tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43607283065402416042023-11-15T07:05:59.638-08:00link sahabatlink sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-53651740321865842232009-03-25T14:41:00.000-07:002009-03-25T14:46:35.576-07:00The Ontological Argument<div style="text-align: justify;">One of the most fascinating arguments for the existence of an all-perfect God is the ontological argument. While there are several different versions of the argument, all purport to show that it is self-contradictory to deny that there exists a greatest possible being. Thus, on this general line of argument, it is a necessary truth that such a being exists - and this being is, of course, the God of traditional theism. This entry explains and evaluates classic and contemporary versions of the ontological argument.<br /><br />1. Introduction: The Non-Empirical Nature of the Ontological Arguments<br /><br />Most of the arguments for God's existence rely on at least one empirical premise. For example, the "fine-tuning" version of the design argument depends on empirical evidence of intelligent design; in particular, it turns on the empirical claim that, as a nomological matter, life could not have developed had certain fundamental properties of the universe differed even slightly from what they are. Likewise, cosmological arguments depend on certain empirical claims about the explanation for the occurrence of empirical events.<br /><br />In contrast, the ontological arguments are conceptual in roughly the following sense: just as the propositions constituting the concept of a bachelor imply that every bachelor is male, the propositions constituting the concept of God, according to the ontological argument, imply that God exists. There is, of course, this difference: whereas the concept of a bachelor explicitly contains the proposition that bachelors are unmarried, the concept of God does not explicitly contain any proposition asserting the existence of such a being. Even so, the basic idea is the same: ontological arguments attempt to show that we can deduce God's existence from, so to speak, the very definition of God.<br /><br />It is worth reflecting for a moment on what a remarkable (and beautiful!) undertaking this is. Normally, existential claims don't follow from conceptual claims. If I want to prove that bachelors, unicorns, or viruses exist, it is not enough just to reflect on the concepts. I need to go out into the world and conduct some sort of empirical investigation using my senses. Likewise, if I want to prove that bachelors, unicorns, or viruses don't exist, I must do the same. In general, positive and negative existential claims can be established only by empirical methods.<br /><br />There is, however, one class of exceptions. We can prove certain negative existential claims merely by reflecting on the content of the concept. Thus, for example, we can determine that there are no square circles in the world without going out and looking under every rock to see whether there is a square circle there. We can do so merely by consulting the definition and seeing that it is self-contradictory. Thus, the very concepts imply that there exist no entities that are both square and circular.<br /><br />The ontological argument, then, is unique among such arguments in that it purports to establish the real (as opposed to abstract) existence of some entity. Indeed, if the ontological arguments succeed, it is as much a contradiction to suppose that God doesn't exist as it is to suppose that there are square circles or female bachelors. In the following sections, we will evaluate a number of different attempts to develop this astonishing strategy.<br /><br /><br /><br />2. The Classic Version of the Ontological Argument<br /><br />a. The Argument Described<br /><br />St. Anselm, Archbishop of Cantebury (1033-1109), is the originator of the ontological argument, which he describes in the Proslogium as follows:<br /><br />[Even a] fool, when he hears of … a being than which nothing greater can be conceived … understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding.… And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.… Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.<br /><br />The argument in this difficult passage can accurately be summarized in standard form:<br /><br /> 1. It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (i.e., the greatest possible being that can be imagined).<br /> 2. God exists as an idea in the mind.<br /> 3. A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.<br /> 4. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (i.e., a greatest possible being that does exist).<br /> 5. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.)<br /> 6. Therefore, God exists.<br /><br />Intuitively, one can think of the argument as being powered by two ideas. The first, expressed by Premise 2, is that we have a coherent idea of a being that instantiates all of the perfections. Otherwise put, Premise 2 asserts that we have a coherent idea of a being that instantiates every property that makes a being greater, other things being equal, than it would have been without that property (such properties are also known as "great-making" properties). Premise 3 asserts that existence is a perfection or great-making property.<br /><br />Accordingly, the very concept of a being that instantiates all the perfections implies that it exists. Suppose B is a being that instantiates all the perfections and suppose B doesn't exist (in reality). Since Premise 3 asserts that existence is a perfection, it follows that B lacks a perfection. But this contradicts the assumption that B is a being that instantiates all the perfections. Thus, according to this reasoning, it follows that B exists.<br /><br /><br /><br />b. Gaunilo's Criticism<br /><br />Gaunilo of Marmoutier, a monk and contemporary of Anselm's, is responsible for one of the most important criticisms of Anselm's argument. It is quite reasonable to worry that Anselm's argument illegitimately moves from the existence of an idea to the existence of a thing that corresponds to the idea. As the objection is sometimes put, Anselm simply defines things into existence-and this cannot be done.<br /><br />Gaunilo shared this worry, believing that one could use Anselm's argument to show the existence of all kinds of non-existent things:<br /><br />Now if some one should tell me that there is … an island [than which none greater can be conceived], I should easily understand his words, in which there is no difficulty. But suppose that he went on to say, as if by a logical inference: "You can no longer doubt that this island which is more excellent than all lands exists somewhere, since you have no doubt that it is in your understanding. And since it is more excellent not to be in the understanding alone, but to exist both in the understanding and in reality, for this reason it must exist. For if it does not exist, any land which really exists will be more excellent than it; and so the island understood by you to be more excellent will not be more excellent."<br /><br />Gaunilo's argument, thus, proceeds by attempting to use Anselm's strategy to deduce the existence of a perfect island, which Gaunilo rightly views as a counterexample to the argument form. The counterexample can be expressed as follows:<br /><br /> 1. It is a conceptual truth that a piland is an island than which none greater can be imagined (i.e., the greatest possible island that can be imagined).<br /> 2. A piland exists as an idea in the mind.<br /> 3. A piland that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is greater than a piland that exists only as an idea in the mind.<br /> 4. Thus, if a piland exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine an island that is greater than a piland (i.e., a greatest possible island that does exist).<br /> 5. But we cannot imagine an island that is greater than a piland.<br /> 6. Therefore, a piland exists.<br /><br />Notice, however, that premise 1 of Gaunilo's argument is incoherent. The problem here is that the qualities that make an island great are not the sort of qualities that admit of conceptually maximal qualities. No matter how great any island is in some respect, it is always possible to imagine an island greater than that island in that very respect. For example, if one thinks that abundant fruit is a great-making property for an island, then, no matter how great a particular island might be, it will always be possible to imagine a greater island because there is no intrinsic maximum for fruit-abundance. For this reason, the very concept of a piland is incoherent.<br /><br />But this is not true of the concept of God as Anselm conceives it. Properties like knowledge, power, and moral goodness, which comprise the concept of a maximally great being, do have intrinsic maximums. For example, perfect knowledge requires knowing all and only true propositions; it is conceptually impossible to know more than this. Likewise, perfect power means being able to do everything that it is possible to do; it is conceptually impossible for a being to be able to do more than this.<br /><br />The general point here, then, is this: Anselm's argument works, if at all, only for concepts that are entirely defined in terms of properties that admit of some sort of intrinsic maximum. As C.D. Broad puts this important point:<br /><br />[The notion of a greatest possible being imaginable assumes that] each positive property is to be present in the highest possible degree. Now this will be meaningless verbiage unless there is some intrinsic maximum or upper limit to the possible intensity of every positive property which is capable of degrees. With some magnitudes this condition is fulfilled. It is, e.g., logically impossible that any proper fraction should exceed the ratio 1/1; and again, on a certain definition of "angle," it is logically impossible for any angle to exceed four right angles. But it seems quite clear that there are other properties, such as length or temperature or pain, to which there is no intrinsic maximum or upper limit of degree.<br /><br />If any of the properties that are conceptually essential to the notion of God do not admit of an intrinsic maximum, then Anselm's argument strategy will not work because, like Guanilo's concept of a piland, the relevant concept of God is incoherent. But insofar as the relevant great-making properties are limited to omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection (which do admit of intrinsic maximums), Anselm's notion of a greatest possible being seems to avoid the worry expressed by Broad and Guanilo.<br /><br /><br /><br />c. Aquinas's Criticisms<br /><br />While St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) believed that God's existence is self-evident, he rejected the idea that it can be deduced from claims about the concept of God. Aquinas argued, plausibly enough, that "not everyone who hears this word 'God' understands it to signify something than which nothing greater can be thought, seeing that some have believed God to be a body." The idea here is that, since different people have different concepts of God, this argument works, if at all, only to convince those who define the notion of God in the same way.<br /><br />The problem with this criticism is that the ontological argument can be restated without defining God. To see this, simply delete premise 1 and replace each instance of "God" with "A being than which none greater can be conceived." The conclusion, then, will be that a being than which none greater can be conceived exists - and it is, of course, quite natural to name this being God.<br /><br />Nevertheless, Aquinas had a second problem with the ontological argument. On Aquinas's view, even if we assume that everyone shares the same concept of God as a being than which none greater can be imagined, "it does not therefore follow that he understands what the word signifies exists actually, but only that it exists mentally."<br /><br />One natural interpretation of this somewhat ambiguous passage is that Aquinas is rejecting premise 2 of Anselm's argument on the ground that, while we can rehearse the words "a being than which none greater can be imagined" in our minds, we have no idea of what this sequence of words really means. On this view, God is unlike any other reality known to us; while we can easily understand concepts of finite things, the concept of an infinitely great being dwarfs finite human understanding. We can, of course, try to associate the phrase "a being than which none greater can be imagined" with more familiar finite concepts, but these finite concepts are so far from being an adequate description of God, that it is fair to say they don't help us to get a detailed idea of God.<br /><br />Nevertheless, the success of the argument doesn't depend on our having a complete understanding of the concept of a being than which none greater can be conceived. Consider, for example, that, while we don't have a complete understanding (whatever this means) of the concept of a natural number than which none larger can be imagined, we understand it well enough to see that there does not exist such a number. No more complete understanding of the concept of a maximally great being than this is required, on Anselm's view, to successfully make the argument. If the concept is coherent, then even a minimal understanding of the concept is sufficient to make the argument.<br /><br /><br /><br />d. Kant's Criticism: Is Existence a Perfection?<br /><br />Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) directs his famous objection at premise 3's claim that a being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind. According to premise 3, existence is what's known as a great-making property or, as the matter is sometimes put, a perfection. Premise 3 thus entails that (1) existence is a property; and (2) instantiating existence makes a thing better, other things being equal, than it would have been otherwise.<br /><br />Kant rejects premise 3 on the ground that, as a purely formal matter, existence does not function as a predicate. As Kant puts the point:<br /><br />Being is evidently not a real predicate, that is, a conception of something which is added to the conception of some other thing. It is merely the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations in it. Logically, it is merely the copula of a judgement. The proposition, God is omnipotent, contains two conceptions, which have a certain object or content; the word is, is no additional predicate-it merely indicates the relation of the predicate to the subject. Now if I take the subject (God) with all its predicates (omnipotence being one), and say, God is, or There is a God, I add no new predicate to the conception of God, I merely posit or affirm the existence of the subject with all its predicates - I posit the object in relation to my conception.<br /><br />Accordingly, what goes wrong with the first version of the ontological argument is that the notion of existence is being treated as the wrong logical type. Concepts, as a logical matter, are defined entirely in terms of logical predicates. Since existence isn't a logical predicate, it doesn't belong to the concept of God; it rather affirms that the existence of something that satisfies the predicates defining the concept of God.<br /><br />While Kant's criticism is phrased (somewhat obscurely) in terms of the logic of predicates and copulas, it also makes a plausible metaphysical point. Existence is not a property (in, say, the way that being red is a property of an apple). Rather it is a precondition for the instantiation of properties in the following sense: it is not possible for a non-existent thing to instantiate any properties because there is nothing to which, so to speak, a property can stick. Nothing has no qualities whatsoever. To say that x instantiates a property P is hence to presuppose that x exists. Thus, on this line of reasoning, existence isn't a great-making property because it is not a property at all; it is rather a metaphysically necessary condition for the instantiation of any properties.<br /><br />But even if we concede that existence is a property, it does not seem to be the sort of property that makes something better for having it. Norman Malcolm expresses the argument as follows:<br /><br />The doctrine that existence is a perfection is remarkably queer. It makes sense and is true to say that my future house will be a better one if it is insulated than if it is not insulated; but what could it mean to say that it will be a better house if it exists than if it does not? My future child will be a better man if he is honest than if he is not; but who would understand the saying that he will be a better man if he exists than if he does not? Or who understands the saying that if God exists He is more perfect than if he does not exist? One might say, with some intelligibility, that it would be better (for oneself or for mankind) if God exists than if He does not-but that is a different matter.<br /><br />The idea here is that existence is very different from, say, the property of lovingness. A being that is loving is, other things being equal, better or greater than a being that is not. But it seems very strange to think that a loving being that exists is, other things being equal, better or greater than a loving being that doesn't exist. But to the extent that existence doesn't add to the greatness of a thing, the classic version of the ontological argument fails.<br /><br /><br /><br />3. Anselm's Second Version of the Ontological Argument<br /><br />As it turns out, there are two different versions of the ontological argument in the Prosologium. The second version does not rely on the highly problematic claim that existence is a property and hence avoids many of the objections to the classic version. Here is the second version of the ontological argument as Anselm states it:<br /><br />God is that, than which nothing greater can be conceived.… And [God] assuredly exists so truly, that it cannot be conceived not to exist. For, it is possible to conceive of a being which cannot be conceived not to exist; and this is greater than one which can be conceived not to exist. Hence, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, can be conceived not to exist, it is not that, than which nothing greater can be conceived. But this is an irreconcilable contradiction. There is, then, so truly a being than which nothing greater can be conceived to exist, that it cannot even be conceived not to exist; and this being thou art, O Lord, our God.<br /><br />This version of the argument relies on two important claims. As before, the argument includes a premise asserting that God is a being than which a greater cannot be conceived. But this version of the argument, unlike the first, does not rely on the claim that existence is a perfection; instead it relies on the claim that necessary existence is a perfection. This latter claim asserts that a being whose existence is necessary is greater than a being whose existence is not necessary. Otherwise put, then, the second key claim is that a being whose non-existence is logically impossible is greater than a being whose non-existence is logically possible.<br /><br />More formally, the argument is this:<br /><br /> 1. By definition, God is a being than which none greater can be imagined.<br /> 2. A being that necessarily exists in reality is greater than a being that does not necessarily exist.<br /> 3. Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God.<br /> 4. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God.<br /> 5. Thus, if God exists in the mind as an idea, then God necessarily exists in reality.<br /> 6. God exists in the mind as an idea.<br /> 7. Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality.<br /><br />This second version appears to be less vulnerable to Kantian criticisms than the first. To begin with, necessary existence, unlike mere existence, seems clearly to be a property. Notice, for example, that the claim that x necessarily exists entails a number of claims that attribute particular properties to x. For example, if x necessarily exists, then its existence does not depend on the existence of any being (unlike contingent human beings whose existence depends, at the very least, on the existence of their parents). And this seems to entail that x has the reason for its existence in its own nature. But these latter claims clearly attribute particular properties to x.<br /><br />And only a claim that attributes a particular property can entail claims that attribute particular properties. While the claim that x exists clearly entails that x has at least one property, this does not help. We cannot soundly infer any claims that attribute particular properties to x from either the claim that x exists or the claim that x has at least one property; indeed, the claim that x has at least one property no more expresses a particular property than the claim that x exists. This distinguishes the claim that x exists from the claim that x necessarily exists and hence seems to imply that the latter, and only the latter, expresses a property.<br /><br />Moreover, one can plausibly argue that necessary existence is a great-making property. To say that a being necessarily exists is to say that it exists eternally in every logically possible world; such a being is not just, so to speak, indestructible in this world, but indestructible in every logically possible world - and this does seem, at first blush, to be a great-making property. As Malcolm puts the point:<br /><br />If a housewife has a set of extremely fragile dishes, then as dishes, they are inferior to those of another set like them in all respects except that they are not fragile. Those of the first set are dependent for their continued existence on gentle handling; those of the second set are not. There is a definite connection between the notions of dependency and inferiority, and independence and superiority. To say that something which was dependent on nothing whatever was superior to anything that was dependent on any way upon anything is quite in keeping with the everyday use of the terms superior and greater.<br /><br />Nevertheless, the matter is not so clear as Malcolm believes. It might be the case that, other things being equal, a set of dishes that is indestructible in this world is greater than a set of dishes that is not indestructible in this world. But it is very hard to see how transworld indestructibility adds anything to the greatness of a set of dishes that is indestructible in this world. From our perspective, there is simply nothing to be gained by adding transworld indestructibility to a set of dishes that is actually indestructible. There is simply nothing that a set of dishes that is indestructible in every possible world can do in this world that can't be done by a set of dishes that is indestructible in this world but not in every other world.<br /><br />And the same seems to be true of God. Suppose that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, eternal (and hence, so to speak, indestructible), personal God exists in this world but not in some other worlds. It is very hard to make sense of the claim that such a God is deficient in some relevant respect. God's indestructibility in this world means that God exists eternally in all logically possible worlds that resemble this one in certain salient respects. It is simply unclear how existence in these other worlds that bear no resemblance to this one would make God greater and hence more worthy of worship. From our perspective, necessary existence adds nothing in value to eternal existence. If this is correct, then Anselm's second version of the argument also fails.<br /><br /><br /><br />4. Modal Versions of the Argument<br /><br />Even if, however, we assume that Anselm's second version of the argument can be defended against such objections, there is a further problem: it isn't very convincing because it is so difficult to tell whether the argument is sound. Thus, the most important contemporary defender of the argument, Alvin Plantinga, complains "[a]t first sight, Anselm's argument is remarkably unconvincing if not downright irritating; it looks too much like a parlor puzzle or word magic." As a result, despite its enduring importance, the ontological argument has brought few people to theism.<br /><br />There have been several attempts to render the persuasive force of the ontological argument more transparent by recasting it using the logical structures of contemporary modal logic. One influential attempts to ground the ontological argument in the notion of God as an unlimited being. As Malcolm describes this idea:<br /><br />God is usually conceived of as an unlimited being. He is conceived of as a being who could not be limited, that is, as an absolutely unlimited being.… If God is conceived to be an absolutely unlimited being He must be conceived to be unlimited in regard to His existence as well as His operation. In this conception it will not make sense to say that He depends on anything for coming into or continuing in existence. Nor, as Spinoza observed, will it make sense to say that something could prevent Him from existing. Lack of moisture can prevent trees from existing in a certain region of the earth. But it would be contrary to the concept of God as an unlimited being to suppose that anything … could prevent Him from existing.<br /><br />The unlimited character of God, then, entails that his existence is different from ours in this respect: while our existence depends causally on the existence of other beings (e.g., our parents), God's existence does not depend causally on the existence of any other being.<br /><br />Further, on Malcolm's view, the existence of an unlimited being is either logically necessary or logically impossible. Here is his argument for this important claim. Either an unlimited being exists at world W or it doesn't exist at world W; there are no other possibilities. If an unlimited being does not exist in W, then its nonexistence cannot be explained by reference to any causally contingent feature of W; accordingly, there is no contingent feature of W that explains why that being doesn't exist. Now suppose, per reductio, an unlimited being exists in some other world W'. If so, then it must be some contingent feature f of W' that explains why that being exists in that world. But this entails that the nonexistence of an unlimited being in W can be explained by the absence of f in W; and this contradicts the claim that its nonexistence in W can't be explained by reference to any causally contingent feature. Thus, if God doesn't exist at W, then God doesn't exist in any logically possible world.<br /><br />A very similar argument can be given for the claim that an unlimited being exists in every logically possible world if it exists in some possible world W; the details are left for the interested reader. Since there are only two possibilities with respect to W and one entails the impossibility of an unlimited being and the other entails the necessity of an unlimited being, it follows that the existence of an unlimited being is either logically necessary or logically impossible.<br /><br />All that is left, then, to complete Malcolm's elegant version of the proof is the premise that the existence of an unlimited being is not logically impossible - and this seems plausible enough. The existence of an unlimited being is logically impossible only if the concept of an unlimited being is self-contradictory. Since we have no reason, on Malcolm's view to think the existence of an unlimited being is self-contradictory, it follows that an unlimited being, i.e., God, exists. Here's the argument reduced to its basic elements:<br /><br /> 1. God is, as a conceptual matter (i.e., as a matter of definition) an unlimited being.<br /> 2. The existence of an unlimited being is either logically necessary or logically impossible.<br /> 3. The existence of an unlimited being is not logically impossible.<br /> 4. Therefore, the existence of God is logically necessary.<br /><br />Notice that Malcolm's version of the argument does not turn on the claim that necessary existence is a great-making property. Rather, as we saw above, Malcolm attempts to argue that there are only two possibilities with respect to the existence of an unlimited being: either it is necessary or it is impossible. And notice that his argument does not turn in any way on characterizing the property necessary existence as making something that instantiates that property better than it would be without it. Thus, Malcolm's version of the argument is not vulnerable to the criticisms of Anselm's claim that necessary existence is a perfection.<br /><br />But while Malcolm's version of the argument is, moreover, considerably easier to understand than Anselm's versions, it is also vulnerable to objection. In particular, Premise 2 is not obviously correct. The claim that an unlimited being B exists at some world W clearly entails that B always exists at W (i.e., that B's existence is eternal or everlasting in W), but this doesn't clearly entail that B necessarily exists (i.e., that B exists at every logically possible world). To defend this further claim, one needs to give an argument that the notion of a contingent eternal being is self-contradictory.<br /><br />Similarly, the claim that an unlimited being B does not exist at W clearly entails that B never exists at W (i.e., that it is always true in W that B doesn't exist), but it doesn't clearly entail that B necessarily doesn't exist (i.e., B exists at no logically possible world or B's existence is logically impossible. Indeed, there are plenty of beings that will probably never exist in this world that exist in other logically possible worlds, like unicorns. For this reason, Premise 2 of Malcolm's version is questionable.<br /><br />Perhaps the most influential of contemporary modal arguments is Plantinga's version. Plantinga begins by defining two properties, the property of maximal greatness and the property of maximal excellence, as follows:<br /><br /> 1. A being is maximally excellent in a world W if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect in W; and<br /> 2. A being is maximally great in a world W if and only if it is maximally excellent in every possible world.<br /><br />Thus, maximal greatness entails existence in every possible world: since a being that is maximally great at W is omnipotent at every possible world and non-existent beings can't be omnipotent, it follows that a maximally great being exists in every logically possible world.<br /><br />Accordingly, the trick is to show that a maximally great being exists in some world W because it immediately follows from this claim that such a being exists in every world, including our own. But notice that the claim that a maximally great being exists in some world is logically equivalent to the claim that the concept of a maximally great being is not self-contradictory; for the only things that don't exist in any possible world are things that are conceptually defined in terms of contradictory properties. There is no logically possible world in which a square circle exists (given the relevant concepts) because the property of being square is inconsistent with the property of being circular.<br /><br />Since, on Plantinga's view, the concept of a maximally great being is consistent and hence possibly instantiated, it follows that such a being, i.e., God, exists in every possible world. Here is a schematic representation of the argument:<br /><br /> 1. The concept of a maximally great being is self-consistent.<br /> 2. If 1, then there is at least one logically possible world in which a maximally great being exists.<br /> 3. Therefore, there is at least one logically possible world in which a maximally great being exists.<br /> 4. If a maximally great being exists in one logically possible world, it exists in every logically possible world.<br /> 5. Therefore, a maximally great being (i.e., God) exists in every logically possible world.<br /><br />It is sometimes objected that Plantinga's Premise 4 is an instance of a controversial general modal principle. The S5 system of modal logic includes an axiom that looks suspiciously similar to Premise 4:<br /><br />AxS5: If A is possible, then it is necessarily true that A is possible.<br /><br />The intuition underlying AxS5 is, as James Sennett puts it, that "all propositions bear their modal status necessarily." But, according to this line of criticism, Plantinga's version is unconvincing insofar as it rests on a controversial principle of modal logic.<br /><br />To see that this criticism is unfounded, it suffices to make two observations. First, notice that the following propositions are not logically equivalent:<br /><br />PL4 If "A maximally great being exists" is possible, then "A maximally great being exists" is necessarily true.<br /><br />PL4* If "A maximally great being exists" is possible, then it is necessarily true that "A maximally great being exists" is possible.<br /><br />PL4 is, of course, Plantinga's Premise 4 slightly reworded, while PL4* is simply a straightforward instance of AxS5. While PL4 implies PL4* (since if A is true at every world, it is possible at every world), PL4* doesn't imply PL4; for PL4 clearly makes a much stronger claim than PL4*.<br /><br />Second, notice that the argument for Premise 4 does not make any reference to the claim that all propositions bear their modal status necessarily. Plantinga simply builds necessary existence into the very notion of maximal greatness. Since, by definition, a being that is maximally great at W is omnipotent at every possible world and a being that does not exist at some world W' cannot be omnipotent at W', it straightforwardly follows, without the help of anything like the controversial S5 axiom, that a maximally great being exists in every logically possible world.<br /><br />Indeed, it is for this very reason that Plantinga avoids the objection to Malcolm's argument that was considered above. Since the notion of maximal greatness, in contrast to the notion of an unlimited being as Malcolm defines it, is conceived in terms that straightforwardly entail existence in every logically possible world (and hence eternal existence in every logically possible world), there are no worries about whether maximal greatness, in contrast to unlimitedness, entails something stronger than eternal existence.<br /><br />IV. Is the Concept of a Maximally Great Being Coherent?<br /><br />As is readily evident, each version of the ontological argument rests on the assumption that the concept of God, as it is described in the argument, is self-consistent. Both versions of Anselm's argument rely on the claim that the idea of God (i.e., a being than which none greater can be conceived) "exists as an idea in the understanding." Similarly, Plantinga's version relies on the more transparent claim that the concept of maximal greatness is self-consistent.<br /><br />But many philosophers are skeptical about the underlying assumption, as Leibniz describes it, "that this idea of the all-great or all-perfect being is possible and implies no contradiction." Here is the problem as C.D. Broad expresses it:<br /><br />Let us suppose, e.g., that there were just three positive properties X, Y, and Z; that any two of them are compatible with each other; but that the presence of any two excludes the remaining one. Then there would be three possible beings, viz., one which combines X and Y, one which combines Y and Z, and one which combines Z and X, each of which would be such that nothing … superior to it is logically possible. For the only kind of being which would be … superior to any of these would be one which had all three properties, X, Y, and Z; and, by hypothesis, this combination is logically impossible.… It is now plain that, unless all positive properties be compatible with each other, this phrase [i.e., "a being than which none greater can be imagined"] is just meaningless verbiage like the phrase "the greatest possible integer."<br /><br />Thus, if there are two great-making characteristics essential to the classically theistic notion of an all-perfect God that are logically incompatible, it follows that this notion is incoherent.<br /><br />Here it is important to note that all versions of the ontological argument assume that God is simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect. As we have seen, Plantinga expressly defines maximal excellence in such terms. Though Anselm doesn't expressly address the issue, it is clear (1) that he is attempting to show the existence of the God of classical theism; and (2) that the great-making properties include those of omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection.<br /><br />There are a number of plausible arguments for thinking that even this restricted set of properties is logically inconsistent. For example, moral perfection is thought to entail being both perfectly merciful and perfectly just. But these two properties seem to contradict each other. To be perfectly just is always to give every person exactly what she deserves. But to be perfectly merciful is to give at least some persons less punishment than they deserve. If so, then a being cannot be perfectly just and perfectly merciful. Thus, if moral perfection entails, as seems reasonable, being perfectly just and merciful, then the concept of moral perfection is inconsistent.<br /><br />The problem of divine foreknowledge can also be seen as denying that omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection constitute a coherent set. Roughly put, the problem of divine foreknowledge is as follows. If God is omniscient, then God knows what every person will do at every moment t. To say that a person p has free will is to say that there is at least one moment t at which p does A but could have done other than A. But if a person p who does A at t has the ability to do other than A at t, then it follows that p has the ability to bring it about that an omniscient God has a false belief - and this is clearly impossible.<br /><br />On this line of analysis, then, it follows that it is logically impossible for a being to simultaneously instantiate omniscience and omnipotence. Omnipotence entails the power to create free beings, but omniscience rules out the possibility that such beings exist. Thus, a being that is omniscient lacks the ability to create free beings and is hence not omnipotent. Conversely, a being that is omnipotent has the power to create free beings and hence does not know what such beings would do if they existed. Thus, the argument concludes that omniscience and omnipotence are logically incompatible. If this is correct, then all versions of the ontological argument fail.<br /><br /><br /><br />5. Bibliography<br /><br />Anselm, St., Anselm's Basic Writings, translated by S.W. Deane, 2nd Ed. (La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Co., 1962)<br /><br />Aquinas, Thomas, St., Summa Theologica (1a Q2), "Whether the Existence of God is Self-Evident (Thomas More Publishing, 1981)<br /><br />Barnes, Jonathan, The Ontological Argument (London: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1972)<br /><br />Broad, C.D., Religion, Philosophy and Psychical Research (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1953)<br /><br />Findlay, J.N., "God's Existence is Necessarily Impossible," from Flew, Antony and MacIntyre, Alasdair, New Essays in Philosophical Theology (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1955)<br /><br />Gale, Richard, On the Nature and Existence of God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)<br /><br />Hartshore, Charles, The Logic of Perfection (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1962)<br /><br />Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, translated by E.S. Haldane and F.H. Simson (London, Kegan Paul, 1896)<br /><br />Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by J.M.D. Meiklejohn (New York: Colonial Press, 1900)<br /><br />Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, translated by A.G. Langley (Chicago, IL: Open Court Publishing, 1896).<br /><br />Malcolm, Norman, "Anselm's Ontological Argument," Philosophical Review, vol. 69, no. 1 (1960), 41-62<br /><br />Miller, Ed L., God and Reason, 2nd Ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1995)<br /><br />Pike, Nelson, "Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action," Philosophical Review, vol. 74 (1965)<br /><br />Plantinga, Alvin, God, Freedom, and Evil (New York: Harper and Row, 1974)<br /><br />Plantinga, Alvin, The Ontological Argument from St. Anselm to Contemporary Philosophers (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965)<br /><br />Pojman, Louis, Philosophy of Religion (London: Mayfield Publishing Co., 2001)<br /><br />Rowe, William, "Modal Versions of the Ontological Argument," in Pojman, Louis (ed.), Philosophy of Religion, 3rd Ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1998)<br /><br />Sennett, James F., "Universe Indexed Properties and the Fate of the Ontological Argument," Religious Studies, vol. 27 (1991), 65-79<br /><br /></div>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-70182449998866855322009-03-24T22:26:00.000-07:002009-03-24T22:27:46.367-07:00Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900)<div style="text-align: justify;">Solovyov was a 19th Century Russian Philosopher. He is considered a prolific but complicated character. His output aimed to be a comprehensive philosophical system, yet he produced what is considered contentious, theosophical and fundamentally inconclusive results.<br /><br />This article examines in detail Slovyov’s five main works. It also looks into the controversy he generated and his possible philosophical legacy. In the course of five main works – three were completed, two were left unfinished – Solovyov demonstrated a predilection for grand topics of study and an ambitious aim to produce a comprehensive philosophical system that rejected accepted notions of contemporary European Philosophy. In his first major work, The Crisis of Western Philosophy (written when he was twenty-one), he argues against positivism and for moving away from a dichotomy of “speculative” (rationalist) and “empirical” knowledge in favour of a post-philosophical enquiry that would reconcile all notions of thought in a new transcendental whole.<br /><br />He carried on his attempted synthesis of rationalism, empiricism and mysticism in Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge, and he turned to a study of ethics leading to a solidifying of his epistemology in Critique of Abstract Principles.<br /><br />In the later period of his life, he recast his ethics in The Justification of the Good and his epistemology in Theoretical Philosophy.<br />Due to his conclusions repeatedly resting on a call upon an aspect of the divine or the discovery of an “all-encompassing spirit,” the soundness of his arguments have often been called into question. For the same reason, and compounded by a tendency to express himself in theological and romantically nationalist language, he is also often dismissed as a mystic or fanatic. Although, as the article below argues, if read as a product of his time, they are more sensible and less polemical.<br /><br />1. Life<br /><br />Solovyov was born in Moscow in 1853. His father, Sergej Mikhailovich, a professor at Moscow University, is universally recognized as one of Russia's greatest historians. After attending secondary school in Moscow, Vladimir enrolled at the university and began his studies there in the natural sciences in 1869, his particular interest at this time being biology. Already at the age of 13 he had renounced his Orthodox faith to his friends, accepting the banner of materialism perhaps best illustrated by the fictional character of Bazarov in Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons and the actual historical figure of Pisarev. During the first two or three years of study at the university Solovyov grew disenchanted with his ardent positivism and did poorly in his examinations. An excellent student prior to this time, there is no reason for us to doubt his intellectual gifts. Nevertheless, although he himself as well as his interpreters have attributed his poor performance to growing disinterest in his course of study, this reasoning may sound to us at least somewhat disingenuous. In any case, Solovyov subsequently enrolled as an auditor in the Historical-Philosophical Faculty, then passing the examination for a degree in June 1873.<br /><br />At some point during 1872 Solovyov reconverted, so to speak, to Orthodoxy. During the academic year 1873-74 he attended lectures at the Moscow Ecclesiastic Academy--an unusual step for a lay person. At this time Solovyov also began the writing of his magister's dissertation, several chapters of which were published in a Russian theological journal in advance of’ his formal defense of it in early December 1874.<br /><br />The death of his Moscow University philosophy teacher Pamfil Jurkevich created a vacancy that Solovyov surely harbored hopes of eventually filling. Nevertheless, despite being passed over, owing, at least in part, to his young age and lack of credentials, he was named a docent (lecturer) in philosophy. In spite of taking up his teaching duties with enthusiasm, within a few months Solovyov applied for a scholarship to do research abroad, primarily in London's British Museum.<br /><br />His stay in the English capital was met with mixed emotions, but it could not have been entirely unpleasant, for in mid-September 1875 he was still informing his mother of plans to return to Russia only the following summer. For whatever reason, though, Solovyov abruptly changed his mind, writing again to his mother a mere month later that his work required him to go to Egypt via Italy and Greece. Some have attributed his change of plans to a mystical experience while sitting in the reading room of the Museum!<br /><br />Upon his return to Russia the following year, Solovyov taught philosophy at Moscow University. He began work on a text that we know as the Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge, but which he never finished. In early 1877 Solovyov relinquished his university position due to his aversion towards academic politics, took up residence in St. Petersburg and accepted employment in the Ministry of Public Education. While preparing his doctoral dissertation, Solovyov gave a series of highly successful popular lectures at St. Petersburg University that was later published as Lectures on Divine Humanity, and in 1880 he defended a doctoral dissertation at St. Petersburg University. Any lingering hope Solovyov may have entertained of obtaining a professorship in Russia were dashed when in early 1881 during a public lecture he appealed to the Tsar to pardon the regicides of the latter's father Alexander II.<br /><br />For the remainder of the 1880s, despite his prolificacy, Solovyov concerned himself with themes of little interest to contemporary Western philosophy. He returned, however, to traditional philosophical issues in the 1890s, working in particular on ethics and epistemology. His studies on the latter, however, were left quite incomplete owing to his premature death in 1900 at the age of 47. At the end Solovyov, together with his younger brother, was also preparing a new Russian translation of Plato's works.<br /><br />2. Interpretations of Solovyov's Philosophical Writings<br /><br />Despite the vast amount of secondary literature, particularly, of course, in Russian, little, especially that in English, is of interest to the professionally-trained philosopher. Nevertheless, even while memory of him was still fresh, many of his friends differed sharply on key issues involved in interpreting Solovyov's writings and legacy.<br /><br />Among the topics debated over the years has been the number of phases or periods through which his thought passed. Opinions have ranged from four to just one, depending largely on the different criteria selected for demarcating one period from another. Those who hold that Solovyov's thought underwent no "fundamental change" [Shein] do not deny that there were modifications but simply maintain that the fundamental thrust of his philosophy remained unaltered over the course of time. Others see different emphases in Solovyov's work from decade to decade. Yet in one of the most philosophically-informed interpretations, Solovyov moved from a philosophy of "integral knowledge" to a later phenomenological phase that anticipated the "essential methodology" of the German movement [Dahm].<br /><br />Historically, another central concern among interpreters has been the extent of Solovyov's indebtedness to various other figures. Whereas several have stressed the influence of, if not an outright borrowing from, the late Schelling [Mueller, Shein], at least one prominent scholar has sought to accentuate Solovyov's independence and creativity [Losev]. Still others have argued for Solovyov's indebtedness to Hegel [Navickas], Kant [Vvedenskij], Boehme [David], the Russian Slavophiles and the philosophically-minded theologians Jurkevich and Kudryavtsev.<br /><br />In Russia itself the thesis that Solovyov had no epistemology [Radlov] evoked a spirited rebuttal [Ern] that has continued in North America [Shein, Navickas]. None of these scholars, however, has demonstrated the presence of more than a rudimentary epistemology, at least as that term is currently employed in contemporary philosophy.<br /><br />Additionally, the vast majority of secondary studies have dealt with Solovyov's mysticism and views on religion, nationalism, social issues, and the role of Russia in world history. Consequently, it is not surprising that those not directly acquainted with his explicit philosophical writings and their Russian context view Solovyov as having nothing of interest to say in philosophy proper. We should also mention one of the historically most influential views, one that initially at least appears quite plausible. Berdyaev, seeing Solovyov as a paradoxical figure, distinguished a day -- from a night-Solovyov. The "day-Solovyov" was a philosophical rationalist, in the broad sense, an idealist, who sought to convey his highly metaphysical religious and ontological conceptions through philosophical discourse utilizing terms current at the time; the "night -- Solovyov" was a mystic who conveyed his personal revelations largely through poetry.<br /><br />3. The Crisis of Western Philosophy<br /><br />This, Solovyov's first major work, displays youthful enthusiasm, vision, optimism and a large measure of audacity. Unfortunately, it is also at times repetitious and replete with sweeping generalizations, unsubstantiated conclusions, and non sequiturs. The bulk of the work is an excursion in the history of modern philosophy that attempts to substantiate and amplify Solovyov's justly famous claims, made in the opening lines, that: (i) philosophy -- qua a body of abstract, purely theoretical knowledge -- has finished its development; (ii) philosophy in this sense is no longer nor will it ever again be maintained by anyone; (iii) philosophy has bequeathed to its successor certain accomplishments or results that this successor will utilize to resolve the problems that philosophy has unsuccessfully attempted to resolve.<br /><br />Solovyov tells us that his ambitious program differs from positivism in that, unlike the latter, he understands the superseded artifact called "philosophy" to include not merely its "speculative" but also its "empirical" direction. Whether these two directions constitute the entirety of modern philosophy, i.e., whether there has been any historical manifestation of another sense of philosophy, one that is not purely theoretical, during the modern era, is unclear. Also left unclear is what precisely Solovyov means by "positivism." He mentions as representatives of that doctrine Mill, Spencer and Comte, whose views were by no means identical, and mentions as the fundamental tenet of positivism that "independent reality cannot be given in external experience." This I take to mean that experience yields knowledge merely of things as they appear, not as they are "in themselves." Solovyov has, it would seem, confused positivism with phenomenalism.<br /><br />Solovyov's reading of the development of modern philosophy proceeds along the lines of Hegel's own interpretation. He sees Hegel's "panlogism" as the necessary result of Western philosophy. The "necessity" here is clearly conceptual, although Solovyov implicitly accepts without further ado that this necessity has, as a matter of fact, been historically manifested in the form of individual philosophies. Moreover, in line with Hegel's apparent self-interpretation Solovyov agrees that the former's system permits no further development. For the latter, at least, this is because, having rejected the law of (non)contradiction, Hegel's philosophy sees internal contradiction, which otherwise would lead to further development, as a "logical necessity," i.e., as something the philosophy itself requires and is accommodated within the system itself.<br /><br />Similarly, Solovyov's analysis of the movement from Hegelianism to mid-19th century German materialism is largely indebted to the left-Hegelians. Solovyov, however, merely claims that one can exit Hegelianism by acknowledging its fundamental one-sidedness. Yet in the next breath, as it were, he holds that the emergence of empiricism, qua materialism, was necessary. Out of the phenomenalism of empiricism arises Schopenhauer's philosophy and thence Eduard von Hartmann's.<br /><br />All representatives of Western philosophy, including to some extent Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, see rational knowledge as the decomposition of intuition into its sensuous and logical elements. Such knowledge, however, in breaking up the concrete into abstractions without re-synthesizing them, additionally is unable to recognize these abstractions as such but must hypostatize them, that is, assign real existence to them.. Nevertheless, even were we to grant Solovyov's audacious thesis that all Western philosophers have done this abstraction and hypostatizing, it by no means follows that rational thought necessarily has had to follow this procedure.<br /><br />According to Solovyov, von Hartmann, in particular, is aware of the one-sidedness of both rationalism and empiricism, which respectively single out the logical and the sense element in cognition to the exclusion of the other. Nevertheless, he too hypostatizes will and idea instead of realizing that the only way to avoid any and all bifurcations is through a recognition of what Solovyov terms "the fundamental metaphysical principle," namely that the all- encompassing spirit is the truly existent. This hastily enunciated conclusion receives here no further argument. Nor does Solovyov dwell on establishing his ultimate claim that the results of Western philosophical development, issuing in the discovery of the all-encompassing spirit, agree with the religious beliefs of the Eastern Church fathers.<br /><br />4. Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge<br /><br />This work originally appeared during 1877 as a series of articles in an official journal published by the Ministry of Education (Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshchenija). Of Solovyov's major writings it is probably the most difficult for the philosopher today to understand owing, to a large degree, to its forced trichotomization of philosophical issues and options and its extensive use of terms drawn from mystical sources even when employed in a quite different sense.<br /><br />There are three fundamental aspects, or "subjective foundations," of human life--in Solovyov's terminology, "forms of being." They are: feeling, thinking and willing. Each of these has both a personal and a social side, and each has its objective intentional object. These are, respectively, objective beauty, objective truth and the objective good. Three fundamental forms of the social union arise from human striving for the good: economic society, political society (government), and spiritual society. Likewise in the pursuit of truth there arises positive science, abstract philosophy, and theology. Lastly, in the sphere of feeling we have the technical arts, such as architecture, the fine arts and a form of mysticism, which Solovyov emphasizes is an immediate spiritual connection with the transcendent world and as such is not to be confused with the term "mysticism" as used to indicate a reflection on that connection.<br /><br />Human cultural evolution has literally passed through these forms and done so according to what Solovyov calls "an incontestable law of development." Economic socialism, positivism and utilitarian realism represent for him the highest point yet of Western civilization and, in line with his earlier work, the final stage of its development. But Western civilization with its social, economic, philosophic and scientific atomization represents only a second, transitional phase in human development. The next, final stage, characterized by freedom from all one- sidedness and elevation over special interests is presently a "tribal character" of the Slavic peoples and, in particular, of the Russian nation.<br /><br />Although undoubtedly of some historical interest as an expression of and contribution to ideas circulating in Russia as to the country's role in world affairs, Solovyov expounded all the above without argument and as such is of little interest to contemporary philosophy. Of somewhat greater value is his critique of traditional philosophical directions.<br /><br />Developing its essential principle to the end, empiricism holds that I know only what the senses tell me. Consequently, I know even of myself only through conscious impressions, which, in turn, means that I am nothing but states of consciousness. Yet my consciousness presupposes me. Thus, we have found that empiricism leads, by reductio ad absurdum, to its self-refutation. The means to avoid such a conclusion, however, lies in recognizing the absolute being of the cognizing subject, which, in short, is idealism.<br /><br />Likewise, the consistent development of the idealist principle leads to a denial of the epistemic subject and pure thought. The dissolution of these two directions means the collapse of all abstract philosophy. We are left with two choices: either complete skepticism or the view that what truly exists has an independent reality quite apart from our material world, a view Solovyov terms "mysticism." With mysticism we have, in Solovyov's view, exhausted all logical options. That is, having seen that holding the truly existing to be either the cognized object or the cognizing subject leads to absurdity, the sole remaining logical possibility is that offered by mysticism, which, thus, completes the "circle of possible philosophical views." Although empiricism and rationalism (= idealism) rest on false principles, their respective objective contents, external experience, qua the foundation of natural science, and logical thought, qua the foundation of pure philosophy, are to be synthesized or encompassed along with mystical knowledge in "integral knowledge," what Solovyov terms "theosophy."<br /><br />For whatever reason, Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge remained incomplete. Despite its expression of his own views, which undoubtedly at this stage were greatly indebted to the Slavophiles, Solovyov altered his original plan to submit this work as a doctoral dissertation. Instead, in April 1880 he defended at St. Petersburg University a large work that he had begun at approximately the same time as the Philosophical Principles and which, like the latter, appeared in serialized form starting in 1877 and as a separate book in 1880.<br /><br />5. Critique of Abstract Principles<br /><br />Originally planned to comprise three parts, ethics, epistemology and aesthetics, (which alone already reveals a debt to Kant) the completed work never turned to the last of these, on which, however, Solovyov labored extensively. Nevertheless, owing largely to its traditional philosophical style and its extended treatment of major historical figures, the Critique remains the most accessible of Solovyov's major early writings today.<br /><br />(1) Subjective Ethics. Over the course of human development a number of principles have been advanced in pursuit of various goals deemed to be that for which human actions should strive—goals such as pleasure, happiness, fulfilment of duties, adherence to God's will, etc. Certainly seeking happiness, pleasure, or the fulfilment of duty is not unequivocally wrong. Yet the pursuit of any one of these alone without the others cannot provide a basis for a totally satisfactory ethical system. A higher synthesis or, if you will, a more encompassing unity is needed, one that will reveal how and when any of these particular pursuits is ethically warranted. Such a unity will show the truth, and thereby the error, of singling out any particular moment of the unity as sufficient alone. Doing so, that is, showing the proper place of each principle, showing them as necessary yet inadequate stages on the way to a complete synthetic system is what Solovyov means by "the critical method."<br /><br />In the end all moral theories that rest on an empirical basis, something factual in human nature, fail because they cannot provide and account for obligation. The essential feature of moral law, as Solovyov understands the concept, is its absolute necessity for all rational beings. The Kantian influence here is unmistakable and indubitable. Nevertheless, Solovyov parts company with Kant in expressing that a natural inclination in support of an obligatory action enhances the moral value of an action. Since duty is the general form of the moral principle, whereas an inclination serves as the psychological motive for a moral action, i.e., as the material aspect of morality, the two cannot contradict one another.<br /><br />The Kantian categorical imperative, which Solovyov, in general, endorses, presupposes freedom. Of course, we all feel that our actions are free, but what kind of freedom is this? Here Solovyov approaches phenomenology in stating that the job of philosophy is to analyze this feeling with an eye to determining what it is we are aware of. Undoubtedly, for the most part we can do as we please, but such freedom is freedom of action. The question, however, is whether I can actually want something other than I do, i.e., whether the will is free.<br /><br />Again like Kant, Solovyov believes all our actions, even the will itself, is, at least viewed empirically, subject to the law of causality. From the moral perspective, however, there is a "causality of freedom," a freedom to initiate a causal sequence on the part of practical reason. In other words, empirically the will is determined, whereas transcendentally it is free. Solovyov, though, goes on to pose, at least rhetorically, the question whether this transcendental freedom is genuine or could it be that the will is subject to transcendental conditions. In doing so, he reveals that his conception of "transcendental" differs from that of Kant. Nevertheless, waving aside all difficulties associated with a resolution of the metaphysical issue of freedom of the will, Solovyov tells us, ethics has no need of such investigations; reason and empirical inquiry are sufficient. The criteria of moral activity lie in its universality and necessity, i.e., that the principle of one's action can be made a universal law.<br /><br />(2) Objective Ethics. In order that the good determine my will I must be subjectively convinced that the consequent action can be realized. This moral action presupposes a certain knowledge of and is conditioned by society. Subjective ethics instructs us that we should treat others not as means but as ends. Likewise, they should treat me as an end. Solovyov terms a community of beings freely striving to realize each other's good as if it were his or her own good "free communality." Although some undoubtedly see material wealth as a goal, it cannot serve as a moral goal. Rather, the goal of free communality is the just distribution of wealth, which, in turn, requires an organization to administer fair and equal treatment of and to all, in other words, a political arrangement or government. To make the other person's good my good, I must recognize such concern as obligatory. That is, I must recognize the other as having rights, which my material interests cannot infringe.<br /><br />If all individuals acted for the benefit of all, there would be no need for a coordination of interests, for interests would not be in conflict. There is, however, no universal consensus on benefits and often enough individually perceived benefits conflict. In this need for adjudication lies a source of government and law. Laws express the negative side of morality, i.e., they do not say what should be done, but what is not permitted. Thus, the legal order is unable to provide positive directives, precisely because what humans specifically should do and concretely aspire to attain remains conditional and contingent. The absolute, unconditional form of morality demands an absolute, unconditional content, viz. an absolute goal.<br /><br />As a finite being, the human individual cannot attain the absolute except through positive interaction with all others. Whereas in the legal order each individual is limited by the other, in the aspiration or striving for the absolute the other aids or completes the self. Such a union of beings is grounded psychologically in love. As a contingent being the human individual cannot fully realize an absolute object or goal. Only in the process of individuals working in concert, forming a "total-unity," does love become a non-contingent state. Only in an inner unity with all does man realize what Solovyov calls "the divine principle."<br /><br />Solovyov himself views his position as diametrically opposed to that of Kant, who from absolute moral obligation was led to postulating the existence of God, immortality and human freedom. For Solovyov, the realization of morality presupposes an affirmative metaphysics. Once we progress from Kant's purely subjective ethics to an objective understanding of ethics, we see the need for a conviction in the theoretical validity of Kant's three postulates, their metaphysical truth independent of their practical desirability.<br /><br />Again differing from Kant, and Fichte too, Solovyov at this point in his life rejects the priority of ethics over metaphysics. The genuine force of the moral principle rests on the existence of the absolute order. And the necessary conviction in this order can be had only if we know it to be true, which demands an epistemological inquiry.<br /><br />(3) Epistemology/Metaphysics. "To know what we should do we must know what is," Solovyov tells us. To say "what is," however, is informative only in contrast to saying, at least implicitly, "what is not" -- this we already know from the opening pages of Hegel's Logic. One answer is that the true is that which objectively exists independent of any knowing subject. Here Solovyov leads us down a path strikingly similar, at least in outline, to that taken in the initial chapters of Hegel's Phenomenology. If the objectively real is the true, then sense certainty is our guarantee of having obtained it. But this certainty cannot be that of an individual knowing subject alone, for truth is objective and thus the same for everyone. Truth must not be in the facts but the things that make up the facts. Moreover, truth cannot be the individual things in isolation, for truths would then be isomorphic with the number of things. Such a conception of truth is vacuous; no, truth is one. With this Solovyov believes he has passed to naturalism.<br /><br />Of course, our immediate sense experience lacks universality and does not in all its facets correspond to objective reality. Clearly, many qualities of objects, for example, color and taste, are subjective. Thus, reality must be what is general or present in all sense experience. To the general foundation of sensation corresponds the general foundation of things, viz. that conveyed through the sense of touch, i.e., the experience of resistance. The general foundation of objective being is its impenetrability.<br /><br />Holding true being to be single and impenetrable, however, remains untenable. Through a series of dialectical maneuvers, reminiscent of Hegel, Solovyov arrives at the position that true being contains multiplicity. That is, whereas it is singular owing to absolute impenetrability, it consists of separate particles, each of which is impenetrable. Having in this way passed to atomism, Solovyov provides a depiction largely indebted to Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Solovyov recognizes that we have reached atomism, not through some experimental technique but through philosophical, logical reasoning. But every scientific explanation of the ultimate constituents of reality transgresses the bounds of experience. We return to the viewpoint that reality belongs to appearances alone, i.e., what is given in experience. Now, however, our realism has been dialectically transformed into a phenomenal or critical realism.<br /><br />According to phenomenal realism, absolute reality is ultimately inaccessible to cognition. Nevertheless, that which cognitively is accessible constitutes a relative objectivity and is our sole standard for determining truth and thus knowledge. In this sensualism -- for that is what it is -- we refer particular sensations to definite objects. These objects are taken as objectively real despite the manifest subjectivity of sensation in general. Thus, objectification, as the imparting of the sense of objectivity onto the content of sensations, must be an independent activity of the cognizing subject.<br /><br />Objectification, alone, cannot account for the definite object before me to which all my sensations of that object refer as parts or aspects. In addition to objectification there must be a unification or synthesizing of sensations, and this process or act is again distinct from sensing and certainly is not part of the sensation itself. Again evoking an image of Kant in the reader, Solovyov calls the independent cognitive act whereby sense data are formed into definite objective representations the imagination.<br /><br />The two factors we have discerned, one contributed by the epistemic subject and the other by sensation, are absolutely independent of each other. Cognition requires both, but what connects them remains unanswered. According to Solovyov, any connection implies dependence, but the a priori element certainly cannot be dependent on the empirical. For, following Hume, from the factual we cannot deduce the universality and the necessity of a law. The other alternative is to have the content of true cognition dependent on the forms of reason; such is the approach of Hegel's absolute rationalism. However, if all the determinations of being are created by cognition, then at the beginning we have only the pure form of cognition, pure thought, a concept of being in general. Solovyov finds such a starting point to be vacuous. For although Hegel correctly realizes the general form of truth to be universality, it is a negative conception from which nothing can be derived. The positive conception is a whole that contains everything in itself, not, as in Hegel, one that everything contains in itself.<br /><br />For Solovyov, truth, in short, is the whole, and, consequently, each particular fact in isolation from the whole is false. Again Solovyov's position on rationality bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Hegel, although in the former's eyes this resemblance is superficial. Reason is the whole, and so the rationality of a particular fact lies in its interrelation with the whole. A fact divorced from the whole is irrational.<br /><br />True knowledge implies the whole, the truly existent, the absolute. Following Solovyov's "dialectical" thinking, the absolute, qua absolute, presupposes a non-absolute; one (or the whole) presupposes the many. And, again conjuring up visions of Hegel, if the absolute is the one, the non-absolute is becoming the one. The latter can become the one only if it has the divine element potentially. In nature, the one exists only potentially, whereas in humans it is actual, though only ideally, i.e., in consciousness.<br /><br />The object of knowledge has three forms: 1) as it appears to us empirically, 2) as conceptually ideal, and 3) as existing absolutely independent of our cognition of it. Our concepts and sensations would be viewed merely as subjective states were it not for the third form. The basis for this form is a third sort of cognition, without which objective truth would elude us. A study of the history of philosophy correctly shows that neither the senses nor the intellect, whether separately or in combination, can satisfactorily account for the third form. Sensations are relative, and concepts conditional. Indeed, the referral of our thoughts and sensations to an object in knowledge, thus, presupposes this third sort of cognition. Such cognition, viz., faith or mystical knowledge, would itself be impossible if the subject and the object of knowledge were completely divorced. In this interaction we perceive the object's essence or "idea," its constancy. The imagination (here, let us recall Kant), at a non-conscious level, organizes the manifold given by sense experience into an object via a referral of this manifold to the "idea" of the object.<br /><br />Solovyov believes he has demonstrated that all knowledge arises through the confluence of empirical, rational and "mystical" elements. Only philosophical analysis can discover the role of the mystical. Just as an isolation of the first two elements has historically led to empiricism and rationalism respectively, so the mystical element has been accentuated by traditional theology. And just as the former directions have given rise to dogmatic manifestations, so too has theology found its dogmatic exponents. The task before us lies in freeing the three directions of their exclusiveness, intentionally integrating and organizing true knowledge into a complete system, which Solovyov called "free theosophy."<br /><br />6. The Justification of the Good<br /><br />After the completion of the works mentioned above, Solovyov largely withdrew from philosophy, both as a profession and its concerns. During the 1880s he devoted himself increasingly to theological and topical social issues of little, if any, concern to the contemporary philosopher. However, in 1894 Solovyov took to preparing a second edition of the Critique of Abstract Principles. Owing, though, to an evolution, and thereby significant changes, in his viewpoint, he soon abandoned this venture and embarked on an entirely new statement of his philosophical views. Just as in his earlier treatise, Solovyov again intended to treat ethical issues before turning to an epistemological inquiry.<br /><br />The Justification of the Good appeared in book form in 1897. Many, though not all, of its chapters had previously been published in several well-known philosophical and literary journals over the course of the previous three years. Largely in response to criticisms of the book or its serialized chapters, Solovyov managed to complete a second edition, which was published in 1899 and accompanied by a new preface.<br /><br />Most notably, Solovyov now holds that ethics is an independent discipline. In this he finds himself in solidarity with Kant, who made this "great discovery," as Solovyov put it. Knowledge of good and evil is accessible to all individuals possessing reason and a conscience and needs neither divine revelation nor epistemological deduction. Although philosophical analysis surely is unable to instill a certainty that I, the analyst, alone exist, solipsism even if true would eliminate only objective ethics. There is another, a subjective side to ethics that concerns duties to oneself. Likewise, morality is independent of the metaphysical question concerning freedom of the will. From the independence of ethics Solovyov draws the conclusion that life has meaning and, coupled with this, we can legitimately speak of a moral order.<br /><br />The natural bases of morality, from which ethics as an independent discipline can be deduced and which form the basis of moral consciousness, are shame, pity and reverence. Shame reveals to man his higher human dignity. It sets the human apart from the animal world. Pity forms the basis of all of man's social relations to others. Reverence establishes the moral basis of man's relation to that which is higher to himself and, as such, is the root of religion.<br /><br />Each of the three bases, Solovyov tells us, may be considered from three sides or points of view. Shame as a virtue reveals itself as modesty, pity as compassion and reverence as piety. All other proposed virtues are essentially expressions of one of these three. The other two points of view, as a principle of action and as a condition of an ensuing moral action, are interconnected with the first such that the first logically contains the others.<br /><br />Interestingly, truthfulness is not itself a formal virtue. Solovyov opposes one sort of extreme ethical formalism, arguing that making a factually false statement is not always a lie in the moral sense. The nature of the will behind the action must be taken into account.<br /><br />Likewise, despite his enormous respect for Kant's work in the field of ethics, Solovyov rejects viewing God and the immortality of the soul as postulates. God's existence, he tells us, is not a deduction from religious feeling or experience but its immediate content, i.e., that which is experienced. Furthermore, he adds that God and the soul are "direct creative forces of moral reality." How we are to interpret these claims in light of the supposed independence of ethics is contentious unless, of course, we find Solovyov guilty of simple-mindedness. Indeed one of his own friends [Trubeckoj] wrote: "It is not difficult to convince ourselves that these arguments about the independence of ethics are refuted on every later page in the Justification of the Good." However we look upon Solovyov's pronouncements, the Deity plays a significant role in his ethics. Solovyov provides a facile answer to the perennial question of how a morally perfect God can permit the existence of evil: Its elimination would mean the annihilation of human freedom thereby rendering free goodness (good without freedom is imperfect) impossible. Thus, God permits evil, because its removal would be a greater evil.<br /><br />Often, all too often, Solovyov is prone to express himself in metaphysical, indeed theological, terms that do little to clarify his position. The realization of the Kingdom of God, he tells us, is the goal of life. What he means, however, is that the realization of a perfect moral order, in which the relations between individuals and the collective whole's relations to each individual are morally correct, is all that can be rationally desired. Each of us understands that the attainment of moral perfection is not a solipsistic enterprise, i.e., that the Kingdom of God can only be achieved if we each want it and collectively attain it. The individual can attain the moral ideal only in and through society. Christianity alone offers the idea of the perfect individual and the perfect society. Other ideas have been presented (Solovyov mentions Buddhism and Platonism), of course, and these have been historically necessary for the attainment of the universal human consciousness that Christianity promises.<br /><br />Man's correct relations to God, his fellow humans and his own material nature, in accordance with the three foundations of morality – piety, pity (compassion) and shame – are collectively organized in three forms. The Church is collectively organized piety, whereas the state is collectively organized pity or compassion. To view the state in such terms already tells us a great deal concerning how Solovyov views the state's mission and, consequently, his general stand toward laissez-faire doctrines. Although owing to the connection between legality and morality one can speak of a Christian state, this is not to say that in pre-Christian times the state had no moral foundations. Just as the pagan can know the moral law "written in his heart," (an expression of St. Paul's that Solovyov was fond of invoking but also reminiscent of Kant's "the moral law within") so too the pagan state has two functions: 1) to preserve the foundation of social life necessary for continued human existence, and 2) to improve the condition of humanity.<br /><br />At the end of The Justification of the Good Solovyov attempts in the most cursory fashion to make a transition to epistemology. He claims that the struggle between good and evil raises the question of the latter's origin, which in turn ultimately requires an epistemological inquiry. That ethics is an independent discipline does not mean that it is not connected to metaphysics and the theory of knowledge. One can study ethics in its entirety without first having answers to all other philosophical problems much as one can be an excellent swimmer without knowing the physics of buoyancy.<br /><br />7. Theoretical Philosophy<br /><br />During the last few years of his life Solovyov sought to recast his thoughts on epistemology. Surely he intended to publish in serial fashion the various chapters of a planned book on the topic, much as he did The Justification of the Good. Unfortunately at the time of his death in 1900 only three chapters were completed, and it is only on the basis of these that we can judge his new standpoint. Nevertheless, on the basis of these meager writings we can already see that Solovyov's new epistemological reflections exhibit a greater transformation of his thoughts on the subject than does his ethics. Whereas a suggested affinity between these ideas and later German phenomenology must be viewed with caution and, in light of his earlier thoughts, a measure of skepticism, there can be little doubt that to all appearances Solovyov spoke and thought in this late work in a philosophical idiom close to that with which we have become familiar in the 20th century.<br /><br />For Solovyov epistemology concerns itself with the validity of knowledge in itself, that is, not in terms of whether it is useful in practice or provides a basis for an ethical system that has for whatever reason been accepted. Perhaps not surprisingly then, particularly in light of his firm religious views, Solovyov adheres to a correspondence theory, saying that knowledge is the agreement of a thought of an object with the actual object. The open questions are how such an agreement is possible and how do we know that we know.<br /><br />The Cartesian "I think, therefore I am" leads us virtually nowhere. Admittedly the claim contains indubitable knowledge, but it is merely that of a subjective reality. I might just as well be thinking of an illusory book as of an actually existing one. How do we get beyond the "I think"? How do we distinguish a dream from reality? The criteria are not present in the immediacy of the consciously intended object. To claim as did some Russian philosophers in his own day that the reality of the external world is an immediately given fact appears to Solovyov an arbitrary opinion hardly worthy of philosophy. Nor is it possible to deduce from the Cartesian inference that the I is a thinking substance. Here is the root of Descartes' error. The self discovered in self-consciousness has the same status as the object of consciousness, i.e., both have phenomenal existence. If we cannot say what this object of my consciousness is like in itself, i.e., apart from my conscious acts, so too we cannot say what the subject of consciousness is apart from consciousness and for the same reason. Likewise, just as we cannot speak about the I in itself, so too we cannot answer to whom consciousness belongs.<br /><br />In "The Reliability of Reason," the second article comprising the Theoretical Philosophy, Solovyov concerns himself with affirming the universality of logical thought. In doing so he stands in opposition to the popular reductionisms, e.g., psychologism, that sought to deny any extra-temporal significance to logic. Thought itself, Solovyov tells us, requires recollection, language and intentionality. Since any logical thought is, nevertheless, a thought and since thought can be analyzed in terms of psychic functions, one could conceivably charge Solovyov with lapsing back into a psychologism, in precisely the same way as some critics have charged Husserl with doing so. And much the same defenses of Husserl's position can also be used in reply to the objection against Solovyov's stance.<br /><br />The third article, "The Form of Rationality and the Reason of Truth," published in 1898, concerns itself with the proper starting points of epistemology. The first such point is the indubitable veracity of the given in immediate consciousness. There can be no doubt that the pain I experience upon stubbing my toe is genuine. The second starting point of epistemology is the objective, universal validity of rational thought. Along with Hume and Kant, Solovyov does not dispute that factual experience can provide claims only to conditional generality. Rationality alone provides universality. This universality, however, is merely formal. To distinguish the rational form from the conditional content of thought is the first essential task of philosophy. Taking up this challenge is the philosophical self or subject. Solovyov concludes, again as he always does, with a triadic distinction between the empirical subject, the logical subject and the philosophical subject. And although he labels the first the "soul," the second the "mind" and the third the "spirit," the trichotomy is contrived and the labeling, at best, imaginative with no foundation other than in Solovyov's a priori architectonic.<br /><br />8. Concluding Remarks<br /><br />Solovyov's relatively early death, brought on to some degree by his erratic life-style, precluded the completion of his last philosophical work. He also intended to turn his attention eventually towards aesthetics, but whether he would ever have been able to complete such a project remains doubtful. Solovyov was never at any stage of his development able to complete a systematic treatise on the topic, although he did publish a number of writings on the subject.<br /><br />However beneficial our reading of Solovyov's works may be, there can be little doubt that he was very much a 19th-century figure. We can hardly take seriously his incessant predilection for triadic schemes, far in excess to anything similar in the German Idealists. His choice of terminology, drawn from an intellectual fashion of his day, also poses a formidable obstacle to the contemporary reader.<br /><br />Lastly, despite, for example, an often perspicacious study of his philosophical predecessors, written during his middle years, Solovyov, in clinging obstinately to his rigid architectonic, failed to penetrate further than they. Indeed, he often fell far short of their achievements. His discussion of imagination, for example, as we saw, is much too superficial, adding nothing to that found in Kant. These shortcomings, though, should not divert us from recognizing his genuinely useful insights.<br /><br />After his death, with interest surging in the mystical amid abundant decadent trends, so characteristic of decaying cultures, Solovyov's thought was seized upon by those far less interested in philosophical analysis than he was towards the end. Those who invoked his name so often in the years immediately subsequent to his death stressed the religious strivings of his middle years to the complete neglect of his final philosophical project, let alone its continuation and completion. In terms of Solovyov-studies today the philosophical project of discovering the "rational kernel within the mystical shell" [Marx], of separating the "living from the dead" [Croce], remains not simply unfulfilled but barely begun.<br /><br />9. References and Further Reading<br /><br />PRIMARY SOURCES<br /># Sobranie sochinenij, St. Petersburg: Prosveshchenie, 1911-14.<br /># Sobranie sochinenij, Brussels: Zhizn s Bogom, 1966-70.<br /><br />ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS<br /><br /># The Crisis of Western Philosophy (Against the Positivists), trans. by Boris Jakim, Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1996.<br /># Lectures on Divine Humanity, ed. by Boris Jakim, Lindisfarne Press, 1995.<br /># The Justification of the Good, trans. by N. Duddington, New York: Macmillan, 1918.<br /># "Foundations of Theoretical Philosophy," trans. by Vlada Tolley and James P. Scanlan, in Russian Philosophy, ed. James M. Edie, et al., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965, vol. III, pp. 99-134.<br /><br />SECONDARY SOURCES (mentioned above)<br /># Helmut Dahm, Vladimir Solovyev and Max Scheler: Attempt at a Comparative Interpretation, Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1975.<br /># Zdenek V. David, "The Influence of Jacob Boehme on Russian Religious Thought," Slavic Review, 21(1962), 1, pp. 43-64.<br /># Aleksej Losev, Vladimir Solov'ev, Moscow: Mysl', 1983.<br /># Ludolf Mueller, Solovjev und der Protestantismus, Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 1951.<br /># Joseph L. Navickas, "Hegel and the Doctrine of Historicity of Vladimir Solovyov," in The Quest for the Absolute, ed. Frederick J. Adelmann, The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1966, pp. 135-154.<br /># Louis J. Shein, "V.S. Solov'ev's Epistemology: A Re-examination," Canadian Slavic Studies, Spring 1970, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1-16.<br /># E. N. Trubeckoj, Mirosozercanie V. S. Solov'eva, 2 vols., Moscow: Izdatel'stvo "Medium," 1995,<br /># Aleksandr I. Vvedenskij, "O misticizme i kriticizme v teorii poznanija V. S. Solov'eva," Filosofskie ocherki, Prague: Plamja, 1924, pp. 45-71.<br /><br /></div>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-43116235121482469682009-03-24T22:25:00.000-07:002009-03-24T22:26:09.237-07:00Symposium<div style="text-align: justify;">"Symposium" is the Greek term for a drinking-party. The symposium must be distinguished from the<i>deipnon</i>; for though drinking almost always followed a dinner-party, yet the former was regarded as entirely distinct from the latter, was regulated by different customs, and frequently received the addition of many guests who were not present at the dinner. For the Greeks did not usually drink at their dinner, and it was not until the conclusion of the meal that wine was introduced. Symposia were very frequent at Athens. Their enjoyment was heightened by agreeable conversation, by the introduction of music and dancing, and by games and amusements of various kinds; sometimes, too, philosophical subjects were discussed at them. The <i>Symposia</i> of Plato and Xenophon give us a lively idea of such entertainments at Athens. The name itself shows that the enjoyment of drinking was the main object of the symposia: wine from the juice of the grape (<i>oinos ampelinos</i>) was the only drink partaken of by the Greeks, with the exception of water. The wine was almost invariably mixed with water, and to drink it unmixed (<i>akraton</i>) was considered a characteristic of barbarians. The mixture was made in a large vessel called the <i>crater</i>, from which it was conveyed into the drinking-cups. The guests at a symposium reclined on couches, and were crowned with garlands of flowers. </div>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-49109624834323046362009-03-24T22:23:00.002-07:002009-03-24T22:24:24.422-07:00Sense-Data<div style="text-align: justify;">Experiences of all kinds have a distinctive character, which marks them out as intrinsically different from states of consciousness such as thinking. A plausible view is that the difference should be accounted for by the fact that, in having an experience, the subject is somehow immediately aware of a range of phenomenal qualities. For example, in seeing, grasping and tasting an apple, the subject may be aware of a red and green spherical shape, a certain feeling of smoothness to touch, and a sweet sensation. Such phenomenal qualities are also immediately present in hallucinations. According to the sense-data theory, phenomenal qualities belong to items called “sense-data.” In having a perceptual experience the subject is directly aware of, or acquainted with, a sense-datum, even if the experience is illusory or hallucinatory. The sense-datum is an object immediately present in experience. It has the qualities it appears to have. </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> A controversial issue is whether sense-data have real, concrete existence. Depending upon the version of the sense-data theory adopted, sense-data may or may not be identical with aspects of external physical objects; they may or may not be entities that exist privately in the subject’s mind. Usually, however, sense-data are interpreted to be distinct from the external physical objects we perceive. The leading view, in so far as the notion is appealed to in current philosophy, is that an awareness of (or acquaintance with) sense-data somehow mediates the subject’s perception of mind-independent physical objects. The sense-datum is the bearer of the phenomenal qualities that the subject is immediately aware of. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"> Knowledge of sense-data has often been taken to be the foundation upon which all oth</p>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-16622923885823504352009-03-24T22:23:00.001-07:002009-03-24T22:23:29.859-07:00Sophists<p style="text-align: justify;">The growing demand for education in 5th century BCE. Greece called into existence a class of teachers known as sophists. They were a professional class rather than a school, and as such they were scattered over Greece and exhibited professional rivalries. The educational demand was partly for genuine knowledge, but mostly reflected a desire for spurious learning that would lead to political success. They wandered about Greece from place to place, gave lectures, took pupils, and entered into disputations. For these services they exacted large fees, and were, in fact, the first in Greece to take fees for teaching wisdom. Though not disgraceful in itself, the wise men of Greece had never accepted payment for their teaching. The sophists were not, technically speaking, philosophers, but, instead taught any subject for which there was a popular demand. Topics included rhetoric, politics, grammar, etymology, history, physics, and mathematics. Early on they were seen as teachers of virtue in the sense that they taught people to perform their function in the state. Protagoras of Abdera, who appeared about 445 BCE. is named as the first Sophist; after him the most important is Gorgias of Leontini, Prodicus of Ceos and Hippias of Elis. Wherever they appeared, especially in Athens, they were received with enthusiasm and many flocked to hear them. Even such people as Pericles, Euripides, and Socrates sought their company. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"> The most popular career of a Greek of ability at the time was politics; hence the sophists largely concentrated on teaching rhetoric. The aims of the young politicians whom they trained were to persuade the multitude of whatever they wished them to believed. The search for truth was not top priority. Consequently the sophists undertook to provide a stock of arguments on any subject, or to prove any position. They boasted of their ability to make the worse appear the better reason, to prove that black is white. Some, like Gorgias, asserted that it was not necessary to have any knowledge of a subject to give satisfactory replies as regards it. Thus, Gorgias ostentatiously answered any question on any subject instantly and without consideration. To attain these ends mere quibbling, and the scoring of verbal points were employed. In this way, the sophists tried to entangle, entrap, and confuse their opponents, and even, if this were not possible, to beat them down by mere violence and noise. They sought also to dazzle by means of strange or flowery metaphors, by unusual figures of speech, by epigrams and paradoxes, and in general by being clever and smart, rather than earnest and truthful. Hence our word "sophistry": the use of fallacious arguments knowing them to be such. Early on Sophists were seen to be of merit as people of superior skill or wisdom, as we find in Pindar and Herodotus. We learn from Plato, though, that even in the 5th century there was a prejudice against the name "sophist". By Aristotle's time, the name bore a contemptuous meaning, as he defines "sophist" as one who reasons falsely for the sake of gain. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> With the revival of Greek eloquence, from about the beginning of the second century CE., the name "sophist" attained a new distinction. At that time the name was given to the professional orators, who appeared in public with great pomp and delivered declamations either prepared beforehand or improvised on the spot. Like the earlier sophists, they went generally from place to place, and were overwhelmed with applause and with marks of distinction by their contemporaries, including the Roman Emperors. Dion Chrysostom, Herodes Atticus, Aristides, Lucian, and Philostratus the Elder belong to the flourishing period of this second school of sophists, a period which extends over the entire second century. They appear afresh about the middle of the fourth century, devoting their philosophic culture to the zealous but unavailing defense of paganism. Among them was the emperor Julian and his contemporaries Libanius, Himerius, and Themistius. Synesius may be considered the last sophist of importance. </div>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-10721922468634747522009-03-24T22:22:00.001-07:002009-03-24T22:22:41.930-07:00James Hutchison Stirling<div style="text-align: justify;">James Hutchison Stirling was a 19th century British Idealist philosopher. In 1865 Stirling's <i>The Secret of Hegel</i> appeared and marked the inauguration of a new era in the development of English idealism. In an article in the <i>Fortnightly Review</i> for October 1867 (republished in the volume <i>Jerrold, Tennyson, and Macaulay</i>) the author passes a ruthless condemnation upon the spurious reputation for a knowledge of German idealism which had attached itself to the name of Coleridge, as well as, in a minor degree, to that of De Quincey, and fastens especially upon Coleridge's 'dreamy misapprehensions' and 'strange misrepresentations' of the Kantian philosophy. Himself profoundly convinced of the truth of the Hegelian system, he set himself, in the <i>Secret</i>, to explain and defend that system. Stirling undoubtedly possessed 'the temperament of genius,' and was a man of remarkable speculative insight; but his style, though often striking, is so marked by the influence of Carlyle, and he so resolutely declines to conform to ordinary standards of systematic exposition, that his work is almost as difficult as the original which it is intended to illuminate. Yet its importance, and its influence at the time of its appearance, are not to be underestimated; it certainly called the attention of the English-speaking world to the significance of a system which even Ferrier had pronounced unintelligible, and brought home to the English mind the necessity of coming to terms, not only with Hegel, but with his predecessors, Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. Stirling insisted upon going back to the origins of Hegelianism in these earlier systems, and in 1881 he followed up the <i>Secret of Hegel</i> with the <i>Tetbook to Kant</i>, in which the defects of the earlier work were less apparent and in which he supported a one-sided interpretation of the Kantian philosophy, as represented by the first two divisions of the <i>Critique of Pure Reason</i>, with great learning and with remarkable ability. His translation of Schwegler's <i>History of Philosophy</i>, published in 1867, which passed through many editions and was used by many generations of students, contains a series of illuminating 'annotations' which rival in interest and value the substance of the <i>History</i> itself. A little volume of lectures on <i>The Philosophy of Law</i> (1873) and the Gifford lectures on <i>Philosophy and Theology</i> (1890) complete the list of Stirling's more important contributions to philosophy. The standpoint is always the same -- that of the Hegelian idealism, which Stirling is inclined to interpret in a theistic rather than in a pantheistic sense.<br /></div>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-36994129095548330302009-03-24T22:21:00.001-07:002009-03-24T22:21:51.827-07:00Synderesis<div style="text-align: justify;">"Synderesis" is a technical term from scholastic philosophy, signifying the innate principle in the moral consciousness of every person which directs the agent to good and restrains him from evil. It is first found in a singe passage of St. Jerome (d. 420) in his explanation of the four living creatures in Ezekiel's vision. Jerome explains that most commentators hold that the human, the lion, and the ox of the vision represent the rational, the irascible, and the appetitive (or concupiscent) parts of the soul, according to Plato's division, while the fourth figure, that of the eagle, represents a fourth part of the soul, above and outside these three: <blockquote> This the Greeks call synderesis, which spark of conscience was not extinguished from the breast of Adam when he was driven from Paradise. Through it, when overcome by pleasures or by anger, or even as sometimes deceived by a similitude of reason, we feel that we sin; ... and this in the scriptures is sometimes called spirit.... And yet we perceive that the conscience (conscientia) is itself also thrown aside and driven from its place by some who have no shame or modesty in their faults. </blockquote> In this passage no distinction seems to be drawn between synderesis and conscientia. It has even been maintained that the former word is a copyist's error for synderesis, the usual Greek equivalent for "conscientia". </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> The use of synderesis as distinct from <i>conscientia</i> among the scholastics, and to a slight extent among early Protestant moralists, is founded on its description by Jerome as scintilla conscientiae - the spark - from which the light of conscience arises. Thus Jeremy Taylor calls it "the spark or fire put into the heart of humans," while synderesis, which is specifically called conscience of the deed done, is the "bringing fuel to this fire (<i>Ductor Dubitantium</i> 1:1:1) As distinguished from synderesis, conscientia is applied by these writers to the particular attitude of a person to good or evil action, and may accordingly be an unsafe guide. Synderesis is thus a faculty or habit (it was disputed which) both of judging and of willing the right, in agreeement with "original righteousness" and persisting in the separate powers of the soul in spite of the corruption of human nature brought about by the Fall. In the earlier descriptions it is spoken of as volitional as well as intellectual. According to Aquinas, however, it is distinctly practical reason - certain principles belonging to the practical side of reason which point out the right direction for action, just as the theoretical axioms of the understanding do for thinking. Both synderesis and conscientia are placed among the intellectual powers. A different view is given by Bonaventura, who makes the whole distinction between conscientia and synderesis rest upon the distinction between judgment and will. God (he says) has implanted a double rule of right in human nature: one for judging rightly, and this is the moral strength of conscience; another for right volition, and this is the moral strength of synderesis, whose function is to dissuade from evil and stimulate to good, and which may therefore be described as the original moral tendency of the disposition. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> This, however, does not seem to be either the best or the most prevalent view of scholasticism regarding synderesis. The question is fully discussed by Duns Scotus, who decided against Bonaventura that both synderesis and conscience belong to practial reason, the former giving the first principles or major premises of its practical syllogisms, the latter corresponding to their conclusions (<i>In Sent. Reportationes</i> Bk 2:39, Q1-2). Jeremy Taylor also follows the Thomistic use and makes synderesis "the general repository of moral principles or measures." This is the "rule of conscience," while conscience itself is "a conjunction of the universal practical law with the particular moral action." It applies the rule to the particular case, and is thus both witness and judge of moral actions. It may be noted that the term "conscience," when used (as by Kant) as equivalent to practical reason regarded as infallible, corresponds to the medieval synderesis, and not to the medieval conscientia.</div>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-83600369007181426162009-03-24T22:17:00.000-07:002009-03-24T22:19:29.524-07:00Yang Xiong (53 B.C.E. - 18 C.E.)<div style="text-align: justify;">Yang Xiong (Yang Hsiung) was a prolific yet reclusive court poet whose writings and tragic life spanned the collapse of the Former Han dynasty (202 BCE-9 CE) and the brief and catastrophic usurpation of the throne by the Imperial Regent Wang Mang (9-23 CE). He is best known for his assertion that human nature originally is neither good (as argued by Mencius) nor depraved (as argued by Xunzi) but rather comes into existence as a mixture of both. Yang Xiong’s chief philosophical writings - an abstruse book of divination known as the Tai xuan (The Great Dark Mystery) and his Fa yan (Words to Live By), a collection of aphorisms and dialogues on a variety of historical and philosophical topics - are little known even among Chinese scholars. These works combine a Daoist concern for cosmology, but may be best described as a product of the intellectual and spiritual syncretism characteristic of the Han dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE). As a social critic and classical scholar, he is considered to be the chief representative of the Old Text School (guxue) of Confucianism. Although some think he was one of the most important writers of the late Former Han, he had little influence during his own time and was vilified for his association with the usurper Wang Mang. Consequently, his works have largely been left out of the Confucian canon.<br /><br />1. Life and Writings<br /><br />Yang Xiong was born in 53 BCE in the western city of Chengdu in the province of Shu. His biography in the Qian Han Shu (History of the Former Han) remarks that Yang Xiong was fond of learning, was unconcerned with wealth, office, and reputation, and suffered from a speech impediment and consequently spoke little. As a youth he probably was a student of Zhuang Zun, a reclusive marketplace fortune teller who refused to take office, opting instead to use divination and fortune-telling as a means to encourage virtue among the common people. Before coming to the capital he gained renown for his poetic writings, in particular for his fu, a poetic genre associated with an earlier native of Shu, Sima Xiangru (179-117 BCE). Yang Xiong’s reputation as a poet eventually reached the capital of Chang’an, and around 20 BCE he was summoned to the court of Emperor Cheng. Between the years 14-10 BCE, Yang Xiong submitted several poetic pieces commemorating imperial sacrifices and hunts, and finally in 10 BCE he was appointed to the humble office of “Gentleman in Attendance” and “Servitor at the Yellow Gate,” where he would remain until his final days. While not much is known of Yang Xiong’s activities as a lowly official at the Han court, it appears that, as far back as 9 BCE, Emperor Cheng issued a decree excusing him from the direct official service, while maintaining an official title, salary, and access to the imperial library for him.<br /><br />Shortly after his appointment, Yang Xiong became disillusioned with the rectifying power of his poetry and stopped writing it for the court. Yang Xiong’s decision appears to have coincided with the death of his son, a tragedy which left him despondent and financially impoverished. Over the next two decades he produced his two works on philology: Cang Jie xun zuan (Annotations to the Cang Jie), a compilation of annotations to the Qin dynasty’s official imperial dictionary, and Fang yan (Dialects), a collection of regional expressions. During this period, he also produced his Tai xuan (The Great Dark Mystery), which he completed around 2 BCE, and Fa yan (Words to Live By), which he completed in 9 CE – right about the time that the Imperial Regent Wang Mang usurped the throne and established the brief Xin dynasty (9-23 CE).<br /><br />Yang Xiong’s life and writings were overshadowed by the rise and fall of the notorious Wang Mang (45 BCE-23 CE). A nephew of the wife of Emperor Yuan (who reigned 48-32 BCE), Wang Mang rose to the rank of Imperial Regent. In 9 CE, through a combination of court intrigue, political machinations, manipulation of popular superstitions, and opportunity, he seized the throne from the founding House of Liu and declared himself the rightful possessor of the Mandate of Heaven. His short-lived Xin dynasty marks the dividing line between the Former or Western Han (202 BCE-9 CE) and the Later or Eastern Han (25-220 CE) and, due to widespread rebellion and a series of natural catastrophes, is widely considered one of the most calamitous periods in Chinese history.<br /><br />While little is known of Yang Xiong’s activities during his final years, his biography notes that, shortly after Wang Mang’s usurpation Yang Xiong attempted suicide when he was named in a scandal involving one of his former students. He survived the attempt. When Wang Mang heard of it, he ordered all charges against Yang Xiong dropped, proclaiming that the poet had never been involved in any political affairs at court. His final work, Ju qin mei xin, appears to have been a controversial memorial presented to Wang Mang around 14 CE; its title is translated by Knechtges as Denigrating Qin and Praising Xin. Yang Xiong died four years later at the age of 71.<br /><br /><br />2. Intellectual Context<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />a. Han Syncretism and Correlative Cosmology<br /><br />The focus of Yang Xiong’s writings during the middle years of his life is commonly seen as reflecting the Han trend toward syncretism and correlative cosmology. While the disunity of the Warring States period (475-221 BCE) provided fertile soil for the flourishing of the “One Hundred Schools of Thought” (baijia), the unification brought about by the Qin (221-206 BCE) and the Former Han dynasties provided the impetus for their coalescence. This combination of diverse views during the Qin and the Han periods can be seen in works such as the Lushi chunqiu (The Spring and Autumn Annals of Mr. Lu) and the Huainanzi (The Master of Huainan), which blend various streams of ancient Chinese thought, including Daoism, Confucianism, Legalism, Huang-Lao thought, Militarism, Mohism, and yinyang and wuxing (Five Phase) thought.<br /><br />Though Confucianism became the dominant and official school of thought in the Han, it borrowed heavily from earlier schools, particularly the yinyang and wuxing schools. The former explains all entities and events in terms of the interaction between two interdependent properties, yin (associated with darkness, passivity, and femininity) and yang (associated with light, activity, and masculinity). The latter takes a similar approach to understanding natural phenomena but includes the idea that “Five Phases” (each associated with metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, respectively) succeed one another in a never-ending cyclical process. The amalgamation of Confucianism, yinyang, and wuxing theory is especially evident in the writings of the scholar Dong Zhongshu (179-104 BCE), whose Chunqiu fanlu (Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals) illustrates a synthesis between Confucian ethics and an amalgam of yinyang and wuxing cosmology. Attempts to develop exhaustive systems of classification (leishu) were also common during this period and can be seen as part of the larger trend toward syncretization. These tables often use a Five Phase cosmological framework in which things are organized analogically on the basis of their relevant associations, rather than on the basis of some discrete essence. As can be seen in Yang Xiong’s Tai xuan, the correlations which form the basis of these classification systems can be bewildering - especially to anyone unfamiliar with the sorts of complex associations found in early Chinese culture.<br /><br /><br />b. The Old Text / New Text Controversy<br /><br />Many historians of Chinese philosophy have identified Yang Xiong’s final and best-known work, the Fa yan (Words to Live By), as representative of a more rational and sober-minded form of Confucianism known as the Old Text School (guxue). In contrast to the New Text School, which relied on versions of the classics written in the simpler and officially recognized script of the Han dynasty known as “new script” (jinwen), the Old Text School relied on versions written in the archaic scripts (guwen) and characters of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1100-221 BCE). Legend has it that these latter texts survived the book burnings of the Qin dynasty by lying concealed in the walls of the home of Confucius. Generally speaking, the Old Text School was associated with the simpler, more pragmatic philosophy of Confucius’s native state of Lu, while the New Text school was associated with the often fantastic writings of Zou Yan (305-240 BCE), a native of Qi and founder of the yinyang and wuxing schools of thought.<br /><br />Through much of the late Former Han dynasty, Confucianism was under the influence of the yinyang and wuxing theories promoted by New Text adherents. During this period, New Text scholars increasingly became interested in esoteric readings of the classics, cosmological speculation, and calamity and portent interpretation. The chief representatives of this period were classical scholars who commonly employed wuxing and yinyang correlations, numerical calculations, and various techniques of divination to fathom the harmony and continuity of humanity, nature, and the ancestral spirits - and to forecast disruptions.<br /><br />By the reigns of the last Former Han Emperors, the use of yinyang and wuxing theory in interpreting the classics and the progress of history closely paralleled methods found in apocryphal oracle books and commentaries that treated the classics as fortune-telling handbooks and used reports of unusual phenomena not to boldly admonish the Emperor - as did Zou Yan and Dong Zhongshu - but to curry favor with those in power. This trend reached its climax with Wang Mang, whose rise to power and eventual usurpation was associated with, and to a large extent legitimated by, hundreds of favorable omens and the generous rewarding of those who reported them.<br /><br />While scholars are divided on whether the Old Text School originated from Xunzi’s branch of Confucianism, most characterize this movement as a rational response to the excesses of the New Text school, whose influence had left the Han court and its scholars heavily dependent upon yinyang and wuxing thinking. More broadly, the Old Text school can be seen as a response to the often irrational and superstitious world of the late Former Han - a world that interpreted the classics as containing secret magical formulas and prognostications, was fascinated by talk of immortals, saw itself near the bottom in the historical cycle of rise and decline, and interpreted the passing of each childless Emperor and reports of calamities as portents to be dreaded.<br /><br /><br />3. Tai xuan (The Great Dark Mystery)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />a. Date and Significance<br /><br />Completed around 2 BCE, the Tai xuan is Yang Xiong’s longest and most difficult work. Few scholars have taken time to study it, and those who have often disagree about its import. Some scholars view the main focus of the text to be wuxing theory, others view its main focus to be the Five Constant Virtues (wuchang) of Confucianism, and still others view the Tai xuan as political satire of Wang Mang and other historical figures of the late Former Han. (See Michael Nylan’s translation and commentary of the Tai Xuan (1993)). While the Tai xuan is more a manual of divination than a philosophical treatise, it embodies a number of assumptions about the nature of the world, its cycles of transformation, and the central importance of timeliness in making one’s way in the world. Just as in his earlier poetry, in the Tai xuan Yang Xiong reiterates the view that success and failure do not all come down to individual effort but have much to do with the times and circumstances in which one lives, and that if one does not meet one’s proper time for acting, then one should retire or withdraw and wait for more advantageous times.<br /><br /><br />b. The Influence of the Laozi and the Yijing<br /><br />The term xuan in the title is typically used in Chinese literature as a modifier to describe that which is dark, black, mysterious, profound, abstruse or hidden. Yang Xiong, however, uses the term xuan much like the term dao in the Laozi to refer to the hidden fountainhead or initial state out of which things emerge and the mysterious process through which they unfold. While Yang Xiong’s conception of xuan seems to be derived from the Laozi, the text of the Tai xuan is modeled on the Yijing (Book of Changes), certainly the most enigmatic philosophical document in early Chinese literature. Like the Yijing, the Tai xuan is a book of divination based on an evolving sequence of figures that, when taken together, map out the cycles of transformation underlying all things. In both texts, each figure-image-circumstance is articulated through an evolving series of statements that describes and appraises the unfolding of the situation and the meaning of the image. Appended to both the Yijing and the Tai xuan is a set of commentaries that elaborates on the inner meanings of their respective texts.<br /><br />In some ways, the Tai xuan is even more complex than its model. While the Yijing is made up of 64 hexagrams, the Tai xuan is made up of 81 tetragrams. In the Yijing, each hexagram line can be solid or broken (representing the polarities of yin and yang). In the Tai xuan, each tetragram line can be solid, broken once, or broken twice (representing the triad of heaven, earth, and man), and each of the 81 tetragrams is correlated with, among other things, yin or yang, one of the “Five Phases,” a hexagram from the Yijing, a constellation, days of the calendar, and a musical note.<br /><br /><br />c. Correlative Cosmology in the Tai xuan<br /><br />In the Tai xuan, each tetragram is articulated though an evolving series of nine appraisals or judgments (whereas in the Yijing, each hexagram is articulated through a series of six line statements). These line appraisals unfold in a cyclical pattern corresponding to periods of time, the transformations of yin and yang, and a continuous cycle of commencement, maturity and decline. The appraisals can also be divided into those that address the commoner, the noble, and the Emperor.<br /><br />Also, the often obscure correlative-poetic organization of the images and their associated line appraisals can be seen in the Tai xuan commentary “Numbers of the Dark Mystery,” an example of the Han genre of classificatory works known as leishu. For example, “Numbers of the Mystery” correlates the number five with the earth, the color yellow, fear, wind omens, tumuli, the naked animal (humankind), fur, bottles, weaving, sleeping mats, complying, verticality, glue, sacks, hubs, calves, coffins, bows and arrows, stupidity, and the center courtyard rain well. The basis of these associations is analogical; A is to B as C is to D. The organization scheme is fivefold. The five numerical categories (three and eight, four and nine, two and seven, one and six, and five) correspond to the five directions (east, west, south, north, center), the five phases (wood, metal, fire, water, earth), the seasons (spring, autumn, summer, winter, four seasons), the five colors (green, white, red, black, yellow), the five trades (carpentry, metal smithing, working with fire, waterworks, earth works), and the like.<br /><br /><br />4. Fa yan (Words to Live By)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />a. Date and Significance<br /><br />Unlike Yang Xiong’s other works, the dating of the Fa yan is fairly certain. In the final passage of the text, there is a reference to Wang Mang as the Duke of Han. The fact that Wang Mang held this title from 1-9 CE implies that the Fa yan could not have been submitted after 9 CE when he took the title of Emperor. In Fa yan 13:34 there is a reference to the Han dynasty as having ruled for 210 years. If the founding of the Han is taken to be 202 BCE, then the passage would have been written no earlier than 8 CE. Whatever the date of completion, there is little doubt that the Fa Yan was written during a period when Wang Mang held in his hands the reigns of power and the destiny of his sovereign. It remains his best-known work.<br /><br /><br />b. The Influence of the Lunyu<br /><br />In his autobiography, Yang Xiong notes that, just as he modeled his Tai xuan on the greatest of the classics, the Yijing, so he modeled his Fa yan on the text he saw as the greatest of the commentaries - the Confucian Lunyu (Analects). Like the Lunyu, the Fa yan consists of a series of aphorisms and dialogues on a wide variety of historical and philosophical topics. Also like the Lunyu, the language of the Fa yan is archaic, its style terse, and its organization puzzling. While the form, language, and style of the Fa yan all seem to be derived from the Lunyu, the two works are most similar in their underlying concerns.<br /><br />Both the Lunyu and the Fa Yan focus on the perennial Confucian theme of self-cultivation while emphasizing the importance of learning, friendship, role models, rites and music, and the human virtues. Both works look back to the ancient sage kings, the ways of the Zhou dynasty, and the teachings of the classics as models for their own troubled times. Each work has been read as a subtle attack on the predominant political powers. Finally, both the Lunyu and Fa yan can be characterized as works of frustration that lament the political instability of their respective times, the tendency of princes and officials to overstep their roles, and the failure of Confucius (Kongzi) and Yang Xiong to gain recognition or to exercise political influence.<br /><br /><br />c. Syncretism in the Fa yan<br /><br />Among the disjointed sayings and dialogues of the Fa yan, one finds a wide variety of topics and themes. As noted, the most central of these are the perennial Confucian themes: self-cultivation, learning, the natural tendencies, the human virtues, the value of the classics, rites and music, the princely person, the sage, ruling, filial responsibility, and so forth. One also finds in the Fa yan discussions of concepts and themes usually associated with Daoism such as dao (way), de (potency), ziran (spontaneity), wuwei (non-coercive action), minimizing desire, and withdrawing from public life. These topics are often explicated through discussions of an unusually broad assortment of historical figures, including poets, philosophers, rhetoricians, rulers, officials, generals, merchants, rebels, assassins, jesters, recluses, and others. These topics are similarly interpreted through discussions of historical events, such as the collapse of the Zhou dynasty, the intrigues of the Warring States, the rise of the Qin dynasty and its rapid fall, the struggle between Xiang Ji (233-202 BCE) and the Han dynastic founder Liu Bang (247-195 BCE), and the founding of the Han dynasty.<br /><br />Also included among the numerous topics discussed in the Fa yan are more immediate concerns of the late Former Han. These include the assimilation of heterodox teachings and popular superstitions into commentaries and interpretations of the classics, the decline of the ruling house of Han, the popularity of portents and the rise of Wang Mang, and government reforms in taxation, punishment, division of land, and relations with barbarian tribes. Finally, there are sayings and dialogues which address the concerns of scholar officials living not only in the troubled late Former Han, but throughout much of China’s long history - the practicality and viability of the Confucian way of life, the vanity of the desires for wealth, office and renown, and the challenges of surviving and maintaining one’s integrity in a time of disorder.<br /><br /><br />d. Old Text Themes in the Fa yan<br /><br />Throughout the Fa yan, Yang Xiong sets the tone for subsequent representatives of the Old Text School by repeatedly poking fun at questions on magic, immortals, spirits, omens and portents, and esoteric interpretations of the classics. Instead he redirects attention toward concerns directly affecting the living: wealth and poverty, gain and loss, glory and disgrace, success and failure, friendship, joy, integrity, the dangers of public office, ruling the Empire, fate and circumstance, fleeing the world, and death. While the Tai xuan might be described as a synthesis of the various schools of early Chinese thought, the Fa yan elevates the Confucian school above all the others. In aphorism after aphorism, the Fa yan praises Confucius and the classics as the standards, stresses the importance of learning, rites and music, the five virtues, the five relations, and filial responsibility, while at the same time offering sardonic remarks on Daoist, Legalist, and yinyang and wuxing thinkers and their doctrines.<br /><br /><br />e. Political Philosophy in the Fa yan<br /><br />On governing, the Fa yan can be seen as advancing a Reformist position. While the literary world of the late Former Han is often explicated in terms of the New and the Old Text schools, the political world of this period is similarly explicated in terms of two opposing camps: Modernists who, like earlier Legalists, advocated policies that sought to enrich the wealth and power of the state through conquering border tribes, opening trade routes, and establishing government monopolies, and Reformists who accused Modernists of ignoring the welfare of the people and advocated instead for a more frugal form of government that emphasized retrenchment in foreign policy, abolition of government monopolies, and land reform. In the Fa yan, Yang Xiong aligns himself with the Reformists by speaking out against government monopolies and expensive military campaigns and voices support for an easing of heavy burdens on the populace and the reinstitution of Zhou dynasty practices and policies.<br /><br />The Reformist tone of the Fa yan gives credence to the association of Yang Xiong with “the Usurper,” Wang Mang, which has become standard throughout generations of Chinese scholarship. While Wang Mang’s rise to power met with opposition and spurred a number of insurrections, he seems to have found support in the ranks of court scholars for his display of Confucian virtue and his attempts to reorganize the social institutions of the Han along the lines of the Zhou dynasty - the system of rites and institutions highly prized by Confucian scholars since the Warring States period. Some have even seen Wang Mang as genuine in his espousal of Confucian ideals and as a sincere believer that reviving the institutions and rites of the Zhou dynasty would lead to a period of great peace and harmony. The more typical view, dating back to the account of Ban Gu (32-92 CE) in the Qian Han Shu (History of the Former Han), portrays Wang Mang as an ambitious, duplicitous, and murderous charlatan who rebelled against his sovereign and left the Empire in ruins.<br /><br />Little is known of Yang Xiong’s actual political leanings in the face of Wang Mang’s rise to power. Those who portray Yang Xiong as a Wang Mang partisan point to the fact that, when Wang Mang declared himself Emperor, Yang Xiong did not commit suicide or leave court to become a recluse as did many other Han officials. His supporters, however, point out that, in his earlier poetic works and in the Fa yan, Yang Xiong has a great deal to say - most of it critical - about men who, in the name of principle, committed suicide or fled to the mountains. As noted above, it appears that Yang Xiong preferred instead to follow his teacher Zhuang Zun - though not as a recluse among men, but as a recluse at court. Although the Fa yan was written during Wang Mang’s rise in power and apparently finished shortly before his usurpation, he is mentioned only once in it. Nonetheless, some read the text as an apology for Wang Mang’s usurpation and the Confucian reforms he attempted to institute. Others read the Fa yan as consisting of a number of cleverly veiled attacks on Wang Mang’s penchant for superstition, his insatiable ambition, and his pretense to being a humble Confucian.<br /><br />Some passages of the Fa yan have been read as offering neither flattery nor ridicule but bold admonitions, counseling Wang Mang to remember his filial duties and to return the reigns of power to the rightful ruler. For example, in Fa yan 8:21, there is a terse passage that reads, “The Red and Black Bows and Arrows do not amount to having it.” Centuries earlier the Imperial house of the Zhou dynasty awarded princes a set of bows and arrows as symbol of investiture to punish all within their jurisdiction. In an attempt to follow this ancient tradition, a set of red and black bows and arrows was awarded to Wang Mang in 5 CE as part of the “Conferment of the Nine Distinctions” bestowed on him by ministers, officials, and scholars of the Han court. While commentators uniformly read the phrase “red and black bows and arrows” in Fa yan 8:21 as a reference to this award, they are divided over its meaning. While some see 8:21 as flattering praise, others see it as reminding Wang Mang that having been bestowed the honor of the “Red and Black Bows and Arrows” does not amount to the possession of the mandate.<br /><br />The passage most frequently cited as evidence of Yang Xiong’s political leanings is found in Fa yan 13:34, where Wang Mang is compared to two of the greatest ministers in Chinese history: Zhou Gong (the Duke of Zhou, c. 12th century BCE) and Yi Yin (c. 18th century BCE). Given the location of this passage at the very end of the text, some have considered it to be a forgery. Others have seen it as a flattering endorsement of Wang Mang. The great Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi (1130-1200 CE), for example, reads this passage as lavish praise of Wang Mang’s achievements and, on the basis of it, dismisses Yang Xiong as “Wang Mang’s Grandee.” Still others have seen it as admonishing Wang Mang to be like Yi Yin and Zhou Gong before him and to return the reigns of power to his rightful sovereign. It is important to point out that, like Wang Mang, both Yi Yin and Zhou Gong served as Imperial Regents. Like Yi Yin, Wang Mang stood in the wings through a series of short-lived reigns. As in the case of Yi Yin, it fell on Wang Mang to name a successor to the throne. Both Yi Yin and Wang Mang served as regents while their hand-picked successors lacked maturity. But while Yi Yin and Zhou Gong are remembered for handing back the reigns of power, Wang Mang is popularly remembered in the chengyu (proverb) as one who “usurped the Han and named himself Emperor.”<br /><br /><br />f. View of Human Nature<br /><br />As Wing-tsit Chan and others have pointed out, the view for which Yang Xiong has become most famous – that human nature is a mixture of good and evil – is articulated only in a single passage of the Fa yan (3:2) and is not elaborated any further:<br /><br /> Human nature is a muddle [hun] of good and evil tendencies. Cultivating the good tendencies makes a person good. Cultivating the evil ones makes a person depraved. This force [qi] - is it not like a horse that drives one towards good or evil?<br /><br />This hardly amounts to the kind of sustained development of a view of human nature found, for example, in the work of Mencius or Xunzi, who represent opposite poles on the continuum of ancient Chinese views of human nature. Nonetheless, Yang Xiong’s view here, although undefended in philosophical terms, contradicts Mencius’ view that human nature originally is good and can only be warped (but never entirely destroyed) through neglect or negative influences. After Mencius’ view became the orthodox one among Confucians, especially during the Neo-Confucian movement of medieval and early modern China, Yang Xiong’s work came in for a great deal of criticism from Confucians. Thus, rather like Xunzi, Yang Xiong may be seen as something of a black sheep among early Confucians because of his deviation from what became Confucian orthodoxy in a later age.<br /><br /><br />5. Poetical Works<br /><br />Before being summoned to court, Yang Xiong wrote a number of poetic pieces of which only one - Fan sao (Refuting Sorrow) - survives. As Yang Xiong explains in his autobiography, Fan Sao was written in response to Li sao (Encountering Sorrow), a poem by the legendary Warring States poet Qu Yuan (340-278 BCE). According to the Shiji (Historical Records) account, Qu Yuan served as a trusted official to King Huai of Chu, but, after he was slandered by a jealous minister, he fell from favor and was exiled. Qu Yuan desperately wished to return to the service of King Huai, but in the end he gave up hope and after composing Li sao, he drowned himself.<br /><br />While Yang Xiong’s Fan sao is similar in style to Qu Yuan’s Li sao, its outlook is very different. Qu Yuan saw suicide as the only option left to persons of character living in a corrupt age. Yang Xiong, on the other hand, compares Qu Yuan’s response to failure in the political sphere with the response of Confucius. Unlike Qu Yuan, Confucius’s disappointments in searching for rulers who would employ him in “making good government” did not stop him from living a full life of travel, teaching, and writing. Here and in his later philosophical works, we find Yang Xiong maintaining that success and failure do not come down to individual effort but have much to do with the times and circumstances in which one lives. If one does not meet one’s proper time for acting, then one should retire or withdraw and like a snake or dragon lie submerged or like a phoenix remain concealed and wait for more advantageous times.<br /><br />While at court, Yang Xiong composed a number of primarily autobiographical poetic pieces where he reflects on his poverty, lowly position, lack of recognition, and the ridicule and difficulties these frustrations have engendered. In Jie chao (Dissolving Ridicule), for example, Yang Xiong portrays himself as ridiculed for his low position and his failure to influence the court. In responding, Yang Xiong reiterates a familiar theme in his writings, arguing that in an age beset with chaos, it is better to remain silent and unknown since, as David R. Knechtges translates it, “those who grab for power die, and those who remain silent survive; those who reach the highest positions endanger their family, while those who maintain themselves intact survive.” In Zhu bin (Expelling Poverty), Yang Xiong expels an unwelcome guest named “Poverty” whose lingering presence in the poet’s life has labored his body and afflicted his health, cut him off from friends, and slowed his promotion in office. After listening to Yang Xiong vent, Poverty humbly agrees to leave, but first reminds Yang Xiong of the virtue of the impoverished sage Shun, warns him of the greed of the tyrants Jie and Zhi, and offers the consolation that it is only because of his privation that the poet is able to bear heat and cold, and to live freely with equanimity. Enlightened, Yang Xiong apologizes to Poverty and welcomes him as an honored guest.<br /><br />Yang Xiong wrote several pieces in a genre known as fu, a term translated by Knechtges as “rhapsody.” Marked by its florid imagery and ecstatic tone, this genre was commonly employed by Han court officials as a means of offering indirect criticism and admonition to the Emperor. As Knechtges points out, most of the well known early writers of rhapsodies, such as Lu Jia (228-140 BCE) and Jia Yi (200-168 BCE), were not only poets but also scholar-officials who saw it as their duty to offer advice and remonstrance (jian) to rulers and did so through their poetic works. In the rhapsodies of later Former Han writers like Sima Xiangru, however, verbal decoration and entertainment took precedence over instruction and admonition.<br /><br />In his early years at the court of Emperor Cheng, Yang Xiong submitted a number of rhapsodies. At first glance, these works appear to be little more than ornate, fanciful, and flattering descriptions of Imperial spectacles. In Fa yan (Words to Live By) and in the autobiographical section of his biography, however, Yang Xiong stresses that, like earlier poets, he envisioned the primary purpose of these works to be remonstrance - a dangerous political task widely recognized as one of the most central duties of the Confucian scholar. While, on the surface, Yang Xiong’s rhapsodies heap lavish praise on the Emperor, they also contain stern reprimands and warning. For example, within the fanciful descriptions of Imperial grandeur found in the Ganquan fu (Sweet Springs Rhapsody), Yang Xiong indirectly admonishes Emperor Cheng to be more solemn in conducting affairs, suggesting through allusion that, like the lascivious tyrant kings Jie and Xia, Emperor Cheng’s wanton conduct would lead to his downfall. In the Jiaolie fu (Barricade Hunt Rhapsody) and the Changyang fu (Changyang Palace Rhapsody), both of which commemorate imperial hunts, Yang Xiong indirectly criticizes the hunts as lavish, wasteful spectacles that burden the peasants and destroy their farms and farmlands. In his later writings, Yang Xiong claims that he eventually came to see the ornate style of rhapsody as excessive, and realizing that the moral admonitions he tried to provide had gone unheeded (if not unnoticed), he renounced it. He never gave up writing poetry altogether, however.<br /><br /><br />6. References and Further Reading<br /><br />There are very few published studies of Yang Xiong in English. Of these, Nylan’s pioneering translation and commentary of the Tai Xuan (1993) is the most complete account of Yang Xiong’s philosophy, while Knechtges’s studies of Yang Xiong’s fu poetry (1976, 1977) and his Qian Han Shu biography (1982) offer superb translations and interpretations of Yang Xiong’s life and literary works. Colvin (2001) provides a translation of the Fa yan and an examination of the seemingly haphazard organization of its aphorisms and dialogues. For a fuller understanding of Yang Xiong’s thought, readers are encouraged to explore the more general accounts of the literary, intellectual, and political contexts of the Former Han dynasty in Bielenstein (1984), Feng (1953), Loewe (1974, 1986), Thomsen (1988), Xiao (1979), and Yu (1967).<br /><br />Bielenstein, Hans. “Han Portents and Prognostications.” Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 56 (1984): 97-112.<br /><br />Chan, Wing-tsit. “Taoistic Confucianism: Yang Hsiung.” In A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, ed. Wing-tsit Chan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 289-291.<br /><br />Colvin, Andrew. Patterns of Coherence in Yang Xiong’s Fa Yan. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2001.<br /><br />Doeringer, Franklin M. Yang Xiong and his Formulation of a Classicism. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1971.<br /><br />Feng, Yulan. A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. 2: The Period of Classical Learning. Trans. Derke Bodde. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953.<br /><br />Knechtges, David R. The Han Rhapsody: A Study of the Fu of Yang Xiong (53 B.C.- A.D.18). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.<br /><br />Knechtges, David R. “Uncovering the Sauce Jar: A Literary Interpretation of Yang Hsiung’s Chu ch’in mei Hsin.” In Ancient China: Studies in Early Civilization, eds. David T. Roy et al (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1977), 229-252.<br /><br />Knechtges, David R. “The Liu Hsin /Yang Hsiung Correspondence on the Fang Yen.” Monumenta Serica 33 (1977): 309-325.<br /><br />Knechtges, David R. The Han Shu Biography of Yang Xiong (53 B.C. to A.D. 18). Tempe: Arizona State University Press, 1982.<br /><br />Loewe, Michael. Crisis and Conflict in Han China 104 B.C. to A.D. 9. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1974.<br /><br />Nylan, Michael. The Canon of Supreme Mystery by Yang Xiong: A Translation with Commentary of the T’ai Hsüan Ching. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.<br /><br />Nylan, Michael. “Han Classicists Writing in Dialogue about their Own Tradition.” Philosophy East & West 47/2 (1996): 133-188.<br /><br />Thomsen, Rudi. Ambition and Confucianism: A Biography of Wang Mang. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1988.<br /><br />Twichett, Denis, and Michael Loewe, eds. The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 1: The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221 B.C. - A.D. 220. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.<br /><br />Xiao, Gongjun. A History of Chinese Political Thought, Vol. 1: From the Beginnings to the Sixth Century A.D. Trans. F.W. Mote. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.<br />Yu, Yingshi. Trade and Expansion in Han China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.<br /></div>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-17324794003376260152009-03-24T22:14:00.000-07:002009-03-24T22:17:06.323-07:00Yinyang (Yin-yang)<div style="text-align: justify;">Yinyang (yin-yang) is one of the dominant concepts shared by different schools throughout the history of Chinese philosophy. Just as with many other Chinese philosophical notions, the influences of yinyang are easy to observe, but its conceptual meanings are hard to define. Despite the differences in the interpretation, application, and appropriation of yinyang, three basic themes underlie nearly all deployments of the concept in Chinese philosophy: (1) yinyang as the coherent fabric of nature and mind, exhibited in all existence, (2) yinyang as jiao (interaction) between the waxing and waning of the cosmic and human realms, and (3) yinyang as a process of harmonization ensuring a constant, dynamic balance of all things. As the Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) claims, “Yin in its highest form is freezing while yang in its highest form is boiling. The chilliness comes from heaven while the warmness comes from the earth. The interaction of these two establishes he (harmony), so it gives birth to things. Perhaps this is the law of everything yet there is no form being seen.”(Zhuangzi, Chapter 21). In none of these conceptions of yinyang is there a valuational hierarchy, as if yin could be abstracted from yang (or vice versa), regarded as superior or considered metaphysically separated and distinct. Instead, yinyang is emblematic of valuational equality rooted in the unified, dynamic, and harmonized structure of the cosmos. As such, it has served as a heuristic mechanism for formulating a coherent view of the world throughout Chinese intellectual and religious history.<br /><br />1. Origins of the Terms Yin and Yang<br /><br />The earliest Chinese characters for yin and yang are found in inscriptions made on “oracle bones” (skeletal remains of various animals used in ancient Chinese divination practices at least as early as the 14th century BCE). In these inscriptions, yin and yang simply are descriptions of natural phenomena such as weather conditions, especially the movement of the sun. There is sunlight during the day (yang) and a lack of sunlight at night (yin). According to the earliest comprehensive dictionary of Chinese characters (ca. 100 CE), Xu Shen’s Shuowen jiezi (Explaining Single-component Graphs and Analyzing Compound Characters), yin refers to “a closed door, darkness and the south bank of a river and the north side of a mountain.” Yang refers to “height, brightness and the south side of a mountain.” These meanings of yin and yang originated in the daily life experience of the early Chinese. Peasants depended on sunlight for lighting and their daily life routines. When the sun came out, they would go to the field to work; when the sun went down, they would return home to rest. This sun-based daily pattern evidently led to a conceptual claim: yang is movement (dong) and yin is rest (jing). In their earliest usages, yin and yang existed independently and were not connected. The first written record of using these two characters together appears in a verse from the Shijing (Book of Songs): “Viewing the scenery at a hill, looking for yinyang.” This indicates that yang is the sunny side and yin is the shady side of hill. This effect of the sun exists at the same time over the hill.<br /><br /><br />2. The Yinyang School<br /><br />According to Sima Tan (Ssu-ma Tan, ca. 110 BCE), there existed a school of teaching during the “Spring and Autumn” (770-481 BCE) and “Warring States” (403-221 BCE) periods that bore the name of yinyang. He lists this yinyang school alongside five others (Confucian, Mohist, Legalist, Fatalist, and Daoist) and defines its theory as “the investigation of the shu [art] of yin and yang.” According to him, this school focused on omens of luck and explored the patterns of the four seasons. In other words, the yinyang school was concerned with methods of divination or astronomy (disciplines that were not distinct from one another in early China, as elsewhere in the ancient world) and the calendrical arts (which entailed study of the four seasons, eight locations, twelve du [measures] and twenty-four shijie [time periods]). Just as the Confucians (rujia) arose from the ranks of rushi (“scholar-gentlemen”) who excelled at ritual and music, those of the yingyang school came from the fangshi (“recipe-gentlemen”) who specialized in various numerological disciplines known as shushu (“number-arts”). These shushu included tianwen (astronomy), lipu (calendar-keeping), wuxing (“five phases” correlative theory), zhuguai (tortoise-shell divination), zazha (fortune-telling) and xingfa (face-reading). The Han dynasty chronicle Shiji (Records of the Historian) lists Zou Yan (305-240 BCE) as a representative of the yinyang school who possessed a profound knowledge of the theory of yinyang and wrote about a hundred thousand words on it. However, none of his works have survived.<br /><br />By the Han dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE), yinyang was associated with wuxing (“five phases”) correlative cosmology. According to the “Great Plan” chapter of the Shujing (Classic of Documents), wuxing refers to material substances that have certain functional attributes: water is said to soak and descend; fire is said to blaze and ascend; wood is said to curve or be straight; metal is said to obey and change; earth is said to take seeds and give crops. Wuxing is used as a set of numerological classifiers and explains the configuration of change on various scales. The so-called yinyang wuxing teaching – an “early Chinese attempt in the direction of working out metaphysics and a cosmology” (Chan 1963: 245) – was a fusion of these two conceptual schemes applied to astronomy and the mantic arts.<br /><br /><br />3. Yinyang as Qi (Vital Energy)<br /><br />The most enduring interpretation of yinyang in Chinese thought is related to the concept of qi (ch’i, vital energy). According to this interpretation, yin and yang are seen as qi (in both yin and yang forms) operating in the universe. In the “Duke Shao” chapter of the Zuozhuan (The Book of History), yin and yang are first defined as two of six heavenly qi:<br /><br /> There are six heavenly influences [qi] which descend and produce the five tastes, go forth in the five colours, and are verified in the five notes; but when they are in excess, they produce the six diseases. Those six influences are denominated the yin, the yang, wind, rain, obscurity, and brightness. In their separation, they form the four seasons; in their order, they form the five (elementary) terms. When any of them is in excess, they ensure calamity. An excess of the yin leads to diseases of cold; of the yang, to diseases of heat. (Legge 1994: 580).<br /><br />Here, yin and yang are the qi of the universe. These qi flow within the natural as well as the human worlds. They are the basic fabric of existence:<br /><br /> Heaven and earth have their regular ways, and men like these for their pattern, imitating the brilliant bodies of Heaven, and according with the natural diversities of the Earth. (Heaven and Earth) produce the six atmospheric conditions [qi], and make use of the five material elements. Those conditions (and elements) become the five tastes, are manifested in the five colours, and displayed in the five notes. When they are in excess, there ensue obscurity and confusion, and people lose their (proper) nature… There were mildness and gentleness kindness and harmony, in imitation of the producing and nourishing action of Heaven. There are love and hatred, pleasure and anger, grief and joy, produced by the six atmosphere conditions [qi]. Therefore (the sage kings) carefully imitated these relations and analogies (in forming ceremonies), to regulate those six impulses…When there is no failure in the joy and grief, we have a state in harmony with the nature of Heaven and Earth, which consequently can endure long. ( Legge 1994: 708).<br /><br />Thus qi, a force arising from the interplay between yin and yang, becomes a context in which yinyang is seated and functions. Yinyang as qi provides an explanation of the beginning of the universe and serves as a building block of the Chinese intellectual tradition. In many earlier texts, one may observe how yinyang generates a philosophical perspective on heaven, earth and human beings. Chapter 42 of the Laozi says that "everything is embedded in yin and embraces yang; through chong qi [vital energy] it reaches he [harmony].” It is through yinyang’s function as qi and the interaction between them that everything comes into existence. Zhuangzi also speaks about the “qi of yin and yang”: “When the qi of yin and yang are not in harmony, and cold and heat come in untimely ways, all things will be harmed.” (Zhuangzi ch. 31) On the other hand, “when the two have successful intercourse and achieve harmony, all things will be produced.” (Zhuangzi ch. 21)<br /><br />The interpretation of yinyang as qi conceives yinyang as a dynamic and natural form of flowing energy, a complementary in the primordial potency of the universe. The Huainanzi offers more detailed explanation of the cosmological process of yin and yang:<br /><br /> When heaven and earth were formed, they divided into yin and yang. Yang is generated [sheng] from yin and yin is generated from yang. Yin and yang mutually alternate which makes four fields [wei, “celestial circles”] penetrate. Sometimes there is life, sometimes there is death, that brings the myriad things to completion. (ch. 2)<br /><br />This process also explains the beginning of human life. When qi moved, the clear and light rose to be heaven and the muddy and heavy fell to become earth. When these two qi interacted and attained the stage of harmony (he), human life began. This shows that everything is made from the same materials and difference relies on the interaction.<br /><br />Qi also takes on various forms and is convertible from one form to another with order and pattern. The concept of yinyang supplies a unitary vision of heaven, earth and human beings and makes the world intelligible in terms of a resonance between human beings and the universe. The Guoyu (Discourses of the States) describes how earthquakes took place at the confluence of the Jing, Wei, and Lou rivers during the second year of Duke You of the western Zhou dynasty. A certain Boyang Fu claims that the Zhou empire is doomed to collapse, explaining that<br /><br /> The qi of heaven and earth can’t lose its order. If its order vanishes people will be disoriented. Yang was stuck and could not get out, yin was suppressed and could not evaporate, so an earthquake was inevitable. Now the earthquakes around the three rivers are due to yang losing its place and yin being pressed down. Yang is forsaken under yin so the source of rivers has been blocked. If the foundation of rivers is blocked the country will definitely collapse. This is because of the fact that the flowing water and flourishing land are necessities for the people’s lives. If the water and land cannot sustain the people’s living conditions, the country will inevitably fall. (Discourse of the States 1994: 22).<br /><br />Not only does this ¬yinyang-flavored explanation claim to illuminate natural phenomena, it also implies that there is an intrinsic relationship between natural events and political systems. Human beings, especially political leaders, must align their virtuous actions with the morally-oriented universe. If they follow and harmonize with (shun) the order and patterns of the universe, they will be rewarded with prosperity and flourishing, but if they go against and conflict with (ni) it, they will be punished with disasters and destruction. Whether one engages in shun or ni depends upon whether yin and yang are in a state of balance. Thus, yinyang provides a heuristic outlook for human understanding as well as ethical guidance for achieving harmony in action. As chapter 8 of the Huainanzi claims:<br /><br /> Yinyang embodies the harmony of heaven and earth, manifests the forms of myriad things, contains qi to transform the things and completes various kinds of things; yinyang extends and penetrates to the deepest level; begins in emptiness then becomes full and moves in boundless lands.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />4. Yinyang as Xingzi (Concrete Substance)<br /><br />Yinyang also has been understood as some concrete substance (xingzhi), according to which yixing and yangxing define everything in the universe. In the Yijing (I-Ching, The Book of Changes), yinyang is presented as xingzhi. Yang was identified with the sun and yin with the moon:<br /><br /> Heaven and earth correlate with vast and profound; four seasons correlate with change and continuity [biantong]; the significance of yin and yang correlate with sun and moon; the highest excellence [zhide] correlates the goodness of easy and simple.(Sishu wujing 1990: 197)<br /><br />The Guanzi, an important work of the Huang-Lao school, discusses this view along the same lines: “The sun is in charge of yang, the moon is in charge of yin, the stars are in charge of harmony [he].” (Guanzi 2000: 151). This xingzhi interpretation materializes the concept of yinyang in some concrete contexts and shows that the universe is orderly, moral and gendered. The pattern of the world is written in a gendered language. Yinyang is something one can see, feel, and grasp through the senses. For example, in the Liji (Book of Ritual), music represents the he (harmony) of heaven and earth, while li (ritual) represents the order of heaven and earth: “Music is coming from yang, ritual is coming from yin. The harmony of yinyang receives the myriad things.” (Sishu wujing 1990: 525) In the human world, male as yang should be cultivated, otherwise the day will suffer; female as yin should be cultivated too, otherwise the moon will be affected.<br /><br />According to Dong Zhongshu, (195-115 BCE), both Tian (heaven) and human beings have yinyang. Therefore, there is an intrinsic connection between tian and human beings through the movement of yin and yang. Yinyang is an essential vehicle for interactions between heaven and human beings: “The qi of yinyang moves heaven above as well as in human beings. When it is among human beings it is displayed itself as like, dislike, happy and mad, when it is in heaven it is seen as warm, chilly, cold and hot.” (Dong Zhongshu 1996: 436) In Dong’s cosmological vision, the whole universe is a giant yinyang. One of many examples of this vision is Dong’s proposal to control floods and prevent droughts by proper human interaction. In chapter 74 (“Seeking the Rain”) of his Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn, Dong asserts that a spring drought indicates too much yang and not enough yin. So one should “open yin and close yang” (1996: 432) He suggests that the government should have the south gate closed, which is in the direction of yang. Men, embodying yang, should remain in seclusion. Women, embodying yin, should appear in public. He even requests all married couples to copulate (ouchu) to secure more yinyang intercourse. It is also important during this time to make women happy. (1996: 436) In chapter 75 (“Stopping the Rain”), Dong alleges that the flood proves there is too much yin so one should “open yang and close yin” (1996: 438). The north gate, the direction of yin, should be wide open. Women should go into concealment and men should be visible. Officers in the city should send their wives to the countryside in order to make sure that yin will not conquer yang. Derk Bodde defines this practice as a “sexual sympathetic magic.” (Bodde 1981: 373)<br /><br />Finally, yinyang also plays a pivotal role in traditional Chinese thought about health and the human body. The early medical text known as the Huangdi neijing (The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine) provides a detailed account of physiological functions and pathological changes in the body and guidance for diagnosis and treatment in terms of yinyang. Five zang (organs) -- the kidneys, liver, heart, spleen and lungs -- are classified as yin. They control the storage of vital substance and qi. Six fu (organs) -- the gallbladder, stomach, small and large intestines, urinary bladder and triple burner (referring to three parts of the body cavity: the upper burner, which houses the heart and lungs; the middle burner, which houses the spleen and stomach; and the lower burner, which houses the kidney, urinary bladder and small and large intestines) -- are yang and control the transport and digestion of food. The storage is a yin function, and the transport and transformation of substance is a yang function. But the zang and fu organs can be further subdivided into yin and yang. The activity or function of each organ is its yang aspect, while its substance is its yin aspect. Yin should flow smoothly and yang should vivify steadily. They regulate themselves so as to maintain equilibrium. Yin and yang do not exist in isolation but are in a dynamic state in which they interact and fashion the complicated and intricate system of the human body.<br /><br /><br />5. The Yinyang Symbol<br /><br />There is no a clear and definite way to determine the exact date of origin or the person who created the popular yinyang symbol. No one has ever claimed specific ownership of this popular image. However, there is a rich textual and visual history leading to its creation. Inspired by a primeval vision of cosmic harmony, Chinese thinkers have sought to codify this order in various intellectual constructions. Whether to formulate this underlying pattern through words and concepts or numbers and visual images has been debated since the Han dynasty. The question first surfaced in the interpretation of the Yijing. The Yijing is constructed around sixty-four hexagrams (gua), each of which is made of six parallel broken or unbroken line segments (yao). Each of the sixty-four hexagrams has a unique designation; its image (xiang) refers to a particular natural object and conveys the meaning of human events and activities. The Yijing thus has generated a special way to decipher the universe. It mainly incorporates three elements: xiang (images), shu (numbers), and li (meanings). They act as the mediators between heavenly cosmic phenomena and earthly human everyday life. From the Han dynasty through the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1912 CE), there was a consistent tension between two schools of thought: the school of xiangshu (images and numbers) and the school of yili (meanings and reasoning). At issue between them is how best to interpret the classics, particularly the Yijing. The question often was posed as: “Am I interpreting the six classics or are the six classics interpreting me?”<br /><br />For the school of Xiangshu the way to interpret the classics is to produce a figurative and numerological representation of the universe through xiang (images) and shu (numbers). It held that xiangshu are indispensable structures expressing the Way of heaven, earth and human being. Thus the school of Xiangshu takes the position that “I interpret the classics” by means of the images and numbers. The emphasis is on the appreciation of classics. The school of Yili, on the other hand, focuses on an exploration of the meanings of the classics on the basis of one’s own reconstruction. In other word, the school of Yili treats all classics as supporting evidence for their own ideas and theories. The emphasis is more on idiosyncratic new theories rather than the explanation of the classics. In what follows, our inquiry focuses on the legacy of the Xiangshu school.<br /><br />The most common effort of the Xiangshu school was to draw tu (diagrams). Generations of intellectuals labored on the formulation and creation of numerous tu. Tu often delineate structure, place, and numbers through black and white lines. They are not aesthetic objects but rather serve as a means of articulating the fundamental patterns that govern phenomena in the universe. Tu are universes in microcosm and demonstrate obedience to definite norms or rules. During the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE), the Daoist monk Chen Tuan (906-989 CE) made an important contribution to this tradition by drawing a few tu in order to elucidate the Yijing. Though none of his tu were directly passed down, he is considered the forerunner of the school of tushu (diagrams and writings). It is said that he left behind three tu; since his death, attempting to discover these tu has become a popular scholarly pursuit. After Chen Tuan, three trends in making tu emerged, exemplified by the work of three Neo-Confucian thinkers: the Hetu (Diagram of River) and Luoshu (Chart of Luo) ascribed to Liu Mu (1011-1064 CE), the Xiantian tu (Diagram of Preceding Heaven) credited to Shao Yong (1011-1077 CE), and the Taijitu (Diagram of the Great Ultimate) attributed to Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073 CE). These three trends eventually led to the creation of the first yinyang symbol by Zhao Huiqian (1351-1395 CE), entitled Tiandi Zhiran Hetu (Heaven and Earth’s Natural Diagram of the River) and pictured above at the head of this entry.<br /><br /><br />6. References and Further Reading<br /><br />Bennett, Steven J. “Patterns of the Sky and the Earth: A Chinese Science of Applied Cosmology.” Chinese Science (March 1978) 3: 1-26.<br /><br />Chan, Wing-tsit, ed. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963.<br /><br />Bodde, Derk. Essays on Chinese Civilization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.<br /><br />Dong, Zhongshu. Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn. Ed. Su Xing. Beijing: Chinese Press, 1996.<br /><br />Fung, Yu-lan. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy. Trans. Derk Bodde. New York: The Free Press, 1997.<br /><br />Graham, A.C. Yin-Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking. Singapore: The Institute of East Asian Philosophies, 1986.<br /><br />Guanzi. Ed. Guan Bo. Beijing: Hua Xia Press, 2000.<br /><br />Guoyu (Discourse of the States). Eds. Wu Guoyi, Hu Guowen and Li Xiaolu. Shanghai: Guji Press, 1994.<br /><br />Huainanzi. Ed. Liu An. Xi’an: Sanqing Press, 1998.<br /><br />Henderson, John B. The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.<br /><br />Inoue, Satoshi. Xianqin Yinyang Wuxing (Pre-Qin Yinyang and Five Phases). Hubei: Education Press, 1997.<br /><br />Kohn, Livia. “Ying and Yang: The Natural Dimension of Evil.” In Philosophies of Nature: The Human Dimension, eds. Robert S. Cohen and Alfred I. Tauber (New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997), 91-106.<br /><br />Legge, James. The Chinese Classics: The Ch’un Ts’ew, with Tso Chuen. Taipei: SMC Publishing Inc., 1994.<br /><br />Li, Shen and Guo Yu, eds. The Complete Selection of Diagrams of Zhouyi. Shanghai: China Eastern Normal University Press, 2004.<br /><br />Makeham, John. Transmitters and Creators: Chinese Commentators and Commentaries on the Analects. Harvard East Asian Monographs, no. 228. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.<br /><br />Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilization in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956.<br /><br />Porkert, Manfred. The Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine: Systems of Correspondence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974.<br /><br />Puett, Michael J. To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice and Self-Divination in Early China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.<br /><br />Roth, Harold D. Original Tao: Inward Training (Nei-yeh) and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.<br /><br />Rubin, Vitaly A. “The Concepts of Wu-Hsing and Yin-Yang,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 9 (1982): 131-157.<br /><br />Sishu wujing (Four Books and Five Classics). China: Yuling Press, 1990.<br /><br />Yabuuti, Kiyosi. “Chinese Astronomy: Development and Limiting Factors.” In Chinese Science: Explorations of an Ancient Tradition, eds. Shigeru Nakayama and Nathan Sivin (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973), 91-103.<br /><br />Yang, Xuepeng. Yinyang Qi yu Bianliang (Yinyang Qi and Changes). Beijing: Chinese Science Press, 1993.<br /><br />Yates, Robin D.S. Five Lost Classics: Tao, Huang-Lao, and Yin-yang in Han China. New York: Ballantine Books, 1997.<br />Zhuangzi. Ed. Chen Guying. Beijing: Chinese Press, 1983.<br /></div>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-67108527363816867252009-03-24T11:26:00.000-07:002009-03-24T11:28:28.687-07:00Phenomenology and Time-Consciousness<div style="text-align: justify;">Edmund Husserl, founder of the phenomenological movement, employs the term phenomenology in its etymological sense as the activity of giving an account (logos) of the way things appear (phainomenon). Hence, a phenomenology of time attempts to account for the way things appear to us as temporal or how we experience time. Phenomenology offers neither metaphysical speculation about time’s relation to motion (as does Aristotle), nor the psychological character of time’s past and future moments (as does Augustine), nor transcendental-cognitive presumptions about time as a mind-dependent construct (as does Kant). Rather, it investigates the essential structures of consciousness that make possible the unified perception of an object that occurs across successive moments. In its nuanced attempts to provide an account of the form of intentionality presupposed by all experience, the phenomenology of time-consciousness provides important contributions to philosophical issues such as perception, memory, expectation, imagination, habituation, self-awareness, and self-identity over time.<br /><br />Within the phenomenological movement, time-consciousness is central. The most fundamental and important of all phenomenological problems, time-consciousness pervades Husserl’s theories of constitution, evidence, objectivity and inter-subjectivity. Within continental philosophy broadly construed, the movements of existential phenomenology, hermeneutics, post-modernism and post-structuralism, as well as the work of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Hans George Gadamer and Jacques Derrida, all return in important ways to Husserl’s theory of time-consciousness. After devoting considerable attention to Husserl’s reflections on time-consciousness, this article treats the developments of the phenomenological account of time in Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty.<br /><br />1. Husserl, Phenomenology, and Time-Consciousness<br /><br />Phenomenology maintains that consciousness, in its very nature as activity, is intentional. In its care for and interest in the world, consciousness transcends itself and attends to the world by a myriad of intentional acts, e.g., perceiving, remembering, imagining, willing, judging, etc.—hence Husserl’s claim that intentional consciousness is correlated (i.e., co-related) to the world. Although the notion of intentionality includes the practical connotations of willful interest, it fundamentally denotes the relation conscious has to objects in the world. Of these many modes of intentionality, time-consciousness arguably constitutes the central one for understanding consciousness’s intentional, transcending character. Put differently, time-consciousness underscores these other intentional acts because these other intentional acts presuppose or include the consciousness of internal time. For this and other reasons, Husserl, in his On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893-1917) (1991), deemed time-consciousness the most “important and difficult of all phenomenological problems” (PCIT, No. 50, No. 39). Together with Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Syntheses (2001), Cartesian Meditations (1997) and Die ‘Bernaur Manuskripte’ über das Zeitbewußtseins 1917/18 (2001), this work seeks to account for this fundamental form of intentionality that the experience of temporal (e.g., spatial and auditory) and non-temporal (e.g., mathematical and logical) objects alike presupposes.<br /><br />All experience entails a temporal horizon, according to phenomenology. This claim seems indisputable: we rush, we long, we endure, we plan, we reminisce, we perceive, we speak, we listen, etc. To highlight the difficulty and importance of explaining the structures of consciousness that make possible the experience of time, Husserl, like his contemporaries Henri Bergson and William James, favored the example of listening to a melody. For a melody to be a melody, it must have distinguishable though inseparable moments. And for consciousness to apprehend a melody, its structure must have features capable of respecting these features of temporal objects. Certainly, we can “time” the moments of a temporal object, a melody, with discrete seconds (measured by clocks). But this scientific and psychological account of time, which, following Newton, considers time as an empty container of discrete, atomistic nows, is not adequate to the task of explaining how consciousness experiences a temporal object. In this case of Newtonian time, each tone spreads its content out in a corresponding now but each now and thus each tone remains separated from every other. Newtonian time can explain the separation of moments in time but not the continuity of these moments. Since temporal objects, like a melody or a sentence, are characterized by and experienced as a unity across a succession, an account of the perception of a temporal object must explain how we synthesize a flowing object in such a way that we (i) preserve the position of each tone without (ii) eliminating the unity of the melody or (iii) relating each tone by collapsing the difference in the order between the tones.<br /><br />Bergson, James and Husserl realized that if our consciousness were structured in such a way that each moment occurred in strict separation from every other (like planks of a picket fence), then we never could apprehend or perceive the unity of our experiences or enduring objects in time otherwise than as a convoluted patchwork. To avoid this quantitative view of time as a container, Husserl’s phenomenology attempts to articulate the conscious experience of lived-time as the prerequisite for the Newtonian, scientific notion of time’s reality as a march of discrete, atomistic moments measured by clocks and science. In this way, Husserl’s approach to time-consciousness shares much in common with these popular nineteenth Century treatments of time-consciousness. Yet to appreciate fully Husserl’s account of time-consciousness—the uniqueness of his contribution beyond other popular nineteenth Century accounts (deWarren 2008), and the priority he affords it in his own thinking—we first must understand phenomenology’s methodological device, the phenomenological reduction.<br /><br />a. Phenomenological Reduction and Time-consciousness<br /><br />Husserl believed that every experience for intentional conscious has a temporal character or background. We experience spatial objects, both successive (e.g., a passing automobile) and stationary (e.g., a house), as temporal. We do not, on the other hand, experience all temporal objects (e.g., an imagined sequence or spoken sentence) as spatial. For the phenomenologist, even non-temporal objects (e.g., geometrical postulates) presuppose time because we experience their timeless character over time; for example, it takes time for me to count from one to five although these numbers themselves remain timeless, and it takes some a long time to understand and appreciate the force of timeless geometrical postulates (PCIT § 45; see Brough 1991). To this point, common sense views of time may find Husserl agreeable. Such agreement ceases, however, for those who expect Husserl to proclaim that time resembles an indefinite series of nows (like seconds) passing from the future through the present into the past (as a river flows from the top of a mountain into a lake). This common sense conception of time understands the future as not-yet-now, the past as no-longer-now, and the present as what now-is, a thin, ephemeral slice of time. Such is the natural attitude’s view of time, the time of the world, of measurement, of clocks, calendars, science, management, calculation, cultural and anthropological history, etc. This common sense view is not the phenomenologist’s, who suspends all naïve presuppositions through the reduction.<br /><br />Phenomenology’s fundamental methodological device, the “phenomenological reduction,” involves the philosopher’s bracketing of her natural belief about the world, much like in mathematics when we bracket questions about whether numbers are mind-independent objects. This natural belief Husserl terms the “natural attitude,” under which label he includes dogmatic scientific and philosophical beliefs, as well as uncritical, every-day, common sense assumptions. Not a denial of the external world, like Descartes methodologically proposed, the phenomenological reduction neutralizes these dimensions of the natural attitude towards experience in order to examine more closely experience and its objects just as they appear to conscious experience (Ideas I §§ 44-49; Sokolowski 2000). Put less technically, one could consider phenomenology a critical rather than habitual or dogmatic approach to understanding the world. To call phenomenology a critical enterprise means that it is an enterprise guided by the goal of faithfully describing what experience gives us—thus phenomenology’s famed return to the things themselves—rather than defaulting to what we with our dogmas and prejudices expect from experience—thus phenomenology’s famed self-description as a “pressupositionless science” (Logical Investigations)<br /><br />That the phenomenologist suspends her natural attitude means that a phenomenology of time bypasses the inquiry into both natural time considered as a metaphysical entity and scientific world time considered as a quantitative construct available for observation and necessary for calculation (PCIT § 2). Without prejudice to the sciences, the reduction also suspends all philosophical presuppositions about time’s metaphysical, psychological or transcendental-cognitive nature. Hence, the phenomenological reduction enables Husserl to examine the structures of consciousness that allow us to apprehend and thus characterize the modes of temporal objects appearing as now, past or future. As Husserlians often express it, Husserl concerns himself not with the content of an object or event in time (e.g., listening to a sentence) but with how an object or event appears as temporal (Brough 1991).<br /><br />As this discussion about the effect of the reduction on Husserl’s account of time implies, Husserl distinguishes three levels of time for our consideration: (3) world[ly] or objective time; (2) personalistic or subjective time; and (1) the consciousness of internal time. We can make assessments and measurements, e.g., declaring things simultaneous or enduring, at the level of objective time only because we experience a succession of mental states in our subjective conscious life. Our awareness of objective time thus depends upon our awareness of subjective time. We are aware of subjective time, however, as a unity across succession of mental states because the consciousness of internal time provides a consciousness of succession that makes possible the apprehension and unification of successive mental states (PCIT No. 40; Sokolowski 2000).<br /><br />Husserl’s contention that all experience presupposes (1) at first appears as an exhaustively subjective denial of time’s reality, particularly in light of the reduction. Moreover, since we believe that natural time precedes and will outlast our existence, we tend to consider (3) more fundamental than (1). As such, some may find Husserl’s privileging of (1) counterintuitive (Sokolowski 2000). Of course, such a passively received attitude or belief about time and our place therein amounts to cultural prejudice in favor of the scientific view of human beings as mere physical entities subject to the relentless march of time. A brief example may help us better understand Husserl’s objective and thus dispel these reservations: When listening to a fifty minute lecture (level 3), one may experience it as slow or as fast (level 2). Still, each listener’s consciousness has a structure (level 1) that makes it possible for her to apprehend (3) and (2). This structure in (1) functions in such a way that each listener can agree about the objective duration of the lecture while disagreeing about their subjective experience of it. If (1) changed subjectively as (2), then we never could reach a consensus or objective agreement about (3). For the phenomenologist, who seeks to give an account (logos) of the way things appear as temporal, the manifest phenomenon of time is not fundamentally worldly/objective or psychological/subjective time (Brough, 1991). Concerned with how temporal phenomena manifest themselves to conscious perceivers, the phenomenologist examines (1), namely the structures of intentional consciousness that make possible the disclosure of time as a worldly or psychological phenomenon. To begin to explain the priority of (1), Husserl highlights how the now and past are not a part of time considered according to the natural attitude view of (3) or (2).<br /><br />b. Phenomenology, Experienced Time and Temporal Objects<br /><br />It should be clear already that Husserl does not privilege the Newtonian view of time as a series of now, past and future moments considered as “things,” containers for “things,” or points on the imagined “time-line” (PCIT §§ 1-2, No. 51). Conversely, he considers the present, past, and future as modes of appearing or modes by which we experience things and events as now, no longer (past) or not yet (future). For example, though I experience the event of the space shuttle Columbia’s explosion as past, the past is not some metaphysical container of which the Columbia shuttle tragedy is a part; the past is the mode in which the Columbia shuttle tragedy appears to me. This does not mean that Husserl views time as something that flows willy-nilly, or that the time of the Columbia shuttle tragedy is contemporaneous with the time of your reading this entry. Husserl acknowledges that “time is fixed and that time flows” (PCIT § 31, No. 51). When we count from one to ten, two always occurs after one and before three regardless of how far our counting progresses; likewise, the temporal event of the Columbia shuttle tragedy occupies an unchanging, determinate temporal position in world-time, “frozen” between what came before and after it, ever-receding into the past of world time (history) without losing its place. Phenomenology helps to clarify the common sense understanding of time as a container—a metaphysical placeholder—that contains events. This common sense understanding of time as a container persists because we forget that we first understand these fixed temporal relations and position thanks to the modes of appearing, namely now, past and future (Brough, 1991).<br /><br />As Husserlians put it, Husserl considers the now as conscious life’s absolute point of orientation from which things appearing as past and future alter (PCIT §§ 7, 14, 31, 33). Since the now and past are not a part of time but the modes by which things appear to me as temporal, each now that becomes past can accommodate many events simultaneously, e.g., one may remember where one was when the shuttle exploded, what anchor man one might have heard, what channel one was watching, who one was with, etc. (PCIT § 33; Brough 2005). The very fact that this experience becomes part of one’s conscious life implies that one experienced it in the now. Moreover, I can remember what events preceded and succeeded this tragedy, e.g., that my grade-school class filed into the auditorium or that my teacher sniffled as she led us back to our classroom. The very fact that one can place the event in relation to preceding and succeeding events implies both that one never experiences the now in isolation from the past and future and that one experiences the relation between now, past and future without collapsing these three modes of appearing (PCIT § 31).<br /><br />These reflections on temporal objects and experienced time indicate that the flow of our conscious life is the condition for the possibility of the disclosure of temporal objects and experienced time, a condition that begins from the privileged standpoint of the now, which, again, nevertheless occurs in an interplay with past and future rather than in isolation from them. More than this descriptive account of some essential features of time’s appearance, however, Husserl’s phenomenology of time-consciousness concerns itself with the structure of the act of perceiving that allows us to apprehend a temporal object as unified across its manifold moments. Indeed, our preliminary reflections on time depend upon a series of successive events but a succession of experiences or perceptions is not yet an experience or perception of succession. Husserl turns his attention toward (1)—the transcendental level of internal time-consciousness—in order to explain how (2) and (3) become constituted conscious experiences.<br /><br />c. Phenomenology Not to be Confused with Augustine’s Theory of Time<br /><br />When we say that Husserl focuses his attention on (2) and (1), we mean that his writings on time-consciousness attempt to explain how time and experienced time appear to consciousness. This explanation begins, for Husserl, by confronting the paradox of how to account for the unity of a process of change that continues for an extended period of time, a unity that develops in succession, e.g., listening to a sentence or watching a film (PCIT No. 50). To unravel this theoretical knot, Husserl believed, philosophy must realize that, beyond the temporality of the object, the act of perceiving has its own temporal character (PCIT No. 32). Consider the phrase, “Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers” at the word, “picked.” In this example, I hear “picked” yet somehow must hold onto “Peter” and “Piper” in just the order in which I originally apprehended them. Husserl contends that insofar as a temporal object such as a sentence occurs across time in a now that includes what is no longer, consciousness too must extend beyond the now; indeed, if all I heard were different words in each new now without connecting them to past related words, then I never would hear a sentence but only a barrage of sounding words. Consciousness not only must extend beyond the now, but it also must extend in such a way that it preserves the determinate temporal order of the words and modifies their orientation to the now. Indeed, if I preserved the words in a simultaneous or haphazard order, then I never would hear a sentence but only a jumble of words.<br /><br />To account for the unity of succession in a way that avoids these difficulties, Husserl will not explain consciousness’ extension beyond the now in an act of perception by merely importing a view of Newtonian time into the mind or translating such a view of natural time into a transcendental condition of the mind. This was Kant’s dogmatic failure in the “Transcendental Aesthetic” of his Critique of Pure Reason (Crisis 104 ff.). Nor will Husserl’s account of the “perception” of a temporal object conclude, as Augustine’s did, that consciousness extends beyond the now thanks to its “present of things no longer” and a “present of thing yet to come” that echoed Augustine’s description of the soul’s distention (PCIT § 1; Kelly 2005). Such an Augustinian account of “the present of thing no longer” cannot explain the perception of a temporal object because it traps the heard contents in the now (as a present of things no longer remains present nevertheless). Augustine’s notion of a “present of things no longer” can explain consciousness’ extension beyond the now only as a result of a memorial recollection. But memory drags past nows—and the contents occurring therein—back into the present, thereby rendering past moments simultaneous with a present moment and effectively halting time’s flow. Any account of temporal awareness that explains consciousness’’ extension beyond the now by recourse to memory conflates the acts of memory and perception and thus proves inadequate to explain the conscious perception of a temporal object. Memory gives not the perception of a temporal object but always only what it is capable of giving: a memory (PCIT No. 50; Brough, 1991).<br /><br />With respect to this problem of conflating memory and perception, Husserl indicates two consequences. First, the distention of the now through memory leaves us with a situation where, as Husserl admits, at any given moment I perceive only the actually present word of the sentence; hence, the whole of the enduring sentence appears in an act that is predominantly memory and only marginally perception (PCIT § 12). Experience tells us, however, that we “perceive” (hear) the whole sentence across its present (now) and absent (past or future) words rather than hearing its present word and remembering (or expecting) the others (PCIT § 7). Indeed, something quite different occurs when I hear a sentence and when I remember the event of the Columbia shuttle tragedy. Second, having conflated the past and the present by making recourse to memory as a means to explain consciousness’ extension beyond the now, such a theory violates the law of non-contradiction, for the mode of the present cannot present something as past, but only as present, and vice versa (PCIT No. 14). In short, on such Augustinian theory, everything remains ‘now’ and nothing can overcome that fact (Brough 1993; Kelly 2005).<br /><br />The problem of the consciousness of time becomes properly phenomenological when Husserl asks how one explains the original consciousness of the past upon which one can recognize an object as past rather remembering a past moment. Put differently, the problem of time becomes phenomenological when Husserl begins to seek an account of the generation of a sense or consciousness of pastness upon which (the) perception (of a temporal object) and memory depend. Indeed, to claim that we remember something presupposes the very sense of the past we are trying to explain (Sokolowski 2000). An adequate account of the perception of a temporal object first requires a discussion of how consciousness extends beyond the now, i.e., an account of the difference between the consciousness of succession and the remembrance of a succession of consciousnesses (PCIT No. 47; Brough 1972).<br /><br />d. Phenomenology and the Consciousness of Internal Time: Living-Present<br /><br />Unlike previous theories addressing the consciousness of time, Husserl shifts his attention from an account of what is perceived as temporal to an account of the temporality of that which does the perceiving. Put differently, he tightens his focus, so to speak, recognizing that when one perceives a temporal object one also experiences the flow of the intentional act of perception (Brough 1991). In order to solve the aforementioned paradox of how to account for the unity of a temporal object over the succession of its parts (e.g., the sentence across it many words), Husserl turns his attention to consciousness’ lived experience, to the structures of consciousness at level (1) that make possible the unification of the manifold moments of that act of perception at level (2) and the perceived object at level (3) (PCIT No. 41).<br /><br />To explain how consciousness extends beyond the now in its act of perception, Husserl begins to think that consciousness itself must have a “width.” And this is just to say that consciousness must have a sense of the past and a sense of the future to begin with (Sokolowski 2000). To this end, Husserl attempts to argue that consciousness extends to capture past moments of experience and temporal objects therein by “retaining” and “protending” the elapsed and yet to come phases of its experience and thereby the past words that do not presently exist (when I reach a certain point in listening to a sentence) yet remain related to the present experience (PCIT, No. 54; Zahavi, 2000). Rather than attempt to explain the unity of a succession of discrete consciousnesses correlated with a succession of discrete moments in a temporal object, Husserl attempts to explain the consciousness of succession that makes possible the apprehension of a succession of consciousnesses.<br /><br />Husserl thus speaks almost exclusively of consciousness’ living-present, and he characterizes this life of consciousness with three distinguishable yet inseparable moments: primal impression, retention, and protention. This tripartite form or intentional structure of the living-present should not be thought of as discrete, independently occurring pieces in a process (or procession). Such an atomistic view of the living-present’s structure will not work. Were the moments of the living-present thought as such, we would have to remember or re-present each past state of consciousness. Not a knife-edged moment, Husserl describes the life of consciousness, the living-present, as extended like a comets tail, or saddle-back, to use the image William James preferred, moments comprising an identity in a manifold (James) (PCIT § 10).<br /><br />Consciousness is no longer a punctual box with several acts functioning in it simultaneously and directing themselves to the appropriate instances of the object. Admittedly, it is difficult to talk of this level of the consciousness of internal time, and Husserl himself claims we are reduced to metaphors (PCIT §§ 34-36). In a perhaps inadequate metaphor, Husserl’s theory of the living-present might be thought of as presenting a picture of consciousness as a “block” with relevant “compartments” distinguished by “filters” or “membranes,” each connected to and aware of the other. In this life of consciousness, Husserl maintains, consciousness apprehends itself and that which flows within it. As Husserl describes it, retention perceives the elapsed conscious phase of experience at level (1) and thereby the past of the experience at level (2) and the past of the object at level (3). The moments of retention and protention in the tripartite form of consciousness that is the living-present make possible consciousness’ extension beyond the now in such a way that avoids the problem of simultaneity and enables consciousness to attend determinately to the temporal phases of the object of perception. Unlike Augustine’s notion of a present of things no longer, which remembered or re-presented a past content in the now, Husserl draws a distinction between memory and retention. On the one hand, memory provides a “consciousness of the [instant] that has been” (PCIT § 12). On the other hand, retention “designates the intentional relation of phase of consciousness to phase of consciousness” (PCIT No. 50), i.e., a “consciousness of the past of the [experience]” (PCIT No. 47) and thereby the instant of the object that has been.<br /><br />This distinction does not mean that memory differs from retention merely as a matter of temporal distance, the former reaching back further into time. Rather, Husserl draws a structural distinction between memory and retention: The former is an active, mediated, objectifying awareness of a past object, while the latter is a passive, immediate, non-objectifying, conscious awareness of the elapsed phase of conscious experience. First, memory reveals itself to be an act under the voluntary auspices of consciousness, whereas retention occurs passively. Second, while memories occur faster or slower and can be edited or reconstructed, retention occurs “automatically” and cannot be varied at one’s whim (though it can, at level 2, be experienced as faster or slower, as noted above in our example of listening to a lecture). Third, remembering re-produces a completed temporal object, whereas retention works at completing the consciousness of a temporal object, unifying its presence and absence. Fourth, as the representation of a new intentional object, memory is an act of presenting something as past, as absent, whereas the retention that attempts to account for the perception of an object over time constitutes an intuition of that which has just passed and is now in some sense absent, an act of presenting something as a unity in succession. Fifth, memory provides us with a new intentional object not now intuitively presented as the thing itself “in person”—e.g., remembering my friend’s face when she is absent from me in this moment—whereas retention accounts for the perception across time of an object now intuitively presented for me—e.g., the progressive clarity of my perception of my friends face as she approaches me from the street. Sixth, despite memory’s character as a presenting act, when it represents to me my friend’s face it represents it in the now with a change in temporal index or a qualification of the remembered object as past, whereas retention holds on to that which is related to my present perception in a mode of absences (e.g., as when I hear “picked” while retaining “Peter Piper”). Seventh, memory depends upon or is “founded” upon retention as the condition of its very possibility, for memory could never represent an object as a completed whole if retention did not first play its role in constituting across time the object now remembered (PCIT, No 50; Zahavi; Brough 1991.<br /><br />To explain time-consciousness at level (1), then, Husserl comes to favor the theory that consciousness of the past and future must be explained by the intentional direction of retention and protention to the past and future of consciousness’ lived experience rather than a mode of memorial apprehension that issues from the now to animate past impressions. Returning to our above example of listening to a sentence, when I hear “picked,” I do not remember “Peter Piper.” Rather, I intuitively perceive the sentence as a temporally differentiated yet nonetheless related to the current [of this] experience. To be sure, the words do not occur simultaneously; each word passes and yet remains relevant to the presently lived experience. The interpreter of Husserl must take care at this point not to read the turn to consciousness as entailing a loss of the perceived; rather, what is retained is precisely the impressional moment as experienced in that moment and having been retained in this experience. In fact, this account allows that the words, “Peter Piper,” have passed, metaphysically, but remain on hand in this apprehension of “picked” thanks to consciousness’ retention of its past phase of experience wherein it heard the related words, “Peter Piper.” As a moment of the intentional relationship between the phases of consciousness’ living-present, retention “automatically” experiences its intuitively present conscious life and determinately provides a consciousness of the past of the experience.<br /><br />Husserl’s account of the living-present ultimately articulates the condition for the possibility of all objectifying acts, a condition itself not objectified. As such, the discussion of retention brings us to the bottom line, the final and most difficult layer of intentional analysis, namely consciousness’ double-intentionality (PCIT No. 54).<br /><br />e. The Living-Present’s Double-Intentionality<br /><br />The living-present marks the essence of all manifestation, for in its automatic or passive self-givenness the living-present makes possible the apprehension of the elapsed phases of the life of consciousness and thereby the elapsed moments of the transcendent spatio-temporal object of which the conscious self is aware. This is possible, Husserl argues, because the “flow” (PCIT § 37) of conscious life enjoys two modes of simultaneously operative intentionality. One mode of intentionality, which he terms Langsintentionalität, or horizontal intentionality, runs along protention and retention in the flow of the living-present. The other mode of intentionality, which Husserl terms the Querintentionalität, or transverse intentionality, runs from the living-present to the object of which consciousness is aware (PCIT No. 45; Brough 1991).<br /><br />Husserl explains the unity of these two intentional modes as a consciousness wherein the Querintentionalität is capable of intending a temporal object across its successive appearings because the Langsintentionalität provides consciousness’ self-awareness and awareness of its experiences over time. As an absolute flowing identity in a manifold—of primal impression, retention and protention—the stream of conscious life in the living-present constitutes the procession of words in the sentence that appears and is experienced sequentially in accordance with the temporally distinct position of each word. Husserl thus describes consciousness as having a “double-intentionality”: the Querintentionalität, which objectively and actively grasps the transcendent object—the heard sentence—and the Langsintentionalität, which non-objectively and automatically or passively grasps consciousness’ lived-experience—the flow of the living-present (PCIT No. 45). That I hear the words of the fifty-minute lecture and feel myself inspired or bored is possible only on the basis of my self-awareness or consciousness of internal time.<br /><br />Though Husserl terms this consciousness that is the special form of horizontal intentionality in the living-present a “flow,” he employs the label “metaphorically” because the living-present’s flow manifests itself, paradoxically, as a non-temporal temporalizing (PCIT § 32, No. 54). That the living-present temporalizes means that it grasps its past and future as absent without reducing its past and future to the present, thus freezing consciousness temporal flow. To capture Husserl’s image of a non-temporal flow more aptly, some commentators prefer the image of shimmering (Sokolowski 1974). As Husserl himself admits that we have no words for this time-constituting phenomenon, the image of shimmering seems a more appropriate descriptor, for Husserl understand the living-present paradoxically as a standing-streaming (PCIT No. 54). Though non-temporal, Husserl assigns the living-present a time-constituting status, for this absolute consciousness makes possible the disclosure of temporal objects insofar as it makes possible the disclosure of consciousness’’ temporality by accounting for our original sense of the past and of the future in the retentional and protentional dimension of the living-present (PCIT § 37).<br /><br />Husserl must characterize the flow as non-temporal. If that which makes possible the awareness of a unity in succession itself occurred in succession, then we would need to account for the apprehension of the succession unique to the living-present, and so on and so forth, ad infnitum (PCIT, No. 39, No. 50). An infinite regress of consciousness, however, would mean that we never would achieve an answer to the question of what makes possible the consciousness of time. In order to avoid an infinite regress, then, and in accordance with experience, which tells us that we do apprehend time and temporal objects, Husserl describes the living-present’s flow as a non-temporal temporalizing. This argument in favor of the non-temporal character of the living-present brings us to the two senses in which the special form of intentional consciousness is an absolute consciousness.<br /><br />First, Husserl characterizes the living-present as absolute because a non-temporal consciousness that needs no other consciousness behind it to account for its self-apprehension is just that, absolute, the bottom line. Second, as the absolute bedrock of intentional analysis (Sokolowski 2000), the absolute flow as a mode of intentionality peculiar to the living-present conveys a move away from a model of awareness or intentionality dependent upon a subject’s relation to an object. If philosophy construes all awareness according to an object-intentionality model of awareness, i.e., the dyadic relation of a subject (knower) to an object (known), then it can never account for the relation between knower and known in the case of self-consciousness. For example, when I am writing this entry, I am conscious of the computer on which I am typing, as well as myself as the one typing. To explain, philosophically, however, how I apprehend myself as the one typing, the dyadic object-intentionality model of awareness will not suffice. The issue, of course, concerns self-awareness and thus philosophy’s standard understanding of self-identity over time.<br /><br />In the classic treatment of self-consciousness, John Locke in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding accounts for self-identity over time thanks to consciousness’ reflective grasp on its past states. Locke establishes this account by distinguishing (i) simple ideas of sense directed toward (iia) objects from (i) simple ideas of reflection directed toward (iib) the self. In both cases, (i) knows (iia) and (iib) in the same manner insofar as (i) takes (iia) and (iib) as objects while (i) itself goes unnoticed or unaccounted for. Locke’s account thus turns the self or subject into an object without ever really presenting the self. Even if a simple idea of reflection directs itself toward the self, one self (the reflecting self) remains subject while the other self (the reflected self) becomes the object. In self-awareness, however, no difference, distance or separation exists between the knower and the known. Forced to apprehend itself as an object in an exercise of simple sense reflection, the Lockean subject never coincides with itself, caught as it is in a sequence of epistemic tail chasing (Locke, 1959 I; Zahavi, 1999). Such tail chasing, moreover, entails an infinite regress of selves themselves never self-aware. Locke’s failure stems from his restriction of intentionality to the model of object-awareness, the dyadic model of awareness, where all awareness requires a subject knowing an object.<br /><br />Husserl’s account of the unity of (1) this dynamic, shimmering living-present makes possible the consciousness of (2) psychological or subjective time and (3) worldly or objective time provides an alternative to the traditional account of awareness as merely an objectivating relation of a subject to object (Brough, 1991; Sokolowski, 1973; Zahavi, 1999). By retaining the elapsed phase of consciousness and thereby the past of the object, retention unifies consciousness’ flow and the time-span of the perceived temporal object, thus providing at once a non-objective self-awareness and an objective awareness of spatio-temporal entities.<br /><br />Despite the heady accomplishments of Husserl’s theory of time-consciousness as founded in the living-present’s double-intentionality, contemporary phenomenologists still disagree about Husserl’s discovery. Some commentators, under the influence of Derrida’s critique of Husserl’s theory of the living-present (Derrida 1973), express reservations over the legitimacy of the status of the living-present as an absolute, non-temporal temporalizing, arguing that it amounts to a mythical construct (Evans, 1990). Yet decisive refutations of these criticisms, based on their insensitivity to the nuances of Husserl’s theory, are plenty (Brough, 1993; Zahavi, 1999). Still, even those who accept its legitimacy disagree about how best to explain the relation between levels (1) and (2) of time-consciousness (see Zahavi, 1999; Brough 2002). Interestingly, the very complexities and details of Husserl’s theory of internal time-consciousness, which remain a central point of debate for contemporary phenomenologists, proved germane to phenomenology’s development and alteration throughout the Twentieth Century.<br /><br />2. Heidegger on Phenomenology and Time<br /><br />If the double-intentionality of Husserl’s theory of consciousness proves fruitful, it is because it allows us to given an account of the temporality of individual experiences (e.g., listening to a sentence) as well as the temporal ordering of a multiplicity of experience (e.g., recognizing the classroom to which I return each week as the same room differentiated over a span of time) and all of these experiences as mine, as belonging to me. Husserl’s first follower, Martin Heidegger, took up the benefits of Husserl’s theory and developed them into his own unique brand of phenomenology. In fact, Heidegger developed his brand of phenomenology precisely in light of Husserl’s reflections on the intentionality unique to absolute time-constituting consciousness. As we shall see, Heidegger might put the point more forcefully, claiming that he developed his phenomenology in opposition to Husserl’s theory of absolute time-constituting consciousness. In any event, we can begin by identifying a fundamental difference between Husserl and Heidegger: Husserl emphasized the retentional side of the life of consciousness because he was interested in cognition, which builds up over time, while Heidegger emphasized the protentional or futural side of the subject because he is more interested in practical activity (the “in order to” or “for the sake of”).<br /><br />According to Heidegger, the essence of absolute time-constituting consciousness amounted to a subject divorced and isolated from the world because Husserl construed absolute consciousness as a theory only about the a priori, presuppositionless and essential structures of consciousness that made possible the unified perception of an object occurring in successive moments. As an alternative to what he considered Husserl’s abstracted view of the human being, Heidegger suggests that philosophy cannot advance a proper understanding of the being of the human being by bracketing its and the world’s existence. Instead, we must understand the human being as being-in-the-world, Dasein, literally there-being; we only can understand what the world contributes to us and what we contribute to the world if we consider each as co-dependent without reducing one to the other. To put it differently, Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology provides an “upward” oriented approach while Heidegger’s ontological phenomenology provides a “downward” oriented approach, and their approaches stem from their different views of time (Macann 1991).<br /><br />Heidegger maintains that Husserl’s phenomenology proves inadequate to the task of understanding Dasein’s relation to the world because Husserl fails to articulate adequately the relation between consciousness, or being, and time. Specifically, Husserl’s construction of the fundamental form of intentionality as absolute time-constituting consciousness remains, according to Heidegger, prisoner to the bias of pure presence. As Heidegger puts it, the bias of pure presence entails the reduction of “being” to the moment that “is” fully articulated in the conscious now at the expense of absence, i.e., what falls outside the conscious now, i.e., the moments of past and future. Such a view of consciousness, Heidegger insists, capitulates to the prejudice of presence because it implies that something can appear to consciousness only in the form of an object now given or before one in person and unified by consciousness across its manifold moments (BT, § 67c). At a general level of intentionality, Heidegger wants to correct Husserl’s overly cognitive assessment of the subject. For Heidegger, an intention or intentio literally conveys a sense of “stretching out” or “straining” (Heidegger 1925). For Heidegger, Dasein is being in the world, a being with goals and projects toward which it comports itself or toward which it stretches out. The projects toward which it stretches itself makes Dasein fundamentally futural in its intentional directedness toward the world.<br /><br />Having failed to investigate the practical comportment of the subject, Heidegger argues, Husserl's view of consciousness seems to reduce all awareness to awareness of an object in the present, thus reducing the past to the present and consciousness' self-awareness to an object among objects (Dahlstron 1999). Together, these related consequences motivate Heidegger’s conclusion that Husserl fails to perform the phenomenological reduction completely. Or, better, Heidegger concluded that the performance of the reduction adulterates the view of the subject and thus should be abandoned. Heidegger’s version of phenomenology thus does not begin from a phenomenological reduction although competing views of this matter exist (Crowell 1990; Blattner 1999).<br /><br />As mentioned already, Heidegger’s very conception of Dasein as co-dependent with the world displays, he believes, his difference from Husserl’s view of the human being as absolute time-constituting consciousness. Put negatively and in terms of his History of the Concept of Time (1925), Heidegger criticizes Husserl for not considering fully the existence of the human being, bracketing its existence in favor of an analysis of the essential features of consciousness’ intentional structures (Heidegger 1925). Put positively and in terms of his Being and Time (1927), Heidegger claims that Dasein’s essence is its existence (BT § 9). Hence, one might claim, Heidegger introduces the movement of existential phenomenology, a development in phenomenology concerned with the very existence of the human being, which we have seen is termed Dasein by Heidegger.<br /><br />Concern with Dasein’s existence as its essence does necessarily reduce to the assumption that Heidegger takes existence in the sense of biological or genetic determinants. Though such factors may condition Dasein’s manner of existing, they do not determine it, according to Heidegger. Dasein is neither fully determined nor uninhibitedly free (BT 144). She exists in the mode of her possibilities and her possibilities are motivated by environmental influences, her skills and interests, etc. (Blattner, 1999). Dasein, for Heidegger, is thus a being concerned about her being, reckoning with the world through her activities and commitments. Centering his existential phenomenology on how the world appears to a being concerned about its being, Heidegger’s inquiry starts from how Dasein comports herself as manifest in the everyday activities of her life, activities to which she commits herself or about which she cares (BT § 7). Heideggerian phenomenology thus begins from an interest in how the world appears to a being that cares about its existence, an intentional being but one who, in intending the world, is primarily practical and secondarily contemplative. Less concerned with the Husserlian search for presuppositionless certainty and essential structures, Heidegger’s existential phenomenology amounts to an interpretive description or hermeneutics that attempts to express the unexpressed (or articulate the pre-predicative) mode of Dasein’s engagement with the world (BT § 7). And this manner of engagement finds its fullest expression in Heidegger’s account of Dasein’s temporality.<br /><br />a. Heidegger and Dasein’s Temporality<br /><br />The notion of Dasein’s projects proves crucial to understanding Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein’s temporality and its difference from Husserl’s phenomenology. In discussing Dasein’s projects, Heidegger takes the term etymologically; to pro-ject means to put out there or to put forward. That Dasein projects itself in the world implies something fundamental about it. Dasein finds itself thrown into a world historical circumstance and projects itself in that world. Born (thrown) into a time and culture not of one’s choosing, Dasein always already exists in the world and suffers some limitations from which she nevertheless may wiggle free thanks to her interests and concerns about the world and her existence therein. The way things matter to Dasein—how she finds herself affected, in Heidegger’s language—and her skills and interest constitute different possibilities for her, different ways of being-in-the-world. These possibilities, in turn, manifest themselves in Dasein’s projects, i.e., in how she puts herself forward or projects or comports herself. These conditions suggest to Heidegger that the essential mode of being in the world for Dasein is a temporal one. Of the three temporal dimensions characterizing Dasein, we may say: First, the fact that Dasein finds herself thrown into a world and characterized by certain dispositions, etc. implies a “pastness” to her being. Second, the fact she projects herself implies a “futurity” to her being. And, third, the fact that she finds herself busied with the world as she projects herself in an effort to fulfill the present tasks required by the goal that is her project implies a “presentness” to her being (Blattner 1999).<br /><br />The fundamental characteristic of the being that cares about its being, Dasein, then, is temporality. But things are not as simple (or common-sense) as they seem thus far. Time resembles Dasein insofar as time projects itself or stands outside itself in its future and past without losing itself—time and Dasein thus appear ontologically similar, or similar in their ontological structure. Since the question concerns the being for whom its being is a concern, and since the fundamental structure of this being is its temporality, philosophy’s very attempt to understand Dasein fundamentally concerns the relation between being and time at a pre-predicative level of worldly-engagement, a level prior to articulated judgment, prior to the conscious conceptualizations of traditional metaphysics or Husserlian phenomenology; hence, the title of Heidegger’s famous work, Being and Time (Richardson 1967). In Heidegger’s terms, an “authentic” understanding of the being concerned about its being rests upon a proper understanding of that being’s temporality.<br /><br />To understand Dasein, then, Heidegger first distinguishes originary or authentic time understood as Dasein’s way of being in the world from worldly- and ordinary-time understood inauthentically or uncritically by the common-sense, pre-philosophical mind (BT § 80). As the labels imply, Heidegger articulates a hierarchical structure between these levels of time, much like Husserl’s levels of time (Sokolowski 1974). The hierarchical structure envisioned by Heidegger looks like this: World-time grounds ordinary-time, and both in turn are grounded by originary-time.<br /><br />To establish the fundamental feature of Dasein as originary temporality, Heidegger distances his view of Dasein’s temporality from all common sense understandings of time as a series of nows, thereby deferring the common sense understanding of past as no-longer-now and future as not-yet-now. His position depends on a distinction between how time shows itself to Dasein as world-time and ordinary-time, the latter being derivative of the former. World-time denotes the manner in which the world appears as significant to Dasein in its everyday reckoning with the world at a practical level through its projects. For example, the world appears to an academic with certain significances or importance. Objects like chalk, books, computers, and libraries all manifest themselves with a particular value, and time does, as well (just consider the fact that the new year begins in late August rather than the first day of January). When I sit in my office, the approaching time of three in the afternoon does not appear merely as an indifferent hour on the clock. Rather, it appears to me as the time when, according to my project, I must head to class—just as it may appear to a postal work as the time when she should return to the station from her route. For me, the time-span of my class does not merely appear as seventy-five successive minutes. Rather, the classroom time of my project appears to me as the time when I project myself toward my students, the material for the day’s discussion and the material equipment in the class that facilitates my teaching well. If my class begins to go poorly, however, I may become self-conscious about how well I meet the demands of my project as a teacher. When the focus of my attention shifts from my project to my failures, the time of my project ceases to be my primary focus. Perhaps in this case I shift my focus to the passing nows or seconds of each increasingly long minute. If such a shift occurs, Heidegger might claim that I shift from the mode of world-time to the mode of ordinary-time, the time understood as a measurable succession of nows, seconds, minutes, etc.<br /><br />This time that measures successive nows, Heidegger deems ordinary-time, which depends upon world-time. Heidegger distinguishes the two by pointing out that the significance which colors world-time goes missing in the view of ordinary time and time appears no longer as the span of my project but the mere succession of punctual, atomistic nows (the Newtonian scientific view of time as an empty container or place holder). When the time-span of practical reckoning with the world ceases for Dasein, ordinary-time emerges (BT§ 80; Blattner 1999). The above example does not quite get Heidegger exactly right, however, for in it I remain interested in human concerns (except that now I am worried about them). What the example does convey is the shift in understanding time from a mode of time as an extended reckoning with the world laden with significance to a mode of time considered as a purely abstract marching of moments, a view of time most accurately associated with the mathematical and scientific view of time (but not to the mathematician or scientist working with this view of time).<br /><br />All of these distinctions between world- and ordinary-time are meant to elaborate Heidegger’s view that as a series of projects Dasein is no mere entity in the world but a temporal structure peculiar to its kind of being-in-the-world that makes manifest world- and ordinary-time. For Heidegger, the now denotes a mode of Dasein’s manner of being that discloses the appearance of the world to us, i.e., Dasein’s way of being-in-the-world. As a series of projects, Dasein in its originary temporality is characterized by a tripartite mode of transcendence or process (albeit a non-sequential process, since Heidegger has distanced himself from the ordinary view of time). First, as transcendence, as that which goes from itself and to which the world comes, Dasein has a futural moment. Second, as transcendence, as that which manifests itself non-objectively while reckoning with that which stands before it, Dasein has a present moment as the place wherein the world appears to, or manifests itself to, that which cares about it. And, third, as transcendence, as that to which the world comes, Dasein has a past moment because that which comes and manifests itself comes and manifests itself to one who always already is there (Heidegger 1927; Richardson 1967). As transcendence, as temporality, Heidegger describes Dasein as “ecstatic,” where ecstatic means to stand out (Sokolowski 2000). As the kind of being that is always outside itself without leaving itself behind, Dasein is a process of separating and consolidating itself (Sokolowski 1974). Outside of itself in the future, Dasein projects itself and reckons with that about which it cares; outside of itself in the present, Dasein makes manifest or present the appearance of that to which it goes out in its interest and according to its projects; outside of itself in the past, Dasein drags along that which it has been, its life, which, in turn, colors its present experiences and future projects.<br /><br />This union of past, present and future as modes of originary-time in Dasein’s being-in-the-world renders Dasein authentic—one with itself or its own—because the projection into the future makes the present and the past part of Dasein’s project—its essence is its existence. However, insofar as I assume a project or life-orientation passively and without realizing myself as responsible for that project, argues Heidegger, I live inauthentically. And this is because I am engaged in the world without a full understanding of myself within the world. Put differently, rather than consciously make myself who I am through my choices, I passively assume a role within society—hence the temptation to label Heidegger an existentialist, a label the he himself rejected.<br /><br />Many rhetorical differences exist between how Husserl and Heidegger execute the phenomenological method, particularly the phenomenology of temporality. Despite these differences, Heidegger begins his inquiry into Dasein’s temporality much like Husserl began his consideration of absolute, time-constituting consciousness. Just as Husserl established that neither the now nor the consciousness of the now is itself a part of time, Heidegger begins his account of Dasein’s originary temporality with the observation that neither the now nor Dasein is itself a part of time (BT § 62). As Heidegger puts it, as always already being-in-the-world, Dasein’s temporality is neither before nor after nor already in terms of the way common sense understands time as a sequence of discrete, empty nows (BT § 65). Hence, Heidegger translates Husserl’s account of the levels of time into an account of Dasein’s originary temporality. Moreover, Heidegger and Husserl seemingly end on the same note, for Husserl describes the living-present as a non-objectivating transcendence, an intentional being that transcends itself toward the world, and this description equally characterizes Heidegger’s more practically oriented discussion of Dasein’s originary-temporality. Like Husserl’s notion of the living-present, Heidegger’s theory of Dasein’s structure as originary temporality considers Dasein a mode of objectivating not itself objectified, the condition for the possibility of all awareness of objects at the levels of worldly- and ordinary-time (BT § 70).<br /><br />Still, an important difference exists with respect to their phenomenologies of time and time-consciousness. First, despite the implicit levels of time, Heidegger employs the phenomenological reduction quite ambivalently and ambiguously. Second, Heidegger explicitly rejects the outcome of the phenomenological reduction as a privileged access to absolute time-constituting consciousness. Third, Heidegger quite unequivocally privileges the moment of the future in his account of Dasein’s originary temporality. By emphasizing Dasein’s being-in-the-world as manifest through its throwness in the world, and its care for the world as manifest through its projects, Heidegger’s focuses on Dasein’s futural character distinguishes his account from Husserl’s, for Husserl emphasized the moment of retention in the living-present almost to the exclusion of any remarks on protention, the anticipatory moment of the living-present. For these reasons, Heidegger considered his phenomenology radically different from Husserl’s. In particular, Heidegger thought Husserl’s overly cognitive account of how consciousness constitutes a unified temporal object across a succession of moments articulated only one of the many issues surrounding the temporality of Dasein, a merely scientific or cognitive account of how consciousness presents an object in the world to itself. Husserl’s restrictive phenomenology of time, Heidegger argues, overlooks the existential dimension of Dasein’s temporality, how Dasein reckons with the world at a tacit level rather than how it cognizes the world. And in particular, Heidegger thought philosophy could assess Dasein’s manner of reckoning with the world only by examining its futural moment as manifest in the projects that characterize Dasein’s mode of existence as the ongoing realization of its possibilities or construction of its essence.<br /><br />3. Sartre and the Temporality of the “For-Itself”<br /><br />Heidegger’s innovative contributions to the phenomenology of time did not go unnoticed by later phenomenologists. Both Sartre and Merelau-Ponty adopted Heidegger’s view of Dasein as being-in-the-world, an entity whose essence is its existence. The originality of Sartre’s phenomenology of time lies not in his reflections on time, which, as we shall see, return to some rather pedestrian claims. Rather, Sartre’s unique contribution to the phenomenology of time lies in his understanding of how consciousness, the “for-itself,” relates to the world, the “in-itself.” What in their discussions of this fundamental mode of transcendence Husserl labeled absolute time-constituting consciousness, and Heidegger Dasein, Sartre termed the “for-itself.” Given Husserl and Heidegger’s differing views of consciousness’ mode of intentionality and its fundamental self-transcending nature in its mode of temporality, Sartre’s theory presents an unlikely marriage of the two.<br /><br />Fusing Heidegger’s view of being-in-the-world with what he considered was a greater fidelity to Husserl’s notion of intentionality, Sartre considered the being of the “for-itself” an ecstatic temporal structure characterized by a sheer transcendence or intentionality. In his earliest work, Transcendence of the Ego (1939), Sartre defines the “for-itself” by intentionality, i.e., the Husserlian claim that consciousness transcends itself (Sartre 1936). As self-transcending, Sartre further delimits the “for-itself” as a being-in-itself-in-the-world. The “for-itself” is a field of being always already engaged with the world, as Heidegger expressed Dasein as intentional and thrown. For Sartre, however, in its activity of engaging the world the “for-itself” reveals itself as nothing, a “no-thing,” or not-the-being-of-which-it-is-conscious. Sartre further qualifies the being of the “for-itself” that always already is engaged with the world as a non-positional consciousness (Sartre 1936). A non-positional consciousness always already engaged the world, Sartre contends, consciousness does not take a position on itself but on the world; hence, consciousness is non-positional. To evidence his point, Sartre maintains that I, when late for a meeting and running to catch the subway, do not primarily concern myself with myself but only have a consciousness of the subway to be caught (Sartre 1936). Rather than taking a position on myself as I pursue the subway, I implicitly carry myself along as I tarry explicitly with the world. For this reason, Sartre argues that absolute consciousness in Husserl’s sense of the living-present does not unify a temporal experience because the unity of consciousness itself is found in the object (Sartre 1936).<br /><br />This Sartrean view that the experience unifies itself not only recalls Heidegger’s insistence that Dasein is a self-consolidating process, but also renders the notion of an absolute time-constituting consciousness superfluous, according to Sartre. Indeed, Sartre believed that a deep fidelity to Husserl’s theory of intentionality necessitated the abandonment of Husserl’s notion of absolute consciousness; hence, he dramatically declared that the Husserlian notion of an absolute consciousness would mean the death of consciousness (Sartre 1936). If one assumes, with Husserl, the notion of a living-present characterized by the moments of retention, primal impression and protention, Sartre argues, consciousness dies of asphyxiation, so to speak. A consciousness divided in this way, according to Sartre, amounts to a series of instantaneous and discrete moments that themselves require connection. Such an instantaneous series of consciousness amounts to a caricature of intentionality, in Sartre’s view, because this kind of consciousness cannot transcend itself; as Sartre expresses it, an internally divided consciousness will suffocate itself as it batters in vain against the window-pains of the present without shattering them (Sartre 1943).<br /><br />Sartre’s critique of the living-present or absolute time-constituting consciousness seems rather questionable. Indeed, this image leaves one wondering whether or not Sartre derives this caricatured view of time-consciousness from a caricature of Husserl’s view of intentionality. Nevertheless, Sartre abandons Husserl’s notion of the tripartite structure of absolute time-constituting consciousness in favor of something like Heidegger’s notion of Dasein’s ecstatic temporality and its projects and possibilities. And yet Sartres’ adaptation of Heidegger’s notion of Dasein’s possibilities seems questionable as well. Recall that Dasein’s possibilities were not purely uninhibited, that Dasein did not simply choose its projects and possibilities from a position of total freedom because of its thrown condition and affective dispositions. Sartre’s theory of the “for-itself” seems to reject the kinds of limiting conditions entailed by Heidegger’s notion of thrownness. Indeed, Sartre’s melodramatic image of a consciousness with cabin fever implies that he cannot fully embrace any limiting factors on how the “for-itself” fashions its essence through its existence. For Sartre, the “for-itself” is radically free (Blattner 1999), and the result of Sartre’s reflections on the temporality of the “for-itself” is a rather pedestrian view of temporality.<br /><br />Like Husserl and Heidegger, Sartre does not consider the past, present and future as moments of time considered as contents or containers for contents. Rather, each marks a mode in which the “for-itself” makes manifest itself and the world. But Sartre’s account neither surpasses nor achieves either the rigor of Husserl’s analyses or the descriptive quality of Heidegger’s. For Sartre, the past of the “for-itself” amounts to that which was but is no longer—similar to the view of the past itself, which Augustine rejected, as that which was but is no-longer. By mirror opposite, the future of the “for-itself” amounts to which it intends to be but is not yet—similar to the view of the future itself, which Augustine rejected, as that which will be but is not yet. And between the two, the present of the “for-itself” is that which it is not, for its being is characterized as being-not-the-thing-of-which-it-is-conscious—similar to the view of the present, which Augustine rejected, as the thin, ephemeral slice of the now.<br /><br />4. Merleau-Ponty and the Phenomenology of Ambiguity: The Subject as Time<br /><br />Whether Husserl’s, Heidegger’s or Sartre’s account, for phenomenology we cannot separate the issue of time from the issue of subjectivity’s structure. And Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of temporality in Phenomenology of Perception (1945) is no exception. It is, however, the most exceptional case of the intertwining of these issues. Developing Heidegger’s notion of Dasein as being-in-the-world, Merleau-Ponty emphasizes the being of Dasein as its bodily comportment and declares the body an essentially intentional part of the subject. Since Merleau-Ponty wants to make the body itself intentional, it is no surprise that he intertwines time and the subject, (in)famously remarking that “we must understand time as the subject and the subject as time” (Merleau-Ponty 1945).<br /><br />To situate Merleau-Ponty’s account in this trajectory of phenomenological theories of time, it is useful to bear in mind that his account amounts to an innovative synthesis of Husserl and Heidegger’s understandings of time. Though the same can and has been said of Sartre’s account, Merleau-Ponty’s synthesis of Husserl and Heidegger differs from Sartre’s on three important scores. First, Merleau-Ponty rejects the dualistic ontology of the "for-itself" and the "in-itself" that led Sartre to rashly criticize Husserl's notion of absolute consciousness and superficially adopt Heidegger's phenomenological account of Dasein's temporality as manifest in its projects and possibilities." Second, Merleau-Ponty will not adopt Heidegger’s notion of Dasein’s temporality as an alternative to some purported shortcoming of Husserl’s account of the mode of intentionality unique to absolute time-constituting consciousness. Rather, third, more sensitive to the subtleties of Husserl’s theory of absolute time-constituting consciousness in the living-present than even Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty proposes to think the “unthought” of Husserl’s account of time through an intensified version of Heidegger’s account of the self’s inseparability from time.<br /><br />From the outset, the “Temporality” chapter of his Phenomenology of Perception explicitly links time to the problem of subjectivity, noting that the analysis of time cannot follow a “pre-established conception of subjectivity” (Merleau-Ponty 1945). On the one hand, Merleau-Ponty rejects the traditional idealist conception of subjectivity in favor of an account of subjectivity in “its concrete structure;” on the other hand, since we must seek subjectivity “at the intersections of its dimensions,” which intersections concern “time itself and … its internal dialectic,” Merleau-Ponty rejects the realistic conception of subjectivity’s states as Nacheinander, i.e., successive, punctual, atomistic instants that lack intersection (Merleau-Ponty 1945). Hence, our understanding of Merleau-Ponty’s account of temporality and subjectivity’s temporality should follow the “triadic” structure of the Phenomenology: reject realism and idealism to demonstrate the merits of phenomenology (Sallis 1971).<br /><br />The intellectualist account of time as (in) the subject fails because it extracts the subject from time and reduces time to consciousness’ quasi-eternity. The realist account of the subject as (in) time fails because it reduces the subject to a perpetually new present without unity to its flow. Both failures force upon the philosopher the realization that she can resolve the problem of time and subjectivity only by forfeiting the commitment to a “notion of time … as an object of our knowledge.” If we no longer can consider time “an object of our knowledge,” we must consider it a “dimension of our being” (Merleau-Ponty 1945). Hence, an account of subjectivity’s temporality—of time as a dimension of our being—necessarily entails the development of a model of bodily consciousness’ pre-reflective, non-objectifying awareness beyond the “pre-established conception of subjectivity” that takes time as an object of our knowledge.<br /><br />This means not that (1) “time is for someone” but that (2) “time is someone” (Merleau-Ponty 1945). Phenomenologists and commentators alike often attribute (1) to Husserl and (2) to Heidegger. This should not surprise us given that Heidegger himself seemed to ascribe (2) to himself and his examination of Dasein’s lived-temporality in opposition to (1) Husserl’s account of how consciousness synthesizes an object across time. Often one of Husserl’s most sympathetic and accurate commentators (in Phenomenology of Perception, at least) Merleau-Ponty suggests that Husserl’s theory of absolute time-constituting consciousness in the living-present with its tripartite intentional structure provided an account of how (2) made time appear for reflection as (1). In short, Merleau-Ponty understood better than Heidegger that Husserl’s theory of the living-present articulated a theory of lived-time. What remained unthought by Husserl according to Merleau-Ponty was the inseparability of time and the subject in the theory of the living-present. Hence, an ambiguity intentionally pervades the account of time provided in Phenomenology of Perception.<br /><br />This ambiguity at hand in Phenomenology of Perception stems from Merleau-Ponty’s honest admission that one never can fully execute the phenomenological reduction: “the most important lesson the reduction teaches us is the impossibility of a complete reduction” (Merleau-Ponty 1945). Merleau-Ponty does not advocate discarding the reduction, however, as Heidegger somewhat equivocally did. Rather, he aims to explain that Husserl merely meant the reduction as a critical device that ensured phenomenologists would retain the stance of presuppositionlessness, the stance of a perpetual beginner. The motivation for Merleau-Ponty’s reading of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction is the fact that philosophical reflection always depends upon a pre-reflective lived experience, a lived experience that always occurs in the temporal flux of bodily consciousness. Under the influence of Heidegger’s theory of Dasein’s being-in-the-world, Merleau-Ponty fashions his starting point in the exploration of time as an attempt to provide an account of the structures of pre-reflective consciousness that make reflection possible. And much like Heidegger, who sought to articulate the pre-predicative element of lived experience, Merleau-Ponty believed that these structures of pre-reflective consciousness reveal themselves as primarily temporal. (For his part, Merleau-Ponty will refer to this pre-reflective consciousness as the “tacit cogito,” his expression for the non-objectivating, pre-reflective consciousness articulated throughout the phenomenologists we have considered in this entry.) Hence, one could argue, despite the watershed reflections Merleau-Ponty provides on embodiment, time proves the most fundamental investigation of Phenomenology of Perception (Sallis 1971).<br /><br />Since phenomenology’s task includes providing an account of the pre-reflective’, lived experience that makes possible reflection, Merleau-Ponty turns to the structure of time as an exemplar of that which makes explicit the implicit. For Merleau-Ponty, time provides a model that sheds light on the structure of subjectivity because “temporal dimensions … bear each other out and ever confine themselves to making explicit what was implied in each, being collectively expressive of that one single explosion or thrust that is subjectivity itself” (Merleau-Ponty 1945). Since to make explicit that which is implied in each moment means to transcend, to go beyond, one could say that Merleau-Ponty’s paradoxical expression means that time and the subject share the same structure of transcendence. That time is the subject and the subject is time means that the subject exists in a world that always outstrips her yet remains a world lived through by the subject (Sallis 1971). To clarify this structure, Merleau-Ponty invokes “with Husserl the ‘passive synthesis’ of time,” for the passive and non-objectivating characteristic of time’s structure in (what Husserl called) the living-present marks the archetype of the self’s structure, its transcendence that makes possible self- and object-manifestation. The Husserlian notion of double-intentionality thus pervades Merleau-Ponty’s account (Merleau-Ponty 1945).<br /><br />That the matter of a passive and non-objectivating synthesis takes Merleau-Ponty to a consideration of the structure of absolute time-constituting consciousness’ double-intentionality—its transcendence and self-manifestation—as the structure of time we know to be the case for two reasons. First, Merleau-Ponty tells us, “in order to become explicitly what it is implicitly, that is, consciousness, [the self] needs to unfold itself into multiplicity;” second, in addition to the distinction just implied between non-objectivating and objectivating awareness, i.e., pre-reflective’ and reflective consciousness, Merleau-Ponty elaborates this manner of unfolding by claiming that “what we [mean] by passive synthesis [is] that we make our way into multiplicity, but that we do not synthesize it” as intellectualist accounts of time such as Augustine’s suggest. A synthesis of the multiplicity of time’s moments and the moments of the self must be avoided because it would require a constituting consciousness that stands outside time, and “we shall never manage to understand how a … constituting subject is able to posit or become aware of itself in time.” To avoid this error of separating consciousness from that of which it is aware, Merleau-Ponty appeals to Husserl’s theory of the living-present’s absolute flow, a “[consciousness that] is the very action of temporalization—of flux, as Husserl has it—a self anticipatory … flow which never leaves itself” (Merleau-Ponty 1945).<br /><br />Merleau-Ponty seemingly provides an existential-phenomenological account of Husserl’s theory of absolute time-constituting consciousness’ double-intentionality. Nevertheless, he adopts Husserl’s theory according to his characteristic philosophy of ambiguity. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty insists that “it is of the essence of time to be not only actual time, or time which flows, but also time which is aware of itself … the archetype of the relationship of self to self” (Merleau-Ponty 1945). Ultimately with such remarks Merleau-Ponty was on the verge of bringing phenomenology toward a theory of ontology, which theory emerged in earnest in his later work, The Visible and the Invisible (1961). In that work, Merleau-Ponty expressly rejects his Phenomenology of Perception for having retained the Husserlian philosophy of consciousness. And this move from phenomenology to ontology manifests itself in some of his most provocative observations about time. To say that he moves from phenomenology to ontology is to say that he rejects any privileging of the subject or consciousness as constituting time either as a perceptual object or through a lived experience. As he puts it in the working notes of his The Visible and the Invisible, “it is indeed the past that adheres to the present and not the consciousness of the past that adheres to the consciousness of the present” (Merleau-Ponty 1961). Time now is characterized as an ontologically independent entity and not a construct disclosed by consciousness. It is the essence of time to be time that is aware of itself, to be sure. But this time is no longer an archetype of the self’s non-objectivating self-awareness. Rather, time constitutes the subject according to Merleau-Ponty, who puts to rest the phenomenological notion of absolute time-constituting consciousness, arguably Husserl’s most important discovery.<br /><br /><br />5. References and Further Reading<br /><br /><br />a. Primary Sources<br /><br />Augustine, A. Confessions. Trans. F. J. Sheed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co, 1999.<br /><br />Derrida, J. Speech and Phenomena. Trans. D. Allison. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973.<br /><br />Heidegger, M. Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1986; Being and Time. Trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers Inc, 1963.<br /><br />Heidegger, M. Gesamtausgabe Band 20: Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbefriffs. Frankfut am Main: Vittorio Klosterman, 1979; The History of the Concept of Time Trans. T. Kisiel. Bloomington: Indian University Press, 1985.<br /><br />Husserl, E. Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins (1983-1917). Ed. R. Boehm. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966; On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1983-1917). Trans. J. Brough. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.<br /><br />Husserl, E. Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlessungs- und Forschungsmauskripten (1918-1926). Ed. M. Fleisher. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966; Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis: Lectures on Transcendental Logic. Trans. A. Steinbock. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001. Husserl, E. Phatasie, Bildbewußtseins, Erinnerung. Ed. E. Marbach. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1980; Fantasy, Image-Consciousness, Memory. Trans. J. Brough. Dordrecht: Springer, 2005.<br /><br />Husserl, E. Aktive Synthesen: Aus der Vorlesung ‘Transzendental Logik’ 1920-21. Ergäzungsband zu ‘Analysen sur passiven Synthesis.’ Ed. R. Breur. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000; Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis: Lectures on Transcendental Logic. Trans. A. Steinbock. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.<br /><br />Husserl, E. Die ‘Bernaur Manuskripte’ über das Zeitbewußtseins 1917/18. Ed. R. Bernet and D. Lohmar. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.<br /><br />Locke, J. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.<br /><br />Merleau-Ponty, M. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. C. Smith. New York: Routledge & Keegan Paul Ltd, 1962.<br /><br />Merleau-Ponty, M. The Visible and the Invisible. Trans. A. Lingis. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969.<br /><br />Sartre, J. P. Transcendence of the Ego. Trans. F. Williams and R. Kirkpatrick. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1957.<br /><br />Sartre, J. P. Being and Nothingness. Trans. H. Barnes. New York: Philosophical Library, 1956.<br /><br />b. Secondary Sources<br /><br />Blattner, W. Heidegger’s Temporal Idealism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.<br /><br />Brough, J. B. “The Emergence of Absolute Consciousness in Husserl’s Early Writings on Time-Consciousness.” Man and World (1972).<br /><br />Brough, J. B. “Translator’s Introduction.” In E. Husserl, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893-1917). Trans. by J. Brough. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.<br /><br />Brough, J. B. “Husserl and the Deconstruction of Time,” Review of Metaphysics 46 (March 1993): 503-536.<br /><br />Brough, J. B. “Time and the One and the Many (In Husserl’s Bernaur Manuscripts on Time Consciousness),” Philosophy Today 46:5 (2002): 14-153.<br /><br />Dalhstrom, D. “Heidegger’s Critique of Husserl.” In Reading Heidegger from the Start: Essays in His Earliest Thought. Edited by T. Kisiel and J. van Buren. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.<br /><br />de Warren, N. The Promise of Time. New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.<br /><br />Evans, J. C. “The Myth of Absolute Consciousness.” In Crises in Continental Philosophy. Edited by A Dallery, et. al. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.<br /><br />Held, K. Lebendige Gegenwart. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966.<br /><br />Kelly, M. “On the Mind’s ‘Pronouncement’ of Time: Aristotle, Augustine and Husserl on Time-consciousness. Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 2005.<br /><br />Macann, Christopher. Presence and Coincidence. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.<br /><br />Richardson, W. Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967.<br /><br />Sallis, J. “Time, Subjectivity and the Phenomenology of Perception.” The Modern Schoolman XLVIII (May 1971): 343-357.<br /><br />Sokolowski, R. Husserlian Meditations. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974.<br /><br />Sokolowski, R. Introduction to Phenomenology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.<br /><br />Wood, D. The Deconstruction of Time. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International, 1989.<br /><br />Zahavi, D. Self-awareness and Alterity: A Phenomenological Investigation. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1999.<br /><br />Zahavi, D. Husserl’s Phenomenology. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2003. </div>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-26315894481479208882009-03-24T11:24:00.000-07:002009-03-24T11:25:00.421-07:00Nasir al-Din Tusi (1201-1274)<div style="text-align: justify;">Nasir al-Din Tusi, by far the most celebrated scholar of the 13th century Islamic lands, was born in Tus, in 1201 and died in Baghdad in 1274. He was apparently born into a Twelver Shi‘i family. At the age of twenty-two or a while later, Tusi joined the court of Nasir al-Din Muhtashim, the Ismaili governor of Quhistan, Northeast Iran, where he was accepted into the Ismaili community as a novice.<br /><br />Around 634/1236, we find Tusi in Alamut, the centre of Nizari Ismaili government. He seems to have climbed the ranks of the Ismaili da‘wat ascending to the position of chief missionary (da‘i al-du‘at). The collapse of Ismaili political power and the massacre of the Ismaili population, during the Mongol invasion, left no choice for Tusi except the exhibition of some sort of affiliation to Twelver Shi‘ism and denouncing his Ismaili allegiances (taqiyya).<br /><br />In the Mongol court, Tusi witnessed the fall of the ‘Abbasid caliphate and after a while, securing the trust of Hulegu, the Mongol chief, he was given the full authority of administering the finances of religious foundations (awqaf). The ensemble of Tusi’s writings amounts to approximately 165 titles on a wide variety of subjects (astronomy, ethics, history, jurisprudence, logic, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, theology, poetry and the popular sciences).<br /><br />Nasir al-Din Tusi, Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Hasan, by far the most celebrated scholar of the 7th/13th century Islamic lands was born in Tus, in 597/1201 and died in Baghdad on 18 Dhu’l Hijja 672/25 June, 1274. Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon were his contemporaries in the West. Very little is known about his childhood and early education, apart from what he writes in his autobiography, Contemplation and Action (Sayr wa suluk).<br /><br />He was apparently born into a Twelver Shi‘i family and lost his father at a young age. Fulfilling the wish of his father, the young Muhammad took learning and scholarship very seriously and travelled far and wide to attend the lectures of renowned scholars and ‘acquire the knowledge which guides people to the happiness of the next world.’ As a young boy, Tusi studied mathematics with Kamal al-Diin Hasib about whom we have no authentic knowledge. In Nishabur he met Farid al-Din ‘Attar, the legendary Sufi master who was later killed in the hand of Mongol invaders and attended the lectures of Qutb al-Din Misri and Farid al-Din Damad. In Mawsil he studied mathematics and astronomy with Kamal al-Din Yunus (d. 639/1242). Later on he corresponded with Qaysari, the son-in-law of Ibn al-‘Arabi, and it seems that mysticism, as propagated by Sufi masters of his time, was not appealing to his mind and once the occasion was suitable, he composed his own manual of philosophical Sufism in the form of a small booklet entitled The Attributes of the Illustrious (Awsaf al-ashraf).<br /><br />His ability and talent in learning enabled Tusi to master a number disciplines in a relatively short period. At the time when educational priorities leaned towards the religious sciences, especially in his own family who were associated with the Twelver Shi‘i clergy, Tusi seems to have shown great interest for mathematics, astronomy and the intellectual sciences. At the age of twenty-two or a while later, Tusi joined the court of Nasir al-Din Muhtashim, the Ismaili governor of Quhistan, Northeast Iran, where he was accepted into the Ismaili community as a novice (mustajib). A sign of close personal relationship with Muhtashim’s family is to be seen in the dedication of a number of his scholarly works such as Akhlaq-i Nasiri and Akhlaq-i Muhtashimi to Nasir al-Din himself and Risala-yi Mu‘iniyya to his son Mu‘in al-Din.<br /><br />Around 634/1236, we find Tusi in Alamut, the centre of Nizari Ismaili government. The scholarly achievements of Tusi in the compilation of Akhlaq-i Nasiri in 633/1235, seems to, amongst other factors, have paved the way for this move which was a great honour and opportunity for a scholar of his calibre, especially since Alamut was the seat of the Ismaili imam and housed the most important library in the Ismaili state.<br /><br />In Alamut, apart from teaching, editing, dictating and compiling scholarly works, Tusi seems to have climbed the ranks of the Ismaili da‘wat ascending to the position of chief missionary (da‘i al-du‘at). Through constant visits with scholars and tireless correspondences, a practice which he developed from a very young age, Tusi kept his contact with the academic world outside Ismaili circles and was addressed as ‘the scholar’ (al-muhaqiq) from a very early period in his life.<br /><br />The Mongol invasion and the turmoil they caused in the eastern Islamic territories hardly left the life of any of its citizens untouched. The collapse of Ismaili political power and the massacre of the Ismaili population, who were a serious threat to the Mongols, left no choice for Tusi except the exhibition of some sort of affiliation to Twelver Shi‘ism and denouncing his Ismaili allegiances.<br /><br />Although under Mongol domination, Tusi’s allegiance to any particular community or persuasion could not have been of any particular importance, the process itself paved the ground for Tusi to write on various aspects of Shi‘ism, both from Ismaili and Twelver Shi‘i viewpoints, with scholarly vigour and enthusiasm. The most famous of his Ismaili compilations are Rawda-yi taslim, Sayr wa suluk, Tawalla wa tabarra, Akhlaq-i Muhtashimi and Matlub al-mu’minin. Tajrid al-i‘tiqad, al-Risala fi’l-imama and Fusul-i Nasiriyya are among his works dedicated to Twelver Shi‘ism.<br /><br />In the Mongol court, Tusi witnessed the fall of the ‘Abbasid caliphate and after a while, securing the trust of Hulegu, the Mongol chief, he was given the full authority of administering the finances of religious foundations (awqaf). During this period of his life, Tusi’s main concern was combating Mongol savagery, saving the life of innocent scholars and the establishment of one of the most important centres of learning in Maragha, Northwest Iran. The compilation of Musari‘at al-musari‘;, the Awsaf al-ashraf and Talkis al-muhassal are the scholarly writings of Tusi in the final years of his life.<br /><br />The ensemble of Tusi’s writings amounts to approximately 165 titles on a wide variety of subjects. Some of them are simply a page or even half a page, but the majority with few exceptions, are well prepared scholarly works on astronomy, ethics, history, jurisprudence, logic, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, theology, poetry and the popular sciences. Tusi’s fame in his own lifetime guaranteed the survival of almost all of his scholarly output. The adverse effect of his fame is also the attribution of a number of works which neither match his style nor has the quality of his writings.<br /><br />Tusi’s major works: (1) Astronomy: al-Tadhkira fi ‘ilm al-hay’a; Zij Ilkhani; Risala-yi Mu‘iniyya and its commentary. (2) Ethics: Gushayish-nama; Akhlaq-i Muhtashami; Akhlaq-i Nasiri, ‘Deliberation 22’ in Rawda-yi taslim and a Persian translation of Ibn Muqaffa‘’s al-Adab al-wajiz. (3) History: Fath-i Baghdad which appears as an appendix to Tarikh-i Jahan-gushay of Juwayni (London, 1912-27), vol. 3, pp. 280-92. (4) Jurisprudence: Jawahir al-fara’id. (5) Logic: Asas al-iqtibas. (6) Mathematics: Revision of Ptolemy’s Almagest; the epistles of Theodosius, Hypsicles, Autolucus, Aristarchus, Archimedes, Menelaus, Thabit b. Qurra and Banu Musa. (7) Medicine: Ta‘liqa bar qunun-i Ibn Sina and his correspondences with Qutb al-Din Shirazi and Katiban Qazwini. (8) Philosophy: refutation of al-Shahrastani in Musara‘at al-musari‘; his commentary on Ibn Sina’s al-Isharat wa’l-tanbihat which took him almost 20 years to complete; his autobiography Sayr wa suluk; Rawda-yi taslim and Tawalla wa tabarra. (9) Theology: Aghaz wa anjam; Risala fi al-imama and Talkhis al-muhassal and (10) Poetry: Mi‘yar al-ash‘ar.<br /><br />References and Further Reading<br /><br />Badakhchani, S. J. Contemplation and Action: The Spiritual Autobiography of a Muslim Scholar (London, I. B. Tauris in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 1998). Mudarris Radawi, Muhammad. Ahwal wa athar-i Abu Ja‘far Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Hasan al-Tusi. Tehran, Intisharat-i Danishgah-i Tehran, 1345s/1975. Mudarrisi Zanjani, Muhammad. Sargudhasht wa ‘aqa‘id-i falsafi-yi Khwaja Nasir al-Din Tusi. Tehran, Intisharat-i Danishgah-i Tehran, 1363s/1984. Madelung, Wilferd. ‘Nasir al-Din Tusi’s Ethics Between Philosophy, Shi‘ism and Sufism,’ in Ethics in Islam, ed. R. G. Hovannisian, Malibu, CA, 1985, pp. 85-101.</div>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-74444437685091757052009-03-24T11:22:00.000-07:002009-03-24T11:23:08.318-07:00Timon (fl. 279 BCE.)<div style="text-align: justify;">Timon was a disciple of Pyrrho and philosopher of the sect of the Skeptics, who flourished in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about 279 BCE. and onwards. The son of Timarchus of Phlius, Timon first studied philosophy at Megara, under Stilpo, and then returned home and married. He next went to Elis with his wife, and heard Pyrrho, whose tenets he adopted. Driven from Elis by straitened circumstances, he spent some time on the Hellespont an the Propontis, and taught at Chalcedon as a sophist with such success that he acquired a fortune. He then moved to Athens, where he passed the remainder of his life, with the exception of a short residence at Thebes. He died at the age of almost ninety. Timon appears to have had an active mind, and with a quick perception of the follies of people which betrays its possessor into a spirit of universal distrust both of men and truths, so as to make him a skeptic in philosophy and a satirist in everything. His agnosticism (to use a modern term) is shown by his saying that people need only know three things -- viz. what is the nature of things, how we are related to them, and what we can gain from them. But as our knowledge of things must always be subjective and unreal, we can only live in a state of suspended judgment. He wrote numerous works both in prose and poetry. The most celebrated of his poems were the satiric compositions called <i>silli</i>, a word of somewhat doubtful etymology, but which undoubtedly describes metrical compositions of a character at once ludicrous and sarcastic. The invention of this species of poetry is ascribed to Xenophones of Colophon. The <i>Silli</i> of Timon were in three books, in the first of which he spoke in his own person, and the other two are in the form of a dialogue between the author and Xenophanes of Colophon, in which Timon proposed question,s to which Xenophanes replied at length. The subject was a sarcastic account of the tenets of all philosophers, living and dead -- and unbounded field for skepticism and satire. They were in hexameter verse, and from the way in which they are mentioned by the ancient writers, as well as from the few fragments of them which have come down to us, it is evident that they were admirable productions. (Diog. Laert. ix. 12, 109-155; Euseb. <i>Praep. Ev.</i> xiv. p. 761). </div>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4360728306540241604.post-17587931767887554452009-03-24T11:01:00.000-07:002009-03-24T11:08:51.764-07:00Truth<div style="text-align: justify;">Philosophers are interested in a constellation of issues involving the concept of truth. A preliminary issue, although somewhat subsidiary, is to decide what sorts of things can be true. Is truth a property of sentences (which are linguistic entities in some language or other), or is truth a property of propositions (nonlinguistic, abstract and timeless entities)? The principal issue is: What is truth? It is the problem of being clear about what you are saying when you say some claim or other is true. The most important theories of truth are the Correspondence Theory, the Semantic Theory, the Deflationary Theory, the Coherence Theory, and the Pragmatic Theory. They are explained and compared here. Whichever theory of truth is advanced to settle the principal issue, there are a number of additional issues to be addressed:<br /><br /> 1. Can claims about the future be true now?<br /> 2. Can there be some algorithm for finding truth – some recipe or procedure for deciding, for any claim in the system of, say, arithmetic, whether the claim is true?<br /> 3. Can the predicate "is true" be completely defined in other terms so that it can be eliminated, without loss of meaning, from any context in which it occurs?<br /> 4. To what extent do theories of truth avoid paradox?<br /> 5. Is the goal of scientific research to achieve truth?<br /><br /><br /><br />1. The Principal Problem<br /><br />The principal problem is to offer a viable theory as to what truth itself consists in, or, to put it another way, "What is the nature of truth?" To illustrate with an example – the problem is not: Is it true that there is extraterrestrial life? The problem is: What does it mean to say that it is true that there is extraterrestrial life? Astrobiologists study the former problem; philosophers, the latter.<br /><br />This philosophical problem of truth has been with us for a long time. In the first century AD, Pontius Pilate (John 18:38) asked "What is truth?" but no answer was forthcoming. The problem has been studied more since the turn of the twentieth century than at any other previous time. In the last one hundred or so years, considerable progress has been made in solving the problem.<br /><br />The three most widely accepted contemporary theories of truth are [i] the Correspondence Theory ; [ii] the Semantic Theory of Tarski and Davidson; and [iii] the Deflationary Theory of Frege and Ramsey. The competing theories are [iv] the Coherence Theory , and [v] the Pragmatic Theory . These five theories will be examined after addressing the following question.<br /><br /><br />2. What Sorts of Things are True (or False)?<br /><br />Although we do speak of true friends and false identities, philosophers believe these are derivative uses of "true" and "false". The central use of "true", the more important one for philosophers, occurs when we say, for example, it's true that Montreal is north of Pittsburgh. Here,"true" is contrasted with "false", not with "fake" or "insincere". When we say that Montreal is north of Pittsburgh, what sort of thing is it that is true? Is it a statement or a sentence or something else, a "fact", perhaps? More generally, philosophers want to know what sorts of things are true and what sorts of things are false. This same question is expressed by asking: What sorts of things have (or bear) truth-values?<br /><br />The term "truth-value" has been coined by logicians as a generic term for "truth or falsehood". To ask for the truth-value of P, is to ask whether P is true or whether P is false. "Value" in "truth-value" does not mean "valuable". It is being used in a similar fashion to "numerical value" as when we say that the value of "x" in "x + 3 = 7" is 4. To ask "What is the truth-value of the statement that Montreal is north of Pittsburgh?" is to ask whether the statement that Montreal is north of Pittsburgh is true or whether it is false. (The truth-value of that specific statement is true.)<br /><br />There are many candidates for the sorts of things that can bear truth-values:<br /><br /> statements assertions<br /> sentence-tokens utterances<br /> sentence-types beliefs<br /> propositions opinions<br /> theories doctrines<br /> facts etc.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />a. Ontological Issues<br /><br />What sorts of things are these candidates? In particular, should the bearers of truth-values be regarded as being linguistic items (and, as a consequence, items within specific languages), or are they non-linguistic items, or are they both? In addition, should they be regarded as being concrete entities, i.e., things which have a determinate position in space and time, or should they be regarded as abstract entities, i.e., as being neither temporal nor spatial entities?<br /><br />Sentences are linguistic items: they exist in some language or other, either in a natural language such as English or in an artificial language such as a computer language. However, the term "sentence" has two senses: sentence-token and sentence-type. These three English sentence-tokens are all of the same sentence-type:<br /><br /> Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun.<br /> Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun.<br /> Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun.<br /><br />Sentence-tokens are concrete objects. They are composed of ink marks on paper, or sequences of sounds, or patches of light on a computer monitor, etc. Sentence-tokens exist in space and time; they can be located in space and can be dated. Sentence-types cannot be. They are abstract objects. (Analogous distinctions can be made for letters, for words, for numerals, for musical notes on a stave, indeed for any symbols whatsoever.)<br /><br />Might sentence-tokens be the bearers of truth-values?<br /><br />One reason to favor tokens over types is to solve the problems involving so-called "indexical" (or "token reflexive") terms such as "I" and "here" and "now". Is the claim expressed by the sentence-type "I like chocolate" true or false? Well, it depends on who "I" is referring to. If Jack, who likes chocolate, says "I like chocolate", then what he has said is true; but if Jill, who dislikes chocolate, says "I like chocolate", then what she has said is false. If it were sentence-types which were the bearers of truth-values, then the sentence-type "I like chocolate" would be both true and false – an unacceptable contradiction. The contradiction is avoided, however, if one argues that sentence-tokens are the bearers of truth-values, for in this case although there is only one sentence-type involved, there are two distinct sentence-tokens.<br /><br />A second reason for arguing that sentence-tokens, rather than sentence-types, are the bearers of truth-values has been advanced by nominalist philosophers. Nominalists are intent to allow as few abstract objects as possible. Insofar as sentence-types are abstract objects and sentence-tokens are concrete objects, nominalists will argue that actually uttered or written sentence-tokens are the proper bearers of truth-values.<br /><br />But the theory that sentence-tokens are the bearers of truth-values has its own problems. One objection to the nominalist theory is that had there never been any language-users, then there would be no truths. (And the same objection can be leveled against arguing that it is beliefs that are the bearers of truth-values: had there never been any conscious creatures then there would be no beliefs and, thus, no truths or falsehoods, not even the truth that there were no conscious creatures – an unacceptably paradoxical implication.)<br /><br />And a second objection – to the theory that sentence-tokens are the bearers of truth-values – is that even though there are language-users, there are sentences that have never been uttered and never will be. (Consider, for example, the distinct number of different ways that a deck of playing cards can be arranged. The number, 8×1067 [the digit "8" followed by sixty-seven zeros], is so vast that there never will be enough sentence-tokens in the world's past or future to describe each unique arrangement. And there are countless other examples as well.) Sentence-tokens, then, cannot be identified as the bearers of truth-values – there simply are too few sentence-tokens.<br /><br />Thus both theories – (i) that sentence-tokens are the bearers of truth-values, and (ii) that sentence-types are the bearers of truth-values – encounter difficulties. Might propositions be the bearers of truth-values?<br /><br />To escape the dilemma of choosing between tokens and types, propositions have been suggested as the primary bearers of truth-values.<br /><br />The following five sentences are in different languages, but they all are typically used to express the same proposition or statement.<br /><br /> Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun. <br /> [English]<br /> Saturn je šestá planeta od slunce. <br /> [Czech]<br /> Saturne est la sixième planète la plus éloignée du soleil. <br /> [French]<br /> <br /> [Hebrew]<br /> Saturn er den sjette planeten fra solen. <br /> [Norwegian]<br /><br />The truth of the proposition that Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun depends only on the physics of the solar system, and not in any obvious way on human convention. By contrast, what these five sentences say does depend partly on human convention. Had English speakers chosen to adopt the word "Saturn" as the name of a different particular planet, the first sentence would have expressed something false. By choosing propositions rather than sentences as the bearers of truth-values, this relativity to human conventions does not apply to truth, a point that many philosophers would consider to be a virtue in a theory of truth.<br /><br />Propositions are abstract entities; they do not exist in space and time. They are sometimes said to be "timeless", "eternal", or "omnitemporal" entities. Terminology aside, the essential point is that propositions are not concrete (or material) objects. Nor, for that matter, are they mental entities; they are not "thoughts" as Frege had suggested in the nineteenth century. The theory that propositions are the bearers of truth-values also has been criticized. Nominalists object to the abstract character of propositions. Another complaint is that it's not sufficiently clear when we have a case of the same propositions as opposed to similar propositions. This is much like the complaint that we can't determine when two sentences have exactly the same meaning. The relationship between sentences and propositions is a serious philosophical problem.<br /><br />Because it is the more favored theory, and for the sake of expediency and consistency, the theory that propositions – and not sentences – are the bearers of truth-values will be adopted in this article. When we speak below of "truths", we are referring to true propositions. But it should be pointed out that virtually all the claims made below have counterparts in nominalistic theories which reject propositions.<br /><br /><br /><br />b. Constraints on Truth and Falsehood<br /><br />There are two commonly accepted constraints on truth and falsehood:<br /><br /> Every proposition is true or false. <br /> [Law of the Excluded Middle.]<br /> No proposition is both true and false. <br /> [Law of Non-contradiction.]<br /><br />These constraints require that every proposition has exactly one truth-value. Although the point is controversial, most philosophers add the further constraint that a proposition never changes its truth-value in space or time. Consequently, to say "The proposition that it's raining was true yesterday but false today" is to equivocate and not actually refer to just one proposition. Similarly, when someone at noon on January 15, 2000 in Vancouver says that the proposition that it is raining is true in Vancouver while false in Sacramento, that person is really talking of two different propositions: (i) that it rains in Vancouver at noon on January 15, 2000 and (ii) that it rains in Sacramento at noon on January 15, 2000. The person is saying proposition (i) is true and (ii) is false.<br /><br /><br /><br />c. Which Sentences Express Propositions?<br /><br />Not all sentences express propositions. The interrogative sentence "Who won the World Series in 1951?" does not; neither does the imperative sentence "Please close the window." Declarative (i.e., indicative) sentences – rather than interrogative or imperative sentences – typically are used to express propositions.<br /><br /><br /><br />d. Problem Cases<br /><br />But do all declarative sentences express propositions? The following four kinds of declarative sentences have been suggested as not being typically used to express propositions, but all these suggestions are controversial.<br /><br />1. Sentences containing non-referring expressions<br /><br />In light of the fact that France has no king, Strawson argued that the sentence, "The present king of France is bald", fails to express a proposition. In a famous dispute, Russell disagreed with Strawson, arguing that the sentence does express a proposition, and more exactly, a false one.<br /><br />2. Predictions of future events<br /><br />What about declarative sentences that refer to events in the future? For example, does the sentence "There will be a sea battle tomorrow" express a proposition? Presumably, today we do not know whether there will be such a battle. Because of this, some philosophers (including Aristotle who toyed with the idea) have argued that the sentence, at the present moment, does not express anything that is now either true or false. Another, perhaps more powerful, motivation for adopting this view is the belief that if sentences involving future human actions were to express propositions, i.e., were to express something that is now true or false, then humans would be determined to perform those actions and so humans would have no free will. To defend free will, these philosophers have argued, we must deny truth-values to predictions.<br /><br />This complicating restriction – that sentences about the future do not now express anything true or false – has been attacked by Quine and others. These critics argue that the restriction upsets the logic we use to reason with such predictions. For example, here is a deductively valid argument involving predictions:<br /><br /> We've learned there will be a run on the bank tomorrow.<br /> If there will be a run on the bank tomorrow, then the CEO should be awakened.<br /> So, the CEO should be awakened.<br /><br />Without assertions in this argument having truth-values, regardless of whether we know those values, we could not assess the argument using the canons of deductive validity and invalidity. We would have to say – contrary to deeply-rooted philosophical intuitions – that it is not really an argument at all. (For another sort of rebuttal to the claim that propositions about the future cannot be true prior to the occurrence of the events described, see Logical Determinism .)<br /><br />3. Liar Sentences<br /><br />"This very sentence expresses a false proposition" and "I'm lying" are examples of so-called liar sentences. A liar sentence can be used to generate a paradox when we consider what truth-value to assign it. As a way out of paradox, Kripke suggests that a liar sentence is one of those rare declarative sentences that does not express a proposition. The sentence falls into the truth-value gap. See the article Liar Paradox .<br /><br />4. Sentences that state moral, ethical, or aesthetic values<br /><br />Finally, we mention the so-called "fact/value distinction." Throughout history, moral philosophers have wrestled with the issue of moral realism. Do sentences such as "Torturing children is wrong" – which assert moral principles – assert something true (or false), or do they merely express (in a disguised fashion) the speaker's opinions, or feelings or values? Making the latter choice, some philosophers argue that these declarative sentences do not express propositions.<br /><br /><br />3. Correspondence Theory<br /><br />We return to the principal question, "What is truth?" Truth is presumably what valid reasoning preserves. It is the goal of scientific inquiry, historical research, and business audits. We understand much of what a sentence means by understanding the conditions under which what it expresses is true. Yet the exact nature of truth itself is not wholly revealed by these remarks.<br /><br />Historically, the most popular theory of truth was the Correspondence Theory. First proposed in a vague form by Plato and by Aristotle in his Metaphysics, this realist theory says truth is what propositions have by corresponding to a way the world is. The theory says that a proposition is true provided there exists a fact corresponding to it. In other words, for any proposition p,<br /><br /> p is true if and only if p corresponds to a fact.<br /><br />The theory's answer to the question, "What is truth?" is that truth is a certain relationship—the relationship that holds between a proposition and its corresponding fact. Perhaps an analysis of the relationship will reveal what all the truths have in common.<br /><br />Consider the proposition that snow is white. Remarking that the proposition's truth is its corresponding to the fact that snow is white leads critics to request an acceptable analysis of this notion of correspondence. Surely the correspondence is not a word by word connecting of a sentence to its reference. It is some sort of exotic relationship between, say, whole propositions and facts. In presenting his theory of logical atomism early in the twentieth century, Russell tried to show how a true proposition and its corresponding fact share the same structure. Inspired by the notion that Egyptian hieroglyphs are stylized pictures, his student Wittgenstein said the relationship is that of a "picturing" of facts by propositions, but his development of this suggestive remark in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus did not satisfy many other philosophers, nor after awhile, even Wittgenstein himself.<br /><br />And what are facts? The notion of a fact as some sort of ontological entity was first stated explicitly in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Correspondence Theory does permit facts to be mind-dependent entities. McTaggart, and perhaps Kant, held such Correspondence Theories. The Correspondence theories of Russell, Wittgenstein and Austin all consider facts to be mind-independent. But regardless of their mind-dependence or mind-independence, the theory must provide answers to questions of the following sort. "Canada is north of the U.S." can't be a fact. A true proposition can't be a fact if it also states a fact, so what is the ontological standing of a fact? Is the fact that corresponds to "Brutus stabbed Caesar" the same fact that corresponds to "Caesar was stabbed by Brutus", or is it a different fact? It might be argued that they must be different facts because one expresses the relationship of stabbing but the other expresses the relationship of being stabbed, which is different. In addition to the specific fact that ball 1 is on the pool table and the specific fact that ball 2 is on the pool table, and so forth, is there the specific fact that there are fewer than 1,006,455 balls on the table? Is there the general fact that many balls are on the table? Does the existence of general facts require there to be the Forms of Plato or Aristotle? What about the negative proposition that there are no pink elephants on the table? Does it correspond to the same situation in the world that makes there be no green elephants on the table? The same pool table must involve a great many different facts. These questions illustrate the difficulty in counting facts and distinguishing them. The difficulty is well recognized by advocates of the Correspondence Theory, but critics complain that characterizations of facts too often circle back ultimately to saying facts are whatever true propositions must correspond to in order to be true. Davidson has criticized the notion of fact, arguing that "if true statements correspond to anything, they all correspond to the same thing" (in "True to the Facts", Davidson [1984]). Davidson also has argued that facts really are the true statements themselves; facts are not named by them, as the Correspondence Theory mistakenly supposes.<br /><br />Defenders of the Correspondence Theory have responded to these criticisms in a variety of ways. Sense can be made of the term "correspondence", some say, because speaking of propositions corresponding to facts is merely making the general claim that summarizes the remark that<br /><br /> (i) The sentence, "Snow is white", means that snow is white, and (ii) snow actually is white,<br /><br />and so on for all the other propositions. Therefore, the Correspondence theory must contain a theory of "means that" but otherwise is not at fault. Other defenders of the Correspondence Theory attack Davidson's identification of facts with true propositions. Snow is a constituent of the fact that snow is white, but snow is not a constituent of a linguistic entity, so facts and true statements are different kinds of entities.<br /><br />Recent work in possible world semantics has identified facts with sets of possible worlds. The fact that the cat is on the mat contains the possible world in which the cat is on the mat and Adolf Hitler converted to Judaism while Chancellor of Germany. The motive for this identification is that, if sets of possible worlds are metaphysically legitimate and precisely describable, then so are facts.<br /><br /><br />4. Tarski's Semantic Theory<br /><br />To capture what he considered to be the essence of the Correspondence Theory, Alfred Tarski created his Semantic Theory of Truth. In Tarski's theory, however, talk of correspondence and of facts is eliminated. (Although in early versions of his theory, Tarski did use the term "correspondence" in trying to explain his theory, he later regretted having done so, and dropped the term altogether since it plays no role within his theory.) The Semantic Theory is the successor to the Correspondence Theory. It seeks to preserve the core concept of that earlier theory but without the problematic conceptual baggage.<br /><br />For an illustration of the theory, consider the German sentence "Schnee ist weiss" which means that snow is white. Tarski asks for the truth-conditions of the proposition expressed by that sentence: "Under what conditions is that proposition true?" Put another way: "How shall we complete the following in English: 'The proposition expressed by the German sentence "Schnee ist weiss" is true ...'?" His answer:<br /><br /> T: <br /> The proposition expressed by the German sentence "Schnee ist weiss" is true if and only if snow is white.<br /><br />We can rewrite Tarski's T-condition on three lines:<br /><br /> 1. The proposition expressed by the German sentence "Schnee ist weiss" is true<br /> 2. if and only if<br /> 3. snow is white<br /><br />Line 1 is about truth. Line 3 is not about truth – it asserts a claim about the nature of the world. Thus T makes a substantive claim. Moreover, it avoids the main problems of the earlier Correspondence Theories in that the terms "fact" and "correspondence" play no role whatever.<br /><br />A theory is a Tarskian truth theory for language L if and only if, for each sentence S of L, if S expresses the proposition that p, then the theory entails a true<br />"T-proposition" of the bi-conditional form:<br /><br /> (T) <br /> The proposition expressed by S-in-L is true, if and only if p.<br /><br />In the example we have been using, viz. "Schnee ist weiss", it is quite clear that the T-proposition consists of a containing (or "outer") sentence in English, and a contained (or "inner" or quoted) sentence in German:<br /><br /> T: <br /> The proposition expressed by the German sentence "Schnee ist weiss" is true if and only if snow is white.<br /><br />There are, we see, sentences in two distinct languages involved in this T-proposition. If, however, we switch the inner, or quoted sentence, to an English sentence, e.g. to "Snow is white", we would then have:<br /><br /> T: <br /> The proposition expressed by the English sentence "Snow is white" is true if and only if snow is white.<br /><br />In this latter case, it looks as if only one language (English), not two, is involved in expressing the T-proposition. But, according to Tarski's theory, there are still two languages involved: (i) the language one of whose sentences is being quoted and (ii) the language which attributes truth to the proposition expressed by that quoted sentence. The quoted sentence is said to be an element of the object language, and the outer (or containing) sentence which uses the predicate "true" is in the metalanguage.<br /><br />Tarski discovered that in order to avoid contradiction in his semantic theory of truth, he had to restrict the object language to a limited portion of the metalanguage. Among other restrictions, it is the metalanguage alone that contains the truth-predicates, "true" and "false"; the object language does not contain truth-predicates.<br /><br />It is essential to see that Tarski's T-proposition is NOT saying:<br /><br /> X: <br /> Snow is white if and only if snow is white.<br /><br />This latter claim is certainly true (it is a tautology), but it is no significant part of the analysis of the concept of truth – indeed it does not even use the words "true" or "truth", nor does it involve an object language and a metalanguage. Tarski's T-condition does both.<br /><br /><br />a. Extending the Semantic Theory Beyond "Simple" Propositions<br /><br />Tarski's complete theory is intended to work for (just about) all propositions, expressed by non-problematic declarative sentences, not just "Snow is white." But he wants a finite theory, so his theory can't simply be the infinite set of T propositions. Also, Tarski wants his truth theory to reveal the logical structure within propositions that permits valid reasoning to preserve truth. To do all this, the theory must work for more complex propositions by showing how the truth-values of these complex propositions depend on their parts, such as the truth-values of their constituent propositions. Truth tables show how this is done for the simple language of Propositional Logic (e.g. the complex proposition expressed by "A or B" is true, according to the truth table, if and only if proposition A is true, or proposition B is true, or both are true).<br /><br />Tarski's goal is to define truth for even more complex languages. Tarski's theory does not explain (analyze) when a name denotes an object or when an object falls under a predicate; his theory begins with these as given. He wants what we today call a model theory for quantified predicate logic. His actual theory is very technical. It uses the notion of Gödel numbering, focuses on satisfaction rather than truth, and approaches these via the process of recursion. The idea of using satisfaction treats the truth of a simple proposition such as expressed by "Socrates is mortal" by saying:<br /><br /> If "Socrates" is a name and "is mortal" is a predicate, then "Socrates is mortal" expresses a true proposition if and only if there exists an object x such that "Socrates" refers to x and "is mortal" is satisfied by x.<br /><br />For Tarski's formal language of predicate logic, he'd put this more generally as follows:<br /><br /> If "a" is a name and "Q" is a predicate, then "a is Q" expresses a true proposition if and only if there exists an object x such that "a" refers to x and "Q" is satisfied by x.<br /><br />The idea is to define the predicate "is true" when it is applied to the simplest (i.e., the non-complex or atomic) sentences in the object language (a language, see above, which does not, itself, contain the truth-predicate "is true"). The predicate "is true" is a predicate that occurs only in the metalanguage, i.e., in the language we use to describe the object language. At the second stage, his theory shows how the truth predicate, when it has been defined for propositions expressed by sentences of a certain degree of grammatical complexity, can be defined for propositions of the next greater degree of complexity.<br /><br />According to Tarski, his theory applies only to artificial languages – in particular, the classical formal languages of symbolic logic – because our natural languages are vague and unsystematic. Other philosophers – for example, Donald Davidson – have not been as pessimistic as Tarski about analyzing truth for natural languages. Davidson has made progress in extending Tarski's work to any natural language. Doing so, he says, provides at the same time the central ingredient of a theory of meaning for the language. Davidson develops the original idea Frege stated in his Basic Laws of Arithmetic that the meaning of a declarative sentence is given by certain conditions under which it is true—that meaning is given by truth conditions.<br /><br />As part of the larger program of research begun by Tarski and Davidson, many logicians, linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists, often collaboratively, pursue research programs trying to elucidate the truth-conditions (i.e., the "logics" or semantics for) the propositions expressed by such complex sentences as:<br /><br /> "It is possible that snow is white." <br /> [modal propositions]<br /> "Snow is white because sunlight is white." <br /> [causal propositions]<br /> "If snow were yellow, ice would melt at -4°C." <br /> [contrary-to-fact conditionals]<br /> "Napoleon believed that snow is white." <br /> [intentional propositions]<br /> "It is obligatory that one provide care for one's children." <br /> [deontological propositions]<br /> etc.<br /><br />Each of these research areas contains its own intriguing problems. All must overcome the difficulties involved with ambiguity, tenses, and indexical phrases.<br /><br /><br />b. Can the Semantic Theory Account for Necessary Truth?<br /><br />Many philosophers divide the class of propositions into two mutually exclusive and exhaustive subclasses: viz. propositions that are contingent (i.e., those that are neither necessarily-true nor necessarily-false) and those that are noncontingent (i.e., those that are necessarily-true or necessarily-false).<br /><br />On the Semantic Theory of Truth, contingent propositions are those that are true (or false) because of some specific way the world happens to be. For example all of the following propositions are contingent:<br /><br /> Snow is white. Snow is purple.<br /> Canada belongs to the U.N. It is false that Canada belongs to the U.N.<br /><br />The contrasting class of propositions comprises those whose truth (or falsehood, as the case may be) is dependent, according to the Semantic Theory, not on some specific way the world happens to be, but on any way the world happens to be. Imagine the world changed however you like (provided, of course, that its description remains logically consistent [i.e., logically possible]). Even under those conditions, the truth-values of the following (noncontingent) propositions will remain unchanged:<br /><br /> Truths Falsehoods<br /> Snow is white or it is false that snow is white. Snow is white and it is false that snow is white.<br /> All squares are rectangles. Not all squares are rectangles.<br /> 2 + 2 = 4 2 + 2 = 7<br /><br />However, some philosophers who accept the Semantic Theory of Truth for contingent propositions, reject it for noncontingent ones. They have argued that the truth of noncontingent propositions has a different basis from the truth of contingent ones. The truth of noncontingent propositions comes about, they say – not through their correctly describing the way the world is – but as a matter of the definitions of terms occurring in the sentences expressing those propositions. Noncontingent truths, on this account, are said to be true by definition, or – as it is sometimes said, in a variation of this theme – as a matter of conceptual relationships between the concepts at play within the propositions, or – yet another (kindred) way – as a matter of the meanings of the sentences expressing the propositions.<br /><br />It is apparent, in this competing account, that one is invoking a kind of theory of linguistic truth. In this alternative theory, truth for a certain class of propositions, namely the class of noncontingent propositions, is to be accounted for – not in their describing the way the world is, but rather – because of certain features of our human linguistic constructs.<br /><br /><br /><br />c. The Linguistic Theory of Necessary Truth<br /><br />Does the Semantic Theory need to be supplemented in this manner? If one were to adopt the Semantic Theory of Truth, would one also need to adopt a complementary theory of truth, viz. a theory of linguistic truth (for noncontingent propositions)? Or, can the Semantic Theory of Truth be used to explain the truth-values of all propositions, the contingent and noncontingent alike? If so, how?<br /><br />To see how one can argue that the Semantic Theory of Truth can be used to explicate the truth of noncontingent propositions, consider the following series of propositions, the first four of which are contingent, the fifth of which is noncontingent:<br /><br /> 1. There are fewer than seven bumblebees or more than ten.<br /> 2. There are fewer than eight bumblebees or more than ten.<br /> 3. There are fewer than nine bumblebees or more than ten.<br /> 4. There are fewer than ten bumblebees or more than ten.<br /> 5. There are fewer than eleven bumblebees or more than ten.<br /><br />Each of these propositions, as we move from the second to the fifth, is slightly less specific than its predecessor. Each can be regarded as being true under a greater range of variation (or circumstances) than its predecessor. When we reach the fifth member of the series we have a proposition that is true under any and all sets of circumstances. (Some philosophers – a few in the seventeenth century, a very great many more after the mid-twentieth century – use the idiom of "possible worlds", saying that noncontingent truths are true in all possible worlds [i.e., under any logically possible circumstances].) On this view, what distinguishes noncontingent truths from contingent ones is not that their truth arises as a consequence of facts about our language or of meanings, etc.; but that their truth has to do with the scope (or number) of possible circumstances under which the proposition is true. Contingent propositions are true in some, but not all, possible circumstances (or possible worlds). Noncontingent propositions, in contrast, are true in all possible circumstances or in none. There is no difference as to the nature of truth for the two classes of propositions, only in the ranges of possibilities in which the propositions are true.<br /><br />An adherent of the Semantic Theory will allow that there is, to be sure, a powerful insight in the theories of linguistic truth. But, they will counter, these linguistic theories are really shedding no light on the nature of truth itself. Rather, they are calling attention to how we often go about ascertaining the truth of noncontingent propositions. While it is certainly possible to ascertain the truth experientially (and inductively) of the noncontingent proposition that all aunts are females – for example, one could knock on a great many doors asking if any of the residents were aunts and if so, whether they were female – it would be a needless exercise. We need not examine the world carefully to figure out the truth-value of the proposition that all aunts are females. We might, for example, simply consult an English dictionary. How we ascertain, find out, determine the truth-values of noncontingent propositions may (but need not invariably) be by nonexperiential means; but from that it does not follow that the nature of truth of noncontingent propositions is fundamentally different from that of contingent ones.<br /><br />On this latter view, the Semantic Theory of Truth is adequate for both contingent propositions and noncontingent ones. In neither case is the Semantic Theory of Truth intended to be a theory of how we might go about finding out what the truth-value is of any specified proposition. Indeed, one very important consequence of the Semantic Theory of Truth is that it allows for the existence of propositions whose truth-values are in principle unknowable to human beings.<br /><br />And there is a second motivation for promoting the Semantic Theory of Truth for noncontingent propositions. How is it that mathematics is able to be used (in concert with physical theories) to explain the nature of the world? On the Semantic Theory, the answer is that the noncontingent truths of mathematics correctly describe the world (as they would any and every possible world). The Linguistic Theory, which makes the truth of the noncontingent truths of mathematics arise out of features of language, is usually thought to have great, if not insurmountable, difficulties in grappling with this question.<br /><br /><br />5. Coherence Theories<br /><br />The Correspondence Theory and the Semantic Theory account for the truth of a proposition as arising out of a relationship between that proposition and features or events in the world. Coherence Theories (of which there are a number), in contrast, account for the truth of a proposition as arising out of a relationship between that proposition and other propositions.<br /><br />Coherence Theories are valuable because they help to reveal how we arrive at our truth claims, our knowledge. We continually work at fitting our beliefs together into a coherent system. For example, when a drunk driver says, "There are pink elephants dancing on the highway in front of us", we assess whether his assertion is true by considering what other beliefs we have already accepted as true, namely,<br /><br /> # Elephants are gray.<br /> # This locale is not the habitat of elephants.<br /> # There is neither a zoo nor a circus anywhere nearby.<br /> # Severely intoxicated persons have been known to experience hallucinations.<br /><br />But perhaps the most important reason for rejecting the drunk's claim is this:<br /><br /> # Everyone else in the area claims not to see any pink elephants.<br /><br />In short, the drunk's claim fails to cohere with a great many other claims that we believe and have good reason not to abandon. We, then, reject the drunk's claim as being false (and take away the car keys).<br /><br />Specifically, a Coherence Theory of Truth will claim that a proposition is true if and only if it coheres with ___. For example, one Coherence Theory fills this blank with "the beliefs of the majority of persons in one's society". Another fills the blank with "one's own beliefs", and yet another fills it with "the beliefs of the intellectuals in one's society". The major coherence theories view coherence as requiring at least logical consistency. Rationalist metaphysicians would claim that a proposition is true if and only if it "is consistent with all other true propositions". Some rationalist metaphysicians go a step beyond logical consistency and claim that a proposition is true if and only if it entails (or lgoically implies) all other true propositions". Leibniz, Spinoza, Hegel, Bradley, Blanshard, Neurath, Hempel (late in his life), Dummett, and Putnam have advocated Coherence Theories of truth.<br /><br />Coherence Theories have their critics too. The proposition that bismuth has a higher melting point than tin may cohere with my beliefs but not with your beliefs. This, then, leads to the proposition being both "true for me" but "false for you". But if "true for me" means "true" and "false for you" means "false" as the Coherence Theory implies, then we have a violation of the law of non-contradiction, which plays havoc with logic. Most philosophers prefer to preserve the law of non-contradiction over any theory of truth that requires rejecting it. Consequently, if someone is making a sensible remark by saying, "That is true for me but not for you," then the person must mean simply, "I believe it, but you do not." Truth is not relative in the sense that something can be true for you but not for me.<br /><br />A second difficulty with Coherence Theories is that the beliefs of any one person (or of any group) are invariably self-contradictory. A person might, for example, believe both "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" and "Out of sight, out of mind." But under the main interpretation of "cohere", nothing can cohere with an inconsistent set. Thus most propositions, by failing to cohere, will not have truth-values. This result violates the law of the excluded middle.<br /><br />And there is a third objection. What does "coheres with" mean? For X to "cohere with" Y, at the very least X must be consistent with Y. All right, then, what does "consistent with" mean? It would be circular to say that "X is consistent with Y" means "it is possible for X and Y both to be true together" because this response is presupposing the very concept of truth that it is supposed to be analyzing.<br /><br />Some defenders of the Coherence Theory will respond that "coheres with" means instead "is harmonious with". Opponents, however, are pessimistic about the prospects for explicating the concept "is harmonious with" without at some point or other having to invoke the concept of joint truth.<br /><br />A fourth objection is that Coherence theories focus on the nature of verifiability and not truth. They focus on the holistic character of verifying that a proposition is true but don't answer the principal problem, "What is truth itself?"<br /><br /><br />a. Postmodernism: The Most Recent Coherence Theory<br /><br />In recent years, one particular Coherence Theory has attracted a lot of attention and some considerable heat and fury. Postmodernist philosophers ask us to carefully consider how the statements of the most persuasive or politically influential people become accepted as the "common truths". Although everyone would agree that influential people – the movers and shakers – have profound effects upon the beliefs of other persons, the controversy revolves around whether the acceptance by others of their beliefs is wholly a matter of their personal or institutional prominence. The most radical postmodernists do not distinguish acceptance as true from being true; they claim that the social negotiations among influential people "construct" the truth. The truth, they argue, is not something lying outside of human collective decisions; it is not, in particular, a "reflection" of an objective reality. Or, to put it another way, to the extent that there is an objective reality it is nothing more nor less than what we say it is. We human beings are, then, the ultimate arbiters of what is true. Consensus is truth. The "subjective" and the "objective" are rolled into one inseparable compound.<br /><br />These postmodernist views have received a more sympathetic reception among social scientists than among physical scientists. Social scientists will more easily agree, for example, that the proposition that human beings have a superego is a "construction" of (certain) politically influential psychologists, and that as a result, it is (to be regarded as) true. In contrast, physical scientists are – for the most part – rather unwilling to regard propositions in their own field as somehow merely the product of consensus among eminent physical scientists. They are inclined to believe that the proposition that protons are composed of three quarks is true (or false) depending on whether (or not) it accurately describes an objective reality. They are disinclined to believe that the truth of such a proposition arises out of the pronouncements of eminent physical scientists. In short, physical scientists do not believe that prestige and social influence trump reality.<br /><br /><br />6. Pragmatic Theories<br /><br />A Pragmatic Theory of Truth holds (roughly) that a proposition is true if it is useful to believe. Peirce and James were its principal advocates. Utility is the essential mark of truth. Beliefs that lead to the best "payoff", that are the best justification of our actions, that promote success, are truths, according to the pragmatists.<br /><br />The problems with Pragmatic accounts of truth are counterparts to the problems seen above with Coherence Theories of truth.<br /><br />First, it may be useful for someone to believe a proposition but also useful for someone else to disbelieve it. For example, Freud said that many people, in order to avoid despair, need to believe there is a god who keeps a watchful eye on everyone. According to one version of the Pragmatic Theory, that proposition is true. However, it may not be useful for other persons to believe that same proposition. They would be crushed if they believed that there is a god who keeps a watchful eye on everyone. Thus, by symmetry of argument, that proposition is false. In this way, the Pragmatic theory leads to a violation of the law of non-contradiction, say its critics.<br /><br />Second, certain beliefs are undeniably useful, even though – on other criteria – they are judged to be objectively false. For example, it can be useful for some persons to believe that they live in a world surrounded by people who love or care for them. According to this criticism, the Pragmatic Theory of Truth overestimates the strength of the connection between truth and usefulness.<br /><br />Truth is what an ideally rational inquirer would in the long run come to believe, say some pragmatists. Truth is the ideal outcome of rational inquiry. The criticism that we don't now know what happens in the long run merely shows we have a problem with knowledge, but it doesn't show that the meaning of "true" doesn't now involve hindsight from the perspective of the future. Yet, as a theory of truth, does this reveal what "true" means?<br /><br /><br />7. Deflationary Theories<br /><br />What all the theories of truth discussed so far have in common is the assumption that a proposition is true just in case the proposition has some property or other – correspondence with the facts, satisfaction, coherence, utility, etc. Deflationary theories deny this assumption.<br /><br /><br /><br />a. Redundancy Theory<br /><br />The principal deflationary theory is the Redundancy Theory advocated by Frege, Ramsey, and Horwich. Frege expressed the idea this way:<br /><br /> It is worthy of notice that the sentence "I smell the scent of violets" has the same content as the sentence "It is true that I smell the scent of violets." So it seems, then, that nothing is added to the thought by my ascribing to it the property of truth. (Frege, 1918)<br /><br />When we assert a proposition explicitly, such as when we say "I smell the scent of violets", then saying "It's true that I smell the scent of violets" would be redundant; it would add nothing because the two have the same meaning. Today's more minimalist advocates of the Redundancy Theory retreat from this remark about meaning and say merely that the two are necessarily equivalent.<br /><br />Where the concept of truth really pays off is when we do not, or can not, assert a proposition explicitly, but have to deal with an indirect reference to it. For instance, if we wish to say, "What he will say tomorrow is true", we need the truth predicate "is true". Admittedly the proposition is an indirect way of saying, "If he says tomorrow that it will snow, then it will snow; if he says tomorrow that it will rain, then it will rain; if he says tomorrow that 7 + 5 = 12, then 7 + 5 = 12; and so forth." But the phrase "is true" cannot be eliminated from "What he will say tomorrow is true" without producing an unacceptable infinite conjunction. The truth predicate "is true" allows us to generalize and say things more succinctly (indeed to make those claims with only a finite number of utterances). In short, the Redundancy Theory may work for certain cases, say its critics, but it is not generalizable to all; there remain recalcitrant cases where "is true" is not redundant.<br /><br />Advocates of the Redundancy Theory respond that their theory recognizes the essential point about needing the concept of truth for indirect reference. The theory says that this is all that the concept of truth is needed for, and that otherwise its use is redundant.<br /><br /><br />b. Performative Theory<br /><br />The Performative Theory is a deflationary theory that is not a redundancy theory. It was advocated by Strawson who believed Tarski's Semantic Theory of Truth was basically mistaken.<br /><br />The Performative Theory of Truth argues that ascribing truth to a proposition is not really characterizing the proposition itself, nor is it saying something redundant. Rather, it is telling us something about the speaker's intentions. The speaker – through his or her agreeing with it, endorsing it, praising it, accepting it, or perhaps conceding it – is licensing our adoption of (the belief in) the proposition. Instead of saying, "It is true that snow is white", one could substitute "I embrace the claim that snow is white." The key idea is that saying of some proposition, P, that it is true is to say in a disguised fashion "I commend P to you", or "I endorse P", or something of the sort.<br /><br />The case may be likened somewhat to that of promising. When you promise to pay your sister five dollars, you are not making a claim about the proposition expressed by "I will pay you five dollars"; rather you are performing the action of promising her something. Similarly, according to the Performative Theory of Truth, when you say "It is true that Vancouver is north of Sacramento", you are performing the act of giving your listener license to believe (and to act upon the belief) that Vancouver is north of Sacramento.<br /><br />Critics of the Performative Theory charge that it requires too radical a revision in our logic. Arguments have premises that are true or false, but we don't consider premises to be actions, says Geach. Other critics complain that, if all the ascription of "is true" is doing is gesturing consent, as Strawson believes, then, when we say<br /><br /> "Please shut the door" is true,<br /><br />we would be consenting to the door's being shut. Because that is absurd, says Huw Price, something is wrong with Strawson's Performative Theory.<br /><br /><br />c. Prosentential Theory<br /><br />The Prosentential Theory of Truth suggests that the grammatical predicate "is true" does not function semantically or logically as a predicate. All uses of "is true" are prosentential uses. When someone asserts "It's true that it is snowing", the person is asking the hearer to consider the sentence "It is snowing" and is saying "That is true" where the remark "That is true" is a taken holistically as a prosentence, in analogy to a pronoun. A pronoun such as "she" is a substitute for the name of the person being referred to. Similarly, "That is true" is a substitute for the proposition being considered. Likewise, for the expression "it is true." According to the Prosentential Theory, all uses of "true" can be reduced to uses either of "That is true" or "It is true" or variants of these with other tenses. Because these latter prosentential uses of the word "true" cannot be eliminated from our language during analysis, the Prosentential Theory is not a redundancy theory.<br /><br />Critics of the theory remark that it can give no account of what is common to all our uses of the word "true", such as those in the unanalyzed operators "it-will-be-true-that" and "it-is-true-that" and "it-was-true-that".<br /><br /><br />8. Related Issues<br /><br /><br /><br />a. Beyond Truth to Knowledge<br /><br />For generations, discussions of truth have been bedeviled by the question, "How could a proposition be true unless we know it to be true?" Aristotle's famous worry was that contingent propositions about the future, such as "There will be a sea battle tomorrow", couldn't be true now, for fear that this would deny free will to the sailors involved. Advocates of the Correspondence Theory and the Semantic Theory have argued that a proposition need not be known in order to be true. Truth, they say, arises out of a relationship between a proposition and the way the world is. No one need know that that relationship holds, nor – for that matter – need there even be any conscious or language-using creatures for that relationship to obtain. In short, truth is an objective feature of a proposition, not a subjective one.<br /><br />For a true proposition to be known, it must (at the very least) be a justified belief. Justification, unlike truth itself, requires a special relationship among propositions. For a proposition to be justified it must, at the very least, cohere with other propositions that one has adopted. On this account, coherence among propositions plays a critical role in the theory of knowledge. Nevertheless it plays no role in a theory of truth, according to advocates of the Correspondence and Semantic Theories of Truth.<br /><br />Finally, should coherence – which plays such a central role in theories of knowledge – be regarded as an objective relationship or as a subjective one? Not surprisingly, theorists have answered this latter question in divergent ways. But the pursuit of that issue takes one beyond the theories of truth.<br /><br /><br />b. Algorithms for Truth<br /><br />An account of what "true" means does not have to tell us what is true, nor tell us how we could find out what is true. Similarly, an account of what "bachelor" means should not have to tell us who is a bachelor, nor should it have to tell us how we could find out who is. However, it would be fascinating if we could discover a way to tell, for any proposition, whether it is true.<br /><br />Perhaps some machine could do this, philosophers have speculated. For any formal language, we know in principle how to generate all the sentences of that language. If we were to build a machine that produces one by one all the many sentences, then eventually all those that express truths would be produced. Unfortunately, along with them, we would also generate all those that express false propositions. We also know how to build a machine that will generate only sentences that express truths. For example, we might program a computer to generate "1 + 1 is not 3", then "1 + 1 is not 4", then "1 + 1 is not 5", and so forth. However, to generate all and only those sentences that express truths is quite another matter.<br /><br />Leibniz (1646-1716) dreamed of achieving this goal. By mechanizing deductive reasoning he hoped to build a machine that would generate all and only truths. As he put it, "How much better will it be to bring under mathematical laws human reasoning which is the most excellent and useful thing we have." This would enable one's mind to "be freed from having to think directly of things themselves, and yet everything will turn out correct." His actual achievements were disappointing in this regard, but his dream inspired many later investigators.<br /><br />Some progress on the general problem of capturing all and only those sentences which express true propositions can be made by limiting the focus to a specific domain. For instance, perhaps we can find some procedure that will produce all and only the truths of arithmetic, or of chemistry, or of Egyptian political history. Here, the key to progress is to appreciate that universal and probabilistic truths "capture" or "contain" many more specific truths. If we know the universal and probabilistic laws of quantum mechanics, then (some philosophers have argued) we thereby indirectly (are in a position to) know the more specific scientific laws about chemical bonding. Similarly, if we can axiomatize an area of mathematics, then we indirectly have captured the infinitely many specific theorems that could be derived from those axioms, and we can hope to find a decision procedure for the truths, a procedure that will guarantee a correct answer to the question, "Is that true?"<br /><br />Significant progress was made in the early twentieth century on the problem of axiomatizing arithmetic and other areas of mathematics. Let's consider arithmetic. In the 1920s, David Hilbert hoped to represent the sentences of arithmetic very precisely in a formal language, then to generate all and only the theorems of arithmetic from uncontroversial axioms, and thereby to show that all true propositions of arithmetic can in principle be proved as theorems. This would put the concept of truth in arithmetic on a very solid basis. The axioms would "capture" all and only the truths. However, Hilbert's hopes would soon be dashed. In 1931, Kurt Gödel (1906-1978), in his First Incompleteness Theorem, proved that any classical self-consistent formal language capable of expressing arithmetic must also contain sentences of arithmetic that cannot be derived within that system, and hence that the propositions expressed by those sentences could not be proven true (or false) within that system. Thus the concept of truth transcends the concept of proof in classical formal languages. This is a remarkable, precise insight into the nature of truth.<br /><br /><br />c. Can "is true" Be Eliminated?<br /><br />Can "is true" be defined so that it can be replaced by its definition? Unfortunately for the clarity of this question, there is no one concept of "definition". A very great many linguistic devices count as definitions. These devices include providing a synonym, offering examples, pointing at objects that satisfy the term being defined, using the term in sentences, contrasting it with opposites, and contrasting it with terms with which it is often confused. (For further reading, see Definitions, Dictionaries, and Meanings .)<br /><br />However, modern theories about definition have not been especially recognized, let alone adopted, outside of certain academic and specialist circles. Many persons persist with the earlier, naive, view that the role of a definition is only to offer a synonym for the term to be defined. These persons have in mind such examples as: "'hypostatize' means (or, is a synonym for) 'reify'".<br /><br />If one were to adopt this older view of definition, one might be inclined to demand of a theory of truth that it provide a definition of "is true" which permitted its elimination in all contexts in the language. Tarski was the first person to show clearly that there could never be such a strict definition for "is true" in its own language. The definition would allow for a line of reasoning that produced the Liar Paradox (recall above) and thus would lead us into self contradiction. (See the discussion, in the article The Liar Paradox , of Tarski's Undefinability Theorem of 1936.)<br /><br />Kripke has attempted to avoid this theorem by using only a "partial" truth-predicate so that not every sentence has a truth-value. In effect, Kripke's "repair" permits a definition of the truth-predicate within its own language but at the expense of allowing certain violations of the law of excluded middle.<br /><br /><br />d. Can a Theory of Truth Avoid Paradox?<br /><br />The brief answer is, "Not if it contains its own concept of truth." If the language is made precise by being formalized, and if it contains its own so-called global truth predicate, then Tarski has shown that the language will enable us to reason our way to a contradiction. That result shows that we do not have a coherent concept of truth (for a language within that language). Some of our beliefs about truth, and about related concepts that are used in the argument to the contradiction, must be rejected, even though they might seem to be intuitively acceptable.<br /><br />There is no reason to believe that paradox is to be avoided by rejecting formal languages in favor of natural languages. The Liar Paradox first appeared in natural languages. And there are other paradoxes of truth, such as Löb's Paradox, which follow from principles that are acceptable in either formal or natural languages, namely the principles of modus ponens and conditional proof.<br /><br />The best solutions to the paradoxes use a similar methodology, the "systematic approach". That is, they try to remove vagueness and be precise about the ramifications of their solutions, usually by showing how they work in a formal language that has the essential features of our natural language. The Liar Paradox and Löb's Paradox represent a serious challenge to understanding the logic of our natural language. The principal solutions agree that – to resolve a paradox – we must go back and systematically reform or clarify some of our original beliefs. For example, the solution may require us to revise the meaning of "is true". However, to be acceptable, the solution must be presented systematically and be backed up by an argument about the general character of our language. In short, there must be both systematic evasion and systematic explanation. Also, when it comes to developing this systematic approach, the goal of establishing a coherent basis for a consistent semantics of natural language is much more important than the goal of explaining the naive way most speakers use the terms "true" and "not true". The later Wittgenstein did not agree. He rejected the systematic approach and elevated the need to preserve ordinary language, and our intuitions about it, over the need to create a coherent and consistent semantical theory.<br /><br /><br />e. Is The Goal of Scientific Research to Achieve Truth?<br /><br />Except in special cases, most scientific researchers would agree that their results are only approximately true. Nevertheless, to make sense of this, philosophers need adopt no special concept such as "approximate truth." Instead, it suffices to say that the researchers' goal is to achieve truth, but they achieve this goal only approximately, or only to some approximation.<br /><br />Other philosophers believe it's a mistake to say the researchers' goal is to achieve truth. These "scientific anti-realists" recommend saying that research in, for example, physics, economics, and meteorology, aims only for usefulness. When they aren't overtly identifying truth with usefulness, the instrumentalists Peirce, James and Schlick take this anti-realist route, as does Kuhn. They would say atomic theory isn't true or false but rather is useful for predicting outcomes of experiments and for explaining current data. Giere recommends saying science aims for the best available "representation", in the same sense that maps are representations of the landscape. Maps aren't true; rather, they fit to a better or worse degree. Similarly, scientific theories are designed to fit the world. Scientists should not aim to create true theories; they should aim to construct theories whose models are representations of the world.<br /><br /><br /><br />9. References and Further Reading<br /><br />Bradley, Raymond and Norman Swartz . Possible Worlds: an Introduction to Logic and Its Philosophy, Hackett Publishing Company, 1979.<br /><br />Davidson, Donald. Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford University Press, 1984.<br /><br />Davidson, Donald. "The Structure and Content of Truth", The Journal of Philosophy, 87 (1990), 279-328.<br /><br />Horwich, Paul. Truth, Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1990.<br /><br />Mates, Benson. "Two Antinomies", in Skeptical Essays, The University of Chicago Press, 1981, 15-57.<br /><br />McGee, Vann. Truth, Vagueness, and Paradox: An Essay on the Logic of Truth, Hackett Publishing, 1991.<br /><br />Kirkham, Richard. Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction, MIT Press, 1992.<br /><br />Kripke, Saul. "Outline of a Theory of Truth", Journal of Philosophy, 72 (1975), 690-716.<br /><br />Quine, W. V. "Truth", in Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987.<br /><br />Ramsey, F. P. "Facts and Propositions", in Proceedings of the Arisotelian Society, Supplement, 7, 1927.<br /><br />Russell, B. The Problems of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 1912.<br /><br />Strawson, P. F. "Truth", in Analysis, vol. 9, no. 6, 1949.<br /><br />Tarski, Alfred, "The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics", in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 4 (1944).<br /><br />Tarski, Alfred. "The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages", in Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, Clarendon Press, 1956.<br /></div>link sahabathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00149699817169462023noreply@blogger.com0