of the moral value of human acts, much importance is assigned to the acts’ connection with the ultimate end. But for Aristotle, this ultimate end is not just an end in the sense of goal or purpose. It is an end that is specifically an actualization, an energeia. In this case, while the structure of poiésis may be of help in illustrating the purposiveness of human acts, it cannot exhaustively clarify a very important point about this purposiveness, namely that it consists in an actualization, which can be a continuous process such that every moment of it may be regarded as a complete instance of actualization. Thus, the use of the craft analogy goes only up to a certain extent. And the analogy between praxis and poiésis stops when the question already touches on how to understand the relationship between the means (praxis or poiésis) and the end. For, as Aristotle explicitly states at 1140b6-7, “while making has an end other than itself, action cannot; for good action itself is its end.” Conclusion The praxis-poiésis distinction is quite fundamental in understanding Aristotle’s ethical doctrine. Ignoring the distinction can result in an entirely different approach to ethics. Thus, if there is one basic explanation why many ethical theories run into conflict with Aristotle’s ethics, it is because these theories sometimes regard praxis as if it were a poiésis. We cannot blame them though because there are human actions that can be viewed both as praxis and as poiésis. And this is the case of acts that, while generative of end results, can be appraised in terms of their moral value, regardless even of the objective worth of those results. Consider, for example, the act of telling a lie. The person executing the act may be able to bring about results that are favorable both to him and to other people. And from the point of view of utilitarian ethics, the act may even get a positive assessment for its moral worth. Aristotelian ethics, however, will not judge the morality of the act primarily, let alone simply, on the basis of the advantage it brings about. For the act will be evaluated not so much in terms of its consequence as in terms of the perfection that the act must possess. That is why it is not enough that the act is productive of certain goods. Neither does it suffice that the act is done in accordance with excellence.5 For every human act ought to be an actualization or realization of that which is characteristic of the human agent. And this, according to Aristotle, is no other than the ergon proper to human being. 5 Cf. 1105a26-30. 367 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics A human act, thus, that is generative of objective end results should be assessed separately as praxis and poiésis. As poiésis, it will be evaluated solely by what it brings about, which can take the form of a commodity, an advantage, or even a beneficent gesture, such as service, etc. As praxis, however, it must be considered an actualization (a realization, energeia) of human being’s characteristic ergon. Since, this ergon has to do with rationality, we can say that a human act, if it is to be judged as such, must constitute an actualization of human being’s rational nature.6 At the start of this paper, I made some reference to the opposing views with regard to Aristotle’s doctrine of eudaimonia. Commentators of the Nicomachean Ethics cannot agree whether eudaimonia is a purely contemplative activity or is inclusive of practical activities as well. Although it was not my intention to speak about the inclusivist and dominant tendencies in the debate, we can nonetheless point out very briefly the significance of the praxis-poiésis distinction in interpreting eudaimonia. Eudaimonia, if it were to be understood as an energeia, should not be seen in terms of the poiésis type of activity, as if it were some separate end to be brought about by activities that would serve as its means. (This view of course would endorse the dominant interpretation, which regards eudaimonia as a purely contemplative activity, and the practical activities as mere means to it.) Rather, eudaimonia is an end that is fundamentally an actualization of the human ergon. Thus it can be instantiated not only in purely contemplative activity, but also in practical acts (praxeis) insofar as, and as long as, they are manifestations of the essentially rational human ergon. (Obviously this favors the inclusivist interpretation). As we have seen, the structure of praxis is quite congruent with Aristotle’s characterization of eudaimonia as energeia. For, aside from not having an end other than itself, praxis is likewise assessed insofar as it actualizes the potentiality of the agent. Thus Aristotle, for instance, would say, “if the acts that are in accordance with the excellences have themselves a certain character it does not follow that they are done justly or temperately.” (1105a28-30) The point of Aristotle here is that for an act to be evaluated, it is not enough that it be done in a certain manner, because it is and ought to be no less than an expression and manifestation of the agent himself. 6 Ultimately of course, according to Thomas Aquinas, this would mean that if a human act were to be morally good, it must be characterized, not only by the efficiency that reason affords one in carrying such an act, but also by the information and knowledge this faculty allows one to acquire with regard to principles that ought to guide the execution of the act. 368 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics POST-SECULAR METAPHYSICS AND ETHICS A REPLY TO TED RYAN Adrian Pabst Peterhouse, University of Cambridge In his paper, Ted Ryan seeks to combine metaphysics with criminology in an attempt to offer a better account of the causes and consequences of criminality. In so doing, he coins the term ‘chosinness’, a concept which relates the factual evil of crime to the metaphysical reality of the good. His approach is of interest to philosophy and theology because he critiques not only secular Nazi ideology but also religious fundamentalism. This is in many respects an ambitious project. First, Ted Ryan rejects – quite rightly – the exclusion of metaphysics from social sciences and denounces the hegemony of empiricism and positivism which dictate research in the field of humanities in general and in criminology in particular. As he cogently explains, to exclude metaphysics from the analysis of crime is to dismiss both evidence and conceptual resources that help explain the fundamental causes of criminal activity and behaviour. This is significant for theological accounts of violence, especially the justification and legitimation of persecution and terrorism on the part of religious movements as varied as Calvinist Puritanism and Islamic Wahhabism. No secular theory could ever describe or elucidate the ideology of hatred which is at work in these two forms of extremism – a violent iconoclasm that destroys religious images and instead erects secular simulacra that worship absolute power. This is because conventional concepts drawn from the social sciences dismiss metaphysics and embrace positivism.1 Thus they tend to reduce criminal behaviour to empirical factors like poverty and exclusion. If violence is the result of socio-economic upheaval, then surely economic growth and social progress will cure most if not all evils. But this sort of blind faith in the secular utopia of progress is deluded.2 Socio-economic development may well mitigate the occurrence of violent behaviour, but it cannot explain why certain groups or individuals who are not economically or socially marginalised resort to violence on the basis of an ideology – most terrorist masterminds and suicide bombers tend to come from well-educated middle-class backgrounds.3 Nor can positivism understand how only a religious critique can hope to dissuade all those who use violence in the name of religion. What we are currently witnessing is not a ‘clash of civilisations’ but a battle of rival secular religions and practices that embody them. All three strands of monotheism have produced extremist movements which deploy systematic violence under the garb of a purified faith. Based on Biblical references to Great Israel, Zionist settlers call on the secular Israeli army and deny the Palestinians the right of existence in the Holy Land. In the past, 1 John Gray has traced the religious extremism of the Wahhabi ideology to nineteenth-century positivism. See his Al Qaeda or What it Means to be Modern (London: Faber and Faber, 2003). On the ‘secular religion’ of nineteenth-century positivism, see Andrew Wernick, Auguste Comte and the Religion of Humanity: The Post-theistic Program of French Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 2 For John Gray’s critique of secular utopias of progress, see his Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions (London: Granta Books, 2004). 3 One prominent example is Sayyid Qutb, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. For some biographical elements on Qutb, see Paul Berman, ‘The Philosopher of Islamic Terror’, New York Times Magazine (23rd March 2003); id., Terror and Liberalism (New York: W W Norton & Company, 2003). 369 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics Calvinist Puritans repudiated their European brothers and sought to build a theocracy in America. Nowadays, Evangelicals promise their followers an eternal community – composed only of themselves. In the blind belief of their own self-righteousness, they want to refashion the whole world in their own image. 4 Islamists aim to recreate the Imperial caliphate and justify the indiscriminate killing of apostates and unbelievers. All these forms of religious extremism share profoundly secular characteristics in common: first, they are grounded in literalist interpretations of original religious texts (rather than allegorical readings which were the norm in the Middle Ages); secondly they lay exclusivist claims to authority and legitimacy; thirdly, they advocate and justify the use of violence against internal and external enemies; fourthly, they are messianic and apocalyptic. Only an alternative account of Judaism, Christianity and Islam can marginal such and similar extremists and restore a more mediating position which does not view the world in terms of a perpetual struggle between good and evil but instead considers the good primary to evil. Below I return to the primacy of the good. Ted Ryan’s project is also ambitious for a second reason. His critique is not confined to academic research but extends to the prevailing political discourse – the debate between secular liberals and religious conservatives. I agree with him that this debate is sterile and misses the bigger picture because it is at once too specific and too general. Too specific because, as Ted Ryan shows, the medical model which this debate refers to does not properly apply to 80 per cent of offenders. Too general because the rival moral models which contemporary liberalism and conservatism defend and advocate destroy rather than preserve the diversity of an increasingly plural society. Indeed, both secular liberals and religious conservatives despise genuine difference and distinction and instead promote uniformity and conventionalism. Liberals purport to defend equality and to fight for social justice. Yet at the same time, they privatise religion and promote an impoverished, banal, utilitarian ethic that consists of nothing but self-gratification. Conservatives claim to defend freedom and to fight for universal prosperity. Yet at the same time, they endorse a ‘free-market’ capitalism that causes a precipitate fall in social mobility and an alarming rise in poverty and inequality. What is worse, Millenarian conservatives even deny the moral claims of the poor. They preach a gospel of prosperity and pervert Christian teachings by conflating the elect with the wealthy. Both secular liberals and religious conservatives talk the language of tolerance, but in reality they impose their own exclusive moral visions. Ultimately, both liberals and conservatives defend variants of a deeply ‘secular’ creed. Liberals insist that liberal principles are neutral, but they do not acknowledge the secular values which inform liberal ‘neutrality’. Thus they cling to a secular utopia that promises infinite progress and views the costs of ‘modernisation’ as little more than collateral damage. Conservatives assert that freedom and morality are universal, but they are incapable of providing a rationally intelligible account of their faith. Thus they think that history is on their side and licenses war and exploitation in the pursuit of God’s kingdom on earth. Both positions are secular because they tend to see the world in dualist terms and advocate an ideology which is as absolutist as it is arbitrary. To say this raises questions about the nature of criminality and the relation between politics and ethics in a context of pluralism. What is clear is that the causes of criminal behaviour can no longer be reduced to the positivist illusion of ‘empirical facts’ or the transcendental fallacy of God’s righteous wrath. Instead, criminal violence must be seen as an ontological problem – a problem of what is and what ought to be. I have argued elsewhere that St. Augustine’s definition of evil as the privation of the Good (privation boni) provides a metaphysical account which is neither absolutist nor arbitrary because it is based on reason and on a phenomenological re-description of the world.5 4 Michael Northcott, An Angel Directs the Storm: Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004). 5 See my ‘The World as God’s Wisdom: Towards a Politics of Transformation’, in Adrian Pabst and Christoph Schneider eds., Transfiguring the World through the Word (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). 370 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics Evil marks a departure from the Good and thus a violent rupture with the peace and harmony of creation. As such, evil negates and destroy the goodness of being. To be is to be good because each and every being constitutes a singular expression of God’s utter love and goodness. Thus creation as a whole and each particular member of the universal body is a unique reflection of divine creativity, irreplaceable and inimitable. As Ted Ryan suggests, non-metaphysical theories of crime fail to recognise that crime is part of a secular or theocratic ideology which destroys life and denies the universal goodness of God. This brings me to my last point. Even though there is much to celebrate in Ted Ryan’s paper, I have some reservations about some core aspects of his project. His understanding of metaphysics and the relation between the self and the other are open to question. My concern is his post-modern language and conceptuality. The danger is that this sort of metaphysical discourse is dualistic, for example Ted Ryan’s phrase that ‘‘the failure to close this criminological-metaphysical with metaphysical criminology is […] a metaphysical failure in understanding the core good and evil dichotomy and dynamics of humanity’’ (p. 2, my italics). In using such and similar dualisms, post-positivist metaphysics risks repeating the mistakes of modern foundationalism – in particular the separation of philosophy from theology, reason from faith and nature from the supernatural. Concomitantly, evil is ‘situated’ at the same ontological station as the Good, which is reminiscent of the Manichean idea of a perpetual cosmic struggle between the forces of light and darkness. Rather than trying to rescue modern or post-modern thought, I contend that only a recovery and extension of pre- or non-modern metaphysics and ethics constitutes a genuine alternative to the secular logic of philosophic empiricism and logical positivism. The crucial difference is that the Good is not an abstract concept but instead a phenomenally visible reality which can be perceived by the senses and thus be grasped by the mind. For Augustine and Boethius, even after the Fall the world discloses God’s creative activity which brings everything into being and makes it what it is. Based on Plato’s theory of the intra-participation of forms and the Monos and the Dyad which enables plurality, Augustine and Boethius conceived unity as eternally related to created diversity which is present eminently within God. The asymmetrical relation between the one and the many follows from an absolute and symmetrical relation within the Trinity and conserves the ultimate value of the immanent individual. Both Augustine and Boethius recast the Platonist account of individuation in the direction of Trinitarian relationality. Contrary to Aristotle who separated the Prime Mover from the sublunary world, Plato viewed the Good as transcendent and immanent. It is both immutable and generative because unlike the self-directed energy of ‘thought thinking itself’, the Good is ecstatic and exteriorising. In part, Augustine inherited this vision from Plotinus who (unlike his disciple Porphyry) developed a metaphysics which was more Platonist than Aristotelian. Above all, Augustine was influenced by the Plotinian idea that One is ecstatic plenitude and that its generative activity is the source of all existence. However, Augustine also remodelled Aristotle’s metaphysics of act and potency in order to explain how matter is created ex nihilo (rather than presupposed) and how it is always already formed in the sense of being imparted with the capacity of receiving form. He broke new ground by arguing that the world, even after the Fall, intimates its createdness because everything is constituted by numbers and numbers are themselves ordered harmoniously by analogous ratios or proportions. Since nothing is by itself, all things intimate a higher transcendent source which is fully relational. He viewed Aristotle’s categories of substance and relation as insufficient in order to account for the relationality of the soul and God. Boethius systematised the relational nature of the divine substance and also transformed Augustine’s theory of illumination by arguing that to perceive particulars is in some sense to cognise universals. In this way Boethius synthesised Plato and Aristotle and also sketched the contours of scholastic theology and philosophy, including dialectical questions and the metaphysical framing of logic and mathematics. Most importantly, he followed the Platonist framework of relationality and participation and connected it with the Trinitarian relations, in such a 371 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics way as to connect vertical with horizontal relationality. For Boethius, created relationality participates in some sense in the absolute substantial relationality of the Trinity. Thus created being can be said to be good yet also perfectible because it only exists by receiving being from God who only is in the giving of being. Conjointly, the ‘ontological difference’ between God and creation and the relationality of created beings led to a new understanding of the relation between the world and the triune God. For participation in God’s utter plenitude and goodness follows from the unreserved relationality between the divine persons and the gift of relation to creation.6 The patristic and medieval metaphysics of relationality which I have sketched briefly offers an alternative to contemporary variants of dualism, monism and pluralism. It questions the assumption that the one and the many are opposed and that this opposition is founded upon an irreducible violence between contrary principles. Instead, there is an asymmetrical relation between unity and diversity which is grounded in a symmetrical relation within the triune Godhead and which provides the foundation for peaceful practising relations across creation. This account also rejects the very terms of ‘post-modern’ philosophy and politics, above all the dichotomy between the self and the other in much of contemporary philosophy and between the individual and the community in the debates between liberals and communitarians. A metaphysics and politics of individuating relations blends self-identity and alterity and binds together individuality and communality by relating them back to their shared transcendent origin which brings everything into being and makes what it is a particular reflection of the universal Good, a unique and singular expression of God’s self-communicative actualisation in the world. There can be no genuine metaphysics or politics without theology because nothing is self-sufficient, everything comes from a higher transcendent source. This absolute transcendence does not stand apart from the world but is at the heart of immanence, for God is ‘‘more interior to me than I to myself (Deus interior intimo meo)’’ (Conf. III, vi, 11). So configured, only Christian theology can offer a genuinely transformative politics which preserves the Good and promotes its radical extension, beyond any divisions of race or class: ‘‘By the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens’’ (1 Cor 12: 13). 6 For a more detailed exposition of this reading of Augustine, see my PhD thesis, ‘Creation and Individuation. Theology and politics in patristic, medieval and early modern thought’ (submitted at the University of Cambridge, June 2006), chap. 2. 372 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics “¿ES POSIBLE UNA LEGITIMACIÓN METAFÍSICA DEL ESTADO MODERNO?” Pérez Zafrilla Pedro Jesús Departamento de Filosofía del Derecho, Moral y Política, Facultad de Filosofía y Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad de Valencia. España El problema de la legitimación metafísica del Estado ha recibido una diversidad de respuestas a lo largo de la historia. Tales respuestas constituyen distintas formas de entender la relación entre la moral y la acción política. Hasta la época moderna, la relación entre estos dos conceptos, moral y política, ha estado caracterizada por la continuidad o armonía de la política dentro del sistema moral de la comunidad, o si se quiere, de subordinación de la política a la moral. Dentro de las comunidades antiguas era compartido un sistema moral concreto, generalmente emanado de una tradición religiosa, que proporcionaba a sus miembros unas creencias (antropológicas y escatológicas), folklore, tradiciones, cultura … que constituían el modo de organización de esa sociedad y la concepción que tenía de sí misma y del lugar que ocupaba en el mundo. En esta situación, la religión mantenía un especial vínculo con la política, ya que proporcionaba una legitimación ideológica del poder estatuido. A cambio, la política permitía un estatus privilegiado a la casta sacerdotal, encargada de la transmisión del culto y los textos sagrados. Ahora bien, la continuidad entre moral y política no se produce únicamente dentro de las comunidades organizadas bajo una concepción religiosa. Por ejemplo, Grecia era una región particular de la antigüedad donde la religión carecía de un papel legitimador de la vida moral, debido a la inexistencia de una casta sacerdotal y una doctrina teológica que transmitir. Así los relatos míticos más importantes eran los poemas de Homero y Hesíodo, que no pretendían transmitir una doctrina teológica firme. Estos relatos no eran comparables a los de otras culturas de la época, como la Torá hebrea o el Enuma elish babilónico, que sí gozaban de un estatus teológico sobre el que se asentaba la autocomprensión de la sociedad. Del mismo modo, los sacerdotes griegos se limitaban a la realización de los cultos y el mantenimiento de los templos, pero no desempeñaban un papel especial en la sociedad. Pero a pesar de todo, también se entendía que entre moral y política existía una relación de continuidad. Así lo expresa Aristóteles en su Ética a Nicómaco: “Y por supuesto que la política se sirve de las demás ciencias y prescribe, además, qué se debe hacer y qué se debe evitar, el fin de ella incluirá los fines de las demás ciencias, de modo que constituirá el bien del hombre.”1 No obstante, la reflexión sobre la relación entre ética y política en los casos señalados no puede equipararse con la que se da a partir de la época moderna. Antes, esa relación no contaba con ningún problema: la sociedad estaba sujeta a un mismo orden moral desde el que se podía juzgar la acción política. La unidad estaba presupuesta antes de la valoración. En cambio, como afirma Hegel en la Fenomenología del Espíritu, con la modernidad esa unidad de moral y política se resquebraja. 1 ARISTÓTELES. Ética a Nicómaco. Trad. Julio Pallí Bonet. Madrid: Gredos, 1998. 1094b 5 373 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics El reino de la cultura (el ámbito político y económico) y el mundo de la fe (la moralidad) se escinden.2 Frente a la época antigua, la Modernidad tiene una principal característica: la ruptura de la unidad religiosa (moral) de Europa en torno al Papado. La ruptura de la unidad moral y la formación de nuevas confesiones religiosas provocaron serios problemas sociales y políticos, que degeneraron en las cruentas guerras de religión de los siglos XVI y XVII. Estas guerras tuvieron una causa clara: de repente había surgido el pluralismo moral en un mundo acostumbrado al monismo y Europa no sabía cómo enfrentarse a esta nueva situación.3 De este modo la pregunta es clara: ¿cómo debía reaccionar la política ante el hecho del pluralismo? En esta época encontraremos dos posiciones distintas desde las que abordar el problema. Una primera es la que se eligió en España: combatir el pluralismo en pos de mantener la unidad de la fe católica dentro del Estado. Esta postura de intransigencia con el pluralismo, que vamos a analizar a continuación, tenía una razón histórica: en España no se dieron guerras de religión. Estas guerras se dieron en los Países Bajos, Francia, Suiza y Alemania, donde surgieron los principales focos de protestantismo. Sin embargo, en España la doctrina protestante sólo se difundió en pequeñas comunidades en las principales ciudades, que pronto fueron erradicadas por la Inquisición.4 No tenía sentido aceptar el pluralismo cuando los primeros enemigos del imperio de los austrias eran los príncipes alemanes. Dadas estas circunstancias no es de extrañar que los teóricos españoles de la razón de Estado condenaran el hecho del pluralismo moral. Entre ellos el caso paradigmático lo ocupa el Padre Rivadeneira. En 1595 publicó Tratado de la religión y virtudes que debe tener el príncipe cristiano, contra lo que Nicolás Maquiavelo y otros políticos de este tiempo enseñan. En esta obra, dedica varios capítulos a la crítica del pluralismo religioso, el cual debe ser perseguido y erradicado por el monarca. Así dice, por ejemplo, en el capítulo XVII, “Que el príncipe católico debe cuidarse de la religión que profesan sus súbditos”: “… no debe el príncipe cristiano permitir herejes y hombres de varias y contrarias sectas en sus Estados, si quiere cumplir bien con el oficio y obligación del cristiano príncipe.”5 Y en el capítulo XXIII, titulado “Que es imposible que hagan buena liga herejes con católicos en una república” se muestra si cabe más contundente: “Nuestra santa religión es como una reina hermosísima y de grande majestad, venida del cielo, que no admite fealdad, ni diversidad de opiniones, ni cosa que no sea celestial y divina… así es imposible que en el mundo espiritual de la Iglesia haya más de una fe y de una religión, por lo cual ella está abrazada con Cristo.”6 Estas son algunas muestras de la condena al pluralismo que podemos encontrar en la obra del P. Rivadeneira, y constituyen un claro reflejo de la mentalidad de la sociedad española de la época. Como dijimos, España se enrocó ante el pluralismo y pretendió mantener la unidad religiosa junto al Papado, con la que legitimar su papel en el mundo. De este modo se mantenía la unión entre 2 HEGEL, G.W.F. (2000) Fenomenología del espíritu. Trad. Wenceslao Roces. 1ª edic. 6ª reimp. México et alt: F. C. E., p.261 3 Pero en realidad ese pluralismo se daba a un doble nivel: al producido dentro de Europa por la Reforma se unía el provocado por el descubrimiento de América décadas atrás. De repente, Europa se encontraba ante unas nuevas culturas descubiertas que no encajaban de ninguna manera en los esquemas judeocristianos ni grecolatinos. En ningún texto de la antigüedad se daba razón de ellas. 4 Lugar especial ocuparon los moriscos, que también acabarían siendo expulsados en 1609 en pos de conseguir la unidad de la moral en el país. 5 FERNÁNDEZ GARCÍA, E. (1997) Entre la razón de Estado y el Estado de derecho. Madrid: Dykinson. p.20 6 Ibíd. 374 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics moral y política, subordinando la acción política a la doctrina católica. Sin embargo, esta forma de hacer política suponía dar la espalda a la realidad histórica, en la que se afianzaba el hecho del pluralismo. Por ello no debe extrañarnos el continuo declinar del imperio español en esa época. Frente a esta postura, encontramos la que mantiene la escisión entre ética y política. La opción española consistía en mantener la unión entre ética y política, pero esto suponía aplastar todo intento de pluralismo dentro de la nación. En cambio, en el centro de Europa, los estragos producidos por las guerras de religión, hicieron inevitable el reconocimiento del pluralismo moral, y esto pasó por la escisión entre moral y política. Pero esta segunda vía debe resolver un problema: ¿qué límites morales debe marcarse al Estado? ¿quedaría libre de toda limitación moral? Es evidente que la política no puede verse encorsetada por una doctrina concreta, porque en esa comunidad se encuentran otras doctrinas irreconciliables con ésta que no permitirían esa situación, prolongándose así la guerra de religión. Por ello, la solución pasará por no someterse a ninguna, es decir, que la política deje de fundamentarse trascendentalmente acudiendo a religiones determinadas: se escindían definitivamente política y moral. Evidentemente cada persona puede valorar moralmente la acción de un gobierno, pero lo que no puede suceder es que un gobierno legisle guiado por los preceptos de una determinada religión. Ahora la política ya no se guía por criterios de moralidad sino de eficiencia, constituyendo así un orden independiente de la moral. La moral rige el foro interno de los individuos; la política lo hace en el foro externo de las relaciones de los sujetos. El fin que busca la política, la conservación del Estado, es superior a la concepción de lo moralmente aceptable que tengan los sujetos. Sólo este proceder puede acabar con los conflictos civiles que asolaban Europa. El único modo de mantener la paz es no regirse por ninguna doctrina. La paz es el mayor logro del sistema político por aquel entonces, y no puede someterse a limitación moral de ningún tipo. Ahora bien, ¿vale todo para el mantenimiento del Estado? Parece lógico responder a esta pregunta con un “no”. Una política separada de la moral deriva claramente en el absolutismo. Si el bien del todo es lo importante, el soberano no dudaría de pasar por encima de los derechos de los ciudadanos, y utilizando medios de dudosa moralidad, con tal de cumplir la función que le ha sido encomendada. No por casualidad la gran mayoría de los países eran monarquías absolutistas. En aquel entonces la aporía entre unión o escisión de política y moral era indisoluble. La unión implicaba la no aceptación del pluralismo. Pero aceptar el pluralismo suponía romper con la moral y abocarse a un poder absoluto que tendría carta blanca para llevar a cabo su labor, si es menester pisoteando los derechos de los ciudadanos. Ante esta declarada aporía entre un monismo que da la espalda a la realidad y un absolutismo que aborrece de toda limitación moral al condenar a ésta al foro interno, ¿no cabe una vía intermedia que mantenga el pluralismo a la vez que ponga unos límites morales a la acción del poder político? En la actualidad se ha mantenido la imposibilidad de fijar límites morales a la política, más allá de los legislativos. Esta hipótesis ha sido mantenida por Weber con su conocido “politeísmo axiológico”: En la modernidad triunfa la racionalidad instrumental, que progresivamente va atrofiando los demás ámbitos de la vida social, también el político. De este modo, la política pasará a regirse por la racionalidad de medios-fines, de la eficiencia, independientemente de lo que pueda considerarse bueno o malo.7 Y es que la moral sigue recluida en la subjetividad de los sujetos, y carece por tanto de racionalización. Los valores últimos de las personas son inconmensurables, por 7 BOBBIO, N. (1997) “Razón de Estado y democracia” en Elogio de la templanza y otros escritos morales. Madrid: Temas de Hoy pp.141-2 375 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics lo que ninguno sirve para la legitimación política. Según esta perspectiva no existiría tanto un pluralismo sino un politeísmo moral.8 Pero también es cierto que el poder político necesita una legitimación que va más allá de la mera eficiencia técnica. El poder político no podía pasar por encima de ciertos límites morales que se consideraban por todos como irrevasables. Esta idea fue afianzándose en los países pluralistas y pretendía un modo de legitimar moralmente el poder político. O lo que es lo mismo, fue un intento de recomponer la relación entre moral y política. Ahora bien, el intento de recomponer la unión de moral y política no podía pasar por medio de una religión concreta. El proyecto debía ser menos ambicioso, pero no por ello menos importante. Se trata más bien de crear una ética de mínimos morales compartida por todos los ciudadanos, más allá de los máximos que los separan, que permita juzgar la legitimidad o no de las distintas políticas. Esta es la conocida como ética cívica. La ética cívica consiste en el conjunto de valores y normas que los miembros de una sociedad democrática comparten, más allá de cuáles sean sus cosmovisiones religiosas, filosóficas o morales. Este mínimo les lleva a comprender que la convivencia de concepciones diversas es fecunda, y que cada cuál puede tener su concepción de vida buena mientras no interrumpa el proyecto de vida de los demás. Pero, ¿qué es exactamente y hasta dónde llega una ética de mínimos? La ética de mínimos irá presentando al poder político una serie de exigencias irrenunciables, que pasarán por una progresiva democratización del poder, hasta los sistemas parlamentarios contemporáneos.9 En segundo lugar, ¿cuáles serían esos mínimos? Los contenidos de esa ética de mínimos serían sustancialmente los siguientes: Primero, la concepción de las personas como ciudadanos. En las sociedades democráticas las personas no son súbditas, como ocurría en el absolutismo. Encontramos también el valor de la libertad, como pieza clave de la realización de los sujetos. En tercer lugar, tenemos la igualdad, aunque, eso sí, entendida a un mero nivel formal, como igualdad de derechos y oportunidades. Pero sobretodo es propio de la ética cívica el valor de la tolerancia. Pero no se trata de una tolerancia pasiva, consistente en el mero no inmiscuirse en el proyecto de vida de los demás. Es en cambio una tolerancia activa. Ésta consiste en la disposición a respetar los proyectos ajenos. Finalmente, una vez expuesto el contenido de la ética cívica, ¿qué papel jugaría ésta en la sociedad? A partir de esos mínimos éticos es sobre los que podemos criticar la inmoralidad del comportamiento de otras personas o instituciones que violan tales mínimos. Este mínimo moral parece la única solución viable para lograr la unión entre moral y política dentro de una sociedad pluralista. Otra cuestión sería qué hacer con las concepciones del bien que se niegan a someterse a esos mínimos morales. Qué hacer por ejemplo con las religiones que no comparten la idea de la igualdad de sexos o que no aceptan la tolerancia religiosa. Esta es sin duda una interesante cuestión que nos abre a un gran abanico de problemas relacionados con la política del multiculturalismo o el límite de la tolerancia liberal. Pero estos son temas que desbordan, con mucho, el límite de nuestra investigación. Respecto a ellos diremos lo siguiente. La ética cívica presenta unos mínimos concretos, pero no son unos mínimos cualquiera. Como hemos dicho, tienen un origen claro, la idea de la tolerancia de los países protestantes tras la paz de Westfalia. Y un contenido, el de la tradición liberal, como es posible deducir de los elementos señalados. Todo proyecto de vida buena que 8 CORTINA, A. (1996) Ética mínima. 5ª edic. Madrid: Técnos, pp.150-2 9 No obstante esas exigencias no han concluido, como muestran las nuevas propuestas de una democracia más participativa, como corrección del sistema representativo, que ha degenerado en la anomia de los ciudadanos que ya denunciara Tocqueville. 376 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics pretenda desarrollarse entre nosotros debe compartir inexcusablemente esos valores. De lo contrario, estará incapacitado para vivir en esta sociedad. Los mínimos de la ética cívica no son fruto de una negociación sin más entre unas tradiciones cualquiera (“lo que todos podrían negociar”), sino del acuerdo llegado tras las guerras de religión del Barroco entre Iglesias cristianas. Son por ello valores de herencia netamente cristiana, evangélica, mejor dicho: la dignidad de la persona, la igualdad, la libertad, la tolerancia... que luego hará suyos la Ilustración y el liberalismo. Por eso, si llega a nosotros una tradición nueva no se rehacen de nuevo los mínimos, sino que debe adaptarse a los ya existentes. Yes que en realidad, el conjunto de los valores propugnados por las distintas culturas es muy amplio para caber en un solo mundo social. No hay un único conjunto de instituciones que pueda dar cabida a todos ellos. Tampoco la democracia liberal, pues como el mismo Rawls se vio obligado a reconocer, el liberalismo bebe de las fuentes de una tradición concreta y afirma la superioridad de determinadas concepciones, las que incluyen un conjunto de virtudes morales como la igualdad o la tolerancia, con las que se perfila el ideal de buen ciudadano en un Estado democrático.10 Tales doctrinas son “estimuladas” por el liberalismo y consideradas como dignas de observancia ciudadana. No puede, por ello, incluir en sus instituciones a cualquier doctrina, sino sólo a las acordes con los mínimos de justicia propios de la sociedad.11 10 RAWLS, J. (1996) ) Liberalismo político. Trad. Antoni Doménech. Barcelona: Crítica. p.228, cfr. p.244 11 Ibíd. p.227 377 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics BIBLIOGRAFÍA: ARANGUREN, José Luís L. (1968) Ética y política. Madrid: Guadarrama. ARISTÓTELES (1998) Ética a Nicómaco. Trad. Julio Pallí Bonet. 1ª edic. 4ª reimp. Madrid: Gredos. (2000) Política. Trad. Manuela García Valdés. Madrid: Gredos. BOBBIO, Norberto. (1997) “Razón de Estado y democracia” en Elogio de la templanza y otros escritos morales. Madrid: Temas de Hoy. CORTINA, Adela. (1991) La moral del camaleón. Madrid: Espasa.et alt. (1994) Ética de la empresa. Madrid: Trotta.(1996) Ética mínima. 5ª edic. Madrid: Técnos. FERNÁNDEZ GARCÍA, Eusebio (1997) Entre la razón de Estado y el Estado de derecho. Madrid: Dykinson. HEGEL, G. W. F. (2000) Fenomenología del espíritu. Trad. Wenceslao Roces. 1ª edic. 6ª reimp. México et alt: F. C. E. MAQUIAVELO, Nicolás. (2003) Discurso sobre la primera Década de Tito Livio. Madrid: Alianza. PEÑA ECHEVARRÍA, F. J. y CASTILLO VEGAS, J. L. (1998) La razón de Estado en España: siglos xvl-xvll (Antología de textos). Madrid: Técnos. RAWLS, Jhon. (1996) Liberalismo político. Trad. Antoni Doménech. Barcelona: Crítica. 378 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics ETICA Y METAFÍSICA EN TORNO A LA HUMANIZACIÓN DE LA SALUD Angel Rodríguez Guerro Profesor Adjunto de la Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile 1. Introducción El por qué de este artículo, surge, no para negar algo que es demasiado evidente, como es, el inmenso bien que la ciencia y la tecnología puestas al servicio de la medicina han hecho al ser humano. El aumento de las capacidades resolutivas de la medicina ha hecho mucho más natural resolver situaciones que años atrás hubiera sido imposible. Esto ha llevado a aumentar las expectativas de buenos resultados en los tratamientos, así como, a un mayor conocimiento de la información. Aunque ésta a veces haya sido mal adquirida por parte de los pacientes ha aumentado, como consecuencia, el deseo de autonomía por parte de los mismos. Por otro lado la medicina no ha aceptado ninguna disciplina que desde fuera de ella misma, le impusiera alguna metodología con la que contemplar al paciente desde el ámbito experiencial o vivencial en el que, sin duda, se mueve la vida entera de todo ser humano, médico o paciente que sea. Pero sí hay un hecho innegable que ha ido produciendo una progresiva deshumanización de la medicina. Este hecho, de naturaleza antropológica, está producido por el reduccionismo al que la medicina, prestando fe sólo a su método experimental, ha sometido poco a poco al paciente que cuida. La medicina se ha dedicado a curar el dolor de los tejidos, huesos, nervios y órganos del ser humano y ha olvidado frecuentemente el sufrimiento del espíritu o persona que los sostiene. El método experimental da sólo a los primeros el derecho de ciudadanía, dejando al espíritu o persona fuera. Y así, aunque los médicos son cada vez más capaces de curar las enfermedades, ha ido apareciendo una desconfianza en general del paciente hacia el médico en algunos ámbitos dentro del ejercicio de la medicina. El arte médico de la curación está siendo poco a poco reemplazado por el tratamiento médico y el arte de escuchar al enfermo ha sido reemplazado por procedimientos técnicos. Se llega también a razonar, en estos casos, que debido al progreso de la medicina, numerosas enfermedades pueden ser curadas independientemente de la relación que el médico tenga con el paciente y, por tanto, la relación médico-paciente no es un factor esencial: una vez más se pone la atención en la enfermedad no en el enfermo. La técnica ha invadido fuertemente, que duda cabe, el clásico arte médico, la medicina ha sido cada vez más, sustituida por la técnica y por las demandas económicas que esto ocasiona. Muchas veces el paciente percibe que el interés primario del médico no es el paciente mismo sino un cierto interés económico. Hay una serie de realidades que contribuyen a este clima de aumento de desconfianza, que aunque se da más en las sociedades industrializadas, es un fenómeno social que se está extendiendo; así, entre otras características están: el aumento de las demandas por fallos en la práctica médica, la comercialización de la medicina con el uso de extensa propaganda, el salario alto de muchos de los médicos, la economía de mercado que prevalece en la sociedad, el pagar antes del tratamiento, la carencia de trato personal entre el médico y el paciente. Por otra parte, el médico vive bajo el miedo a ser demandado, está sujeto a una excesiva demanda de tiempo personal, y muchos pasan los primeros años de práctica endeudados por los gastos de la educación. 379 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics En palabras de H. Giannini1, suena todavía más fuerte lo que acabamos de exponer: “La relación médico enfermo se ha vuelto endeble, superficial, mediatizada. Nosotros los enfermos, llegamos al médico después de recorrer largos pasillos por los pisos de ostentosos edificios, símbolos de poder y de impersonalidad. Llegamos premunidos de exámenes y documentos que vuelven casi innecesaria nuestra presencia, inútil nuestra propia experiencia del mal que nos aqueja. En la especialización salvaje hay algo tan feo como la pornografía: se exhiben unos trozos de nuestra humanidad y sólo a ellos parece volverse la mirada interesada del especialista. Nosotros los enfermos nos hemos acostumbrado a esta suerte de lejanía, de ser los ausentes en la consulta en la que estamos”. Hay que aclarar algunos puntos para poder proceder en nuestro trabajo. El primer punto, que aparece justificadamente claro, a priori, es que la fundamentación metafísica en nuestro trabajo, pasa por un primer escalón, imprescindible, cual es la fundamentación ontológica de la persona humana, pues es en ella, sobre todo en la búsqueda de significado y dirección del dolor, del sufrimiento y la muerte, en quien tenemos que encontrar la clave que los explique y al mismo tiempo nos abra la puerta por la que el Absoluto se comunica con ella. El segundo punto es aclarar si el médico y el agente de salud en general, en razón de la naturaleza de la relación con el paciente, pueden convertir el dolor, el sufrimiento e incluso la muerte y los conocimientos en torno a éstos en objeto de comercio, como lo haría un ingeniero o un mecánico reparando y comercializando piezas. Y finalmente ver si la medicina pertenece enteramente al ámbito experimental, cuantificable, o por el contrario, mucho de ella se escapa a la pura investigación cintífica o aplicación tecnológica. Parece un imperativo volver a recordar, que la medicina es arte y sobre todo vocación. Es importante considerar esta afirmación, ya que el médico y la enfermera muchas veces se sienten propensos a entrar en la siguiente disquisición: ¿por qué yo no puedo hacer con mis conocimientos lo que hacen los profesionales de las demás ciencias, arquitectura, ingeniería, mecánica etc., esto es, dedicarme tan solo a reparar cuerpos, como haría cualquier mecánico en su especialidad, y ganar dinero? La respuesta es precisa: porque no es solamente un cuerpo su objeto o ámbito disciplinario, sino también un alma y un espíritu, o sea una persona la que se da al médico integralmente y sin fisuras. Por eso, su acción sanitaria no puede ser objeto de comercio. De ahí también que haya virtudes como la honestidad, la misericordia y la piedad, por el que sufre, entre otras, que le son indispensables al personal médico; hasta tal punto, y esto es experiencia cotidiana, que el médico se ve constreñido a anteponer el sufrimiento de su paciente a las necesidades de su propia familia. Estamos de acuerdo con James F. Drane2 que aunque hoy muchos médicos no sean religiosos deberían respetar las fuentes religiosas de muchos criterios éticos profesionales. Si sometiéramos a la ética del cuidado de la salud a una purificación religiosa se desnaturalizaría, perdiendo su fundamento y significado. Es mucha la influencia que las creencias filosóficas y religiosas han ejercido en los criterios éticos de los profesionales de la salud. Que duda cabe que deben ser tratados críticamente, pero hay mucho de edificante en esas historias que pueden iluminarnos hoy, en que la medicina se está deshumanizando, más que nunca. Si la ética médica y la bioética se vieran despojadas de los criterios éticos inspirados en la religión, la ley civil sería la única fuente ética que nos quedaría. Toda ética quedaría relegada al ámbito puramente fenomenológico, convirtiéndose la norma ética en algo sin fundamento ontológico y al mismo tiempo en un deber por el deber, pura tautología, para nada atractiva. 1 GOIC GOIC, A. Grandes médicos humanistas. Ed. El Saber y la Cultura, Santiago de Chile. 2004. Prefacio de Humberto Giannini, pag. 9-10. 2 JAMES F. DRANE. El cuidado del enfermo terminal. Ed. OPS. Washington D. C. 1999, pag. 19 (3 de la introduccion). 380 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics 2. Medicina e investigación Tal vez el más sobresaliente de los rasgos de la humanización de la salud como de la bioética contemporánea es su enorme desarrollo. Este se manifiesta tanto en el altísimo número como en la impresionante variedad de problemas éticos que surgen en la práctica médica. Paralelamente, el número de obras monográficas y revistas dedicadas a la bioética y humanización de la salud se ha hecho muy grande y casi todos los centros hospitalarios de alguna importancia cuentan con los servicios de uno o varios comités especializados en bioética y programas de humanización. Este auge cuantitativo contrasta fuertemente con la parquedad, por ejemplo, del juramento hipocrático, valiosa guía para el comportamiento médico durante muchos siglos, y que en el espacio de pocas líneas se atrevía a resumir las principales normas éticas para el ejercicio de la profesión. Es su mayor parte, los nuevos problemas de Bioética tienen que ver con la creciente penetración de la ciencia y la tecnología en la medicina, por la cual ésta aparece dotada de nuevos y grandes poderes, pero muchas veces desfigurada o desperfilada en sus propósitos benévolos. Es casi voz común, que a medida que la medicina se hace más tecnológica, ella se deshumaniza de modo progresivo, de tal modo que aunque sea eficaz principalmente en la medida en que recurre a la ciencia y a la tecnología, en esa misma medida el acto médico tiende a desdibujarse y a perder significado propio para incorporarse al corpus del saber tecnológico regulado por la ciencia.3 ¿Qué quiere decir con esto? El significado propio del acto médico ha sido por siglos el de una intervención benévola orientada a restituir o preservar la salud. Para este fin se ha recurrido a procedimientos muy variados, verificados en la experiencia, y que son en general derivados de métodos curativos tradicionales o asimilables a ellos. La adopción de criterios científicos introduce a la acción médica un principio regulador de la acción médica que es de una índole muy distinta. A partir del Renacimiento, la ciencia abandona una multisecular actitud teórica y se coloca decididamente orientada a la acción. De aquí se desprende que cada afirmación científica comprobada tiene el carácter de un experimento exitoso que produce un instrumento potencial, apto para intervenir sobre la realidad, modificándola. Cada acto médico moderno somete a prueba a una hipótesis o teoría científica. Si se la deja libre de todo juicio filosófico, la ciencia tiende a darle a toda la realidad ese significado fundamental: todo lo que es accesible a su estudio es, en principio, un instrumento. Y como la ciencia no reconoce que existan áreas que le estén vedadas, cada nuevo descubrimiento crea un nuevo instrumento que permite continuar la exploración.4 Ocurre, empero, que para muchos de nuestros contemporáneos, la única verdad segura es la verdad científica, lo que quiere decir que aun sin darse cuenta ellos aceptan una visión básicamente instrumental de la realidad. Esta postura es ciertamente irreflexiva, pero no hay duda de que ella predomina en amplios sectores de la sociedad. Incluso son muchos los que no se atreverían a aceptarla como un punto de vista teórico universalmente válido, pero que en la práctica le exigen a cualquier juicio su comprobación científica y que, al faltar ésta, lo relegan al terreno de las opiniones o de las emociones. 3. Etica y moral No es este el lugar para hacer analisis polisémicos de los términos “ética” y “moral”. En el habla corriente, ética y moral se manejan de manera ambivalente, es decir, con igual significado. Sin embargo, como anota Bilberny 5 , analizados los dos términos en un plano intelectual, no 3 VIAL CORREA, J.de D., en Etica en ciencia e investigación. “Ars Médica”, nº 9 PUC Santiago de Chile, 2004 4 VIAL CORREA, J. de D., Ibidem 5 BILBERNY, Aproximación a la ética. Planeta Colombiana Editorial, S.A., Bogotá, P. 15, 1992. 381 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics significan lo mismo, pues mientras que “la moral tiende a ser particular, por la concreción de sus objetos, la ética tiende a ser universal, por la abstracción de sus principios”6. En la enciclopedia Barsa, británica, encontramos esta definición: “La ética es una de las ramas de la filosofía cuyo objeto es el juicio de apreciación del bien y del mal. Aunque diversos autores (entre ellos Shelling y Hegel) han querido fijar distintos campos de aplicación a los términos ética y moral, ambos designan igualmente: a) El conjunto de prescripciones en una época o por una sociedad determinada. b) La descripción de la conducta de los hombres y c) La ciencia de los juicios de valor sobre dicha conducta”7 En general, los seres humanos relacionamos la ética con el buen comportamiento, con un modo recto de conducir nuestra vida y nuestros actos, con el cumplimiento de las normas impuestas por la sociedad en la que vivimos. Si pensamos así no estamos lejos de lo correcto. Ahora bien, si aceptamos, por razones que explicaremos más adelante, que el ser humano es constitutivamente ético, todos los actos humanos están permeados, a modo de modelo o parámetro, de esta visión ética. Cuando esta visión viene a faltar por causa de las disfuncionalidades y patologías del alma humana, sea que éstas sean heredadas o adquiridas, se produce una deshumanización del acto humano. La moral se relaciona con el concepto de lo bueno y de lo malo. Ese concepto está muy ligado a las costumbres, lo que permite deducir que la moral no es una (permanente), sino muchas (variable). Como dice Malherbe, las morales son relativas a las sociedades y a las épocas que aquéllas estructuran y por tanto son múltiples. La ética, que es la exigencia maestra del ser humano en cuanto tal, es única8. Las posiciones filosóficas del racionalismo, el empirismo, el existencialismo, la fenomenología han dado origen a las distintas éticas de carácter especulativo, pragmático, vitalista, descriptivo, entre otras. Así por ejemplo, Zubiri dirá que la ética no es sino una forma o un modo de vida. De este parecer, aunque con una connotación antropologista absoluta, es Nietzche, para quien la ética encuentra su fundamento en la vida sin más, del ser humano. Marx, por ejemplo, en su concepción existencialista del ser humano, concibe la moralidad como sinónimo de alineación, de extrañamiento y pérdida de identidad del individuo por estar vendido a otro o dominado por otro.9 En consecuencia, la tendencia a un antropologismo radical en este último siglo, se ha convertido en el ambiente o campo de cultivo dentro del cual se ha pluralizado la ética. El existencialismo queriendo ser fiel a su axioma, ha intentado por todos los medios desenraizar la ética del espíritu humano y llevarla al plano de lo puramente social, vital descriptivo, utilitarista, cientificista y demás estamentos de la existencia humana; donde el hombre se ha ido dando a sí mismo su propia ética. Surgen así una pluralidad de éticas en las distintas instituciones e individuos singulares que se dan a si mismo, de acuerdo con los fines a perseguir, un conjunto de normas, por lo general derechos, nunca deberes, que velen por los propios intereses y al mismo tiempo eviten que los demás puedan interferir en ellos. Nacen así, entre otras, la ética periodística, la ética bancaria, la ética política, la ética económica etc., es decir, un sin fin de éticas conformadas por un conjunto de normas de carácter utilitarista, nacidas del consenso y dirigidas a tutelar los intereses de ciertas instituciones y a regular las relaciones entre los individuos que forman dichas instituciones. Este horizontalismo de la vida es verdadera enfermedad terminal que el existencialismo ha ido inoculando a la persona humana con el único fin de reducirla a la aparente definición tecnológica y científica que al mismo tiempo que no da razón de ella, destruye su verdadera esperanza. 6 SANCHEZ TORRES, F. Temas de ética médica Giro Editores. Santa Fe de Bogota, 1995, pag. 20 7 ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. Publishers Inc. Ano 1986 8 MALHERBE, ...Hacia una ética de la medicina. San Pablo, Bogotá, 1993,pag. 66. 9.CAMPS, V., GUARIGLIA, O., SALMERÓN, F. Concepciones de la etica. Editorial Trotta, S.A. Madrid 1992, págs. 14 – 27 382 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics Pero la ética es más que esto, nos lleva más allá del discernimiento de lo bueno y lo malo, nos introduce en el corazón del acto ontológico mismo de la persona humana aportándonos la visión de lo perfecto o imperfecto del acto. Dicho en otras palabras, la ética nos muestra cuánto la conducta humana está cerca o lejos del amor como acto originante de lo específicamente humano. El amor es más que ético, es la fuente originante de la ética misma. Lo que verdaderamente moraliza a la persona, lo que hace que ésta sea moral, no es el cúmulo histórico de costumbres y experiencias éticas. Lo que hace que la persona sea moral es la presencia constitutiva del Sujeto Absoluto en el espíritu humano que orienta las costumbres y las experiencias del pasado conforme a la interpretación de los signos de los tiempos presentes. La ética no es entonces, como la definen muchos diccionarios, solamente una parte de la filosofía que a partir de unos principios, vivencias, actitudes o influencias intenta determinar las normas o el sentido del obrar humano tanto individual como social. La moral y las morales concebidas exclusivamente como las concibe el antropologismo absoluto, o sea, como producto de las costumbres sociales, deja fuera a la conciencia individual de la persona humana, sujeto moral y de moralidades. Es la divina presencia constitutiva la que moraliza a la persona y hace de ésta un sujeto moral. La sociedad es el depositario de esta actividad personal y comunitaria. La influencia que la sociedad tenga con sus costumbres, en la formación de la moral de un pueblo habría que entenderla, a mi parecer de esta manera: no sin la dura condición de las costumbres acumuladas en las sociedades, el individuo está llamado singularmente a ser sujeto moral.10 4. La persona humana frente a la experiencia del dolor y el sufrimiento La clave, tan buscada en la historia del pensamiento, considerando el dato que arroja la experiencia, tanto en lo experimentalmente humano como en lo experiencial no puede ser que “genética”, esto es, abierta. Ha habido muchos intentos por definir a la persona humana con la pretensión de que dentro de dicha definición se comprendiera, por lo menos, lo esencial de la misma. Para ello se ha recurrido a conceptos como, racional, social, político, lingüista, estructural y otros. La persona humana se ha escapado a toda definición filosófica y a toda definición biológica, en el sentido de que su naturaleza se resiste a entrar dentro de una noción que tenga connotaciones puramente psicológicas, sociales o existenciales. Es como si la persona humana quisiera decirnos, no puedo entrar dentro de esas definiciones no porque no quiera, sino porque no puedo: soy más que mi psicología, más que mi carne y que mi sangre, más que mi razón y que mi voluntad e incluso más que mi dolor y mi muerte. La clave que buscamos, entonces, tiene que ser “genética”, esto es, abierta, que dé razón de una carne abierta a nuestra alma, y de un alma abierta a nuestro espíritu. Pero si nuestro espíritu no fuera abierto nos encontraríamos con “una persona en la persona y para la persona” imposibilitada, una vez más, para dar razón, significado, dirección y sentido, del dolor, el sufrimiento y la muerte del ser humano. Esta apertura de mi espíritu no puede ser que a Alguien que dé razón de mi destino. El ser humano tiene conciencia de Alguien, que sin ser él, no es sin El. Este Él tiene que serle constitutivo, inhabitante11. La comunicación tiene que ser inmediata porque sólo partiendo de la experiencia de 10 Los que afirmamos que la fe tiene prioridad a la hora de formar al ser humano, y que es por tanto la luz de la inteligencia; los que decimos que la esperanza bien fundada le es fundamental al enfermo terminal, y los que decimos que la libertad tiene que ser formada por el amor, tenemos que ser conscientes de que estamos remando contra corriente. Luchando contra la corriente de una inteligencia incrédula, desconfiada, opaca y obsesiva que trata de sumirnos en el vano prejuicio de que solamente este mundo y sus cálculos numéricos tienen sentido. 11 RIELO, F. Mis meditaciones desde el modelo genético. Ed. Fundación F. Rielo. Madrid, 2001. pag. 179. A la pregunta ¿Qué es entonces el ser humano? Rielo responde: Antecede a toda pregunta y a toda respuesta el acto de 383 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics Él, se hace real mi creencia y mi fe. Si no estuviera presente en mí, podría partir solo de mí y la distancia se haría infinita, la comunicación imposible e imposible también la vida mística, y toda vida espiritual quedaría reducida a una ética puramente racional o social. Sólo desde la experiencia de la inhabitación del Absoluto en mí, el dolor, el sufrimiento y la muerte empiezan a adquirir una razón de ser, una razón para aceptar que existan. La sola y pura razón humana se encuentra impotente para dar razón de ellos. ¿Desde el punto de vista de la razón, cómo podemos salvar a Dios, su infinita misericordia y su piedad de frente a las atrocidades de la guerras contra niños y adultos inocentes, o frente a los millones de abortos con los que cada año cierra balance el mundo, sin contar la constante injusticia y discriminación de que es objeto el ser humano cada día?. Desde el punto de vista de la pura y sola razón la soledad del ser humano se acentúa, el Universo se nos oscurece y la luz de las estrellas no nos sirven de guía, pues su lenguaje ya no lleva a ninguna parte, carece de dirección y sentido. Jesucristo no nos libra del dolor, Él no se libró, y tampoco aquellos que le siguieron dando su vida por Él, pero sí nos libra de un dolor por el dolor, de un dolor sin dirección, sentido o significado, de eso sí que nos libra. 5. Ética en médicina Al respecto de la ética de la generosidad, traemos aquí algunas notas de una hermosa página, escrita por un insigne ciudadano chileno, el Dr. Armando Roa: El médico vela por la salud de los hombres desde su origen hasta la muerte. Destino tan serio sólo cabe fundarse en una ética de la generosidad. Generoso es quien atraviesa los lindes de la conveniencia y se entrega por igual al rescate de existencias esplendorosas y desmedradas, no reconociendo desde el horizonte de su misión diferencias de edad, de sexo, de raza, de religión, de bando, de ideas, de rango, de poderío, de fortuna. El generoso cuida con su ciencia y arte a amigos y enemigos y no acepta, bajo pretexto alguno, eludir responsabilidades, violar secretos de profesión, penetrar sin consentimiento en la intimidad de otro, usar métodos vejatorios, descuidar el bien de los cuerpos y de las almas, poner fin a la vida antes de su término natural, valerse del hombre como medio de experimentación, salvo que razones científicas y morales muy fundadas hagan de lo nuevo algo superior a lo antiguo y no dañino desde ningún punto de vista (...) La ética inclina al médico a curar y confortar amorosamente y a descubrirle al paciente los significados espirituales de su mal, como lo es el alto valor del sufrimiento que únicamente el hombre entre todos los seres ve (...) Es todavía obligación ayudar a la buena muerte. Mientras dicha muerte no haya sellado el paso por el mundo, el médico sigue siendo un custodio del hombre, y el amor a todo lo humano debe infundirle fuerzas para en gesto de gratitud hacia la vida, estrechar la mano del moribundo en esos últimos momentos.”12 La ética de la generosidad empuja al médico al estudio, a la investigación, al gesto cariñoso, al cuidado extremo a la devoción intensa hacia maestros, colegas, discípulos y a cuantos laboran con él, a fin de que la ayuda al prójimo sea lo más eficaz posible, sin aumentar por ignorancia, ruptura creencia como energía constitutiva de la visión ontológica, que abre los límites inmanenciales de la inteligencia a formas trascendentes de penetración y ensoñación sin término, delatando un celeste destino que, incuestionable, dé razón de su existencia. Una inteligencia incrédula, desconfiada, opaca, obsesiva, se sume en la complejidad del prejuicio, deformando y restringiendo la recta visión extática del dominio potestativo de una inteligencia abierta por la creencia y por la fe al infinito. Nuestra inteligencia posee ante el misterio, más que “incapacidad”, capacidad que, aunque limitada por su propia finitud, está constitutivamente abierta al infinito. La inteligencia humana posee por tanto dos límites: formal, su finitud per creationem ex nihilo; trascendental, su apertura a la infinitud per imaginem et similitudinem Creatoris. La capacidad de nuestra inteligencia es, por tanto, la de un finito abierto al infinito por la divina presencia constitutiva del sujeto absoluto. La creencia, radicada en la divina presencia inhabitante del sujeto absoluto, y la fe, elevación de la creencia al orden sobrenatural de la gracia santificante, forman la apertura al infinito de dos modos diferentes: la creencia, de modo constitutivo; la fe, de modo transformativo. 12 ROA, A. Etica de la generosidad. En Textos de Etica Medica obr. Cit. 384 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics de secreto, uso indebido de fármacos y psicoterapias u orgullo profesional, las desventuras provocadas por la enfermedad misma. Quien obra así, en acuerdo a lo solicitado a su vocación desde el fondo de los tiempos, se dignificará alcanzando la gracia destinada a los fieles servidores de su prójimo. 6. Ética y metafísica La ética tiene urgente necesidad de fundamentación antropológica y metafísica. La tan usada e idolatrada razón, instrumento para la elaboración universal de los principios no es la facultad donde nace a priori la ética. Es la divina presencia constitutiva en el espíritu humano, la fundamentación mística u ontológica de todo actuar ético. “Es ésta la que moraliza al ser humano. El concepto, moralizada por la presencia inhabitante del Acto Absoluto, significa que ha quedado constituida en objeto ético de un agente: el propio acto absoluto. La ética es, por tanto, intrínseca a la persona”13 La verdad, la bondad y la hermosura, presentes constitutivamente en todo ser humano, en cuanto atributos de la divina presencia constitutiva trascienden el comportamiento ético, convirtiéndose en la imagen, modelo y parámetro de todo actuar ético. No es suficiente por sí misma, una ética nacida de acuerdos o consensos si no encuentra su razón última de ser en la potestad ontológica de la persona. Las resoluciones éticas nacidas de una ética construida por la razón, que no busque su dirección y sentido último en dicha potestad, pueden no conllevar una decisión éticamente correcta. La divina presencia constitutiva y no la sociedad es el modelo para el actuar ético. Las Sociedades, las costumbre, la cultura, la psicología individual y colectiva entre otros, son sus limitaciones y en lo que se refiere a la inmoralidad del acto sus atenuentes. Dejar el razonamiento ético a mitad de camino o llevarlo a sus consecuencias últimas está en función de los intereses o de los métodos elegidos para la argumentación. Lo que sí es cierto es que el poder coercitivo, para entender la norma ética como un deber y un bien personal o social, no se encuentra en la sociedad o el Organismo que emana la norma, sino en el espíritu humano. Los seres humanos obedecemos las normas que los Estados imponen no porque sean buenas o morales –pues muchas veces esconden intereses perversos- sino sencillamente para no enfrentarnos a la ley. Es, a nuestro parecer, F. Rielo quien ha despertado en estas últimas décadas este pensamiento dormido en la revelación, partiendo de una profunda experiencia mística. La experiencia mística en cuanto experiencia inmediata del Sujeto Absoluto, le ha llevado a la desarticulación de todo aquel pensamiento clásico que larvaba en su interior un pseudoprincipio de identidad que hacía imposible la comprensión real de la experiencia mística con carácter universal y no sólo para unos pocos. Rota esta identidad en la que nos había sumergido el pensamiento, primero griego y después occidental, nos presenta “La Concepción Genética del Principio de Relación”. La relación, rota la identidad, nos arroja como necesidad, por los menos dos términos. Considerando que la noción más elevada de la creación es la noción de persona elevada ésta al Absoluto, nos arroja, en el orden de la razón, no menos de dos personas divinas que en inmanente complementaridad extrínseca se convierten en único Sujeto Absoluto y en el orden ontológico o místico un ser humano inhabitado en su espíritu por el mismo Sujeto Absoluto. Es así que surge una definición mística del ser humano. Definición teantrópica, esto, Dios en el ser humano con el ser humano. Rota la identidad ya no podemos definir a la persona recurriendo a los tan actuales conceptos del “en sí” o el “para sí”, ni tampoco podemos recurrir a la persona en sí misma o a algo constitutivamente inferior de la persona misma, como es su psicología o su biología. Fernando Rielo, concibe al ser humano como una persona en cuyo tejido único, se encuentran tres estratos, uno espíritual, uno psicológico o anímico y uno biológico. En el espíritu, inhabitante el Acto Absoluto, reside la potestad de la persona, la energía estática de la cual hecha mano para 13 RIELO, F. Introducción a mi pensamiento. Ed F. Rielo. Constantina, Sevilla 2002 pag.2 385 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics corregir las disfuncionalidades y patologías de la psique, así como, para poner orden al desorden mental y afectivo que padecen la mente y la voluntad. Esta compenetración del Sujeto Absoluto con la persona humana hacen de este ultimo un ser ontológico o místico y si místico, entonces ético. 386 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics EVIL AS PRIVATION – FROM ONTOLOGY TO METAETHICS Irit Samet-Porat Mansfield College, Oxford Part One: The Argument Structure The “bad” can relate to the “good” in one of three ways: as a contrast, negation, or privation. If the relationship is one of contrast, everything is either bad or good. Contrasting properties are distinguished from contrary properties X and Y, in that X and Y cannot be properties of the same item, but it is not the case that each item which can in principle be X or Y will indeed be either X or Y. Thus “being red all over” and “being blue all over” cannot be properties of the same item, but a coloured item need not be either blue or red; it can be yellow. If taken as contrasts, however, the properties “bad” and “good” are symmetrical and exhaustive; that is, in the relevant categories, items are either good or bad, [good] = [¬bad] and [¬good] = [bad]. If bad is a negation of good, this symmetry between the properties breaks down, as the good is not a negation of the bad. Here, badness is seen as a mere lack of goodness, parallel to the way in which darkness is defined as an absence of light. It is asymmetrical because light is not defined as a lack of darkness. As the example of darkness and light demonstrates, it is not the case that each object or state of affairs necessarily exhibits one of the two negating properties. But if [being illuminated] can in principle apply to an object, then either it or its negation obtain (unlike asking whether my desire to have ice cream is illuminated or dark, which is a categorical mistake). In difference to contrast, though, [¬bad] ≠ [good], even though [bad] = [¬good]. By insisting that the relationship between good and evil ought to be put in terms of privation rather than negation or contrast, one is making two or three (related) claims: A. As in the case of contrasting properties, for each thing, one of the pair [good] or [bad] applies. That is, it is never a categorical mistake to ask whether X is good or bad. This claim, which seems flatly wrong without further explanation, is not a necessary part of a privation thesis. The idea behind it, is the identity between “good” and “perfection”: just as it is always relevant to ask whether X is perfect, one can always enquire whether it is good. B. The relationship between good and bad—like negation, and unlike contrast, is asymmetrical. The good has precedence over the bad, for the latter is a mere privation of the former. C. To say of a state of affairs that it is bad is to say that something which ought to have been there is lacking. Unlike silence or inactivity, badness is set against the normative; hence the relation is that of privation. Thus, anosmia is a privation of smelling, and stupidity the absence of wisdom, but smelling and wisdom are not defined as terms indicating any lack. As we shall see later, the first two claims, “universal applicability” and “asymmetry”, are closely related. Nevertheless, I would like to argue that an asymmetrical structure can also be found in analyses of good and evil offered by philosophers like Kant who do not endorse “universal applicability”. But let us start at the beginning. 387 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics Substance The claim that evil is a privation of good can be employed in the discourse of two philosophical fields: metaphysics and ethics. Although the relationship between the metaphysical and ethical implications of the thesis can be intimate and reciprocal, it is possible and worthwhile to distinguish them. My argument is that a similar asymmetrical relationship between good and evil is characteristic of rationalistic analyses of evil, be they part of an overall metaphysical system or an element in a theory of morality. This asymmetrical structure can be identified regardless of the metamorphosis of the rationalist discourse of good and evil from the ontology of Plato and Aristotle, through the theology-ontology of late-medieval scholastics, and down to Kant, who discards its ontological component altogether. A common thread runs through all the accounts that conceive the relationship between good and evil as asymmetrical—the epistemological precedence of the good. This is perhaps the most prominent expression of the metaphysical principle of “evil as privation’”. We encounter the epistemological primacy of the good in each and every form of the privation thesis—as a piece of metaphysics and as meta-ethical principle, in a teleological framework, and in a theory of action. By a “rationalist theory” I mean a theory which claims that what “is” can be understood, and that what is in principle not transparent to reason has no being. Thus, that which is evil—the bad aspect, the immoral action, the wrong choice, or whatever the subject of your privation theory is, cannot be fully comprehended. This inexplicability is an expression of the metaphysical principle according to which evil is a mere privation of the intelligible. This basic feature of the rationalistic discourse informs the otherwise very different theories which promote asymmetrical relations between good and evil. Privation theses which explicate a metaphysics of evil do so through identifying the good with either “being” or “end”, or both. In his famous sun parable, Plato points to the way in which the standard we use to measure “how good item X is of its kind” also measures the extent to which “item X matches the concept of X”, or, in his terms, how well it also measures “item X’s degree of being”. Thus, a horse that has four legs better matches the concept of a horse than a horse with three legs, and it is also a better horse than the triple-legged one. The match between the concept, or the highest degree of being, and the normative, goes in the other direction as well: to the extent to which an item shows a low degree of correspondence to the concept, it is a bad exemplar of its kind. If the good is related to being, evil is associated with non-being, the ultimate privation. Another route which connects good and being is via the close resemblance of “good” and “end” which is noted by Aristotle. Here a reference is made to the way definitions function in a teleological framework. Basically, X is defined by the end which dictates its form. The closer item X is to attaining its end, or to realising its potential, the better it is as an X. Bad-making attributes consist in divergence from the item’s end, or definition. Put in this way, the metaphysical a-symmetry draws on the manner in which comprehension of X consists in recognising the good-making properties that pertain to it. Part Two: Ontology and Metaphysics Sin as Perversion If evil is not a being, and is hence not created by God, the roots of bad conduct must lie in us. Yet, if the notion of moral responsibility is to be preserved, the human rootedness of evil must be reconciled with freedom. The Augustinian doctrine of “sin as perversion” purports to reconcile the idea that we are accountable for the evil ingrained in us, with the conception of evil as a perversion of our true nature. “The creature, therefore, which cleaves to God, differs from those who do not, not by nature, but by fault”1. Sin, claims Augustine, is a turning away from love of the primal good, 1 Augustine et al., The City of God against the Pagans, Loeb Classical Library ; No. 411 (London: Heinemann, 1957)., XII.1 388 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics i.e. God, to love of a lesser good, e.g. physical beauty. Evil therefore does not reside in the state of affairs that is being chosen but rather in the act of choice, in the turning and not in its object.2 By creating humans with free will, the Creator has given us the greatest gift of all, the “image of God”. However, free will is a double-edged sword—we can make incorrect choices and turn in the wrong directions. And this, according to the Augustinian doctrine of original sin, is exactly what we did, and do, as humans. The concept of original sin raises many questions in regard to moral responsibility, the boundaries of agency, essentialism, etc. I will discuss only one—what facilitated the primal fall? How does Augustine account for the transition from innocence to sin? Evil makes its first appearance in a world which is “very good” (Genesis 1: 31). Against a backdrop of goodness, badness suddenly appears in the form of fallen angels and forbidden fruit. But misconduct, we usually assume, must have a background of misplaced desires, bitter feelings, character flaws, etc. An array of internal states seems to be a necessary condition for the appearance of attributable wickedness. Augustine was not blind to this problem, and his disputant in De Libero Arbitrio raises exactly this question: “But perhaps you will ask: ‘Since the will is moved when it turns itself away from the unchangeable good towards the changeable good, where does that movement, which is clearly evil even though the free will must be counted as good … come from?”. 3 The query is an outcome of Augustine’s ontology of privation, for how can a free movement be explained in wholly negative terms? The answer that Augustine does—or does not—offer is enlightening: Perhaps you will be disappointed if, when you question me in this way, I reply that I don’t know. I will however have replied truly, for what is nothing cannot be known … Therefore since the movement of turning away, which we agreed is a sin, is a defective movement, and since every defect is from nothing … you will no doubt see that it does not belong to God 4. The disputant is not satisfied. After going through the matter from different angles in the course of Book 3, he still insists that Augustine explain to him “why [the good angels] did not sin, and why the [evil angels] did sin … If there were no cause, there would not be this distinction among rational creatures”5. Augustine, however, argues that the question is misplaced. In regard to free will there is no sense in asking for further causes. Had it been otherwise, free will would not have been the origin of all evil: Since the act of will is the cause of sin, and you are looking for the cause of the act of will itself, if I were to find this cause for you, wouldn’t you then ask for the cause of the cause I found for you? … You must not look for anything beyond the root … a wicked act of will is the cause of all evils … But if you demand a cause of this root, how will it be the root of all evils?6. Augustine sticks to his guns in his much later City of God. Angels and human beings were created faultless, and “If the further question be asked, what was the efficient cause of their evil 2 For example: “Thus the true cause of the blessedness of the good angels is found to be this, that they cleave to Him who supremely is. And if we ask the cause of the misery of the bad, it occurs to us, and not unreasonably, that they are miserable because they have forsaken Him who supremely is, and have turned to themselves who have no such essence.” Ibid. XII. 7. 3 De Libero Arbitrio 2.20.54 4 Ibid, ibid. 5 Ibid, 3.17.47 6 Ibid, 3.17.48 The literary genre of a dialogue with a persistent student is adopted again seven centuries later by St. Anselm in On the Fall of the Devil. The recurrent question (“why does justice depart from the good angel?”; “why does he abandon it?”; “why then does he will?”) underscores both the idea that the question is out of place and that nevertheless we are strongly tempted to ask it. Anselm’s answer, though, emphasises the uniqueness of the will as its own cause: “S: Why then does he [the fallen angel] will [to abandon justice]? T: Only because he wills. For this will has no other cause by which it is forced or attracted, but it was its own efficient cause, so to speak, as well as its own effect.” Anselm, Brian Davies, and G. R. Evans, The Major Works (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)., Section 27. 389 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics will? There is none.” If evil is accountable it must be chosen, and for that, its first cause must be free will. Looking for a further explanation is futile “[f]or what is it which makes the will bad, when it is the will itself which makes the action bad? And consequently the bad will is the cause of the bad action, but nothing is the efficient cause of the bad will.”7. The ontology of evil as privation and the epistemological precedence of the good that results from it show why the wrong turn bangs against the boundaries of comprehension. In Chapter 7 of the City of God (“That We Ought Not to Expect to Find Any Efficient Cause of the Evil Will”) Augustine explains that “to seek to discover the causes of these defections … is as if some one sought to see darkness, or hear silence”. The metaphor here is partial but illuminating. Evil is a lack of being and is thus a paradigm of privation, but silence and darkness can also receive a wholly negative definition as a deficiency of light or sound. In the case of darkness, the metaphor goes even deeper, in the sense that light is conceived as a positive entity in itself and as a metaphor for truth (one of the four transcendentals). Let no one, then seek to know from me what I know that I do not know … our mind perceives intelligible forms by understanding them; but when they are deficient, it knows them by not knowing them; for “who can understand defects?”8. The epistemological failure is again the most powerful expression of the metaphysical principle of privation. The case of primal sin, that is, the first incident of evil in the world, is an excellent test-case of freely chosen evil, since the factors that we usually mention as mitigating the irrationality of deviation from the good, such as ignorance and weakness of will - are irrelevant to it. What I am after here is less the specific solution that is suggested by Augustine, and more the structure of his argument. The heavily theological framework of “primal sin” can also function as a laboratory study of the form of discussion of evil actions. One thing that comes to light in this experiment is the division between the act of choosing (wrongly) and what is being chosen. Another thing is the source of evil. The concept of “primal sin” is constructed in a way that isolates the act of choice from personal flaws or mental disorders, thus forcing us to focus on the root of all that can go wrong in rational creatures. I now turn to look briefly at the Kantian doctrine of “radical evil” and examine it through the prism of Augustine’s “primal sin”. I want to argue that the asymmetrical structure of privation is embraced by the Kantian metaphysical system, and that it retains its powerful explanatory force in spite of being radically transformed. “Radical Evil’ as a Privation Thesis Kant’s treatment of what he terms “radical evil” falls neatly into the distinction between the moment when the evil path is taken and the nature of the walk along it. The formative moment of moral life, according to Kant, is the one in which we choose our overarching guiding principle of action– what he calls “Gesinnung”. This should be interpreted as the moment (not to be taken as time-designating term) when a person’s attitude towards the human condition of struggle against temptation is formed. So, for Kant, endorsing the wrong attitude is the parallel of what Augustine refers to as selecting the wrong path. In his Religion within the Boundaries of Reason Alone 9 he is offering an elaborate and subtle discussion of the kind of person you are if you do indeed walk along this path. The kind of analysis we find in this late text, is consistent with the Augustinian discussion, and this parallelism is due to the similar view of evil as a privation of good that underlies both theories. In short, whereas an effort is made to give a full account of and explain the nature of wrongdoing, no similar exposition is offered for what happens in the first stage, namely, on the question why do agents embark on the wrong track; the question is left unanswered. This 7 Augustine et al., The City of God against the Pagans. XII.6 8 Ibid.Ibid 9 Immanuel Kant et al., Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, 2nd ed., Harper Torchbooks. Cloister Library (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960). 390 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics epistemological flaw, common to both Kant and Augustine’s depiction of the wrong choice, is an expression of the asymmetrical relationship between good and evil. The act of adopting an immoral super maxim—an inappropriate Gesinnung or principle that informs the entire system of choice and decisions—is similar in a deep sense to Augustine’s primal sin. Bear in mind that this event of Gesinnung-formation does not occur in time or space, for “act” is a concept that belongs with the nuomenal, active point of view. It is a construct that functions as the “ground” of all subsequent wrongs, and conveys the idea that isolated actions should be interpreted in the context of a unified personality. An action that seems perfectly benevolent on the surface is seen in a different light once we know it is guided by an improper order of priorities where self-love is placed higher than the moral law, so that its “justness” is only a matter of chance. As a result, the act of choosing one’s Gesinnung should be disconnected from any antecedent mental or physical deformities or advantages. As a provider of context, this choice cannot have a background; as a bestower of all value, it cannot draw its value from an external source. In that respect it is very similar to the construct of primal sin. Here, too, Augustine is looking at a constituting moment of turning away from the best reasons for action to lesser ones. He is looking for the source of all the falsities that enable further sinning and complete downfall. Although we do not find a neat hierarchy of maxims that comply with a chosen Gesinnung in Augustine’s thought, he is talking about a constitutive choice that informs the moral status of the agent as a whole. The theological background that places the event of sin outside of the ordinary world, in the Garden of Eden (or in heaven for the sinning angels), further emphasises this point. What both philosophers struggle to shed light on is the root, or ground, of evil. And as a result of the privation thesis they both hold, they find that it cannot be done. Hence, it is not only the subject matter of the investigation but also the necessary imperfection of the explanation they offer, and the duality that lies at the basis of their concept of choice, that is common to those two thinkers. And this, I believe, is due to a shared perception of evil as a mere privation of good. The basic feature of the Augustinian account of primal sin is the way he splits the concept of bad choice into “turning” and “away”. Acts of choice, he claims, are logically analysed into the abandonment of good reasons (love of God) and the endorsement of the lesser good (love of the mutable). The division is crucial since a different type of explanation is offered for each component. Agents always turns towards a loveable object—be it the proper one, i.e. God, or an improper one, i.e. a transient good. But whereas the appeal of the reasons they finally endorse is intelligible, the movement away is inexplicable. Thus, unlike good choices, which are fully intelligible, bad choices are comprised of two parts, one of which can be identified but not explained (“when you question me in this way, I reply that I don’t know … for what is nothing cannot be known”). In a similar way (although he provides a completely different explication of the good action and the right choice), Kant retains the asymmetry between the endorsement of a good Gesinnung and the adoption of an evil one. For him, choosing to render the categorical imperative superior to the incentive of self-love is a realisation of freedom. Only when the incentive of respect for the moral law is fully taken into account can the result be a fully-fledged action, that is, an initiation of a new chain of causation (in contrast to submission to external laws of nature). Freedom cannot indeed be further explicated; a further explanation would shackle and thus undermine it. Yet the choice of good Gesinnung still gets a deeper level of explication when its connection with the concept of freedom is unravelled. This additional explanatory level does not pertain to the opposite possibility—the endorsement of an evil Gesinnung. The Passivity of Falling and Renounced Freedom In explaining the inbuilt inability to provide a satisfactory answer to his interlocutor who asks “where does that movement [of the will] … come from?”10, Augustine resorts to the contrast 10 Da Libero Arbitum 2.20.54 391 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics deficient/efficient. The difference between the two constituents of choosing evil lies exactly in that the “turning away” is deficient and passive, whereas the “turning towards” is efficient and active. This variance explains the different levels of intelligibility that apply to these parts: “our mind perceives intelligible forms by understanding them; but when they are deficient, it knows them by not knowing them”11. This, of course, falls back on the ontological status of evil as privation. Turning towards “a certain good”, even a lesser one, is an action, as it involves a perception of certain positive aspects of the object, says Augustine. “Turning away” from the supreme good, in contrast, involves no actuality and is nothing more than a negation of being, a refusal to act. By splitting the concept of sin in this way, Augustine manages to come up with an account where “the act of primal sin is neither brute nor unmotivated, and what is brute and unmotivated in primal sin is not an act”.12 In a similar way, for Kant wrongdoing is not an expression of agency and hence does not amount to a downright action. The role played by the pair passive/active in his concept of the primal wrongdoing is no less crucial. The contrast between choosing a positive Gesinnung and falling into radical evil is, in a nutshell, the difference between freedom and submission to external laws of nature. Freedom is a concept that pertains to what Korsgaard calls “the active point of view”, or in the Kantian terminology, it is a postulate of practical reason. When we see ourselves as acting, we necessarily see ourselves as free. The law of nature, conversely, pertains to the passive point of view that rules over the intelligible, phenomenal world. From this point of view, we see ourselves as experiencing, as passive receptors of theoretical knowledge, and hence as part of the natural chain of causation. Endorsing an evil Gesinnung is therefore a lapse into the passive point of view. The primal choice cannot be that between a good and an evil cast of mind, because choosing is an act, and as such has no place in the passive, phenomenal realm. Giving up the opportunity to be free, wasting the chance to be an agent and possess practical reason, is not an action but a lapse. From the point of view according to which such an event is the root of an imputable behaviour, that is, from the perspective of free choice, it has no being. It is a mere privation of freedom. However, it is crucial for Kant that backsliding into an evil cast of mind is not a contrast to free action but a privation of it. In the nuomenal world, unlike the phenomenal one, the move from “it cannot be said to be free” to “it is not free and hence not imputable” is not legitimate. The concept of freedom does not apply to passive events, and the inference that, since freedom is absent, this lapse is unanswerable pertains to the theoretical-passive point of view and not to the nuomenal. From the active perspective, nothing can be said about the possession of an evil Gesinnung beyond the fact that it is a privation of freedom. But to end the paper, I must refer to the one crucial respect in which Kant’s concept of “radical evil” is profoundly different from the former rationalistic accounts of evil: the intelligibility he saves by resorting to a privation thesis is not that of the phenomenal world. Leibniz’s theodicy, for example, was an effort to save the intelligibility of the world we experience. Given infinite time, he thought, science is bound to demonstrate how what we conceive as evil actually works in the service of the good to constitute the best possible world. But besides the grotesque disregard of our experience that it entails, the project itself is, for Kant, a categorical error13. The phenomenal world is in principle opaque to reason. The normative, the “ought”, the ideal, only belong to agents, when they conceive themselves as such. Suffering, which comes about by that which is ruled exclusively by the laws of nature, cannot be designated as good or evil at all. Therefore, the connection between sin and punishment, that is, between “moral evil” and “natural or metaphysical evil”, which Leibniz 11 Augustine et al., The City of God against the Pagans. XII.7 12 S Macdonald, “Primal Sin,” in The Augustinian Tradition, ed. GB Matthews., Philosophical Traditions ; 8 (Berkeley ; London: University of California Press, 1999)., p. 133. 13 Susan Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought : An Alternative History of Philosophy (Princeton, N.J. ; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 67 392 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics and his predecessors worked so hard to expose, is non-existent by principle. The “problem of evil”, or the challenge to reason which is posed by evil, is limited to the realm of human action. The privation thesis that constitutes the rationalist framework for treating the relationship between good and evil is hence relevant exclusively to the nuomena. Only an account of suffering that refers to virtue rather than happiness would reveal the asymmetry between good and bad that is implied by a privation theory. 393 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics LA RESPONSABILIDAD ILIMITADA POR EL OTRO Roberto Sánchez Benítez Universidad Michoacana, México. I. “El Yo es otro” fue una frase acuñada por Rimbaud a principios del siglo XX. Probablemente sea una de las divisas más sostenidas en el mismo, a través de sus variantes, y uno de sus grandes legados. Lévinas pregunta si esta frase puede ser entendida más allá de pensar que el otro es alguien que domina y sujeta, servilismo que aliena y que implica una renuncia a sí mismo. Una traición, abandono y ajenidad en lo más propio, como lo llegó a pensar, entre otros, el poeta francés Paul Valéry. La divisa de Rimbaud hace alusión a la apertura del sujeto hacia lo que le rodea y que, al menos, puede entenderse de tres formas distintas. Puede significar la apertura a todos los objetos, en una unidad del universo al estilo kantiano; o puede ser la intencionalidad de la conciencia, al estilo husserliano; o finalmente ser el “desnudamiento de la piel expuesta a la herida y al ultraje”. Para Lévinas, es este último sentido el que conduce a una formulación adecuada de la sensibilidad y subjetividad la cual debe entenderse como vulnerabilidad a ser afectado por el sufrimiento del otro. No se trata de una pasividad estéril, sino de una actitud relacionada con la sinceridad y la veracidad. Es esta vulnerabilidad la que fundamenta mi relación con el otro, mi obsesión por el otro, el acercamiento que normalmente tengo con él. Subjetividad que toma en cuenta al otro, que se coloca en su lugar y se “consume” por él. Es por ello que, para Lévinas, no podemos hablar de una subjetividad que exista al margen de los otros: el sujeto lo es para o por otro, en él se fundamenta mi libertad. En otras palabras, nadie puede estar absolutamente sólo consigo mismo, ya que esta interioridad es ya el resultado, el pliegue de una relación preoriginal con el otro, anterior incluso al lenguaje, a la razón o conciencia, cuyos movimientos estatuyen la esencia u objetividad. En la medida en que el retorno a sí mismo pasa por un rodeo interminable por el otro, es que puede entenderse que el sujeto sea un extraño para sí mismo pero con “rostro”, un “rehén” en la recurrencia de un Yo que no cesa de fallarse o dar consigo mismo. Lévinas sostuvo que esta subjetividad es la que corresponde a “la irreal realidad de los hombres perseguidos en la historia cotidiana del mundo”, de la cual la metafísica no ha retenido la dignidad y el sentido, y a la cual los filósofos normalmente voltean la cara. La relación con el otro es, antes que un conocimiento, antes que un momento del saber, un partir de la debilidad, en “un estar tocado por su ser expuesto para la muerte” (Lévinas, 1998:108) Así, el “otro” no es algo desmesurado, sino inconmensurable, es decir, la relación con los demás no puede resolverse en imágenes ni exponerse como un tema. El otro es un “rostro y posee una especie de invisibilidad que no se apoya en la insignificancia de lo abordado sino en una forma de significar completamente distinta a la manifestación, la demostración y, por consiguiente, la visión” (Lévinas, 1994:207). Su relación me sitúa en una posición anterior a cualquier vislumbre de la conciencia y a todo comienzo u origen. Es por ello que, con relación al otro, estaremos siempre en un “desfase”, diferidos en el tiempo, anárquicamente retrasados respecto de todo presente e incapaces de recuperar dicho retraso. Anarquía que es “persecución”: dominio del otro sobre el yo hasta dejarlo sin habla. Lévinas recurre a las metáforas para explicar esta situación, ya que se trata de una búsqueda de lo anterior, “desastre”, fuera de la “cobertura de los astros”, del cielo, “pensamiento más pensante que el pensamiento del Mismo”, despertar que perturba el “reposo 395 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics astronómico”: la inquietud, lo que el pensamiento no podría contener, lo infinito, la proximidad de otro hombre1. ¿Còmo es esta responsabilidad por el otro? Es tal que no me aguardo nada para mí, y en la que todo en mí es deuda y donación. Apertura del yo expuesto al otro, que podrá hacer lo que quiera menos substituirme en mi responsabilidad hacia él, menos exhimirme de ella. Desequilibrio de la relación, asimetría, diacronía, no coincidencia ni reciprocidad. Responsabilidad por su miseria, libertad y muerte. Pasividad, temporalidad. “La desnudez del rostro es indigencia. Reconocer a otro es reconocer su hambre” (Lévinas, 1977:98). De la misma manera, habrá un decir que me abre al otro, antes de decir cualquier cosa. “Un decir sin palabras, pero no de manos vacías” (Lévinas, 1995:131). Silencio que habla gracias a esta pasividad hiperbólica del dar, anterior a todo querer y a cualquier tematización. Decir anterior al Dicho. El lenguaje en el Decir pierde la extraña función de doblar al pensamiento y al ser. Decir que es un testimonio puro, anterior a toda experiencia, inclusive del otro, que sólo da testimonio de lo “Infinito no-accesible a la unidad de la apercepción, de lo Infinito que no aparece, desproporcionado con respecto al presente” (Lévinas, 1995:131). En el Decir, el yo no se presenta sino que se destituye hasta el grado de substituirse, “sufrir y expiar por los otros e incluso por las faltas de los otros, hasta llegar a su expiación”. El Decir a otro, “para el otro”, ahí donde el “para” induce la falta de categoría y significa la ruptura con la racionalidad del fundamento. Modalidad en que lo Infinito pasa. Somos, por todo ello huella, testimonio de lo Infinito. Soy yo quien lo expresa, precisamente al dar señal de la donación del signo, del “para-el-otro”, en el que me des-intereso: heme aquí. El sentido último de la responsabilidad es la substitución. La responsabilidad ilimitada por el otro es una desnucleación de sí mismo. La relación con el otro no puede presentarse como un atributo de mi sustancialidad, de mi consistencia de persona, sino como el hecho de mi destitución, de mi deposición. Forma de salir de un mundo de guerra, revancha, de la afirmación prioritaria del yo. Poder decirle adiós a ese mundo, abandonarlo en función del otro. Sin embargo, esto no implica que el otro pueda hacer lo que le venga en gana, ya que no se trata unicamente de una relación de uno para con otro, sino que existen terceros que a su vez podrían padecer injusticias por el obrar del otro. Es ahí donde debe reclamarse la justicia, la cual existe a partir de este tercero. El tercero es la fuente de la justicia. Así, substituir al otro quiere decir “en mi refugio último de yo, no sentirme inocente ni siquiera del mal que hace el otro” (Lévinas, 1995:156). Individuación del yo, tal es el hecho de ser designado, asignado o elegido para substituir, sin escapatoria posible. A partir de Heidegger, el yo humano, el sí mismo, es la imposibilidad de escabullirse del otro. “Mientras no haya otro, no se puede hablar ni de libertad ni de no-libertad; aún no hay identidad de la persona, que es una identidad de lo ‘indiscernible’”. Pero además, la relación en la que el Yo encuentra al Tú es el lugar y la circunstancia originales del advenimiento ético. Así, lo concreto del Bien es el valer del otro hombre. En este valer, el Bien en más antiguo que el Mal. El modo original de la trascendencia será entonces el diálogo. Co-presencia y sociabilidad. Valor del yo ligado al otro hombre. Lo ético comienza en el Yo-Tú del diálogo, en la medida en que el Yo-Tú significa el valer del otro hombre. A partir de la relación con el otro, desde el fondo del Diálogo, la palabra “Dios” alcanza un significado para el pensamiento (Lévinas, 1995:242). De ahí que el diálogo sea un pensamiento que piense más allá de lo dado. Etica del diálogo (en mi diacronía con respecto del otro): pensar más de lo que se pueda captar, “la 1 Sin embargo, Ricoeur ve en esta relación una disimetría estructurada a partir de la conminación del otro de tal manera que “es al acusativo sólo al que el sí se acerca por la conminación”, cuando de lo que se trataría es de saber, si “para ser escuchada y recibida, la conminación no debe apelar a una respuesta que compense la disimetría del cara a cara” (Ricoeur, 197). 396 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics modalidad conforme a la cual lo inaprensible adquiere sentido”, “la modalidad según la cual pienso más de lo que pienso”. II. Lévinas reconoce que la formulación de la subjetividad o interioridad ha sido una dificultad persistente en el discurso de las ciencias humanas, debido a su inestabilidad, y al hecho de estar constantemente difiriendo de sí misma. La subjetividad es, más bien, una realidad que se define en términos de una relación mudable con el otro. Identidad o “inesencialidad” que no podemos captar por la metafísica ni por el así llamado “fin de la metafísica”. Lo que la relación con el otro demuestra es que no puede existir una identidad fija, inmóvil, objetiva, ontológica. Es imposible que el yo pueda coincidir consigo mismo, tal y como también lo sostuviera Sartre en su indagación sobre la temporalidad. Hay una recurrencia imposible entre el yo y el sí mismo. Es decir, nadie puede permanecer en sí mismo. De ahí que la humanidad del hombre, su subjetividad, sea una responsabilidad para los otros. El que el hombre tenga una subjetividad debe entenderse como el hecho de que le importa el acontecer humano, de que no es indiferente al otro en su responsabilidad ilimitada. Este es el camino que propone Lévinas: pensar al hombre a partir de una responsabilidad más antigua que el conatus de la substancia o que la identificación interior; una responsabilidad que, llamando siempre al afuera, precipita esta interioridad. Es la forma, a su vez, en que podría constituirse una subjetividad irremplazable, no-intercambiable, aunque responsable de las demás, como hemos dicho. Como puede observarse, la ética levinasiana se define a partir de una responsabilidad por el otro, por la vulnerabilidad, mucho antes de que el “yo” pueda tomar cualquier decisión. Lévinas forja la noción de “libertad limitada” de un “yo”, cuya responsabilidad ilimitada exige la subjetividad como algo que nadie ni nadie podría substituir, y la desnuda como pasividad. Es limitada porque es una relación con otro; sigue siendo libertad porque ese otro es el prójimo. Sólo en este sentido puede entenderse la noción de “trascendencia”, a saber, como la salida de sí mismo a partir de la aproximación del prójimo. La trascendencia es proximidad; proximidad es responsabilidad para con el otro, substitución del otro, expiación por el otro. Habría que preguntarse entonces si más allá de la inteligibilidad y del racionalismo de la identidad, de la conciencia, del presente y del ser, no se “escucha” un otro racionalismo de la trascendencia. Lévinas pretende mostrar cómo la trascendencia de lo Infinito se torna relación con el otro, con mi prójimo; cómo tal proximidad significa, a partir del rostro del otro hombre, la responsabilidad ya asumida para con él. Así, la cuestión de lo Otro (Autre) se vuelve responsabilidad por el otro (autri), y el temor de Dios –tan extraño al terror frente a lo sagrado como a la angustia ante la nada—se transforma en temor por el prójimo y por su muerte (Lévinas, 1995:198). Somos, desde antes de definir una identidad o personalidad, “rehenes” del otro, ahí donde éste aparecerá siempre de manera inesperada (el otro es el primero en “llegar”). El sujeto queda desarmado por el otro, por una acusación o exigencia sin palabras. “Ser yo (y no Yo) no es la perseverancia en el ser, sino la substitución de rehén que expía hasta el límite la persecución sufrida” (Lévinas, 1994:217). Subjetividad que, por tanto, es algo más que ser, que se vacía de su ser para “acarrear la miseria del otro”, incluso la responsabilidad que el otro pudiera tener hacia mí. Afectabilidad del otro en mí. “La subjetividad es lo extraordinario cotidiano de mi responsabilidad hacia los otros hombres, hacia aquello que no está en mi poder (porque el otro no está, como lo objetos del mundo, bajo mi poder)” (Lévinas, 1994:222). Es por ello que, de acuerdo con Lévinas, existe un pasado en el yo anterior a cualquier pasado, absoluto e irrepresentable, donde mora el Bien, donde nos escoge el Bien antes de que podamos 397 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics escogerlo. Bien que existiría antes que el ser y la presencia. Pasado que nunca habría sido presente, inmemorial; “pasividad que trasciende los límites de mi tiempo”. El pensamiento de lo Infinito es la diacronía del tiempo, la no-coincidencia, el desasimiento, una manera de estar “consagrado” antes de cualquier acto de conciencia, y de modo más profundo que la conciencia en virtud de la gratuidad del tiempo, devoción. Como vemos, el otro es afectación, vulnerabilidad, responsabilidad, pero también “inspiración”. Y como hemos mencionado, el Decir no es entendido como diálogo sino como “testimonio del infinito dado a aquél al que me abro infinitamente”. Para Lévinas, el testimonio es la primera forma del lenguaje: es agotarse hasta exponerse; comunicar lo que se comunica sin apoyarse en la figura del signo. Comunicar hasta el punto de comunicarse. Una denuncia de sí mismo. Decir, que es una forma de entregarse, de exposición para ser visto entre los demás, como diría la pensadora española Maria Zambrano. De esta manera, Lévinas ha pretendido formular una humanidad del hombre que no se defina tan sólo por lo que es, sino por la exigencia que el “rostro” del otro me plantea, me exige. Una significatividad distinta de la ontológica, más antigua, que se despierta a un pensamiento que no es saber. Así, el rostro entra en nuestro mundo a partir de una esfera absolutamente extranjera, es decir, precisamente a partir de un absoluto que, por otra parte, es el nombre mismo de la extrañeidad fundamental. Visitación ineludible del rostro. La conciencia es puesta en cuestión por el rostro. Absolutamente otro que no se refleja en la conciencia. La “visitación” consiste en perturbar el egoísmo mismo del Yo; el rostro desarma la intencionalidad que lo observa. Frente a la exigencia del Otro, el Yo es expulsado, pierde su soberana coincidencia consigo mismo, su reposo en sí mismo. La característica más importante del rostro es que se sustrae a toda revelación; ausencia sustraída al develamiento y a la disimulación. El Otro es un puro agujero en el mundo, como también lo formulara Sartre. Procede de lo absolutamente Ausente. El rostro es la desnudez del otro, el estar-expuesto del otro, la indigencia del otro. Del rostro emanan la significancia y sentido. Lévinas llega a sostener que el Dios que crítica Nietzsche es el que murió en Auschwitz, mientras que el que protesta por lo que pasó ahí es el Dios que aparece en el rostro del otro, el que aparece de forma fenomenológica. Estamos, en consecuencia, ante una espiritualidad humana que no comienza en el saber, en el psiquismo como experiencia, y en donde la relación con el tú en su pureza es una relación con el Dios invisible. Búsqueda de un sentido último del hombre que no radique en su exhibición ante el otro o ante él mismo, que no esté en lo manifiesto o en la manifestación, en la verdad desvelada o en la noesis del saber, medido por su presencia. Sentido que radica en la trascendencia y por el “a-Diós-en-mí que es mi cuestionamiento” (Lévinas, 1995:266). Hacia una defensa de la subjetividad fundada en la idea de lo infinito, no en el nivel de protesta puramente egoísta contra la totalidad ni en su angustia ante la muerte. La idea de lo infinito que propone Lévinas es esta relación que vincula al Yo con el Otro. En este sentido, la huella del otro es antes que nada la huella de Dios, que nunca está ahí. El ya se ha ido. La huella de otro es Dios cuando ya se ha ido. Huella del otro en el hombre. Cada hombre es la huella del otro. El otro es Dios, el cual viene al pensamiento y que no es deducible. Dios que es un “Él”. III. En algún momento de su obra enriquecedora, Lévinas sostuvo que “poner lo trascendente como extranjero y pobre, es no permitir que la relación metafísica con Dios se realice en la ignorancia de los hombres y de las cosas. La dimensión de lo divino se abre a partir del rostro humano. Una relación con lo Trascendente –libre, sin embargo, de todo dominio de lo Trascendente— es una relación social.” (Lévinas, 1977:101). Por eso la metafísica se desenvuelve ahí donde se desenvuelve la relación social: en nuestra relación con los hombres. No puede haber ningún 398 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics ‘conocimiento’ de Dios separado de los hombres”. Metafísica que se desenvuelve en las relaciones éticas. La pregunta por la trascendencia --que es una relación--, se plantea al lado de otras como ¿cuál es la “intriga del sentido, distinta a la de la re-presentación y a la de la empiría, que se trata en la idea de lo Infinito –en la monstruosidad de lo Infinito puesto en mí—idea que en esa pasividad suya que va más allá de toda receptividad ya no es idea? O bien “Cuál es ese sentido del traumatismo del despertar en el que lo Infinito no podría ponerse como correlato del sujeto, ni formar estructura con él, ni convertirse en su contemporáneo en una co-presencia, pero en el que lo Infinito le trasciende?” ( Lévinas, 1995:118-9). Lévinas concibe la trascendencia como “deseo del bien más allá del ser”. Este Deseo se encuentra más allá de la satisfacción, no identifica –como la necesidad—un término o fin. Deseo sin fin, des-interesamiento. La pasividad del no-desinteresamiento de lo Infinito por lo finito se traduce en un Deseo, de un pensamiento consagrado a pensar más de lo que piensa. Con el problema de la trascendencia estamos atendiendo la posibilidad de que el pensamiento vaya más allá del mundo, de que no pertenezca al conocimiento, sin que deje de ser un saber; en fin, de que el sentido de la diferencia de una alteridad no repose en un fondo común. Al menos, es a lo que la idea de Dios debería conducirnos. Mostrar que el pensamiento que va a Dios comporta modalidades psíquicas y originarias de la perturbación de lo Mismo por lo Otro, “modalidades propias y originarias del a-Diós, en las que se interrumpe la aventura ontológica del alma, en las que, frente a la Gloria, se eclipsa la idea del ser (quizá rebajada precisamente, en Dios, al rango de simple atributo) y en las que, en el, en el des-inter-esamiento, se torna borrosa la alternativa de lo real y de lo ilusorio” (Lévinas, 1995:203). Lévinas considera que esta manera de pensar a Dios es la que conviene después de las famosas “muertes de Dios” decretadas tanto por Hegel como por Nietzsche. El problema de la trascendencia en Lévinas constituye un momento destacado en la posibilidad de entender el término “Dios” como una palabra significativa. Derrida sostuvo, en efecto, que Lévinas nos había acostumbrado a pronunciar la palabra “Dios” de otra manera, con una idea del ser diferente a la avalada por la onto-teo-logía, ya denunciada por Heidegger (Derrida, 11) Dios como lo absolutamente Otro, como la alteridad total que deja de ser asimilada a lo Mismo, a lo “ya conocido”. Como un pensamiento que se encuentra más allá de lo pensado, no constreñido a la adecuación de lo visible con la mirada, y que no se encuentra construido como relación que vincula al pensador con lo pensado. Lévinas habla entonces de una idea del “infinito” como “pensamiento desgajado de la conciencia”, como pensamiento más profundamente pensamiento. Como hemos dicho, esta manera de entender la trascendencia se remita a la ética en cuanto ésta se estructura como el uno-para-el-otro; “significación del más allá del ser, por cuanto se da, al margen de toda finalidad, en una responsabilidad que se acrecienta sin cesar: des-interesamiento en donde el ser se deshace de su ser” (Lévinas, 1995: 123, nota 15). De ahí que la ética sea entendida por Lévinas no como un momento del ser, sino ser de-otra-manera y mejor que ser, la posibilidad misma del más allá. “Ser bueno es excelencia y altura más allá del ser”. Es a partir de este “giro ético” que Dios es arrancado de la objetividad, de la presencia y del ser. El sentido de la ética viene dado por la manera en que pienso la “idea-de-lo-Infinito-en-mí” (o relación con Dios, trascendencia no inmanente, “a-Diós”, en la propuesta más radical levinasiana), misma que viene dada en la concreción de mi relación con el otro hombre, en la socialidad que es mi responsabilidad para con el prójimo: responsabilidad que no he contraído en ninguna “experiencia” pero cuyo mandato, venido no se sabe de dónde, lo proclama el rostro del otro por su alteridad, por su extrañeza misma. Dios será entonces no simplemente el “primer otro”, el “otro por excelencia”, o el “absolutamente otro”, sino otro (autre) diferente del otro (autri), “otro con una 399 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics alteridad previa a la alteridad del otro, previa a la obligación ética para con el prójimo, y diferente de cualquier prójimo, trascendente hasta la ausencia, hasta su posible confusión con el caos del hay” (Lévinas, 1995:123-4). Así, el pensamiento de lo infinito es más antiguo que el pensamiento de lo finito; es la diacronía misma del tiempo, la no-coincidencia, el desasimiento. La tarea levinasiana se formula como el intento de pensar lo Otro-en-lo-Mismo sin pensar lo Otro como otro Mismo. Otro que perturba o despierta a lo Mismo, que inquieta o inspira a lo Mismo, Mismo que desea o aguarda a lo Otro. Lo Mismo que contendría cierto Deseo incolmable, búsqueda, pregunta o cuestión, espera: paciencia y largura del tiempo, exceso, sobreabundancia. “Deseo del Otro” que procede de un ser ya pleno e independiente, “que no desea nada para sí”. Necesidad de quien no tiene necesidades. Deseo de Otro que no es mi complemento, ni mi enemigo. Deseo que nace más allá de lo que pueda faltarle a un ser o satisfacerlo. Deseo del Otro que es socialización. El Deseo como bondad: lo deseable ahonda mi deseo, “nutriéndome de alguna manera de nuevas hambres”. El Otro no nos viene dado tan sólo por la significación cultural, a partir de su contexto, significación que se revela a partir del mundo histórico al que pertenece, y que revela las “horizontes de este mundo”, sino que dicha significación mundana es perturbada por otra presencia, abstracta y no integrada al mundo. Rostro, epifanía que es “visitación”. La vida de la epifanía del rostro “consiste en deshacer la forma en la cual todo ente, cuando entra en la inmanencia, o sea, cuando se expone como tema, ya se disimula” (60). Así, la presencia del Otro consiste en “el desvestirse de la forma que no obstante lo manifiesta” (Lévinas, 1998:60). El “rostro habla”, ya que “hablar es antes que nada este modo de venir desde atrás de la propia apariencia, desde atrás de su forma, una apertura en la apertura”. (Lévinas, 1998: 60). De esta manera existirá un “racionalismo de la trascendencia”. Una expresión poco usada por Lévinas, precisamente para evitar el equívoco de ser parte de lo que ya no quiere más al ser como es, ligado a la inteligibilidad, la conciencia, el racionalismo de la identidad, del presente y del ser como tal. Un más allá del sentido del ser, tal y como lo estipula la ontología tradicional, no sería, para Lévinas, sino un más acá, anterior, previo al mismo ser. Idea de Dios o lo Infinito que significa una ruptura en el pensamiento y el establecimiento de una “responsabilidad”, hasta la ausencia, por el otro. Idea con una significatividad anterior a toda presencia, a todo origen en la conciencia, an-árquica, “accesible en su huella” (huella de un pasado que jamás fue presente, ausencia que todavía perturba); cuya significatividad es de, entrada, más antigua que su exhibición, que no se agota en el hecho de exhibirse, que no obtiene su sentido de su manifestación, que rompe así con la coincidencia entre el ser y el aparecer en el que reside el sentido o la racionalidad para la filosofía occidental. 400 Metaphysics 2006 – e. Metaphysics and Ethics Bibliografía citada DERRIDA, Jacques,1998, Adiós a Emmanuel Lévinas. Palabra acogida. Madrid: Trota. LEVINAS, Emmanuel,1995, De Dios que viene a la idea. Madrid: Caparrós eds. -1977, Totalidad e infinito. Salamanca: Ediciones Sígueme. -1998, La huella del otro. México: Taurus. -1994, Dios, la muerte y el tiempo. Madrid: Cátedra. RICOEUR, Paul, 1996, Sí mismo como otro, México, S. XXI. 401 f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture REALITY AS AN EVOLVING TRIAD MADE OF INTELLECT, SENSITIVENESS AND POWER Francesco Belfiore Former professor at University of Catania, Italy In my presentation I will attempt to accomplish the almost impossible task of summarizing a conception of the reality in twenty minutes! For reasons of time, I will be forced to draw just an overview of my ontological and metaphysical conception. Some statements might, therefore, appear insufficiently supported. They might be clarified during the discussion. More details will be found in my two books, one already published (Belfiore 2004), the other in press. 1. The Core Ontological Conception 1.1. The Mind and Its Basic Components My philosophical reflection starts from Descartes’ “Cogito, ergo sum”, which I develop as follows. 1.1.1. Descartes had the intuition that, if he thought then he must exist as a thinking entity, that is, as an entity that possesses the attribute of intellect, through which he had acquired the new concept or idea. 1.1.2. At the same time, as he refers (Descartes 1637, p. 48-49), the intuition of the “cogito” gave him a great emotion and enthusiasm, that is, he felt happy. He should have then perceived in a clear and distinct manner that, in addition to intellect, he also possessed another attribute, sensitiveness, that consisted of his ability to feel happy, that is, to have a sentiment. 1.1.3. Soon after the “cogito” intuition, Descartes decided to carry out some actions, that is, to write down an account of his thought, by using his arms and hands. He should have then perceived, in a clear and distinct manner that, in addition to intellect and sensitiveness, he had an additional attribute, the power, which consisted of his ability to carry out actions. This attribute, even if undefined and of uncertain nature, was certainly distinct from the ability to create ideas (intellect) and the ability to feel sentiments (sensitiveness). 1.1.4. Before the “cogito”, Descartes was uncertain about everything, distressed by the doubt, and he carried out some undefined actions; after the “cogito” he became certain that he existed, he was happy, and carried out the action(s) of writing an account of his thought. This shows that Descartes' mind had undergone changes concerning all the three mind components (intellect, sensitiveness and power). Moreover, the “post-cogito” state of Descartes’ mind appears richer, more evolved than the “pre-cogito” state, which means that Descartes’s mind had undergone an evolution. Thus, mind could be defined as an evolving triad made of intellect, sensitiveness and power. 1.2. The Inward Mind Activity Despite the fact that ideas, sentiments and actions appear to be different products of distinct mind components (the intellect, the sensitiveness and the power), all of them enter reality as experiences 405 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture of a single conscious “I”, that is, as distinct and yet inseparable products of consciousness. The latter appears as the result of the inward mind activity. This is the mind activity opposed to the outward activity (which is directed to the “external world”) and directed to the mind itself. It gives the awareness that mind itself is an evolving conscious triad, made of the unity-distinction of intellect, sensitiveness and power. 1.3. Interrelation of Mind Components Mind components are interrelated to each other, inasmuch as each mind component can exist only if supported by the other two components. To this end, each mind component creates products specifically directed to support the other mind components. 1.3.1. The intellect, in its outward activity, besides ideas, also produces projects (which make possible the accomplishment of actions by the power), and fantasies (required by sensitiveness to create aesthetic forms and artistic creations). Likewise, the inward activity of intellect, which may be indicated as rational consciousness, besides the moral thoughts, also creates the moral projects and the moral fantasies. 1.3.2. The power, in its outward activity, besides the actions directed to develop the power itself, also produces actions to think (needed for the activity of intellect), and actions to feel (needed for the activity of sensitiveness). The inward activity of the power, which may be indicated as practical consciousness, besides the moral acts directed to reach the moral ends, also creates the moral acts to think and the moral acts to feel. 1.3.3. The sensitiveness, in its outward activity, besides the sentiments directed to develop sensitiveness itself, also produces desires to think (needed for the activity of intellect), and desires to act (needed for the activity of the power). The inward activity of sensitiveness, which may be indicated as emotional consciousness, besides moral feelings, directed to reach the moral ends, also creates the moral feelings to think and the moral feelings to act. At this point, we have finished to outline the complete structure of the mind. 2. Overview of the Ontological Conception The three mind components just described are actually three complex functions associated to each other and present in all the entities occurring in nature, i.e., they are “distributed” across the various realms of nature. This is because no function can exist if not associated to the form and structure of a physical object and, conversely, no physical object can exist if not under a defined form and structure that entails a given function. Thus, the extremely complex structures of human brain and the entire human body (which belong to the sphere of the power) are necessarily associated with the functions of intellect and sensitiveness, and, conversely, the latter two functions are necessarily associated with the brain and the entire human body (power). To understand this, we should consider intellect, sensitiveness and power as “functions” which represent the interactions between an entity and the environment. This relationship is expressed to a variable extent in the various kinds of entities occurring in nature. On these grounds, let us analyze the presence of these “functions” in some natural “objects” with increasing degree of complexity: a stone, a tree, a horse, and a human being (representative of the inorganic world, plants, animals, and humans, respectively). We note that the three functions are expressed to an increasing extent in these four different “objects”. In a stone, the three functions are minimally expressed or exist in a potential state (a stone, with its presence, exerts some influence on the environment and it resists to the actions exerted by the environment, etc.). In plants and, especially, in animals the interactions with the environment are 406 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture much more complex. In human being the three functions are fully expressed, and the same is true for the inwardly oriented mind activity, which gives rise to consciousness. Finally, all entities undergo changes (even a stone changes through centuries or millennia); these changes become evolution in living beings, but only in humans they give rise to cumulative evolution, which ensures a progressive and endless development. From the above it follows that reality could be represented as consisting of diverse entities made of three components, variously expressed. The concepts so far expounded show that, by expanding Descartes’s cogito, it is possible to construct a new ontological conception. From this, an entire philosophical system can be derived. For reasons of time, I will briefly illustrate only some concepts concerning the following issues: (1) ethics, which is the product of the inward mind activity, or consciousness; (2) knowledge, generated by the outward activity of intellect; (3) aesthetics, created by the outward activity of sensitiveness; and (4) politics, produced by the outward activity of power. 3. Ethics: The Product of the Inward Mind Activity (Consciousness) 3.1.The Role of Rational Consciousness in Defining the “Good” (Moral Principles) The inward activity of intellect, or rational consciousness, gives us the awareness that mind evolution is the objective moral good. To clarify this point, let us consider a series of four “objects”, including an object of the inorganic world and three persons, of whom one was totally restrained in the development of his natural endowment (we will call him “the restrained mind”), one who could develop to only a little degree his attitudes (we will call him “the little evolved mind”), and one who has enjoyed the opportunity to reach the full evolution of his mind (we will call him “the fully evolved mind”). These three “objects” could be regarded as the various stages of an evolutionary process, and could be ordered as follows: [Stage-1: 70 Kg of inorganic matter] [Stage-2: “restrained mind” (say, an illiterate men, living in extreme poverty)] [Stage-3: “little evolved mind”] [Stage-4: “fully evolved mind”]. The difference in “value” between adjacent stages in this sequence should be an objective and self-evident truth for any rational individual. This is because, by observing this series of “objects”, our intellect understands that the difference between them is not similar to the difference in the properties of two simple objects of the inorganic world (like the different color of two shirts), since any stage in this evolutionary sequence appears as objectively “better” and more complex than the preceding one and “worse” and simpler than the following one. These observations of objective facts and the related reflections give rise to the concept of evolution. This concept arises from the only reliable source of human knowledge: the observation (including introspection) of the objects and events of reality. If any human being can change into “better” states, then any human act that favors this change will be “better” that any act that restrains it. This leads to the distinction into “good” and “bad” acts (and the supporting thoughts and projects and feelings). This represents the basis of ethics. If human beings were unable to undergo evolution (or involution), if they were immutable in their properties, no moral norms or ethical theories could be conceived. Thus, at the level of rational consciousness, the moral thoughts (inward activity of intellect) give us the cognitive awareness that mind evolution is the objective moral good, thus creating the ground moral principle. Mind evolution can be conceived as a class including less extensive “moral goods”, 407 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture that is, including the evolution of intellect (knowledge), the evolution of sensitiveness (sensitivity of the soul), and the evolution of the power (economic and social status, including physical health). Each of these “moral goods”, in turn, includes less extensive (or more particular) “moral goods”, so that nothing that is “good” is left outside the basic good represented by mind evolution. The above reasoning suggests that, contrary to Hume's position (1739, pp. 293-301), that knowledge (or reason) is morally neutral, the above reasoning shows that moral thoughts, by telling us what is the good and the evil, do affect moral acts. 3.2. The Role of Emotional Consciousness in “Founding” the Moral Values Moral feelings, produced by the inward activity of sensitiveness (or emotional consciousness), are directed toward moral projects (created by the inward activity of intellect) and the related moral acts, directed to promote (or to restrain) mind evolution. Thus, moral feelings are concerned with mind evolution or involution [In contrast to personal sentiments, produced by the outward activity of sensitiveness, which are directed to what can give pleasure or pain (or happiness or unhappiness)]. Moral feelings, being directed to affect mind evolution, create moral values, that is, moral feelings lead the agent to consider mind evolution as morally desirable or valuable. This means that, as moral thoughts create moral principles - see above - so moral feelings “found” the moral values. Due to the internal coherence of the mind, moral values, founded through the moral feelings, are most often consistent with the moral principles, defined through the moral thoughts. From the above, it follows that, in contrast to the view of utilitarians (Bentham 1789, pp. 38-41; Mill 1861, pp. 6-26), moral feelings are unrelated to happiness. Indeed, moral feelings are often the opposite of the pleasure or happiness (which are personal sentiments), since remorse may be associated with happiness and the awareness of a clean conscience may be associated with unhappiness. It is noteworthy that experiencing a clean conscience could not be confused with happiness or pleasure, because the former is concerned with mind evolution, the latter is not. 3.3. The Role of Practical Consciousness in Performing the Good Moral Acts Moral principles (produced by moral thoughts) and moral values (felt by moral feelings) guide the moral acts (produced by the inward activity of the power, or practical consciousness) to accomplish the good deeds; that is, they serve as moral norms. The ground moral norm prescribes the promotion of mind evolution, that is, the promotion of the evolution of intellect (knowledge), of sensitiveness (sensitivity of the soul), and of power (wealth/social status). Given that mind evolution is the “good” for all human beings, this norm is valid for all the human beings. On the other hand, this norm does not prescribe a given, well-defined act but indicates a very special and becoming “end” (mind evolution), which can be reached by means of different, particular moral acts, none of which, per se, has a constant effect. This is because the effect of a moral act depends upon the conditions of the affected mind. Thus, we can say that the ground moral norm is an “open” (non dogmatic) norm, equal for all and yet different for each. An example may be useful. A father, who decides to support the education of his children until they complete elementary school, has taken a morally good decision if he lives in an underdeveloped country where most of the population is illiterate, but he has taken a morally bad decision if he lives in a European country. Thus, we may conclude that the moral good (mind evolution) is understood as such by the intellect (through the moral thoughts), is felt by sensitiveness (through the moral feelings), and is realized by the power (through the moral acts). 4. Outward Mind Activity 408 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture 4.1. Outward Activity of Intellect (Knowledge) 4.1.1 Ideas. Ideas, created by the outward activity of intellect, can be distinguished into true or false by the truth criterion. An idea is true not, as commonly thought, when it corresponds to the “object”, but when it corresponds to the subject-object relationship, which is the starting point of the knowledge process. Since reality is a triadic but unitary entity, the thinking mind is not detached from the physical world (as supposed by Descartes), but is within it. When we see a “red” object, the “red color” is an objective property of the subject-object complex because, considering how the object, the light, and our nervous system are made, it is objectively true that the sensation of the red color is produced. Thus, men can only know the [man]-[rest of the world] relationship; Martians could only know the [Martian]-[rest of the world] relationship. Both these forms of knowledge would be equally true. In the macro-world (apart from the physico-chemical world), objects are complex, diverse from each other, and continuously changing. Events are complex and variable too. Thus, our knowledge of single objects or events is always incomplete. Our mind groups similar objects into classes and similar events into scientific laws, in the attempt to get universal ideas. Yet, the diversity of objects and variability of events make our knowledge incomplete and approximate. This means that the so-called universal propositions like “All ‘S’ are ... ” should be changed into “Most ‘S’ are ... ”; hence, our knowledge is grounded on statistics and our forecasts are probabilistic. 4.1.2 Projects. Projects are another product of the outward activity of intellect; they can be distinguished into efficacious or inefficacious by the efficaciousness criterion; I will skip this issue for reasons of time. Projects can also be distinguished into particular or universal by the value criterion. Particular projects are those created by individual minds. Universal projects are those shared by all or most of the members of a class of individuals. In the democratic states, universal projects coincide with the laws enacted by the legislative authority (parliament); that is, universal projects are those shared by the majority of citizens, and coincide with the legal norms. Thus, the laws and the legislative authority, being concerned with universal projects, belong to the sphere of intellect and are ontologically distinct from the executive apparatus, which belongs to the sphere of power. 4.2. Outward Activity of Sensitiveness (Aesthetics) Again, I have to skip this issue. I only recall that both the sentiments (joyful or sorrowful) and the aesthetic objects (beautiful or ugly) are the product of the “founding” activity of sensitiveness. 4.3. Outward Activity of Power (Politics) Actions, produced by the outward activity of power, can be distinguished into weak or strong by the strength criterion and into particular or universal by the value criterion. Particular actions are those performed by single individuals. Universal actions are those performed by all the members of a society, by following its laws. In contrast to the “social contract” theory, society is the necessary result of the trend of human actions toward universality. This is because, while ideas (and sentiments) can develop toward universality in the mind of a single individual (a scientist), actions can only become universal if individuals organize themselves into a society and follow its laws. The executive apparatus, which enforces the laws, belongs to the sphere of power and, thus, is ontologically distinct from the legislative power. 5. Conclusions 5.1. Descartes’ cogito has been expanded into a new ontological conception of human “Mind” or “Spirit” as a triadic entity made of intellect, sensitiveness and power. 409 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture 5.2. The outward mind activity, directed to the “external world”, allows us to understand that the three mind components are actually three complex functions associated to each other and present in all the entities occurring in nature, i.e., they are “distributed” across the various realms of nature, from the inorganic world, to vegetable kingdom, to animal kingdom, to the human beings. The power represents what is commonly understood as physical world, and produces the actions, which are relationships between the human body and the rest-of-the-world. Physical objects cannot exist unless they assume a defined form and structure, which entails some functions. Conversely, no function can exist if not associated to the form and structure of a physical object. 5.3. The inward mind activity, directed to mind itself, gives rise to consciousness, that is, gives us the awareness that mind is an evolving entity, and that mind evolution is the objective moral good. 5.4. From the ontological conception here described, it is possible to derive a complete philosophical system by following an observational method, which assures the objectivity of the proposed solutions. Thus, issues such as ethics, politics, and law are given an ontological foundation. 410 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture References Belfiore, F. The Structure of the Mind. Outlines of a Philosophical System (Dallas, Lanham, New York, Oxford: University Press of America 2004, pp. 404). Belfiore, F. The Ontological Foundation of Ethics, Politics, and Law (Dallas, Lanham, New York, Oxford: University Press of America, pp. 585, submitted). Bentham, J. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789], edited by J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). Descartes, R. ‘Discourse on the Method’ [1637], in F. E. Sutcliffe (ed. and trans.): René Descartes. Discourse on Method and The Meditations (London: Penguin, 1968). Hume, D. A Treatise of Human Nature [1739], ed. D. F. Norton and M. J. Norton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Mill, J. S. Utilitarianism [1861] (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2nd ed., 2002). 411 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture METAFISICA ANTROPICA: IL PENSIERO OPERANTE E L’AGIRE CONTEMPLANTE Tomaso Bugossi Premessa Il filosofare è perenne discorso critico e problematico, come tale l’inizio di ogni procedre speculativo non è immobilismo. Chi filosofa evidenzia e disvela nuovi aspetti veritativi e in ciò consiste la storia del pensiero o storia della filosofia. Una prospettiva filosofica, degna di questo nome, è un percorso che produce nuove forme dialettiche del pensare, rinnova la tradizione e nel contempo se ne alimenta; è un punto di vista novativo che tende a scoprire aspetti già evidenti, ma spesse volte velati. Ognuno edifica la propria filosofia, il che significa che ciascuno ha una prospettiva personale ed inconfondibile e, per quanto mi concerne, questo mio dire, desidera potersi inscrivere all’interno della metafisica dell’integralità; nei miei lavori la vengo denominando “metafisica antropica”. La metafisica se tale è, è sempre criticamente aperta (la metafisica nasce problematica ed antidogmatica) ad ulterioriori integrazioni, approfondimenti, ripensamenti. Il filosofare come ricerca della verità si pone in relazione alle filosofie precedenti cercando di separare il caduco da quelli che sono i perenni aspetti veritativi e ripensare questi ultimi in modo da rapportarli al dialogo contemporaneo. Prospettare nuovi percorsi è certamente sottoporre a vaglio un’intera cultura e liberarla dai suoi rami secchi; ciò produce crisi, certo positivamente intesa. Questa è la storia, non certo quella che passa senza lasciare segno, ma quella che permane e per il fatto stesso che permane, è viva ed autentica: E’ continuo svolgimento, rivelatore, come prima si diceva, di nuovi aspetti veritativi, e in ciò consiste l’autentico progresso. Vi sono invece due prospettive entrambi sterili e dannose all’autentico progresso e queste sono quelle che negano il presente per confinarsi nel passato, false custodi della tradizione (conservatorismo e tradizionalismo) e quelle che negano il passato e rigettano il presente, per un avvenire senza radici (rivoluzionarismo d’ogni tipo). Queste due posizioni estreme hanno però un punto in comune: la negazione del presente. Il non tenerne conto significa non vivere, ma soprattutto non pensare, l’equivalente del negare il senso della storia e i valori che vi si rivelano. Esemplifichiamo il nostro dire: il primo (tradizionalismo) non desidera la potatura dei rami secchi; se , invece, ciò avvenisse, potrebbero sbocciare e fiorire nuove foglie e nuovi rami (l’albero sarebbe così rinvigorito); il secondo (rivoluzionarismo) sradica di netto l’albero. Entrambe queste posizioni manifestano odio verso la verità. Il “ritorno alle origini” e il “rimando all’avvenire” sono pertanto due istanze del tempo che non-è; sono due modi opposti per negare la verità o inchiodandola al tempo che non-è più (e non può più tornare), o rimandandola a quello che non-è ancora (e non sarà mai); perché il logos o non è, o è in principio, ed è sempre contemporaneo per il fatto che è, non è stato solo in un tempo lontano, né sarà solo domani. Questo dire era doveroso per evitare fraintendimenti; entriamo, o meglio, proseguiamo nel nostra riflessione. 413 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Tutta la realtà, o meglio, la concretezza inerisce all’uomo. Senza l’uomo non c’è cultura, né civiltà, né stato. La matrice di questo dire è indubbiamente, platonica; è Platone che, nella Repubblica, sostiene che disquisire sullo stato è disquisire sull’uomo e viceversa. Di conseguenza, il problema iniziale, elementare, nel senso di fondamentale, per il procedere del nostro discorso è delineare chi è l’uomo, o meglio chi sono io. Risolto questo problema, avremo trovato la soluzione degli altri problemi. Il problema, di conseguenza è di ordine ontologico – metafisico, ossia, il problema consiste nel definire lo statuto ontologico dell’uomo, il mio peculiare statuto ontologico, e questo definirmi mi porterà in relazione ad un Essere, a quell’Essere che mi fonda e dal quale traggo origine e al quale tendo: Dio, il Principio metafisico. Principio è inizio e tutto inizia nell’Essere e per l’Essere; la ricerca dell’Essere per l’uomo non può delinearsi che come istanza metafisica e, siccome è ricerca di verità, non può essere l’uomo verità di se stesso, né pertanto fondamento di se stesso. La filosofia è ricerca, ma ricerca della verità, abbiamo evidenziato, e l’uomo non ricercherebbe questa verità, o meglio, questa verità prima, se non fosse in lui presente. Il filosofare, pertanto, appartiene all’uomo, mi appartiene, mi pone inquieto all’ascolto del divino - principio di oggettività e fondamento del sapere: è in questo contesto la manifestazione del divino nell’uomo. Un pensare ridotto al particolare, che è di conseguenza, opinione, è pura illusione, in quanto che considera che si può apprendere più adeguatamente il dato sperimentale mettendo in oblio la verità. Niente di più falso perché, in questi termini, il conoscere, si fonda solo sui dati dell’esperienza, considerata come l’unica forma di conoscenza possibile di cui l’uomo è capace. Con questo si sta negando il principio stesso del sapere e, come logica conseguenza, il filosofare stesso. Questa è una prospettiva dicotomica di considerare l’uomo, prospettiva che lo pone dimidiato; questa è la volontà di mettere in rilievo ed assolutizzare un solo aspetto particolare dell’uomo, sottolineando che così si esalta l’uomo e lo si rende più libero. Neghiamo fortemente questa posizione, puntualizzando che non si arricchisce, ma si impoverisce un uomo se gli si sottraggono delle dimensioni. Inoltre l’uomo non è né una somma, né una differenza di dimensioni, è una sintesi di dimensioni. Tutto altro dire. Nelle sintesi niente si perde: il corporeo e il mondano si posizionano veritativi alla luce della verità. Da questa prospettiva sia la sensazione, sia la opinione possono entrare di “diritto” nella riflessione filosofica, tenendo ben presente di non riferirci esclusivamente a queste due istanze, pericolo sempre in noi latente. Se così non fosse si cadrebbe sotto il loro giogo e dominio. E nel preciso momento del loro dominio non esisterebbe più né il dialogo né la comunicazione, in quanto avendo rinunciato al logos, non sussistendo i termini della relazione, il discorso cadrebbe, inevitabilmente, nel solipsismo. Per questo è necessario permanere “vigilanti”, perché all’interno dello stesso statuto ontologico dell’uomo coesistono i due momenti: il filosofico e il filodoxo, in altre parole, filosofia e antifilosofia convivono. L’uomo vince la tentazione dell’antifilosofia tutte le volte che le sue sensazioni e le sue opinioni si dialettizzano grazie al principio dialettico; ed è la intelligenza che compie questa operazione, quell’intelligenza , fondamento del pensare ex veritate. All’interno del pensiero ex veritate si permane nel piano dell’esistenza, dell’umanità, della relazione con l’Essere, base questa sulla quale si fonda e si istaura la dignità umana. Fuori da questa sintetica prospettiva, non c’è più intelligenza, ma ragione organizzativa e calcolatrice; non c’è più esistenza, ma pura vitalità; non c’è più umanità, ma umanitarismo di qualsiasi colore, con tutti gli annessi sociologismi e psicologismi; non c’è più una relazione “creazionista” con l’Essere, ma un depotenziamento dell’Essere, con istanze di soggettivismo, relativismo, scetticismo, agnosticismo, nichilismo, in altri termini, l’oscuramento dell’intelligenza. Si badi bene che sino ad ora ho sempre 414 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture inteso intelligenza in senso ontologico, non psicologico. E l’intelligenza ha matrice teistica. Oscurata la nostra intelligenza, il dialogo, si trasforma in dibattito (il dibattito si pone all’antipodi del logos); nel dibattito si perde la carica positiva dell’opinione e, al tempo stesso, il riconoscimento, della validità del mondano. Il mondano si assolutizza, il particolare si afferma come universale, il soggettivo come oggettivo- inversione dei valori - . Si instaura la carica negativa dell’opinione, si dichiara la vittoria della doxa, che proclama il sefmademan, l’uomo che si fa da solo, l’uomo che pertanto si crede anarchicamente libero e così si pone serafico a raccogliere i frutti del suo operare … Al Valore si sostituiscono i valori, a la libertà le libertà, a la giustizia le giustizie. Non esiste più paradigma su cui articolare il proprio dire o sul quale fondare la propria umanità. Non posta l’esistenza del Criterio, la “norma” non ha più senso, e anche linguisticamente si decreta la fine dell’uomo, e, più propriamente, lo si definisce, cittadino. Sofisti di ieri, di oggi e di domani. Bando alla “Res publica” e corsa alla poltrona più alta del potere! L’ autorità diviene autoritarismo, la politica, politicismo, la libertà schiavitù. Queste sono le conseguenze dell’assolutizzare una visione unilaterale della realtà. Le norme empiriche che regolano i fatti particolari non possono sostituirsi al principio della verità; al di fuori del principio, il “pratico” non è più criterio, è puro dato fenomenico e come tale ha perso la sua consistenza. Svuotato di ogni valore tutto viene posto sullo stesso piano, anche l’economico; ogni dato viene snaturato, svilito per un puro gioco di interessi: Ciò porta il passaggio da un criterio ad un metodo e questo è indice di un fenomeno di privatizzazione, di impoverimento, in quanto non esiste un principio unitario, principio di ogni sapere. Il problema posto in questi termini manifesta la necessità di discutere filosoficamente e non “vociare” di filosofia; cioè il discorso deve essere portato sul fondamento dell’essere e all’interno del suo ordine e non nei termini di economia scienza sociologia psicologia statistica. Non vi può essere riduzione del momento filosofico a qualsivoglia altro momento, pena la sua negazione. Negata la filosofia si è nell’astrattezza più completa, vuoto di verità, discorso sul niente, orizzontalismo dei valori, anticultura. La cultura, invece, è formazione di forma, formazione della propria forma nel rispetto di quei valori che mi formano, che mi rendono degno di rispetto e mi permettono il rispetto di coloro che, diversi in somiglianza, hanno intrapreso il cammino culturale. Il concetto di cultura è quel concetto sintetico proprio dell’uomo in quanto spirito incarnato, comprendente lo sviluppo integrale e totale dei valori umani, il perfezionamento del vivere, della morale, della religione in un compimento che è progressione del soggetto umano in personalità culturale che sa quanto il sapere sia diverso e lontano dal potere, quanto non le interessi il dominio della natura ma, al contrario, quanto le sia proprio il desiderio di conoscenza al fine di trovare in essa verità, qualunque ordine e grado di verità. La cultura è l’efficace dispiegamento dell’uomo nella sua grandezza organata tutta interiormente secondo un progetto di “aumento” dell’interiorità spirituale per costituire una civiltà dello spirito non finalizzata al solo sapere, ma aperta ad ulteriore comprensione. Civiltà dello spirito, in quanto spirito di cultura, e il senso della civiltà nostra, questo nostro Occidente, che ancora una volta deve riconoscersi la funzione di essere uno degli artefici di un moto universale, senza avvilenti rinunzie rispetto alla propria tradizione, come non deve rinunziare alle attese future: confermare lo spirito della tradizione nostra nella civiltà per confermare e affermare la dimensione culturale. La cultura, in quanto sviluppo e formazione, presuppone capacità creativa, poietica, atti personali per “fare” nuova cultura innestata ad un passato, perché questo tempo rimanga nel presente e sia possibile la traduzione, l’affidamento, l’essere tramandato per accrescimenti ulteriori. 415 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Allora è necessaria una designazione conquistata e quindi positiva del senso dei valori umani rintracciabili nelle opere per cui l’affermazione di autonomia dell’uomo e del mondo consiste, situandosi all’interno di quella tradizione metafisica e religiosa che caratterizza l’Occidente che si segna appunto di questa tradizione e di questa autonomia che sono la nostra situazione dove il comune sostrato non provoca incomprensione e lotta tra le varie forme di coltura e dove è vivo il loro rispetto. Il sostrato comune è rintracciabile nella preterstoricità dell’umano e dei suoi valori, lasciando ogni pretesa di parziale e soggettiva misura di valutazione in quanto cultura è penetrabilità dei vari punti di vista. La cultura, e come problema, il concetto di cultura, si conquista e si mantiene nella conquista e nel mantenimento del suo fondamento: il Principio metafisico che è il principio che permette il comune sostrato. Dopo il cristianesimo la cultura si mostra in forme e significato del tutto nuovi rispetto al mondo greco, giacché la ricerca dell’uomo su se stesso si svolge per sapere il suo essere nella verità e la verità che lo fa essere all’interno di quei limiti riconosciuti ed accettati dall’intelligenza. Ricerca finalizzata al conoscere al sapere e a capire il senso e il significato del mondo ossia senza distaccarsi e disprezzare la conoscenza naturale da cui si costituiscono le scienze. Dopo il cristianesimo, la cultura e la civiltà non possono più finalizzarsi nella scienza, come non lo può più l’uomo in quanto insufficiente è il dato razionale, ma si deve riproporre il problema filosofico, quello impostato dalla classicità greca, discutere il principio del sapere, indagare la verità prima dell’essere. La cultura non si limita più agli aspetti artistici, letterari, scientifici, filosofici, ecc., si allarga nell’ambito dell’intelletto e dell’agire modificando così il concetto classico di se stessa come pura contemplazione intellettuale, arricchendosi dello spirito di Amore. Cultura che pertanto si svolge in spirito di cultura, pur mantenendosi all’interno di una certa autonomia laica. Ma su questo punto desidero soffermarmi per non generare equivoci. Questa autonomia laica quando si vive come autosufficienza perde gli arricchimenti della religione, si sconsacra e si rende sorda alla ontologicità dell’uomo; viene falsata la formazione integrale di quest’ultimo e l’uomo si perde in una falsa cultura, nel laicismo, che si misura di intellettualità, si delinea come mediocrità, promuove diseducazione, abbassa la forma della cultura in formula tecnica, immanentizza tutto, tutto storicizzando sino alla riduzione dell’umanesimo a puro naturalesimo dove ogni valore è pensato come derivato storico. Certo è che l’inizio della “cultura vuota” si intravede già nelle ultime propaggini del pensiero medievale (occamismo) e in alcune particolarità del Rinascimento, ma la vera rottura avviene con l’Illuminismo dove si perde la caratteristica contemplativa e si inizia la divulgazione più bassa, analisi di particolari nell’assenza di un’idea. Questo in quanto si è sostituito il principio del fare a quello dell’essere, il principio dell’utile a quello della verità, il concetto di civilizzazione a quello di civiltà. Ma fare senza fondamento è un “fare sul niente”, pensare senza un principio di verità non è più pensare, è esistere senza libertà e senza criteri morali; l’unica libertà che rimane è quella di fare quello che voglio, libertà meramente politico- economica che si insedia sull’opinione, origine delle varie ideologie. La cultura come puro naturalismo è asservimento a queste ideologie politiche e agli interessi economici, al mondo industriale assunto come categoria unica e assoluta. La “cultura” illuministica è solo unilaterale, non ha consapevolezza della libertà dell’uomo come problema integrale, nega ogni validità se non ai valori pratici e così operando destabilizza la sintesi su cui cultura poggia e la perde completamente. La cultura legata all’industrializzazione e al tecnicismo diventa competenza specialistica, conoscenza ristretta in ambiti sempre più ristretti, approssimata formazione costituita da nozioni e luoghi comuni, e viene valutata solo se “rende” sul piano dell’economico e del sociale. 416 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Di fronte a questa situazione il problema che si pone all’uomo di cultura è quello di rettificare la cultura specialistica dell’Illuminismo e del neo-illuminismo, unicamente cultura del prodotto, rinnovando criticamente il concetto di cultura come formazione dell’uomo in quanto rispondente all’essere dell’uomo. Solo una cultura che mantiene le sue essenzialità è articolata, autenticamente pluralista, perché coscienza critica, coscienza che vi è soluzione solo se vi è problema, coscienza di non essere dominati dal dogmatismo del particolare e dell’opinabile. Il neo-illuminismo contemporaneo è prodotto dall’alleanza di politica industria tecnocrazia e la sua “cultura”, in quanto apparato burocratico, è l’espressione totalitaria, è totalitarismo ossia intendimento della ricerca e della speculazione libera non più per “necessità”, ma organizzate dai gruppi economici dove l’uomo è strumento della produzione per il consumo: la società consumistica culturale di oggi è solo verso il potere senza la cultura, anzi è concepita come potere culturale che altro non è che ricerca di nuove tecniche, mezzi di produzione a cui l’intellettuale deve tenere bordone. La cultura e la civiltà dell’Occidente è nella sua essenza e, come lo fu all’origine, armonia tra ragione e fede; l’uomo si completa tutto nel percorso naturale e si compie con la fede nel suo esistere soprannaturale. Il pensiero moderno, dal Rinascimento in poi, ha elaborato dottrine e concetti che non hanno più significato cristiano e hanno provocato frattura tra l’uomo e il divino, dando inizio alla crisi dell’Occidente. Questo pensiero ha spostato il centro da Dio al mondo, ha sostituito al principio metafisico quello immanente. Il concetto stesso di verità è stato trasposto in quello del pensiero che crea la verità; il concetto di libertà si è trasformato (autosufficientemente) nella volontà che crea la legge, quindi è legge in sé; il concetto dell’uomo che aspira all’assoluto è stato identificato con il concetto di un uomo che pone l’assoluto e pertanto è egli stesso assoluto; il principio dell’interiorità è stato ridotto all’identificazione della verità con l’attività del soggetto; Dio è stato risolto come grado di un processo dialettico dell’attività dello spirito, momento di un divenire storico, secondo una scala evolutiva. Negato il Trascendente, identificato l’essere con il mondo, la verità con il soggetto, negata l’autonomia della religione e quindi della cultura, si è negata la filosofia nel suo costituito, la metafisica, si è pervenuti a quell’umanesimo assoluto dove cultura e civiltà sono invertite ossia non sono più dimensionate sull’uomo e sulla sua intenzionalità oltrestorica. Tutto viene risolto nel mondo e per il mondo; questa negazione della cultura e della civiltà, dopo Hegel, è diventata crisi integrale, giacché nel negare ogni verità, questa “cultura” si è disorientata nel materialismo scettico, ha perduto anche il concetto di autorità confondendolo con quello dell’arbitrarietà autoritaristica, dunque dell’anarchia. E ora bisogna avere il coraggio di parlarci chiaro. Quasi nessuna contrapposizione culturale a questa situazione storicamente conformatasi è venuta dalla cultura cattolica. E se anche la spiritualità mistica si è, quasi controbilanciamento, presentata con maggior vigore, ciò non è stato e non è sufficiente se non è compresente il discorso filosofico che è saldatura del riflesso sull’immediato. Senza questa saldatura, la cultura cattolica perde un Galilei solo perché ironizza sull’alessandrinismo culturale in virtù del principio del sapere; perde un Galilei (solo in parte sdoganato), come un Campanella, un Vico, un Rosmini perché incapace di riproporsi secondo modi adeguati ai tempi contemporanei, ferma e bloccata nella storia e nel suo culto. La cultura non può stancare e mortificare le intelligenze con la ripetuta ripetizione manualistica perché così facendo, invece di prepararla al rinnovo la spinge alla ribellione, la getta per reazione contro la filosofia e pertanto verso la metafisica (la filosofia è metafisica o non è, mi ha insegnato il 417 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture mio maestro Michele Federico Sciacca), la sospinge all’interno delle tecniche delle sociologie delle analisi pragmatiche, nei vuoti messaggi di “quello che c’è da fare”. L’attuale ribellarsi al pensiero fondato, l’attuale parlare per tattiche migliorative del benessere conducono soltanto al vuoto interiore, preparato da cattivo insegnamento, da troppa inerzia spirituale, passività e pigrizia, dal poco alimento interiore e dal poco fermento di “nuovo pensare”. Questo vuoto interiore e questa dissoluzione della ragione intelligente, in parte, è dovuta anche a una religione ridotta a religiosità formulativi, a una religione non ripensata e rivissuta con tutto il nostro essere: questa è la crisi dell’Occidente, cappa di piombo per un vuoto, per il niente di pensiero, crisi di conformismo come ultima, presentemente a noi, conseguenza dell’irrazionalismo, dissolvimento del logos, disfacimento della sintesi per cui la parola Occidente e la parola cultura possono essere delle sostanzialità, scioglimento dell’unità tra il creato e il Cielo. 418 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Mr. R and Metaphysics. 10 Ten stories Stories selected from my booklet Selected From My Book “The Cat and Self-Realization, Stories of Mr. R” Remo Bernasconi, psychiatrist and psychotherapist Versoix/Geneva, Switzerland. Several years ago I wrote and published a booklet short book in German about a character called Mr.R. The idea of presenting some of these stories in English (with the help of Paul Shepherd’s fine translations) at this conference on metaphysics arose from the fact that some of them had been selected to be read on the regular weekly radio program entitled Text zum Sonntag (“The word Text on Sunday”) on the Swiss German-Language Radio Station DRS. What does “metaphysics” mean in this context? On a superficial level, it refers to the Greek term ta metaphysika, which means the things behind or beyond physical reality. In order of appearance, the stories I present centre on self-realization, death and dying, ontology, dying the unessential, religion, meaning the meaning of life, believe suicide and the essential. On a deeper level, metaphysics does not refer to any specific content, but to a process, and it signifies a turn - a moment of awareness - the sudden appearance of something unexpected coming from somewhere else, which has the potential to transform or transcend the text. Mr. R, the Cat, and Self-Realization Mr. R. was writing at his desk. When the cat asked him what he was writing, he said, “I’m writing about self-realization.” “What does that mean?” “I want to realize myself more, to have more time for myself, to write, to do my thing.” Mr. R. was silent for a while and then said, “I’d like to be able to be myself. With self-realization, it’s not what you do; it’s who you are. I want to be myself.” “How are you going to do that?” asked the cat. “I want to start to meditate, take part in Zen courses and then go to a Zen monastery, where I can be completely myself.” The cat remained silent for a while and then said, “I’m myself. It’s no big achievement; I don’t know who I should be otherwise. I’m myself by just being here. You’re not yourself because you’re thinking. I think too, but only a little. Whenever I think, I also feel something at the same time. When I’m no longer myself, it’s because I’ve lost myself and don’t feel myself any more. In order to be yourself, you have to feel more.” Mr. R and Death I Mr. R. used to think a lot about death, and discovered that he had an ambivalent relationship to it. 419 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture On the one hand he was afraid of death; he feared death in the form of a skeleton, as the Grim Reaper. He was afraid of death, which he connected with illness, especially cancer. He was afraid of the specter of death, which meant the end of life. On the other hand, he felt attracted to death when he imagined it as a transition, as “the other”, as something that transcends life. Images would then come to him of death as peace, death as reconciliation, death as a homecoming, and the idea of lying in a grave in the cemetery was not unpleasant to him - on the condition, however, that a gravestone was there and a flowerbed - on the condition, in other words, that he wouldn’t be abandoned and forgotten in death. The idea that his flesh would be eaten by worms or simply putrefy and decay was certainly unbearable, but he also couldn’t really make friends with the idea of being cremated, even if this solution was definitely more appetizing than the former. For a moment he considered the idea of embalmment, which he then quickly rejected for financial and social reasons. Having come to this point in his musings, Mr. R had the feeling that it was advantageous to be still alive at present. Mr. R’s Basic Philosophical Principles Mr. R had formulated the following philosophical rule-of-three: 1) Everything is the same. 2) Everything is different. 3) Some things are more different than others. When Mr. R developed further spiritually in the course of his life, he added a fourth rule: 4) Everything has to do with everything else. Mr. R and Death II On his way downstairs Mr. R encountered a bumblebee. It was black and round and beautiful, and looked exactly like a bumblebee should, and also buzzed like one. But it hardly moved and evidently it could no longer fly. At first Mr. R thought the bumblebee was dead, and then he thought it might be dying. Not wanting to let it die on the stairs, Mr. R threw it out the window. The bumblebee didn’t fly and fell into a bush in front of the window. Seeing this, Mr. R thought it would die in the bush. This all happened early on a beautiful morning and Mr. R didn’t feel sad about the death of the bumblebee. Somehow he found it natural and right that the bumblebee could now die. After all, bumblebees can’t live forever! Mr. R imagined how terrible it would be if the bumblebee had to live forever. Mr. R even found it beautiful that the bumblebee had now died. It was a transition. A bird might eat it now and that was also all right; there wasn’t anything cruel about it. Mr. R liked the bumblebee. For him it was a creature that had now come to the end of its life. Mr. R felt peaceful and almost happy about the death of the bumblebee. Its life was over and it had gone. There wasn’t anything horrible or frightening about it: no tears, no burial, no regrets, no pity, no suffering. Mr. R thought that he would like to die like that someday: to just go in peace. When something is over, he said to himself, you have to go. Everything is always in flux. Mr. R asked himself if what happened after death would be important to him. He came to the conclusion that it actually wasn’t important. Yes, perhaps he would come back in a new incarnation – but did it really matter? 420 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture For Mr. R it was important to be able to go away some day like the bumblebee when his life was over. That could be today, or tomorrow or many years from now, it didn’t matter. Mr. R felt peaceful and happy, now that he became aware that he would definitely die some day and that no one had missed out on death up to now. Mr. R and the Inessential Mr. R had an abhorrence of the inessential. He loved meaningful things of cultural importance, and he was the one to decide what that was. Inessential things, therefore, such as money, shopping, eating or sleeping, stood for him in corresponding disorder, especially when he was alone. Mr. R and Religion Mr. R was a religious person in the sense that he needed religion as a connection with a higher power and that religion was a matter of course for him. As a child he had received religious instruction from a liberal pastor who had been so freethinking that, in the end, the young R considered it was basically all the same what you believed in or if you believed in anything at all. In order to escape from this sameness, the young R dreamt of becoming a monk in a medieval monastery. But, because those times were already over, his dream remained a dream. Later, during a long period of possession by the devil, while Mr. R was heavily drinking, he attempted with the aid of texts to prove that God did not exist. He wasn’t successful in his proofs, however, first of all because he wasn’t knowledgeable enough to really understand Sartre, and secondly because he was increasingly convinced that the devil really did exist, since he controlled him more and more. He thus concluded that, in terms of logic, God must also exist. When it later became possible for Mr. R to put his logic to practice and he had found God again, he had already happened upon Buddhism. He discovered that the divine was everywhere, and present in a special way deep inside himself. When Mr. R prayed to God, in Swiss German of course (Mr. R spoke several languages but it would have been unthinkable for him to pray in any language other than his mother tongue), God came, so to speak, out of his soul and stood there almost like a person somewhere in space, although more in heaven than anywhere else. And when Mr. R looked carefully and wanted to know what God really looked like, he didn’t actually see him, but sometimes somewhere, like a flash of lightning, a face appeared, a face that looked very much like the face of his father when Mr. R was still a child. Mr. R’s Search for the Meaning of Life Mr. R sometimes searched for the meaning of life. Nothing much occurred to him, however, so he soon gave up his search. As soon as he gave up searching, he found the meaning again. Mr. R and Suicide Mr. R often thought about suicide without feeling sad or desperate. Suicide seemed to him a possibility to end his life if he should see no other way out of it. Mr. R often felt a need to explode and thus played with the idea of shooting a bullet in his head or his mouth, after filling his mouth with water. However, the idea of ending his life in this way made him afraid and he didn’t find it to be a pleasant thought. But Mr. R did not really want to explode; he wanted to melt away. That‘s why he had the idea of shooting a bullet in his heart; his heart would be open and his blood would just flow out. For a long time Mr. R felt peace in the idea that his heart’s blood would slowly flow out. 421 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Only after many years did he learn to open up his heart without losing any blood. Fortunately he had not yet killed himself and no longer felt any need to consider suicide. Mr. R and the Essential I Mr. R was in search of the essential. When he was with his family, he liked to retreat into his books to find the essential there. But when he was alone with his books, he missed his family. Mr. R had a great knack for bypassing the essential. Mr. R and the Essential II As Mr. R grew older, his life began to seem increasingly superficial and unessential to him. He was looking for something - hadn’t he always been searching for something? - He was looking for the essential. In all the transitory, coincidental and meaningless things in his life there had to be something essential somewhere. Mr. R became more and more interested in discovering the essential, finding it, seeing it and grasping it. To this end it seemed important to Mr. R to give the essential a name. If he could give it a name, he would also know what it was. He searched for a name. It seemed to him, at any rate, that the essential was not something superficial, but rather something deep - it had to be something with depth. Mr. R attempted to think about depth. Words like deep excavation, deep-sea fishing and deep brook occurred to him. Deep brook, in German “Tiefbach” was incidentally the name of one of his son’s former schoolteachers. He thought about her and in the process encountered quite inessential and distracting thoughts. Now he imagined himself advancing into the depths and digging a hole in his garden. The earth in his garden was hard and clayey. He soon felt sweaty and dirty and in the process came further away from his goal. The essential is perhaps the meaningful, it occurred to him, and he searched for meaningful concepts in his life. Love, justice, work, rest - yes, his rest was very meaningful to him. But all of these concepts seemed too rambling and indefinite to really correspond to the essential. So then he searched for things. In the process he thought of money, bed, coffee, cigarettes and Coca Cola – and now he had lapsed again into the superficial and unessential. Mr. R then turned his attention to philosophy. Here he was sure to find the essential! The essential was perhaps quite simply the essence. But what sort of essence? It sounded like a tautology. Or was the essential simply the BEING, the “ENS” or “TO ON” to say it somewhat solemnly in Latin or Greek? That sounded better, but remained quite impersonal. Mr. R couldn’t do much with that idea. You couldn’t see being, or speak it or take it in your hand. Mr. R decided to give the essential a personal name, its own special name, so to speak. For that purpose he chose the first two letters of the alphabet and called it “BA.” BA seemed to him to be a good name for the essential. You could see it. There it was: BA. You could imagine something, a small object, a BA that you could take in your hand. You could pronounce it: BA, BA, BA. You could meditate on it. Mr. R meditated a long time about BA. He thought it was a good name, although perhaps not perfect. To be perfect you would have to take everything unessential away from the name. One—no, two letters were too many. 422 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Cultural Experience after Metaphysics: On the Thoughts of Nishida Kitarô Gerald Cipriani Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Central England Birmingham Institute of Art & Design How is it possible to understand the nature of the formation of meaning in cultural practices after metaphysics, and without falling into the trap of aimless relativism? Part of the answer may well be found in the thoughts of the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarô, who coined together aspects of Western metaphysics and Zen Buddhism. Understanding Nishida’s thought from a Western perspective is not an easy task, partly, (and obviously), because of problems of translations and partly because of his style of writing, which is, at first glance, disrupted and disrupting as much as decentred and decentring. In this respect, his style made him avant la lettre, akin to the way the French poststructuralists write. Nishida’s thought is usually seen as being divided into four periods, or phases. He started his philosophical reflection by addressing the possibility to understand our awareness of ‘reality’ by using what he called ‘pure experience’ (junsui keiken) as a starting point, (first period). He believed that one could then be in a position to understand how authentic reality is experienced, prior to the distinction between subject and object, prior to explanations and conceptual discriminations of all kinds. The influence of Zen Buddhist practice as conceived by his friend Daisetz Susuki, was at this stage clear. Although Nishida was not so radical as many Zen Buddhist monks in their suspicion and even rejection of any form of language and thought articulated through writing, he believed that an understanding of any authentic awareness of reality must be grounded in the practice of experiencing the facts in themselves. He soon realised however that such a stance could be rightly accused of mysticism as it inexorably pointed in the direction of subjective consciousness. Indeed, to promote as he did a Bergsonian conception of intuition as a tool to understand our awareness of reality could only lead, against his will, to a form of subjectivity of the ineffable. He came to the conclusion that intuition, or the immediate grasp of reality had to be worked out in relation to that from which it differs, i.e. objective reflection. Even further these had to be understood as part of a reciprocal bipolarity, by means of which absolute will materialises into the self. Pure experience thus lost its foundational nature and became the moment of ‘self-awakening’ (jikaku), that is to say when the relationship between the bipolarity intuition/reflection that constitutes the self, and the absolute will was unlocked, (second period). However such a theory, which was originally profoundly influenced by Fichte, and which presented the will as a necessary background, had to avoid giving priority to the individual as much as it avoided privileging the universal. One of the main concerns that Nishida had was to make sure that such a bipolarity was not going to give rise to any form of hierarchy whatsoever between the two. He achieved this by constructing his thought around the notion of the ‘place’ (basho), which was inspired from Plato’s idea of the chôra, (third period). What was however innovative is that his notion of reality was the result of the creative action that one could see within the reciprocal relationship between two poles, and which itself was bound to take shape within an invisible context, i.e. the basho. Once again only self-awakening could disclose the mechanisms of bipolarisation by means of which absolute nothingness (zettai mu), i.e. the invisible place, was self-determined. The ‘logic of the basho’ made it possible to understand the self-formations of the individual and of the universal in an act of reciprocity that was unveiled in the experience of self-awakening. As such, the relationship between the I and the thou is 423 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture an instance of this logic. It is fundamental to understand that the experience is not to be taken in terms of subjective grasp of self-consciousness. Self-awakening is necessarily in the light of the basho. The absolutely contradictory nature of the self-determinations of the universal, (which ultimately became the historical world), and the individual, (which can be a particular event as much as the actualisation of the self), realise themselves in self-awakening, (fourth period). From this brief analysis and reflection on the work of Nishida, several precise axes of study emerge, all of which pointing in the direction of a more elaborate understanding of the phenomenon of the formation of meaning in cultural experiences, in so far as the latter depends precisely on the relationship between the self, the other, and the context within which this relationship takes place: (1) The inadequacy of any foundational theory, whether it corresponds to the traditional Western canons of metaphysics, such as measurements, essence, categories, representation and ideas – running from Aristotle and Plato to Hegel and Marx; or whether such a theory is elaborated in one way or another around the concept of pure experience, which can appear, perhaps more surprisingly, in postmodern thought in the form of duration, becoming, flux, performing, undecidability, relativism, or even embodiment. This latter tendency can actually be traced in Nishida’s first period, as well as for example in some of the works of William James, Henri Bergson, the first Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and to a certain extent the French poststructuralists. It is through a synthesis of Nishida’s third and fourth periods, which conceive the basho, the self, and ‘the other’ as being dialectically related that any tendency toward foundationalism can, in my eyes, be overcome. (2) The question of the dialectical world: the self-identity of absolute contradictories as self-identity of complementary differentials. The concept of the ‘dialectical world’ (benshôhôteki sekai) constitutes the ultimate development of Nishida’s thought. Here, the influence of Buddhism can be felt, in particular Zen Rinzai and Pure Land with their emphases on the contradictory nature of reality. In the case of Nishida this materialises into the notion of ‘self-identity of absolute contradictory’ (zettai mujunteki jiko dôtsu), which enabled him to overcome the dichotomy and therefore the hierarchical relationship between, for instance the individual and the universal, or the self and the basho. The question for Nishida is to figure out the autonomy of the individual while at the same time acknowledging that such an individual always relates to somebody else, something else, or a world. He was, let us say, selectively influenced by Leibniz’s concept of the monad and Aristotle’s hypokeimenon. Nishida takes from Leibniz the idea according to which the individual is, unlike what Aristotle claims with his idea of the subject that cannot be predicate, to a certain degree autonomous and self-determined. The individual is a monad, i.e. an undividable unit, who acts (hataraku) by itself and is therefore self-determined. Following Leibniz, anything that is composed does not have its own ‘real existence’, in the sense that it is by definition an addition of several units. The individual for Nishida is a monad without windows who acts by itself. But at the same time, and this is Nishida’s real contribution to the issue, the individual’s self-determined nature is bound to bear some relation with the external world. The individual’s self-determination takes place with regard to the other, or more precisely, in opposition to the other: ‘The individual is individual in its opposition to other individuals’ (kobutsu ha kobutsu ni taisuru koto ni yotte kobutsu de aru). Even further, not only individuals are self-determined through their absolutely contradictory relationship between themselves (ko to ko), but also in their dialectical relationship to society (kojin to shakai) and the world in general. The central question becomes then to wonder whether the notion of ‘complementary differentials’ does not constitute a more adequate theoretical framework than ‘absolute contradictories’. Indeed the former invokes a particular temporality that characterises the formation of the self in the light of the other, or of meaning in the light of the basho, which neither the idea of ‘dialectical relationship’ nor of what David Dilworth defines in terms of ‘paradoxical relationship’ suggests. (3) Exclusive difference or inclusive relationship between the individual and the universal? A complementary difference. 424 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture The obvious emphasis that Nishida puts on the ‘dialectical’ dimension of the self determined nature of the subject, or individuals, raises the issue of the appropriateness of such a framework when it comes to think of the necessary ethical dimension of the relationship. As a matter of fact it is during the third period that Nishida fully articulates what could be perceived as an inclusive type of relationship between the individual (kobutsu) and the universal (ippansha). This is what is developed in his ‘logic of the basho’. The starting point concerns the question of judgement (handan), understood as what relates the subject to the predicate (shugo to jutsugo). If we follow Aristotle, the subject is a particular instance of a universal law or statement. One knows the individual by subsuming it to a universal category. In other words the particular nature of something cannot be known. Nishida in a way does more than reversing this relationship as he changes the way one ought to think the nature of its constituents. The individual subject is not subsumed to the universal for the purpose of knowing it. It is rather the latter which becomes ‘concrete’ through the particular. Nishida then evokes the concept of ‘concrete universal’ (gutaiteki ippansha), which is self-determined through the individual. The predicate then acts as the place that the particular subject is taking. The concrete universal is therefore not opposed to the particular as it is in Aristotle. The Aristotelian conception of the hypokeimenon (the individual) that cannot become the predicate implies a non-inclusive relationship between the particular and what is ultimately conceived in terms of ‘abstract universal’ (chûshôteki ippansha). What results from such as logic is that the more universal the predicative category is the more particular will be the subject; the more abstract such a category is in a judgement, the more unknowable the subject is as the latter (shugo) becomes more particular. Nishida’s frustration comes from the fact that such a principle does not even implicitly acknowledge the mutual character of the self-determination (giko gentei) of both the particular and the universal. The self-determination of the universal is therefore not a principle of abstraction but operates through concretion, and the self-determination of the subject takes place within the predicative category. In other words, the concrete universal shapes itself from within the particular that it includes. The former is as a result neither opposed to nor excluded from the individual as in Aristotle, nor is it hierarchically separated from what it attempts to subsume as in the Hegelian universal that uses the particular in order to reach rationality. For Nishida the relationship between the particular and the individual implies that their mutual self-determination occurs by means of inclusiveness. This is his logic of the basho, which, in order to reflect its particular conception of inclusiveness and non-hierarchical nature, should truly be interpreted as fundamentally based on the idea of complementary differentials. Such a principle applies to the formation of meaning in culture experiences and its basho, or place of its occurrence. (4) The basho of meaning. The logic of the basho should not be understood as a theory that would explain the ways judgement, meaning, or simply our consciousness is taking shape as it is determined by their context. The relationship between the basho and the particular is in such a logic non-hierarchical and therefore cannot be instrumental. From this ensues that any teleological principle that would be based on the very hierarchical dimension of the way the particular relates to the universal, is doomed to overlook the necessary existence of an all-encompassing basho. Hegel’s conception of the finality of the mediation of such a particular toward the absolute rationalised Spirit, is doomed to ignore such a fact. Indeed, the idealistic finality of the mediating function of the particular is something self-determined within a particular context. Every self-determination is bound to be situated within a place, which in the process discloses itself from within the particular. The non-teleological and non-hierarchical nature of this dynamic process obviously unfolds ad infinitum. To put it differently, as there will always be a place that relates to the particular in a mutually self-determining way, the logic of the basho is infinite and therefore groundless. As such the very conception of an all-encompassing place leads to nothingness itself – the basho of absolute nothingness (zettai mu no basho), which is transcendental, and therefore un-definable and invisible. From this ensues that the self-determination of the particular in its purest form occurs in the light of 425 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture absolute nothingness. And by extension, the individual comes to realise itself in its most immediate contact with the world. Such an experience, which is believed to be undistorted by mediating conceptual finalities, not only leads to the self-determination of the individual, but also to that of the basho of absolute nothingness. Once again, the latter is self-determined through unmediated concretion. This is what Nishida means by self-awakening (jikaku), whereby the dichotomy between object and subject is bypassed, and where both objective and subjective referential systems are transcended. (5) Ethical fact and attitude: the way of the formation of meaning in the relationships between the I and the thou, and between the individual and the world. The question of ‘the other’ is central to Nishida’s philosophy. The awakening of the self through its absolute emptying (zettai mu no jikaku) is an affirmation of the self by means of self-retraction. In other words, the absolute emptying of selfhood in the face of the thou at the same time enables the shaping of the I. This means that the self acquires its unity in an act of loving that is also an act of self-negation. One’s own discovery consists in dying in the light of the thou. Once again the process is reciprocal in the sense that the thou acquires its unity in the face of the I. This is why the self finds its unified continuity in discontinuity. It is here important to stress the two folds of Nishida’s ethical concerns. The emergence of the self’s life lies on its very availability to die as an act of self-love as much as love of the thou. The idea of love as the source of the formation of the self is central to Nishida’s ethical thought, and is something that bears striking similarities with some aspects of the themes developed by certain forms of ethical phenomenologies, such as that of Martin Buber, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, or Emmanuel Levinas. Just as with Nishida, the thoughts of Marcel evoke a Platonic conception of love (agape) that is seen as being unrelated to desires. The unity of the self cannot be achieved by seeking to satisfy one’s desires, which are always aroused by their objects. The awakening of the self through its absolute emptying is precisely about relinquishing its condition as a subject that relates to something or somebody as an object. Self-love, which is one of the conditions for the possibility of self-awakening, is about making one’s self available to the thou. At the same time the negation of the self cannot be confused with an obligation to be subsumed to, or fascinated by the thou. The emptying of the self in the face of the thou is its very affirmation. When self-love is at the core of the determination of the person in a free and responsible world, the love of the thou is the necessary place of the determination of the social world. Even more, at one level, or plan, love is the basho of the mutual self-determination of the personal and the social worlds. Love with Nishida becomes once again the occasion of a dialectical relationship, or mutually inclusive relationship between two poles, i.e. the self and the thou. And once again, it appears that such a relationship ought to be characterised in terms of complementary difference, for dialectics maintains various components in a state of opposition and therefore on an plan of the same order. Faithful to his usual approach Nishida considers two traditionally separated poles through the reciprocity of their self-determinacy. This applies to the personal and the outer worlds, to which he refers in terms of I and thou. An important element that he brings is that both the I and the thou are mutually self-determined within a particular location, or place, that brings them together. On the one hand, the place of the formation of the I is the thou that one loves through self-negation, and on the other hand, the very relationship between the I and the thou can only be against a common ground, or universal, which one might call the invisible place of its occurrence. This is to say that the shared relationship is founded on the mutual acts of absolute self-negation. By evoking the self-awakening of the I in the light of the other, and the self-awakening of the other in the light of the I, Nishida suggests that the affirmation of the personal and independent character of the self lies within an act of mutual consideration. Even further, the I becomes the I by emptying itself with the light of the thou – a relationship whose reciprocal dimension is the very advent of an inter-personal relationship between free individuals. The awakening of the self is an absolute self-retraction with regard to the absolute other and which, when mutually experienced, constitutes the very substance 426 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture of a responsible and creative relationship between the two. The seemingly paradoxical combining between availability and freedom is, once again a central theme in Marcel’s thought. Central to the possibility of the formation of meaning is the self-awakening to the ethical dimension of cultural experiences. The conception of self-awakening that Nishida develops in the later part of his life takes from René Descartes the notion of doubting as being at the heart of the constitution of the self. The self takes place in the thoughtful process of doubting, and the corresponding Cartesian method was in Nishida’s eyes vital for a rebirth of philosophy after the various forms of subjectivism that the West had developed. However, for Nishida the self is not an autonomous entity with regard to the world about which it is doubting. In other words, it is not, as in the case of Descartes, an objectifying subject. Nishida saw in the method of doubting the principle at stake in self-awakening. But for Descartes the very fact of doubting is the proof of the existence of the self as an existing conscious entity. This is the point where Nishida saw the Cartesian method of doubting as an incomplete project. This is also the point which led to the Kantian philosophical critique which stressed the need to look into the subject in order to understand what can be known about the world and how. As a matter of fact Nishida was equally critical of such an epistemological subjectivism as it ignores the logic of complementary differentials between the self and the world, or to use his word the logic of the absolutely contradictory self-identities. For Nishida the constitution of the self is its very retraction in the face of other, and vice versa. The self find its unity in a unique moment of awakening, the moment of the eternal present which corresponds to the negation of any enduring substance. Once again the other can be the thou and the social world as much as the historical world. Both self and historical world are mutually and uniquely awakened following the logic of absolutely contradictory self-identities. There is no such a thing as the thinking self, on the one hand, and, on the other, the historical world. The awakening of the self is embodied in the historical formation of the world. In other words, the advent of the world is to be found within the awakening of the self, which conversely takes place within the world. Such a reciprocal self-determinacy implies that both the world and the self are creatively expressed in a movement of retraction, or love, which Marcel actually qualified in terms of ‘creative fidelity’. The practice of philosophy becomes then for Nishida a way of being awakened to the formations of the self and the world in their inexorably mutual, complementary and differential dimensions. Self-awakening is not about the consciousness of the self or of the other as an object. The self sees itself not as an object of sight, nor does it see the other as an object of sight. The self sees itself by relinquishing its stand as an objectifying subject. It sees itself within the place of the objective world, which thus becomes apparent. This is when the self sees without seeing. Such an approach, needless to say, departs from any form of subjectivism. If one were to join together all these different Nishidian axes of thought in order to understand the cultural experience of the formation of meaning, one could perhaps describe in terms of expressive availability and complementary difference between the self and its place. 427 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Sources Nishida, K. (1965) Nishida Kitarô zenshû (NKZ, Complete works of Nishida Kitarô, 19 vols.), Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Nishida Kitarô (1990) An Inquiry into the Good, trans. Masao Abe & C. Ives, New Haven: Yale University Press. Nishida Kitarô (1973) Art and Morality, trans. D. Dilworth & V. H. Viglielmo, Homolulu: Hawai‘i University Press. Nishida Kitarô (1987) Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness, trans. Takeuchi Yoshinori & J. S. O’ Leary, Albany: SUNY Press. Nishida Kitarô (1958) Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness: Three Philosophical Essays, trans. R. Schinzinger, Westport: Greenwood Press. Nishida Kitarô (1970) Nishida Kitarô’s Fundamental Problems of Philosophy: The World of Action and the Dialectical World, trans. D.A. Dilworth, Tokyo: Sophia University Press. Nishida Kitarô (1982) Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview, trans. D. A. Dilworth, Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. 428 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture CONFERENCIA: “LA CUESTIÓN ¿QUÉ ES METAFÍSICA? EN HEIDEGGER Y LATINOAMÉRICA” Andrea Cortés-Boussac Universidad Sergio Arboleda Martin Heidegger, gran pensador alemán del siglo XX, uno de los más citados y leídos a nivel mundial, es reconocido por indagar desde una nueva perspectiva, yo diría un nuevo lenguaje, por el ser. Con nuevo lenguaje me refiero a uno que no sigue el tradicional sino intenta mostrar aquello que ha quedado oculto en la historia de la metafísica de occidente, esto según Heidegger, el ser. En el estudio del lenguaje en Heidegger hay un aspecto fundamental que resaltar es el de la “destrucción”. El cual se da en su misma obra a través de la destrucción del lenguaje tradicional-metafísico. Para poder entender y seguir este camino es necesario explicar lo que Heidegger quiere decir con “destrucción” porque, de lo contrario, puede caer en un mal entendido: “Destrucción no significa aniquilar sino desmontar, desarticular y desplazar.” Yo asentaría que destrucción tiene aquí la connotación de despejar, de mover los obstáculos implantados por la metafísica, que ocultan al ser y, asimismo, no le permiten hacer o tomar otro camino en el pensar. En otras palabras, aunque sean redundantes, se trata pues de dejar ver y dejar ser al ser (sehen lassen, sein lassen); verlo, escucharlo, darle simplemente el espacio para que se muestre. “Destruir quiere decir abrir los oídos, dejarlos libres para lo que se nos asigna en la tradición (entrega) como ser del ente. En la medida en que escuchamos esta asignación, logramos la correspondencia.”1 En este camino Heidegger cuestiona el olvido del ser, lo muestra, lo interpreta, lo destruye y finalmente, lo enriquece con su propuesta hermenéutica. Esta destrucción se ha hecho con el alemán heideggeriano, pues lleva consigo una re-lectura crítica y un acercamiento apropiador de los conceptos clásicos de la filosofía. Por eso Heidegger se re-plantea la cuestión ¿Qué es metafísica? haciendo una revisión-crítica2 desde un nuevo lenguaje: “La pregunta ¿qué es metafísica? pregunta por la metafísica. Ella emerge un pensar, que ya va hacía la superación de la metafísica. A la esencia de tales traspasos les pertenece con seguridad en sus fronteras también el lenguaje que deben hablar, lo que ayudan a superar.”3 Hay que tener en cuenta que este lenguaje que promulga Heidegger explícitamente en su obra es un alemán heideggeriano, es decir, una destrucción del lenguaje tradicional a través del griego de los pre-socrátícos explicado y encarnado en su alemán. Para poder seguir el propósito de este trabajo hay que tener presente que en Latinoamérica se ha vivido la tradición metafísica casi igual que en Europa, porque comenzó con la conquista española, acentuándose en la colonia y se ha conservado hasta nuestros días, por eso no le es ajena la cuestión metafísica. De hecho la metafísica ha sido objeto de investigación y de estudio a nivel académico desde su formación como nuevo continente dejando de lado todo lo que tenía que ver con las creencias y concepciones de mundo propias de los nativos de la región. Por eso mismo cabría preguntarse: ¿Cómo afecta la revisión-critica de la metafísica hecha por Heidegger al pensamiento 1 HEIDEGGER, Martin ¿Qué es esto, la filosofía? Universidad Católica de San Marcos, Lima. Pág. 45. Traducción de Victor Li Carrillo, quien fuera alumno de Heidegger. 2 Con revisión-crítica me refiero al trabajo destructivo/deconstructivo heideggeriano de la metafísica. Quiero mencionar que él no usa el término “crítica” cuando elabora su crítica a la metafísica. 3 HEIDEGGER, Martin „Nachwort zu Was ist Metaphysik?“ Vittotio Klostermann. Frankfurt am Main. 1943,1998. S. 46. He hecho la traducción directamente. 429 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture latinoamericano? La cuestión -¿Qué es metafísica?- planteada por Heidegger considero puede tomarse primordialmente desde dos perspectivas en América Latina, aunque haya otras desde las cuales es posible abordar el problema. La primera, la más obvia, por su tradición metafísica es una pregunta que reactiva el qué de la metafísica llevando, de esta manera, a reflexionar más sobre el papel que juega la metafísica y sobre la metafísica en sí en la actualidad. De esta manera Heidegger nos ofrece posibilidades de repensar la metafísica desde otra perspectiva. La segunda no es tan evidente y hay que indagar más en la cuestión metafísica en América Latina para poder verla. Pienso que el trabajo de Heidegger de preguntar qué es metafísica y con ello hacer una revisión-crítica de ésta en la historia de la filosofía de occidente sirve como punto de partida para reflexionar sobre la metafísica en este continente y de este modo liberarse de las barreras que la metafísica misma ha impuesto en el pensar como fruto de la colonización. En otras palabras, considero que esta cuestión trabajada por Heidegger nos puede conducir a discursos post-coloniales, según mi tesis, de-coloniales en el pensar en Latinoamérica. Asimismo, pienso que su obra nos puede ayudar a abrir vías para la búsqueda del ser en esta parte del mundo, pues durante la conquista el “ser” o lo que se entendía por “ser” en esta región fue casi destruido y se implantó el “ser” concebido por los españoles, es decir, la concepción de ser de la metafísica, que según la revisión-crítica de Heidegger se quedó en su primera definición con Aristóteles con el ser el más universal y vacío de los conceptos, que no requiere de definición y, basándose en la lógica formal, tampoco de predicado. Por consiguiente, el estudio del “ser” no intenta dar una definición suya sino, más bien, trabajar con el concepto ya dado como lo más universal y adaptarlo al discurso o a la cuestión a tratar. El primer punto no es el objeto de mi estudio por consiguiente me centraré en el segundo que va más de acuerdo con la propuesta heideggeriana, ya que pone en cuestión esta tradición metafísica. Veamos, pues, cómo es posible sustentar la tesis de que la propuesta heideggeriana sirve para dar pautas para poder liberarse de las imposiciones del pensar euro-céntrico en el caso latinoamericano. Primero quiero aclarar que paradójicamente vuelvo a un pensador alemán para dar mi tesis, es aquí donde sale a relucir la multi-dimensionalidad del pensamiento heideggeriano, pues no se detiene en los límites de su territorialidad sino va más allá de sus límites fronterizos. Se podría decir que Heidegger piensa desde su abismo (Abgrund), teniéndolo como el pensador de la frontera. Pienso que la crítica de Heidegger es válida para el caso latinoamericano porque al preguntarse por el olvido del ser pone en cuestión cómo la metafísica ha concebido al ser. Con esta revisión crítica de la metafísica nos encontramos con dos postulados válidos para revisarla prácticamente en el caso latinoamericano. Por un lado, tenemos el olvido del ser europeo, donde la hegemonía del sujeto dotado de razón cree/creyó tener claro el concepto de “ser”, gracias a su gran cualidad y a la forma de apropiarse del mundo. En este punto domina el sujeto sobre el ser. El aspecto crítico es que lo que se ha tomado por “ser” es sólo un manifestar suyo, como se mencionó anteriormente es la presencia del ser, el instante presente, lo evidente, el ente pero no se indagó por lo oculto del ser, sólo se tomó el aparecer; no hay una forma de arraigarlo en sus múltiples manifestaciones. Debido a esto es que Heidegger ve un error en el concepto de “ser” con que se ha venido trabajando en la historia de la filosofía, pues se ha tomado al ser como lo más universal, lo que quiere decir, que está presente así sea en su universalidad. Queda pues plasmado el ser como presencia o en la metafísica religiosa como omnipresencia. Quiero resaltar que es aquí en donde se confunde el ser con el ente, pues se toma solamente la simple presencia. Por el otro lado tenemos el olvido del ser del conquistado al tomarlo simplemente como ente. La concepción del ser (Sein) en su manifestación como ente (Seiende), se expandió universalmente. Ese ente que regía como ser, hizo su imperio, tomó otros seres en su más simple presencia y concientemente los entificó, los hizo entes como sucedió en la conquista del nuevo mundo; al tomar los sujetos como entes hay olvido de su ser, hay olvido del ser. Se rectifica prácticamente el olvido del ser por otro olvido obligado. Por esta razón la “Seinsvergessenheit” (olvido del ser) de 430 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Heidegger no es lejana ni ajena a América Latina, es más, sirve para recordar aquello que fue tachado-destruido por el imperio del ser euro-céntrico. También sirve para preguntarse por su ser que fue sepultado y olvidado. En palabras de Heidegger: “En todas las modificaciones y secularizaciones de la metafísica de occidente se reconoce de nuevo lo siguiente: el ser está a servicio del ente, aunque éste (Ser) aparentemente tenga el dominio como causa del ente”4 Propongo interpretar la cita anterior de acuerdo con el pensar del ser del hombre subyugado y sometido a un imperativo. Esta metafísica imperó en los campos del ser en Latinoamérica y “casi” destruyó la visión de mundo propia de la región. Desafortunadamente, el ser que se tomó como ente en Latinoamérica no dominó, sino precisamente fue dominado, quedó congelado como ente por el ser euro-céntrico. Filosóficamente llevaron el imperio del “ser” a esta parte del mundo para concretar al “ser”, y desde luego hicieron creer a los nativos que el “ser” era Europeo. Ellos creían, que estaban trabajando con el ser, que lo estaban promulgando pero en realidad estaban trabajando con el reino del ente. Por otro lado, estaban realzando su propia filosofía moderna, en la que reina el sujeto desarrollado, civilizado, dotado de razón frente a lo animal. Hay pues un doble imperio en el juego del ser europeo moderno, por un lado sujeto-objeto, ser-ente y por el otro imperio del ser-colonia. La historia del pensar latinoamericano está en búsqueda de una identidad, una cultura propia, un propio pensar, pues hay que tener presente que lo latinoamericano se encuentra entre la mezcla de lo heredado por lo europeo y lo que quedó de lo propio de la región. Es, pues, una nueva imposición por un lado y apropiación, por el otro, de lo europeo en el nuevo mundo. La propuesta heideggeriana es propicia para esta búsqueda, porque lo que hace Heidegger es romper con los implantes modernos de la tradición del iluminismo en la que se gozaba de la hegemonía de la razón, la cual estaba centrada en el sujeto, un sujeto francés o alemán que podía entender la fórmula cogito ergo sum. Heidegger nos muestra el error en el que cayó occidente (Europa central): la metafísica trabajó y se quedó con el ente. Partiendo de éste construyó toda la teoría, la noción de verdad sin reflexionar sobre el ser, sin profundizar en los espacios del ser, sin darse cuenta de haberle otorgado la verdad al ente. Heidegger “condena” este olvido: “En la enticidad del ente piensa la metafísica al ser, sin poder pensar en el sentido de su pensar la verdad del ser.”5 Bajo estas postulaciones, nos da la posibilidad de pensar la verdad del ente pero no nos da la posibilidad de pensar la verdad del ser. Estamos condenados al mero status del ente, a su verdad. Heidegger encamina su estudio a des-encubrir la verdad del ser (Wahrheit des Seins), cuestionando igualmente la noción de verdad tradicional promulgada por la metafísica:”Esta es la verdad sobre el ente. La metafísica es la historia de esta verdad. Ella dice lo que el ente sea, en la que la “entecidad” del ente es concepto.”6 La verdad está enmarcada en la visión de mundo ofrecida por la metafísica, olvidando así la verdad del ser. Esto aplicado a la realidad histórica ha sido la hegemonía de Europa en las colonias, en donde se impuso, se instauró por excelencia la verdad del sujeto europeo y su pensar, quedando de esta manera olvidado el ser, sus manifestaciones y la verdad que había originalmente en el nuevo mundo. Este es debido también a la cultura del sujeto europeo, al cultivo de su intelecto que colonizaba al resto del mundo -aclaro un mundo objetivado- en el cual sus miembros no poseían la característica del sujeto pensante, animal rational. En otras palabras mundo como res extensa era el conjunto de objetos reunidos y clasificados por el sujeto: ¿Qué pasa con el sujeto de la periferia, el no europeo, el colonizado? Obviamente no goza de las mismas características del sujeto euro-céntrico porque es un sujeto colonizado, que no tiene la posibilidad, la libertad de pensar, de mostrar su ser, que se encuentra bajo la orden del sujeto colonizador y está subyugado por éste. Veamos como el filósofo argentino Enrique Dussel, quien parte de Heidegger para 4 HEIDEGGER, Martin GA 65. § 117. S 229. “In allem Abwandlungen und Verweltlichungen der abendländischen Metaphysik ist dieses wieder zu erkennen: das Sein im Dienste des Seienden, auch wenn es als Ursache scheinbar die Herrschaft hat.” 5 HEIDEGGER, Martin „Nachwort zu: Was ist Metaphysik” S. 47. 6 Ídem. 431 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture proponer “la filosofía de la liberación” en América Latina, muestra esta dependencia porque no se puede llamar relación o como el la llama “un mundo ante otro”: “Lo mismo y la Emergencia de la alteridad. Esta experiencia simple que voy a llamar: “un mundo ante otro” (A ante B) no ha sido pensada sino parcialmente por el pensamiento europeo. Por eso es que-digámoslo brevemente-, el indio, por ejemplo, en el orden de la conquista, no fue nunca respetado como otro sino inmediatamente instrumentado como cosa. Por ello el mundo hispánico incluyó dialécticamente al mundo del indio, e Hispanoamérica no es sino la expansión dialéctica del abuso sobre el Otro.”7 En el siglo XIX empieza a construirse un discurso político, hecho por los criollos, con voz propia en su lucha por la independencia. En este fenómeno como nos lo dice y aclara el historiador mexicano Edmundo O’Gorman, uno de los representantes de la primera recepción de Heidegger en América Latina, afirma que se trató de una independencia política y no de una ontológica. A finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, a nivel filosófico se da una búsqueda de una identidad latinoamericana a través de dos caminos diferentes. El nativo, propio de la región por el cual circularon las raíces de su pensar, de su propia visión y conocimiento de mundo y quedaron enterrados después de la conquista. El otro camino es el que se busca en la cuna de la ilustración occidental, filosofía alemana y francesa. En el siglo XX, hay ya una liberación, por una parte con la recepción de Nietzsche y Heidegger, y por la otra, a través de todos los movimientos de contra-cultura en el mundo. También en la lectura de la obra heideggeriana se puede tomar cierto impulso para saltar y volver a su propio comienzo: “Pero ahora esta preparación debe ser ya un saltar, porque el comienzo solamente sucede en el salto, también en la preparación al mismo tiempo viniendo y saltando del juego mutuo (Zuspiel) entre el primer comienzo y su historia.”8 En América Latina se puede tomar de modelo este salto Sprung para entrar a otros caminos del pensar, por ejemplo para entrar en lo “postmoderno” sin arraigarse en lo moderno como único modelo del pensar y del desarrollo, teniendo en cuenta que la modernidad no se da en estos países latinoamericanos como en Europa. Este salto al origen serviría, en cierta manera, para rescatar su pasado oprimido, para remover escombros, en el sentido de que se escucharía la otra versión de lo sucedido y también se le daría voz y voto a esas minorías que antes de la conquista eran mayorías, simplemente porque estamos volviendo a nuestro origen. Hago énfasis en que este salto se podría tomar desde la propuesta heideggeriana porque querámoslo o no aún estamos bajo los parámetros europeos, hay que aprovechar la crítica desde adentro, como la hecha por Heidegger para que haya una “de-colonización”. Ésta hay que hacerla criticando y destruyendo los imperativos colonialistas, entrar en su sistema, aunque de hecho al ser colonizado por ellos ya se está dentro, y así poder liberarse de ellos. Es un movimiento que hay que seguir y, porqué no, interpretar. Pienso que el fenómeno de la colonización-descolonización también se puede ver desde su “deconstrucción” filosófica, desde el pensar. Acá propongo hablar de una “de-colonización” en el sentido de una destrucción heideggeriana, pues considero que también hay que tenerla presente directamente o indirectamente, para seguir la destrucción de los postulados tradicionales metafísicos impuestos en América Latina. Este fundamento teórico-filosófico no es evidente en el desarrollo de los debates postmodernos y postcoloniales en América Latina, ya que estos discursos se manifiestan desde el campo literario exclusivamente. Por eso, pienso que es fundamental tener presente la base filosófica porque de lo contrario no se puede divisar completamente ni el fenómeno ni el problema. Para argumentar mi hipótesis de que hay en la propuesta heideggeriana pautas para empezar a “des-truir”, “de-construir” los imperativos del pensar instaurados en la colonización y que asimismo se abren otras vías para un pensar “post” en este caso “post-colonial” o según mi propuesta “de-colonización” me voy a remitir a la “Filosofía de la liberación” trabajada por el filósofo argentino -hoy en día residente en México-. En la siguiente cita Dussel nos muestra cómo 7 DUSSEL, Enrique “Introducción a la Filosofía de la Liberación” Págs. 83-84. 8 HEIDEGGER, Martin GA 65. § 117. S 229. 432 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture el lenguaje de “la Filosofía de liberación” parte de Heidegger: “El “lenguaje” filosófico de la Filosofía de la liberación, en su origen, debe inscribírselo dentro de la tradición fenomenológica, hermenéutica y diagonal. Se partía desde el “último Heidegger”9 Entre tanto Dussel también afirma que la crítica de Heidegger a la modernidad no es suficiente para construir un pensar propio latinoamericano: “Las críticas a la Modernidad de los “postmodernos” pueden ser sumamente útiles a la Filosofía de la Liberación, como lo fueron las críticas de Martin Heidegger o de Wittgenstein contra la metafísica moderna”, pero no son suficientes. De Richard Rorty, por ejemplo, es útil-y de hecho, inspirándonos en Heidegger y Levinas, habíamos criticado a la Modernidad por imponer una filosofía de la “luz”, de la “representación”, de la “subjetividad” del cogito- la de-construcción integral del “estilo” del pensar analítico.”10 Al respecto se le puede decir a Dussel que es obvio que no es suficiente la propuesta heideggeriana para desarrollar toda una filosofía de la liberación porque ésta se tiene que crear desde el propio pensar, desde su contexto, desde adentro para poder liberarse y así engendrar otro pensar, movimiento o corriente filosófica en América Latina. A manera de crítica, pienso que no se le puede otorgar a Heidegger el papel de libertador de las imposiciones metafísicas en las colonias, cosa que tampoco fue la intención de este escrito, pues Heidegger mismo parte del eurocentrismo para hacer su revisión-crítica de la metafísica argumentando que la cuestión comenzó ya con el tras-paso del griego al latín y que la posibilidad de salir de este olvido se puede dar mediante una destrucción de la metafísica, más exactamente, de su lenguaje a través del griego antiguo y del alemán, puesto que estas son las lenguas filosóficas, por excelencia. Por eso, le cuestiono a Heidegger este imperativo del griego antiguo y del alemán como los únicos capaces de revisar el error de la metafísica, puesto que no son las únicas lenguas en que se puede hacer una revisión y abrir una nueva era metafísica o post-metafísica. Lo que no permite que Heidegger sea tachado de euro-centrista son sus mismas propuestas en el pensar, que a pesar de ser expresadas en el alemán heideggeriano han cobrado amplitud y han sido leídas y recibidas en otras regiones del mundo. La recepción mundial de la obra de Heidegger, su traducción a diferentes idiomas desde el inglés, francés hasta el japonés, es lo que ha interpretado a Heidegger como un pensador del abismo, de la frontera. Considero que es posible reformular la pregunta por la metafísica no sólo desde el alemán heideggeriano sino desde el español también desde Latinoamérica por su conflicto con el ser. De todas maneras hay que otorgarle a Heidegger que al poner en cuestión la metafísica la hace reactivarse en la investigación filosófica; la revive en el campo del saber volviéndola tema de discusión y de estudio. Hace que se reflexione otra vez sobre la metafísica como tal con la posibilidad de hacerlo desde diferentes puntos de vista, o con palabras heideggerianas, desde diferentes caminos del pensar. 9 DUSSEL, Enrique “Filosofía de la liberación: desde la praxis de los oprimidos” Revista “REFLEXAO” No. 49 año XVII Janiero/abril Campinas 1991. Pág 49. 10 Ibíd. Pág. 51. 433 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture UOMO “POLIEDRO” E UOMO “UNIDIMENSIONALE” NELLA METAFISICA ANTROPICA De Andreis Simone Parole, chiacchere, rumore, confusione. Mille lingue si incontrano e si scontrano!! Babele!! Ecco ciò che leggiamo sulla porta d’ingresso della Città in cui ci troviamo. Ma l’uomo anela ad Altro. Inquieto cerca il Silenzio. < 1 TOMASO BUGOSSI, Dialogo e organicità del sapere, Edilcolors, Genova, 2002, p.19. 2 TOMASO BUGOSSI, Filosofia e comunicazione, Edilcolors, Genova, 1998, p.26. 3 Ibidem p.13. 4 TOMASO BUGOSSI, La formazione antropica, Edilcolors, Genova, 2003, p.64. 435 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture causa sui! Inizia in tal modo l’avventura dell’uomo che si dispiega nel calcolo, nella pianificazione, è l’evidenza della sua potenza scientifica e tecnica5. La crisi dell’uomo è la crisi dell’Occidente!! Dell’Esperia6 decaduto in occidentalismo. L’uomo è creatura, è esistente: immagine e somiglianza di Dio. In virtù di ciò, è stabilita una particolarissima relazione che pone l’uomo ontologicamente aperto al manifestarsi dell’Essere7. Leggiamo ora un passo tratto dal volume La formazione antropica di Bugossi: < 5 Ibidem, p.62. 6 Espéria (in greco “Occidentale”), antica denominazione greca dell’Italia e della Spagna. Per estensione dell’Occidente. 7 TOMASO BUGOSSI, La formazione antropica, op. cit., p.63. 8 Ibidem, p.64. 9 TOMASO BUGOSSI, Filosofia e comunicazione, op.cit., p. 14. 10 TOMASO BUGOSSI, Dialogo e organicità del sapere, op .cit., pp.18-19. 11 TOMASO BUGOSSI, Filosofia e comunicazione, op. cit., p.14. 436 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture chiamata di volta in volta ragione o fede, fino a farla coincidere con l’intero12; da qui il razionalismo e il fideismo, prospettive anti-umane. Non vi sono dubbi: il “poliedro” è misconosciuto! Pertanto negata la dialettica relazionale dell’et-et cadiamo in quella oppositiva dell’aut-aut, strada maestra per la riduzione dell’uomo in animale o per la sua personificazione in una ragione assolutizzata13. Ma qual è storicamente l’evolversi di quest’uomo unidimensionale? Tomaso Bugossi, nel volume Filosofia e comunicazione, ne individua la radice nel pensiero di Guglielmo di Ockham ( 1280ca-1349ca ). Il pensiero del filosofo inglese si colloca all’interno del terminismo: gli universali non hanno alcuna realtà oggettiva, esistono esclusivamente nel nostro discorso e per opera del nostro intelletto. Solo l’individuo è reale! Se ciò è vero ne consegue logicamente che vera conoscenza è solamente quella del singolo fatto. Lo sguardo dell’uomo, dalle altezze della metafisica, precipita negli abissi del mondo fisico: la dialettica oppositiva (aut-aut ) tra fede e ragione diviene inevitabile, così come l’iniziale eliminazione del problema stesso 14. La conclusione alla quale si giunge non può essere altro che la negazione di Dio quale problema filosofico, in quanto la fede non trova supporto nella dimensione razionale. Illuminanti le parole di Tomaso Bugossi a tal proposito: <<[…] l’accordo, la simbiosi tra verità rivelata e verità filosofica, oggetto di riflessione cara sia alla patristica sia alla scolastica viene meno. Le conseguenze sono ineludibili: la teologia è relegata al discorso ermeneutico dell’interpretazione testuale, al contempo la filosofia, divenuta ancilla scientiarum, è posta al servizio dell’esperienza sensibile, e così svincolata dal suo fondamento la scienza diviene scientismo>>15. Ci preme ora una precisazione che riteniamo necessaria per il proseguo del nostro lavoro. La filosofia cristiana è umanistica dal momento che il cristianesimo è un’antropologia e non una cosmologia: al contrario del mondo greco non ci troviamo di fronte ad un concetto cosmologico dell’uomo, ma ad una concezione antropologica del cosmo. Dunque l’antropologia cristiana è teocentrica 16. Siamo all’interno di una metafisica creazionistica. Dio è principio primo e non Causa prima del mondo. Dio-Principio è personale, al contrario della Causa. Dalla Paternità alla filiazione per atto creativo amoroso, dal Principio primo alle creature. Da ciò emerge il vincolo ontologico e l’escatologia della creatura: il libero ritorno all’Essere, rimanendo ciò che è. Dalla creazione della creatura (momento metafisico-ontologico) per atto d’amore, alla sua salvezza (momento teologico) per immenso amore. Al contrario il concetto di Causa prima appartiene alle metafisiche non creazionistiche antiche (Plotino), o moderne (Spinoza) che siano. Metafisiche cosmologiche pertanto in cui Dio tende ad identificarsi con il “Cosmo” stesso. 12 TOMASO BUGOSSI, La formazione antropica, op. cit., p.64.. 13 TOMASO BUGOSSI, Filosofia e comunicazione, op. cit., p.16. 14 Ibidem, p.17. 15 Ibidem. 16 Ibidem, p.18. 437 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Dalla Causa prima all’effetto. E dall’effetto alla Causa prima, per necessità e senza esserne liberamente attratto, dissolvendosi in essa e privo di salvezza17. Collocandoci all’interno di una metafisica creazionistica, il rapporto uomo-Dio si caratterizza per essere una tensione dialettica, un tendere a Lui senza annullarsi in Lui. La libertà e l’autonomia di ordine intellettuale, morale e spirituale non viene negata da Dio, principio e fine dell’esistenza. Ma cosa accade se si altera la tensione dialettica uomo-Dio? Teologismo e umanismo! La Metafisica antropica parla chiaro. Il primo si delinea come negazione dell’uomo nell’onnipotenza divina, mentre il secondo nega Dio per affermare l’uomo. Dunque teocentrismo assoluto o assoluto antropocentrismo18. Gli epigono? Innanzi tutto Martin Lutero (1483-1546). Tomaso Bugossi ne enuclea il pensiero, in riferimento al tema da noi affrontato, prendendo le mosse dall’opera De libertate christiana e in particolare dai No luterani che ben esprimono la posizione del monaco agostiniano. No alla necessità delle opere per giungere alla beatitudine; No alla ragione. La dialettica ragione-fede, radicata nella dialettica Creatore-creatura, viene meno. È evidente la duplice via che si prospetta all’orizzonte: assolutizzazione della fede (percorso luterano) o assolutizzazione della ragione (percorso illuministico)19. Ma noi, lo ribadiamo ancora una volta, siamo per la dialettica dell’et-et, per l’uomo integrale, antropico, poliedrico!! Pesanti come macigni sono anche i No al libero arbitrio, attribuito da Lutero esclusivamente a Dio, e il No alla tradizione20. La tradizione, nostro nutrimento! Scrive a tal proposito Tomaso Bugossi nell’opera L’Evidente velato: < 17 TOMASO BUGOSSI, La formazione antropica, op. cit., pp.88-89. 18 Ibidem, p.18. 19 Ibidem, p.19. 20 Ibidem. 21 TOMASO BUGOSSI, L’Evidente velato, Edilcolors, Genova, 1999, p.55. 438 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture disvelante: più ampiamente e profondamente interpreto la tradizione, più mi riconosco: e più mi conosco, più mi possiedo in relazione al mio termine assoluto, alla luce benefica di Dio: ricomporsi è tendere a Dio, cogliere il suo manifestarsi. Pertanto anziché diminuire o comunque svilire la mia ragione, al contrario la tradizione ne è il fondamentale sostegno e alimento>>22. Il dramma del pensiero moderno e contemporaneo, osserva Tomaso Bugossi, si cela pertanto nella riduzione in pezzi del tema dell’oggettività metafisica, operata da Lutero. La via per l’assolutizzazione del soggetto è tracciata23! Dopo aver affrontato, con tutti i limiti che ci riconosciamo, il problema del fideismo, è ora giunto il momento di affrontare un’altra problematica molto cara alla Metafisica antropica, ovvero la perdita del senso del “limite”. L’uomo è tensione rivolta al proprio Fine, al Fine che lo trascende. La trascendenza mette in evidenza la finitezza dell’essere umano, il proprio limite che lo caratterizza ontologicamente. Pertanto ente intelligente finito che tende all’Infinito. Fondamentale la dialettica libertà-limite. L’uomo è libero di scegliere la via all’Essere, indicata dall’intelligenza che è il manifestarsi della nostra interiorità. Ricordiamoci sempre la distinzione tra libertà da e l’autentica libertà cristiana. La prima non è altro che liberazione da una qualsiasi cosa; la seconda invece è libertà di svolgersi in ciò che si è, in quell’essere eretto creato ad immagine e somiglianza di Dio, al fine di conoscere e amare il Padre24. Ma l’uomo, in quanto libero, può anche negare il proprio statuto ontologico, voltare le spalle al suo essere teistico, decadendo in tal modo dalla sua peculiare caratteristica creaturale che consiste nell’essere volontà libera25. Rifacendoci al pensiero di Bugossi, la negazione del “limite” è ben evidente nella speculazione di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494): nella famosa orazione De hominis dignitate il filosofo italiano sostiene che l’uomo nell’universo gode di una condizione privilegiata rispetto agli altri enti, dal momento in cui Dio non lo ha collocato in un punto fisso della gerarchia degli esseri, ma l’ ha creato in modo tale che egli possa assumere tutte le forme, degenerare a bruto o innalzarsi ad angelo. Siamo pertanto fuori dalla creatio ex nihilo in cui l’uomo è creato da Dio a sua immagine e somiglianza, e ci troviamo invece in una teoresi che concepisce questa rassomiglianza come conquista propria dell’essere umano attraverso le sue capacità e i suoi sforzi. Dunque si delinea una illimitata libertà di scelta, che infrange la concezione cristiana della libertà non disgiungibile dal limite. Scrive Tomaso Bugossi: <<[…] l’uomo sarebbe non solo totalmente ma assolutamente libero, godrebbe di una libertà non posta all’interno dello specifico statuto ontologico. Questo tipo di libertà e di volontà, al limite, potrebbe essere stata prima del peccato di Adamo. Sinteticamente possiamo dire che il peccato di Adamo, per Pico, non è mai esistito, o se è esistito non è stato determinante al fine del suo atto di libertà e di volontà. Il peccato di Adamo non ha inficiato le reali possibilità dell’uomo>>26. Rifiutato il senso del limite, la libertà si fa anarchia: nella concezione di Pico della Mirandola l’uomo è l’uomo-Dio. 22 TOMASO BUGOSSI, Interiorità ed Ermeneutica, Edilcolors, Genova, 1994, pp.89-90. 23 TOMASO BUGOSSI, Filosofia e comunicazione, op. cit., p.20. 24 Ibidem. 25 Ibidem. 26 Ibidem, p.21. 439 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Pertanto il filosofo italiano, pur muovendosi nella stessa logica di Lutero giunge ad un esito diametralmente opposto. Ciò che per il monaco tedesco è un sacrilegio, per Pico è atto privilegiato che pone in evidenza la verità della natura dell’uomo. Ma entrambi negano sostanzialmente Dio nel momento in cui misconoscono l’autentico statuto ontologico dell’uomo: siamo nella dialettica dell’aut-aut. Teniamo sempre ben presente che eliminare uno dei due poli della relazione uomo-Dio, conduce inesorabilmente alla negazione del polo rimasto27. Il rifiuto del concetto di limite non avviene però esclusivamente verso l’alto, come abbiamo precedentemente visto in Pico della Mirandola, ma anche verso il basso. È questo il caso del naturalismo che pone la verità nella natura e nella materia. A tal proposito Tomaso Bugossi cita due illustri esempi: Montaigne (1533-1592) e Macchiavelli (1469-1527). Nell’opera Filosofia e comunicazione si legge: < 27 Ibidem, p.22. 28 Ibidem, p.23. 29 Ibidem. 30 Ibidem. 31 TOMASO BUGOSSI, Interiorità ed Ermeneutica, op. cit., p.17. 440 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture L’arbor scientiarum della “tradizione”, con le radici rivolte verso l’alto, ben piantate nella sapienza divina, e proprio di una visione dell’esistenza e del mondo essenzialmente teistica, viene abbattuto; al suo posto Bacone e Cartesio ne impiantano uno capovolto. La terra stessa è sapienziale, l’uomo deve impadronirsene, rubarne i segreti e assurgere in tal modo a padrone-predatore del mondo, in base ad una visione già essenzialmente scientista e materialista32. La verità viene immanentizzata alla ragione; pertanto ciò che non appartiene a quest’ultima non può dirsi vero. Sul piano teologico assistiamo al diffondersi della “religione naturale”, tematizzata dal deismo33. Pertanto Dio deve essere pensato esclusivamente con gli attributi che ci indica la ragione naturale, prescindendo da qualsiasi rivelazione e rifiutando delle religioni storico-confessionali tutto ciò che non si accorda con la semplice ragione. Il deismo si fonda sulla opposizione tra religione naturale o razionale da un lato, e religioni positive o storiche dall’altro. Parola d’ordine: tutte le religioni positive devono essere passate al vaglio della religione naturale in modo che dal confronto possano emergere gli errori e le assurdità da cui nessuna è esente. Ma, osserva Tomaso Bugossi, Spinosa (1632-1677), pone in evidenza uno dei pericoli più filosofici: < 32 Ibidem, pp.17-18. 33 Ibidem. 34 Ibidem, p.19. 35 Ibidem. 36 Ibidem, p.20. 37 Ibidem, p.45. 38 Ibidem, p.44. 441 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Prendiamo dunque coscienza che l’uomo è un intero, è un poliedro. Tramite l’ascolto della Parola nasce l’uomo nuovo, l’uomo “antropico”, ponte tra Creatore e creato; responsabile del mondo in quanto gli da significato39. 39 TOMASO BUGOSSI, Dialogo e organicità del sapere, op .cit., p.21. 442 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture RACE, ETHNICITY, AND PERSONAL IDENTITY IN THOMISTIC METAPHYSICS Robert A. Delfino St. Jonh’s University The topic of personal identity has recently enjoyed a revival among Thomists.1 While there have been many metaphysical discussions about personhood, the soul, immortality and human nature, none to my knowledge have addressed issues of race and ethnicity. Humans, after all, do not develop in a vacuum. Although some philosophers have attempted to treat issues of race and ethnicity systematically,2 we still do not have an integration of these metaphysical topics based upon Thomistic principles. I hope to remedy this situation. In doing so, I will I address the following question: “Are race and ethnicity necessary for personal identity”? 1. The Problem of Personal Identity The problem of personal identity in Thomas Aquinas is not an easy one for many reasons: (1) Thomas never discussed it in great detail, (2) it is related to the problem of individuation, which is a difficult topic and one about which Thomas changed his mind several times, and (3) his theological views about death and resurrection complicate this issue. But before this can be appreciated, we need to state clearly the problem of personal identity. To do this we must clarify some terms that are often confused. I understand identity as lack of difference. Traditionally, difference (differentia) meant to be alike in one respect and unlike in another respect. Difference was also distinguished from diversity (diversitas), which was used when two things shared nothing in common.3 I depart, however, from this narrow understanding of difference, and instead use it to cover both of these senses plus any other sense of non-identity there might be. Thus, I understand difference broadly enough to cover any case where X is not Y. I should also note that I use identity and sameness interchangeably. I understand unity or oneness, which I also use interchangeably, as lack of division. An individual kitten, according to Aristotle and Aquinas, is one substance even though it is made up of two principles: matter and form. It is one substance, not two, because the matter and form lack division in existence. Neither the matter nor the form can exist by itself, so they are a unity. Still, the kitten undergoes changes in height and weight throughout its life, so unity is not the same as identity. Similarly, the fact that this kitten is an individual and thus incommunicable, does not imply that it never changes during its life. Hence individuality is not the same as identity. Finally, for Thomas, rational and animal lack division in human nature considered absolutely, though they are neither identical nor individual.4 Hence unity is not the same as individuality. Therefore it should 1 See Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: A Philosophical Study of Summa Theologiae Ia 75-89 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Person, Soul and Immortality, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, Volume 75, 2001. 2 See Jorge J. E. Gracia, Hispanic-Latino Identity: A Philosophical Perspective (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 2000) for one example. 3 The distinction between difference and diversity goes back to Aristotle. See Metaphysics Bk. V, chap. 9, 1018a10-15 and Bk. X, chap. 3, 1054b23-27. For medieval adherents see, for example, Thomas Aquinas, Expositio super Librum Boethii De Trinitate, q. 4, a. 1. 4 Thomas Aquinas, De ente et essentia, trans. Armand A. Maurer, On Being and Essence, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1949), chap., 3, pp. 46-8. 443 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture be clear that identity, unity, and individuality are all intensionally distinct. Now that we have cleared up some terminology, let us discuss the general type of identity problem to which personal identity belongs. Since it is obvious that human persons undergo change throughout their lives, the problem of personal identity is not the problem of absolute identity. Therefore it will be some type of relative identity problem. A general formula for relative identity is: X and Y are identical with respect to R, where R excludes some characteristic(s) of X and Y. But the problem of personal identity, say of Boethius’ personal identity, involves the notion of persistence, or one individual remaining the same through change. A general formula for persistence is: X1 (x at time one) is the same with X2 (x at time two) with respect to P. So, for example, using this formula we could ask the question is Boethius in 518 the same with Boethius in 520 with regard to person? To answer this question we must do several things. First we need to know the definition of person in order to determine whether or not Boethius in 518 and 520 is a person. The question of race and ethnicity can be raised at this stage, for we can ask “Are race and ethnicity essential features of a person”? I shall argue later on that they are accidental to it. But this is not enough, for, as we have seen above, we also need to determine whether or not X1 and X2 are the same individual. If so, then we can conclude that X1 and X2 are one and the same person. The question of race and ethnicity can also be raised at this stage. For even if race and ethnicity are accidents, perhaps they serve to individuate me, and thus are necessary for my individual identity.5 In order to answer these questions we need to know what, metaphysically speaking, is responsible for making X1 and X2 the same person and the same individual over time. Fortunately, much of this work has already been done by Jorge J. E. Gracia, who has written an article on the principle of identity in Thomistic metaphysics, and several books on individuality and the problem of individuation. Since I plan to build upon his work, let us review briefly his arguments. 2. The Principle of Identity and Individuation In his article Numerical Continuity in Material Substances: The Principle of Identity in Thomstic Metaphysics, Gracia argues that of the candidates for the principle of identity, matter, form, existence, accidents, and substance, only existence is acceptable for this role. Although he holds that the problem of the principle of identity and the problem of the principle of individuation are different, he says they are related and ultimately argues that “the principle of identity must be individual of itself and unchanging in order to account for numerical sameness through time.”6 In the final analysis, according to Gracia, only existence (or esse in Thomas’s vocabulary) can be the principle of identity because it is both “essential [and] ... radically particular.”7 Let us examine briefly his reasons for dismissing the other candidates. Gracia maintains that matter is unacceptable as the principle of individuation or identity, and he indicates that Thomas vacillated between holding that the principle of individuation was designated matter and undesignated matter. In De Ente et Essentia, for example, Thomas held that the principle of individuation was designated matter, or matter under determinate dimensions such as six feet in height.8 But in his Commentary on Boethius’s De Trintate he held is was undesignated matter, or matter as necessarily having a set of particular dimensions potentially, but not actually. Thomas’s reason for the change was the recognition that if the principle of individuation were designated matter then if those dimensions changed we would have a different individual and thus we could not 5 “[A]ccidents that derive from mater [e.g., blackness of the skin] are accidents of the individual and they differentiate individuals within the same species.” Ibid., chap., 6, p. 69. 6 Jorge J. E. Gracia, “Numerical Continuity in Material Substances: The Principle of Identity in Thomistic Metaphysics” Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, 10 (1979), pp. 78 and 82. 7 Ibid., p. 88. 8 De ente et essentia, chap., 2, pp. 36-37. 444 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture account for identity. It should be obvious that such dimensions change all the time throughout our lives as we grow in height and weight. Gracia also indicates Thomas realized that indeterminate dimensions can be as common as matter itself and so they cannot individuate. Thus in his later and more mature works, Thomas returned to his earlier view that designated matter was the principle of individuation. Nonetheless, Gracia’s point is that neither designated nor undesignated matter can account for individuation or identity. Concerning substance, Gracia dismisses it as the principle of identity for several reasons. If substance is held to be individual and identical in and of itself this implies nominalism, the view that a substance has nothing in common with other substances. Nominalism is a view that Thomas rejects, and it is incompatible with the real distinction between being and essence that is central to Thomas’ metaphysics. The accidents of a substance are also dismissed by Gracia for several reasons. The most serious reason is that it is contradictory to hold that what changes in a subject is responsible for the subject remaining the same. Gracia argues against form as the principle of identity because it is neither individual nor existing of itself. In Thomas’s metaphysics form has no being or unity by itself, it rather receives these when it is actualized by existence (esse). Were form individual and existing of itself we would, again, be forced into a nominalist metaphysics. The only remaining candidate for the principle of identity is existence (esse), also known as the act-of-existing (actus essendi). Gracia comments that esse is a good candidate for two reasons: (1) it is essential to a thing in the sense that it is “necessary for the thing’s existence,”9 and (2) it is individual of itself, for there is no such thing as common or universal existence. I would like to add three more reasons that Gracia does not mention why esse is a good candidate for the principle of identity. (1) if the principle of identity were anything other than existence (esse) then, in principle, something could exist and yet not be identical with itself. This would amount to embracing a contradiction, for example that Socrates is not Socrates. (2) If the principle of identity were other than existence (esse), this would preclude simple things (e.g., God) from having self-identity. (3) As an actuality esse can explain persistence. Because, in Thomistic metaphysics, esse and essence are really distinct and related to each other as act to potency, the role of esse is precisely to actualize essence. So for as long as this essence is actualized by its act-of-existing (not another thing’s act-of-existing) so will that essence remain the same insofar as it continues to exist and this explains persistence.10 For these and other reasons, I have argued elsewhere at length that identity is a transcendental attribute of being.11 When we realize that unity and individuality are also transcendental attributes of being Thomas’s metaphysics takes on even a greater “simplicity and consistency”12 than Gracia’s interpretation, because esse is the principle that makes a being one, individual, and the same with itself both at a moment in time, and throughout its existence. In contrast to my view, however, Gracia does not hold that individuality is a transcendental attribute of being.13 We are now well on our way toward solving the problem of personal identity, but we still need a precise understanding of what a person is. 3. Personhood In his recent study Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, Robert Pasnau indicates that, unlike John 9 “Numerical Continuity in Material Substances,” p. 88 10 See Thomas Aquinas, De potentia 5, 1, and cf. Summa Theologiae I, 8, 1 and I, 8, 3. 11 Robert A. Delfino, The Ontological status of Identity, 2001, unpublished dissertation. 12 “Numerical Continuity in Material Substances,” p. 89. 13 Jorge J. E. Gracia, Individuality: An Essay on the Foundations of Metaphysics (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1988), pp. 134-40. 445 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Locke, Thomas Aquinas did not make a distinction between Socrates as a person and Socrates as a human being.14 Indeed, Pasnau reminds us that in the Summa theologiae Thomas said: “It holds of every human being to be a person insofar as every subsistent thing with a human nature is a person.”15 Of course, Thomas regarded separated intelligences or angels as persons, but he denied that the human soul by itself was a person. Although the human soul is subsistent and therefore can survive the death of the body, Thomas explicitly says “the separated soul is an individual substance of a rational nature; it is not, however, a person.”16 In this passage Thomas is relying on Boethius’ definition of a person, namely “An individual substance of a rational nature,” but later on in the Summa theologiae Thomas modifies the definition, saying that the word person “signifies that which is complete and subsisting per se with a rational nature.”17 Thus the reason that Thomas denies that the separated soul is a person is because the soul by itself is incomplete. The nature of the human soul is to inform a body, and so it is incomplete without the body. Were it the case that person, in the case of humans, signified the separated soul, race would obviously be irrelevant to personal identity. This is because the human soul for Thomas is incorporeal and therefore cannot have the physical characteristics that we normally associate with different races.18 But because, in the case of a human, Thomas is clear that person signifies the composite of soul and matter, not the soul alone, we can ask “Are race and ethnicity essential features of human persons”? To answer this we need a deeper understanding of race and ethnicity. 4. Race The words ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ are highly controversial. Historically, they have been used to classify, and, at times, to oppress people. Thus great care must be taken when approaching these topics. Unfortunately, the contemporary literature is filled with too many different conceptions of race to analyze here. Therefore, the question that I will try to answer is, “Where do race and ethnicity fit in metaphysically in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition”? It appears that race is nothing more than a set of accidental characteristics, for example the color of the skin, the shape of the eye, and so on. Thomas never treated the topic of race in detail, but he did explicitly acknowledge that skin color is irrelevant to membership in the human species. For example, he says in the Summa Contra Gentiles that “white man ... is not a species.”19 As we shall see, this means that Whites, Blacks, and Asians have the same essence. According to Thomas, “essence is what is signified through the definition of a thing” and it can be understood in two ways: on the one hand, absolutely, and on the other, according to the being it has in this or that individual. In the case of natural substances, he says “the definition ... includes not only form but also matter.”20 Thus when the essence of man is considered in the first way, that is absolutely, it includes flesh and bones but not, “this flesh and these bones.”21 The essence of man excludes individual matter and individual accidents such as this black or this white: “But individual matter with all its individuating accidents is not included in the definition of the species [man]. For this flesh and these bones, or this white or this black, or anything else of this sort, is not included in the definition of man.”22 Moreover, non-individual accidents, such as black and white, are not 14 Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, p. 122. 15 Summa Theologiae III, q. 16, a. 12 ad 1, trans. Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, p. 122. 16 “[A]nima separata est rationalis naturae individua substanita. Non autem est persona.” Summa Theologiae I, q. 29, a. 1, 5; my translation. 17 “[S]ignificat quid completum et per se subsistens in natura rationali…” Summa Theologiae, III, q. 16, a. 12 ad 3; my translation. 18 Summa Theologiae I, q. 75, a. 5. 19 Summa Contra Gentiles, II, chap., 80, 5, trans. James F. Anderson (University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), p. 260. 20 De ente et essentia, chap., II, p. 34. 21 Expositio super Librum Boethii De Trinitate, trans. Armand A. Maurer, The Division and Methods of the Sciences, 4th ed. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1986), q. 5, a. 2, p. 29. 22 “Sed materia indivdualis cum accidentibus omnibus individuantibus ipsam, non cadint in definitione speciei: non 446 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture included in the essence either, since they are accidents: “To man as man belong ‘rational’, ‘animal’, and everything else included in his definition; but ‘white’ or ‘black’; or any similar attribute not included in the notion of humanity, does not belong to man as man.”23 Clearly, then, belonging to a particular race is not included in the essence of man or person. Hence a human person from Ethiopia and a human person from Sweden have true relative identity as persons, since both are complete, subsisting beings of a rational nature. Race is irrelevant. Although Thomas did not know of deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA) or of the science of genetics his general view that race is accidental and not essential seems to be supported by the recent mapping of the Human genome. From this mapping it has been concluded that humans of all so-called races are “identical in 99.9% of our DNA.”24 In other words, racial characteristics account for a meager 0.1% of our DNA. Therefore, at a National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) meeting several years ago, geneticists agreed that “the notion of race had no meaning in science.”25 Nor is this an isolated view, as the American Association of Anthropologists in their Statement on “Race” and Intelligence declared: “differentiating species into biologically defined ‘races’ has proven meaningless and unscientific as a way of explaining variation (whether in intelligence or other traits).”26 Still, we can ask about an individual’s personal identity. Is not Socrates’ snub nose and his white skin part of who he is? Did not Thomas say that “determined dimensions ... would enter into the definition of Socrates if Socrates could be defined.”?27 Thomas seems committed to this view insofar as he holds that accidents of matter individuate things: Among the accidents that derive from matter we find the following difference. Some accidents result from matter because of its relation to a special form. Examples are male and female in animals – a difference that is reducible to matter ... That is why, once the form of the animal has been removed, these accidents no longer remain except in an equivocal sense. Other accidents result from matter in its relation to a general form. In this case, when the special form is taken away, these accidents still remain in the matter. An example is the blackness of an Ethiopian’s skin, which comes from the mixture of the elements and not from the nature of the soul, with the result that it remains in him [the corpse] after death. Because everything is individuated by matter and located in a genus or species through its form, accidents that derive from matter are accidents of the individual and they differentiate individuals within the same species…28 So, again, should we hold that Socrates must remain snub-nosed and white in order to be Socrates? Are an individual person’s accidents necessary for his or her individual personal identity? By now it should be clear the answer is no. Once we realize that Thomas was wrong to think that accidents of matter individuate things, we enim cadunt in definitione hominis hae carnes et haec ossa, aut albedo vel nigredo, vel aliquid huiusmodi.” Summa Theologiae I, q. 3, a. 3, responsio; my translation. 23 De ente et essentia, chap., 3, p. 46; and cf. Expositio super Librum Boethii De Trinitate, q. 5, a. 3. 24 Lisa Gannett, “Racism and Human Genome Diversity Research: The Ethical Limits of "Population Thinking” Philosophy of Science, Vol. 68, No. 3, Supplement: Proceedings of the 2000 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers, (September 2001), pp. S479-92., S487. 25 Sally Lehrman “The Reality of Race,” Scientific American, February 2003. 26 http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/race.htm. For a different interpretation see Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele, Race: The Reality of Human Differences (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2004). 27 De ente et essentia, chap., 2, p. 37. 28 Ibid., chap., 6, pp. 68-9, my emphasis. 447 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture understand that identity of accidents is not necessary for the identity or persistence of the individual substance. Socrates’s esse is what individuates him and keeps him substantially the same throughout his life. Undoubtedly, some of the accidents of Socrates’ matter changed throughout his life, for example height and weight, but because they do not individuate him and they are outside of the essence of person, as we have seen above, they do not affect his individual identity or the fact that he is a person. Thus race is irrelevant to individual personal identity. 5. Ethnicity If we understand ethnicity exclusively genetically as I have understood race above, then my arguments above are enough to show that ethnicity is irrelevant to individual personal identity. Instead, I think it is more useful to understand the term ethnicity as referring to a sub-culture. I understand culture as a way of life held by a large group of human beings, who are linked together by a shared history, that is characterized by certain values and traditions and that is transmitted from one generation to next. This is certainly not a perfect definition but it is enough for our present purposes. Thus culture is broader than ethnicity. We often speak of American culture, for instance our love of freedom, our thanksgiving day holiday, and so on, but American culture is composed of many ethnic groups: Hispanics, Germans, Poles - each with their own values and traditions. When we understand ethnicity as a sub-culture it should be clear that it is not necessary for personal identity. Since values and traditions are something acquired, they are accidental to a person. Thus, in the final analysis, neither race nor ethnicity is necessary for personal identity. 448 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture AQUINAS AND VARIETIES OF DUALISM Jason T. Eberl Indiana University Introduction Thomas Aquinas clearly follows Aristotle’s hylomorphic account of human nature, in which matter is informed by a rational soul to compose a human person. Nevertheless, Aquinas departs from Aristotle in arguing that an individual human person may survive their body’s death insofar as a rational soul is able to exist and function without matter. This leads to the typical characterization of Aquinas as a dualist. Thomistic dualism, however, is quite distinct from the Platonic dualist account which preceded it, as well as the various accounts of substance dualism that have been offered by contemporary philosophers such as Richard Swinburne. For both Plato and Swinburne, a person is identical to an immaterial soul which is contingently related to a human body.1 For Aquinas, a human person is composed of his or her soul and the matter it informs, but is not identical to either metaphysical component. Aquinas’s view is more similar to another recently developed form of dualism proposed by William Hasker: emergent dualism. In what follows, I will explicate Thomistic dualism in comparison Swinburne’s and Hasker’s respective accounts. I conclude that Aquinas offers a unique account which is able to address certain issues that arise for the other dualist views. Thomistic Dualism2 Aquinas’s metaphysical account of human nature includes, though is not limited to, three interrelated theses: a human person is a substance composed of an immaterial soul informing a material body; a human person is not identical to an immaterial, spiritual substance; and “animality” is fundamental to human nature. According to Aquinas, a human being is a person. He adopts the definition of personhood developed by Boethius: “an individual substance of a rational nature.”3 Being of a rational nature - i.e., having an intellective mind - distinguishes human persons from other material substances.4 A human person, though, is not only rational, but is also a sensitive, animate, and corporeal substance; human persons have a material nature.5 Aquinas thus distinguishes human persons, from other types of persons,6 as “rational animals.”7 Aquinas refers to human persons as essentially animal, because we share certain essential qualities with other members of the animal genus. The primary exemplification of such similarity is 1 See Plato, Phaedo, 115c-e. Swinburne’s view is explicated below. 2 This section is derived from my “Aquinas on the Nature of Human Beings” Review of Metaphysics 58/2 (2004): 333-65. 3 Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST], Ia.29.1. Cf. Boethius, Contra Eutychen et Nestorium, in Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. H.F. Stewart, E.K. Rand, and S.J. Tester (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1918). All translations of Aquinas’s texts are my own. 4 See Aquinas, Quaestio disputata de anima [QDA], III; Summa contra gentiles [SCG], II.60; Sententia libri Ethicorum, I.10, X.10. 5 See Aquinas, Expositio super librum Boethii De trinitate, V.3. 6 Aquinas recognizes different types of beings as persons. In addition to human beings, Aquinas claims that angels are persons and that God exists as three distinct persons. Since my interest here is solely with human persons, I will not entertain any further discussion of such other types of persons. 7 See Aquinas, Sententia super Metaphyisicam [In M], VII.3.1326. 449 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture the capacity for sense-perception. A human body, though, is unique among other kinds of animal bodies in that it is organized not only to support the capacity for sense-perception, but also the capacity for rational thought. The disposition of a human body is determined by its having a rational soul as its “substantial form.” As a substantial form, a rational soul is responsible for a person’s8 existence, the actualization of the matter that composes a person, and the unity of a person’s existence and activity.9 A rational soul and the material body of which it is the substantial form are not two separately existing substances. A substantial form is the actualization of a material body. Aquinas asserts: Body and soul are not two actually existing substances, but from these two is made one actually existing substance. For the body of a human being is not actually the same in the soul’s presence and absence; but the soul makes it to be actually.10 The intrinsic unity of matter and substantial form—body and soul—is responsible for a person’s unified existence. A person is not merely an aggregate of body and soul, for neither alone count as a substance. A person does not naturally exist without being composed of both a material body and a rational soul. Neither a rational soul nor the matter it informs is a complete substance on it own. Rather, the two together compose a complete substance: a person who is not identical to either their soul or their informed material body. Rather, a person is composed of their informed material body. Aquinas concludes, “A human being is said to be from soul and body just as from two things a third is constituted that is neither of the two, hence a human being is neither soul nor body.”11 Aquinas’s account is thus not representative of substance dualism, as it is sometimes mischaracterized.12 The fundamental difference between Aquinas’s account and substance dualism concerns the questions of whether a human soul is a substance and whether a person is identical with their soul. According to substance dualism, a person is their soul, which is a complete substance on its own, and a person’s body is merely something to which they are joined between birth and death. This is not Aquinas’s position. A human soul, though capable of subsistence apart from a body, does not subsist as a complete substance.13 This constitutes Aquinas’s basic complaint against Platonism: his contention that a person cannot be identified with their soul alone. He argues that such identification would deny a person ownership of those activities of their soul that depend upon bodily organs to function: But it may also be understood in another way, that this soul is this human being. And this could be held if it were supposed that the operation of the sensitive soul belonged to it without a body, because all operations which are attributed to a human 8 All uses of the term “person” in this paper will be understood to refer to a human person. 9 See SCG, II.68; In DA, II.2. 10 SCG, II.69. 11 Aquinas, De ente et essentia, II. Cf. ST, Ia.75.4. 12 Although they contrast Aquinas’s account with Swinburne’s, J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae nevertheless label Aquinas a “substance dualist” and argue that a person is identical with their soul and a human soul is a substance; see J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae, Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVaristy Press, 2000), 201-6. Aquinas rejects such conclusions. Robert Pasnau argues forcefully against the label of “substance dualism” being applied to Aquinas’s account; see Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 70. Pasnau’s own label, however, “reductive hylomorphism,” strikes me as misleading; see Pasnau 2002, 44. Aquinas’s account should in no way be considered as “reductionist,” for a person is not reducible to their metaphysical or integral parts, taken individually or aggregately. For further contention that Aquinas is not a substance dualist, see Brian Leftow, “Souls Dipped in Dust” in Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons, ed. Kevin Corcoran (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 137-8. 13 See Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de potentia dei, III.10. Cf. QDA II.ad 11; ST Ia.90.4; Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis, II.ad 5. 450 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture being would belong to the soul alone. Now each thing is that which performs the operations of that thing. Hence, a human being is that which performs the operations of a human being. But, it was shown that sensation is not an operation of the soul alone. Therefore, since sensation is an operation of a human being … it is clear that a human being is not a soul alone, but is something composed of soul and body.14 If a person lives, senses, and acts though physical behavior, then, since such activities are identified with a soul’s capacities that depend upon bodily organs for their operation, a person cannot be identified with their soul alone. Rather, a person is composed of both their soul and body: There cannot be one operation of things that are different in being … Now, although there is some operation belonging to the soul in which the body does not share, such as understanding, nevertheless, there are some operations common to it and the body, such as to fear and anger and sensation and the like; for these occur according to some transmutation in a determinate part of the body, from which it is clear that they are operations of the soul and body together. Therefore, it must be that from soul and body is made one, and that they are not diverse according to being.15 Having distinguished Aquinas’s account from the Platonic dualist account which preceded it, I will proceed to elucidate Swinburne’s and Hasker’s recent arguments for two distinct types of dualism and show how they compare to Aquinas’s. Swinburne’s Substance Dualism Richard Swinburne states his substance dualist position thus: I understand by substance dualism the view that those persons which are human beings (or men) living on Earth, have two parts linked together, body and soul. A man’s body is that to which his physical properties belong. If a man weighs ten stone then his body weighs ten stone. A man’s soul is that to which the (pure) mental properties belong. If a man imagines a cat, then, the dualist will say, his soul imagines a cat.16 According to Swinburne, a human person is an individual being which has a material substance (body), to which their physical properties belong, and an immaterial substance (soul), to which their mental properties belong. During a person’s “normal earthly life,” both components exist linked together.17 However, that a person “normally” exists as a soul and body linked together does not entail that a person must exist in such a manner. Swinburne contends that a body is a contingent component of a person.18 A person is essentially a soul; and a soul may be temporarily linked to a body such that the body, for that period of time, is also a component of the person. Swinburne argues for substance dualism by first asserting that “it is logically possible that persons continue to exist when their bodies are destroyed.”19 To show this, Swinburne imagines 14 ST Ia.75.4. See Pasnau 2002, 48. 15 SCG II.57. 16 Richard Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 145. Cf. Swinburne, “Personal Identity: The Dualist Theory” in Personal Identity, ed. Sydney Shoemaker and Richard Swinburne (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), 3-66; “The Structure of the Soul” in Persons and Personality: A Contemporary Inquiry, ed. Arthur Peacocke and Grant Gillett (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), 33-55; “Body and Soul” in The Mind-Body Problem: A Guide to the Current Debate, ed. Richard Warner and Tadeusz Szubka (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994a), 311-6; The Christian God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994b), 16-32; “Dualism Intact” Faith and Philosophy 13 (1996): 68-77. 17 See Swinburne 1997, 146; 1994b, 26. 18 See Swinburne 1997, 146. 19 Swinburne 1997, 147. 451 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture scenarios in which a person is able to experience and act either through someone else’s body20 or without any body altogether: A person has a body if there is one particular chunk of matter through which he has to operate on and learn about the world. But suppose that a person who has been a man now finds himself no longer able to operate on the world, nor to acquire true beliefs about it; yet still to have a full mental life, some of it subject to voluntary control. He would be disembodied. Or suppose, alternatively, that he finds himself able to operate on and learn about the world within some small finite region, without having to use one particular chunk of matter for this purpose. He might find himself with knowledge of the position of objects in a room (perhaps by having visual sensations, perhaps not), and able to move such objects just like that, in the ways in which we know about the positions of our limbs and can move them. But the room would not be, as it were, the person’s body; for we may suppose that simply by choosing to do so he can gradually shift the focus of his knowledge and control, e.g. to the next room. The person would be in no way limited to operating and learning through one particular chunk of matter. Hence he would have no body. The supposition that a person who is currently a man might become disembodied in one or other of these ways seems coherent.21 Swinburne concludes that there must be an immaterial component of persons in virtue of which they are able to exist as disembodied.22 Since it is at least logically possible that a person survives without the body they currently have, there must be something more to a person than their body alone, and this something is the essential part of the person that preserves their identity through bodily change: “The soul is the essential part of a person, and it is its continuing which constitutes the continuing of the person.”23 Swinburne does not deny that a physical body has anything at all to do with what a person is. He argues only that a body has nothing essentially to do with a person’s nature qua person. Swinburne preserves a role for a human body as possibly something physically necessary for the sake of a soul’s experiencing and acting.24 Swinburne claims, though, that even if a soul must be linked to a body, it need not be linked to this body. Hence, a soul is something other than the body to which it may be linked. Furthermore, it is logically possible, Swinburne contends, that a soul may exist, experience, and act without being linked to any body. Because of such a logical possibility, Swinburne concludes that an immaterial soul is the essential component of a person’s existence, even if it may be physically necessary that a soul be linked to a body for the sake of its experiencing of, and acting in, the world. Although Aquinas and Swinburne agree that a person has an immaterial soul which is essential to their existence, they differ with respect to whether a person is to be identified with her soul alone. Whereas Swinburne identifies a person with their soul and asserts that a human soul exists as a complete substance, Aquinas holds that a person is composed of their soul and asserts that a human soul does not exist on its own as a complete substance: “For if it is natural for a [human] soul to be united to a body, it is contrary to nature to it to be without the body, and without the body existing it does not have its natural perfection.”25 Only something that has, on its own, the necessary constituents for “its natural perfection” can be a substance; thus, a human soul alone cannot be a substance. 20 See Swinburne 1997, 151; 1984, 23. 21 Swinburne 1997, 152. Cf. 1984, 23-4. 22 See Swinburne 1997, 154; 1984, 29-30; 1987, 35. 23 Swinburne 1984, 27. 24 See Swinburne 1984, 34. 25 ST Ia.118.3. 452 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Hasker’s Emergent Dualism Hasker argues that a conscious mind—or “soul”—endowed with causal powers and free will, emerges from the complex, organized functioning of a human brain. He takes seriously the “well-confirmed results of natural science, including research on neurophysiology”26 and is a realist concerning mental phenomena. To describe his view, Hasker creates an analogy between the mind/brain relationship and the relationship between a magnet and the magnetic field it produces: [A]s a magnet generates its magnetic field, so the brain generates its field of consciousness. The mind, like the magnetic field, comes into existence when the constituents of its “material base” are arranged in a suitable way—in this case, in the extremely complex arrangement found in the nervous system of humans and other animals. And like the magnetic field, it exerts a causality of its own.27 Hasker’s view is strikingly similar to Aquinas’s insofar as both deny substance dualism and understand persons to be fundamentally material beings. There are some key differences between them, however. These differences will be highlighted as I compare their respective accounts on two points: whether souls are spatially located, and the possibility and nature of post-mortem existence. Jaegwon Kim raises a “causal-pairing problem” for substance dualism. Stated briefly, dualism cannot explain how an immaterial soul can be causally-paired with a material body since the only means that we have experience of for causally-pairing two substances is spatiotemporally. Since an immaterial soul does not exist spatially, there is no criterion by which we can pair soul A with body A and soul B and body B, as opposed to soul A being causally-paired with body B and soul B with body A.28 Hasker contends that this problem does not arise for his view insofar as “it is natural to conclude that the emergent consciousness is itself a spatial entity.”29 To invoke the magnetic field analogy once again, such a field “normally occupies—and is detectable in—a region of space,” a region that is “considerably larger than that occupied by the magnet.”30 Thus, a mind can be understood to exist (although maybe not “detectable in”) a certain region of space: “[T]he volume of space within which the emergent mind exists must be at least sufficient to encompass those parts of the brain with which the mind interacts.”31 Like a magnetic field, however, a mind may occupy a larger space than its brain occupies due to the conceivability of it exerting a causality “on other minds (telepathy) or on other aspects of the material world (telekinesis).”32 Does Aquinas also understand the mind to be spatially located? On one hand, it seems that the answer is negative since Aquinas clearly states that a soul’s intellective power—Aquinas’s equivalent to “the mind”—is not itself a material entity,33 nor does it function through a material organ, such as the brain.34 On the other hand, the intellect is but a power of a human soul, which Aquinas clearly holds to be united to its body as a substantial form35 and to exist in each part of the body it informs.36 Aquinas thus spatially locates the soul in the body it informs, while holding at the same time that its intellective power is not located in any part of the body.37 Therefore, Aquinas 26 William Hasker, The Emergent Self (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 188. 27 Hasker 1999, 190-1. 28 Jaegwon Kim, “Lonely Souls: Causality and Substance Dualism” in Corcoran 2001, 30-43. 29 Hasker 1999, 192. 30 Hasker 1999, 190. 31 Hasker 1999, 192. 32 Hasker 1999, 191. See Andy Clark and David Chalmers, “The Extended Mind” Analysis 58 (1998): 7-19. 33 See ST Ia.75.1. 34 See ST Ia.75.2. 35 See ST Ia.76.1. 36 See ST Ia.76.8. 37 See ST Ia.76.8.ad 4. 453 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture and Hasker share a similar response to Kim’s causal-pairing problem. For Aquinas, soul A is causally-paired with body A, and not body B, because soul A is the substantial form which makes body A to exist and compose a person who lives, senses, and thinks. Hasker allows for the possibility of post-mortem existence and the self-identity of a person between their pre- and post-mortem lives. The most apt way of characterizing the nature of post-mortem life, Hasker concludes, is that God provides a new material “base” for a person’s conscious field “in the form of a resurrection body.”38 He conjectures, though, that God could conceivably sustain a mind’s existence and functioning without any material base whatsoever; but this would constitute “an ontologically abnormal situation.”39 The persistent identity of a person between their pre- and post-mortem lives is secured, at least in part, by continuity of memory.40 Aquinas’s account is strikingly similar to Hasker’s on this point. Although Aquinas argues that a human soul is capable of surviving the death of its body because its intellect can function without need of any material organ, which differs from Hasker’s view, Aquinas nonetheless refers to this as an “unnatural and deficient” mode of existence insofar as the intellect functions optimally when abstracting intelligible forms from phantasms of perceived sensible objects.41 He thus considers bodily resurrection, effected by God, to be a metaphysically necessary event so that a separated human soul can be reunited to its body and once again engage in the full range of activities of which it is naturally capable. Like Hasker, though, Aquinas not only conjectures, but actually asserts that a human soul can exist and function intellectively without its body. This is partly due to the soul’s natural capacity to reflect upon itself and the knowledge it acquired through sensation while embodied, and partly due to God directly infusing new intelligible forms directly into the soul.42 Regarding a person’s identity between their pre- and post-mortem lives, Aquinas holds that personal identity is preserved by virtue of the soul alone insofar as it is the substantial form of the body which, together with the soul, composes the individual person.43 He also recognizes, as does Hasker, that memory may play a key role in establishing personal identity (or at least a person’s phenomenal experience of their self-identity) and provides continuity of memory in two ways. First, an individual’s soul would maintain in potentia all the sensible forms of individual objects it had perceived throughout its embodied existence. While a separated soul would not be able to access those memories since the memory of such forms requires a functioning brain, access would be granted upon the soul’s reunion with its resurrected body. Additionally, Aquinas understands the soul to have a power of intellective memory—i.e., it contains all the intelligible forms it had previously abstracted from phantasms during its embodied life—and even a separated soul would be able to access those memories.44 One advantage Aquinas’s account of post-mortem existence has over Hasker’s is that Aquinas provides something that Hasker admittedly needs for his acccount. Considering the problem of a resurrected body generating its own field of consciousness, since it would be suitably organized to do so, before it is conjoined by God to the surviving person’s conscious field, Hasker responds: “we must imagine the new body created from the very beginning as the body of this very soul; the renewed self must be ‘in charge’ of the resurrection body right from the start.”45 This “imagined” 38 Hasker 1999, 235. 39 William Hasker, “Reply to My Friendly Critics” Philosophia Christi 2/2 (2000): 205. Hasker is here responding to Stewart Goetz’s “Questions about Emergent Dualism” in the same issue. 40 See Hasker 1999, 233-4. 41 For references and further discussion, see Jason T. Eberl, “The Metaphysics of Resurrection: Issues of Identity in Thomas Aquinas” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 74 (2000): 215-30; and Eberl 2004. 42 See ST Ia.89.1.ad 3. 43 See Eberl 2004, 353-9. 44 See ST Ia.89.6; Jason T. Eberl, “Pomponazzi and Aquinas on the Intellective Soul” The Modern Schoolman 83 (2005): 78. 45 Hasker 1999, 235. 454 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture criterion for resurrection seems a bit ad hoc; but it is not so given Aquinas’s metaphysical account of human nature in which an individual person’s soul is the substantial form of their body—and, as such, contains the “blueprint” for that particular body—it would not be possible for an individual’s resurrected body to exist and function without being informed by their soul. In Hasker’s resurrection scenario, it is metaphysically possible for the body that God forms as the substratum for an individual’s consciousness to generate a distinct conscious field unless God guarantees that it will not or that it is conjoined to the individual’s consciousness immediately upon its creation, which God could certainly do. Aquinas’s view, however, does not require this special guarantee on God’s part since it is metaphysically impossible for the material body that God resurrects to be informed by any soul other than the soul that had informed it pre-mortem. Conclusion – Advantages of Thomistic Dualism It is incumbent upon adherents of substance dualism to account for the unified existence of a person and the proper ascription of activities to a person, given their contention that a person is composed of two substances of diverse natures and not unified as one substance. It is further incumbent upon substance dualists to explain how a material body and an immaterial soul can interact considering problems such as Kim’s causal-pairing problem. This particular problem, however, does not arise for Aquinas’s account, insofar soul and body are not two substances which interact.46 Rather, the composite of soul and matter—i.e., an informed material body that composes a person—is what acts by virtue of its constituent parts. Soul and body are thus causally-paired insofar as the essential nature of a particular soul includes its being “paired” with a particular body as its substantial form. Aquinas’s view is much closer to Hasker’s account of emergent dualism, but key differences persist. One of these differences, again based on the essential nature of a particular soul to be the substantial form of a particular body, provides an advantage to Aquinas’s account in guaranteeing that a post-mortem resurrected body will be the body of the same person, with the same conscious mind, who was composed of that body pre-mortem. 46 See Stump 1995, 518. Claiming that Aquinas’s account avoids the interaction problem is not to claim that no further explanation is required for how soul and body are conjoined in composing a human being. 455 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture EL ITINERARIO METAFÍSICO DE SANTO TOMÁS Guiu Andreu Ignacio 1. El ente como «principio» radical Santo Tomás constituye uno de los momentos más decisivos en la historia de la metafísica, con su original noción de acto de ser, y con su afirmación de la composición y distinción real de esencia y ser. Me propongo aquí presentar su itinerario metafísico, convencido de que así podremos advertir mejor toda la novedad y originalidad de su pensamiento. Pues bien, dicho itinerario pasa por tomar como punto de partida absoluto la noción de ente, que es objeto propio del entendimiento y principio como comienzo radical que, en su explicitación, domina por completo todo entendimiento de lo real. «Primo autem in conceptione intellectus cadit ens: quia secundum hoc unumquodque cog- noscibile est, inquantum est actu, ut dicitur in IX Metaphys. Unde ens est proprium obiectum intellectus: et sic est primum intelligibile, sicut sonus est primum audibile» (S. Th., I, 5, 2). La cognoscibilidad sigue al ser en acto. Pero ente dice lo que es en acto. Por eso, el ente es primum cognitum. Pero uno es propiamente en acto en virtud del ser por el que primeramente se discierne de lo que es sólo en potencia; ser, que inicialmente se presenta como la substancia de cada uno. De la actualidad al ser. Consciente de la exigencia de un comienzo radical, que no es otro que el ente, escribe Santo Tomás: «Sicut in demonstrabilibus oportet fieri reductionem in aliqua principia per se intellectui nota ita investigando quid est unumquodque, alias utrobique in infinitum iretur, et sic periret omnino scientia et cognitio rerum; illud autem quod primo intellectus concipit quasi notissimum et in quod conceptiones omnes resolvit est ens, ut Avicenna dicit in principio suae Metaphysicae; unde oportet quod omnes aliae conceptiones intellectus accipiantur ex additione ad ens. Sed enti non possunt addi aliqua quasi extranea per modum quo differentia additur generi vel accidens subiecto, quia quaelibet natura est essentialiter ens, unde probat etiam Philosophus in III Metaphysicae quod ens non potest esse genus; sed secundum hoc aliqua dicuntur addere super ens in quantum exprimunt modum ipsius entis qui nomine entis non exprimitur, quod dupliciter contingit (...)» (Q. Disp. De veritate, 1, 1). El punto de partida de todo conocimiento y, por lo mismo, comienzo radical también de la metafísica, es la experiencia de lo que es. El ente es la concepción adecuada del entendimiento como tal, el juicio verdadero por antonomasia de lo real. Conocer es, por tanto, juzgar toda la realidad, en todos sus aspectos y en todos sus grados de perfección en términos de ser, en la luz de su ser1. Así «ente» viene a ser el concepto de una plenitud cognoscitiva en el interior de la cual se desenvuelven todas las demás concepciones del entendimiento. El conocimiento progresa mediante una resolución en el ente como «reducción al fundamento». Luego todas las demás concepciones del entendimiento se adquieren por una adición a ente. Todo conviene en la razón de ente, pero la noción no dice explícitamente más, es inadecuada para informar al entendimiento de una vez por to- das, y exige ser explicitada. La afirmación dispersiva aristotélica según la cual ente no es un género (sino más bien una pluralidad de géneros) porque se dice de muchas maneras (to on legetai pollachôs), adquiere en 1 «Probat autem Philosophus in IX Metaphys. quod unumquodque cognoscitur per id quod est in actu et ideo ipsa actualitatis rei est quoddam lumen ipsius» (In De Causis, VI, n. 168). 457 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Santo Tomás un sentido intensivo, pues ente comprende todas y cada una de las cosas, y en cualquiera de sus aspectos, ya que sólo en la razón de ente cada cosa es captable por el en- tendimiento. Todas las demás concepciones de nuestro entendimiento añaden algo a ente porque expresan un modo del ente que no se encuentra expresado en la razón misma de ente. Nada hay anterior a ente, como elemento último de resolución. Al contrario, toda afirmación posterior ha de ser un despliegue de lo que se encuentra virtualmente contenido en su interior. El concepto de ente cumple así las exigencias de un comienzo radical sin presupuestos (o, si se prefiere, sin más presupuestos que los que hacen posible el saber: la realidad y el sujeto cognoscente). Ahora bien, la actuación de dicha adición se puede dar en dos direcciones, que serán los dos caminos a recorrer por la metafísica: un movimiento limitativo en el orden categorial, y otro, intensivo en el orden trascendental (intensificación sólo nocional en los trascendentales, e intensifi- cación real en las perfecciones “trascendentales” de naturaleza, vida y espíritu). Entendemos ahora mejor por qué el ente es no sólo comienzo, sino principio que domina por completo cada paso de la metafísica, pues ésta no es sino la explicitación del comienzo. Pero, ¿cuál es esta noción de ente como principio? Volvamos a nuestro texto y atendamos al despliegue trascendental: «(…) Alio modo ita quod modus expressus sit modus generalis consequens omne ens, et hic modus dupliciter accipi potest: uno modo secundum quod consequitur unumquodque ens in se, alio modo secundum quod consequitur unum ens in ordine ad aliud. Si primo modo, hoc est dupliciter quia vel exprimitur in ente aliquid affirmative vel negative; non autem invenitur aliquid affirmative dictum absolute quod possit accipi in omni ente nisi essentia eius secundum quam esse dicitur, et sic imponitur hoc nomen res, quod in hoc differt ab ente, secundum Avicennam in principio Metaphysicae, quod ens sumitur ab actu essendi sed nomen rei exprimit quiditatem vel essentiam entis (…)» (Q. Disp. De Veritate, 1, 1). El ente es la primera concepción del entendimiento porque expresa el acto más excelente, más allá de todo acto de orden esencial: el acto de ser. Se recupera así toda la radicalidad de la noción de ente sobre la de esencia. 2. Del ente al ser, y del ser al Ser El ente adquiere, pues, el carácter de principio de la metafísica porque expresa el acto de ser como actualidad de todos los actos y perfección de toda perfección: «Hoc quod dico esse est inter omnia perfectissimum: quod ex hoc patet quia actus est semper perfectio potentia. Quaelibet autem forma signata non intelligitur in actu nisi per hoc quod esse ponitur. Nam humanitas vel igneitas potest considerari ut in potentia materiae existens, vel ut in virtute agentis, aut etiam ut in intellectu: sed hoc quod habet esse, efficitur actu existens. Unde patet quod hoc quod dico esse est actualitas omnium actuum, et propter hoc est perfectio omnium perfectionem (...)» (Q. Disp. De Potentia, 7, 2 ad 9). «Esse est actualitas omnis formae vel naturae: non enim bonitas vel humanitas significatur in actu, nisi prout significamus eam esse. Oportet igitur quod ipsum esse comparetur ad essentiam quae est aliud ab ipso, sicut actus ad potentiam» (S. Th., I, 3, 4). «Ipsum esse est perfectissimum omnium: comparatur enim ad omnia ut actus. Nihil enim habet actualitatem, nisi inquantum est: unde ipsum esse est actualitas omnium rerum, et etiam ipsarum formarum. Unde non comparatur ad alia sicut recipiens ad receptum: sed magis sicut receptum ad recipiens. Cum enim dico esse hominis, vel equi, vel cuiuscumque alterius, ipsum esse consideratur ut formale et receptum: non autem ut illud cui competit esse» (S. Th., I, 4, 1 ad 3). Estos textos nos hablan de la excelencia de un acto, el ser (esse), que entra en composición con la esencia como potentia essendi. Captamos así la distinción de dos niveles o planos metafísicos fundamentales: el orden substancial, en que las formas - la substancial y las múltiples formas acci- dentales - son acto en relación a sus respectivas potencias; y el orden del ser, en el que las mismas 458 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture formas son potencia en relación al acto de ser, acto primero del ente, en tanto que acto de todos los demás actos formales. Pero, ¿por qué es necesaria la composición real de esencia y ser? ¿No basta el orden substancial para explicar la estructura metafísica de lo real? ¿Por qué ese nivel último de acto que es el ser? Oigamos a Santo Tomás: «Omne quod est in genere substantiae est compositum reali compositione eo quod id quod est in praedicamento substantiae est in suo esse subsistens, et oportet quod esse suum sit aliud quam ipsum, alias non posset differre secundum esse ab aliis cum quibus convenit in ratione suae quiditatis» (Q. Disp. De Veritate, 27, 1 ad 8). Sólo se es verdaderamente otro ente en virtud de un principio verdaderamente propio e incomu- nicable que, por lo mismo, será extraquiditativo. Fuera del ser propio por el que algo subsiste en concreto, todo viene a ser lo mismo, porque siempre podemos buscar principios esenciales más uni- versales bajo los cuales unificar lo real. La identidad radical de todo la expresaría el trascendental res; en cambio, la diferencia radical la expresaría ens. Si la substancia no se compusiera realmente con el ser, ¿en virtud de qué - parece preguntarse Santo Tomás - una substancia es verdaderamente otra? Si hallamos varios sujetos que convienen en una misma naturaleza, será preciso distinguir aquello por lo que son uno, de aquello por lo que son varios. Dicha composición es necesaria para toda metafísica que quiera tener como centro de consideración al subsistente concreto en tanto que lo único verdaderamente real. Para Aristóteles, por el contrario, no hay un principio por el que algo es substancia, y otro (distinto) por el que esa substancia subsiste como otra. No niega ciertamente que haya múltiples realidades subsistentes de una misma especie, pero entiende que basta la materia como razón de la multiplicidad numérica de la especie. Pero, ¿por qué la materia se divide en partes unas fuera de las otras? La materia no es la respuesta última a la multiplicación e individuación, sino el acto de ser2. La investigación metafísica alcanza así a considerar el individuo como un todo distinto de su na- turaleza o esencia, donde dicha naturaleza es potencia de ser, capaz de recibir un ser por el que subsiste. Hay multiplicación real porque, en definitiva, hay una perfección, el ser, que es tenida por la esencia específica de cada ente; esencia, que será entonces real y concreta en virtud del ser mismo. El individuo es la totalidad del ente real, que tiene el ser como acto de todo acto y de toda perfección, como origen real de todas sus determinaciones positivas y de su singularidad3. Alcanzado el acto de ser, la vía resolutiva culmina con la demostración de Dios como el Ser mismo subsistente: del ente al ser, y del ser al Ser. Santo Tomás ensaya una «vía» que, tomando como punto de partida la composición real de esencia y ser, se pregunta por la causa de dicho ser: «Omne autem quod convenit alicui vel est causatum ex principiis naturae suae, sicut risibile in homine ; vel advenit ab aliquo principio extrinseco, sicut lumen in aere ex influentia solis. Non autem potest esse quod ipsum esse sit causatum ab ipsa forma vel quiditate rei, dico sicut a causa efficiente, quia sic aliqua res esset sui ipsius causa et aliqua res se ipsam in esse produceret: quod est impossibile. Ergo oportet quod omnis talis res cuius esse est aliud quam natura sua habeat esse ab alio. Et quia omne quod est per aliud reducitur ad id quod est per se sicut ad causam primam, oportet quod sit aliqua res quae sit causa essendi omnibus rebus eo quod ipsa est esse tantum ; alias iretur in infinitum in causis, cum omnis res quae non est esse tantum habeat causam sui esse, ut dictum est. Patet ergo quod intelligentia est forma et esse, et quod esse habet a primo ente quod est esse tantum, et hoc est causa prima quae Deus est» (De ente et essentia, IV)4. 2 «Unumquodque secundum idem habet esse et individuationem» (Q. Disp. De Anima, 1 ad 2). 3 «Esse uniuscuiusque rei est ei proprium et distinctum ab esse cuiuslibet alterius rei» (Q. Disp. De Potentia, 7, 3). 4 En la Summa Theologiae ( I, 2, 3), Santo Tomás presenta cinco vías para demostrar la existencia de Dios. Ninguna toma como punto de partida la distinción real de esencia y ser. Ahora bien, estas vías demuestran que Dios es el primer ente. Y porque Dios es el primer ente, no puede haber en El nada potencial: «Ostensum est autem supra (2, 3) quod Deus est primum ens. Impossibile est igitur quod in Deo sit aliquid in potentia» (3, 1). Luego como en Dios nada es 459 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture En suma: en la vía resolutiva ascendente hallamos dos momentos: uno, que va del ente al ser; otro, que va del ser al Ser. El ente aparece compuesto de substancia y ser. Es el momento aristotélico de la composición acto-potencial, pero transformado, porque el acto es el ser y no sólo la forma. Se supera el riesgo, inherente a toda metafísica lógico-esencialista, de reducir todo a lo mismo. Pero la composición y consiguiente distinción real en el ente de substancia como potencia y ser como acto está reclamando una causa primera - causa essendi - carente de dicha composición, que, por lo mismo, será Acto puro de Ser, sin mezcla alguna de potencialidad. Esto es Dios. 3. Del Ser al ente Una vez demostrada la existencia de Dios como el Ser, la inteligencia metafísica vuelve al ente del que partió con nuevas luces. En concreto, porque el Ser subsistente es único, todo lo distinto del Ser será ente por participación, de suerte que la substancia misma es la potencia participante de ser, y el ser, el acto participado. La participación es una primera respuesta a la pregunta: ¿por qué el ente, y no más bien el Ser? Hay entes en virtud de la participación. Del Ser al acto «participado» de ser. Es el momento platónico de la participación, pero transformado, pues la única perfección separada es el Ser, no las Formas, y la participación se da, no en el orden de la substancia, sino en el orden del acto de ser. Veamos algunos textos que recogen esta vía descendente: «Dupliciter aliquid de aliquo praedicatur: uno modo essentialiter, alio modo per participationem. Lux enim praedicatur de corpore illuminato participative; sed si esset aliqua lux separata, praedicaretur de ea essentialiter. Secundum ergo hoc dicendum est, quod ens praedicatur de solo Deo essentialiter, eo quod esse divinum est esse subsistens et absolutum; de qualibet autem creatura praedicatur per participationem: nulla enim creatura est suum esse, sed est habens esse (...). Quandocumque autem aliquid praedicatur de altero per participationem, oportet ibi aliquid esse praeter id quod participatur. Et ideo in qualibet creatura est aliud ipsa creatura quae habet esse, et ipsum esse eius; et hoc est quod Boetius dicit in lib. de Hebdomad., quod in omni eo quod est citra primum, aliud est esse et quod est» (Quodl. II, 2, 3). «Manifestum est enim quod solus Deus est suum esse, quasi essentialiter existens, in quantum scilicet suum esse est eius substantia. Quod de nullo alio dici potest: esse enim subsistens non potest esse nisi unum, sicut nec albedo subsistens non potest esse nisi unum. Oportet ergo quod quaelibet alia res sit ens participative, ita quod aliud sit in eo substantia participans esse, et aliud ipsum esse participatum. Omne autem participans se habet ad participatum, sicut potentia ad actum; unde substantia cuiuslibet rei creatae se habet ad suum esse sicut potentia ad actum. Sic ergo omnis substantia creata est composita ex potentia et actu, id est ex eo quod est et esse, ut Boetius dicit in lib. De Hebdomadibus, sicut album componitur ex eo quod est album, et albedine» (Quodl. III, 8, 20). «Necesse est enim quod omnis substantia simplex subsistens, vel ipsa sit suum esse, vel participet esse. Substantia autem simplex quae est ipsum esse subsistens, non potest esse nisi una: sicut nec albedo, si esset subsistens, posset esse nisi una. Omnis ergo substantia quae est post primam substantiam simplicem participat esse. Omne autem participans componitur ex participante et participato, et participans est in potentia ad participatum. In omni ergo substantia quantumcumque simplici, post primam substantiam simplicem, est potentia essendi» (In VIII Phys., 21, n. 1153). potencial, se sigue que carece de la composición de esencia y ser. Su esencia es su ser: «Cum igitur in Deo nihil sit potentiale, ut ostensum est supra (a. 1), sequitur quod non sit aliud in eo essentia quam suum esse. Sua igitur essentia est suum esse» (3, 4). El es ipsum esse per se subsistens : «Secundo vero, ex hoc quod supra (3, 4) ostensum est, quod Deus est ipsum esse per se subsistens : ex quo oportet quod totam perfectionem essendi in se contineat (...)» (4, 2). Luego la estructura real del ente como compuesto de esencia y ser es una experiencia de suyo anterior al conocimiento de la existencia de Dios. Y precisamente a partir de esta comprensión originaria del ente como compuesto de esencia y ser, Santo Tomás se elevará a una concepción personalísima de Dios como Ipsum Esse per se subsistens. Dios no es sólo su esencia, sino su ser. 460 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Estos textos nos muestran que la participación presupone la existencia de Dios; no es, por tanto, una experiencia metafísica originaria que pueda constituir un punto de partida para el ascenso a Dios. Estrictamente hablando, no hay una demostración de la existencia de Dios ex participatione. A la luz de la existencia del Ser único, la participación añade además un nuevo matiz que enriquece la noción de acto de ser. Ese acto de ser en composición con la esencia es un ser contraído, participado, en el sentido platónico de «déficit», de la plenitud de ser5. Pero la vía descendente da un paso más, y entiende que la participación exige la causalidad, la causalidad creadora. Del acto participado de ser, al ente como criatura. Si inicialmente el ente (id quod est) se presenta como id quod habet esse, al final del camino se presenta como id quod finite participat esse, que es la fórmula precisa del ens creatum6. La verdad de la creación es consecuen- cia directa de una metafísica de la participación, accesible, por lo mismo, a las solas luces de la razón: «Necesse est dicere omne quod quocumque modo est, a Deo esse. Si enim aliquid invenitur in aliquo per participationem, necesse est quod causetur in ipso ab eo cui essentialiter convenit; sicut ferrum fit ignitum ab igne. Ostensum est autem supra (q. 3, a. 4), cum de divina simplicitate ageretur, quod Deus est ipsum esse per se subsistens. Et iterum ostensum est quod esse subsistens non potest esse nisi unum: sicut si albedo esset subsistens, non posset esse nisi una, cum albedines multiplicentur secundum recipientia. Relinquitur ergo quod omnia alia a Deo non sint suum esse, sed participant esse. Necesse est igitur omnia quae diversificantur secundum diversam participationem essendi, ut sint perfectius vel minus perfecte, causari ab uno primo ente, quod perfectissime est. Unde et Plato dixit quod necesse est ante omnem multitudinem ponere unitatem. Et Aristoteles dicit, in II Metaph., quod id quod est maxime ens et maxime verum, est causa omnis entis et omni veri: sicut id quod maxime calidum est, est causa omnis caliditatis» (S. Th., I, 44, 1)7. Luego la causa eficiente del ente es Dios. O dicho de otra manera: la causa eficiente de lo que es, en cuanto que es, es sólo Dios. Es evidente que las cosas que integran el mundo tienen diversas cau- sas eficientes, que dan razón de los diversos aspectos que encontramos en la realidad. De su ratio entis, sin embargo, sólo Dios es la causa eficiente. Pero, ¿en qué consiste la razón de ente, o si se prefiere, la creaturidad de las cosas? Inspirándonos en el orden causal aristotélico, una primera res- puesta nos la ofrece la consideración de la causa formal de la creación. Según el texto que acaba- mos de leer, la «forma» del ente, es su ser participado, que es id quod est formalissimum omnium. Sólo desde la óptica de la perfección de ser se alcanza, como causa eficiente, a Dios. Luego para alcanzar la realidad de la creación, es preciso elevarse a una más alta consideración metafísica: la del ente en cuanto ente. Sólo a la luz de este orden trascendental, donde el acto del ente es el esse, se entiende que la materia misma es creada: 5 El ser como acto intensivo se hallará graduado en las perfecciones de naturaleza, vida y espíritu (Cfr. S. Th., I-II, 2, 5 ad 2). Cada uno de estos tres grados de ser, de tal manera trasciende el orden substancial, que se desplegará extensivamente en las diferentes especies e individuos. 6 «Ens autem dicitur id quod finite participat esse» (In De Causis, VI, n. 175) ; «(...) Deus dicitur ens hoc modo quod est ipsum suum esse ; creatura vero non est ipsum suum esse, sed dicitur ens, quasi esse participans» (In II Sent., 16, 1, 1 ad 3). 7 El nombre propio de Dios será Ser, no Creador (y es Creador porque es el Ser). La noción tomista de esse como acto que entra en composición real con la esencia no es, pues, la consecuencia de transformar el ente en criatura, pues preci- samente Santo Tomás se apoya en su original noción de esse para demostrar que Dios, por ser ens per essentiam, es Creador. El itinerario metafísico de Santo Tomás no presupone la fe en el Dios bíblico. Y por lo mismo, dicha fe no prohíbe la pregunta metafísica, la interrogación inteligente, en contra de lo que dice Heidegger en su Introducción a la Metafísica. No es, pues, la noción de ser la que se obtiene por vía descendente y como presuponiendo la existencia de Dios, sino más bien la de ser participado. El itinerario es éste: de la composición de esencia y ser, al Ipsum Esse (S. Th., I, 3, 4; 4, 2). Y porque el Ipsum esse per se subsistens es único, todo lo que no sea Dios tendrá el ser participado. Y por- que lo que se halla en algo por participación es necesario que sea causado por aquello a quien le conviene esencialmente, Dios, que es el Ser por esencia, causará el ente por participación. Y esta causación se llama creación (S. Th., I, 44, 1). 461 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture «Antiqui philosophi paulatim, et quasi pedetentim, intraverunt in cognitionem veritatis. A principio enim, quasi grossiores existentes, non existimabant esse entia nisi corpora sensibilia. Quorum qui ponebant in eis motum, non considerabant motum nisi secundum aliqua accidentia, ut puta secundum raritatem et densitatem, congregationem et segregationem. Et supponentes ipsam substantiam corporum increatam, assignabant aliquas causas huiusmodi accidentalium transmutationum, ut puta amicitiam, litem, intellectum, aut aliquid huiusmodi. Ulterius vero procedentes, distinxerunt per intellectum inter formam substantialem et materiam, quam ponebant increatam; et perceperunt transmutationem fieri in corporibus secundum formas essentiales. Quarum transmutationum quasdam causas universaliores ponebant, ut obliquum circulum, secundum Aristotelem, vel ideas, secundum Platonem. Sed considerandum est quod materia per formam contrahitur ad determinatam speciem; sicut substantia alicuius speciei per accidens ei adveniens contrahitur ad determinatum modum essendi, ut homo contrahitur per album. Utrique igitur consideraverunt ens particulari quadam consideratione, vel in quantum est hoc ens, vel inquantum est tale ens. Et sic rebus causas agentes particulares assignaverunt. Et ulterius aliqui erexerunt se ad considerandum ens inquantum est ens: et consideraverunt causam rerum, non solum secundum quod sunt haec vel talia, sed secundum quod sunt entia. Hoc igitur quod est causa rerum inquantum sunt entia, oportet esse causam rerum, non solum secundum quod sunt talia per formas accidentales, nec secundum quod sunt haec per formas substantiales, sed etiam secundum omne illud quod pertinet ad esse illorum quocumque modo. Et sic oportet ponere etiam materiam primam creatam ab universali causa entium» (S. Th., I, 44, 2). En la consideración metafísica del ente en cuanto tale ens, la razón propia del tale ens es la forma accidental. Más allá de esta primera consideración, se halla la del ente en cuanto hoc ens, donde la razón propia del hoc ens es la forma substancial. La más alta consideración es la que contempla el ente en cuanto ens, donde la razón propia del ens es el esse8. El ser mismo es, por tanto, el primer efecto de la creación. Pero porque el ser se atribuye a la quididad, no sólo el ser sino también la misma quididad es creada, porque antes de tener ser, nada es9. Dios, a la vez que da el ser, produce aquello que recibe el ser10. Es importante insistir sobre la primacía del ser sobre la esencia, en orden a una correcta intelección de la metafísica de la creación. La esencia sin el ser nada es, lo cual indica que la esencia no puede ser concebida sin referencia al ser11. Recapitulemos lo que llevamos de camino: ver las cosas bajo la razón del ser, es verlas como participando el ser, pues, por ser Dios el mismo Ser subsistente y, por tanto, único, todo lo que no es Dios, participa el ser. Pero lo que es por participación, se reduce, como a su causa, a lo que es por esencia. Existe el Ser subsistente; luego todo lo demás es ente por participación. Y el Ser subsistente es causa del ente por participación. Como causar el ente sin más (no hoc ens ni tale ens) es crear, Dios será creador de todo ente. Pero causar el ente, es causarlo a partir del no ente (ex non ens). Luego causar el ente es una producción ex nihilo. Dios crea ex nihilo. 8 Por eso, al comentar la tesis «prima rerum creatarum est esse», que aparece en el libro De causis, escribe: «Cum dicitur prima rerum creatarum est esse, ly esse non importat subiectum creatum ; sed importat propriam rationem obiecti creationis. Nam ex eo dicitur aliquid creatum, quod est ens, non ex eo quod est hoc ens: cum creatio sit emanatio totius esse ab ente universali, ut dictum est (a. 1). Et est similis modus loquendi, sicut si diceretur quod primum visibile est color, quamvis illud quod proprie videtur sit coloratum» (S. Th., I, 45, 4 ad 1). 9 «Ex hoc ipso quod quidditati esse attribuitur, non solum esse, sed ipsa quidditas creari dicitur: quia antequam esse habeat, nihil est, nisi forte in intellectu creantis, ubi non est creatura, sed creatrix essentia» (Q. Disp. De Potentia, 3, 5 ad 2). 10 «Deus simul dans esse, producit id quod esse recipit: et sic non oportet quod agat ex aliquo praeexistenti» (Q. Disp. De Potentia, 3, 1 ad 17). 11 Hemos visto que la expresión prima rerum creatarum est esse no quiere decir que lo creado sea sólo el ser; lo que se crea es el todo, el ente, pero la creación tiene propiamente como término de referencia el ser mismo de la cosa creada, y por medio del ser mismo, su esencia o realidad. Luego se puede decir que la causa formal de la creación es el actus essendi, y mediante él, también la esencia ut potentia essendi, concreada juntamente con el ser: «Creatio non respicit naturam vel essentiam, nisi mediante actu essendi; qui est primus terminus creationis» (In III Sent., 11, 1, 2 ad 2). 462 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture De este modo, alcanzamos una nueva respuesta a la pregunta por el carácter de ente de las cosas. Es la respuesta por la causa material: la «materia» del ente en cuanto ente, es la nada. La creatura, dejada a sí misma y en sí misma considerada es nada, teniendo en ella una prioridad de naturaleza la nada sobre el ser12. Así explica Santo Tomás que crear sea hacer algo de la nada: «Non solum oportet considerare emanationem alicuius entis particularis ab aliquo particulari agente, sed etiam emanationem totius entis a causa universali, quae est Deus: et hanc quidem emanationem designamus nomine creationis. Quod autem procedit secundum emanationem particularem, non praesupponitur emanationi: sicut, si generatur homo, non fuit prius homo, sed homo fit ex non homine, et album ex non albo. Unde, si consideretur emanatio totius entis universalis a primo principio, impossibile est quod aliquod ens praesupponatur huic emanationi. Idem autem est nihil quod nullum ens. Sicut igitur generatio hominis est ex non ente quod est non homo, ita creatio, quae est emanatio totius esse, est ex non ente quod est nihil» (S. Th., I, 45, 1). En la producción universal de todo ente no se puede presuponer algún ente (de igual modo que en la producción del ente particular no se presupone dicho ente particular: este ente que es el hombre se hace del no este ente que es el no-hombre). El llegar a ser absolutamente, se hace a partir de un no ser absolutamente. Por eso, una producción o emanación de todo ente implica una produc- ción ex nihilo. En las mutaciones de orden natural no se hace ser a partir de no ser sin más, sino ser esto a partir de no ser esto13. Dios, en cambio, no se vale de nada más que de su omnipotencia en tanto que Acto puro de Ser. Queremos concluir aquí nuestro itinerario, si bien la metafísica de la creación avanza hacia la causa ejemplar y final de la creación. La lectura de las páginas anteriores nos permiten concluir que el itinerario metafísico de Santo Tomás se podría expresar en la fórmula: del ente, al Ser; y del Ser, al ente. En la via resolutionis ascendente, Santo Tomás integra el par aristotélico acto-potencia, pero elevado al orden trascendental de esencia y ser; en la via compositionis descendente, integra la participación platónica, pero llevada de nuevo al orden del ser, con la distinción entre el ens per essentiam y el ens per participationem, que constituye el fundamento de su metafísica de la crea- ción. 12 «Prius enim naturaliter inest unicuique quod convenit sibi in se, quam quod solum ex alio habetur ; esse autem non habet creatura nisi ab alio, sibi autem relicta in se considerata nihil est: unde prius naturaliter est sibi nihilum quam esse» (De aeternitate mundi, ll. 190-195). 13 «Non enim per motum et mutationem fit ens ex non ente simpliciter, sed ens hoc ex non ente hoc» (C. G., II, 16). 463 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture LEVINAS AND ARISTOTLE ON PEACE: A METAPHYSICAL DEPARTURE Hanley Catriona Loyola College in Maryland War, war, what is it good for? Peace? That is an old argument, renewed in contemporary political speech. We hold peace talks while selling weapons, we promote armaments for the sake of peace, indeed now we even torture for the sake of peace, and bring a discussion of the legitimacy of torture to the world table. War for peace! Against this logic of war, this political view of peace, a strong opposition has arisen, though it has yet to find political representation except on the margins of power. These voices argue that peace has its own logic, different from that of war. Peace is not a product of war, but stands in fundamental opposition to it: it is other than war. In what follows, I will discuss how the propaganda that drives war is rooted in a conception of what it is to be human, and specifically what it is to be a good, rational, ethical human: it is a conception that springs from the Western ontological tradition. Taking Aristotle as foundational to that heritage, I will argue that Aristotle defends peace as the telos of the polis, for only in a peaceful nation is the highest good of humans - the contemplative life - achievable. But peace for Aristotle is purely political: it is a peace that is always at risk of war. Against this tradition, the thought of Levinas (re)introduces us to a notion of peace that comes from beyond the Western ontological tradition, but which resonates with us because of its repetition in Judeo-Christian thought. Levinas defends a notion of peace that is prior to the political one Aristotle upholds - peace is experienced, or commanded, in an ethical moment that is itself prior to ontology. The insight of Jerusalem - love of the neighbour, and responsibility for one’s fellow human as the experience of the divine - is at the heart of Levinas’ discussion. For Levinas, peace is framed on the “each”, that is, on the recognition of the individual whom I encounter as unique and irreplaceable, and not on the universalizing “all” of our Athenian tradition. But how to get from this compassionate understanding of each individual as an end in herself to a social-political system in which the many have to interact with each other? The answer may be to reinstate Athens after an adequate understanding of Jerusalem: preserving Jerusalem as fundamental, and building the insights of Athens on the ethical foundation of love for the other. What Aristotle misses, Levinas provides at the outset, and when Levinas’ analysis is faced with the political, Aristotle is recalled. I Aristotle’s notion of peace (eirene) is firmly rooted in his ontology. He discusses peace in Politics book seven where he is trying to determine the nature of the ideal state. In a well-known passage, he writes that “war must be for the sake of (charis + genitive; parallel to heneka +genitive) peace, business for the sake of leisure, things necessary and useful for the purpose of things noble...”(NE VII 14: 1335a 35: cf. 1334a 2; 1334a 15; also NE X 7:1177b6-7). He then adds: “one should be capable (dunasthai from dunamai) of engaging in business and war, but more capable of living in peace and leisure; and he should do what is necessary and useful, but still more should he do what is noble” (NE 1333a 41-1333b 3). The phrase used in this passage, “for the sake of” provides a first clue to the interpretation of peace as metaphysically grounded; a second clue is in use of the word translated here as “capacity”. The relationship of potentiality and actuality (dunamis and energeia) is the key relationship in Aristotle’s metaphysical project. His perennial focus—outlined in the Physics, and carried through, 465 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture mutatis mutandis in the Metaphysics, Nichomachean Ethics and Politics - is on the shift from potentiality to actuality in all natural beings, their tendency to become what they already are as determined by their form (or to become what they are already “have been”, in the sense of having been already determined-to ti en einai). Change and movement, metabole and kinesis, occur in natural things according to a pattern which is laid out already in the very being of that thing by virtue of what it most essentially is - its form, which is defined at the level of the species, not the particular. For any given individual, to be is to be a particular and a universal at the same time - thus the difficulty of translating and interpreting Aristotle’s ambiguous term “ousia”. While Aristotle wishes to save the particularity of the individual, insisting on the importance of his definition of a natural being as one that is embodied, at the same time, he argues that rational comprehension of what is can only be accomplished on the level of the universal. Teleological movement in Aristotle’s work is commonly expressed in his use of “for the sake of” (charis or heneka ), a future-oriented construction which underlines the way in which what is currently evident in a given particular natural being, or - in the case of the polis - a particular state of affairs, is a moment of movement towards completion. “For the sake of” is explanatory of the direction of change within an internal system, the rules of which are governed by the function (ergon) of a particular as a member of a given species. Capacity, then, to dunasthai , is first of all another way of saying potentiality, that not-yet which is implied in all natural beings who have still to attain entelechy. To be capable of means to have the power, the potency, to be other. Yet once again, any otherwise than being this here now, this tode ti, is prescribed already in the being of the tode ti as an exemplar of a given genus.1 It is arguable that for Aristotle, ethics is metaphysics applied to human beings. The first line of the Metaphysics, “All humans by nature desire to know” sets the theme in that book for a description of the kind of knowledge most exclusively typical of human beings in the highest attainment of their ergon, and describes the object(s) of that kind of knowing. In the Nichomachean Ethics, on the other hand, Aristotle acknowledges the necessity of human beings - by nature - to live among their fellows, and determines the best way for human to do so. In that book, it emerges clearly that the life of contemplative activity is the most perfect form of human happiness. “Happiness” here is the word used to describe the activity of living well that best suits human nature, or best accords with the universal form of human being as rational. The life of moral virtue (the development of good character by the formation of good habits) fits best the human part of human nature, and the intellectual virtue (theoria) expressed in the contemplative life fits the divine part of humans, thus “the virtues of our composite nature are purely human; so therefore is the life that manifests these virtues and the happiness that belongs to it, whereas the happiness that belongs to the intellect is separate” (NE X 8:1178a 22). Insofar as it is possible for humans to attain to the divine, and imitate the activity of god, they should strive to devote themselves to contemplation. But here is the rub: Aristotle notes that “the philosopher, being human, will also need external well-being, since human nature is not self-sufficient for the activity of contemplation, but he must also have bodily health and a supply of food and other requirements”(NE X 8: 1178b33-35). It is exactly the composite nature of human beings, their nature both as political creatures, creatures of the city with animal needs, and as sharing in the spark of the divine, that draws the intellectual into the life of the city. Aristotle explicitly refers in these chapters of the NE to the politician and the philosopher, setting one form of life against the other, and arguing that the philosophical life is the best for humans, the happiest, the most in conformity with the highest feature of human capacity, that which indeed sets 1 Naturally here, as in all the above, I have to elide some of the greatest problems in Aristotelian metaphysical scholarship in order to prepare a more generic comparison of his thought with that of Levinas. 466 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture the human on the plane of the gods. Eudaimonia, as the human end, involves leisure (skole), since again, “we do business that we may have leisure and carry on war that we may have peace”(NE X 7:1177b 5). Philosophy, contemplative activity, is a pursuit that we do in leisure and not for any instrumental purpose. It produces no results beyond the activity itself, whereas in practical pursuits, we always seek some advantage beyond the action. Politics - whether it be the pursuit of authority or honours, or concern for the happiness of citizens - and war, though they may be occasions for the display of virtues, are thus unleisured activities: indeed the pursuits “of war entirely so, for no one desires to be at war, nor deliberately takes steps to cause a war” (NE:X, 7, 1177b 9-11). If contemplation is desired above all else because of its self-sufficiency, war is despised beyond all else, since it is purely and only a means. Not only is the content of contemplation the most universal and thus highest kind of knowledge, but qua activity it is also the highest, given its non-instrumental nature and its character unsullied by application to the material world. But let us return to the Politics and the question of peace and war. The passage under consideration (make war only as a means to peace) appears in the context of an excursus into psychology, revisiting the parts of the soul as laid out in book one of the NE. The primary division of the soul is between the rational and irrational elements, the rational directing the irrational appetites, and thus being superior to it.2 The rational soul has two “divisions”, the theoretical and the practical, and this is the seat of the difficulty in determining the end of the ideal state, exactly because of the implication that there are two natural ends for individual humans. But it also provides an “out” for Aristotle. Interesting is that Aristotle thinks that not all citizens are capable of contemplation (Pol. VII 13 1333a 24-5). Obviously an entire population of human, and thus embodied, contemplators is also a practical impossibility. Thus either one has to argue that the many live at the expense of the few, that is, many are unhappy, pursuing a life which is not in conformity with human nature, or that phronesis, practical virtue, is also a possibility of human happiness. Aristotle takes the latter route, while preserving some elements of the former. Those involved in the virtuous life of action are pursuing a natural and good end, as are those involved in the life of contemplation. For the state to function, both are necessary, although there is a clear hierarchy. It is not the case that the practical life has value only because it serves the end of the contemplative. Political engagement does not simply serve the needs of theoretical life, but has its own justification. Still, the less instrumental the political activity, the better it is. Political activity must take place in recognition of the highest value of contemplation for which peace and leisure are required, as well as acting in accordance with the moral virtues, as Aristotle argues extensively (Pol. VII 13 1334a 17-27). Ultimately, just as the individuals who make up the state are involved in different activities but one is highest of all, the state is involved in different activities but has one primary aim - peace. Just as the philosopher attains to the highest rational end of contemplation without abandoning his body, which puts him into relation with others in the city, so the state, in order to attain to the highest rational end of peace, needs to devote itself also to political activity. Just as the virtuous person of action acts for the sake of achieving leisure, and not for the sake of action alone, so the state should aim at peace. Just as the intellectual is focussed on internal activity, so also should be the state. It is worth noting, for the purposes of comparison with Levinas below, that left out of the above analysis is the activity of the slaves, tradesmen, craftsmen, farmers and those who actually produce and process goods for the citizens, as well as women occupied with children and the household. Aristotle solves the problem of their purely instrumental activities by not permitting them 2 This model of leadership is of course at the root of Aristotle’s specious justification of “natural” slaves, as well as the natural dominance of men over women. This is not the only topic upon which Aristotle let the cultural and social norms of his day cloud his reasoning. 467 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture citizenship in the ideal state. They do not count in his analysis of the universal in the human - they are simply not fully human. Peace in Aristotle is a state of preserving the status quo, in which certain humans can meet their highest rational ends, and others can pursue rational ends that keep the best human at their best activity. Those who actually do the work of keeping the state and clothed and caring for its children do not enter the calculus. Is this worth fighting for? II The above analysis of Aristotle’s notion of peace is meant to show how deeply embedded the concept of political peace is in a theory of human nature which itself is deeply embedded in a reductive ontology. However beautiful the systematic unity of Aristotle’s texts might be, the guiding thread is an ontology that diminishes - if not obliterates - the particularity of the individual (who counts, for Aristotle as a citizen - which means, who counts at all?). What are the implications of this tendency in Western ontology to focus on the universal? If we are all the same, we are therefore all worthy of treatment that accords with our dignity as human beings. The foundation of political peace lain through the universal recognition of the rights of all human beings is grounded in Greek ontology: since you are identical to me in your being, you must be accorded the same rights and privileges that I expect for myself. We are equal. Thus we have established a universal declaration of human rights, and a world government of sorts in the United Nations, which in theory promotes the good of individuals qua individuals - humans qua humans, worthy of respect because they have dignity - incalculable worth, as Kant describes it - accorded to them by virtue of their very existence as human beings. But the limitation of the Greek notion is evident historically, given that we are still at war, as were the Greeks, almost constantly. Does this indicate a failure of reason itself, or is it an error within Greek rational ontology? Levinas claims that the universalizing move collapses the other into a (dismissible) particular instantiation of the more important and universal case of me. Latent within Western ontology is egology: the rational identification of you with me fails to recognize that you are not me. It ignores the unicity of you, as distinct from me. Ontology, spoken from the perspective of the I who is the subject, is bound to a notion of the universal which proceeds from this subject. The reduction of you to me, of the other to the same, leads to the destruction of the uniqueness of you, and feeds my need to encompass all as an expression of my own development as ego. How is peace possible if I always seek my own advantage? But is this really what happens in the world? In the preface to Totality and Infinity, Levinas writes, “Everyone will readily agree that it is of the highest importance to know whether we are not duped by morality”. The context here is peace and war: “The art of foreseeing war and of winning it by every means – politics - is henceforth enjoined as the very exercise of reason. Politics is opposed to morality, as philosophy to naiveté” (TI 21). The interminable cycle of war and peace is for Levinas the core of the political realm. War and peace are two sides of the same coin, each understood only in relation to one another. As war is an awaiting for peace, so peace on this paradigm is an awaiting for the next war. Peace is merely a truce (as Tolstoy also describes it); peace in the Western tradition has always been merely political peace, which as non-war simply a moment in the becoming of what politics is, i.e. war. We need an ethical, and not a political, foundation for the practice of justice that cancels this paradigm. It is, finally, the experience of my responsibility for the other that breaks the paradigm, that opens me up to the ethical dimension. This other human before me (the nakedness of her face, the heavy curve of her back, her greeting me), this unique person who is not an instantiation of a universal, and who obliges me to respond, this one here obliges me, by her very presence, to put her needs before mine. 468 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture The shifting of the I from the centre of moral discourse through the transcendence of ontology is not, for Levinas, a purely negative moment. Putting the self into question is the welcoming of the absolutely other (TH p.17). There is clearly an asymmetrical relationship between the self and the Other who appears before me, through whom my autonomy gives way to the heteronomous dimension of recognition of the other as “higher” than me. But in this movement, the I is in no way annihilated - rather it is opened, “put into question” as Levinas describes it in “Transcendence and Height”, bound to the Other in an asymmetrical relationship that releases it from the prison of egology, from its “imperialism and egoism”. Here this recognition of responsibility that frees the I is shown to be one that defines the I as unique, but without transforming it into a particular member of a universal species. Thus Levinas writes: … Responsibility confirms the I in its ipseity, in its central place within being, as a supporter of the universe. Such an engagement is happy; it is the austere and noncomplacent happiness that lies in the nobility of an election that does not know its own happiness, tempted as it is ‘by the slumber of the earth” (“and yet, Lord, I am not happy…”) … (TH p.18). How does this happiness differ from that of Aristotle’s contemplator? Aristotle’s intellectual hero is exactly removed from social intercourse, to the extent that it is even possible within Aristotle’s argument for the ideally intellectually virtuous person to be morally lacking in virtue. Levinas (perhaps because of having witnessed the deep moral flaws within the character of the intellectual genius of one of his most important teachers) rebels against this notion. The I is most truly defined in its recognition of the other, and in its acting for the other; happiness is not in the quest for theoretical satiety, but in the practical response to the need of the other. Returning now to the question of peace: since “political” peace is rooted in a universalizing ontology, it is outside this ontology that Levinas must ground his notion of peace. It is unsurprising then that Levinas offers a view of peace focussed on fellowship with the other, “peace independent then of belonging to a system, irreducible to a totality”, as he describes it in Peace and Proximity” (PP, p.165). Peace here is irreducible to a genus, to a notion of the universal , to the identification of me with a particular us versus an other who is them. It is “an ethical relation which thus would not be a simple deficiency or privation of the unity of the One reduced to the multiplicity of individuals in the extension of a genus” (PP, p.166). In short, he says that the unicity of the one is that of the beloved. I love you because you are unique. Peace is love. Peace is the awareness of the precariousness of the other.3 The conflict of responsibility that I face in judicating between the conflicting needs of two or more others is far from the conflict between you and me that I face within rational ontology. My own interest is apart in the former, Levinasian case: I judge the case on the basis of the need the other experiences, and not on the basis of my own desire. But how to make this one-for–the-other work in practice? For Levinas’ ethical cry to have political content we would need a formalization of the ethical command within ontological language. If the direct relationship with the other is a world unto itself, then ethics poorly serves humanity. After all we do live in a world of many others, and the many in need call us to task. The homeless person here competes, in my attention to the starving person there, to the oppressed person in another place … In “Ideology and Idealism”, to take one example of the many texts in which the same message is repeated, Levinas writes that this experience of conflicting needs indicates that there is a need for a state, that legal justice is required (II p. 247). The responsibility for the other which is so clear in the one-to one relationship with this person here before me - I must simply give everything I have to meet her needs - is complicated by the competing demands of two or more others, and this of course is the real situation of the world. Here we are faced with the famous question of the “third”. Levinas makes it clear that “there is a direct contradiction between ethics 3 On this, see Roger Burggraeve (Burggraeve, The Wisdom of Love in the Service of Love, Marquette 2002, p. 104). 469 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture and politics if both these demands are taken to the extreme” (EP, p.292). It is all too evident how the political can exclude the ethical. The ethical also risks refusing the political, if it cannot go beyond its focus on the one before me towards understanding how the limits of responsibility for this one are defined by the existence of the needs of other others. Reason is universalizing - it needs the constant corrective of the individual conscience that can strive to remedy the disorder proceeding from Order of universal reason (TH 23 discussion). Bureaucracy - the rule of universalizing policies - is blind to the tears of the other. “I am a special case” has no room in a state that sets itself up to admit of no exceptions. “Our policy”, universalizing thought, cancels both the exception and the interest of the individual. The tears of the other are wasted time to the bureaucrat … but they are the starting point of ethics for Levinas. Respect for the other before ourselves must govern our politics. 470 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture SUFI METAPHYSICS: AN APPRISAL IN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE Sirajul Islam Visva Barati University, India The term metaphysics is highly controversial due to its association with the various disciplines. Since the term metaphysics is associated with the various disciplines naturally it bears different meanings that are diversified in nature too. Therefore, it is not an easy task to define metaphysics. My intention is to delineate something about metaphysics at the out set and then proceeds to discuss on the Indian Sufi metaphysics. Historically it is conceived that the term metaphysics has been used first in philosophy by Andronicus of Rhodes in c.70 B.C. The main difficulty is that the different thinkers have used this term in their own ways and there is no universal criterion to apprehend metaphysics. Some have utilized metaphysics as a branch of philosophy, like epistemology, theology, cosmology axiology and so on. In ancient period philosophy was generally equated with metaphysics and there was no sharp boundary between these two subjects. Some have understood metaphysics as subject of supernatural or supra physical study, hence it is quietly different from the study of the phenomenal objects. Its supernatural dealings differentiate it from the other subjects. Some scholars opine that metaphysics is purely the subject matter of religion. But metaphysics does not mean a study of the religious phenomenon and it is not the monopoly of religion, rather, it is deeply entangles with all subjects of the universe as an essential part of it. Even science and technology are not detached from metaphysical pursuit. There are many dazzling indications of metaphysical elements in the domain of science and technology that are inevitable and beyond of rational interpretation. It’s unavoidable presuppositions of laws and principles are undoubtedly metaphysical and these are not express able on language. Metaphysics is generally means a subject of “Reality” which underlies everything. In the ages of pre-Sophist and Sophist the idea of metaphysics was also implicitly discerned. In the writings of Plato and Aristotle we have seen the element of metaphysics, but Aristotle was the first philosopher who discussed metaphysics in a systematic way and actually in his hands metaphysics subsequently began to stand for the philosophical understanding, and discussed about God, soul, Reality, Being-non beings etc. Aristotle says, “there is a science which studies Being and qua – Being and the properties inherent in it in virtue of its own nature”.1 In present viewpoint it will be suffice to say that metaphysics is concerned with the knowledge of the reality after assigning a place to supra - rational knowledge, since it is a subject that mainly concerns about the complete apprehension of Reality. Aristotle in his philosophy used the notion of reality as a first cause about the highest wisdom.2 This conception of reality has been discussed in the philosophy of Thalos as the first and fundamental principle of every thing. In Indian philosophy the spiritual perception of reality is often discussed and it believes that the main task of philosophy is to attain spiritual perception, means a whole view revealed to the soul. In Indian philosophy the method of metaphysics is thus the observation of supernatural reality/truth. In broader sense metaphysics is accompanied by the elements of observation, deduction, analysis, induction, common sense, hypothesis, intuition, dialectic and synthetic vision. The scientific method that is something like the hypothesis of deduction-verification technique of empirical sciences does not fully applicable to metaphysical pursuit. However, man is a knowledge-acquiring animal; he wants to know all things. Metaphysics is a subject that enlightens human expectations; it widens his intellect and helps to attain true knowledge of his life. In this connection we may further add that man, so long he is considered as a rational animal, cannot live without metaphysics. The entire universe is the clear indication of metaphysical elements that usually motivated him towards metaphysical thinking. He is bound to 471 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture think about the reality explicitly or implicitly, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly and unable to avoid metaphysics. Generally people rush from commonsense to science or scientific knowledge, but scientific knowledge are not fully devoid of metaphysics, as we have stated earlier. Many critics, like Positivists have tried to discard metaphysics on the ground that its problems and principles are not scientifically justifiable. Aristotle rightly described that metaphysics as the highest degree of universal knowledge and causes. Metaphysics can not blindly accepts its elements, rather he critically evaluates and examines its all elements even the elements of scientific know ledges and its presuppositions. In this ground Brutt rightly observes that sciences are also based on some specific metaphysical presuppositions.3 Though metaphysics is mainly concerns about the supernatural entities, however, it does not mean that it is a subject of anti-intellectualism. Its intuitive knowledge is treated as the highest category of knowledge to most of the recognized scholars. After Aristotle, subsequent scholars or philosophers, like Descartes, Leibnitz, Kant, Bradley, Grice, Strawson and so on have felt the need of metaphysics and affirmed the necessity of metaphysics in philosophy and science too. Both in Indian philosophy and Indian Sufism the intuitive knowledge is recognized as the very important and superior kind of knowledge that cannot be gained by mere perceptions and observations of science. Religion and Metaphysics: Like metaphysics the term religion is also a very controversial and complex due to its variegated nature. However, it bears some common features that are recognized universally in all religious circles. Mr. E.B. Taylor defines religion as the belief in spiritual beings.4 Hence there is a close proximity between the goal of religion and also the goal of metaphysics. In our previous discussion we have maintained that metaphysics is mainly concerns concerning the whole experience, includes both religious and non-religious elements. But one significant difference between them is that metaphysics cannot accept the emotional method of enquiry rather it lays emphasis on the intuitional part of it. In this regard we can say that religion and metaphysics are complementary to each other and both are engaged seriously to obtain higher and true knowledge. Therefore, the metaphysical treatment of religious materials cannot be ruled out. Both religion and metaphysics are concerned about the knowledge of Reality. Though both religion and metaphysics are dealing on the knowledge of reality frequently, yet the approaches of metaphysics is mostly theoretical critical and intellectual manner whereas the approaches of religion is basically accompanied by feeling, emotion and spiritual. But one thing to be keeping in the mind that though metaphysics is mostly theoretical it should not meant that it is quietly devoid of supra-natural or supra - intellectual elements. As we have pointed out earlier that the method of intuition is one of the best methods of metaphysics. Thus, we have seen that the relationship between metaphysics and religion is very deep and intimate. Sufism: Sufism is a mystico-philosophical trend in Islam. A Sufi is always aspires to attain knowledge of the Reality through the unsurpassed love and friendship with Him. It believes that the main intention of the human being is to attain Divine wisdom (marifah) that elevates him to acquire Truth (Haq). Sufis claim these are highly metaphysical in nature. Like Socrates they propagate the view that knowledge of self-means to know thy self and that is the most valuable saying. In the course of time Sufism extended its wings and mixed up with other faiths, philosophy and literatures that ultimately changed the shape of Sufism. In the Western region, many people accepted Islam those who were belonged to Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism etc. and they inhabited in the various towns of Persia, Syria, Egypt and Mesopotamia. At that period these regions were the main centers of Neo-Platonism. The influence of Greek and Christian thoughts and philosophies are perceived in the sayings of the reputed Sufis. It is worthy to mention that the Greek wisdom flowed towards the Muslim East through Harran and Syria. The Syrians have took special initiative to accept Greek 472 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture speculations, i.e. Neo-Platonism and transmitted to the Muslim society. Both Plato and Aristotle are popular in Muslim community even today. Now we perceive through the Arab chronicles where they recognized the superiority of thoughts on Indian medicines, philosophy, mathematics and astronomy. Sufis are not satisfied only for these thoughts they are similarly interested to gather know ledges on metaphysical subjects and that are the main concern of them. Ba Yazid al Bistami, a celebrated Sufi learnt metaphysics and spirituality from his teacher Abu Ali Sindi who was Indian in origin. The pantheistic concept is originally Vedantic that has close proximity with the Sufi pantheism and the Sufi concept of Fana is highly resembled to Buddhist Nirvana. Sufis are very much conscious to attain the know ledges on metaphysical elements, like God, soul, Concept of love, mystery of the life and the Universe etc. They say the ideas of God’s grace; goodness, beauty, truth etc. are metaphysical characters and the sole basis of our realization. Sufis lay great stress on the concept of love. Their concept of love is beautifully epitomized as “Love is not to be learned from me, it is one of God’s gifts and comes of His grace”.5 Therefore, Sufis are falling in dichotomy in defending their faith in one hand on the other, they are reconciling it with Islam and that is a very difficult task for them. Sufi Metaphysics: On the basis of our previous discussion it is almost evident that Sufism is a mystical as well as metaphysical movements within Islam, where the knowledge of the ultimate Reality is their main concern. Metaphysics is designated in Islamic literature and philosophy as “ma-ba`d- al- tabi’ah” (the philosophy beyond nature) or “al- falsafat- al ula” (the first philosophy) or “ilahiyyat” (theology), or “hikmah” (wisdom) etc.6 Sufism covers many metaphysical elements in its fold and discussed about them in very logical way. It has discussed about Reality, Being, non- Being, soul, love and so on. However its all discussions are mainly routed through God, the ultimate Reality of the universe as well as the source of all things. It also includes cosmology, epistemology, theology etc. as the subject matter of metaphysics. Generally it says that God is the pure Being and is the subject of realization and He is above of all phenomenal thoughts and knowledges. We see the traces of Greek thought in the writings of al Farabi.(870-950AD.) The principles of Nur-e-Muhammodi of Ibn Fariz, the sainthood of Ibn Arabi and the concept of al Insan al kamil of Jilli can be identified with Greek Nous.7 Sufis are divided into various branches in order to describe metaphysical entities. In regard to the existence of Reality some Sufis believe in dualism where as some others believe on pantheism. Generally their sense of apprehensions about Reality is to be described in three standpoints that are complementary to one another. Some Sufis conceive the essential nature of Reality is self-consciousness and conscious will. Some other describes it in the aesthetic sense and opine as a beauty of Divinity that underlies everywhere. Some other circle of thinkers hold Reality is essentially thought as light (nur) that illuminates all things in the universe. All these three terms except hikma seems derived from the Greek equivalent and the Muslim philosophers have used these terms to express their supernatural phenomena. A notable Muslim philosopher Al- Kindi explains first metaphysics as the science of first Reality (al-Haq) that is the main and source cause of all things and logically knowing a thing requires to knowing its cause.8 Muslim philosophers are hold reality is supernatural and immaterial in nature (fawq-al-tabiah) is a subject of unexplained entity,9 generally contrasted to material objects. According to them, from first cause all things are derived, because it is permanent and all other things are impermanent. First cause is one, it is neither motion nor soul nor intellect nor it will be treated like any other things but is the source cause of all other things. In the eyes of the Sufi mystics, metaphysics is a discipline of the heavenly bodies. Al- Farabi a reputed philosopher as well as celebrated Sufi mystic who explains that metaphysical essence does not belong to natural things, that are falling under the realm of categories. He maintains in his short epistle ma bad al tabi`ah that metaphysics is a universal science (‘ilm- e -kulli) which is different from theology (al- `ilm - al-Ilahi) as an indispensable part of metaphysics.10 473 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture After determining the exact subject matters of metaphysics the reputed philosopher Ibn Sina (Avisenna) designates this discipline as ‘ilahiyyat’ and made the sharp distinction from the traditional metaphysics. He synthesized many supernatural views in his philosophy and propagates the view that metaphysics is a part of science and its main purpose is to obtain wisdom (hikmah). He also claims that this science is the best and truest science which can only give the certain knowledge about the universe. However, Ibn Sina makes the distinction between the subject matter of science (mawdu) and its object or goal (matlub). According to him the subject matter of any one science is taken for granted (musallam) in that science which merely investigates its mode (ahwal). In Islamic metaphysics God is the goal and not the subject matter. Both Al Farabi and Ibn Sina’s views are highly resembled to the view of Aristotle. They have not appreciated the view of ultimate Reality of the Neo - Platonism. They opine, the notion of One is above and beyond phenomenal being and intellection, it is the first principle. In Islam One is Absolute (Wahid), all knowing (‘alim), wise (hakim), real (haq) and living (hayy).11 They again maintain that from first principle all other beings and the heavenly world are emanated (fayad). In the 9th century AD. Sufism deviated something from its traditional viewpoint and understood reality as beauty that is merely the part of apprehension. Both Ma`ruf al Karkhi and al Qushayri laid emphasis upon the metaphysical reality and adopted the Neo Platonic idea of creation. They abandoned the theory of emanation and adopted the view that the ultimate reality is an eternal beauty, whose very nature mainly consists in seeing its own face reflected in the universe as mirror. They hold that the universe is the reflected image of the eternal beauty and not emanation. In this regard Mir Sayyid Sharif says, created world and things are the manifestation of His beauty and the first creation of love. The apprehension of this beauty brought universal love (Ishq-e-haqiqi) that was the main goal of all later Sufis. To discharge the loving fellowship Jalal al din Rumi proclaims- O thou pleasant madness Love Thou physician of all our ills Thou healer of pride Thou Plato and Galen of our soul.12 Sufi Concept of God: Sufism is a metaphysical philosophy primarily concerns about God as pure Being and the object of realization. The knowledge of Him cannot be obtained by theory that is mostly metaphysical in character. As a metaphysical philosophy Sufism guarantees for redemption of human miseries and attainment of perpetual peace. It needs to establish loving relationship between the devotee and the Divinity. Some Sufis say God is purely transcendent, while some other says He is both transcendent as well as immanent. As we have indicated earlier that the Ultimate Reality can be conceived from three angels, such as, Reality as self-conscious entity, Reality as beauty and Reality is essentially as thought or knowledge.13 The first section conceives the whole universe as the will of Ultimate Reality that is essentially monotheistic in nature. The followers of this section is much conscious in intense longing for God due to the consciousness of their sin. The second section lays emphasis upon the apprehension of Divine Reality. Avicenna (Ibn Sina ) comprehends Reality basically as an eternal beauty, whose very nature consists in seeing its own face reflected in the universe mirror which is different from emanation. This concept of Reality stressed on the points that Reality is absolutely free from limitation and devoid from the beginning and end, right and left, high and low. All feeling of separation, therefore, is ignorance and all otherness here is mere an appearance or a dream or a shadow.14 The distinction of essence and attribute does not exist in the Infinite substance.15 This sense of beauty is related to the Sufi concept of universal Love. The third section conceives Reality as Thought/Knowledge. They identified knowledge with the light (nur) that illuminate all things. Al Ishraqi as a supporter of the theory of illumination propagates the view that the Ultimate principle of all existence is Nur - I - Qahir (the primal absolute light), whose essential 474 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture nature consists in perpetual illumination. He says, nothing is more visible than light and the essence of light is manifestations.16 The universe is a manifestation of the illuminative power that constitutes the essential nature of the primal light. Not all manifestation are eternal, there are some manifestations which are faints like an appearance of which depends on the combination of the other illuminations and rays. The existences of these are not eternal in the same sense like the direct or pre existing parent illuminations.17 Al Jili express the Reality as thought. According to him, the essence of God is pure thought and that cannot be understood completely; no words can express it, for it is beyond of any relation.18 In later Sufism, the Ultimate reality is apprehended in its essence as attribute less, nameless, indescribable and incomprehensible. His names and attributes are traced only in the phenomenal aspect. His essence is unknowable through deduction and logic but can be realized directly through intuition. In this regard the greatest thinker of Islam and Sufism al Ghazali maintains that a higher in grade is the knowledge of the learned based on deduction and reflection, but the highest is gained through Mukhashafa (direct knowledge).19 Self-manifestation is His nature, for some he is a knowable entity but to others he is an entity of love and friendship. According to the Sufis his first will for self-manifestation is known as His first love done by God Himself with his Own Self. As due to the principle of love, human life is an emanation, it emanates from Him and ultimately returns to Him. Almost all later Sufis have accepted the doctrine of emanation. According to them the Divine element indwells in every being that are emanates from Divinity. This doctrine got high impetus in the hands of Ibn Arabi and al-Jili. Ibn Arabi as a champion of this view propagates the doctrine of wahdat-al-wujud (unity of being) that advocates God manifest Himself as the universal consciousness, the First Intellect that is the Reality of all Realities (haqiqat al haqaiq) and as the phenomenal world as universal body (al-jism al-kulli) and as prime matter (hayula).20 He maintains that there is no significant difference between dhat (essence) and sifat (attributes) of God in the metaphysical and transcendental level but this differentiation is only phenomenal and in the lower stage of knowledge. So he says, there is no other than He and there is no other existence for any other than He (la maujud illa Allah). He whom you think to be other than God, He is not other than God but do not know Him and do not understands that you are seeing Him. He is still ruler as well as ruled and creator as well as created. He is now as He was. As to His creative power and as to his sovereignty, neither requiring a creature nor a subject.21 In supporting pantheistic view Ibn Arabi further says, “when you know yourself, your I-ness vanishes and you know that you and God are one and the same”.22 Ibn Arabi says that God as it were takes on human nature has interpreted the state of supreme union; Divine nature (al-Lahut) becomes the content of human nature (an-nasut), the latter being considered the recipient of the former and from another angle man is absorbed and he enveloped by Divine Reality. This is truly mystical a metaphysical in nature, where God is mysteriously present in man and man is annihilated in God. These are the two aspects of one and the same state that are neither merged together nor yet added one to the other.23 The transcendental and immanent aspects of the One (wahid), Haq (Reality) and Khalq (creation) are in essence one and they are co-eternal. Thus the universe is not the creation of God. One does not create the many. Creation (takwin) is merely the manifestation of already existing being; here creation means the eternal existence passes from the state of latency to the state of temporal existence in external appearance (zahur). The universe that is co-eternal with God is not the universe, as we know it. The perpetual universe is not a form but an essence, the later is originated and contingent in character and not the being. This view of Ibn Arabi is highly criticized by the Indian scholar Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi. He propagates the view of wahdat as Shuhud (unity in witness) in contrast of wahdat al wujud doctrine. He says Dhat (essence) and sifat (attributes) never be treated as similar. Dhat is always higher than the sifat. For this theory he became popular as the Mujaddid Alf - e - Thani (the reviver of faith in the second millennium) in India. In the initial stage the concept of wahdat as shuhud was preached by Ala ud dawla Simnani (d. 1336A.D.). Sirhindi developed this idea in the philosophical way. He claims specially for the state of Zilliyat (adumbration) after having traversed through the wujudiyat 475 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture and accepts the stage of adabiyat (the stage of serviceable). His main intention is to deny the pantheistic concept of Ibn Arabi, because he denies all existence except Allah. Hence in the eyes of Ibn Arabi creation (khalq) and creator (khaliq/Allah) is identical. But Sirhindi as an Indian scholar criticized and says God exist as a unique entity (yagna) in his existence, no created being can be part of Him, rather all are derived from him. It does not mean khaliq and khalq are same and identical.24 To describe the metaphysical importance he again states wahdat as shuhud is an expression of “‘ayn al yaqin” (certitude of vision) where as, wahdat al wujud is an expression of “ilm al yaqin” (certitude of knowledge). But the certainty in the former is much more and that elevate the practitioner to the stage of “haq al yaqin” (certitude of truth/reality), that is purely a metaphysical stage. Sufi Concept of Soul: The main intention of Sufism is to attain metaphysical knowledge of the Reality. Sufis are human beings and the object of human being is to acquisition of knowledge about Reality. The knowledge of the soul and the things of the world is an essential step to acquire divine knowledge. How this knowledge can be obtained? There are some procedures for attaining knowledge, such as, common sense, tradition, revelation, observation, logical reasoning, contemplation etc. They also believe, human being possess two elements, material and immaterial. The material element of human being is related to his body and the immaterial element is basically associated with his soul. Generally a question can be emerged, we is able to know? Body is material in nature not possessing any ability to know, the multiplicity of the bodies is due to the multiplicity of the material forms but does not indicate the multiplicity of the soul. Body is a composition of various parts and elements hence its nature is compound. Dissolution and decay is a property of compound object and not the simple element. Soul is simple and fully devoid from any part and conscious. Therefore, soul is only remains and he is able to know the things. Soul is immediately self-conscious, he is self conscious through itself and its essence is quite independent of any physical accompaniment. Sufis also graded soul primarily into two kinds, i.e. Animal soul (nafs) and the rational soul (Ruh). The nafs is associated with the material life and carnal desires of human being where as the Ruh is potentially Divine intelligence and related to inner aspect of human being. The rational soul in its essence is potentially divine and good as well as pure and therefore it always motivated to kill the carnal soul. One of the important mottos of the Sufis is “mauta kabla anta mauta” i.e. die before you die.25 Sufis are like the mujahids, they engaged in the constant struggles against their evil soul. In their eyes, there are two types of struggles in Islam, i.e. al-jihad al akbar (greatest warfare/struggle) and al-jihad al- asghar (the lowest warfare). Those who slain for the sake of religion is called al-jihad al-asghar and those who always engaged in the inner struggle against of his evil soul is called al-jihad-al akbar. This means a Sufi gain power to control over his nafs and able to regulate it. This helps to establish link between the divinity and psycho-cosmic dimension of human being, through it an man can aware concerning the cosmic dimension of his being ness in a qualitative and symbolic sense but not in a quantitative sense. These correspondences restructure his nafs and elevate it to the Ruh. In this process a finite soul becomes unite with its origin. In the Quranic aspect human being possesses three types of soul, like al –nafs al- ammara (evil soul), al- nafs –al lawwama (soul in the state of purity), al-nafs- al- mutmainna (satisfied soul)26 Sufis believe the pure and satisfied soul is the illuminated soul and only the illuminated soul has the right to cure the soul of others. Any one who demands to have this right is an ignorant. The men who have achieved illumination possess certain metaphysical powers that are capable to emancipate other soul. Moreover, such a man does not live in a compartmentalized existence; rather, his thoughts and actions are based on the series of immutable principles that reflect upon everybody like the rays of the sun. In this stage he does not act or think but contemplate and meditate upon all things with his most intense and purest activities so that the other soul may enjoy its fragrance and beauty. Sufis proclaim, one cannot do good unless he himself is good, nor one can save others unless he saved himself first. Hence, the illuminated personality acts not only for the sake of 476 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture individual but works for all those who affected and casts its light upon the entire mankind. The illuminated soul means the realization of One and the transmutation of the many in the light of the One.27 Sufi metaphysics has some distinctive characteristics, means it is to be practiced within the society and not in the monastic life. In support of this we can mention the Prophetic Hadith that bears the attestation, as- “la ruhbaniyata fil Islam”, i.e. there is no monasticism in Islam. Here the spiritual and the worldly life both are integrated in a systematic order. Sufis faqr (spiritual poverty) within him elevate himself in the richest position of the world. Sufism can guide the people from phenomena to noumena, from the forms to the essences where alone a religion can truly understood and be appreciated. Sufi Concept of the Universe: Sufis believe, from the metaphysical and cosmological viewpoint there are several elements of permanence in the relationship between man and the universe. The foremost element is the cosmic environment that depicts the idea that men is not an ultimate Reality and merely possess the character of relativity. Logically it is evident that things are not absolute must be relative. There is another logical point is emerge here that how this relativity can be apprehended? Relativity can only be apprehended through the knowledge of Absolute. In the universe, the absolute is always absolute and the relative is always relative and no amount of significant change is possible to each other. The changing pattern of the universe implies logically its permanent feature and change can only be apprehended in terms of the permanent. Sufis say, Absolute (mutlaq) can be understood in the notion of relative (muqayyad) or vice-versa. It is the nature of the universe that it is mutable and in a state of continuous movement/ motion. The very realization of the universe is that the changing pattern of created order (al-khalq) implies the awareness of truth (al-haq) that transcends it generally. To realize the relativity of man needs metaphysical and phenomenal distinction of the things/subjects. Another most important element of permanence is the relation of man in the universe as the manifestation of the absolute in the relative as the form of symbols (rumuz). The symbol is not to be understood as a man made convention, rather it is an ontological reality manifested by God (Absolute) to man. This symbol bears hierarchic order of the universe and the multiple structures of beings. Man seeks to ascertain permanence in his life through inward evolution. He believes in the evolution of his mind and sees his position as the mere reflection of his divinity that is permanent and unchanged. Sometimes it is called the uniformity of nature that integrate time and the process of creation in the image of eternity.28 Sufis understand the entire universe as a totality of seven skies or heavens, in their terminology that is called Sab Sama (seven skies or heavens). They are: 1) Alam –e-Hahoot (Realm of He-ness). It can also be supposed of as the Realm of pre-existence, i.e. the condition of the universe before its formation. It is equated with unknowable God’s essence and named Alam-l-Hahoot, the world of “He-ness”; etymologically, Arabic root word for God with attributes of manifest Absolute is al-Lah or “the Divinity” and Hu (“He”) for Unmanifest Absolute is, naked essence of Godhead, nothing can be said about Him. 2) Maqaam-e-Mehmood (Place of the extolled) .The residing place of Prophet Mohammad (Place be upon him). Beyond this lies the unperceivable. 3) Alam – e- Lahoot (Realm of Divinity). The Realm of Divinity is that region where incalculable unseen tinny dots emerge and expand to such a large circles that engulfs the entire universe. This realm is also known as Tajalliat (The Beatific Vision) of the Circle of the Beatific Vision. These countless circles are the bases of all the root causes of the universe. These very circles give rise to the species (or kinds of non living) of the universe. This whole circle is known as the Ghaib-ul-ghaib (Unseen of the Unseen). The final boundary of the human knowledge and understanding is called Hijab-e-Mehmod (The Extolled Veil), which is the extreme height of the Arsh (Supreme Empyrean). It is that ascent for which the human perception could train itself for the cognition of the Extolled Veil and beatific Visions of the attributes of God that are operative in there Nehr-e-tasweed (The Channel of Black draught/Darkness) whose last limit is in the Realm of Divinity, is the basis of the unseen that feeds 477 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Rooh-e-Azam (The Great Soul). 4) Alam –e-Jabaroot (Realm of Omnipotency). The stage when the universe is constituted into features is known as the Realm of Omni potency. Hijab-e-Kibria (The Grand Veil) is the last limit of this realm. Nehr-e-tajreed (Channel of Abstraction) whose last limit is The Realm of Omni potency feeds Rooh-e-Insani (Human Soul) with its information. 5) Alam - e - Malakoot (Angelic Realm). When the characteristics of the species and their individuals descend from the Realm of Omni potency, separate consciousness comes into being; this stage is called the Angelic Realm. Its last limit is called Hijab-e-Azmat (The Great Veil). Nehr-e-Tasheed (Channel of Evidence) whose last limit is Angelic Realm, feeds Latifa-e-Qalbi. Ibn Arabi a celebrated Sufi inserted a sphere between Alm-e- Jabarut and Alm - e - Malakoot as a sphere called `Alam al Mithal, where the existentialization takes place into the high ambition (himma) and the prayers of the Sufi devotee reach in the high in order to set spiritual energies that bring the possibilities into actual beings.29 6) Arsh-e-Mulla (The Divine of Throne). The limiting boundary through which no one but the very nearest to God can pass. The above-mentioned realms (Alam-e-Malkoot, Alam-e-Jabroot & Alam-e- Lahoot) are its levels of functioning. 7) Alam –e-Nasoot (Realm of Humans). When the features further descend and come out of the limits of the angelic realm, foundations of the tangible world of matter are being laid, which is known as Alam-e-Nasoot. It includes the material realm (most of which humans can see) and all the normally visible cosmos is included in it. Nehr-e-Tazheer (Channel of Manifestation), whose last limits Alam-e-Nasoot, feeds Latifa-e-Nafsi. Human Realm is categorized as under: One Kitab-al-thousand Hazeere (Galaxies), each one has 13 billion Solar systems, out of which 1billion solar systems have life on one of their planets Each star has 9, 12, 13 planets around it. On every planet (that has life on it), life exists in three different planes of existence. These include Plane of Angels, Plane of Jinns, and Plane of Humans. On the other hand it is surrounded by another realm known as Alam-e-Araf or Barzakh (Astral plane) where humans stay after the die (when the connection of soul breaks with the physical body). Humans can also visit astral realm during sleep (in dreaming state) or during the period of meditation. These Sab’a Samawat (The Seven Skies) are similar to the Seven Valleys in the Bahai Faith, these are the boundary of material Realm. The seven skies can be thought of as 7 energy levels or 7 levels of enlightens. At the end of 7th sky is the height known as the Baitul mamoor (Inhabited Dwelling). After which the station Sidartul Muntaha (Lote Tree) can be attained, which is the last limit of the fight of the most angels. The most important element in man’s relation with the universe is his existential situation in the hierarchy of universal existence (maratib al wujud). This notion depicts from th eholy Quran as – ‘inna lillahe wa inna ilaihe raje`un” i.e. Indeed! We are from Allah and indeed we are returning to Him.30 With respect to the absolute and all the states of being which comprise the universe. Man is what he has always been and always will be, an image of the Absolute in the relative that cast into the wave of becoming in order to return this becoming itself to Being. The ontological existence of man in the total scheme of things is forever the same and all other aspects of him in the universe as studied in the cosmology may change either apparently or violently. The perfect man is he who is realized in himself all the possibilities of being and becomes the model of everybody. The descent of the universal spirit into matter and the purgative ascent of man out of matter have been the beliefs of the Sufis throughout the ages. Jili says, successive stages of divine manifestation is ahadiya (oneness), huwiya (he-ness) and aniya (I-ness). In essence man is a cosmic thought, which assumes flesh and connects Absolute Being with the universe. The perfect man is present at all times under different names. He is intermediate between the creator and the creatures; in him all divine attributes are manifested and become a pure soul (ruh al quds).31 Sufi Concept of Man: - Man and his position in Islam as well as in Sufism is a subject of endless controversies. Some say man is considered as the vicegerent of God (khalifah tullah) in the world. Some others also are saying that man is a slave of God (bandah), hence, he is nothing but an instrument of eternal fate. 478 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture According to the holy Quran man was created by the hands of God (khalaqal Adama beyadehi)32 33 and he gave him life and spirit by breathing into him with His own breath. He (God) created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood.34 In another verse He again depicts the same idea as Man We did create from a quintessence of clay then We placed him as a (drop of) sperm in a place of rest firmly fixed; then We made the sperm into congealed blood; then of that clot we made a (fetus) lump; then We made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh.35 The lowly origin of the animal in man is with the high destiny offered to him in his intellectual, moral and spiritual nature by his most bountiful creator. Again the holy Quran says, and we will show them Our signs in the horizons and in themselves.36 In the Tradition the Prophet maintains, He (God) created Adam in His image (Khalaqal Adam` ala suratihi) and He taught Adam the names37 and became master of all creatures. He is composed of body, mind and soul and each needs to be integrated on its own free will, love and the power of individuation. Although, the body is a most outward aspect of man, having its own objective existence and mode of action, it is not the greatest obstacle to obtain integration. Man is usually contemplative as well as active creatures that possess spiritual and phenomenal capabilities. Both state that man is a microcosm in the universe. Islam has indeed assigned a very high place to man and Sufism, however dwelt intently upon the various aspects of man. They believe the operations of divine omnipotence are carried out on man. Moreover, he comes to realize the cosmic dimension of his being, not in quantitative but in a qualitative and symbolic sense. Generally, Sufis apprehend world as a veil (hijab) it needs unfold through will power, experience and self-awareness. According to Sufism, existence of human being is therefore, harmonious order that is endowed with life, will, sensation and purpose, just like a vast and absolute man (man accompanied with the attributes of God). To put it differently, if we take a man endowed with awareness, creativity and purpose, exemplary to the utmost degree in all of his aspects, and then enlarge him to the utmost degree, then he will appears to us as a pious personality. Man whenever attains divine attributes becomes Godlike and then his all activities are to be considered as the activities of God. Generally, the relationship of man with God is natural and meta-natural and same as that of light with lamp that emits it. It is also the same as the relationship between individual’s awareness of his limb and the limb itself; his perception is not separate from limb, and still less, the limb itself. At the same time, the limb itself, without his consciousness of it, it is meaningless corpse. So Ba-Shara(With law) Sufis does not believe in pantheism, polytheism, Trinitarians outlook or dualism, but only in strict monotheism (Tawhid). Tawhid represents a particular view of the world that demonstrates a universal unity in existence, a unity between three separate hypotheses – God, nature, and man – because the origin of all there is the same. All have the same direction, the same will, the same spirit, the same motion, and the same life. The Prophet Muhammad says, God resides in the hearts of the faithful and that is the real throne of Him (qulubul mumenina arsh Allah). Another popular tradition is ‘God says, heaven and earth contain Me not, but the heart of my faithful servant contains me.38 In cosmological viewpoint, Tawhid being divided into two relative aspects: a) the unseen and b) manifest. These two terms correspond in current usage to the sensible and the supersensible. The supersensible object is beyond observation and experiment and is hidden from our sense perception. This does not indicate the form of dualism; rather it is a relative classification. It is an epistemological and logical interpretation, not only accepted but also applied by science too. The materialists believe in the primacy of matter as the primordial substance of the physical world, and regard energy as the product and the changing form of matter. The energist claim, energy is the primary source and substance of all things and matter is the changed and compressed form of energy. In response to this view Einstein rightly observed that an experiment in a darkened room proves that neither matter nor energy is the primary and true source of the world of being. The two interchange with each other in such a way as to prove that they are the alternating manifestations of an invisible and unknowable essence that some times shows itself in the form of 479 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture matter and some times in the form of energy. The only task of physics is to examine these twin manifestations of the one super sensible being. The creation of man that is the essence, spiritual destiny and attributes of the human race. In this regard the Holy Quran says, man in the biological sense, it uses the language of the natural sciences, mentioning sperm drops of clotted blood, fetus etc that are mentioned earlier. The Quranic statement signifying that man is compounded from the spirit of God and putrid clay that is similar to the assertion of Pascal in his book Two Infinities, that man is a being intermediate between two infinities: an infinity of lowliness and weakness and an infinity of greatness and glory. The similar idea is also found in the holy Quran, like – “laqad khalaqnal insane fi ahsane taqwim, summa radana hu asfala safelin” i.e. We have indeed created man in the best moulds then do we abase him (to be) the lowest of the low.39 In the existential view point man is free and responsible will occupying a station intermediate between two opposing poles-God and Satan. The combination of these two opposites, the thesis and antithesis, which exist both in man’s nature and his fate, create motion in him, a dialectic, ineluctable and evolutionary movement, and a constant struggle between the two opposing poles in man’s essence and his life. In the world of the mind, it is impossible for an object to be hot and cold at the same time or to be large and small at a time. In Meta-nature, however, this is not only possible, but actually obtains. The intellect cannot conceive of a being simultaneously dead and alive, because death and life cancel each other out, but in Meta-nature death and life exist with each other and within each other, they are the two side of the single coin. Hence Hadrat Ali the 4th caliph of Islam and the door of Sufism says, “The breath of life itself is a progress toward death.” And in fact we see that man known to us as risen so far in brilliance of spirit, splendor, beauty, awareness, virtue, purity, courage, faith and generosity, and integrity of character, that he leaves us amazed. No being material or immaterial, angel or jinn, has the capacity for similar growth. At the same time, we see other men who in their vileness, impurity, weakness, ugliness, cowardice and criminality have descended lower than any beast, microbe or demon. Man may attain the infinite in vileness, ugliness and evil just as does in perfection, nobility and beauty. One extremity of man is that he touches God, the other, the devil whatever he prefers. Man is situated between two absolute possibilities, each situated at two extremities. He is a highway leading from “minus to the power of infinity” to “plus to the power of infinity.” Facing him, traced out across the plain of being, is a highway leading from an infinitely vile minus to an infinitely exalted plus. He is a free and responsible will; he is both a will obliged to choose and the object of his own will and choice. To use the terminology of Brahmanism, he is the way, the wayfarer and the wayfaring. He is engaged in a constant migration from his self to clay to his divine self that is why, God ordered to the angels to bow down to man (Adam). Man, this compound of opposites, is a dialectical being, a binary miracle of God. In his essence and life-destiny, he is an “infinite direction,” either toward clay or toward God. The holy Quran repeatedly discuss the creation and composition of man, as it is scientific and not philosophical. No element of God is exit in him. God exists in him as a potentiality for which man can reach perfection. So the holy Quran says, truly we are God’s and to Him we shall return.”40 On account of man’s dualistic nature he is in the continuous motion. His life is the stage for a battle between two forces that results in a continuous evolution toward perfection. Men have a choice and engage in constant becoming. He is in infinite migration, a migration within himself. Religion is, therefore only a path not an aim, its aim is to attain truth only. We are using religion as an aim, hence it creating problem in the society. Sufi Concept of Love: Love is the first creation of God says notable Indian thinker Tarachand. It is generally considered that Sufism is mainly based on the philosophy of love and Sufis have mainly utilized it as the main source of their realization of Truth/Reality (haq). They have considered their relation with God just 480 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture like the relation of the lover and beloved. In their eyes, a Sufi is a lover (`ashiq) and God is the beloved (ma`shuq). Sufis wants to unite himself with God to denote his concept of love as metaphysical element that cannot be articulated in the particular language. The feeling of love is purely mystical and metaphysical that is a matter of apprehension and realization only. The idea of love presumably borrowed by the Sufis from the holy Quran, where the terms mahabbah, hubb, wudd, muwaddah are present, that are depict the various types and gradations of love. The hubb and mahabbah are inter - related and represent as a super category of love or overflowing love (ashaddo huballillah).41 Prophet Muhammad also clearly expressed about the concept of love several times. In a Hadith he says - “My servant draws nigh unto Me by works of devotion. And I love him, I am the ear by which he hears, and eye by which he sees and the tongue by which he speaks (Bukhari).42 The greatest Sufi and thinker of Islam al Ghazali in his Ihya ulum uddin maintains that love is a natural desire, which produces pleasure but when that desire assumes an intense form, it is called passionful love or Ishq. Sufis say whenever love going beyond extreme in affection and becomes intense it is called Ishq. Sufis regard Love is the essence of their metaphysics. A true Sufi is a lover of God as well as the lover of the whole universe. Whenever a Sufi is deeply fused in the love of God he sees all as his own without any discrimination of caste and creed, even in the highest ecstatic moment whenever a Sufi is fully intoxicated sees nothing except God and all the distinction between mine and thine is disappeared here. In this stage he proclaims anal haq (I am the Reality) as Mansur al Hallaj uttered. Here a Sufi proclaims -“ishq ashiq hai ishq hai mashuq khud ke upar khud fida hai ishq” i.e. Love is the lover and love is the beloved and love is fondly in love with itself.43 Again reputed Sufi al Jami says - “ishq awwal , ishq akhir , ishq zahir was batun ishq hi se tu banaeh har dar wa diwar hai ishq” i.e love is the beginning, love is the end. Love is the manifest and love is hidden. Love is that sustains the world.44 From the above discussion it is evident that the existence of metaphysics is inevitable and it never be discarded from the universe because to discard metaphysics we will have to take the helps of metaphysics. Science is not completely aloof from it rather many reputed scientists accepted the existence of metaphysics in the scientific realm. Our present high technological discoveries and inventions are accompanied by many dazzling metaphysical elements that can be appreciated as the scientific metaphysics. Sufi metaphysics is an overenthusiastic initiative for acquisition of the knowledge of the Reality. Here we may point out that the reality may not be necessarily opposed to the appearance but their distinction is obvious and Sufi metaphysics is highly conscious about it. The metaphysical discussions of the Indian Sufis are necessarily an invaluable addition to the human understandings. 481 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture REFERENCES 1. D.A. Drennen, A. Modern Introduction to Metaphysics, (New York, 1962), pp.2- 4. 2. S. Radhakrishnan , Indian Philosophy, vol-1, (Macmillan Co. Ltd., London, 1923), p.44. 3. Brutt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, Chapt-1, (Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London, 1924), vide also S B.P. Sinha, Metaphysics- Past and Present, (Darshan Peeth, Allahabad, India, 1981), p.75. 4. S.B.P. Sinha op.cit., p.83. 5. S.R. Sharda, Sufi Thought, (Munshiram Monoharlal Publishers.Ltd., New Delhi, 1980), p.17. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, History of Islamic Philosophy,Part-ii,(Routledge, London, New York,1996), p. 784. 6. S.R.Sharda, op.cit., p.21. 7. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, op.cit., p.784. 8. Ibid., p.784. 9. Ibid., p. 785. 10. Ibid., p. 789. 11. Jalal uddin Rumi, Mathnawi, vide also Muhammad Iqbal, The Development of Metaphysics in Persia, (Bazam-e- Iqbal, Lahore, 1954), p.189. 12. Muhammad Iqbal, op.cit., pp.90-94. 13. Ibid. p.91. 14. Ibid., p.90. 15. Ibid., p.99. 16. Ibid., pp. 106-107. 17. Ibid, p. 117. 18. M. Umaruddin, The Ethical Philosophy of al Ghazali, (Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India, 1962), p.100. 19. S.R.Sharda, op.cit., p. 31. 20. Ibid., p.32. 21. Ibid., p. 32. 22. Ibid. p.32. 23. Burhan Ahmed Faruqi, The Mujaddid Conception of Towhid, (Lahore, 1940),pp.101-102. 24. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Sufi Essays, (George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1972), p. 47. 25. The Holy Quran, xii: 53,Lxxv: 2, Lxxxix: 27. 26. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Sufi Essays, op.cit., p.51. 27. Ibid., op.cit., pp.89-91. 28. Anemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, (The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1975),p. 270. 29. The Holy Quran, ii: 165. 30. A.M.A. Shustary, Outlines of Islamic Culture, (Bangalore, India, 1954), p.405. 31. Ibid.,xxxviii:75. 32. Ibid., xv:9, xxxviii:72. 482 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture 33. Ibid., xcvi:2. 34. Ibid., xxiii:12-14. 35. Ibid., xli:53. 36. Ibid., ii:31. 37. Anemarie Schimmel, op.cit. , p.190. 38. The Holy Quran, xcv: 41. 39. Ibid., xxiii:60. 40. Ibid, ii: 165. 41. Mir Valiuddin , Love of God, , Motilal Banarrasidass, delhi, 1968,p.82), Vide also- Md.Sirajul Islam, Sufism and Bhakti, Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, Washington D.C., 2004), p.167. 42. Md. Sirajul Islam, op.cit., p. 69. 43. Ibid., p. 170. 483 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture THE SINCERITY-RELATION IN THE WORK OF ART Jacob Longshore Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium An unknown author named Kathrin Passig caused a stir recently by winning the Bachmann Prize, a prestigious literary award in Austria. Her piece was not plagiarized, and it was hardly bad; in writing it she had simply avoided what the judges disliked – strange texts, poor dialogue, and relation problems. And she did that simply to win. A newspaper editor reacted by accusing her of lacking a writer’s voice, composing a writing assignment, making a game out of literature – and blasting the ideal of literary sincerity. Was Frau Passig sincere? Was her work sincere? Can we separate the two? I hope to answer these questions here; I examine sincerity as it pertains to the work of art – a controversial topic, especially today since it has come under heavy fire. My aim is to see how sincerity is possible, then turn to the artwork and see if it fulfils those criteria. As my examples will show, I argue that works of art of any kind – visual, literary, or performing – are subject to the question of sincerity. To help me along, I appeal to the work of Charles S. Peirce, especially to his conceptions of goodness, relation, and life. Those ideas are treated more fully in his late writings; on goodness, look to the 1903 Harvard Lectures; on relation, Notes on Metaphysics; on life, the Notes, Detailed Classification of the Sciences and Man’s Glassy Essence. All of these texts can be found in the Collected Papers. Since the 17th century, sincerity in art has been touted as a key ingredient in making art. Sir Philip Sidney suggested this when he wrote in one poem, “Fool … look into your heart and write.” Leo Tolstoy shouted it when he wrote What is Art? And pop musicians today mean it when they urge us to “keep it real” – and this is only in Western cultures. The question of sincerity, then, is not a pet theory of a few artists and critics; it is a major theme for consideration. Sincerity – when an expression of an inner state matches that state – is a slippery topic, especially when discussed in the context of art. Its nature is such that critics have debated on whether it even has a place in aesthetic criticism. On the one hand, Sir Herbert Read argues that it is a moral virtue and not aesthetic, adding that all activities (including art) are susceptible to moral judgment.1 On the other, Edward Fowler examines one genre of Japanese fiction and concludes That a writer like Shiga [Naoya] really does sound more sincere than others, then, is a tribute not to his honesty but to his mastery of the rhetoric (the intimate voice, ellipses, allusions, etc.) of authenticity.2 Such an assessment strips the notion of sincerity in art to a rhetorical matter. But if one reads that assessment back into life, the question becomes more troubling: if sincerity is merely rhetorical, sincere people are merely the best actors. And if that is the case, who can you trust? It seems the question comes down to this: is sincerity in art the same as that in life, or is the similarity metaphorical? To answer this we should first define sincerity, then determine how it is possible at all. If an artwork cannot do what a person can, it is fruitless to debate what place this or that trait has in its being. 1 The Cult of Sincerity, p. 18. 2 The Rhetoric of Confession: Shishōsetsu in Early Twentieth-Century Japanese Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988, p. 66. 485 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Let us be clear, then, on what we are dealing with. To keep things manageable, we should consider the basic concept – the complexities simply build on this. When I speak sincerely, my words fit the inner state they claim to disclose; there is something I wish to express, and my words convey it adequately. This brings up two points. First, there is a consistency between what I say and what I feel; the content of one must be identical to that of the other. This means sincerity is a kind of truth, in the classical sense of a statement expressing its object. Second, prior to any expression there is a relation to self; the thoughts are mine, and if I do not know what I am thinking, I cannot express those thoughts, let alone do so adequately. While important in the social life of a person, it has its vital aspect in their individual life, as we shall see. A third point underlying sincerity is the notion of goodness. This is not mentioned in any dictionary, but every example displays this clearly. The goodness in sincerity takes several forms. For one thing, the content I express must be good: if I say I am happy for you, the sentiment is reckoned to be good. Nobody would call it sincere to say “I hate your guts and I want to kill you.” Honest maybe, but not sincere. Another aspect is that the act of being sincere is itself good, and not necessarily for any instrumental reason – we see it as a good in itself. Now that sincerity has been laid out more clearly, we can ask what makes it possible. The first element is that there must be an inner state to express; there must be something you are experiencing within that you wish to express – “within” meaning a part of the constellation of signs which make up the person, that part being contingent or necessary. In short, there must be something you want to say about yourself. The second element is an audience. If there is nobody to hear you speak, can we say you are speaking sincerely? With six billion people in the world today (oneself included), this should be easy to fulfill. The third element needed for sincerity is the ability to communicate the content; this rides on the capacities of the organism and the nature of the content itself. In plain English, you must be able to “speak,” and what you say must be able to put in a way that others can access it. The condition underlying all these is life. And what is life but, as Peirce puts it, the power of working out results in this world?3 It is not enough that things happen, a living creature must make them happen; an object can fall into my lap, but only a living creature can give me something. One event is accidental, the product of chance; the other is intentional, untouched by chance, and it all depends on how the giver relates to the recipient and the object. When you give me something, this relation involves a giver, a recipient, and a mediating object. And here is the thing: in the act of giving you relate to me through the gift. Now this three-item relation cannot be duplicated by a stone, for a stone itself cannot relate in that way; it is not alive. In fact life is a triadic relation, acting on one thing through another. Chance cannot explain organic activity; only a living creature intentionally acts on things.4 Now that we have defined sincerity and laid out the conditions for its possibility, let us turn to the work of art. One thing about it is that it stands on its own; we do not need the creator nearby for the artwork to subsist, it is an independent object. More precisely, the work of art is neither the artist nor the spectator, and thus must be granted its own existence. If it were not, it would have died along with him. Words are written, music is transcribed, and the artwork is given an existence of its own. From a formal point of view, an artwork’s identity consists of a set of relations. Granted, people value the original most; one must admit, however, that reproductions can convey enough so that we 3 1.220. 4 6.3212. 486 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture can understand it. How necessary must you have the original painting to interpret it? How necessary must you have the manuscript of a novel to interpret it? The spontaneity of the artwork, its power, also rests with it alone; during the process of its making, an idea develops on its own, in some respects beyond the artist’s control. Many artists testify to this – the work takes shape, partly by their selectiveness, partly by the sheer force of the idea itself. As a phenomenon, it is an experience acting of its own accord. The artwork, standing there independently, has an effect on us. We are charmed, moved, outraged … it does not leave us untouched. Stones may or may not affect us; we may marvel at a stone, but we do not relate to it the same way. A stone simply is, for there is no work involved. The artwork, however, acts on us. The artwork has an effect on us by operating on the symbolic order through itself. As a representation, then, it is a mindful array of the materials; the paint is brushed across the surface, or spattered, or any of a number of techniques, then reworked until the final version is “just right.” This sense of rightness is crucial: if there were no such thing, artists would not spend so much time and energy trying to attain it. And for all that, many an artist simply abandons the attempt at length and says, “It is finished,” knowing how insufficient it is to the idea. So the artist does not merely spread paint at random, or type words by chance – unless randomness is part of the idea; she shapes it along certain lines toward an end. Now if we consider what the work of art does – it exists independently, it has an effect on us, it has an aim – we see that it has the power of working out results in this world. From this we must conclude that the work of art is effectively alive, in the metaphysical sense rather than the biological sense. Our ordinary conception of life is so tied to biology that we forget that the atoms constituting protoplasm are just the same as any inorganic form; it is the relations among them which distinguish living from nonliving. To clarify the concept of life is to consider the effects of that conception, which make up the conception itself.5 That a poem should be alive, then, is nothing unusual. The work of art lives. Moreover, it has content – itself – which it aims to communicate to us. Since it aims to disclose something about its own existence, and that information is contained within its form, the work of art has the potential of being sincere. I cannot go into the implications of this; I wanted to establish the fact that art can be sincere, and to shed some light on the relational nature of sincerity. For sincerity is a complex relation: I tell you something about myself (seen as an Other), and that action is good. The work of art too discloses something about itself. Now that we have established that a work of art can be sincere, let us examine what sincerity means in the work of art. In a case of ordinary sincerity, what I say and what I think or feel are congruent; this emerges in my words, the intonation of my words, the gestures I use.… There is a coherence, an integrity of form of my expression. This integrity runs from the expression to my sentiment to my desire to express that sentiment; the consistency is not merely horizontal in the behavior I represent, but vertical in the fit from impulse to expression. The vertical dimension to sincerity is not sensed, it is inferred; when somebody’s behavior does not add up, we suspect them of an ulterior motive. The work of art must have an integrity of form: the contours of the figures in a painting must be just so, the lighting and shadow must go together, the composition must be right. The main thing is that the details must fit the purpose. Unlike with people, if the artwork is coherent on the surface, we cannot question behind the appearance. Nor is there reason to, for appearance is all there is. To illustrate: a good friend of mine, a practicing artist in Arizona, visited me in Belgium once. He 5 See "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (5.388410), esp. 402. 487 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture showed me a slide of a self-portrait he had done; the drawing is very striking in its details and use of contrasting values. The slide was too small, but I could at least get an idea of his work, and I was pleased to see how he was coming along. Of the picture, I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. A few years later he told me about the making of that self-portrait. He had been working on it for hours and hours, using the mirror in his bathroom; at a certain point he needed to take a break, so he went for something to drink in the kitchen. The apartment was completely dark except for the light in the bathroom. When he reached the kitchen, he turned back to the drawing – and was horrified at what he saw. Something about it was too revealing: he had been so absorbed in it that he did not notice everything that reached the paper. Before he could show the drawing, he had to remove all traces of the unintended self-disclosure – the perfect crime. Had he not told me about it, I would have simply regarded the picture as an excellent study in values. I do not blame him for the cover-up; after all, we are entitled to our privacy. That he did not act insincerely is shown by the fact that he was not required to reveal so much of himself. Thus he had every right to show only as much as he felt comfortable. In this example we can discern sincerity – not once, but twice over: (1) the details of the artwork fit together, revealing only as much as its creator saw fit without compromising anything, and (2) the slide faithfully reproduces the original. Now both slide and original are sincere: the composition has unity, and the content is conveyed adequately. The original, however, is different, for it is this work of art right down to the smudges of graphite on paper – it represents itself completely, and so is authentic. The first represents the whatness of the artwork; the second, its thisness. Sincerity is general and thus reproducible, but authenticity is particular and thus not reproducible. A sincere artwork, then, shows such coherence in form and content that they are inseparable. But that is not all: there is a goodness inherent in that coherence. Just as my stating my happiness for you is regarded as good in itself, whatever the artwork does must involve a claim that the content is good and worth revealing. At this point we need to ask what goodness is. If we, like Peirce, are good lexicographers, we will define a word in terms not presupposed in the word itself. We cannot define goodness in terms of good things; we must use other terms to do the job.6 If something is adapted toward some end or goal, it is good; if not, it is bad. Good apples can go to making a strudel; bad apples would not make the strudel what we want it to be, so we throw them out. Regarding more ultimate ends, many of us believe it is good to tell the truth. Honesty is conduct adapted toward the end of living well; you can sleep at night with a clear conscience. But apart from its instrumentality, honesty somehow recommends itself as good. Why then should sincerity be good? As stated earlier, it is a coherence of form, a consistency both horizontal and vertical. The elements of a living, speaking entity should fit together in appearance, and the purport should have no ulterior motive. Sincerity is also fundamentally a relation to self; to express oneself sincerely, one must know what she wishes to express. This implies that one can be insincere to oneself as well as to others. Furthermore, the living entity must have an independent existence: it must maintain its structure through time. This is where self-relation comes in, for it is a kind of self-relation no stone can bear; living beings relate to themselves as if to an Other. This self-relation is precisely how what enables an organism to preserve itself, it is how a creature knows it is hungry, or injured. All organisms are to some degree self-aware; even protoplasm retracts from a threatening object; it tries to protect itself. In language, consistency is essential for integrity of information; what I say must hang together. My saying “Rome is a big city,” followed by “Rome is a tiny town,” calls my sense of scale into question. My saying “Rome is a great place” and “Rome is terrible” raises questions about my sense 6 5.126. 488 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture of values, though I can say “Rome is a great city” along with “Rome is a strange place.” Since consistency applies to matters of truth, it automatically involves sincerity. If I say “I’m happy for you” and “I hate you”, there is a basic conflict in my words; the first statement is even nullified by the second. Given the importance of coherence, which we find everywhere, and the interrelatedness of all things in the universe, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that goodness is an indication that the world must hang together. And given our use of normative judgments in all departments of life, our world must hang together. Consistency is a kind of continuity, and continuity pervades the universe.7 Since we live and act in the universe, and our actions are free, normative judgments are our way of ensuring that continuity. As a form of artificial life, the work of art needs to maintain its own structural identity. Of course it neither seeks food nor retracts from a flame, but it does require consistency of information. In addition, what it says about its internal content must be consistent. This does not mean it must be simple, only that it cannot conflict with itself. Imagine a painting of Christ with a Nazi armband: how can we reconcile the elements of this image? Only by interpreting it as asserting that Christ is a psychopathic power-monger. For one unambiguous example that is easy to manage, there are numerous others that ambiguous and difficult to interpret. What shall we make of, say, Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ just by looking at it? It is a haunting image, but we can infer from the title that the cause of its peculiar hue is the urine in which the crucifix is immersed. But is it sacrilege, as some declare? or is it, as others claim, that the image is – reverent? I cannot give an answer to that here; I can only say that any unifying theme to Piss Christ involves tension – between thing and look, sacred and profane, reverence and sacrilege. As for the truthfulness of art, this seems to involve the equation of the motive with its aim. An organism is an individual, acting as a whole; this is why we can say that something grows “organically,” meaning it develops as a unity. When it has an ulterior motive, we sense the doubleness, and look for the true one. (True, we may be fascinated by these deceivers, but only if we are not involved.) Similarly, an artwork has a fundamental motive which is expressed in the aim and execution. If it is a work of art at all, it will be truthful. We shun people we do not trust, and we avoid artworks that smell fishy. Sincerity, as a kind of truthfulness, is regarded in both cases as superior, for it aims at the good and is itself good. (Malicious people can be truthful, not sincere.) Returning to Frau Passig’s prize-winning text: is it truthful? I would say yes; it reveals itself clearly and without malice that is, sincerely. This is not unique: Shakespeare’s sonnets were commissioned works, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica was a statement of political protest, as was Henryk Gorecki’s choral piece Miserere. Any artwork is sincere, if it is an artwork proper; the artist’s motivation is beside the point. To study cases of insincere works of art, I think, we would have to turn to artistic failures, draft versions and studies to see where fatal discrepancies arise in their coherence and development. But if this study is correct, sincerity is a complex relation between internal content, expression, and audience – and only a living, speaking being can be sincere. The work of art, being a sort of artificial life in the business of disclosing itself, is capable of being sincere – which is more than any machine can do. At least for the time being. 7 1.168171. 489 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture METAPHYSICS AND HISTORY. THE PERSPECTIVE OF TOMMASO DEMARIA Mauro Mantovani Università Pontificia Salesiana Introduction In this brief contribution we offer a short account of the relationship between metaphysics and history in the works of the Italian philosopher and theologian Tommaso Demaria (born in Vezza d’Alba [Cuneo] in 1908 and died in Turin in 1996). He was a Salesian priest, and Professor in the Faculty of Theology of the Salesian Pontifical University, in the section of Turin. Even though he is not yet well known1 in Italy and in other countries, there have been in the last years various publications about his thought. These texts do not express only his perspective, but also try to picture the whole meaning and the actuality of his philosophical beliefs.2 The first academic Seminar about Demaria - whose title was Man and History - took place in Rome in 1997; the last “Demarian” Symposium was celebrated in Rome (Salesian Pontifical University) in September 2006, ten years since his death. Demaria has been mentioned in various international Conferences,3 and theses about him have already been written in Germany and in Catholic University of Milan. Others are in progress. The Italian Cultural Associations “Nuova Costruttività” and “MID - Movimento Ideoprassico Dinontorganico”, which want to improve Demarian studies, contribute remarkably to spread knowledge about his work through different publications, scientific and more popular ones. They also organize cultural activities and a useful website dedicated to Demaria and his writings. In this site there is also the list of all the studies that refer, both explicitly and implicitly, to Demaria. A look at this website could be really useful.4 From a philosophical point of view, together with the previous essays already published,5 we offer these brief pages in English with the idea of further contributions in order to increase the number of international philosophers, theologians and scholars, that know the Demarian perspective. From our results, in fact, no texts of Demaria have been translated in any other languages, and studies about his thought have never been published in English. We hope that in this way the knowledge and the critical analysis of his dynamic ontology can be increased.6 1 With regards to the Biography, Bibliography, and to other relevant studies about Demaria and his philosophical and theological profile, cf. G. TACCONI, La persona e oltre. Soggettività personale e soggettività ecclesiale nel contesto del pensiero di Tommaso Demaria, Las, Rome 1996. 2 Cf. GRUPPO STUDIO SCIENZA CRISTIANO-DINONTORGANICA DI VICENZA (ed.), Realismo dinamico. Il problema metafisico della realtà storica come superorganismo dinamico cristiano, Vicenza 2000; ASSOCIAZIONE NUOVA COSTRUTTIVITÀ, La quarta navigazione. Realtà storica e Metafisica organico-dinamica, Nuova Costruttività, Verona 2004. 3 For example, in 2005, in Rome, Verona and Salamanca: cf. A. CORTESE, Il personalismo dinontorganico di Tommaso Demaria, in Prospettiva Persona 14 (2005), n. 52, pp. 27-29; M. MANTOVANI, Persona y “trans-personalidad” en el pensamiento de Tommaso Demaria, in Diálogo Filosófico (in progress). 4 Cf. www.dinontorganico.it. 5 Cf. M. MANTOVANI, Sulle vie del tempo. Un confronto filosofico sulla storia e sulla libertà, Las, Rome 2002, pp. 95-114. 6 Cf. T. DEMARIA, Realismo dinamico, voll. I-III, Costruire, Varese 1975. The titles of these three volumes are: Ontologia realistico-dinamica (I); Metafisica della realtà storica. La realtà storica come ente dinamico (II); La realtà storica come Superorganismo Dinamico. Dinontorganismo e Dinontorganicismo (III). 491 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Demaria is not a simple writer to affront, and his works are not easy to comprehend. However, he who overcomes the difficulty of the first approach, realizes that his theoretical perspective is really notable and interesting. He intended to develop, continuously with thomistic philosophy, an “integral dynamic realism”, that reserves a particular attention to the historical dimension of the existence, especially the human one. He was convinced that all human dimensions and activities require the consideration of their basic fundamentals. Especially, among these, the historical dimension of human being, a subject that not accidentally holds a particular value in contemporary philosophy. Inside Christian thought, which is open to the light of Revelation, Demaria tried to develop a theoretical instrument capable of understanding history metaphysically. He tried to understand and explain the historical dimension of human being, his “being history” and his “growth in being”. The main point of Demarian metaphysical effort is the research of a valid conception of the being and of the Absolute, in relationship with total human experience and understanding. For this, in his perspective of “dynamic being”, he manages to arrive at such concepts as “cell-person”, “trans-personality” and “dynamic transcendentals”. We present here some important outlines of his thought, also because he seems not to miss out on points of contact and comparison of thought – as we will remark at the end of our contribution, as a suggestion – by Fernando Rielo, even though the two perspectives are also clearly different. 1. The need for a new metaphysics Philosophically, Demaria was firmly faithful to realism. For him philosophy is a responsibility towards humanity and the true philosopher cannot reject this responsibility, above all if he is Christian. For our author the heart of philosophy is metaphysics. According to Demaria metaphysical realism - which was based on thomistic speculation (a type of speculation of very important value) -, needed to be integrated because it was devoid of the necessary categories and the method for a confrontation with history. From another point of view, thomistic metaphysics, according to our author, remained the only acceptable base for a fresh start on this new path. Demaria noticed the presence in our society of two incompatible rationalities: laicist-capitalistic rationality and Marxist-collectivistic rationality. They show, also from a metaphysical point of view, their limits and their fundamental deformation. In the Demarian perspective the main distinction between natural beings (first grade beings) and historical beings (second grade beings) is central, and leads to a new consideration of the relationship between human being (person) and social realities.7 Demaria named static being the being whose nature already exists, and dynamic being the being whose nature is not yet completely present, but it becomes so, actively, in space and in time. For him all natural beings are static beings, although all other inter-human beings (like families, companies, states, etc.) also belongs to the category of dynamic beings. The human person falls into both categories: he is a static being because he is the subject of an inalienable patrimony of individuality, rationality, freedom and “vocation” to transcendence and the Absolute; he is also a dynamic being because - starting from this ontological patrimony - he becomes history, and becomes concrete in the historical contexts through what it receives from the historical reality where he lives, and through his concrete choices. On the basis of this distinction Demaria observes that human action is so important for the being of the human being that it is possible to affirm that historical action has an essential value because it can construct or deconstruct the same person. It is this that our author criticizes in thomistic metaphysics: namely that it has not the appropriate category for understanding and expressing this potentiality which derives from historical being. Demaria evidenced the necessity to hypothesize a 7 Family, for example, is “an authentic reality, irreducible to the addition of its members, but an intimate communion and solidarity, that forms itself as a truly new subject”. Cf. ASSOCIAZIONE NUOVA COSTRUTTIVITÀ, La quarta navigazione, p. 125. 492 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture new category of being, the dynamic being in an essential sense. Developing this reflection in the environment of metaphysics of historical reality, considered as a dynamic being of the second grade, our author tackles the interesting subject of the growth in being. Something, affirms Demaria, can become “more” only if it becomes ontologically “other”, different from itself, accepting itself as part of a “greater” being that is capable of promoting it and opening up for new spaces of ontological growth, as far as the intersubjective trans-personality. The new path indicated requires the category of dynamicity. This is the more specific and original contribution that Demaria made to philosophy: the dyn-ont-organic metaphysics (Dynamic Ontological Organic Metaphysics). 2. Dinontorganicity and History Dynontorganic metaphysics is presented by Demaria as an extension of thomistic metaphysics. The reality of the dynamic being, according to our author, needs its own metaphysics, because dynamic being constructs itself through a process of synthesis: the human person, being of the first grade, synthesises himself by means of historical reality, and models this synthesis with his choices. The synthesis of the person with the historical reality is necessarily subjected to the intentionality of the person. Dynamic beings are synthetic because they synthesise themselves from and by means of a context, and at the same time they synthesise a context. On account of this all inter-human beings are dynamic and transpersonal, generated by an incessant synthesis from the intentionality of their members: when the synthesis is stopped, when the relative intentionality ends, this being stops. For this reason, the philosophical method of dynamic metaphysics - affirms Demaria - must not be analytic (that takes to pieces the elements of the synthesis) but must be synthetic, that is to project the being that is the result of the synthesis, and that expects each element in relationship with the synthetic being, never alone. Historical reality, therefore, for our author, is the synthesis of all synthesis: it is not homogeneous or physically coherent, but is the “whole” historical being. Demaria calls it EDUC ([Ente Dinamico Universale Concreto] - Dynamic Universal Concrete Being): being that is already and still is not, that is never the same, that embraces all history, all space and all time of humanity. This is the being that gives the original “imprinting” to all the other beings; the being in relationship with which all the other beings must synthesise themselves incessantly; this is the being synthesised continuously by means of all other dynamic beings. It is also characterized by all grades of freedom of the human person: values, goals, attitudes towards God, man and creation. Without human freedom and its intentionality, dynamic being and historical reality would not exist, even in any category whatsoever. Historical reality, according to Demaria, is not only a super-personal being but it is also an active organism (even if it is not a person or a substance), governed from a vital principle and a vital superpersonal logic. This vital logic is not an emanation of the synthetic being and of the components that it orders; instead, it is pure rationality that transcends its components and creates a new synthetic being. This vital superpersonal logic participates and “re-forms” its components [inclusive persons] according to its principle. In fact the life of the dynamic being subsists in unceasing self-constructive processes, directed towards the finalization of a goal. All these self-constructive activities are praxis. According to Demaria, what it really counts in order to decide how the historical reality will be, is the rationality of the praxis. This rationality governs in fact the processes of synthesis and the formation of historical reality and governs “the soul” in which historical reality will be incarnated. This rationality takes place in human beings and also in the superpersonal processes of historical reality: in persons, it is subjected to their intentionality; in the logic of the superpersonal processes of historical reality it is not subjected directly to the intentionality of the persons, but instead, it guides 493 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture their intentionality and metaphysically speaking it is their form. According to our author, from one point of view it is impossible to govern historical reality unless by means of rationalized processes, and from another point of view it is impossible to govern historical reality without a rationality incarnated in processes. The crucial point, therefore, is to individuate the correct rationality and to put it in concrete historical form, in processes. How must the processes be in order to construct the superorganism of historical reality and so that they may not only be mere phenomenical processes without constructive dynamic value? According to Demaria these processes must conform to five formal principles, named dynamic transcendentals, which give to the praxis the capability of generating, of synthesising the superorganism. Here we mention them briefly: the first is the synthetic transcendental, that is religiousness, considered as the principle of unification because it guides towards to the Absolute, to the “one”; the other four transcendentals, called analytical transcendentals, are the articulation of religiousness: education, morality, missionarity and sociality. Demaria considers profane historical reality as a superorganism whose dynamicity has been better evidenced only in the last two centuries. According to our author, in fact, before the advent of the industrial revolution historical reality was “squashed” at the natural level, obliged to remain static, without the possibility of incarnating other values if not the values of survival. Today the complexity of industrialized society and the globalization clearly show the problem of choosing which values to incarnate in historical reality, that has now become essentially dynamic. The ontological discontinuity of historical reality, which has metaphysically passed from static-sacral historical reality to secular-dynamic, demonstrates this historical discontinuity which has been evidenced existentially in the last centuries. Our author points out that at the moment praxis is not moved by a dynontorganic rationality but it needs it; Demaria for this reason wants to offer his constructive contribution for the completion of classical thomistic metaphysics and anthropology. This vision of historical reality as a living organism requires the necessity to render active a principle, the “altruic principle” [“principio altruico”], something easily recognizable a posteriori, that could be expressed as this sentence: “the person lives for the life of the superorganism in its totality; the superorganism gives life to the person in his totality”. Without the action of this principle, the components of historical reality will act in a individualist way, denying, breaking or damaging the synthesis of the superorganism; on the other side without the accomplishment of this principle the superorganism would damage the components that synthesise it, in their intentionality of synthesis and, potentially, also in their physicity. 3. Evaluation Without dwelling on specific evaluations, let us underline - about the dynontorganic metaphysics proposed by Demaria - the globality of his capacity and his concrete potential. This perspective, in fact, opens up a total panorama, with the aim of presenting itself constructively as a synthetic vision on reality. A philosophy that wishes to locate man in his right place as responsible towards God, the other men and the whole of creation. This perspective also tries to give some concrete instruments on how to think and to construct history. It offers the possibility of effecting concretely and harmonically the synthesis of historical reality, in order to liberate people from their condition of being objects and to construct historical reality as reality in which humanity can achieve their historical accomplishment. Demaria was convinced, in fact, that the society of today is in desperate need of a theoretical perspective capable of “thinking very deeply about its time”, and he expressed a new attempt of philosophical synthesis, particularly capable of confronting the present and most important problems of our culture and today society. For this reason, this perspective offers an original and complete philosophical reflection, which is suitable for confronting many different questions of our 494 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture time. Demarian dynamic realism proposes the concept of truth (religious and philosophical) and the realist objective method, and analyses the metaphysical foundation of the relationship between personal subjectivity and social subjectivity. Our author’s philosophy is an “organic thomism” that starts from the idea that the truth of realism misses, until today, its “dynamic segment”: “Thomas Aquinas, eight centuries ago – writes L. Cretti –, proposed the first part of the metaphysical integral system. Thomists today should complete the system. This is what Tommaso Demaria tried to do with his trilogy of «dynamic realism»”.8 To our author we give merit of wanting to confront – through a dialogical method – the identity of the modern age and, above all, with the philosophical identity of the industrial revolution. With regards to modernity our author took part in a severe constructive criticism, not only from a linguistic point of view (Demaria, for this reason, suggested neologisms and new expressions, which he considered more consistent) but also on the side of fundamental concepts. This occurs according to three great contexts: ecclesiology, ontology (metaphysics of historical reality) and also secular historical reality. Demaria, therefore, proposes a critical methodology, characterized by the passion for the concrete of historical reality, the “place” where man “constructs”, cooperating with God (obviously, at different levels), his salvation. Our author conceives his intellectual work as an humble service to the truth: he follows a systematic approach privileging the vitality of the synthesis to the “death” of analysis. His own reflections are always moved by a precise theological and ontological intention, that was to accept the philosophical challenge of moving from phenomena to foundation.9 Conclusion It has been written that “in front of the organic crisis of our society, Demarian thought points definitely towards a message of great hope for contemporary man, at the beginning of third millennium”.10 Even though it is necessary to continue the study and the critic of this perspective, we think that it is interesting and original, especially as regards the relationship between metaphysics and history, in order to offer a new social and cultural project. This, precisely, is a specific goal for the lay Christian people which Pope Benedict XVI underlined in his Encyclical Letter Deus caritas est: “to promote organically and institutionally the common good»”.11 It is not casual that the similarity between Demarian realistic dynamic metaphysics and various social Encyclical letters like Sollicitudo rei socialis and Centesimus annus, and also other Documents like Veritatis splendor and Fides et ratio, has been evidenced. In fact, the Magisterium of the Church presents us with a society that is called to grow and to emerge according to a relational and communitarian vocation, whose supreme model is the Trinity. “Like in Demaria – writes M. Toso – in Social Doctrine of the Church the anthropology and ethics that guide social projectuality are teoric-practical specifications of human being, who is intrinsically relational and is called to transcend himself towards the «other», creating communions and communities. These realities – beings of second grade (the beings of first grade are the single persons, substantial and independent beings) – instead of destroying the independence of the single, respect and promote it. These realities create institutions, positive relations and conditions that promote the cooperation between individuals, families, social groups and organizations in general”.12 8 Cf. ibid., p. 81. 9 Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Fides et ratio, LEV, Vatican City 1998, n. 83. 10 D. BAGNARDI, Le tanti ragioni dell’attualità di un pensiero, in MID Notizie (1997) n. 57, p. 13. 11 BENEDICT XVI, Deus caritas est, LEV, Vatican City 2006, n. 29. Cf. also CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life (24 November 2002), 1: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 22 January 2003, p. 5. 12 Cf. M. TOSO, Postfazione a ASSOCIAZIONE NUOVA COSTRUTTIVITÀ, La quarta navigazione, p. 170. 495 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture In this sense, in the affirmation of Demaria that “human life and action always «speak» in plural”, in terms of ultra-subjectivity, it seems possible also distinguish some precious and not superficial affinities with the thought of Fernando Rielo. In front of the phenomenon, that the Spanish thinker considered typical of western philosophy, to “have absolutized the identity”, even though attributing it an apparent dynamicity,13 Rielo proposed a vision of reality characterized from the exploitation of the relation: firstly there is the geneticity of the relation, and secondly the ageneticity of the identity. According to his philosophy, in fact, “the negation of the identity, broken the «I am I» and «the being is the being», discloses a genetic concept of relation in metaphysics that, when elevated to the absolute, «shows» a metaphysical «being more», constituted from two terms in immanent intrinsic complementarity, which are the more profound expression of the being”. 14 Rielo individuates in the areas of mystics and metaphysics two “emptiness” to fulfil, in this historical period, through new modes of thought, for the good of the Church and of our culture in general. Also Demaria tried, in his own way, to offer a contribution to “fulfil” this emptiness. For him in the “whole communitarian” the single person is involved as a “cell” interconnected with the other, and they all together originate a “human tissue”, culturally and historically. In the “network” of relations, typical of the communion and collaboration, each person is integrated and helped without its freedom becoming decreed. One can “grow in being” because one is requested to win every solipsism and to open up to others with the gift of himself, through the recognition of each other as someone who asks and needs reciprocal cooperation in order to reach the integral accomplishment and the complete satisfaction of man in God. 13 Cf. J.M. LÓPEZ SEVILLANO, Le chiavi del pensiero metafisico di Fernando Rielo, in D.G. MURRAY (ed.), La metafisica del terzo millennio, Armando, Rome 2001, pp. 134-135. 14 Cf. ibid., p. 138. 496 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture L’ELIMINAZIONE DELLA METAFISICA DI RUDOLF CARNAP Nobile Italo Il saggio di Rudolf Carnap “L’eliminazione della metafisica tramite l’analisi logica del linguaggio” è forse il tentativo più compiuto del Neopositivismo logico di togliere una volta e per tutte la metafisica dall’orizzonte della filosofia e dell’indagine conoscitiva più in generale. Prima di sottoporre queste tesi ad un’analisi critica, ci sembra doveroso esporle nel dettaglio, magari ricorrendo alla loro citazione quasi letterale. Carnap sostiene che: Con lo sviluppo della logica moderna è diventato possibile dare una più acuta risposta alla questione circa la legittimità della metafisica, per cui le presunte proposizioni di questo ambito si dimostrano del tutto prive di senso. Si consegue così un radicale superamento della metafisica, quale non era ancora possibile partendo dai precedenti punti di vista antimetafìsici, quali lo scetticismo, il nominalismo e l’agnosticismo. Per quel che riguarda l’uso dell’espressione “privo-di-senso”, ci sono espressioni evidentemente false o contraddittorie che vengono considerate prive di senso, ma che sono in realtà sensate, anche se false. In senso stretto, è priva di senso una successione di parole che, all'interno di un determinato e già noto linguaggio, non formi alcuna proposizione. Può verificarsi che una tale successione di parole sembri di primo acchito una proposizione; in questo caso essa va chiamata “pseudoproposizione”. Le presunte proposizioni della metafìsica si rivelano appunto, all'analisi logica, come pseudoproposizioni. Un linguaggio consiste di un insieme di parole aventi un significato e di regole per la formazione di proposizioni; queste regole indicano come si possano formare delle proposizioni con parole di diverse specie. Vi sono due generi di pseudoproposizioni: o vi compare una parola che erroneamente si crede abbia un significato, o tutte le parole ivi presenti hanno, sì, un significato, ma sono combinate in un modo che non ne risulta senso alcuno. Nella metafisica compaiono pseudoproposizioni delle due specie. In origine ogni parola doveva avere un significato. Ma nel corso dello sviluppo storico spesso le parole cambiano significato. E può anche succedere che una parola perda il suo antico significato senza riceverne in cambio uno nuovo. Così ha origine uno pseudoconcetto. Quali convenzioni debbono venir stabilite in rapporto a una parola, affinchè essa abbia un significato? In primo luogo, bisogna che sia stabilita la sintassi della parola, cioè il modo di ricorrere nella più semplice forma proposizionale in cui essa può comparire; chiamiamo questa forma proposizionale la sua proposizione elementare. La forma proposizionale elementare per la parola «pietra» è, ad esempio, «x è una pietra»; in proposizioni di questa forma, al posto di «x» vi è qualche designazione descrittiva della categoria delle cose, per esempio, «questo diamante», «questa mela». In secondo luogo, bisogna che per la proposizione elementare A, contenente la parola in questione, sia data una risposta alla seguente domanda, che noi possiamo formulare in diversi modi: Da quali proposizioni è deducibile la A, e quali proposizioni sono deducibili dalla A? In quali condizioni la A è vera, e in quali è falsa? Come si può verificare la A? Che senso ha la A? Ogni parola del linguaggio (scientifico) viene ridotta ad altre parole e, infine, a quelle parole che compaiono nelle cosiddette «proposizioni di osservazione» o «proposizioni protocollari». E’ mediante questa riduzione che il termine ottiene il suo significato. La questione circa il contenuto e la forma delle proposizioni primarie (protocolli), che finora non ha trovato una risposta definitiva ed ha dato luogo ad una diversità di concezioni, si può lasciare del tutto al di fuori di questa analisi. Indipendentemente dalla diversità di queste concezioni, è certo che una successione di parole ha un senso, solo se sono ben stabilite le sue relazioni di deducibilità a partire da proposizioni protocollari; 497 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture non importa, poi, se tali protocolli siano di questa o di quella specie; parimenti, è certo che una parola ha un significato, solo se le proposizioni in cui può comparire sono riducibili a proposizioni protocollari. Poiché il significato di una parola è determinato dal suo criterio di applicazione (in altri termini: dalle relazioni di deducibilità della sua proposizione elementare, dalle condizioni di verità e dal metodo di verificazione di questa), una volta stabilito tale criterio, non è più possibile decidere liberamente ciò che s'intende dire con la parola in questione. Supponiamo che, per esempio, qualcuno formi la nuova parola «babico» e sostenga che vi sono cose babiche e cose non babiche. Per venire a sapere il significato di questa parola, gli chiederemo chiarimenti circa il criterio di applicazione: come si può constatare nel caso concreto, se una determinata cosa è babica o no? Si ammetta in primo luogo che secondo quel tale non vi siano qualità empiriche caratterizzanti la babicità. In questo caso, noi non considereremmo lecito l'uso di tale parola. Molti termini della metafisica appaiono privi di significato. Si prende come esempio il termine metafisico «principio» (nel senso di principio ontologico, non di principio gnoseologico o assioma). Varie risposte metafisiche sono state date al quesito circa il (supremo) «principio del mondo». Per trovare il significato che la parola «principio» ha in tale quesito metafìsico, si deve chiedere ai metafisici in quali condizioni una proposizione della forma «x è il principio di y» sarebbe vera, e in quali condizioni falsa; in altri termini, si chiede quale sia il criterio di applicazione o la definizione della parola «principio». Il metafisico risponde pressapoco così: « x è il principio di y» vuoi dire «y ha origine da x», «l'essere di y si fonda sull'essere di x», «y sussiste per mezzo di a», o simili. Queste frasi sono però equivoche e indeterminate. Il metafisico dice di non voler intendere un rapporto empiricamente constatabile; che, altrimenti, le sue tesi metafisiche diventerebbero semplici proposizioni empiriche della stessa specie di quelle della fisica. La parola «aver origine» non deve, pertanto, avere qui il significato di una relazione di successione temporale e causale, come ha comunemente. Ma non vien stabilito alcun criterio per nessun altro significato. Di conseguenza, il presunto significato «metafisico», che la parola dovrebbe avere qui, a differenza del comune significato empirico, non esiste affatto. Se si considera il significato originario della parola principium, si nota il medesimo processo di trasformazione. L'originario significato di «inizio» viene espressamente sottratto alla parola; essa non è più destinata a .significare ciò che è primo in ordine di tempo, ma ciò che è primo in un altro senso, specificamente metafisico. I criteri per questo «punto di vista metafisico» non vengono, tuttavia, addotti. In entrambi i casi, la parola è stata privata del suo significato originario, senza riceverne in cambio uno nuovo; rimane il residuo di una parola come un guscio vuoto. Un altro esempio è la parola “Dio”. Si ha spesso l'impressione che nella metafìsica la parola «Dio» possieda un significato. Ma le definizioni ivi stabilite si dimostrano, a un'indagine più accurata, delle pseudodefinizioni. Esse rimandano o a delle connessioni di parole logicamente illecite o ad altre parole metafisiche (per esempio, «causa prima», «l'assoluto», «l'incondizionato», «l'autonomo», e simili), ma in nessun caso conducono alle condizioni di verità della proposizione elementare rilevante. Nel caso di questa parola, non è soddisfatta neppure la prima esigenza della logica, cioè l'esigenza della specificazione della sintassi, ossia della forma secondo cui essa deve ricorrere nelle proposizioni elementari. Una proposizione elementare dovrebbe qui aver la forma «x è un Dio»; ma il metafìsico, o respinge del tutto questa forma, senza addurne un'altra, o, se l'accetta, trascura di precisare la categoria sintattica della variabile x. (Sono categorie, per es.: i corpi, le proprietà dei corpi, le relazioni fra i corpi, i numeri, ecc.). C'è ora anche un'altra specie di pseudoproposizioni. Esse consistono di parole con significato, ma sono composte da queste parole in un modo tale, che non ne risulta senso alcuno. La sintassi di una lingua dichiara quali combinazioni di parole sono lecite e quali no. La sintassi grammaticale delle lingue naturali non è, tuttavia, sempre in grado di assolvere il compito di escludere le combinazioni di parole senza senso. Si prenda, come esempio, le due seguenti 498 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture successioni di parole: 1. «Cesare è e»; 2. «Cesare è un numero primo». La successione di parole (1) è formata contro le regole della sintassi; la sintassi esige che nella terza posizione vi sia, non già una congiunzione, bensì un predicato, ossia un sostantivo (con articolo) o un aggettivo. Formata secondo sintassi è, per esempio, la successione di parole «Cesare è un condottiero»; la quale è una successione di parole sensata, cioè realmente una proposizione. Ma anche la successione di parole (2) è parimenti formata secondo la sintassi, poiché ha la stessa forma grammaticale della proposizione or ora citata. Tuttavia, la (2) è una successione di parole priva di senso. «Numero primo » è una proprietà di numeri; è un attributo che non può esser ne affermato, ne negato relativamente a delle persone. Poiché la 2 sembra una proposizione, ma non lo è, e quindi non vuole dire nulla, non esprimendo nè un giudizio vero, nè uno falso, possiamo chiamare anche questa successione di parole una «pseudoproposizione». Per il fatto che la sintassi grammaticale viene rispettata, si può ricevere di primo acchito l'impressione erronea di aver a che fare con una proposizione, sia pure falsa. Ma «a è un numero primo» è una proposizione falsa se, e solo se, a è divisibile per un numero naturale che non sia ne 1 ne se stesso; ed è ovvio che qui, in luogo di "a", non si può porre «Cesare». Di molte cosiddette proposizioni metafisiche non è così facile accorgersi che sono pseudoproposizioni. Il fatto che nella lingua usuale sia possibile formare una successione di parole senza senso, indica che la sintassi grammaticale, considerata da un punto di vista logico, è insufficiente. Se la sintassi grammaticale corrispondesse perfettamente alla sintassi logica, non potrebbe dar adito a pseudoproposizione alcuna. Se la sintassi grammaticale distinguesse, non solo le categorie lessicali dei sostantivi, degli aggettivi, dei verbi, delle congiunzioni, ecc., ma facesse anche certe distinzioni logicamente necessarie all'interno di tali categorie, allora le pseudoproposizioni non si potrebbero neppure formare. In un linguaggio costruito correttamente, tutte le successioni di parole prive di senso sarebbero automaticamente escluse già dalla sola grammatica; cioè, per evitare la mancanza di senso, non vi sarebbe bisogno di tener presente il significato delle singole parole, ma basterebbe fare attenzione alla loro specie lessicale (alla «categoria sintattica», per esempio: cosa, proprietà di cosa, relazione fra cose, numero, proprietà di numero, relazione fra numeri, ecc.). Quindi, se la nostra tesi, secondo cui le proposizioni della metafisica sono pseudoproposizioni, è giustificabile, allora in un linguaggio costruito correttamente dal punto di vista logico la metafisica non potrebbe nemmeno venir espressa. Deriva di qui la grande importanza filosofìca del compito di costruire una sintassi logica, compito a cui lavorano oggi i logici. Vogliamo ora considerare alcuni esempi di pseudoproposizioni metafisiche, nelle quali si può riconoscere in modo particolarmente chiaro la violazione della sintassi logica, pur nel rispetto della sintassi storico-grammaticale (trattasi di alcune proposizioni di M.Heidegger): «Indagato deve essere l'ente soltanto e - null'altro; l'ente solamente e inoltre - nulla; l'ente l’unicamente e oltre a ciò - nulla. Come sta la cosa con questo Nulla? [...] Esiste il Nulla solo perché c'è il Non, ossia la Negazione? O forse la cosa sta inversamente? Esiste la Negazione e il Non esiste solo perché c'è il Nulla? [...] Noi sosteniamo: il Nulla precede il Non e la Negazione. [...] Dove cerchiamo il Nulla? Dove troviamo il Nulla? [...] Noi conosciamo il Nulla. [...] L'angoscia rivela il Nulla. [...]II nulla stesso nulla ». Ora, proposizioni come “Fuori c’è pioggia” sono tanto grammaticalmente, quanto logicamente ineccepibili, ossia dotate di senso. Proposizioni come “Fuori non c’è nulla” (“There is nothing outside”) sono perfettamente analoghe, dal punto di vista grammaticale, a quelle come “Fuori non c’è pioggia”. In effetti, una forma proposizionale tipo “Cosa c’è fuori?” e “Fuori non c’è nulla” (come domanda e risposta) non corrisponde alle esigenze proprie di una lingua logicamente corretta. Essa è tuttavia dotata di senso, poiché si può tradurre in un linguaggio corretto; questo è dimostrato dalla proposizione “–( x) . Fu (x)”, che ha lo stesso senso di “Fuori non c’è nulla”. La inopportunità della forma proposizionale “Fuori non c’è nulla” si mostra poi nel fatto che, mediante operazioni grammaticali ineccepibili, si può pervenire alle forme proposizionali prive di senso “Come sta la cosa con questo nulla?” oppure come altre che sono tratte dalla citazione di cui 499 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture sopra. Queste forme non si possono affatto costruire nel linguaggio corretto della logica formale. Tuttavia, la loro mancanza di senso non si riconosce a prima vista, poiché ci si lascia ingannare facilmente dall'analogia con le proposizioni del linguaggio comune, dotate di senso. La manchevolezza, qui rilevata, della nostra lingua consiste, dunque nel fatto che essa, a differenza di una lingua logicamente corretta, consente identità di forma grammaticale fra successioni di parole dotata di senso e successioni di parole prive di senso. A una considerazione più precisa, le pseudoproposizioni metafisiche di Heidegger mostrano certe differenze. La formazione delle proposizioni tipo “Come sta la cosa con questo nulla?”, si fonda semplicemente sull'errore per cui la parola «nulla» viene usata come nome, mentre nella lingua usuale essa è impiegata in questa forma solo per formulare una proposizione esistenziale negativa (v. “ Fuori non c’è nulla”). In un linguaggio corretto serve invece allo stesso scopo non già un nome particolare, ma una certa forma logica, della proposizione (v. “ –( x) . Fu (x) ”). La proposizione “Esiste il nulla solo perché …” , è parimenti da respingere per una duplice ragione. Nell'errore di adoperare la parola « nulla » come nome individuale, essa concorda con le proposizioni precedenti. Ma contiene, in aggiunta, una contraddizione. Infatti, anche nel caso in cui fosse lecito introdurre « nulla » come nome o descrizione di un oggetto, si dovrebbe nondimeno negare a questo oggetto, per definizione, l'esistenza, la quale viene poi di nuovo affermata, a dispetto di ciò, nella proposizione suddetta. Questa proposizione sarebbe dunque, se non fosse già senza senso, contraddittoria, e quindi assurda. Gli scrupoli circa la possibilità di una falsa interpretazione del concetto di “Nulla” in Heidegger vengono poi del tutto a sparire nel constatare che l'autore della medesima trattazione è chiaramente consapevole del fatto che le sue domande e le sue proposizioni contraddicono la logica. «Domanda e risposta riguardanti il Nulla sono, allo stesso modo, in sé assurde [...].«Se s'infirma il potere dell'intelletto nel campo delle questioni circa il Nulla e l'Essere, allora si decide con ciò anche il destino dell'egemonia della "logica" all'interno della filosofia. La stessa idea della "logica" si dissolve nel vortice di un interrogativo più originario». O ancora «la supposta sobrietà e superiorità della scienza diventa una cosa ridicola, se la scienza non prende sul serio il Nulla». Si trova, così, una buona conferma della nostra tesi. Un metafìsico giunge qui da sé alla constatazione che le sue domande e risposte non sono compatibili con la logica e con il modo di pensare della scienza. Forse, la maggior parte degli errori logici commessi nelle pseudoproposizioni derivano dai difetti logici che ineriscono all'uso della parola «essere» nella nostra lingua (e delle corrispondenti parole nelle altre lingue, per lo meno nella maggior parte di quelle europee). Il primo errore sta nell'ambiguità della parola « essere », la quale, da un lato, viene adoperata come copula davanti a un predicato («io sono stanco»); dall'altro, è usata come termine designante l'esistenza («io sono»). Questo errore è poi aggravato dal fatto che spesso i metafìsici non hanno coscienza di tale ambiguità. Il secondo errore sta nella forma del verbo «essere» inteso nel suo secondo significato, quello dell'esistenza. La forma verbale suggerisce illusoriamente l'idea di un predicato, laddove non ne sussiste alcuno. Che l'esistenza non sia un attributo, lo si sapeva già da un pezzo (cfr. la confutazione kantiana della dimostrazione ontologica dell'esistenza di Dio). Ma solo la logica moderna è, a questo proposito, completamente conseguente: essa introduce il segno esistenziale in una forma sintattica tale da non poter esser riferito come predicato a un segno individuale, bensì solamente a un predicato (cfr. per esempio la proposizione “ – ( x) . Fu (x)” ). La maggior parte dei metafisici, fin dall'antichità, si è lasciata trarre in inganno dalla forma verbale, cioè predicativa, della parola «essere», così da formulare pseudo-proposizioni come «io sono» o «Dio è». Un esempio di questo errore lo troviamo nel cogito, ergo sum di Cartesio. Qui, noi notiamo due fondamentali errori logici. Il primo sta nella conclusione «io sono». In questo caso, il verbo «essere» è senza ' dubbio inteso nel senso dell'esistenza; poiché una copula non può essere adoperata senza predicato, e l'«io penso» di Cartesio è sempre stato interpretato in questo senso. Ma 500 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture allora, questa proposizione contraddice la summenzionata regola logica, secondo cui l'esistenza può essere asserita solo in connessione con un predicato, e non in connessione con un nome (soggetto, nome proprio). Una proposizione esistenziale non ha la forma «a esiste» (come nel caso di «io sono», cioè «io esisto»), bensì la forma « esiste qualcosa di questa o quella sorta ». Il secondo errore sta nel passaggio da «io penso» a «io esisto». Se dalla proposizione "P(a)" («ad a inerisce la proprietà P») si vuol dedurre una proposizione esistenziale, allora quest'ultima può asserire l'esistenza solo in rapporto al predicato P, e non in rapporto al soggetto a della premessa. Da «io penso» non consegue «io sono»,bensì «esiste qualcosa che pensa». Un'altra frequentissima violazione delle regole della sintassi logica è la cosiddetta confusione dei tipi dei concetti. In questo caso un predicato viene, sì, usato come predicato, ma come predicato di un altro «tipo» concettuale; abbiamo, cioè, il caso di una violazione delle regole della cosiddetta «teoria dei tipi». Un esempio appositamente ideato per mettere in evidenza ciò è la proposizione considerata in precedenza: «Cesare è un numero primo». I nomi di persona e i nomi dei numeri appartengono a tipi logici diversi, e, quindi, anche i predicati di persone (per esempio, «condottiero») e i predicati di numeri («numero primo») appartengono a tipi differenti. Dal momento che la confusione dei tipi concettuali non arreca alcun danno nel linguaggio quotidiano, si è soliti non darvi importanza. Ciò è senza dubbio lecito per quanto riguarda l'uso linguistico comune, ma produce delle conseguenze disastrose nella metafìsica. Mal consigliati dall'abitudine dell'uso linguistico quotidiano, i metafisici si sono lasciati indurre in certe confusioni di tipi concettuali che, a differenza di quelle del linguaggio usuale, non si possono più tradurre in forma logicamente corretta. Per esempio, alcune proprietà, che dovrebbero riferirsi a oggetti di una certa specie, vengono invece riferite a una proprietà di questi oggetti, o all'«essere», o all'«esserci», o a una relazione fra questi oggetti. Le proposizioni (sensate) si suddividono nelle seguenti specie. In primo luogo, vi sono proposizioni vere in virtù della sola forma (“tautologie”, secondo Wittgenstein), le quali non asseriscono nulla intorno alla realtà. A questa specie appartengono le formule della logica e della matematica, le quali non sono in sé stesse degli enunciati sulla realtà, ma servono alla trasformazione di tali enunciati. In secondo luogo, vi sono le negazioni di tali proposizioni ("contraddizioni"), le quali sono auto-contraddittorie, ossia false in virtù della sola forma. Per quanto riguarda tutte le rimanenti proposizioni, la decisione circa la verità o falsità dipende dai protocolli. Esse sono pertanto delle proposizioni empiriche (vere o false) e appartengono al dominio della scienza empirica. Se si vuoi costruire una proposizione che non appartenga a una di queste tre specie, ne risulta automaticamente una frase priva di senso. E, dal momento che la metafìsica non vuole ne esprimere proposizioni analitiche, ne rientrare nel campo della scienza empirica, essa si trova costretta o a fare uso di parole prive di criteri di controllo, e pertanto vuote di significato, oppure a combinare parole dotate di significato, ma organizzandole in modo che non ne risulti ne una proposizione analitica (tautologica o contraddittoria), ne una proposizione empirica. In entrambi i casi, ne conseguono necessariamente delle pseudoproposizioni. Ma come mai tanti uomini dei più diversi periodi e popoli hanno in effetti dedicato tanta cura, e anzi addirittura passione, alla metafisica, se questa non contiene altro che mere parole combinate in frasi senza senso? E come si potrebbe comprendere il fatto che i libri di metafisica abbiano esercitato un influsso tanto forte sugli ascoltatori e i lettori, se essi non contenessero neppure degli errori, anzi, proprio nulla? Sono queste delle perplessità che sussistono ben a ragione, poiché la metafisica contiene effettivamente qualcosa; solo, che questo non ha valore teoretico. Le (pseudo-) proposizioni della metafisica non servono alla rappresentazione di dati di fatto ne esistenti (allora si tratterebbe di proposizioni vere), ne inesistenti (allora si tratterebbe, per lo meno, di proposizioni false), ma servono solo alla espressione del sentimento della vita. La metafìsica nasce dal bisogno dell'uomo di esprimere il proprio sentimento della vita, il proprio atteggiamento 501 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture emotivo e volitivo verso l'ambiente, verso la società, verso i compiti cui egli è dedito e verso le traversie che deve sopportare. Ora, molti uomini avvertono l'esigenza di dare una particolare forma, oltre a quella consueta, all'espressione del loro sentimento della vita. Se tali uomini hanno delle capacità artistiche, allora trovano la possibilità di esprimersi nella creazione di un'opera d'arte. Come mezzo di espressione del sentimento della vita, l'arte è lo strumento adeguato, mentre la metafìsica non lo è. In sé e per sé, naturalmente, non vi sarebbe nulla da obiettare contro l'uso di un qualsiasi mezzo di espressione. Ma in metafisica si dà il caso che la forma di espressione è ingannevole, in quanto crea l'illusione di un contenuto che essa non ha. Si tratta della forma di un sistema di proposizioni collegate fra loro da una (apparente) relazione di implicazione, ossia la forma di una teoria. E questo porta a credere che vi sia un contenuto teoretico, laddove, invece una cosa del genere non sussiste affatto. Il metafisico crede di muoversi in un ambito riguardante il vero e il falso. In realtà, viceversa, egli non asserisce nulla, ma si limita a esprimere dei sentimenti, come un artista. E che il metafisico sia vittima di questa illusione, non lo possiamo desumere dalla semplice circostanza che egli sceglie come mezzo di espressione il linguaggio e come forma di espressione le proposizioni enunciative; infatti, il poeta lirico fa lo stesso, senza tuttavia soggiacere al medesimo inganno. Ma il metafisico adduce argomenti a sostegno delle sue proposizioni, richiede l'assenso circa il loro contenuto, polemizza contro il metafìsico di altro indirizzo, cercando di confutare le sue proposizioni nella propria dottrina. Il lirico, al contrario, non si cura di confutare con la sua poesia le proposizioni tratte dalla poesia di un altro lirico; egli sa, in effetti, di operare nell'ambito dell'arte e non in quello della teoria. I metafisici non sono che dei musicisti senza capacità musicale. In compenso, possiedono una forte inclinazione a lavorare con strumenti teoretici, combinando concetti e pensieri. Ma ecco che, in luogo di concretare questa inclinazione nell'ambito della scienza, da una parte, e di soddisfare separatamente il bisogno espressivo nell'arte, dall'altra, il metafisico confonde le due cose e crea un miscuglio che risulta tanto inefficiente per la conoscenza, quanto inadeguato per il sentimento. Critica La prima considerazione che va fatta su queste tesi riguarda l’aspetto legato alla sensibilità storica che si manifesta in esse. Questo costituisce infatti già un primo forte limite dell’impostazione di Carnap. Ovviamente per fare della filosofia in senso più propositivo (parlando direttamente di problemi filosofici), non è strettamente necessario conoscere la storia della filosofia, anche se si rischia comunque in tal caso di ripresentare tesi già note magari in forma più semplicistica e/o banale. Ma altro è quando si vuole criticare un’istanza presente in maniera forte nella tradizione filosofica precedente, quale può essere l’istanza metafisica. In tal caso, la conoscenza anche dettagliata del pensiero precedente è necessaria, soprattutto se si pretende di individuare una serie di fattori comuni che enucleerebbero quella che chiamiamo metafisica. Infatti, se tale approfondimento storico non viene fatto, si può elidere una proprietà comune, ma più spesso si può presentare una proprietà comune del pensiero metafisico che, invece, tanto comune non si rivela ad un’analisi più approfondita. Ad esempio, Carnap considera “metafisici” pensatori come Nietzche e Heidegger, che a loro volta non si considerano tali (e che anzi considerano la metafisica in maniera almeno in parte negativa), e sulla critica al linguaggio heideggeriano basa una parte sostanziosa della sua critica presente alla metafisica. Questo significa fare un torto ad Heidegger e Nietzche e significa fare un torto alla tradizione metafisica che si può considerare non rappresentata da questi pensatori. Naturalmente, Carnap ha la pretesa di poter considerare metafisici questi pensatori loro malgrado, ma questo presupporrebbe una definizione preliminare della “metafisica” che non solo sia esplicitata, ma che soprattutto sia tale che anche i pensatori che si considerino metafisici siano disposti a riconoscere come appropriata: Carnap non opera tale definizione (almeno in questa sede), anche se essa si può desumere dalla sua analisi per cui si può intendere “metafisica” una teoria le cui proposizioni non siano traducibili in proposizioni protocollari e/o non siano 502 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture verificabili empiricamente. Ma questa definizione può non essere condivisa da tutti coloro che si professano metafisici o che sono considerati “metafisici” dalla maggior parte delle storie della filosofia (ad es. un mistico, tipo Plotino, può pretendere di avere un rapporto con una serie di esperienze vissute). A questo punto andrebbe aperta una discussione sull’accezione del termine “empiria” o “esperienza” che però Carnap non fa (almeno in questa sede). Questa mancanza di rigore ermeneutico ha delle conseguenze rilevanti in tutta la trattazione carnapiana. Infatti, gli esempi addotti da Carnap per criticare la metafisica risultano essere molto differenziati tra loro: la critica al concetto heideggeriano di Nulla da un lato trascura l’ermeneutica heideggeriana del termine, mentre d’altro canto in parte riprende alcuni temi della tradizione metafisica non creazionista e/o anticristiana (il primo a criticare il concetto di non- Essere fu Parmenide e Bruno e Spinoza avrebbero sottoscritto tale critica); la critica all’argomentazione cartesiana del Cogito ergo sum a sua volta riprende critiche già svolte da pensatori considerati metafisici da Carnap e dunque non fa testo se si vuole criticare la metafisica nel suo complesso. Riprenderemo questo tema più avanti, argomentando che altro è criticare alcune argomentazioni metafisiche, altro è dire che tutte le argomentazioni metafisiche siano insensate. La seconda considerazione che va fatta sulle tesi di Carnap riguarda l’accezione di “senso” che rende le proposizioni metafisiche “insensate”. Qui Carnap, come gli altri neopositivisti, opera una strategia retorica degna dei sofisti più spregiudicati. Carnap prima parla di “insensato” in senso stretto e in senso esteso, includendo la contraddizione nell’ “insensato” in senso esteso (concezione singolare in chi non contesta il pdnc), ma inserendo il discorso metafisico nell’ “insensato” in senso stretto. Tale inserimento è sicuramente contestabile perché è conseguente ad una restrizione dell’ambito di ciò che ha senso, restrizione su cui esiste da sempre una discussione che storicamente si è rivelata infausta poi per il Neopositivismo. Carnap finge di considerare ovvia la giustezza di tale restrizione, ne rimuove il carattere quanto meno opinabile, e usa poi il termine “insensato” come se si riferisse ad un discorso assolutamente incomprensibile a chiunque, pretendendo così anche di rimarcare una differenza di sostanza tra la prospettiva neopositivista e quella della tradizione antimetafisica precedente. Ma tale differenza di sostanza implica una nuova concezione del significato che va argomentata preliminarmente, cosa che Carnap fa solo in parte (almeno in questo testo). E vedremo ora come. La terza considerazione che va infatti elaborata sulle tesi carnapiane è quella che riguarda il radicamento empiristico del criterio di significanza : Carnap inizialmente si domanda in che consista il significato di una parola e dice che per saperlo bisogna prima che sia stabilita la sintassi della parola e cioè il modo di ricorrere nella più semplice forma proposizionale in cui essa può comparire (forma che viene chiamata la proposizione elementare della parola stessa) e fa l’esempio per cui la proposizione elementare per la parola “pietra” è “ x è una pietra ”. Ora, la domanda che noi ci poniamo è se è possibile stabilire la sintassi di una parola (visto che la sintassi tratta delle relazioni tra termini e non dovrebbe studiare un termine grammaticale considerato in se stesso), e se si possa stabilire una sola più semplice forma proposizionale in cui compare una parola ( e se invece non siano possibili molte forme), e perché questa forma proposizionale preveda che ad es. “pietra” abbia una funzione solo predicativa. Già il fatto che questi presupposti passino così, senza ulteriore riflessione, rende problematico il ragionamento con cui Carnap vuole argomentare un congedo dalla metafisica che vorrebbe essere definitivo. Costituita una presunta proposizione elementare (A), Carnap si domanda quali proposizioni sono deducibili da (A) e da quali proposizioni (A) si possa dedurre. Ora, questa operazione si può definire una volta e per tutte ? Argomentare in questo senso non pare cosa da poco, ma Carnap considera questa possibilità già messa in atto e questo è un altro punto che suscita perplessità. Proprio per questo l’equivalenza di “Da quali proposizioni è deducibile la (A), e quali proposizioni sono deducibili dalla (A)” e “In quali condizioni la (A) è vera, e in quali è falsa ” diventa oggetto di dubbio, dal momento che non essendo elencabili tassativamente le proposizioni correlate ad (A) attraverso l’implicazione, nemmeno si può sapere a quali condizioni (A) possa essere considerata sicuramente falsa o vera. Dunque il senso di (A) non 503 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture può essere del tutto equivalente alle condizioni della sua verificazione, dal momento che queste non possono essere date una volta e per tutte. Carnap però aggiunge anche un ulteriore elemento di arbitrio quando dice che ogni parola del linguaggio scientifico va ridotta infine alle parole corrispondenti inserite nelle proposizioni protocollari (o “proposizioni di osservazione”) e che tale riduzione dà al termine il suo significato. Anche qui, altro è ipotizzare la necessità di interrompere ad un certo punto la riduzione (o meglio la traduzione) delle proposizioni scientifiche ad altre proposizioni, altro è dire che il ricorso a proposizioni protocollari è una dei possibili esiti di tale sequenza di riduzioni , altro ancora però è dire che questo ricorso sia l’unico esito praticabile. Ma Carnap giunge arbitrariamente proprio a questa conclusione. Egli, inoltre, continua ad affermare che tutte le proposizioni che si vogliano definire scientifiche devono potersi ridurre a proposizioni protocollari, quale che sia la forma e il contenuto che queste ultime possano assumere, forma e contenuto che sono oggetto di questioni che il Carnap ammette non essere ancora giunte a conclusione univoca. A questo punto le perplessità aumentano: da un lato si vuole un saldo ancoraggio delle proposizioni scientifiche nella dimensione empirica, ma d’altro canto la dimensione empirica risulta difficile da individuare sia nella forma che nel contenuto. Carnap rimuove il carattere aporetico di tale impostazione e ribadisce la validità di un criterio di significanza che si rivela per ora assolutamente privo di contenuto: infatti, se non si sa quale specie di proposizione va considerata “protocollare”, come si fa a stabilire se una proposizione sia riducibile ad una proposizione protocollare? Il fatto che il criterio empiristico di significanza sia l’esito di una argomentazione non del tutto cogente trova conferma poi nel fatto che la divisione tra tautologie logiche e proposizioni empiricamente verificabili non sembra a prima vista esaurire in linea di principio l’ambito delle proposizioni cognitivamente rilevanti (anche se in linea di fatto trovare proposizioni che non rientrano in nessuna delle due categorie può essere molto difficile) e soprattutto, come vedremo poi, Carnap non riesce nemmeno a mostrare il collegamento tra le aporie specifiche di determinate posizioni metafisiche evidenziate in queste pagine e la mancanza di collegamento a proposizioni protocollari che egli rimprovera più in generale alla metafisica. E questo problema non è senza rapporto con il fatto che applicando il criterio di significanza alle tesi stesse dei Neopositivisti si è spesso incappati in un vero e proprio cortocircuito epistemico. Ed anche col fatto che la pars construens dell’epistemologia neopositivista, volta a giustificare i presupposti stessi delle scienze, ha incontrato difficoltà ad applicare i criteri troppo restrittivi di significanza da essa stessa elaborati. Del resto, un corollario delle tesi di Carnap diventa la necessità di controllare la grammatica del linguaggio naturale (già considerato conoscitivamente fuorviante da Frege), accusato di avere una sintassi insufficiente dal punto di vista logico e dunque tale da consentire la formazione di proposizioni senza senso, anche se apparentemente significanti. Ora, in primo luogo, il linguaggio naturale è un’astrazione di una pluralità di lingue storicamente usate da singole comunità e l’interazione di queste lingue con modelli più o meno formalizzati è un processo di grande complessità non riducibile ad un rapporto di tipo normativo tra un lingua imprecisa ed un linguaggio puro che ne corregga le distorsioni. Dunque, le regole della grammatica di una lingua storicamente intesa sono la risultante di processi che non sono del tutto controllabili e men che mai possono essere il contenuto di una teoria precostituita. Inoltre non si capisce perché termini di specie lessicali differenti tra loro non si possano predicare gli uni degli altri o non si possano predicare entrambi di uno stesso individuo: questa è una questione che esula dall’ambito grammaticale. Carnap in realtà vuole trasformare in regole grammaticali dei pregiudizi che di grammaticale hanno ben poco. Il tentativo di estendere la portata di lingue artificiali oltre ambiti specifici e circoscritti somiglia pericolosamente alla Neo-lingua descritta da Orwell: esso presuppone ingenuamente che il senso di una proposizione si riduca al rispetto di regole sintattiche, per cui basta restringere meccanicamente l’ambito delle proposizioni lecite per far sparire d’incanto i momenti in cui un individuo ritiene e prova l’esperienza (nel senso di Erlebnis) di aver compreso qualcosa. In realtà si aumenterebbe solo il numero di insight che devono faticare a trovare un 504 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture contenuto. Invece l’evoluzione della lingua deve consentire l’ampliamento delle possibilità di comprensione semantica e di comunicazione, mentre questa sorta di rasoio linguistico di Occam deve essere usato più a livello intralinguistico, per differenziare diverse forme di linguaggio e non per distinguere ciò che è linguistico da ciò che non lo è ( e questa è l’intuizione del secondo Wittgenstein nella sua critica al Tractatus ). Ma analizziamo più da vicino le singole osservazioni che Carnap fa a proposito di determinati concetti metafisici: Ad esempio a proposito di “babico”, se questo termine denotasse qualità non- empiriche, esso sarebbe considerabile sicuramente come “insensato”. Ma cosa giustifica tale posizione? E se l’analisi del termine “babico” comportasse un regresso ad infinitum con termini analoghi a “babico”? Ad es. se si dicesse che “babico” è “ciò che attiene alla cirinnità …” e così via? Magari pragmaticamente non si potrebbe continuare il discorso, ma nemmeno si potrebbe negare a priori al nostro interlocutore il possesso di un contesto di senso che possa eventualmente condividere con altri soggetti. Carnap analizza anche il termine “principio” e qui già prepara il contesto dell’argomentazione senza approfondire l’accezione metafisica del termine. Infatti egli già esclude l’accezione gnoseologica del termine “principio” senza contare il fatto che per pensatori come Platone, Plotino, Agostino, Spinoza, Hegel, Gioberti non c’è (né vuole esserci) questa separazione tra ratio essendi e ratio cognoscendi, per cui il metafisico reinterpreta in maniera ontologicamente rilevante la dimensione conoscitiva, mentre Carnap mostra semplicemente di condividere la metafisica moderna del soggetto quando pensa che la conoscenza sia un atto di chi conosce (dell’Io) e non una manifestazione di ciò che è conosciuto. Un assioma per un neoplatonico non è un postulato e una dimostrazione non è una procedura, ma un prodotto della contemplazione (e quest’ultima è un momento dell’emanazione dall’Anima). Quando poi Carnap analizza il termine “Dio” lo considera semplicemente un predicato (o una classe) per cui la proposizione elementare che lo contraddistingue sarebbe “x è un Dio”. Ma Carnap al tempo stesso non può fingere di scandalizzarsi del fatto che il metafisico non accetti questa proposizione, dal momento che storicamente (e dunque anche logicamente) la distinzione tra nome proprio e predicato (teorizzata da Frege) non è così netta: molti nomi propri sono il risultato dell’ipostatizzazione di un predicato, per cui si può pensare alla possibilità che il predicato sia sostantivato (operazione che sta forse alla base del platonismo). “Dio” dunque per molti metafisici è un nome proprio, dal momento che la classe “Dio” ha un solo elemento (unicità di Dio). Dunque considerare “Dio” un termine analogo a “babico” risulta alla fine mistificante, anche perché già solo il fatto che il termine “Dio” sia forse il nome proprio più usato nella letteratura occidentale lo rende inassimilabile ad un mero flatus vocis senza senso. Carnap poi passa a quelle che lui ritiene pseudoproposizioni composte con parole che hanno significato ma in modo tale da non produrre senso alcuno. Un caso tipico è la proposizione “Cesare è un numero primo”, proposizione che per Carnap dimostra l’insufficienza logica della sintassi grammaticale delle lingue naturali: essa è formata rispettando tale sintassi, ma costituisce una successione di parole priva di senso, dal momento che «numero primo» è una proprietà di numeri e dunque un attributo che non può esser né affermato, né negato relativamente a delle persone. In realtà qui Carnap sfrutta le diverse accezioni di “insensato” per legittimare la sua tesi: “Cesare è un numero primo” può essere semplicemente una proposizione falsa, se si intende per Cesare “il condottiero che conquistò la Gallia etc. etc. ”, ma un appassionato di numerologia potrebbe considerare la proposizione tale da poter essere discussa (se è vero che “Caesar” equivale nella gematria a “287”). Quanto alla critica del famoso passo di Heidegger sul “Nulla”, la prima cosa che si nota è che Carnap vuole sottoporre il linguaggio heideggeriano al letto di Procuste di un linguaggio 505 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture formalizzato che viene considerato arbitrariamente paradigma di validità. Il fatto che anche questo linguaggio sia problematico si evince dal fatto che esso implica la natura “insensata” di termini come “Nulla”, semplicemente perché non ha un corrispettivo per tale parola del linguaggio naturale e dunque “Non c’è (non esiste, non è presente) qualcosa che sia fuori ” (“ –( x) . Fu (x)”) non è considerabile traduzione fedele ad es. di “There is nothing outside”. Infatti, in quest’ultimo caso, la negazione accompagna il predicato sostantivato (“no-thing” o “ne-ullus”), mentre, nel linguaggio formalizzato di cui prima, la negazione riguarda il predicato verbale “esiste”. Carnap cioè non riflette sulle operazioni implicite nella formalizzazione e sul modo come questa viene compiuta. Che quello di usare “Nulla” come nome sia un errore viene presupposto da Carnap (ed è il presupposto implicito che fa tradurre impropriamente “There is nothing outside” come “Non c’è un x tale che ‘x sta fuori ’ ”) ma non viene giustificato in alcun modo. In realtà forse la critica al concetto di “Nulla” andrebbe operata dall’interno di una prospettiva metafisica (come fa ad es. Parmenide di Elea). Inoltre sembra non esserci alcuna ragione evidente (se non appunto un argomento contro il concetto “Nulla”) per impedire che se si può fornire la versione logistica di proposizioni come “Cosa si può dire della pioggia?”, si può fornire anche la versione logistica di proposizioni quali “Cosa si può dire del Nulla?”. Infine Carnap, citando una presa di distanza di Heidegger dalla logica, conclude che un metafisico giunge da sé alla constatazione che le sue domande e risposte non sono compatibili con la logica e con il modo di pensare della scienza. Ma questo (a parte il fatto che Heidegger distaccandosi dalla logica intendeva staccarsi anche dalla metafisica) conferma che la polemica con Heidegger ha solo lo scopo di convincere coloro che sono già convinti. Inoltre qui Carnap sembra pensare (in contrasto con quanto detto prima) che la violazione delle leggi logiche equivalga all’accezione in senso stretto di insensatezza ed anche questo andrebbe meglio chiarito. Carnap poi analizza, come abbiamo visto, le conseguenze derivanti dall’uso erroneo della parola “essere” nelle lingue occidentali: questa tesi va affrontata seriamente e va discussa sin dalla sua iniziale articolazione (dalla riflessione di Kant, Frege e Russell). Non è questo il luogo opportuno per farlo con il dovuto approfondimento. Qualcosa però può essere detto: in primo luogo c’è un’altra accezione del termine “essere” ed è quello che esprime l’identità (ad es. “A è A” o “Maigret è il commissario narrato da Simenon”). L’identità e la predicazione vanno analizzate sulla base dell’ipotesi che abbiano qualcosa in comune. Si può altresì ipotizzare che l’esistenza sia collegata all’identità intertemporale (l’essere identici a se stessi nel tempo) di un qualsiasi soggetto. Perciò la distinzione tra le tre accezioni del significato di “essere” potrebbe non essere assoluta. In secondo luogo, la tesi che la forma “a esiste” sia impropria non è cogente, dal momento che è possibile sempre associare ad un nome una descrizione (altrimenti il nome stesso non si potrebbe attribuire) e dunque, tramite questa, costruire frasi come “Napoleone è effettivamente esistito” oppure “Dio esiste”, Infine “qualcosa di questa o quella sorta” forse non è immediatamente un nome proprio, ma non si può nemmeno identificare sic et simpliciter con un predicato tipo “rosso”, ma rappresenta una categoria intermedia, su cui è necessario un approfondimento. Di sicuro la tesi di Carnap però è troppo sbrigativa. Per quel che riguarda la critica a Descartes, Carnap trascura il fatto che non si tratta di una mera deduzione di “Io esisto” da “Io penso” (giacché è vero che dall’atto del pensare si deduce che esiste qualcosa che pensa), ma dalla riflessione su chi sia colui che dubita circa l’esistenza dell’Io. Ma anche questa aporia è troppo complessa per essere risolta in poche battute, come presume di fare Carnap né può essere considerata un motivo valido per tacciare la metafisica di insensatezza, quanto piuttosto una ragione per approfondire l’argomento di Descartes, magari anche con l’aiuto degli strumenti analitici che Carnap ha contribuito ad approntare (oggi non si può pensare di analizzare un argomento del genere senza approfondire il tema degli indicali). L’ultima critica che Carnap fa ad alcuni ragionamenti metafisici è quella che tali ragionamenti violano la teoria dei tipi (ad esempio attribuendo proprietà ad altre proprietà etc.). In realtà a tal 506 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture proposito non si sa se la teoria dei tipi sia la miglior soluzione del problema delle antinomie logiche, né se essa può essere estesa anche al cosiddetto linguaggio naturale, con effetti che in Carnap sembrano anche più restrittivi della classica teoria dei tipi. Quindi anche in questo contesto la critica carnapiana non sembra essere decisiva. Al di là di tutto, queste critiche di Carnap, più che potersi collegare con la teoria dell’insensatezza della metafisica, sono una sequenza di argomentazioni che possono stare benissimo all’interno di una normale critica filosofica ad alcuni concetti e/o dimostrazioni della metafisica stessa. E’Carnap che ideologicamente vuole dare ad esse una valenza complessiva, diversa e più radicale. Passiamo infine alla spiegazione del fatto che molti uomini nel corso della storia hanno usato concetti della metafisica pensando di comprendere quel che essi dicevano o scrivevano. Quest’ultima tesi di Carnap è altrettanto problematica: in primo luogo dire che l’uso metaforico di un termine gli toglie senso significa tarpare le ali alle facoltà conoscitive che spesso presiedono alla formazione delle ipotesi scientifiche e delle invenzioni intellettuali. In secondo luogo, la ricostruzione che egli fa della storia del mito e della metafisica è piuttosto semplicistica. In terzo luogo, il sentimento della vita rimane un concetto esplicativo piuttosto vago, e la sua distinzione dalla teoria impedisce proprio quella spiegazione sul ruolo rappresentativo svolto da quelle che dovrebbero essere solo espressioni emotive. In quarto luogo, la concezione rozza che sembra avere dell’arte (completamente separata dalle funzioni teoretiche) ricorda la più raffinata concezione crociana, che tuttavia tanto è stata criticata da intere generazioni di studiosi di letteratura ed alla fine abbandonata dal suo stesso ideatore; l’artista tra l’altro non crediamo neghi che la sua opera abbia un rapporto con una certa accezione di verità. In quinto luogo, non si capisce come delle emissioni vocali possano esprimere qualcosa senza avere un senso, né si intende come qualsiasi uso pragmatico del linguaggio non sia collegabile ad una descrizione di uno stato di cose possibile o reale. Carnap a tal proposito nega in questi passi contenuto teoretico alla metafisica, ma prima egli voleva negare un qualsiasi significato ad essa: a nostro parere, per poter spiegare il successo della metafisica, Carnap è costretto a sfumare implicitamente la portata della sua critica e ad accostarsi ad un più generico empirismo antimetafisico (che cioè denuncia la falsità, ma non l’insensatezza, della metafisica). Infine Carnap non spiega perché la metafisica debba essere un miscuglio e non possa essere una sintesi che metta insieme le istanze conoscitive della scienza e quelle emotive dell’arte, a meno che non voglia sostenere una tesi irrealistica come quella della distinzione netta tra dimensione conoscitiva e dimensione esistenziale ed emozionale della vita umana. Volendo concludere questa analisi critica, Carnap ed i neopositivisti hanno buttato un grande sasso nella piccionaia della filosofia. Tuttavia la loro critica si rivela, ad un’analisi più approfondita, discutibile nei presupposti, sbrigativa nell’analisi, superficiale nelle conclusioni. Da essa noi prendiamo l’esigenza, per chi voglia fare filosofia ed anche per l’aspirante metafisico, di coniugare alla ricchezza ermeneutica il rigore dell’analisi logico-linguistica. Ma se togliamo questi stimoli costruttivi (che sono importanti), quel che rimane è una sorta di circolare interna ad uso degli aderenti al movimento neopositivista al fine di selezionare i contenuti teoretici da analizzare. 507 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture CAUSALITY IN GAZZALI AND HUME'S VIEW Hossein Norouzi Islamic Azad University of Shabestar branch The problem of causality is regarded as one of the primary issues a first problem of human Thought. As if history of causality is lengthened as long as history of humanity. Ancient Humans sacrificed so as to reduce the god wrath, because they viewed unnatural and unhappy events including flood, earthquakes, storms and so on as a result of gods' wrath for this reason they accepted causal relation in the background of their thought. Causality had no doubt been as a practical every day life and ordinary principle, before being discussed at the sphere of theoretical and intellectual discourse of Thinkers. Theoretical discussions of causality, begins systematically with Aristotel. Aristotel as an architect took materials from previous philosophers and formed causality with his own additions and then affected all philosophers especially Islamic ones. In the present century most philosophers insist that the very concept of causality is invalid and has anthropomorphic roots because there is the tendency since early periods of old time that human reflects his feeling on natural1. Gazzali, his view on causality must be studied at the realm of Ashari theology in the Islamic world. Primary tendency of Ashari theologians was the denial of causality and among previous old theologians, only Moamar Eibad Alsalmi accepted causal relation between objects and accidents2. Gazzali refused causality for following reasons 1 - Absolute power of god. In Gazzali's view the acceptance of causal relation contrasts with monotheism. Gazzali insists that there is one cause in the world and that cause is God. The presupposition of Gazzali is that the causal relation is in opposition to action of monotheism and when we have to select one of them, we must sacrifice the other 2 - Dependence upon God. According to Gazzali dependence upon God is weakened for two reasons. Believing in the activity of inanimate objects and freedom of human being. In his view both of these are corrupted because all animals and humans are under. Sovereignty of God, as a pen in the hand of writer in this way discussing. Dependence on God, Gazzali includes negation of activity from the natural things in the concept of dependence to God. 3 - Miracles. One of the reasons that lead Gazzali to deny causality is the doctrine of miracle3. In Gazzali's view miracle relates to God's will and in fact the actor of miracle, is immediate will of God. 1 Nap kar, introduction to philosophy of science, farsi translated by Yousef Afifi, Nilofar pub page 121. 2 Shahrestani, Mohammad Ibn AbdolKarim, almellal va Alnehar, dar Alsoror pub page 35. 3 Fakhry Majid a short introduction to Islamic theology and mysticism one world Oxford 1996 , page 72 509 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture In other words, if someone believes that the fire necessarily burns, then he cannot believe that prophet Ibrahim is dropped in fire. But doesn’t burn in other words Gazzali denies any causal relations so as to open the route for the miraculous intervention of God in the natural course of nature. Gazzali' s argument against causality. Gazzali's critic to causality is discussed from two views. First, critics that he puts forward to philosophical causality, Then critics that he puts forward to necessary connection of causality. His presupposition in the denial of philosophical causality is that cause or agent or actor has always knowledge and since natural things have no knowledge, they cannot be called as agent or cause. This presupposition of Gazzali has been seen in the works of Bagglani. In rejecting natural causality he says that heat and cold and so on are accidents and in is impossible that accidents do something. For because or agent must be living and learned and powerful and willful and since accidents have none of these characteristics they are not agents4. In the same way Gazzali in denying philosophical causality says that for example fire cannot be an agent, for it is an inanimate object and inanimate objects have no actions, due to the fact that they haven't any knowledge and awareness5. Gazzali's denial of necessary connection between cause and effect. Gazzali says that when two events frequently follow each other this leads to the establishment of a subjective habit in our minds and we by habit establish objectively a necessary connection between these two events6. But pure repetition and succession and consequently establishment of mental and subjective habit does not imply that we judge to necessary objective connection between two events. What is inferred from Gazzali's words is that he accepts necessary connection between two events at the content of knowledge, but he does not accept this connection at ontological contexts. In Gazzali's view necessary connection is verified where we can infer from verification of one thing, verification of another thing and from the negation of one thing the negation of another one7. For example if this proposition is true that all A are B, then this is also true that some B are A. In fact simple conversion is logical consequence of original proposition. In other words, there is necessary connection between premises and conclusion in the syllogism. For this reason, on the basis of correctness or incorrectness of premises we can infer that conclusion is true or false. This kind of necessity cannot be found in the natural world and between Natural phenomena. Because in the miraculous events fire as a cause is observable but the act of burring does not occur. The idea of necessity is valid only at the realm of mathematics and logical relation and necessity has no place at the sphere of natural relations8. The words of Gazzali can be summarized as following: 1. There are two spheres of thought and sphere of nature. 4 Bagglani Mohammad Ibn Tayyeb , Dar AlFek Al Arabi pub , page 54 5 Gazzali's AboHamed Mohammad, Tohafat Al Falasafe Maktabate Alhelal pub page 194. 6 Dubor ,t, History of Philosophy in Islam , farsi translated by Abbas Shogi, Ataei pub page 170 7 Tahafat AlFalasafe , page 1 8 Nasr, Seyyed Hossein and Oliver leaman, History of Islamic philosophy, Routledge, London and New York, page 263. 510 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture 2. The necessary connection is valid in the realm of thought and science such as mathematics and logic. 3. There is only continuity of two events and consequently contingent relation in the sphere of nature. 4. The sigh of necessary connection is that verification and negation of something leads to verification and negation of another one. The miracle appears in the natural world and it opposes necessary connection. Divine causality to human beings Divine causality to human being can be studied from two points. First in can be Studied in respect to existence of human beings and in respect of their actions. It must be said that human being's are among other being's of world, and so all Other beings need divine cause and agent in respect to their original and Continuous creation, as human being's have this characteristics. Important words of theologians concerning divine causality is about human's action and acquisition doctrine. Acquisition doctrine is the doctrine which Ashaere theologians formulated it against radical determinists and Motazale. According to determinists only God is the cause or agent of action and humans have no role in their actions. Conversely Motazele regarded only humans as causes of their actions and considered no role for God in the human's actions Abol Hasan Ashari by Acquisition doctrine tried to retrain God's and human role in the human's action. According to him, human has contingent power. Since the power is accident and accidents don’t survive at two moments and are recreated continually by God. For this reason this power is regarded as contingent and contingent power has no effect in creating action when man will san action, God creates it in man. Creator who has pre-eternal power, creates the action and man with his contingent power, acquires it9. After Abolhassan Ashari who presented acquisition doctrine in the determinate form, Abobakr Baglani, gave reasonable account of acquisition doctrine. In Bahlani's view God creates the genus of action and man forms specie of action. For example God creates the essence of movement and man forms the species of movement which is other than the essence of movement. One God created action without form, but man formed it with different forms, for example man sat, stood up, kept fast, prayed and so on10. In Gazzali's view, man before doing something has no power for it. And when he is going to do something God creates power in him. He says, the role of man's power, is the role of contiguity, because when man's power appears, God creates the action. In his view effect and movement and so on all are accidents and matters have no role in transmitting them to each other and real cause and agent of effect and movement and other accidents is only one God. 9 Ashari , Abol Hassan , Maghalatol Islamiien Va Ekhtelafol Mossalin page 96. 10 Al Mellal Va Al Nehal , Vol1 page 134. 511 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Causality in Hume's view David Hume is regarded as one of the greatest empiricist philosopher of England. He was more empiricist than lock and Berkley. Lock established Empiricism and explained his epistemology on the basis of existence of substance and God. Berkley, other empiricist philosopher, rejected material substance, but he accepted mental substance and God and souls. But Hume declared that on the basis of empiricism lock's material substance and Berkley's mental substance are meaningless, because our sensory experience doesn't lead us to them. Mind as a cognitive agent is a kind of Idea that has empirical origin. But it falsely is identified with things as "I" and mental substance11. Hume, is more radical than lock and Berkeley because there are some Metaphysical concepts such as mind, God and substance in their empiricism. But Hume radically rejected these concepts. Hume's philosophy as a whole is based on two thing. First, Hume's microscopic and second Hume's fork. Hume's microscopic is that we firs separate sensory impression from idea. and then divide complex idea into simple component and trace vague ideas to their impressionable origin. If one word cannot show its impression arising from it, then that word is meaning less and must be cut and delivered to Occam's razor. Hume's fork refers to relations of Ideas and matters of fact to and separate this two category, and this is called Hume's fork. The origin Idea of causality If must be said that causality has prominent place in the philosophy of Hume. So that he provided a summary of his philosophy and focused every time on the causality. In discussion of causality, Hume on the basis of his epistemological approach insisted on the origin of the idea of causality. Because complete understanding of every idea is possible only when the origin of that idea is completely understood and its first impression is inquired12. Hume researches the origin of the idea of causality in the relation between things and events, and tries to reject rationalistic concepts in the discussion of causality13. And on this basis he presents concerning the origin of the idea of causality an account which is called reductive. According to Hume idea of causality is complex idea which is divided in its components. Causality component includes in temporal succession and spatial contiguity and necessary connection. Temporal succession and spatial contiguity are observable, but necessary connection cannot be observed. Casual relation is not based only on temporal succession and spatial contiguity, but permanent continuity which is origin of necessary connection. Produces the idea of causality. The meaning of temporal precedence of cause to effect is that if one event such as A is supposed, after A other event such as B permanently appears. Spatial contiguity is also other component of causality. It seems that Hume includes in spatial contiguity in the idea of causality in order to accept Newton physics and reject the effect by distance. Necessary connection is primary component of the idea of causality. If Hume’s attitude to causality is the most important character of his philosophy, his account of the necessary connection 11 Kant , Karl Yaspers , Farsi translated by Naghib Zade , Tahori pub , page 93 12 Treatise , page 74 13 Anthony Harrison , Barbet , Mastering Philosophy , Macmillan 1990 page 93 512 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture is essential part of his approach to causality. When he discusses about necessary connection, he omits concepts such as power, force, energy and effectiveness and says that such concepts must not have any place in the sphere of causality. In the same way he rejects that one can research the origin of the idea of necessary connection in the idea of GOD and against all of philosopher, he insists that will, cannot be the origin of the idea of necessary connection. Hume’s account of origin of necessary connection is complex and difficult. In his view the idea of necessary connection includes in following components. 1. Constant conjunction of similar events 2. Habit 3. Firm determination of mind Two events that are continuous in the man’s experience leads to association. In other words, our experience of constant conjunction between two events establish subjective connection between ideas of two events. This connection is association which is established only between our perceptions and cannot be attributed to objective matters.This subjective connection is attributed to nature by us. In Hume's view, the idea of necessary connection must be derived from impression and the only impression which can be the origin of the idea of necessary connection is that intense propensity created by habit in order to imagine from one event, it’s constant concomitant. After we repeated observed similarity of relation between two events, immediately, we feel firm determination of mind that passes from one event to its constant concomitant. This firm determination of mind which is new internal impression is regarded as the origin of the idea of necessary connection. This impression extends gradually to the objective things, because mind likes firmly to extend its content to objective things. The foundation of the origin of the idea of the necessary connection might be summarized as following: 1. One who has never seen constant conjunction between two similar events , cannot have any idea1.of necessity, Ibid , page 72 - 73 2. All ideas are derived from impression that is to say from vivid perceptions. 3. Repeatins of similar cases create firm determination in mind and the idea of necessary is copy of firm determination of mind. a. Man has intense propensity to extend the idea of necessary connection to external things. Gazzali's effect on Hume on the discussion of causality. On the direct effect of Gazzali on Hume, one cannot certainly say anything, but it is possible that Hume studying Ibn Roshd's, works have known Gazzali's thought on causality. The only witness is that Hume in the natural history of religion points directly to Ibn Roshd, but Hume's reach to translated works of Gazzali and Ibn Roshd cannot easily be discovered. Sphere of Gazzali's and Hume's discussion on causality Gazzali rejects causality in the material world and says that cause must have knowledge and awareness and since there are no knowledge and awareness in the natural world any effect cannot be attributed to matters, and only cause of the world, is God and angels, but on the basis of Hume's philosophical system, there is no place for supernatural world and its effect on natural world. 513 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Gazzali's and Hume's motives in denial of causality Gazzali denies causality in order to open the way for miracles. His presupposition is that miracles is contradiction of causal necessity and must be rejected one of them. Gazzal: with regards to sincerely and lovely devotion and religious concern, accepts miracles so as to omit causal necessity from his theological thinking but it seems that the only motive of Hume for rejecting causality is, his philosophical foundations. In rejecting causality, he goes the way that is compatible with his philosophical principles. On the basis of empirical philosophy of Hume, sensory impression is the only origin of perception. And since causality has no sensory origin it has no place in his philosophical framework. Gazzali views causality from Theological perspective and his denial is theological, but Hume views it from philosophical point and his denial is natural implication of his philosophy. Gazzali's and Hume's view on the causal necessity In discussion of causal relation, Gazzali, denies this relation in the natural world and limits necessity only to the realm of mathematics and logic. In his view necessary relation is where from the truth or falseness of proposition we can infer truth or falseness of other propositions. For example on the basis of truth of original proposition we can infer the truth of it's simple conversion, but there is no necessity in the natural world. Hume regards contradiction as a criterion of necessity, that is to say, the necessity is where negation of something leads to contradiction for example negation of necessary relation between original proposition and it's simple conversion reads to contradiction in fact both Hume and Gazzali, accept logical necessity, but reject philosophical necessity. Some thinkers say that since Gazzali and Hume accept necessary relation between true premises and conclusion and consequently rational reasoning, they accept necessity, but those thinkers are mistaken because both Gazzali and Hume accept necessity in the sphere of sciences such as mathematic and logic and reject only philosophical necessity. Gazzali's approach to causality is onto logical He don’t pay attention to the extent of man's knowledge and mental activity and he claims that causal relation I compatible with the universality of God's will and power and this is onto logical approach, but Hume's attitude, is epistemological. Most of Hume's discussions concerning causality, such as the definition of causality, the origin of idea of causality, the original necessary connection are epistemological. On the basis of this framework, Hume for explanation of causality recourse to mental habit, say, association and Gazzali for explanation of causality, and uniformity of causality, explanation of causality, and uniformity of nature recourse to divine habit. 514 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture REFRENCIS [1]. Anthony Harrison, Barbet, Mastering Philosophy, Macmillan 1990. [2]. Ashari, Abol Hassan, Maghalatol Islamiien Va Ekhtelafol Mossalin. [3]. Bagglani Mohammad Ibn Tayyeb , Dar AlFek Al Arabi pub, page 54. [4]. Dubor ,t, History of Philosophy in Islam , farsi translated by Abbas Shogi, Ataei pub [5]. Fakhry Majid, a short introduction to Islamic theology and mysticism one world, Oxford 1996. [6]. Gazzali's AboHamed Mohammad, Tohafat Al Falasafe Maktabate Alhelal pub. [7]. Hume David, a Treatise of Human nature Analytical index by J.A Selby Bigge Clarecdon press Oxford. [8]. Karl Yaspers , Kant , Farsi translated by Naghib Zade , Tahori pub , page 93. [9]. Nap kar, introduction to philosophy of science, farsi translated by Yousef Afifi, Nilofar pub. [10]. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein and Oliver Ieaman , History of Islamic philosophy, Routledge, London and NewYork. [11]. Shahrestani, Mohammad Ibn AbdolKarim, almellal va Alnehar, dar Alsoror pub. 515 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture LA METAFISICA ANTROPICA:UOMO CENTRO DELL’ASCOLTO Annalisa Noziglia “Il silenzio mi dice… Il silenzio comunica, mi comunica. Il silenzio mi comunica l’essenziale”1. E’ partendo da queste parole di Tomaso Bugossi che ci inseriamo appieno nel pensare antropico e ci predisponiamo al disvelamento di quell’evidenza velata di cui tutti noi cristiani siamo testimoni. In un mondo che ama parlare, che vive nel caos di un chiacchierio senza senso, nel quale si può parlare intere giornate senza dire niente, riteniamo che sia necessario recuperare il valore del silenzio, quell’istante della propria interiorità nel quale scocca quella scintilla che mi rende capace di inscrivermi in quel percorso in cui “l’essenziale mi dice essere essenziale”. Inserirsi in un percorso metafisico significa avere il coraggio di riconoscersi persone, uomini e donne inseriti in un progetto d’amore, persone erette che vivono ed esistono concretamente nel mondo sempre in tensione verso Dio, nostro principio e fine. Porre la metafisica al di fuori di questa intima relazione significa snaturarne la sua più profonda essenza, in quanto, eliminare Dio dalla vita dell’uomo significa obliare l’uomo e viceversa, in questa maniera non solo la persona viene depotenziata a bios ma viene addirittura posta al di sotto del mondo della vita e abbandonata tra le cose della natura che passivamente subiscono gli accidenti del mondo. Porsi in quest’ottica è distruggere la metafisica e quindi il filosofare dato che la filosofia è metafisica o non è, ma proseguire su questa strada significa soprattutto distruggere la persona e con essa l’ordine cosmico nel quale è stata sapienzialmente posta come ponte relazionale tra Dio e il mondo. Ecco quindi che la necessità prioritaria del nostro caotico oggi è quella di rimettere ordine all’interno della nostra esistenza, è più che mai necessario ricostruire la nostra integrità metafisica e questo lo possiamo fare soltanto se ci predisponiamo all’ascolto della Parola, Parola che non è depotenziata a termine perché traboccante di significato, Parola antica e sempre nuova capace di rinvigorire la nostra interiorità: “l’essenziale è la luce, scrive Bugossi, luce che mi spoglia, che mi pone nudo di fronte a quello che per me è essenziale. La mia nudità è l’assenza di pre-giudizi. Nudo mi pongo dinnanzi a Colui che si è fatto nudo, nudo per farmi comprendere che dalla spoliazione inizia il mio percorso”2. Filosofia è amore, atto di stupore e di meraviglia di cui il divino deve essere riconosciuto come l’essenzialità, il suo sostanziale nutrimento ed evento disvelante. Filosofia è desiderio di speranza e profondo desiderio di esistenza, è quel desiderare che eleva l’uomo antropico all’asse della verticalità, verso la spirale della trascendenza. E’ il desiderare l’inesorabile punto di partenza della metafisica antropica, quel desiderare che spalanca l’uomo all’infinito, il desiderare è il momento della trascendenza, momento poietico che permette all’uomo di aprirsi creativo nella sua più profonda intimità dello spirito. Parlare di volontà sarebbe rinchiudersi nella propria finitudine, il volere è solo di Dio e l’uomo che vuole abbandonare il proprio statuto ontologico e divenire da un essere desiderante in essere volente si fa assoluto, sciolto da Dio, abbandonando così la possibilità di trascendere e di svolgersi in una persona concreta 1 T. BUGOSSI, L’Evidente velato. Metafisica antropica ed ermeneutica, Colors Edizioni, Genova, 1999, p. 7. 2 Ibd., p. 7. 517 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture esistente in Dio. L’uomo che vuole è quell’uomo che si fa da solo, di baconiana memoria, è colui che pretende di essere il legislatore indiscusso dell’universo, è l’uomo che decide per la propria autodistruzione e per la distruzione del mondo intorno a lui. La lacerazione dell'uomo porta inevitabilmente alla lacerazione dell'universo. Ben diversa è la struttura dell’uomo antropico che si identifica in colui che arde, che brucia dal desiderio e nel pieno rispetto del suo statuto ontologico, in armonia con il Creatore e il creato vive nel mondo come testimone dell’Amore di Dio, sempre anelando a quell’ascesi sull’asse della verticale che lo può trasfigurare già in questa vita. “L’uomo non è esperienza, non è puro dato fenomenico. L’uomo fa esperienza e la prima esperienza che fa è il pervenire alla consapevolezza del proprio essere e questa è una tematica che si radica nell’interiorità. E’ il desiderio, scrive Bugossi, la molla che muove l’atto iniziale della ricerca. L’uomo si percepisce come sintesi, come sintesi vivente, sintesi data dalla capacità di sentire, … di organizzare, … di intuire, … di agire, … di contemplare”3. Ci sembra quindi opportuno ricordare che oggi è necessario recuperare questa concezione della persona in quanto essendo l’uomo ridotto ad una somma dimensioni è tendenza comune quella di ridurre i discorsi a psicologismi o alla pura analisi del dato cadendo così in un fenomenologismo che è indiscusso portatore di squilibrio e lacerazione: “L’uomo antropico è unità per le sue poliedriche sfaccettature: è attività spirituale”, l’uomo antropico agisce nello spirito e per questo è capace di quell’agire capace di trasformare il deserto in un giardino; egli si pone nell’agire e non nel fare di quell’homo faber artefice sia del mondo che di se stesso, l’uomo dell’aut-aut, uomo che rifiuta l’armonia dell’unità nella molteplicità. Pregnanti di significato, all’interno del nostro dire sono ancora una volta le parole del filosofo genovese: “L’ordine divino e l’ordine umano si rispecchiano in una alternanza filosofica e ontologica e, analogamente, ogni ente creato si relaziona con gli altri enti e inizia, in quanto essere, l’azione che viene agita in modo individuato, personalizzato. L’azione in sé e l’azione coniugativi dell’essere fa risultare l’ordine umano autonomo e dipendente da quello divino e partecipante di questo. L’azione fa risultare la legge dell’ordine divino che è quello dell’amore che governa anche, per analogia, quello umano in quanto analogia di enti intelligenti. L’amore fa partecipare il finito dell’infinito nell’allineamento determinativo del primo perché ogni creatura intelligente possa partecipare sino alla presenza della Parola (Idea)”4. Da questo passo emerge quindi la fondamentale importanza della relazione, di un dialogo amoroso tra Dio, l’uomo e il creato, dialogo che si istituisce però all’interno di un precisissimo ordine che vede l’uomo come il ponte tra il Creatore e il creato dialogande ed esistente in relazione con il suo principio e il suo fine. Testimoniare questo profondissimo dialogo è il più alto compito di ogni persona. “Il fine dell’uomo, scrive Bugossi, non è quello di essere fine a se stesso; il nostro agire si deve iscrivere in una prospettiva di fondamento, nel contesto di contemplazione- azione, azione che a sua volta è contemplazione. Questo è il cardine della metafisica antropica, di quella metafisica che vede l’uomo proteso all’azione, ma a quell’azione che è preceduta e radicata nella contemplazione dell’immutabilità e a cui poi fa liberamente ritorno”5. E’ l’uomo della contempla-azione, uomo che come già Eraclito insegnava ha innanzitutto indagato se stesso 6 , uomo del pensiero operante e dell’agire contemplante, uomo dell’inter-relazione che si nutre della feconda parola di Agostino: “… in te ipsum redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas”, un rientrare nella propria intimità per irradiare nel mondo la Luce che porta dentro di sé, “questa unità dell’uomo interiore, sottolinea ancora Bugossi, è immagine di Dio: Dio è l’Essere, l’uomo riceve l’essere … Dio è la Verità, l’uomo è soggetto conoscente; Dio è la volontà 3 T. BUGOSSI, Filosofia e comunicazione, Colors Edizioni, Genova, 1998, p. 35. 4 T. BUGOSSI, Dall’oblio al riconoscimento saggio su Heidegger, Studio Editoriale di Cultura, Genova, 1990, pp. 68-69. 5 T. BUGOSSI, L’Evidente velato. Metafisica antropica ed ermeneutica, op. cit., p. 32. 6 ERACLITO, Frammento 124. 518 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture creatrice, l’uomo è lo spirito capace di desiderare”7. E’ quindi a partire dalla triade contemplare – agire- contemperare che la persona si svolge nel mondo nella pena consapevolezza della sua profonda essenza e nell’integralità di quella Parola che pota nella sua interiorità. La parola è dunque momento fondativo in quanto dopo aver contemplato nel silenzio della mia interiorità essa si svolge in “strumento” di verità: “Parlo nel momento che contemplo, scrive Bugossi, perché fisso il mio “sguardo” nell’eternità del Vero: parlo perché brucio dentro”8. In questo contesto la parola non è più la sofistica dell’odierno neoprotagorismo in cui viviamo, ma è momento decisivo del mio io che, dopo aver recepito la Luce della Verità, si svolge in testimonianza vivente, si fa martire della Verità. Metafisica antropica significa fedeltà a Dio e fiducia nella sua opera, significa svolgersi in concreatori, perché all’uomo è dato di vigilare sull’ordine e sull’equilibrio della creazione. L’uomo antropico ha sete di infinito, ed è nella contemplazione silenziosa che comprende per comprendersi, egli è il “centro dell’ascolto”; uomo inquieto che sino al termine della sua esistenza terrena si dispone e si predispone alla ricerca di quel Dio che è Amore, nel suo essere perfetta insessione di Verità, Bellezza e Bene. La centralità dell’io, della persona eretta, è dunque indiscutibile: “nessun rotolamento verso la X, verso l’incognita, verso il nichilismo; lo statuto ontologico dell’uomo lo posiziona in questa centralità: l’uomo, lo ripetiamo, è centro dell’ascolto. Ascolta per sapersi, atto suo culminante, che in quanto tale deve attraversate il conoscersi e il comprendersi. La verità investe quindi l’interezza dell’uomo, quell’uomo che non si contrappone al suo “oggetto”, che non vuole disporne, che così facendo, si inserisce in quel contesto che porta all’armonia dell’unità, non alla lacerazione dell’unicità”9. E’ quindi nell’ascolto che l’uomo riscopre il suo mistero e il Mistero, è nell’istante del dialogo interiore che si scopre enigma e si dispone in quel faticoso cammino che a partire dalla domanda “Chi sono io?” lo porterà in sintonia con se stesso col mondo e con Dio: “l’enigma uomo si disvela nel mistero dell’Essere, asserisce Bugossi, in questo senso il “sapersi”apre al sapere”10 e quindi alla ricerca, a quell’inquieta ricerca che apre allo stupore della scoperta e alla meraviglia del dono e della carità. Già Eraclito asseriva: “conoscere l’immediatezza è eccellenza suprema, e sapienza è dire e agire cose vere, intendendo secondo l’origine”11, eccellenza suprema è dunque la piena armonia tra la parola e l’azione, il pensiero e l’esistenza, in conformità con l’origine, con la suprema saggezza e sapienza. Tali conoscenza e sapienza sono indubbiamente il frutto dell’ascolto, di un tendere che è un intendere che è matrice di tutta la quiete dell’universo, a questo stato di quiete si accede solo tramite la contempla-azione solo l’uomo che ha indagato la propria interiorità nella sua più profonda intimità esiste nell’esperienza più profonda della conoscenza che lo trasforma in persona, nell’uomo nuovo avvolto nella Luce della resurrezione. L’uomo antropico è sintesi dell’homo rationalis e dell’homo orans .Leggiamo nell’enciclica Fides et ratio: “La ragione e la fede, non possono essere separate senza che venga meno per l’uomo la possibilità di conoscere in modo adeguato se stesso, il mondo e Dio. Non ha dunque motivo di esistere competitività alcuna tra la ragione e la fede : l’una è nell’altra, e ciascuna ha un suo spazio proprio di realizzazione”12, non esiste infatti un atto della ragione che non sia sostenuto dalla fede né un atto di fede che non sia appoggiato dalla ragione, diversamente l’uomo non sarebbe che un burattino nelle mani di uno squallidi razionalismo o di un altrettanto squallido fideismo, (ricordiamo, per inciso, che tutti gli ismi sono indici di negatività in quanto promuovono la lacerazione della persona, e sono portatori di quella frammentarietà che depotenzia l’uomo ad una 7 T. BUGOSSI, La formazione antropica, Colors Edizioni, Genova, 2003, p. 35. 8 Ibd., p. 20. 9 Ibd., p. 25. 10 T. BUGOSSI, L’Evidente velato. Metafisica antropica ed ermeneutica, op. cit., p. 25. 11 ERACLITO, Frammento 76. 12 GIOVANNI PAOLO II, Fides et ratio, 16,9. 519 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture somma di dimensioni a discapito di quella sintesi che la metafisica antropica si propone di diffondere). La nostra metafisica si riconosce perfettamente nella regola benedettina dell’orat et laborat, in quanto riconosce la persona come preghiera vivente nel suo operare quotidiano: l’uomo antropico è il pellegrino dell’amore e colui che in ogni suo atto prega e che in ogni sua sosta contempla: “è viator, un essere, itinerante volto alla visione beatifica di Dio”13. Il fulcro mistico della metafisica antropica è la contempla-azione ove il contemplare è il momento del dialogo e dell’ascolto, il momento in cui lo Spirito illumina il cuore e la mente; l’agire è invece il momento del dono, la condivisione dei frutti nati dal fecondo dialogo con Dio, è l’azione della potenza dello Spirito che ci fa coraggiosi testimoni della Parola nel mondo, in una implicanza e compresenza di fede e ragione. “De donde a esta tal alma, scrive S. Giovanni della Croce, le conviene no hacer aquí caso que se le pierdan las operaciones de las potencias; antes ha de gustar que se le pierdan presto, porque, no estorbando la operación de la contemplacóinfusa que va Dios dando, con más abundancia pacífica la recebia, y dé lugar a que arda y se encienda en el espíritu el amor que esta oscura y secreta contemplación trae consigo y pega al alma. Porque la contemplación no es otra cosa que infusiósecreta, pacífica y amorosa de Dios, que, si la dan lugar, infama al alma en espíritu de amor, según ella da a entender en el verso seguente, es a saber: con ansias en amores inflamada”14. Lasciarsi docilmente guidare ed accompagnare dallo Spirito è una delle più importanti attività dell’uomo antropico, lo Spirito Santo è infatti Colui che rende operante la nostra fede in piena sintonia con la nostra ragione, è l’azione dello Spirito che ci rende capaci di leggere tra le righe di agire secondo una fedele ermeneutica della Parola. “L’ermeneutica, scrive Bugossi, è esplorazione in quanto vado alla ricerca del conoscere, attraverso la conoscenza arriverò alla “voce” (il ritorno alla casa del Padre avviene attraverso il percorso conoscitivo)”15, essa “non soltanto chiarisce e definisce ciò che il testo dice, quanto piuttosto mette in evidenza quello che il testo non dice o meglio vuole scoprire l’unità della verità che il testo ci propone: unità di stupore e di meraviglia, quello stupore e quella meraviglia che ci prefigura quello che merita essere pensato e quello che merita essere pensato dà da pensare”16. La metafisica antropica ha quindi l’obbiettivo di riportare l’uomo a pensare, si desidera che nuovamente la persona partendo dalla domanda chi sono io si ponga delle domande e tenti di dare delle risposte, il cristiano non è un asceta che si trova immobile in una condizione di isolamento, questa condizione non fa per lui! Il cristiano vive attivamente nel mondo, esiste a trecentosessanta gradi! La condizione mistica dell’uomo è quindi il momento fondamentale in cui la persona dopo essersi raccolta in se stessa contempla il mistero e scopre il suo enigma, la sua sacralità e la sua trascendenza. “… quanto è lungo il percorso per arrivare a Te, mio Dio: acqua pura e cristallina, più bevo, più ho sete; recita un passo del filosofo genovese, mentre sazi la mia sete, il mio essere brucia per Te, arde e ho nuovamente sete. Il mio essere parla per Te e con Te, ma nel nostro dialogo il mondo è presente: il mondo si inserisce nel dialogo. Sono nel mondo, capisco che è la mia casa, casa che devo contribuire a ricomporre. La “parola”crea, il mio essere edifica, costruisce. L’edificio che costruisco è la mia abitazione, non il mio tempio, il mio tempio sei Tu, Signore. Io vivo nel mondo, ma la tua “ombra” alberga in me. Ovunque posso albergare perché il mondo è la mia casa”17. Il mistero penetra la persona e la vivifica, il soffio di Dio abita nell’uomo e l’uomo esiste in Dio e per Dio. L’uomo non è mai solo in quanto è innanzitutto in dinamica relazione con Dio e con se 13 T. BUGOSSI, Dialogo e organicità del sapere, Colors Edizioni, Genova, 2002, p. 23. 14 S. JUAN DE LA CRUZ, Subida del Monte Carmelo y noche oscura, Biblioteca de autores cristianos, Madrid MCMLXXIII, L.1. C. 10-6, p. 635. 15 Ibd., p. 29. 16 Ibd., p. 50. 17 T. BUGOSSI, L’Evidente velato. Metafisica antropica ed ermeneutica, op. cit, p. 39. 520 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture stesso, il Rosmini direbbe che l’uomo è “socius” e “diritto sussistente” e in questa condizione è poi in profonda relazione con i suoi fratelli e il mondo. Questa relazione e dialogicità tra Dio e la persona è fondamentale ma come ci ricorda Benedetto XVI nella sua enciclica Deus Caritas est: “la “mistica” del Sacramento ha un carattere sociale, perché nella comunione sacramentale io vengo unito al Signore … L’unione con Cristo è allo stesso tempo unione con tutti gli altri ai quali egli si dona. … Diventiamo “un solo corpo”, fusi insieme in un'unica esistenza. … Un’Eucarestia che non si traduca in amore concretamente praticato è in se stessa frammentata”18. Se il cristiano è testimonianza vivente è chiaro che dopo aver contemplato e dopo essersi rifocillato di quella mistica luce che lo sostanzia deve agire e diffondere nel mondo, ai suoi fratelli, la propria esperienza, deve portare l’esistenza nel mondo. Questa è la carità, il dono dello spirito, questo è il comandamento nuovo lasciatoci in eredità da Cristo: “Sotto l’unico Dio Padre, sono tutti parenti coloro che lo amano e fanno la sua volontà, scrive Agostino, tra di loro poi essi sono l’uno per l’altro padri quando si aiutano, figli quando si ubbidiscono reciprocamente e soprattutto fratelli, perché l’unico Padre con il suo testamento li chiama ad un'unica eredità”19. Ecco quindi che il valore mistico della persona si fa universale nella carità, nel momento della condivisione cosciente in cui la persona che esiste nella sua sintesi di spirito e corpo, si fa dono prezioso per i fratelli, dopo aver tentato la risposta di quel chi sono io che è domanda fondante per ogni essere umano che desidera scoprire la sua analogia e l’intima relazione che procede tra la SS. Trinità e la sua intimità, relazione che lo rende capace di contemplare “con la mente l’immutabile verità”20. Come forse ormai sarà chiaro la nostra metafisica antropica, pensiero in cui io mi identifico totalmente e che pertanto faccio mio con la speranza che non sia solo un astratto pensare ma che sia un pensare concreto testimoniato con la mia esistenza, ha origini molto lontane; si nutre con la perennità del vero e si alimenta col fecondo dire di tutti quei pensatori che nel lungo percorso del filosofare si sono fatti testimoni della Verità, della Bellezza e del Bene. Siamo più che coscienti che il cammino da intraprendere è arduo e faticoso: la metafisica antropica apre al senso della vita e dell’esistenza, rinsalda quell’ordine ontologico, e quell’armonia cosmologica indispensabili per ricomporre l’originaria quiete dell’universo. Non può esistere cosmos, ordine ed armonia se tutti gli enti che abitano la terra non rispettano il loro valore e la loro specifica dignità ontologica; ogni ente è indispensabilmente unico per ricomporre l’armonia originaria della creazione. Filosofia, lo ripetiamo, è amore e solo amando è possibile esistere nella meraviglia. Chi ama è interessato, non lascia che l’esteriorità lo abbagli ma desidera penetrare l’essenza per lasciarsi rapire dallo stupore e per potersi meravigliare ogni giorno della sacralità dell’amato. L’uomo antropico è l’uomo desiderante, aperto all’infinito che esiste nel mondo per testimoniare l’onnipotenza di Dio, è logos, è poietico, perché contemplando l’evidenza velata di Dio che già si manifesta nella creatività della natura, si svolge in un ente creativo nello spirito capace di tradurre la bellezza del creato attraverso il suo logos straordinariamente amalgamato di fede e ragione, è per questo che esiste in preghiera, è colui che amando, stupendosi, meravigliandosi è sempre in uno stato di preghiera e di lode: egli esiste nella testimonianza della Verità. Già Maria Zambrano, la grande filosofa andalusa del secolo scorso, avvertiva un senso di preoccupazione per la decadenza dell'odierna filosofia e quindi l'assenza di metafisica all'interno del pensiero contemporaneo: “Una nuova concezione della chiarezza, scrive, un'attenzione alle forme discontinue della luce del tempo, si apre come cammino già all'interno della cosiddetta psicologia del profondo, ma anche nella fenomenologia di Husserl. Entrambe però mancano di un'ultima 18 BENEDETTO XIV, Deus caritas est, pp. 33-34. 19 AGOSTINO, De vera religione, 46.89. 20 Ibd., 44.82. 521 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture esplorazione metafisica. Una metafisica sperimentale, che renda possibile l'esperienza umana senza pretese di totalità deve, ancora ancora nascere”21. Ci pare che la metafisica antropica sia la risposta a questa preoccupazione zambraniana, il dialogo, la relazione, l'implicanza e la compresenza, l'amicizia dei contrari sono l'indiscutibile punto di partenza per la nostra ricerca. La persona è una sintesi di dimensioni e già all'interno dell'uomo deve essere presente la relazione e l'armonia di quei contrari che nella persona stessa coesistono affinchè non prevalgano i laceranti squilibri che la riducono ad una somma di dimensioni. L'uomo antropico è un poliedro, è come quel frammento di cristallo che da ogni faccia sprigiona una luce diversa e sempre nuova. La persona, ognuno di noi, nella nostra unità nella molteplicità è il grande miracolo del Creatore e per questo è sacra! “L’inizio, asserisce Bugossi, è sempre quello della prima persona, ma il percorso non termina con me stesso: pertanto la comunicazione si fonda nell’interiorità. Il dialogo è essenzialmente dialogo tra due interiorità: è il porsi sulla stessa lunghezza d’onda dei propri simili. In questa prospettiva comunichiamo con la parola, il gesto, lo sguardo, il sorriso, il silenzio e con la parola silente, quella parola silente che ci pone in relazione anche con il creato”22. L’uomo antropico è roveto ardente, è l’uomo della luce. 21 M. ZAMBRANO, Note di un metodo, Filema, Napoli, 2003, p. 42. 22 T. BUGOSSI, Dialogo e organicità del sapere, op. cit., p. 23. 522 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture MIRCEA ELIADE: POÉTICA Y METAFÍSICA Raga Rosaleny Vicente Departament de Metafísica y Teoria del Coneixement Universidad de Valencia Resumen: Mircea Eliade, orientalista y hermeneuta de mitos, ritos y símbolos e historiador de las religiones, fue además, un prolífico escritor de novelas, diarios y obras de teatro. Apenas se ha estudiado hasta ahora la conexión entre el trabajo teórico de Eliade y su creatividad narrativa, pero lo cierto es que toda la obra de ficción del rumano trasluciría un deseo de salir de las coordenadas espacio—temporales profanas—cotidianas, accediendo de ese modo a la dimensión sagrada—fantástica de la existencia, que el hombre moderno habría olvidado, y que Eliade recuperaría, esa es una de sus pretensiones principales, para la humanidad entera en sus obras teóricas. Para poder entender la dimensión soteriológica latente en las obras teóricas más conocidas del intelectual rumano sería necesario desplegar sus presuposiciones metafísicas, la concepción absoluta de la realidad que estaría detrás de sus tesis centrales, y es en la obra literaria, que forma una unidad con la teórica, donde tal conexión se muestra de modo más evidente. Nuestra comunicación se dirigirá así a dar cuenta de las claves interpretativas de tipo metafísico que sustentan la entera obra de Mircea Eliade. I Uno de los elementos centrales del pensamiento del famoso religiologo rumano, Mircea Eliade, su concepción del tiempo, en términos generales, resulta, cuanto menos, atípica. Lejos de la corriente dominante en la tradición occidental, de raigambre aristotélica, que entiende el tiempo en términos espaciales, Eliade concibe el tiempo, en las sociedades tradicionales, dentro de las coordenadas de un Herder o, en última instancia, en el sentido religioso bajo cuyo prisma observaría el tiempo un Platón o, más ajustadamente, el Boecio que formuló el nunc stans.1 Para la mentalidad de las sociedades arcaicas el tiempo no sería homogéneo. Habría, como sucede con el espacio, un tiempo sagrado y uno profano. Entre ambos, según Eliade, no existiría solución de continuidad, y se requeriría un rito para poder pasar de la duración a la extratemporalidad. El tiempo sagrado sería el tiempo primordial de los mitos, en el sentido de que su fundación se remitiría al in illo tempore en que los dioses crearon las realidades que constituyen el Mundo, conforme lo narran los mitos. Éste, como un eterno presente, sería el que se restauraría o reintegraría periódicamente mediante el rito. El tiempo sagrado es un tiempo fuerte, en el que el ser se manifiesta plenamente, y por eso el hombre que busca recuperarse del desgaste de la misma duración temporal que le constituye, reingresaría de modo cíclico, periódico, en él (mediante, por ejemplo, la repetición ritual, anual, de la cosmogonía). Frente a la carencia de significado del mero, profano, devenir temporal, el tiempo sacro, al que se retornaría una y otra vez, sería un tiempo pleno, real. 1 Esa concepción de la eternidad, que es la que maneja Eliade, tanto en su hermenéutica religiosa, como en las concepciones de sus personajes narrativos, sería no la de una duración infinita, sino la de la suma de pasado, presente y futuro en un solo punto, la divinidad, fuera del tiempo. 523 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Un rasgo definitorio de las sociedades arcaicas sería pues, su rechazo del tiempo histórico, su nostalgia del tiempo mítico de los orígenes, al que retornarían periódicamente. Siguiendo al religiólogo Pettazzoni, que asimilaba la concepción que los hombres arcaicos tenían de las acciones profanas a la noción cristiana de pecado, postularía Eliade el rechazo arcaico del tiempo profano, a la búsqueda del perdón de los pecados y su olvido permanente por parte del que se confiesa. La memoria histórica, el recuerdo de los acontecimientos profanos, “personales”, resultaría insoportable para el homo religiosus, y sería necesario ese retorno repetitivo al tiempo primordial. Parecería acertado decir que hay una búsqueda, pero no de un tiempo ya vivido, ligado al pasado personal (como sucede en el caso de la famosa novela de Proust, aunque más adelante matizaremos esto), ya que antes bien se busca un tiempo venido de otra parte. Dicho de otro modo, no se trataría de recuerdos personales, de una memoria subjetiva, si no de una memoria “impersonal”, de la contemplación de las ideas o de la memoria colectiva, para el arcaico, de los arquetipos (que convertirían en significativos sus actos). Y la polémica tesis del autor rumano sería la de que el hombre moderno se contrapondría al arcaico como la noche al día. La Modernidad como única cesura en la historia de la humanidad, distinguiría al homo religiosus, de su sucesor, el hombre sin religión, el profano. Si el primero buscaba una reintegración en el tiempo sagrado, viviendo en una suerte de eternidad, el hombre moderno transvaloraría esos valores, y desdeñaría lo que escapa a la mera inmanencia. Si el primero rechaza la historia sin modelo, el moderno se caracterizará, precisamente, por hacer su propia historia, considerándose su sujeto y agente, y creyendo que con ella se hace a sí mismo. Sin embargo, y pese a sus creencias explícitas, el hombre arreligioso, esta es otra tesis fuerte de Eliade, conservaría las huellas del homo religiosus. Formado por contraposición a este hombre mitófilo, el hombre moderno prolongaría, aunque vaciadas de significado, las actitudes, creencias y lenguaje de aquel. De hecho, para Eliade, una sociedad arreligiosa no podría existir de modo duradero; perecería de neurastenia y hastío. Por eso, cuanto más cree alejarse, o más indiferencia muestra hacia lo religioso, menos consciente sería de la latencia religiosa de sus gestos cotidianos. Y, sea o no viable, para Eliade es claro que la principal “originalidad” del hombre moderno, su considerarse sólo como ser histórico, viviendo en un cosmos desacralizado, habría de ser negativamente valorada. Y de este modo, la cuestión importante, para Eliade, es que esta humanidad, que se cree productora de su historia, perdería en realidad, a cada paso, más posibilidades de crearla. Las circunstancias históricas reducirían al ser humano, cada vez más, a la simple resistencia frente a los verdaderos señores de la historia (y aquí es donde se introduciría la famosa cuestión eliadiana del “terror de la historia”). Frente a la “originalidad”, y aquí una dimensión central del pensamiento eliadiano, la dimensión soteriológica, cobra toda su fuerza, basándose en la supuesta estructura universal que todos compartiríamos, en el homo religiosus latente en el desacralizado hombre moderno, se plantearía la posibilidad de regeneración mediante una nostálgica y un tanto reaccionaria recuperación del ámbito de lo sagrado en la propia existencia. De este modo, y en tanto que reveladora de esa estructura básica, la historia de las religiones al modo eliadiano cobraría toda su dimensión salvífica, conectando así con las tesis y la praxis literaria del autor rumano. II La escritura eliadiana tiene, pues, como indicaba al finalizar la anterior sección, al menos otras dos dimensiones, la literaria y la de los diarios, en los que de nuevo se vuelve sobre la cuestión del tiempo, la memoria, el olvido y su resistencia (o el deseo de trascendencia, de salvación, frente a la muerte como aniquilación), y donde, hemos postulado, se encontrarían algunas de las claves de toda la obra de Eliade. Y lo cierto es que en sus propios diarios, que le acompañaron prácticamente durante toda su vida, 524 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Eliade aludió a todos los elementos que hemos mencionado como las razones o motivos que le llevaron a este especial género: “escribo para poderme releer más tarde, [...] para recordar los momentos inútilmente perdidos”.2 Es decir, que Eliade aquejado, según puede inferirse de la lectura de su Diario y, especialmente de su Diario portugués, de una melancolía aguda y de unas crónicas crisis de neurastenia, fruto de su obsesión enfermiza por el paso del tiempo, escribiría en su Diario para salvar ese tiempo perdido rememorándolo, como una defensa contra el olvido y la nada que depara el mero transcurrir de los días o, como diría en su obra teórica, la mera temporalidad profana (para protegerse pues del terror de la Historia). Pero, ¿cuál es la raíz de expresiones de melancólica desesperación? Precisamente el retorno a los orígenes, la mirada a la infancia, pero de Eliade, puede darnos la respuesta y, además, en los términos de su propia teoría de la religión y praxis literaria. De entre todos los recuerdos de la infancia, de los que uno puede hacer memoria en la edad madura, como hace Eliade en sus libros autobiográficos, tres destacarían en el caso del autor rumano: el de una niña apenas entrevista, pero que le fascinó; el de un maravilloso lagarto azul, encontrado por azar en medio de un bosque y el de la entrada en una habitación prohibida de su casa, en la que, con motivo de un acceso casual (y mantenido en secreto) a su interior, de nuevo cayó en una especie de éxtasis. En todos ellos se repite una misma estructura, una misma escena primordial, habitual de las obras literarias y teóricas de Eliade: las características de sus protagonistas, la esperanza soteriológica que subyace a estos, así como las arriesgadas tesis teóricas del rumano, relativas a la continuidad esencial onto – teo - antropológica, pese a la aparente ruptura entre el hombre de las sociedades arcaicas, el homo religiosus, y el de concepciones inmanentes de las sociedades modernas. En esos recuerdos Eliade escenificaría un éxtasis, una plenitud de sentido experimentada en el Paraíso Perdido de la infancia, una fusión con el objeto deseado que devino en plenitud total de sentido, equivalente a la postulada en el acceso a lo sagrado, en ese recuperar la memoria de los mitos, en esa promesa soteriológica de sentido que estaría quizá detrás de las tramas teóricas expuestas en primer termino y de las fabulaciones literarias del autor rumano. Memoria de los orígenes que es luz y salvación, entendida en clave soteriológica: si se pudiese recuperar esa experiencia de plenitud, una vez vivida, se trascendería la temporalidad entendida como duración, que desgasta al sujeto inserto en su seno. La confianza de Eliade en esa posibilidad, sustenta todo el resto de su discurso y da cuenta de la respuesta religiosa que constituye internamente su teoría y praxis. Pero el problema, sin embargo es doble, ya que, por un lado, la salida eliadiana no logra sortear la melancolía, y su búsqueda de acceso a la totalidad, mediante la lectura voraz, por ejemplo, tratando de alcanzar un saber absoluto, y el intento de, mediante la inspiración, comunicarlo, fracasan ante la constatación de la magnitud inasequible de la empresa y ante su escaso eco entre los lectores en la creación literaria. Por otro lado, la subordinación eliadiana de arte y teoría a una respuesta religiosa, si bien sería una de las opciones posibles ante la tensión que provoca el anhelo de totalidad y eternidad, unido a la constatación de la finitud, o dicho de otro modo, ante el contraste entre una cierta concepción de la obra de arte, de su dimensión estética, cercana al Absoluto romántico, y la dimensión temporal de la propia existencia, finita, no es la única posible. III Un modelo alternativo de respuesta, positivo, a las dificultades que plantea la relación entre lo eterno y lo temporal, la memoria y el olvido, la vida y la muerte, o empleando su lenguaje, al vínculo entre tiempo perdido y tiempo recobrado, sería la emblemática, para la sensibilidad moderna, novela de Marcel Proust, En busca del tiempo perdido. Ayudándonos de la lectura que de 2 Cita tomada de Nadal, A. R., “La pasión de los diarios íntimos”, Daímon, 28 (2003), pp. 56—57, la cursiva es nuestra. 525 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture esta obra realiza Paul Ricoeur, intentaremos examinar las semejanzas y diferencias existentes entre la propuesta eliadiana y la proustiana. El tiempo, bajo diversas figuras, sería el protagonista absoluto de En busca del tiempo perdido pero, y esto es lo importante, no como tiempo experimentado por el autor real, aun cuando la relación entre vida y literatura, sea también central en la novela de Proust, ni tampoco como tiempo teorizado, aun cuando exista todo un aparente excursus teórico, que detiene el tiempo y permite introducir la noción de eternidad. Frente, pues, a las opciones eliadianas de subordinar a otros discursos y tesis el discurso literario, Proust optaría, en la lectura de Ricoeur, por poner en primer lugar el principio de composición narrativa, en tanto que novelista, y subordinaría especulaciones alógenas y vivencias personales al poder de la ficción. En ambos autores, hay un tiempo perdido, olvidado, pasado, y ambos coinciden en su mirada a la infancia como paraíso perdido, de una ingenua plenitud y fusión con el todo, que el tiempo ha ido emborronando. Y en ambos también hay un tiempo recobrado, entendido como fruto de la rememoración, producto de la memoria narrativamente suscitada y articulada, y que, además, se entendería en términos de eternidad, de ubicación extratempórea, como una especie de resistencia al olvido y la muerte. Es decir que mediante la anamnesis se garantizaría un acceso a una esfera de sentido que trascendería el curso del tiempo, o como diría Eliade, una iniciación a lo sagrado o extra - cotidiano, extraordinario. Pero, en el trayecto que va de una sensibilidad pretendidamente premoderna, la eliadiana, a la modernidad de Proust, y aceptando los términos del discurso teórico del autor rumano, se habrían producido grandes cambios en los diversos componentes de la narración, y entre ellos, en el campo de la memoria. Nuestra memoria se habría visto decisivamente transformada, en tanto que instancia última de la recreación poética. Frente a la anamnesis platónica, de la que Eliade se reclamaría deudor en su hermenéutica de la temporalidad religiosa arcaica, la obra ya no sería una simple esencia atemporal, de belleza absoluta, sino hallazgo y conservación del instante vivido, eternización de lo imperfecto y perecedero. Eliade, preso de la cárcel del tiempo, crearía narradores, protagonistas, personajes, ficciones, en las que la invención y la trama discurrirían a la búsqueda de una experiencia extática, de contemplación mística de la eternidad en el instante, reflejo de la suya propia, así como de sus convicciones religiosas. Su resistencia al transcurrir del tiempo, al olvido y la muerte, pasaría por la huida a lo extratempóreo, al intento, siempre fallido de alcanzar el Absoluto y abandonar las contingencias y debilidades de este mundo finito. Su promesa literaria sería aquella de la que él mismo trató de convencerse a través de sus diarios y obras teóricas; que el acceso a lo sagrado era posible, ya que para él lo había sido, y que podía huirse de la muerte, la contingencia y el dolor, si se retornaba a la confianza de antaño en los mitos. Frente a esa propuesta y convencimiento, la obra de Proust presenta una alternativa clara. Ciertamente la obra de arte, según se nos muestra en las concepciones estéticas manifestadas en la novela, preexistiría a los seres humanos finitos en el orden de lo extratempóreo, y como el David de Miguel Ángel, se trataría de descubrirla oculta en el bloque de mármol de las palabras indistintas. Pero, frente a la salida trascendente eliadiana y su origen contemplativo, en la escena primigenia de éxtasis de su infancia, el tiempo perdido resucita en la obra proustiana mediante la decisión de escribir, esto es, inscribiendo el momento fugitivo de la contemplación extratempórea en la obra, duradera pero sometida a todas las fragilidades de nuestra condición finita. La memoria como reconocimiento y recurso a la analogía supone en el narrador proustiano no tanto una remisión a arquetipos y un retorno ab origine, como un descubrir la profunda identidad que conservan las cosas y los seres, pese a su degradación. En la medida en que la vida queda del lado de lo temporal y lo literario del lado de lo extratempóreo, el tiempo recobrado expresaría la recuperación del tiempo perdido en lo extra - temporal y la entrada de éste en la realidad finita, sin 526 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture la que no llegaría a existir efectivamente nunca. La creación literaria que siente como vocación el narrador de la novela de Proust, no invita tanto a salir del tiempo, a trascender la dimensión temporal profana, como a inscribir la eternidad literaria en un acto en el tiempo. Con ello salva, expresando su sentido, las impresiones vitales de la realidad extra - literaria cuya huella de otro modo se perdería, pero este movimiento, a su vez, introduce en lo literario, la otra cara del tiempo, su carácter finito, la posibilidad del olvido y la muerte. Que el tiempo nos envuelve es algo que constatan las obras literarias y teóricas de Eliade y En busca del tiempo perdido, y asimismo comparten la conciencia de que la muerte, siempre presente, podía truncar sus historias, sin que las fábulas a las que recurrían pudiese evitarlo. El uso de la narración como recurso para resistir al peligro de la muerte, la memoria frente al olvido como fuente de la creación literaria, sería común a la estructura de las obras de ambos. Pero en un caso, el de la novela de Proust, el narrador asumiría el reto y el peligro mortal, aceptaría la finitud inmanente de su condición y escribiendo la obra literaria la introduciría y se introduciría a sí mismo en el curso del tiempo. En el otro, el temor a la muerte y la desesperación por el paso del tiempo, conducirían a un intento de huida trascendente, renegando de la condición humana finita, y de ahí el fracaso literario de Eliade, que no logró más que escribir obras al servicio de la salvación del, a su juicio, perdido hombre moderno, y jamás textos plenamente literarios. 527 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture METAPHYSICS AND VIOLENCE: RELIGION, ECONOMICS IN 9/11 Rochmore Tom Duquesne University This paper presents an explanatory thesis about the historical events known as 9/11, understood as belonging to a sequence including events leading up to and away from the Muslim attacks in the US. I will be suggesting that the events of 9/11 understood in the wider sense are metaphysically-rooted, more specifically, that their common element lies in different and incompatible interpretations of the good life, or, in Aristotelian terms, happiness. Happiness can be understood from different perspectives, such as adherence to a particular religion, through an economic interpretation of the good life, or on other criteria. I believe that in the series of events known as 9/11 manifest a deeply-seated conflict between individuals and groups acting to realize conflicting views of happiness. I will be suggesting that the origins, development and continued unfolding of the events of 9/11 in the wider sense can be understood as a clash, or social “contradiction,” between two different and incompatible world views: an Islamic view, largely present throughout the Islamic space, which gives precedence to the maintenance of a traditional view of Islamic life as maintaining fidelity to the founder’s view of Islam, hence to religion, and a Western view, which views the good life less in religious than in economic terms, and in which modern society is increasingly organized around the expansion of capitalism that tends to replace everything else by itself. The incessant expansion of Western capitalism, embraced by the West, invades the Islamic space and threatens the continuity of a conservative Islamic way of life. The aim of this informal paper is to apply “metaphysical” insights to “explain” the series of events surrounding 9/11. For purposes of this paper, I will follow Dilthey in understanding metaphysics as a worldview1. By 9/11 I will have in mind the events on that day as well as those leading up to and away from it. By “explanation” I have in mind a conceptual model of whatever kind enabling us to “understand” why these events began and have continued to occur. Explanation of historical events is generally “causal,” that is, concerned with what brings about the events in question, though not necessarily modeled on natural causality. I will be rejecting a model based on the application of general laws to historical events. For purposes of this paper I will be ruling out such possible causes as God, fate, or natural causality, in focusing on what I will call human causality, that is the causal role played by individuals and groups in bringing about such events. I will leave to one side well known difficulties about free will and causality in assuming that human beings are capable of acting to realize ends in view. I will also be assuming without argument that the events of 9/11 cannot be understood in isolation, and must on the contrary be understood within a larger historical continuity. The alternative is to suggest there is a historical break, which has the immediate consequence that, as unrelated to other events before or since, the events in question are sui generis, hence beyond cognition. My approach to explanation of historical phenomena will combine insights drawn from i. A. from Aristotle, Hegel, and other thinkers. I accept Aristotle’s view that our actions are both teleological and motivated by a concern with the good, which we understand as happiness. I further accept Hegel’s extension of that view as a theory of history, which is rational, hence cognizable, 1 See “Die Typen der Weltanschauung und ihre Ausbildung in den metaphysischen Systemen,” in Wilhelm Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1958, VIII, pp. 74-118. 529 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture since it is composed of the rational actions of finite men and women. Human beings act in many different ways, frequently on the basis of different, often incompatible worldviews. One way to put the point is to say that except in abnormal situations, human beings are normally “socialized” into a pre-existing context in which they take on pre-existing values, concerns, prejudices, in short a worldview, which in turn influence the ways they act. Three current theories of 9/11 For present purposes, the three main theories about 9/11 can be identified by the names of George W. Bush, President of the United States; Samuel Huntington, a prominent political scientist; and Bernard Lewis, a prominent historian of the Middle East. According to Bush, our enemies are irrational and evil; according to Huntington, writing in the 1990s, future conflicts will be motivated by differences in culture or civilization2; and, according to Lewis, Muslim rage is motivated by jealousy over the failure to modernize3. Even on a generous interpretation, all three theories fail to explain 9/11. Bush’s view, which is popular in the current Administration and among some segments of the public, suggests i. A. that our enemies are evil, and that their actions are irrational. This view fails for two reasons: since from the perspective of the actor, all actions of whatever kind are by definition rational, designed to realize an end, which is accepted as good, no actions are inherently evil; and if an action were irrational, if would be beyond reason, hence could not be cognized. Huntington’s view abstracts from any form of economic constraint in arguing that mere differences in culture or civilization—the distinction between them is never made clear—are sufficient to cause conflict. Yet even if the precise meaning of “culture” and “civilization” could be specified, it would not follow that such differences can be regarded as primary or even secondary causes of international conflict, or that economic factors are not relatively more important. Lewis proposes to explain “Muslim” rage in terms of two insights: the importance of widespread Islamic failure to modernize, above all to adjust to modern Western capitalism, and subsequent jealousy of the West. Except for Japan, no non-Western country has become a full-fledged advanced industrial nation. Among the Islamic countries, only Turkey has successfully made the transition to “democracy.” And it is correct that many young Muslims are envious of better Western living standards. Yet Lewis errs in assuming as his standard acceptance of the values of the West. I will argue, on the contrary, that it is not the acceptance, but rather the rejection of such values that is a leading cause of conflict. On the relation of religion and economics Huntington and Lewis both acknowledge that individuals and groups are motivated by prior commitments to one or another worldview. Worldviews, which differ, are not necessarily compatible. Someone committed to honor among criminals (omertà) is simply not committed to the rule of law. We need now to see how differences in worldviews play out in 9/11. Christianity and Islam have long been in conflict roughly since the emergence of the latter religion in the seventh century. The conflict between Islam and Christianity, which has many aspects, has taken different form over the centuries. What was originally a conflict between representatives of two Abrahamic religions later became, since Islam spread throughout the overwhelmingly Islamic world, and Christianity is mainly located in the largely non-Muslim West, 2 See Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?,” in Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993. See also Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996. 3 See Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage, The Atlantic Monthly, September 1990, vol. 266, no. 3., pp. 47-60; Bernard Lewis, Afterword in What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East, New York: Harper Collins, 2002; and Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, New York: Random House, 2004. 530 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture a geographic opposition. More recently this same conflict has taken on the form of an opposition between religion and economics. The Christian West and the Islamic world have different attitudes toward the relation of religion and economics. The separation of Church and state, or creator and individual, presupposed in capitalism, does not exist in Islam. While capitalism depends on relative scarcity in fixing prices, in Islam all basic needs are guaranteed by the state and market price is ignored. This leads to numerous specific differences with respect to ordinary capitalist practices. In capitalism, which features laissez-faire, money can be earned by any legal means. But in Islam, which does not separate between economics and ethics, though wealth is not discouraged, it is not an end in itself and weight is placed on the distinction between just, or halal, and unjust earnings. The different view of the relation of religion to economics leads to different views of the kind of economics which is favored and the role of religion with respect to it. Speaking generally, Muslims sometimes favor pre-capitalist mercantilism and, since the emergence of capitalism, the West has always preferred post-mercantilist capitalism. Islam subordinates the economic process to religious criteria. It recommends interference with this process in order to provide for those in need. The intention is that no one will slip through the economic safety net organized around religious principles. In the West, the relation of religion and economics is different, even reversed. Christianity is often regarded as functioning to aid economics. M. Weber famously suggests that Protestantism plays this role in the rise of capitalism. Building partly on Weber, R. H. Tawney proposes that capitalism was aided by the conviction the existing order is the providential order, which was established by God. Capitalism, which is not designed to directly help anyone, reflects A. Smith’s view that individuals should freely pursue their own interests in featuring economic freedom on the assumption that society as a whole will benefit. Though capitalism clearly takes many forms, the basic insight features a kind of egoism on the unproven premise that in working for oneself one helps everyone. A recent example is so-called trickle-down theory, also known as trickle down economics, which was associated with the policies of the Reagan Administration. According to this view, which seems to be inspiring the policies of the current Bush Administration, since benefits trickle down, to benefit the wealthy is to benefit everyone else. This approach is based on a long and influential tradition. Possibly provoked by Mandeville, who argued against public virtue since private vice is publicly useful4, Adam Smith contends that the effort of each individual is sufficient to ameliorate his own condition5. The justification of this claim lies in his view of the invisible hand through which, in working for oneself, each person unintentionally promotes the public good. In a justly famous passage, which deserves to be cited at length, he writes: “As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by 4 See Carl Hempel, “The Function of General Laws in History,” in The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 39 (1942), reprinted in Herbert Feigl and Wilfrid Sellars, Readings in Philosophical Analysis, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1949, pp. 459-471. 5 See Adam Smith, An Inquiry into The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, edited, with an introduction, notes, marginal summary and an enlaraged index by Edwin Cannan, with an introduction by Max Lerner, New York: Modern Library, 1937, p. 508. 531 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture an invisible hand to promote an end that was not part of it.”6 Religion, economics and violence Not all forms of violence are physical. Economic violence consists in using the prevailing system of economic relations in ways that benefit some at the expense of others. Smith, who was aware that industrial capitalism does not benefit everyone equally, nor even everyone, insists that those who produce profit, including the poor, should themselves profit to the extent of adequate food, clothing and shelter7. Hegel was concerned with the social turmoil following from the failure to solve the problem of poverty as capitalism was emerging8. The assessment of the virtues of benign neglect in laissez-faire capitalism is very different in the West and in the Islamic world. Not unnaturally many of those who have money and some of those without it believe the best bet is capitalism. This view is also often shared in religious circles, where the expansion of the economy is understood as in effect realizing religious goals through economic means. The harsher assessment from the Islamic perspective is easy to understand. The entire existence of an Islamic traditionalist is directed toward replicating insofar as possible the conditions of life as set down long ago in the revelations of the Qu’ran. This goal is indicated in a variety of ways in traditional Islam, such as the effort imposed on each Muslim literally to memorize the Qu’ran, the rejection of human law in favor of God’s law, the effort to execute Muslims who leave the faith, and so on. Capitalism is a constantly developing, all embracing economic system, which tends to substitute itself for all other local practices. Economic globalization either has already or will at some future point in time embrace the entire world. In the process of spreading throughout the world modern capitalist economy also spreads throughout the Islamic world. The result is a conflict between the values of capitalism, an economic system, with Islam, a leading Abrahamic religion, in which the steady expansion of the former exerts increasing pressure on the traditional practice of the latter. Capitalist penetration of Islamic space is manifest in myriad ways, such as the establishment of military bases in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other countries scattered throughout the Islamic world, the increasing attraction of secular Western products regularly available in Islamic countries running from Coca Cola to Donald Duck, the increasing disaffection of Muslim youth and women with traditional Islamic precepts, and so on. The economic penetration of Islamic space generates tensions between traditional Muslim believers and Western capitalists, who are sharply divided in terms of their perception of human happiness or, in other terms, the good for human beings. On the one hand, there are traditional Muslims who believe their interest lies in reproducing the traditional form of the Islamic world according to the precepts prescribed in various interpretations of Mohammed’s heritage. Many traditional Muslims rightly think they are under increasing pressure exerted by the incessant extension of capitalism. On the other, there are those wedded to laissez-faire capitalism, or benign neglect, who may sincerely believe the single best thing they can do for others everywhere is to grow the economy on the supposition that a rising tide lifts all boats as it were. 9/11 as a three-sided “contradiction” It is misguided to view the current confrontation, which assumed very visible form in Muslim attacks on US targets on 9/11, as a basically religious conflict, more precisely as a conflict between two religions. It is more accurate to describe it as a conflict between representatives of two 6 Smith, The Wealth of Nations, p. 423. 7 See Smith, Wealth of Nations, p. 79. 8 See G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, edited by Allen W. Wood, translated by H. B. Nisbet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, § 244 Addition, pp. 266-267 and pp. 453-454. 532 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture worldviews based on life as devoted to the realization of a religious conception or, on the contrary, life as devoted to the realization of a secular conception with religious underpinnings. I believe there is a triple contradiction between Islam and the West, including oppositions between Islamic traditionalists, Islamic modernizers, and Westerners favorable to laissez-faire capitalism. Islamic traditionalists are interested in leading a life without interference from any outside source along traditional Islamic lines. Muslim traditionalists are opposed to Muslim modernizers who, whether secular or not, accept the need to strike an acceptable balance between Muslim religion and the requirements of modern life, which includes acceptance of economic expansion along capitalist lines. Both secular and religious Westerners, with some exceptions, are committed to economic development as a basic concern. It is misleading to cast the problem as an opposition between Islam and the West, more useful to regard it as a triple conflict between Muslim fundamentalists opposed to Muslim modernizers who adapt the Islamic religion to the modern world increasingly dominated by the capitalist West that increasingly threatens the maintenance of a traditional Islamic way of life. Physical violence is carried out by traditional Muslims who believe their very existence is in question in the economic expansion of advanced industrial countries into the Islamic space. The attitudes and actions of the advanced industrial countries are not due to an antipathy to religion - the US is one of the most religious countries the world has ever known - or, one would hope, to Islam. They are rather due to the Western identification between freedom and democracy while insisting on the unceasing expansion of capitalism throughout the entire world. Traditionalist Muslims identify the good life with the realization of a traditional conception of Islam, whatever Westerners and modernate Muslims may think. Westerners identify the good life with continuing to expand the economy throughout the world on the assumption this is good for everyone. Moderate Muslims believe their interest lies in siding with Westerners to the extent this can be accommodated with their religious beliefs. The result is a deep social contradiction associated with the confrontation between two deeply different views of the good life and the actions deemed necessary to defend and preserve it from basically irreconcilable perspectives afforded by faith in a conservative view of Islamic religion as the center of the Islamic world on the one hand, and on capitalism as the center of the Western world on the other. One cannot understand what is occurring if one regards the confrontation as opposing a form of reason to a form of unreason. One can only begin to understand if one regards the problem as manifesting an opposition between two conflicting, irreconcilably different forms of reason, hence, not as irrational but rather as rational along very different lines for the precise reason that the goal-directed activity constituting history from opposing directions is rational. Conclusion: religion, economics, and 9/11 This paper has examined the conceptual problem posed by 9/11 understood in the wider sense as the series of events leading up to and away from the Muslim attacks in the US. I have argued that the prevailing theories fail to explain what is occurring. I have further argued that we can understand this series of events as emerging from a three-fold contradiction between traditional Muslims, modernist Muslims, and Western adherence to laissez-faire capitalism. Since there are other ways to understand 9/11, the model I am proposing should only be adopted if it is better at understanding the historical phenomena as we now know them. As for natural science, so for historical interpretation, there is no way to reliably claim to know what is as it is in independence of us, that is, the mind-independent world as it is in itself or the historical phenomena as they actually occurred. It is always possible, and in this case likely, since the events are still continuing, that new information will come to light. One can imagine the need to revise what we think is happening if, for example, weapons of mass destruction were finally discovered in Iraq. Further, in a sense, though they already belong to history as it were, the historical events we seek to 533 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture explain are not fixed in stone so to speak, but change as our views, or interpretive theories, about them change. It follows that the model I am proposing is not the last word, but at best a predecessor of a model that later a wide swath of opinion will come to accept. I will close with a question and a tentative suggestion. What are the options available to us if an explanatory model similar to the one I am proposing is anywhere near to the mark? One possible answer concerns attending to the problem of benign neglect, a central element of modern life, including laissez-faire capitalism, where there is enormous indifference to the plight of others9. The problem cannot simply be solved by “economic empowerment” with the aim of raising the standard of living, since economic security is not the first thing on the mind of traditional Muslims. Arguably a more effective way to respond is to be concerned with the consequences of laissez-faire capitalism in beginning to respect a different way of life, that is, in tolerating the desire and indeed the right to be different. 9 See Christian Delacampagne, De l’Indifférence. Essai sur la banalisation du mal, Paris: Odile Jacob, 1998. 534 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture PRAGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE ISSUE OF FOUNDATIONS Sandra B. Rosenthal Provost Eminent Professor of Philosophy Loyola University, New Orleans The uprootedness of experience from its ontological embeddedness in a natural universe is at the core of much contemporary thinking which, like pragmatism, aims to reject foundationalism or objectivism in all its forms, positions which all hold, in varying ways, that there is a bedrock basis on which to build an edifice of knowledge, something objective which justifies rational arguments concerning what is the single best position, the single position that conveys the objective truth of the matter at hand as it exists independently of our various contextually set inquiries. There can be no non-perspectival framework within which differences-social, moral, scientific, etc., can be evaluated and resolved. Nor is pragmatism unique in its focus on the pluralistic, contextualistic ways of dealing with life, on the role of novelty and diversity, on a turn away from abstract reason to imagination, feeling and practice, and on the need to solve the concrete problems of political, social, and moral life. However pragmatism, in rejecting foundationalism or objectivism, does not embrace the alternative of relativism or its equivalent dressed up in new linguistic garb. Rather, pragmatic philosophy, through its focus on experience as experimental and organism-environment interaction rethinks the nature of foundations, standing the tradition on its head, so to speak. And what emerges from this rethinking is a reconstructed realism housing a perspectival pluralism which avoids the perspectival closure of relativism, a pluralism of perspectives which open onto a common reality that demands commitment. According to pragmatism, valid conceptualizations are not something passively attained, either by the contemplation of absolutes or by the passive accumulation of data, but by activity shot through with the interpretive framework that guides it. This role of purposive activity in thought and the resultant appeal to relevance and selective emphasis which must ultimately be justified by workability are key pragmatic tenets which constitute its understanding of experience as experimental. The pragmatic focus on the human biological organism and organism-environment adaptation is intertwined with this understanding of experience as experimental. The human being is within nature. Neither human activity in general nor knowledge can be separated from the fact that humans are natural organisms dependent upon a natural environment. But for all the pragmatists, human behavior is irreducibly meaningful, and this behavior of the human organism in interaction with its natural environment is the foundation of the noetic unity by which humans are bound to their world. Within the context of organic activity and behavioral environment there emerge irreducible meanings which allow the universe to come to conscious awareness in significant ways.1 From the backdrop of the non-spectator understanding of human experience, humans and their environment-organic and inorganic, take on an inherently relational aspect. The properties attributed to the environment belong to it in the context of that interaction, and it is within such an interactional context that experience and its qualities function; what we have is interaction as an 1 Dewey, The Quest for Certainty, The Later Works , ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press,1981-1989), vol. 4, 1984, p.l42; "The Experimental Theory of Knowledge", The Middle Works, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976-1983), vol. 3, pp. ll4-ll5; G. H. Mead, The Philosophy of the Act, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938), pp.115-116. 535 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture indivisible whole. In this way, the human organism and the nature within which it is located are both rich with the qualities and values of our everyday experience. With the rejection of the spectator theory of knowledge comes the rejection of the correspondence theory of truth and, instead, a view of reality as richer than, or overflowing, our conceptual demarcations. Diverse perspectives grasp the richness of reality in different ways, but must be judged in terms of their ability to expand and harmonize interactive contexts. And, these interactive contexts are rich with ontologically real value-laden qualities that span the gamut of the richness of human existence in its fullness, qualities that themselves emerge in the interactive contexts of humans with the universe in which they are enmeshed. The occurrence of the immediate experience characterized by value is a qualitative dimension of a situation within nature, on an equal footing with the experiencing of other qualitative aspects of nature. Value qualities are contextually emergent facts, and so-called brute facts are value laden through the contexts in which they emerge. Pragmatism clearly undercuts the fact-value distinction. Humans have a plurality of values emerging from their organic embeddedness in a natural and social world. Value situations, like all situations, are open to revision and require the general method of experimental inquiry by which to progress from a problematic situation to a meaningfully integrated one. Ongoing dialogue and debate about experimental reconstruction of problematic situations, and about resultant new norms and ideals which develop as working hypotheses out of such concrete situations, must ultimately be rooted in the creative utilization of an attunement to the valuings of humans and their ongoing flourishing, or there is nothing for the debate to be about. Moral awareness permeates experience, and all experience is value laden to some degree. Human experience as anticipatory, is also ultimately consummatory, and thus experimental method as operative in the process of living must serve the qualitative fullness of human interests, leading to the esthetic-moral enrichment of human existence. Pragmatism’s understanding of value qualities as naturally occurring irreducible contextual, environmental emergents, and of normative claims as experimental hypothesis about ways of enriching and expanding the value relevant dimension of concrete human existence, denies the tradition of a narrow empiricism which holds to a limited view of what can be experienced empirically and a quasi-reductionist ontology which holds to a limited view of what kinds of qualities can exist in nature, both of which are ultimately founded in the modernist acceptance, either explicitly or implicitly, of the ontological ultimacy of the scientific description of nature. Our primal interactive openness onto the ontologically dense natural universe, then, is an openness onto the experience of concrete value qualities as real emergent features of human existence. The incommensurable, historically contingent value systems have arisen out of the directly felt value textures of experience as these emerge in our concrete interactive contexts. And while differing environments yield differing practices and beliefs, and while there may be a diversity of such relational webs which allow for the flourishing of human existence, there may also be those that mutilate it. In the area of value as elsewhere, dialogue between diverse socio-cultural environments cannot be achieved through the dogmatic imposition of abstract principles or inculcated traditions. Rather, what is needed is a deepening to a more fundamental level of human rapport which strives to get beneath the confines of particular environments to the demands of the human condition qua human in its desire to flourish. And, the deepening process of reason can regain touch with the concrete richness of the experience of value as it emerges from humans fundamentally alike, confronting a common reality which they must render not only manageable and intelligible, but also enriching of concrete human existence, through the diverse interpretive nets offered by diverse cultural histories. In the area of value as in other areas of human inquiry, what is involved is not a linguistic or cultural self-enclosed relativism, but an ontologically grounded open perspectivalism which accommodates diversity of perspectives but not any and every perspective. 536 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture As indicated above, one of the most distinctive and most crucial aspects of pragmatism is its understanding of experience as a rich ongoing interactional or transactional unity between organism and environment, and only within the context of meanings which incorporate such an interactional unity does what is given emerge for conscious awareness. Such a transactional unity is more than a postulate of abstract thought for it has experiential dimensions. The interactive ontological unity of organism-environment transaction is reflected in the phenomenologically grasped features of experience. That which intrudes itself inexplicably into experience is not bare datum, but rather evidences itself as the over-againstness of a thick reality there for my activity.2 Interpretation engages a dynamic reality through habits of action as living meanings, habits of action which provide the vital, living link between concepts and the universe. This interactional unity contains a two directional openness: the primordial openness of the character of experience itself opens in one direction toward the features of the human modes of grasping the independently real, and in the other direction towards the features of the independently real, for the character of experience emerges from an interaction of these two poles and thus incorporates characteristics of each, though it mirrors neither exactly. In the interactional unity which constitutes our worldly experience, both poles are thus manifest: the independently-there otherness onto which worldly experience opens, and the structure of the human way of being within whose purposive activity worldly experience emerges. The pervasive textures of experience, which are exemplified in every experience, are at the same time indications of the pervasive textures of the independent universe which, in every experience, gives itself for our responses and provides the touchstone for the workability of our meanings. For all the pragmatists, the flux of life as it concretely occurs contains already a phenomenological dimension of human thrown-outness onto the universe through a vital intentionality constitutive of the nature of experience as experimental. Thus, the being of humans in the natural universe and the knowing by humans of the natural universe are inseparably connected within the structure of experience and its pervasive textures, which, for all the pragmatists, include the features of continuity, temporal flow, novelty and vagueness. In this way, there is an elusive resistance at the basis of meaning selection which must be acknowledged in our creative development of meaning systems and choices among them. Moreover, the very textures of experience indicate that this resistance cannot be understood in terms of discrete, structured realities as the furniture of the universe which we merely find, and the finding of which requires that we in some way escape our interpretations and the structures they provide. Rather, this resisting element provides a general compulsiveness which constrains the way networks of beliefs interrelate, and may at times lead to changes, sometimes radical changes, in our understanding of the world which our beliefs-both perceptual and more reflective, incorporate. The contextualism of pragmatic philosophy is rooted in a naturalism which both gives rise to interpretive activity and is the test of its adequacy. Our interpretive activity emerges within and embodies organic activity and is grounded in a world not exclusively of our own making. At the very heart of the temporal stretch of human behavior as anticipatory is a creativity, expressive of the experimental nature of experience, that is at once unified with a natural universe but that renders its grasp in terms of any absolute grounding impossible. As such, human awareness is at once theoretical, practical, pluralistic, and ontologically embedded within a thick, resisting nature. This rich epistemic-ontological unity at the heart of experience, rather than any falsely reified interpretive content emerging from it, provides the foundational level for ongoing human activity, both as a way of being and a way of knowing. 2 C. I. Lewis, Mind and the World Order, (New York: Dover Publications, 1929), Appendix D, pp. 425-426; Dewey, Experience and Nature, The Later Works, vol. 1, 1981, pp.12-13; Mead, The Philosophy of the Present, ed. Arthur Murphy (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1959), p. 137. 537 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture The two directional openness of experience carries temporality from one pole to the other, from a phenomenology of worldly experience toward a process metaphysics of nature. The temporal structure that belongs to our interpretive processes belongs as well to the universe within which they emerge. Human habits of response, which are for the pragmatist the living embodiment of meaning, are precisely “naturally thick" dynamic tendencies or processes structuring emerging activities in the context of alternative possibilities for ongoing actualization.3 Within the dynamics of creativity and constraint, the search for the fully determinate, the fully fixed, the fully discrete yields to the basic pragmatic intuition of the continuity and indeterminacy which pervade a radically temporal universe in the fullness of its space-time concreteness. Thus, the pragmatists stress the role of infinitesimals in ridding us of the notions of discreteness and determinacy- be it notions of experiential bits, ontological bits, or temporal bits-4, highlight the dimension of indeterminacy which pervades the universe independently of consciousness,5 and deny that the principles of non-contradiction and excluded middle apply to reality apart from the organizing mind.6 Neither intelligibility nor truth requires either the ontologically discrete or the ontologically determinate. Neither the ceaselessly "becoming other" of reality nor its inherent indeterminacy leads to unintelligibility. The postmodern tendency to so relate the two stems from the refusal to separate intelligibility from discreteness and fixity. The reality of the continuity of becoming other and the indeterminacy this brings with it provides for rational discourse and ongoing inquiry which is rooted in and provides perspectival knowledge about reality, so long as knowledge is not understood as a direct, uninterpreted seizure of what immediately "is", and truth is not understood as conformity or correspondence to the fixed discretes of a fully determinate reality. Underlying the supposedly necessary choice between the groundlessness of Derridian play or Rortyian conversation on the one hand and the grasp of reality in its "pristine purity" on the other is the assumption that without a "place" for the fully determinate, the groundless alternative wins out, an assumption that flourishes within frameworks that ignore the fundamental, creative, interactive unity at the heart of lived experience which is central to the spirit of pragmatic philosophy. Pragmatic naturalism demands realism, but demands as well that it be reconstructed to rid itself of all vestiges of and trappings surrounding the spectator theory of knowledge and the concomitant correspondence theory of truth and fully structured reality of traditional realism. We do not think to a reality to which language or conceptual structures correspond, but rather we live through a reality with which we are intertwined, and the intertwining with which constitutes experience. Our primal interactive embeddedness in the world is something which can never be adequately objectified. Within the interactive context of creativity and constraint human experience is analogous to reality in that our activities are continuous with, and emergent levels within, the reality which we attempt to characterize by the interpretive nets we cast upon it; and the 3 Lewis, Mind and the World Order, p.58; Mead, Philosophy of the Act,p. 345; Dewey, Experience and Nature, pp. 64-65.5) 4 James, A Pluralistic Universe, 1977, The Works of William James , ed. Frederick Brukhardt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975-1986), 1977, pp. 153-154. Charles Peirce, Collected Papers, Vols. I-VI ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss(Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1931-1935); Vols. VII and VIII ed. Arthur Burks (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958). Cited using conventional two-part notation 6.109, 6.111, 6.87, 5.282, 6.138. For an integration of these and the immediately following references in terms of the above issue see my Time, Continuity, and Indeterminacy: A pragmatic Engagement With Contemporary Perspectives (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000.), Chapters 8 and 9. 5 Peirce, Collected Papers 1.171-172; Dewey, The Quest for Certainty, p.194 6 James, A Pluralistic Universe, p.117; C. I. Lewis, “A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori”, Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis, ed. John Goheen and John Mothershead,Jr.(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970), p. 232; (5.448). For the way continuity pervades all of reality, see my Charles Peirce’s Pragmatic Pluralism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994). 538 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture indeterminately rich, continuous nature of a temporal universe emerges as facts and objects within the interpretive context of organism-environment interaction. Truth is relative to a context of interpretation not because truth is relative, but because without an interpretive context the concept of truth is meaningless. Truth is not an absolute grasp, a correspondence with an external reality, but neither is it relative. It is perspectival. We create the perspective, but whether or not it allows us to grasp in workable ways that which enters into experience is dependent not on our creativity but on the resistant features of that which enters our perspectival net and provides the touchstone for the workability of our interpretations. A true belief is a tool that fits-not the fitting of a copy corresponding to an original, but the fitting of a key opening a lock. Reality answers our questions and determines the workability of our meanings, but what questions it answers are partially dependent on what questions we ask and what meanings work depend upon the meanings we bring. The indefinitely rich concreteness of a process universe is revealable in various ways through various meaning structures. Our perceptual environment, which grounds the emergence of facts and objects and provides the foundation for other, more abstract or more imaginative environments, is existentially one with the spatio-temporal unfolding of an indeterminate reality. It is, metaphysically, that independently real. Yet, our various environments are dependent upon the meaning systems or interpretive contexts which grasp in a way in which the full concreteness of spatio-temporal reality is not, for they are perspectives of the indefinitely rich reality which has been "fixed" or "carved out" by systems of meanings. The concrete processes of nature are a dimension of our everyday natural environment. Nature as a system of scientific objects or events is a reflective, creative, abstract explanatory net which arises out of our meaningful everyday world and is cast upon an indefinitely rich universe, one which works well for the purposes of scientific explanation. If this explanatory net is substituted for the temporally grounded features of an indefinitely rich universe, or becomes in any way the absolute model for understanding it, then the problems and dilemmas that have haunted the philosophical tradition will remain impassable. The various abstract environments of the various disciplines, each utilizing their specialized tools of abstraction, are diverse, limited approaches to the concrete matrix of the intertwined relational webs within which individuals operate. There is needed a recognition that each area of interest is highlighting a dimension of a unified concretely rich complexity from which each draws its ultimate intelligibility and vitality. The problem is not to figure out how to unite ontologically discrete facts studied by different disciplines. Rather, the problem is to distinguish various dimensions of the concrete matrix of relational webs in which human experience is enmeshed for purposes of intellectual clarity and advancement of understanding. Understood in this way, the products of these abstractions will not mistakenly be seen either as self-enclosed relativistic environments immune from “outside” criticism or as a direct grasp of “what is” in its pristine purity. Throughout many levels, truth is both made and found. The so-called tensions between truth as made and truth as found, between truth as changing and truth as fixed, result from focusing on diverse dimensions operative within the intertwining of human interpretive activity and the temporal unfolding of a processive universe. We create the interpretive frameworks within which beliefs can emerge and be found true or false and within which investigation can tend toward agreement. The creative intelligence involved in radical changes and shifts of interpretive frameworks is influenced by socio-cultural conditions, but is ultimately founded not in a relativistic, perspectivally closed historicism, but in an ontologically grounded, perspectivally open temporalism. The criterion for adequately cutting into the indefinitely rich array of possibilities of experience offered by the dynamics of an indeterminately rich concrete universe is workability, but workability can be established only relative to some meaningful network by which experience is "caught". Valid knowledge claims are fallibilistic, perspectival, and temporal, but nonetheless 539 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture grounded in a thick reality. This position denies the arbitrariness of antifoundationalism, antirealism, relativism, a historicism of present happenstance, as well as the absoluteness of foundationalism, realism, objectivism, the absolute grasp. And, it this way it avoids the extremes of either relativistic irresponsibility or dogmatic commitment or imposition, replacing both with the importance of ongoing inter-perspectival dialogue which allow for the advancement of knowledge and the ongoing enrichment of human existence. It calls for commitment to one’s perspective as it proves to advance these goals, but yet openness to other perspectives which may, in their own way, be accomplishing the same goals. Pragmatism attempts to draw one toward an awareness of the interactive openness, at the heart of experience, of humans and the natural universe in which they are embedded, and in so doing provide the path for freeing thinking from premature ontological assertions, from illicit reifications, and from a tradition of philosophy which, in its search for supposed foundations, lost the illusive but pervasive existential foundations of its search. And if, as pragmatism holds, the pulse of human existence at its very core is, both existentially and epistemically, creatively intertwined with, and thus attuned to, an indeterminately rich processive universe which reveals itself in various ways both within and among various levels and modes of human activity, then attunement to this sense of human existence can yield at once both a more demanding and more tolerant master than any of the diverse second level articulations to which it gives rise. 540 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture THE ACHILLES HEEL OF SCHOPENHAUER’S AESTHETIC THEORY Federico Salinas Birkbeck College, University of London I. Introduction A theory of aesthetics, to be complete, must give satisfactory answers to two questions: “What is art?” and “What is beauty?” But not only should a theory give a satisfactory account for each of these concepts; it must also explain the relation between them. This essay will evaluate Arthur Schopenhauer’s theory of aesthetics in so far as it addresses these three issues. In so doing, I will discuss the role that Ideas play in his aesthetic account by tracing them to the role they play in Schopenhauer's metaphysics. The Ideas, it is my contention, not only polluted Schopenhauer's metaphysical elegance, but they are also like square pegs on a round peg aesthetic board, superfluous at best, inconsistent at worst. In this essay, I will not discuss that part of Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory that focuses on the transformation that the perceiver of a work of art undergoes. The focus of this essay will instead be on the object, rather than the subject, of aesthetic contemplation. II. The Metaphysical Background to Schopenhauer's Aesthetic Account One of the striking features of Schopenhauer's philosophy is the interconnection between his metaphysics and aesthetics. It is an interconnection for which he has become famous. Indeed, many students of philosophy who may only have a superficial awareness of Schopenhauer's metaphysics are often aware of his belief in the supremacy of music, for example, as a mode for apprehending the noumenon. No doubt this is partly due to the romantic appeal of such a concept, reinforced through the association of Schopenhauer with the nineteenth century romantic movement and with musicians such as Wagner, who are said to have been influenced by his thought. Of this influence there exists little evidence, at least as far as the work product of the composer is concerned, but the connection has already been made in the popular mind. Yet, while it is true that Schopenhauer's aesthetic account pre-supposes his metaphysics, it is equally true that his aesthetic account can stand on its own as a phenomenological account of the experience of art. My principal contention is that while it is true that the knot between Schopenhauer's aesthetic theory and metaphysics is indissoluble, it would not be true to assert that the knot he tied is the only possible one, nor that it was the most elegant. Indeed, I postulate that it is not only possible, but in fact more convenient, to seek an alternative connection between his metaphysics and aesthethics, one that is more faithful to the fundamentals of his metaphysics. Since my principal objection to his aesthetics is their reliance on the Ideas, I shall begin by examining the role he ascribes to them first in his metaphysics, and subsequently in his aesthetics. In the following discussion, it is assumed that the reader is knowledgeable of the basic features of Schopenhauer's metaphysics. In the second book of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer gives an account of the objectification of Will in the world of representation. He moves from the inner experience of will and the glimpse it provides into the dichotomy of reality, to an analogical consideration of how will manifests itself in various “grades” of nature: “If, therefore, the material world is to be something more than our mere representation, we must say that, besides being representation, and hence in itself and of its inmost nature, it is what we find immediately in ourselves as will.” (WI, p. 541 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture 105). It is here that he introduces a concept of gradation in the manifestation of will in nature: “I say ‘of its inmost nature,’ but we have first of all to get to know more intimately this inner nature of the will, so that we may know how to distinguish from it what belongs not to itself, but its phenomenon, which has many grades.” (WI, p. 105). The introduction of a gradation system in the manifestation of will results in his later association of these grades with the Ideas: “Now I say that these grades of the objectification of the will are nothing but Plato’s Ideas.” (WI, p. 129). These grades, and thus the Ideas, are things such as the universal forces of nature, which are the lowest grade of the will’s objectification (WI, P. 130), while “in man, as (Platonic) Idea, the will finds its most distinct and perfect objectification.” (WI, p. 153). However, in other places, Schopenhauer refers to the Ideas not as universal forces in nature, but as something much more akin to universals: "These Ideas are the grades of objectification of the Will, considered as anterior to multiplicity; they are the species, 'the original unchaging forms and qualities of all natural bodies, both organized and unorganized, and also the general forces which reveal themselves according to natural laws." (WI, Haldane, p. 219). Schopenhauer saw that this view of the Ideas had significant similarities with Plato's eide, and devotes most of Chapter 31 of the World as Will and Representation to demonstrating the correctness of Plato's views. Yet, for all their affinity, Plato's Ideas do not correspond precisely with Schopenhauer's: While for Plato the Ideas have the special attribute of according existence to matter, for Schopenhauer they do not. For Plato, eide have the power of according existence to things in the natural world. This concept and its corollaries is known as Plato's doctrine of participation, and it is one of the essential features of his metaphysics. Yet the attribution of this power to eide is not only different from Schopenhauer's version of the Ideas, but even contrary in some respects. The power of according existence to all things is a power that only the noumenal can have. In this respect, Plato's Ideas would necessarily be better suited for inhabiting the noumenal realm, rather than the phenomenological. Yet this is precisely what Schopenhauer wants to deny: For him, only Will, one and undifferentiated, belongs in the noumenal realm. As Bryan Magee states: "… For reasons which he has now made clear, ultimate reality must be undifferentiated and undifferentiable, and therefore the Ideas, being plural, cannot be ultimate. If the world were to be used as the term for ultimate reality it woud have to be used always and only in the singular, as a synonym for "the one and indivisible will [and thus] the 'Idea'." (Magee, p. 148). Yet it is interesting to note that Schopenhauer's metaphysics also feature an existence-attributive power, though it is upon Will that he bestows it. It follows from our observation so far that, in spite of all the inner agreement between Kant and Plato, and of the identity of the aim that was in the mind of each, or of the world-view that inspired and led them to philosphize, Idea and thing-in-itself are not for us absolutely one and the same. On the contrary, for us the Idea is only the immediate, and therefore adequate, objectivity of the thing-in-itself, which itself, however, is the will. (WI, p. 174). If a parallel is to be drawn, and a contrast made, between the metaphysics of these two great philosophers, we may conjure the image of a puppet theater: The phenomenological world is the stage; the noumenal world is the backstage where the strings are pulled. Whereas for Plato the puppet master is eidos, for Schopenhauer it is Will. But it must be admitted that this metaphor, while addressing the dynamic aspect of the world, leaves the more static element untouched. As the philosopher Father Henley, SJ, himself a devotee of the medievalist Etienne Gilson, recognised, a metaphysics that doesn't address existence itself is an incomplete metaphysics. And yet, according to Henley, this is what many metaphysicists fail to do: While they account for why things are the way they are, they do not account for how it is that things are. This is a point that was not missed by either Plato or Schopenhauer: They both gave their noumena the power of making things real. Plato did it through his theory of participation; Schopenhauer by his paradox of the necessary connection between object and subject, between Will and Representation. 542 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture But if Schopenhauer did not bestow on his Ideas this essential metaphysical attribute, what is left of them? For some academic philosophers, Schopenhauer's Ideas are nothing more nor nothing less than the laws of nature. Marie-Jose Pernin, for example, states that l'intention de Schopenhauer dans ce livre II du Monde est surtout de présenter ces Idées ou forces naturelles qui se partagent la matière comme les limites de l'explication scientifique. Les Idées sont 'les conditions préalables de toute cause et de toute activité par lesquelles se manifeste leur essence particulière'; ce sont des forces primitives qui se trouvent en dehors de la chaine causale qui determine, comme nous l'avons déjà demontré, l'occasion de leur manifestation ... Les lois de la nature, le fond de l'explication, donnent le rapport de l'Idée a la forme spatio-temporelle de ses phenomènes. (Pernin, pp. 121-2) We can easily anticipate that reducing his Ideas to such a role would not bode well for an aesthetic account that depends on his metaphysics. And indeed, while universal laws of nature serve an interesting and primary role in his theory architectural aesthetics, it is the Platonic Idea, minus its existence-attributive power, that he requires for the plastic arts: To him the artistic appreciation of painting and sculpture, for example, requires getting in touch with what is permanent in things, with their essence or form, and the dynamics of laws such as gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, etc. are not an essential part of either the artist's intentions or the observer's aesthetic experience. Yet it is difficult to find in Schopenhauer's writings a positive affirmation about what he takes Ideas to be, other than vague, general concepts of gradation, the laws of nature, and the species. Perhaps the greatest flaw in this subdoctrine is that the various things that he calls Ideas seem to lack a common attribute that would justify the same label being attached to them. Surely, a species, say canis lupus, is altogether something different from Einstein's E=MC2. It would be odd to call both of them "Ideas" in some metaphysically meaningful sense. Moreover, while Schopenhauer takes the laws of nature to be fixed, permanent entities, many well-grounded recent theories would seem to negate that. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, for example, Thomas Kuhn argues convincingly that so-called scientific laws are but temporary hypotheses forming part of a cohesive system that he calls a "paradigm." All such paradigms are necessarily temporary, for the universe has a way of throwing data (which he calls "anomalies") at us that at best fall outside our existing paradigms, and at worst directly contradict it. Thus, the seventeenth century distinctions between law and hyphothesis seems to be obfuscated by twentieth century discoveries, since we now know, or should know, that no explanatory rule, no matter how well grounded on observation and proved in experiment, is unshakeable. At most, all we can say of our scientific laws is that they hold true until something comes around to contradict them. They are indeed nothing but working hypotheses with varying degrees of probability. The only difference between what we call a law and a hypothesis, is that rules that have passed our test for validity are to be called laws, while those that are have not yet passed our tests do not yet merit the label of law, and we shall call them hypotheses. Whether we feel sufficiently confident in a hypothesis to call it a law is simply a matter of our certitude comfort zone. This certitude comfort zone is one that is defined by the group of individuals that enjoy social legitimacy in the field to which the hypothesis relates. Thus, whether a rule in quantum theory rises to the level of law will depend on what the community of scientists working on that field, especially those at the respected academic institutes, will accept as having been sufficiently verified. Failure to recognize this is quite excusable in Schopenhauer, for it was not until the twentieth century that the limitations of Newtonian physics became plain for all well-informed thinkers to see, and it was only when those limitations became evident, principally through the observation of phenomena that did not fit the Newtonian conception of the universe, that we began to realize that a bigger and better theory was necessary. While we were quick to realize the immediate implications in the field of physics, to the extent that a mere four decades passed between Einstein's formulation of E=MC2 and the development of the atomic bomb, it took another four decades for someone to articulate the wider epistemological implications of the shift, and to this day popular culture is astoundingly ignorant of Thomas Kuhn, in spite of the clarity with 543 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture which he articulated his discovery. III. The Role of the Ideas in Schopenhauer's Aesthetics One of the remarkable features of Schopenhauer's aesthetic account is that while in some important aspects it relies on his misguided notion of the Ideas, it manages to preserve consistency with the kernel of his metaphysical thought, which in turn does not need the Ideas. At its most superficial, Schopenhauer's account of beauty can be said to consist of something like the following formulation: Beauty is the faithful representation of an Idea through the individual object, which in turn differs from the Idea in that the individual object has been individuated through time and space. For example: “Every quality of matter is also always phenomenon of an Idea, and as such is also susceptible of aesthetic contemplation, i.e., of knowledge of the Idea that expresses itself in it.” (WI, p. 214). Hence, anyone who can see the Idea in particular things experiences aesthetic contemplation. Aesthetic contemplation is therefore, for Schopenhauer, at least partially a cognitive phenomenon: “Knowledge of the beautiful always supposes, simultaneously and inseparably, a purely knowing subject and a known Idea as object.” (WI, p. 212). I say "at least” because he also believes that “the source of aesthetic enjoyment will lie sometimes rather in … the bliss and peace of mind of pure knowledge free from all willing, and thus from all individuality and the pain that results therefrom.” As we have seen, for Schopenhauer the Ideas consist of the laws of nature and of species. Thus, objects that are able to encapsulate these would be beautiful. But we soon notice that this account could not possible be true in all circumstances. Can Schopenhauer really be saying that something that captures the essence of the lion necessarily must be beautiful? But if this were the case, what's wrong with a particular lion, call him Clarence, as being a representative of the species as a whole? Why would the representation of the lion need to be different from a particular lion to be a proxy for the species in aesthetic apprehension? If this is not the case, would it suffice for Clarence to be the representative, in our own observation, of the whole species in order for it to be beautiful? What about animals that people generally find odious in appearance, such as the cuttle fish: Would a particular cuttle fish be beautiful merely because it can serve as a proxy for the whole species? More radically, can a representation of the cuttle fish ever achieve the status of beautiful? This may sound like a Woody Allen mock philosophical reflection, but it does not conceal the essence of the problem. Indeed, in spite of the clarity for which he is rightly famous, Schopenhauer seems to confound modern academic philosophers with his use of the Ideas in his metaphysical and aesthetic systems. Some scholars, for example, have argued that Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory entails that Ideas are the noumenon itself. This would, on its face, seem to suggest that Ideas are in the realm of will, and therefore aesthetic appreciation involves a means of reaching the noumenon. This seems to be Cheryl Foster’s interpretation: “Art,” she says, “in this instance, galvanizes awareness of the world’s essential Oneness.” (Companion, p. 234). T.J. Diffey also assumes this interpretation: “Thus for Kant works of art may give intimation of the transcendent but, contrary to Schopenhauer, they certainly cannot reveal, present or portray it.” (Diffey, p. 140). There is some textual support for this interpretation: “by Idea I understand every definite and fixed grade of the will’s objectification, in so far as it is thing-in-itself and is therefore foreign to plurality.” (WI, p. 130). Others believe that Schopenhauer meant for Ideas to belong firmly to the side of representation. Julian Young, for example, says that “it is not something other than the ordinary individual that is the object of aesthetic experience, but rather, as in the case of geometrical diagram, the ordinary individual with one’s attention confined to what is universal in it.” (Young, Schopenhauer, p. 133). Textual support for this interpretation is easy to find and Schopenhauer expressed himself unequivocally: “On the other hand, the Platonic Idea is necessarily object, something known, a representation, and precisely, but only, in this respect is it different from the thing-in-itself.” (WI, p. 544 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture 175). But this interpretation raises another problem: since Schopenhauer's metaphysics are absolutist in their dichotomy, with will undivided and representation split into particulars by space and time, how can Ideas be said to subsist as universals? Are they a sub-class of representations, subject to space and time, or are they a super class of representations, subsisting in a sort of spaceless, timeless, limbo? Young appears to believe that they are a subclass of representation: “For whereas the notion of individual things as ‘copies’ of the Ideas requires that the Ideas be things, Schopenhauer does not, in fact, treat them as things at all. ‘Idea’ is, in his aesthetic theory, a mere façon de parler, a merely nominal object.” (Young, Schopenhauer, p. 132). But while Young’s explanation addresses the integrity of the dual plane account of metaphysical reality, it does not address other problems that are common to all universals or properties.1 Hence, the introduction of Ideas would be mired by questions regarding their number and a satisfactory account would need to be given regarding what, precisely, is being abstracted from the particular in aesthetic contemplation. For example, does the Venus of Milo capture womanhood, youthful womanhood, or contemplative womanhood? Moreover, can a single of work of art encapsulate many Ideas or is it one Idea that is captured by it? In addition, in giving a proper account of aesthetic contemplation, Schopenhauer would have to tell us (which he does not) what about a particular object is unessential so that it can be left behind in the process of abstraction. Pernin has identified two additional problems that the introduction of the Ideas have raised. The first problem is that, if the Ideas are equated with the species, Darwinian theory would imply that they cannot be fixities. If so, Schopenhauer's Ideas could not be anything like Plato's, since not only has Schopenhuaer renounced the Platonic doctrine of the Ideas as the noumenal, but now he would have to cede on their permanence as well. It seems difficult to see what the value of such an eviscerated conception of the Ideas would be in a metaphysical account. The second problem identified by Pernin is whether Schopenhauer would "admit of an Idea for the individual human being" ("la question de savoir si le philosophe admet unde Idée de l'individu humain") (Pernin, p. 120). Schopenhauer was a believer in the uniqueness of each individual, for while he variously asserts that there are character types, he also inequivocally asserts the uniqueness of each individual's character: has his own unique character, which embodies a unique Idea. But if this is so, Pernin is right to identify an inconsistency in Schopenhauer's position and perishability of individuals. The solution offered is that Schopenhauer stated individuals as the partial expression of an Idea, rather than its totality. But this solution is itself mired with further problems: Is there room in Schopenhauer's account of reality for a Putnamist account of the Ideas as embodying not only what is or has been actual, but also what is merely possible? In other words, would the Idea of humanity be comprised merely of the total sum of actual human behaviour in all individuals that have existed, exist, and will exist, or should the notion be expanded to individuals that may have existed? What about their behaviour: Is their actual behaviour to be taken as the only defining feature, or is their potential behaviour to be taken into account (if one knew what the potential was)? I think that the key to understanding Schopenhauer's aesthetic account is to bring it back to his first principles in metaphysics: The world is will and representation. Beauty, Schopenhauer would agree, is indeed in the eye of the beholder. This is true not because beauty is subjective in the sense that reasonably people may differ in judgment, but in a much more important and radical way. Since there cannot be an object without a subject, nor a subject without object, the beautiful object is a phenomenon for the subject. But within the subject, representations fall into different classes: There are strictly mental representations (concepts) and there are empirical representations. Schopenhauer 1 See, e.g. Swoyer, Chris, "Properties", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2000 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2000/entries/properties/>. 545 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture would now have us believe that there is another class of representations that have to be sandwiched in between empirical and mental representations. They derive from empirical representation in that they are what is common to them, but they do so not through abstraction, as concepts do. Thus, Schopenhauer is arguing that the world has forms into which individuals are wedged. If this is true, then Schopenhauer is dangerously flirting with realism and one would be tempted to forgive those who assert that Schopenhauer believed that aesthetic experience gave direct access to the noumenal. But then the noumenon would be something different than will, something more akin to Plato's Ideas, and this Schopenhauer could not agree with. If for Schopenhauer the beautiful is the encapsulation of Ideas, art is man's conscious presentation of the Ideas through a chosen medium, and the critic's appreciation of the Idea thus presented. The artist is a mediator who grasps an Idea and, through technical ability, is able to encapsulate it in the artistic product, which then quickens in the observer the apprehension of the Idea in more or less distinct form. For Schopenhauer, art necessitates both the creator and the observer, and the observer is not merely a passive recipient of the Idea given to him or her digested by the artist. Indeed, citing Voltaire, Schopenhauer says that the secret to being a boor is to leave nothing unsaid: "Le secret d'être ennuyeux, c'est de tout dire." (WII, p. 408). For Schopenhauer true art is suggestive. IV. An Alternative Schopenhauerian Aesthetic Theory A good case could be made, it seems to me, that Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory suffered from the introduction of the Ideas into his metaphysics. Yet, by removing the Ideas from both his metaphysics and aesthetics, a coherent aesthetic theory still obtains, and one that is consistent with the rest of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics. In such a theory, art would be defined as an instance of didactic trickery, whereby the artist demonstrates to the viewer how it is possible to create the illusion of representation through artifice. He differs from the magician only in that while the magician's object is to awe, to produce belief in the viewer that the laws of nature have been temporarily suspended, the artist is inspired by a deeper motive: the desire to re-create the world, or at least one aspect of it, thereby participating in the divine-like process of creating a representation--a representation in the Schopenhauerian sense. In essence, the artist aims to play the role of God: He summons a matrix of experience from the urstoff, or primordial elements of colour, density, vibrations in the air, words, or whatever his medai are, and creates a sensual experience that is almost as real as the world we experience. This representation need not be visual: the true artist aims to create the conditions where the viewer's experience is as complex as that elicited by the world. In its highest achievements, art is capable of producing emotion and cognition. Yet for the creation of true art, it is essential that the representation thus created not succeed completely in re-creating an aspect of the world. Complete success would be realism, and realism destroys art. This is why much of photography fails to produce an aesthetic response. In the rare instance where we recognise the aesthetic experience in the contemplation of photographs, it is when a particular angle, whether it be something slightly incongruous, some minor defect, reminds us that the view before us is the creation of a human being. It is an essential element of true art that the observer recognise its fallibility. It is the reflection on the power to create the world that makes us wonder, and the objet d'art needs to combine the world creation with a reminder of the hand behind it. Where the magician or illusionist is interested in deceipt, the artist is interested in truth. Whether he knows it consciously or not, the artist's motivation is didactic: He aims to teach himself and others the truth that the world is representation, an illusion. Accordingly, at the other extreme from perfect realism, purely abstract representation is not art either, since the viewer misses the deeper pedagogical value of the artistic experience: Purely abstract art is divorced from the deeper meaning of the world as will and representation, since there is no aspect of the world that is being re-created. The unthinking observer will allow himself to be influenced by the fame that the abstract artist has 546 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture gained, and, like in many other aspects of his life, will be swayed by received opinion. But while the honest observer may chuckle at the audacity of the abstract artist or even feel empathy with his mischievousness, he will fail to experience the more profound, contemplative experience that the true work of art will produce. Nor, as we have said above, will perfect illusion created by mechanical will not qualify as art, since the didactic value of the work of art is precisely in showing the juxtaposition of artifice and representation. Art, in short, is a means to make the viewer experience the principal insights that Schopenhauer spent his life elaborating upon: That the world is will (the artist's) and representation (the artwork). Art and philosophy therefore have the same mission: to elicit metaphysical truth. However, where philosophy relies on reasoned argument and observation, art goes about it intuitively. One cannot be said to be superior to the other, but rather complementary, for man is not only made of reason, but also intuitively. 547 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture BIBLIOGRAPHY Copleston, Frederick, S.J. Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher of Pessimism, London: The Bellarmine Series XI (1946) Diffey, T.J., “Schopenhauer’s Account of Aesthetic Experience”, British Journal of Aesthetics, 30:2 (1990: Apr.). Foster, Cheryl "Ideas and Imagination, Schopenhauer on the Proper Foundation of Art," in The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer, ed. Chris Janaway, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1999). Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (1962). Magee, Bryan, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, Oxford: Oxford University Press (1997). Pernin, Marie-Jose, Au coeur de l'existence, la souffrance?, Philosophie présente, Paris: Bordas (2003). Schopenhauer, Arthur, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, Trans. by EFJ Payne, La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Classics Library of Philosophy (1974). Schopenhauer, Arthur, On the Basis of Morality, Trans. by Arthur Brodrick Bullock, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. (1915). Schopenhauer, Arthur, The World as Will and Representation [Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung] vol. I, trans. R.B. Haldane, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (1950). Schopenhauer, Arthur, The World as Will and Representation [Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung] vol. I, trans. E.F.J. Payne, New York: Dover (1966). Young, J.P. Auckland, “The Standpoint of Eternity: Schopenhauer on Art”, Kantstudien, 78:4 (1987). Young, J.P. Schopenhauer, Oxon: Routledge (2005). 548 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture CRUELTY AND METAPHYSICS ON THE LOGIC OF TRANSGRESSION Schaub Mirjam Institut für Philosophie “I want to be severe and not euphemize anything. A theory must be ruthless, and turn against its originator if he is not cruel towards himself.” (Ernesto Sábatos, Abaddón) Introduction In the opening pages of his book “Le Principe de Cruauté” (1988), Clément Rosset asks why philosophy claims to “result from a gaze directed at the world”1 (harking back to the meaning of the Greek theoria []), while at the same time appealing to the “principle of insufficient reality” (PG, 18). Accordingly, the good intention of “understanding and interpreting what exists” (PG, 19) is frequently given up in favor of pure - and quite harmless - abstractions. Rosset makes the following diagnosis: “Philosophy does not ordinarily object to the real because of its inexhaustible richness, but rather because of its scarcity of foundation - meaning that reality is both too substantial and too slight. Too substantial to be fully discovered, and too slight to be understood” (PG, 15). But it is neither the really existing complexity nor the intellectual impenetrability of the real that ultimately gives rise to the philosophical strategy of evasion and withdrawal, Rosset argues. It is rather a distinct, albeit successfully repressed, sense of inevitability, that is, the “‘cruelty’ of the real” (PG, 21) itself. Not very surprisingly, Rosset understands cruelty as “the unique and consequently unalterable and irrevocable characteristic of reality - a characteristic that makes it impossible to keep it at a distance or to soften its severity by appealing to some external authority. Cuor, from which crudelis (cruel) as well as crudus (raw, undigested, indigestible) are derived, refers to skinned and bleeding meat: that is, to the thing itself, free from all coverings and other trivia” (PG, 21f.). It is in this sense that cruelty and reality implement each other reciprocally in their lack of distance and in their prompt execution: We cannot simply distance ourselves from the things that happen to us no matter how much we may want to. They may seem indigestible, but “swallow” them we must. Rosset speaks of “enforcement” and “conviction” merging into one, without a temporal gap between them. Our awareness of this condition makes reality appear doubly cruel: first, because what happens is inevitable, uncorrectable and impossible to postpone the moment it occurs, and second, because we know that what happens, in distinction to everything else that is, precisely, not real, is also true, that is, really real. Human, and not only human but also philosophical thought understandably tries to soften this “double cruelty of the real” (PG, 24) by “unrealization,” or the deliberate creation of illusion. So it is not that we have a cognitive problem with reality, but rather that the philosophical devaluation of the immediately real (consider Hegel’s famous repudiation of sense certainty and his tendency, especially in his philosophy of time, to permit all tenses except for the present) coincides with an affective protective reflex. Philosophy sublates our undeniable awareness of the uniqueness and unrepeatability of all that happens and everything that is real and declares it - with Epicurius’ famous words about death, which is never there as long as the thinker is still there and which is therefore not to be feared - to be purely abstract knowledge. It is possible, writes Rosset, that the human understanding in this process is 1 Clément Rosset, Das Prinzip Grausamkeit, translated by Peter Geble, Berlin: Merve, 1994, 9. Quoted as PG. 549 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture actually rationalizing an entirely different experience, namely the feeling that the awareness of the cruelty of the real sharply exceeds our “ability to feel” (PG, 27). We find ourselves on the verge of a checkmate that has to be turned into a draw. Our recognition of the cruelty of the real is “unavoidable (it is impossible to completely ignore what we know) and at the same time unacceptable (it is equally impossible to consent to it entirely)” (PG, 30). Caught in this stalemate that is both affective and epistemic, philosophy not infrequently turns to a “hallucinatory exorcism of the real” (PG, 35). I have begun with these speculations of Rosset with hardly any commentary of my own in order to open up a discursive space for the following - without having to enter it myself. I am guided by the figure of cruelty less in view of the question as to how we experience reality; I am rather interested in cruelty primarily as a) a practice of philosophical thinking itself, and secondarily (meaning I can only touch on this aspect in this paper) as b) a core determination of an inhuman practice. In the first case, intellectual cruelty against oneself is considered to be a necessary prerequisite for unbiased and philosophically honest thinking and is not associated with words like “torment.” In the second, on the other hand, there is the nasty if widespread cultural practice of the intentional infliction of pain, the deliberate creation of torment, which derives from a certain excess of violence. (Violence as such is also not my topic today, nor do I address the extensive literature on the subject). My hunch is that two practices are related if they both share a particular metaphysical heritage. This makes me curious about the possible hidden connections that might exist between a philosophical thinking that is “cruel” against itself (a thinking, in other words, characterized by a form of cruelty in the sense of the inevitability described above), and cruel acts against others. What intrinsic figure of thought has its source in the cruelty Rosset describes in view of the real? I would like to give it a provisional name: the figure or gesture of transgression. The determined will to transgress the real and the inability to do so are the two conflicting facts philosophical thinking has to confront. Let us begin by refining a few concepts. The power of violation by means of the legitimizing of transgression I regard cruelty as a power of violation undergirded by theories of legitimization. As such it is bound to a concept of transgression and the legitimacy of this transgression, which also derives from classical metaphysical topoi.2 I wonder whether a core metaphysical content of European thinking has not survived in a practice that is commonly considered to be the epitome of the unenlightened, the inhuman, the detestable. As an excess of violence, an overload of revenge, cruelty is the most carefully considered of all infringements on the mental and physical integrity of a human being. It exceeds all forms of raw, brutal violence insofar as it transcends that violence by appealing to a higher legitimation. The cruel act, by aiming at the humiliation and ridicule of its victims, reveals ex negativo the conditions of the possibility of humanity. What kind of humiliation are we talking about? Cruelty does not simply aim for the death or collapse of a human being, but at making his suffering infinite. The peak of cruelty is only reached at the point when the victim asks for his own death and this very form of salvation is denied him. To fear torture more than death, this is the “lesson” cruelty teaches its victims. It thereby attacks the core of humanitas, insofar as it forces the victim to give up his will to survive as well as his fear of death. It denies him the final retreat: the possibility of preserving the unity of body and spirit by having them both destroyed at the same time. (It is not uncommon for the torture victim to lose his mind first). Conversely, cruelty allows those who practice it to set themselves up as the “masters” of 2 Cf. Michel Foucault, “A Preface to Transgression.” Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ithica, New York: Cornell University Press, 1977, 29–52. Cited from now on as PtT. First published as Préface à la Transgression in der Zeitschrift Critique, no. 195-196: Hommage à G. Bataille, août-septembre 1963, pp. 751–769. Wiederabgedruckt in M. Foucault, Dits et Écrits, Vol. I., 1954–1988, Paris: Gallimard, 2001, pp. 261–278. 550 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture a human being, and seems to be the final proof for there being “no God.” He who is cruel takes the place of God, not only because he makes himself into a “master” over life and death, but also because he can only play out his omnipotence if he knows the specific vulnerability of his victim. (From this derives the “recognition by violation” that gives the victim the impression he is “personally” intended). Cruelty displays its power only by means of a deliberate “interaction” with the victim. It plays with the hope of the victim, predicts the next subterfuge, knows precisely the desire of the other and arouses it only in order to disappoint it yet again.3 Cruelty not only means the experience of raw violence against body and soul, but also the admission of unavoidability, of the impossibility of not suffering when it is the passions of the human being themselves that are affected. The sufferer’s own, barely controllable desire becomes a trap that snaps shut inside himself. To be brought face to face so brutally with one’s own desire makes up a large part of the demoralization that drives someone ever deeper into victim logic. To be blamed for one’s own misery, one’s own subjugation, to feel one deserves the torture, to make atonement for something (indeterminate), the diffuse inducement of complicity on the part of the victim - all of this permits cruelty to develop its destructive effects in the first place. Cruelty always operates with the possibility of making the victim responsible for his victimization, of passing off the act of destruction as an act of self-destruction. Cruelty ultimately appears as violence against the self. This effect can only be attained if the act of cruelty appears to be legitimate, if the transgression it performs refers to something that is higher than all violence. It is not important that this something actually exists. It is important that the structure of reference remains intact, that the reference to something higher, a metaphysical form, survives as a gesture. Preface to transgression or the killing of an inexistent God Michel Foucault’s “Preface to Transgression” (1963) can be understood as an example of the effectiveness of this metaphysical remainder. In this essay, he shows how the concept of the limit became transformed with the “death of God” - in other words, with the inability of transcending the human in view of a God. “Transgression, then, is not related to the limit as black to white, [...] the outside to the inside, the open area of a building to its enclosed spaces. Rather, their relationship takes the form of a spiral which no simple infraction can exhaust. [...] {I]ts role is to measure the excessive distance that it opens at the heart of the limit [...]. Transgression contains nothing negative, but affirms limited being - affirms the limitedness into whit it leaps as it opens this zone to existence for the first time. [...] Perhaps it is simply an affirmation of division [...], the existence of difference.” Foucault (PtT 35-36)4 The challenge (or the cruelty) of modern thought consists in transgressing the limit oneself (of that which, against resistance, is transgressible): “God is nothing if not the surpassing of God in every sense” (PtT, 33).5 This “transgressing of the transgressible” (the limit) is the figure of thought that not only leads, as Foucault says, “to the empty purity of [...] transgression” (PtT, 31),6 but also proclaims how we are to think what is called the “outside”: The outside is not external to 3 Vgl. Sören Kierkegaard (1842), Tagebuch des Verführers, in: ibid.., Entweder/Oder, 1. Teil. Düsseldorf (1956), 325–484. 4 „La transgression n’est donc pas à la limite comme le noir et au blanc (....), l’extérieure à l’intérieur, l’exclu à l’espace protégé de la demuere. Elle lui est liée plutôt selon un rapport en vrille dont aucune effraction simple ne peut venir à bout. [...] [E]lle prend, au cœur de la limite, la mesure démesurée de la distance qui s’ouvre en celle-ci (...). Rien n’est négatif dans la transgression. Elle affirme l’être limité, elle affirme cet illimité dans lequel elle bondit en l’ouvrant pour la première fois à l’existence. (...) . Peut-être n’est-elle rien d’ature que la’affirmation du partage. (...) [L]’être de la différence.“– Foucault, PaT, 265f. 5 „Dieu n’est rien s’il ne’est pas dépassement de Dieu dans tous les sens de l’être vulgaire, dans celui de l’horreur et de l’impureté ...“ – Foucault, PaT, 264. Does this imply (vice versa), that God means this: the transgression of all possible limits results in destroying the concept of limitation itself. 6 „[À] sa pureté vide de transgression.“ – Foucault, PaT, 262. 551 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture thought, but rather that which remains of the structure of the limit that God was for thinking once every belief in real transcendence has been lost. The outside to which the gesture of transgression mutely refers is necessary (for the continued existence of the transgression), a heuristic fiction. That is to say, a limit has to be thought as such in view of its transgression if thought wants to orient itself towards an extreme, towards something external that at the same time is intimately internal. This empty form of orientation towards a nothing, towards an outside that is not external, nevertheless produces effects and keeps the system of belief functioning. And it is what made us susceptible to the cruelties that derive from the promise of a higher power. The notion of the “outside” does not appear as a developed concept in Foucault’s 1963 essay, although we can find certain precursors. The historical context (in this case the nineteen-sixties) is of crucial importance here, because, according to Foucault, we now live and think “in a world which no longer recognizes any positive meaning in the sacred” (PtT, 30)7, in which not only the place of God is vacant, but the orientation towards a transcendent Something has itself become a questionable matter. Foucault is interested in a double movement of our thinking in its relation with this vacancy, with the dissolution of a figure that for centuries determined our thinking: What happens when thought is no longer limited by the limit of God (his incomprehensibility, his glory, his omnipotence and omniscience that names our deficiencies)? Is it then free and at home with itself? Or entirely beside itself, outside of itself? For Foucault, the historically understandable project of emancipation and empowerment of human reason from and against external authorities (such as states, gods, etc.) does not automatically lead to an increase in intellectual freedom. There is an immanent reason for this. For the loss of the limit is at the same time the loss of the possibility of transgression.8 What becomes of a thinking that deprives itself of the possibility of transgression? Is transgression not necessary for any philosophical thought? When Foucault insists on the positivity of transgression, he is trying “to bring us closer to the possibility of a nondialectical language” (PtT, 41).9 Only a universal affirmation permits the question to be posed in another way, in the awareness that the most difficult transgression of all is the transgression of transgression. What forms does our thinking take when it no longer transgresses itself in view of another? When it no longer experiences itself in the other? When all of its experiences are “inner experiences,” experiences of the self and of the same? When all thinking is only ever like itself, when it only ever doubles and mirrors itself? It must be said that it is not a matter of blaspheming God by (against one’s better knowledge) denying his existence. (That is only the first form in which transgression in the shape of blasphemy, temptation, etc. attacked the limit that God stood for in Western thought). The incitement to a deeper form of transgression is aimed at the transgression of the structure of the limit. It is not a matter of finding a new occupant for God’s vacant place within the structure, but rather, in the name of transgression (the “vanguard” of the “outside”), of dissolving this structure of the orientation towards something transcendent itself, along with every determinate form of “belief in ...”. Has transgression survived then as a gesture in the twenty-first century? Do sexual and spiritual ecstasy and mentally, even physically tangible and violent excess bear witness to an orientation 7 „[U]n monde qui ne reconnaît plus de sens positif au sacré“. – Foucault, PaT, 262. 8 “[A] limit could not exist if it were absolutely uncrossable and, reciprocally, transgression would be pointless if it merely crossed a limit composed of illusions and shadows. But can the limit have a life of its own outside of the act that gloriously passes through it and negates it?” – Foucault (PtT, 34). „[I]nexistence d’une limite qui ne pourrait absolument pas être franchie, vanité en retour d’une transgression qui ne franchirait qu’une limite d’illusion ou d’ombre. Mais la limite a-t-elle une existence véritable en dehors du geste qui glorieusement la traverse et la nie?“ – Foucault (PaT, 265). 9 „[P]our nous rapprocher des possibilitités d’un langage non dialectique.“ – Foucault (PaT, 269). 552 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture towards nothing, to an orientation without object or goal? Is it not rather that the supposedly destroyed limit has shifted to the inside of thought as well as of action, where its place is all the more secure? Is it not that it now no longer recognizes anything outside of itself, but for that very reason no longer knows itself? It no longer knows its own limits, only knows about them “abstractly” but never concretely. “Thought” - philosophical as well as scientific and artistic - does not know in advance what possibilities it will have in the future. The limit belonging to thinking is immanent to that thinking, meaning that it is inscrutable, inexplicable, unfathomable. It exists, that much is certain, but where and how it concretely manifests itself no one can say in advance. Thought does not know what it cannot think, and knows of nothing it would not be capable of thinking. The gesture bearing witness to the seemingly greatest power of transgression, namely the statement “God is dead” (with that very sentence), followed by “did he ever exist?,” transgresses the limit that God marked for thinking. But at the same time it dissolves that limit; thereby making the act of transgression redundant. Just as transgression after the proclaimed “death of God” means an orientation towards a nothing, the cancellation of an external limit of thought is accompanied by the emergence of “internal” limits of the same: “In this sense, the inner experience is throughout an experience of the impossible (the impossible being both that which we experience and that which constitutes the experience).” (PtT, 32).10 This impossibility is the performative condition of every thought, the irreducible flipside of a practice that cannot be transformed into theory without loss. Taking as his starting point the new “inner experience” of the limit that has been turned inside out, Foucault goes one step further: But such an experience, for which the death of God is an explosive reality, discloses as its own secret and clarification, its intrinsic finitude, the limitless reign of the Limit, and the emptiness of those excesses in which it spends itself and where it is found wanting. [...] But what does it mean to kill God if he does not exist, to kill God who has never existed? Perhaps it means to kill God both because he does not exist and to guarantee he will not exist - certainly a cause for laughter: to kill God to liberate life from this existence that limits it, but also to bring it back to those limits that are annulled by this limitless existence - as a sacrifice; to kill God to return him to return him to this nothingness he is and to manifest his existence at the center of a light that blazes like a presence - for the ecstasy. (PtT, 32) [emphasis in the original]11 Foucault is not demanding that thinking must take its leave from the inherited metaphysical concept of transgression, but rather proposes a radicalization: In a thoroughly profane, demystified world, devoid of any belief in God or in man, the gesture or figure of transgression itself has survived and has been transformed along with the concept of the limit. How has this changed thinking? The limit has become immanent to man, and thus it has become intransgressible. The whole “Preface ...” is concerned with this becoming-immanent of the limit, with the transgression of the transgressible to the recognition of something intransgressible. After the “death of God,” the absolute limitedness of man deserves to be recognized by man himself. The finitude of human knowledge is the price for the new infinity of thought that opens up after the death of God. All profanization thereby becomes a movement of transgression towards the empty center of belief, towards a limit that never existed but that - as phantom and corrective—continues to have effects. 10 „En ce sens, l’expérience intérieure est tout entière expérience de l’impossible (l’impossible étant ce dont on fait l’expérience et ce qui la constitue).“ – Foucault (PaT, 263) 11 „Mais une telle expérience, en laquelle éclate la mort de Dieu, découre come son secret et sa lumière, sa propre finitude, le règne illimité de la Limite, le vide de ce franchissement où elle défaille et fait défaut. [...] Mais que veut dire tuer Dieu s’il n’existe pas, tuer Dieu qui n’existe pas? Peut-être à la fois tuer Dieu parce qu’il n’existe pas et pour qu’il n’existe pas: et c’est le rire. Tuer Dieu pour affranchir l’existence de cette existence qui la limite, mais aussi pour la ramener aux limites qu’efface cette existence illimitée (le sacrifice). Tuer Dieu pour le ramener à ce néant qu’il est et pour manifester son existence au cœur d’une lumière qui la fait flamboyer comme une présence (c’est l’extase). – Foucault (PaT, 263). 553 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture In his last book with Félix Guattari, Deleuze describes this “transgression of the transgressible” as an attempt to “no longer mimic anything transcendent” (cf. Ph [German], 68) but rather to provide thinking with a self-sufficient plane of immanence that ... at the same time, [...] must be thought and [...] cannot be thought. It is the nonthought within thought. It is the base of all planes, immanent to every thinkable plane that does not succeed in thinking it. It is the most intimate within thought and yet the absolute outside - an outside more distant than any external world because it is an inside deeper than any internal world: it is immanence, “intimacy as the Outside, the exterior become the intrusion that stifles, and the reversal of both the one and the other” (Ph, Engl. 59;12 Fr. 59) [The quote is from Blanchot’s L’entretien infini, Paris, 1969, 65] Immanence is what is left to thought after the “death of God.” Knowledge about the limitedness of human thought, about the specificity of our thinking, is only abstract knowledge. Our thinking has become infinite, because we never know in advance what it will still be possible for us to think. We can hear echoes of Protagoras’ famous homo-mensura formula here. (“Of all things the measure is man, of the things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.”) In this sense all potentiality is on our side, and the unattainable “outside” of our innermost beings is the real challenge of a modern image of thinking that no longer acts as the advocate of the (one) truth and opponent of all error, illusion and madness (cf. Ph, [German] 63). Conclusion If, after its demise, metaphysics continues to be the doctrine of the necessity of transgression, and if the possibility of transgression was regarded as a sign of the “divine” heritage of man, metaphysics inevitably appears at the core of a thinking about the effectiveness, and the mechanisms of effectivity, of cruelty. We can understand cruelty as the practical implementation of a classical logic of transgression deriving from a spirit of non-violation as it is held in store by Western metaphysics. In that case, the excesses of, for instance, a de Sade obsessed with the “image of an integral human being”13 or Robespierre’s “terror of virtue,” are not simply perversions of Enlightenment thought, but reveal one of its immanent features.14 The development of a genealogy of cruelty should then be understood to involve a revision of the image of Western thought, the image that Enlightenment thinking created of its own activity: Never did philosophizing seem more “natural,” never did as many people seem suited to simply make use of the strength of their own understanding, as in the time of the Enlightenment. (It is in the Enlightenment that the seed Descartes planted in 1637 in the first sentence of his “Discours de la méthode” comes up: “Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée” [Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed]). The image of thought created by this epoch casts reason as a refuge of natural equality, from which the revolutionary potential for the reorganization of a feudal society into a modern one could be drawn. The peaceful power and strength of reason was brought up against the tyranny of the despots. Reason was considered the first historically relevant force to win recognition for itself nonviolently through the power of persuasion. The 12 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy? Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. 13 Pierre Klossowski, Sade – Mein Nächster (Sade mon prochain, Paris 1947/1967), Wien: Passagen 1996, 74. In Sade Domancé is stating, that female cruelty seems to be „die Furcht einer außerordentlichen Sensiblität der Organe, die nur äußert feinfühlenden Wesen bekannt, und die Exzesse, zu denen sie sie führt, sind nichts anderes als die Verfeinerungen ihrer Zartsinnigkeit, diese wegen ihrer übermäßigen Freinheit zu rasch abgestumpfte Zartsinnigkeit bringt, um sich wieder anzuregen, alle Hilfsmittel der Grausamkeit zur Anwendung.“ – De Sade, Die Philosophie im Boudoir, Gifkendorf: Merlin, o.J., 127. 14 More references on this topic, df. Th. W. Adorno/Horkheimer, M.: Exkurs II. Juillette oder Aufklärung und Moral, in: ders., Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente (1944), Frankfurt a. M. 1969, 88–127; and Michel Foucault: Un si cruel savoir (Ein so grausames Wissen) (1962), in: ibid., Schriften zur Literatur, München 1974, 53–68. Reprinted in M. Foucault, Dits et Écrits, Vol 1, pp. 243–256. 554 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture assumed non-violence of reason bolstered the legitimate demand to make oneself heard. A closer look at the Enlightenment authors’ metaphors, particularly those used by Kant, quickly raises the suspicion that the called-for acts of self-enlightenment and self-transgression were modeled after real, physical experiences of violence. We can in fact observe a downright “becoming cruel” of the Kantian faculties (the understanding, reason and the imagination) at the precise moment that the mastery of the one over the other becomes questionable. Philosophizing does not seem to be a natural predisposition of thought, but is owed (insofar that “thinking” is compelled to make sure of itself by making a “transcendental use” of itself) to an act of violence against oneself (read: to cruelty). (Kant himself came very close to this insight in his account of the experience of the sublime in the “Critique of Judgment” when, in a text permeated with violent imagery, he disrupts the integrity of the individual faculties and forces them to a “self-discovery” in each other.) Perhaps the rejection, so widespread among philosophers, of an “effeminate,” “weak” and “blind” morality of pity15 finds its logical counterpart in an “ethos of cruelty,” understood as a form of severity against oneself. Perhaps rigidity and cruelty against the self belong to the prerequisites of successful philosophizing. Radical thinking would then be - similar to the formation of memory in Nietzsche - painfully learning how to “rub salt in one’s own wounds” rather than letting them heal. Translated from German into English by Millay Hyatt 15 Cf. Nietzsche contra Wagner, in: Friedrich Nietzsche, Kritische Studienausgabe (KSA) in 15 volumes, edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. München (dtv), Bd. 6; Immanuel Kant, Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen (1764): „Vom Mitleiden. (...) [E]s ist nicht möglich, daß unser Busen für jedes Menschen Anteil von Zärtlichkeit aufschwelle und bei jeder fremden Not in Wehmut schwimme, sonst würde der Tugendhafte, unaufhörlich in mitleidigen Tränen wie Heraklit schmelzend, bei aller dieser Gutherzigkeit gleichwohl nichts weiter als ein weichmütiger Müßiggänger werden.“ 555 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS IN SADE Sclippa Norbert Charleston University Sade was a monist, and a materialist who believed that atoms, combining and recombining, created all forms of life in the universe. Only matter and its movements could account for a unique Being that was also the only possible existing entity, in which no difference availed between substance and accident, or essence and existence. Those differences established by dualists thinkers, between matter and spirit, as Descartes, were to be understood as simple modalities of a same Being. As Spinoza wrote : “mind and body are one and the same thing, conceived alternately under the attribute of thought and that of extension”.1 In this light, the understanding of that unique Being becomes for philosophy the only goal to achieve, and this is what Sade had in mind when he wrote at the end of the novel Juliette that “La philosophie doit tout dire” ~ “Philosophy must tell all”. The aim of philosophy is to tell that unique Being, “tell” rather than “explain”, since that Being cannot be “explained”. It IS, and the best one can do is to understand what it is, since all forms of knowledge are exhausted by it. And so it can be seen that in this perspective the role perception plays in this understanding will be paramount, since perception too happens to be an integral part of that being one. As Husserl writes: “Each form of transcendence is an existential signification constituting itself inside the ego. Any conceivable signification and being, whether they are called immanent or transcendent, are part of the field of transcendental subjectivity, as they constitute every signification and being. To want to capture the universe of the true being as something which is apart from the universe of conscience, of knowledge, of likely obviousness, to suppose that being and consciousness refer one to the other in a purely external manner, according to a strict law, is absurd. They belong primarily to one another; and what is initially linked is concretely one, is one in the unique and absolute concrete of transcendental subjectivity."2 There would therefore seem to be a contradiction between a universal Being, one by definition, and a second being restricted to the perception of the first. But is there ? Not, seemingly, if we keep to Spinoza’s definition, since we can then understand that these are also two moments of a same entity, once understood under one aspect, and once under the other, but always in a same continuity. The individual moment of perception is nothing more than the beginning and the end of all being, the only moment of its actuality, and as such just as universal as the totality of Being itself. To understand that particularity of the moment of perception is also key to understanding the whole of Being. All perceptions, or moments of consciousness fall in that moment on the same plane, and any distinctions of values disappear as well. Affects, as perception, have in it the same value as any other thoughts, and it cannot be otherwise, since by denying the “naturalness” of any moment of perception, one would then be contrived to deny the unity of the Being which produces these moments. Everything then must be right, as Alexander Pope puts it, in his Discourse on Man: WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. But then of course, the implications of this viewpoint must be that torture, suffering, or murder must also be RIGHT, which could imply that something must be wrong with the theory. But again, this is not necessarily the case, and it is in fact precisely what Sade has elected to show. It is in fact possible, simply by keeping to Spinoza’s definition, to extend the understanding that mind and matter are one and the same thing seen under two different attributes to 1 Spinoza, p. 137. 2 Husserl, p. 141. 557 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture the categories of good or evil. Could they not be one and the same thing, now seen under one aspect, and now under the other? One thing could be perceived as “evil” under the attribute of “Man”, for instance, and yet be good under the attribute of “Nature”, or vice versa - while both attributes would remain all the time part of the same essence, and in this way, Pope’s argument would make sense, and we could come to see, as Sade writes, that crime is “… nothing else than a mean Nature uses to achieve her designs on us, and maintain the equilibrium so very necessary to her workings.”3 But where Pope remains at the level of generality, it is something entirely different to show in details, as Sade does, how every instance of consciousness is also a uniquely perfect moment of the same universal harmony, and give us as positive moments of a single Being those instances which we are so accustomed to see as “evil” under the attribute of “Man”. But since it is impossible to claim that everything is right without claiming that every moment of thought must also right, the being we are in any moment of perception must also of necessity remain unethical. Ethics applies only to the attribute “Man” of the essence, but not to the attribute of Nature. The moment of perception, as moment of the unique Being, must be free of all the constraints and limits imposed by morals. The mind must become all-encompassing. Sade purports to show us how in this perspective our thoughts, impulses, and feelings, even the most extreme, are also part of Being, and wholly natural, and that without understanding of this Man can never be complete, since he cannot have understanding of the whole of which he is a part. It will be by accepting what amounts to a reversal of all our values that we will become able to understand Being, and not only in words, concepts, or generalities, as in Pope, and Sade’s works can then be seen as such an exercise. Destruction, in all its forms, but most of all, delight in that destruction, are here the hallmark of an attempt to disconnect minds from the “Man attribute”, and reconnect them with the “Nature attribute”. As la Delbène tells Juliette, in the novel with that same name : “O, Juliette, if you want, like me, to live happy, let your unyielding soul imperceptibly become used to turn all of the human virtues into vice, and every crime into virtue : then a new universe will be seen to come to be before your eyes, a devouring and delicious fire will sip into your nerves, setting ablaze in you that electric fluid in which resides the principle of life …”.4 And while we are here far from the good “Mother Nature” the philosophes invested with their own fanciful vision of a generous entity watching over mankind like a loving mother over her most precious child, yet as a matter of fact, in revisiting their philosophy it can be seen that Sade also believes as they do that only understanding of Nature is the ticket to true happiness. The difference is that for him the philosophes have lost sight of the unity of the being of Nature, and are in fact leading Man down the wrong path. He sees his works as a remedy. Citing Lucian, he compares humanity to a sick child, which it will be necessary to trick, in order to cure. “When doctors want children to drink the bitter absinth, they smear the edge of the cup with honey, and they become in this way not the victims but the beneficiaries of the lie, since they recover health and vigor thought it."5 Let’s note that the technique is also used by the philosophes. The readers laughing at the adventures of Candide or becoming heady with the platonic bouquet of La Héloïse Héloïse are just as unawares that they are ingesting morals, philosophy, and political theories as well. There is no difference, but Sade’s project entails a far more radical transformation of Man than the one planned by the philosophes, since it aims at transforming Man from the inside, not only on the surface, in the institutions of society. Destruction must operate in depth, starting with the understanding we have of Nature, and so as to reveal the whole of its unity. Sade aims at showing what philosophy would exhaust itself in explaining, and to that effect, he deconstructs, but not for the sole joy of exercising his intelligence, and as an end to a positive 3 Sade, Vol. 3, p. 839. 4 Sade, Vol. 3, p. 193-4. 5 Sade, Vol. 1, p. 1230, (from Lucian, lib. IV). 558 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture knowledge, the revelation of an un-deconstructible Nature, or Being. His novels are like the stage of that being, for which creation is always dependant on destruction. How ideas must die so that others can come to be, and thought continue, and how destruction is thus already in perception the basis of all creation, appears in his works as the same process we can observe in the world of matter. What we call “sadism” is nothing than a literary device - and it is strange to think that intellectuals who reject Sade, should also acclaim Taoism, Zen Bouddhism, or the works of Monist philosophers, Parmenides, Spinoza, and etc …, without understanding that what they reject in Sade is in fact a highly potent illustration of the truths they uphold elsewhere. And who indeed, having the same freedom as a sadean character, would not act exactly like him ? "Give me a being, in this world, which by its nature can be free of all the evils of humanity, not only will this being not show any trace of pity, but he will not even conceive of it", says one of Sade’s heroes.6 And indeed, Néro, Caligula, Stalin, Hitler, etc ... behaved exactly like this when they thought themselves immune from the common fate. In the Monist universe, indeed, we are all equally potentially monstrous, because, as Baudrillard writes, "Evil does not have [in it] any objective reality".7 Evil is a necessary moment of the necessary movement of a matter which Sade compares to the movements of the sea, rising and falling in turn, while remaining unchanged and equal to itself at the same time. We are in fact just as fictional, for Nature, as are characters, in a work of fiction. And it cannot be otherwise if “The principle of life is in creatures the same as the principle of death”, as writes Sade in Juliette.8 In that perspective, the celebrating of death we witness in Sade’s novels is also a celebration of life. Where the traditional novel invents a destiny for its characters, and manipulates them for hundred of pages before eventually dispatching them (which also makes for yet another variation of “sadism” in the end), Sade, intent on making us see the positive role of destruction in understand Being, dispatches them with unalloyed pleasure and joy, since, as he writes "... dissolution is useful to nature, since it is with the destroyed parts that it can recompose [new beings]".9 And to that effect, imagination can provide just as endless a supply of creatures as Nature does. The more destruction, in fact, the more creation for it. And so fiction becomes the perfect place in which to act out the play of natura naturans/natura naturata, to show how the active and passive principles of nature combine, now under one form, and the other. Since thought, or perception, is nothing but another instance of the heraclitean flux of matter, and as value-less as any other instance of that flux, it will then be seen that it is only pride that drives Man to invest objects with values and construct cultures that support this mystification. A different understanding of Man follows in Sade from the affirmation of the aesthetical nature of all ethics. Man’s intelligence itself does not stand above any other manifestation of Nature, in this perspective, but to the contrary. It is seen as useless where not capable of revealing the continuity and the universal harmony of Being, to make one understand that there is as much intellectual value in the contemplation of a leaf as in the discoveries of a genius. And while it is certain that thought is humiliated by being given obscenity, vice, and pornography for objects, it should also be seen that it is also reconnected with the totality of Being in these objects as well. If we are it, as Hinduism would have it (Tat Tvam Asi), then we must also be everything that we are in order to be it. And then it will be seen that such a Being absorbs every fear, feeling of failure, sadness, or impotency. There is, in the end, nothing but what is, a unity where destruction is part of creation and where both are one well beyond good and evil. The whole universe is given to us in that single moment of perception. Which is not to say that we must dispense with the tenets of ethics, either (the members of the “Society of the Friends of Crime”, for instance, in Juliette, have as a rule never contravening public laws), but to see that ethics is only half of the story, in understanding Nature, 6 Sade, Vol. 3, p. 425. 7 Baudrillard, p. 135. 8 Sade, Vol. 3, p. 874. 9 Sade. Vol. 3, p. 876. 559 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture when measured with the unlimited freedom of a unique Being, and that it should never be made to interfere with the perception of Man as part of Being, if one must understand Nature. Ethics is then, paradoxically, what impedes, distorts, and prevents understanding Being. Morals and religion are in this perspective the main enemies of thought, since doctrine can only ossify it, render it impotent. It is first of all in the suspension of moral values, in the return to a Cartesian tabula rasa, that it becomes possible to understand this being one. It is how we can understand that our minds, like the world around us, are always full and empty, and active and passive at the same time: full with the actual being of a thought or perception, and empty of it. Being happens here on the mode of not-being, at the same time that he doesn’t happen on the mode of happening. As in Sartre, the moment of being that carries life is already in the moment that follows or the one that precedes it, indefinitely. But it is only that moment itself that is the whole universe. Time thinks us. And Sade is delighted by this phenomenon. There is nothing more exalting for him that this idea of a total, absolute, and universal flux, and of the irreducible fate in which the entirety of Being is given to us. There is no counter-gift necessary here, as in morals or religion, since it is a universe where man is all that he is, and so totally free. And finally, and perhaps to our utmost surprise, we find that there is no contradiction here either with humanistic values, since it can be seen that while Sade deconstructs Humanism on the one hand, he rebuilds it with the other in the understanding of the absolute relativity of human life and of knowledge: "Is a fly thus of greater value than a pasha, or than a capuchin ?”, asks one of his characters.10 The answer is: certainly not in a monist universe, where even a speck of dust is as important as him. But not to see what this absolute equivalency of all things can have that is absolutely amazing, would also be lacking in a certain poetic sense - and therefore also in Humanity - at least as long as poetry and imagination are to remain important forms of our Humanity. 10 Sade. Vol 3, p. 881. 560 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Bibliography Baudrillard, Jean. Le Pacte de lucidité. Paris : Galilée, 2004. Becker, Carl L.. The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1067. Husserl, Edmund. Méditations cartésiennes. Paris : Vrin, 1966. Sade, D.A.F., Marquis de Œuvres. Paris : Gallimard/Pléiade, ed. Michel Delon, 1998. Spinoza, Baruch. Œuvres 3, Ethique. Paris : Garnier-Flammarion, 1965. 561 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture AN ANALYSIS OF PHENOMENOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF THE “MASTER-SLAVE DIALECTIC” Sibel Kibar Although Hegel became celebrated with his book Phenomenology of Spirit1, the Phenomenology is actually an attempt to get rid of phenomenology. The literal meaning of the term ‘phenomenology’ is “the study of appearances.” Speaking of appearances, we should remember the Kantian dualism between the realm of appearances, which is called “phenomena”, and the realm of things-in-themselves, “noumena”. For Kant, the realm of noumena cannot be known whereas phenomena are the only knowable realm. Therefore, Kant deals only with the phenomena, that is, how things appear to us, to the knower. However, what Hegel tries to do is to close this abyss created by Kant between phenomena and noumena. Hegel overcomes this dichotomy by moving phenomenology into the practical realm. Therefore, Hegel rescues philosophy from being a contemplative discipline and yield it as a practical inquiry. At the same time, Hegel unites the two realms which Kant separated as theoretical (speculative) and practical realm. How he binds the theoretical and the practical can be seen in the section “Independence and Dependence of Self-consciousness: Lordship and Bondage”. Hegel exposes that the phenomenological dichotomy can be exceeded through practical relation. Before going into details of Master-Slave dialectics, it would be helpful to look at the Phenomenology in general and present the Hegelian terminology. In his Preface to Phenomenology of Spirit, similar to Kant’s Copernican Revolution, Hegel begins with the subject as an observer observing the appearances and seeking what is beyond them. In the “Introduction”, he tells that the Phenomenology is a journey of the subject-which he calls consciousness2. In fact, the original subtitle of Phenomenology of Spirit was “The First Part: Science of the Experience of Consciousness.” The reason why Hegel is criticized by most of the post-modern thinkers is that the Phenomenology is a story of the subject, namely consciousness. However, what Hegel calls “subject”, “consciousness”, or “self-consciousness” is something in need of the object, which can only construct itself in contrast to the object. I will explore in detail what consciousness and self-consciousness are later in this paper, but here I want to emphasize that when considering Hegelian philosophy, the line between subject and object cannot be easily drawn in contrast to other previous philosophies. It is really difficult to determine where subject begins and where object comes to an end. On the other hand, it is not so difficult to see why Hegel begins with the subject. The reason why Hegel begins with consciousness is because he writes for the ordinary reader and tells the reader’s tale. While reading the Phenomenology, the ordinary reader will observe the transmitting stages of philosophy and realize the misconceptions, misunderstandings, and mistakes committed by the previous philosophers. Disposing of them, at the same time the reader will understand that those misunderstandings are very natural phases of this adventure.3 So, none of them can be annihilated, on the contrary they are accepted as stages on the way to “the truth.” However, Hegel never gives any description of truth. He only speaks of the way, which is the truth itself, that the reader following the steps of the Phenomenology will notice. In the Hegelian sense, truth is nothing but grasping the stages of the journey or the adventure of consciousness as a whole. Hegel describes this journey as the progression of Spirit, which is again one of the most criticized concepts in Hegel’s philosophy. Spirit is actually a whole but condemned 1 Hegel, G. W. F., Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller, Oxford University Press, 1977. 2 Ibid., § 78. 3 Hegel, opcit, § 73. 563 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture to be divided, since it always moves and a moving body cannot be undivided (permanent). Although Hegel uses the concept of Spirit in various senses, the Spirit is a unique entity that embodies both objectivity and subjectivity. Spirit is not merely a mental entity, but at the same time, something physical and practical.4 However, the uniqueness of Spirit is dividable into “various shapes and forms which have become its moments”.5 Spirit can expose itself as both consciousness and what is external to consciousness, which is the first moment of Spirit, called “sense-certainty”. In the Phenomenology, one of the subsequent moments is “self-certainty”. I will explore these two moments of Spirit–especially, the phase of self-certainty–since Spirit recognizes itself through an interaction with actual Life or nature, which is very significant because of the implications of materialistic philosophy. Then, consciousness is the form of Spirit having capability of knowing itself. But while yet not know anything about Spirit, consciousness attempts to know the object, appearing in front of consciousness. This attempt implies both that consciousness distinguishes itself from the object and that consciousness characterizes itself as thought or the Notion of the object. Therefore, when consciousness tries to know the object, it investigates whether the Notion and the object correspond to each other.6 Howard P. Kainz defines this relation between the knower and what is known as “spiritual interaction between thought and being”. He says: One of the most essential characteristics of Hegel’s philosophical viewpoint is that it involved the realization that our objective world is permeated with the alterations made by subjectivity; and that subjectivity itself is essentially oriented to, and conditioned and determined by, some type of objectivity. Obviously, the reality which we encounter is the result of the interaction between these two poles.7 Kainz claims that Hegel contends with both Aristotelian and Kantian perspectives. For Aristotle, reality is external to the subject and exists independently of the mind or the act of the subject. So, in this sense, reality is objectivity. However, for Kant, thought or the subject determines the being in accordance with the a priori forms of intuition and the categories of understanding. Nevertheless, Hegel indicates that reality is “the total view of subjective-objective dynamism”.8 Hegel, in his Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences, speaks of Kant’s subjectivism: … objectivity of thought, in Kant’s sense, is again to a certain extent subjective. Thoughts, according to Kant, although universal and necessary categories, are only our thoughts―separated by an impassable gulf from the thing, as it exists apart from our knowledge. But the true objectivity of thinking means that the thoughts, far from being merely ours, must at the same time be the real essences of the things, and of whatever is an object to us.9 Unlike Aristotle and Kant, Hegel establishes the phenomenological relation as a practical process. First, consciousness regards the object as in-itself, the pure reality, the truth. This moment can be called “moment of truth”. However, when consciousness attempts to know the truth, the object in-itself becomes for-consciousness. That is, knowledge becomes our object, something that exists for us. In Hegel’s words, “Yet in this inquiry knowledge is our object, something that exists for us; and the in-itself that would supposedly result from it would rather be the being of knowledge for us”.10 This is the “moment of knowledge”. In brief, while consciousness is searching for the truth, in fact, it does not know whether it confronts the object as it is in-itself or the notion of it in consciousness. Hegel observes that the dilemma is itself the answer. What is known is related with how it is known, and how it is known is related with what is known. The truth is our way of 4 Inwood, Michael., A Hegel Dictionary, Blackwell, Oxford, Cambridge, USA, 1992, p 277. 5 Hegel, opcit, § 12. 6 Ibid., § 78. 7 Kainz, Howard P., Hegel’s Phenomenology, Part1: Analysis and Commentary, Ohio University Press, Athens, 1976, p. 9. 8 Ibid., pp. 9-10. 9 Quoted by Paul Guyer, in “Thought and Being: Hegel’s Critique of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy”, The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, Cambridge University Press, USA, 1993, p.171. 10 Hegel, opcit, § 83. 564 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture knowing; there is no independent truth.11 Consciousness realizes the truth that while the object is mediated by consciousness, consciousness is also mediated by object. After those moments between consciousness and object, the relation would not be the same as before because both the immediacy of consciousness and the independency of object are destroyed. Hence, consciousness becomes aware of itself as a unity of itself and object. Hegel maintains “the Notion of the object is superseded in the actual object”.12 This awareness of consciousness, i.e., a consciousness of consciousness, is called “self-consciousness”. Self-consciousness is a further stage within in the journey of Spirit. There is a considerable difference between these two moments, namely, consciousness and self-consciousness. Consciousness can be defined as awareness of itself. However, this awareness is bare or unfilled. Therefore, consciousness does not know itself as being something. But it only knows that it is a being in contrast to the object, something external to it. On the other hand, self-consciousness knows itself as a being in which the notion and its object are identical.13 That is, self-consciousness has two ingredients: awareness of the sensible world and awareness of itself because appearance and truth are united and one in the self-consciousness. When these two components are revealed as identical in self-consciousness, then both the object and the notion turn out to be “I”. In other words, if sensible world is self-consciousness, then I, and if the notion or the knowledge of the sensible world is again self-consciousness, i.e., I, then self-consciousness becomes the union of “I am I”, which leads to a motionless tautology.14 The previous moment is called sense-certainty, since consciousness tries to achieve sense-certainty according to its way of thinking. “In fact commonsensical everyday consciousness takes itself to be real knowledge just because it is naively certain, without questioning the matter at all, that it knows the world-in-itself.”15 In contrast, in the next moment, self-consciousness aims at self-certainty. The motionless tautology mentioned above does not satisfy a certainty about self for self-consciousness. In my opinion, this point is the beginning of the disparity of Hegel from Fichte. Unlike Fichte, Hegel regards the dialectical interaction between I and its externality. “Dialectic, on Hegel’s view, accounts for all movement and change, both in the world and in our thought about it.”16 Man achieves the illusion of self-identity by defining himself as an inner spiritual being, by fooling himself that he coincides with himself as a mind or spirit. Hegel refers to this often with the Fichtean formula I=I; the error expressed here being precisely the belief in simple self-coincidence. For we have seen that a subject is necessarily a being who incorporates his other and ‘returns to himself’ through this other, that is, comes to self-consciousness. To achieve self-coincidence as spiritual beings is thus ontologically impossible; or otherwise put, its achievement could only be the abolition of subject. Or, in other terms again, the subject is not only ‘self-consciousness’; he necessarily has the structure of ‘consciousness’ as well, with its inescapability bi-polarity between subject and independent object.17 As Taylor explains, self-consciousness’ movement inclines towards self-satisfaction, which can achieved through encompassing everything. In other words, self-consciousness seeks a “condition in which the subject is not limited by anything outside”.18 After the duality of consciousness and object (or the otherness of the object) is superseded in the moment of self-consciousness, there is still an otherness opposing to self-consciousness. This otherness is called “Life as a living thing”.19 The interaction with Life is not a knowing relation since the otherness of Life is so independent that self-consciousness cannot make Life belonging to its own self. Thus, self-consciousness tries to 11 Hegel, opcit, §§ 73-83. 12 Ibid., § 166. 13 Inwood, opcit, p. 61. 14 Hegel, opcit, § 167. 15 Solomon, Robert C. In the Spirit of Hegel: A Study of G. W. F. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 1983, p.425. 16 Inwood, opcit, p.83. 17 Taylor, Charles., Hegel, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York, 1977, p.150. 18 Ibid., p.148. 19 Hegel, opcit, § 171. 565 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture destroy the otherness of Life. This drive toward consumption is called Desire. Hegel even goes so far as to say “self-consciousness is Desire”, self-consciousness attempts to achieve self-certainty through Desire to Life.20 The concept of Desire and the actual consumption of Life are very novel concepts in philosophy and they are peculiar to Hegel. That is why self-consciousness, Life, and Desire are the most difficult notions in Hegelian philosophy. In order to understand, especially the concept of Desire and its role in self-satisfaction, Kojeve’s book Introduction to the Reading of Hegel will be helpful. Kojeve maintains “… the I of Desire is an emptiness that receives a real positive content only by negating action that satisfies Desire in destroying, transforming and “assimilating” the desired non-I”. But negating action is not purely destructive, for if action destroys an objective reality, for the sake of satisfying the Desire from which it is born, it creates in its place, in and by that very destruction, a subjective reality. The being eats, for example, creates and preserves its own reality by the overcoming of a reality other than its own, by the “transformation of an alien reality into its own reality, by the “assimilation”, the internalization of a “foreign”, “external” reality.21 As seen in the quotation, the satisfaction of self-consciousness through assimilation of the otherness of the other is not a real satisfaction, since self-consciousness makes the other its own. However, when self-consciousness confronts another self-consciousness, it realizes that the independency of the other self-consciousness cannot be consumed. If self-consciousness can neither annihilate nor exhaust the other self-consciousness, then self-consciousness demands being recognized by the other self-consciousness. Nevertheless, the other self-consciousness also demands the same thing. Therefore, the meeting of the two self-consciousnesses is the setting for a struggle for recognition. “Each is indeed certain of its own self but not of the other” and therefore its own self-certainty still has no truth”.22 Thus, both self-consciousnesses try to achieve self-certainty through being recognized by the other as an independent self-consciousness. Hegel calls the struggle between two self-consciousnesses “Life and death struggle” since in this struggle, the one who has not risked its Life will lose essentiality of its self-consciousness whereas the one who will not be attached to any specific existence and not attached to Life will gain its recognition.23 The individual losing essentiality turns out to be a thing, called Slave but the other being risking his Life becomes Master.24 Although, at first the Master seems to win the struggle and become self-consciousness, and the Slave who is addicted to Life loses self-certainty, the assembly turns out to be the opposite: the recognition of the Slave is nothing for the Master, because the Slave is not a self-consciousness. Meanwhile, the Slave continues its journey, whereas there is no further path for Master. While serving its Master, Slave relates itself with Life and gains its recognition through Life. That is, Slave ends of better than the Master does in that it covers more ground in attaining self-consciousness.25 As a result, phenomenology is the analysis of reality, the moments of the journey of the Spirit. Through the journey, progressing Spirit intends to achieve its unity. To complete itself, Spirit first overcame the duality between consciousness and object. Then it posited itself as Life and self-consciousness, so as Desire. In this moment, self-consciousness seeks its own certainty, its own essentiality as an individual. For self-consciousness, the other, which is considered as ordinary 20 Ibid., § 167. 21 Kojève, Alexandre., Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. James H. Nichols, Jr. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1969, p. 4. 22 Hegel, opcit, § 186. 23 Ibid., § 187. 24 Ibid., § 189. 25 Ibid., § 193. 566 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture objects like being of Life, is a negatively characterized unessential object. With the help of Desire, self-consciousness tried to return into itself from the mirror of Life. But abolishing the independency of Life did not provide a satisfaction to self-consciousness. Afterwards, self-consciousness needs to settle accounts with another self-consciousness. Repeatedly the two self-consciousnesses are nothing but the self-division of Spirit. To be precise, the aim of the Phenomenology is to close the gap between its appearances and its truth by revealing different modes of Spirit. At the same time, it purports to close the gap between epistemology and ontology. Those works are achieved by Hegel moving contemplative philosophy into the practical realm. The attitude of the subject towards Life determines whether he/she will be Master or Slave. If the subject is addicted to Life and fears death, then he/she becomes Slave of the Master, but if he/she accepts the risk of death or abandons Life, then he/she will be Master. Again, it is Life that determines whether it is the Master of Slave who is in a better position. Reversing the reader’s initial expectations from this Master-Slave tale, Hegel shows that the production of Life provides a certainty for Slave as self-consciousness. As a result, the Master-Slave dialectics demonstrates that Hegel’s Phenomenology is the philosophy of vivid life and actual labour. 567 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture BONUM EST CAUSA MALI A PROBLEM AND AN OPPORTUNITY FOR METAPHYSICS IN THE THOUGHT OF THOMAS AQUINAS AND HEGEL Terrance Walsh In the following presentation, I will argue that due to the shared premise of convertibility both the Thomistic and the Hegelian types of theodicy make common assumptions, demonstrate structural and conceptual similarities, and reach remarkably similar, but flawed, conclusions. My presentation has three parts: (a) a brief analysis of the familiar convertibility thesis that being and good have the same extensional reference, though not the same intensional reference; (b) Thomas’ interpretation of evil as deficiency of being and the causative role of free will in this deficiency; (c) And Thomas’ concept of divine Providence that stresses that the divine purpose of rationally ordering the world to an end would remain frustrated without the active participation – however contingent -- of human agency. In the conclusion, I will present a critique of Thomas’ conception of evil as excessively rational, an account that explains away too much of our experience of evil. There is, however, a positive aspect of his view, namely, the necessary development of the deficient finite towards completion. I will suggest that the inclusion of a persistent negativity of the finite as necessary condition of its development might set the stage for a more satisfactory account of evil more in tune with contemporary concerns about evil, moral agency, and the meaning of existence. 1. Thomas’ Convertibility Thesis Convertibility is an integral element of Thomas’ analysis of evil in the context of a general metaphysics of being. The idea is that good and being are transcendental predicates that have the same extensional reference: what is, insofar as it is, is good, and what is good necessarily exists because to be is to be in act and to be in act manifests some kind of perfection, which is the definition of the good. Thomas presents this claim repeatedly throughout his systematic treatises1, but I will focus on his discussion in ST I, 5 and 6. There Thomas presents an uncomplicated, but precise argument: the good is what all beings desire because the good (following Aristotle’s definition) is an end that completes or perfects a thing. And all things desire their own perfection. But to be in any way perfect is to be in act and whatever is in act is being as such, esse simpliciter. Significantly, however, we find a qualification of the thesis in Summa contra Gentiles (III, 20), a qualification that will be essential for Thomas’ formulation of the problem of evil and its eventual solution: “In every creature to be and to be good are not absolutely the same [esse et bonum esse simpliciter], although each one is good insofar as it is [in quantum est].” Thomas calls attention to the conceptual difference between absolute being and absolute goodness that frames his analysis in Question 5.2 Two questions animate Thomas’ treatment: (1) if good is a transcendental predicate of being as such, what is the difference between divine Goodness and creaturely goodness? (2) If good is a transcendental predicate, why are some things seemingly lacking in goodness, or become better or worse than they were? Thomas’ resolution of the second problem entails the solution to the first. 1 Most succinctly in de Veritate 21, 2 sc 2 My discussion of this passage will follow closely Jan Aertsen’s interpretation in a number of articles. Cf. “Good as Transcendental and Transcendence of the Good,” in Being and Goodness, S. MacDonald (ed.), 1991 569 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Boethius formulates the main objection: “I perceive that in nature the fact that things are good is one thing, that they are is another” (ST I, 5, 1, obj. 1). Obviously, there is a real, not merely conceptual, difference, between being a good and being a bad human being. How is this possible? Thomas articulates his response based on the distinction between a relative good (G1) and an absolute good (G2) in respect to the act of being (esse simpliciter). Here is the complete argument: (1) According to its concept (ratio boni) the good is what is desirable (2) Something is desirable insofar as it is perfect (3) All things desire their perfection (4) But a thing is perfect only if it is completely actualized (5) Therefore, if not yet perfect, a thing is still relatively good (quodammodo bonum) simply as a substance (G1) (6) But a substance can become perfectly good (bonum simpliciter) only to the extent that it has actualized fully its nature (G2) Thomas concludes, “... regarded in its first actuality, a thing is a being absolutely (ens simpliciter) and regarded in its complete actuality, it is good absolutely” (secundum ultimum bonum simpliciter) [I, 5, 2 ad 2]. The distinction in intensional reference between relative (G1) and absolute goodness (G2) in the world of becoming also distinguishes divine from human goodness (the predicate “good” will extend equally to all being, but an intensional difference will separate divine from created beings). For there will be only one being for which ens simpliciter will be identical to bonum simpliciter, and that will be the being for whom perfect goodness is identical with its simple act of being, in other words, a being whose essence is to be perfect. The contrast between divine and human goodness places in relief essential aspects of finite beings, which are subject to change and development because of a structural deficiency proper to their natures. As Augustine realized, finite things must change and develop because their end is not immanent in their being; progressive development towards an end constitutes an achievement of activity pointing beyond its given being.3 From the perspective of this real difference between relative and absolute goodness, we can glimpse the emergence of the structural possibility of evil. For if the convertibility thesis holds, then evil must be completely parasitic on the good. Since evil is absence of being, it will be as dependant upon being as a shadow is upon spatial bodies and light. Thomas clarifies the sphere of evil by introducing another sense of good: “God alone is good essentially. For to be called good a thing must be perfect. Now there is a threefold perfection in things: first, they are established in existence; second, they possess in addition certain accidents necessary to perfect their operation; third, perfection consists in attaining to something else as an end.” (6, 3, resp). The argument here is a continuation of the distinction between (G1) and (G2) in Question 5: In all beings other than God, there will be degrees of goodness measured in relation to that thing’s operations and achieved ends. But God’s goodness is not an achieved end, but his very essence. Thus Thomas invites us to consider another kind of good (G3) exhibited uniquely by finite created beings. Here is a summary of the three kinds of good: (G1) the goodness of substantive being, which Thomas qualifies in his Reply to Objection 2: “Although everything is good in that it has being, yet the essence of a creature is not being itself (ipsum esse), and therefore it does not follow that a creature is good essentially.” (G2) The goodness of attaining the final end beyond itself. And (G3), the goodness of achieving accidents that bring essential operations to perfection (for example, 3 “Ecce sunt caelum et terra clamant, quod facit sint; mutantur enim atque variantur. quidquid autem factum non est et tamen est, non est in eo quicquam, quod ante non erat: quod est mutari atque variari.” (Conf. XI, 4) 570 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture wisdom which perfects rationality).4 Thomas comments: “The goodness of a created thing is not its essence but something additional (aliquid superadditum): either its existence, or some added perfection, or being ordered to an end” (6, 3, ad 3). On each count the created thing must move beyond itself because it is ontologically lacking in some suitable or desirable good – thus Thomas’ conclusion that for finite beings goodness is superadded to ens simpliciter. What should be underscored here is that evil as the privation of some necessary good has emerged due to an ontological feature of finite being, that is, its necessary distinction from the Creator.5 For if goodness (G2 and G3) are additions to being, then it is due to a prior and specific deficiency of G1.6 2. Good is the Cause of Evil Just as the goodness of a created thing is a function of some relation it has to the Creator, either by being in act, being alike in operation, or by becoming fully actualized, likewise evil can be known and measured by the absence of these relations resulting in the creature’s non-being, unlikeness to its Creator, and having unactualized potentialities. The absence carries with it the privation of the creature’s proper and suitable perfection and completion, as blindness in the eye is simply the absence of the eye’s proper operation and end. Thomas concludes, “Now the subject of privation and of form is one and the same [i.e. the eye is both the subject of sight and of blindness] – namely, being in potentiality ... Hence every actual being is a good; and likewise every potential being is a good having a relation to the good. For as it has being in potentiality, so it has goodness in potentiality. Therefore, the subject of evil is good.” (48, 3, resp.) Since evil does not exist in itself, it cannot act of itself and, consequently, cannot be the cause of itself. Is evil then a kind of potentiality to which privation belongs as an intrinsic property? This is what led Maimonides to identify evil with matter as a permanent principle opposed to form. Thomas rejects, however, the identification of evil with potency, because potency is a relative good insofar as it can be actualized.7 Evil is not potency, but the absence of its actualization. Moreover, evil’s attachment to the good is accidental. But evil must have a cause since it is the nature of things to be good and to tend naturally towards complete goodness. Thomas begins to sketch out an answer in the following crucial passage: “But that anything fall short of its natural and due disposition can come only from some cause drawing it out of its proper disposition. For a heavy thing is not moved upwards except by some impelling force, nor does an agent fail in its action except from some impediment. But only good can be a cause, because nothing can be a cause except inasmuch as it is a being and every being, as such, is good.” (49, 1, resp.) As I have stressed, it belongs to finite things not just to be good merely as existing, but also as striving towards complete actualization. Thus, only a serious breach in this natural tendency could cause good things to become bad. But since to be a cause is to act in a certain way, then according to the convertibility thesis, good must be the cause of evil. An obvious difficulty suggest itself here: if good is the cause of evil, and evil is the privation of something properly suited to a thing’s nature, how can the good work against itself on behalf of its own demise, absence, and negation? Thomas’ resolution of this difficulty leads to a deepening of the metaphysical analysis of evil and perhaps to a fresh 4 Consequently, G3 will be both extensionally and intensionally distinct from G1 and 2: it will extend only to finite beings and mean the act of becoming perfect. 5 Maimonides has stated this ontological feature more explicitly than Thomas. Ascribing the nature of privation to the inability of matter to maintain form permanently, he writes in The Guide of the Perplexed, “For if he [the human being] were not liable to receive impressions, he would not have been generated, and what exists of him would have been one single individual and not a multitude of individuals belonging to one species.” (III, 12) The price of the human species, then, is the condition of impermanence and privation, which Maimonides like Thomas identifies with evil. 6 This is crucial to Thomas’ entire project because the deficiency of G2 and G3 does not indicate non-being in general, but the lack or privation of some being specific good necessary for that thing’s completion. See I, 48, 3, resp, 7 Potency is not the absence or privation of a good, but the condition of the becoming of G3: sight is the actualization of the eye’s potency. See ST I, 77, 1. 571 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture perspective on the entire problematic. Having established evil as deficiency of the good, the next step in the argument adds a further precision to the concept as the “removal of the due end.” (remotio debiti finis) [48, 1, ad 2] Now such a removal occurs, in the case of moral evil (but also as we shall see in the case of physical evil) as a result of agency. “So then the evil which is a specific difficulty in morality is some good bound up with the privation of another.” In other words, some desirable goods are not mutually compatible – or compossible – in choosing one, the other is “removed” as a possibility. The example that Thomas provides is this: the end of an intemperate man is not to deprive himself of the good of reason, but the good of sensual pleasures that displaces the due end of rational choice. Only in light of acts of willing a good does evil attain its shadowy presence.8 In itself it is indefinite, empty and void (per se autem est infinitum). Even though Thomas states that the cause of evil lies either in the agent or in the instrument, it will become apparent that even material deficiency is reducible to agency of one kind or another. According to Thomas if the will is to be thought as causing evil, then it must not be operating according to its nature. It must be in some way already defective: “Hence evil never follows in the effect unless some other evil pre-exists (præexistat) in the agent or in the matter ...but in voluntary beings the defect of the action comes from an actually deficient will inasmuch as it does not actually subject itself to its proper rule” (non subjicit suae regulae). The act of the will is defective to the extent that it does not seek counsel and follow the directives of right reason towards its proper good. As we have seen this is unnatural since the will naturally desires the good that will perfect it according to its nature. It is deficient in the proper act of willing, that is, to will according to its rational principles – to realize the good and avoid evil. It seems that such a will is deficient in G2. But doesn’t deficiency of G2 belong to its created nature? Either something good lacking complete goodness is a natural condition, or something good lacking complete goodness is an unnatural condition. On the basis of our prior analysis of convertibility, it should be clear that the proper place to look for a solution is in the goodness, neither of esse simpliciter nor of bonum simpliciter, but of temporal becoming (G3). And as we have seen, becoming fully actual is the result of the ontologically necessary distinction between G1 and G2 – necessary because if it were not the case, only one being would exist.9 Thomas argues consistently, as a result of convertibility, that evil is an accident of a being that does not achieve in act what is proper to its essence. “Hence it is true that evil has no cause, except unless an accidental cause. And in this way good is the cause of evil.” (49, 1 resp.) But if the good is an accidental cause of evil, then it is an accident that seems very much a part of the process of G1 becoming G2. And although it is accidental, it still results from agency, whether divine or human – deficiency of goodness can only be the result of causal agency: “But the evil which consists in the corruption of something is reducible to God as cause. And this appears as regards both natural things and voluntary things.” As I said, Thomas is consistent, even if it entails ascribing certain evils to divine causality. This means, as we shall see in the analysis of divine Providence, that God wills not only the transient generation and passing away of nature, but also the contingency of free choice, which releases rational nature from the bonds of causal determination (83, 1, resp). “For it was said that some agents, inasmuch as it produces by its power a form which is followed by corruption and defect, causes by its power that corruption and defect ... Now the order of the 8 Thomas believes like Aristotle that rational beings not only desire their good, but also have a conception of the good. If, for instance, one’s conception of happiness is flawed, then the choice of what concrete goods contribute to it will also be flawed. 9 ST I, 11, 3. 572 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture universe requires that there should be some things that can, and sometime do fail (quadam sint quae deficere possint, et interdum deficient). Thus God by causing in things the good order of the universe, consequently and, as it were by accident (quasi per accidens) causes the corruptions of things ...” (49, 2, resp) Because God’s aim is to maximize the perfection and goodness of the universe as a whole, he allows accidental corruption and defect of things – for the sake of the universal Good.10 In this way, Thomas exculpates the divine will the same way he will later exculpate human acts that in intending some good, bring about unintended, although foreseeable, bad side-effects (The Doctrine Double Effect).11 Hence, there are two significant claims in the above: (1) that if something can fail, it will indeed fail;12 (2) that both the divine and human will share this structural similarity of double effect -- that in willing the good, evil follows as an accidental, though unavoidable, side-effect. Both points are essential elements of Thomas’ theodicy. 3. Divine Providence and Theodicy Thomas prepares the ground for his treatment of Providence with his discussion of the divine will in Q. 19. As he has made clear already, the root of both moral and physical evil lies not only in the good, but ultimately in a good will. If the divine will acts in regard to the world analogously to a morally good human will in the context of Double Effect, what intended good of divine action can bear the burden of the unintended bad side-effects? First, the very fact that God has a will is of itself, as Spinoza later argued, problematic. Thomas answers the objection that to will is an act of a finite being, by stating that God wills his own goodness as an end – an end not external to him, but identical with his own essence. And by willing his own goodness, the essence of which is to be self-diffusive, God wills to communicate this goodness to others. “In things willed for the sake of the end the whole reason for our being moved is the end; and this is what moves the will ... Hence, although God wills things other than Himself only for the sake of the end, which is His own goodness, it does not follow that anything else moves His will except His Goodness.” (19, 2, ad 2) But, Thomas continues, in willing an end it is not always necessary to will all things that might lead to the end. Some things are not necessary for the attainment of the end: “such as a horse for a stroll since we can take a stroll without a horse” (19, 3, resp.), unlike a ship for sailing across the sea. The goodness of God is complete in itself without the addition of other ends, which add nothing to God’s perfection. This split between God’s willing his own Goodness and his willing other things not intrinsic to his Goodness accounts for the emergence of evil in the universe: God creates free will with the capacity to choose contingent means towards the final ends, namely, means not necessarily determined by the end, for example, a horse for strolling. This explains at first Thomas’ puzzling claim that God wills, but does not will, the bad effects of human agency: “... that God does not necessarily will some of the things that He wills, does not result from defect in the divine will, but from a defect belonging to the nature of the thing willed, namely, that the perfect goodness of God can be without it; any such defect accompanies every created good (qui quidem defectus consequitur omne bonum creatum).” This is one of the crucial texts in the entire treatment. What is troubling is not the fact that God 10 ST I, 48, 2, resp. 11 ST II-II, 64, 7, where Thomas formulates the doctrine in the context of the moral permissibility of killing in self-defence. 12 Thomas uses a similar approach in the third proof of the existence of God: if everything is merely contingent and there is no necessary cause of being, then at some point in time (aliquando) there should have been nothing left in existence (ST I,2,3). On the other hand, if there is indeed a necessary cause preventing us from falling out of being, there is no such cause to prevent us from failing at achieving the good by means of human choice and action. 573 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture wills (in the sense of allows) that which he does not will (because some contingent means are not conducive to creature’s end), but that the very fact that the divine will is perfect and complete without the world constitutes a defect in creation. But what is the defect of created goodness – that it is not necessary to God, or that it is not self-sufficient in being?13 The problem arises directly from convertibility, for, as applied to God, G1 is identical to G2.14 There is no question of G3, the addition of accidents to actualize power, in God. On the other hand, the good of striving to become fully actual, makes up the temporal existence of the creature and provides the ground of its free agency. And this “defect” will remain until the creature attains G2, completed perfection of its nature, which for Thomas is heavenly beatitude. The ontologically defective structure of the world sets the stage for Thomas’ important treatment of divine Providence. For how could a good God allow creation to work through its defective nature on its own? But since God’s goodness is self-diffusive, it necessarily extends its influence to the realm of finite becoming: Providence, then, is simply the Goodness of God made manifest and active in divine Reason’s ordering all things to an end. Good is found not only in the bare substance of things, but also in their being ordered towards a final end. “This good of order existing in created things is itself created by God ...” (22, 1, resp) Here the idea seems to be that divine providence establishes the teleological structure of creation, which in turn provides the concrete connection between G1 and G2: human development from G1 to G2 is certainly contingent, but not disordered; undetermined, but not unguided. Providence, so conceived, is the divine response to the deficiency that besets and propels the entire process of self-actualization of beings possessing intellect and will. It is a rational force in the world ordering and influencing human acts to pursue and attain their final end. This ordering, however, is not imposed, but is in accord with the nature of human agency. It is axiomatic for Thomas that God moves all things according to the principles of their natures; inanimate objects are moved according to their physical properties; non-rational sentient beings by appetite and instinct; while beings whose nature is to act by means of rational deliberation and choice, will be moved accordingly, that is, freely. How does God move or direct human agency freely? Not by any means that might destroy or limit the will, such as fear or coercion, but by the only way human agency could be freely influenced, namely, by the rational persuasion of the good. “God therefore is the first cause, who moves causes both natural and voluntary. And just as by moving natural causes He does not prevent their actions from being natural, so by moving voluntary causes, He does not deprive their actions of being voluntary ... for He operates in each thing according to its nature.” (ST I, 83, a 1, ad 3) It follows that even as God’s manifest goodness, Providence can be resisted by the contingent self-determination of secondary causes. On the other hand, if God were to prevent such actions, it would destroy the more universal good of free choice. Yet even here, Providence can still bring good from evil. This is so because as a temporal accident of the good, evil cannot endure. In Thomas’ biblical commentary, even Job gains in humility and compassion because of his suffering.15 “Since God is the universal guardian for all being, it belongs to His providence to permit certain defects in particular things, that the perfect good of the universe may not be hindered; for if all evil were prevented, much good would be absent from the universe. A lion would cease to live, if there were no slaying of animals; and there would be no patience of martyrs if there were no tyrannical persecution.” (22, 2, ad 2) 13 For Hegel, on the other hand, the world is a necessary mediation of the Absolute becoming fully actualized as Spirit. In this way, Hegel shares Neo-platonic views of emanation. 14 For Thomas’ wording, see ScG I, 100. 15 “Whatever happens on earth, even if it is evil, turns out for the good of the whole world. Because as Augustine says ... God is so good that he would never permit any evil if he were not also so powerful that from any evil he could draw out a good.”(In Rom 8,6) Quoted by E. Stump, Aquinas (2003), p.462. 574 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture One might ask, could patience not be learned some other way, or what would be lost if lions were not carnivorous? But Thomas’ account is the classic rational theodicy that tolerates a little evil for the sake of the greater good. It is in fact extremely close to Hegel’s account, which Hegel himself called the only “true theodicy.” Consider one, somewhat metaphorical, version of Hegel’s theodicy: “But in contemplating history as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of individuals have been sacrificed, a question necessarily arises: To what principle, to what final purpose, have these monstrous sacrifices been offered? … These vast congeries of volitions, interests, and activities constitute the tools and means of World Spirit for attaining its purpose, bringing it to consciousness and realizing it. And this purpose is none other than finding itself – coming to itself – and contemplating itself in concrete actuality.”16 (Reason in History, Introduction, III, 2, a) For Hegel the full actualization of the purposes of spirit is an achievement of history, not some other worldly beatitude that Thomas would call bonum simpliciter. But whether in time or out of time matters little to their shared perspective – that actualizing the Good through the mediation of temporal becoming requires the participation of negativity and evil. 4. Conclusion: Partial Results of the Analysis of Convertibility and Evil That being can be fully cognized by mind constitutes a premise common to both Thomas and Hegel and leads to some form of transcendental predication: being is actual, desirable, and true. The attempt to understand evil in the context of convertibility leads to unsatisfying results. Evil is an accidental effect of being’s manifestation as the good or self-determination as world spirit. As such it is justified and allowed as a transient feature of a teleological process leading to absolute Good. This view cannot capture deep human intuitions about evil, suffering and pain. Evil does not appear merely as the privation of good, but as a destructive force in the world that discloses some other dimension not fully accessible to the rational categories of mind. 16 Reason in History, Introduction, III, 2, a 575 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture THE ART OF METAPHYSICS: NIETZSCHE, THE DEATH OF GOD, AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF LIFE Daniel R. White Wilkes Honors College Nietzsche’s Objections to Metaphysics & its Method Reason in Philosophy - “Reason" in language: what an old deceitful old wife-person! I fear we are not without God, because we still believe in grammar. (Nietzsche, “Reason in Philosophy,” Twilight of the Idols. Sec. 5. 1 Heidegger, in reconstructing Nietzsche’s final project tentatively named and posthumously edited with the title, “The Will to Power,” argued that its fundamental approach was expressed in the following passage from Nietzsche’s Nachgelassene Fragmente (“Unpublished Fragments”): Will to power as knowledge-- Not, “to know,” but to schematize, to impose upon chaos as much regularity and as many forms as our practical needs require.”2 The schematization of the world into the logic of categories can be, in Nietzsche’s view, a “useful” operation, so long as it has utility for the furtherance of life. When it is not so employed and taken as veridical, however, as in Platonism or “Socratism” as Nietzsche liked to say, then it becomes an attempt at control: In the education of reason, logic, categorization, is the need to be controlling: the need, not to “know,” but to subsume, to schematize, for the purpose of understanding, of calculation.3 The process of categorization, of subsuming particulars under universals, is for Nietzsche not so much a description of the world’s actual features as a process of evaluation in our pursuit of life: The estimation of value, “I believe that such and such is so,” as the essence of “truth” [.] ... Trust in reason and its categories, in dialectic, thus the value-estimation of logic, proves only their usefulness for life, proved by experience - not their “truth.” ... Therefore, what is necessary is that something must be held to be true - not that something is true.4 This pragmatics of knowledge and its derivation from evaluation have their correlate, Nietzsche suggests, in the traditional distinction upon which metaphysics is based: The true and the apparent world - I have traced this antithesis back to value relations. We have projected the conditions of our existence as predicates of being in general. Because we have to be stable in our beliefs if we are to prosper, we have made the “true” world not one of mutability and becoming, but one of being.5 1 Online, http://gutenberg.aol.de/nietzsch/goetzend/0inhalt.htm; also see “Reason' in Philosophy,”Twilight of the Idols http://www.cwu.edu/~millerj/nietzsche/twilight.html, sec. 5, Nietzsche Channel trans. 2 Kritische Studienausgabe [hereafter abbreviated KSA], Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, eds., 15 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999), vol. 13, p. 333, Nachgelassene Fragmente, Spring 1888. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from the German, Latin, and Greek are my own. 3 KSA 13, pp. 333-334. 4 KSA 12.352 Nachgelassene Fragmente, Fall 1887. 5 KSA 12.352 Nachgelassene Fragmente, Fall 1887. 577 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture In Nietzsche’s view a pervasive oversimplification of existence emerges when our evaluations become skewed in a way that denies life, particularly as in Socratism and Christianity, by attempting to subordinate it as Aristotle does to an ultimate purpose and eschaton ‘higher’ than the natural world: History = Development of a purpose in time: so that it grows ever higher out of the lower. ... The reverse, that everything up to, including, and down from us is corrupt is demonstrable as well. Humankind and especially the wisest as the highest aberration of nature and self-contradiction (the most afflicted being): so far does nature sink. The organic as devolution.6 Aristotle’s hierarchy of beings culminating in God7 can be conceived of from more than one point of view, Nietzsche intimates, its values inverted so that it displays progressive levels of corruption - of life. Thus Nietzsche will take a different route out of Greek thinking. The Evaluation of Worth Metaphor as Nietzsche’s Alternative Form of Schematization Nietzsche understands cosmic processes, in the case of creatures from mankind to the mosquito, in terms of a kind of kinetic metaphoric schema wherein, One designates only the relations of things to man, and to express them one calls on the boldest metaphors. A nerve stimulus, first transposed into an image - first metaphor. The image, in turn, imitated by a sound - second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one. One can imagine a man who is totally deaf and has never had a sensation of sound and music [seeing sound patterns recorded in sand] ...Thus the genesis [Entstehung] of language does not proceed logically in any case ... (“On Truth and Lie,” I, Nietzsche Channel trans.) If Heidegger is right in his reading, the originary experience of the world that must be then schematized by humanity is chaos: Chaos is the name for a peculiar preliminary projection of the world as a whole and for the governance of that world ... the projection of the world from the perspective of the animal and of animality.8 The global experience of the world modulated by the body and its peculiar rhythms becomes, in Heidegger’s view, the background for our intellectual schemes. Thus, the languages of the arts and sciences, including optical illusions of transcendent perspective, for Nietzsche, must also speak from the flesh: In man, creature and creator are united: in man there is matter, fragment, excess, clay, mud, madness, chaos; but in man there is also creator, sculptor, the hardness of the hammer, the divine spectator and the seventh day - do you understand this antithesis? 9 So he goes on to say, “... the opposite of this phenomenal world is not “the true world,” but the formless-unformulable world of sensation-chaos-in fact, another kind of phenomenal world, for us, [is] incognizable.10 If the embodiment of chaos is the precondition of our notions of order, moreover, then there might well be a diversity of chaoses, so that, as Nietzsche says, “If we could communicate with the mosquito, then we would learn that he floats through the air with the same 6 KSA 10.163 NF November 1882—February 1883. 7 Metaphysics 12.107b25 8 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vols. 2-3, David Farrell Krell, ed. (New York: Harper Collins, 1987), vol. 3, p. 80. 9 Nietzsche Channel trans. http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/bgept7.htm. (KSA 5.160 Beyond Good and Evil, 7, “Our Virtues,” sec. 225.. 10 (KSA 12, p. 395, NF Autumn 1887—March 1888) 578 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture self-importance [as the philosopher], feeling within itself the flying center of the world.”11 Thus his perspective evokes a diversity of living beings (not centered around mankind), all with their own perspectives, knowledges, and strategies for life. Nietzsche’s key idea here is that form is inseparable from matter, idea from dunamis, and mind from body, and so knowledge is constrained by nature’s various forms of embodiment. The picture of nature becomes one of a diverse and dynamic order-a self-generating immanent ecology. Ultimate disorder is, however, unfathomable, misshapen, and immoral for the Christian metaphysician, as Nietzsche suggests in his portrait of an eminent Catholic philosopher: “’Without Christian belief,’ Pascal supposes, ‘you yourselves become, even like nature and history, a monster and a chaos.’”12 So again and again, Nietzsche offers his witticisms criticizing the metaphysical foundations of order as capricious at best: With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire of emphasizing a small terse fact, which these superstitious minds hate to concede - namely, that a thought comes when “it” wishes, and not when “I” wish, so that it is a falsification of the facts of the case to say that the subject “I” is the condition of the predicate “think.” ...One infers here according to the grammatical habit “thinking is an activity; every activity requires an agent; consequently-.” (Nietzsche, “On the Prejudices of the Philosophers, 16-17, Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche Channel Trans.) ... the concept of God has been the biggest objection to existence so far. We reject God, we reject responsibility in God: this is how we begin to redeem the world. (Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, Judith Norman, trans., sec. 8) One focal point in these passages, I take it, is that mind and body, God and world, are an indissoluble, immanent, combination. The attempt to separate them - the quest for spiritual and technical transcendence and, with it, to erect hierarchies of mind over body and so of technology over nature - has created what Nietzsche took to be a disaster called modernity. An Alternative Route for Philosophy: Immanent Poetics Nietzsche builds on a different tendency in Plato, stemming from Socrates’ account of Diotima in the Symposium. He says that she says, You know that poiēsis is something great; for truly the whole cause for anything whatever going from non-being into being is poiēsis, so that also the works created by all the crafts are artifacts and all the craftsmen of these are poets.13 While skeptical about the concept of “non-being,” Nietzsche nevertheless seems to think that poetry and its characteristic linguistic trope – metaphor - provide a valid alternative schematization of chaos, a complement to “prose” and its “logic.” To begin, Nietzsche would counter the “old” Aristotelian (and Cartesian, and Kantian) systems with what he calls the “craft” of logic. Learning to think: in our schools one no longer has any idea of this. Even in the universities, even among the real scholars of philosophy, logic as a theory, as a practice, as a craft, is beginning to die out. ... That the Germans have been able to stand their philosophers at all, especially that most deformed concept-cripple of all time, the great Kant, provides not a bad notion of German grace.- For one cannot subtract dancing in every form from a noble education - to be able to dance with one's feet, with concepts, with words: need I still add that one must be able to dance with the pen too - that one must learn to write?14 11 “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense,” Nietzsche Channel trans. http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/tls.htm. 12 Nachgelassene Fragmente, Fall 1887-March 1888, KSA 12.445. 13 Plato, Diotima’s speech, Symposium, 205b8-c2. 14 “What the Germans Lack,” Twilight of the Idols, Duncan Large trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), sec. 579 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture Notice that instead of describing the technē or ‘art’ of deduction, as we might expect, Nietzsche draws out “dancing” as the key to his craft. This is reminiscent of his suggestion in Gay Science, that logic is plain rude: “Esprit as un-Greek—The Greeks are indescribably logical and simple in all their thought ... . In good company, one must never want to be entirely and solely right, which is what all pure logic wants; hence the small dose of unreason in all French esprit.” (II, sec. 82)15 He is, similarly, critical of the Cartesian “self” (res cogitans) - “as such a non-living and yet uncannily lively factory of ideas and words,” he remarks; “I still perhaps have the right to say about myself cogito, ergo sum [I think; therefore, I am], but not vivo, ergo cogito [I live; therefore, I am thinking].”16 He likewise satirizes the Kantian “categorical imperative” or “thing in itself: And now don't cite the categorical imperative, my friend! - this term tickles my ear and makes me laugh despite your serious presence: it makes me think of old Kant who had obtained the "thing in itself" by stealth ... when the "categorical imperative" crept stealthily into his heart and led him astray back to "God," "soul," "freedom," and "immortality," like a fox who loses his way and goes astray back into his cage: - yet it had been his strength and cleverness that had broken open the cage! - 17 Thus he comments on Kant’s things in themselves, The things themselves in the permanency of which the limited intellect of the human and animal believes, do not "exist" at all; they are as the fierce flashing and fiery sparkling of drawn swords, as the stars of victory rising with a radiant resplendence in the battle of the opposite qualities.”18 Perspectival reflection (the “limited intellect of the human and animal”) and creative metaphoric thinking (the “flashing and fiery sparkle of drawn swords” of things in themselves) are Nietzsche’s poetic mode of philosophizing. In this vein he says, tellingly, Metaphor, for the authentic poet, is not a figure of rhetoric but a representative image standing concretely before him in lieu of a concept. A character, to him, is not an assemblage of individual traits laboriously pieced together, but a personage beheld as insistently living before his eyes, differing from the image of the painter only in its capacity to continue living and acting.19 His preferred description of events cosmic and human combines the logical and the metaphorical modes; thus he spins a difficult knot of poetic and scientific languages: And do you really know, what ‘the world’ is to me? Should I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of force, with no beginning and no end, a firm, iron magnitude of force that grows neither larger nor smaller, that does not get expended but only transformed ... this, my Dionysian world of eternal self-creation, eternal self-destruction ... would you like a name for this world? A solution for all of its riddles? A light for you as well, your most concealed, strangest, bravest and midnightly? - This world is the will to power - and nothing besides that! And you yourselves are 7. 15 Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Josephine Nauckhoff, trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 16 Untimely Meditations, II, 10. 17 Gay Science 335, Walter Kaufmann & Nietzsche Channel trans., online, http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/diefrohl7.htm. Compare Nietzsche’s comments on “Appearance and the Thing in itself,” “Metaphysical Explanations,” “Basic Questions of Metaphysics,” and “Presumed Triumph of Skepticism,” Human, all too Human, I, secs. 16,17,18 and 21 respectively. 18 Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, M.A Müge and Marianne Cowan, trans., Nietzsche Channel, http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/ptra.htm . 19 (KSA 1.57 Birth of Tragedy 8) 580 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture also this will to power - and nothing besides that!20 The generation, circulation, and dynamics of phenomena in this passage are reminiscent of the thermodynamic experiment imagined by Clerk Maxwell and critically transformed by Leo Szilard, where a “Demon” (Daimon or “mind”) was supposed to distinguish hot from cold gas molecules, apparently countering the Second Law of Thermodynamics and creating order.21 In Nietzsche’s cosmic system the “thinker,” the subject, the “daimon,” whether machine or animal or human, must utilize energy (energeia, Macht) in order to set its perceptions in order through memory and to animate its selective perception or behavior, so that it may engage in Werthschätzung (the estimation of value) in order to shape the arts and sciences as well as the self. Thus “you” and “I” as “living beings,” and “minds” become, just as Nietzsche says, “manifestations of the will to power.” As in physics, Nietzsche’s Will to Power is informatic insofar as it describes the autopoietic differentiation and de-differentiation of a cyclical cosmos.22 By “Will” in this context Nietzsche seems to mean something like “spontaneous dynamism.” Art, Science, and Techics In his “The Question Concerning Technology,” Heidegger elaborated Nietzsche’s metaphorical thinking. As mentioned earlier, Heidegger understands Nietzsche’s approach to knowledge as “schematizing chaos” in the practical necessity of living. Nietzsche, though he clearly recognizes Aristotle’s syllogistic as one form of schematization, prefers the schematization of metaphor: the operative syntax of poiēsis. Thus, like Homer,23 he often views both “nature” and “technics” in terms of metaphor or simile. Hence the cosmic cycle mentioned reveals itself as a “monster of force” (ein Ungeheuer von Kraft), personified in the figure of Dionysus. Likewise in his masterwork, Zarathustra, his key ideas are not set out as logical propositions but as emblematic animal figures: the eagle and the serpent, whom Zarathustra calls “my animals ... the proudest animal under the sun and the cleverest ...” (Prologue 10); just as he goes on to speak of “how the spirit becomes a camel, and the camel at last a lion, and the lion at last a child” (“On the Three Transformations,” I).24 Nietzsche takes, as he says, the “midnightly” diversity of forces inhering in the Kreislauf of his ewige Wiederkehre (Zarathustra III, “The Convalescent”), and shapes them artistically, poetically, into metaphors and similes which, he hopes, will be enduring. As he says in a note from 1881: We wish to experience an artwork forever and again! So should one shape one’s life, so that one has the same wish about its individual parts. This is the key idea! For the first time at the end will the teaching of the recurrence of all that has occurred be brought forth, after the tendency has fist been implanted to fashion something which can blossom a hundred times more powerfully under the sunshine of this teaching!25 20 Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente, June-July 1885, KSA 11.610-611, sec. 38 [12]. This version is from Safranski, Nietzsche, Frisch, trans, pp. 293-294. KSA 11,610, WP sec. 1067, Shelley Frisch, trans., Safranski pp. 293-294. 21 See James A Beniger, The Control Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), ch. 2, for a clear account of the relevant issues of control in living systems. Especially see his algorithmic picture of the immanent workings of Maxwell’s Demon, p. 46. 22 See Francisci Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living (NY: Springer, 1999,) and Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, What is Life? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), for discussion of autopoiesis. 23 So Homer says, e.g., “As the annihilating fire flames up unspeakably to the mountain’s wood at its highest point, even as the light of the sun appears from afar, so from the divinely sounding copper of the charging men the radiance came shining through the heaven’s air” (Iliad 2.455-458). 24 Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Graham Parkes trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 22-23. 25 KSA 9, p. 505. 581 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture One knows through embodying a differentiating chaos of what Aristotle thought of as dunamis and energeia (potentiality and actuality) not in terms of categorical propositions—genus and species stemming from some ultimate divine substance—but rather in durable metaphoric constructions—poetry—stemming and blossoming from the Will to Power in an endlessly cyclical cosmic ‘dance’: Zarathustra is a dancer—; how he that has the hardest, most terrible insight into reality, that has thought the "most abysmal idea," nevertheless does not consider it an objection to existence ... "Into all abysses I still carry the blessings of my saying Yes" ... But this is the concept of Dionysus once again.26 In place of the causa prima of Aristotle, Nietzsche, characteristically, shapes a metaphor animating even his authorial persona, having Zarathustra proclaim, “Now I am light, Now I fly, now I see myself under myself, now a god dances through me” (Zarathustra I, 7, “On Reading and Writing”).27 The schematization of chaos as metaphor, as poetry, is a key to understanding the developmental path of philosophy as Nietzsche wrote it - not to neglect the sciences and reason but to build poetics to become its mature complement. Rilke, whose work may have had its most direct link with Nietzsche’s through their mutual love for Lou Salomé, seems to have had his philosopher rival, perhaps after his final breakdown in 1890, in mind when he wrote this well known poem: The Panther In the Jardin des Plantes, Paris His vision, from the passing of bars, is so weary, it holds nothing now. As if, for him, there were thousands of bars, and thousands, and behind them no world. His pacing gait of sinuous, powerful steps, that in ever narrower circles turns is like a dance of energy ‘round a center, where a great will stands stunned. But sometimes the lids of his eyes slide silently open -. Then an image glides in, through the tensed calm of the limbs- only to terminate in his heart. (Ranier Maria Rilke—New Poems, 1907-1908, my translation) 28 Rilke captures, by an extended metaphor, what I take to be Nietzsche’s sense of the will of a ‘fallen’ humanity caught in the routinized spectacle of 19th century life, what Max Weber after him called the stahlartes Gehäuse (“steely hard housing” or “iron cage”) of capitalist modernity understood as the secularized and weaponized concretization of Protestant Christianity.29 When Nietzsche envisioned an Umwertung aller Werthe or “Transvaluation of all Values” as his 26 Nietzsche Channel trans., http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/eh11.htm. 27 See quotation at the outset of this essay for the German text, Thus Spoke Zarathustra 1.7, “Of Reading and Writing.” 28 “Der Panther” (Neue Gedichte 1907-1908) online: http://picture-poems.com/rilke/new.html. 29 Thus Weber says: “Nur wie ‘ein dünner Mantel, den man jederzeit abwerfen könnte,’ sollte nach Baxters Ansicht die Sorge um die äußeren Güter um die Schultern seiner Heiligen liegen392). Aber aus dem Mantel ließ das Verhängnis ein stahlhartes Gehäuse werden.” Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (online, 1999, http://www.uni-potsdam.de/u/paed/Flitner/Flitner/Weber/PE.pdf, p. 203). 582 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture final project,30 his assumption was that a vital counterforce to a cultural formation built on the denial of life (like Europe or America) would require no less than the simultaneous overcoming and revaluation of all its morals - its Sittliche, traditional notions of Werte, “worth” - in order to do nothing less than design and construct a new culture of the living. This kind of culture requires a theory of transformation (Übersetzung, Übertragung, metaphor) that allows for a Umwertung aller Werthe understood in terms of contemporary social, economic, and technological conditions. The mode of transformation requires a new understanding of key productive processes by which nature and humanity are generated and regenerated. This genesis requires both an evolutionary “natural” and a historical “cultural” explanation. Heidegger described modern technology as an “enframing” (Gestell) that “challenges forth” (herausfordern) nature as “standing reserve” (Bestand): “So when the human being researching and observing fits nature into her representation, she has already been called for by a way of revealing which challenges her forth to approach nature as a standing reserve for investigation.”31 In other words, following Nietzsche, Heidegger understands technology as a kind of “Platonic” artistry that shapes nature into its frameworks or schemata for the purposes of research and, in turn, in a quest to manage its power instrumentally. As Heidegger puts it: The hydroelectric plant is not build into the Rhine River as was the old wooden bridge that joined bank with bank for hundreds of years. Rather the river is dammed up; into the power plant. What the river is now, namely, a water power supplier, derives from out of the essence of the power station. In order that we may even remotely consider the monstrousness that reigns here, let us ponder for a moment that contrast that speaks out of the two titles, “The Rhine” ‘as dammed up in the power works, and “The Rhine” as uttered out of the art work, in Hölderlin’s hymn by that name.32 He thus quotes one of Nietzsche’s favorite poets, Hölderlin again, to illustrate the power and the promise of megatechnics. But where the danger is, wakes Also the saving [from danger].33 Following Nietzsche, Heidegger sees the logic of technics, nowadays expressed as digitation, as a dangerously one-sided understanding of craftsmanship, yielding control over nature - its schematization as standing reserve for instrumental power - but not the saving power of living reciprocally with Earth’s ecology of creatures. In this context, Nietzsche provides a creative vision of how we might recover our embodiment by becoming artist-scientist-technologists: ... we should learn from artists while being wiser than they are in other matters. For with them this subtle power [of multifaceted creativity] usually comes to an end where art ends and life begins; we however desire to be poets of our lives, even down in the smallest and most everyday details. 30 See, e.g., the original title page of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals, where he lists “The Will to Power. Attempt at a Transvaluation of All Values. In four books,” under Vorbereitung (“preparation” KGW 6.2) - a project he never completed; also see, “Third Essay: What is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals” Smith trans., sec. 27, p. 134, Genealogy, KSA 5.409. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 9 vols., referred to here as KGW followed by volume and page no. , ed. Georgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, Berlin/New York: DeGruyter, 1967; references to the abbreviated paperback edition of this work Kritische Studienausgabe, Colli and Montinari: DeGruyter 1999, 15 vols., referred to as KSA followed by the volume and page no. English translation: On the Genealogy of Morals, Douglas Smith, trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). 31 “Wenn also der Mensch forschend, betrachtend der Natur als einem Bezirk seines Vorstellens nachstellt, dann is er bereits von einer Weise der Entbergung beansprucht, die ihn herausfordert, die Natur als einen Gegenstand der Forschung anzugehen …” Heidegger, Die Technik und Die Kehre, (Stuttgart: J.G. Cotta’sche & Die Deutsche Bibliothek: 1962), p. 18. 32 Heidegger, The Question Concering Technology & Other Essays, Willaim Lovitt trans. (New York: Harper, 1977), p. 16; the German text of Hölderlin’s Hymn is online: http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/hoelderl/gedichte/rhein1.htm . 33 Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst. Das Rettende auch. (Die Frage nach Der Technik, p. 28); from “Patmos: Dem Landgrafen von Homburg,” online: http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/hoelderl/gedichte/patmos.htm. The first four lines read: Nah ist /Und schwer zu fassen der Gott. /Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst Das Rettende auch. 583 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Literature, Art and Culture (Nietzsche, “We should learn from artists.” The Gay Science, IV, Walter Kaufmann (my emphasis) trans. sec. 299. The result could be a high technology that is embodied, that is choreographed metaphorically in sympathy with the human animal and spirit, and so might be able to live in the ecos or household of the biosphere. Nietzsche’s technology would provide designs for immanence based on a metaphoric exchange among mankind, machinery, and ecology. The quest for technological transcendence evident in megatechnical industrialism and postmodern consumer capitalism are arguably no more than extraordinarily amplified expressions of the old Platonic quest for the ideal city beyond the perturbations of nature, Walt Disney World as the new Atlantis, and with about the same prospect for survival as the mythic one. Nietzsche’s combination of logic and art in a new, joyous science (fröhliche Wissenschaft) at least offers a different vision of schemes for life. 584 g. Metaphysics, Law, and Society Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Law, and Society THE RULE OF LAW – TOWARDS A NORMATIVE CONCEPTION Trevor N. Wedman University of San Diego School of Law On the 29th of May, 2005, the French citizens firmly said ‘non’ to the Constitution of the European Union, a constitution which was to be a codification of powers and summary of treaties under which the European political leaders had been working over the past fifty years. If the United States or Germany were to hold referenda on their constitutions, would they survive intact? The central claim of authority for Western Democratic governments is that they represent the will of their respective peoples. But to what extent can we really claim that any one of the Western democratic constitutions is an expression of the people’s will if we are not sure whether any one people would actually want its constitution if given the choice in an actual referendum? This is a question which exposes issues of the expression of collectives within a legal order. To what extent does the legal order depend on a present manifestation of the will of the people and to what extent are legal systems dependent upon pre-existing ideals and norms that form present manifestations of behaviour? The events in France regarding the European Constitution serve as an impetus to analyse a certain tension between two competing conceptions of society and the relationship between the society as a whole and the individuals which comprise it. The one position, represented in part by Hans Kelsen, proposes that the laws of a society are purely positive reflecting an active expression of whatever norms the society decides it wants to have. The other position, represented by natural or objective law theorists, holds that a society’s laws are the natural expression of its ideals and customs, which are themselves the underpinnings of the society. If one takes the position of Kelsen, a democratic state expresses its norms by means of its positive laws. There is no state which exists outside of the present legal order. Kelsen’s theory of norm establishing positive law is based on the assertion that the state can no longer be conceived of as a meta-legal state existing as an entity in itself independent of the laws and individuals which are in conjunction with it. Rather, according to Kelsen, the state coincides with the law. There can be no dualism between the law and the state. Under this theory, the democratic expression of the people, either directly or indirectly, which results in the legislation of laws, or norms, is necessarily the expression of the state. The speaking of the legislature as well as the speaking of the body of people directly through a referendum is the speaking of the state. Were this to be the case, it would seem that the popular French rejection of the EU constitution would be a death knell for any future French involvement in the Union. Yet, must it be the case that a clear, positive, and unequivocal expression of a people be the ultimate expression of its society? Under traditional conceptions of natural law, the demos has hardly any say in the laws of the land. Rather, the highest expression of the legal order would be the divine will best interpreted by the King and, perhaps, by the clergy. Under this theory, a country’s laws were not the expression of the people but of its god. A Christian country would have Christian laws not because its citizens or subjects were Christian but because Christ’s will was supreme. If the prevailing conception were that France be a natural law state, the EU referendum would have been perfectly meaningless. The only question would have been whether the EU Constitution corresponds to the divine will. If it did, then it would be legitimate “law”, if it did not, then it would be illegitimate. However, as Kelsen correctly points out, the notion of a divine law-giver has largely vanished, and for the Western political consciousness, it has done this long ago. Without a transcendent God, so the argument goes, there is no longer a transcendent and god-like state which supersedes the legal order and has final 587 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Law, and Society power of judgment over it. States, now unable to derive authority from God, can only derive their authority, or justification for power, from the laws which comprise the state. To summarize the problematic, there is the claim by Kelsen that the legal order is the state and the state is the legal order which in turn is the normative expression of a people’s will. This, however, presents problems since it appears that there are many aspects of a state’s institutional workings that might not be affirmable in any positive fashion by a present manifestation of the people. Many Western societies, for example Germany, Austria, and the United States, have constitutional courts whose function it is to operate as a counter-majoritarian institution with the power to invalidate laws enacted by respective legislatures. At the same time though, the natural law conception involves an assumption of divine existence and transcendence that is no longer permissible or even desirable in political discourse, but which would, if feasible, provide justification for a free standing legal order as administered by the state, a phenomenon which seems to reflect more accurately the state of most democratic political orders. That is, it is not the case that Western democracy reflects that state of affairs that Aristotle feared in which the demos not only has the power, but also the power to exercise its power in ways which would disturb the prevailing societal order. In attempting to resolve this problem I would like to construct a paradigm consisting of three concepts: a society, a legal order, and a state. That which I call society is a certain collective of relationships and interactions, for our purposes these will be human relationships and interactions. In order for there to be relationships between the individual actors within the collective, there must be some common bonds. Linguistic commonalities may help the society to be more productive, but are not necessary. Rather, there must be a common goal. The individuals, in order to be parts of a society, must be marching in roughly the same direction. Although the same goal may be seen in various lights and the individual marching speeds may be drastically different, it is the common directedness of individuals which is the key. The second concept that I would like to postulate is that of a legal order. The legal order is nothing but the body of codified laws. Within any given society there is also a body of uncodified laws, but these are not properly part of the legal order. The relationship between the uncodified laws and the legal order is essential to this analysis and we shall explore this shortly, but for now it suffices to assert that the legal order, i.e. the body of codified laws, has the main function of channelling the society along a given path. This channelling may occur more or less efficiently depending on the quality and prudence of the lawmakers. In itself, the legal order coincides perfectly with Kelsen’s conception of a legal system as norm-establishing. Namely, laws are made in order to get a society from point A to point B. The last concept in this tri-partite paradigm is that of a state. By state I mean mostly the institution that has the power to affect the lives over which it has sovereignty. A state may also have been given authority to exercise such power, although this need not be the case. Jacques Chirac and Angela Merkel are heads of states, but so were Adolf Hitler and Slobodan Milosovic. By combining these three terms into one paradigm of social order, there results a partially Kelsenian, partially objectivist view that the existence of the state should (although might not) directly correspond with the legal order. Moreover, the state should (although might not) directly correspond to the society. At the same time, the legal order should (although might not) directly correspond with either or both the society and the state. With these three terms, state, legal order, and society, I conceive of a hierarchy of legitimacy in which the society has foremost legitimacy, then the legal order, and then the state. The state no longer has any legitimate claim to a power which exceeds its laws. Laws, in turn, are only valid insofar as they reflect the collective desires, beliefs, and values of the society. We can envision these three concepts existing in multifarious relationships with each other. The perfect social system would be one in which the society itself determines the legal order and the state perfectly executes such order. However, at the other end of 588 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Law, and Society the spectrum, there might be a social system in which each entity exists entirely separate from the other. This would exist where there is a legal order which is the law of the land, but which both fails to represent the values of the society and which is completely ignored by the dictator who is the head of state. In between these two poles, there are three other possible social systems. There could be a lawless society which is ruled by a lawless king. There could be a lawful society which is ruled by a state which acknowledges neither the legal order nor the society, for example a civilized nation which is conquered by barbarians. Finally, there could be a state which follows a legal order, but the society for which the legal order stands might fall away. This would be the scenario which describes what happened to the German Democratic Republic in 1989. In order to have a proper functioning of these three entities among each other, there needs to be a mechanism within the social system which acts to balance the legal order and the state with regard to the society. Since the enlightenment, it has been thought that the best way to achieve this within a social system is through democracy. If the people elect both those who will have direct power over them and those who construct the legal order, then both the state and the legal order should have a close correspondence to the aims and goals of the society which they represent. In general this is the case. However, it is not always so that a given expression of a collective of individuals is the best and purest expression of the interests of the society. Society, as defined above, is not simply the sum of a majority of its actors, but rather it is a collective of relationships and interactions connected by a common goal or goals. Insofar as this is the case, it is possible for a majority of individual actors to make decisions that are at odds with the objectives of the society as a whole. Instead of making laws that are efficient at channelling the society down its path, the majority might elect lawmakers who legislate only so that the majority is allowed to continue to march, or even such that a minority is burdened in its particular aim. These are instances in which the legal order begins to conflict with the society and the historical example would be segregation laws in the United States during the 20th century. Moreover, there are also cases in which the legal order might come into conflict with the state by either malapportioning power or by stripping power away from entities that need to properly function for the well-being of the society. Examples of this are either giving the executive such liberty that it becomes a de facto legislature or taking away from the executive so much power that it is no longer capable of executing laws. In such cases, the social order must be able to recognize that such laws are illegitimate. One way by which this can occur is by selecting a particular body with the task of regulating the relationship between the legal order, the society, and the state. This is the role of a constitutional court. Within democracies, it is taken for granted that the role of a constitutional court is that of denying the colloquial will of the people as represented by a legislature in favour of abiding by other “laws” contained in a constitution. However, in addition to these written laws which perhaps embody those foundational values, beliefs and desires which were primarily constitutive of the original society when it first began to develop its legal order within the context of a state, there are other unwritten laws in the form of values, beliefs, and desires which, even though unwritten, fulfil an essential constitutive function within a society. In order to properly maintain the relationship between the society as it exists and the legal order, which is constantly being renewed, it is upon the constitutional court to properly interpret the society as it exists through its values, beliefs and desires in conjunction, of course, with those foundational “laws” which form the constitution. It is here where this conception begins to appear somewhat similar to a natural law conception where it is possible to say that there are proper laws in the abstract without having reference to actual and positive manifestations of such. However, this view of society as an entity unto itself largely independent from the whims of any given manifestation of a majority of individuals is based not on the presence of a divine, all knowing, and always correct will, but on a genetic, objective, and historically dependant collective intention which is hopefully embodied largely by the legal order, but also by other societal mores. This social intentionality is genetic in the sense that it develops naturally and independently as a result of the values, beliefs and desires held collectively across the 589 Metaphysics 2006 – f. Metaphysics, Law, and Society citizenry and across time. It is historically dependant in the sense that these values, beliefs, and desires which make up the social background are developed according to the exigencies of history. The values, beliefs and desires are shaped by the social lore of a people, for example through its arts and customs, as well as by the events of a people’s history, for example the collective victories and losses a people has experienced. Moreover, the collective intention is objective in the sense that it is relatively stable changing only gradually and that it is purely coexistent with the existing society. The French EU referendum of 2005 was a decision within the realm of the legal order. To the extent that it was in accord neither with the French state nor with the French society, the decision is anomalous. However, to the extent that both the French state and the French society are headed towards integration in the European community, the decision on the referendum will tend to be disregarded and French society will continue to act as it did before, i.e. according to its values, beliefs and desires. 590 h. Metaphysics and Global Development Metaphysics 2006 – g. Metaphysics and Global Development THE ISSUE OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD Metaphysics and Global Development Khalilova Narmin Azerbaijan University. Azerbaijan The issue of humanitarian intervention has become one of the commonplaces of our age. Especially the progress in the sphere of human rights, the increasing number of declarations, conventions on human rights that put a duty on states in regard to their citizens, and their increasing role in international relations necessitate discussing the role and status of humanitarian intervention in modern international relations. Moreover the process of globalization in general has a tremendous influence on the rise of the issue of humanitarian intervention. Due to the Means of Mass Information peoples of the world have become much more aware of each other; consequently there has been originated some sense of common humanity; sufferings of people, atrocities committed in one part of the world cannot just be passed to the archive of the history without any influence on the other parts of the world. However, despite all achievements in the sphere of human rights they are not universal, but rather are mainly referable to the West. Humanitarian intervention is seen to pose a real challenge to international order mainly built on the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention. Thus the issue of forcible humanitarian intervention poses a great dilemma in current international relations and law. The aim of this article is to explore whether the case against humanitarian intervention is strong enough to delegitimate this practice. 593 Metaphysics 2006 – g. Metaphysics and Global Development ONTOLOGICAL AS REGULATIVE. ON THE USE OF METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM AS REGULATIVE PRINCIPLE FOR SOCIAL SCIENCES. GIACOMO MOLLO BSc Philosophy and Economics London School of Economics and Political Sciences London, UK The question about how a particular methodological position can be employed as normative principle for social science is one of the primary issues in the philosophy of social sciences. During the ‘50s it generated a lively debate among philosophers like Popper, Watkins, Hayek, Gellner and Goldstein on fundamental issues like Methodological Individualism (MI), Holism (MH), Structuralism and Historicism. This paper aims at explaining Watkins’s account on the use of Methodological Individualism (MI) in social sciences and at identifying the importance of the ontological commitment (largely underestimated) hidden behind the specific notion of ‘regulative principle’. Watkins1 in fact refers to MI as a regulative principle in a very narrow sense, i.e. to regulate consists into assessing the compatibility of a certain explanation with the tenets of individualism. This paper will attempt to show how this definition is in reality based on a particular ontological claim that not only naturally provides normative elements for the acceptance or rejection of any explanation (in Watkins’s sense), but it also endows the social scientist with principles to actually build a social theory or to eventually implement other theoretical frameworks under the light of Individualism . First of all it is helpful to pause and give a brief account of what is the nature of Methodological Individualism. MI represent the view according to which all individuals acting in the light of (1) their dispositions and (2) a certain level of understanding of their peculiar context of life, are the ultimate constitutive particles of the social world. As the definition clearly states it, this very concept is about a whole methodology and framework of principles that can enable the social scientist to attempt to understand the relational nature of society in terms of individuals and explain it through a coherent theoretical modelling. MI results therefore a particular type of approach that unambiguously establish its own guidelines to direct the development of any social inquiry. Watkins2, in particular, defines it as ‘regulative principle’ for the social sciences. Aim of a regulative principle is, in general terms, to ‘regulate’, to ‘give rules’ to a particular set of statements in order to establish if they satisfy or don’t satisfy the requirements outlined by a specific theory. However Watkins outlines a more specific concept of regulative principle that can be referred as the ‘regulative as compatible’ notion of MI: The conformity of the premises of a particular explanation to a certain set of requirements will determine the acceptability of an explanation or its rejection. The result of this filtering will constitute a set of assumption that shares as a common trait their individualistic notion of explanation of social events. Like Procustes, the regulative principle invites the premises on his morbid bed and then ‘discovers’ if they can best fit it. To make this point clearer it is helpful to outline some of the main implicit criteria that can be deduced from Watkins’s account 1 J.W.N. Watkins, ‘Historical Explanation in the Social Sciences’. Reproduced in Readings in the Philosophy of Social Sciences, Edited by M. Martin ad L.C. McIntyre. 1994 MIT. 2 Ibid. 595 Metaphysics 2006 – g. Metaphysics and Global Development and that promote the acceptability in term of Methodological Individualism of a particular social explanation: (1) the individual-laden alterability criteria; (2) the exhaustiveness criteria; and (3) the indirectness criteria. A social explanation can be labelled as respectful of the norms of MI only if no social tendency exists which could not be altered if the individuals concerned wanted to alter it and possessed the appropriate information (1). In other words a theory is compatible with MI when a change in variables like the will of people to alter the present situation together with a suitable level of knowledge would affect the overall final social tendency. As we can notice this condition restates and applies one of the most important tenets of individualism i.e. the idea that macro social event can be deduced by behavioural principles of individuals. Furthermore compatibility requires a certain level of exhaustiveness (2): the very explanatory principles taken into account ought to comprehend a wide variety of events and therefore be able to explain a wide range of social phenomena. Finally the acceptance of premises by MI needs a rejection of all forms of macro events explained in terms of direct holistic notions. Explanations have to explain macro social occurrences as indirect outcomes of an alteration of the behaviours of the individuals (3). The macro level is in fact never directly affected but it is indirectly influenced by the behavioural of every single agent. Watkins also identifies cases where MI is not a suitable regulative principle. MI is considered to be not applicable in mainly two types of situations: (1) occasions where accidental unpredictable irregularities in human action have a regular overall result; and (2) occurrences where an instinctual response is involved. The first of the two cases can be explained with an experiment: Suppose 1000 individual are placed facing north in the centre of a symmetrical room with two exits, one east and the other west. When asked to leave the room it is possible to notice that about 500 will exit through the east door and about 500 through the west door. In this case the final regular result is the split of the totality of people into halves in order to leave the room. The accidental element that makes MI inapplicable in this case is people’s east/west inclination in choosing the door. They do not have any incentive in choosing either the west door or the east door, no personal, emotional, rational disposition in preferring one over the other. The final decision is ultimately made by accident. MI results therefore of no help in trying to explain this form of social behaviour simply because it is impossible to reduce this social occurrence in term of individual behaviour. It could be counter-argued that an agent, while choosing the door through which he would exit the room, is in reality rationally considering the amount of people present at the exits and then he will undertake a choice coherent with the best solution to his purpose (i.e. chose the less crowded exit). This view seems to leave open space for the application of MI even in cases like (1) however a closer look will show a simple fallacy in this objection: Consider now the first agent that , after hearing the command, responds by deciding to which exit he will choose. No one is in front of him and all the two exits are both clear of people. Which exit will he choose? The choice (unless he feels strongly committed to the meaning of ‘left’ and ‘right’ or ‘east’ and ‘west’) will be random and accidental. The individual will be in fact indifferent in choosing the east or the west exit. MI results therefore inappropriate since it cannot provide an account for random behaviour. The second set of events where MI is an unsuitable regulative principle is when ‘instinctuality’ is taken into consideration. Occasions where the animal forms of perception determines an individual’s behaviour (for instance when people ‘smell danger’) cannot find an appropriate explanation in terms of MI. In this case individual’s dispositions play in fact no role in a possible formulation of social regularities within a model of social behaviour. At this point it is possible to notice how, in Watkins’s perspective, the role of MI as regulative principle is to establish canons according to which an explanation is accepted/rejected or a situation is/is not considered suitable for an interpretation in individualistic terms. 596 Metaphysics 2006 – g. Metaphysics and Global Development It seems to me that what is referred as the ‘compatibilist’ interpretation of MI as regulative principle described above hides in reality a fundamental underlying ontological commitment that heavily affects the possible roles of MI within the social sciences. Every regulative principles is in fact grounded into a clear ontology, i.e. a defined rock-bottom theory capable of explaining (social) reality, that can, by immediate parthenogenesis, identify principles employed to fit itself. This means that it is possible to perceive how a determined and particular ontological set of claims has immediately implied within it a clear conceptual path to follow for consistency. To clarify this point with an example, if Methodological Individualism in social science establishes that all social event is the sum of unities of acting beings (Ego)3 then it immediately follows that every kind of explanation of social events, in order to be included into the individualistic spectrum, ought to adhere to the notion above mentioned. There is no further necessity of any regulative principles since to some extent it is possible to say that the ontological is (already) regulative. An ontological claim reveals in reality enthymemes that establish the methodological process; specific traits that clearly distinguish it from other entities and at the same time constitutes a natural benchmark. Is the account provided by Watkins (i.e. assess the compatibility) the only possible function entailed by the ontological status of MI? Is it possible to identify other implicit uses that naturally stems from Methodological Individualism? I think that the ontological status of MI displays an amount of uses wider than the only one taken into consideration by Watkins: the ‘regulative as compatible ’ principle simply constitutes one of the applications that the original ontological commitment of MI can embody. It is possible in fact to illustrate how the Individualist ontological account of reality is also able to furnish (a) guidelines for the generation of a theory and (b) criteria to improve a given explanation in terms of individualism. First of all an account about ontology, in this case about MI, can provide rules for producing a theory: MI in fact automatically gives principles and directions according to which social inquiry should be conducted. Watkins seems to understand the limitations of his ‘compatibilist’ account of regulative principles and therefore tries to formulate an independent set of principles in the part ‘How Social Explanations Should Be Framed’4: everyday situations and experience contains the basic raw material for starting building an explanatory social theory. The social scientist will move then to the attempt of distinguish dispositions of individual that can potentially explain some relevant facets of social conduct and that would eventually be included into a model. A repetitive occurrence of disposition generates regularities in the behavioural pattern of agents. These latter will finally be included into the formulation of a model of social explanation, necessary to reconstruct and interpret past occurrence of social events under a new light and to utter statements with predictive relevance. The outcome of the whole process will be a model , with a certain level of multi- situational applicability, perfectly fitted into the framework of MI. Secondly, another essential use that MI can accomplish is its role in improving existing theories (b). Though the process of filtering and challenging the premises of any explanation under the light of MI, it is in fact possible to adjust and refine them in order to better fit the Individualistic status of explanation. To conclude the final meaning of ‘regulative principle’ when referred to MI results therefore far away from the one dimensional meaning attached to it by Watkins. MI becomes in fact regulative under three different uses that are all implicit in the original ontological statement on the nature of Methodological Individualism: the generation of a social theory; the assessment of conformity of explanations with the ontological status and finally the implement of pre-existing theories in terms 3 Ludwig Von Mises, ‘ The Principle of Methodological Individualism ‘,The Epistemological Problems of the Science of Human Action, in Human Action. 4 See note 1. 597 Metaphysics 2006 – g. Metaphysics and Global Development of Methodological Individualism. 598 Metaphysics 2006 – g. Metaphysics and Global Development BIBLIOGRAPHY J.W.N. Watkins, ‘Historical Explanation in the Social Sciences’. Reproduced in Readings in the Philosophy of Social Sciences , Edited by M. Martin ad L.C. McIntyre. 1994 MIT. Ludwig Von Mises, ‘ The Principle of Methodological Individualism ‘,The Epistemological Problems of the Science of Human Action, in Human Action. Leon J. Goldstein , ‘The inadequacy of the Principle of Methodological Individualism’ . The Journal of Philosophy , Vol. 53, n.25 (Dec 6, 1956), 801 – 813. J.W.N. Watkins, Ideal Types and Historical Explanation. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol.3 n.9 (May , 1952) , 22 – 43. 599 Metaphysics 2006 – g. Metaphysics and Global Development AN OUTLINE FOR A GENERAL THEORY OF INTENSIONS Pelman Alik We are on yet another philosophical expedition to Mars. Our host colleagues introduce us to some Martian stuff called “T”, and ask us to help them to identify T on other possible worlds, to which they frequently travel. (Needless to say, Mars, as well as Earth, both belong to the actual world). In other words, we are asked to determine what would deserve to be called “T”. Or, more technically, we are simply asked to determine the intension of the singular term “T”, where “intension” means assigning each possible world an extension.1 We, of course, are happy to assist. So happy, that we even postpone our doubts about the possibility of travelling to other possible worlds. So we start working. If “T” is a descriptive term, i.e., “T” has a sense and “T” designates that which fits that sense, then the Martian stuff is designated by “T” by virtue of fitting “T”’s sense, and likewise “T” will designate, with respect to each possible world, whatever fits “T”’s sense in that world. In such a case, T on other possible worlds may be distinct from the actual Martian referent. Yet “T” may not be such a term; it may be something like a name, i.e., a rigidified term, which is designed to designate, with respect to every possible world, the same object that it designates in the actual world (this, arguably, will include the cases in which “T” is a proper name, or a demonstrative, or an actualised description, or a description with a narrow scope). In that case, we need to know what this stuff that “T” designates consists in. So we go and have a closer examination of that actual referent of “T”. We note its manifest properties – that it is purple, jellylike, etc., and upon further examination we determine its physical constitution to be P. We learn from the Martians that they in fact conceive the collection of manifest properties as one property, M. We easily manage to adapt and conclude that the actual referent of “T” has the properties P and M. So “T”, if nondescriptive, designates, with respect to every possible world, that which is identical to this P+M stuff. As we are on a quest to find “T” ’s intension, i.e., the extension of “T” with respect to different possible worlds, we consider types of possible worlds, i.e., types of relevant candidates, deserving to be called “T”. There are four such candidates: 1. Stuff that is P and M (P+M); 2. Stuff that although shares the manifest property M has nonetheless a different physical constitution, say, Q (Q+M); 3. Stuff that has the same constitution P but a different collection of manifest properties, say, N (P+N)2; and, finally, 4. Stuff that is neither P nor M, say, some Q and N stuff. (Q+N). (We are aware, that if there is more than one alternative to P, or more than one alternative to M, there will be accordingly more candidates, and thus more types of possible worlds. Our list of possible worlds may thus not be exhaustive. This fact, however, need not currently worry us, for the argument by no 1 Following possible-worlds-semantics, I take “intension” to be a term of art, that is defined as a function from possible worlds to extensions. There is by no means any commitment here to intensions, thus defined, being a proper account of meaning. In fact, I believe it not to be the case. As is famously pointed out, triangular and trilateral, although share the same intension, nonetheless clearly differ in meaning. 2 One may object that this option violates physicalism, namely the view according to which the manifest supervenes upon the physical and hence no change in the manifest is possible without a change in the physical. The stuff on W3, namely, P+N stuff, entails a change, although modal, in the manifest (from M to N) without a change in the physical (P). However, even if we accept physicalism, this fact does not undermine the general argument advanced here, for we could, in principle, choose some stuff with two independent dominant properties, i.e., properties that hold no supervenience relations between them. So the objection is not one of essence. Furthermore, even if we agreed to exclude this type of possible world, on grounds that it in fact is impossible, the argument advanced here could be developed with respect to the other three types of possible worlds. 601 Metaphysics 2006 – g. Metaphysics and Global Development means depends on an exhaustive list of possible worlds). For a start, we consider the candidate that has the same material constitution P as the actual stuff, but different manifest property, namely, P+N, which is the stuff on World 3. Is it identical to the actual stuff or not? Being heavily indoctrinated by the presuppositions of our Earthean science, we tend to believe that the universe is such that it contains various materials, such as P and Q, that merely happen to have manifest properties, like M and N. So it seems that despite the difference in the manifest property, the stuff on possible world 3 (P+N), is the same stuff, P, as the actual stuff (P+M); so we are naturally drawn to conclude that that stuff is indeed identical to our actual referent of “T”. Yet, to our surprise, we soon learn that the Martians have a different view on this matter; they take the universe to be such that it contains primarily manifest entities, such as M and N, that merely happen to have some material constitution, like P or Q. Thus on their view, the stuff on possible world 3, having the manifest property N rather than M, is in fact distinct form the stuff on actual Mars; it is, rather, the stuff on possible world 2, Q+M, which is identical to the actual stuff P+M, despite the difference in their material constitution. After the first mutual puzzlement by these conflicting views, we soon realise how dogmatic our beliefs are, and thank the fortunate encounter that allowed us to broaden our outlook and to see both options. We both admit, however, that we have no way of determining what the universe is really like in this respect. Indeed, for all we know, we can’t even tell if there is a fact of the matter here at all. Furthermore, we now appreciate that with regard to any property Φ of our object, it is possible, contrary to what we or the Martians believe, that the universe is such that it primarily contains Φ’s, that merely happen to have other properties, such as material constitution like P or Q, and a manifest property like M or N (such a property Φ may, for instance, be the object’s function). So in principle, there are many more possible metaphysical backgrounds.3 Turning back to our job, we so far conclude that the intension of the term “T”, i.e., “T”’s reference with respect to different possible worlds, is dependent upon three different factors: 1. The semantic rule of “T”, i.e., whether “T” it is descriptive or not; 2. The true properties of the actual referent of “T”; and, 3. The metaphysical background of the universe, namely, what kind of objects the universe contains and what properties they have (despite our strong, yet utterly dogmatic, conviction that our universe is primarily a material one.). But what is the intension of “T” then? What does in fact deserve to be called “T”? Well, surely, to determine the intension of “T” we need the values of each of the above three variables. We have already realised that we do not know for sure the value of the third variable – the metaphysical background of the world. But as if this epistemic limit was not enough, the Martians go on to tell us that they were not even sure about the values of the other two variables as well – the semantic rule of “T”, and also the true properties of the actual referent. All they are willing to commit to is the purple jellylike stuff to which the term “T” actually applies on Mars. Firstly, regarding the true properties of this actual referent, although their current science told them that it had the properties P and M, still, based on their past experience, they were well aware of how fallible their science was in the past, and therefore were careful not to assume that it isn’t failing this time as well. And secondly, as to the semantic rule of “T”, some of them thought that “T” designated that stuff by virtue of simply naming it, like a label; whereas others, by contrast, contended that “T” designated the stuff by virtue of being linked with a sense, ‘being M’, that allowed “T” to designate that stuff by virtue of that stuff having the property M, i.e., by virtue of fitting the sense of the term “T”. Furthermore, they thought that other opinions on this matter were 3 There are various other metaphysical background alternatives in another sense as well. E.g., that the universe contains both types of objects, namely Ps and Qs as well as Ms and Ns, that simply coincide; or, that the universe contains unqualified objects, e.g. an unqualified stuff that has the properties P nd M, and that any further metaphysical burden is entirely theory-relative. All these alternatives may be incorporated in the final analysis, once such an analysis is attained. 602 Metaphysics 2006 – g. Metaphysics and Global Development also possible. And there was nothing in the actual application of the term on Mars to tell them which of the views was right. True, our mission is not to determine the intension of “T” relative to the Martians’ views, but to determine it simpliciter. So in a sense, their uncertainty should not impede our job. But that would be the case if our epistemic state were different to theirs. Yet, exercising some philosophical integrity, we have to realise that as a matter of fact it is not. Science, Martian or Earthean, however advanced, is at least fallible, if not a definite mistake (if judged by induction). So despite our discovery that the actual stuff that “T” referred to was P and M, we may be proved wrong as science advances, and discover, for instance, that the stuff was not P+M but rather Q+M. And as to the semantic rule of “T”, it is indeed impossible to determine on the basis of “T”’s actual referent alone. For all we know, “T” could refer to its stuff by virtue of different semantic rules, e.g., by virtue of being a definite description (descriptive), or as a proper name, or as a demonstrative, etc. (nondescriptive). We gradually understand the implication of this epistemic state. We realise that we have to give up providing a definite intension of “T”, and that we need to settle for producing a formula, from which such an intension could be derived, once filled in with the required values. After the initial disappointment, and upon a second reflection, it dawns upon us that such a formula is in an important sense a much more valuable tool, than merely finding the exact intension, i.e., the exact reference of a term with respect to different possible worlds. For such a formula will describe the general case, and thereby may be used to produce any intension, and not just that of some specific term “T”. In other words, even if we knew beyond any doubt the exact values of the three variables, it would still be very much worthwhile to deliberately put on a “veil of ignorance”, and to consider the hypothetical values of each variable, and then to find the general formula; firstly, to keep it for future uses, and secondly, which is the more important aspect from a philosophical point of view, it would provide an understanding of the general regularity behind individual intensions of specific terms. After all, isn’t it what drives great scientist in their pursuit for theories – Newton could measure well enough weights, speeds and forces, but he was looking for the general law that would expose the regularity connecting these values. So we realise that by providing the Martians with such a tool, we in fact give them something like a rod to fish with, rather than a single fish. Encouraged by this revelation, we enthusiastically set for our task. The main values that were considered are the following: 1. The semantic rule: may be either descriptive or not; 2. The actual referent: corresponding to our apparent P+M actual referent of “T”, the possibilities are that it is: indeed P+M, but also, that it is maybe Q+M, or P+N, or Q+N; and lastly, 3. The metaphysical background may be either that the universe is a material universe (that happens to have some manifest properties), or a manifest universe (that happens to have some material constitution). True, we are aware that there are possibilities not included in the ones just listed (at least as far as the properties of the actual referent and the metaphysical background are concerned); namely, there may be more material properties possible than P and Q, and more manifest properties possible than M and N; similarly, there are also more metaphysical backgrounds possible than the two mentioned. For the sake of simplicity, we shall, however, construct our formula by first considering these options. After arriving at the principle formula, it should be fairly easy to extrapolate from it the general case that would include all options. So apparently the logical space of possibilities here amounts to two (possibilities of the semantic rule) times four (possibilities of the actual referent) times two (possibilities of the metaphysical background), which is sixteen. Fortunately, the options are considerably less than that. This is due to the fact that if “T” is descriptive, the values of the other variables play no part in fixing the intension. “T” will simply designate, with respect to every possible world, that which fits “T”’s 603 Metaphysics 2006 – g. Metaphysics and Global Development sense (allegedly, ‘being an M’,) in that world – regardless of the metaphysical background, or the nature of the actual referent. Thus all eight combinations linked with a descriptive semantic rule for “T” collapse into one. So overall we have the following nine possible combinations: The actual Metaphysical W1 W2 W3 W4 Semantic rule referent’s background of properties the universe P+M Q+M P+N Q+N Descriptive (whatever) (whatever) Material P+M Manifest Material Q+M Manifest Nondescriptive Material P+N Manifest Material Q+N Manifest All we need to do now is to calculate the intension of “T”, i.e., “T”’s reference with respect to the different possible worlds, for each of the nine lines. This is a fairly easy task, which we can quickly perform. In line 1, “T” is descriptive. Since, we are told, it is linked with the sense of ‘have the (manifest) property M’, it will designate, with respect to each type of possible world, that which M’s in that type of world. Hence, the intension of “T” in that case would be: The actual Semantic Metaphysical W1 W2 W3 W4 referent’s rule background properties P+M Q+M P+N Q+N Descriptive (whatever) (whatever) + + - - In all consequent cases, “T” is nondescriptive, and therefore designates, with respect to every possible world, that which it designates in the actual world. So we need to determine what is the nature of this actual referent of “T”. We can do that on the basis of the other two variables: the metaphysical background, and the properties of the actual referent. In line 2, “T” designates in the actual world stuff that is P+M (as we actually believe it to be the case), and the universe is a material-universe (similar to what our current science tells us), i.e., the universe is such that it contains, among other things, Ps, some of which happen to have the manifest property M. Hence our actual referent is such a P that happens to have the manifest property M. So in that case, “T” will designate, with respect to every possible world, that which is P in that world. The intension is thus: Actual Metaphysical W1 W2 W3 W4 Semantic rule referent background P+M Q+M P+N Q+N Nondescriptive P+M Material universe + - + - Line 3 is like line 2, only that now we have a manifest-universe. So in that case, the same actual 604 Metaphysics 2006 – g. Metaphysics and Global Development referent is in fact an M that merely happens to have the material constitution P. Thus “T” will designate, with respect to every possible world, that which is M in that world. The intension of “T” in that case is therefore: Actual Metaphysical W1 W2 W3 W4 Semantic rule referent background P+M Q+M P+N Q+N Nondescriptive P+M Manifest universe + + - - In Lines 4 and 5, the actual referent is not P+M but rather Q+M. I.e., in this line we consider the option that our actual referent has different properties than we believe it to have. Now if the universe is a material-universe, then the referent is primarily a Q, that merely happens to have the manifest property M. So “T” will designate, with respect to every possible world, that which Q’s in that world. If, however, the universe is a manifest-universe, the actual referent is an M, and “T” will designate, with respect to every possible world, that which M’s in that world: Actual Metaphysical W1 W2 W3 W4 Semantic rule referent background P+M Q+M P+N Q+N Material universe - + - + Nondescriptive Q+M Manifest universe + + - - Similar considerations will determine the intension for the remaining four lines. Overall, we end up with the following complete table, that lists “T”’s intension relative to each combination of values of our three variables: The actual Metaphysical W1 W2 W3 W4 Semantic rule referent’s background of properties the universe P+M Q+M P+N Q+N Descriptive (whatever) (whatever) + + - - Material + - + - P+M Manifest + + - - Material - + - + Q+M Manifest + + - - Nondescriptive Material + - + - P+N Manifest - - + + Material - + - + Q+N Manifest - - + + And we’re generally done. Mission complete. Well, at least an outline of it (to have a complete account we would still need to include more possible options for each variable.) We were looking for the intension of “T”, i.e., the reference of “T” with respect to different possible worlds, or simply, what would deserve to be called “T”. We have found the three factors upon which intensions depend. We have further considered possible values for each of these variables. We have listed the different possible combination between these values. And we have finally calculated the resultant intension for each combination of the three variables. Thus, using the corresponding values with regard to the term “T”, our Martian colleagues can now easily determine the intension of “T”. In fact, they can do more than that. Our hosts are now in a position to determine the 605 Metaphysics 2006 – g. Metaphysics and Global Development intension of any term, given the appropriate values. And, frankly, so do we. 606 i. Metaphysics and Criminology Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology METAPHYSICAL CRIMINOLOGY: CHOSINNESS AND NAZI TRANSCENDENCE WITHOUT THE TRANSCENDENT Ryan Edward Scott Dep. of Criminal Justice A synthesis of the a priori metaphysical good with the de facto criminological bad “Chosinness is the criminological metaphysic that bridges the gap between the metaphysical a priori good and de facto criminological bad, in allowing for the metaphysical ultimate in pointing to the metaphysical detriment that accrues from the sinful criminological choice of Chosinness … in choosing one God as one’s God, only, to the detriment of others.”. Metaphysical Criminology relates criminogenic ideation, belief and rationality to their metaphysical origins; and Chosinness is defined as the sinful choice of choosing one God as one’s God, only, to the detriment of others. Metaphysics has been virtually ignored in criminology due to the behavioralistic determinants of philosophic empiricism and logical positivism that have almost exclusively limited the analysis of crime to what can be observed and measured. There have been some theoretical criminological constructs that have been developed, but they are also quite limited in expressing the deterministic premises of the positivistic and therapeutic rehabilitative schools of criminology. The result has been a plethora of quantitative analysis and therapeutic case studies that ignore the non-quantitative and non-therapeutic correlates and causes of crime, in totally ignoring the metaphysical. It is not my intent in this paper to refute the behavioralistic social sciences and positivistic schools of criminology in denying them validity, but, rather, to put them in their proper context vis-a -vis the metaphysical components of criminology whose validity has been denied by them. No one can argue that we should be less scientific or ignore what we can measure. Nevertheless, we can argue that social science constructs should not be the last word in criminological research, in ruling out criminological metaphysics in an exclusive deference to the quantitative criminal physics that can be clearly observed and measured. The argument in this paper for metaphysical criminology is not an argument against psychology, psychiatry, sociology or therapeutic social work; but, rather, it is an argument against the limiting inclinations of all too many among these so-called helping professions to limit data and analysis from outside their professions. In setting social science limits on criminological analysis, metaphysics has been placed outside the parameters of relevant data. I maintain that has resulted in a very limited data base for criminological inquiry, in removing the metaphysical analysis of criminality that is often more relevant and crucial to the understanding of criminality than all of the social sciences put together. I have spent all of my academic career as a criminologist and professor of criminology. In the process, I have observed how increasingly sophisticated measurement creates more answers to fewer questions, in our knowing more about less to the extent of knowing almost everything about what is next to nothing. Nano-technology has immense scientific potential but smaller is not always better when it comes to criminality. Hard science models are necessary in forensics, but misleading when applied to individual, group and societal criminality. Unlimiting the Metaphysical and Bridging the Secular-Spiritual Gap 609 Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology Criminology tends to limit, to the extent of dismissing, metaphysics because of the social science limitations that have been imposed by overly narrow research methodologies. There are very relevant and crucial metaphysical factors involved in criminality, and I suggest that they could even be identified as independent variables to employ statistical terminology. That has not happened because of the gap between criminology and metaphysics that has been presented by social scientists as an unbridgeable secular and spiritual gap. I maintain that it is not unbridgeable and that it can not only be narrowed, it can be closed. Further, I would add that the failure to close this criminological-metaphysical gap with metaphysical criminology is both a criminological failure in dealing with crime, and a metaphysical failure in understanding the core good and evil dichotomy and dynamics of humanity. The failures of treating criminality with what I have described as therapeutic justice1 has been documented in the criminological literature as the failed medical model in corrections2. I maintain that those failures can be corrected and redressed by a metaphysical criminology that can manifest and apply itself at almost any level of criminological activity to include programs to reduce crime and delinquency in our public schools3. Despite our best intentions and billion dollar budgets, we have failed to effectively encounter, let alone counter, criminological problems which range from street level juvenile delinquency to state level ethnic cleansing. There’s been a polemical tendency to cast our failures in terms of liberal vs. conservative critiques. Whether the adversarial polemical dichotomizing be that of punishment vs. treatment, being hard vs. soft on crime, my morality vs. your immorality, more freedom vs. less freedom, or more tradition and control vs. less tradition and control, these etc. vs. etc. disputes have missed the mark. The mistakes that have been made can be grouped into one of two approaches. The first mistake has been one of being too specific with a medical model that does not apply to the majority of criminal offenders, in that therapeutic pathological analysis applies to no more than twenty percent of offenders4.The second mistake has been one of being too general with a moral model that cannot be generally applied in an effective manner in a pluralist society. Allow me to present more specifics as the failures of both the medical and moral models as follows. The Medical Model Mistake In reference to the failed medical model, we have relied upon mental health professionals to treat crime and delinquency as if there were an endemic illness that they could cure. We know from decades of criminological data that crime is not an illness and that it cannot be cured by what we refer to as the medical model. We have attempted to employ medical model pathologies and failed for the simple reason that “An offender in trouble is not necessarily a troubled offender”5. Just ask yourself if the Godfather and/or Adolf Hitler are just troubled individuals in need of therapeutic counseling to cure their supposed illness. The Godfather is not sick and could not function successfully in running organized crime if he were; and the mens rea of Hitler’s criminality cannot be explained away by therapeutic analysis that posits some medical model pathology of a criminal not knowing what he was doing. In fact, most of the Nazi leadership with the possible exception of Rudolf Hess (who did appear to qualify for the approximate 20% pathological criminal category of being disturbed to the degree of not knowing what he was doing) were neither troubled nor disturbed enough as to qualify for any 1 Edward Ryan, “Therapeutic Justice and Child Abuse”, Education, 114, 3(Spring 1994), pp. 328-336. 2 Edward Ryan, “Cognitive Counseling in Criminal Justice,” Journal of Instructional Psychology, 21,4 (Dec 1994), pp. 303-307; and Thomas Szasz, Psychiatric Justice (New York: MacMillan,1965). 3 R. Kolstad and E.S Ryan, “Forensic Intervention Counseling Training for School Personnel,” Scientia Paedagogica Experimentalis, XXXVI, 1(Belgium: Universitiet Gent 1999), pgs. 145-149. 4 E. Scott Ryan, From Therapeutic Justice to Forensic Counseling(London, Ontario: Forensic Counseling Associates, 2006). 5 E. Scott Ryan, “Forensic Counseling”, The Forensic Examiner, 8, 11&12(Nov.-Dec 1999), pp.3-4. 610 Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology kind of psychological pathological analysis. Many Nazi offenders were well educated as in the case of the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele, Ph.D.and M.D., and even brilliant as in the case of Dr. Josef Goebbels, as a Jesuit educated Ph.D. In my having an undergraduate degree from the Jesuit Fordham University in New York, I must clarify that Dr. Goebbels’ criminality cannot be blamed on the Jesuits or the Catholic Church as some have tried to do. Rather, Goebbels who was the brains behind the Munich beer hall orator, Adolf Hitler, converted his brilliant mind to embracing National Socialism under the Nazis in rejecting Christianity while appearing to tolerate it in the process. If you study the communications of Dr. Goebbels, as I have done, you will observe a brilliant mind at work, one that was neither troubled nor defective in its intellectual potency. Transcendence without The Transcendent The most accurate characterization of Goebbels’ mind proceeds from a spiritual metaphysic in my diagnosis of his enabling Nazi criminality as exemplifying the Satanic at work. That analysis is not a simple one of the Devil made him do it, but a very complex one of studying how evil can prevail when one “Transcends oneself without The Transcendent”6. Evil as Inversion of Live My encounters as a young criminologist with the Nazi mind set was a revelation in revealing how easily high intelligence and elite education can lend itself to evil. Should some secular fundamentalist object to my use of the word evil, as some have done in challenging me to define it, allow me to define it as the literal inversion of LIVE as EVIL. Evil does exist in its inversion of live, and it calls for metaphysical criminological analysis rather than any other analysis that blinds itself to the reality of evil. In opening the door to the spiritual component of metaphysical criminology, allow me to relate and expand the meaning of the new word that I created with Chosinness. That word is defined by me as the sinful choice of choosing one God ( as in religious fundamentalism) or one Good (as in secular fundamentalism) as one’s God, only, to the detriment of others. I created this word in describing the metaphysic at work in my article on Chosinness and The Theology of Terror7. It obviously applies to Islamic terrorists and Nazis; but it is not limited to them in its applying to any individual, group or state that deliberately takes innocent life. Metaphysical criminology also allows us to address economic systems that terrorize people to include not only failed Marxist Leninism but a failing Market Leninism. It is not limited to legal codes it in being quite obvious that what is legal does not necessarily equate with what is just. The criminality of what I’ve described as a “lousez-faire”(my word for raw laissez faire economics) global capitalism8 imposing itself upon the poor of the third world and the social market economies of Europe by means of the metaphysics by default of an inevitable global economic determinism is a new kind of global criminality that constitutes a metaphysical criminological subject for our analysis, critique and correction. These aforementioned criminal cases that range from the individual to groups, societies and systems, and from the prosaic to the most horrendous cases of crime have been subjected to a prevailing medical model and behavioral analysis that misses the mark from start to finish in substituting a therapeutic, positivistic and deterministic paradigm that ignores the reality of evil. That rampant failure points to the necessity of employing metaphysical criminological analysis in coming to grips with criminal realities that may not fit into a secular fundamentalist therapeutic bible. I am not trying to impose a belief system, but, rather, to remove the imposition of the 6 E. Scott Ryan, The Theology of Crime and The Paradox of Freedom(Lancaster, Va.: Anchor, 2nd edition, 2003). 7 E. Scott Ryan, “Chosinness and The Theology of Terror, “Contemporary Philosophy, XXV, No.3+4(May-Aug. 2003), pp.33-35. 8 E. Scott Ryan, “The Paradox of Freedom: Free to be Unfree in One Freedom,” Americana(Volgograd, Russia: Center for American Studies, Volgograd State University, 1998) pp. 194-207. 611 Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology fundamentalist secular belief system that has imposed itself upon criminological analysis. The removal of the scientifically discredited medical model as the exclusive criminological model can be justified in pointing to its failure according to both scientific and metaphysical criteria. From In God We Trust to In U.S. God Trusts Metaphysical criminology can come to grips with not only terrorist criminality from any individual or state quarter, but it also allows and prepares one to come to grips with a great variety of common and uncommon criminality. We can point with special alarm to a national messianic, heretical American God Trusts US metastasis from an In God We Trust American motto, Christian Zionist metaphysic preaching an end time Armageddon of God’s destructive wrath. It is not only aided and abetted but generated from the Falwellian likes (Moral Majority Pastor Jerry Falwell who called the Prophet Muhammad a pedophile in adding fuel to the fire of Christian-Muslim conflict) of a not so well Orwellian “theomocracy” (defined by me as a theological democratic electoral dictatorship as evidenced in the 2004 U.S. presidential election of the “W”) in America that endangers world peace. I describe this quite heretical theological-political and very democratic American metaphysic as a metastasis of true Christian theology in terms of it coming from the democratic grass roots as an American pseudo Christian theomocracy. It displays all too unfortunate and dangerous similarities to an Iranian pseudo Muslim theocracy in my asking for a moment of silence in our praying that God will save us from both of them … from the old Orwellian vertical Big Brother clerical dictatorship of the theocratic, and the new Falwellian horizontal Little Brother democratic dictatorship of the theomocratic, In U.S.God Trusts of a God Bless America God. We know, however, that we cannot wait upon God (Who in being a universal God blesses everyone without distinction as to national origin) to do His work, in our having to get to the work at hand with metaphysical criminology. The Devil and/of Pathology Traditional therapeutic counseling is premised upon a conceptual error that assumes an offender in trouble is a troubled offender in need of medical model therapeutic intervention. As I mentioned previously, we know from criminological data that a minority of no more than approximately 20% of criminal offenders are in the medical model pathological category. That means that the overwhelming majority of approximately 80% of offenders cannot and should not be subjected to that medical model. It has been demonstrated , in fact, that the erroneous application of the medical model to that 80% majority not only fails to work, but that it can succeed in substantially increasing criminality by providing therapeutic rationalizations with which offenders confirm their criminality9. In so doing, the devil made me do it is replaced with my pathology made me do it. There are troubled people in all walks of life, but a criminal or delinquent problem is not necessarily, and only in a minority of cases, a psychological or psychiatric problem. In dealing with schools, a school psychologist or psychiatrist has a place in treating mental pathology whether it be associated with delinquent or non-delinquent behavior. That is a very specific task, but it is not the same task of dealing with crime and delinquency. The application of specific therapeutic rehabilitative treatments based upon the medical model accounts for the well known conclusion that treatment has not worked. Nevertheless, the fact that the wrong treatment has not worked should not lead to the wrong conclusion, as it has among many, that there is no way to treat crime and delinquency. Forensic Counseling 9 E. Scott Ryan, A Forensic Counseling Approach(Lancaster VA.: Anchor, 2001); and Juvenile Forensic Counseling(Lancaster, Va.: Anchor, 2002). 612 Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology I maintain that we can and must treat crime and delinquency at all levels from the earliest minor stages of its manifestation to the most serious. Metaphysical criminology allows us to proceed appropriately, and specific counseling techniques based upon metaphysical criminological analysis can be developed fairly quickly and at a fraction of the cost of traditional therapeutic treatment programs…that have failed for decades. I have described these specific counseling techniques in encountering and countering criminal rationalities and rationalizations as forensic counseling10, and I shall say more about how the educational system can apply them after explaining the second mistake exemplified by the moral model. Moral Pathology As is often the case in reacting to seemingly insoluble problems, in swinging from one extreme to another, some treatment programs have gone from specific mental illness pathologies to simplistic moral pathologies. Instead of the first mistake of employing pseudo-medical diagnosis with specific psychiatric or psychological terminology, a second mistake of employing a general moralizing approach in our public schools and correctional institutions is taken. In some American correctional programs, for example, inmates carry around their high priced moral reflection notebooks to record their supposed moral progress. In my experience, the resulting progress is more financial than moral with the politically connected moral education companies profiting the most in proving to the inmates that, indeed, crime does pay. Unfortunately, the inmates, needless to say, need to learn the very opposite lesson. I am not arguing against the moral component in many faith based crime fighting community programs. To the contrary, in my first book on forensic counseling11,I pointed to successful faith based programs that I had personally witnessed among American Baptists, Muslims and Catholics. I recommended increased cooperation among these various religious based programs in working together to combat not only crime and delinquency, but hate based extremism on the part of some secular ideologues and some religious zealots. What I am arguing and cautioning against in this article is the simple idea that morality is good and, therefore, all good people will be of one moral accord. Law and Order, for example, is often proffered as the answer to group conflict, but it begs the question as to what Law and whose Order. In the U.S. we already have some clerics preaching hate, in the name of morality, as chaplains in our correctional institutions12. Morally, can you prove that they are wrong? Can you prove it to those who agree with them and not with you? Think about that conflict scenario which is already here and ask yourself if you’d like to see this moral education expand into our public schools. While not all moral education is a sham, some of it is a sham that has nothing to do with effective criminological counseling in our schools. Further, it has dangerous implications in reference to engendering ideological and moral belief based conflict and criminality. Forensic Counseling Related to Metaphysical Criminology Fortunately, we do have an alternative approach of forensic counseling related to metaphysical criminology that can be effective. It does not repeat the therapeutic mistakes of the first medical model misstep nor the simplistic moral assumptions of the second moral model misstep. Educators can be schooled in metaphysical criminology in introducing them to the principles and procedures of its application in forensic counseling, which is based upon criminological facts and related 10 E. Scott Ryan, “The Criminal Belief Rationality,” Journal of Instructional Psychology (Professional Monograph, Mobile,Alabama:Vol.22, #3, Sept. 1995), pp. 1-16; and “Case Studies of the Psychological and Forensic Assessment of Parental Child Abuse,” Journal of Instructional Psychology (Professional Monograph, Mobile,Alabama:Vol.27, #2, June 2000), pp.1-36. 11 E. Scott Ryan, A Forensic Counseling Approach(Lancaster VA: Anchor, 2001). 12 Paul M. Barrett, “How a Chaplain Spread Extremism to an Inmate Flock,” Wall Street Journal(Feb.5, 2003), pp. A1+ & A13. 613 Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology metaphysical realities rather than medical or moral model assumptions. With the ongoing intellectual guidance of metaphysical criminological analysis, educational based forensic counseling teams consisting of three or more trained individuals can be created with no more than one seminar and one workshop preparation. I would recommend that these teams be established in every school and in every institution that deals with crime and/or delinquency. Techniques of intervention and counseling, in countering criminal rationalities, can be adapted to the respective needs of varying schools and institutions. Educators, in particular, can be trained as forensic counselors in encountering the criminal rationalities and rationalizations that often have a metaphysical basis or component in such a manner as to counter them before they become worse. This forensic counseling approach operating in tandem with metaphysical criminological analysis and study can be far more effective and efficient than other traditional therapeutic or punitive approaches. Thus far I’ve spoken about the practical advantages of a forensic counseling application based upon a metaphysical criminological analytic foundation. Metaphysics has been described by David G. Murray of the Idente Foundation in Rome, Italy, as reflection upon the ultimate and absolute, and in that respect it is antopposite to a criminology that reflects upon the de facto bad as contrasted to the a priori good. That very contrast, however, points to the reality of ultimate good and evil. Chosinness is the criminological metaphysic that bridges the gap between the metaphysical a prior good and de facto criminological bad, in allowing for the metaphysical ultimate in pointing to the metaphysical detriment that accrues from sinful choice…the most sinful criminality being the fundamentalist misappropriation of the ultimate fundamental of God or Good to oneself or one’s group at the expense of others. That sinful choice is all too evident in its criminological effects in the criminal history of mankind, and it draws anyone with an open mind to the recognition of metaphysical reality and causation in the metastasis of metaphysical good into the criminal metaphysics of evil. That criminal evil is both without and within and in metaphysical criminology it can be brought to light, studied and dealt with in all of its individual, group and societal contexts. The As Above of A Priori Metaphysics with The So Below of De Facto Criminology The ancients purportedly looked up and left us with their spiritual and scientific legacy in their myths and astronomy of their physics and metaphysics in the “as above so below.” Metaphysical criminology looks up at the a priori ultimate metaphysical good and down at the de facto criminological bad in leading us to a new “as above so below.” It redirects and integrates the immediate with the everlasting, in replacing the religious and secular metastasis of fundamentalism with the fundamental truth of The Fundamental … of The Transcendent without which “Transcendence without The Transcendent” produces the criminal metaphysic of Chosinness. This criminological metaphysic explains more than metaphysical theory and criminological fact in its explaining the essence of ultimate good and evil in the failed Never Again to the Ever Again of our metastasis of one God or Good for all into one’s God or Good against all others. 614 Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology REFERENCES 1. Anonymous for now.(2005) ”America’s Jesusland: From In God We Trust to In U.S. God Trusts”, Toronto, Canada: Chosinness Productions. 2 Barrett, Paul M.(2003) “How a Chaplain Spread Extremism to an Inmate Flock,” Wall Street Journal, Feb.5, pp. A1 & A13. 3. Glasser, William. (1975) Reality Therapy, New York: Harper and Row. 4. Kolstad, R. and Ryan, E.S.(1999) “Forensic Intervention Counseling Training for School Personnel”, Scientia Paedagogica Experimentalis, XXXVI, 1, Belgium: Universitiet Gent, pps. 145-149. 5. Ryan, E. Scott. (2006) From Therapeutic Justice to Forensic Counseling, London, Ontario: Forensic Counseling Associates, pp.107-110. 6. Ryan, E. Scott. (2001).A Forensic Counseling Approach, Lancaster VA:Anchor. 7. Ryan, Edward S. (2000) “Case Studies of the Psychological and Forensic Assessment of Parental Child Abuse,” Journal of Instructional Psychology, A Professional Monograph, vol. 27, #2. 8. Ryan, E. Scott. (2003) “Chosinness and The Theology of Terror,” Contemporary Philosophy, vol. XXV, No. 3+4, May-August pp. 33-35. 9. Ryan, Edward.(1994) “Cognitive Counseling in Criminal Justice”, Journal of Instructional Psychology, 21,4, Dec, pp. 303-307. 10. Ryan, Edward S. (1995) “The Criminal Belief Rationality,” Journal of Instructional Psychology, A Professional Monograph, vol.22, #3. 11. Ryan, E. Scott.(1999) “Forensic Counseling” , The Forensic Examiner, 8, 11&12, Nov.-Dec, pgs.3-4. 12. Ryan, E. Scott. (1996) “Futuristic Metaphysics,” Contemporary Philosophy, vol. XVII, No.6, Nov./Dec., pp. 31-39. 13.Ryan, E. Scott. (2002) Juvenile Forensic Counseling, Lancaster, Va.: Anchor. 14. Ryan, E. Scott. (2003) The Theology of Crime and The Paradox of Freedom, Lancaster, Va.: Anchor, second edition. 15. Ryan, Edward. (1994) “Therapeutic Justice and Child Abuse”, Education, 114, 3, Spring, pp. 328-336. 16. Ryan, E. Scott. (1998) “ The Paradox of Freedom: Free to be Unfree in One Freedom”, Americana, Volgograd, Russia: Volgograd State University, Center for American Studies, pp.194-207. 17. Szasz, Thomas. (1965) Psychiatric Justice, New York: MacMillan. 615 Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology LA TRASVALUTAZIONE NIETZSCHEANA DEL CRIMINALE IN SEGUITO ALLA MORTE DI DIO Paolo Stellino1 Universidad de Valencia La comprensione della trasvalutazione2 del criminale in Nietzsche è legata a due considerazioni previe riguardanti la sua filosofia, la prima delle quali è senza dubbio il legame che unisce l’opera di smascheramento degli idoli eterni con l’introduzione del prospettivismo. Già a partire dallo scritto Su verità e menzogna in senso extramorale, ma soprattutto con le opere della filosofia del mattino 3 , il filosofo tedesco pone in pratica un metodo genealogico e decostruttivo4, che lo porta a discendere fino alle più remote profondità sotterranee del suolo, su cui poggiano i valori della cultura occidentale. Nietzsche si pone l’obiettivo di liberare gli uomini dalle catene degli errori derivanti da tre tipi differenti di rappresentazioni: morali, religiose e metafisiche. Risalendo alle radici di tali rappresentazioni, le idee di fondamento e di principio primo si dissolvono in un processo che Nietzsche denomina autosopressione della morale. Proprio perché crediamo ancora nel «valore della verità», ossia in quel dovere di verità propugnato dalla morale metafisica e cristiana, i valori che la nostra cultura ha sempre riconosciuto come supremi sono ora smascherati come utili finzioni ed errori insostenibili. Nietzsche fa risuonare il suo martello contro gli idoli: il risultato è un suono vuoto. Il mondo vero, il mondo dell’idea platonica e quello promesso al cristiano, diviene così favola, trasformandosi in un’idea superflua e inutile, della quale l’uomo non ha più necessità. Questo processo evolutivo ha però, nel pensiero di Nietzsche, le sue radici nella già citata autosopressione della morale e nella morte di Dio, annunciata dall’uomo folle de La gaia scienza: «Dov’è andato Dio?», esclamò, «voglio dirvelo! Noi lo abbiamo ucciso, - voi ed io! Noi tutti siamo i suoi assassini! Però come abbiamo potuto farlo? Come abbiamo potuto bere interamente il mare? Chi ci ha donato la spugna, per cancellare tutto l’orizzonte? Che cosa abbiamo fatto, quando abbiamo liberato questa terra dalle sue catene?5 L’uccisione di Dio per mano umana comporta inevitabilmente lo sgomento di fronte alla scoperta del nichilismo (l’uomo ha cancellato con un colpo di spugna il suo orizzonte significativo) e Nietzsche non può che domandarsi se l’uomo è all’altezza del gesto compiuto. Sul vuoto lasciato dalla morte di Dio, si costruisce la tragedia umana e si apre la strada al prospettivismo e alla nota affermazione «non esistono fenomeni morali, ma solo un’interpretazione morale (moralische Ausdeutung) dei fenomeni»6. Tale affermazione ha il suo germe nell’analisi genealogica che, già a partire da Umano, troppo umano, il filosofo tedesco compie dei giudizi di valore “morale” e 1 Borsista del Programma di Formazione di Professorato Universitario (FPU) del Ministero spagnolo di Educazione e Scienza. 2 Con il termine “trasvalorazione” si suole tradurre il vocabolo tedesco Umwertung, letteralmente “inversione, cambiamento o sovvertimento di valore”. 3 Col termine “filosofia del mattino” si intende il periodo compreso tra Umano, troppo umano e La gaia scienza. 4 Secondo G. Vattimo l’uso del termine “decostruzione” in riferimento a Nietzsche è perfettamente legittimo, dato che il lavoro svolto dal filosofo nei confronti della tradizione morale-metafisica dell’Occidente «implica un’analisi di questa tradizione che la dissolve nei suoi elementi senza distruggerla: il che può proprio considerarsi un senso della decostruzione» (Introduzione a Nietzsche, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2000, p. 48). 5 F. Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, III, 125, in Kritische Studienausgabe (KSA), III, herausgegeben von G. Colli und M. Montinari, de Gruyter, Berlin-New York Neuausgabe 1999, pp. 480-81. 6 F. Nietzsche, Sprüche und Zwischenspiele, 108, in Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA, V, p. 92. 617 Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology “immorale”, i quali hanno riflesso storicamente la gerarchia dei valori che in una determinata epoca incarnavano il Bene e il Male, gerarchia che è sempre variata col trascorrere del tempo. Essere immorale e praticare l’immoralità significava dunque resistere o opporsi a una tradizione, a prescindere che questa fosse assurda o ragionevole; al contrario, il più morale è sempre stato colui che più ha sacrificato alla tradizione, intesa quest’ultima come un’autorità superiore, alla quale si obbediva non perché ordinasse ciò che era utile, ma semplicemente perché ordinasse. Colui che con la sua azione rompeva l’incantesimo della tradizione, veniva emarginato in quanto criminale; quando però la legge antica, in seguito a una violazione, non poteva più essere ristabilita, allora, ciò che prima era considerato immorale, entrava ora nell’ambito della moralità. Il nuovo costume si imponeva nella comunità ed era destinato a diventare a sua volta tradizione. Una seconda considerazione previa, necessaria alla comprensione della trasvalutazione del criminale compiuta da Nietzsche, ci riporta al Crepuscolo degli idoli. In quest’opera, il filosofo tedesco identifica la credenza nella volontà libera come uno dei quattro grandi errori compiuti dall’umanità, attraverso il quale si è voluto rendere l’uomo responsabile delle sue azioni. Già in Umano, troppo umano, secondo l’analisi nietzscheana, la metafisica si è occupata fondamentalmente di due concetti erronei: la sostanza e la libertà del volere. La favola della libertà intelligibile non è altro che la storia dei sentimenti morali, in virtù dei quali rendiamo una persona responsabile di un’azione. Però possiamo definire responsabile qualcuno che non ha, né può avere piena coscienza della lotta tra le passioni che ha luogo nel proprio corpo? Siamo in una prigione, solo possiamo sognarci liberi, ma non diventarlo.7 Quando decidiamo di compiere un’azione, la nostra decisione non è mai unilaterale, ma dentro di noi si dà una lotta continua tra vari motivi, finché non scegliamo per il più forte di questi, o meglio, finché questo non decide per noi. Nella prospettiva nietzscheana tutto è necessità (una necessità fisiologica e corporale, non deterministica), tutto è innocenza: è necessario dunque che il filosofo del futuro faccia propria l’affermazione di Cristo di non giudicare. In un’azione agiscono in realtà motivi (quali la comodità, l’eccitazione della fantasia e il fattore corporale), che non conosciamo in assoluto e che non possiamo prevedere. È probabile che anche tra questi motivi (ossia, non solo tra quelli di cui siamo coscienti) si dia una battaglia; ma per noi tale battaglia rimane invisibile e incosciente. Capiamo ciò che facciamo, ma non sappiamo qual è stato il motivo finale che ha deciso la lotta. L’intelletto è dunque cieco strumento (das blinde Werkzeug) degli impulsi e tutte le azioni ci sono essenzialmente (wesentlich) sconosciute. Le azioni della nostra volontà sono forse il mero risultato di una giocata di dadi, ma siamo troppo orgogliosi per accettare quest’ipotesi e ci nascondiamo dietro la credenza del libero arbitrio. L’anima, o ciò a cui i disprezzatori del corpo hanno dato tale nome, è solo una parola che indica uno strumento e un giocattolo del corpo. Il Sé (das Selbst) o gran ragione domina l’Io (das Ich), la piccola ragione alla quale erroneamente attribuiamo la responsabilità delle nostre azioni e delle nostre scelte. Il soggetto “io” non è la condizione del predicato “penso”, poiché un pensiero viene quando “lui” vuole, non quando “io” voglio. La credenza nell’Io deriva, in realtà, da un’abitudine grammaticale: il pensiero è un’attività e come ogni attività necessita di un soggetto che la compia. In questo senso siamo ancora prigionieri del linguaggio, dietro il quale si cela una vera e propria mitologia filosofica. La credenza nel libero arbitrio deriva dalla considerazione del nostro agire, non come un flusso continuo, omogeneo e indivisibile, bensì come il risultato d’azioni separate le une dalle altre, che possiedono un’esistenza autonoma. In ogni volizione vi è una pluralità di sentimenti che noi tendiamo a semplificare in unità, trascurando così la costante lotta degli affetti, ma tale unità cela una complessità inimmaginabile. 7 F. Nietzsche, Vermischte Meinungen und Sprüche, 33, in Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, II, KSA, II, p. 396. 618 Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology Il pensarsi come causa sui ha portato l’uomo a credere nella piena e completa responsabilità delle sue azioni, eliminando da queste ogni fattore a lui estraneo: Dio, il mondo, la società, l’educazione fornitaci e la casualità. Da tal equivoco è derivata la credenza nella volontà libera, simile, nella sua erroneità, alla credenza, diametralmente opposta, nel determinismo. Tale credenza si è sempre appoggiata su un uso erroneo dei concetti di causa ed effetto, conformemente alla teoria meccanicista che all’epoca di Nietzsche era una delle correnti dominanti di pensiero. Il filosofo tedesco pone in luce come tali concetti siano, in realtà, finzioni convenzionali, usati col fine di designare e di comprenderci, ma non di spiegare. Causa, successione, coazione, motivo, libertà e finalità sono tutti concetti che non esistono nel mondo, per quanto siano stati attribuiti fittiziamente dall’uomo alla realtà. Utilizzando questi concetti e credendo nella loro esistenza, continuiamo, dunque, ad agire in maniera mitologica: Causa ed effetto: una tale duplicità probabilmente non si dà mai, - in verità davanti a noi sta un continuum, dal quale isoliamo un paio di pezzi; così come percepiamo sempre un movimento solo come punti isolati, dunque in realtà non vediamo, ma deduciamo. La repentinità, con la quale si presentano molti effetti, ci fuorvia; ma essa, solo per noi è una repentinità. In questo secondo vi è un’infinità di processi, che ci sfuggono. Un intelletto che vedesse causa ed effetto come un continuum e non, a modo nostro, come qualcosa arbitrariamente diviso e spezzettato, che vedesse il flusso dell’accadere, - tale intelletto rifiuterebbe il concetto di causa ed effetto e negherebbe ogni condizionamento.8 L’attribuzione dell’irresponsabilità all’uomo da parte di Nietzsche non deve dunque far pensare ad una sorta di determinismo morale, per quanto la rigorosa necessità delle azioni umane descritta in Umano, troppo umano sembri essere indirizzata proprio in questo senso. Nella sua critica al concetto del libero arbitrio, il filosofo tedesco si dirige anzitutto contro la credenza semplicistica della volontà libera, che astrae l’uomo dal suo contesto storico, sociale e fisiologico e lo priva dei suoi impulsi, delle sue passioni e dei suoi affetti naturali. In secondo luogo, poiché Nietzsche, in realtà, non priva l’uomo della sua libertà, ma al contrario la esalta e si erge a paladino di questa contro l’imperativo categorico kantiano, nella sua critica alla responsabilità si rivolge alla tendenza di associare il concetto di responsabilità con quello, di stampo cristiano, di colpa. In questo senso, il filosofo rivela come dietro la dottrina della responsabilità si cela una volontà di voler-trovare-colpevoli e di voler-punire-e-giudicare. Quando un determinato modo d’essere di una persona è attribuito alla sua volontà e alla sua responsabilità, si è privato il divenire della sua innocenza: nessuno è responsabile (dunque, colpevole) d’esistere, di trovarsi in determinate circostanze e in un determinato ambiente. Siamo un frammento di fatum, una parte del tutto: non v’è nulla che possa giudicare il nostro essere, poiché ciò significherebbe voler giudicare il tutto, ma al di fuori del tutto non v’è nulla. L’obiettivo che Nietzsche si pone è, dunque, chiaro: espellere dal mondo il concetto di colpa e di pena e restituire al divenire la sua innocenza. La forma di ragionamento, secondo la quale il reo merita la pena, perché avrebbe potuto agire in maniera differente, è stata raggiunta, in realtà, solo in epoca tarda. Inizialmente, secondo l’opinione di Nietzsche, il criminale non era punito perché lo si considerasse responsabile, bensì la pena era imposta per ristabilire l’equilibrio, base della giustizia della comunità, rotto dall’azione del delinquente. Il castigo non aveva, dunque, la funzione di punire l’atto in sé, ma il danno causato alla società e il pericolo alla quale era stata esposta. L’istituzione della giustizia, basandosi sull’equilibrio delle parti, ha poco di morale: il diritto si stabilisce quando due parti contrarie sono equivalenti, al fine di evitare inutili dissipazioni di forza. Quando, però, uno dei due poteri diventa più debole, per il più forte cessa la convenienza del diritto e al rapporto d’equità si sostituisce un rapporto di sottomissione, il quale rimpiazza il diritto, che 8 F. Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, III, 112, KSA, III, p. 473. 619 Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology cessa d’esistere. Per Nietzsche, le condizioni legali sono un mezzo passeggero che ci consiglia la ragione, ma mai un fine. In questo senso, unusquisque tantum iuris habet, quantum potentia valet (o, più esattamente, quantum potentia valere creditur)9. La giustizia si basa sull’equilibrio concordato tra le parti; nel momento in cui svanisce tal equilibrio e la comunità si sgretola, riappare lo stato di natura e riemergono le disuguaglianze, che però non hanno nulla d’immorale: in natura non v’è giustizia, né tanto meno ingiustizia. La morale è dunque un utile mezzo d’autoconservazione della comunità: unicamente in questo senso dobbiamo interpretare i comandamenti divini della legge mosaica e l’imperativo categorico kantiano. La coscienza non è la voce di Dio nel nostro petto, bensì la voce dell’autorità, ossia la voce d’altri uomini nell’uomo. Il sottomettersi alla morale è un atto che in sé non è assolutamente morale e negare la moralità significa semplicemente per Nietzsche negare che i giudizi morali si basino su delle verità. Nell’aforisma 201 de Al di là del bene e del male, Nietzsche ricostruisce genealogicamente la nascita dei giudizi morali: quando inizialmente gli istinti forti e pericolosi (il piacere di compiere imprese, l’ansia di vendetta, la rapacità, la sete di potere) erano utili alla comunità, perché necessari nella difesa contro i nemici, tali istinti, non solo venivano onorati, ma anche sviluppati, coltivati e incoraggiati dalla comunità. Col consolidarsi della struttura della società, viene meno il pericolo di un attacco esterno e gli istinti che prima venivano onorati, sono ora percepiti come pericolosi e bollati d’immoralità. Al contrario, gli istinti e le inclinazioni antitetiche (l’istinto gregario) vengono ora giudicati morali. L’ottica e la prospettiva morale, attraverso le quali giudicare un’opinione o un atto, sono date ora dal grado di pericolosità che tale opinione o tale atto rappresenta per la comunità. Tutto ciò che eleva il singolo e lo distingue dal gregge, tutto ciò che provoca timore nel prossimo, è qualificato come male (Böse). Nel primo trattato della Genealogia della morale Nietzsche ci offre una genealogia delle coppie concettuali buono e cattivo, buono e malvagio. Nell’interpretazione del filosofo, il concetto di buono deriva dal concetto di nobile e di aristocratico: furono, infatti, i nobili e i potenti che, sentendosi superiori al volgo e in contrapposizione con esso, si considerarono i buoni (die Guten), in base al sentimento del pathos della distanza; parallelamente, il plebeo, considerato inferiore, viene giudicato cattivo (schlecht). Il popolo ebreo, popolo sacerdotale e privo delle virtù guerriere, che fino a quel momento erano state apprezzate, opera, attraverso un atto di vendetta spirituale, una trasvalorazione dei valori, ossia sostituisce i valori aristocratici in quel tempo in auge, con i valori degli schiavi. L’equazione buono=nobile=potente=felice=amato da Dio viene rovesciata; i miserabili, gli infelici, gli impotenti, gli indigenti e i malati sono ora i buoni, gli unici benedetti da Dio e, parallelamente, i nobili e i violenti sono condannati ad essere eternamente i cattivi e i malvagi. Con gli ebrei inizia, secondo una nota espressione nietzscheana, la ribellione degli schiavi nella sfera della morale. Lo schiavo, per portare a termine la propria ribellione contro i suoi signori, ha dunque bisogno di credere nel soggetto libero di scegliere: nello stesso modo in cui il risplendere di un raggio viene concepito come l’azione di un soggetto che si chiama raggio, così la morale separa la forza dalle sue esteriorizzazioni, come se dietro queste esistesse un sostrato indifferente, capace di esternare o meno la forza. Dietro il fare, l’attuare e il divenire non v’è nessun essere: l’agente è stato aggiunto fittiziamente, in seguito alla seduzione del linguaggio, che dietro ogni predicato vede un soggetto. Sostenendo che il forte è libero d’esser debole e che l’uccello rapace è libero d’essere agnello, ci si conquista il diritto di imputare all’uccello rapace, l’essere un uccello rapace. In tal modo, il debole sceglie d’esser buono, ossia di non far violenza, di non vendicarsi, di non attaccare, facendo 9 Nietzsche riporta nell’aforisma 93 di Umano, troppo umano le parole del Tractatus Politicus, II, 8 di Spinoza, correggendo l’espressione unusquisque tantum iuris habet, quantum potentia valet in unusquisque tantum iuris habet, quantum potentia valere creditur. 620 Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology sembrare ciò che è la sua propria intima essenza come il risultato volontario di un’azione, di un merito. Se l’individuo è, dunque, un frammento di fatum e non ha senso che gli si chieda di modificare la propria natura, ciò non vuol dire, come già in precedenza abbiamo evidenziato, che Nietzsche neghi ogni tipo di libertà. La critica alla libertà assoluta del libero arbitrio nasconde, in realtà, una concezione differente, tutta nietzscheana, di libertà. Così, in Umano, troppo umano10, possiamo leggere come l’uomo che ha dominato le sue passioni (dunque, è possibile dominare le proprie passioni), è entrato in possesso del suolo più fecondo; in tale suolo bisogna piantare i nuovi semi della propria libertà. Dominare le passioni non è, quindi, un fine, ma solo un mezzo. Nel Crepuscolo degli idoli11, il filosofo giunge a definire a chiare lettere il proprio concetto di libertà, relazionandolo però specificamente con il pathos della distanza. Dal punto di vista aristocratico, l’unico veramente importante per Nietzsche, libertà significa possedere volontà di autoresponsabilità, significa mantenere la distanza che separa l’aristocratico dal mediocre, disprezzando il benessere a cui aspirano i cristiani e i democratici, significa far sì che gli istinti virili (della guerra e della vittoria) dominino gli altri istinti. Il prototipo dell’uomo libero è, per Nietzsche, il guerriero, capace di mantenersi fedele alla propria natura: In base a cosa si misura la libertà, tanto dei singoli, quanto dei popoli? Attraverso la resistenza, che deve essere superata, e della fatica che costa permanere sopra. Il tipo supremo degli uomini liberi dovrebbe ricercarsi laddove la più grande resistenza viene superata continuamente: a due passi dalla tirannia, sulla soglia del pericolo di schiavitù. Ciò è psicologicamente vero, qualora per “tiranni” si intendano degli istinti inesorabili e terribili, che provocano contro sé stessi il massimo di autorità e di disciplina – Giulio Cesare, il tipo più bello.12 Se il prototipo dell’uomo libero è il guerriero, e se la volontà di vita tende unicamente al potere, perché allora gli istinti e le inclinazioni naturali sono stati repressi e associati alla cattiva coscienza? Nietzsche mette in pratica nuovamente il suo metodo genealogico e svela il processo di tale associazione: con il raggiungimento della pace e di una società stabile, nell’uomo ci fu una interiorizzazione (Verinnerlichung) degli istinti che, non potendosi più sfogare verso l’esterno, furono indirizzati verso l’interno dell’individuo. La libera esternazione di tali istinti fu inibita grazie ai bastioni (tra i quali la pena), con i quali l’organizzazione statale si proteggeva dal ritorno di uno stato naturale. L’inimicizia, la crudeltà, il piacere nel perseguire, l’aggressività e le inclinazioni simili, si rivolsero contro colui che le possedeva, creando così la cattiva coscienza, risultato di una separazione violenta dell’uomo dal suo passato di animale, di una sorta d’adattamento alle variate condizioni d’esistenza e di una dichiarazione di guerra contro i vecchi istinti, nei quali, fino al momento, riposavano la forza, il piacere e la fecondità di un individuo. Con l’inversione giudaico-cristiana dei valori, le inclinazioni naturali un tempo elogiate, sono state condannate e sono diventate sorelle della cattiva coscienza. È possibile ora, si domanda Nietzsche, rivendicare tali inclinazioni naturali? È possibile che, a partire da ora, gli ideali opposti a gli istinti del guerriero, gli ideali ostili alla vita, calunniatori della vita (l’aspirazione a un al di là, la tensione a un mondo ideale, contrapposto al mondo dei sensi), siano relazionati con la cattiva coscienza? Perché ciò si avveri, è necessaria una specie distinta di spiriti nuovi, spiriti pronti alla guerra, alla conquista, alla vittoria, la cui essenza sia la grande salute come presupposto fisiologico. Vi è bisogno di nuovi spiriti creatori, che sappiano creare nuovi valori. Vi è bisogno del superuomo. È, infine, in questo complesso contesto, che bisogna inquadrare la trasvalutazione nietzscheana del criminale. Una volta consapevoli che «il rimorso di coscienza è, come il morso di un cane a una 10 F. Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, II, 53. 11 F. Nietzsche, Streifzüge eines Unzeitgemässen, 38, in Götzen-Dämmerung. 12 Ibid., KSA, VI, p. 140. 621 Metaphysics 2006 – i. Metaphysics and Criminology pietra, una stupidaggine»13, che la credenza nel libero arbitrio è una pura ingenuità, che dentro di noi v’è una lotta di passioni, che il più delle volte permane incosciente, nonostante diriga le nostre scelte e, soprattutto, una volta scoperto che inizialmente il criminale non veniva punito perché si considerasse responsabile, ma solo come forma di riparazione e ricompensa per l’infrazione dell’equilibrio della comunità, allora possiamo comprendere per quale motivo Nietzsche si domandi, se verrà il giorno in cui l’uomo possa liberarsi finalmente della credenza nella colpa e, dunque, dell’istinto di vendetta. Possiamo liberarci del nostro orribile sistema penale, chiede il filosofo, con il suo affanno di compensare la colpa con una pena? Sarebbe possibile misurare il grado di salute di una società e degli individui, che ne fanno parte, dal numero di parassiti (in questo caso, di criminali) che può sopportare? Le domande, che Nietzsche si pone, hanno il sapore dell’utopia, ma non smettono di farci pensare: se è vero che non esiste un’unica morale, che abbia l’esclusiva in quanto alla formulazione dei valori, se è vero che i concetti di bene e male, di morale e immorale, non sono eterni, ma dipendono dalla prospettiva a partire dalla quale scegliamo i nostri valori, allora, è lecito chiedersi se il diritto di punire e di castigare non si basi piuttosto sul diritto del più forte e del più potente. Quante volte il tentativo di creare nuove leggi e nuovi valori è stato punito dai poteri che difendevano la tradizione? Quante volte pensatori tra i più fruttiferi e inventivi sono stati sacrificati, proscritti, tacciati d’ignominia e bollati come criminali e immorali, per aver osato separarsi dalla morale dominante? Non è stato forse il destino dello stesso Nietzsche, quello di trascorrere la sua vita nell’isolamento più completo, a causa della sua scelta di posizionarsi al di là del bene e del male? Se lo scontro attuale tra la morale occidentale e la morale musulmana non cela in realtà che lo scontro tra due avverse unità di potere, per esprimerci attraverso il lessico nietzscheano, perché i politici e i media dipingono i marines americani come i buoni (die Guten, avrebbe detto Nietzsche), i portatori di civiltà (la civiltà occidentale), e, al contrario, i prigionieri di Guantanamo come i terroristi, gli immorali e i criminali? Non è successo anche in questo caso, ciò che il filosofo tedesco aveva descritto un secolo prima nella Genealogia della morale, ossia che i potenti, coloro che detengono il potere, si sono attribuiti autonomamente il Bene, e hanno lasciato all’altro da sé il Male? 13 F. Nietzsche, Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, 38, in Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, II, KSA, II, p. 569. 622 j. Metaphysics – Workshop for Youth Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth IDEOLOGIA E VERITÀ Emmanuela Arvigo Quando si pensa a forme esemplificative del potere dell’ideologia vengono in mente immediatamente quelle che hanno dato origine alla formazione di regimi totalitari, quali lo stalinismo e il nazismo. Con il termine “totalitario” si designa quel regime politico tendente a dominare e pervadere l’intera società, a controllarla in modo totale. Come tale, esso è in grado di reprimere con un onnipotente apparato poliziesco ogni manifestazione di pluralismo e dissenso, e mobilita anche lo sviluppo d’organizzazioni che impongano la propria ideologia attraverso il monopolio dei mezzi di comunicazione di massa. L’ideologia definisce e delimita così l’appartenenza o meno del cittadino ad un gruppo, ad un partito o ad un regime, che uniforma le persone nella massa. L’ideologia, infatti, uccide l’unicità, e nel caso dei regimi anche l’identità socio-politica d’ogni persona, esprimendo e giustificando interessi di gruppi o classi in maniera tale da estenderli a tutti i membri della società. Le idee acquisiscono così forma d’universalità, attraverso la persuasione operata mediante i messaggi comunicativi. Questi influenzano a livello informativo, concernendo la disposizione ad accettare un’informazione proveniente da un altro membro del gruppo come vera, e a livello normativo inducendo l’individuo a conformarsi alle norme e agli standard vigenti nel gruppo. Chi non si adegua a tali standard è valutato come deviante, sciocco o folle e, di solito, è emarginato, escluso dal gruppo, e nei regimi totalitari anche perseguitato ed ucciso. L’ideologia servendosi così dell’arte della persuasione per convincere il pubblico ad aderire ad essa, esercita il suo potere associando ad una norma o ad un pensiero informazioni affettive, rappresentandoli con una persona esperta e potente, e/o esprimendoli con messaggi lunghi. Inoltre, un’elaborazione più approfondita dei messaggi che dà luogo ad una persuasione più duratura, è possibile mediante lo sviluppo di motivazioni che abbiano forte rilevanza personale, e la disponibilità di conoscenze rilevanti a favore dell’ideologia cui aderire. L’ideologia, inoltre, è autosufficiente e ha come riferimento solo se stessa: la tentazione più frequente di chi aderisce ad essa è quella di fare delle proprie credenze la Verità. Quest’atteggiamento auto-referenziale è anti-etico, manipolatorio. Dal punto di vista scientifico è contro l’obiettivo della ricerca della verità ed umanamente è illogico. È incomprensibile il motivo per cui essere così attaccati al proprio pensiero da non permettere che sia confutabile, criticabile. Se la ricerca della verità è libera dai propri bisogni ed è consapevole della propria finitezza è un servizio non solo a se stessi, ma anche alla comunità. L’ideologia rischia l’auto-referenzialismo, non si apre al confronto, al dialogo, riduce il valore della persona a se stessa, eleva il pensiero al valore dell’Assoluto, diventa il punto zero da cui spiegare e spiegarsi la verità, e rappresenta uno strumento di manipolazione che si contrappone alla scienza, alla filosofia e per la mia esperienza alla fede. Tema fondamentale che le accomuna è la ricerca della verità, cui tutte e quattro tentano una risposta o rispondono. La scienza si avvale per l’appunto della ricerca come strumento dotato di una struttura metodologica sistematica che varia secondo la disciplina, e che garantisce la validità dell’esperimento e l’attendibilità dei risultati ottenuti, per indagare la reale natura dei fenomeni. La 625 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth verità ricercata dalla scienza è rispondenza con la realtà effettiva. L’ideologia, la filosofia, e la fede tentano di rispondere e rispondono alle domande esistenziali, alla sete essenziale e vitale dell’uomo. Ma come? È costitutivo dell’Uomo cercare il senso da attribuire alla propria vita, e domandarsi sulla verità. Chi sono? Perchè esiste il dolore? Che cosa desidero profondamente? A che cosa sono chiamato? Che cosa vuol dire amare? Chi mi ha creato? Anzi sono stato creato? Ha un senso la vita? Ecco alcune domande esistenziali che ci colgono impreparati di fronte all’Infinito. L’ideologia imponendo una verità assoluta di un gruppo alla società e non tenendo conto dell’originalità di ciascuna persona e cultura, ottiene come paradosso la sua negazione, perché non risponde in maniera soddisfacente agli interrogativi di tutti gli uomini, ma soprattutto condiziona ed esclude. La filosofia contribuisce alla ricerca attraverso la capacità speculativa dell’intelletto umano. È la Fede però che mi permette di aprirmi all’Assoluto, ed ha un legame intimo con la mia ragione. Non è un atteggiamento di cieca fiducia nella validità di una dottrina come suggerisce il fideismo, orientamento filosofico e teologico che propugna la priorità della fede rispetto alla ragione. E altrettanto mi rendo conto che non può essere ridotta nel suo valore rispetto alla ragione come nel razionalismo, che attribuisce a lei ciò che è conoscibile solo mediante la fede. La Fede mi avvicina agli altri, non m’isola come individuo, mi mette in relazione. È con la fede che sono in relazione alla Verità che non aliena, non esclude, che è amore, ed eleva la persona. Essa è ricercabile attraverso la ragione, ma è oltre di lei. La verità è oltre il singolo uomo che non potrebbe cogliere il senso ultimo della vita se non per rivelazione, nel sentirsi amato e chiamato ad amare, e che nello stesso modo non sarebbe soddisfatto dal significato di un gruppo, se non incontrando liberamente il proprio intimo nel più profondo. Sono molte le volte in cui nella vita di tutti i giorni rischiamo di volgere la nostra fede, i nostri pensieri in ideologia, quando in nome di una verità, la nostra limitata ragione, escludiamo, riduciamo il valore della persona. Il segno che sto cadendo anch’io in ideologia è la mia chiusura, l’attaccamento alla mia ragione, il ridurre l’Altro al mio piccolo mondo, al non amare i limiti, le difficoltà, le differenze, le bellezze dell’Altro, al non essere in relazione. Così è altrettanto possibile usare la scienza secondo fini ideologici, come strumento di manipolazione, riducente la persona e in maniera autoreferenziale. Una fede inquinata dai nostri bisogni, che divide, omologa gli esseri umani ed esclude, e l’ideologia sono accomunate da un pensiero primitivo, o magico dove la realtà corrisponde a ciò che si pensa e si sente. Da una parte se si esclude la ragione, la fede si confonde con la magia e non si radica come atto di libera scelta nella persona com’essere integrato costituito di corpo, psiche e spirito. Dall’altra parte l’ideologia confonde la persona, l’aliena nel sentimento d’onnipotenza dove diventa come un dio, padrone del mondo e degli altri ed escludendo una verità globale che comprenda tutti gli uomini senza dividere in maggioranza e minoranza e fare differenze, e che sia oltre se stessi. Le bellezze che ci circondano, le diversità delle culture, l’unicità di ciascuna persona e l’avventura d’amore che ci coinvolge nella relazione con l’Altro sono segno dell’Assoluto, che c’è una Verità più grande dell’orticello d’ogni singolo individuo, dell’opinione di un gruppo, delle tradizioni e credenze di un popolo, di quello che è ritenuto oggi certezza scientifica e domani può essere rivisto, modificato, approfondito. 626 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth L’IMPORTANZA DI CREDERE NEI PROPRI SOGNI. La forza di perseverare nel proprio idealismo Daniela Bucalo Ogni essere umano nasce con un sogno, un desiderio profondo di realizzare il meglio per se stesso e, secondo un certa corrente di pensiero, di contribuire al benessere dell’intero genere umano. Poi le delusioni, le difficoltà e a volte, la mancanza di fondamenti logici del proprio sogno portano a porsi una serie di domande: Continuare a credere in ciò che di più forte sente vivo dentro se stesso o adeguarsi al relativismo della società? Lottare per il benessere universale o chiudersi in un individualismo serrato? Il confronto e la contestualizzazione di ciò che ogni giorno si presenta di fronte ai nostri occhi ci porta indubbiamente a credere che non ci sia nessuno spazio per i sogni nel XXI secolo. Lavoro, carriera e denaro divengono gli unici beni che sembrano poterci condurre al raggiungimento della nostra felicità. Ma è davvero così? Siamo esseri autoctoni ed autosufficienti od organismi sociali e tra loro interrelazionati? Esperanza Guisàn, filosofa utilitaristica, spagnola, vivente nella parte che più condivido, sostiene che la vera felicità può essere raggiunta solo attraverso una condivisione solidale del maggior bene per ciascun essere umano. Forse questo è il punto fondamentale. Credere nel bene. Per essere felici abbiamo bisogno di credere. Abbiamo bisogno di credere che grazie al nostro amore qualcuno domani starà meglio. Di condividere ciò che di più nobile serbiamo nel nostro cuore. Aprendoci al mondo. Liberandoci dalla gabbia che ci hanno costruito intorno. Alla fine della nostra vita, Sono convinta che l’unica cosa che resterà sarà solo ed unicamente quanto saremo stati in grado d’amare gli altri. Risvegliandoci dal torpore che ci avvolge. Rischiando, mettendoci in gioco. Forse non riusciremo a cambiare il mondo, ma sicuramente gli impediremo di cambiarci. Io non sono il vestito taglia 42 che indosso o l’automobile che conduco. Sono un essere portatore di una unicità incancellabile. E ho il dovere di lottare per trasmetterla perché, forse, chi mi sta accanto ha bisogno di una mia parola, di un mio sorriso. Ho il dovere di non restare indifferente di fronte a un bambino che muore a una famiglia che finisce. 627 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth Di credere che non sia tutto relativo ma che il Dio che ci ha creati lo abbia fatto con un senso assoluto. Ho il dovere di sognare che il domani sarà migliore del passato e di rendere un po’ meno triste il mio presente e quello di chi mi circonda. Perché la felicità può essere raggiunta solo ed esclusivamente donando una parte di noi agli altri. Se ognuno tenesse sempre presente il senso di responsabilità che implica lo stare al mondo sono certa che saremmo tutti un po’ più felici. Non bisogna smettere mai di sognare e di lottare per cambiare. Perché se lo facessimo tradiremmo il senso stesso della nostra vita. Se sono cristiana, devo rispettare e testimoniare con la maggior veracità possibile la mia fede, se non lo sono devo lottare fino in fondo per essere portatrice dei valori più elevati che riconosco come giusti, chiedendo la forza per non arrendermi mai. Giocare tutto ciò che possiedo come ad una roulette, cercando giorno dopo giorno di essere il più autentica e verace possibile. Liberandomi dalla paura di sbagliare, uscendo da me stessa per arrivare fino all’altro. Credere nei propri sogni, concludendo, credo significhi non smettere mai di lottare affinché il domani sia migliore dell’oggi in termini di bontà giustizia ed autenticità. Lottare perché tutto il mondo sia un po’ più felice. 628 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth IL DIALOGO: ESPRESSIONE MASSIMA DELLA NATURA UMANA Deborah De Giorgi Il tema che ho intenzione di sviluppare si articola sulla dialettica : solitudine e comunità. Mi propongo, partendo da un’ esperienza personale, di esporre due definizioni sul concetto della solitudine, di parlare del significato che ha la comunità per l’essere umano e infine, di tentare di rispondere alla seguente domanda: solitudine e comunità sono due esperienze che possono coesistere? Pensando al tema in questione mi è venuto in mente un episodio doloroso della mia vita da cui vorrei partire per osservare con voi il significato della solitudine. Qualche mese prima del fatidico esame di maturità un mio compagno di classe, Gabriele, si è suicidato, il dolore e la commozione che ha suscitato il suo gesto in coloro che lo hanno conosciuto è stato sconvolgente. Il funerale si è svolto in una grande chiesa ma i ragazzi che lui conosceva erano così tanti che né la chiesa, né il giardino, anch’esso grande e adiacente ad essa, poteva contenerci tutti. Ogni presente ha lasciato una donazione per il costo del funerale perché tutti gli volevamo bene, eppure il bene che 100 o 200 ragazzi provavano per lui, non ha potuto colmare la sua solitudine… Cosa è successo? Facciamo un passo indietro tenendo presente in generale, un ‘ipotesi ormai consolidata in ambito psicologico: l’uomo è un essere relazionale che ha bisogno di vivere se stesso attraverso il confronto con l’altro diverso da sé, questo organizza e forma la personalità dell’individuo: il pensiero dell’altro su di me mi completa e mi fa sentire persona. Tenendo nella mente questo concetto possiamo ritornare all’episodio citato da cui emerge subito una domanda: cosa vuol dire: l’uomo è un essere relazionale? Credo che il termine in sé suggerisca una forma di apertura verso l’altro, un dialogo intimo tra due persone, un dialogo che forse Gabriele non ha avuto. Mi chiedo se sia possibile solo un dialogo con l’altro diverso da me e se esista quindi una forma di dialogo più intima in cui io persona parlo con me stessa… Si sente spesso dire dalla gente:” voglio stare da sola con me stessa” ma questo stare da sola con me stessa presuppone una forma di comunicazione con la parte più intima della persona che ci porta, ad esempio, a conoscere le nostre aspettative, i nostri comportamenti, i nostri modi di pensare e analizzare i pensieri che gli altri hanno su di noi. La solitudine, in genere, viene percepita come mancanza dell’altro, per me la vera solitudine è la mancanza di dialogo, sia con l’altro, sia con se stessi, che conduce l’essere umano all’isolamento e a tutto ciò che ne consegue. Passiamo ora al significato del termine comunità, la parola stessa ci suggerisce un insieme di persone che hanno in comune rapporti sociali, linguistici ed etici: questa è la semplice e breve definizione del vocabolario! Considerando questa traccia ritorno all’episodio del funerale di Gabriele: si può dire che tutte le persone presenti fossero una comunità? Si: conoscevamo tutti Gabriele, parlavamo la stessa lingua e ci siamo trovati ad affrontare insieme una situazione concreta della nostra vita eppure il giorno dopo siamo tornati ad essere degli sconosciuti gli uni per gli altri! Forse la parola comunità ha qualcos’altro da dirci… 629 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth Pensiamo un po’ alla nostra nazione: l’Italia, in cui abitano delle persone che a detta del vocabolario si classificano come comunità: la comunità italiana! Ma se siamo una comunità perché ci si ignora? Perché i giornali sono strapieni di notizie di cronaca nera? Più che comunità , e qui dico una frase forte, mi sembra più idoneo pensare ad una moltitudine di persone sole che vivono nel proprio egoismo e che seguono l’etica del piacere! Fortunatamente non siamo tutti così! Che cos’è una comunità? Sicuramente qualcosa di più, ad esempio ad essa accosterei la parola comunione intesa come un’ apertura verso l’atro, un mettersi in gioco, un condividere esperienze e pensieri. Mi viene in mente uno psicologo Bion che parlando dei gruppi li definiva come una rete i cui punti nodali erano costituiti dalle persone cosicché, aggiungo io, ogni persona appare collegata alle altre, questo collegamento avviene proprio attraverso il dialogo! Posso quindi ipotizzare che la mancanza di dialogo sia la vera solitudine e che altresì esso rappresenta ( costituisce) il fondamento della comunità. La comunità è l’essenza dell’esperienza umana ed è anche il suo fondamento: non dimentichiamoci che la prima comunità è rappresentata dalla famiglia! 630 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth C’È QUALCUNO AL DI SOPRA DEL PIANO? Pierluigi Frisina “Questo è l’unico dei mondi possibili”. Questo è il pensiero di un quadrato, figura geometrica protagonista di un bellissimo racconto scritto dal reverendo inglese Edwin Abbott, vissuto sul finire dell’ottocento. “Flatlandia, un racconto fantastico a più dimensioni”, questo è il titolo dell’opera, narra la storia vissuta in prima persona da un quadrato, che ha per moglie un segmento sottilissimo e per figli quattro pentagoni, per nipoti due esagoni e per servitù svariati triangoli. Il quadrato, come tutti i suoi simili, vive nel “paese del piano”, Flatlandia, l’unico mondo possibile. Quella “flatlandese” è una società antidemocratica organizzata sulla base di una rigida e soffocante gerarchia. Al vertice del potere c’è la casta sacerdotale dei cerchi, depositari dei segreti che reggono le somme istituzioni. Immediatamente dopo i cerchi, segue l’alta aristocrazia dei poligoni (più lati si possiede e più si è importanti, poiché si assomiglia maggiormente ai cerchi). I quadrati occupano una posizione intermedia e sono per lo più funzionari o liberi professionisti. I triangoli rappresentano gli operai mentre i segmenti, le donne, vengono considerate come esseri inferiori. Un’altra categoria di emarginati dalla società sono i poligoni irregolari, per lo più criminali, esseri da perseguitare e da eliminare senza pietà. Due sono gli scopi che guidano e ispirano la vita dei flatlandesi: la conquista del potere o assurgere a un rango più elevato (mediante operazioni di chirurgia plastica volte ad aumentare il numero dei lati … operazioni spesso ad esito mortale). Il quadrato protagonista della vicenda è il tipico flatlandese, convinto sostenitore di quello stato di cose. Egli è pago del suo mondo bidimensionale, che egli reputa l’unico universo esistente e possibile. E tutto ciò è estremamente logico, come cerca inutilmente di spiegare al Monarca di Linelandia, apparsogli una notte in sogno, il quale sostiene, a sua volta, che il mondo a una dimensione è l’unico esistente e possibile. Ma purtroppo le certezze del quadrato verranno presto messe in crisi. Anche il quadrato, come il monarca di Linelandia, rifiuterà di credere all’esistenza di un mondo diverso dal suo, quello a tre dimensioni, quando una sfera venuta dalla Spacelandia gli si rivelerà, secondo un rito millenario che si consuma puntualmente ma che, altrettanto puntualmente, i cerchi mettono a tacere. Di fronte a tale caparbietà del quadrato, la sfera decide di dargli una dimostrazione pratica, sollevandolo dal piano di Flatlandia e mostrandogli dall’alto il suo mondo, che evidentemente non è l’unico possibile. L’incredibile scoperta di un mondo a tre dimensioni spalanca finalmente gli occhi al quadrato che inizialmente decide di non rivelare nulla, ma alla fine, non riuscendo a resistere, inizia a diffondere quella scoperta al suo mondo. Per le sue blasfeme affermazioni, dopo un processo farsa, verrà gettato in prigione. Le sue parole, con le quali il racconto si conclude sono:< 634 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth DARWIN E GÖDEL: QUANDO LA SCIENZA AIUTA LA FEDE Fabrizio Sebastiani Il Darwinismo: questo mostro sconosciuto La scienza non è ne buona ne cattiva. Se mai è la tecnologia (ossia l'applicazione delle conoscenze scientifiche) che possono essere buone o cattive a seconda dell'intenzione (umana) che vi è dietro. Il Darwinismo, per lungo tempo, e a causa della lunga contrapposizione nei secoli fra concezioni illuministe-razionaliste e religioso-conservatrici si è visto relegare come teoria anti-religiosa. E quindi in occidente anti-cristiana. Ma è davvero così ? Quanti di quelli che criticano il darwinismo lo conoscono davvero ? Peggio ancora c'è da rilevare come molti che si definiscono laico-illuministi oggi, e quindi per atteggiamento ideologico difendono il darwinismo contro le concezioni religiose, non ne conoscono affatto alcuni aspetti essenziali. Per non parlare poi del darwinismo sociale storico che non solo nega gli stessi principi che lo stesso Darwin aveva enunciato, ma dimostra come l'applicazione becera di teorie scientifiche in ambito politico-sociale (nazismo) non può che portare a disastri immondi le cui conseguenze sono ancora sotto gli occhi di tutti. Risulta poi completamente fuori luogo la polemica, tutta statunitense, fra creazionismo e darwinismo, oggi rivitalizzata dai sostenitori della cosiddetta "intelligent design". Sono fenomeni dovuti principalmente a un attaccamento alle fonti bibliche in senso letterale ed eccessivamente retro testamentario, di matrice soprattutto protestante. Non ultimo e meno grave, come dice lo stesso Coyne, Direttore dell'Osservatorio Vaticano, è quell'atteggiamento che si ostina a considerare le fonti bibliche come mezzo di spiegazione scientifica, quando invece il suo più profondo significato è ben lungi da questo obiettivo. L'uomo non rende servigio a Dio nel momento in cui attribuisce un significato di verità in senso scientifico, al Verbo. La verità scientifica, infatti, per definizione è sempre passibile di essere messa in discussione. Il suo obiettivo non è la ricerca della verità (ammesso che questo abbia un significato in senso scientifico) ma piuttosto la ricerca di un modello descrittivo della realtà. Al contrario le fonti bibliche non hanno la pretesa di essere una verità in senso letterale. Ma torniamo al darwinismo e agli aspetti scottanti di questa teoria: Homo sapiens La collocazione umana nel contesto evoluzionistico: l'esistenza di un antenato comune fra Homo Sapiens e le scimmie antropomorfe sembra contraddire la creazione di Dio. Lo stesso Giovanni Paolo II si chiedeva: “Può una prospettiva evoluzionistica contribuire a far luce sulla teologia antropologica, sul significato della persona umana come «imago Dei» e anche sullo sviluppo della dottrina stessa?” Seleziona naturale L'applicazione della “selezione naturale” in modo pervasivo, sia in contesti umani (sviluppo dei popoli, adattamento, sviluppo del comportamento etc ...) fatto non solo su scale temporali molto antiche, ma anche più recenti e addirittura contemporanee, sia a livelli biologici, sia a livello biochimici: questo sembra mettere sullo stesso piano, un uomo, una cellula di una foglia, un’ameba e un virus. La storia umana sembra seguire le stesse leggi che regolano il diffondersi del virus dell'AIDS oppure dell'influenza aviaria così come la scomparsa di una specie di pesce oceanico o la crescita di un batterio in una cultura di un laboratorio. 635 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth Dove è finita la centralità dell'uomo? Domanda apparentemente sensata che però non tocca veramente il vero problema: ossia per quale motivo tutto questo dovrebbe negare la centralità dell'uomo rispetto al suo Creatore? Davvero vince il più forte ? Moltissime persone oggi sono convinte che la selezione naturale significhi “sopravvivenza del più adatto”. Dove “più adatto” può essere di volta in volta una specie (ad esempio le marmotte), un individuo (una singola marmotta), un gruppo di individui (una colonia di marmotte). In ogni caso si è molto speculato su questo punto della vincita del più forte, quando invece lo stesso Darwin non ha mai posto la questione in questi termini. Poniamo un esempio pratico di immediata comprensione: la talassemia mediterranea è una malattia genetica molto diffusa nel mediterraneo dovuta a una mutazione di un certo gene; chiameremo T la versione mutata del genere e N la sua versione “normale”. Se tale mutazione è presente in entrambi gli alleli come TT allora il nascituro sarà affetto da una malattia, purtroppo terribile, che lo condannerà a continue trasfusioni e una aspettativa di vita che comunque non va oltre i 3-5 anni. Questo per fortuna avviene molto raramente. Nella maggior parte dei casi si avrà una combinazione NN (nessun allele mutato) oppure NT o TN (uno dei geni mutati). Nel caso NN la persona è completamente sana e non trasmetterà il gene alla prole. Anche nei casi NT o TN la persona sarà sana, ma potrà trasmettere uno degli alleli alla prole. Se un padre e una madre che si trovano in quest'ultimo caso trasmettono entrambi il gene T al figlio esso sarà un TT e quindi malato. In ogni caso sembra evidente come il gente nella forma T dovrebbe, per selezione naturale tendere a scomparire di generazione in generazione: se infatti chi lo porta ha una probabilità inferiore di creare prole feconda, dovrebbe essere considerato un gene cattivo, quindi chi lo porta sarebbe meno adatto e quel ramo di discendenza dovrebbe alla lunga soccombere e lasciare spazio ad altri. Già, ma allora perché questa malattia e questo gene si è invece conservato nei millenni? E perché si concentra in alcune aree? (ad esempio è molto presente nell'attuale popolazione della Sardegna). La ragione è presto detta: la combinazione NT o TN che produce individui sani, sembra dare una protezione maggiore contro la malaria, che si sa, era malattia molto diffusa nel bacino del mediterraneo (e guarda caso proprio in Sardegna). Quindi questo gene nelle ondate malariche garantiva una maggiore protezione nella combinazione NT o TN rispetto ai soggetti “normali” NN. Purtroppo c'era un prezzo da pagare: i soggetti TT soccombevano; ma evidentemente questo era meno determinante di quanto non lo fosse la combinazione protettiva di TN o NT. Oggi si è capito che (Dawkins) l'oggetto ultimo e per questo definitivo su cui l'evoluzione agisce non sono tanto i gruppi, gli individui o le specie, ma i singoli geni, presenti a centinaia di migliaia in tutti gli organismi. Si potrebbero fare molti esempi simili, ma soffermiamoci sull'insegnamento che possiamo trarre da questo esempio: 1. non è vero che “vince sempre il più adatto”. Spesso ciò che sembra essere non adatto, nasconde delle opportunità utili per la specie in una combinazione molto complessa. 2. la natura non “butta via” il gene meno adatto, ma conserva anche quelli apparentemente inutili o poco adatti quando hanno degli effetti benefici oppure li conserva per il futuro, come una “riserva strategica”. Se Hitler avesse realizzato il suo folle piano eugenetico, non avrebbe realizzato una “razza superiore” bensì un “gruppo di persone geneticamente deboli” in quanto più fragile, meno disomogenea e quindi con meno armi genetiche da giocare, in quanto maggiormente uniforme. Oggi si sa ad esempio che le popolazioni che vivono isolate da molte generazioni e che quindi generano prole con un alto grado di imparentamento più o meno diretto, sono proprio quelle 636 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth popolazioni con maggiore incidenza delle malattie genetiche. 3. La varietà genetica (anche quella che causa malattie gravi) è dunque una grande ricchezza da conservare: vani e dannosi sono tutti i tentativi di eliminarli in quanto minore varietà genetica significa anche minore possibilità per le generazioni future e infondo, maggiore vulnerabilità. Questo non è valido solo per l'uomo ma anche per l'ecosistema in generale e per tutte le specie, ad esempio quelle agricole necessarie per l'alimentazione umana; oggi infatti si parla molto di OGM e di organismi transgenici: l'introduzione massiccia di questi organismi dovrebbe far riflettere sul tema della biodiversità proprio per questo motivo. 4. Dal punto di vista evoluzionistico, i soggetti “malati” o apparentemente “non adatti” non sono un materiale di scarto: sono un prezzo, per quanto duro da accettare, da pagare per ottenere una migliore sopravvivenza degli altri soggetti. Quest'ultimo punto induce delle riflessioni ulteriori: sembra una legge molto dura: per una coppia di genitori il cui figlio si ammala di talassemia mediterranea non è certo facile accettare che il proprio figlio debba essere “il prezzo da pagare” per garantire una maggiore salute alla specie umana. Eppure la legge di natura sembra suggerirci proprio questo. Ma è veramente “crudele” questa legge? O forse non ci induce a meditare più profondamente sulle leggi della natura e a saperle accettare come la croce della propria vita? E non contribuisce invece a dare un senso anche a episodi così spiacevoli? E non è forse vero che Dio non debba in questa vita premiare o punire nessuno in particolare? Cristo ci ricorda che il Padre fa “sorgere il suo sole sopra i malvagi e sopra i buoni, e fa piovere sopra i giusti e sopra gli ingiusti” (Mt 5,45). Dunque perché scandalizzarci? Riferimenti: ● Storica Lettera di GPII a Coyne http://www.disf.org/Documentazione/05-4-880601-Coyne.asp ● http://www.unipv.it/webbio/labweb/primantr/news/rasdar05/rassdarw.htm ● http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=18503 ● http://clavius.as.arizona.edu/vo/R1024/GCoyne2.html Teoremi di Gödel: un limite sulla conoscibilità umana Un altro importantissimo risultato, già noto ai filosofi ma meno in ambito teologico, sono i famosi Teoremi di Incompletezza dovuti Kurt Gödel, un matematico logico che nel 1931 ha assestato un duro colpo alle certezze dei Logici Formalisti come David Hilbert che insieme ad altri cervelli come Russel, Peano, Weyl, Lasker, Zermelo e secondo idee a inizio secolo preponderanti nel pensiero matematico, tendevano a unificare il pensiero, a immaginare cioè una unica teoria unificatrice comprendente tutto il sapere matematico: infondo un sogno di semplificazione, di poter capire il tutto secondo regole semplici; questo è il sogno di ogni matematico: ridurre il tutto a poche e semplici regole, comprensibili. E la matematica, si sa, è la regina delle scienze; fra esse è quella che pesantemente interagisce con il pensiero filosofico. I logici poi, sono una classe del tutto particolare di matematici. A essi spetta il collegamento proprio con la filosofia più profonda; molti logici sono stati anche filosofi. Ma Kurt Gödel non era un filosofo: a 25 anni dimostra dei teoremi, poi passati alla storia con il suo nome, e manda in pezzi i sogni di generazione di matematici e scienziati. Ogni nuova teoria che sia veramente rivoluzionaria manda in pezzi le certezze assodate e tranquillizzanti delle teorie precedenti: come Einstein aveva mandato in pezzi le certezze della meccanica galileiana, ossia del principio di indipendenza dell'osservatore, o del sistema di riferimento, con tutto ciò che questo comporta, Gödel mette in discussione un principio apparentemente semplice e scontato: che cioè ogni cosa vera sia anche dimostrabile.In logica 637 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth possiamo immaginare una teoria formale come un insieme di assiomi (le verità' che si scelgono essere tali) e un insieme di regole di deduzione. Da queste discendono tutta una serie di proposizioni, che possono essere vere (teoremi) oppure false. Ciò che tutti vogliono da una teoria sono: 1. la coerenza: non contraddittorietà, proprietà assolutamente indispensabile 2. minimalità: il numero di assiomi o precondizioni o assunzioni deve essere minimo possibile (è il famoso Rasoio di Occam) 3. una più ampia possibile completezza: ossia poter riuscire a dimostrare quante più cose possibili fino ad arrivare - si spera - ad una teoria comprendente il tutto che la renderebbe idealmente completa. È naturale aspettarsi che all'interno di una teoria valida ogni verità debba essere dimostrabile. Fino a quando Gödel non mostra il suo straordinario risultato i matematici hanno sempre pensato che per mostrare la falsità o verità di una proposizione, era solo una questione di abilità, del trovare cioè la giusta dimostrazione. Il ragionamento sembrava essere "se la proposizione è vera deve pur esserci una dimostrazione che sia vera; se invece è falsa allora deve esserci una dimostrazione che è falsa" e trovarla era solo questione di tempo, di abilità o di fortuna. Al massimo bisognava trovare la teoria giusta per spiegare in modo coerente quello che si credeva essere la verità. Così è andato avanti il mondo scientifico fino a che non ci si è imbattuti in problemi veramente difficili, che ai tempi di Gödel impegnavano vastissime energie di matematici di tutto il mondo.Tuttavia il sogno di una teoria unificata, non ha mai abbandonato gli scienziati e in particolare i matematici. Gödel ci mostra che questo sogno era vano. Accanto alle proposizioni vere e false di una teoria Gödel introduce le proposizioni indecidibili, ossia proposizioni che sono vere nella teoria, ma che in essa non possono trovare una spiegazione secondo quel sistema formale. Chiamiamo questa proposizione P. Per dimostrarne la verità di P bisogna necessariamente introdurre nuovi assiomi oppure descrivere quella teoria con un meta-linguaggio che faccia uso di una teoria più ampia per dimostrare P. Ma neanche questo processo è sufficiente a rendere la teoria completa: nonostante in questo modo possiamo sperare di dimostrare la verità' di P, la nostra teoria originaria non ci ha aiutato e abbiamo dovuto trovare altri strumenti: quindi la teoria era incompleta. I teoremi di Gödel ci assicurano infatti che qualunque teoria se vuole rimanere coerente, ammetterà sempre delle proposizioni indecidibili, che sono cioè vere nella teoria, ma la cui verità non può essere dimostrata. Quindi la teoria è sempre incompleta, qualunque sia il sistema formale adottato, e da qui viene il nome "Teoremi di incompletezza". Oggi anche in ambiti diversi dalla Logica, nella matematica in generale, nella scienza e in particolare nella fisica, nell'informatica, nella logica ci sono molti problemi teorici che rimangono inspiegabilmente aperti. Spesso prendono il nome di "congetture". I ricercatori quindi, a volte, alla luce dei risultati dei Teoremi di Gödel spesso di chiedono se il problema che vogliono dimostrare non ricada in questi casi. Questo perché ciò che sembra evidente, non riesce a trovare una verificabilità rigorosa: la proposizione potrebbe essere indecidibile. Naturalmente non è possibile dimostrare se la proposizione è indecidibile in quanto se lo fosse, ne conseguirebbe che sarebbe vera, per definizione. Nonostante questo, Gödel, esibisce delle proposizioni indecidibili mostrandone la loro esistenza; ma data una proposizione, non è possibile dimostrare che lo sia, altrimenti verrebbe meno la sua definizione. Ma quali sono le implicazioni filosofico-teologiche di questo risultato? Innanzitutto esso apre degli interrogativi sul concetto di conoscibilità che una teoria formale e rigorosa pone in ogni caso. Ciò che Gödel ci dice è in sostanza "qualunque teoria tu possa formulare 638 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth sappi che ci sarà sempre una parte di essa che non potrai dimostrare con gli strumenti e la conoscenza che in quella teoria stessa ti sei costruito". Qualcuno, in modo eccessivo, ha affermato che in questa ottica "L'esistenza di Dio è indecidibile" dimostrandone così la inconsistenza di questa affermazione in ambito formale, rafforzandone il suo carattere fideistico. A noi questa affermazione sembra quantomeno fuori luogo: ci è sufficiente osservare che già il filosofo della scienza Popper ci ha fatto osservare come l'ipotesi formale dell'esistenza di Dio non rientra nella scienza per il semplice fatto che non è una proposizione falsificabile. Ma senza entrare a questo livello di discussione, possiamo dire che questi risultati inducono in ogni caso alcune riflessioni, se hanno generato addirittura tali ardine considerazioni. Secondo noi il teorema di Gödel mostra un altro risultato straordinario, che riporta l'uomo ad una posizione di umiltà' nei confronti del mondo che vuole esplorare: egli deve inchinarsi e rassegnarsi a un certo grado di indimostrabilità che implica anche inconoscibilità, che non sono quindi sempre cause della propria ignoranza (momentanea?) o incapacità di comprensione, ma è nella profonda natura delle cose. Se ci sono verità non dimostrabili, non è perché l'uomo non è capace o in grado di farlo, anche se nella stragrande maggioranza dei casi può essere così. Essa è invece di per se indimostrabile. L'acquisizione di nuova conoscenza potrebbe forse aiutare a formulare una teoria che aiuti a generare un quadro di dimostrabilità per quella congettura, ma in questo modo non abbiamo ne raggiunto la completezza ne accresciuto necessariamente la vera potenza di nessuna teoria in quanto in esse rimarrebbero sempre presenti altre (e forse più insidiose?) proposizioni indecidibili. In conclusione: l'uomo deve rinunciare alla conoscenza del tutto in un quadro organico e coerente di conoscenze in quanto la completezza è un obiettivo impossibile. Il massimo a cui si possa aspirare è un insieme di teorie non necessariamente coerenti fra loro che descrivono al meglio, di volta in volta, la realtà che si vuole prendere in considerazione. Dalla lettera di Giovanni Paolo II a Coyne, Direttore della Specola Vaticana, 1 giugno 1988: ● Mentre religione e scienza possono e debbono ciascuna appoggiare l'altra come dimensioni distinte della comune cultura umana, nessuna delle due dovrebbe pretendere di essere il necessario presupposto per l'altra. ● Oggi abbiamo un' opportunità senza precedenti di stabilire un rapporto interattivo comune in cui ogni disciplina conserva la propria integrità pur rimanendo radicalmente aperta alle scoperte e intuizioni dell'altra. ● La teologia, come «fides quaerens intellectum», è stata definita come lo sforzo della fede per portare a compimento l'intelligenza. Come tale, essa deve oggi attuare uno scambio vitale con la scienza proprio come ha sempre fatto con la filosofia e altre forme di cultura. La teologia, dato il suo interesse primario per argomenti come la persona umana, le capacità della libertà e la possibilità della comunità cristiana, la natura della fede e l'intelligibilità della natura e della storia, dovrà sempre fare appello in qualche grado ai risultati della scienza. Essa sarà tanto più vitale e significativa per l'umanità quanto più saprà fare suoi in profondità questi risultati. ● Si potrebbero fare molte altre domande di questo tipo. Ma per continuare a proporne si richiederebbe quella specie di intenso dialogo con la scienza contemporanea che, generalmente parlando, è mancato nei teologi impegnati nella ricerca e nell'insegnamento. Ciò comporterebbe che almeno alcuni teologi fossero sufficientemente competenti nelle scienze per poter fare un uso genuino e creativo delle risorse offerte loro dalle teorie meglio affermate. ● La scienza può purificare la religione dall'errore e dalla superstizione; Ia religione può purificare la scienza dall'idolatria e dai falsi assoluti. 639 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth ● La verità è che la Chiesa e la comunità scientifica verranno a contatto inevitabilmente; le loro opzioni non comportano isolamento. I cristiani non potranno non assimilare le idee prevalenti riguardanti il mondo, idee che oggi vengono influenzate profondamente dalla scienza. Il solo problema è se essi lo faranno con senso critico o senza riflettervi, con profondità ed equilibrio o con la superficialità che avvilisce il Vangelo e ci fa vergognare di fronte alla storia. ● Non si dice che la teologia debba assimilare indiscriminatamente ogni nuova teoria filosofica o scientifica. Tuttavia, dal momento in cui questi risultati diventano patrimonio della cultura intellettuale del tempo, i teologi devono comprenderli e metterne alla prova il valore coll'esplicitare alcune virtualità della fede cristiana che non sono state ancora espresse. 640 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth LE PRIME COMUNITÀ CRISTIANE E LA SOCIETÀ DI OGGI Monica Seronello Quanto potere ha un’idea sulla nostra vita ai nostri giorni? Questa è solo una delle tante considerazioni che l’uomo di oggi sperimenta quotidianamente sulla propria vita. La società contemporanea con i suoi ideali, si può davvero definire come il continuo di una società che metteva in comunione l’uomo rendendolo felice, come di fatto lo erano le prime comunità cristiane? L’apostolo Luca descriveva: “Erano assidui nell’ascoltare l’insegnamento degli apostoli e nell’unione fraterna, nella frazione del pane (celebrazione dell’Eucaristia) e nelle preghiere… stavano insieme e tenevano ogni cosa in comune… secondo il bisogno di ciascuno… ogni giorno tutti insieme spezzavano il pane in casa prendendo i pasti con letizia e semplicità di cuore”. E’ dunque la nascita di un nuovo modello di umanità. Il Cristianesimo di fatto, va incontro ad incomprensioni e a fraintendimenti tra gli uomini, esercita una forza di attrazione per l’attesa di salvezza delle genti, indipendentemente dall’indole o dall’ideale religioso e filosofico dei singoli. Essi mostravano infatti di aver incontrato il senso di ogni cosa, il giusto in tutto, attraverso una Persona. Era dunque una società fondata non su di un’idea o una filosofia, ma bensì su una Persona, sulle persone. Queste erano le caratteristiche di una comunità cristiana plasmata dallo Spirito Santo. Non dobbiamo però pensare che non ci siano state crisi e ombre nella vita delle prime comunità, in quanto i relativi membri nella loro quotidianità erano deboli a causa dei loro peccati. La società contemporanea, per contro, è diventata una società dove l’unica cosa che accomuna l’uomo è adeguarsi allo stile o moda di vita del momento, senza peraltro condividerne gli ideali. Si rischia perciò di diventare dei “non pensanti”, cioè persone non più in grado di distinguere quello che realmente si vuole, ma quello di cui la società ti propone, schiavi delle nostre passioni. Si finisce così con lo scambiare la realtà con la finzione e di sfuggire alle proprie responsabilità di uomo e cristiano. Io stessa, mi definivo come una persona libera di esprimermi, di comunicare, di muovermi, di agire. Mi hanno proposto, anzi venduto, emozioni sempre più allettanti, mi era stato insegnato che io sono, io valgo se sono COME gli altri e non CON gli altri. Ma che cosa significa? Io valgo per quello che ho, che possiedo, che produco. Mi è stato mostrato che la vita andava lottata e non vissuta. E andava lottata a denti stretti, perché non potevi certo permetterti di uscire dal cerchio. E allora cominci a perseguire un qualcosa, un ideale: provi a dargli un nome (fama, successo, carriera, ecc.) e cominci a sperare con tutte le tue forze che forse è quello di cui ha bisogno, quello che ti può rendere felice. Credi di sentirti appagato, ma non ti accorgi che è solo un’illusione. Tu di fatto sei solo contro tutti. Cominci a diventare egoista: in fondo a chi non piace arrivare per primo? È dunque una società che ci inganna, dove la nostra vita è costantemente condizionata. Viviamo una vita frenetica, agenda alla mano e non ci accorgiamo che stiamo correndo, stiamo perdendo il senso di ritrovarci tutti a tavola in famiglia, di ritrovarci a parlare tra di noi, abbiamo paura di metterci in relazione con 641 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth l’altro attraverso il dialogo, e allora preferiamo esprimerci con una mail o un sms. Per non parlare dei mass-media che ogni giorno ci propinano programmi sempre più “trasgressivi” come per esempio i reality show (“il Grande Fratello”) che ci spingono a cercare il soddisfacimento dei nostri bisogni fino a lasciarci dominare dall’aggressività e dalla sensualità, illudendoci, dandoci una visione distorta della vita e della realtà. Non bisogna dunque dimenticare che tutto ciò è frutto dell’industria dello spettacolo dove lo scopo, oltre che economico è anche ideologico. Si vuole infatti trasformare l’uomo in un essere libero da ogni legame religioso, morale e sociale. “Un uomo realmente e continuamente solo è un uomo tremendamente infelice, un uomo che non intrattiene infatti relazioni con nessuno (nemmeno con Dio) è un uomo terribilmentei infelice: non si può cioè essere felici da soli, perché l’uomo è un essere sociale” (Aristotele). “Naturalmente non basta vivere in mezzo agli altri per eliminare questa solitudine, perché si può restare soli anche in mezzo ad una folla, se le relazioni con gli altri sono superficiali” (Kierkegaard). Ma allora, esiste forse un rimedio contro questa solitudine prodotta da questa società? Certo! Qualcuno ci insegna che bisogna partecipare con la nostra vita alla vita degli altri. E tutto ciò è possibile solo grazie all’Amore, perché l’Amore ci proietta verso gli altri, ci fa entrare in comunione con gli altri, ci fa provare le stesse gioie e gli stessi dolori. Tutto ciò che viviamo con amore, ci da gioia, ci fa stare bene, ci rende liberi e non più schiavi di dover perseguire la felicità mediante un falso ideale. 642 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth SI PUÒ PARLARE DI IDEOLOGIA DEL NUOVO MILLENNIO? Coletta Venza Dalla storia abbiamo ereditato la consapevolezza di quanto male abbiano prodotto i totalitarismi e dei segni che tali esperienze hanno lasciato nelle coscienze di chi ne è stato testimone, vittima sopravvissuta, carnefice. Di fatto i totalitarismi hanno segnato e disegnato la storia del XX secolo con orrori e omicidi di massa. I due totalitarismi che hanno spezzato il mondo, costruendo frontiere fisiche invalicabili, hanno tratto fondamento, vita e ragione d’essere da Ideologie strutturate e definite. Logiche di pensiero chiare ed estremamente affascinanti, radicate su risposte concrete restituite ad un altrettanto concreto fabbisogno umano. Le Ideologie che hanno guidato il Nazionalsocialismo di Hitler ed il Comunismo di Stalin partono dalla storia su cui operano per riscriverla, trasformarla. Nazismo e Comunismo non sono stati Autoritarismi (come il fascismo italiano), ma hanno tentato e voluto modificare la storia; la stessa natura dell’uomo. La stessa denominazione di Uomo è stata da essi ripensata, rivista, ridefinita, riscritta. Xenofobia, utopico sogno di potere, la particolare forma di imperialismo (senza rispetto per le culture incontrate), le epurazione e depurazioni etniche e culturali, le purghe, gli assassini di massa, sono stati moventi e strumenti usati da chi non ha semplicemente voluto sottomettere un uomo innanzi ad un altro uomo, ma da chi ha ambito cambiare le regole del mondo. Se riflettiamo su come ciò possa essere accaduto nella storia dell’uomo, e su come l’uomo possa avere accettato ed accolto tutto questo male, apriamo una parentesi sulla valenza positiva dell’Ideologia. L’Ideologia rassicura, «copre le spalle», sostiene, indica una verità, e non importa quanto essa sia parziale, è sufficientemente logica, lineare, ed apparentemente «pura», poiché spurgata dalle limitazioni dettate dalla «caotica» del mondo e dalla forza della Speranza dell’uomo. L’incorruttibilità logica che disegna un’ideologia genera una forza d’attrazione, un fascino attecchito su un’utopia. L’ideologia è, ancora, una risposta ad una esigenza dell’uomo: il bisogno di certezze. Questo bisogno trova risposta nell’utopia della realizzazione di un nuovo ordine mondiale del quale si possa prevedere ogni aspetto, ogni momento, ogni prodotto. Tale utopia è la certezza a cui l’uomo si aggrappa in un mondo che crolla (crisi economica, sociale, culturale). L’uomo ha bisogno di certezze, ha bisogno di prevedere il futuro, conoscere e prevedere cosa gli potrà accadere domani, ha la necessità di esercitare il più possibile un «controllo» sulla propria vita. Il suo innato attaccamento all’«istinto di felicità», e la sua umana paura, lo inducono e lo guidano nell’estenuante ricerca di certezze, ad un bisogno di risposte materiali, tangibili. La Germania alla fine degli anni ’20, inizio degli anni ’30 era un paese sconfitto, la popolazione era oppressa dal rancore e dalla rabbia era afflitta per la perdita di territori, demoralizzata per la debolezza politica, inasprita dalla disoccupazione di massa (1932 un terzo dei lavoratori è disoccupato). Hitler non dovette vincere le elezioni, a lui venne offerto il potere. Creò: 643 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth Occupazione1 Forza Politica2 Rivoluzione Culturale3 Hitler diede una risposta al bisogno della popolazione tedesca, e per farlo usò la Propaganda (“Bisogna a avere un buon governo e per avere un buon governo ci vuole una buona propaganda” Gobbels). Così facendo modificò la cultura, l’informazione e, con essa, il modo di pensare. Egli rieducò il popolo a pensare, ed a pensare da NAZISTA! L’ideologia sorretta da una buona propaganda ed accompagnata da un giusto livello di Terrore sono gli strumenti fondanti del Totalitarimo. Il mondo Ideale Nazista, fondato sull’imperialismo, sulla violenza, sull’ignoranza, sulla selettività, sull’esclusione, sull’autoreferenzialità, sulla strutturazione di una cultura nuova senza passato e senza futuro, irrealizzabile, con la presunzione di ridefinire la natura dell’uomo, CROLLO’! E lo fece Rovinosamente, lasciando segni di morte indelebili nella coscienza del mondo intero. Testimonianze di Russi, appartenenti all’ex-URSS affermano di aver vissuto meglio all’epoca del Comunismo che nel successivo periodo di liberazione. Perché? Perché c’era lavoro, ed, al contempo, una povertà che non era morte, non era fame, era il minimo indispensabile e necessario per salvarsi, e tale era uguale per tutti coloro che erano degni di vivere, per coloro che appartenevano al popolo ed erano ad esso omologati. Vi era uno stato di miseria globale, che si esprimeva in un fittizio senso di benessere o nel ripetersi quotidiano di gesti. Sotto Stalin il Sistema divenne un’autocrazia che cercava di imporre il controllo totale su tutti gli aspetti della vita e del pensiero dei cittadini. E sebbene l’uomo abbia un’incredibile e innata capacità di adattamento, sebbene in URSS tale facoltà sia stata esercitata ed addomesticata fino a rendere la condizione del sovietico apparentemente naturale, ed a trasformarlo in un animale in cattività, sebbene ad un certo punto nessuno se lo sarebbe aspettato, anche questa realtà crollò, sotto i colpi di qualcosa che non è prevedibile, sotto il peso della forza e della Speranza che abita ogni uomo. Nella sua valenza positiva l’Ideologia appare come uno strumento proprio di unione per gli uomini, mentre in realtà li omologa o li esclude, e si tramuta irrimediabilmente in totalitarismo. Da qui si comprende il nesso inscindibile causa-effetto tra Ideologia come risposta politica ad una esigenza economica e sociale di una classe politica e/o sociale ed Ideologia come richiesta di ogni singolo uomo di risposte concrete rispetto al bisogno di certezze ed alla necessità di unione con gli altri uomini, di accettazione, di riconoscimento sociale, di approvazione. A tutto ciò il totalitarismo risponde ridefinendo l’uomo e, con esso, la società globale. Uomini con una profonda aspirazione al potere totale, hanno fatto dell’ideologia lo strumento su cui fondare la propria azione politica, sociale, economica, rispondendo concretamente ed 1 Istituisce la Leva militare obbligatoria, apre le fabbriche di armi, ed obbliga la popolazione ad avere la Macchina del Popolo. Hitler ottenne un grande sostegno da parte dei disoccupati, meno dagli operai organizzati (Hitler concede il primo maggio, il giorno dopo abolisce i sindacati). Impiegati, artigiani, piccoli agricoltori e contadini furono arruolati da Hitler durante la grande depressione (il loro sangue e la loro terra appartiene ora alla Germania e ne sono responsabili), nel ’33 erano così dalla sua parte, disillusi dal mondo, idolatrarono Hitler che gli donò CERTEZZE. 2 Con il suo carisma e con la Propaganda egli proclamò la nuova Germania. Diede un nuova speranza ai tedeschi. La Germania era ora un paese che poteva combattere contro i suoi nemici: Comunisti, Socialisti, Giornalisti fastidiosi, Ebrei. 3 La cultura tedesca venne epurata dalle sue tinture ebraico bolsceviche. I libri volarono nelle fiamme, gli scienziati fuggirono. 644 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth idealmente ai bisogni ed alle aspettative di popolazioni, classi sociali, gruppi etnici specifici. L’Ideologia ha dato soluzioni al malessere vigente, rispondendo ai bisogni primari della parte «significante» della popolazione: riducendo all’ignoranza il popolo, mantenendolo in una condizione di apparente appagamento materiale o di illusorio benessere, di protezione e di silenzio, di paura e ingannevole ordine, di maschere di benessere o povertà normalizzata. V. Pareto, parlando di ideologia, l’ha descritta, nel suo Trattato di sociologia generale, del 1923, come lo strumento fondamentale di manipolazione (e di automanipolazione) che le classi politiche usano per illudere sé stesse e gli altri, una razionalizzazione del proprio potere di fatto. Esistono non poche curiose contrapposizioni di idee e di testimonianze riferite alla Germania nazista: I giornalisti tedeschi dell’epoca del Nazismo affermano, in diverse interviste, di sentirsi liberi, totalmente liberi di scrivere ciò che volevano, dall’altra parte Gobbels nei suoi diari scrive: «La stampa pende dalle nostre labbra, ci ascoltano con la bocca aperta. Dobbiamo solo dirgli cosa scrivere e loro lo scriveranno». Parte della popolazione, compresi i giornalisti, erano pedine manipolate dal potere e dal suo carismatico dispotismo. Questa affermazione induce e produce una riflessione sul mondo contemporaneo, nel quale è possibile rintracciare dei rimandi, dei sintomi, dei segni o riscontri analoghi a quelli prodotti dalle ideologie che hanno sostenuto, mantenuto e dato respiro ai totalitarismi citati. I giovani Occidentali, sono cresciuti e crescono in una realtà fondata sul Sogno, su un desiderio, su una certezza impossibile, un comandamento, un diritto, una voce incessante, una frase tanto potente da essere divenuta endemica nella terra d’occidente, ed eletta a valore, ciò che oggi è stabilmente un Diritto Inalienabile Dell’uomo, si chiama Libertà! Noi Occidentali siamo Liberi! Liberi di chi, di cosa? Liberi da chi, da cosa? L’uomo occidentale contemporaneo è stato contaminato, contagiato, in parte avvelenato da questo ingannevole pensiero. E’, ora, opportuno far riferimento ad una questione fondamentale: dove affonda le sue radici questo Pensiero Occidentale? Esso è il prodotto del pensiero Liberale Protestante e di quello Illuminista Ateo. Il valore su cui oggi poggia la società Occidentale, il pensiero che intende esportare a livello Globale, è l’Ideale di Libertà, sancito da grandissimi pensatori, illuminati, filosofi, protestanti o illuministi atei4, ribadito dalla dichiarazione d’Indipendenza degli Stati Uniti5, dalla Declaration des droits de l’homme e du citoyen6, e pedissequamente ripreso nelle varie redazioni dei Diritti Umani. Nel Settecento l’uomo occidentale aveva bisogno di Libertà e rivendicava un’uguaglianza politica e sociale in un’epoca di esclusione e di fame. La libertà era un suo Bisogno Primario. Ha lottato per la sua libertà come gli Stati hanno lottato per l’indipendenza7. 4 Ricordiamo che: Locke(1632-1704), filosofo inglese, è precursore e ideatore del Liberalismo. I concetti fondamentali del suo pensiero sono i principi del liberalismo politico moderno, del quale é considerato il fondatore]. 5 Dichiarazione d’indipendenza ( Presidente Jefferson, 4 Luglio 1776) «Noi riteniamo che queste verità siano di per sé evidenti, che tutti gli uomini sono stati creati uguali e che sono dotati dal loro Creatore di certi inalienabili diritti fra i quali quelli alla vita, alla libertà e al perseguimento della felicità; che per salvaguardarli gli uomini si sono dati dei governi i quali derivano i propri giusti poteri dal consenso dei governanti». 6 Declaration des droits de l’homme e du citoyen (1789). Art. 1: «Gli uomini nascono liberi e uguali per diritti». Libertà, Uguaglianza, Fraternità, sono i principi cardini della Rivoluzione francese. 7 La storia ci insegna che nessuno Stato che ha lottato per la propria indipendenza ha mai perso 645 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth L’Uomo ha ottenuto una forma di libertà. Una libertà politica autentica ed auspicata. Ma all’oggi che senso ha perpetuare e pretendere di perseguire quella libertà, senza osservarne le evidenti criticità? Il nichilismo ed il relativismo odierni sono emblematici ed esorbitanti, nonché dominanti, sottoprodotti e/o coerenti e naturali esiti del pensiero dominante in Occidente del XIX secolo. Un pensiero che vendendo l’illusione di una libertà totale dell’uomo. Lo conduce oggi ad una solitudine totale, anzi globale. La definizione di Libertà è un punto cruciale e critico nella storia dei pensatori, dei filosofi, degli economisti, dei letterati, dei politici. Nessuno è riuscito a darne una definizione compiuta o perfetta. Se cerchiamo in un qualsiasi vocabolario la definizione del lemma «mela», siamo consapevoli di poterlo chiudere soddisfatti, se cerchiamo la definizione di Libertà, e siamo mossi da una grande curiosità, siamo certi di aprire una finestra che potrebbe non chiudersi mai. Ebbene, sebbene tutti i grandi pensatori, dagli albori ad oggi, si siano dedicati a definire questo ideale, e sebbene non ci siano riusciti, essi hanno elevato a Valore il pensiero ed il concetto di libertà, tutti vestendolo e spogliandolo secondo comodità, consumo, piacere8. Marx nella sua definizione di libertà sembra riprendere Hobbes, che afferma: «La mia libertà comincia dove finisce quella dell’altro», esprimendo un ideale di reciproco rispetto, fortemente democratico ed equo. [In antagonismo, tra l’altro, con il meno democratico: «La mia libertà finisce dove comincia quella dell’altro»] E’ veritiero questo motto ripetuto negli anni ed elevato a valore? Questa affermazione che ha preteso di educarmi? Inoltre, volendo diffondere il suo Ideale di Igiene, Sanità, Politica, Pace, Libertà, Famiglia, la nostra società esporta la sua solitudine, il suo egoismo, le sue malattie. Ma questa potenziale nuova Ideologia, che affonda le radici su una libertà che è utopia, che cosa propone? Cosa promuove, cosa prevede? Quali sono i sintomi che la accomunano e/o avvicinano, la assimilano alle Ideologie del secolo scorso? 1 - Contesto storico: Crisi culturale 2 - Manipolazione delle notizie, del modo di pensare, della cultura, della tradizione. 3 - Ridefinizione della natura dell’uomo 4 - Esclusivismo e Terrore, con l’identificazione di precise figure del male da eliminare. 5 – Rassicurazione, Unione, Certezze 6 - Autoreferenzialità 1 - Crisi culturale. Gli anni ‘60 e gli anni ‘70 sono stati caratterizzati da una forte Rivoluzione Sociale che successivamente, negli anni ’80 ha prodotto una Rivoluzione Culturale. 8 Hitler usa la propaganda per far sentire il popolo tedesco libero, lo ammalia, lo convince. Usa Gobbels ed i bisogni dei tedeschi, li fa sentire liberi ed uniti. Per Marx8 «la libertà è il diritto di fare ed esercitare tutto ciò che non danneggia nessun altro. I limiti entro i quali ognuno si può muovere senza danneggiare un altro sono stabiliti per legge, così come i confini tra due campi sono delimitati mediante un palo. Si tratta della libertà dell'uomo quale monade isolata e ritirata in sé stessa»8. 646 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth Sebbene la rivoluzione Sociale sia stata una reazione auspicabile a situazioni di fatto critiche, quali la condizione socio-culturale della donna, e la situazione contrattuale di alcune fasce sociali, la rivoluzione che ha preso vita successivamente ha messo in crisi un sistema valoriale sociale vecchio quanto l’uomo ed, a mio avviso, impresso nel bagaglio genetico dell’uomo. L’uomo è abbandonato a sé stesso, lentamente il valore della Famiglia va morendo. 2 - Manipolazione delle notizie, del modo di pensare, della cultura, della tradizione. Il mondo cambia e rincorre il mercato: negli anni ’60-’70 nasce un nuovo strumento legato indissolubilmente all’economia di mercato liberale, Il Marketing. Il marketing è uno strumento che permette all’uomo di leggere tra le righe, di comunicare ad altissima velocità, grazie ad immagini, spot, slogan, messaggi subliminali! Il Marketingsorretto da un’etica che si attualizza costantemente e continuamente è il mezzo ottimale per stimolare i sensi, agisce sulle percezioni, le veicola, nel bene come nel male, e purtroppo, nella maggior parte dei casi, Il Marketing è Creazione di Bisogni, il Marketing è manipolazione. Nasce negli anni ’70, nel momento in cui prende forma la figura del potenziale Consumatore. La popolazione Occidentale è una popolazione di Consumatori in attesa di nuovi bisogni, e particolarmente suscettibile alla manipolazione. Ogni giorno la tecnologia in corsa realizza prodotti che, grazie al marketing, trovano immediata risposta sul mercato (in media cambiamo un cellulare l’anno, chi più chi meno)9. Inoltre i messaggi proposti e imposti dai Mass media con il marketing, si sono subdolamente infiltrati in ogni strumento che produca comunicazione, non sono più solo manifesti, non sono più solo stampa, non sono più solo radio, non più televisione come non plus ultra, sono input, proposte, offerte, trasmessi tramite telefonini (sms e mms) e PC (grazie ad internet), con l’opportunità di realizzare prodotti e venderli in tempo reale da una parte all’altra del mondo! Le nuove tecnologie ed il marketing hanno sciolto il tempo di pensiero, di reazione, di riflessione, e distolgono l’attenzione dei lettori, degli ascoltatori, dei navigatori dall’informazione veicolandola su altri messaggi, più allettanti e stimolanti: emotivamente e sessualmente. L’uomo deve così fare i conti con un nuovo bisogno, il bisogno di ciò che vede, fuori da sé e per sé: Un corpo perfetto, una carriera vincente, l’ultimo prodotto di una determinata marca, un Amore televisivo globale, un sogno improprio ed irrealizzabile, una particolare esperienza sessuale, un vita facile e comoda, ma tutto ciò è parte di un’Ideologia che domina e distrae l’attenzione dell’uomo da ciò che conta, per ripiegarlo su sé stesso e sulla piccolezza dei suoi nuovi bisogni! Queste nuove opportunità di sperimentazione producono uno sfacciato quanto fasullo senso di estrema libertà ed induce alla riconsiderazioni di valori assoluti in virtù dell’assolutizzazione del relativismo prodotto dalla molteplicità di variabili desiderabili e realizzabili. Si può provare tutto, si 9«Il telefono cellulare negli ultimi anni si è diffuso rapidamente nelle famiglie italiane: secondo i dati dell’indagine “aspetti della vita quotidiana” nel 1997 le famiglie che dichiaravano di possederne almeno uno erano il 27,3% mentre nel 2000 sono quasi triplicate passando al 64,8%. I dati dell’indagine “I cittadini e il tempo libero” permettono invece di approfondire, a livello individuale, l’uso di tale mezzo di comunicazione. Nel 2000 più della metà della popolazione italiana di 11 anni e più utilizza il telefono cellulare (57,9%), con una diffusione su tutto il territorio nazionale quasi omogenea. Importanti sono le differenze di genere: il 64,9% degli uomini fa uso del cellulare contro il 51,3% delle donne ma queste differenze dipendono fortemente dall’età; tra i bambini e i ragazzi fino a 24 anni infatti la quota di donne che usa il cellulare è superiore a quella degli utilizzatori maschi ma, a partire dai 25 anni la situazione si capovolge e nelle età successive il divario diventa molto ampio» da Famiglia e società, ISTAT, 2002 Non so se ricordate che le pubblicità dei cellulari inizialmente vedevano figurare principalmente uomini adulti che utilizzavano il cellulare per motivi lavorativi, poi è arrivata Megan Gale! 647 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth può fare tutto, si può pensare tutto. Tutto è fattibile, nulla è giudicabile. Ognuno deve fare ciò che sente di volere o desiderare, affinché rientri nei limiti dettati dalla legge. Così la legge si adatta alla società, o meglio, al disgregamento della società e dei valori genetici ed innati dell’uomo. La legge Occidentale che vige negli Stati-Nazionali10 rispecchia l’uomo solo o l’uomo solidale? L’Ideologia dominante regna così sull’economia, sulla politica, sulla legge, sulla società… 3 – Ridefinizione della natura dell’uomo. Un’altra motivazione che mi induce ad individuare un’Ideologia dominante risiede nell’intento di ridefinire il concetto di Uomo e di natura Umana. Con il sintagma "scuola del sospetto", Paul Ricoeur pone l'attenzione su tre figure fondamentali della storia: Marx11, Nietzsche12 e Freud.13 Dalle tre testimonianze storiche emerge evidentemente il valore, il significato e la definizione dell’uomo di oggi. Siamo imbevuti di cultura psicanalitica al punto di credere di essere bisogni isolati, psiche e corpo da soddisfare nei suoi più profondi desideri. Di fatto, siamo liberi di farlo! Come buoni occidentali perseguiamo l’ideale di poter fare, ottenere, esperire tutto ciò che vogliamo, unicamente limitati dal diritto che anno dopo anno si modifica in funzione della delirante evoluzione sociale verso la più totale libertà dell’uomo di soddisfare i desideri innati, o bisogni procurati. Esiste infatti un marketing politico, fatto di figure retoriche e slogan, ma esiste anche un marketing socio-culturale che è l’immagine di perfezione che i media propongono all’occidentale medio. Si tratta di un’immagine fondata sulla Libertà dell’uomo e sul suo fondamentale bisogno di soddisfare tutti i suoi più autentici desideri, per raggiungere la felicità perfetta. Tale perfezione e felicità ideale, prevede e contemporaneamente pretende il SUCCESSO! Successo sociale, lavorativo, sessuale! L’uomo medio Occidentale, per sopravvivere deve essere PERFETTO sotto ogni punto di vista: Fisico, Psicologico, Lavorativo, Intellettuale e Sessuale. Questo compiacimento, può renderlo perfettamente felice o perfettamente egoista? Sicuramente Perfettamente omologato. Ma cosa sia davvero la felicità l’uomo occidentale non l’ha ancora capito. La chirurgia plastica sostituisce le diete e la cosmetica, sia per le donne, che per gli uomini. Non si può più essere solo intelligenti e disposti a tutto pur di raggiungere una stabilità, bisogna anche essere bellissimi. Osservando il mondo in cui vivo ed ho vissuto, avendone conosciuto ed esperito molte caratteristiche ed altrettanti valori, le molteplici aspettative e le rigide regole, avendone subito o scelto le declinazioni ed i ritmi; avendolo amato con passione, adattandomi ad esso ed alle sue regole ed avendolo altrettanto odiato con terrore e raccapriccio, rifiutandolo in assoluto; ho rifugiato la possibilità di cambiarmi in funzione di esso ed ho scelto di viverci senza pretendere di appartenergli, e di abitarlo con occhio critico ed animo speranzoso, radicata nell’incertezza di un 10 11 Marx afferma che la realtà più profonda coincide con la realtà economica. Tutti gli altri rapporti appartengo al primo strato e sarebbero secondari rispetto alla realtà superiore, che è l'economia 12 Nietzsche sostiene che il mondo abitato dagli uomini sia una favola, e che al di sopra di essa esiste una forza irrazionale ed assoluta che supera ogni altra forza, la "Volontà di potenza". 13 Freud osservando l'uomo, con l'ausilio della psicanalisi, evidenzia come le azioni degli uomini siano riconducibili alle loro pulsioni nascoste, rimosse dalla coscienza. 648 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth esistenza senza tempo definito, ed apparentemente senza scopo prestabilito. Si tratta di un’Ideologia riduttiva, che riduce l’uomo ed il suo valore. Nella società occidentale il sesso è venduto e svenduto. La donna che con la rivoluzione sociale degli anni ’70 sembrava aver acquistato un ruolo di rilievo nella storia del mondo, rivendicando i propri diritti e la propria libertà, si è resa tanto libera negli anni ’90 di divenire schiava di anoressia e bulimia, di un modello visivo vuoto, che la riporta alla condizione di Oggetto, in un mondo che la voleva troppo bella per essere vera, o troppo aggressiva ed in carriera per essere avvicinata. L’uomo, libero dalle responsabilità familiari, reduce del benessere, resta a casa fino alla fine degli studi ed al consolidamento della posizione lavorativo, quindi a tempo indeterminato, spesso fatica a realizzare la sfera affettiva della sua esistenza e si sfoga sul cibo, in palestre ultrastrutturate, cade in depressione, risulta incapace di sviluppare una sfera fondamentale della sua esistenza: l’affettività ed il connesso senso di responsabilità che procede dall’avere una famiglia a carico. La donna altrettanto snaturandosi posticipa la maternità in virtù di della carriera e del successo, della forma fisica. Finiamo in analisi ed assumiamo anti-depressivi Così dovremmo essere felici? Perché siamo Liberi! Liberi di stare soli con le nostre aspettative egoistiche! Ma siamo davvero così liberi, siamo davvero così Felici? L’amore non è più eterno, è emotività e pulsioni, deve aderire ad una formula pubblicitaria che rinnega, rifiuta e cancella il valore del sacrificio, della rinuncia, del dolore. Sacrificio, rinuncia e dolore sono valori obsoleti, esclusi, estromessi dal mondo occidentale che li nega. Così come rinnega la potenza e la forza dell’amore che non riducendosi a pulsione fisica e psicologica-emotiva, e superandosi tramite l’ascetica e la mistica, è, in realtà, azione creativa e continuamente in crescita ed in mutamento. Inoltre esiste una fascia debole di popolazione globale a cui l’ideologia non riconosce la natura umana, ma che relega alla condizione disumana, animale, ridefinendola ed escludendola, perseguitandola e ghettizzandola. 4 - Esclusivismo e Terrore, con l’identificazione di precise figure del male da eliminare. Questa Ideologia dominante ha costruito infatti muri sociali, psicologici e giuridici, grazie alla propaganda politica, all’identificazione del male in una persona o in un gruppo etnico, alla politice del Terrore. Si tratta così evidentemente di un pensiero escludente, selettivo, riduttivo, generico. Come per il Nazismo e lo Stalinismo ciò che esisteva fuori dall’Ideologia, e quindi dalla logica dell’idea, doveva essere eliminato, similmente avviene oggi. L’Ideologia identifica figure del male che intende perseguitare ed escludere e che usa nella produzione di Terrore. Il terrore, elemento fondamentale dei totalitarismi è all’oggi utilizzato nella realizzazione di questo moderno Totalitarismo. Non si tratta più di un terrore generato dall’interno, ma dell’identificazione del pericolo in un elemento esterno che non deve entrare nell’ideologisa dominante, perché dannoso, velenoso, nocivo. Questo nuovo Totalitarismo acquisisce valenze sociali, psicologiche e politiche, celandole con banali giustificazioni che aderiscono alla verità di cui necessita l’Occidentale medio per stare egoisticamente bene. 649 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth Di fatto oggi il male è identificato in figure fisicamente, culturalmente, socialmente ed affettivamente distanti dall’occidentale. Questa Ideologia ha inoltre le connotazioni dell’Imperialismo, tali prerogative si concretano nella ricerca e nel perseguimento di un ordine Internazionale, proprio come cita la Dichiarazione d’Indipendenza degli Usa. Si tratta di una forma particolare di Imperialismo, un occupare distruggendo tutto ciò che è diverso e che viene identificato con il male, ed della sostituzione del diverso con il modello occidentale. Se da un lato questa Ideologia supera le frontiere nazionali, continentali, Globali («andiamo a fare il culo a E.T.»), con un Imperialismo globale, è anche vero che tale atteggiamento è nelle mani di pochi potenti che guidano il destino del mondo, affascinando e distraendo la popolazione con pubblicità e messaggi subliminali celati Ovunque. Messaggi che ci induco a temere il diverso ed a ripiegarci sui nostri, sempre nuovi, bisogni. 5 – Rassicurazione, Unione, Certezze Questa Ideologia dominante porta con sé l’impressione di soddisfare il bisogno dell’uomo, che gia come affermava Rousseau14, ha bisogno di unirsi agli altri uomini, ha necessità di un’unione oltre sé stesso, quindi si associa, si omologa ad un gruppo, si lega ad un ideale che lo unisce agli altri dai quali si sente accolto, accettato, rispettato. L’Ideologia che ci domina, ci rassicura: Adam Smith parlando delle condizioni di vita, aveva esaminato funzionamenti quali il problema dell’uomo di vergognarsi di apparire in pubblico, ed aveva altresì osservato come i beni necessari a soddisfare questo bisogno (abbigliamento, oggettistica, gioielli, ecc…) procedessero dalle consuetudini sociali e culturali di un determinato gruppo. Così per Smith, la capacità delle merci di attuare benessere permettendo all’uomo di apparire in pubblico, attribuisce agli stessi beni materiali uno specifico valore economico, adatto al relativo valore sociale. Quindi il soddisfacimento di quell’esigenza, rassicura. La persona, in tal modo ha l’impressione di essere accolta ed accettata, perché omologata al gruppo. L’Occidente è anche questo, è risposta ad un’altra utopia, il bisogno dell’uomo di essere accettato nel suo piccolo gruppo ristretto, secondo lo standard del gruppo. Persi nel nostro piccolo bisogno di accettazione, in un mondo che crolla nella solitudine e nella depressione, non siamo più in grado di alzare la testa. Siamo tanto distratti dai nostri piccoli passi, che ci guidano sulla strada del Successo Personale da non essere in grado di vedere oltre noi. Il mondo respira intorno a noi e noi siamo tanto liberi da farci fatti nostri! Di ricercare la nostra soddisfazione e la nostra Felicità! Così oggi la nostra libertà politica ci permette di scegliere di non votare, e non ci andiamo. La popolazione che vota è anziana. I giovani non votano! I politici sono tutti anziani! Smarriti tra relativismo e nichilismi, affondiamo in un egoismo cieco. Tutto diviene talmente relativo innanzi alla libertà totale, per cui tutti siamo liberi di fare ciò che vogliamo (solo apparentemente, perché in determinati ambienti se non possiede le cose giuste stai a disagio), da rendere nulla giudicabile, tutto possibile. 14 "Trovare una forma di associazione che difenda e protegga con tutta la forza comune la persona e i beni di ciascun associato, e per la quale ciascuno, unendosi a tutti, non obbedisca tuttavia che a sé stesso, e resti libero come prima". Questo è il problema fondamentale a cui il contratto sociale dà la soluzione. Le clausole di questo contratto [...] ci riconducono tutte ad una sola: cioè l'alienazione totale di ciascun associato con tutti i suoi diritti a tutta la comunità. Infatti, innanzi tutto, poiché ciascuno si dà tutto intero, la condizione è uguale per tutti. Inoltre l'alienazione è fatta senza riserve, l'unione è la più perfetta possibile, non resta a nessuna associato niente da rivendicare'', Il Contratto Sociale J.J. Roussau. 650 Metaphysics 2006 – j. Metaphysics ‐ Workshop for Youth 6 – Autoreferenzialità. In tutto ciò esiste una profonda falda, una crepa, un buco nella maglia, che definisce e sottolinea la fragilità di tale ideologia vigente: L’autoreferzialità del pensiero, che regge solo perché l’uomo è troppo distratto e preso da sé stesso per mettere in dubbio il sistema concettuale vigente, ed ad essere predilige il comodo relativismo o l’egoistico nichilismo. Conclusione Personalmente penso che la natura dell’uomo sia Spirituale, che si tratti di una realtà spirituale dotata di corpo e di una specifica psicologia, entrambe educabili da uno Spirito Maturo, curato, coltivato. Credo che la natura dell’uomo sia poi caratterizzata, se non definita dalla presenza Divina. Tale realtà umana Spirituale non può che riedificare l’uomo, che non ha bisogno di unirsi perché è nato unito a Dio, ed è costantemente chiamato alla consapevolezza di tale unione, che lo fonde ad ogni altro uomo, di cui è parte e partecipe. Questa non è Ideologia, è Fede. E tale fede non riduce l’uomo, ma lo apre all’infinito, nella fusione con l’Assoluto e con ogni altro uomo. Non esiste esclusione, perché tale consapevolezza impone l’accoglienza di ogni uomo ad ogni uomo, perché parte imprescindibile di sé. Tale Fede non comporta aspetti violenti, perché altrimenti non sarebbe ciò che è, ma cadrebbe nel fanatismo di una mente malata. La fede è incertezza, pace, speranza e fiducia nell’uomo. Non è paura del diverso, non è identificazione del male nell’altro, ma procede dall’amore e vive di esso in maniera creativa ed in continuo mutamento, crescita. Ne abbiamo testimonianza in figure che hanno invertito i cicli storici ed hanno segnato con Grandi gesti gli animi degli uomini che li hanno incontrati, con il loro esempio di perfezione nell’Amore: i Santi, i martiri. L’unica perfezione per cui viviamo è, così, la perfezione nell’Amore, un amore che è eternizzabile, che nel suo essere sacrificio, rinuncia e dolore è anche grazia e pienezza, eterna creatività. E l’unica Libertà concessa è quella Spirituale, che ci rende parti del tutto e capaci di tutto. Nell’amore che si alimenta della fede in Cristo e della sua perfezione nella via che conduce al padre, non esistono limiti egoistici, perché siamo responsabili e corresponsabili gli uni degli altri, perché l’Amore ci rende tali e ci chiama a questo: ad essere parte gli uni degli altri, partecipi di un unico destino e di un’unica storia. E finché da tutto questo rifuggiamo, rinneghiamo ciò per cui siamo nati e l’unica cosa che ci può rendere pieni e donare pace. 651 Metaphysics 2006 – Author Index Author Index ACOSTA AIDE, SANTIAGO, PROBLEMAS DE TEORÍA LITERARIA DESDE UN ENFOQUE ONTOLÓGICO DE LA ESTÉTICA, Metaphysics and Ethics ANDREACCHIO, MARCO, CHAN BUDDHISM: THE UNCONVENTIONAL EDUCATION OF THE METAPHYSICIAN, Metaphysics and Mysticism APARICIO GARRIDO, JULIÁN, METAFÍSICA DE LA PSICOLOGÍA HUMANA, Metaphysics and Personhood ARANILLA, MAXELL L., THE METAPHYSICS OF LOVE IN DEUS CARITAS EST, Metaphysics and Mysticism ARVIGO, EMMANUELA, IDEOLOGIA E VERITÀ, Metaphysics - Workshop for Youth BAÇ, MURAT, TRUTH RETURNS: FACTUALISM WITH A HUMAN FACE, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science BADILLO, ROBERT, RIELO’S ELEVATES ST. TERESA’S EXPERIENTIAL MYSTICISM TO PURE ONTOLOGY, Metaphysics and Mysticism BAHDANAU, VITALI, ZWEI GRUNDSTEINE DER METAPHYSIK: PLATONISCHE IDEEN UND HEGELS ABSOLUTE, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science BELFIORE, FRANCESCO, REALITY AS AN EVOLVING TRIAD. MADE OF INTELLECT, SENSITIVENESS AND POWER, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture. BERNASCONI, REMO, MR. R AND METAPHYSICS. THE CAT AND SELF-REALIZATION, STORIES OF MR. R., Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture BERTINI, DANIELE, LA RILEVANZA METAFISICA DELLA LUCE, Metaphysics and Mysticism BORDAT, JOSEF, GELÂZENHEIT. DIE ERFAHRUNG DER EINHEIT MIT GOTT BEI MEISTER ECKHART, Metaphysics and Mysticism BROWN, HUNTER, SCIENCE AND METAPHYSICS IN THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN DEBATE, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science BROWN, MONTAGUE, METAPHYSICS AND FREEDOM IN THE THOUGHT OF THOMAS AQUINAS, Metaphysics and Personhood BUCALO, DANIELA, L’IMPORTANZA DI CREDERE NEI PROPRI SOGNI. LA FORZA DI PERSEVERARE NEL PROPRIO IDEALISMO, Metaphysics - Workshop for Youth BUGOSSI, TOMASO, METAFISICA ANTROPICA: IL PENSIERO OPERANTE E L’AGIRE CONTEMPLANTE, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture CABANA MORALES, MARÍA ANGELES, DOLOR E INDIVIDUACIÓN EN EL BUDISMO HINAYANA, Metaphysics and Mysticism CARERI MUSICÒ, ANNALISA, S. AMBROGIO E IL DE MISTERIIS (IL MISTERO DIVINO), Metaphysics and Mysticism CASADO, ÁNGEL, DIÁLOGO, EDUCACIÓN Y DESARROLLO MORAL, Metaphysics and Education CIPRIANI, GERALD, CULTURAL EXPERIENCE AFTER METAPHYSICS: ON THE THOUGHTS OF NISHIDA KITARÔ, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture CORTÉS-BOUSSAC, ANDREA, LA CUESTIÓN ¿QUÉ ES METAFÍSICA? EN HEIDEGGER Y LATINOAMÉRICA, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture Metaphysics 2006 – Author Index D'AMICI, DANIELA, DIO - LUCE, UOMINI - LUCE E UOMINI - OMBRA. PRINCIPIO DI REALTÀ E PRINCIPIO DI SANTITÀ, Metaphysics and Mysticism DE ANDREIS, SIMONE, "UOMO POLIEDRO" E "UOMO UNIDIMENSIONALE" NELLA METAFISICA ANTROPICA, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture DE BLACQUIÈRE-CLARKSON, Richard, A NATURALISTIC COUNTEREXAMPLE TO MEREOLOGICAL EXTENSIONALITY?, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science DE GIORGI, DEBORAH, IL DIALOGO: ESPRESSIONE MASSIMA DELLA NATURA UMANA, Metaphysics - Workshop for Youth DE LAURENTIIS, ALLEGRA, LA SOLUZIONE ARISTOTELICA DEL DUALISMO DA PARTE DI HEGEL, Metaphysics and Personhood DELFINO, ROBERT A., RACE, ETHNICITY, AND PERSONAL IDENTITY IN THOMISTIC METAPHYSICS, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture DÍAZ TORRES, JUAN MANUEL, PERSONA Y TIEMPO. METAFÍSICA Y PEDAGOGÍA DE LA INTERIORIDAD, Metaphysics and Education DOKPO, KODJO, SOME METAPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE POSSIBILITY OF HUMAN REPRODUCTIVE CLONING, Metaphysics and Ethics DRAGO, ANTONINO, METAPHYSICS IN LANZA DEL VASTO'S THINKING, Metaphysics and Mysticism DUPONCHEELE, JOSEPH, GENETIC METAPHYSICS AND RELATIONAL ONTOLOGY, TWO TWIN SISTERS, Metaphysics and Mysticism EBERL, JASON T., AQUINAS AND VARIETIES OF DUALISM, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture FESTIN, M. LORENZ MOISES J., THE FUNDAMENTALITY OF THE PRAXIS-POIÉSIS DISTINCTION IN ARISTOTLE’S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, Metaphysics and Ethics FRANCESCOTTI, ROBERT, PERSON ESSENTIALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF VAGUENESS, Metaphysics and Personhood FRISINA, PIERLUIGI, C’È QUALCUNO AL DI SOPRA DEL PIANO?, Metaphysics - Workshop for Youth GOOCH, AUGUSTA, ONTOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF FLOURISHING LIVES: A CRITIQUE OF EDITH STEIN, Metaphysics and Personhood GUIU ANDREU, IGNACIO, EL ITINERARIO METAFÍSICO DE SANTO TOMÁS, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture HANCOCK, CURTIS L., PLOTINUS’ ANSWER TO CENTRAL QUESTIONS IN CLASSICAL ONTOLOGY, Metaphysics and Mysticism HANCOCK, CURTIS L., POSTMODERN IDOLS OF THE EDUCATION TRIBE: THE ABOLITION OF EDUCATION, Metaphysics and Education HANLEY, CATRIONA, LEVINAS AND ARISTOTLE ON PEACE: A METAPHYSICAL DEPARTURE, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture HANSEN, HELMUT, METAPHYSICS AS A PHYSICAL SCIENCE .A PERSONAL REPORT, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science HEIKES, DEBORAH K., WHAT WAS I THINKING? THE NEED FOR TRANSCENDENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS, Metaphysics and Personhood Metaphysics 2006 – Author Index FERNÁNDEZ HERNÁNDEZ, JESÚS, MENSAJE DE APERTURA, and DISCURSO DE CLAUSURA DEL III CONGRESO DE METAFÍSICA, Opening And Clossing Session ISLAM, SIRAJUL, SUFI METAPHYSICS: AN APPRISAL IN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture JARAMILLO, ALICIA, FAITH AND REASON IN AQUINAS AND HEGEL: A FUNDAMENTAL DIVERGENCE, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science KAPUS, JERRY, REALISM, TRUTH, AND OBJECTIVITY, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science KHALILOVA, NARMIN, THE ISSUE OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD, Metaphysics and Global Development KIM, JOONSUNG, CARVING UP CAUSAL STRUCTURE, Metafisica e Scienze Sperimentali KOBOW, BEATRICE, IDEATION, RATIONALITY AND COLLECTIVE INTENTIONALITY: BASIC SKILLS FOR A SOCIAL ONTOLOGY, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science KUZMIN, ALEXSANDER, DIE TRANSVERSALE VERNUNFT IN DER MODERNE DISKURSIVE SITUATION DER METAPHYSIK, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science LARA NIETO, MARIA DEL CARMEN, DESDE LA HERMENÉUTICA FILOSÓFICA DE H.-G. GADAMER UNOS APUNTES A LA FILOSOFÍA DE BALTASAR GRACIÁN, Metaphysics and Education LONGSHORE, JACOB, THE SINCERITY-RELATION IN THE WORK OF ART, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture LÓPEZ SEVILLANO, JOSÉ MARÍA, FUNCIÓN MÍSTICA Y ESTÉTICA DE LA METAFÍSICA RIELIANA, Opening and Closing Session LORD, TIMOTHY C., A REHABILITATION OF IDEALISM: R. G. COLLINGWOOD’S 1935 LECTURES ON “REALISM AND IDEALISM”, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science MANTOVANI, MAURO, METAPHYSICS AND HISTORY. THE PERSPECTIVE OF TOMMASO DEMARIA, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture MENEGHETTI, ANTONIO, PSICOLOGIA EPISTEMICA E METAFISICA: DALL’ONTOLOGIA ALL’ONTOPSICOLOGIA, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science MOLLO, GIACOMO, ONTOLOGICAL AS REGULATIVE. ON THE USE OF METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM AS REGULATIVE PRINCIPLE FOR SOCIAL SCIENCES, Metaphysics and Global Development NOBILE, ITALO, L’ELIMINAZIONE DELLA METAFISICA DI RUDOLF CARNAP, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture NOROUZI, HOSSEIN, CAUSALITY IN GAZZALI AND HUME'S VIEW, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture NOZIGLIA, ANNALISA, LA METAFISICA ANTROPICA:UOMO CENTRO DELL’ASCOLTO, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture OBEN, FREDA MARY, EDUCATION’S ROLE IN SPIRITUAL FORMATION, ACCORDING TO EDITH STEIN, Metaphysics and Education PABST, ADRIAN, POST-SECULAR METAPHYSICS AND ETHICS. A REPLY TO TED RYAN, Metaphysics and Ethics PANKIN-SCHAPPERT, HELKE, THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN METAPHYSICAL TRUTH AND THE KNOWING SOUL IN ANCIENT AND EARLY MODERN THINKING (PLATO AND DESCARTES), Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science Metaphysics 2006 – Author Index PELMAN, ALIK, AN OUTLINE FOR A GENERAL THEORY OF INTENSIONS, Metaphysics and Global Development PÉREZ ZAFRILLA, PEDRO JESÚS, ¿ES POSIBLE UNA LEGITIMACIÓN METAFÍSICA DEL ESTADO MODERNO?, Metaphysics and Ethics POSSENTI, VITTORIO, INTERIORITÀ ESTATICA, AMORE, COMUNICAZIONE. SVOLGIMENTI DEL PERSONALISMO ONTOLOGICO, Metaphysics and Personhood RAGA ROSALENY, VICENTE, MIRCEA ELIADE: POÉTICA Y METAFÍSICA, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture REHM, PATRICIA, HOW TO DEAL WITH DESPAIR ROMANO GUARDINI’S REFLECTION ON MELANCHOLY, Metaphysics and Personhood RICO, JAVIER, DESDE LA BINIDAD DEL MODELO GENETICO A LA CUMBRE DE LA CONTEMPLACION DIVINA SEGUN LA MÍSTICA DEL ISLAM, Metaphysics and Mysticism ROCKMORE, TOM, METAPHYSICS AND VIOLENCE: RELIGION, ECONOMICS IN 9/11, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture RODRÍGUEZ GUERRO, ANGEL, ETICA Y METAFÍSICA EN TORNO A LA HUMANIZACIÓN DE LA SALUD, Metaphysics and Ethics ROSENTHAL, SANDRA B., PRAGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE ISSUE OF FOUNDATIONS, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture CARD. RUINI, CAMILLO, SALUTO AL TERZO CONGRESSO MONDIALE DI METAFISICA, Opening and Closing Session RYAN, EDWARD SCOTT, METAPHYSICAL CRIMINOLOGY: CHOSINNESS AND NAZI TRANSCENDENCE WITHOUT THE TRANSCENDENT, Metaphysics and Criminology SALINAS, FEDERICO, THE ACHILLES HEEL OF SCHOPENHAUER’S AESTHETIC THEORY, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture SAMET-PORAT, IRIT, EVIL AS PRIVATION – FROM ONTOLOGY TO METAETHICS, Metaphysics and Ethics SÁNCHEZ BENÍTEZ, ROBERTO, LA RESPONSABILIDAD ILIMITADA POR EL OTRO, Metaphysics and Ethics SÁNCHEZ FRANCISCO, LUIS, FELICIDAD Y PSICOLOGÍA POSITIVA (FUNDAMENTOS METAFÍSICOS), Metaphysics and Personhood SCHAUB , MIRJAM, CRUELTY AND METAPHYSICS. ON THE LOGIC OF TRANSGRESSION, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture SCHWANAUER, FRANCIS, FEYNMAN'S "QUANTUM WEIRDNESS", A MISNOMER, PROVES MOMENTUM OF A POSITION A MATTER OF REPRESENTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science SCLIPPA, NORBERT, PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS IN SADE, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture SEBASTIANI, FABRIZIO, DARWIN E GÖDEL: QUANDO LA SCIENZA AIUTA LA FEDE, Metaphysics - Workshop for Youth SERONELLO, MONICA, LE PRIME COMUNITÀ CRISTIANE E LA SOCIETÀ DI OGGI, Metaphysics - Workshop for Youth SHEN, AIMIN, REFLECTIONS ON SILENCE AND MYSTICISM IN THE TRACTATUS, Metaphysics and Mysticism Metaphysics 2006 – Author Index SIBEL, KIBAR, AN ANALYSIS OF PHENOMENOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF THE “MASTER-SLAVE DIALECTIC”, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture STANLEY, TIMOTHY, HEIDEGGER’S HIDDEN THEOLOGY: REVISITING MARTIN LUTHER’S INFLUENCE UPON MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Metaphysics and Mysticism STATILE, GLENN, FREE WILL AND ITS DISCONTENTS, Metaphysics and Personhood STELLINO, PAOLO, LA TRASVALUTAZIONE NIETZSCHEANA DEL CRIMINALE IN SEGUITO ALLA MORTE DI DIO, Metaphysics and Criminology SURKOVA, LIUDMILA, SCIENTIFIC RATIONALITY: CHANGING OF PARADIGM (QUANTUM RATIONALITY AS RATIONALITY OF BEING), Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science TAHKO, TUOMAS, METAPHYSICS IN NATURAL SCIENCE, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science TESZLER, LUCIA ANGELA, LA MORTE E LA RELIGIONE IN C.G.JUNG, Metaphysics and Mysticism VAN BUUREN, JASPER, METAPHYSICAL DESIRE AND EXPRESSIVENESS TAKING PLESSNER’S PHILOSOPHY TO ITS BOUNDARIES, Metaphysics and Education VENTURINHA, NUNO, METAPHYSICS AND NONSENSE IN THE EARLY WITTGENSTEIN ,Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science VENZA, COLETTA, SI PUÒ PARLARE DI IDEOLOGIA DEL NUOVO MILLENNIO?, Metaphysics - Workshop for Youth WALSH, TERRANCE, BONUM EST CAUSA MALI. A PROBLEM AND AN OPPORTUNITY FOR METAPHYSICS IN THE THOUGHT OF THOMAS AQUINAS AND HEGEL, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture WEDMAN, TREVOR N., THE RULE OF LAW – TOWARDS A NORMATIVE CONCEPTION, Metaphysics, Law, and Society WHITE, DANIEL R., THE ART OF METAPHYSICS: NIETZSCHE, THE DEATH OF GOD, AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF LIFE, Metaphysics, Literature, Art, and Culture WOJCIESZEK, KRZYSTOF, SOURCES OF DESPERATION AS THE SOURCES OF NARCOTIC PROBLEMS, Metaphysics and Personhood