Peantadh Clasaigeach [guó huà 国画] Sìonach
AN GRUNND-IDÈA TAR-CHEUMNAIL AGUS BRÌGH NA FÌRINNE.
Neo-chomasachd sheallaidhean-beatha is -saoghail a tha neodrach a-thaobh reilidein. Chan eil coincheap na fìrinne tur-theòiriceach a-chaoidh ri linn brìgh.
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THE TRANSCENDENTAL GROUND-IDEA AND THE MEANING OF TRUTH.
The impossibility of an authentic religiously neutral theory of the life- and world-views. The concept of truth is never purely theoretical with respect to its meaning.
On account of its immanent theoretical character philosophy has to give a theoretical account of a life- and world-view, with which it is, however, united in its religious root. It cannot accomplish this task, however, until it attains to critical self-reflection with respect to its transcendental ground-Idea.
As little as it can be religiously neutral itself, so little can it give a neutral theory of the life- and world-views.
No single philosophic "Weltanschauungslehre" is neutral, inasmuch as it cannot be neutral with respect to the material meaning of truth, not even in a sceptical relativism that upsets all foundations of philosophic theory.
LITT considers life- and world-views, as bound in "a dialectical unity" with philosophy (loc. cit. pp. 251ff) and interprets them as concrete personal confessions of the individual struggle between person and cosmos. Philosophy, which should remain a science of a universally valid character, must, according to him, surmount the content of these confessions regarded as "something merely concrete, i.e. purely individual and limited", although the impulse to philosophic thought has originated out of this same concrete "view of life". The irrationalist Humanistic ideal of personality which is the basic factor in the transcendental Idea of LITT's dialectical system at once discloses itself in this secularized irrationalist and personalist outlook on a life- and world-view.
To be sure, LITT may in this manner interpret his own life- and world-view; but if he claims "universal validity" and "absolute truth" for this philosophic outlook on every life- and world-view, then in the nature of the case there is no question of "theoretical neutrality", and there can be no question of it, since otherwise he would have to abandon his own Humanistic vision as to the meaning of truth.
The whole hypostatization of "pure" dialectical thought serves only to release human personality, in its interpretation of life, from every norm of truth, and to loosen its individuality from the bond of a law. Hence the conflict against all "universally-valid norms and values" by which a rationalistic or semi-rationalistic Humanism still wished to bind that individuality in the human person.
We find as little neutrality in RICKERT'S theory of life- and world-views.
In him, too, there exists a religious unity in the meaning that he ascribes to his theoretical concept of truth, and in his proclamation of the sovereignty of personality loosed from the norm of truth in the choice of its life- and world-view. Only he stops half-way on the road to irrationalism, and still holds fast to formal universally-valid values and norms of reason.
By wresting the life- and world-views into the theoretical scheme of his philosophy of values, in the nature of the case he theoretically falsifies the meaning of every life- and world-view that rejects the religious starting-point of this philosophy.
How can one, for example, interpret the Calvinistic life- and world-view theoretically as a "theistic" one, grounded in the choice of the "value of holiness" as "highest value", to which as subjective commitment ("Subjectsverhalten") "piety" answers and as "good" the "world of gods" (thus RICKERT'S sixth type!) ?
It is evident, that here, in a religious aprioristic manner, a Humanistic-idealist meaning is inserted in the transcendental theoretical Idea of truth, which in advance cuts off an unprejudiced understanding of a life- and world-view with a different religious foundation.
The dependence of the meaning which a philosophic system reads into in the theoretical concept of truth, upon the transcendental ground-Idea appears from a confrontation of the various conceptions of verity, which immanence-philosophy has developed. By way of illustration, compare the nominalist view of HOBBES with the realistic and metaphysical conception of ARISTOTLE. In HOBBES truth and falsehood are considered only as attributes of language and not of "things". According to HOBBES the exact truth consists only in the immanent agreement of concepts with each other on the basis of conventional definitions (cf. LEVIATHAN. Part I, 4). In ARISTOTLE truth consists in the agreement of the judgment with the metaphysical essence of the things judged. Also compare KANT'S transcendental-logical, idealistic concept of truth with HUME'S psychologistic one; or the mathematical concept of truth of a DESCARTES with the dialectical view of a HEGEL or LITT, to say nothing of the pragmatic concept of scientific verity in the modern Humanistic philosophy of life, and in existentialism.
The supposition that, if the validity of truth is but restricted to pure theory, the meaning of verity can be determined in a "universally-valid fashion", is based on self-deception.
The consequence of the postulate of neutrality would actually have to be the allocation of the concept of truth to a personal choice of a life- and world-view.
Immanence-philosophy recognizes no norm of truth above its transcendental ground-Idea.
Actually, immanence-philosophy recognizes no norm of truth above its transcendental ground-Idea. In fact, the dogma concerning the autonomy of theoretical reason — especially in its Humanistic sense — hands truth over to the subjective commitment of the apostate personality. Therefore it is in vain that transcendental idealism attempts a refutation of the relativistic view of verity by means of logical arguments only.
Truth admits of no restriction to the theoretical-logical sphere as regards its fulness and temporal coherence of meaning. The validity of truth necessarily extends as far as the realm of judgments extends.
(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I, pp 148-151)
