"Mise agus an Clachan" le Marc CHAGALL (1911)
§ 2 - LEUDACHADH RIANAIL FEALLSANACHD AN IDÈA CHOSMONÒMAICH A RÈIR CO-THEAMACHD DO-SGAOILIDH.
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§ 2 - THE SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE COSMONOMIC IDEA IN ACCORDANCE WITH INDISSOLUBLY COHERING THEMATA
In the light of our transcendental ground-Idea, philosophical investigation ought to be carried out in accord with the following fundamental, but mutually inseparably cohering themata (themes):
1 - The transcendental criticism of philosophical thought implying the investigation of the religious ground-motives which determine the contents of the transcendental ground-Ideas.
2 - The investigation directed toward the analysis of the modal aspects of temporal reality in order to discover their functional structure. This is the general theory of the modal aspects and their proper law-spheres.
3 - The theory of knowledge with respect to naïve experience, the special sciences, and philosophy, or the transcendental self-reflection on the universally valid conditions of naïve experience and of the theoretical analysis and synthesis of modal meaning, in the light of the transcendental ground-Idea.
4 - The examination directed towards the data of naïve experience in order to investigate the typical structures of individuality of temporal reality, and their mutual intertwinements.
5 - The investigation of the structural unity of human existence within cosmic time, in the light of the transcendental Idea of human selfhood; this is the theme of philosophical anthropology. It can only be developed on the basis of all former themes of investigation.
The problem of time cannot be a particular theme, since it has a universal transcendental character, and as such embraces every particular philosophical question. It is the transcendental background of all our further inquiries.
In this volume, we have concluded the discussion of the first theme, the transcendental criticism of philosophy. We are left with the task of applying this ὑπόθεσις to the four remaining themata. But the fifth, that of philosophical anthropology, will be treated separately in our new trilogy Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, especially in the third volume.
The philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea does not recognize any dualistic division of philosophy. The themata develop the same philosophical basic problem in moments which are united in the transcendental ground-Idea, in its relation to the different structures of cosmic time. These moments are inseparably linked together.
This thematization is not intended to be a division of the philosophical fields of investigation in the sense of a delimitation of self-sufficient spheres of problems. We consider such a division to be in conflict with the essence of philosophical thought, as theoretical thought directed toward the totality of meaning. Our entire work is concerned with the religious self-reflection in philosophical inquiry; we cannot allow any single philosophical problem to be viewed in isolation.
The psychologized as well as the so-called Critical epistemology sought to set up the problem of knowledge as an independent isolated basic problem. We cannot accept this absolutization of the epistemological questions, viewed as purely theoretical ones, because a really critical transcendental epistemology depends upon religious self-knowledge and knowledge of God which transcend the theoretical sphere. Epistemology is theory directed towards the totality of meaning of human knowledge. It is the theory in which our selfhood, having attained the limits of philosophical thinking, returns into itself and thereby reflects upon the limits and supra-theoretical suppositions of temporal knowledge.
Thus viewed, what is all of philosophy other than epistemology? But it is evident, that with such a conception of the problem of knowledge, we might at the same time ask: What is all philosophy other than philosophy of the structures of temporal reality or of time? For in all of its dimensions, philosophical investigation signifies the structural theory of temporal reality, directed toward the totality and Origin of meaning in religious self-reflection. Nay — without religious self-reflection upon the meaning of our temporal cosmos, a veritably critical theory of knowledge would be unattainable for philosophy, because our temporal knowledge, in theory as well as in naïve experience, only has meaning in the whole coherence of meaning of temporal reality.
Our further investigations will be carried on in accord with the four remaining themata which we have just enumerated. These themata are to be understood as a methodical explication in different respects of one and the same basic problem. They develop this problem in its relation to the different structures of cosmic time and temporal reality, according to the moments which are contained in our transcendental ground-Idea: the transcendental Ideas of Origin, super-theoretical totality and temporal diversity of meaning in its modal aspects (opposed to each other in the theoretical "gegenstand-relation", but coherent in cosmic time) and in its temporal structures of individuality.
Only the transcendental ground-Idea gives an account of the method of thematization of philosophy.
The philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea does not recognize any other theoretical foundation than the transcendental critique of philosophical thought.
Immanence-philosophy very often recognizes particular philosophical basic sciences as the self-sufficient foundation of the special branches of science and philosophical inquiry. Our transcendental ground-Idea does not permit us to accept any other theoretical foundation for philosophy than the transcendental critique of philosophical thought as such. We do not acknowledge as a true foundation of philosophy a "phenomenology" as developed by HUSSERL or SCHELER, nor a "prima philosophia" as in speculative metaphysics. A "logic of philosophy", as is found in LASK, a critique of knowledge as developed by HUME or KANT, as well as the critical ontology of NICOLAI HARTMANN or a symbolic logic in the sense of the Vienna school, are also unacceptable to us as the basis for all philosophical investigation, because they lack a really critical foundation. Nor do we agree that a philosophy of values, or a philosophy of mind may furnish an adequate basis for all cultural sciences, whereas an epistemology may be the exclusive foundation of the natural sciences. The very notion that philosophy is founded upon self-sufficient basic sciences is rooted in the immanence standpoint. And this is true whether or not philosophy is taken as a coherent whole, or — in the case of a dualistic main division of its field of investigation — in its separate parts. Immanence-philosophy withdraws philosophical thought from a radical transcendental critique.
The transcendental critique of theoretical thought, which we have presented in this volume, is, to be sure, the ultimate theoretical foundation of philosophy. This critique is, however, not to be considered as a self-sufficient philosophical basic science, since it gives a theoretical account of the supra-philosophical ὑπόθεσις of all philosophical thought.
Philosophical thought, in accordance with its immanent limitations, remains enclosed within the temporal diversity of meaning, within which no single specific synthesis can be the common denominator of all the others, or of a complex of other syntheses. The philosophy of mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, logic, history, language, sociology, economy, aesthetics, jurisprudence, ethics, and theology, as "philosophia specialis", fall under the third and fourth theme. That is to say, they belong to the particular theory of modal aspects and to the theory of the structures of individuality, insofar as the latter express themselves within the modal aspects of reality which delimit the specific fields of inquiry of the different branches of science.
In the sense just specified, no single "philosophia specialis" can function as a philosophical basic science. The particular philosophical pre-suppositions of a special science exert their apriori influence in the most concrete problems of any particular science. We shall later show this in detail. But the particular philosophy of a special science only exists as philosophy, insofar as it examines this foundation in the light of a total theoretical vision of temporal reality. And the latter is ruled by the transcendental ground-Idea and the religious basic motive. A philosophia specialis only exists to set forth the basic problems of the special sciences in the all-sided coherence of meaning of temporal reality and to relate these problems to the supertemporal fulness of meaning and to the archè. An isolated philosophia specialis is a contradiction in terms.
Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I/ Part III/ Chapt 2/§ 2 pp 541-545)
