Metaphysics I

Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Introduction What is metaphysics? As part of the Protestant Reform, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, and with it metaphysics generally, fell, or was brought into, disrepute. The reason for this is a ‘paradigm-shift’ in the understanding of what it is for a thing to be what it is. Think for a moment yourself back into your childhood experience. Children often play by imagining that they are doctors, nurses, mothers, fathers, cowboys and Indians etc. Remember what happened what happened when you refused to ‘be’ what you were supposed to ‘be’ – say Indian. You challenged the authority of whoever had tacitly or aloud determined ‘what you were’. By this challenge you risked disrupting the game, if the other (or the others) was (were) not prepared to accept you as a cowboy. By challenging what you were, you thus challenged not only who was in charge of the game, and the integrity of the game itself. Of course change in leadership could happen without the game being disrupted – games indeed often are about that – but it all would depend on the parties involved. That is why you liked to play with some and not with others. Parents like their children to play, also because it is the best way for them to learn things that cannot be taught, but which are of absolute importance in life. The Protestants had challenged who they were (quasi subjects of the Pope), and who was in charge of the game (the Pope). They started playing a new game, in which they were the subjects of the Prince, who thus was in charge of the game. This is how the Europe of Nation-States became consolidated over a century (1536 – 1642). In so far as metaphysics had been the way in which ‘being’ was understood, explained and analyzed in the old game, it was now looked upon with suspicion. A suspicion, in fact, that in the case of Hobbes (Leviathan, IV, 46), grew to a condemnation of it as treacherous, because it gave the subjects of the Sovereign a way to know being (know what is) which were not dependent on his authority. Hobbes says metaphysics consists in right limiting of the most universal significations, such as body, time, place, matter, form, essence, subject, substance, accident, power, act, finite, infinite, quantity, quality, motion, action, passion “and divers others, necessary to the explaining of a mans Conceptions concerning the Nature and Generation of Bodies.”(p. 688). He also gives two senses to metaphysics: 1. It is the books written or placed in the work of Aristotle after his natural philosophy 2. But this gives rise to the Schools teaching them as supernatural philosophy. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library He then links metaphysics with anti-materialism (which he opposes) and with the affirmation of the existence of essences and souls as substantial forms. Hobbes’ politically founded rejection of metaphysics echoes into the general understanding of the subject. It is in fact generally understood to be: 1. It is something that can hardly be understood (dismissive definition). 2. It is about what is beyond the physical (popular definition). 3. It is what comes ‘after the Physics’ (Greek or Syriac editors’ definition); i.e. what is in the book, nicknamed ‘Meta-physics’, because it in the collected works of Aristotle was put after the book called the Physics. (The order of definitions corresponds to the degrees of familiarity with the subject). If metaphysics is the content of the books after the physics of Aristotle, we must ask what Aristotle himself thought he was dealing with in these books. He, in fact, gives another three definitions, which it would take another book to explain the identity of: 1. It is wisdom or knowledge concerning principles and causes (1/Α, 981b). 2. It is the science of being qua being (IV/Γ, 1005a14). 3. It is first philosophy, the common presupposition for the sciences (VI/Ε, 1025b1 − 1026a32). We can say: 4. It is about what is and its reasons (explanations, causes) 5. It is about: being το ον Aristotle substance ουσια explanation αιτιον, αρχη essence essentia Aquinas existence esse truth veritas actuality Wirkliches Stein potentiality Sein-können 6. And about: form, matter, temporality, causality, identity, identification and in general about the subjects of all the entries you find in Aristotle’s dictionary (V/Δ). Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Introduction continued. Metaphysics also being the content of the books that in the edition of Aristotle’s texts follow the books on physics (natural philosophy), how does Aristotle define his subject matter? He defines it in a threefold manner: 3. It is wisdom or knowledge concerning principles and causes (1/Α, 981b25-982a19). 4. It is the science of being qua being (IV/Γ, 1004a34−1005a17). 7. It is first philosophy, the common presupposition for the sciences (VI/Ε, 1025b1 − 1026a32). 1. Defining the subject-matter in relation to other branches of knowledge, and in relation to what is generally thought. We have said in the Ethics what the difference is between art and science and the other kindred faculties; but the point of our present discussion is this, that all men suppose what is called wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things. This is why, as has been said before, the man of experience is thought to be wiser than the possessors of any perception whatever, the artist wiser than the men of experience, the master-worker than the mechanic, and the theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the nature of wisdom than the productive. Clearly then wisdom is knowledge about certain causes and principles. Since then we are seeking this knowledge, we must first inquire of what kind are the causes and principles, the knowledge of which is wisdom. If we were to take the notions we have about the wise man, this might perhaps make the answer more evident. We suppose first, then, that the wise man knows all things, as far as possible, although he has not knowledge of each of them individually; secondly, that he who can learn things that are difficult, and not easy for man to know, is wise (sense-perception is common to all, and therefore easy and no mark of wisdom); again, he who is more exact and more capable of teaching the causes is wiser, in every branch of knowledge; and of the sciences, also that which is desirable on its own account and for the sake of knowing it is more of the nature of wisdom that that which is desirable on account of its results, and the superior science is more of the nature of wisdom than the ancillary; for the wise man must not be ordered but must order, and he must not obey another, but the less wise must obey him. (Where nothing else is indicated I use the Revised Oxford Translation) The wise man (1) knows things in general; (2) he can learn difficult (abstract) things; (3) teach what he has learnt as he grasps its principles; (4) knows what is worth knowing for its own sake, and (5) must therefore be obeyed. Such dealing with the principles and causes of things is what we consider characteristic of the wise man, therefore wisdom, which we here pursue (in the books later called Metaphysics), deals with principles and causes in this manner. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library 2. Defining the subject matter in relation to other philosophers’ understanding of philosophy. And it is the function of the philosopher to be able to investigate all things. (..) It is obvious then from these considerations too that it belongs to one science to examine being qua being. For all things are either contraries or composed of contraries, and unity and plurality are the starting-points of all contraries. And these belong to one science, whether they have or have not one common notion. (..) Obviously then it is the work of one science to examine being qua being, and the attributes which belong to it qua being, and the same science will examine not only substances but also their attributes, both those above named and what is prior and posterior, genus and species, whole and part, and the others of this sort. 3. Defining the subject in transit to the substance-books (7-9/ZHQ) We are seeking the principles and causes of the things that are, and obviously of things qua being. For there is a cause of health and good condition, and the objects of mathematics have principles and elements and causes, and in general every science which is ratiocinative or at all involves reasoning deals with causes and principles, exact or indeterminate; but all these sciences mark off some particular being – some genus, and inquire into this, but not into being simply nor qua being, not do they offer any discussion of the essences of the things of which they treat; but starting from the essence – some making it plain to the senses, others assuming it as a hypothesis – they then demonstrate, more or less cogently, the essential attributes of the genus with which they deal. It is obvious, therefore, from such a review of the sciences, that there is no demonstration of substance or of the essence, but some other way of revealing it. And similarly the sciences omit the question whether the genus with which they deal exists or does not exist, because it belongs to the same line of thought to show what it is and that it is. And since natural science, like other sciences, confines itself to one class of beings, i.e. to that sort of substance which has the principle of movement and rest present in itself, evidently it is neither practical or productive. For the principle of production is in the producer – it is either reason or art or some capacity, while the principle of action is in the doer – viz. choice, for that which is done and that which is chosen are the same. Therefore, if all thought is either practical or productive or theoretical, natural science must be theoretical, but it will theorize about such being as admits of being moved, and only about that kind of substance which in respect of its formula is for the most part not separable from matter. (..) That natural science, then, is theoretical, is plain from these considerations. Mathematics also is theoretical; but whether its objects are immovable and separable from matter, is not at present clear; it is clear however, that it considers mathematical objects qua immovable and qua separable from matter. But if there is something which is eternal and immovable and separable, clearly the knowledge of it belongs to a theoretical science, - not, however, to natural science (for natural science deals with certain movable things) nor to mathematics, but to a science prior to both. For natural science deals with things which are inseparable from matter but not immovable, and some parts of mathematics deals with things which are immovable, but precisely not separable, but embodied in matter; while the first science deals with things which are both separable and immovable. Now all causes must be eternal, but especially these; for they are the causes of so much of the divine as appears to us. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library I. Classical Metaphysics Aristotle’s understanding of being Whatever the status of the dictionary of Aristotle (Book D (Delta) or book V of the Metaphysics), it is a dictionary of Aristotelian terms of a profound systematic nature. Many terms used throughout the fourteen books of the Metaphysics are listed there in an order which may be systematic (it is not alphabetical). So also are some of the terms defining the subject matter of first philosophy (prw/th filosofi/a); the terms ‘principle’ (arxh\); ‘cause’ (ai)/tion) and ‘being’, (to\ o)/n). About being it is said that: In the long version, (using mostly Ross’ vocabulary) the term ‘being’ is said (le/getai) about: In short, (using mostly Hope’s vocabulary) being means: 1. Accidental, occasional or incidental being; being which is according to an occasion: kata\ sumbebhko/j. Something is said to be when it happens to be that way. If for example the musician is a builder, he is so occasionally because he only builds now and then. If he was building all the time, he would be a builder, and it would no longer be true to say that ‘the musician is a builder’, as he would no longer be a musician. It is not essential to a musician to build; not necessary for him to build in order to be what he is. 1. Accidental being, i.e. being, that happens to be. 2. Essential being, which is according to itself: kaq )au(to. Something is said to be what it is and this it would not be if it were not. Essential being is said in all the categories (kathgori/a – i.e. according to the agora, according to public accusation or judgement): for example a house is a substance, memory a quality, 3 a quantity. This is what the things are according to themselves, i.e. what they couldn’t be without to be what they are, what you could not abstract from them without abstracting their meaning, what they are necessarily. 2. Essential being, i.e. being that must be. 3. True being (a)lhqej); when we say that Socrates is intelligent we imply that it is 3. True being, i.e. being that is true Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library true that Socrates is intelligent. We use this sense of being when we claim that 2+2 is 4. 4. About either potentiality (du/namij) or actuality (e)ntelexeia) (or both). We say for example that Socrates is intelligent, both when he is awake and when he is asleep. Being thus can be either actual or potential, still being what it is. 4. Potentiality and/or actuality Perhaps we may understand that being has four ‘dimensions’, not four kinds. It is talked about in four ways: according to something else, according to itself, according to it being revealed to mind and according to it being actual or potential; present or future. Notes: Kategoria means ‘according to the agora’: according to the public pronouncements (originally accusation). Traditionally translated as a “predicate”; from pre-dicare - ‘saidabout’. The categories are kinds of essential being, kinds of predication. They are said about the thing according to itself, about the thing according to ”what it is for X to be one” (to\ ti/ h)=n [X] ei)=nai). (There is another (longer) list in Categories 1b25-27). Here they are listed as: What (τι εστι) What sort (ποιον) How much (ποσον) Relative to (προσ τι) Doing (ποιειν) Undergoing (πασχειν) Where (που) When (ποτε) A predicate is not necessarily an accident, though it can be. It is possible to predicate something essential about, say, being in this hall, namely that it is being in a place. When I say that being in a hall is being in a place I imply that it is true whether or not there is anyone. This means that the essence of a thing also is predicated of it, or, to put it another way, that substance is one of the categories. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Aristotle’s understanding of being, II Introduction to the ‘Substance-books’, VII/Z, 1 The ‘substance-books’ (VII/Ζ – VIII/Η – IX/Θ), are thought to be an independent treatise. Werner Jaeger and W.D. Ross both agree that Books I/Α, IX/Κ (1-9), XIII/Μ (9), XIV/Ν is the earliest form of the course (perhaps taught at the Lyceum over several years and edited by Eudemus). Observation will have it (according to H. Tredennick/Loeb edition) that Books I/Α, III/Β, IV/Γ, VI/Ε and (VII/Ζ – VIII/Η – IX/Θ), forms the later stage of the course, the rest of the material being from uncertain dates. Tredennick, indicating that Book V/Δ refers to terms not used in the Metaphysics, claims that the dictionary is “evidently a separate and earlier treatise” (p. xxxi). The opening sentence of Z, 1, seems to refer back to it: The term ‘being’ has several senses, which we have classified in our discussion of the number of senses in which terms are used (Revised Oxford Translation). It could, however, also refer back to the discussion of the many meanings of being in VI/Ε, 2: Now, a being as such may be in several ways. One of them, as we saw, is to be accidental; another to be true (nonbeing is to be false); besides these, there is the list of categories, that is, what, of what sort, how much, where, when, and anything else that ‘being’ as such may mean; also a being may be, as such, either potentially or actually (ROT). Book VI in fact form a kind of introduction to the substance-books. It argues that among the four senses of being only two are relevant for metaphysics, because it is the science of being qua being (e)pisth/mhj to\ o)\n h(= o)\n). These are being used about what things are in them selves (essential being) and being used about either potential or actual things. In fact accidental being and being as true has been disqualified during book VI/E, because there is no science of the accidental (of what happens to be), and being as true is not being qua being. So, if Metaphysics is, what book IV defines it to be, it must concern being as such (kaq )auto), whether as actuality (e)nergei/a|) or potential (duna/mei). In fact the reason why there is no science of the accidental is that there is no determinate potency we can know that produces them. The causes of accidents qua accidents escape us. But that we can know cannot be explained simply from being. That is why the question how it happens that we can combine and separate in thought – things required in order to know and understand truth – is separate from the question of being as being. This question has later been understood to be concerned with epistemology (from Aristotle’s word from science - e)pisth/mh). The start of Book VII/Ζ begins afresh, however. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library There are several senses in which a thing may be said to be, as we pointed out previously in our book on the various senses of words; for in one sense it means what a thing is or a ‘this’, and in another sense it means that a thing is of a certain quality or quantity or has some such predicate asserted of it (ROT). ‘Being’ has many meanings, as we have previously pointed out in our account of the various ways in which things are said. For ‘being’ means, on the one hand, what a thing is or a ‘this something’ [or subject]; on the other hand, it means that a thing is such, or so much, or any of the other types of predicates (Hope). The term ‘being’ has several senses, which we have classified in our discussion of the number of senses in which terms are used. It denotes first the ‘what’ of a thing, i.e. the individuality; and then the quality or quantity or any other such category (Tredennick, Loeb). To/ o)/n le/getai pollaxwj, kaqa/per dieilomeqa pro/teron e)n toi=j peri\ posaxw=j’ semai/nei ga\r to\ me/n ti/ e)sti kai\ to/de ti, to\ de\ poion h)\ poson h)\ tw=n a)/llwn e(/kaston tw=n ou(/tw kathgoroume/no\n. The two senses of being are not in any obvious way the two, which were left over from the discussion in book IV (essential and actuality/potentiality). It is as if Aristotle here attempts to explain what is central about being. Being is: 1. the ‘what’ (ti/ e)sti) and the ‘this’ (to/de ti) and 2. what is said about it according to the predications (κατηγοριαι). This distinction is between two senses of being as being, being kaq )a)uto/. It is made in the dictionary, but it is not the first distinction made, nor is it the most important. In the dictionary the contrast between essential and accidental being is first. But as we have discarded accidental being, being kata sumbebhkoj, we are now dealing with what things are in (or of) themselves, and what they are, are what they are, which makes them a this-something, of such and such a category. It is evident, says Aristotle, that it is the first of these senses, the ‘this-something’ which is the primary sense of being, the central one, because ‘sitting’, ‘at nine o’clock’, and ‘red’ are dependant on the being which sits, happens at nine and is red. This is why the being, being qua being, with which first philosophy is concerned, is substance (ou)sia), translated by Hope with ‘primary being’. Primary being, or substance, is primary in definition (και λογω), knowledge (και γνωσει) and time (και χρονω). What defines it is a predicate that states its essence, not any of its accidents. It is necessarily known before any of its accidents, as it identifies them as accidents. Hence the question ‘what is being (το ον)?’ is the question: ‘what is substance (ουσια)?’ This, in fact, is Aristotle’s decisive step away from Plato. He could have said that primary being is essential being, not a ‘this’. However, if predicates are to mean something, and not just anything, (cfr. IV/Γ, 4) they must be predicated about something, which is irrespective of what is predicated of it. This is substance. And to be what it is, it must be a ‘this’. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Aristotle’s Theory of Substance The start of Book VII/Ζ begins afresh. At the outset of the Substance-books, we are told: There are several senses in which a thing may be said to be, as we pointed out previously in our book on the various senses of words; for in one sense it means what a thing is or a ‘this’, and in another sense it means that a thing is of a certain quality or quantity or has some such predicate asserted of it (ROT). ‘Being’ has many meanings, as we have previously pointed out in our account of the various ways in which things are said. For ‘being’ means, on the one hand, what a thing is or a ‘this something’ [or subject]; on the other hand, it means that a thing is such, or so much, or any of the other types of predicates (Hope). The term ‘being’ has several senses, which we have classified in our discussion of the number of senses in which terms are used. It denotes first the ‘what’ of a thing, i.e. the individuality; and then the quality or quantity or any other such category (Tredennick, Loeb). To/ o)/n le/getai pollaxwj, kaqa/per dieilomeqa pro/teron e)n toi=j peri\ posaxw=j’ semai/nei ga\r to\ me/n ti/ e)sti kai\ to/de ti, to\ de\ poion h)\ poson h)\ tw=n a)/llwn e(/kaston tw=n ou(/tw kathgoroume/no\n. The two senses of being are not in any obvious way the two, which were left over from the discussion in book IV (essential and actuality/potentiality). Aristotle here attempts to explain what is central about being. He will later in the substance-books discuss substance as composed of form and matter (book VIII/H) and as actual or potential/ necessary or possible (book IX/Q) Being is: 3. the ‘what’ (ti/ e)sti) and the ‘this’ (to/de ti) and 4. what is said about it according to the predications (kathgoriai). This distinction is between two senses of being as being, being kaq )a)uto/. It is made in the dictionary, but it is not the first distinction made, nor is it the most important. In the dictionary the contrast between essential and accidental being is first. But as we have discarded accidental being, being kata\ sumbebhko/j, we are now dealing with what things are in (or of) themselves, and what they are, are what they are, which makes them a this-something, of such and such a category. It is evident, says Aristotle, that it is the first of these senses, the ‘this-something’ which is the primary sense of being, the central one, because ‘sitting’, ‘at nine o’clock’, and ‘red’ are dependant on the being which sits, happens at nine and is red. This is why the being, being qua being, with which first philosophy is concerned, is substance (ou)si/a), translated by Hope with ‘primary being’. Primary being, or substance, is primary in definition (kai\ lo/gw), knowledge (kai\ gnw/sei) and time (kai\ xro/n%). What defines it is a predicate that states its essence, not any of its accidents. It is necessarily known before any of its accidents, as it identifies them as accidents. Hence the question ‘what is being (to\ o)\n)?’ is the question: ‘what is substance (ou)si/a)?’ This, in fact, is Aristotle’s decisive step away from Plato. He could have said that primary being is essential being, not a ‘this’. However, if predicates are to mean something, and not just Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library especially; since they are the causes of what will be visible of things divine (tw=n qei/on). Hence there will be three speculative philosophies (filosofi/ai qeorhtikai/): mathematics, physics and theology (qeologikh/) – since it is obvious that if the divine is present anywhere, it is present in this kind of entity; and also the most honourable (timiwta/thn) science must deal with the most honourable class (ge/noj) of subject. three theoretical philosophies, mathematics, natural science, and theology, since it is obvious that if the divine is present anywhere, it is present in things of this sort. And the highest science must deal with the highest genus, …[no change of paragraph] The speculative sciences, then, are to be preferred to the other sciences, and ‘theology’ to the other speculative sciences. One might indeed raise the question whether the primary philosophy is universal or deals with some one genus or entity; because even the mathematical sciences differ in this respect – geometry and astronomy deal with a particular kind of entity (fusi/n ei)si/n) , whereas universal mathematics applies to all kinds alike. Then if there is some other substance (e(tera ou)si/a) besides those which are naturally composed (fu/sei sunesthkui/aj), physics will be the primary science; but if there is a substance which is immutable (a)ki/nhtoj), the science which studies this will be prior to physics and will be primary philosophy, and universal in this sense, that it is primary. And it will be the province of this science to study being qua being; what it is and what its attributes are which belong to it qua being. (Metaph. IV/G,1). so that the theoretical sciences are superior to the other sciences, and this to the other theoretical sciences. One might indeed raise the question whether first philosophy is universal, or deals with one genus, i.e. some one kind of being; for not even the mathematical sciences are all alike in this respect, – geometry and astronomy deal with a certain particular kind of thing, while universal mathematics applies alike to all. We answer that if there is no substance other than those which are formed by nature, natural science will be the first science; but if there is an immovable substance, the science of this must be prior and must be first philosophy, and universal in this way, because it is first. And it will belong to this science to consider being qua being – both what it is and the attributes which belong to it qua being. This is why the causes are the same in physics as in metaphysics. Metaphysics is prior to physics only in so far as another substance exists, which is immutable. The very fact, however, that the causes are eternal, places the investigation of them outside physics (dealing only with the changes of changeable things). Thus metaphysics is the science of principles and causes, and the first of these which is being as such. The various senses of substance The various candidates of substance The various causes of substance Provides us with linguistic variation, so that we can grasp the meaning of the word. Provides us with eidetic variation, so that we can grasp the essence of a thing. Provides us with ontological variation, so that we can know what a thing is. Gives us insight into language Gives us insight into essence Gives us insight into the real, whether physical or metaphysical Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Aristotle’s Metaphysics: an Overview We have seen that: 7. That first philosophy (metaphysics) is the science of being qua being. Tredennick: Ross: Hope: It is wisdom or knowledge concerning principles and causes (1/Α, 982a4) Since we are seeking this knowledge, we must inquire of what kind are the causes and principles, the knowledge of which I wisdom. It is wisdom (sofi/a) or rational knowledge (e)pisth/mh) concerning certain basic factors (a)rxa\j) and principles (ai)ti/aj). It is one science studying being qua being and the attributes inherent in it qua being (IV/Γ, 1005a14) Obviously then, it is the work of one science to examine being qua being, and the attributes which belong to it qua being It is a single science ( e)pisth/mhj ) that must view systematically ( qewrh=sai ) being as being and whatever belongs to it (u)pa/rxonta) as being It is first philosophy, one of the three speculative philosophies: theology (as distinct from mathematics and physics). It treats of the separable and immutable, and if there is such a substance, it will study that (VI/Ε, 1025b1 − 1026a 32) There must then be three theoretical philosophies, mathematics, natural science, and theology, (..) the first science deals with things which are both separable and immovable. (..) One might indeed raise the question whether first philosophy is universal, or deals with one genus (..). We answer that if there is no substance other than those which are formed by nature, natural science will be the first science. It is first philosophy (prw/th filosofi/a), one of the three speculative philosophies (filosofi/ai qeoretikai qeologikh/), as distinct from mathematics (maqhmatikh/) and physics (fysikh/). It treats of the separable (xwrista/) and immutable (a)ki/nhta), and if there is such a substance (ou)si/a), it will study that. 8. That being means accidental being, essential being, being as truth and actuality/potentiality. We have looked Aristotle’s understanding of being up in his ‘dictionary’ (Δ, 7), seeing that he accounts for four different ways that being is said to be, being κατα συμβεβεκοσ, being καθ’αυτο, being αληθεοσ and being δυναμισ or εντελεκεια. 9. That first philosophy cannot concern accidental being (because there can be no science of it), or being as truth, because being as being is not being as truth. 10. That first philosophy concerns being according to itself, being kaq )au/to\, essential being, being according to the categories, and that because substance is that about which everything else is said (or predicated), the question ‘what is being?’ really is the question: ‘what is substance?’. 11. We then looked up substance in the dictionary, and saw that its linguistic senses were: the bodily subject of predication, the immanent cause of a being, its dimensions or its essence. (Δ, 8). Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library As candidates for being as being (the ontological sense of being) Aristotle considers only essential being (being καθ’αυτο), which is on the one hand a ‘this’ (τοδε τι) and a ‘what’ (τι εστι), and on the other can be said according to the categories (Z, 1). Accidental being cannot be the object of a science, and being as truth is not being as being. So if metaphysics is to be the science of being as being, it must be about essential being whether potential or actual. However, among the categories, substance (τι εστι) is the most καθ’αυτο, or the most essential, as ‘sitting’, ‘at five o’clock’, ‘above the door’, are not independent beings, but are said about something else. They are said about – predicated of – an insect, for example. Because this being is first in definition, knowledge and time, the question ‘what is being?’ can be reduced to the question: ‘what is primary being?’; ‘what is substance?’ 12. Substance can be said to reside (essentially) in the substrate, the universal, the kind or the essence. (Z, 3). Substance cannot be the subject-matter because then it would not be separable (χοριστον). Not being identifiable as something, nothing could be predicated of it. Therefore it is more likely to be essence, genus or kind. 13. Substance can be explained in four ways: materially, formally, efficiently and finally (ontologically). But metaphysics is not only about being as being. It is about its causes and principles; explanations and origins. There are said to be four kinds of explanation: the material, the formal, the efficient and the final. It happens that there are several causes of the same thing; of being as being, as well as things’ coming-to-be (Phys. II, 3), there can be four kinds of causes. What of origins (αρχη) or the principles of being as being? All causes are beginnings in this sense. Of all them, there must be a first (α, 2). For there to be matter, there must be prime matter; for there to be form, there must be a form of forms; for there to be generation, there must be a source; and for there to be finality, there must be an end. Metaphysics treats of the separable (χοριστα) and immutable (ακινητα), and if there is such a substance (ουσια), it will study that (10 26a 30). So is there such a substantial principle explaining the why of being qua being? Aristotle thinks it is the thought that thinks itself (Λ/XII, 7), whereas the unmoved mover explains movement. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library What Happened as Metaphysics was Christianized? Hildegard von Bingen: The First Principle What is the In Principio? To know its essence, we may investigate its causes (explanatory factors): Materially: A poem recorded in the Riesencodex, copied and assembled at Rupertsberg Benedictine Convent, headed by Hildegard, probably in the last years of her life (1177 – 79). The final hymn of Ordo Virtutum, corresponds to the final ‘audision’ of Scivias (1151). Scivias (‘Know the ways!’ concerns the history of salvation, and is the first volume of Hildegards Trilogy, also comprising Liber Vitae Meritorum (concerning subjective salvation) and Liber Divinorum Operum (concerning objective or cosmic salvation). As these two last are exegesis of the last ‘audision’ of Scivias, Ordo Virtutum constitutes the center of Hildegard’s work. Scivias comprises three books: ‘The Creator and Creation’, ‘The Redeemer and Redemption’ and ‘The History of Salvation Symbolized by a Building’. The thought – though visionary – is therefore systematic or archetectonic (in a way even Aristotle’s had not been). Each chapter of the books is an exegesis of a vision, described at the beginning and accompanied by an illustration carried out by one of her sisters during her lifetime. (The illuminations of the two later works Liber Vitae Meritorum and Liber Divinorum Operum are finalised after Hildegard’s death, after the written descriptions of the visions.) The illuminations shown from Scivias are the visions entitled: Introduction: These are true visions flowing from God Book One: 1. God enthroned shows himself to Hildegard 2. Creation and the Fall 3. The Universe and its symbolism 4. Soul and Body 6. The Choirs of Angles Book Two: 1. The Redeemer 2. The Trinity 3. The Church, Bride of Christ and Mother of the Faithful 6. Christ’s Sacrifice and the Church 7. The Devil Book Three: 1. God and Man (The Fallen Stars) 11. The Last days and the Fall of the Antichrist 12. The new Heaven and the New Earth Formally: Harmony (music is the sounding of the perfect numbers of the universe and the soul reflecting it. Disorder produces noise, not music), even cosmic harmony. Efficiently: Written by Hildegard von Bingen no later than 1170, to be performed by her Benedictine sisters for the benefit of their relatives and guests, according to how it was Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library ‘seen’ in a vision (audision). Brought to us by Sequentia, a German ensemble dedicated to the restauration of medieval music. Finally: An explanation of Ordo Virtutum, Scivias and Liber Divinorum Operum and of ‘what was in the Beginning’, of the First Principle. Ordo Virtutum concerns the soul who, presenting its candidature to become virtuous, fails because the toil of remaining harmonious in their harmonious company proves too difficult. She falls into the embrace of the devil who shouts ‘fatue, fatue quid prodest tibi laborare? Respice mundum, et amplectetur te magno honore’. When the soul, desirous of the company of the virtues, repents, the queen of the virtues, Humilitas, reminds her that her identity is that of the beloved, and promises that the virtues will help her. The devil presents another assault when he discovers the virtues in the company of his prey, accusing the virtues of not knowing who they are and what they cultivate (tu nescis quid colis (..) unde nesquis quid sis!). The virtues thereafter present who they cultivate (God) and themselves to the soul one by one, encouraging her to enter their society, that she may defend herself against the devil and finally reject him. The last hymn is the final harmony, which sums up ‘what was in the beginning’, and hence what has happened, and how and why. For Aristotle the first principle is the thought that thinks itself because (XII/Λ, 7): • Thought is the highest activity, and the good moves without being moved • Thought is most intelligible and best, when it is identified with its object • The highest object which the highest activity may have is therefore itself • We participate in this when we think, and better when we think about the highest object This Greek insight is assimilated already by John 1,1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Εν αρξη ην ο λογοσ, και ο λογοσ ην πρ οσ τον θεον, και θεοσ ην ο λογοσ. John expresses Aristotle’s insight that everything there is, is intelligible in its definition (lo/goj), which is what a substance (ou)si/a) has, integrating its genus and species. Substance is essentially intelligible. And this is God. Hildegard expresses John’s insight, expressing Aristotle’s, in the commentary on the prologue of St. John (Liber Operum Divinorum, visio 1 - 4). I am is ‘Beginning of beginnings’, ‘Reason of reasons’, ‘Form of forms’, ‘Harmony of harmonies’, ‘Life of life’. In I am Man is with God the principle of the universe. When Aristotle is rediscovered and translated after 1200 the similarity of its insights and those of Christianity fascinates and frightens. The very difficulty with which Aristotle is assimilated in the Christian West is the reason why it becomes impossible to separate the two later. A welding occur which makes it difficult to reject one without affecting the other. Modern science had a hard time replacing Aristotle’s physics, Luther purged Christianity from philosophy, and ‘anti-metaphysics’ rejects essentialism as a kind of dogmatism, but no stream of thought has yet managed to separate the two out from one another. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library II. Christian Metaphysics Thomas Aquinas: De ente et essentia Aristotle showed that being is primarily substance, and that there are four candidates for substance (matter, υποκειμενον, essence, το τι εν ειναι, universal, καθολου, and genus, γενοσ), whereof we investigated only two, namely matter and essence. But the universal and the genus were, like matter and essence, said to be the substance of the particular. This is still the problem of Aquinas: what is being? The First Principle in the Christian culture (through the Moslem and Jewish adaptations) had been re-identified as a God of which a story was told (the Greek gods were known through their mythical accomplishments, but Aristotle’s God was not). It was hence part of popular culture and ethics, as well as of social, legal and political organization, illustrated by Hildegard’s In Principio. In what way was that to affect Aristotle’s quest for being and primary being, i.e. for the enterprise of metaphysics? In one way not so very much, as philosophical terms, problems and solutions remain largely identical throughout different historical circumstances. In another way profoundly, as a new coherence seems to consolidate the Aristotelian ideas into a system, the principle of which is the tri-personal God expressing himself through His Word and Love in Creation as well as Redemption. The terms, problems and solutions of de ente et essentia are largely the same as those of Aristotle. Thomas distinguishes between two senses of being (attributing this distinction to Aristotle’s V/Δ, 7, where four senses of being, as we have seen, are distinguished, not two): the being (ens) of the categories and that expressed in a true statement. When we discuss essence, we discuss, according to Aristotle, an account that defines the essence without containing it (VII/Ζ, 4). E.g. the human being is a rational animal. Here we combine a genus (animal) with a specific difference (rational) to say that that is what a human being is, i.e. that it is true that a human being is a rational animal. It is therefore not insignificant that Aquinas after Aristotle claims that essence is not derived from the being of truth, but from being in the sense of the categories. He hereby states that essence, before it is expressed in an account, is what it is, and hence only something that is, and not lacks for example, has essence, even if lacks are talked about, and in that sense can be said to be. This is how Thomas interprets Aristotle’s reduction of being to substance and substance to essence. He has swiftly incorporated the neo-platonic semi-dualistic hierarchy of being and non-being, attributing intelligibility only to being, not to non-being. (In Aristotle’s Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library dictionary privation, στερησισ, as well as damaged, κολοβον, is defined). The “ladder of being” mounting from material inanimate being, through vegetative, animal and rational composite being (i.e. being composite of matter and form) to pure spiritual being, both composite (in angels) and non-composite (in God), results. This ladder is, because only being has essence, also a ladder of intelligibility. In so far as the unintelligible (matter, the intelligibility of which consists in its non-intelligibility) recedes, being becomes more intelligible. This implies that the being of the non-composite substances is more intelligible in themselves (in se, καθ’αυτο, essentially), but not in relation to us (secundum quid, κατα συμβεβηκοσ, accidentally). The composite substances are more intelligible in relation to us. In composite substances the essence cannot be reduced to either matter or form or to the relation between the two. It is rather what is composed of matter and form. But genus, species and specific difference are related precisely to matter, form and the relation between the two. The genus is not identical with but derived from matter as signifying a whole (e.g. animal). The specific difference (e.g. rational) specifies by the relation between matter (the genus) and form (species), and hence they together constitute the definition of the species (e.g. rational animal). The genus designates the whole of the species, but in an indeterminate manner. This is how it can designate many species, without the many species being one and the same. The species is indeterminate in the same way in relation to essence (by Thomas here identified with nature), but the species has its determinacy in relation to the genus from the form. Likewise with the essence of the individual, which is not identical with that of which it is the essence. It has its determinacy in relation to the species from the form, and its indeterminacy in relation to the individual from matter. Therefore Thomas is said to defend that the principle of individuation is matter. Plan of de ente et essentia: 1. being and essence 2. essence in composite substances 3. essence in relation to the concepts of genus, species and difference 4. essence in non-composite substances 5. God is being, in him being and essence do not differ There is no genus and species of essences in so far as these are mere parts of the whole, and not the whole e.g. humanity is not an essence of a special kind. But human being is. Therefore essence can be seen in two ways. Humanity has some elements essential to it. This way of being essence is neither one nor many, because neither is essential to it. Socrates’ essence, however, is not humanity. His essence has two ways of being: in Socrates and in the mind. It is as existing in the mind that it can be said to be a kind, because Socrates himself is not a kind. Humanity therefore is the kind of essence Socrates has, the kind being attributed to Socrates’ essence as it exists in the mind. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Aquinas: de ente et essentia II On being, essence and truth Viso quid significetur nomine essentiae in substantiis compositis videndum est quomodo se habeat ad rationem generis, speciei e differentiae. So now that we have seen what the word essence means in composite substances, we must see how it is related to the notions of genus, species, and the differentiating characteristic. Quia autem id, cui convenit ratio generis vel speciei vel differentiae, praedicatur de hoc singulari signato, impossibile est quod ratio universalis scilicet generis vel speciei conveniat essentiae secundum quod per modum partis significatur ut nomine humanitatis vel animalitatis. Et ideo dicit Avicenna quod rationalitas non est differentia, sed differentiae principium; et eadem ratione humanitas non est species nec animalitas genus. Now notions like genus, species, and differentiating characteristic attach to something that can be attributed to this demarcated singular. So general notions like genus or species can’t attach to essence as a component part (expressed by words like humanness or animalness). This is the reason Ibn Sina says logicalness is not a differentiating characteristic but a source of differentiation, and for the same reason humanness is not a species and animalness not a genus. (De ente et essentia III) Essence can be seen in two ways. According to its concept (secundem rationem propriam) and according to its being in this or that thing (secundum esse quod habet in hoc vel in illo). Essence when seen in the first way is neither one nor many, because neither one nor many is essential to it. Rationality, for example, is essential to humanity, but one or many is not, if it were humanity could not be both in an individual and in many individuals. Essence seen in the second way has two ways of being: in the thing and in the mind. Kind is attributed to it as existing in the mind, as the individual thing cannot be said to be a kind (only to be of a kind). Humanity therefore is the kind of essence Socrates has, the kind being attributed to Socrates’ essence as it exists in the mind. Human nature (or essence) seen in the first way, i.e. according to its concept, is not essentially a kind, because all implied in human nature is attributed to Socrates, and Socrates is not a kind. A human being, is, in contrast, according to its concept or definition, an animal (not ‘a kind’). In fact there is nothing that is essentially a kind. A kind (and the other logical notions, genus and differentia) only are accidents of the nature as existing in the mind. These two ways of seeing essence could be seen to correspond to the two aspects of the intellect: ratio and intellectus. The formal object of the intellect (intellectus) including both is truth. Ratio is the discursive capacity of the intellect, which argues, deliberates and concludes, whereas Intellectus is the intuitive capacity, which comprehends first Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library principles and things. Ratio forms the concept in an account or definition, and names its product or activity after it (ratio) (translated with concept), whereas Intellectus intuits that of which an account is made, whether in the mind or in the thing, and names its intuitions after it (intellectus) (also translated with concept). To establish whether an account is correct or a definition adequate, a comparison must occur between the concept formed and the intuition available. This comparison is part of the rational activity we call thinking. When the comparison is complete a state of intuition result, a state we call knowing. Science reposes on both of these activities, but consists properly in the latter. The essence, therefore, is, as apprehended rationally, neither one nor many, neither existent nor nonexistent. (Husserl will say it is ideal). It is described in a formula or definition. When apprehended intellectually, however, it is existing in the mind or in the thing, being only ideally or formally one, capable of existing in both. The essence therefore has a two-fold mode of being: an ideal one and a real one. Is that true also about separated substances (substantiis separatis, scilicet in anima, intelligentiis et causa prima)? Their form does not necessarily differ from their essence, as it does in composite substances. Hence their essence does not have this two-fold mode of being. Their essence has only one mode of being: it is simple. As species and essence coincide in them, there can be only one of a kind, as they have no matter to individuate them. Thus there are only one angel in a species. But their essence does not necessarily imply their existence, only in the case of the First Cause. This implies that there is no intuition of them different from their definition. This, however, does not mean that they exist necessarily, only that if they have existence, it cannot be known from a comparison of intuition with the concept. They are, however, because they are not necessarily existing, composed of being and essence, and the degrees of actuality is what ensures that there can be a multitude of them. Their organization is in this understanding strictly hierarchical. But in God essence and existence does not differ. He is Pure Act. As there in his case also is no intuition of him different from his definition (His essence is his existence) human knowledge of him, in the sense of intuitions established on the basis of reasoning, is deficient. Not, however, because of His nature, which is super-intelligible, perfectly known by himself, Truth itself, but because of the deficiency of our intellects. The quest for being, metaphysics, therefore, inherited from Aristotle, concerns being and essence in composite substances, in separate substances and in God, whose being and essence is not separable. The concern with being hence translated into concern with the analogy of beings, analogia entis, and with Being. The systematic ‘thinking out’ the relationship between mind and being, between being as truth and being as being, has begun with the help of the Christian Revelation. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Thomas Aquinas: De Veritate If essence is what the particular is and can be accounted for in a definition, and if, moreover, genus, species and difference by which definitions are given are added to essence is so far as it exists in the mind; stating the essence of something essentially involves correspondence with mind. In fact being as truth, in so far as it is correspondence between mind and thing, cannot be separated out from being as being, because being is intelligible. Even so Thomas carefully distinguishes being as truth from essential being at the beginning of De ente et essentia, because they are not the same thing. He also does this in De Veritate question 1, article 1. In the objections preceding the response arguments are presented for truth being the same as being. (1) The true is what is, says Augustine. However, to this it could be said that whereas they might be identical in meaning (secundum ratione), they do differ in their reference (secundum supposita). (2) What is and what is true therefore seems to mean the same. (6) Moreover, the true does not differ from what is either substantially (as what is, is true), nor accidentally (then there would be a genus common to being and truth which there is not). (7) Being true, in fact, does not add a determinant to being (i.e. truth has no specific difference in relation to being, it is not a kind of being), and it is broader, not narrower, as it is true, that what is not is not. Being broader means that it in no way is determined by a specific difference. However, even if the true is what is, if truth and being does not differ either substantially or accidentally, and if truth does not add to being, being is not just the same as being. When we define and prove, namely, we must rely on self-evident starting points (principia per se intellectui nota), if not the enterprise of defining and proving would regress infinitely, and there would be no science of anything. The most self-evident starting point is, according to Avicenna, being, in which all concepts resolve (illud autem quod primo intellectus concipit quasi notissimum et in quod conceptiones omnis resolvit est ens). This is how every other mental conception adds something to what is, even if not from the outside (as what would be added would be). Thus something can add to being only when it expresses something in being which is not expressed in the word ‘being’. This can happen in two ways. (1) When what is expressed expresses something special of being, as each level of being and each category expresses a special way of being. Substance expresses something special of being without adding to being. (2) When what is expressed expresses something general of being it can happen in two ways: (a) It can express something general of being in se (either affirmatively as when we speak about a thing (res), or negatively when we speak about something undivided or one). It can also express something general of being in ordine aliud (i.e. in relation to something else). This it can in two ways, as (a) divided from (then we speak of some thing/aliquid) or as (b) corresponding to whatever it can correspond to, in particular Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library or ‘inner perception’. It describes what is there ‘in’ the soul. Descriptive psychologists sometimes did designate themselves as phenomenologists: they described the phenomena of the soul. Husserl insists that phenomenology is not a descriptive psychology. It does not describe the soul, or states of the soul, which both are realities constituted within pure experience. It investigates in stead pure experience as emanating from the transcendental ego, i.e. the ideal essential unity of pure experience as such. The way of achieving the required purification is to suspend ‘the natural standpoint’ by the ‘reduction’ and bracket the existence of the objects experienced by the ‘ēpoche’. In this way what is achieved is pure appearance as it appear – and this is what phenomenology is concerned about, not realities of the soul. Phenomenology in contrast with descriptive psychology is neither ‘psychologistic’, nor ‘naturalistic’, its starting point in the transcendental ego overcomes both. Is phenomenology metaphysics? Whereas all transcendences are suspended in the phenomenological starting-point (that of God, that of the World and even that of the Eidetic Realm) the entire eidetic realm cannot be suspended. Of its essential connections we have in fact apodictic evidence; it is accessible to pure intuition. Eidetics – investigating essences or eidē – is part of phenomenology, because it informs thinking, to the point where without it, there could be no experience and no science of experience. When Husserl understands phenomenology to be partly eidetic, he implies that essences can be separated – in the eidetic reduction – from being or existence. He retains ‘first philosophy’ as a designation for phenomenology and hence understand it to concern essence, but not existence. Aristotle understands essences (το τι εν ειναι) to be what being primarily is. Metaphysics, or first philosophy, therefore primarily concern essences. Aristotle’s ειδοσ was not directly a candidate for substance, but γενοσ were. Thomas translated eidos with ‘species’, and used both terms (genus and species) in De Ente et Essentia to designate that which was added to essence as it exists in the mind, through which definitions were expressed. Ειδοσ was the Platonic word for what is over and above the appearances, and it is of course the word we find in ‘eidetic’. Husserl is therefore best understood as a platonic essentialist. For historical reasons he is not keen on the designation ‘metaphysics’. Supplementary literature: Spiegelberg: The Phenomenological Movement, Martinus Nijhoff, 1976 Sokolowski: Introduction to Phenomenology, CUP, 2000 Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Husserl on Phenomenology as the Foundation of Science The Problem of Intersubjectivity • Phenomenology as foundation for science • The problem of intersubjectivity • The problem of empathy Phenomenology as a foundation for science In this book, then, we treat of an a priori science (‘eidetic’, directed upon the universal in its original intuitability), which appropriates, though as pure possibility only, the empirical field of fact of transcendental subjectivity with its factual experiences, equating these with pure intuitable possibilities that can be modified at will, and sets out as its a priori the indissoluble essential structures of transcendental subjectivity, which persist in and through all imaginable modifications. “Introduction to the English edition of Ideas”, p. 11-12 Through the phenomenological and the eidetic reduction the field of this new science of transcendental subjectivity is discovered, in which all sciences, founded in their regional ontologies, find their place. Husserl’s idea of a region is that it is the sphere of objects comprised under the highest genus of a kind. These can be of two kinds: formal or material. The science of the formal region is logic (mathematics is part of this region), the sciences of the material regions are the various sciences. Hence the highest genus of material things gives rise to the regional ontology of material nature in which natural science is founded. Ideas II constitutes the various highest genera: material nature, animal nature (where under you find the body and psychic reality) and spiritual world. Ideas III was thought to attempt to found the various sciences in detail. The problem of intersubjectivity “I, the transcendental, absolute I, as I am in my own life of transcendental consciousness; but besides myself, the fellow subjects who in this life of mine reveal themselves as co-transcendental, within the transcendental society of ‘Ourselves’, which simultaneously reveals itself.” It is thus within the intersubjectivity, which in the phenomenological reduction has reached empirical givenness on a transcendental level, and is thus itself transcendental, that the real world is constituted as ‘objective’, as being there for everyone. “Introduction to the English edition of Ideas” p. 21 – 22. How can intersubjectivity reach empirical givenness on the transcendental level? Is whatever is given within the transcendental realm not precisely bracketing empirical existence? How do I on the other hand know of another subjectivity besides my own, coconstituting the world with me, if it is not empirically? How can I within the absoluteness Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library of my own experience discover or have the experience of another experience which is just as absolute without my experience becoming relative precisely by this discovery? Intersubjectivity can only reach ‘empirical givenness’ on the ‘transcendental level’ if experience is not strictly either empirical or transcendental, and hence that the phenomenological reduction does not reduce (all) experience to transcendental experience. The way in which I know of other subjects, the way in which they are brought to my attention is in the act of empathy, which therefore is the act in which others are brought to empirical givenness on the transcendental level. If we take perchance the formation of the plain perceptual constituting of the Thing, whereof the correlate is the sensory thing set out with sensory qualities, we relate ourselves to a single stream of consciousness, to the possible perceptions of a single perceiving personal subject. We find here various strata of unification, the schemata of sensation, the ‘visual things’ of higher and lower order, which must be completely set out within this order and studied with reference to their noetic-noematic constitution, singly and in their interconnections. The uppermost stratum of this formation is that of the substantial-causal thing, a reality already in the specific sense of the term, but remaining always constitutively bound to one empirical subject and its ideal perceptual manifolds. The formation next above this is then the intersubjective identical thing, a constitutive unity of a higher order. Its constitution is related to an indefinite plurality of subjects that stand in a relation of ‘mutual understanding’. The intersubjective world is the correlate of the intersubjective experience, mediated, that is, through ‘empathy’. We are therefore referred to the various unities of sensory things already constituted individually by the many subjects, and thus in further sequence to the corresponding perceptual manifolds belonging to the different personal subjects and streams of consciousness; but before all the new factor of empathy and to the question how it plays a constitutive part in ‘objective’ experience and gives unity to separated manifolds. Ideas § 151. The problem of empathy Stein’s motives for writing her dissertation on empathy were to elaborate this relationship between subjectivity and intersubjectivity by analysing the problem of empathy. Now the question needed to be settled: what did I want to work on? I had no difficulty on this. In his course on nature and spirit, Husserl had said that an objective outer world could only be experienced intersubjectively, i.e. through a plurality of perceiving individuals who relate in mutual exchange of information. Accordingly, an experience of other individuals is a prerequisite. To the experience (..), Husserl gave the name Einfühlung. What it consists of, however, he nowhere detailed. Here was a lacuna to be filled; therefore, I wished to examine what empathy might be. The Master found this suggestion not bad at all. E. Stein: Life in a Jewish Family, p. 269 Her point of view elaborated from this dissertation became a challenge to Husserl’s idealism. Perhaps he refers to these challenges, when he says that challenges to his transcendental idealism (p.18) seriously impeded the reception of Ideas II, which Stein edited during her time as his assistant 1916-17. She, in fact, thought there was no point trying to found the sciences without an adequate understanding of the role empathy played in constituting the objects of theses sciences. Husserl, however, has nothing to retract (p. 19): he maintains that the other can be known as a transcendental fact. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Husserl Transcendental subjectivity and the ego • Transcendental subjectivity • Who am I? • Being Transcendental subjectivity Under the title “a pure or transcendental phenomenology” the work here presented seeks to found a new science – though, indeed, the whole course of philosophical development since Descartes has been preparing the way for it – a science covering a new field of experience, exclusively its own, that of “Transcendental subjectivity”. Thus transcendental subjectivity does not signify the outcome of any speculative synthesis, but with its transcendental capacities, doings, is an absolutely independent realm of direct experience, although for reasons of an essential kind, it has so far remained inaccessible. Transcendental experience in its theoretical and, at first, descriptive, bearing, becomes available only through a radical alteration of that same dispensation under which an experience of the natural world runs its course, a readjustment of viewpoint which, as the method of approach to the sphere of transcendental phenomenology, is called “phenomenological reduction”. Introduction to the English edition of Ideas, p. 11. Phenomenology is the seeking for the foundations of a new science, prepared for since Descartes but left undiscovered because the alteration of viewpoint required had not been fully unfolded. Husserl’s constant beginnings seek to redo the unfolding of this viewpoint by reiterating how the alteration takes place. This alteration, or readjustment, of the natural viewpoint is not the outcome, Husserl thinks, of any speculative synthesis. But it is achieved by what he call “the phenomenological or the transcendental reduction”. Throughout Ideas, Husserl seeks to restate this reduction. It being “the method of approach to the sphere of transcendental phenomenology” it is also the method through which transcendental subjectivity or transcendental experience becomes available. Exercising the εποχη we ‘put out of work’ the claim the natural world has on us. We are capable of that in freedom: Husserl uses a Nietzchean phrase: we are capable of ‘Umwertung’ of the natural world, and as we bracket its existence we still keep the experience of it as something belonging to transcendental subjectivity. When I have performed the εποχη and the phenomenological reduction, transcendental subjectivity is seen in its absolute, independent being; the transcendent (natural) world as dependent in its being on the first. The theory of primary being, hence is the theory of transcendental subjectivity. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Who am I? If we now perform this transcendental phenomenological reduction, this transformation of the natural and psychologically inward standpoint whereby it is transcendentalized, the psychological subjectivity loses just that which makes it something real in the world that lies before us; it loses the meaning of the soul as belonging to a body that exists in an objective, spatio-temporal nature. This transformation of meaning concerns myself, above all the “I” of the psychological and subsequently transcendental inquirer for the time being. Posited as real, I am now no longer a human ego in the universal, existentially posited world, but exclusively a subject for which this world has being and purely, indeed, as that which appears to me, is presented to me, and of which I am conscious in some way or other, so that the real being of the world thereby remains unconsidered, unquestioned, and its validity left out of account. Now if transcendental description passes no judgement whatsoever upon the world, and upon my human ego as belonging to the world, and if, in this description, the transcendental ego is absolutely in and for itself prior to all cosmic being (which first wins in and through it existential validity), it is still at the same time evident that, at every conversion of meaning which concerns the phenomenological-psychological content of the soul as a whole, this very content by simply putting on another existential meaning becomes transcendental-phenomenological, just as the latter, on reverting to the natural phenomenological standpoint, becomes once again psychological. The reduction suspends the natural ego – i.e. anything of me that belongs to the natural world is left unconsidered. If the transcendental I is absolutely in and for itself – prior to all cosmic or natural being – all its contents, when they put on another existential meaning, becomes transcendental phenomenological. They revert again to the psychological when we go back to the natural standpoint. Being The crux of the matter is whether the transcendental I really is absolutely in and for itself prior to all cosmic being. How can it be, if we have bracketed all existence? Its being must be other than cosmic or natural. Husserl makes use of the word being in two ways, to designate the absolute being of the transcendental sphere and to refer to the dependent natural sphere. He does not explain what these to uses of the word being have in common: he has no ‘dictionary entry’ on the term being. It makes the reduction seem a reduction from one form of being to another, of natural being to transcendental being, justifiable perhaps as a parallel to Aristotle’s reduction of being to substance? In fact Husserl does not pretend his enquiry to concern being qua being, but in contrast transcendental subjectivity. Therefore we are left with the question: is the study of being qua being part of the study of transcendental subjectivity or is transcendental subjectivity part of the study of being qua being? As what the two types of inquiry has in common is their concern with essence, it is not surprising that it is the question of the essence of being (or the meaning of being) which is going to occupy both Heidegger and Stein as two inheritors of the Husserlian heritage. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Edith Stein: From phenomenology to metaphysics • On the Problem of Empathy • Beiträge and On the State • After 1925 On the Problem of Empathy All controversy over empathy is based on the implied assumption that foreign subjects and their experience are given to us. Thinkers deal with the circumstances of the occurrence, the effects, and the legitimacy of this givenness. But the most immediate undertaking is to consider the phenomenon of givenness in and by itself and to investigate its essence. We shall do this in the setting of the “phenomenological reduction”. The goal of phenomenology is to clarify and thereby to find the ultimate basis of all knowledge. To reach this goal it considers nothing that is in any way “doubtful”, nothing that can be eliminated. In the first place, it does not use any results of science whatsoever. This is self-evident, for a science which proposes ultimately to clarify all scientific knowledge must not, in turn, be based on a science already extent, but must be grounded in itself. On the Problem of Empathy p. 3. Empathy, the act in which foreign experience is given to consciousness, and which hence is the act through which the ego is enabled to accede to intersubjectivity as a higher level of objectivity, is investigated by Stein within the phenomenological reduction. I.e. it is described and analysed as experience. This she sees as the goal of phenomenology: to clarify experience so that the ultimate basis of all knowledge is found. The structure of intersubjectivity and the interaction of subjects are further problems to be investigated by phenomenology, as such structure and such interaction are reflected in experience as elements of it. (Husserl thought so too, but he never got round to publish his results along these lined, Ideen II). All of Stein’s early works – • On the Problem of Empathy (1916); • Contributions to a Philosophical Foundation of Psychology and the Humanities (1922) (for short translated as Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities and simply called Beiträge, with its two treatises “Psychic Causality” and “Individual and Community”); and • An Investigation on the State (1925) – treats of the problem of how intersubjectivity is articulated or structured in so far as it is the condition for access to a higher level of objectivity. Their purpose is epistemological but their bearing social, and in this they foreshadow the “linguistic turn” and postmodernity. They investigate, without using the word, the “social construction” (intersubjective constitution) of our world, and by doing so they contribute towards founding the sciences of psychology, the humanities and politics. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Beiträge and An Investigation on the State Psychic Causality investigates the interplay of causality with motivation and how the psychic energy is spent and restored. It attempts to draw the line between how on the one hand causality occur within the psyche and is experienced within consciousness and on the other motivation is experienced and initiated. Our psyche, in fact, is experienced as this web of causal-motivational interactions, over which I have no despotic power (as it is causal), but in which nevertheless freedom is inevitably invested (in so far as it is motivated). The psyche as this web is the region and formal object of psychology. Clarifying the distinction therefore contributes towards founding it. Individual and Community investigates the phenomenon of how (psychic) energy (or power) circulates, how it builds up collective experiences, forms national (or other communal) characters and the spirit of the times. It investigates in other words the web of causal-motivational structures writ large in society and how they form communal experience, which is the region and the formal object of history, literature and all the humanities. Clarifying this contributes towards founding these sciences. An Investigation of the State investigates the phenomenon of how power (the causalmotivational web incarnate in social relations) is institutionalised. It shows how community expresses itself or gains access to expressing itself, by way of acting in legislating, promulgating and reinforcing laws. The State is seen as a (self) expression of a community, an ideal reality realised by the community, in and through the circulation of power including response to values. From 1925 to Finite and Eternal Being Stein was baptised 1922, and no way opens for her in academia. She was a woman and was therefore not allowed to “habilitate” on the three works above. She starts teaching Latin and German at a Dominican School in Speyer, where she also translates Newman’s Diaries and Thomas Aquinas’ On Truth. Encouraged to go for habilitation a second (Act and Potency) and a third time (Introduction to Phenomenology), she eventually gets a job in teacher training at the Marianum. Here she composes The Structure of the Human Person and What is Being Human? and projects her final work Finite and Eternal Being. She was dismissed because she is a Jewess, and enters Carmel in Köln, where she writes the Science of the Cross and finishes Finite and Eternal Being, which is in the press when she is taken to Auschwitz, but not published till after the war. Systematically she maintains the Cartesian starting point for her enquiry into the meaning of being. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Stein: Act and Potency • The meaning of being • Potency and Act • Temporality The Meaning of Being Husserl, as we saw, used the term ‘being’ about transcendental subjectivity, which he may understand to be in and for itself, and about the cosmic or natural world in its dependency on transcendental subjectivity (handout 21/3-2003). He does not engage in reflection in on what is common between these two kinds of being. Their relationship is obviously thought of as one of dependency – the being of the cosmic world is dependent on the being of the transcendental ego, which in turn is not dependent on anything else. Thomas would – to describe the relationship between different kinds of being, and hence also to characterise the relationship between intelligent being and being – talk about the analogy of being; analogia entis. He conceives of the universe as organised hierarchically in higher and lower according to “degrees” of being. Degrees of being depend on actuality or potentiality, so that actual being has priority in relation to potential being. Hence the goal has priority over the process, the final cause over the efficient, the active intellect over the passive, the fully formed over the potentially formed. Understanding is an activity that renders actual what is potentially intelligible, and because rational beings are capable of such actualisation, they have priority over beings, which are not. This is another way of expressing dependence: potential beings depend on actual ones for their actualisation, because their potentiality alone does not necessitate their actualisation. The faculty of the intellect, for example, is capable of knowing the reproductive cycle of crocodiles, but without it being actualised by actual crocodiles (or by actual knowledge of them) it will never know. This is how the object of the intellect actualises faculty or the power of the intellect (and why the phenomenological use of the world ‘act’ to designate the mental act corresponding to the object, makes perfect scholastic sense). If, then, we want to understand the meaning of the term ‘being’, as used by Husserl, we could use the Aristotelian/Thomistic division of it into either actual or potential; dependent or absolute. The two forms of being have this in common: that one is actually what the other is potentially. That is why they are either/or and cannot be separated. Haec autem comparatio invenitur esse inter animam intellectivam et phantasmata. Habet enim anima intellectiva aliquid in actu ad quod phantasmata est in potentia: et ad aliquid est in potentia quod in phantasmatibus actu invenitur. Thomas Aquinas: Now this is how our understanding mind relate to images [phenomena]. For in one respect the mind is actually what images are potentially; and in another images are actually what the mind is potentially. McDermot: Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library SCG 2,77 Writings, Passage 13, Aristotle included in his dictionary a fourth sense of being: Ετι το ειναι σεμαινει και το ον, το μεν δυναμει ρητον, το δ εντελεχεια των ειρημενων τουτον. 1017b Finally, “to be” or “being” mean sometimes that what is said is true potentially; and at other times actually. Hope, Book V, 7 Again, “to be” <or “is”> means that some of these statements are made in virtue of a potentiality and others in virtue of an actuality. (Tredennick, Loeb) Being, according to him, is said of power or of achievement respectively. This is expanded upon in book IX/Θ. Act and Potency What is possibility, power, dynamism, energy, capacity (dunamij)? What is actuality, achievement, fulfilment, finalisation, perfection (entelekeia)? Aristotle does not seem to think that these are either accidents, substances or truths, as he distinguishes these from the fourth sense of being (which is the being is either possibility or actuality). Being is, in other words, said, not only about accidents, substances and truths, but also about power or achievement. Like truth is said about being whether it is accidental, substantial, potential or actual, actuality or potentiality is said about all being whether accidental, substantial or true. Being is in other words universally modal. Stein chooses this modal approach to being because this sense of being is accessible to both phenomenology and metaphysics. Of cosmic order, as well as of the inner life of phenomenologically reduced experience, act and potency are irreducible features. When I turn towards being, whether in the cosmic or in the transcendental sense, it “falls apart” in being and not-being – in something that it is and something it is not – because we experience becoming. Temporality When I turn toward being as it is in itself, it reveals to me a dual aspect: that of being and that notbeing. The “I am” is unable to endure this dual perspective: that in which I am is subject to change and since being and the intellectual movement (“in which” I am) are not separated, this being is likewise subject to change. The “former” state of being is past and has given way to the “present” state of being. This means that the being of which I am conscious as mine is inseparable from temporality. As actual being – that is, as actually present being – it is without a temporal dimension: it is a “now” in between a “no longer” and a “not yet”. But by its breaking apart in its flux into being and not-being, the idea of pure being is revealed to us. In pure being there is no longer any admixture of not-being, nor any “no longer” and “not yet”. In short, pure being is not temporal but eternal. Mette Lebech (COPYRIGHT): Metaphysics I (2003) E-print archive, John Paul II Library Stein: From the Transcendental Ego to the “pure I” • Formal Ontology and Transcendental Phenomenology • The finitude of temporal experience • Rational experience and faith Formal Ontology and Transcendental Phenomenology Potenz und Akt, Stein’s third habilitation-thesis for Freiburg 1931, forms the template on which Finite and Eternal Being is conceived. It embodies an earlier stage of the synthesis between classical and Christian metaphysics and modern thinking in the form of Husserl’s phenomenology. It is said about it that: Stein requires, like Husserl, a ‘starting-point’ (“Ursprungsbetrachtung”).. [but] for Stein the fact of the activity of the subject is not an occasion to suspend the question of the being of this immanent act, but this act itself, its actuality, discloses in its temporality, i.e. in its continual passing from potentiality to actuality, ex negativo the “idea of pure being”, which escapes temporality. (..) If Husserl takes the starting-point to clear the absolute immanent sphere of transcendental subjectivity, so Stein takes the constituting function of subjectivity as an occasion to show that subjectivity needs and refers to something that it is itself not. That it is constituting – and that means that it is “temporalizing” time and “decaying” subjectivity – refers it to something nontemporal; that it constantly constitutes something refers it to something that does not coincide with its own immanent being. Thus Stein is brought to affirm that a sphere of pure being (a transcendent sphere in a second sense) must be distinguished from both the immanent sphere and the sphere of transcendence announced in the former as distinct. Thus is revealed that formal ontology is not, for Stein, as it is for Husserl, subordinated to transcendental phenomenology, but stands in a reciprocal relationship with it. Formal ontology is for Stein referred to transcendental phenomenology, in so far as this latter is not only treating of the relationship between the immanent and the transcendental spheres, but also must question the constitution of the entities of formal ontology. In the opposite direction is transcendental philosophy referred to formal ontology, not only because it is the task of the latter to determine the meaning of immanence in conjunction with the material ontologies, but because it falls to it to clarify in a general way the fundamental ontological concepts. (Hans Rainer Sepp: “Einführung des Bearbeiters” in Potenz und Akt, Herder, ESW XVIII, 1998, my translation). In Finite and Eternal Being, the idea of a formal ontology (dependant on but distinct from transcendental phenomenology) is superseded together with the idea that phenomenology provides an absolute starting-point and a universally applicable method. Stein is now investigating the idea of pure being and its disjunction into act and potency with regards to the transcendental as well as the immanent sphere. This does not mean that she gives up the idea of a starting-point within experience (she just cannot regard it as absolute), nor that she gives up phenomenology as a method (she just being as if it was a phenomenon). Her starting-point therefore is the confidence of being in its cosmic, social, political and religious dimensions, in the ‘fact of our own being’. Her method is phenomenological only in so far as her object being lends itself to being investigated phenomenologically, i.e. in so far as it appears. In so far as it is the opposite of appearance (as Parmenides, Plato and Husserl thought), it must be ‘heard of’ as