"An Reul-Eòlaiche" le Johannes VERMEER (1668)
LEABHAR II EARRANN I
TEÒIRIC CHOITCHEANN NAN SFÈAR MODALACH
CAIBIDEIL I
STRUCTAIR FUINGSEANACH NAN SFÈAR MODALACH, AN DÀ CHUID NAN CUAIRT FHÈIN AGUS NAN CO-LEANTACHD TÌMEIL CÈILLE.
§ 1 - SLAT-TOMHAIS SFÈIR MHODALAICH.
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VOLUME II PART I
THE GENERAL THEORY OF THE MODAL SPHERES
CHAPTER I
THE FUNCTIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE MODAL SPHERES, BOTH IN THEIR SOVEREIGNTY WITHIN THEIR OWN ORBIT AND IN THEIR TEMPORAL COHERENCE OF MEANING
§ 1 - THE CRITERION OF A MODAL SPHERE
In the Prolegomena we discovered the cosmic order of time, which, as the limit to our 'earthly' temporal cosmos, determines the structure of reality in its diversity of meaning, both as regards its modal and typical laws and its subjectivity, including its subject-object-relations. The specific modal sovereignty of the different aspects of reality (with their various modal law-spheres) appeared to be founded in this cosmic order and at the same time made relative by it. Founded: for the specific modal sovereignty proved to be only possible in the temporal splitting up of the religious fulness of meaning, which in its turn is only given in the transcendent root of our cosmos. Made relative: for the modal law-sphere as a specific aspect of the meaning of temporal reality, proved to have no independent existence in itself, but rather to be interwoven with the temporal coherence of meaning. Cosmic time overarches the different aspects as order, and streams through their boundaries as duration.
The relation between the specific sovereignty of each separate modal law-sphere and the temporal coherence of meaning of all the modal spheres is not intrinsically contradictory.
There is no antinomy between modal sovereignty and the temporal coherence of all the law-spheres. An intrinsic contradiction would exist, as it does in immanence-philosophy, if, and only if, the specific modal sphere-sovereignty of a part of the aspects were sacrificed in favour of one or more of the other aspects of meaning. We shall revert to this subject later on. But there is no antinomy in the acknowledgement that the modal law-spheres, irreducible among themselves, are nevertheless kept in a continuous coherence of meaning by cosmic time.
The continuity of cosmic time is not exhausted by any single specific aspect of meaning. Therefore this continuity cannot be comprehended in any concept, but only approximately apprehended in a transcendental Idea, and experienced in the pre-theoretical attitude. As time cannot contain the religious fulness of meaning, it splits the latter into the diversity of the modal aspects. But without the temporal, relative coherence of meaning the specific sovereignty of the modal law-spheres would not be possible.
The criterion of a modal sphere and its abstract theoretical character.
By what criterion do we distinguish a modal law-sphere as an aspect of cosmic reality? To raise this question is not the same as asking: What is it that guarantees specific modal sphere-sovereignty? The former question is, to be sure, inseparable from the latter, but the criterion in the narrow sense is of an epistemological nature: it is concerned with the problem how a particular law-sphere can be recognized as an irreducible, separate modal aspect of reality. The second question lies on a more fundamental plane, it lies at the very basis of thought; it must be answered in the cosmonomic Idea as the ὑπόθεσις of philosophic thought itself, consequently also of the inquiry into the epistemological problem in the narrow sense, i.e. the question about the theoretical criterion of the law-sphere. This insight has been gained in our transcendental critique of theoretic thought. The latter has shown that, — no matter, whether the thinker has taken this into account in his critical self-reflexion or not — no question regarding our knowledge of temporal reality can have any meaning without a transcendental basic Idea.
And the facts are just as they were stated in the last part of the first volume. If the epistemological question is sounded to its very bottom, it is no longer possible to assign an isolated area to the problem of epistemology. The latter is indissolubly connected with our theoretical insight into the structure of the cosmos, and with our self-knowledge which transcends theory.
This will be clearly seen if we try for a moment to treat the question about the criterion of the modal law-sphere as an entirely independent problem. Arguing from the epistemological nature of this criterion, the reasoning will run along the following lines: Philosophy will always be theoretical in character. Philosophic thinking is analysis and synthesis of meaning. Every analysis of meaning, however, must be based on logical distinction, and where theoretical analysis is involved, it must be based on epistemological analysis. According to the transcendental basic Idea, on which our philosophic thought is founded, temporal reality cannot be of a logical nature; it is not even capable of being contained in a concept. If this is true, is not a modal law-sphere which is only theoretically knowable to us, after all a mere product of theoretical analysis and synthesis? And if so, what is gained by continuing to speak about the law-spheres as separate modal aspects of the totality of temporal reality? Had we not better assign a purely epistemological character to them?
However conclusive this reasoning may seem to be, it hides a new pitfall. To conclude from the epistemological nature of this criterion to the purely epistemological character of a modal sphere itself would only be justified, if theoretical thought were self-sufficient and could determine the criterion on its own authority, without being itself bound to the transcendental structure of the cosmos.
Such a pre-supposition implies that the knowable diversity of meaning is after all of a (transcendental) logical nature. And this pre-supposition is indeed not to be justified in a purely epistemological manner. It is dependent on a transcendental basic Idea which must be rejected from our Christian starting-point. Just as in an earlier part of this work logical identity has been recognized as identity in a specific aspect of meaning, it should be maintained now that also logical diversity is only diversity in the specific logical aspect of meaning.
This foundation of the epistemological criterion enables us to see that logical diversity, being subject to the logical principle of contradiction, can only have a specifically logical sense in the cosmic diversity of meaning.
The cosmic diversity of aspects has no existence without logical diversity, but the former certainly exceeds the latter. Once this fact has been established, it must be admitted that philosophic thought can only form an idea of the modal aspect by means of theoretical abstraction. Only the latter separates the aspects of experience and sets them apart in logical discontinuity.
So at the outset it should be acknowledged that the criterion of a law-sphere must be a criterion of a specific inter-modal synthesis of meaning, which as such is of a theoretical character. If we are ever to gain theoretical knowledge of the modal aspects of meaning, we shall have to abstract the cosmic coherence in time.
The criterion of a modal law-sphere, though of a theoretical nature, is nevertheless not founded in thought, but in the cosmic order of time.
But the criterion is not and cannot be founded in theoretical thought. Theoretical thought itself remains within the boundaries of the temporal horizon of meaning. Hence it lacks the self-sufficiency which, on the immanence standpoint, must necessarily deprive it of all meaning if this view were to be consistently sustained.
If theoretical thought is only possible on the basis of the cosmic order of time, the theoretical criterion of the modal sphere must be founded in this cosmic order. Of course this criterion must have a logical aspect to supply the required standard of analytic distinction, which is possible only in a synthesis with the abstracted aspects of meaning of a non-logical character. The situation is consequently as follows: the modal law-spheres themselves are specific aspects of human experience, founded in the order of cosmic time. They are experienced, though not explicitly, in the naïve, pre-theoretical attitude of mind. Their diversity of meaning is based on the law of refraction of cosmic time. But theoretical thought, though itself integrated into cosmic time, in building up its concept of a specific law-sphere must necessarily abstract the latter from the temporal continuity. The question how this entire process of abstraction is possible will be answered later on in a special chapter on the epistemological problem.
In order to find the theoretical criterion of a specific aspect of meaning, abstraction is to be carried still further.
The criterion of a law-sphere as a modal concept of function. The functional structure of a law-sphere can only be understood after abstracting modal individuality.
In our theoretical investigation we shall for the present have to leave alone also the structures of individuality in order to find the general modal meaning which delimits one law-sphere from another.
This general modal meaning in its analytic-synthetic abstraction is the criterion of the law-sphere that we are trying to find.
It implies a functional structure of the law-sphere, insofar as every specific individuality of meaning within the latter is integrated by the general modal meaning into a functional coherence with all the other individualities presenting themselves in the same modal sphere.
Consider the following example taken from the spatial aspect. The spatial figures present an infinitely varied individuality of meaning among themselves, but, notwithstanding this fact, they are spatially correlated, integrated into functional coherence by the general modal meaning of the aspect, viz. by spatiality.
Geometry (1) makes use of this insight in assuming a functional conformity to law in the coherence of spatial figures which among themselves present the greatest possible individual divergences, such as a circle and a polygon, the circumference of a circle, and a tangent, parallel and non-parallel straight lines.
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(1) We intend here only a geometry which has not been formalized. The formalization of modern geometry will occupy us in a later context.
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But this assumption is only possible, because geometry does not really consider individual sensory images of spatial figures; these images as such have no original spatial meaning, as shall be explained later on. A non-formalized geometry, in its specific synthesis of meaning, investigates the original spatial sphere itself, in which all spatial individualities are placed in a functional correlation by the general modal meaning of the sphere.
The concept of the latter is an apriori functional one (2), lying at the foundation of every idea by which one tries to grasp types of individuality within the law-sphere.
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(2) In advance the reader should guard against a constructive view of the apriori in our use of the term. When the epistemological problem is dealt with, it will appear that the apriori structure of reality can only be known from experience. But this is not experience as it is conceived by immanence-philosophy.
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The functional modalities of meaning.
The general modal meaning of the law-sphere may be called a functional modality of the religious fulness of meaning. The functional structure of meaning, guaranteeing to the law-sphere its specific internal sovereignty, is indeed nothing but a modal splitting up of the totality of meaning, in time. This functional modal meaning has a law-side and a subject-side, just as cosmic time itself appeared to have (cf. Vol. I, p. 28).
We are now sufficiently alive to the fact that law and subject are mutually irreducible, notwithstanding the opinions of rationalists and irrationalists. Law and subject are only possible in their indissoluble correlation. The functional subject-side of the law-sphere is determined and delimited by the functional laws of the sphere. Both the law-side and the subject-side of the sphere are determined in their structural meaning by the cosmic order of time. Through the latter as refractional order, the law-side and the subject-side of the law-sphere are integrated into a functional modality of the religious fulness of meaning. Here it appears clearly that the criterion of the law-sphere is absolutely dependent on the transcendental Idea of the totality of meaning. Any one who looks for the criterion of the modal aspects of reality, should first of all consider, in his theoretical self-reflection, to what basic denominator he wants to reduce the law-spheres in order to be able to compare them.
In the light of our transcendental basic Idea this denominator is found in the cosmic time-order, reflecting itself in the same manner in the modal structure of every aspect. But this time-order itself is to be viewed in its relation to the religious fulness of meaning. The specific modal aspect is incomprehensible outside of the transcendental Idea of its temporal coherence with all the other aspects, and outside of its reference to the totality and the Ἀρχή of all meaning.
Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol II/ Part I/ Chapt 1/§ 1 pp 3-8)
