"Ferro" le Alberto BURRI (1958)
§ 3 - CRITÈIR EUGSAMHLACHD MODALACH NA CÈILLE AGUS CEIST AN AINMEIR-COIMEIS FO RIOCHD "BITH NA TH'ANN" (SEIN DES SEIENDEN)
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§ 3 - THE CRITERION OF THE MODAL DIVERSITY OF MEANING AND THE PROBLEM OF THE DENOMINATOR OF COMPARISON CONCEIVED AS 'THE BEING OF WHAT IS' (SEIN DES SEIENDEN)
It is a characteristic, and also an alarming phenomenon in the recent development of immanence-philosophy that the ultimate basis for the criterion of the modal diversity of temporal reality has been undermined. This is due to the influence of the process of spiritual uprooting in recent Humanism briefly outlined in Part I of the first volume.
It reveals a crisis in the religious fundamentals of Humanistic thought which is much more destructive than that which we have observed in the transitional period resulting in KANT's Critique of Pure Reason. It implies that the faith in 'reason', as the origin of the being of temporal reality, has been shaken.
KANT's transcendental turning of theoretic thought to the Idea as the 'being of what is', as the root of reality, — a process that was completed in HEGEL's absolute Idealism — has become extremely problematic to modern Humanistic thought. Critical self-reflection on the supposed supra-temporal root of temporal experience has disappeared in philosophic thinking under the overpowering pressure of historistic positivism.
The Humanistic self-consciousness has now become aware of the fact that it has been uprooted. Deprived of the apriori of
the faith in 'reason', it gets dispersed in the diversity of meaning without being capable of concentration. At the most it seeks to
regain its sense of freedom and of sovereignty in a 'historic consciousness' which frees the mind of all 'dogmas', or it tries to regain true freedom in a super-rational existentialistic attitude.
DILTHEY's empirical and irrational historism, wanting to substitute the 'vivo' for the 'cogito' as its Archimedian point, thinks it can find the new foundation for philosophic reflection in historical life, which finds no resting-place and glides along with the historic process in its historic rhythm. This view is at the same time symptomatic of the apostasy from the spirit of German Idealism.
There are various modern attempts to find a new foundation for philosophic thought which bear the stamp of the decay of the former self-confidence.
NICOLAI HARTMANN, in his critical ontology, tried to build up a new metaphysics of knowledge, apart from any kind of idealistic or realistic apriori, by a critical examination of the contents of the gnoseological phenomenon. In this attempt the fundamental denominator of all the diversity of meaning is found in 'being' which, comprising both the knowing subject and its 'Gegenstand', was supposed to differentiate itself in various ontological spheres. But the old idealistic postulate to the effect that the root of temporal reality is to be found in the Idea of reason, has been ruthlessly abandoned. The cognitive relation has been degraded to 'one of the many relations of 'being' [1] and knowledge is entirely at the mercy of a metaphysical 'being' which is inscrutable in its root and meaning.
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[1] Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis (1921) S. 158:
Erkenntnis ist ein ontologisch sekundäres Gebilde. Sie ist eine von vielen Seinsrelationen, aber in deren Gefüge eine durchaus sekundäre und abhängige. Denn Erkenntnis ist zwar vom Sein des Gegenstandes und des Subjekts abhängig, dieses aber nicht von ihr.' ['Knowledge is ontologically a secondary figure. It is one of many relations of being, but in its structure it is always entirely secondary and dependent. For knowledge, it is true, is dependent on the being of the "Gegenstand" and the subject, but the latter does not depend on the former.']
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In this way even the sense of the transcendence of the selfhood above temporal reality, however much it may have led to the absolutizing of the rational functions in idealistic metaphysics, has been lost.
'Being', as the basic denominator of reality with HARTMANN, is an undefined, general notion ('being as such', Sein überhaupt), the expression of the decay of the religious self-reflexion in Humanistic philosophy [2].
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[2] cf. op. cit. page 148 ff., where the 'notion of being' as 'the unity above the diversity' is deprived of any definiteness of meaning.
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The 'being of what is' in Greek and scholastic realistic metaphysics.
In this respect there is indeed a striking contrast between modern ontology and ARISTOTLE's metaphysics as πρώτη φιλοσοφία, as a theory of the 'being of what is' (τὸ ὄν ᾑ ὄν) Ov) [3].
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[3] Metaph. IV (I) 1, 1003 a 22: ἔστιν ἐπιστήμη τις ἣ θεωρεῖ τὸ ὄν ᾑ ὄν καὶ τὰ τούτῳ ὑπαρχοντα καθ᾿ αὑτό.
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For here 'being' as a unity with its highest metaphysical principles (ἀρχαί) is directly founded in reason ἀρχὴ τῶν ἀρχῶν which is
the origin of the 'eternal truths'. It is not a generic concept here, but rather the noumenal ground of all generic concepts, and
even exalted above the diversity of the categories [4].
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[4] Metaph. IV (Γ) 3, 1005 a 27. Praedicam. C.1; Metaph. X (I) 2, 1054 a 13.
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In the primordial doctrine of the 'being of what is' all the first metaphysical basic concepts are treated. Among the first transcendental determinations of 'being' are 'the being true' and the 'being good'. 'Being' in an absolute actual sense is identical with the deity (the pure νοῦς, the "ens realissimum" as it is called in scholasticism).
Even in AUGUSTINE 'being' and 'truth' are identified: Veritas est id quod est [5].
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[5] Soliloqu. I, II, c. 5, PL. 32 Sp. 889.
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In realistic Scholasticism 'being' is the highest of the 'transcendentalia'.
THOMAS AQUINAS in his first article of the Quaestiones disputatae de veritate calls 'being' the first and best known basic concept, to which all other notions lead back, because the intellect only determines the 'modes of being' [6].
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[6] Quaest. disp. de veritate qu. 1, art. 1. c.: 'Illud autem quod primo intellectus concipit quasi notissimum et in quo omnes conceptiones resolvit, est ens, ut Avicenna dicit in principio metaphysicae suae.'
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In his Summa Theologiae absolute 'being' is also identified with metaphysical (non-arithmetical) unity, which is in accordance with the Aristotelian way of thinking. Unity and plurality, the whole and its parts, and the basic notions resulting from them, together with potentiality and actuality are counted among the most universal and fundamental grounds of being [7].
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[7] Summa Theol. I. qu. art. 2. c. jº. Expos. in Metaph. Prol.: 'Unde et illa scientia maxima est intellectualis quae circa principia maxime universalia versatur. Quae quidem sunt ens et ea quae consequuntur ens, ut unum et multa, potentia et actus.'
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In many respects the same view is held by DUNS SCOTUS, who (with AVICENNA, ALBERTUS MAGNUS and THOMAS) calls 'being', as 'transcendens', the first object of the intellect, from which the universal determinations of 'being' such as verum, bonum, etc., are derived as secondaries [8].
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[8] Quaest. sup. Metaph. I, IV, q. 1 (Opera Omnia, Paris) : 'Primum obiectum intellectus est ens ut commune omnibus.' Ib.I. VI qu. 3: 'Cum autem quodcumque ens sit per se intelligibile et nihil possit in quocunque essentialiter includi nisi ens, sequitur quod primum obiectum intellectus erit ens. Quascunque autem rationes transcendentes, quae sunt quasi passiones entis ut verum, bonum etc. sunt posteriores primo obiecto.'
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So in realistic metaphysics we invariably find 'the being of what is' conceived of as the rational ground of all diversity of meaning; and the fundamental notion of 'being' is connected as closely as possible with the supreme principles of reason, on which the whole system depends.
In the case of HARTMANN, on the other hand, 'being' taken in an ontological sense is entirely detached from the Ἀρχή and the Archimedian point, and therefore, philosophically speaking, it is a notion formed for the occasion, created in order to get out of a scrape.
The cognitive subject may be posited as the 'Reflektionspunkt' of 'being-in-itself' by HARTMANN [9], but the really transcendental direction towards transcendence has been lost.
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[9] Ib., p. 201 fl.
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The 'being of what is' has changed from an 'ens nobis notissimum' into an agnostic 'asylum ignorantiae', turned away from the selfhood; and in this unknown 'being' the root, the ground of the 'being' of the selfhood, has been concealed.
Thus the truly basic notion of 'being' in realistic metaphysics has evaporated into an unqualified generic notion, whose diversity is delimited only by 'differentia specifica'.
The 'being of what is' as a philosophical basic denominator in HEIDEGGER's 'Sein und Zeit'.
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, in his philosophy of existence, has thrown a great deal of energy into the investigation of the 'being of what is' in order to arrive at self-reflection, in the midst of the universal decay of self-confidence. In him, just as in HARTMANN, `being' ultimately remains an unqualified generic notion in its function as the common denominator of comparison for all diversity of meaning. But behind this unqualified notion the true philosopher seeks the 'being of what is' as a hidden deity which has left Western philosophy after the period of the Ionian philosophy of nature [10].
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[10] This theme is especially developed in HEIDEGGER's book Holzwege der Philosophie.
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He vehemently turns on the old metaphysical equation of being and non-differentiated (rational) unity, because here 'being' is conceived of as a "ständige Vorhandenheit" [11] (a constant datum), in fact as an Archimedean point (in the hypostatized ratio).
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[11] Translator's note: German "vorhanden" means 'at hand, present, given, existent in the usual sense of the word. H. D. J. (H. de Jongste)
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With this HEIDEGGER attacks the foundation of the whole of ancient and modern metaphysics, which on the basis of reason wanted to gain access to the 'being of what is', to the being of the selfhood as well as to that of the reality of nature. But he also turns against the naturalistic surrender of the idea of being to the blind facts of nature.
Human existence (Dasein) has been 'thrown into the world' (in der Welt geworfen, i.e. into the given reality of 'nature'), which as a blind 'Vorhandenes' binds its inner freedom. Given 'being' is meaningless, because it is not the internally identical, not the selfhood.
This 'Geworfenheit', the being thrown or 'thrownness' of the selfhood into the meaningless, is its state of rejection ('Verworfenheit'), its falling away into nothingness.
Only in its awareness of the nothingness of being, in its fear of death, does the 'Dasein' (the ex-sistent selfhood) turn in upon itself and reflect on its freedom, in order 'das Dasein enthüllend zu entwerfen' (to project its finite existence, revealing it in its inner essence) in the movement of historical existential time.
Thus, the selfhood is sought in reflecting historical being and it is distinguished from the given, static being of 'nature', the 'ontical being' which has no selfhood.
Historical existential being in its reflected or ontological sense, must be distinguished from the ontical being of nature, and it is here for the first time that the problem of being as the common denominator for the diversity of meaning crops up. For HEIDEGGER it stands to reason that this common denominator itself must not remain dispersed in the diversity of meaning. But with him the idea of being as the philosophical basic denominator of temporal reality can no longer have the rational analogous character it possessed in realistic metaphysics. And so with HEIDEGGER, just as with NICOLAI HARTMANN, the idea of being evaporates into a meaningless notion of genus, from which the fundamental diversity of meaning between the ontical being of nature and the free historical 'Dasein' (the existential being) can be gained only by means of the addition of differentia specifica.
'In what other way,' says HEIDEGGER, 'is the difference to be conceived between historicity and the ontic, and how can it be grasped in categories? We can only subsume the ontic and historicity under a more general unity, enabling us to compare and distinguish them. But then we must become alive to the
following facts:
1 - the question about the meaning of historicity is an ontological problem, an inquiry into the structure of being of historical existence;
2 - the question about the ontic being is an ontological one about the structure of being of what is not in conformity with existentiality, about what is 'at hand', 'present', 'given' in the widest sense;
3 - the ontic is only one department of 'what is'. The idea of 'being' comprises both the ontic and historicity. It is this idea that must be capable of generic differentiation' [12].
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[12] Sein und Zeit (1927) p. 403: "Wie anders soll Geschichtlichkeit in ihrem Unterschied vom Ontischen philosophisch erfasst und "kategorial" begriffen werden, es sei denn dadurch, dass "Ontisches" sowohl wie "Historisches" in eine ursprüngliche Einheit der möglichen Vergleichseinsicht und Unterscheidbarkeit gebracht werden? Das ist aber nur möglich, wenn die Einsicht erwächst:
1 - Die Frage nach der Geschichtlichkeit ist eine ontologische Frage nach der Seinsverfassung des geschichtlich Seienden;
2 - die Frage nach dem Ontischen ist die ontologische Frage nach der Seinsverfassung des nicht daseinsmässigen Seienden, des Vorhandenen im weitesten Sinne;
3 - das Ontische ist nur ein Bezirk des Seienden. Die Idee des Seins umgreift "Ontisches" und "Historisches". Sie ist es, die sich muss "generisch differenzieren" lassen."
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The last few sentences in this quotation are very characteristic. 'Being' as a common denominator of comparison has become an unqualified idea. It bears the same relation to the fundamental diversity of meaning of 'nature' and history as the genus-concept to its 'differentia specifica'. It is no longer an Archimedean point. The selfhood has been uprooted. Only in its dread of 'Nothingness', in its freedom to project its existence in the 'Sorge' (concern) and the existential awareness of death is it distinguished from the meaningless world (i.e. das Vorhandene, or things as given by nature), and does it transcend the latter.
The Humanist personality-ideal with its proud claims to sovereignty and freedom has met its doom in a philosophy of death, in which the selfhood can only come to itself in 'concern' ("Sorge") [13], in projecting its future towards death.
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[13] HEIDEGGER's ideas of "Dasein" (= human existence), "Zeit" (= time) and "Sorge" (= concern) as the essence of the selfhood, including the definition of "Dasein" as "Zeit und Geschichtlichkeit" (= time and historicity) show a striking resemblance to SPENGLER's Treatise on "Schicksalsidee und Kausalitätsprinzip" (= The idea of Fate and Causality). This part of Der Untergang des Abendlandes, Bnd. I, S. 164-221, is worth reading in this connection.
As far as I know this agreement between the two thinkers has not yet been pointed out. Notwithstanding the fact that their conceptions of 'historic being' are wideIy different, they are at one in their irrationalist historical attitude.
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With HEIDEGGER the selfhood is exclusively free in its 'anticipatory running forward (in hermeneutical reflection) to death" ("vorlaufen in den Tod"), it is the authentic self ("eigentlich selbst") only in its fundamental isolation by the silent dreadful resolve to accept the fate of its existence [14]; a resolve in which the selfhood of its own free choice abides in nothingness (in das Nichts hinaushält) [15], accepting its 'thrown-ness' (Geworfenheit) in nothingness as its guilt.
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[14] Sein und Zeit, p. 323: The German text reads: "in der ursprünglichen Vereinzelung der verschwiegenen, sich Angst zumutenden Entschlossenheit."
[15] Was ist Metaphysik?, p. 26.
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The 'being of what is' (das Sein des Seiendes) is indeed the supremacy of Non-Being (= nothingness), into which the selfhood as Dasein (= the being there, i.e. human existential life) has been thrown in the movement of historical time, which originates from its own essence, and which it realizes with dread in so far as it really comes to itself.
In the comparative denominator, conceived of as the 'idea of Being', the fulness of meaning of reality is absent. The latter can never be related to its temporal diversity of meaning as the genus to its species.
Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol II/ Part I/ Chapt 1/§ 3 pp 18-25)
