Questioning Demarcations:
A Preliminary Survey of a Philosophical Problematic
Daniel D. De Haan
1/15/09
I.
This is a paper that seeks proper demarcations, demarcations of a problematic concerning reality and thought. This paper hopes to clarify the question, how is thought able to carve reality at its joints? [1] It is a preliminary inquiry, a prolegomena of sorts. It is an inquiry that hopes to attend to the admonition of the Peripatetic, that those who wish to succeed must ask the correct preliminary questions.[2] The problematic under investigation is a perennial one, one that goes under a variety of appellations. Depending on our own particular philosophical parlance we might call it the problem of: Forms, essence, being, universals, the one and the many, realism and nominalism, types and tokens, and so on. It may be that these are all meritorious accounts of the problematic, however it is too early to decide. This is a brief inquiry into the proper questions and demarcation of this problematic. Identifying the problem too precisely at the beginning will only beg the question and perhaps prevent the real questions from being asked. We must discover the problematic’s proper subject domain if it is to be treated with the proper principles and method.
This is a preliminary inquiry into a problematic that seeks truth. This will admittedly delimit and prescind a number answers suggested by some philosophical dispositions and that is unfortunate for those of such temperaments. Something has gone amiss in the thoughts of a thinker who is a skeptic; reality will not tolerant such a refusal from human beings. The skeptic may think that he does not think; yet he will continue to live according to the order of reality like a human being. Accordingly those of us who consider skepticism an impossible conclusion to philosophical speculation will also recognize that this problematic requires consistent attention. This is because the very possibility of truth and knowledge rests on a satisfactory resolution to the difficulties encountered in this problematic. Stated austerely, our problem is: what is the relation between thought and things? When we reflect on the nature of knowledge we soon realize that while the beings we encounter in reality are particular, the concepts we employ when thinking about these particular realities are common. A question follows, how is it that there is something one in many? Or, how is there something common to all these particulars? Is this a condition of reality, thought, or both? Those mildly acquainted with the history of philosophy are aware of the variety of endeavors to answer this problematic. Some humble philosophers have shied away from the problem admitting its recondite nature. Porphyry in that memorable opening passage of his Isagoge said,
This is a preliminary inquiry into a problematic that seeks truth. This will admittedly delimit and prescind a number answers suggested by some philosophical dispositions and that is unfortunate for those of such temperaments. Something has gone amiss in the thoughts of a thinker who is a skeptic; reality will not tolerant such a refusal from human beings. The skeptic may think that he does not think; yet he will continue to live according to the order of reality like a human being. Accordingly those of us who consider skepticism an impossible conclusion to philosophical speculation will also recognize that this problematic requires consistent attention. This is because the very possibility of truth and knowledge rests on a satisfactory resolution to the difficulties encountered in this problematic. Stated austerely, our problem is: what is the relation between thought and things? When we reflect on the nature of knowledge we soon realize that while the beings we encounter in reality are particular, the concepts we employ when thinking about these particular realities are common. A question follows, how is it that there is something one in many? Or, how is there something common to all these particulars? Is this a condition of reality, thought, or both? Those mildly acquainted with the history of philosophy are aware of the variety of endeavors to answer this problematic. Some humble philosophers have shied away from the problem admitting its recondite nature. Porphyry in that memorable opening passage of his Isagoge said,
I shall abstain from deeper enquires and aim, as appropriate, at simpler ones. […] I shall beg off saying anything about (a) whether genera and species are real or are situated in bare thoughts alone, (b) whether as real they are bodies or incorporeals, and (c) whether they are separated or in sensibles and have their reality in connection with them. Such business is profound, and requires another, greater investigation.[3]
II.
How do we begin to answer these profound difficulties? The above questions force a decision of precedence; do we take the question of reality, mind, or both to be more fundamental? If we privilege reality many shall protest that we have already granted the problematic into the hands of the metaphysical Hamlets. Those scruffy bearded ontologists who will not hesitate to posit a surfeit of heavenly and earthly realities and will in the end produce an ontology so encumbering with existents that it is even a burden for reality to bear. On the other hand, if we give precedence to thought we will hear similar protests of the mental sorcery incanted by the epistemologist’s, logician’s, and semanticist’s ratiocinations. Since the problem is concerning the relation between thought and things the middle path considering both thought and reality offers this cursory inquiry the most diplomatic and transcendent vision of the problematic. This approach has the merit of charity for it acknowledges that there may be insights in both when we give due regard to the real and to thought. It also forces the philosopher to reconcile thought to reality, which is to say it forces the philosopher to search for the truth.[4]
III.
What are the respective problems on the side of reality and on the side of thought? On the side of reality we encounter the difficulty that existents are manifestly many, but we are able to think of these many existents as having a variety of common aspects allowing us to think of many as one. These commonalities constitute our knowledge and opinions concerning reality. What is it in reality that permits this commonness in thought to be veridical? Is there actually anything one in the many? If not how can we maintain our thoughts conform to the real?
If we examine the side of thought we find similar problems. There is the question of efficiency and origin. To begin with we might ask what is thought? Privileging what is most obvious about thought I shall provide an account that attempts to identify the aspects of thought essential to our problematic. In this brief account I shall have to omit the question of thought’s agency, whether it is caused by a soul, mind, brain, etc.
One thing that should strike us is that thought has a peculiar aboutness by which we attend to and are aware of things and our own thoughts. In comparison to the obviously material things that we encounter, thought has a decidedly elastic, transcendent, and self-determining or intentional nature. This aspect of aboutness in thought is clearly relational, or if understood properly, intentional. What follows is at least one account of thought that clarifies our problematic and opens thought up towards reality.
When thought is about some particular realities the realities themselves are what we are aware of as present to thought. Initially and continuously reality seems to strike itself upon thought making us aware of realities’ existence and quidditative features. At this ubiquitous interface between thought and reality it is not thought that we are aware of but reality; thought relates and orders itself to the reality acting on it. Thus thought is receptive of the thing, the reality; it is about what is other because it is received as other. In some manner the thing is able to exist in reality and yet also exist in thought by affecting a cognitive-subject. A thing’s existence in thought is not inextricable to the thing; this condition of thing and existence shall require further comment below when we consider reality. This existential condition safeguards the principle of identity because it permits a thing to exist in distinct orders – reality and thought – without alteration of its quidditative constitution and without asserting thought and reality are in every way identical. Unlike material things that cease to have identity in becoming other, thought becomes the reality without ceasing to be thought; it is in a certain way able to become all things.[5] Maturity in thought is simply the virtuous activity of bringing thought into greater identity or isomorphism with reality.
The order of sensation, perception, and conception are different grades of aboutness found in thought that pertain to our different receptive cognitional interfaces with reality. The very appellation “concept” is suggestive of this receptivity and potency in thought. Reality affects a cognitive-subject; this subject by relating to reality conceives and gives birth to an aboutness, i.e., a concept. Thought is not of itself fecund, it must be quidditatively fecundated by reality in order to conceive its concepts or ideas.
Furthermore, thought is not compartmentalized into various cognitional functions, operative powers, or mental states - as some atomistic philosophers would have us believe. All appearances of thought are definitively incommensurable with atomism. The whole cognitive spectrum of thought is one as human beings are one. Thought itself is unified even though it may operate by virtue of various functions, operative powers, or mental states. There is nothing to suggest that it is disparate or incongruent from one order of aboutness to the next. This unity of the cognitive agent is the necessary condition for an apt account of thought’s activity. Simply put, an occurrence or act of thought is itself unified par excellence. While the vocal expression of a thought occurs in motion and requires a temporal duration to complete, the thought itself cannot have this disparateness in its act.
If we examine the side of thought we find similar problems. There is the question of efficiency and origin. To begin with we might ask what is thought? Privileging what is most obvious about thought I shall provide an account that attempts to identify the aspects of thought essential to our problematic. In this brief account I shall have to omit the question of thought’s agency, whether it is caused by a soul, mind, brain, etc.
One thing that should strike us is that thought has a peculiar aboutness by which we attend to and are aware of things and our own thoughts. In comparison to the obviously material things that we encounter, thought has a decidedly elastic, transcendent, and self-determining or intentional nature. This aspect of aboutness in thought is clearly relational, or if understood properly, intentional. What follows is at least one account of thought that clarifies our problematic and opens thought up towards reality.
When thought is about some particular realities the realities themselves are what we are aware of as present to thought. Initially and continuously reality seems to strike itself upon thought making us aware of realities’ existence and quidditative features. At this ubiquitous interface between thought and reality it is not thought that we are aware of but reality; thought relates and orders itself to the reality acting on it. Thus thought is receptive of the thing, the reality; it is about what is other because it is received as other. In some manner the thing is able to exist in reality and yet also exist in thought by affecting a cognitive-subject. A thing’s existence in thought is not inextricable to the thing; this condition of thing and existence shall require further comment below when we consider reality. This existential condition safeguards the principle of identity because it permits a thing to exist in distinct orders – reality and thought – without alteration of its quidditative constitution and without asserting thought and reality are in every way identical. Unlike material things that cease to have identity in becoming other, thought becomes the reality without ceasing to be thought; it is in a certain way able to become all things.[5] Maturity in thought is simply the virtuous activity of bringing thought into greater identity or isomorphism with reality.
The order of sensation, perception, and conception are different grades of aboutness found in thought that pertain to our different receptive cognitional interfaces with reality. The very appellation “concept” is suggestive of this receptivity and potency in thought. Reality affects a cognitive-subject; this subject by relating to reality conceives and gives birth to an aboutness, i.e., a concept. Thought is not of itself fecund, it must be quidditatively fecundated by reality in order to conceive its concepts or ideas.
Furthermore, thought is not compartmentalized into various cognitional functions, operative powers, or mental states - as some atomistic philosophers would have us believe. All appearances of thought are definitively incommensurable with atomism. The whole cognitive spectrum of thought is one as human beings are one. Thought itself is unified even though it may operate by virtue of various functions, operative powers, or mental states. There is nothing to suggest that it is disparate or incongruent from one order of aboutness to the next. This unity of the cognitive agent is the necessary condition for an apt account of thought’s activity. Simply put, an occurrence or act of thought is itself unified par excellence. While the vocal expression of a thought occurs in motion and requires a temporal duration to complete, the thought itself cannot have this disparateness in its act.
Thought […] occurs in discrete pulses which are indivisible: the thought that the pack of cards is on the table occurs all at once or not at all, and though it has some sort of correlation with such a physical process as the words in which I express it, it does not occur in physical time, either at an instant or over a period. (What sort of ideas the contrary view lead to may be seen from William James’s fantasy: that the thought lasts for the whole time of the sentence ‘the pack of cards is on the table’, and goes through successive phases, in which bits of the thought corresponding to the successive words are prominent – including bits corresponding to ‘the’ and ‘of’.) And again, if I think of two pennies, there is no such ‘doubleness’ in my thought as there is in my seeing or imagining if I see or visualize two pennies. [6]This brief account of thought will be sufficient for a consideration of its concepts, which are the most salient feature of thought’s side of the problematic. The extraordinary feature of concepts is that they are fundaments of the abstract and more transcendent operations of thought. This is the order of cognition where thought ceases to be fixed to a particular and is able to gaze over or be about many particulars simultaneously. The lower orders of thought do not share this unique abstract transcendence with concepts. This is not to say that they are not nearly inextricable employed together in thought and utterance. Most of us hardly notice that in a single statement thought has rather casually ascended and descended the gamut of cognitional aboutness, from the transcendent relatedness of notions like being, good, and rational animal to the singular fixity of individuals like Socrates or St. Paul. This is another salient element to our problematic often left unmentioned. While it is curious that thought is able to grasp something common to many things in reality, it is just as peculiar that thought in its very act dynamically bounds from common aboutness to particular aboutness. If it is odd that thought generalizes what is particular in reality it is no less bizarre that thought generalizes what is likewise particular in thought. Our problematic must not only consider the relation between thought and reality, it must also consider the relation in thought of particular aboutness to common aboutness. Veridicality between thought and reality is not simply enough; there must also be an isomorphic continuity in thought. The existential condition alone is not sufficient to account for this veridical continuity. There must be something on the side of the thing’s conceived aboutness that is distinct from its existence, which can sufficiently render this unexceptional occurrence in thought veridical. There must be something in both particular aboutness and common aboutness that is the same.
Since it is equally true to answer the question, “what is it?” concerning a particular Athenian thing by replying either “Socrates” or “rational animal,” we shall call to this underlying sameness a whatness or quiddity, as we have called it above. Too many have understood quiddity to be inextricable with existence, particularity, generality or universality. But as was briefly mentioned above we should not take thing or its quidditative principle to entail any manner of existence in itself. Existence is extrinsic to quiddity; it is a concomitant not a constituent. Likewise we should not suppose that particular aboutness, common aboutness, or universality are inextricable with quiddity in se. These are conditions that like, existence, occur to extrinsically to quiddity in se. However this account will not go so far as to say quiddity in se prescinds from these conditions but rather that it is indifferent or neutral with regard to them. Inasmuch as it is quiddity in se they are not to be found. Avicenna has stated this position quite clearly in a well-known passage concerning the quiddity “horseness.”
For the definition of “horseness” is not the definition of universality, nor is universality included in the definition of “horseness.” For “horseness” has a definition that is not in need of the definition of universality, but is [something] to which universality accidentally occurs. For in itself, it is nothing at all except “horseness” for, in itself, it is neither one for many and exists neither in concrete things nor in the soul, existing in none of these things either in potency or in act, such that [these] are included in “horseness.” Rather, in terms of itself, it is only “horseness.” [7]
This inchoate doctrine of quiddity in se offers a stable position from which a more perspicuous answer to our problematic can be produced. Particular and common aboutness are conditions added by thought to a received quiddity. Considering quiddity in se it has neither of these conditions; universality and particularity are kinds of relatedness to things in reality that thought is able to employ with quiddity when predicating and understanding things in reality. It is because quiddity is neutral to particularity and universality that it is able to be isomorphic in both particular and common aboutness. Thought grasps in quiddity in se a manifold of cognoscibility; particularity and universality are simply additions to quiddity that results from thought’s parsing of quiddity into particulars or categorical kinds. Thought’s shift from thinking of the same thing in particular and common aboutness is veridical because it is the same quiddity in both. Thought is able to apprehend the quiddity that is within both and duly employ it because quiddity is not in se inextricable to one condition or the other.
. What accounts for thought’s ability to shift its relatedness or aboutness? The question of how thought is able to penetrate or illuminate the quiddity in se is certainly an important and difficult question, but one that demands more than this cursory treatment can provide. What is important for this preliminary examination is recognizing that these shifts in thinking are ubiquitous within the unity of thought, and that there is veridical continuity in all of thought’s various aboutnesses and this is sufficiently accounted for by our inchoate doctrine of quiddity in se.
If we avoid adopting an atomistic psychology and epistemology there is certainly an avenue for developing a perspicuous noetics able to bring resolution to thought’s side of the problematic. Acknowledging this causal order of noetic isomorphism can provide a cogent correlative to the efficient causes or mechanisms in cognition and offer insights into epistemic issues of veridicality.
. What accounts for thought’s ability to shift its relatedness or aboutness? The question of how thought is able to penetrate or illuminate the quiddity in se is certainly an important and difficult question, but one that demands more than this cursory treatment can provide. What is important for this preliminary examination is recognizing that these shifts in thinking are ubiquitous within the unity of thought, and that there is veridical continuity in all of thought’s various aboutnesses and this is sufficiently accounted for by our inchoate doctrine of quiddity in se.
If we avoid adopting an atomistic psychology and epistemology there is certainly an avenue for developing a perspicuous noetics able to bring resolution to thought’s side of the problematic. Acknowledging this causal order of noetic isomorphism can provide a cogent correlative to the efficient causes or mechanisms in cognition and offer insights into epistemic issues of veridicality.
IV.
While this account of thought is promising we should not incorrectly suppose that an explanation of thought alone is sufficient to account for all the difficulties of this problematic. Despite the complaints of those who deny all of reality for thought it is quite clear that the causal relation of reality and human thought is asymmetrical. And for this prima facie reason reality should not be forced to relinquish its part in the conditions that admit of this isomorphism. We shall not be convinced into thinking “that to give a psychological analysis of human knowledge [is the same as] to give a philosophical analysis of reality.”[8] The part is not sufficient to account for the whole.
Our account on the side of reality must be brief, and yet the principles at work in the account of thought are not entirely different. The existential condition and the doctrine of quiddity in se are also important to reality’s side of the problematic. While our account of thought required employing these two principles their proper treatment is on the side of reality. It is because of these conditions of reality that we are able to have veridical thought. The quiddity is not simply a cognitional being but is first a being in reality that then affects thought.
The quiddity of the existent in reality is also under similar conditions as the quiddity received in thought from reality. The quiddity in se is not determined to any concrete particular and mode of existence; these are, like universality and particularity in thought, extrinsic concomitants to quiddity in se. How it is that two individuals are both humans and that we can further recognize this commonness in thought is due to the doctrine of quiddity in se. Being realized in a single or even many existents or conceptualized in thought are all extrinsic concomitants to quiddity in se. The same quiddity can be found under all these conditions because these are all possible extrinsic conditions that may occur to a quiddity in se. The quiddity is existentially neutral; it has no sort of shadow reality or existence proper to itself. Inasmuch as it is quiddity it is only quiddity. Inasmuch as it is real or existing under some condition this is due to some concomitant aspect. The problem of the one and the many dissolves in this metaphysical solvency. A great deal more must be said to make all the appropriate qualification, but it is outside the confines of this inquiry to do so.[9]
Our account on the side of reality must be brief, and yet the principles at work in the account of thought are not entirely different. The existential condition and the doctrine of quiddity in se are also important to reality’s side of the problematic. While our account of thought required employing these two principles their proper treatment is on the side of reality. It is because of these conditions of reality that we are able to have veridical thought. The quiddity is not simply a cognitional being but is first a being in reality that then affects thought.
The quiddity of the existent in reality is also under similar conditions as the quiddity received in thought from reality. The quiddity in se is not determined to any concrete particular and mode of existence; these are, like universality and particularity in thought, extrinsic concomitants to quiddity in se. How it is that two individuals are both humans and that we can further recognize this commonness in thought is due to the doctrine of quiddity in se. Being realized in a single or even many existents or conceptualized in thought are all extrinsic concomitants to quiddity in se. The same quiddity can be found under all these conditions because these are all possible extrinsic conditions that may occur to a quiddity in se. The quiddity is existentially neutral; it has no sort of shadow reality or existence proper to itself. Inasmuch as it is quiddity it is only quiddity. Inasmuch as it is real or existing under some condition this is due to some concomitant aspect. The problem of the one and the many dissolves in this metaphysical solvency. A great deal more must be said to make all the appropriate qualification, but it is outside the confines of this inquiry to do so.[9]
V.
It should be clear that the proper subject domain of our inquiry lies primarily in metaphysics. The seminal explanation offered on the side of reality was presupposed and employed throughout the discussion of epistemology and noetics. However the principles of epistemology, noetics, and logic are equally important to providing a perspicuous treatment of this problematic. It seems the proper demarcation of the problematic requires heeding the asymmetry of reality and thought by privileging the former without neglecting the latter.
---------------------------------------------------
Notes:
---------------------------------------------------
Notes:
- Plato Phaedrus 265e.
- Aristotle Metaphysics B. 1. 995a28-29.
- Porphryr. Isagoge in Five Texts on the Medieval Problem of Universals.trans.& ed. Paul V. Spade. Hackett: Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1994, (2) p. 1.
- I shall continue to use “reality” improperly as equivalent to that which is extramental or outside thought. Properly speaking thought too is a part of reality it is a sort of being and existence. I do not take all that is to be bifurcated into two incommensurable ontological orders like thought and reality. There is an ontological interface if not intimacy between thought and extramental thought. Such an interface accounts for truth and the very problematic underconsideration.
- Aristotle De Anima III. 8. 431b20
- Anscombe, G.E.M. and P. T. Geach Three Philosophers, Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1961. p. 96
- Avicenna. The Metaphysics of the Healing trans. Michael E. Marmura, Brigham Young University Press: Provo, Utah, 2005. V. 1. (4).
- Gilson, Etienne The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Charles Scribner’s Sons: New York, 1937, pg. 87
- I suggest that a more perspicuous account can be produced if we avail ourselves of a hylomorphic existentialism like that found in Avicenna or Thomas Aquinas.
No comments:
Post a Comment