On the Identity of the Knower and the Known (2)

Edmund Husserl

In my studies of the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, I have been struggling with the all-too-infamous question of whether Husserl falls within the realist or the idealist camp. It is a vexing question - and I don't yet know Husserl enough to settle it. Husserl makes what appears to be a realist move against Immanuel Kant by eliminating the radical separation between the subject and the object, in which Kant posited "objects" that were so mind-independent as to be inherent unknowable. This was an absurdity, for Husserl. So the eliminated the distinction - not necessarily eliminating the subject and the object themselves, but eliminating their absolute independence from each other. The question is whether this makes objects immanent to the consciousness of the subject, whether mind-dependence entails idealism, in the sense that the independent existence or subsistence of objects is ruled out, and objects are made into mere moments of consciousness itself - or, to think of it in another way, whether subject and objected are constituted by relation to each other, thus making the category of relation prior, in a sense, to substantiality. Husserl is by no means a relativist, certainly; objects are not creations of the mind. Nonetheless, the question of their ontological status remains. Does his radical affirmation of the intentionality of the subject entail that the ontological status of the object is somehow conditioned by a subjective mode of existence? Does it have its own actuality, outside the mind, or is it only actual in the mind?

In a way, this question cannot be answered simply. Even for Aristotle, one might speak of a very qualified sense of idealism insofar as the intelligible as such only exists in the mind. This is why Aristotle asserts, following a tradition that originates in the pre-Socratics, that knowledge is essentially a sort of identity of the knower and the known, in respect to the form or species of the thing known. Even in sensation, there is identity at least to the degree that the sensible species is impressed upon the sensory faculty; although as actually sensible the object exists apart from the subject, unlike the intelligible, which exists actually only in the intellect itself. So it seems that for intellectual and sensitive cognition, the object is more or less within and more or less outside the subject. The principle that knower and known are identical is true to a greater and lesser degree, in intellectual and sensitive beings respectively. In this sense, even Aristotle's realism admits of a certain measure of idealism, if the latter be taken to refer very broadly to the belief that that which is known is in the mind of the knower. 

But this is itself an ambiguity: idealism may mean many things. Usually, it is associated with a kind of skepticism about the possibility of knowing mind-independent objects. This is, again, exemplified by Kant, following the British Empiricists (especially Berkeley and Hume). For these thinkers, the mind is capable only of knowing itself; all that is outside the mind is, by that very fact, unknowable in principle. The mind knows its own ideas, it cannot know things. This is fundamentally incompatible with Aristotle's realism, which asserts that the mind knows things, though it knows them through its ideas in some way. But again, I would contend that perhaps there is a distinct, though related sense of idealism which may be attributed to Aristotle, that is not to the detriment of his realism, insofar as the species of things, as the media of the mind's (or the sense's) cognition, are the very things themselves existing according to the mode of being of the mind (or the sense). The knower becomes the known, in respect to the form or species of the latter. In other words, this is just to reassert that knowledge is the identity of the knower and the known: the more a thing is known, the more it exists as an "idea." This is certainly an ambiguous word, but I take it to mean simply a immanent moment of subjectivity, rather than an external and physical object in space and time. In this sense, the Empiricists may indeed have been on to something; but error usually comes by way of the emphasis of one side of an issue, at the expense of the neglect of another. 

I note, in accordance with my previous post, that a pure idealism is only appropriate (from an Aristotelian-Thomistic point of view, but also somehow Platonic - more on this later) when speaking of God. In other words, only in God are the knower and the known perfectly and indistinguishably identical. There is a tendency among the moderns that manifests itself in various ways, which is to ascribe to human knowledge a mode of knowing that is more properly attributable only to divine knowledge. Perhaps the modern trends of idealism are one instance of this tendency. God knows by an operation that is perfectly immanent and intransitive; God does not go outside of Himself in order to know, but rather He is Himself the eternal and self-sufficient Concept or Idea by which He knows. All that He knows is contained in Him according to His own perfect mode of existence. For God, to be is to be known, and to be is to know. God is His own intellect, His own concept, His own object, and His own act of understanding. God is perfectly interior to Himself. Modern idealism tries to ascribe to human knowing a degree of interiority that cannot belong to man (though it is not metaphysically consistent). It is Berkeley who famously says that to be is to be perceived. The being of things, as man perceives them, is no more than their being perceived by him; they exist only as his perceptions, or as his ideas. The object exists in no way apart from the perceiving subject, but it is wholly interior to the subject, in a way that Aquinas would say could only be true of that Being who is His own act and object of knowing.

The proper balance between idealism and realism can only be found, from a Thomistic point of view, by recognizing that the identity of knower and known comes only in distinct grades of hierarchy. Idealism, as a description of a mode of knowing, is less true of creatures than of God, for the more creaturely is the mode of knowing, the less identical is the subject with its object, and its act of knowing. The more creaturely is the mode of knowing, the more ecstatic it is, because the more must it emanate outside of itself - it is more transitive and external in its proper operation.

(Note: Ecstasy is a going-out-of-oneself, but one that necessarily retains an interiority of a properly spiritual nature. I think sensation is not properly ecstatic - perhaps analogously - because although it is a going-out-of-oneself, it has not the interiority of spirit. Non-sensate beings are even more exterior to themselves, precisely because they lack cognition altogether; and consequently their exteriority - mere physical separation - is in no way ecstatic, properly speaking. Ecstasy is the exteriority of interiority precisely as interior; where there is no interiority, there is no ecstasy. And yet where interiority is perfect and pure, as it is in God, again there is no ecstasy, because God is His own object and His own activity, which is thus entirely intransitive.)

What does this have to do with Husserlian phenomenology and the doctrine of intentionality? I am not sure... But it certainly provides a metaphysical framework within which alone any phenomenological claims about the relationality of subject and object must be properly situated. Husserl's project to provide a phenomenological description that is universal - that is, equally applicable to gods and men (he claims) - seems quite implausible to me, given a Thomistic metaphysical framework. If it were a pure sort of idealism, it could only apply to God; if it were only a partial idealism, it could only apply to something less than God - for God does not know in parts. 

Note on the Identity of the Knower and the Known

A theme that is showing up in my recent studies of Plato, Neoplatonism, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Charles DeKoninck, and Edmund Husserl: the identity of the knower and the known; or in other words, at least the intimate relationality of the knower and the known. Husserl is trying to eliminate the radical distinction between subject and object that was put forward by Kant, and which effectively makes knowledge imposssible. Husserl wants to make knowledge possible again by somehow bringing objects, in their very objectivity, into the sphere of subjectivity. How this is like and unlike Aristotle and Aquinas is a complicated question; it is difficult to see whether Husserl winds up forgetting or discarding the independent actuality of objects as beings; for Aristotle and Aquinas, things are knowable objects precisely in virtue of being in actuality, and the more actual they are, the more knowable they are in principle (though perhaps less knowable to us); and the more actual, the more subsistent and independent is their being. So it is confusing trying to square Husserl's insistence on the relationality of subject and object with Aristotle and Aquinas's insistence on the subsistence of objects, precisely by virtue of which they are knowable to a knowing subject. Nonetheless, Husserl's instinct is profoundly realist, and indeed Aristotelian, since Aristotle too asserts that knowledge is in some way the union of the knower and the known; knowledge comes to be insofar as the object enters into the immanent subjectivity of the knower, forming his intellect according to its own form and structure, but also being formed in its own way according to the intelligibility of the intellect itself; they enter into relation with each other.

Plato, likewise - as interpreted by Neoplatonists such as Plotinus (not as interpreted by many moderns) - posits an identity of Intellect and intelligible, in some sense. Knowledge in the ideal sense is precisely this identity - not a going out of oneself to some external object, but a profoundly interior self-reflection. Thus, the divine Intellect - the demiurge - is, for Plato, the locus of the Forms; indeed, it is itself the Forms. This is the Neoplatonic interpretation, at least. Moreover, this is the basis for the meaning of the myth of recollection and reincarnation in Plato's dialogues, in particular the Meno and the Phaedo. I am fascinated by the idea that Platonic reincarnation is not a doctrine, but a myth meant to symbolize a deeper truth about knowledge. Plotinus takes it to mean that knowledge is a matter of plunging the depths of one's own mind, to find the seeds of all truth hidden there, in the vestiges of the divine Intellect from one has fallen. The divine Intellect is the place of the Forms; and the individual human intellect is nothing other than a participation in this Intellect, therefore having within itself, from the beginning, the seeds of all knowledge. This conception of intellect is, in its essentials, Aristotle's own conception of the divine Intellect, the first mover, which he describes as "thought thinking itself," although, for complicated but fascinating reasons, Aristotle would not extend this simply to the human mode of knowing, as Plotinus and Plato would appear to do. Nonetheless there are important similarities; and the Platonic-Plotinian insight that knowledge is the identity of knower and known is also present in Aristotle.

So, there are lots of subtle similarities and subtle differences between all of these thinkers, and it is hard to nail it all down. It seems true to me to say that, in an ideal sense, knowledge is most properly an immanent activity, a self-reflection and self-contemplation, beginning and terminating the interiority of the self, self-identity of subject and object. Aquinas teaches that God is His own intellect, His own object, and His own act of understanding. Everything about knowledge, in God, is identical. All other created forms of knowing are participations in this way of knowing, grades of approaching this full identity of knower, knowing, and known. But they are also grades of falling-short of this full identity. (See also DeKoninck on the deduction of the infra-angelic universe.) Angels, in ascending hierarchical order, are more and more adequate unto themselves to represent to themselves the scope of their knowledge; they know by fewer concepts, the closer they are to God, and thus they are closer and closer to being identical with the very species by which they know. No angel is indeed the species by which it knows, but it approaches this identity as a limit. Every angel still receives its species-concepts from God; its knowledge is still, to this degree, ecstatic, because it is dependent on something external. Below the angels, there is man; his knowledge too is a mode of identity of intellect and the intelligible; but man more than angels must go outside himself. His object is not innate, as in the angel; it is not identical to himself from the very dawn of his intellectual life, except only potentially. He achieves this identity only by first going outside of himself and performing the feat of abstraction. And even the identity which achieves is a lesser identity than that possessed from the beginning of an angel's intellectual life: the angel is devoid of matter, so it lacks the composition by which man is not completely identical to himself, and thus, neither completely identical to his intelligible objects. Man achieves a partial identity to the intelligible only in what is itself a part of himself, namely his intellect; as a material being he remains separated from himself and from his object. At the level of sensation, this identity is severed at yet another level; for, lacking immateriality, all animal operations involve a greater procession towards the outside. Action is less and less immanent, and more and more transitive. And where all cognition and life is lacking, things are separated by absolute discontinuity.

There are levels of act and potency. God is pure Act, and it is on account of this that all the moments of His knowledge are identical. An angel is composed of act and potency, with a distinction of essence and existence; thus, the identity with its object which an angel possesses is already merely partial. Man is composed not only of essence and existence, but his essence is composed of form and matter. The more a being is composed of act and potency, the lesser is its identity with itself, and the lesser is the identity of its cognition with its object; and at the lowest level of being, where act is most of all limited by potency, there is no cognition, there is the least degree of self-hood and self-identity. 

Prayers Requested for Thomas Aquinas College and Ventura County

A photo, taken last night, of the "Thomas Fire" sweeping over
the hills near Santa Paula and Ventura, in Southern CA. 

Last night, a wildfire popped up about a mile south of my Alma Mater, Thomas Aquinas College, in Southern California. The fire exploded overnight, due to extremely heavy winds, and now covers an area of more than 31,000 acres - it is still uncontained. Named after the college, the fire is now being referred to by the media as the "Thomas Fire." There is a giant wall of fire stretching over ten miles from Thomas Aquinas College, in Santa Paula, to the Pacific beaches of the city of Ventura. Thousands of homes have been evacuated, thousands destroyed, thousands of people (including many dear friends of mine) are currently homeless. If you are a prayerful person and you are reading this, your prayers for this wonderful little Catholic, Liberal Arts college, and for the community surrounding it, and for the thousands of people who inhabit Ventura County, would be much appreciated. 

I have had a home destroyed by fire once, although in a much less dramatic way than is taking place now in beautiful Ventura County. The current flames which are swallowing up one of the most beautiful areas on the planet are even more potent reminder of the last days, on which I have reflected before. Everything on this earth shall pass away in flames one day. But such will be only a temporal flame, no matter how violently it rages. Everything will be subjected to purgatory on the last day. May God preserve us in that day - and may he preserve the people of Ventura County now.

Saved by Accident

In a couple of previous posts (here and here), I wrote about form as that principle in things which commands an attitude of reverence. It is perhaps an unusual way of thinking about form, but I think it is very grounded in traditional philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle, to Aquinas and Richard Weaver. In the second post, I briefly mentioned the issue of accidental and artistic forms in relation to reverence. Today I am thinking about this issue again, with some more detail. I think it is an important issue, that has not been much written about, as far as I know; but I think deserves some attention, and possibly some more development in its metaphysics.

This is a question which I think can be raised, for example, when liturgical ritual is brought into the picture, as it was in my other post. Ritual involves forms that are predominantly accidental - perhaps not all of its forms, but certainly a great many of them. The interpretation of symbols in religious ritual is largely based on merely accidental qualities possessed by certain objects of nature. Ritual itself, moreover, seems to be an accidental sort of unity, possessing an accidental form that is the result of a kind of art.

But this does not apply only to ritual, in the strict sense in which it applies to liturgical worship. It applies also to an enormous scope of traditional, political, and cultural forms, all of which are artificial in some way, the practical results of human reason and creativity. A particularly poignant way in which man expresses the image of God in which he is made is by means of art, in which he reaps the fruit of his contemplation and applies his intellect to the task of bestowing form upon matter. The love of beauty in nature gives rise to the inclination to reproduce it by art, and the same reverence which is rendered towards natural beauty is given likewise to art forms which seem to replicate, sometimes even elevate, that beauty. Art is the result of the reverence for form, of which beauty is the splendor; and the artwork itself becomes a thing of beauty, whose form is splendorous, and worthy of reverence.

Politics and culture are essentially matters of accidental forms. Human society is an accidental unity. Governments are accidental forms, largely structured according to what is, at first sight, a mere  human convention. Patterns and customs of behavior, standards of polite manners, rules of economics and trades, etc., are all accidental forms, apparently constructed by arbitrary conventions. So much seems arbitrary, that one might begin to think that the conservative project to elevate rules and laws and customs and traditions seems doomed from the start.

One might even base this objection on traditional metaphysics: it seems more fitting that substantial form, and not accidental form, should be the primary object of reverence; for it is substance, and not accidents, which, in Aristotle's metaphysics, primarily exemplifies the meaning of being itself. Accidents are beings only secondarily, i.e. in dependence upon substance. Hence, it seems that substantial, more than accidental, forms are deserving of our reverence; and it seems unfitting that an instance of, not merely accidental, but also artificial forms, namely the liturgy, should be the occasion for the highest degree of reverence.

This sort of objection is, I think, not unexpected, though it appears in various forms. In general, I have noticed a kind of dismissive attitude, in simple academic discussions of form, towards accidental and artificial forms. Oftentimes an artificial (and hence accidental) form - such as "chair-ness" - is used as an example of form in general, but then it is quickly dismissed as somewhat unimportant compared to what is really the issue: natural and substantial forms. I think this is related (perhaps not identical) to the general disregard for forms that seems to mark contemporary political and cultural discourse. It is really a certain irreverence for forms that lies at the basis of the modernist contempt for tradition and high culture, and the sheer thirst for novelty and autonomy for its own sake. Especially since these things, tradition and culture, seem to be instances of artificial forms arbitrarily imposed upon individuals, it seems not unfitting that they be thrown off as unnecessary. So the question now is this: why is reverence due to forms that are accidental and artificial? Or, perhaps, is the "traditionalist" demand for reverence simply exaggerated and disproportionate to the lesser status in terms of being that belongs to such forms? They are, after all, "merely accidental"...

I respond that accidental forms are very often a kind of outward expression of the very essences of things, by which they have their substance. That is to say, there are accidents which, though accidents, nonetheless belong to things in virtue of "flowing forth" from the essence itself, as a kind of sign of it. Indeed, St. Thomas notes, rather surprisingly for an Aristotelian, that "even in the case of sensible things, the essential differences themselves are not known; whence they are signified through accidental differences which rise out of the essential ones, as a cause is signified through its effect; this is what is done when biped, for example, is given as the difference of man" (De Ente et Essentia, 5). Which is immediately to say that just because something is "merely accidental," it does not follow that it is unimportant, merely arbitrary, or easily disregarded. On the contrary: we know essences themselves only through their proper accidents. Accidents are signs and symbols of the essences from which they properly flow forth, as expressive perfections of them.

Accordingly, it is quite irrational to posit an opposition between what is natural about man and what is accidental and "artificial" about human society. Just because human society - and consequently, human government - is an accidental and artificial unity, it does not follow that it is therefore alien to human nature. On the contrary: man is by nature a political animal; and thus by nature people tends to come together in society with his fellow man, forming families and villages and cities for the sake of living and of living well, in shared pursuit of the common good. In a similar way, art is not necessarily something alien to nature simply because it is merely artificial. On the contrary: art imitates nature, and it is moreover a specifically human virtue proper to man according to his nature as a rational animal. The virtuous practice of art is thus the true expression of human nature, something flowing forth from the very substance of the artist as man. 

This objection reminds me of an objection which Charles DeKoninck addresses in On the Primacy of the Common Good Against the Personalists. DeKoninck identifies the intrinsic common good of the universe, and thus of all political societies, as peace or order, which is in fact a kind of accidental unity, an accidental form. The objector proposes the objection that it seems more fitting that the highest good should pertain, not to the unity of an accidental form, but to the unity of a substantial form, because substance is more properly being, and thus things are more noble according as they are more perfectly substances. Thus, the highest good should rather be the good of the individual substance, as opposed to the common good of an accidental unity, such as the whole cosmos or a political society. DeKoninck responds quoting St. Thomas:

It is because of its substantial being that each thing is said to be absolutely (simpliciter); whereas it is because of acts added over and above the substance that a thing is said to be in a certain respect (secundum quid).... But the good has the notion of perfection, which is desirable, and consequently it has the notion of end. That is why the being which possesses its ultimate perfection is said to be good absolutely speaking; but the being which does not possess the ultimate perfection which belongs to it, even though it has a certain perfection from the fact that it is in act, is not nonetheless said to be perfect absolutely speaking, nor good absolutely, but rather in a certain respect. (Summa Theologiae, (Ia, q.5, a.1, ad.1)

The proper goodness of things, in other words, is expressed only through accidents. Being and the Good are convertible, indeed, but they are said according to different rationes. Hence, what is being simply speaking is good in a qualified sense; whereas what is good simply speaking is, as such, being only in a qualified sense. 

The final cause, the cause of all causes, is first in intention but last in execution. It is attained only at the end, in a manner that is extrinsic, as it were, to the being or substance of a thing, though it proceeds from within. The attainment of the final cause, the final union with it, for the sake of which a being exists, towards which it is wholly and entirely oriented - this is something "merely accidental." Union with the end is a perfection that is added to the being of a thing. It is not essential to it. Nonetheless, it is its proper perfection - certainly in a way that is determined by the inner substance of the thing, as an actuality is only the actuality of a specific potency. A particular being has specific potencies for specific actualities - i.e. for specific perfections. The attainment of these perfections is indeed desired by the thing according to its own, inner, substantial nature. But the attainment of the end is not itself the substantial nature of the thing. The attainment of the end is an accident of the being that attains the end.

Especially is this true of man, for whom, above all other creatures (besides the angels), his perfection comes from outside of him (although, again more than all other creatures, the potency for this perfection is indeed within him); and he must proceed from within himself towards what is outside, transcendent, Other, in order to be united to the Good, which is his own good. The attainment of perfection is a matter of ecstasy, which is going outside of oneself. A human person is not a subsistent relation; but he is saved only by entering into a relation.

Man is saved by accidents. Virtues are accidents of the soul. Knowledge is an accident of the soul. Grace is an accident of the soul. The light of glory is an accident of the soul. The Church is an accidental unity. The forms of the Sacraments are accidental unities. We are united to our neighbors in an accidental unity, by the virtue of charity. Our own attainment of our final end, union with God Himself, is an accident of the soul. Suddenly, contrary to all of our initial intuitions, the best and most important things in life come to us in the form of accidents; suddenly we owe the most reverence to things which are accidental - second only to what we owe to God. Without all these accidental things, human life would not only be utterly pale, boring, minimalistic, and iconoclastic; it would also be destined only for death. 

Phaedo 96a-102a and the Platonic Project

In the painting, The Death of Socrates,
Jacque-Louis David depicts Socrates pointing upwards,
towards the realm of metaphysics, as Raphael likewise
depicted Plato in the School of Athens. 

Giovanni Reale refers to this passage of the Phaedo, 96a-102a, as the summary of the entire project of Platonic philosophy, and more broadly of all of traditional Western Metaphysics, in which Platonism manifests itself as the "perennial philosophy." The Platonic project is essentially the resolution of all sciences to the first philosophy, or metaphysics - or the resolution of all reality back to the first and supersensible causes. (Note: broadly speaking, this is also the project of Aristotelian philosophy. Even if Aristotle is more respectful than Plato towards the natural sciences, Aristotle nonetheless recognizes the need to refer the natural sciences back to metaphysics and the account of separate substances as the first causes of all things. Without metaphysics, human knowledge is incomplete. On the surface, Plato and Aristotle may seem to disagree about the nature of the separate substances; but at least in terms of the general project of philosophy, Aristotle is both an inheritor and a teacher of Platonic philosophy.)

From the Phaedo, the Magna Carta of Platonic philosophy:

When I was young, Cebes, I had a prodigious desire to know that department of philosophy which is called the investigation of nature; to know the causes of things, and why a thing is and is created or destroyed appeared to me to be a lofty profession; and I was always agitating myself with the consideration of questions such as these:—Is the growth of animals the result of some decay which the hot and cold principle contracts, as some have said? Is the blood the element with which we think, or the air, or the fire? or perhaps nothing of the kind—but the brain may be the originating power of the perceptions of hearing and sight and smell, and memory and opinion may come from them, and science may be based on memory and opinion when they have attained fixity. And then I went on to examine the corruption of them, and then to the things of heaven and earth, and at last I concluded myself to be utterly and absolutely incapable of these enquiries, as I will satisfactorily prove to you. For I was fascinated by them to such a degree that my eyes grew blind to things which I had seemed to myself, and also to others, to know quite well; I forgot what I had before thought self-evident truths; e.g. such a fact as that the growth of man is the result of eating and drinking; for when by the digestion of food flesh is added to flesh and bone to bone, and whenever there is an aggregation of congenial elements, the lesser bulk becomes larger and the small man great. Was not that a reasonable notion?

Yes, said Cebes, I think so.

Well; but let me tell you something more. There was a time when I thought that I understood the meaning of greater and less pretty well; and when I saw a great man standing by a little one, I fancied that one was taller than the other by a head; or one horse would appear to be greater than another horse: and still more clearly did I seem to perceive that ten is two more than eight, and that two cubits are more than one, because two is the double of one.

And what is now your notion of such matters? said Cebes.

I should be far enough from imagining, he replied, that I knew the cause of any of them, by heaven I should; for I cannot satisfy myself that, when one is added to one, the one to which the addition is made becomes two, or that the two units added together make two by reason of the addition. I cannot understand how, when separated from the other, each of them was one and not two, and now, when they are brought together, the mere juxtaposition or meeting of them should be the cause of their becoming two: neither can I understand how the division of one is the way to make two; for then a different cause would produce the same effect,—as in the former instance the addition and juxtaposition of one to one was the cause of two, in this the separation and subtraction of one from the other would be the cause. Nor am I any longer satisfied that I understand the reason why one or anything else is either generated or destroyed or is at all, but I have in my mind some confused notion of a new method, and can never admit the other.

Then I heard some one reading, as he said, from a book of Anaxagoras, that mind was the disposer and cause of all, and I was delighted at this notion, which appeared quite admirable, and I said to myself: If mind is the disposer, mind will dispose all for the best, and put each particular in the best place; and I argued that if any one desired to find out the cause of the generation or destruction or existence of anything, he must find out what state of being or doing or suffering was best for that thing, and therefore a man had only to consider the best for himself and others, and then he would also know the worse, since the same science comprehended both. And I rejoiced to think that I had found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the causes of existence such as I desired, and I imagined that he would tell me first whether the earth is flat or round; and whichever was true, he would proceed to explain the cause and the necessity of this being so, and then he would teach me the nature of the best and show that this was best; and if he said that the earth was in the centre, he would further explain that this position was the best, and I should be satisfied with the explanation given, and not want any other sort of cause. And I thought that I would then go on and ask him about the sun and moon and stars, and that he would explain to me their comparative swiftness, and their returnings and various states, active and passive, and how all of them were for the best. For I could not imagine that when he spoke of mind as the disposer of them, he would give any other account of their being as they are, except that this was best; and I thought that when he had explained to me in detail the cause of each and the cause of all, he would go on to explain to me what was best for each and what was good for all. These hopes I would not have sold for a large sum of money, and I seized the books and read them as fast as I could in my eagerness to know the better and the worse.

What expectations I had formed, and how grievously was I disappointed! As I proceeded, I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind or any other principle of order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and water, and other eccentricities. I might compare him to a person who began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions of Socrates, but who, when he endeavoured to explain the causes of my several actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my body is made up of bones and muscles; and the bones, as he would say, are hard and have joints which divide them, and the muscles are elastic, and they cover the bones, which have also a covering or environment of flesh and skin which contains them; and as the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able to bend my limbs, and this is why I am sitting here in a curved posture—that is what he would say, and he would have a similar explanation of my talking to you, which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is, that the Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I have thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence; for I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotia—by the dog they would, if they had been moved only by their own idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen the better and nobler part, instead of playing truant and running away, of enduring any punishment which the state inflicts. There is surely a strange confusion of causes and conditions in all this. It may be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts of the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do because of them, and that this is the way in which mind acts, and not from the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of speaking. I wonder that they cannot distinguish the cause from the condition, which the many, feeling about in the dark, are always mistaking and misnaming. And thus one man makes a vortex all round and steadies the earth by the heaven; another gives the air as a support to the earth, which is a sort of broad trough. Any power which in arranging them as they are arranges them for the best never enters into their minds; and instead of finding any superior strength in it, they rather expect to discover another Atlas of the world who is stronger and more everlasting and more containing than the good;—of the obligatory and containing power of the good they think nothing; and yet this is the principle which I would fain learn if any one would teach me. But as I have failed either to discover myself, or to learn of any one else, the nature of the best, I will exhibit to you, if you like, what I have found to be the second best mode of enquiring into the cause.

I should very much like to hear, he replied.

Socrates proceeded:—I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of my soul; as people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing on the sun during an eclipse, unless they take the precaution of only looking at the image reflected in the water, or in some similar medium. So in my own case, I was afraid that my soul might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried to apprehend them by the help of the senses. And I thought that I had better have recourse to the world of mind and seek there the truth of existence. I dare say that the simile is not perfect—for I am very far from admitting that he who contemplates existences through the medium of thought, sees them only 'through a glass darkly,' any more than he who considers them in action and operation. However, this was the method which I adopted: I first assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest, and then I affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether relating to the cause or to anything else; and that which disagreed I regarded as untrue. But I should like to explain my meaning more clearly, as I do not think that you as yet understand me.

No indeed, replied Cebes, not very well.

There is nothing new, he said, in what I am about to tell you; but only what I have been always and everywhere repeating in the previous discussion and on other occasions: I want to show you the nature of that cause which has occupied my thoughts. I shall have to go back to those familiar words which are in the mouth of every one, and first of all assume that there is an absolute beauty and goodness and greatness, and the like; grant me this, and I hope to be able to show you the nature of the cause, and to prove the immortality of the soul.

Cebes said: You may proceed at once with the proof, for I grant you this.

Well, he said, then I should like to know whether you agree with me in the next step; for I cannot help thinking, if there be anything beautiful other than absolute beauty should there be such, that it can be beautiful only in as far as it partakes of absolute beauty—and I should say the same of everything. Do you agree in this notion of the cause?

Yes, he said, I agree.

He proceeded: I know nothing and can understand nothing of any other of those wise causes which are alleged; and if a person says to me that the bloom of colour, or form, or any such thing is a source of beauty, I leave all that, which is only confusing to me, and simply and singly, and perhaps foolishly, hold and am assured in my own mind that nothing makes a thing beautiful but the presence and participation of beauty in whatever way or manner obtained; for as to the manner I am uncertain, but I stoutly contend that by beauty all beautiful things become beautiful. This appears to me to be the safest answer which I can give, either to myself or to another, and to this I cling, in the persuasion that this principle will never be overthrown, and that to myself or to any one who asks the question, I may safely reply, That by beauty beautiful things become beautiful. Do you not agree with me?

I do.

And that by greatness only great things become great and greater greater, and by smallness the less become less?

True.

Then if a person were to remark that A is taller by a head than B, and B less by a head than A, you would refuse to admit his statement, and would stoutly contend that what you mean is only that the greater is greater by, and by reason of, greatness, and the less is less only by, and by reason of, smallness; and thus you would avoid the danger of saying that the greater is greater and the less less by the measure of the head, which is the same in both, and would also avoid the monstrous absurdity of supposing that the greater man is greater by reason of the head, which is small. You would be afraid to draw such an inference, would you not?

Indeed, I should, said Cebes, laughing.

In like manner you would be afraid to say that ten exceeded eight by, and by reason of, two; but would say by, and by reason of, number; or you would say that two cubits exceed one cubit not by a half, but by magnitude?-for there is the same liability to error in all these cases.

Very true, he said.

Again, would you not be cautious of affirming that the addition of one to one, or the division of one, is the cause of two? And you would loudly asseverate that you know of no way in which anything comes into existence except by participation in its own proper essence, and consequently, as far as you know, the only cause of two is the participation in duality—this is the way to make two, and the participation in one is the way to make one. You would say: I will let alone puzzles of division and addition—wiser heads than mine may answer them; inexperienced as I am, and ready to start, as the proverb says, at my own shadow, I cannot afford to give up the sure ground of a principle. And if any one assails you there, you would not mind him, or answer him, until you had seen whether the consequences which follow agree with one another or not, and when you are further required to give an explanation of this principle, you would go on to assume a higher principle, and a higher, until you found a resting-place in the best of the higher; but you would not confuse the principle and the consequences in your reasoning, like the Eristics—at least if you wanted to discover real existence. Not that this confusion signifies to them, who never care or think about the matter at all, for they have the wit to be well pleased with themselves however great may be the turmoil of their ideas. But you, if you are a philosopher, will certainly do as I say.

Syrianus in Response to Aristotle

Today I am thinking about some of Aristotle's objections to the Platonic theory of Forms, and the response to these objections that is given by the late Neoplatonist, Syrianus. What is notable about Syrianus' response is that he seems to employ Aristotle's own concept of focal predication to refute the latter's objections. While Syrianus' refutation of Aristotle is quite polemical and heavy-handed at times, Syrianus clearly has a great deal of respect for Aristotle. One might describe his dialogue with Aristotle as an attempt to bring Aristotle back into line with what he views as the essential tradition of Platonism. His correction of Aristotle is thus not absolute; rather, by his correction of Aristotle he attempts to show that Platonism is indeed compatible with the most fundamental principles of Aristotelian philosophy, despite Aristotle's own failure to recognize this compatibility. 

Aristotle's arguments are presented in a few places. In Book A chapter 9 of Metaphysics, he summarizes some of his most important arguments; and Book M contains a parallel rewritten version of these same arguments. Aristotle's arguments are founded on the presupposition of a dichotomy of absolute univocity versus absolute equivocity – i.e. synonymy versus homonymy – between the Forms and their instances. To recall the theory of Forms, Plato posits the Forms as the exemplars of their particular instances, such that this individual man is only said to be a man by virtue of the Form of Man itself; or the beautiful is said to be beautiful only in virtue of the Beautiful itself. Aristotle is presupposing that the term "beautiful" is said either univocally or equivocally of both the Form and its individual instance, or of Beauty Itself and of this beautiful thing. On either assumption, or univocity or equivocity, Aristotle supposedly discovers that Plato's theory must necessarily fail.

On the presupposition that Forms and particulars are synonymous or univocal, Aristotle cannot see how Plato really succeeds in maintaining any meaningful understanding of the transcendent causality of Form. For example, the Form turns out to be just another particular, perhaps differing in degree of perfection, but still needing another Form to explain it, and so on ad infinitum – the famous “Third Man” argument. On the presupposition that Forms and particulars are homonymous or equivocal, there would seem to be no real community between Forms and their particulars, but only a common name, and perhaps a completely accidental similitude. To describe Forms as “paradigms” in which particulars “participate” is only to utter “empty talk and poetic metaphors.” Nor, however, will Aristotle admit of some middle way between synonymy and homonymy - e.g. a partial overlap of definition, with the added qualifications that Forms are eternal or intelligible, while particulars are temporal and sensible. For it would seem to be completely arbitrary how these properties are added to the definitions of each: i.e. the Form of Circle and a particular circle may share the same definition; but a definition has parts – e.g. a plane figure comprehended by a single line that is equidistant at all points from a single point not on that line, namely the center. To which part of this definition is the attribute “intelligible” or “sensible” to be added, or to the whole? In these, and other related ways, Aristotle seeks to disprove the Platonic position.

In response, Syrianus shows that there is a legitimate third option between pure univocity and pure equivocity; and this he shows by applying Aristotle's own device from Book Γ, the pros hen (πρός  ἔν) manner of predication. Syrianus approves of Aristotle's use of this technique, in his own commentary on Book  Γ, and he appears to reapply this very same reasoning, in his commentary on Book M, in response to Aristotle's own objections against the Forms of Plato in book M: Forms are neither synonymous nor straightforwardly homonymous with their particulars; rather, they are analogous (to use the term which would be employed by the medievals - not necessarily Aristotle's term here; this is an interesting and controverted issue in itself). That is to say, particulars are named homonymously with this qualification, that they nonetheless bear a common focal reference to their Form, which is primary and paradigmatic. Just as substance is the primary being with respect to its accidents, and communicates its being to them, so to speak, so is Form the primary being with respect to its particulars, and it communicates its being to them as their universal paradigmatic cause. Accidents are called beings only with reference to substance - and they are beings only by participation in the being of substance. Likewise, all sensible particulars are what they are only with reference to, and by participation in, their exemplar Forms.

Of course, Syrianus does not solve all questions with this response. Nonetheless, the specific objections of Aristotle, insofar as they rely on the dichotomy of synonymy versus strict homonymy (and an incomplete consideration of some middle ground) - and especially the "Third Man" argument - are at least rendered less convincing. But questions remain concerning how exactly the forms cause anything, as they are meant to; and, moreover, just what kind of things they actually are. 

Πρὀς ἕν - Focal Predication in Aristotle's Metaphysics

The concept of πρὀς ἕν (pros hen - "towards one") predication is perhaps one of the most crucial notions in the whole of the Metaphysics. It is the explanation that Aristotle gives in order to maintain the unity of metaphysics as a science - indeed, the unity of every science. This concept will be of immense importance to the later Neoplatonists, who extend it to explain the relationship between Forms and particulars - and to refute Aristotle's own objections (the irony) against the existence of the Platonic Forms. Following in their footsteps, the medieval scholastics - most notably Thomas Aquinas - will later reformulate this notion in terms of the doctrine of analogy, extending it beyond the homonymous or equivocal predication of being to merely created things, to the relationship between created things and God Himself. 

The unity of the many senses of being is maintained, for Aristotle, by their common reference to the primary being of substance. This he explains in Book Γ, chapter 2, of Metaphysics:

The term being is used in many senses, but with reference to one thing and to some one nature and not equivocally. Thus everything healthy is related to health, one thing because it preserves health, another because it causes it, another because it is a sign of it (as urine) and still another because it is receptive of it. The term medical is related in a similar way to the art of medicine; for one thing is called medical because it possesses the art of medicine, another because it is receptive of it, and still another because it is the act of those who have the art of medicine. We can take other words which are used in a way similar to these. And similarly there are many senses in which the term being is used, but each is referred to a first principle. For some things are called beings because they are substances; others because they are affections of substances; others because they are a process toward substance, or corruptions or privations or qualities of substance, or because they are productive or generative principles of substance, or of things which are related to substance, or the negation of some of these or of substance. For this reason too we say that non-being is non-being. (1003a34-1003b11)

This is essentially a matter of definition. To say that being is meant in many senses is to assert that it has many definitions - or rather, that it has no definition, because it does not have the kind of unity of a genus with is differentiated into many species. Thus, all the "kinds" of being - the ten categories - are not species of being, having in common a single, generic, definition. At first sight, then, it would seem to be the case that "being" is simply equivocal. But this Aristotle denies. Being is not simply equivocal - rather, it is equivocal in a qualified sense, because it is said of all the categories always with reference to the single and primary category of substance. Substance is being most properly speaking; and all of the accidents - as well generative or corruptive processes, or non-being itself - are named only with a focal reference to the being of substance. 

This is primarily a logical claim, and yet it must certainly have something to do with metaphysics, since it is in the Metaphysics that Aristotle employs this principle. It is important and highly interesting to note that, although logic and metaphysics are distinct sciences, they alone of all the sciences are the only two that appear to be equal in scope: logic and metaphysics both study the entirety of being; the difference is in the ratio or formality under which being is considered, either as thought or simply as being. This is indeed why logic is of the utmost importance in the practice of all the sciences: because it is truly universal, in a sense - not in the architectonic, governing sense in which metaphysics is universal. Logic is, so to speak, universally useful (it is a practical science, after all - one of the seven liberal arts). This is seen, for example, in Aristotle's discussion of the good in the Nicomachean Ethics, where "good" is not said univocally, but with a focal reference to some final good which constitutes human happiness. To this claim about how we speak of the good, there also corresponds a profound metaphysics of the good. Thus, although a logical claim is not per se a metaphysical claim, one might have good reason to think that to every logical claim about things there corresponds a metaphysical or ontological truth about the structure of reality. 

Thus, in this particular case, the logical observation is that, in the way we speak, it is the mode of  signifying something as substance which first and foremost bears the notion of the subject in any predication. We can predicate things of any of the other nine categories too - but we never predicate substance of an accident, and we always end up predicating the accidents of a substance. Substance is the root of all predication, the final and fundamental condition for speaking predicates. Now, it is not necessarily true that from every logical claim, the corresponding metaphysical claim can be directly inferred; indeed, it is quite dangerous to attempt to do so. (To one who tries to follow this method, Aristotle's claim about the priority of form in book Z would seem unintelligible, as we have seen in my previous post. Hopefully I will get to write in more detail later on the relation between logic and metaphysics.) Nonetheless, by proper method in the science of metaphysics on its own terms, one can discover the ontological basis for all of logic itself. And on the basis of such method, one can see, with Aristotle, that it is indeed substance which communicates being to all other modes of being. For substance alone is that mode of being which is the most independent, self-subsistent, and determinate; all other modes of being are contingent upon the being of substance itself. Logical analogy seems to correspond to a real structure within the fabric of reality. 

In my next post, I will introduce an important Neoplatonic philosopher to this blog: Syrianus, master of the academy in Athens from about 431-437 AD, and commentator on parts of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Syrianus is perhaps best known for being the teacher of Proclus, who himself became known as one of the greatest and most influential philosophers of Late Antiquity. Syrianus and Proclus were both thoroughly acquainted with the works of both Plato and Aristotle, and they appeared within the context of a trend in Neoplatonism towards the harmonization of these two great masters. However, they were far from uncritical of Aristotle, and they were well aware of Aristotle's own heavy-handed criticisms of the Platonic theory of Forms. I hope, next week, to take a look at Syrianus' use of Aristotle's own notion of πρὀς ἕν predication - the doctrine of analogy or focal meaning - to refute Aristotle's objections against the Forms. 

Substance as Form in Aristotle

It is an easy mistake to inadvertently misconceive Aristotle's Categories as a metaphysical work - that is, that it is a work about things, forgetting that in fact it is not about things per se, but about thought. In my experience, this misconception leads to a peculiar understanding of what is real, i.e. the notion of substance, that is set in explicit opposition to the notion of real that was once put forward by Plato: whereas, for Plato, the real or the substantial was primarily form, for Aristotle it is the composite individual that is primarily real or the substantial, according to the Categories. 

What many students of Aristotle forget, when they read the Categories, is that Aristotle is there speaking in a mode that is according to logical intentions, and not according to the ontological order of things in themselves. According to the mode of intentions, which is the same as the mode of predication, the individual as conceived and signified is that which stands most independently, on its own, in relation to that which is attributed to it (its genera and species, as well as its accidents): it is the subject of a proposition that is expressed as standing on its own, independently, whereas the predicate is expressed precisely as being dependent upon the subject. And it is the individual in the genus of substance that is most of all a subject, in propositions. It is not predicated of anything, but all genera and species, and all other categories, are predicated of it. 

This conception of substance is expressed in the Categories, chapter 5: 

Substance, in the truest and primary and most definite sense of the word, is that which is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject; for instance, the individual man or horse. But in a secondary sense those things are called substances within which, as species, the primary substances are included; also those which, as genera, include the species. For instance, the individual man is included in the species 'man', and the genus to which the species belongs is 'animal'; these, therefore-that is to say, the species 'man' and the genus 'animal,-are termed secondary substances. 

Witness the apparent contrast with these couple of excerpts from Aristotle's Metaphysics, book Z (or book 7), chapter 3:

The term substance is used chiefly of four things, if not of more; for the essence (or quiddity) and the universal and the genus seem to be the substance of each thing, and fourthly the subject. Now the subject is that of which the others are predicated, while it itself is not predicated of anything else. And for this reason it is first necessary to establish the truth about this, because this first subject seems in the truest sense to be substance. 

Now in one sense matter is said to be the subject, and in another, the form, and in still another, the thing composed of these. By matter I mean the bronze, and by form the specifying figure, and by the thing composed of these the whole statue. 

If, then, the specifying principle is prior to the matter and is being to a greater degree, for the same reason it will also be prior to the thing composed of these... (1028b33-1029a8)

For to exist separately and to be a particular thing seem to belong chiefly to substance; and for this reason it would seem that the specifying principle and the thing composed of both the specifying principle and matter are substance to a greater degree than matter. 

Yet that substance which is now composed of both (I mean of form and matter) must be dismissed; for it is subsequent and open to view. And matter too is in a sense evident. But it is necessary to investigate the third kind of substance, for this is the most perplexing. (1029a29-1029b1)

Here, in contrast to the Categories, Aristotle seems to be asserting that substance is primarily form, rather than the individual that is composed of form and matter. This is potentially confusing to the young student of Aristotelian philosophy. Moreover, many modern interpreters have taken this as a sign that Aristotle rejected the view which he originally proposed in the Categories, and thus the whole philosophical system of Aristotle loses its inner coherence and unity. But I think the key to maintaining the coherence of Aristotle's philosophy is to recognize the difference, though there is a close connection, between logic and metaphysics. Logic treats the intentional order, the order of the mind, the modes of conceptualization and signification, whereas metaphysics treats the real order, the modes of being, unconditioned by mental modes and categories. 

In the real order, as contrasted with the logical order, that which is in fact the most real is the form of a thing, its inner actuality, because it simply is the reality of the thing. The composite only has the notion of substance, of something real, because this notion is communicated to it by the form. Thus, the form has the notion of substance or reality in a way that is prior to the composite itself. The form itself just is the reality of the composite. Act is prior to potency; and it is prior to its own dilution by the admixture of potency - i.e. composition. Substance, inasmuch as it is that which is most independently actual, is therefore primarily the form, since form is to matter as act to potency. Thus, the initial temptation to unqualifiedly oppose Aristotle to Plato is unfounded, since both of them give priority of being to the form, and not to the composite individual.

But there is still confusion. Is it not the case that Plato, in attributing primary reality not to sensible individuals but to their forms, intended to separate form from matter, such that Forms have an existence on their own, as subsistent entities? Is this not exactly what Aristotle denies? Is this not the definitive point of difference between these two great philosophers? 

Thus, the question remains how Aristotle compares to Plato in respect to the precise notion of the separation of form from matter. What did Plato mean by separation? Is there anything in Aristotle that is analogous to the separate Forms of Plato? What are we to make of Aristotle's heavy criticisms of the Platonic Forms? What does all of this entail for the universals? Are Plato's Forms not just hypostasized or reified universals? Are Aristotle's separate substances - and what, indeed, are these? - universals in any sense?

So far, my research has revealed to me that these questions are answered, perhaps in an inchoate way, and in various ways, by the Neoplatonists, whether in their own separate treatises or in commentaries which they made on the texts of Aristotle himself. One of the hallmarks of the various Neoplatonic strands of thought is the attempt to reconcile, to some degree or another, the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, both of whom they viewed and respected as masters of philosophy. Certainly, the Neoplatonic commentaries were not without heavy criticisms of Aristotle. But on the whole, what the attitude of the Neoplatonists reveal is the possibility of integrating Aristotle's project within the project of Platonism as a whole: the voyage of discovery that begins with sensible reality and proceeds to the sublime heights of the supersensible, the purely intelligible - an essentially theological project (in the sense of natural, not revealed, theology).

This year, and probably next year too, in some form, I will be working on a research project that focuses on the Neoplatonic gradual integration of Aristotle's Metaphysics into the Platonic program, which prefigures what I take to be the great synthesis that occurs in the Middle Ages, with Thomas Aquinas. Today's thoughts on substance as form were a first step, still to be developed, in building up my own understanding of that project in detail, informed by a closer reading of the original texts. I will, of course, be posting more of my thoughts in the upcoming weeks and months. In my next few posts, hopefully, I will attempt to address some of the questions listed above.

Tradition and Reverence for Form

Today's thought pertains quite closely to that of the previous post, on the subject of form and the attitude of reverence. This is a topic with widespread consequences in discussions of politics and culture. The following excerpt is taken from Richard Weaver's classic piece of conservative literature, Ideas Have Consequences (my emphasis):

"Ideas have consequences."
-- Richard Weaver

The man of self-control is he who can consistently perform the feat of abstraction. He is therefore trained to see things under the aspect of eternity, because form is the enduring part. Thus we invariably find in the man of true culture a deep respect for forms. He approaches even those he does not understand with awareness that a deep thought lies in an old observance. Such respect distinguishes him from the barbarian, on the one hand, and the degenerate, on the other. The truth can be expressed in another way by saying that the man of culture has a sense of style. Style requires measure, whether in space or time, for measure imparts structure, and it is structure which is essential to intellectual apprehension. (23)

I think this excerpt contains a remarkable insight - which desperately needs to be developed - concerning the profound connection between traditional culture and form as something worthy of respect or reverence. A truly cultured man has reverence for tradition, because he has reverence for form - the aspect of things that is most divine and enduring, that most transcends space and time. As such, form is what constitutes the sacredness of things: the immanent presence in a contingent, transient world, of something which is itself transcendent and eternal. Such a thing is not to be approached lightly or with an attitude of easy dismissal; rather it is to be approached for the deep enlightenment which it may have to offer. Tradition is essentially an issue of forms. Forms that are, perhaps, apparently conventional and artificial - or artistic, a word which, I think, better conveys a sense of non-arbitrariness - but they are forms nonetheless. 

Perhaps, however, the objection which the liberal minded modernist might bring against this claim, that the respect for tradition is founded upon the respect for form, is precisely that traditional forms are merely artificial, or merely conventional - that is to say, that they are precisely arbitrary. Reverence for arbitrary forms would indeed seem to be quite unfounded. This is, I think, exactly where Weaver's thought is in need of further development: the traditionalist must establish either: 1) that even the arbitrary forms of human tradition are deserving of respect, and hence that tradition is deserving of respect; or 2) that such forms are, in fact, not arbitrary after all, but profoundly rooted in a nature that is beyond the arbitrary construction of human whims and fancies. I think Weaver, Platonist that he famously is, would subscribe unhesitatingly to the latter view, probably with the Aristotelian defense that art imitates nature; and it is only to the degree that man seeks, by his artistic faculties, to depart from the model of nature that the "forms" which he creates become truly arbitrary. Accordingly, it is the modern liberal mindset, which glorifies individual autonomy over any pre-individualistic standard or archetype, such as might be received in a pre-existing tradition, that is truly arbitrary and unworthy of our reverence or respect. 

Form, Reverence, Myth... Wherein I Speak of Things Divine

"The world is charged with the grandeur of God..."

Form and esse, those principles in things by which they are actual, are also the principles in things by which they have some share, some participation, in the divine. Inasmuch as the divine is present in them - by way of a contracted similitude - they command an attitude of reverence in the soul who encounters them. Creatures are symbols of God, in each their own fashion, to the degree that they participate in God's likeness - which is to the degree that they have form and being. Form is the intrinsic grandeur of things. This is one place where metaphysics leads to a kind of sublime and reverential contemplation: when the philosopher simply basques in the mystery of being, when he gazes with the eye of his soul upon the resplendence of form in things, he is fulfilling, if only in a partial way, the destiny of his human nature. And note, here I do not mean merely the consideration of the abstract species, but the apprehension of the relation of participation which this species has towards the more universal form of the angelic natures, and especially God. 

The whole trajectory of philosophy is towards vision. To know the inner reality and essences of things is, in a way, to anticipate the pure vision that occurs at the very height of philosophy, where reasoning ceases, and the soul simply rests in the contemplating the most universal principle, the One. This vision is, of course, not fully attainable by philosophical endeavor, but only by the life of holiness and the grace of God, according to traditional Christian doctrine. But it is helpful to recognize, in a qualified sense, the homogeneity or continuity of knowledge that begins in the natural consideration of being and form in things, and terminates in a supernatural beatific vision that could not be attained without grace. I say "in a qualified" sense, because there is a certain heterogeneity between nature and grace; it is important to maintain their distinction in kind, not in mere degree, while still recognizing that grace transforms and elevates nature "from the inside," as it were, not by being merely tacked on like a cherry on top. (I am, of course, referring to the De Lubac affair.)

This is, I think, one of those important connections which metaphysics bears upon the living out of the philosophic life in practice - at least in terms of the fundamental attitude of life: the attitude of reverence. Philosophy, in this sense, is not merely an isolated academic study, though it certainly involves that to a very large degree. Rather, philosophy as a way of life is characterized by a basic way of approaching reality in one's very experience of it, day to day. In the light of such a conception of philosophy, the world becomes suddenly alive with a divine mystery, and the philosopher acquires an awareness that is very much like that of the poet: he senses that he is part of a grand myth (which does not mean a mere fable, by the way), in which the main players are not only men but also gods and angels... This may be a rather quaint way of thinking, but something very analogous is true of the Christian life itself, which one may describe as "lived theology": as Christians, with a kind of theological awareness, we become characters in a mythical plot that is much grander and more beautiful than our own individual roles. We are participators in an action that is performed by God, a God-man, angels, heroes, kings, and sages. Reverence and awe, of the sort due to epic tales and legends, are the characteristic emotions of a life lived this way. (And again, I do not mean tales, legends, or myths, in the sense of a make-believe fable. All the ancient cultures were animated by the belief that their myth was in fact, in some sense, their own ancient past. Mythology was their revelation, a record of a time when gods walked the earth and interacted with men, when miracles of a grand scale shaped the world and the course of its history. Christianity does not lack this element - on the contrary, the historical reality of the Incarnation is crucial to our faith.)

It may seem a very wide jump from the metaphysical notions of form and being, as conceived by very rational men like Aristotle and Thomas, to this more poetic and literary way of conceiving the philosophic life. We moderns are not accustomed to associating these things. Even the modern Aristotelian will often treat the notion of form less as an occasion for mythical awe than as an opportunity for study and investigation. But the world of the ancients had not thus been demythologized and disenchanted. Even for Aristotle and Thomas, form was something divine in things, a powerful symbol and residue of divine activity. The relation of cause and effect was not the mere physical and mechanical notion that it is today, but a tale of divine art. Aristotle may have been much more moderate than Plato in his expression of these ideas, when he wrote his Physics, but the spirit of the Timaeus is in important ways more characteristic of the ancient view of the divine cosmogony. The cosmogony is still taking place, indeed: the gods are still active in the world. God has even become a man in these latter days, and the meaning of things has been renewed and transformed in the context of Christ's revelation. We need only have eyes to see - or the faith to believe - the form that is bestowed on things by the Incarnation.

For this kind of life, worship pervades the whole, being concentrated at a certain topmost level of contemplative activity - which, I would argue, occurs first and foremost in a kind of religious ritual. This is described as theurgy - the work of God - by the Neoplatonists. Theurgy is the context within which the divine meaning of things is fully actualized by the mediation of man as priest-theurgist, and returned back to the gods in the act of sacrifice. In theurgy, the myth of the gods is relived and experienced in a special way. I do not believe Aristotle had a notion of theurgy, at least explicitly, but I think it coincides quite nicely with his account of contemplation, which occurs at the height of metaphysics. In Christian theology, this is, of course, the sacred liturgy, where the attitude of reverence is especially concentrated and focused on the sacramental presence of God, especially in the Eucharist. Indeed, in the liturgy, by way of symbolic forms and meanings, the divine cosmogonic myth of redemption, performed by Christ, is energetically relived upon Christian altars in Christian sanctuaries. We the faithful become participators of a divine story.

An example of Christian Theurgy.

Exitus-Reditus and Nostalgia in Theology

It is the office of the wise man to dispose things in order, and this he does in view of the end or final cause of these things. (SGC, I,1). Theology - which, more than any other science, is wisdom - has for its end or final cause the salvation of humanity: "It was necessary for man's salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God..." (ST Ia, q.1, a.1). Man's salvation consists in the knowledge of God: "For this is eternal life, that they might know Thee, the only true God..." (John 17:3). It is striking to me that St. Thomas gives human salvation as the purpose of theology itself, which is a science. It seems that St. Thomas must therefore closely associate the study of theology with the Christian life itself - that is, theology has something to do with living well, since it has for its end the eternal beatitude of man.

But theology does not only end with the beatific vision, the knowledge of God, it also begins with it. Every lower science, St. Thomas tells us (Ia, q.1, a.2), receives its principles from a higher science, as music receives its principles from mathematics. In each science, the principles are accepted by a kind of faith. In theology, these principles are none other than the articles of faith, which are received from "the science of God and the blessed." Beatific vision - God's knowledge of Himself, the participation of the blessed in this divine knowing - is the source and beginning of sacred theology. This is the structure of exitus-reditus: procession and return. The perfection of things consists in their return to the first principle from which they proceeded in the first place.

Theology is thus an essentially nostalgic affair: it seeks to return home, to its beginning, to the beginning of all things, indeed. God is called the subject of this science, even though other things are studied in theology, because it is He who is the principle and end of all things: things are only considered, in theology, inasmuch as they refer to Him as their principle and end. Moreover, the very division of theology, in the Summa, according to Thomas, is structure according to this conception: 1) God in Himself (in which we also consider God as Creator, i.e. beginning of all things); 2) man's advance and return to God (in which, accordingly, we consider God as the end of all things); and 3) Christ, who, as man, is our way to God. (Ia, q.2, prologue.)

Tentative Thoughts on Participation...

This is a somewhat tentative exploration of the doctrine of participation and its meaning, inspired by a variety of reading that I have done on the subject. Hopefully in the upcoming months I will be involved in more intensive studies, and will be able to explore the subject with more depth and recourse to texts and authorities.

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In logic, as in the Categories of Aristotle, substance is said primarily of the individual in a genus or species, which is a composite, and secondarily of the genus or species itself. The individual substance as such is predicated of nothing, though it is itself the subject of many predications. The logician is here considering things according to how they are defined in speech; the naming of things accordingly is a kind of mental construction, built to reflect the structure of understanding rather than the structure of reality itself directly. 

In metaphysics, the case is quite different. The metaphysician considers things according to an understanding of their intrinsic and real order outside the mind. It is not so much a question of speech as it is of existence. Individual beings, as considered by metaphysics, are dependent and composite, inasmuch as their very substantiality is communicated to them by one of their parts, namely their form. It is, indeed, from the form that the matter and the whole composite receive the notion of "what it is," that is, that it is "this something." The form, which is actuality, is thus said to have the notion of substantiality in a manner that is simply prior to the substantiality of matter and the composite itself. In other words, form considered in itself exists more independently and on its own right than even the composite itself, and in the composite, it is the form which gives substantiality to the whole.

From this, Aristotle easily infers the existence of absolutely prior forms which exist without composition with matter: these are the separate intelligible substances, beings of a purely spiritual nature. These separate intelligible beings bear the notion of substance in a way that is simple, uncontracted, and whole, in comparison to the partial and contracted manner in which sensible things bear this notion, i.e. by participation in form. Intelligible substances are uncontracted and unlimited form; sensible substances are contracted and limited actualities, because their forms exist in matter. In other words, intelligible substances bear the notion of substantiality through themselves, composite substances through their forms.

Plato thought that the separate substances were the same in species as - or that they were the species of - sensible composites. Aristotle denies the sameness in species simply speaking, but he maintains the existence of separate substances which stand in some way as archetypes of actuality to the lesser and more contracted actualities of sensible beings, which are mixed with and limited by potency. St. Thomas makes this even more evident, and develops a full doctrine of participation that is inspired by Plato but harmonious with Aristotle, drawing out its full implications with regard to the participation of creatures by likeness in the divine being itself.

In some sense, for St. Thomas, it remains that sensible substances are some kind of image with respect to intelligible substances, insofar as they participate in some likeness of the actuality of the latter. There is a fullness of actuality to which one might think the form of a man indeed corresponds, but as a limited and contracted actuality. This fullness of actuality would not in fact be "Man Itself," as if it were the specific form of a man existing in a real, separate, but abstract mode; in this sense, then, Plato errs in positing the separate species of sensible particulars. Nonetheless, the particular man does bear a real relation to some fuller actuality which is not limited by matter, and of which the form of a man is really only a contracted image in matter. Plato is thus perfectly correct to insist that the archetypes in which sensible creatures participate are more real than sensible creatures themselves, quite by definition, for they possess a fuller, more complete, and simpler actuality. Participation thus means, for Thomas (in full harmony with Aristotle) as well as for Plato, the reception by a limited and particular thing of that which belongs in a more universal and complete way to something else. It is important to emphasize here that, for both Thomas and Plato, this received or participated nature is found in a more universal way in something that, indeed, actually exists, something that is truly one in number, and hence universal in the very mode of its being. Ultimately, any finite or composed creature, even a separate substance such as an angel, bears a relation of participation to God Himself, inasmuch as God is supersubstantial being in Himself, perfect simplicity and pure actuality, absolutely uncontracted by any admixture or potency, devoid of all composition - whether of matter and form or of essence and existence. All thing, sensible or intelligible, participate in Him by likeness insofar as they possess some measure of actuality, in being or in form. This God is the One, or the Good, of Plato, the ultimate transcendent first principle, the source and archetype of all things.

However, for St. Thomas, this universality of being is strictly distinguished from that sense of universality which is according to predication, i.e. something merely said of many. This is precisely what, despite the profound truth of his doctrine, Plato seemingly failed to distinguish (according to the most common reading of him): universality of being, on the one hand, and universality of predication, on the other hand. The separate substances which he posited were understood to be the species of things; and species is an intentional category, a predicable term. "Man itself," or "humanity," is something said of many, and thus it is a universal predicate, and as such a being of the mind. Plato supposed - according to the most common reading of him - that this species was also a universal being existing actually in concreto, that is, outside the mind, but in a manner free from the conditions of particularity. But Plato is here jumping from the way we speak - again the logical consideration of things - to the way things actually are - which is a metaphysical consideration. He supposed that, from the fact that we say the same thing about various instances, it must follow that there is some separate reality which corresponds to the common attribute named, i.e. that the spoken universal corresponded to some really existing universal being, one in number but somehow causal of all the instances which take part in it. Aristotle and Thomas realized, more moderately, that from common predicates, it does not follow that there is some common species that exists separately, but merely that all the individual instances are alike in form. There is indeed a commonality among them, but that commonality is something one only insofar as it is abstracted by the intellect, and thereby exists as a unity in the intellect. Outside the intellect it only exists in multiplicity, that is in the multitude of particulars of which it is the species. In other words, its existence as one and universal is merely intentional, and thus predicative, rather than truly causal or real.

This distinction is crucial, for if it is not maintained, then we fall easily into pantheism, by seeking to maintain that the common species of things is also some real existing thing that is separate and one in number, but still informs the things of which it is the species. All things are divinized by their common sharing of a single form which is a divine being in itself. Doubtless, Thomas and Aristotle are concerned to maintain the divinity of form in things - not, however, by conceiving it as a single divine being that somehow inheres in a multiplicity of beings, but as a contracted and multiplied image of something other and separate that is itself more divine and one in number, such as an angel, or ultimately God Himself. Thus, the truth of participation is maintained, but the error of pantheism avoided.

Thus, Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas could be seen to be in profound agreement that particular things really do participate in an actuality that belongs more universally to something else that really exists as a separate substance, and ultimately the divine substance. But this universal substance is not, for Aristotle and Thomas, a species of any sensible thing or things, as it was for Plato, but it is entirely its own species; that is, what is universal in being, in which particulars participate, is not also universal in predication, and vice versa. Nonetheless, it remains true to affirm, with Plato, that that substance in which lesser beings participate is truly a real, and separately existing substance - indeed, it is more real and more substantial in itself than anything which participates in it.

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There is a question emerging in all of this, for those who know St. Thomas well, concerning the role that the divine ideas might play in relation to participation. According to a certain understanding, it seems appropriate to say that, for Thomas, the divine ideas essentially replace the Platonic forms, and that creatures might be said to participate by a kind of likeness in the divine ideas themselves, just as Plato would say they participate in the forms or separate species. (This post is largely informed by this way of thinking.) According to such a reading of St. Thomas, the Platonic notion of form is saved by replacing the forms within the divine intellect, since only in this way could their intelligible mode of existence really be maintained - for it is ultimately impossible to say that, as intelligible species, they have a separate existence all of their own, as Aristotle showed. But recently, after reading from Gregory Doolan's book on the divine ideas in St. Thomas, I have become less sure of this reading of St. Thomas, specifically the interpretation according to which creatures participate in a divine idea. Certainly the divine ideas, as Plato's forms, play some sort of causal role towards creatures, but it is less clear how that role corresponds to a notion of participation. As we have seen thus far, St. Thomas preserves Plato's doctrine of participation, but he seems to shift it away from the species and towards the separate substances which have their greater real universality in virtue of being more actual, simply speaking. In other words, it is a notion of participation which takes less account of the kinds of things, but more account of their very thing-hood, i.e. their substantiality. (It is of supreme interest that, whereas pre-Aquinas it seems that the fundamental tension between Plato and Aristotle is participation versus substantiality, for St. Thomas these two things cannot be conceived apart from each other.) Substantiality is the primary attribute of being as being. Thus, according to this account, it is in regard to their being, rather than their kind, their whatness (quidditas), or their essence, that they are said to participate in the divine substance.

So, again, here is the question: What, then, do the divine ideas have to do with participation? Anything at all? Is there anything more which Plato put forward about the ideas that might be saved, if perhaps modified, by St. Thomas and integrated with the metaphysics of Aristotle? Perhaps the above account of participation, which seems to focus on the substantiality of things, i.e. their existence, need not be exhaustive. Perhaps an even more complete account of participation will include some account of how things participate, according to their specific forms, in the divine ideas. Such an account would have to be careful to maintain the distinctions we have already made, i.e. between universals in re and in praedicando, but perhaps this is quite possible?

This is all for another post. Right now it is just a question, to which I am not yet sufficiently well-informed to have a solution which I comfortable to propose. Some other time, perhaps, after more study and reading, I will do my best to address this. But discussion is certainly welcome now.