New Research on the Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann 9783110434378, 9783110441024

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New Research on the Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann

New Research on the Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann Edited by Keith Peterson and Roberto Poli

ISBN 978-3-11-044102-4 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-043437-8 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-043314-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Table of Contents Part One: Philosophy of Nature and Ontology Roberto Poli Chapter 1 Pure and Qualified Time

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Simonluca Pinna Chapter 2 Hartmann on Spacetime and Geometry Kari Väyrynen Chapter 3 Nicolai Hartmann’s Concept of Causality

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Carlo Brentari Chapter 4 “The Role of the Missing Reason”: The Search for a Stratum-Specific Form of Determination in Nicolai Hartmann’s Theory of Life 65 Michael Kleineberg Chapter 5 From Linearity to Co-Evolution: On the Architecture of Nicolai Hartmann’s 81 Levels of Reality Keith R. Peterson Chapter 6 Flat, Hierarchical, or Stratified? Determination and Dependence in 109 Social-Natural Ontology

Part Two: Hartmann and Others Claudia Luchetti Chapter 7 The Discovery of A Priori Knowledge: Hartmann’s Interpretation of Plato’s Theory of Recollection 135

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Tina Röck Chapter 8 The Being of Becoming in Pre-socratic Philosophy

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Simona Bertolini Chapter 9 Beings in the World: Elements for a Comparison between Nicolai Hartmann and Roman Ingarden 171 Salvatore Vasta Chapter 10 The Place of Nicolai Hartmann’s Ontology in Konrad Lorenz’s Epistemology 191

Part Three: Individual and Objective Spirit Robert Zaborowski Chapter 11 Investigating Affectivity in light of Hartmann’s Layered Structure of 209 Reality Natalia Danilkina Chapter 12 From Value Being to Human Being: The Ways of Nicolai Hartmann’s Anthropology 229 Andreas A. M. Kinneging Chapter 13 Nicolai Hartmann and Natural Law

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Katrin Lörch Chapter 14 Personality, Autonomy, Fairness: On Nicolai Hartmann’s Material Ethics of Value in the Age of Human Enhancement 267 Jordi Claramonte Chapter 15 Modal Aesthetics

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Carlo Scognamiglio Chapter 16 Nicolai Hartmann’s Thoughts on Education

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Predrag Cicovacki Chapter 17 “The Socratic Pathos of Wonder”: On Hartmann’s Conception of Philosophy 313 Author Index Subject Index

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Foreword There is clear evidence that international interest in the philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann is growing. Numbered among these pieces of evidence are recent essay collections devoted to Hartmann’s philosophy in German and English (Hartung/Wunsch/Strube 2012; Poli/Scognamiglio/Tremblay 2011), international conferences on his work, reissued editions and translations of Hartmann’s works into English (Hartmann 2002; 2004; 2012; 2013; 2014), and papers and books published in numerous languages over the past decade, including English, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish.¹ This volume is a further contribution to the new research in the growing English-language literature on Hartmann. It is not our intention here to introduce Hartmann to readers not already familiar with his philosophy and approach, since introductory essays are readily available (e. g., Poli 2012; Peterson 2012). This volume of essays has been selected from the papers presented at the Second International Conference of the Nicolai Hartmann Society held in Trento, Italy, 25 – 27 August 2014. The order in which the papers appear here is somewhat arbitrary, but we have made the attempt to organize them thematically, partially in accordance with Hartmann’s own conception of philosophy. Here we will say a few words about the individual contributions in relation to these major thematic areas. While he wrote on virtually every major philosophical topic, Hartmann was primarily an ontologist, and he was a central figure in the renaissance of ontology in the early twentieth century. His distinctive realist ontology cut somewhat against the grain of the philosophical mainstream at the time, but the philosophical atmosphere is now more hospitable to realist investigations into the philosophy of nature and ontology. In the first section on “Philosophy of Nature and Ontology” are included chapters on Hartmann’s conceptions of time, causality and determination, and stratification or levels of reality. His extensive analysis of time and space in his massive tome Philosophie der Natur takes up more than two-hundred pages of the book, and has been seldom treated. The first two papers deal with this analysis. With reference to the discussions of time in Hartmann’s philosophy of nature, R. Poli draws a distinction between pure time (as ontological category or principle) and qualified time or temporality (as categorial determination). He argues that without such a distinction, current theories of time suffer from several categorial confusions, especially concerning social time. S. Pinna places Hartmann’s discussions of the fundamental catego An extensive bibliography can be found at the webpage of the Nicolai Hartmann Society, formed in . See nicolaihartmannsociety.org/?page_id=.

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ries of physics into the context of contemporary debates in modern quantum and relativity theory over the epistemic and ontological status of spacetime. He claims that Hartmann would agree with those physicists who uphold the ontological primacy of geometrical categories. Hartmann’s pluralistic ontology also articulates no less than fifteen forms of determination, including the causal nexus, the organic nexus, and the finalistic nexus. K. Väyrynen remarks on the innovative nature of Hartmann’s conception of causality, and points out both its consonance and its dissonance with contemporary discussions of causality. In light of it, he challenges contemporary theorists to incorporate ontological discussions of causality as extensive as Hartmann’s own. C. Brentari examines Hartmann’s special categories for characterizing organic life, and carefully situates his views beyond the sterile debate between mechanists and teleological vitalists. He claims that the autonomous mode of determination proper to living things is relevant for contemporary discussions of biosemiotics as well. Finally, perhaps the most distinctive feature of Hartmann’s categorial ontology is his conception of ontological strata. The last two contributions in this section address his conception of stratification from two different directions. M. Kleineberg considers the concept of ontological levels of reality, and contests Hartmann’s linear ordering of levels in light of other models, including Poli’s triangular scheme and Wilber’s quadrant model. He argues that a “co-evolutionary” model is more fitting for describing the structure of the real world. K. Peterson also addresses the notion of ontological levels, marking some differences between ancient hierarchical, contemporary flat, and Hartmann’s stratified ontologies. He argues that the originality of Hartmann’s stratified view should not be underestimated, that it should not readily be assimilated with other hierarchical schemes, and that it is in fact more appropriate than others for characterizing the dependent position of human beings in the world. The second section, “Hartmann and Others,” shows that Hartmann was almost always in implicit or explicit dialogue with his predecessors and contemporaries, and that his work can also be profitably used to illuminate them. His early work on the Greeks, especially Plato, under the influence of Natorp and Cohen at Marburg, remained significant for him throughout his career. C. Luchetti examines Hartmann’s interpretation of Plato’s theory of recollection with reference to the concept of the a priori, and how his interpretation differs from his teacher Natorp’s. She argues that Hartmann avoids the pitfall of interpreting apriorism through the anachronistic lens of Kantianism, which results in a superior interpretation of Plato and the a priori. T. Röck discusses Hartmann’s ontology with reference to the concept of physis in early Greek philosophy, and argues that by avoiding the post-Parmenidean “division” of being and becoming, Hartmann’s

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ontology conforms in its fundamental ontological perspective with the early Greek conception of the “being of becoming.” While Hartmann’s categorial, stratified ontology is unique in the twentieth century, it does share some similarities with the ontology of at least one of his contemporaries, Roman Ingarden. S. Bertolini compares the ontologies of Ingarden and Hartmann, marking some similarities and significant differences, while contrasting their “eidetic” and concrete methodologies. She concludes that although they come at the phenomena of the world from different sides—Ingarden through beings and Hartmann through the whole—the terms of their frameworks may still be profitably compared. Finally, though Hartmann’s work was not often directly influential on other philosophers, it did exercise a great deal of influence on some of his scientific contemporaries, including Ludwig Bertalanffy and Konrad Lorenz. S. Vasta shows how ethologist and theoretician Konrad Lorenz appropriated Hartmann’s philosophy for his own purposes, particularly in his organological interpretation of the Kantian a priori and evolutionary ontological realism. He argues that Lorenz uses Hartmann’s philosophy to overcome difficulties with his earlier biologization of the Kantian a priori. Hartmann’s work in ethics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of history, social theory, and aesthetics embrace what he considers both “Individual and Objective Spirit.” The first two papers in this section concern the border lines between psychological, anthropological and spiritual individuality. R. Zaborowski uses Hartmann’s categorial laws of stratification to reconsider the nature of the emotions in contemporary philosophical debates. He argues that Hartmann’s stratified scheme provides a promising scaffolding for a multi-leveled conception of affectivity that would move the study of emotions beyond its current impasse. N. Danilkina illuminates the different concepts of the human being at work in the juncture between Hartmann’s ethical theory and his anthropology. Hartmann’s value ethics and social theory are explicitly addressed in the next two contributions. A. Kinneging considers Hartmann’s ethical and social theory in the context of the tradition of natural law, broadly construed, and makes a case for including Hartmann in this tradition. Although Hartmann never made any claims to be part of this tradition, his professed moral realism places him on the side of the natural law thinkers. K. Lörch assesses a few aspects of the contemporary debates over human enhancement technologies with reference to Hartmann’s ethical theory, which provides a fruitful resource for reconsidering the conception of autonomy in these debates. His stratified conception of the human being serves as critical ballast preventing one-sided conceptions of the self and of the values to be achieved through enhancement, whether bioconservative or bioliberal.

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The last three papers address Hartmann’s thoughts on education, his concepts of modality applied to aesthetics, and his definition of philosophy. J. Claramonte adopts Hartmann’s modal vocabulary to introduce the notion of a modal aesthetics, contributing some valuable heuristic categories to the consideration of art history and aesthetic culture. The necessary-repertorial is contrasted with the possible-dispositional mode, which are taken to always co-exist as live options in aesthetic culture, checked at every stage by often-conflicting actual practices. C. Scognamiglio considers Hartmann’s contribution to the philosophy of education with reference to his entire systematic approach, which bears chiefly on the concept of spirit and the transmission of spiritual tradition. He urges a rehabilitation of the concept of Geist for educational theory, which enables us to overcome debilitating tensions between concepts of the individual and the collective, and between self-disciplined motivation and embrace of tradition. Finally, P. Cicovacki meditates on Hartmann’s conception of philosophy and the place of “wonder” in it. He reconsiders Hartmann’s definition of philosophy in the context of the contemporary contrast between analytic and continental styles of philosophy, as well as in the context of the historical reception of Greek philosophy, and finds Hartmann to be closer to a particular Greek conception of the “pathos of wonder” than to either contemporary camp. With the exception of Hartmann passages used in the chapters which come from existing English translations, all Hartmann translations have been checked and revised for consistency by K. Peterson. We would like to thank Anna Thin and especially Shelby O’Neill for their valuable editing assistance. We should also express our gratitude to Walter de Gruyter publishers for their continuing enthusiasm and support for this renewed interest in Hartmann’s work. Keith Peterson Roberto Poli

References Hartmann, N. (2002): Moral Phenomena: Vol. 1 of Ethics. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers. Hartmann, N. (2003): Moral Values: Vol. 2 of Ethics. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers. Hartmann, N. (2004): Moral Freedom: Vol. 3 of Ethics. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers. Hartmann, N. (2012): New Ways of Ontology. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers. Hartmann, N. (2013): Possibility and Actuality. Trans. Scott, A./Adair, S. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.

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Hartmann, N. (2014): Aesthetics. Trans. Kelly, E. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. Hartung, G./Strube, C./Wunsch, M. (Eds.) (2012): Von der Systemphilosophie zur systematischen Philosophie: Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. Peterson, K. (2012): “An Introduction to Nicolai Hartmann’s Critical Ontology”. In: Axiomathes 22, 291 – 314. Poli, R./Scognamiglio, C./Tremblay, F. (Eds.) (2011): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. Poli, R. (2012): “Nicolai Hartmann”. In: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition). Zalta, Edward N. (Ed.). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/ nicolai-hartmann/.

Part One: Philosophy of Nature and Ontology

Roberto Poli

Chapter 1 Pure and Qualified Time 1 Introduction

The main result of the present chapter is the ontological distinction between the pure category of real time and qualified time or temporality as the property possessed by entities that last in time. Hartmann’s categorial analysis of time in his Philosophy of Nature (1950) serves as an important reference point. The distinction between pure and qualified time is explored particularly with reference to various modes of “social time.” Most contemporary discussion in the philosophy of time refers to McTaggart’s distinction between A-series and B-series (McTaggart 1908). These two positions are often called, respectively, the dynamic or tensed theory of time and the static or tenseless theory of time. The static theory is also known as the “block” theory of time (Bardon 2013; Markosian 2014). McTaggart presents two ways of ordering time: using either relations like “two days in the future,” “one day in the future,” “now,” “one day in the past,” etc., or relations like “two days earlier than,” “one day earlier than,” “simultaneous with,” etc. The relations of the former group form what McTaggart called the “A-series,” while those of the latter group form the “B-series.” The main difference between the two series is that according to A-relations (i. e., the relations characterizing the A-series) time flows, while according to B-relations, time does not flow—which is why the former theory is called “dynamic” and the latter “static.” The event that is presently two days in the future will tomorrow be one day in the future; the day after, it will be present; and, on the subsequent days, it will gradually shrink into the past. On the other hand, if an event A occurs two days earlier than another event B, the temporal distance between them remains the same forever. McTaggart claims that B-relations alone are insufficient for constituting time, and that for this reason A-relations are needed. Unfortunately, according to McTaggart, A-relations form a contradictory set. Therefore, since time necessarily requires A-relations, and since A-relations are contradictory, time is unreal (Markosian 2014). The alternative view defended by those endorsing the static vision of time is that B-relations are sufficient for characterizing time, even if this implies that “there will never be some sort of final unification of experience and reality” (Bardon 2013, 110).

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My position is that correct intuitions and wrong assumptions are deeply intertwined in this and most contemporary discussions of time (and ontological categories, for that matter). To start with, I do not see why the opposition between the A- and the B-series should be taken as the required starting point for developing a theory of time. As I will show, there is more than this to consider in order to arrive at an ontological framing of time. In what follows, I shall distinguish the two sides of ontological categories as clearly as possible, dealing respectively with categories as principles (of the subsumed individuals) and categories as determinations (of the subsumed individuals) (Poli 2012). While categories as principles are conditions of possibility and, therefore, (categorically) “come before” individuals, categories as determinations (categorically) “come after” individuals. As far as time is concerned, I shall, therefore, distinguish between “pure time” (category as principle) and “qualified” or “regional” time(s) (category as determination). A further note is required. From an ontological point of view, the category “time” is a category of the sphere of real being—it is not a principle of ideal being. While this real category, like any other real category, works together with other categories, and together with them it makes real being possible, each category has its own “content.” The task of the ontologist is to unpack the determinate content of each individual category, the accumulating determinations arising from their order of dependence, and eventually the determinations arising from their interactions (where “dependence” and “interaction” cannot but be other ontological categories).

2 Time as a Category Time as a category is a principle, a condition of possibility. It does not exist in the sense in which individuals exist. Furthermore, as a category, time is neither extended nor non-extended, neither finite nor infinite. Individuals have temporalities, extensions in time (and possibly space). Like any other category, time has moments or dimensions and these can become substrates amenable to measurement. These dimensions may play a double role: towards the category that they articulate and towards the entities that they determine. The former unfold some of the complexities of the relevant category; the latter determine the relevant entities. While pure time does not last, has no beginning and end, entities in time have temporal durations—they begin and they end. While time has neither velocity nor rhythms, processes unfold in time at given velocities and rhythms. While the present has no extension for pure time, presents bounded to real entities have typical durations.

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One way to understand the prevalence of the present over other temporal determinations is to assume that only the present is real, denying being to the past and the future. This conception does not respect phenomena, however. While it correctly acknowledges the priority of the present, it does not explain the reasons for its priority. Moreover, by denying being to the past (and to the future, for that matter), it severs the roots of the present. If the present is everything that is, and if past and future are non-being, past and future cannot exert any influence over the present because non-being cannot influence being. “A causal connection between something irreal and something real is a non-ens,” says Hartmann (Hartmann 1950, 170). The clearest remedy is to acknowledge that both past and future are. The difference among past, present and future is, therefore, not a difference between being and non-being. What happened before any given present is not an irreal. It is as real as the present. The main difference is that it is no longer actual. Similarly, what will happen after the actual present is not irreal. It is as real as that present. The difference is that it is non-actual. In its turn, the main difference between past and future is that what is now past has enjoyed its presents, while what is future still has to enjoy its presents. Time is the general dimension of the many real processes unfolding in reality. Past, present and future are different temporal characterizations of real processes; as already mentioned, this implies that past and future processes are both real. Any present state of a process continuously dissolves in time and is substituted by a subsequent state. States, however, are glued together in the continuity of a process. This requires the categories of process and causation.

3 Real Time As a category, time is the principle (or the precondition) for every possible temporal extension. Whatever exists, exists in a temporal way; it lasts. Furthermore, whatever exists, exists through a series of presents (“moments-now,” “specious presents,” “actual moments”). One can say that what exists undergoes temporal decomposition into a series of presents. Temporality, therefore, is both the continuation and the disintegration of what lasts (Hartmann 1950, 166). Here I shall discuss only the most general aspects of time (the “pure” category of time), postponing analysis of the main aspects of “regional” or “qualified” forms of time, such as psychological or social time, to Sections 1.4 and 1.5 below. As well known since Aristotle and Augustine, the categorial structure of time is complex. The main reason for this complexity is that the categorial moments of time are both interdependent and organized at different levels of depth. Hart-

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mann organizes the categorial moments of time into three levels of depth, as follows (Hartmann 1950; Poli 2011): – First-order level of time: Unidimensionality, flowing, and the present. – Second-order level of time: Simultaneity, succession, and duration. – Third-order level of time: Uniformity, parallelism, and actuality. I shall now analyze, in the given order, the three levels of time.

3.1 First-order Level of Time Unidimensionality, flowing and the present are the moments of the first-order level of time (Hartmann 1950, 168). Unidimensionality. This is what makes time simpler than space: time is not a system of dimensions. Being limited to one dimension only, the “spatial” representation of time is simpler than the multidimensional representation of space.¹ Flowing. This is the best-known feature of time. From the point of view of flowing (i. e., the order of time), no state is privileged and all temporal states flow one after the other—which implies, together with unidimensionality, that time is totally ordered. Furthermore, flowing constrains unidimensionality: from the point of view of the latter, time may flow either way, toward either of its ends. Flowing, however, constrains the possible direction of real time: it follows that all real (i. e., temporal) processes, for all levels of reality, are irreversible.

 Apropos unidimensionality, it is worth noting that recent proposals to exploit two or more dimensions to formalize time rely on the difference between a primary dimension and other, secondary dimensions (Bailly, Longo, & Montevil ; Louie ). Two more observations are in order. Firstly, as far as ontological issues are concerned, one should never forget that “the map is not the territory.” Any representation, formal or otherwise, of an entity or a category cannot be traded for that entity or category. Secondly, the proposals developing the idea of multidimensional time have been advanced to gain better understanding of the nuances of biological time in particular (Bailly et al. ) or to provide a framework of sufficient generality that it can deal with a multiplicity of different times, including physical, chemical and biological times (Louie ). According to the distinction between the pure acceptation of time and other (domain-based) acceptations, these formal proposals do not affect the pure acceptation of time I am presently discussing (with the caveat that there may be deep and so-far unexplored connections between the ontological framework presented above and Louie’s theory).

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Present. The organization of the order of time through the present is possibly the most important feature of real time. If one looks at the order of occurrences from the outside—in an atemporal way, as it were—no privileged point results and all the presents are equivalent. In this regard, it is mandatory to avoid interpreting the present as connected to the position of a subject. A perceiving subject is always in some moment of real time and is, therefore, already characterized by real time. This is not to deny that psychological time has its specific structures, perhaps different from those of pure real time (see Section 1.3.3 below). One should add, however, that real time flows through its presents even when no subject contemplates or perceives temporal occurrences. The present continuously renews itself: it happens only once, and immediately afterwards it disappears and never returns. Each present is replaced by a subsequent present. Every present is a moment of reality, and this aspect does not depend on time as order. The latter, in fact, raises no resistance to its atemporal interpretation. What distinguishes temporal from atemporal orders is precisely the present. This explains why the representation of time as the ordered series of real numbers misses important determinations of time. Without “presents,” time is represented atemporally, that is, only as order. Interestingly, even physicists are starting to ask whether the usual representation of time as order should be improved by adding an explicit consideration of presents (Editor 2014; Mermin 2014). The flow of time does not move with respect to what is atemporal as if the latter were at rest. What is atemporal, like everything ideal, encompasses all the stages and components of the flow. What is atemporal is in any present and, therefore, does not distinguish any of them. Before passing to the second- and third-order moments of time, a few more aspects of time should be clarified on the basis of the first-order moments of time alone. Comparison with the categorial moments of space reveals other features. In fact, as far as space is concerned, its system of dimensions comprises numberless systems of coordinates, and none of them is privileged over any other. Time is different, because the present is the point zero of the flow (order) of time. Therefore, real time has a natural system of coordinates. Moreover, real time is homogeneous because neither divisions nor distinctions into parts intrinsically characterize it. Every temporal demarcation is arbitrary and extrinsic to the flow of time. The series of the presents is homogeneous as well, without internal differences, which implies that the presents regularly follow one another. As a consequence, pure real time cannot flow more rapidly or more slowly, as is instead the case of psychological and social times.

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The homogeneous flow of time is continuous and unlimited. The continuity of the flow supports the continuity of movement, while the lack of limitations of real time depends on its nature as a dimension. Every limit is a limit in time, not a limit of time. Time itself—as a category—is not extended, it does not have duration; if anything, time is the categorial precondition for every possible temporal extension. The flow of time always is; it is everlasting; there is always a new present. Moreover, their differences notwithstanding, the connections between measurement and magnitude are the same for both space and time. Real time determines the nature of temporal magnitudes, in the same way as real space determines the measure of spatial magnitudes. In both cases, extensive magnitudes are at stake. Apart from this, spatial and temporal dimensions are neither homogeneous nor isometric to one another. Finally, both time and space make room for two different kinds of measurement. While space makes length (extension) and angle possible, time makes duration (extension) and velocity possible. Both categories present the moment of extension, but they differ as to the second species of measurement: angles for space, and velocity for time. However, pure time does not provide the units of measurement for either extension or velocity.

3.2 Second-order Level of Time Simultaneity, succession, and duration are the second-order moments of temporality (Hartmann 1950, 173). Simultaneity provides the basic condition, succession is temporal sequence, and duration is temporal extension. Second-order moments give form to temporal relations. Simultaneity. Time is indifferent to all the categorial moments determining what is simultaneous, such as spatial and causal determinations. Simultaneity depends on properties that proceed beyond any temporal extension.² Succession is the counterpart of simultaneity. Temporal continuity is a special kind of continuity. In this sense, the image of the flow is only partially adequate.

 The usual connection between simultaneity and relativity theory does not affect the categorical analysis of pure time, because the lack of universal simultaneity arising from the theory of relativity depends on specific physical constraints such as the finite velocity of light.

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Succession is the coming and going of temporal stages, the passage from one stage to the next. Duration. Strictly speaking, the pure present is a temporal point, a limit without extension. On the contrary, things, organisms, and historical epochs need time; they extend over a stretch of time. “No trial, not even the shortest, can be packed into a mere temporal point” (Hartmann 1950, 178). Duration is the continuation of succession. Whether something remains identical while the process unfolds cannot be decided by analyzing the moments of pure time. Time in itself neither requires nor excludes something absolutely persisting.

3.3 Third-order Level of Time The third-order moments of time constitute the deepest layers of temporality. The third-order moments of time are uniformity, parallelism, and actuality (Hartmann 1950, 180). Uniformity. Uniformity means that all temporal processes run at the same velocity. The flowing proceeds uniformly over all events. It is perfectly constant; it has no differences of velocity, acceleration or deceleration. More precisely, one should say that uniform time has no velocity. The uniform flowing of time does not depend on any other time: it is time. Parallelism. Parallelism means that events are chained to their temporal positions. No temporal process overtakes any other temporal process or falls behind it. They march together with the flow of time. All the dimensions that traverse time—such as spatial or causal determinations—are such that there can be movement in them. The only dimension without any internal movement is time. Moreover, the multiplicity of what is present implies that there are other dimensions of being beyond time (e. g., space). Real parallelism is far from being a pure temporal relation. When natural beings are included, spatial dimensions play a role as well. Parallelism, therefore, is determined by a variety of heterogeneous dimensions. Time is indifferent to the heterogeneity of what coexists simultaneously. There is an important difference between the moments of uniformity and parallelism. Uniformity entails that the flow of time neither accelerates nor decelerates. The only temporal movement is the movement of time. Only in space are there differences of velocity. Things can freely move in space, not in

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time. The identity of temporal movement is what makes spatial velocities comparable. Actuality. The present and parallelism characterize actuality. Actuality is the feature of the present while it advances in the flow of time. The present as the constantly actual is the window through which events continually enter and leave. Actuality is a constantly new present; it maintains itself in the flow of time; it is not fleeting. In this sense, the actual is an “eternal present” (Hartmann 1950, 192). The series of the fleeting moments of the present constitutes the constancy of actuality, or of the present-in-movement. What happens to an entity while it lasts? The lasting of the entity is its continuance in its actuality. While it lasts, it proceeds together with the present-in-movement; it maintains itself in the flowing-present. The duration of a process means that the process proceeds together with the present; it maintains itself in the present-in-movement. This applies to all durations, be they things, living beings, psychological acts or social phenomena. Their durations mean that they keep themselves in the present-inmovement. Duration does not imply, however, that all the states of a process are actual in any given point of time. If they were so, there would be no process at all. As a matter of fact, there are two different meanings of the present: the present as a fleeting moment of time, and the present as the present-in-movement. To prevent confusion, the latter is called actuality. The advance of the present provides the present with its ontological nature. Since the present advances in the flow of time—it is constantly actual—it is not defined as the boundary between past and future. What happens to an entity while it lasts? The lasting of an entity is the continuance of its actuality. While it lasts, it proceeds together with the present-inmovement; it maintains itself in the flowing-now. The duration of a process means that the process proceeds together with the present; it maintains itself in the present-in-movement. This applies to all durations, be they things, living beings, populations, or creations of the mind. Their durations mean that they keep themselves in the present-in-movement. Duration does not imply, however, that the entire multiplicity of the phases of a process are actual in any point of time. If they were so, they could not last. The series of phases is a series of successively continuous temporal positions (Hartmann 1950, 190). Pure time hosts any possible unit of measurement compatible with its defining moments, without preferring any specific unit to any other. In this regard, clock time is as good as any other measurement of time. As far as I can see, the following observations are, however, in order. Clock time is a partial representation of pure time in the sense that it structures some but not all the mo-

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ments of pure time (e. g., clock time organizes time atemporally because it has no room for the moment of the present). Clock time constrains pure time in the sense that it imposes a conventional “velocity” on the flowing of pure time. However, since this constraint is kept constant (i. e., without internal rhythmic variations), the ensuing over-determination of pure time is kept to the minimum required by the building up of a representation. Finally, as a formal, partial representation of pure time, on the one hand, and minimal over-determination, on the other, clock time provides a kind of “lingua franca” for comparing and organizing regional temporalities. A few more questions immediately arise, such as (1) how to build other representations of pure time by exploiting a different selection of the moments of pure time (e. g., by including a suitable codification of the present); (2) how to build a complete representation of pure time including all its defining moments, provided that the list of nine moments presented above is indeed complete; (3) what relations can be detected among these different representations of pure time; (4) how to exploit different representations of pure time in the sciences and the humanities. While none of these questions is close to being settled in the near future, some early efforts, such as (Louie 2004), or the recent (Mermin 2014), show that there is room for new developments. The most apparent merit of the above-sketched analysis of pure time is its demonstration that the main competing theories of time presently under discussion do indeed capture aspects of the categorical nature of time. Their main defect, however, is that they systematically start from too limited a basis—by selecting too few moments of pure time, the theories are unable to grasp the many nuances of pure time.

4 Thick Present: Psychological Time Above (or, perhaps better, within) pure time, a variety of other real times can be distinguished according to the kinds of processes that unfold in them. While pure time, with all its constitutive moments, underlies all of them as one of their categorical presuppositions, further and more nuanced determinations result from the typical processes that unfold in real time. The differences among physical, biological, psychological and social times follow from the differences among physical, biological, psychological and social processes. Moreover, since each of these typical classes of phenomena is internally subdivided into a variety of different subcases, different families of temporalities may result. Acts of consciousness, imagination, memory or anticipation have their times. Moreover, the contents of each of them have their own temporality, and all of

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them are in pure time as well. One can only be in each individual present, but one can live and perceive and act only within extended presents that include presents that from the point of view of pure time are already gone (past) or still have to come (future), and one can imagine deeper past presents and far away future presents. This stratified organization explains why psychological time is such a daunting issue (but the same holds for any other kind of qualified time). While the present of pure time is punctiform—it is a thin present (as it is sometime called)—all the other presents are thick: they have some temporal extension, a duration. Subjectively, one lives in the present, not in the punctiform present of real time, but in the extended (thick) present of psychological time (Hartmann 1950, 197). The extension (duration) of the presents depends on different factors, including both the wholes (systems) and the processes that define the relevant type of temporality. For a skier, the duration of the present may last for a fraction of a second; for the historian, it may last for months and years; for the geologist, it may last for thousands or even millions of years (Hartmann 1950, 199). The psychology of time has developed dramatically during the past few decades (Hammond 2012). Here I shall present only a preliminary introduction to one aspect, namely the structure of the psychological present (Poli 2006a, 2006b). As far as cognitive acts are concerned—such as acts of perception, memory, and reasoning—the main distinction is between acts of presentation and acts of representation (Albertazzi 2001). Acts of presentation are precisely the acts unfolding in the psychological present. They form the basic temporal structure of consciousness. Experimental data show that the following are some of the basic features of presentations: 1. Presentations last from ca 200μs to 3000μs. On average, they last approximately 700μs. 2. The duration of presentations depends on a variety of factors, ranging from the subject’s mood feelings (they are shorter when the subject is excited and longer when s/he is relaxed) to the cognitive state of the subject (attention shortens presentation), to the content of what is presented, etc. 3. Presentations come with an inner organization on various dimensions. The most important of these are (a) the distinction between focus and periphery, (b) the presence of internal laws of organization, and (c) the elaboration of their content in subsequent stages. Point (a) entails that there are upper limits to the complexity of the correlate in the focus. Point (b) yields possibly more surprising results, namely the laws of temporal and spatial inversion (Benussi 1913). Point (c) states that presentations themselves have a temporal structure (Albertazzi 2003). This last point is highly significant in that it

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marks the difference between the Berlin and Graz schools of Gestalt psychology. Presentations come in a (temporal) series, often called stream of consciousness (Husserl 1991; James 1990).

Presentations provide the matter to be further elaborated by subsequent acts of representation, such as perception or reasoning. The latter are produced by series of presentations. Since most recent research on the mind has concerned itself with representations only, without taking due account of the underlying layer of presentations, one may question the robustness of the results (Albertazzi 2013).

5 Thick Present: Social Time While psychological time deals with the individual perception of time, social time deals with the perception of time by groups, communities, institutions and organizations. The structure of social time for the most part goes unnoticed and is usually confined to deeper, background levels. The two most promising strategies with which to make the constraints scaffolding social time visible are either to focus on the ways in which people respond to pathological situations, “where things take place at times other than their usual ones” (Zerubavel 1981, xiii), or to compare the ways in which different communities organize time (for a primer on how different cultures understand time, see Lewis 2014).

5.1 Natural and Artificial Social Rhythms After the pioneering works by Durkheim and Mauss, a major step forward in the understanding of social time was achieved by Pitirim Sorokin and his demonstration that “many of the rhythms that govern social life are entirely conventional” (Zerubavel 1981, 11). As noted by Sorokin and Merton (1937, 616), “restriction to a single conception of time involves several fundamental shortcomings.” The simplest way to realize the extent of the social organization of time is to note that well-socialized persons do not necessarily eat when they are hungry, but do so during officially designated eating periods such as lunchtime or dinner time, and that they usually go to bed not necessarily when they are tired but, rather, when it is getting late (Zerubavel 1981, 7). The difference between periods of accessibility and inaccessibility is also socially constituted. Unless it is due to an emergency, a phone call at 3 a.m. is perceived as a breach of rules—that is, as an invasion of the individual sphere of inaccessibility. Total institutions such

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as prisons are social milieus “wherein people have almost no time during which they may be legitimately inaccessible” (Zerubavel 1981, 143). While people’s perceptions of time are linked to their internal rhythms, their responses to time are culturally conditioned. Part of this conditioning consists of building up within the child a series of expectations about the durations of events, processes, or relationships. Indeed, one of the most important forms of knowledge that we impart to a child is a knowledge of how long things last […] Without a rich set of socially appropriate durational expectancies, no individual could function successfully (Toffler 1970, 42– 43).

One has to learn that some durations are technologically or biologically determined and are difficult to modify (the duration of a Paris-Rome flight or a pregnancy), while other durations are, to various degrees, conventional and may be easier to modify if suitable social conditions allow for such modifications (twoweek vacations, thirty-minute appointments) (Zerubavel 1981, 5). The social organization of time affects both memory and anticipation. Specifically, memory is both an individual and a social phenomenon. “We actually remember much of what we do only as members of particular communities” (Zerubavel 2003, 3). Thus, “the difference between what Americans and Indians tend to recall from wedding ceremonies […] is a product of their having been socialized into different mnemonic traditions” (Zerubavel 2003, 4). However, there are “striking formal similarities among the ways in which couples, professions, and religions […] normally construct their origins” (Zerubavel 2003, 9). This is less surprising than it may at first appear, because the phenomenological topology of histories is based on a limited number of structural components (Poli 1997). Their variation forms “historical” scenarios working as canvasses for possible memories. The agent’s position within the active historical scenario leads him/ her to remember past events as s/he does (Zerubavel 2003, 12). Moreover, the plotlines arising from historical scenarios “are often extrapolated to imply anticipated trajectories” (Zerubavel 2003, 17). When these plotlines are disrupted, the sense-making process runs into trouble: “because they can no longer cling on their past personal belongings, the psychological recovery of war refugees, as well as earthquake, flood, and hurricane survivors is particularly difficult” (Erikson 1976, 174– 177; Zerubavel 2003, 44). The substitution of natural with artificial rhythms, together with the ensuing interactions in space, generates its own pathologies, as shown by proxemics (Hall 1990) and the vast literature on circadian and other rhythms (Adam 1995; Luce 1973; Rose 1989). In the end, these substitutions may generate internal disruption: “As men free themselves from submission to the external cycles of nature, relying more often on self-created and variable social cycles, they in-

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creasingly risk internal disruption” (Lynch 1972, 119, referenced in Zerubavel 1981, 12). A word of caution is needed here. The simplified image of essentially two different ways to use time—the concrete, natural or “primitive” way based on activities and natural rhythms, and the abstract, artificial or “advanced” way based on timetables and schedules—cancels out the most interesting intermediate phases in which both acceptations of time interact and compete with each other. Until the 15th century, days were often divided into 10 or 12 hours and their duration was a function of both the season and the location. The invention of the clock was not sufficient to shift from flexible to rigid hours. Indeed, it took centuries to substitute flexible hours with mechanical ones. That the problem of how to organize time is a socially-biased problem, rather than a mere problem of which structure is more “rational,” is also shown by the difficulties encountered when the Gregorian calendar was adopted. Suffice it to mention that two centuries passed before the English accepted the Gregorian calendar. These various facts show that the social appropriation of conceptual frameworks and tools is far from being a simple, almost automatic process. Rather, it follows the apparently cumbersome route of the social reproduction of identity. While our understanding of circadian and other rhythms has greatly improved in recent decades, the social capacity to use this knowledge has been vanishingly poor. Among the reasons for our exceedingly limited capacity to use the scientific representation of social time to modify the social modulation of time, the possibility should be considered that our picture of social time is still cursory and fragmented. Specifically, I would call attention to the idea that social time comes in different guises, at different levels of depth. While the most superficial layers rest on more or less arbitrary social conventions, deeper layers are more structurally engrained and cannot be modified by social decrees.

5.2 Culturally-biased Temporal Patterns To show the breadth and variety of the social determinants of time, I shall briefly sketch some of the best-known patterns. The simplest is the linear acceptation of time dominant in the North American and European countries. For them, “time is truly money” and timekeeping “is practically a religion” (Lewis 2014). These societies love fixed schedules; as Lewis says, they are “monochronic […] they prefer to do only one thing at a time.”

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On the contrary, Southern Europeans and Arabian countries “are multi-active, rather than linear active.” Differently from linear-active peoples, “multi-active peoples are not very interested in schedules or punctuality.” The focus is not so much on the time at which we meet, but on the meeting itself. “Priority is given to the relative thrill or significance of each meeting,” and for this reason conversations should not be left unfinished only because time passes. Eastern cultures tend to see time as cyclic, which implies that “opportunities, risks and dangers will re-present themselves.” Two main consequences arise: firstly, time is no longer a scarce commodity (because the same situations will repeat themselves), and, secondly, “the past formulates the contextual background to the present decision.” What one can do is to learn to make wiser decisions, and this goes against making decisions on the spot. The Chinese and the Japanese add specific nuances to this essentially shared vision of time. Having a “keen sense of the value of time,” the Chinese deem punctuality important because the other person’s time is precious. “On the other hand, the Chinese expect a liberal amount of time to be allocated for repeated consideration of the details of a transaction and to the careful nurturing of personal relationships surrounding the deal.” The Japanese’s sense of proportion and balance among the components of a situation or event is manifest in their sense of time as well. They divide time according to “properness, courtesy and tradition.” For the Japanese, time must be carefully segmented in order for them to know always where they stand and where they are at, because this is their way of doing the right thing at the right time. While “the American or Northern European has a natural tendency to make a quick approach to the heart of things […] the Japanese must experience an unfolding or unwrapping of the significant phases of the event” (Lewis 2014).

5.3 Dimensions of Social Time To understand social time better, I shall propose two different frameworks. The first, presented in this section, compares the different ways of organizing social time along a number of different parameters, namely: – Order—the structure along which events take place – Duration—how long events last – Location—when events take place – Recurrence—how often events take place (Zerubavel 1981, 1). – Type—the difference among physical, biological, psychological and social temporal patterns and their interactions.

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The framework above is descriptively rich and it is able to account for many aspects of social time. However, as helpful as it may be, this framework is hollow and does not delve deeply enough in the most complex aspects of social time. I shall therefore turn to the second framework for the understanding of social time.

5.4 Types of Social Time Georges Gurvitch has provided what is possibly the richest theory of social time developed to date (Gurvitch 1964). While the conceptual framework from which his description of the different social times arises is rich and in many respects enlightening, his way of presenting the different temporal types is definitely cumbersome—an aspect that may explain the so far limited reception of his ideas. The following Table 1.1 summarizes the main types of social time distinguished by Gurvitch.³ Table 1.1 Name

Description

Comment

Enduring

The past is projected in the present and in the future Long duration plus abrupt crises; masks possible unexpected crises under slowed down duration The present prevails over the past and the future Past, present and future are mutually projected into one another The future is actualized in the present, but it is not efficient Past and future compete in the present

Most continuous; the future risks annihilation Surprise time; discontinuity; rupture between past and the present

Deceptive

Erratic Cyclical Retarded Alternating

Pushing forward

The future becomes the present

Explosive

The past and the present are dissolved in the creation of the future

Time of uncertainty par excellence Accentuation of continuity; weakening of contingency No equilibrium between continuity and discontinuity Discontinuity is stronger than continuity, without accentuation of contingency Discontinuity, contingency and qualitative triumph Discontinuity, contingency and the qualitative are maximized

 I unify his “explosive” and “pushing forward” times because their structural features are the same.

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I shall now partially adapt Gurvitch’s classification by adding “mode” and “relation.” Mode refers to the continuity or discontinuity of social times, while relation hints at the connections among past, present and future (Table 1.2). Table 1.2 Name

Mode

Relation

Enduring Cyclical

Continuity Continuity

Past prevails Past, present and future merge into each other No future is implied

Deceptive

High but masked discontinuity between past and present Retarded Medium discontinuity between past and present Explosive High discontinuity between past and present Erratic Medium discontinuity between past and future Alternating Medium discontinuity between past and future

Future is implied but ineffective Future is implied and it is effective Present prevails Past and future compete in the present

The primary distinction is between continuous and discontinuous social times. Gurvitch distinguishes two kinds of continuous social times, called “enduring time” and “cyclical time.” To clarify discontinuous times, I distinguish among times where the discontinuity occurs between the past and the present (i. e., “deceptive time,” “retarded time,” and “explosive time” in Gurvitch’s parlance), and times where the discontinuity is between the past and the future (“erratic time” and “alternating time”). The second feature is the relation among past, present and future characterizing each social time. As far as continuous times are concerned, the difference between enduring and cyclical times is that the former time is based on the prevalence of the past over both the present and the future, while the latter time is such that past, present, and future merge into and alternate with each other. The three modes of discontinuity between the past and the present (deceptive, retarded and explosive times) are distinguished by the ways in which the present implies (or does not imply) the future. Deceptive time does not imply the future in the present; retarded time does imply the future but the implied future is not effective; and, finally, explosive time effectively implies the future in the present. The two final modes of discontinuity between the past and the future are focused on the present. Erratic time is a time in which the present is enhanced and

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severed from both the past and the future. Alternating time, instead, is the time in which the past and the future actively compete for supremacy in the present. Alternating time is a time in which the competition is not resolved in favor of either the past or the future. The concept of the “near future” introduced by (Guyer 2007) covers various of the above-described cases. As far as I can see, “near future” should be read as “anticipated future at the fringes of the present.” The situations described by Guyer show a passage from an understanding of the near future as continuous with the present to an understanding in which the near future is becoming more and more “punctuated” and therefore different from the present. In this sense, the difference between these two understandings of the near future is equivalent to the difference between continuous and discontinuous social times. If the concept of “near future” is explicitly characterized by “punctuated” discontinuities (as in Guyer’s paper), then this acceptation of near future may become an analytic tool with which to gain better understanding of explosive time (with the proviso that “near future” concerns the section of the future that is closer to the present). Social times are far from being the result of a purely analytical distinction of times. Real social time results from various combinations of the times analytically distinguished in the table above. Moreover, groups, classes and entire societies have their own “preferred” times, those that better manifest the pace of their internal dynamics. Different social structures organize their various times from those that each of them recognizes as closer to its pace to those that are progressively less relevant. To itemize the many nuances of Gurvitch’s classification of social times, the connections among times, groups and classes are explicitly listed in Table 1.3 below. To be noted is that for each group or class only the most relevant kinds of time are listed (see Gurvitch 1964). Leaving the specific details of Gurvitch’s analysis aside, the following lessons can be learned from his proposal, namely that (1) the set of social times is larger than one might initially suspect; (2) different times may compete with each other in any given social configuration; (3) the relations among the modes of past, present and future are far from being restricted to their linear succession; and (4) social groups, classes and even entire societies have their preferred temporal pattern.

6 Conclusion A major difference should be noted in distinguishing the analysis of pure time from the analysis of qualified times, namely that the latter analyses are closely

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Table 1.3 Name

Group

Class

Enduring Deceptive

Kinship; locality groups Organized level of social life; large cities; passive communions Social roles and collective attitudes; mass sociability; classes in formation Communion sociabilities; mysticecstatic groups Social symbols; community sociability; closed groups, admission difficult (nobles; landed gentry; academics) Patterns, rules, signals; community with a tendency to immobility Collective effervescences; active masses and communions in revolt Acts of collective creation; creative communion

Peasant; patriarchal structures Charismatic-theocratic structures (China, Egypt) Technical patterns, especially in th and th century society; global society in transition Archaic societies

Erratic

Cyclical Retarded

Alternating Pushing forward Explosive

Feudal society

Inception of capitalism; absolute monarchy Proletarian class; competitive capitalism

intertwined with the relevant sciences (in the above-presented cases, primarily psychology and sociology). In this paper, I have not considered physical and biological times. A full-fledged theory of time should include these as well, together with both a deeper understanding of the differences within each family of qualified time and the relations among the different families of qualified time. The thick presents of qualified times are moments of becoming, and they refer to ongoing processes (Patomaki 2011, 340). In this sense, the categorical scaffolding of a thick present is different from the scaffolding of the thin presents of pure time. Moreover, since thick presents are relative to the relevant processes, their meaning depends on how these processes turn out (Patomaki 2011, 340).

7 References Adam, B. (1995): Timewatch: The Social Analysis of Time. Cambridge: Polity. Albertazzi, L. (2001): “Presentational Primitives. Parts, Wholes and Psychophysics”. In: Albertazzi, L. (Ed.): Early European Contributors to Cognitive Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 29 – 60. Albertazzi, L. (2003): “From Kanizsa Back to Benussi: Varieties of Intentional Reference”. In: Axiomathes 13. No. 3 – 4, pp. 239 – 259.

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Albertazzi, L. (Ed.) (2013): Handbook of Experimental Phenomenology. Visual Perception of Shape, Space and Appearance. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Bailly, F./Longo, G./Montevil, M. (2012): “A 2-dimensional Geometry for Biological Time”. http://www.di.ens.fr/users/longo/files/CIM/2-dimTime.pdf. Bardon, A. (2013): Brief History of the Philosophy of Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Benussi, V. (1913): Psychologie der Zeitauffassung. Heidelberg: Winter. Editor (2014): “Be Here Now”. Nature 507, p. 399. Erikson, K. T. (1976): Everything in its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood. New York: Simon and Schuster. Gurvitch, G. (1964): The Spectrum of Social Time. Dordrecht: Reidel. Guyer, J. I. (2007): “Prophecy and the Near Future: Thoughts on Macroeconomic, Evangelical, and Punctuated Time”. American Ethnologist 34. No. 3, pp. 409 – 421. Hall, E. T. (1990): The Hidden Dimension. New York: Anchor Books. Hammond, C. (2012): Time Warped. Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception. Edinburgh and London: Canongate Books. Hartmann, N. (1950): Philosophie der Natur. Abriss der speziellen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: De Gruyter. Husserl, E. (1991): On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1903 – 1917). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. James, W. (1990): The Principles of Psychology (2nd ed.). Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Lewis, R. (2014): “How Different Cultures Understand Time”. In: Business Insider. http://www. businessinsider.com/how-different-cultures-understand-time-2014-5, retrieved 07 February 2014. Louie, A. H. (2004): “Multidimensional Time: A Much Delayed Chapter in a Phenomenological Calculus”. https://ahlouie.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/multi-time.pdf. Luce, G. G. (1973): Body Time: The Natural Rhythms of the Body. Paladin: St. Albans. Lynch, K. (1972): What Time is this Place? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Markosian, N. (2014): “Time”. In: Zalta, E. N. (Ed.): The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition). URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/. McTaggart, J. M. E. (1908): “The Unreality of Time”. Mind 17, pp. 457 – 474. Mermin, N. D. (2014): “QBism Puts the Scientists Back Into Science”. Nature 507, pp. 421 – 423. Patomaki, H. (2011): “On the Complexities of Time and Temporality: Implications for World History and Global Futures”. Australian Journal of Politics and History 57. No. 3, pp. 339 – 352. Poli, R. (1997): “Iconic Graphs: An Exercise in Topological Phenomenology”. Axiomathes 8. No. 1 – 3, pp. 455 – 472. Poli, R. (2006a): “First Steps in Experimental Phenomenology”. In: Loula, A./Gudwin, R./Queiroz, J. (Eds.): Artificial Cognition Systems. Hersey, PA: Idea Group Publishing, pp. 358 – 386. Poli, R. (2006b): “Levels of Reality and the Psychological Stratum”. Revue internationale de philosophie 61. No. 2, pp. 163 – 180. Poli, R. (2011): “Ontology as Categorial Analysis”. In: Slavic, A./Civallero, E. (Eds.): Classification and Ontology. Formal Approaches and Access to Knowledge. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, pp. 145 – 157.

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Poli, R. (2012): “Nicolai Hartmann”. In: Zalta, E. N. (Ed.): The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2012 Edition). URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nicolaihartmann/. Rose, K. J. (1989): The Body in Time. New York: Wiley and Sons. Sorokin, P. A., & Merton, R. K. (1937): “Social Time: A Methodological and Functional Analysis”. The American Journal of Sociology 42. No. 5, pp. 616 – 629. Toffler, A. (1970): Future Shock. New York: Random House. Zerubavel, E. (1981): Hidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Zerubavel, E. (2003): Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Simonluca Pinna

Chapter 2 Hartmann on Spacetime and Geometry 1 Introduction: A new old question Nicolai Hartmann’s philosophy is problematic for many reasons. Certainly, one reason lies in what he considered the ultimate purpose of philosophy itself: if science tries to find eternal truths by solving its contingent problems, philosophy should look for what is eternal in its historical debates and research, namely, the problems. According to Hartmann, the history of philosophy consists in a long series of unsolved and unsolvable problems (see Hartmann 1924). In this paper, I consider one of the oldest problems of this series—the question of the reality of time—in its most recent version, the issue of the epistemic and ontic status of spacetime in modern quantum physics. The aim is to show how Hartmann’s discussions on the topic are still relevant, despite their temporal and conceptual distance from the actual debate. To date, the question of the (un)reality of spacetime is not only open, but also strictly connected to the quantum gravity problem, i. e., the quantization of gravity interaction, or, in other words, the unification of quantum field theory with general relativity. When Hartmann wrote his Philosophie der Natur, research on quantum gravity was just beginning. Nevertheless, Hartmann’s texts help us better understand the philosophical essence of the question itself.¹ The attention that Hartmann gave to aporetics highlights a remarkable character of his thought: Hartmann did not simplify the conceptual framework in which philosophical issues are embedded in the hope that such a reduction may produce more manageable theories. Unfortunately, as was well known to Hartmann himself, the ideal of an aporetic philosophy has never been popular. Philosophers often prefer to find theories and assemble them in one system, which enables them to solve any question by applying a few principles, even better if only one. Consequently, there is a multiplicity of examples of conceptual reductionism in every philosophical domain. And the various theories about  Hartmann likely knew at least some of the first writings on the quantization of spacetime. He talks about the question of space and time quanta in the chapters of Philosophie der Natur devoted to the general features of both categories (see Hartmann , Chapters d and  f), and once (Hartmann ,  fn. ) he explicitly mentions Heisenberg’s idea of fundamental length (Elementarlänge).

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time and space are often deeply involved in such situations of reduction. The problem of the status of spacetime in quantum gravity represents one of the most astonishing recent cases. In a nutshell, the question revolves around two opposing theses, one reductionist, the other anti-reductionist. The reductionist thesis can be called the “disappearance thesis.” Some physicists and philosophers claim that not only time, but even spacetime “disappears” at the fundamental level of reality, and that every geometrical property, including those expressed by basic notions like “length” and “duration,” are derived from the dynamics of the basic non-geometrical building blocks of the anticipated quantum gravity theory. Geometry has repeatedly been mistaken for an a priori feature of reality. Euclidean geometry was erroneously thought of as necessary. Later, Riemannian geometry as well has been erroneously considered necessary. However, there is no a priori reason for which reality has to be understood as a continuum with metric properties. Nor, for that matter, as a continuum at all. Indeed, contemporary research in quantum gravity points in a very different direction (Rovelli 2006, 32).

This certainly radical approach to fundamental physics—and its ontology—is based on a relationalist view of the nature of space and time, according to which spacetime is nothing but a set of spatiotemporal relations among the dynamical building blocks.² The “disappearance thesis” is easy to derive therefrom. Indeed, if there are no such relations at the fundamental level (e. g., the high energy level of some approach to quantum gravity), then spacetime is not a basic element of the world, and geometry is not essential for fundamental physics. According to some, the phenomenal appearance of spacetime and its geometry is motivated by the fact that they “emerge” at a less fundamental level (e. g., at the low energies of the phenomenal relativistic universe). The opposing thesis relies on the epistemic primacy of geometrical notions, and has been called the “primacy of geometry thesis” (or, more simply, the “primacy thesis”). Its proponents consider geometrical (spatiotemporal) notions to be primitive and not reducible to the dynamical ones. Notably, they also do not reduce dynamics to geometry. A moderate version of relationalism, in fact, underlies their position: on the one hand, spatiotemporal relations are depend-

 Consider how the previous quotation continues: “Conceptually, what disappears with GR [general relativity] is the idea of space as the ‘container’ of the physical world. As mentioned, this disappearance is not so revolutionary after all: to some extent it amounts to a return to the pre-Newtonian view of space as a relation between equal-status physical entities” (Rovelli , ). As we shall see, this return to the pre-Newtonian view is more than a mere passage from substantialism to relationalism.

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ent upon but not reducible to the properties of the dynamical elements; on the other hand, those elements must depend on spatiotemporal relations to disclose their dynamics. Proponents of the “primacy thesis” also argue against the “disappearance thesis.” The gist of their argument is the following: (1) every physical theory is supposed to make testable predictions and, in order to confirm these predictions, it must establish a connection between its dynamical context and the observational one; (2) in any scientific observation measurements are essential, but any measurement of a physical magnitude involves resolving distances, so that any physical magnitude can be—and, to be measured, actually is—expressed in terms of a geometrical magnitude (length, area, volume). Therefore, one can conclude that the “disappearance thesis” is too strong, and that the basic geometrical/spatiotemporal notions are fundamental for epistemic reasons (see Hagar and Hemmo 2013). Now, examining Hartmann’s discussion of the categories of space, time, dimension, measure, and magnitude in Philosophie der Natur, I will show that the same “primacy thesis,” and its premises, can be reconstructed in his texts. Moreover, we shall find that Hartmann provides a logical reason for the most important assumption of the “primacy thesis” (i. e., that any act of measurement presupposes geometry), and expresses the epistemic consequences of assuming a strong version of relationalism about space and time.³

2 From time to spacetime Looking at the debate in the philosophy of physics, a question arises: why should anyone take into account a patently anti-empirical and anti-intuitive thesis like the one that argues for the disappearance of spacetime in a physical context? Indeed, quantum gravity research programs try to unify general relativity and quantum field theory, and both theories apparently talk about time and spacetime. In some sense, I have already answered the question by saying that the debate about spacetime is nothing but the latest version of the old debate about the reality of time. The “disappearance thesis” fascinates physicists and philosophers because of its history. It is instructive to recall some important moments  Part I of Philosophie der Natur (Chapters  – ) discusses the philosophical problems of space and time. The passages I’m interested in here mainly belong to the first two sections, respectively devoted to the dimensional categories in general (see below) and to space. The third section analyzes the category of time, while the fourth analyzes the spatiotemporal system of nature.

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of this historical fascination, and doing so will enable us to understand the deeper meaning of Hartmann’s position in the debate.

2.1 A chilling story In the beginning, it was the “problem of time in quantum gravity.” One of the first approaches to the quantum gravity problem was the canonical approach, initially represented by geometrodynamics. This approach attempted to quantize the gravitational interaction through the canonical (or Hamiltonian) formulation of general relativity. In so doing, physicists found difficulties in treating the temporal parameter. This situation was not hard to predict. As is widely known, general relativity and quantum field theory treat time and spacetime in a very different manner. Quantum field theory maintains spacetime as a fixed background, while general relativity, on the contrary, predicts changes in spacetime geometry (i. e., in spacetime curvature) in correspondence with different distributions of energy and matter in the universe. Therefore, it does not admit a fixed spatiotemporal background that determines the dynamics of matter and energy. The canonical approach was supposed to follow the “relativistic” way, i. e., the background independence of general relativity. Unfortunately, this choice created a plethora of problems with time. Some of the difficulties were produced by the attempts at quantization (see Kuchař 1992), others were a product of the Hamiltonian formalization of general relativity (see Earman 2002). In any case, not all of these problems are important for the debate about the ontological and epistemic status of time and spacetime. Let us briefly consider the one concerning classical general relativity. In the Hamiltonian formulation, general relativity describes the dynamics of the entire spacetime manifold. The spacetime manifold is split into a foliation of 3-dimensional spacelike hypersurfaces parametrized by an arbitrary coordinatetime. The problem is that this parameter may, but does not need to, have the meaning of a physical time, such as clock-time (roughly speaking, the time measured by a material clock). This means that clock-time can become a dynamical variable in the phase space of the theory. The phase space is the ideal space that expresses the dynamics of the basic properties of the elementary (material) objects of a theory (ordinarily, positions and conjugate momenta). But, what happens when even clock-time, which, despite its abstract nature, still has some feature of a phenomenal time, is treated as a mere dynamical property of the theoretical building blocks? The answer is predictable: it must be subjected to the dynamical laws of the theory. In the case of the Hamiltonian formulation of general relativity, such laws

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are combined in one equation, the null super-Hamiltonian constraint. Ordinarily, the constraints establish which variable must be chosen in each hypersurface, i. e., in every instant of time, and which are the observables of the theory, namely, the variables that are invariant under the transformations generated by the constraints. In the Hamiltonian form of general relativity, spacetime as a whole is the dynamical object—in some sense, it is ultimately interpreted as “the” gravitational field itself—and the temporal parameter is arbitrary, and so not necessarily temporal in a phenomenal sense. We can, then, conclude that the super-Hamiltonian turns out to be timeless, and the dynamics it describes is a “frozen” dynamics. In other words, interpreters can push against the idea of background independence of general relativity to claim that the only admissible observables are “constants of the motion,”⁴ and, consequently, that there is no physically relevant change in the universe. Clearly, this should be the conclusion according to the deep interpretation of general relativity provided by the Hamiltonian formulation. And, by the way, the interpreters we are talking about are not readers of Hartmann. Otherwise, they would probably have remembered the following passage: [T]he expression “timeless development,” e. g., for a function or a curve, only has a mathematical meaning, not a real-objective (real-gegenständlich) one. We should not be deceived by the mathematical form of the laws of nature conceivable to us; even the statistical laws, which one can illustrate in the “progression” of curves, does not constitute an exception. They do not directly concern the real, unfolding processes at all, but only the frequencies of determinate magnitudes. In general, laws can certainly concern temporal processes, and the exact or approximate determinability of the processes is based on that fact; the laws themselves, however, are as little temporal as spatial, but of a categorially different kind. Similarly, it would be a mistake to want to draw an inference from the relations of “statics,” which starts from ideal states of rest and develops laws for those states, about a class of particular objects, like stationary bodies or masses, immobile force fields, etc. The error of the novice that may slip in here is due to the simple confusion of methodical prediction regarding the process with the assumption of non-evolving (prozeßloser) objects. Natural science does not deal with such objects at all; it can abstract from processes only for particular purposes of orientation. Just as there are no absolutely stable states, there is also no science of them. And even if there were such states, their persistence in the real world would still partake of temporal duration and not timelessness (Hartmann 1950, 45 – 46).

 Earman (), following Bergmann () and Rovelli (; ), describes two alternative but convergent paths to reach the conclusion that the observables in general relativity must be dynamical constants. For criticism see Kuchař , Maudlin , and Maudlin .

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It may be the case that some contemporary philosopher of physics might even subscribe to Hartmann’s words (see, e. g., Maudlin 2002), but many likely would not. Let us see, in fact, how our brief story about the debates over time in modern physics continues. Interpreters of general relativity have concluded that, if there is no change, or rather, if there is a stationary universe-state, time as a physical quantity is meaningless. The same conclusion transfers to the quantum context. Indeed, the quantum form of the super-Hamiltonian in geometrodynamics, i. e., the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, has no clear internal time parameter, and yet it should play the role of the fundamental dynamical equation (like the Schrödinger equation in quantum mechanics). Thus, some interpreters (e. g., Barbour 2000) claim that the deeper meaning of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation is the absence of change and time in the quantum gravity universe. And this is not all. The profound message of general relativity is that spacetime does not have any fixed structure which is not dynamical but governs dynamics from outside as an unmoved mover. The problem of time is only one facet of the missing unmoved mover, and canonical quantization [is] only a handy tool for laying bare the consequences. Unless the deep structure of the world reveals a hidden unmoved mover and thus overturns all expectations raised by general relativity, the quantum theory of the deep level is likely to encounter a problem similar to the problem of time, though in a different guise. If so, the problem of time in quantum geometrodynamics may be only a wind that precedes the storm (Kuchař 1999, 193).

And the storm, predicted by Kuchař, comes in the form of the “disappearance thesis,” according to which the problem is not only about time, but also about spacetime as a whole.

2.2 The two theses The disappearance of spacetime is advocated, in particular, by interpreters of loop quantum gravity, a more recent form of the canonical approach (see Rovelli 2004). In short, the ideas that lead to the “disappearance thesis” are the following: (1) in order to quantize gravity, spacetime must be considered discrete at the high energy limit (i. e., the domain of quantum gravity effects according to the theory); (2) background independence in loop quantum gravity entails that there is no spacetime frame; (3) only the dynamical building blocks of the theory (the “loops”) can express the fundamental physical quantities.

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Points (1) and (2) highlight the disappearance of the relativistic spacetime continuum at the high energy limit, while the direct consequence of (3) is that spatiotemporal quantities (lengths, areas, volumes, durations) are only derivable from the dynamics, and present their geometrical features only at low energies, where the relativistic continuous frame would “emerge.” Of course, this is not the only story about time, spacetime, and quantum gravity. First, physicists often get the impression that they face a real problem and not only a philosophical quibble when they talk about the “problem of time in quantum gravity.” Thus, many of their attempts to resolve the issue consist of looking for clues about where time could be found. In addition, various points of the eliminativist view are debated by both physicists and philosophers. For instance, according to some philosophers, even the same application of the Hamiltonian constrained formalism to general relativity would not be necessary in order to obtain deeper insights into its basic ontology or dynamics (Maudlin 2002, 9 – 10). Moreover, there exist totally different approaches to quantum gravity, such as M-theory and the condensed matter approach, which are background dependent, meaning that their dynamics unfold in a spatiotemporal frame even at the fundamental level, though the frame is not relativistic spacetime. Nevertheless, even some interpreters of those approaches talk about the “emergence of spacetime” at the semi-classical level (see, e. g., Bain 2008).⁵ This point can clarify the specificity of the “primacy thesis” among all the other non-reductionist positions. Indeed, not only does the “primacy thesis” directly argue against the “disappearance thesis” (and, maybe, as proponents suggest, also against the “frozen time thesis”),⁶ it also unveils the deep philosophical premises of the “disappearance thesis” itself. “Primacy thesis” proponents state two primary claims: (a) they claim that a “theory-sans-spacetime” would be at odds with the epistemic bases of experimental physics (because of the primacy of geometrical measurements); (b) they attempt to show that even loop quantum gravity gives a special role to the “geometrical operators” (and that the same happens, mutatis mutandis, in any other “discrete approach” to quantum gravity).

 The semi-classical level is the domain of phenomena that unfold at larger scales than the Planck scale, where quantum gravity issues with spacetime would arise. At this level, the matter field is treated as a quantum field within a classical spacetime geometry, hence the name “semiclassical.”  See Hagar and Hemmo ,  fn. .

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To maintain (a), “primacy thesis” proponents also challenge the “disappearance thesis.” Their argument has two premises: 1. Empiricism: theories in the natural sciences must produce testable predictions. To this end, the theoretical context should be connected to the observational context, which turns out to be geometrical. [I]n order to make the linkage between the dynamics and geometry there must be a prior interpretation associating certain magnitudes in the dynamical theory with primitive geometrical notions such as length. […] This interpretation is not dictated by the dynamics, but is rather imposed on the dynamics in order to make the linkage between empirical predictions based on the dynamical equations of motion and our experience of the outcomes of measurements carried out by means of rods and clocks (Hagar and Hemmo 2013, 359).

2.

Primacy of geometrical measurements: testing a theoretical prediction through observations and experiments ultimately means making measurements, but all measurements are reducible to measurements of geometrical magnitudes. Therefore, every dynamical magnitude must be, and is, expressed in terms of geometrical magnitudes, such as position, length, and duration. [W]e believe that all measurements, even measurements of temperature, intensity, or what have you, are ultimately position measurements, and involve resolving distances, or wavelengths, using “measuring rods” (Hagar and Hemmo 2013, 359 fn. 6).

The conclusion, as expected, holds that the “disappearance thesis” is untenable. The geometry of spacetime cannot be derived from pure dynamical considerations alone without some explicit input of intervals, i. e., primitive geometrical concepts such as length, or volume. These primitive concepts cannot be derived from the dynamics but must be presupposed in order to make the linkage between the dynamics and the geometry (Hagar and Hemmo 2013, 358).

The conclusion consists in the statement of the “primacy thesis” itself. It unmasks the underlying reasons for the “emergentist” conclusion. This certainly follows from at least two presuppositions: (1) the so-called “strong dynamical approach;” (2) the lack of a conceptual distinction about geometrical notions. According to (1), the relevant quantities in a physical theory only depend on the dynamics of its building blocks, so that only the latter is fundamental to the domain of applicability of quantum gravity, while spacetime and geometry disappear in the same domain only to emerge at low energy scales. This approach re-

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flects the belief that physics should eventually search for those kinds of theories that Einstein called “constructive” (see Hagar and Hemmo 2013, 358 – 360; Hagar 2014, 6 – 7). The opposed weak dynamical approach, taken up by “primacy thesis” proponents, follows from a usually undisputed outcome of general relativity, which holds that some features of spacetime (e. g., its curvature) depend on dynamics, but, conversely, some features of dynamics depend on spacetime. This entails a “moderate” version of relationalism, according to which spacetime and geometry are seen as fundamental as dynamics in the domain of applicability of any physical theory, quantum gravity included. The strong dynamical approach, on the contrary, is linked to an extreme form of relationalism, which leads to the idea that geometry is merely derivable from dynamics. For example, in the case of general relativity, geometry would be nothing but the specific metric of the spacetime manifold. Hence, the claim about the emergence of spacetime and its geometry (i. e., its specific metric) at low energies is explained. The charge of (2) is thereby understandable. According to “primacy thesis” proponents, only specific geometrical features of spacetime (Riemannian metrics) can “emerge” at the low energy level, while basic notions such as position, length, area, volume, or durations must remain fundamental even in the high energy domain. Finally, assuming the strong dynamical approach leads to the need for defining new epistemological criteria for empirical coherence. If “primacy thesis” proponents argue for a classically empiricist solution—in other words, if the next quantum gravity theory intends to be a physical theory, it must provide testable predictions—“disappearance thesis” supporters, on the contrary, argue for a paradigm shift in the philosophical concepts of physical reality and empirical coherence. According to this view, the basic requirement for a theory to be empirically coherent is to provide a model from which one can recover the features of the general relativistic spacetime at the semi-classical level, where they are known to hold, even though the theory does not admit any geometrical/spatiotemporal interpretation of its observables at the quantum gravity level (Huggett and Wüthrich 2013, 282– 284). In this context, therefore, the fundamental physical reality can very well be non-empirical (see, e.g, Butterfield and Isham 1999, 133). This conclusion about the relations between reality and phenomena provides sufficient reason to look for insights in the philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann, who was one of the most important ontologists—if not the most important ontologist—of the twentieth century.

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3 Hartmann and spacetime 3.1 Conceptual clarifications To understand the relation between Hartmann’s philosophy of nature and the current debate in the philosophy of physics, some of his conceptual premises must be recalled. For our discussion, the most important notions are those of “category” and “dimension.” Indeed, Hartmann defines space and time as “dimensional categories.” Hartmann focuses his research on categories (see Poli 2011), which are defined as conditions of possibility of knowledge and existence for ideal or real beings.⁷ The distinction between real and ideal beings is old and sometimes convoluted. According to Hartmann, an ideal being is an atemporal and universal entity, while a real being, including material objects and events, is a temporal and individual entity (see, in particular, Hartmann 1940, Chapter 4). The latter are indirectly connected to phenomena. “Dimension” is a fundamental category, being a member of one of the Gegensatzpaaren, i. e., the twelve couples of irreducible basic notions of categorial analysis, which Hartmann reconstructs from the history of ontological ideas (see Hartmann 1940, 211– 215 and, for “dimension” in particular, Chapter 30). In Hartmann 1950 (Chapter 1b), the category of dimension is defined as the substrate of quantity, or, more precisely, as the spectrum of values between two extremes that any being can obtain. There are two kinds of dimensions (see Hartmann 1950, Chapter 4b): extensive dimensions are inherently geometrical, being the spectrum of values for distances; intensive dimensions express degrees for quantitative or qualitative values, and can be made geometrical. Space and time are the dimensions of extension, and the inherently geometrical categories. Two important additional concepts in Hartmann’s discussion of space and time are “magnitude” and “measure.” Space and time are conditions of possibility of extensive magnitudes, though they are not magnitudes. Moreover, space and time are the condition of possibility of measure, though not measurable themselves. “A dimension is […] a presupposition of measurement, and therefore it cannot coincide with it” (Hartmann 1950, 51). In Hartmann’s view, real magnitudes (Größen) are what is measurable (meßbar) through actual  A clear explanation of the connection between ontological and cognitive categories is the following: “Ontology is knowledge of being and knowledge is an epistemological problem. Epistemological categories—the categories of knowledge, be they perceptions, intuitions, experiences or even conceptualizations—are the medium through which real categories can be apprehended” (Hartmann , , referenced in Poli , ).

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measuring instruments (rods and clocks) in actual acts of measurement (Messungen), while space and time, as categories underlying the entire observational context, consist of those basic spatiotemporal notions such as length, duration, position, area, volume, that are the precondition of the notions of measurement unit (Maß) and yardstick (Maßstab). The latter is, in turn, the conceptual condition of any actual measuring instrument (the rods). The basic idea is that extensive dimensions are conditions of delimitation (Begrenzung), meaning that only in such substrates can one individuate the limits (e. g., the end-points) of a measurable item and, consequently, the interval between them, without which a measurement is not possible. [E]very determinate magnitude has delimitation (Begrenzung) and determinacy of measure (Maßbestimmtheit) in [a dimension] before every act of measurement. […] As a matter of fact, the measurement moves in [this dimension] as in a substrate. […] If [dimension] is neither the measurement nor the measurable, then, obviously, it must underlie them both. It must be that “in which” the measurable is bounded, “in which” it is therefore measurable. The limits of the measurable are precisely limits “in” a dimension […]. […] Dimensions are the substrate of the measurable. They are the substrate of possible delimitation. And therefore they are indirectly the substrate of possible measurement (Hartmann 1950, 51).

3.2 Denying the disappearance thesis The brief review of the basic concepts used by Hartmann at the beginning of his analysis of the categories of space and time in Philosophie der Natur have already revealed important dimensions of his thought on the topic. First, he neatly distinguishes ideal beings from real beings, and, consequently, ideal categories and notions from real ones. Moreover, he attaches great importance to the observational context and to the special role played in it by the spatiotemporal categories. These assumptions are in accordance with the empiricist and operationalist approach of current proponents of the “primacy thesis.” At the same time, they are clearly at odds with the presuppositions of the “disappearance thesis,” and above all with the “rationalist approach” that seems to be at the base of its final ontological conclusion, i. e., that reality can be non-empirical. I shall return to this point below. For now, it is instructive to focus on the other premises of the “disappearance thesis” and how Hartmann would have confronted them. Let’s start with the question of spacetime discreteness at high energies. “Disappearance thesis” proponents tacitly assume that real spacetime cannot be discrete. Indeed, when they think of real spacetime, they are actually thinking of the relativistic continuum, interpreted as a feature of the gravity field. But, according

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to some of the quantum cosmological models, the geometrical features of the gravity field approximate those of a continuum only at low energies. Hence, those interpreters conclude, at high energies there is no spacetime at all. Hartmann’s response is quite radical: the distinction continuous-discrete is immaterial in order to define space and time as dimensional categories. “One cannot adequately characterize space as discrete or as continuous. Indeed, every dimensionality, and above all the dimensionality of extensive magnitudes, is already both at once” (Hartmann 1950, 86). A similar approach is taken to the other premise of the “disappearance thesis,” namely, the extreme relationalism. The latter was the consequence of the strong dynamical approach underlying the eliminativist-emergentist positions regarding spacetime. Essentially, if everything physical depends on the dynamical building blocks, only the latter are substances. Consequently, space and time are nothing but relations among those substances. Therefore, in certain situations (e. g., at high energies) they may vanish. And this actually happens according to loop quantum gravity interpreters. In any case, assuming that that possibility is important for another tacit assumption of those thinkers, a strong relationalism about spacetime is the only alternative to substantivalism. Again, Hartmann would have responded promptly: the dualism substancerelation is a categorical mistake; space and time are the condition of possibility for both substances (e. g., material objects) and relations (e. g., spatial and temporal distances, as well as dynamical relations), since they constitute the dimensional categories of the real sphere. [T]he idea of a literally “absolute” space existing per se, i. e., a space “existing as a detached thing,” and of a time of the same kind, is completely wrong. Space and time have no real existence at all apart and aside from real things and processes, of which they are real dimensions. Dimensions without something “of which” they are dimensions are impossible. They can only be considered in the abstract. But this consideration does not correspond ontologically to any being in itself (Hartmann 1950, 50).

In Hartmann’s perspective, even substance (i. e., at the physical level, matter, force, and above all, energy) is a category of real being: it is one of the cosmological categories, bound to the more general categories of becoming and persistence (see Hartmann 1950, Chapter 23). In this sense, spacetime and energy, which is “dynamical substance,” share a similar status. Thus, Hartmann’s view seems to be quite similar to the moderate relationalism of Hagar and Hemmo.

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3.3 The primacy thesis and the untenability of the disappearance thesis: Hartmann’s version It is time to make the final claim of this paper, namely, that Hartmann exposes an argument very similar to the one against the “disappearance thesis,” and that Hartmann makes an original contribution to the “primacy thesis” itself. Indeed, not only does Hartmann assume the same epistemological reason to prefer the primacy of geometry to its disappearance—i. e., that any theory that excludes geometry threatens to become epistemically incoherent since it precludes its own verification—but he also gives a stronger reason. He argues that every intensive magnitude, in order to be measured, must be translated into an extensive magnitude, while the opposite translation is logically incoherent since it is either circular or leads to an infinite regress. Before arriving at the argument that expresses that logical incoherence, for clarity’s sake let us follow the same expositional structure that I used above. The first step, then, is to highlight the special status of space and time. In the kingdom of nature there is an abundance of special opposites and corresponding dimensions that are present in the various kinds of measurable properties. Weight, density, force, velocity, etc., are measurable. The corresponding dimensions […] form the physical substrate of quantity. […] But they all are underlain by the dimensional system of space and time. […] Thus the four space-time dimensions categorially form the general precondition for their differentiation. They make up the basic dimensions of the natural world and take on a special status. They are more elementary and more fundamental than [the intensive dimensions] (Hartmann 1950, 48 – 49).⁸

In some sense, the text already expresses the gist of the “primacy thesis,” i. e., the fundamental epistemic role of geometrical dimensions over the other physical dimensions. Hartmann clarifies that space and time have a special status: the extensive dimensions are more fundamental than the intensive dimensions only because they are “the general precondition for the differentiation” of the latter. In other words, space and time make the magnitudes measurable, which is why Hartmann calls them “measurables.” This limitation on the primacy of spacetime dimensions displays, again, the compatibility of Hartmann’s view with the moderate relationalism underlying the modern version of the “primacy thesis.” In the same pages, Hartmann specifies that intensive dimensions remain irreducible: “Their peculiar nature is not eliminated by their multiple dependencies on one another, which can be captured in lawful formulas” (Hartmann 1950, 48).  For this and the following translations in this section I am indebted to prof. Sander Gliboff.

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If geometrical and dynamical categories are “on a par” at the ontological level, things change for the magnitudes that unfold in those dimensions. Recall that “magnitude” is a notion depending on the fundamental categories of “quantity” (quantity in se is an ideal mathematical schema without any specific content) and “dimension.” The latter gives to magnitudes their content and a precise discrimination in a value scale, which is a precondition of measurability. But, as has already been seen, the extensive dimensions are needed to give quantitative determination, because only in those dimensions can one individuate the limits of a measurable property.⁹ Thus, in order to achieve that end, it is necessary to reduce any intensive magnitude measurements to extensive magnitude measurements. All quantitative determination of real relations moves within magnitudes and measures. Magnitudes, in turn, exist only in certain dimensions, since the dimension determines the kind of measurement unit and magnitude. But now spatial magnitudes and time magnitudes are the prototypical measurables, because they are the prototypical things that can have a magnitude (Größenhafte). And they are in fact so because they are extensive magnitudes. All the physically substantial dimensions therefore refer back to the dimensions of space and time. The measures of intensive magnitudes can be traced back to them and can be expressed in terms of them (Hartmann 1950, 71).

Hartmann also expresses the second premise of the argument against the “disappearance thesis:” the primacy of geometrical measurements. This assumption is important to Hartmann for another reason: it allows him to make the phenomenological perspective of his philosophy explicit. Indeed, spacetime conditions the possibility of the phenomenal apprehension of any magnitude, transferring to them the intuitability of its own magnitude.¹⁰ Spacetime, then, can possibly be empirically verified.

 Consider also the following passage, which by the way expresses again the essence of the “primacy thesis:” “Dimension [of extension] is the substrate of measurement, for it is already the substrate of determinacy of measure and of determinate magnitude. A magnitude is without its essence when it lacks such a substrate. Only the determinate dimension ‘in’ which it has its measure gives it its ontological character, through which it is more than a mere schema. Whether it is distance, angle, area, volume, duration or velocity, these differences are not reducible to anything else. They are the substrate that underlies magnitude and constitutes the heterogeneity of determinacy of measure” (Hartmann , ).  “Intuitability” translates Anschaulichkeit (see the quotation below), that is, the possibility of being an object of Anschauung, which in turn is the ability to grasp phenomena, as in Kantian philosophy. As we know (from Hartmann , for instance), even the ability to get concepts or, rather, ideas is considered by Hartmann to be a form of Anschauung, though different from the former.

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[I]ndirectly, something of the intuitability (Anschaulichkeit) of space- and time-magnitudes even transfers itself to the variety and interrelationships of the intensive magnitudes. This is why the measuring instruments of science then make them all visible on spatial scales. For the knowing consciousness, it is through the space- and time-magnitudes that the connection between the real physical conditions to the quantitative determination comes to be. This connection is the basis of exact science (Hartmann 1950, 71– 72).

The last sentence recalls the first premise of the argument against the “disappearance thesis,” namely, that scientific theories must produce a linkage between the real physical conditions that are observed and the quantitative determinations that are predicted by those theories. Indeed, scientific measuring instruments map their target-magnitudes onto spatial scales—as Hartmann reminds us. Hartmann provides another reason for the limited primacy of spacetime over the other dimensions. Spacetime, in fact, is the ontological condition of possibility of any processes at all. Of the real physical relations, we can at least say that their quantities are always related to spatial and temporal magnitudes; for of course the character of the processes in them is a spatial and temporal one. […] There are no freely floating intensive magnitudes without being bound to something that is extended in space and time. Forces have their range, field, temporal beginning and fading away, and just in that their intensity becomes tangible. Every intensive magnitude is subordinated to the structure of extensive magnitudes, and can be removed from this connection only in the abstract (Hartmann 1950, 72).

The idea that there is no process or event outside spacetime also expresses the phenomenological point of view of Hartmann’s philosophy, which may be defined as a form of “realistic empiricism” or “empirical realism” (see Hartmann 1924). But it is also the result of a conceptual distinction that turns out to be particularly important even for the “primacy thesis” and the epistemological standpoint the latter supports. As mentioned above, epistemically, the “primacy thesis” states that the empirical side of physics (measurements, observations) is as important as its theoretical side. Conceptually, the linkage between these sides is constituted by the basic geometrical notions, and these entail the physical presence of a spacetime, though not necessarily with the same specific features at every level of reality. Geometrical and dynamical features depend on one another according to general relativity. Ontologically, the dynamical building blocks and spacetime are equally fundamental parts of the universe. Thus, Hartmann distinguishes the following two notions (see, e. g., Hartmann 1950, Chapter 6c): 1) Real spacetime: the dimensional categories of the real sphere; it is the condition of possibility for the existence of every material

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substance (objects and fields), and also condition of any observation and measurement; it can have specific features (science has to say which ones), but basically consists of the fundamental and irreducible geometrical notions such as length, position, duration, etc. 2) Dynamical spacetime (or cosmic spacetime): the system of spatiotemporal phenomena, consisting in that formation resulting from the conjunction of the categories of spacetime and substance (i. e., matterenergy); it is the main object of fundamental physical theories such as general relativity or quantum gravity.¹¹ In this sense, according to Hartmann, spacetime and matter-energy are conceptually divided in physics only in the abstract, while being actually part of the same object, the universe. Consequently, Hartmann holds that the theoretical features of both ought to be taken equally into consideration, and not reduced to one another. But, then, Hartmann would have likely supported the conclusion of the “primacy thesis.” If one wants to talk about fundamental physical reality, one cannot dispense with spacetime and geometry. The distinction between spacetime as a category and as a global physical system leads Hartmann to provide an even stronger reason for sustaining the second assumption of the argument against the “disappearance thesis” (i. e., the reduction of any magnitude measurement to extensive magnitude measurements). So then space, too, is not extension itself, and, similarly, is not that which has extension, but rather, just that “wherein” something is extended. If it were only extension itself, then its essence could not consist in the dimensions and their relations to one another, because all extension is really extension “in” a certain dimension and therefore assumes it as its precondition. If space were taken to be extension, then it would have to be extension “in” the same dimensions that make up its essence. It would thus have to presuppose its own dimensions, which is nonsensical. In addition, nothing else, not a thing and not a movement, could extend itself in it. It is therefore much more a “condition” for extension, precisely as its dimensions are “conditions” for measurement and the measurable (Hartmann 1950, 65).

The gist of the argument is quite simple. If space is an extensive dimension, it is by definition neither an extended object nor the extension of an object. However, if one wants to measure space in any other dimension (in particular, in an intensive dimension), one must ultimately measure it in an extensive dimension, because extensive dimensions are the condition of possibility for every measurement and every measurable magnitude. To perform this measurement, one  The last section of Part I of Philosophie der Natur (ch.  – ) is essentially devoted on the notion of cosmic spacetime (Chapter  is, in fact, entitled “Kosmologische Raumzeitlichkeit”).

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must consider space to be an extended magnitude (extension), which is contradictory with respect to the definition of space as extensive dimension. Therefore (first conclusion), space as such cannot be measured at all. Moreover, even if one wants to go on transforming space into a magnitude, one ends up with a circularity or, at least, an infinite regress. If space is a magnitude in the same space “that make[s] up its essence,” there is circularity; if one requires a second-order extensive dimension in which space might be measured, then that second-order space also would be measurable in a third-order space, and so on, ad infinitum. ¹² And, also, if one regards space as a mere magnitude, then there is no condition for the extension of objects or processes; in other words, there would be no extension (extensive magnitudes) any more. Therefore (second conclusion), if space must remain the ultimate condition of extension and measurement, spatial magnitudes (distances) have no need to be reduced to intensive magnitudes in order to be measured. In this way, the primacy of the extensive dimensions in the context of measurement is also established on conceptual bases. This claim is the most important premise of the “primacy thesis,” and finds even stronger support in Hartmann’s philosophy.

4 Epistemology and emergence Before concluding, some words shall be spent on the other general premise of the “primacy thesis,” namely, the empiricist claim according to which physical theories must connect their dynamical building blocks to geometry in order to provide an observational context to their predictions. This position is at odds with claims for a new “paradigm shift” in physics, which “disappearance thesis” proponents back up in the hope of relaxing the epistemological criteria used to evaluate the empirical coherence of fundamental theories. Indeed, they hold that, if a theory can provide “empirically testable predictions,” meaning that it can reconstruct the results of general relativity and its specific geometrical structure ad hoc from its dynamics (where those outcomes are known to hold), then it can be proven to be empirically coherent.

 The “infinite regress” reasoning is not used by Hartmann in the passage above, but is often used in similar arguments in Philosophie der Natur (for example, in issues regarding the curvature of space).

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This rationalist paradigm in disguise is strictly connected, of course, to the idea that spacetime is a function of dynamical elements, and can also explain why a particular notion of emergence is invoked. Consider the following story. Healey argued that the main problem faced by any eliminativist account of time and spacetime was the charge of empirical incoherence: there is no reason to believe any theory in the natural sciences, physics included, without empirical evidence, which ultimately consists in the results of observations and experiments. The latter must give rise to experiences in observers, and such experiences are physical and mental events that, by definition, occur in time and space; therefore, if a physical theory denies the existence of time and space, it denies the condition of its verification and, consequently, its purpose in natural science (Healey 2002, 299 – 300). Moreover, the initial solutions to the problem were unsatisfactory (Healey 2002, 305 – 315).¹³ Healey then decided to offer a hint about a possible way out: proponents of the “theories without spacetime” should explain how the spatiotemporal world in which events and experiences occur is derivable from those theories without space-time (Healey 2002, 301– 304). “Disappearance thesis” proponents seem to have paid attention to the suggestion. Indeed, they claim that spacetime, and its geometry, emerges from the dynamics of the quantum gravity building blocks, which in turn would not have primitive geometrical parameters (see Huggett and Wüthrich 2013). Similarly, for one to argue that the meaning of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation is the disappearance of time from reality, he or she must also believe that an “internal time” might be found emerging at the semi-classical limit of some cosmological model (e. g., Kiefer 2011). But what is such an emergence exactly? There is no unified explanation. The most explicit theoretical explanation is provided by Butterfield and Isham (1999). Emergence would be non-temporal and compatible with both reduction and supervenience (see Butterfield and Isham 1999, 112). The authors propose a modified version of Nagel’s concepts of reduction and supervenience: a theory is reduced to another if it is possible to define the terms of the reduced theory in the language of the reducing theory, so that the former becomes a sub-theory (or a “definitional extension”) of the latter. If at least one definition can be composed of infinite terms, there is supervenience, but it is argued that there is no “mere supervenience,” i. e., supervenience that is not reduction, actually presenting one infinite-term definition. Leaving aside the details, the main claim is that physical theories with time (and spacetime) are very special cases of emergence from theories without

 Healey also criticizes in those pages the accounts presented by Earman (), Barbour () and Rovelli () that I mentioned above.

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spacetime. In particular, general relativity would emerge from the future quantum gravity theory, for instance, when at least one term of the latter is defined with a limit-value, as in the (alleged) reduction of Newtonian mechanics to the special theory of relativity, defining velocity of light as tending to infinity (Butterfield and Isham 1999, 125). This conclusion, if you recall, is a good reason for the authors to believe in the non-empirical character of the fundamental physical reality (Butterfield and Isham 1999, 133). In a series of essays (Butterfield, 2011b and Butterfield, 2011a), Butterfield returns to the issue of emergence, without discussing the specific question of time or spacetime. Leaving aside the additions, the conclusion is the same: if one gives a special role to a certain parameter of the more fundamental theory (say, quantum gravity), then a special theory (general relativity) emerges with all its novelty (the relativistic spacetime). However, does this conception of emergence imply that verifying the reduced-emergent theory is the same as verifying the reducing-fundamental theory? Of course, “disappearance thesis” supporters answer the question in the affirmative. Hartmann would have given a different response. There is another argument in Philosophie der Natur against the general idea that space and time are derivable from the dynamical categories. It strongly affirms that physics cannot divide its theoretical side from the experimental one, because experience is to remain the final arbiter in science. Any departure from it leads inevitably into metaphysical speculation. Hartmann suggests that there is only one way to avoid this threat: no theory can dispense with space and time. There are two versions of the argument, one for space and the other for time. I wish to conclude by presenting both in succession, without further comment. Hartmann is clear enough. If real space was a function of something else, then this something could not already be “in” space, and consequently, it could not even be something with spatial dimensions. Assuming that space is a quality of matter, matter could not be extended in space, but would have to be an unknown substance beyond spatiality; assuming that space is a function of forces, force would have to be something non-spatial beyond the physical world and extension (des Extensiven). One can draw a conclusion similar to the one drawn by Leibniz with his concept of “primitive force.” By this means, however, one pulls the rug out from under phenomena and winds up in the region of speculative metaphysical suppositions (Hartmann 1950, 94). [T]ime itself is not extended, but is a substrate of extension, has no duration, but is the dimensional condition of a possible duration. If the duration of a process is a product of the force or of the causal nexus, then the time in which the duration occupies a lapse cannot be a product or a function of [the force or causal nexus]. Rather, just on this account, the function itself is only possible “in” time, and so it presupposes time. […]

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If one departs from this self-evident relation, one ends up in irresolvable contradictions. If real time were a function of something else, this something else could not on its own be “in” time already; thus it could not even be anything with temporal dimensions. If we assume that it is a property of the process, then the process cannot be extended in time. The process would have to be an unknown substance beyond temporality. And if we suppose that time is a function of force or causality, then force and causal nexus would have to be something atemporal beyond the physical world and existent things. Such a conclusion can be drawn in the abstract. Doing so distances us from the ground of phenomena and drives us into the region of speculative suppositions. If we thoughtlessly assume that process, force, and causes can nevertheless be already “in” the same time that they are supposed to have previously produced, then different forces, processes, and effects would have to occur in different “times,” without ever being able to meet or to influence one another. Indeed, every process and causal series would produce its own real time as a function of itself. In this way, we arrive at the opposite of what was meant by the concept of real time. Time, as function or derivative of what is in itself already temporal, eliminates not only the unity and singularity of real time, but also the unity of the cosmic process and cosmic dynamics. Real cosmic interconnection requires a unitary temporal dimension and a unitary temporal flow. Without this categorial basis the real world falls asunder (Hartmann 1950, 156 – 157).¹⁴

5 References Bain, Jonathan (2008): “Condensed Matter Physics and the Nature of Spacetime”. In: Dieks, Dennis (Ed.): The Ontology of Spacetime II. Oxford, Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 301 – 329. Barbour, Julian (2000): The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bergmann, Peter (1961): “Observables in General Relativity”. In: Reviews of Modern Physics 33. No. 4, pp. 510 – 524. Butterfield, Jeremy (2011a): “Emergence, Reduction and Supervenience: a Varied Landscape”. In: Foundations of Physics 41. No. 6, pp. 920 – 959. Butterfield, Jeremy (2011b): “Less is Different: Emergence and Reduction Reconciled”. In: Foundations of Physics 41. No. 6, pp. 1065 – 1135. Butterfield, Jeremy/Isham, Christopher (1999): “On the Emergence of Time in Quantum Gravity”. In: Butterfield, Jeremy (Ed.): Arguments of Time. Oxford: The British Academy, pp. 111 – 169. Earman, John (2002): “Thoroughly Modern McTaggart: or, What McTaggart Would Have Said If He Had read the General Theory of Relativity”. In: Philosophers’ Imprint 2. No. 3, pp. 1 – 28.

 By the way, it is remarkable that in the last sentence Hartmann anticipates a further claim deriving from the “frozen time thesis,” namely, that physical reality corresponds not to one universe, but to a multiverse (see, for instance, Barbour ).

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Earman, John/Norton, John (1987): “What Price Spacetime Substantivalism? The Hole Story”. In: Philosophy of Science 38, pp. 515 – 525. Hagar, Amit (2014): Discrete or Continuous? The Quest for Fundamental Length in Modern Physics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hagar, Amit/Hemmo, Mair (2013): “The Primacy of Geometry”. In: Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 44. No. 3, pp. 357 – 364. Hartmann, Nicolai (1924): “Diesseits von Idealismus und Realismus”. In: Kant-Studien 29, pp. 160 – 206. Hartmann, Nicolai (1940): Der Aufbau der realen Welt. Grundriss der allgemeinen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1950): Philosophie der Natur. Berlin: De Gruyter. Healey, Richard (2002): “Can Physics Coherently Deny the Reality of Time?” In: Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 50, pp. 293 – 316. Huggett, Nick/Wüthrich, Christian (2013): “Emergent spacetime and empirical (in)coherence”. In: Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 44, pp. 276 – 285. Kiefer, Claus (2011): “Time in Quantum Gravity”. In: Callender, Craig (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 663 – 678. Kuchař, Karel (1992): “Time and the Interpretation of Quantum Gravity”. In: Kunstatter, Gabor/Vincent, Dwight/Williams, Jeff (Eds.): Proceedings of the 4th Canadian Conference on General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics. Singapore: World Scientific, pp. 211 – 314. Kuchař, Karel (1993): “Canonical Quantum Gravity”. In: Gleiser, Reinaldo J./Kozameh, Carlos N./Moreschi, Osvaldo M. (Eds.): General Relativity and Gravitation. Philadelphia, PA: IOP Publishing, pp. 119 – 150. Kuchař, Karel (1999): “The Problem of Time in Quantum Geometrodynamics”. In: Butterfield, Jeremy (Ed.): Arguments of Time. Oxford: The British Academy, pp. 169 – 195. Maudlin, Tim (1988): “The Essence of Space-Time”. In: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 2. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 82 – 91. Maudlin, Tim (2002): “Thoroughly Muddled McTaggart: Or How to Abuse Gauge Freedom to Generate Metaphysical Monstrosities. With a Response by John Earman”. In: Philosophers’ Imprint 2. No. 4, pp. 1 – 23. Poli, Roberto (2011): “Hartmann’s theory of categories: Introductory remarks.” In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 1 – 32. Rovelli, Carlo (2004): Quantum Gravity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rovelli, Carlo (1991): “Time in quantum gravity: An hypothesis”. In: Physical Review D 43, pp. 442 – 456. Rovelli, Carlo (1995): “Analysis of the Distinct Meanings of the Notion of ‘Time’ in Different Physical Theories”. In: Il Nuovo Cimento 110B. No. 1, pp. 81 – 93. Rovelli, Carlo (2006): “The Disappearance of Space and Time.” In: Dieks, Dennis (Ed.): The Ontology of Spacetime. Oxford, Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 25 – 36.

Kari Väyrynen

Chapter 3 Nicolai Hartmann’s Concept of Causality 1 Introduction Hartmann’s concept of causality is in many ways current: recent discussion of causality (mainly in analytic philosophy) stresses the complexity of causal connections, but their dependence on an ontological background and their different roles in different sciences are not equally well elaborated. Hardly anyone accepts the positivistic view of causality as only a law-bound, deterministic chain anymore, but there are as yet no new ontologically based theories concerning causality. Analytic concepts of causality still lean strongly on logical atomism, in which causal connection is between “events” or “facts,” and to which traditional logical analysis of truth-values can easily be connected without more sophisticated ontological analysis (see for example Mackie 1974, 248– 269; von Wright 1984, 113– 115). It is true that analytic philosophy has made quite a turn to metaphysics in recent decades. But the main problem in this “metaphysical turn” is that it has been a turn to a kind of pre-critical, boldly speculative metaphysics closer in spirit to Leibniz than to Kant. On the other hand, there is also a global move away from the philosophy of language towards the philosophy of mind (Williamson 2015). In any case, these trends have not led to deeper ontological analysis. Current analytical metaphysics is still mainly pre-critical and naturalistic¹ and does not offer much, to my mind, for more complex, stratified ontologies developed in post-Kantian German philosophy (already Hegel, but later especially Heidegger, Hartmann, Lukács). With the metaphysical turn in analytic philosophy, interesting new aspects of causality have also arisen. “Counterfactual causality” has especially opened up lively discussion in analytical metaphysics as well as in special sciences. Outside the philosophical mainstream, new scientific developments like the rise of environmental sciences have also challenged traditional views of causality. We need new research concerning these new, still embryotic paradigms of science as well their ontological fundaments, as well as of their relatively new forms of scientific explanation. Classical views of causality are not able to handle

 In extreme cases, quite traditional physicalistic and reductionistic positions like Armstrong’s “Strong Physicalism” (Juti ,  – ).

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many difficult questions, like the causes of climate change, in which complex interactions of causal chains and simultaneous causes and effects across different ontological levels must be analyzed. Hartmann’s pluralistic ontology, his modal analysis, and his deep reflections concerning the categorical fundaments of natural and human sciences seem to be a very important—but still almost totally forgotten—theoretical resource for current philosophy of science. I fully agree with the estimation of the important German analytic philosopher Wolfgang Stegmüller in his standard work on contemporary philosophy, Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie (Stegmüller 1975), when he stresses the importance of the “comprehensive cosmic attitude” (kosmische Gesamtstimmung) in Hartmann’s thinking. According to Stegmüller, Hartmann’s critical, antireductionistic and stratified ontology is a much better alternative than anthropocentric existential ontology á la Kierkegaard (Stegmüller 1975, 243 – 244). In contemporary philosophy especially, the more and more important environmental philosophy has accepted the same nonanthropocentric view. It is clearly time to reevaluate Hartmann as an important classic, as Stegmüller quite exceptionally did in his own work. Hartmann connects causality to his stratified material ontology. Causality is the simplest and most elementary form of real determination. But it is not the only form of real determination, because the real world is stratified and the higher strata’s relations of determination are different from those of the lower. The causal nexus is also contained in the higher forms of determination as a subordinate factor. Two higher forms of determination, a planned-out system characteristic of certain organic processes and the purposeful action of humankind, presuppose the causal nexus. But especially in human action, a purpose and a selection of means (as “causing” the desired result) lead the way. Hartmann describes different forms of causality and explores their relative merits. He discerns, for example, a law-bound causality and manipulative causality as special forms of causal thinking. Law-bound, mechanistic causality has been especially important for classical natural science. Manipulative causality is not only important in science, but also for human purposeful action in general (means of action are based on causality). But in the last analysis, these forms of causality are too narrow; the causal nexus is fundamentally an expression of individual processes of reality. According to Hartmann, real being is (1) temporal, where “the interplay of change and persistence, causing and being caused by, exists only within the flow of time.” (2) Individuality distinguishes real being from ideal being: “everything real is individual and it exists only once” (Poli 2012). Therefore, causality is, in the last analysis, an individual and irreversible processual connection in time. This basic ontological aspect is very important to stress; it makes human freedom possible, for example. Causal connections are weak and neutral, so to speak,

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ready to be manipulated by human purposeful actions (of course, Hartmann is very well aware of the many difficulties involved). The limits of causal thinking become explicit not only in human action (teleology) but already in Hartmann’s analysis of the concept of interaction (Wechselwirkung) and higher forms of determination in nature, especially in dynamical “central determination” (Zentraldetermination) and “holistic determination” (Ganzheitsdetermination) (Hartmann 1950, 464– 473, 486– 494, passim). This may be the most original and, for recent problems of science, extremely important aspect of Hartmann’s theory of causality, because it connects causal “chains” to more comprehensive explanations on different levels of reality. The moment of causality corresponds to the “chain of conditions” that is successively being filled out, but the moment of interaction corresponds to the simultaneous “complex of conditions.” The former is a longitudinal connection, but the latter is already a kind of holistic connection (Hartmann 2013, 255). The concept of interaction is in our time methodologically interesting for many cross-disciplinary research projects, for example, in environmental research (from environmental science to environmental humanities). Interaction is a first step, so to speak, connecting causality to a wider ontological background. “Central determination” is in this respect a still more crucial step, by which causal relations can be qualitatively contextualized to different ontological levels.

2 On the metaphysics of causation It is always important to put current philosophical discussions in a wider historical context. In the case of causality, current discussion still strongly relies on the modern idea of material causes, chain-like connections between cause and effect, lawbound, deterministic processes. This basically physicalistic view has been criticized and modified in many ways in recent analytical metaphysics (for a good overview, see Schaeffer 2014), but the overall ontological background of causality is still an open problem. Following David Hume, causal thinking is still strongly empiricist and anti-essentialist. This has made it difficult to properly contextualize it on different levels of reality. Causal connections play different roles on different levels of reality. To clarify these, we need not only ask, “What must a world be like to host causal relations?” (Schaffer 2014, 1), but even more fundamentally, we need to ask what kind of roles causal connections play on different levels of reality and how causes, effects and their relations are modified on different levels of reality, that is: “what kind of causal connections are typical for different strata?” Nicolai Hartmann’s concept of causality poses these kinds of fundamental questions, and so is perhaps the most promising alternative to recent analytical discussion (which of course never even mentions Hartmann’s position). As already noted, analytical concepts of cau-

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sality still rely mainly on atomistic and physicalistic ontology, and cause and effect are interpreted as singular “events” or “facts.” From the viewpoint of stratified ontology, this is a simplistic view. Recent analytical metaphysics of causation as such is a very complex discussion of possible interpretations considering causal relata and the causal relation. Considering the relata, for example, the following questions are posed: are the relata immanent in spacetime, how fine-grained are they (individuation), and how many are they? Questions about the causal relation include: how do causally related and unrelated items differ, and how, if at all, do sequences involving causes differ from those involving mere background conditions? (Schaffer 2014) But these kinds of questions do not cast much light on the question of the ontological contextualization of causality on different levels of reality. In my mind, the most promising new (ca. 1970 – 2015) analytic theories of causality are (a) “contrastive causality” (and the closely related “counterfactual causality”), (b) “network theory” of causality and (c) different hybrid models of causality. I briefly introduce the basic ideas (following Schaeffer 2014) without discussing the many problems mentioned in the literature. (a) Contrastive causality breaks the traditional two relata model (A-B), and introduces three or four relata. Causal relata must build an effectual difference: causal relations have the form “A causes B rather than B*.” The four relata model yields the form “A rather than A* causes B rather than B.*” This model is ontologically relevant because “just as motion claims only make metaphysical sense when relativized to an inertial frame, one might think that causal claims only make metaphysical sense when relativized to contrasts.” Contrastivity is important, because it “diagnoses a range of contextdependencies in causal discourse” (Schaeffer 2014). This view is in a way already discussed by Mackie (1974), who developed an idea of the causal field, in which so-called “background conditions” play an important role (Mackie 1974, 34– 37, 63 – 64, passim.). (b) Network theory of causality can easily been understood if we think of causal chains as strings of a net. Causal processes are always connected to many partial causes and produce many side-effects. The main line of the string consists of the most important connections for the research subject, but even in this case it is problematic to speak of “causal chains” anymore. Causal process more closely resembles a rotten rope, where some strings have broken and some are still solid. Solid strings are criss-crossing, building a complex total determination. (c) Considering hybrid models, one of the central questions is “what is the metaphysical basis for causal connection? How do we register the difference between causally related and causally unrelated sequences?” Alternatives are many. One finds analyses of causation at least in terms of nomological subsumption, statistical correlation, counterfactual dependence, agential manipulation, contiguous change, energy flow, physical processes and property transference. Hybrid models connect some of them to a bigger ontological picture.

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According to this analytical discussion, a crucial metaphysical problem is causal selection. How do we distinguish between real causes and mere background conditions? Is there a metaphysical basis for selection? Following John Stuart Mill, many recent theorists like Lewis see the selection as capricious, without any serious theoretical ground. But some selection must be made, at least in order to even have a meaningful concept of causality. One promising idea is the aforementioned idea of a causal field presented by Mackie, if you implement it with the idea of causal models in which only certain events are represented via variables. Selection depends on a fixed conversational context (Schaeffer 2014). This idea does justice to the different role of causality in different sciences and different research projects, but Mackie himself provided no more complex ontological background (as mentioned above, only event/fact-problematics). In my mind, discussing the ontological background is crucial for defining the scope of causal fields. For instance, in searching for the causes of climate change, the relevant causal field combines both natural and cultural aspects into an interactive holistic explanation of this complex phenomenon. But in the case of the growth of a single organism, it is enough to combine genetic and local environmental aspects into an explanatorily relevant modal field. In the social sciences and humanities, causal fields must be constructed differently: they have a minor role, since they often build merely background conditions for relatively free human actions. These background conditions can also be changed through human purposeful action. In order to connect causality to different ontological levels, it is better to speak of level-dependent modal fields (Väyrynen 2013) and to connect causality, and causal fields, to those. Modal fields refer to the totality of real possibilities and necessities in a certain ontologically independent context. Modal fields must be bound to concrete material ontology in the sense of Hartmann, and causality must be interpreted through the specialities of those fields. The classical concept of causality is originally formulated in the very narrow context of physical possibilities. But if we think for example of biological, ecological, psychological and social possibilities, causality takes on very different forms. Not only the causal relata (cause, effect), but the interpretation (number, quality), selection, and relation itself varies; when we question how a billiard ball, animal, human, social group, artefact (car, cell phone), or institutional structure (capitalistic competition) is the cause of something, the answer varies depending on the field. If we want to connect causality to historical explanations, for example, as many analytic philosophers have done (especially von Wright 1972), we must take these stratified ontological questions seriously. History is a field of study which nowadays connects almost all levels of reality, especially environmental history (Donald Worster, Clive Ponting, Jared Diamond, et al.) and so-called

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“big history” (Christian 2005), which connect cosmological and environmental questions to traditional human-centered history. If we take the question of ontological background seriously, the currently almost forgotten Aristotelian idea of causality is still worth recalling. In the Metaphysics he discerns four types of causes (aitia): (1) material causes which constitute a being (lat. causa materialis), (2) formative or structural cause (causa formalis), (3) an entity causing a change or rest (causa efficiens) and (4) the end of something, final cause (causa finalis) (1044a – b, 1070a – 1071a). In order to fully know what something is, we must know all these causes. The role of causes also varies on different levels of reality. If we ask, for example, “what is the cause of an eclipse,” we must conclude that there is no matter causing it, no final cause and no formal cause, but only “the moving cause which destroys the light […] the earth” (Metaphysics, 1044b10 – 15). Modern science has concentrated solely on research into efficient causes. The empiricist critics of essentialism have diminished the meaning of formal and material causes, while the development of physics (Galileo, Newton) and biology (Darwin) has tried to eliminate final causes from scientific explanations (Niiniluoto 1983, 236 – 237). In the philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann, causality is only one specific form of determination (and the most elementary one), and its significance, i. e., how strongly it is subordinated to other forms of determination, depends on the specific “laws” or “tendencies” in the biological, societal, psychological or spiritual strata. Referring primarily to material processes (strata of inorganic being), it is presupposed by the higher strata, but on the other hand, causality is superformed (Überformung) in different ways by higher strata or superposed (Überbauung) on the lower. I will analyze next the main forms of causality and its basic superformations in interaction and human teleology, leaning especially on the most extensive analysis presented in Philosophy of Nature (Hartmann 1950). The role of causality in human action is analyzed extensively in Teleological Thinking (Hartmann 1951). However, Hartmann sketched the main lines of his theory of causality already very early in his excellent early work on the philosophy of biology (Hartmann 1912), where he analyzes causality and interaction in the natural sciences, especially in biology. This work leans on the Neo-Kantian discussion of causality and interaction (especially on his Marburger teachers Herman Cohen and Paul Natorp), and does not therefore represent Hartmann’s final view in this respect. Philosophy of Nature has the “last word,” so to speak, developing a mature and detailed view of causality. Hartmann already deviated in the 1920’s from the Neo-Kantians in emphasizing the metaphysical meaning of Kant’s philosophy. Like Heidegger, he claimed that there is no theory of cognition without ontology and metaphysics (Pietras 2011, 238).

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3 Main forms of causality according to Hartmann As with many philosophical questions, Hartmann starts with our common sense views. He first asks, therefore, why is causality theoretically as well as practically so important in human life? According to him, causality represents the basic order of reality, it organizes the processual continuum in such a way that anticipation is possible. The process without causality would be totally contingent (zufällig). This is also practically fundamental: without causal order human life would not be possible (Hartmann 1950, 318 – 319). The real process has a linear form of determination which connects later events with earlier ones. This form of determination is causality. It is not the only form of determination, but it is the most basic, not only for natural processes, but also as “a first condition for all other forms of dependence” (Hartmann 1950, 319).² Hartmann describes different classical aspects of causality, and accepts most of them as moments in total determination. He is in this sense a representative of the hybrid view of causality, to use a contemporary term. But he also makes some critical comments on the classical forms of causality, which are worth mentioning. I’ll analyze law-causality and determinism with Hartmann’s critical comments next, including manipulative causality and causality in human action and its connection to teleology. I comment critically on Hartmann’s determinism, which seems to deny the possibility of counterfactual causality.

3.1 Law-causality and determinism: no counterfactuals? The rise of causal thinking at the beginning of modern times was, according to Hartmann, one of the most important revolutions in the history of human thought, and it also raised fierce opposition from traditional positions. The concept of causality gained importance through the rise of mathematical and mechanistic natural sciences. Its close connection with mathematical natural science was a peculiar fate (Schicksal eigener Art), a big historical victory, which also had its negative aspects (Nachteile). The concept of causality was bound to the concept of mathematical laws in nature, especially to the idea of mechanism. This connection was so strong that one could no longer make a distinction between mechanism and the causal concept of the world: one started to speak about “mechanical causality.” This nar-

 “Sie ist die für den Naturprozess grundlegende, und sie bleibt für alle weiteren Formen der Abhängigkeit die erste Voraussetzung.”

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row concept even affected Kant’s concept of “causality through laws of nature” (Kausalität nach Naturgesetzen) (Hartmann 1950, 376). Leaning on his theory of modalities (Hartmann 2013), Hartmann stresses the determinative strength of the causal relation. This can be seen in cases in which very small causes or very small changes in causes produce unexpected and strong effects. Such can happen, for example, in systems in dynamical balance, where minimal changes can even destroy the whole structure (the principle “kleine Ursachen—große Wirkungen”). Hartmann already sees here a law-like aspect (Gesetzescharakter) (Hartmann 1950, 322). This is not in the same sense of “laws” used in the natural sciences, but rather as a modal aspect of necessity (Modalitätsmoment der Notwendigkeit). This means that causal necessity is “totally different from the necessity of laws.” It is, “like all real necessity, in every case different; law has only the necessity of generality” (Hartmann 1950, 324).³ Causal processes are therefore mostly individual processes, but can also be in that case very effective determinative processes. This means that causality is the core of the productivity in nature. Modifying ironically the language of Heidegger, Hartmann says that in considering the essence of causality, what is important is “the productivity in it, the ‘producing’ (Hervorbringen) as such. What time cannot do, namely, produce time (das ‘Zeitigen’), that causal process can do.” Causality therefore has a special feature that other categories do not have, the “form of continuous productivity” (Hartmann 1950, 324). This creative process differs essentially from mechanical processes, which are “sterile,” not creative (Hartmann 1950, 326). As a creative process, causal process expresses the real essence of natural processes much better than mechanical process: “Natural processes are not machine-like processes […] on the contrary, they are causal processes” (Hartmann 1950, 328). This strong determinism in causal processes has the curious implication for Hartmann’s view of causality that there is no place for counterfactual causality.⁴ He poses this problem in the classical form of modus deficiens (negative Kausalfaktoren, negative causal factors) (Hartmann 1950, 345). This conception is connected to his ontologically grounded view that our common belief in isolated causes and isolated causal chains is illusory. We know in these cases only partial

 “Denn Kausalnotwendigkeit ist eine ganz andere als die Gesetznotwendigkeit; sie ist, wie alle Realnotwendigkeit, in jedem Falle eine andere, während das Gesetz bloss die Notwendigkeit der Allgemeinheit hat.”  There is an extensive discussion initiated in analytic philosophy by David Lewis’ Counterfactuals (). I refer here to counterfactual causality in a broader sense in which it is used, for instance, in the discussion over possible or virtual history in the humanities. See for instance Ferguson .

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causes (Teilursachen). In the total reality there are no such things as isolated causes or causal chains. There is ultimately only the total, all-inclusive causal process of a dynamic world.⁵ “Cause,” in the strong sense of the word, is only the total cause rooted in the total world-process.⁶ This total cause is not simply a sum of partial causes. It is rather a network-like whole, a dynamic totality.⁷ This aspect is very hard to know, although the total cause is actually a productive cause (causa efficiens). It seems to vanish into the endless real context of the criss-crossing causal chains.⁸ Science too works only with partial causes, trying to isolate causal chains in experiments with relatively “closed systems.” This possibility of isolation makes anticipation of natural processes possible, but is of course always limited. Factors from outside this isolated system can suddenly occur (Hartmann 1950, 344 – 345). How does this doctrine of a “total causality” make counterfactual causality impossible? The specific human tendency to isolate causal chains and partial causes (Teilursachen) is connected to their positive or negative evaluations. According to Hartmann, in reality, on the other hand, there are no negative aspects: “in a real causal connection things are different: all conditions, which together contribute to the total cause, are totally affirmative […] there are no negative factors of causality […] no modus deficiens” (Hartmann 1950, 345).⁹ The idea of negative factors is a human illusion. We expect certain effects from causal chains, and when this expectation is not fulfilled, we say that there was some missing aspect in the causes. But in reality, on the contrary, there is nothing missing: “In the real natural process, there is nothing ‘missing,’ because there is nothing that ‘should’ have happened but didn’t.”¹⁰ Real causal connections are com-

 “Es gibt letzten Endes nur den allumfassenden Kausalprozess des Weltgeschehens” (Hartmann , ). This view is closely connected to Hartmann’s high appreciation and lifelong studies of astronomy. See Harich ,  – .  “Ursache im strengen Sinne ist stets nur die im Ganzen des Weltprozesses verwurzelte Gesamtursache” (Hartmann , ).  “Sie ist ein Geflecht, ein Gefüge, wennschon ein flüchtiges—eine Totalität” (Hartmann , ).  “in dem uferlosen Realzusammenhang der sich kreuzenden Kausalreihen verliert” (Hartmann , ).  “Im realen Kausalzusammenhang herrscht ein anderes Gesetz: alle Bedingungen, die in einer Gesamtursache zusammenwirken, sind durchaus affirmativ […] Es gibt keine negativen Kausalfaktoren […] es gibt keinen modus deficiens”.  “Im natürlichen Realprozess aber ’fehlt’ gar nichts, denn in ihm gibt es nichts, was herauskommen ‘sollte’” (Hartmann , ).

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plete: “Where there is no modus deficiens, there is completeness […] all real causal complexes are absolutely complete. There are no holes.”¹¹ This concept of causality is grounded on Hartmann’s overall “actualistic” modal ontology. He stresses that the affirmative nature of causal factors is “a special case of a more general ontological law” which denies the reality of “non-being” (“seienden Nichtsein”), which has been discussed since Plato, or Hegel’s “Macht des Negativen.” In reality “there is only ‘another-being,’ and this is something totally positive.”¹² In the case of Hegel, this criticism is not very accurate since contradictions are always real contradictions, which means that “negations” are objective entities that deepen our understanding of a contradictory whole. Hegel’s position is actually quite close to Hartmann’s, in my mind. In the modal ontology of Hartmann, this doctrine is connected to the extensive discussion of real possibilities, in which possibilities are bound to necessities and actuality (Hartmann 2013, 181– 263). Only in chapter 32(b) – (e), where he discusses the aspect of the future, does the strict determinism seem to give way to a more positive role for the “multitude of possibilities” in his modal thinking. He proposes a widening of the “real law of possibility,” which earlier stressed that the possible is only that which is actual, where “the law must mean that the possible is only that which is actual or will be actual.” This is, according to him, a better formulation: “This relation now also satisfies the idea of the ‘future-loadedness of the present’ far better than adherence to the concept of partial possibility does. Indeed, one must admit, it is only here that this dynamically beautiful idea completely comes into its own” (Hartmann 2013, 263). But in Philosophie der Natur, causality is again closely connected to the doctrine of real possibilities. “The modal definition of causality” is here short and very exact: “[Causality] is that form of determination of the real process according to which everything that becomes really possible in it, also necessarily happens” (Hartmann 1950, 336).¹³ Hartmann’s modal definition of causality clearly rules out the possibility of counterfactual causality. Contrary to Hartmann’s claims, counterfactual causality and counterfactual thinking in general¹⁴ is a very valuable theoretical tool in estimating the meaning

 “Wo es keinen modus deficiens gibt, da ist Vollständigkeit […] alle realen Ursachenkomplexe sind absolut vollständig. Sie enthalten keine Lücken” (Hartmann , ).  “da gibt es im Realen nur das Anderssein, und das ist etwas durchaus Positives”(Hartmann , ).  “sie (die Kausalität) ist diejenige Determinationsform des Realprozesses, nach der alles, was in ihm realmöglich wird, auch notwendig geschieht.”  Different cases of counterfactual thinking in general (from physics to humanities) are represented in Birke et al. .

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of different “real” causal processes. Even in physics and other natural sciences, counterfactual thinking is at least methodologically an important tool: it consists of “confronting the consequences of our ideas with observations, extending our ideas over the domain where observations are technically possible with current technology, and searching for inconsistencies of various aspects in the whole set of our ideas.” Computer simulations often use counterfactual ideas when, for example, a meteorologist would like to stop the revolution of the earth just to see how the climate would change. This is physically impossible, but a simulation on a computer is possible. In such cases “we see that counterfactual thinking can, in principle, be used to test theories.” Counterfactual features are already important in experimental research in general: “in a sense, every experiment is in itself counterfactual, as in an experiment an environment is construed that does not actually exist” (Elwenspoek 2011, 63 – 64). In the last analysis, Hartmann’s modal theory of real possibilities is unsatisfactory. We should not simply equate real possibilities and necessities with each other as his “Real Law of Possibility” does by insisting that “in the real there is no ‘merely possible,’ but rather the possible here is only that which is also actual; and the real law of necessity says: in the real there is no ‘merely actual,’ but rather whatever is actual here is also necessary […] There is in the real no free-floating, detached possibility that is not the possibility of an actual thing” (Hartmann 2013, 203; Hartmann 1966, 183). I would rather define the scope of real possibilities as a modal field, in which a level-dependent modal variation is possible: some possibilities inside the field becoming actual, some remaining “mere possibilities” (Väyrynen 2013). Let’s take some examples. In the case of classical mechanistic physics, the variation is strictly law-bound and deterministic. In the case of ecology, there are no deterministic laws, and therefore there is a field of ecological possibilities which are not yet actualized, but which are real possibilities for the future. For example, the dynamical balance of an ecosystem is a real possibility, although it is an ideal-typical (Weber) concept which as such never will be actualized. The real, dynamical variation in ecosystems is possible in certain limits—if the limits are exceeded, the ecosystem collapses. Real ecological possibilities are defined through these limits; it is necessary to remain within those limits, but it is really possible to move “freely” inside the field. Real ecological possibilities build an ideal field in which some real possibilities never become actual. “Necessity” in this case means the limits that should not be exceeded. In the case of human ecology, various technical and cultural possibilities make the situation more complex. Freedom to act expands the range of possibilities, which for the human species is bigger than for ants or other animals. The field of cultural possibilities is more strongly fictive than the field of ecological possibilities, and therefore in culture even more

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“mere possibilities” never become actual. There will never be a real centaur or Golden Age in the total determination of the world. Today popular counterfactual questions, like “What would our recent world be like if Hitler had won the Second World War?” have for Hartmann no positive function. In this respect, his concept of causality is overly deterministic. Counterfactual causality, as well as counterfactual thinking more generally, are important aspects of scientific practice. For example, in so-called “virtual history” (Ferguson 1997), questions concerning possible alternatives to what actually happened help to illuminate and understand better the meaning and significance of factual history or realized causal processes in history. It is also important to understand that “what really happened” is always a more complex whole than we can ever know. Sources are always incomplete and historians must therefore “fill the gaps” with the help of rationally grounded imagination—estimations about what could have happened and what probably happened in a certain historical period. Hartmann’s concept of real possibilities is in this respect far too deterministic.

3.2 Manipulative causality and human action The causal nexus is also contained as a subordinate factor in the higher forms of determination, especially in the predisposition systems (Anlagesystem) of certain organic processes, and for the purposeful action of humankind. The organic predisposition system is a pre-existing and absolutely real structure. Hence, its effects on the process are direct, causal effects throughout. But by no means does it contain all real conditions for the materialization of the mature organism. This process remains dependent on certain external factors at each stage, such as the presence of warmth, humidity, nutrients, etc. Hartmann typically stresses that “narrowly understood,” there is an illusion of many possibilities, for example the possibility of the individual’s perishing, but “broadly understood, they contain at every moment a totality of complexes of conditions, which as such leave only one possibility” (Hartmann 2013, 256 – 7). Also at a much higher ontological level, in the active realization of purposes grounded on human anticipation, the actual realization is “not only a real process but also a causal process.” The means of action are chosen by active consciousness, whether they cause the desired result (the purpose) or not. What greatly differentiates this from other causal processes is “just that here a purpose and a selection of means guided by this purpose have led the way.” But as in the case of organic development, also here “factors can emerge at every stage of the process that move events in a different direction from what had been anticipated

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—factors that were not foreseen.” Even in this case, Hartmann stresses that “narrowly understood, much is ‘possible’ in every stage, but broadly understood, only one thing is possible.” But one thing is modally different: in the choosing of the end itself and in the selection of means “there is another order” (Hartmann 2013, 257). There is a place for human freedom. Hartmann criticizes the traditional forms of teleological thinking¹⁵ and reserves a scientific role for it only in the human sciences. In nature, causal processes are dominant. Although causal processes have some “direction,” they are essentially “blind.” It is important to note that this deterministic blindness of causal processes makes human freedom possible. If natural processes had their own goals, humans couldn’t use them as easily as a means for their higher purposes. Only humans are capable of final determination, and that’s the reason why they are above nature (Hartmann 1950, 333). Why are causal processes able to be manipulated? According to Hartmann, causality is simple and neutral, “the most simple, basic form of linear real nexus,” and is based on a “minimum of linear determination.” It is therefore able to be superformed (überformbar) without limits by higher forms of determination. It is for them only passive matter, not able to resist the formation (Hartmann 1950, 334). This form-giving and directing of causal chains is also easy because the causal complex is not a closed system: we can therefore choose those causal components which are for us useful and direct the causal chain in a direction which is important for us. The causal complex does not have its own goals (Hartmann 1950, 337). In Hartmann’s theory of human action, causal processes play an important role. Like Kant, Collingwood, and recently von Wright (1971), he represents here the so-called manipulative concept of causality. He resolves the finalistic nexus into three aspects (Hartmann 1951, 69): 1st Act: Positing a goal in consciousness, transcending the limits of time in anticipation of the future; 2nd Act: Selection of means starting from the posited goal in consciousness (backward determination); 3rd Act: Realization through the series of chosen (seligiert) means; linear real process outside consciousness (Hartmann 1951, 69).

The final nexus is much more complex than the causal nexus. It has an important causal aspect in the third moment. The realization of the goal happens in real time and is a pure causal process. The means affect each other in a series

 See especially his last work, Hartmann ; also Aesthetics was not completed in his lifetime. It is clear that Hartmann’s death interrupted an intensive research period.

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and realize the goal at the end of the process. They form all together a causal series (Hartmann 1951, 70).¹⁶ It is important to stress that causality is a necessary condition of purposeful action. The “causal nexus is a necessary condition of the final nexus and also its fundamental categorical presupposition. If the means did not affect each other causally, no goals could be realized; the goal would be posited, but the agent (der Setzende) would be impotent to realize it” (Hartmann 1951, 72). This general importance of causality demands a revision of traditional metaphysics, which saw in causal dependence a violation of human freedom. Hartmann writes: “Thoroughgoing causality does not prevent action, it is on the contrary its presupposition. If the world were not totally determined by causality, there could be no finalistic processes. Willing, striving, action, and acts of free will are also only possible in a world that is totally causally determined” (Hartmann 1951, 73).¹⁷ On the other hand, Hartmann stresses the meaning of superformation (Überformung) for this general role of causality. We must ask, at every level of reality, what kind of special forms this causal aspect takes. The final nexus is a superformation of the causal nexus. This means that the final nexus “directs the causal process, blind by itself, towards certain goals; it places limits on the causal process, guides and articulates it, gives it a meaning, harnesses it to form-giving values” (Hartmann 1951, 73).¹⁸ Thus, it is meaningful to speak of different forms of causality depending on the ontological level. Philosophie der Natur mentions, besides physical causality, also “organical, psychical and historical causality, and certainly also many types of special modifications of them” (Hartmann 1950, 358). As in the case of the

 Von Wright’s famous “quasi-causal” explanation resembles Hartmann’s model. Von Wright stresses that the starting point of historical action is causally determined. Historical conditions make only certain kinds of actions reasonable. Means of action can also have such a causal role: for example changes in technology or changes in the means of production make it causally possible to accomplish things which before could not be done (Von Wright ,  – ). But contrary to von Wright, this can also limit our possibilities. In our time, for example, the internet has this kind of causal role: it helps us for example to pay bills, but on the other hand it makes the traditional ways of paying bills more difficult. All people are finally forced to use the internet.  “Durchgehende Kausalität lähmt das Handeln keineswegs, sie ist vielmehr seine Voraussetzung. In einer Welt, die nicht durchgehend kausal determiniert wäre, könnte es keinen Finalprozess geben. Auch Wille, Streben, Handlung, die Akte der Freiheit, sind darum nur in einer schon durchgehend kausal determinierten Welt möglich.”  “Damit eben überformt er ihn, lenkt ihn, den an sich blinden Kausalprozess, auf Zwecke hin; er begrenzt ihn zugleich, leitet, artikuliert ihn, gibt ihm einen Sinn, spannt ihn in die Formgebung unter Werten ein.”

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problem of psycho-physics, it is enough to take into account “specific moments of causality” in the overall autonomic psychical form of determination at the level of psyche or soul (Eigendetermination des Seelischen) (Hartmann 1950, 360). On the other hand, at the level of history, the lower forms of determination are often in conflict with higher forms, but not necessarily in a chaotic way (regellos). Historical determination often produces unintended consequences, which must be taken into account (Hartmann 1964, 288). Historical causality is mostly individual causality or complex network causality, and can therefore exemplify different aspects of causality much better than a mechanistic law-causality in classical physics. History is for us of special interest in that it is ontologically a kind of mixed domain, in which different levels of reality interact. Contingency (Zufälligkeit) has a big role in it and predictions are in most cases impossible. As Hartmann stresses in his theory of modalities, contingency becomes a common phenomenon at the limits of the spheres. He describes the role of contingency as follows: “An ontological sphere’s modal structure may very well be understood without drawing in contingency […] One must keep a place open for it at the limits of the sphere. For, here, it takes the place of necessity” (Hartmann 2013, 99). For instance, in environmental history it is clear that sudden environmental changes like a cooling climate after the warm period of Middle Ages necessitated the collapse of the Norwegian settlement in Greenland (ca. 1400), for example, because cattle breeding became impossible. This effect was contingent at that time because people had no idea how climate worked in the long run.

4 Causality and interaction: a first step towards higher forms of determination Compared to classical Humean causality and later analytic discussions, the German discussion on causality stressed the importance of an ontological and categorical contextualization of causality. The most brilliant thinkers of Classical German Idealism, Kant and Hegel, introduced the concept of interaction (Wechselwirkung) as a first step to contextualize causality within the more comprehensive system of human knowledge. In his Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Kant 1974, 242– 246), Kant connected causal chains, which exist in time, to interaction in a spatial dimension. Hegel contextualized causality in his onto-logical system of categories developed in Wissenschaft der Logik (Hegel 1975, 237– 240) and in the Logic of the Enzyklopädie (Hegel 1983, 300 – 306) through interaction with the higher ontological level of the Concept (Begriff). Hartmann refers to Kant and the Neo-Kantian discussion of interaction (by his teachers Cohen and Na-

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torp), but does not mention Hegel. In my mind, his basic idea of interaction is also Hegelian in the sense that causality is sublated (Aufgehoben) through interaction as a moment in a higher ontological stratum, for example, in an organic whole, as was done in his first analysis of the concept (Hartmann 1912). The basic idea of interaction in Hartmann is already very clear in this early work on the philosophy of biology. Hartmann defines nature here as an “infinite complex of causal chains.” Causality is only a “one-sided expression of this total law-like structure (Gesetzesstruktur) [of nature].” The problem is that causality “says nothing about the connections of causal chains to each other.” It therefore needs a complementary category, which combines a second dimension with it. This is, according to Kant, interaction (Wechselwirkung) (Hartmann 1912, 16– 17). As in the current network model of causality, Hartmann interprets interaction as a multiple causation of one effect. A natural entity is determined “through a whole complex of partial causes (Teilursachen).” A natural entity (Naturgegenstand) is now understood as a “system of effects,” or specifically determined movements. “A specific type of system-formation”¹⁹ is here essential. The concept of law is transformed here into a concept of system (Cohen) (Hartmann 1912, 17). Hartmann develops the concept of interaction more extensively in Philosophie der Natur. Interaction is the first categorical step that connects causality to higher ontological levels with their specific categories and forms of determination. Hartmann follows and develops further especially Kant’s basic definition in Kritik der reinen Vernunft when he defines interaction as “the continuous, determinative cross-connectedness of all simultaneous events” in space. It binds causal chains to more comprehensive wholes: “Only together with such crossconnectedness does causality constitute that comprehensive linkage of everything appearing in the process that we know as temporally continuous dependency.” The difference between causality and interaction can be described in the following way: “Causality corresponds to the ‘chain of conditions’ (Bedingungskette) that is successively being filled out, but the moment of interaction corresponds to the simultaneous ‘complex of conditions’ (Bedingungskomplex). The former is a longitudinal connection, but the latter is a holistic connection.” (Hartmann 1950, 419 – 420; Hartmann 2013, 255; Hartmann 1966, 232). In interaction, the idea of causal determinism is also changed. As a form of determination, interaction forms no serial linear “nexus,” but rather a “multidimensional, network like” form of determination “simultaneously conditioning and being conditioned, and in this conditionedness, belonging together in a

 “[D]ie besondere Art der Systembildung.”

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unity.”²⁰ This relatively new form of determination is called “total determination” (Gesamtdetermination), into which simple causal chains are harmonically united. But there can be also conflicts, since not all possibilities can exist simultaneously; interaction also means selection of that which is really possible together (real Kompossible) (Hartmann 1950, 421– 422). This means that interaction is not as strongly deterministic as singular causal connections. But at the same time, it is not chaotic or totally free to form any possible combinations. Causality limits the many “possibilities” in its successive process to only one. Interaction also limits the multiple possibilities of collocations (Kollokationen) to some basic types. This return of the same collocations in time is of course important for the possibility of the knowledge of nature; the same kinds of typical processes return time and time again (Hartmann 1950, 426 – 427). This extensive processual connection also expresses the real meaning of causality in nature: without interaction, causality would be only linear and “abstract.” But in real nature, on the contrary, the real fullness (reale Fülle) of causal processes has its content only in its coexistence with interaction. In the last analysis, this depends on the categorical structure of real connections (Realzusammenhang) (Hartmann 1950, 434). Even this is not the whole story. As Hartmann notes in Teleologisches Denken (Hartmann 1951, 90), the rich problematic of interaction becomes totally manifest in the category of dynamical structure (dynamische Gefüge), which was also analyzed extensively in Philosophie der Natur. Natural systems like the Earth (Erdkörper) or planetary system (Planetensystem) are examples of such primary structures (primärer Gefüge). For example, a single mountain is not a primary system, because it is produced through the geological dynamics of the primary system, the Earth (Hartmann 1950, 445 – 446). The idea of a dynamic system is, in NeoKantian terminology, already present in Hartmann in 1912, when he says that a planetary system is a typical example of a system of movements and forces (Bewegungs- und Kraftsystem) to which interactive causal chains are connected at a higher level (Hartmann 1912, 18). In this context, I cannot go further into the analysis of higher forms of determination and their ontological peculiarities. I have tried to show that Hartmann’s concept of causality is constructed in all its aspects with reference to his stratified ontology in general. Interaction is the first step to contextualizing causality into different aspects of nature and its systems. Compared to contemporary dis “Sie bildet keinen reihenhaft linearen ’Nexus’, der immer weiter läuft […] sie ist Determination im Sinne eines mehrdimensionalen, geflechtartigen, in der Gleichzeitigkeit gegenseitigen Bedingens und Bedingtseins, sowie des in dieser Bedingtheit zur Einheit gebundenen Zusammenbestehens.” (Hartmann , ).

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cussion of causality in analytic philosophy, this reference to stratified ontology and the analysis of interaction are very fruitful theoretical resources. In environmental research, interactive connections between causal processes are very important to analyze, and questions about the causes of climate change demand connections between different levels of reality, from chemistry to economic analysis and the humanities. Ontological analysis is very important for this kind of multidisciplinary work. Hartmann’s philosophy as a whole is able to show how this is possible, and therefore serves as an important source of inspiration for the future.

5 References: Apel, Karl-Otto/Manninen, Juha/Tuomela, Raimo (Eds.) (1978): Neue Versuche über Erklären und Verstehen. Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main. Aristotle (2003): Metaphysics. Loeb Classical Library XVII – XVIII. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press. Birke, Dorothee/Butter, Michael/Köppe, Tilmann (Eds.) (2011): Counterfactual Thinking – Counterfactual Writing. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. Christian, David (2005): Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Elwenspoek, Miko (2011): “Counterfactual Thinking in Physics”. In: Birke, D. et al. (Eds.): Counterfactual Thinking – Counterfactual Writing. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 62 – 80. Ferguson, Niall (Ed.) (1997): Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals. London: Picador. Harich, Wolfgang (2000): Nicolai Hartmann. Leben, Werk, Wirkung. Morgenstern, Martin (Ed.). Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Hartmann, Nicolai (1964): Der Aufbau der realen Welt. Grundriss der allgemeinen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (2012): New Ways of Ontology. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers. Hartmann, Nicolai (1950): Philosophie der Natur. Abriss der speziellen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1912): Philosophische Grundfragen der Biologie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Hartmann, Nicolai (2013): Possibility and Actuality. Scott, Alex/Adair, Stephanie (Trans.). Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1966): Möglichkeit und Wirklichkeit. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1951): Teleologisches Denken. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hegel, G.W.F. (1983): Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften I. Werke 8. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Hegel, G.W.F. (1975): Wissenschaft der Logik II. Werke 6. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Juti, Riku (2001): Johdatus metafysiikkaan. Helsinki: Gaudeamus. Kant, Immanuel (1974): Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

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Mackie, J. L. (1974): The Cement of the Universe. A Study of Causation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Niiniluoto, Ilkka (1983): Tieteellinen päättely ja selittäminen. Helsinki: Otava. Pietras, Alicja (2011): “Nicolai Hartmann as a Post-Neo-Kantian”. In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 237 – 251. Poli, R. (2012): “Nicolai Hartmann”. In: Zalta, E. N. (Ed.): The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2012 Edition). URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nicolai-hartmann. Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.) (2011): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter. Schaffer, Jonathan (2014): “The Metaphysics of Causation”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 Edition). Zalta, Edward N. (Ed.). URL = http://plato.stanford. edu/archives/sum2014/entries/causation-metaphysics. Stegmüller, Wolfgang (1975): Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie. Vol. 1. Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag. Von Wright, Georg (1971): Explanation and Understanding. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Von Wright, Georg (1984): Truth, Knowledge, and Modality. Philosophical Papers Vol. III. New York: Basil Blackwell. Väyrynen, Kari (2013): “General Theory of Modal Fields”. XXIII World Congress of Philosophy, Athens. Available at https://www.academia.edu/2368936/General_Theory_of_Modal_ Fields_and_Modal_Explanations_in_Human_and_Environmental_Sciences. Williamson, Timothy (forthcoming): “How did we get here from there? The transformation of analytic philosophy”. In: Belgrade Philosophical Annual.

Carlo Brentari

Chapter 4 “The Role of the Missing Reason”: The Search for a Stratum-Specific Form of Determination in Nicolai Hartmann’s Theory of Life 1 Introduction The problem of teleology is one of the major challenges for theoretical biology and, in general, for every philosophy of life. The debate about the nature of the organism and its difference from inorganic matter cannot come to terms with, at one point or another, the problem that arises from the unavoidable impression of teleology exhibited by the living itself. In this respect, the advantages that a systematic thinker such as Hartmann can offer to the philosophical analysis of life are remarkable. The first discussion by Hartmann on the problem of causality can be found in Philosophische Grundfragen der Biologie (Hartmann 1912), a work which, however accurate, takes a predominantly Kantian and neo-Kantian approach, and cannot rely on the original and fecund tools of Hartmann’s mature stratified ontology.¹ Therefore, the present contribution will focus on Hartmann’s ontological works, in particular his Philosophie der Natur: Abriss der speziellen Kategorienlehre (Hartmann 1950), in order to highlight and discuss the theoretical advantages they present. In particular, the validity of Hartmann’s ontological approach will be revealed by three key points: 1) a careful categorial distinction between different forms of determination, and even of causality, present in nature; 2) the refusal of vitalism, with the resolute limitation of finality in the proper sense to human conscious action; and 3) a great openness to the possibility that the living could be a third realm, governed by an autonomous modality of determination whose nature has yet to be discovered. Given the nature of the problem to be addressed, it is necessary to provide a series of methodological remarks that aim to prevent Hartmann from being

 See Hartmann’s criticism of the “constitutive teleology” of Aristotle, explicitly based on the Critique of Judgment (Hartmann ,  – ; cf. Kochy , , where Philosophische Grundfragen der Biologie appears in list of contributions belonging, in different ways, to the research field of teleology, teleonomy, natural harmony, etc.).

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placed prematurely in one or the other of two camps that, from an historical viewpoint, do battle over the nature of organisms and life: vitalism and mechanism. As Willibald Baumann stated in 1955 while replying to Theodore Ballauff (Ballauff 1952), if one believes that the comprehension of living processes must adopt either a mechanistic or a teleological approach, then one is tempted to place Hartmann among the mechanists (his criticism of vitalism is, in fact, quite pointed and valid). If, alternatively, you accept the possibility that there is a third form of determination, then (paradoxically, but positively) Hartmann’s approach “compels us to reassess the plausibility of the teleological interpretation of life through comparison with the results of a rigorous categorial analysis” (Baumann 1955, 5). In other words, as Martin Morgenstern remarked in a criticism directed toward a contribution of Peter Baumanns (Baumanns 1965, 167 ff.), if it is true that “Hartmann did not succeed in a ‘desubjectified’ (neutral) description of vital phenomena,” it is also true that “since Kant’s Critique [of Judgment], no particular risks are incurred by a teleologizing [teleologisierend] description of nature any longer” (Morgenstern 1992, 143, n. 139). In any case, Hartmann describes his own approach as follows: What it comes down to, however, would be the revelation of those organic categories that are neither derived from the dynamics of the inorganic, nor from the teleological activity of intentional beings [. . .] but belong to the peculiar stratum of organic life. [. . .] Positive biology does not do this on its own initiative. It is too close to the facts to do so. In order to grasp categories a greater distance is required, and above all, it requires complete freedom of vision from those all-too-human alternatives [mechanism and vitalism] of theoretical interpretation (Hartmann 1944, 4– 5).

Starting from this premise, this paper has two main goals. Firstly, it will examine Hartmann’s view of teleology in nature. Secondly, it will link his ontological perspective (and in particular his conception of the novum categoriale) with later discoveries in biology and genetics. This double aim is reflected in the structure of the essay. The first part is dedicated to some relevant aspects of the Philosophie der Natur, such as the problem of determination in organic matter, and the rejection of vitalism.² The second part proposes an original combination of Hartmann’s theory of life with some central issues of contemporary biosemiotics, in particular Marcello Barbieri’s idea of non-intentional code semiosis. This kind of semiosis—seen as a natural, but not mechanically predetermined, relation between two sets of biologic entities—will emerge as a concrete way to think about

 For an exposition of these issues, cf. Morgenstern ,  – .

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Hartmann’s third form of determination, in contrast to antecedent causality and conscious finalism.

2 Philosophie der Natur: A process-based natural ontology Hartmann’s work Philosophie der Natur, completed in 1943 and published in 1950, exposes the ontological categories which shape the natural world. In Hartmann’s stratified ontology, the sphere of nature overlaps with the first two strata of real being, the inorganic and the organic. (There are also relevant links between nature and the superior strata of real being, the psychic and the spiritual.) As far as nature is concerned, Hartmann describes with his realistic approach the ontological categories of space, time, process, change, causality, system (Gefüge), and vitality (Lebendigkeit), among many others. What results from this analysis is a natural ontology based on two main elements: the stratified character of nature—which confirms and deepens the ontological thesis proposed in previous works, such as Der Aufbau der realen Welt (Hartmann 1940)—and its overall processuality. At every level of the natural world—with the exception of the basal level of the dimensional categories, which furnish the foundation for the more concrete natural categories—Hartmann systematically deprives natural “things” of any substantial core in the traditional sense. As far as the most relevant natural entities are concerned, i. e., dynamic systems (Gefüge) and living beings, they appear to be processual phases far more than substantial units. Their existence in the flow of time and change (Werden) is guaranteed by the dynamic category of consistency (Konsistenz), which Hartmann sets against the traditional category of subsistence (Subsistenz). And Hartmann’s idea of consistency implies that the durability of natural entities, and in particular of the living ones, does not depend on a static substratum bearing transformations and “accidental” qualities (as in the Aristotelian model). On the contrary, the permanence of the entity as a processual Gestalt depends on its constant activity of re-affirmation.

2.1 The problem of determination in nature Besides the definition of a non-substantial modality of persistence, the processual ontology developed by Hartmann in Philosophie der Natur offers a multifarious theory of natural determination. In Hartmann’s terminology, “determination” means, in general, the transformative effect that an entity or processual phase has upon other entities or processual phases. Hartmann’s theory of deter-

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mination is a pluralistic one; depending on the respective stratum of the real being, and on the respective level within any stratum, different forms of determination can be identified and described. The most elementary form of determination is causality (Kausalität). Causality follows the flow of time and inserts “a first substantive, ordered sequence” into the natural sphere (Hartmann 1950, 326). All previous categories (time, space, process, and even change) are neutral from the point of view of the contents’ order. They are limited to providing a dimension, a “domain in which” things could happen; even change is the sheer possibility of diversity between various process phases. Causality gives content to this possibility, as Hartmann writes: Causality is, thus, the way that the series of states in a process do not follow on one another in a random order, but in a definite ordered series, where in the direction of temporal flow one state is dependent on another, or is “produced” by another one. The earlier state is the “cause,” the later is “effect;” the former produces, the latter is produced (Hartmann 1950, 326).

In other words, causality appears to be “the eminently creative process” (Hartmann 1950, 333) in a changing reality, the real source of change in the dimensional frame of time, space, and processuality. According to Hartmann, the productive character of causal relationships is necessarily bound to remain unexplained. We cannot precisely understand how from an entity or phase of a process something different originates; unknowability “evidently pertains to production as such. One thing must be made clear: it is not knowable a priori, and every a posteriori knowledge of causality only extends to its specifications and already presupposes production. This means nothing else than that the producing as such is unknowable” (Hartmann 1950, 336). In an ontological perspective, all causality-based processes of change imply a primal disturbance of the identity of natural beings and are, in Hartmann’s terminology, “irrational problem residua (irrationale Problemreste)” (Hartmann 1950, 336). Remainders of this kind, which must be accepted as they are by philosophical inquiry, are irrational only inasmuch as our mind does not possess cognitive tools capable of further analysing the phenomena, and not because they refer to any mystical dimension or mysterious superior force. As Anton Schlittmaier correctly affirms, there is, in Hartmann’s work, a fundamental distinction between antinomies and contradictions “resulting from prejudices or incorrect theories” which can be corrected through the exercise of critical thought, and “fundamental” or “genuine” antinomies “which, in contrast, are rooted in the boundaries of human knowledge” (Schlittmaier 2011, 48). After analyzing the antinomy of the existential dependence of principles on

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the concrete entities that “carry” them (a case of irrationality we cannot here describe in detail), Schlittmaier correctly widens the problem of the irrational residua by quoting a very significant passage by Hartmann: “an irrational remainder exists in all kinds of determination (also, e. g., in causality). This irrational residue always pertains to the producing, effecting, or determining as such” (Hartmann 1964, 386). It is not surprising, therefore, that the mysterious character of causality not only invests the linear cause and effect nexus that is typical of inorganic matter, but reverberates throughout all successive superformed varieties of causality, and in particular upon organic causal determination. But the presence of a residual irrationality should not prevent us from describing every form of determination and/or causality, and differentiating it from others with increasing precision. Causal influence is not the only form of determination that organizes the domain of real being; it interacts with the synchronic determination introduced by the category of interaction (Wechselwirkung, a sort of compossibility among coexisting entities), and with the comprehensive normativity of nature. And, as already mentioned, even causality exists in more than one form. The mechanical, linear cause-effect relationship typical of non-living processes is doubtless the basic form of causality, but it is “a primal condition for all further forms of dependence” (Hartmann 1950, 336). More precisely, the direct causality between entities or events which prevails in inorganic real being is “unlimitedly superformable by higher forms of determination. For them, causality is like passive matter and does not present any resistance” (Hartmann 1950, 341). The concept of superformation (Überformung) is important in Hartmann’s ontology. It refers to cases in which a category or being of superior level “takes in” a category or being of an inferior level as its “matter,” “superforming it” through its own structure and in its own structure. It should not be confused with the concept of superposition (Überbauung), in which the being of the superior level does not remould the inferior one, even if it remains dependent on it for its actual existence. In the second case, therefore, there is the possibility of a greater independence of organization, as can be seen in the superposition of the spiritual level upon the psychic one.³ The higher forms of determination in which direct causality enters as a “superformable” categorial element are essentially two: the organic nexus (der organische Nexus) and the teleological nexus (der Finalnexus). The first, which is

 For the distinction between Überformung and Überbauung see Hartmann ,  – ; Hartmann ,  – ; for a valuable discussion of the idea that linear causality is an “open system” and the “precondition of a layered reality,” cf. Morgenstern , .

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the focus of this paper, is the still-unknown form of determination that prevails in organic matter. A relevant case of organic determination is the phenomenon of metabolic assimilation, through which (consistently with the Latin term ad-similatio) the organism makes the nourishing elements “similar to itself,” decomposing and integrating them into its own tissues. As for the teleological nexus, it emerges in real being through the human mind’s capacities of representation and planning, according to Hartmann, and is made possible by “the selfconscious initiative of will” (Hartmann 1950, 341). And, as shown by the modal analysis of Möglichkeit und Wirklichkeit, there is a direct link between teleology, human activity, and the future: “humankind with the whole activity of which it is capable, is dependent on the future. And for that reason, its active existence consists in steady anticipation [. . . .] The categorial form of this living-ahead-of-itself (Sich-selbst-Vorausleben) is teleology: the ability to decide on a purpose and actualize it” (Hartmann 2013, 270/1949, 263 – 264). The connection between this kind of anticipating self-consciousness (seen as a cognitive faculty open toward the future) and the moral dimension of human action is explicit in Hartmann, and is well-recognized by interpreters (Hartmann 2004; Hartmann 1949, 246; Hartmann 1952, 116). “For Hartmann,” writes Gerhard Ehrl, “there is teleology only in connection with the human being as a purposive agent. As such, humankind determines the world in a ‘finalistic’ way, which means that the finalistic nexus is the form of determination of a value-feeling person who sets goals and realizes them” (Ehrl 2003, 64 – 65). This requires the axiological neutrality of nature: human beings can act, both in a pragmatic and in a moral way, only in a world that is meaningless (sinnlos) but not hostile to meaning (sinnwidrig): “[i]t is not as if our human life would remain meaningless if the world as a whole were meaningless. Instead, our life would be meaningless if the world as a whole were completely full of meaning even without us. [. . .] The meaningless is not hostile to meaning; it presents no resistance to sense attribution” (Hartmann 1955, 271).⁴

 This characterization of the human being can be understood in two different perspectives. The first (for instance, Ehrl) makes the attempt to bring the anthropological concept of Hartmann back to a metaphysics of values, referring in particular to Hartmann’s Ethics (Ehrl ,  – ); the second (for instance, Arndt Grötz) accepts Hartmann’s distinction between subject and person, and avoids using the term metaphysics by staying true to Hartmann’s definition of the subject as “ontologisches Wesen” and person as “axiologisches Wesen” (Grötz : ; Hartmann, , ). Besides ethics and ontology, a third field of human existence could be outlined thanks to Hartmann’s conception of the superformation of linear causality: the field of pragmatic action in the sense of Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View.

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Leaving aside the problem of defining the superior form of determination introduced into nature by humankind, let us concentrate upon our main point, the form of determination which is peculiar to organic matter. The worst error that can be made in a philosophical analysis of organic being is to mix up the different forms of determination, coming to regard life as either a mechanical by-product of inorganic processes, or as a directing “alien principle (fremdes Prinzip)” (Hartmann 1950, 524) that would be added to inorganic matter (such as the Aristotelian and Drieschian entelechy, Claude Bernard’s force vitale, or Jakob von Uexküll’s Naturfaktor). In Hartmann’s Philosophie der Natur, life is seen as a domain governed by a form of determination and even of persistence, and an organism’s life is an interplay of functions supported by the provisional unity of a “formed-structure (Formgefüge)” (Hartmann 1950, 524). In other words, a life form depends, in its being and in its being-so, on the processes taking place inside it. Even death has to be seen in the same way: “it is not the ‘escape of life’— which would only make sense if life were a second real ‘something’ in addition to the real organism—it is also not the escape of a force or principle from the body, [… but] the standstill of the process”(Hartmann 1950, 524). What is enclosed between birth and death is the steady renewal of the morpho-processual unit, a special form of persistence and inner determination that has the character of a radical ontological novelty and whose philosophical study is still in its initial phases.

3 The search for a stratum-specific form of determination in Hartmann’s theory of life Keeping in mind the two topics sketched above—Hartmann’s non-substantial idea of permanence and his pluralistic theory of determination—I will focus now on their implications for an ontologically rooted theory of life. In particular, starting from Hartmann’s assumption that organic matter is the least understood (and maybe the least understandable) ontological stratum within nature, I will analyze Hartmann’s arguments for the existence of a form of ontological determination which is peculiar to living processes and beings. This stratum-specific form of determination, which, according to Hartmann, has not yet been clearly identified, is not identical either with linear causality, or with finalist causality, or even with any form of non-causal determination. In Hartmann’s terminology, this unknown form of determination is a categorial novum, i. e., an ontological factor which is not reducible to any functionally equivalent principle of the lower or higher strata.

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Hartmann proposes two basic requirements for this particular categorial novum. Firstly, he affirms that it should be able to play “the role of the missing reason (die Rolle der fehlenden Vernunft)” (Hartmann 1950, 704; and a related passage says “the role of the guiding (lenkend) reason,” Hartmann 1950, 698). In the last part of Philosophie der Natur, the idea of the functional equivalence between human reason and the determining system of the organism is repeated. The following example is particularly clear: “What the nexus finalis achieves through the setting of a goal and the choice of means is achieved in the reproduction of individuals thanks to the Anlage-system. The determinants of this system play the role of ‘means,’ without of course being genuine means” (Hartmann 1950, 700). That is to say, they are not the result of conscious choice and planning. It is only with reference to the Anlage-system that the vivid, but misleading, impression of conscious finality exhibited by living phenomena and organic processes is explained. Secondly, Hartmann states that the form of determination peculiar to organic matter consists in, or is based on, a plurality of factors, thus opening the way to a fruitful confrontation with the complex models of contemporary biology. Let us consider these two points separately.

3.1 “The role of the missing reason” Hartmann’s analysis of the nexus organicus aims at giving ontological concreteness to what hides behind the “insuperable appearance of teleology” (Hartmann 1950, 698) in organic matter, the phenomenal appearance of conformity to an end, to the Kantian Als-ob-Erlebnis. This phenomenon is so vivid that, as Toepfer correctly remarks, “it is not always easy to distinguish a teleological from a nonteleological process. As mere natural processes, in fact, they are, according to Hartmann, identical: as a real process, even the finalistic nexus appears as a causal sequence of events” (Toepfer 2004, 58). This difficulty, as well as the factual persistence of the superformed material, does not lead to a refusal of a possible third form of determination. The appearance of teleology in organic processes is not reducible to other factors, and is at the same time undetermined in its content, which means that it is open to further research. If we examine the process that is probably the most important one in the domain of organic life, according to Hartmann—i. e., the reproduction of individuals on the basis of heritable characters, without which there could be “no increase and no ascent of [living] forms” (Hartmann 1950, 695)—we must admit that we still know little about it. We know that there is a “fundamental correlation between determining factors (genes) of the germ plasm and specific partial forms and functions of the organism” (Hartmann 1950, 695), and we also know that such influence is

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grounded “in the shape and movement of chromosomes, in the role of the centrosomes, [and] in the peculiar process of mitosis” (Hartmann 1950, 696), but we do not know how these processes work concretely. Nevertheless, reproduction, embryogenesis, and other organic phenomena confirm Hartmann’s basic ontological conception: organic processes are built up of singular causal relationships of the linear kind, which are yet “disposed” to a future end (which can be attained even after many passages and phases). “Even here, the course of the process [is] causal in its details,” states Hartmann in a synthetic manner, “only the arrangement of the causal factors is a very special one” (Hartmann 1950, 696). In the development of an embryo, this peculiar arrangement of causal factors is oriented toward the reproduction of the adult organic form and is, in Hartmann’s words, a “closed system of causes oriented toward a final outcome (ein auf das Endresultat angelegtes geschlossenes Ursachensystem)” (Hartmann 1950, 700). The analogy with planned human action is clear; even in the latter, singular causal relationships of the linear kind are disposed in a systematic way—even if, this time, according to a conscious plan. Consistent with Hartmann’s theory of superformation, in both cases, linear causality provides the matter for a higher kind of causal determination. Moreover, both the nexus organicus and planned human action seem to admit a sort of retroactive action of the future on present processes. Referring to the key examples of reproduction and embryonic development, Hartmann states: The puzzle here is this: how can later process stages belonging to this whole (Ganzheit) [i.e., the individual as spatial-temporal gestalt] have an effect upon previous stages? Naturally, they are not able to do this—unless we recur again to preformation, to an entelechy, or to “immanent purposes.” But this is precisely what we have to avoid. In their place, we have to substitute the functioning of an anlage system (Hartmann 1950, 697).

In other words, the problem here is to understand which system of factors inside the organic stratum can play the role of a guiding or missing reason, without either postulating any direct metaphysical effect of the future upon the present, or reverting to vitalistic claims, or even to unique human faculties such as representation, planning, symbolic or verbal thinking. As Frederic Tremblay correctly states, “if we look at such processes as the ontogenesis of multicellular organisms, we see that a formation process is directed toward a specific goal over a set of stages. This goal is an immanent end contained in the anlage system. An anlage system is an embryonic area capable of forming a structure: the germ or bud [….] The ontogenesis is the gradual unfolding of the anlage system,” an unfolding that should not be seen as the incremental growth of a “preformed

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miniature animal,” as in pre-modern preformationism, but as a “development toward the form [, …] a gradual epigenesis of the final form” (Tremblay 2011, 130).

3.2 “A plurality of factors” According to Hartmann, in the quest for the functional equivalent of a guiding reason, we should not take for granted that it is a “single (einheitlicher) factor,” since “this role can even […] be distributed among a plurality of factors” (Hartmann 1950, 698). Yet the result must be the same: the final stage of the process seems to retroact upon the chain of the previous phases. But what these factors are should now be the object of further research. In addition to causality, Hartmann’s quest for the guiding anlage system employs other categories of real being, such as “central determination,” “holistic determination,” and interaction. The first two can already be found in the highest structures of inorganic being (for example in atoms); entering the level of organic being, they are superformed and organized in a new way. In its organic superformation, central determination is based on a “determining center, whose function is slowly passed on through the division and differentiation of cells” (Hartmann 1950, 699), while holistic determination is expressed as a “function of its place [Funktion der Lage] in the whole” (Hartmann 1950, 698), whereby the organism’s parts develop according to their relative position in the whole. Consequently, organic determination appears to be a “mutual interplay of the original central determination and the holistic determination in effect at each developmental stage” (Hartmann 1950, 699). In organic substrates, central and holistic determination interlace with each other, and this interdependence is a further signal of their ontological originality when compared to their basic, inorganic form. As for the third superformed category, interaction (Wechselwirkung), its sphere of influence is mainly that of the external conditions of the organism’s development. Overall, apart from particular cases (namely, when radical changes in environmental conditions jeopardize the beginning of a process), the hegemonic factor remains the genetic disposition system. This is a crucial point. In order to describe and understand the organism’s anlage system, Hartmann introduces the term “gene,” stating that the concrete functioning of the anlage system is based on the relationships between “the determining ‘gene’ and the determined organ” (Hartmann 1950, 702). Hartmann sketches the general picture of the relationships determining the organism in the following way:

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The central determination exerted by the genes progressively codetermines the selection of those external causal factors, which—emerging from the holistic determination of its specific developmental stage and from its interaction (Wechselwirkung) with the surrounding world—are allowed to participate actively in the process. In this way, the determining genes are at the same time shown to be principles of the selection (seligierendes Prinzip) of those developmental conditions which are not contained in the genes (Hartmann 1950, 703).

At this point, the generic statement that the nexus organicus superforms the linear causal relationship can be further specified by saying that the superformation includes central determination, holistic determination, and Wechselwirkung. The hypothesis of a categorial novelty is fully justified, insofar as all of the categories of the inorganic stratum mentioned enter the organic one in a new synthesis—a new synthesis which Hartmann defines as “superposition and mutual dependence” (Hartmann 1950, 708). This is possible because one of these categories, central determination, plays the role of the “missing reason;” it shapes a closed system of causal relationships (which can be simple or already superformed), and this system expresses itself in a teleonomic way. Cautiously, Hartmann presents the influence of the anlage system as a form of selection: among all possible intra- and extra-organic determining factors, genes would select those which can be allowed to display their influence, and discard the others. In other words, after having sketched the complex of the determining relationships inside the organism, Hartmann isolates a hegemonic process, namely, the (still unexplained) selective action of the central system of dispositions. This reduces the importance of holistic determination and external environment, which both appear to be determined by the anlage system. The ontological-categorial analysis of the different sides of organic determination leads Hartmann to a peculiar result: “the irrational residuum [der irrationale Rest] of the organic nexus is more and more reduced” (Hartmann 1950, 706), and now appears to be concentrated in the selective role attributed to the genes. In conclusion, Hartmann identifies the persisting “irrational” core in the way in which genes work, in “how” the genetic disposition system determines the final result in a manner functionally equivalent to human rational planning: “we are not at all able to see just ‘how’ the determinants of the germ plasm really operate in the morphogenesis of the individual organism” (Hartmann 1950, 704).

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4 Organic code semiosis as categorial novelty In Hartmann’s epistemology, the first step in the knowledge of a new ontological category is frequently facilitated by its gradual emergence from scientific research. Following this approach, in the last part of my paper I will explore some problems arising from some facts of biology that Hartmann could not have known. Based on them, I will attempt to get a better understanding of the stratum-specific form of determination Hartmann was searching for, and which he saw provisionally in gene-induced intraorganic selection. Hartmann’s analysis of the organological categories of natural being leaves a distinct impression of incompleteness, which is also a result of the large number of textual passages in which he admits that the current state of biological knowledge (particularly in genetics) does not allow a deeper comprehension of the key categories. Hartmann bemoans the lack of empirical material which could give biology a turn comparable to the one following the discovery of quantic processes in physics. In particular, Hartmann knows about the existence of chromosomes—“in individual cases, the corresponding fine structure of the chromatin fibres becomes visible even to the microscope” (Hartmann 1950, 690)—and of their probable directing function in cell differentiation and in the establishment of the adult organism’s physiology. “If we assume that the chromosomes contain the factors determining the structure and function of every kind of adult somatic cell, then it is conceivable,” he argues, “that in continued cell division the same determinants always determine the functions of newly emerging [organs and tissues]” (Hartmann 1950, 706). Later discoveries in genetics, in particular those of the DNA structure and of its function in amino acid synthesis, could have provided Hartmann with the empirical material he was waiting for. That does not mean that we are able to explain the irrational core represented by the goal-directedness (Zweckmäßigkeit) of organic processes. (We should not forget that, according to Hartmann, we cannot even explain linear causality!) For instance, we still don’t know how genotypes coordinate the translation of the DNA code into amino acids with such high precision. Nevertheless, genetic research has given us the tools for describing the processes of cell and tissue differentiation in a better way than by referring to intraorganic selection (as Hartmann provisionally did). In particular, these tools allow us to isolate a form of determination in organic matter that bears all the traits of the categorial novum Hartmann described. This form of determination can be found in the semiotic relationships existing between sets of organic elements. According to the contemporary code biologists, and in particular to Marcello Barbieri (Barbieri 2003; Barbieri 2012, 411– 437), semiotic relationships could be the basic trait of living matter, if not

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the key factor in the apparent teleology of organic and evolutionary processes. The most rewarding result of this field of research is the notion of material code semiosis, i. e., a kind of semiosis that is based on material codes and, as we will see, does not require any interpreting subject. According to Barbieri, a semiotic system is composed of two separate domains, that of signs and that of meanings: “a world of entities that we call signs and a world of entities that represent their meanings” (Barbieri 2010, 207). The two domains are linked by specific correspondence rules, and the whole of the rules is the code. Code, signs, and meanings are the basic elements of semiotic systems. As for DNA, the signs are the triplets of nucleic acids carried by the chromosomes (which compose the species-specific genome), the meanings are the amino acids synthesized according to the available signs, and the code is the system of correspondence rules between nucleic acids and amino acids (leaving aside, for clarity’s sake, all intermediate stages). The code is the same for all organisms: in every living being, the same triplet corresponds to the same amino acid. What changes from species to species is obviously the “text,” i. e., the particular triplet sequence (which can be more or less long and have other peculiarities). In order to understand the novelty that semiotic systems introduce into organic being, some key points have to be underlined. Firstly, as Barbieri argues, the shift from signs and meanings is not a necessary one, either from a physical or a chemical perspective; on the contrary, this shift is due to the spontaneous activity of the cell, and in particular, of cellular organelles such as the ribosomes (the transfer-RNA, what Barbieri calls adaptors). Ribosomes carry nucleic acid sequences capable of “translating” signs into meanings. “The genetic code,” Barbieri states synthetically, “is a set of rules that link the world of nucleotides to the world of amino acids, and its adaptors are the transfer-RNAs. The adaptors are required because there is no necessary link between the two worlds, and a set of rules is required in order to guarantee the specificity of the correspondence” (Barbieri 2012, 424). As anticipated above, it is important to emphasize that the conception of the cell as a semiotic system does not require the postulation of any self-conscious agent or interpreting subject. Interpretation appears only at the level of superior animals, as an enhancement of the semiotic system (which is now composed of four sets of entities: code, signs, meanings and interpreting subjects). Only in animals, in other words, do we have a decoding activity based on a hermeneutic subject and its inner representations. In this regard, a distinction has to be drawn between code semiosis (of which the translation of DNA in amino acids is a relevant example, even if not the only one) and hermeneutic semiosis, a process emerging in complex organisms and requiring inner representations that can

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intentionally be used as signs (Barbieri 2010, 207– 210).⁵ In Barbieri’s conception, transfer-RNAs and the other cell adaptors are not hermeneutic subjects. They are not even mere catalysts of a necessary or automatic reaction transforming the genotype into the phenotype. On the phylogenetic level, ribosomes institute a system of rules which did not exist before, and on the ontogenetic one they ensure that it is respected. In Barbieri’s formulation: As Monod has underlined, the links between codons and amino acids are chemically arbitrary, in the sense that they are not the result of physical necessity, and this means that the genetic code was the result of natural conventions, not of deterministic processes. […] The rules of a code are not dictated by physical necessity, and this means that they can establish relationships that have never existed before in the Universe (Barbieri 2012, 434– 435; Monod 1971).

5 Conclusion The biological phenomenon of code semiosis fills every criterion for being the categorial novum Hartmann was looking for in his research on organic determination. Firstly, code semiosis is a superformation of linear causality. In the synthesis of amino acids, chemical reactions are the matter of a new organizational system based on coding and decoding. This provides a good description of that intermediate determination which Hartmann sensed existed between the anlage system and organic tissues (Hartmann 1950, 582) and which he provisionally identified with a form of intraorganic selection, “the ‘prospective’ function.” Secondly, following Barbieri’s distinction between code semiosis and hermeneutic semiosis, it can be said that code semiosis is a good functional analogon of Hartmann’s “missing” or “guiding reason.” It functions without any conscious representations of the goal, but is at the same time a highly reliable and plastic process, able to cope with changes in intra- and extra-organic conditions. Thirdly, the  A theory that anticipated Barbieri’s biosemiotics in some ways is the teleosemantic theory of Kim Sterenly et al., according to which the genome “does represent developmental outcomes. For representation depends not on correlation but function […] Some elements of the developmental matrix—the replicators—represent phenotypes in virtue of their function” (Sterelny et al. , ). As Ulrich Stegmann correctly observes, however, the teleosemantic theory suffered from a number of ambiguities and limits, all related to the difficulty in using terms such as “representation” and “information” (Stegmann ,  – ) when referring to cells or even cellular components lacking any form of intentionality. The use of such terms can, in the best possible case, only be a metaphoric one, and the risk of misunderstanding arising from them is higher than the contribution they offer to the comprehension of biological phenomena.

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process of code semiosis requires the coordinated action of a plurality of factors, as Hartmann says would belong to the categorial novum for which he was looking. If confronted with the empirical data and biological approaches which developed after his death, Hartmann would have probably abandoned the proposal of tracing the function of chromosomes back to selection, and would have underlined, instead, the revolutionary idea that inside cells there is matter “reading” other matter. The ribotypic system “reads” the genotype, in this way shaping the phenotype—or better, in Kantian terminology, it is “as if” the ribosomes read the genotype “in order to” form the phenotype. And, if we feel the need to replace the possibly too metaphoric term “reading” with a more suitable one, the description of our categorial novum could be the following: what we find in organic systems is matter shaping other matter according to a naturally conventional set of rules.

6 References Ballauff, Theodor (1952): “Nicolai Hartmanns Philosophie der Natur”. In: Philosophia Naturalis 2, pp. 117 – 130. Barbieri, Marcello (2003): The Organic Codes. An Introduction to Semantic Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barbieri, Marcello (2010): “On the Origin of Language”. In: Biosemiotics 3, pp. 201 – 223. Barbieri, Marcello (2012): “Code Biology – A New Science of Life”. In: Biosemiotics 5, pp. 411 – 437. Baumann, Willibald (1955): Das Problem der Finalität im Organischen bei Nicolai Hartmann. Meinsenheim am Glan: Hain. Baumanns, Peter (1965): Das Problem der organischen Zweckmäßigkeit. Bonn: Bouvier. Ehrl Gerhard (2003): “Nicolai Hartmanns Philosophische Anthropologie in systematischer Perspective”. In: Prima Philosophia Sonderheft 8, pp. 7 – 76. Grötz, Arnd (1989): Nicolai Hartmanns Lehre vom Menschen. Frankfurt am Main, Bern, New York, Paris: Peter Lang. Hartmann, Max (1948): “Das Mechanismus-Vitalismus-Problem vom Standpunkt der kritischen Ontologie Nicolai Hartmanns”. In: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 3. No. 1, pp. 36 – 49. Hartmann, Nicolai (1912): Philosophische Grundfragen der Biologie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Hartmann, Nicolai (1944): “Naturphilosophie und Anthropologie”. In: Blätter für deutsche Philosophie 18. No. 1/2, pp. 1 – 39. Hartmann, Nicolai (1949): Möglichkeit und Wirklichkeit. Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain. Hartmann, Nicolai (1950): Philosophie der Natur. Abriss der speziellen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1951): Teleologisches Denken. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1952): Einführung in die Philosophie. 2nd Ed. Göttingen.

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Hartmann, Nicolai (1955): “Sinngebung und Sinnerfüllung”. In: Kleinere Schriften, Vol. 1. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 245 – 278. Hartmann, Nicolai (1964): Der Aufbau der realen Welt. Grundriss der allgemeinen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (2004): Ethics. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Hartmann, Nicolai (2013): Possibility and Actuality. Trans. Scott, Alex/Adair, Stephanie. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kochy, Kristian (2003): Perspektiven des Organischen. Biophilosophie zwischen Natur- und Wissenschaftsphilosophie. Paderborn – München – Wien – Zürich: Ferdinand Schöningh. Kuhn, Helmut (1951): “Nicolai Hartmann’s Ontology”. In: The Philosophical Quarterly 1. No. 4, pp. 289 – 318. Monod, Jacques (1971): Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Morgenstern, Martin (1992): Nicolai Hartmann. Grundlinien einer wissenschaftlich orientierten Philosophie. Tübingen-Basel: Francke. Schlittmaier, Anton (2011): “Nicolai Hartmann’s Aporetics and Its Place in the History of Philosophy”. In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 33 – 42. Toepfer, Georg (2004): Zweckbegriff und Organismus. Über die teleologische Beurteilung biologischer Systeme. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Tremblay, Frederic (2011): “Nicolai Hartmann’s Definition of Biological Species”. In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 125 – 140. Stegmann, Ulrich (2005): “Der Begriff der genetischen Information”. In: Krohs, Ulrich/Toepfer, Georg (Eds.): Philosophie der Biologie. Eine Einführung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Sterelny, Kim/Smith, Kelly/Dickison, Michael (1996): “The extended replicator”. In: Biology and Philosophy 11, pp. 377 – 403.

Michael Kleineberg

Chapter 5 From Linearity to Co-Evolution: On the Architecture of Nicolai Hartmann’s Levels of Reality 1 Introduction The metaphor of levels of reality can be traced as far back as ancient Greek philosophy and has received many different interpretations in the history of metaphysics. However, arguably the most comprehensive and most detailed philosophical use of it is to be found in Nicolai Hartmann’s critical ontology from the first half of the 20th century. More recently, ontological levelism has continued to play an important role as an organizing principle in order to reduce the complexity of world phenomena without falling prey to reductionism (Gnoli/Poli 2004; Esbjörn-Hargens/Zimmerman 2009; Kleineberg 2013; Peterson forthcoming). According to Hartmann (1940, 1– 2) ontology, as the science of being qua being, embraces both ideal being and real being. While these different modes of being (Seinsweisen) are investigated by his modal analysis in terms of possibility, actuality, or necessity, the actual structure of reality is investigated by his categorial analysis, which in turn is concerned with two main tasks (Hartmann 1953 [1942], 51). The first task, categorial analysis in the narrower sense, is to describe categories of fundamentally different domains of being (Seinsgebiete) such as matter, life, psyche, or spirit. The second task, a kind of secondorder categorial analysis, is to determine the interrelation of these domains, which Hartmann considers to be a vertical hierarchy of levels where each higher level depends on the lower levels but not vice versa, a linear sequence of layers of being (Seinsstufen), or strata of being (Seinsschichten).¹ In this chapter, it will be argued that, even though Hartmann’s analysis of domain-specific categories might be considered valid, his inter-domain analysis or analysis of the strata (Schichtungsanalyse) seems to exhibit some serious in-

 Occasionally, the terms “strata” (Schichten) and “stages” (Stufen)—the latter commonly translated as “layers”—are used interchangeably, although Hartmann (, ) definitely considers strata to be ontologically more fundamental than layers, which rather present sublevels within a stratum.

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consistencies. Therefore, this investigation will focus on the question of the overall architecture of ontological domains. Recent ontological discourse has introduced a notion of co-evolution that entails at least two major alterations of the traditional theory of levels. On the one hand, the notion of co-evolution implies replacing a vertical relation between domains by a horizontal one. On the other hand, the notion of co-evolution implies the extension of an analytical ontology of static domains so as to include a genetic dimension. Hartmann (1940, 510 – 512) is very cautious on the latter issue in that he distinguishes strictly between a justifiable categorial analysis and a speculative genetic interpretation. Nevertheless, he has to admit that any categorial analysis needs to be compatible with a genetic perspective since the structure of the real world itself has developed over time. In fact, Hartmann (1953 [1942], 109 – 113) provides his own genetic interpretation which assumes that the chronological order of levels of reality follows the logical order from the lower to the higher. Although this conclusion can hardly be denied, the underlying premise that ontological domains need to be arranged as a linear sequence has recently been challenged by non-linear approaches. In this regard, as stressed most vehemently by Georg Lukács (1984, 444– 449), a genetic perspective on the becoming of being might be of utmost importance. After a short sketch of Nicolai Hartmann’s original architecture of levels of reality, a step-by-step analysis will be presented of its transformation from linearity to co-evolution. In particular, Roberto Poli’s (2001) triangular model and Ken Wilber’s (2000b) quadrant model will be discussed in more detail. The main purpose of this contribution is to demonstrate that a reorganization of Hartmann’s levels of reality logically offers more coherent approaches, which shed new light on his categorial laws of validity, coherence, stratification, and dependence.

2 Nicolai Hartmann’s Levels of Reality Traditional ontologies often rely on the idea of the Great Chain of Being, based on the principles of plenitude, continuity, and linear gradation (Lovejoy 1936). A typical example is a chain from things to plants to animals to human beings, often extended to society or even to history. But in New Ways of Ontology, Hartmann (1953 [1942], 43 – 53) argues that such a gradation of forms of being (Stufenfolge der Seinsgebilde) would be inappropriate as a sound basis for ontological investigations, because this kind of series of levels of reality does not present a homogeneous sequence. For example, animals are hardly a higher level of plants, societies exist already to some extent in the animal kingdom, and even

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inanimate material objects might have their own history. Furthermore, higher forms or entities are stratified in themselves; for example, a human being is also an animal and even a material thing. Therefore, the analysis of forms of being needs to be preceded by an analysis of strata of being, indicating a methodological shift from entities to categories of being (Seinskategorien), which are considered to be ontological principles irreducible to categories of knowing (Erkenntniskategorien). In carrying out the first main task of the categorial analysis, Hartmann (1940, 188– 200) identifies four discrete ontological domains that are separated by three border lines (Grenzscheiden). The most obvious categorial distinction is what Hartmann (1953 [1942], 79) calls the “psychophysical border line” between a spatial exteriority (räumliche Außenwelt) and an interiority of consciousness (Bewußtseinsinnerlichkeit). In contrast to Cartesian dualism of matter/mind or body/soul, exteriority is divided further into the inorganic domain of matter (Materie) and the organic domain of life (Leben), while interiority is divided further into the mental domain of psyche (Seele) and the sociocultural domain of spirit (Geist).² Each of these four domains is determined by a specific group of categories and is based on a specific kind of causality. In detail, matter (e.g., space, time, process, substance) is based on the causal nexus; life (e. g., metabolism, assimilation, self-regulation, self-reproduction, adaptation) is based on the organic nexus; psyche (e.g., consciousness, pleasure, act and content) is based on the psychic nexus; and spirit (e.g., fear, hope, will, freedom, thought, personality, but also society, historicity, or intersubjectivity) is based on the finalistic nexus (Hartmann 1953 [1942], 43– 72). Therefore, Hartmann’s pluralist ontology is able to avoid common reductionisms such as materialism, biologism, psychologism, or logicism. In carrying out the second main task of the categorial analysis, Hartmann interprets the interrelation of these four domains as a vertical stratification, that is to say, as a linear sequence of levels of reality from matter to life to psyche to spirit. The major outcomes of his analysis of the strata are four general laws of categories that in turn are specified into further partial laws.³

 Hartmann’s term Geist originates from the German tradition influenced by Georg W. F. Hegel and Wilhelm Dilthey—as it is used, for example, in Geisteswissenschaft—and its meaning covers both individual mind as well as superindividual culture, which is why it lacks an adequate English translation.  Poli (,  – ) presents an overview of Hartmann’s categorial laws, which are grouped as follows: () the laws of validity including the laws of principle, validity, membership, and determination; () the laws of coherence including the laws of mutuality, unity, totality, and implication; () the laws of stratification including the laws of return, variation, novum, and distance; and () the laws of dependence including the laws of force, indifference, matter, and freedom.

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Moreover, Hartmann (1933, 66– 73) specifies his model in two important ways. On one hand, the highest level of spiritual being is composed of three different modes of spirit (Seinsformen des Geistes) which constitute an inextricable unity: the personal spirit (personaler Geist) which is individual and living as subjective human mind, the objective spirit (objektiver Geist) which is superindividual and living as collective or intersubjective human culture, and the objectivated spirit (objektivierter Geist) which is superindividual but non-living, taking the form of such objects as material human artifacts. On the other hand, the three border lines which separate the levels of reality are based on two different kinds of vertical relations: superformation (Überformung) and superposition (Überbauung).

Figure .: Nicolai Hartmann’s architecture of levels of reality.⁴

The relation of superformation—sometimes translated as “over-forming” or “superinformation”—entails that all categories of the lower level recur at the higher level.⁵ For example, life can be considered to be a superformation of matter because all categories of the lower level, such as space or substance, recur at the

 In this and the following figures, Roman numerals represent levels of reality as strata, a dashed line represents a relation of superformation, a solid line represents a stronger interruption (here: superposition based on unilateral dependence), and a dotted line represents an intra-stratum boundary.  The concept of superformation is also well-known as the principle of integrative levels, which states that the lower level as a whole is an integral part of the next higher level (Needham ; Feibleman ). The principle of integrative levels might apply to both partitive hierarchies like Arthur Koestler’s (, ) “holarchy” (e.g., atom–molecule–cell) as well as generic hierarchies like Stanley N. Salthe’s (, ) “specification hierarchy” (e.g., physical–chemical–biological).

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higher level. In contrast, the relation of superposition—sometimes translated as “building-above”—implies that the categories of the lower level do not recur at the higher level, leaving aside fundamental categories such as time, process, or causality which apply to all levels of reality. For example, Hartmann (1940, 485 – 487) considers psyche to be superposed on life because the recurrence of lower-level categories like space or substance seems to break off at this level. Therefore, Hartmann rejects the traditional principle of integrative levels as an insufficient description for levels of reality: The building up of the real world is no homogeneous sequence of superinformations. It cannot be represented by the generalized relationship of two of the fundamental categories, form and matter alone. All theories which try to do this break down at the psychophysical border line (Hartmann 1953 [1942], 79).⁶

In the following sections, it will be argued that Hartmann’s conclusions about the limitations in the relationships among the strata are, in some respects, premature and so require modification. A central weakness of his analysis is that it seems to be based on a hidden assumption that categorially distinct domains of reality can only be described as a strictly linear sequence of levels. This assumption, which can aptly be called the dogma of linearity, is problematic in that it does not appear to allow for the process of co-evolution.

3 Step One: The Fusion of Matter and Life The analysis of the architectural transformation of levels of reality from linearity to co-evolution requires a closer look at the nature and delimitation of ontological domains or strata. As a first step, the relation between matter and life will be reconsidered and it will be proposed that both of them should be incorporated into one and the same stratum. In Der Aufbau der realen Welt, Hartmann (1940, 195 – 200) claims that matter and life constitute different strata that are related by superformation. On the one hand, he argues that biological functions like metabolism, adaptation, or self-reproduction define a new group of categories or a categorial novum (i. e., the law

 Note that Hartmann (,  – ) reconceptualizes the Aristotelian-Scholastic terms “form” (Form) and “matter” (Materie) as relative to each other: each form could be matter of a higher form, each matter could be form of a lower matter. Obviously, this is a reformulation of the principle of integrative levels which is commonly described in terms of wholes and parts, for example, as Koestler’s (, ) “holon” which means a simultaneous whole-part.

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of novum) that in turn implies a categorial distance, a clear-cut border line between matter and life (i. e., the law of distance). On the other hand, he considers life to be a superformation of matter because all categories of the lower level recur at the higher level (i. e., the law of return).⁷ But there seems to be a tension between the law of distance, which claims discontinuity between the two levels, and the law of return, which claims continuity between them. Hartmann’s (1940, 193 – 197) idea of stratification (Schichtungsgedanke) explicitly rejects the idea of continuity (Kontinuitätsgedanke), according to which all the differences of forms originate from a difference-indegree (Unterschied der Abstufung) rather than a difference-in-kind (prinzipielle Heterogenität). Even so, Hartmann’s concept of “categorial distance” does not differentiate sufficiently between relations of superformation and superposition, for superpositions are based on a categorial distance as a difference-in-kind (discontinuity), while superformations are based on a categorial distance as a difference-in-degree (continuity). Since Hartmann’s (1940, 507– 512) law of distance clearly describes a difference-in-kind, it applies only to superpositions. Yet, even though Hartmann (1953 [1942], 78) holds that superformations as such are “not typical of the ‘distances’ between the strata,” he concedes that the distance between matter and life should not be seen as unbridgeable, since “there might be a primal creation (Urzeugung) of the organic from the inorganic” (Hartmann 1940, 509). Conversely, Hartmann’s (1940, 479 – 491) law of return, which clearly describes a difference-in-degree, applies only to superformations. In other words, Hartmann’s laws of stratification appear to be inconsistent, because if the law of return applies, then the law of distance does not and vice versa. Therefore, the weaker border line between matter and life should not be treated in the same way as the much stronger interruptions between the other strata. As argued by Poli (2011, 21), only superpositions which relate “entirely different” groups of categories constitute genuine strata, whereas superformations which relate “partially different” groups of categories represent mere layers and might be better described as phase transitions within the same stratum.⁸ Onto-

 In contradiction to his own demand, Hartmann’s terms “categorial novum” and “categorial return” imply a genetic perspective. Although a chronological order is deducible from the logical order of superformations, it cannot be justified for superpositions because there would be no criteria to decide which domain is the lower (older) or higher (newer) one in the first place. From a categorial point of view, there might also be a horizontal relation of simultaneous co-evolution.  In this chapter, the terminology is mainly adopted from Poli () and specified as follows: “levels” refer to layers or strata,”layers” mean domains related by superformation, “strata” mean domains related by superposition, the more general “realms” mean domains based on

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logically speaking, superformations based on a difference-in-degree are less fundamental than superpositions based on a difference-in-kind. As a consequence, Poli (2001, 269) incorporates matter and life into a single stratum, the “material realm,” including physical, chemical, and biological categories which describe forms, for example, from sub-atomic particles to atoms to molecules to cells to organisms to ecological communities. In the same way, Joachim B. Forsche (1965, 124) specifies different layers of material structures as exteriority of forms, from elementary particles to atoms to molecules to polymers to macromolecules to viruses to cells to organisms to CNS-based organisms to the specific human structure. Therefore, it is important to differentiate between a narrower layer-specific concept of matter, which simply means inorganic exteriority, and a broader stratum-specific concept of matter, which means exteriority as such, including physical, chemical, and biological categories, the latter considered as “living matter” (Tobach 1987, 259).

Figure .: The fusion of matter and life.

The fusion of matter and life can also be found in other ontological theories, for example, in Karl R. Popper’s famous three-world ontology, which includes a physical world 1, a mental world 2, and a cultural world 3. In his Tanner Lectures, he writes: “If we so wish, we can subdivide the physical world 1 into the world of non-living physical objects and into the world of living things, of biological objects; though the distinction is not sharp” (Popper 1980, 143 [emphases his]).

a difference-in-kind relation including both vertical superposition and horizontal co-evolution, and the unspecified “domains” might be used for any of them.

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Precisely because this distinction is a difference-in-degree, it will remain to some extent arbitrary, as also suggested by Alfred N. Whitehead’s statement that there is “no absolute gap between ‘living’ and ‘non-living’” entities (quoted in Dziadkowiec 2011, 118). For example, one might ask whether a virus without metabolism belongs to the level of life or to that of matter (Thompson 2007, 104), or whether the distances between biological levels are really as fundamentally different as the distance between the inorganic level and the organic level (Lorenz 1978 [1973], 39). Accordingly, the incorporation of matter and life into a single stratum results in a slightly modified architecture of levels of reality, a “three-strata-ontology” (Johansson 2001, 197), which is related by two superpositions: from matter-life to psyche to spirit.

4 Step Two: The De-Ontologization of the Objectivated Spirit The next analytical step is concerned with a revision of the objectivated spirit as a mode of spiritual being. Against Hartmann’s (1933, 74– 79) view that the personal spirit, the objective spirit, and the objectivated spirit maintain the same ontological status, it will be argued that the objectivated spirit should be de-ontologized because as a mere derivation from the living spirit it seems not to be an autonomous real being. It might be useful to compare Hartmann’s three modes of spirit to Popper’s three worlds. Obviously, the personal spirit corresponds to the mental world 2 of subjective thought processes, while the objective spirit corresponds to the cultural world 3 of objective thought content. However, in opposition to Hartmann, Popper (1980, 144) considers human artifacts like books or sculptures—the objectivated spirit—not as a genuine ontological domain but as belonging to both the material world 1 and the cultural world 3. Surprisingly, this comes very close to Hartmann’s (1933, 426) own analysis, in which he concludes that the objectivated spirit actually has two aspects, sensual and real matter (sinnliche Realmaterie) and spiritual content (geistiger Gehalt).⁹ While it seems self-evident that the sensual aspect belongs to the domain of matter, Hartmann concedes that the spiritual aspect has neither an autonomous mode of being (selbständige Seinsweise) nor being-in-itself (Ansichsein) because  Interestingly, Hartmann (, ) uses the term “strata” for these two aspects of the objectivated spirit, suggesting that this mode of spiritual being is a stratified complex (Gefüge) rather than a genuine categorially distinct domain. Moreover, Hartmann (,  – ) himself claims that human artifacts, as secondary forms (sekundäre Gebilde), are by no means ontic complexes (ontische Gefüge).

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it depends fundamentally on the living spirit. In Das Problem des geistigen Seins, Hartmann writes, “only the personal and the objective spirit are ‘real spirit,’ the objectivated spirit is not,” continuing that, “[o]nly the ‘living’ spirit has reality, the mode of spirit which is displaced from life and fixed in matter is thoroughly unreal spirit.”¹⁰ Therefore, the coherent conclusion should be that the objectivated spirit does not at all maintain ontological status as a real being.

Figure .: The de-ontologization of objectivated spirit.

The de-ontologization of the objectivated spirit is also supported, for example, by Otto F. Bollnow’s (1982, 72) proposal to replace the term “objectivated spirit” by the phrase “objectifications of spirit” (Objektivierungen des Geistes). The foregoing considerations are not intended to devalue the importance of human artifacts, but rather to adequately apply criteria for an ontology of real being. In this respect, the whole architecture is simplified to some extent, but the vertical linearity of Hartmann’s levels of reality is still in place.

 My translation from the original (in extenso): “Man darf also weiter sagen: nur der personale und der objektive Geist sind ‘realer Geist’, der objektivierte ist es nicht; und was an den geformten Werken real ist, das ist nicht ihr geistiger Gehalt, sondern nur die geformte ‘Materie’, in der er festgehalten ist (die Schrift, der Stein mit seiner Raumform). Realität also hat nur der ‘lebende’ Geist, der dem Leben enthobene und in einer Materie fixierte ist durchaus irrealer Geist” (Hartmann , ).

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5 Step Three: The Separation of the Personal Spirit and the Objective Spirit As a major departure from Hartmann’s original ontology, the third analytical step is concerned with the separation of the personal spirit and the objective spirit into distinct ontological domains. In opposition to Hartmann (1933, 75), it will be argued that both of them do not belong to the same domain or stratum because their categorial difference constitutes a difference-in-kind, namely, the individual/collective distinction. In addition, the separated personal spirit might be better described as a superformation of psyche because their categorial difference constitutes a difference-in-degree. Hartmann’s (1933, 71– 73) assumption that the personal spirit and the objective spirit belong to the same ontological stratum seems to contradict his own categorial laws, in particular, the law of validity and the law of coherence. The second partial law of validity, the law of validity of the stratum (Schichtengeltung), states that the determination of a category for its concretum—in this case, for the whole stratum of spiritual being—is binding without any exception (Hartmann 1940, 426 – 428). But the categories of the personal spirit and the categories of the objective spirit are deeply heterogeneous. Even Hartmann distinguishes both of them by a clear-cut border line: It runs straight through the kingdom of the spirit and separates the personal spirit from the objective spirit. For the historical life of the objective spirit does not consist of psychic acts but only “rests” on them as on its ontological foundation. Speech, legal order, custom, morality, and science are more than parts of a consciousness. […] Correspondingly, the spiritual world does not form the content of a superpersonal consciousness as is believed by some metaphysical theories (Hartmann 1953 [1942], 80).

Putting it simply, categories of the personal spirit are only valid for the personal spirit and categories of the objective spirit are only valid for the objective spirit; therefore, both of them determine different concreta. Likewise, the law of coherence seems to be violated because Hartmann’s confusion of different concreta leads to an inconsistent concept of coherence. On one hand, he writes: We have a nice example of coherence also at the height of the personal spirit. There is a mutual conditionality of value consciousness, freedom, engagement, foresight and purposeful action. […] Only together do these fundamental categorial moments of the personal spirit create a system that is really capable of action.¹¹

 My translation from the original: “Ein schönes Beispiel der Kohärenz haben wir auch auf der Höhe des personalen Geistes. Hier handelt es sich um die gegenseitige Bedingtheit von Wertbe-

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Note that this example of coherence describes only categories of the personal spirit as a single mode of the spiritual stratum: this constitutes a narrower mode-specific concept of coherence. On the other hand, Hartmann’s (1940, 432– 446) partial laws of coherence claim a total unity and a mutual implication of categories within the whole union of the stratum (Schichtenverband), which would include both the personal spirit and the objective spirit: this constitutes a broader stratum-specific concept of coherence. Interestingly, Hartmann (1940, 200) characterizes the different spiritual modes as a beginning of stratification, as if there were different horizontal strata at the same level, at the same structural height of being (strukturelle Seinshöhe). Nevertheless, he shies away from a consequent separation of the personal spirit and the objective spirit. However, this separation seems also to require a reconsideration of the relation between the personal spirit and the stratum of psyche. As Hartmann (1933, 69) admits, if spiritual being were mere personal spirit, then a relation of superformation could hardly be denied. Indeed, Hartmann (1940, 197) acknowledges that the same acts of consciousness, at least to some extent, belong simultaneously to both psychic and spiritual being. Furthermore, Hartmann’s (1953 [1942], 46) own distinction between spiritual consciousness (personal spirit) and spiritless consciousness (psyche) clearly indicates a categorial difference-in-degree: “The latter is not extinguished in the fully developed human being but persists in the background of his spiritual consciousness.” This concept of integrative levels of consciousness is also proposed by various other approaches (Campbell/Bickhard 1986; Tobach 1987; Tolman 1987; Wilber 2000a; Donald 2001; Feinberg 2011; Kleineberg 2014). Therefore, the coherent conclusion should be that the personal spirit is a superformation of psyche.¹² The separation of the personal spirit and the objective spirit is also supported by other theorists. For example, Ingvar Johansson (2001, 196) draws a distinction between subjective-individual and intersubjective-collective; by the same token, Carlo Scognamiglio (2011, 156) proposes a dialectics between individual mind and social collectivity, and Roberto Poli observes that: if the psychological level ends up including what psychology and cognitive sciences acknowledge as psychological phenomena, the dividing line between the psychological and the spiritual levels should be located elsewhere, and what Hartmann calls personal spirit will become the higher layer of the psychological level (Poli 2011, 28).

wußtsein, Freiheit, Einsatzkraft, Vorsehung und Zwecktätigkeit. […] Erst miteinander bilden diese kategorialen Grundmomente des personalen Geistes ein Aktgefüge, das wirklich aktionsfähig ist” (Hartmann , ).  Consequently, Hartmann’s original tripartite stratum of spirit should also be considered to be a superformation of psyche, because even if only one mode of spirit integrates psyche, the spiritual stratum as a whole necessarily integrates psyche as well.

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Figure .: The separation of personal spirit and objective spirit.¹³

As a consequence, the new architecture of levels of reality contains only two vertical strata, even though they are distinguished into four vertical layers. For the first time, a horizontal inter-stratum relation is introduced, which Poli (2007, 8– 9) describes as bilateral dependence, reciprocal determination, or simply co-evolution. Altogether, there are three “categorially orthogonal domains” (Poli 2007, 8) which are separated by two border lines each indicating a difference-in-kind, namely, the exterior/interior distinction (α line) and the individual/collective distinction (β line).¹⁴ Following Poli’s (2001, 273) terminology, these main domains might be called the “material realm” encompassing matter and life, the “mental realm” comprising psyche and personal spirit, and the “social realm” manifested as objective spirit. In philosophy and sciences, as Poli (2007, 6) rightly suggests, there seems to be a large measure of agreement about these three ontological realms, which Wilber (2000b, 149) summarizes simply as the “Big Three” including, for example, Immanuel Kant’s three critiques, Max Weber’s three spheres of values, Karl R. Popper’s three worlds, or Jürgen Habermas’ three validity claims.

 In this and the following figures, capital letters represent the material realm (A), the mental realm (B), and the social realm (C); furthermore, the α line represents a difference-in-kind along the exterior/interior dimension (here: superposition based on unilateral dependence), and the β line represents a difference-in-kind along the individual/collective dimension (here: co-evolution based on bilateral dependence).  Hartmann ( [],  – ) identifies exactly the same two border lines as the most important ones, namely, the psychophysical border line between life and psyche (α) and “another border line of a similar type” between personal spirit and objective spirit (β).

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6 Step Four: The Extension of the Objective Spirit Once the objective spirit becomes distinct as the social realm, the question of its genetic origin arises, for if the objective spirit is neither a superformation nor a superposition of other levels of reality, it would appear strangely disconnected. Therefore, the next step in analysis requires a genetic interpretation of the objective spirit. In analogy to Hartmann’s distinction between spiritual consciousness (personal spirit) and spiritless consciousness (psyche), there might be a distinction between spiritual culture (objective spirit) and spiritless culture. According to this view, the objective spirit has been developed or emerged from a kind of proto-objective spirit and should rather be seen as the higher layer of a more general social realm in terms of social collectivity, intersubjectivity, or culture in a broad sense. Indeed, Poli’s (2007, 9) social realm includes not only Hartmann’s objective spirit but also what he terms the “proto-social.” Following Niklas Luhmann, he writes, “Psychological and social systems are formed through co-evolution: the one is the environmental prerequisite for the other,” and then he adds a decisive supplement: “But the thesis set out […] is much more general because it states that the mental and the social dimensions of any living entity interact with each other in the forms which are typical of the individual species” (Poli 2007, 8 [emphasis his]). In other words, the mental realm (B) and the social realm (C) co-evolve from single cells up to human beings, while the material realm (A) functions as the bearer of both.

Figure 5.5: Roberto Poli’s architecture of levels of reality.

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The foregoing proposal to extend the objective spirit or the social realm is supported, to a greater or a lesser degree, by current research. For example, comparative psychologist Michael Tomasello (1999, 179) identifies at least three different layers or integrative levels of intersubjectivity beginning with primates; social anthropologist Tim Ingold (1999, 185) investigates the genesis of human sociality from animal sociality beginning with conscious life-forms; and biosemiotician Søren Brier (2008, 29) describes the development of superindividual language games at the human level from superindividual sign games at the proto-human level, beginning with the origin of life itself. This non-linear, three-realms-ontology is explicitly proposed by Roberto Poli (2011, 28) as a “triangular architecture” of levels of reality.

7 Step Five: The Horizontalization of the Strata Although Poli’s triangular model appears to be a major refinement of Hartmann’s original levels of reality, the concept of co-evolution seems to be applied rather inconsistently. Therefore, the next analytical step is concerned with the horizontalization of the strata or realms in accordance with the thesis of a co-evolution between the material, the mental, and the social. Much like Hartmann, Poli (2001, 273) assumes that the psychophysical border line indicates a vertical inter-stratum relation in which the higher interiority (the mental realm and the social realm) is superposed over the lower exteriority (the material realm). But from a genetic perspective, this assumption seems to be doubtful because, in developmental terms, the material realm appears to be multi-layered in itself as an increasing complexity of integrative levels from sub-atomic particles up to human bodies (Forsche 1965; Jantsch 1980 [1979]; Kummer 1987; Wilber 2000b; Esbjörn-Hargens/Zimmerman 2009).¹⁵ In order to illustrate the genetic dimension, it might be useful to subdivide the domain of life into a proto-human layer and a human layer. In this way it should become evident that proto-human interiority such as Hartmann’s psyche or Poli’s (2007, 9) proto-mentality and proto-sociality cannot be placed on top of the material realm, that is, on top of human exteriority or human life as the higher layer of life. The laws of stratification would make little sense if a lower level (e.g., proto-human layer) depended on a higher level (e.g., human layer). By contrast, they would make much more sense if exteriority and interiority were related horizontally by co-evolution.¹⁶  These integrative levels refer to structural organization and only in this respect one might say that, for example, the level of animals integrates the level of plants (Wilber b, ).  Accordingly, Hartmann’s (, ) claim that psyche depends on life but not vice versa is challenged because, as indicated by biological death, life might depend on psyche as well (Thompson , ).

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This view is well elaborated by Forsche’s reinterpretation of the psychophysical border line: “The psyche is not just ‘put on’ an organism—which thus ‘bears’ it—but there is a transformation of the whole body with all its functions,” so that, “[o] bviously, there is not only a unilateral dependence between the psychic realm and the organic realm but an internal mutual interrelation.”¹⁷ This mutual interrelation, of course, is simply another term for the concept of co-evolution. While Forsche (1965, 124) describes exteriority as a sequence of superformations, from elementary particles to atoms to molecules to cells to simple organisms to CNS-based organisms up to the specific human structure, its co-evolution with interiority is characterized as follows: The “interiority,” the inner side of material structures and processes, appears at a particular height of being as subjectivity, as consciousness. The higher the material entity, the nervous system, is structured, the more complex is the behavior, the more differentiated is the psychic life. Material complexity or structure, form of determination and “interiority” (psychic life, consciousness) correspond to each other.¹⁸

In other words, the psychophysical border line—the α line—indicates not a vertical inter-realm relation, but a horizontal one.

Figure .: The horizontalization of the strata.¹⁹

 My translation from the original: “Das Seelische ist eben nicht auf einen Organismus nur ‘aufgesetzt’ – der es also ‘trägt’ –, sondern es liegt eine Durchformung des ganzen Leibes mit allen seinen Funktionen vor. […] Zwischen dem Seelischen und dem Organischen besteht offenbar nicht nur einseitige Abhängigkeit dem Dasein nach, also Dependenz, sondern zugleich innere gegenseitige Bezogenheit” (Forsche , –).  My translation from the original: “Das ‘Innere’, die innere Seite von materiellen Strukturen und Prozessen tritt in bestimmter Seinshöhe als Subjektivität, als Bewußtsein auf. Je höher dann das materielle Substrat, das Nervensystem, strukturiert ist, um so komplexer sind die Verhaltensweisen – um so differenzierter also das Seelenleben. Materielle Komplexität bzw. Struktur, Determinationsform und ‘Inneres’ (Seelenleben, Bewußtsein) entsprechen einander” (Forsche ,  – ).  In this and the following figures, Arabic numerals represent levels of reality as layers, while both the α line and the β line represent a horizontal difference-in-kind relation (here: co-evolution based on trilateral dependence).

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The horizontalization of all three strata—the material, the mental, and the social— implies some major alterations for the theory of levels of reality. Most importantly, there are no longer strata. Hartmann’s idea of stratification presumes exclusively vertical inter-realm relations, while the new architecture is based on horizontal ones. Consequently, Hartmann’s laws of stratification should be renamed “laws of layerization” because levels of reality are regarded as layers rather than strata.²⁰ For the same reason, there are no longer relations of superposition. Hartmann’s concept of superposition, introduced in a rather ad-hoc manner, appears to be highly problematic. On the one hand, it contradicts, to some extent, his own categorial laws of stratification and dependence, namely, the partial law of return (Hartmann 1940, 482– 485) and the partial law of matter (Hartmann 1940, 540 – 542). On the other hand, any genetic interpretation, which assumes the emergence of a higher-level domain from a categorially orthogonal lower-level domain, would imply what David R. Griffin calls an “emergence category mistake” (quoted in Wilber 2000a, 280n15), including Hartmann’s (1940, 512) own questionable suggestion of a strong variability of the concretum at the highest end of its stratum. The auxiliary construction of superposition could be avoided if the law of distance, which originally describes vertical inter-stratum relations based on unilateral dependence, were reinterpreted as a law of distance for horizontal interrealm relations based on mutual dependence—what Poli (2007, 9) paradoxically calls “bilateral building-above”—or simply co-evolution. Therefore, it is important to distinguish carefully between a vertical dimension and a horizontal dimension. For example, Hartmann’s domains of matter, psyche, and objective spirit are originally described in terms of verticality as different levels of reality. In some respect, this is appropriate because all three of them are located at a different structural height: matter at level 1, psyche at level 2, and the objective spirit at level 3. Nevertheless, this view is also misleading because these three domains are mere layers which actually belong to different horizontal realms: matter to the material realm A, psyche to the mental realm B, and the objective spirit to the social realm C. This analysis challenges Hartmann’s (1953 [1942], 79) rejection of integrative levels because, contrary to his claim, the horizontalization of the strata into coevolutionary realms does lead to a “homogeneous sequence of superinformations,” that is to say, a logically coherent architecture that does not at all “break down at the psychophysical border line.”

 As Poli (, ) points out, “The laws governing the strata can also be generalized to layers.” One might add, however, that the law of distance represents a notable exception.

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8 Step Six: The De-Emergentization of the Strata The next step in this analysis is probably the most controversial one, because it is based on a specific genetic interpretation which remains to some extent hypothetical. It will be argued that the three strata or realms—the material, the mental, and the social—might have the same origin in time. The idea is very simple: in order to avoid an emergence category mistake, it is assumed that a realm-specific phenomenon does not develop or emerge from other realms, but rather from proto-forms within its own realm. For example, human consciousness (the mental realm) emerges neither from the human brain (the material realm) nor from human culture (the social realm) but from proto-human consciousness, like animal consciousness which in turn emerges from even lower levels of consciousness. Likewise, human culture (the social realm) emerges neither from human consciousness (the mental realm) nor from the human brain (the material realm), but from proto-human culture like animal culture and so on. According to this view, higher-level layers emerge from lower-level layers, whereas realms as such do not emerge at all. Ontological realms, as categorially orthogonal dimensions, are supposed to be there from the very beginning, that is, from the first distinction which was ever made (Wilber 2000b, 566 – 567n2). This de-emergentization, however, implies that even material entities such as molecules or atoms have some proto-mental and proto-social aspects as well.²¹

Figure .: The de-emergentization of the strata.²²

 As Wilber (a, n) specifies: “I entirely agree with Leibniz/Whitehead/Hartsthorne/ Griffin that only the entities known as compound individuals (i. e. holons) possess a characteristic interior.”  In this figure, Wilber’s (b) terminology is adopted. In the horizontal dimension, “objective” represents the material realm, “subjective” represents the mental realm, and “intersubjective” represents the social realm, while in the vertical dimension, “physiosphere” represents the inorganic layer, “biosphere” represents the organic layer, and “noosphere”—from Greek nous

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Admittedly, such a view—commonly labeled “panpsychism”²³—stands in strong opposition to mainstream ontological theories. Nevertheless, even Hartmann’s levels of reality have recently been discussed controversially in the light of panpsychism (Lorenz 1978 [1973]; Poli 2001; Brier 2005; Akerma 2008; Dziadkowiec 2011; and particularly Crummenerl 2013, 349– 357). As Poli (2001, 280) rightly suggests: “Before this view is held up for ridicule, it should be remembered that it has been put forward by no less thinkers than Leibniz, Brentano and Whitehead.”²⁴ Indeed, panpsychist approaches should be taken more seriously because they offer a genetic argument for the architecture of ontological domains (Butler 1978; Kummer 1987; Skrbina 2005; Strawson 2006), whereas virtually all linear approaches to levels of reality fall prey to category mistakes. As biologist Sewall Wright put it, “Emergence of mind from no mind at all is sheer magic” (quoted in Crummenerl 2013, 351). From an empirical point of view, however, the assumption that all three realms have the same origin in time is based on rather weak grounds. But the same is true for the opposite claim that there is no interiority at all within the physiosphere. For the time being, this controversy is obviously not a matter that can be settled by empirical arguments because both radical—or magical— emergentism as well as panpsychism are compatible with the evidence available. As David Chalmers (1996, 299) suggests, there are “no knockdown arguments” against panpsychism, but various reasons why it is intellectually appealing. This is not the place to treat panpsychism in any detail, but it might be worthwhile to focus on Hartmann’s counter-arguments against such approaches in general. Hartmann (1940, 193 – 195, 509 – 512) vehemently criticizes the metaphysics of steady transition (Metaphysik des steten Übergangs) based on the lex continuitatis, the principle of continuity, which states that levels of reality differ only in degree and not in kind. Hartmann (1940, 509) presents a psychological argument that any metaphysics of steady transition originates from an unacknowledged need for unity (Einheitsbedürfnis), but such an argument can easily be dispensed with as unneces-

which means human mind or spirit—represents the human layer (technically, it begins with the emergence of mental images in higher mammals).  The umbrella term “panpsychism” covers a broad conceptual range including pan-protopsychism, pan-perceptionism, pan-animism, or pan-experientialism (Skrbina ). But as Wilber (b, n [emphases his]) points out: “Typical panpsychism confuses consciousness with a particular level of consciousness (perception or intention or feeling) and then forced to push that ‘consciousness’ all the way down.” Therefore, Wilber’s (a, n) unqualified “pan-interiorism” might be a much more neutral description covering both the mental realm and the social realm.  David Skrbina () presents a comprehensive overview of different doctrines of panpsychism in the history of Western thought.

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sarily speculative. His more important logical argument claims that the principle of continuity violates the laws of stratification. More precisely, the law of return and the law of novum would not apply if categories of higher levels like spirit or psyche are attributed to lower levels like life or matter. This is what Hartmann (1940, 509) calls a downward border transgression (Grenzüberschreitung). In defense of the metaphysics of steady transition, one might argue that Hartmann misinterprets the principle of continuity by confusing the difference of differences, that is, difference-in-degree (vertical layers) versus difference-in-kind (horizontal realms). Indeed, panpsychism attributes interior categories to all levels of reality including the physiosphere, but this does not mean that categories are to be projected from higher to lower levels. On the one hand, the physiosphere (vertical layer) should not be confused with the material realm (horizontal realm), because interiority exists only within the mental realm and the social realm. On the other hand, lower and higher layers of interiority should not be equated. Just as Hartmann attributes categories of consciousness to both personal spirit and psyche without equating spiritual and spiritless consciousness, panpsychism attributes interiority to all levels of reality without equating noospheric, biospheric, or physiospheric interiority. In other words, the principle of continuity simply describes a sequence of superformations for which the laws of stratification or layerization are still intact. Since linear models of levels of reality generally fail to differentiate between vertical layers (difference-in-degree) and horizontal realms (difference-in-kind), they tend to confuse narrower layer-specific and broader realm-specific meanings of terms like “material” (objective, exterior), “mental” (subjective, conscious), or “social” (intersubjective, cultural). For example, David Blitz (1992, 181– 183) proposes a rearrangement of the traditional linear sequence matter–life–mind–society to the modified linear sequence matter–life–society–mind, though in both cases the narrower and broader meanings of the terms “mind” and “society” are poorly differentiated. Finally, one might mention the aesthetic argument that this new architecture indeed appears to be of astonishing simplicity, as suggested by Hartmann (1940, 481).

9 Step Seven: The Intersection of the Border Lines The last step in this analysis leads to Ken Wilber’s (2000b, 198) quadrant model of levels of reality which rearranges the two clear-cut border lines as an intersection.²⁵  Wilber’s (b,  – ) architecture is developed independently from Hartmann’s work— only the latter’s Ethics is mentioned in the former’s reference list—and both approaches differ fundamentally in their metatheoretical assumptions. While Hartmann assumes a primacy of ontology over epistemology, Wilber assumes an inextricably interwoven combination of ontology

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The basic assumption of this approach is that the individual/collective distinction— the β line—applies not only to interior domains as the subjective/intersubjective distinction, but also to exterior domains as the objective/interobjective distinction.

Figure .: Ken Wilber’s architecture of levels of reality.²⁶

and epistemology. Nevertheless, these differences seem not quite significant for the question regarding the overall architecture of levels of reality.  In this figure, all signs keep their previous meaning but the architecture is rearranged in order to illustrate the intersection of the interior/exterior distinction (α line) and the individual/collective distinction (β line), a move that results in four interdependent quadrants (co-evolution based on tetralateral dependence). Hence the levels of reality are no longer depicted vertically from the lower to the higher, but in concentric circles from the physiosphere () to the biosphere () to the noosphere ().

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Note that objective and interobjective categories still belong to the same material realm because, in contrast to subjective and intersubjective categories, they do not constitute a genuine difference-in-kind (nor a difference-in-degree) but merely a difference-in-quantity.²⁷ This individual/collective distinction of exteriority, analyzed in most detail in Hartmann’s (1950) late work Philosophie der Natur, seems not to be sufficiently acknowledged in his categorial analysis. Although Hartmann (1950, 484; 1933, 209) investigates exterior-collective phenomena for the physiosphere as agglomeration of matter (Zusammenballungen der Materie), for the biosphere as community of living beings (Lebensgemeinschaft), and for the noosphere as community of human beings (Menschengemeinschaft), he tends to confuse individual and collective concreta at the price of inconsistencies at each of the three main levels of reality. At the first level, the physiosphere, Hartmann (1950, 474– 85) seems unable to solve the problem of the gap within the hierarchy (Lücke im Stufenbau) between two closed series of dynamic complexes (dynamische Gefüge), namely, between microsystems (Mikrosysteme), from sub-atomic particles to atoms to molecules to macromolecules, and macrosystems (Makrosysteme), from stars to planet systems to galaxies to supergalaxies. Since Hartmann’s hierarchy of nature refers to a mere scalar order (Größenordnung), it conflicts both with the chronological order and the structural order from lower to higher forms. This might be avoided if Hartmann’s micro/ macro distinction would be reinterpreted as an individual/collective distinction. The simple solution is to acknowledge the co-evolution of individual microsystems and collective macrosystems since atoms and stars or molecules and planets represent the same structural height, although in different quadrants.²⁸ At the second level, the biosphere, Hartmann (1950, 560 – 574) seems to be inconsistent on the relation between an individual and its species as a collective form of being (Seinsform eines Kollektivums). In the same paragraph, Hartmann (1950, 567) describes a species as a higher-order complex (Gefüge höherer Ordnung) compared to an individual, but considers both of them to be inextricably interwoven and mutually dependent. Obviously, there seems to be a confusion of a vertical relation based on unilateral dependence and a horizontal relation based on mutual dependence.²⁹ Again, the simple solution is to acknowledge

 These differentiations are carefully analyzed by Habermas’ (/ []) formal pragmatics in which a subjective world, a social world, and an objective world are distinguished and related to first-person, second-person, and third-person perspectives.  Erich Jantsch ( [],  – ) presents a detailed analysis of the co-evolution of microcosmos and macrocosmos.  This confusion seems to originate from Hartmann’s (, ) ambiguous use of the term “outer” (Äußeres) of a complex. On one hand, “outer” means the relation of a complex to a high-

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the co-evolution of individual organisms and collective species, which represent the same order or structural height, although in different quadrants. At the third level, the noosphere, Hartmann (1933, 205 – 212) distinguishes between human individuals and the societal life (Gemeinschaftsleben) in close correspondence to the quadrant model: “Living objective spirit [i. e., intersubjective quadrant] is borne by a living society [i. e., interobjective quadrant] in the same way as the personal spirit [i. e., subjective quadrant] is borne by a living body [i. e., objective quadrant].”³⁰ But as criticized by Lukács (1984, 447– 450), Hartmann largely neglects the ontological status of the societal being (gesellschaftliches Sein).³¹ Once more, the simple solution is to acknowledge the co-evolution of individual human beings and collective human societies, which represent the same structural height, although in different quadrants. In order to illustrate these interrelations, Wilber’s (2000b, 198) original AQAL model (acronym: “all quadrants, all levels”) is presented as an attempt to reconstruct the genesis of levels of reality in more detail. Wilber’s architecture, simplified as it avowedly is, might also be considered to be a reinterpretation of the Great Chain of Being, since the principle of continuity is sustained by combining both Hartmann’s forms of being as Stufenbau (levels) and Hartmann’s strata of being as Schichtung (quadrants). The upper right quadrant (objective: exterior-individual) represents integrative levels from atoms to molecules to cells to more and more complex organisms up to human beings, largely in line with Forsche’s (1965, 124) sequence of material structures. The upper left quadrant (subjective: interior-individual) represents the coevolving integrative levels of consciousness development, for example, from Alfred N. Whitehead’s prehension at the atomic level to Lynn Margulis’ (2001, 55) “microbial consciousness” at the cell level, which in turn is the beginning of Alexei N. Leontiev’s level sequence from irritability to sensitivity to perceptivity to animal intellect to human consciousness (Tolman 1987, 199).

er-order complex: a vertical (i. e., “above”) relation along the individual dimension. On the other hand, “outer” means the relation of a complex to complexes of the same order: a horizontal (i. e., “beside”) relation along the collective dimension.  My translation, with additional glosses in square brackets, from the original: “Lebenden objektiven Geist gibt es nur getragen von einem lebenden Volkskörper, genau so wie den persönlichen Geist nur getragen vom lebendigen Leibe” (Hartmann , ).  Lukács’ (,  – ) one-sided materialism in turn reinterprets Hartmann’s levels of reality exclusively in terms of exteriority from inorganic nature (physiosphere) to organic nature (biosphere) to the human world (noosphere), while neglecting the interiority of psyche or spirit.

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Figure .: The AQAL model.³² (From Wilber b)

The lower left quadrant (intersubjective: interior-collective) represents the coevolving integrative levels of culture or sociality in a broad sense. In human cultures, for example, sociocognitive worldview structures have emerged from an archaic level to a magic level to a mythic level to a rational level (Habermas 1984/87

 In this figure, the three main levels of reality are subdivided into  layers from the physiosphere ( – ) to the biosphere ( – ) to the noosphere ( – ). The abbreviation “SF” means structure function and is a placeholder for brain physiological counterparts of complex consciousness development such as the Piagetian level sequence from conop (concrete operational) to formop (formal operational) to vison-logic (postformal) cognition (Feinberg ).

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[1981]; Donald 2001; Bammé 2011; Dux 2011 [2000])³³ which in turn are supposed to be preceded by animal culture (Ingold 1999; Tomasello 1999; Brier 2008) and even lower levels of intersubjectivity all the way down (Wilber 2000b; Esbjörn-Hargens/Zimmerman 2009). The lower right quadrant (interobjective: exterior-collective) represents the co-evolving integrative levels of material systems. For example, at the level of atoms, the most complex system is a solar system within a galaxy or supergalaxy; at the level of molecules, the most complex system is a planet system; at the level of cells, the most complex system is an ecosystem (here: “Gaia system”, as coined by James Lovelock) and so on (Jantsch 1980 [1979]). In this way, there have emerged increasingly complex levels of animal populations followed by human societies from foraging to horticultural to agrarian to industrial to informational levels (Nolan/Lenski 2015). Whatever the details might be, the intersection of the border lines as a quadrant model based on the interior/exterior distinction and the individual/collective distinction has been developed independently in various other fields, for example, in sociology (Ritzer 2001, 93), psychology (Juckes/Barresi 1993, 209 – 210), or anthropology (Ingold 1999, 180), even though the controversial question of panpsychism might be answered differently.

10 Conclusion In summary, the transformation of Nicolai Hartmann’s levels of reality from linearity to co-evolution demonstrates that alternative approaches are possible and even more coherent than the original architecture, which seems to violate virtually every one of Hartmann’s own four general laws of categories. At the end of this step-by-step analysis, however, not a single level of his proposed model remains untouched. While Hartmann’s distinct strata of matter and life are incorporated into a single realm, his combined stratum of spirit is distinguished into the individual personal spirit and the collective objective spirit. Furthermore, Hartmann’s overestimated objectivated spirit is de-ontologized, while the largely neglected societal being receives more attention. Finally, Hartmann’s idiosyncratic treatment of psyche and his limited view of the social world of the objective spirit are revised in light of current research.

 Current research shows evidence that the human brain (the material realm) and human culture (the social realm) are mutually dependent (Lende/Downey ).

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The crucial problem turns out to be Hartmann’s unacknowledged dogma of linearity, the assumption that categorially distinct domains can only be arranged as a linear sequence from lower to higher levels. Therefore, Hartmann fails to distinguish horizontal ontological realms (difference-in-kind) and vertical levels of reality (difference-in-degree) and is forced to invent the concept of superposition. From a genetic perspective, relations of superposition appear to be highly problematic because they offer low explanatory value, restrict the categorial laws to some extent, and lead to category mistakes. As emphasized in this chapter, the dogma of linearity appears to be an unnecessary assumption. For example, Roberto Poli’s triangular architecture convincingly introduces the concept of co-evolution, which is also implicit in many other ontological theories. But while his approach still adheres to the concept of superposition, Ken Wilber’s quadrant architecture is exclusively based on relations of superformation (difference-in-degree) and co-evolution (differencein-kind) and, indeed, presents an unbroken continuum of integrative levels, something that Hartmann considers to be impossible in principle. Admittedly, the unorthodox solution of verticalizing the psychophysical border line eventually requires ontological recourse to a kind of panpsychism which, of course, remains to some extent hypothetical. Nevertheless, there seems to be no reason why such alternative approaches should be excluded from consideration. Hartmann is certainly right that one should be very careful not to fall prey to the metaphysical need for unity, but this should not be done at the expense of the logical need for coherence.

11 References Akerma, Karim (2008): “Toward an Ontology of Consciousness with Nicolai Hartmann and Hans Jonas”. In: Wautischer, Helmut (Ed.): Ontology of Consciousness. Percipient Agency. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 449 – 474. Bammé, Arno (2011): Homo Occidentalis. Von der Anschauung zur Bemächtigung der Welt. Zäsuren abendländischer Epistemologie. Weilerswist: Velbrück. Blitz, David (1992): Emergent Evolution. Qualitative Novelty and Levels of Reality. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Bollnow, Otto F. (1982): “Lebendige Vergangenheit. Zum Begriff des objektivierten Geistes bei Nicolai Hartmann”. In: Buch, Alois J. (Ed.): Nicolai Hartmann 1882 – 1982. Bonn: Bouvier, pp. 70 – 84. Brier, Søren (2005): “Third Culture. Cybersemiotic’s Inclusion of a Biosemiotic Theory of Mind”. In: Axiomathes 15. No. 2, pp. 211 – 228. Brier, Søren (2008): Cybersemiotics. Why Information Is Not Enough. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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Butler, Clark (1978): “Panpsychism. A Restatement of the Genetic Argument”. In: Idealistic Studies 8. No. 1, pp. 33 – 39. Campbell, Robert L./Bickhard, Mark H. (1986): Knowing Levels and Developmental Stages. Basel: Karger. Chalmers, David J. (1996): The Conscious Mind. In Search for a Fundamental Theory. New York: Oxford University Press. Crummenerl, Carl-Gerhard (2013): Kategorialanalyse und Wissenschaft. Ontologische Grundbestimmungen Nicolai Hartmanns in der Perspektive seiner Naturphilosophie und Schichtentheorie. Hildesheim: Olms. Donald, Merlin (2001): A Mind So Rare. The Evolution of Human Consciousness. New York: Norton & Company. Dux, Günter (2000): Historisch-genetische Theorie der Kultur. Instabile Welten. Zur prozessualen Logik im kulturellen Wandel, Weilerswist: Velbrück. Eng. tr. by Solomon, Neil (2011): Historico-genetic Theory of Culture. On the Processual Logic of Cultural Change. Bielefeld: Transcript. Dziadkowiec, Jakub (2011): “The Layered Structure of the World in N. Hartmann’s Ontology and a Processual View”. In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 95 – 123. Esbjörn-Hargens, Sean/Zimmerman, Michael E. (2009): Integral Ecology. Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World. Boston: Integral Books. Feibleman, James K. (1954): “Theory of Integrative Levels”. In: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 5, pp. 59 – 66. Feinberg, Todd E. (2011): “The Nested Neural Hierarchy and the Self”. In: Consciousness and Cognition 20, pp. 4 – 15. Forsche, Joachim B. (1965): Zur Philosophie Nicolai Hartmanns. Die Problematik von kategorialer Schichtung und Realdetermination. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain. Gnoli, Claudio/Poli, Roberto (2004): “Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation”. In: Knowledge Organization 39. No. 3, pp. 268 – 75. Habermas, Jürgen (1981): Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. 2 Bde. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Eng. tr. by McCarthy, Thomas (1984/87): Theory of Communicative Action. 2 Vols. Boston: Beacon Press. Hartmann, Nicolai (1933): Das Problem des geistigen Seins. Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der Geschichtsphilosophie und der Geisteswissenschaften. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1940): Der Aufbau der realen Welt. Grundriss der allgemeinen Kategorienlehre, Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1942): Neue Wege der Ontologie. In: Hartmann, Nicolai (Ed.): Systematische Philosophie. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, pp. 199 – 311. Eng. tr. by Kuhn, Reinhard C. (1953): New ways of ontology. Chicago: Henry Regnery. Hartmann, Nicolai (1950): Philosophie der Natur. Abriß der speziellen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: De Gruyter. Ingold, Tim (1999): “Social Relations, Human Ecology, and the Evolution of Culture. An Exploration of Concepts and Definitions”. In: Lock, Andrew/Peters, Charles R. (Eds.): The Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 178 – 203. Jantsch, Erich (1979): Die Selbstorganisation des Universums. Vom Urknall zum menschlichen Geist. München: Hanser. Eng. tr. (1980): The Self-Organizing Universe. Scientific and Human Implications of the Emerging Paradigm of Evolution. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

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Johansson, Ingvar (2001): “Hartmann’s Nonreductive Materialism, Superimposition, and Supervenience”. In: Axiomathes 12. No. 3 – 4, pp. 195 – 215. Juckes, Tim J./Barresi, John (1993): “The Subjective-Objective Dimension in the Individual-Society Connection. A Duality Perspective”. In: Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 23. No. 2, pp. 197 – 216. Kleineberg, Michael (2013): “The Blind Men and the Elephant. Towards an Organization of Epistemic Contexts”. In: Knowledge Organization 40. No. 5, pp. 340 – 362. Kleineberg, Michael (2014): “Integrative Levels of Knowing. An Organizing Principle for the Epistemological Dimension”. In: Babik, Wiesław (Ed.): Knowledge Organization in the 21st Century. Between Historical Patterns and Future Prospects. Würzburg: Ergon, pp. 80 – 87. Koestler, Arthur (1967): The Ghost in the Machine. New York: Macmillan. Kummer, Christian (1987): Evolution als Höherentwicklung des Bewußtseins. Über die intentionalen Voraussetzungen der materiellen Selbstorganisation. Freiburg: Alber. Lende, Daniel H./Downey, Greg (Eds.) (2012): The Encultured Brain. An Introduction to Neuroanthropology. Cambridge: MIT Press. Lorenz, Konrad (1973): Die Rückseite des Spiegels. Versuch einer Naturgeschichte menschlichen Erkennens. München: Piper. Eng. tr. by Taylor Ronald (1978): Behind the Mirror. Search for a Natural History of Human Knowledge. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Lovejoy, Alexander (1936): The Great Chain of Being. A Study of the History of Ideas. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lukács, Georg (1984): Zur Ontologie des gesellschaftlichen Seins. Erster Halbband, In: Benseler, Frank (Ed.): Georg Lukács Werke, Vol. 13. Darmstadt: Luchterhand. Margulis, Lynn (2001): “The Conscious Cell”. In: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 929. No. 1, pp. 55 – 70. Needham, Joseph (1937): Integrative Levels. A Revaluation of the Idea of Progress. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Nolan, Patrick/Lenski, Gerhard (2015): Human Societies. An Introduction to Macrosociology. New York: Oxford University Press. Peterson, Keith R. (forthcoming): “Stratification, Dependence, and Non-Anthropocentrism. Nicolai Hartmann’s Critical Ontology”. In: Kuperus, Gerard/Oele, Marjolein (Eds.): Ontology of Nature. Continental Readings of Nature. Berlin: Springer. Poli, Roberto (2001): “The Basic Problem of the Theory of Levels of Reality”. In: Axiomathes 12. No. 3 – 4, pp. 261 – 283. Poli, Roberto (2007): “Three Obstructions. Forms of Causation, Chronotopoids, and Levels of Reality”. In: Axiomathes 17. No. 1, pp. 1 – 18. Poli, Roberto (2011): “Hartmann’s Theory of Categories. Introductory Remarks”. In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 1 – 32. Popper, Karl R. (1980): “Three Worlds”. In: McMurrin, Sterling (Ed.): The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, pp. 141 – 167. Ritzer, George (2001): Explorations in Social Theory. From Metatheorizing to Rationalization. London: Sage. Salthe, Stanley N. (1993): Development and Evolution. Complexity and Change in Biology. Cambridge: MIT Press.

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Scognamiglio, Carlo (2011): “Nicolai Hartmann’s Theory of Psyche”. In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 159 – 175. Skrbina, David (2005): Panpsychism in the West. Cambridge: MIT Press. Strawson, Galen (2006): “Realistic Monism. Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism”. In: Freeman, Anthony (Ed.): Consciousness and Its Place in Nature. Does Physicalism Entail Panpsychism? Exeter: Imprint Academic, pp. 3 – 31. Thompson, Evan (2007): Mind in Life. Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Tobach, Ethel (1987): “Integrative Levels in Comparative Psychology of Cognition, Language, and Consciousness”. In: Greenberg, Gary/Tobach, Ethel (Eds.): Cognition, Language and Consciousness. Integrative Levels. London: Erlbaum, pp. 239 – 67. Tolman, Charles W. (1987): “Human Evolution and the Comparative Psychology of Levels”. In: Greenberg, Gary/Tobach, Ethel (Eds.): Cognition, Language and Consciousness. Integrative Levels. London: Erlbaum, pp. 185 – 207. Tomasello, Michael (1999): The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wilber, Ken (2000a): Integral Psychology. Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy. Boston: Shambhala. Wilber, Ken (2000b): Sex, Ecology and Spirituality. The Spirit of Evolution. Boston: Shambhala.

Keith R. Peterson

Chapter 6 Flat, Hierarchical, or Stratified? Determination and Dependence in Social-Natural Ontology 1 Introduction Despite its apparent straightforwardness, Hartmann’s conception of ontological strata is often misunderstood. In particular, while it is correctly understood to be anti-reductionist, it tends to be conflated with mereological conceptions of ontological hierarchy, whether framed as scalar “levels of organization,” layers of “processes,” or “supervenience” of one layer of entities upon another (Johanssen 2001; Peruzzi 2001; Dziadkowiec 2011; Dahlstrom 2012; Kleineberg, this volume). These conflations result in serious misunderstandings of the unique contributions of Hartmann’s ontology, and occasionally in proposals to modify or improve it. Here, I explore a new angle in an attempt to differentiate Hartmann’s conception of the stratified structure of the real world from superficially similar conceptions. This difference is important to maintain not only because I think that misunderstandings of Hartmann should be minimized, but also because it provides philosophical materialists—among whom environmental philosophers should be numbered—with a productive ontological framework with which to articulate the nature of human dependence on nonhuman natural processes, functions, and entities.¹ The new angle on Hartmann’s conception of stratification includes a heuristic distinction between metaphorically flat, hierarchical, and stratified ontologies. Flat ontologies are those which place human and nonhuman, biotic and abiotic interact-

 As struggles in part to escape the dualistic legacy of anthropocentrism, many of these accounts employ the categories continuity and discontinuity, separation and unity, identity and difference, and part and whole in order to ontologically characterize the relation of humans to nature. These categories are often too crude for the work they are called upon to do, and they end up obscuring what may be claimed to be a more basic and evident relation: the asymmetrical, diffuse dependence of human on nonhuman nature. If acknowledging this dependence should be a core principle of environmentalist thinking that provides “global” orientation for environmentalist projects, then an ontology that is capable of illuminating such dependence is called for. I believe that Hartmann’s ontology is one that fulfills this criterion.

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ing processes on a single “horizontal” ontological plane, and embrace the ideal of utilizing a single set of categories to account for all beings. This tendency apparently contrasts in some ways with “levels of organization” and other forms of hierarchy theory in ecological and systems theory, as well as with Hartmann’s stratified ontology, both of which preserve some sense of a “vertical” dimension. I argue that hierarchical “levels of organization” are in fact, despite appearances, ontologically flat. This threefold contrast of models is reducible to the two dimensional contrast between horizontal and vertical dimensions. I suggest that, in the analysis of “unruly complexity” in environmentalism and social-natural interactions, we cannot be satisfied with a “flat” ontology, nor with a conception of scalar ecological hierarchy (not to mention “supervenience” or “emergence”). An environmentalist ontology must possess a substantive category of “vertical” dependence that is not captured by flat or hierarchical ontologies. Confusing part-whole (mereological) relations between entities with the relations of dependence (and independence) between categorial strata—with which Hartmann’s stratified ontology is chiefly concerned— makes this dependence-recognition impossible. The distinction between horizontal and vertical ontological dimensions is adopted “from the Ancients” by Hartmann himself. In order to guide the account that follows, I begin with a passage from Hartmann that very pointedly contrasts the two “Platonic” ontological dimensions in which his ontology moves. In a discussion of “forms of determination” in Der Aufbau der realen Welt, Hartmann writes, Because categories vary depending on their placement in the strata, and the concretum “depends” everywhere on them, the particular types of real determination are also dependent on them. Here we can see the dimensional criss-crossing of determinations to be essential: the determinative total structure of real interconnection consists in the interpenetration of the [vertical] atemporal-categorial and [horizontal] temporal-real determination. The former determines the form and the structure of the nexus according to its place in the strata [e. g., causal nexus, nexus organicus, finalistic nexus], the latter determines the particular occurrence in the individual case, according to the total collocation of the real [horizontal] interconnections at the time (Hartmann 1940, 289).²

Against the backdrop of the strata-perspective, this passage provides us with a list of helpful contrasts. There are two dimensions, vertical and horizontal. The vertical pertains to “atemporal-categorial” determination, and the horizontal to “temporal-real” determination. The first pertains to universal categorial form

 “Horizontal” and “vertical” are explicitly contrasted in Hartmann , . With the exception of passages from Hartmann , translations are my own.

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and structure, the second to particular events and interconnections.³ In addition, in his discussion of at least fifteen different forms of determination, he contrasts “nonserial” and “serial” forms of determination, which neatly map on to these two dimensions (Hartmann 1940, 290). These sets of contrasting terms will serve to orient us in the discussion that follows. Hartmann lists many types of horizontal determination in the real, including causality, reciprocal determination, the “organic nexus,” unconscious tendencies, the finalistic nexus (teleological action), values in spiritual life, self-determination or autonomy of the will, and historical processes (Hartmann 1940, 287– 88). Some of these involve differences of scale and stratum, but any determination of a series from member to member is horizontal (Hartmann 1940, 285). All of these forms of determination must be distinguished from “vertical” (nonserial) determination. Determination of concretum by principle, conclusion by premises, species by genus, and the relation between categorial laws and strata-categories are of the “vertical” sort (Hartmann 1940, 290). These contrasts are compiled in the table below. Table 1. Two ontological dimensions. Vertical

Horizontal

Atemporal-categorial Nonserial E.g., Principle-concretum Structural Global

Temporal-real Serial Concretum-concretum (e. g., causal nexus) Genetic Local

I have added the pairs “structure and genesis” and “global and local” to the contrasts mentioned in the previous paragraph. These terms will come into play when I contrast Hartmann’s ontology with other ontological frameworks. They provide a convenient means of registering differences of scope and function in ontological projects. For the sake of clarity in the exposition to follow, in the next section (6.2) I will be a bit more precise about what I mean by vertical and horizontal ontological dimensions. Although the question whether Hartmann’s categorial “laws  In another passage: “[In ‘determinism’] one doesn’t have in mind the kind of determination that proceeds from categories, but the kind that in every ontological stratum interconnects individual with individual, real being with real being. The former pertains to the universal and principial, the latter thoroughly permeates the individual case deep into its individuality” (Hartmann , ).

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of dependence” (the second order principles relating one stratum of categorial principles to another) can be used to characterize human asymmetrical dependence on nonhuman nature motivates this project, I will only deal with it tangentially here. My central concern is the distinction between the two dimensions and the different types of ontology. To this end, I will go on to discuss Hartmann’s own distinction between the series of entities and the series of strata (6.3); the conflation of these series in the attempt to assimilate Hartmann’s discussion to the discourse of supervenience (6.4); and an example from the domain of political ecology which explores the “criss-crossing” of ontological dimensions (6.5). I conclude that, among the ontological alternatives on offer, Hartmann’s stratified ontology is best equipped to articulate the asymmetrical dependence of humans on the nonhuman natural world.

2 Flat, Hierarchical, Stratified There are two common meanings of “vertical” that must be reckoned with, one Ancient, and one more current.⁴ As Hans Jonas acutely observed, explanation in the Ancient world implied an evaluative ontological hierarchy. First principles of explanation had to refer to first things, from which the lower in the ontological scale are derived, and to which they are subordinate in power and value. The lower is understood as a privation of the preeminent higher. It had mostly been assumed that there must be not only more power but also more perfection in the cause than in the effect. The originating agency must possess more reality than the things originated by it. It must also be superior in formal essence, to account for the degree of form that the derivative things may enjoy. At the very least the cause must possess these things “as much as,” “not less than,” the things springing from it (Jonas 2001, 40 – 41).⁵

 Although it is tempting to indulge in a rhetorical analysis of the spatial metaphorics used in these ontological discourses—“higher” and “lower,” “flat” and “stratified,” “horizontal” and “vertical”—I will not do so here. The temptation is likely motivated by the question whether these metaphors condemn us to a limited human perspective on the world, or whether through them we know the world as it is in itself. While much contemporary philosophy defines itself in terms of this Modern dualism, this post-Kantian worry did not trouble Hartmann at all, and he recognized that human ontological embeddedness in the natural and social worlds makes it a false choice based on an old-fashioned metaphysical dualism. We would do well if it troubled us just as little.  Despite Jonas’s keen assessment of these differences, he uncritically continues to endorse this ontological principle in his own critique of mainstream Darwinian approaches to the origins of life and consciousness from nonlife and unconsciousness. See Jonas ,  – . Bergson, panpsychists, and some emergentists make the same mistake. A genuine break with this tradi-

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Neoplatonism’s emanatory scheme exemplifies this simultaneously ontological and axiological hierarchical structure. The lower is determined by and utterly dependent upon the higher. It might be argued that a gradual transition was made to Early Modern conceptions thanks to an internal tension that afflicted this tradition itself. In Neoplatonism, next to this conception of hierarchy was a non-hierarchical model where the indiscriminate omnipresence of the One was said to express itself differentially through individual beings according to the “degree of their receptivity.” One of the metaphors employed here was of a single voice heard by multiple listeners. Writers like Giordano Bruno capitalized on the tension between the hierarchical and univocal models in order to prepare the ground for an anti-hierarchical ontology for the Modern period. On the Ancient view, form is superior to matter, in-forming and bringing essence to it, while passive matter receives forms. Bruno’s alternative metaphorics claims that “matter gives birth to forms,” which may be construed as a flattening of the ontological (and by extension political) plane. Whatever the case may be with the eclectic, syncretist Bruno and his influence, the tendency of those writers who followed was also to consider ontological determination in such a non-hierarchical fashion. Producer and product, cause and effect were ontologically on a par. Jonas claims that in Modernist mechanistic explanation “origin and resulting existence do not differ except in the sense of antecedent and subsequent states of an identical substratum: the producing reality is of the same order as the product, being merely differently located in the infinite time-series of cause and effect. […] [E]arliest origins and latest results are of the same nature” (Jonas 2001, 39 – 40). This also entails, he claims, a new temporalized conception of being that replaces the Ancients’ valorization of the static and unchanging, making action and process (principally in the form of locomotion) centrally explanatory. It also allows the simple, formerly “lower” forms to explain the more complex, “higher” forms, reversing the traditional hierarchical scheme. In sum, he writes that “the primitive is called upon to account for the more articulated, the unstable for the stable, disorder for order, becoming for being” (Jonas 2001, 41). One of the important consequences of this flattening is that “real” can no longer be qualified by the terms “more or less.” There are no “degrees of reality.” As Hartmann notes, “the same mode of being, reality, encompasses everything from matter to the spirit” (Hartmann 1953, 43). Another sense of “vertical” is more current, and is indirectly related to this history. “Lower” and “higher” no longer pertain to essence or degrees of being,

tion would reject this conception of the causa immanens altogether (see Hartmann ). See also the discussion of “genesis” in section . below.

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but to scale and complexity of composition in a monistic metaphysics. For a now-conventional hierarchy based on common-sense biological “levels of organization,” for example, “[i]n the simplest series (cell, organism, population, community, ecosystem), each level is composed of the subsystems on the next lower level and is controlled by the level above it” (O’Neill et al. 1986, 61). This mereological, scalar hierarchy assumes that “systems” at level n are composed of systems or elements at the n-1 level, and that to explain system n behavior one need only invoke goings-on at the n-1 level, even if understanding it also requires invoking a higher level in the scale (Pickett et al. 2007). This objectual conception of “levels of organization” hierarchy in nature is widespread, and may be considered a legacy of positivism that has made it difficult even for ecologists to articulate different models of hierarchy (Poli 2001; O’Neill et al. 1986). There is a great deal of variation on this basic model, and continuing debate about which version is most fitting (Pickett et al. 2007). However, whether these organizational levels and their part-whole relations are compositional and spatial, or “process-rate” and temporal, or even if higher levels are taken to “emerge” or supervene on lower levels, “higher” and “lower” do not actually make an ontological difference. As I’ll explain below, debate surrounding the “problem of emergence” is usually framed against the background of a taken for granted ontological monism, imagined to be the best response to metaphysical dualism. But there is no good reason to believe that monism and dualism are our only ontological options, and some form of pluralism may be a better response to dualism (Dupre 1993). The categories that structure such “levels of organization” hierarchies, including part-whole and matter-form, do not entail an essential reference to what Hartmann considers nonserial, vertical determination and dependence. This means that these hierarchies are still paradoxically in a sense “flat.” Environmentalists sometimes invoke this sort of scalar ecological hierarchy in order to argue that humans too are parts of ecosystemic networks, or “part of nature as a whole.” The idea is that if (western) humans see themselves as part of nature rather than apart from it they will be better motivated to care for it. On one hand, it is indeed essential to trace the genetic connections between human agents, biotic, and abiotic components of ecosystemic networks or heterogeneous webs in order to highlight the harms (or benefits) to the nonhuman environment wrought by humans. On the other hand, the utility of such (ontological) accounts is severely limited for environmentalism in that part-whole relations reveal only one subset of determinations that play a role in natural-social interacting processes. They fail, importantly, to articulate asymmetrical relations of dependence, as well as the categorial difference of other forms of determination, such as purposive action and cultural tradition.

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Finally, more broadly speaking, process-philosophies can also be considered “flat” in the same sense. Although it arose as a challenge to materialist ontology, and materialist and process ontologies use different basic categories to explain events, they nevertheless share at least two features. They are both primarily concerned with questions of genesis more than structure, and they aim to talk about everything from atoms to consciousnesses in terms of a single set of categories (e.g., Hartshorne 1968; Birch/Cobb 1984).⁶ They simply make a different single set of categories primary. Hartmann quite clearly claims that it is not the business of ontology to do either, as I’ll explain below. On the process view, processes may also be hierarchically arranged in “groups of processes,” making complex organisms such as ourselves whole “communities” of processes, resulting in another form of “levels of organization” hierarchy. Even if there is emergence of something novel and irreducible at higher levels, we are not required to invoke new framing categories beyond those of part and whole in order to conceive it. This means that not only is there no radical discontinuity between the Modern ontological project and more recent ontologies of process, systems theory, and complexity, but the latter revisionist ontologies are still thoroughly Modernist in at least one way: they continue the tendency toward an all-encompassing “horizontality.” This tendency is common to a number of recent developments in ontology, including those of Manuel DeLanda, Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, Graham Harman, and Karen Barad, among others. These too aim to generate a single set of ontological categories that can be applied to humans as well as crystals, corporations as well as bats, dishtowels and the climate system. From a Hartmannian perspective, the old dualistic contrast between substantivism and relationalism (on which these views are based) is far less important than the shared presumption against ontological pluralism as an alternative to dualism.

 Hartshorne explicitly states that the objective of metaphysics is to use one set of categories to capture phenomena, and claims that “psychological” categories are the more inclusive set. Poli  () makes a similar point. A daring, but often confused, attempt to combine Whiteheadian process and Hartmannian stratified ontology is Dziadkowiec . Moreover, the general shift to regarding “internal relations” and processes as ontologically primary and substances or objects secondary does not tell us which types of relations are more important than others. For the environmentalist, human “dependence” on nonhuman nature cannot be merely one relation among others.

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3 The Two Series: Stufenbau and Schichtung As early as the 1920’s, Hartmann’s “new ontology” resisted this tendency toward monism, or even dualism, and instead promoted a pluralist, realist, “stratified” conception of the world. Stratification preserves a vertical dimension of determination, of second-order ontological principles, without which an account of determination would be incomplete. When ecological discourse speaks of levels or hierarchy, for example, it misses the set of relations that Hartmann calls “strata laws.” Hartmann himself repeatedly drew a distinction between Stufenbau (graduated scale) and Schichtung (stratification). As early as 1912 in his Philosophische Grundfragen der Biologie, Hartmann began to introduce a “system theory” perspective into biology, and he elaborates it in his late Philosophie der Natur (1980).⁷ In the context of his analysis of the categories of “dynamical systems” (dynamische Gefüge) in that work, Hartmann distinguishes between a “graduated scale” (Stufenbau) and “stratification” (Schichtung) (1980, 479 – 483). In a Stufenbau of nature, we are dealing with “smaller to larger spatial [scales],” not with “genuine stratification” (1980, 479). Similarly, in New Ways of Ontology he distinguishes a “hierarchy of strata” from a “hierarchy of actual structures,” “an order not identical with the order of strata but cutting across it” (1953, 43 – 51).⁸ The Stufenbau in nature consists of a scalar hierarchy of dynamical systems, ranging from the micro-physical domain of elementary particles to the macrophysical realm of star systems and galaxies. In terms of scale, living things occupy the middle range. Hartmann remarks that the structurally “highest” forms (living things and human beings) are actually in the “middle” of the compositional scale (1980, 492). Forms in the scalar series are considered primarily in terms of the fundamental ontological categories part-whole, matter-form, and element-system. All of these pairs are relative in the sense that at one level a cell, for instance, may be a whole while at another it forms only a part, or it may be regarded as an element of a system at one level, or the system itself at another. He clearly states the characteristic difference between series: “We are not dealing here with ‘stratification’ at all…but only with spatial-dynamical containment and being-contained” (1980, 490).⁹ Organized collections of cells may have properties that individual cells do not have, and “superformation” of the part by the whole, or “holistic determina Hartmann’s text was historically important for the founder of “general system theory,” Ludwig Bertalanffy. See Bertalanffy .  He also uses the terms Stufenreich, Stufenleiter, Stufenordnung, Stufen der Gebilde, but seems to settle on the term Stufenbau to name this hierarchical conception.  “räumlich-dynamisches Umfassen und Umfasstwerden.”

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tion” (“top-down causality”), may take place. Instances of top-down, whole-topart determination occur. “Lower” parts can depend on “higher” wholes. Within the same ontological stratum there may be heterogeneous laws operative at different scalar levels. Here the “specific lawful relations within larger systems” in the “superformation relation always have independence in relation to their elements. They form, in contrast to them, the dynamical and determinative novum” (1980, 483). In this example, the novel property of the whole in relation to the part is operative within the single ontological stratum of the organic, and does not cross ontological strata boundaries. The “laws” relating parts to wholes at one scalar level may differ from those operative at another, and all of them can remain within the framework of a scalar Stufenbau. What should be apparent is that no invocation of the second-order “laws of stratification” is needed to understand these types of relations. “[T]he Stufenbau is not genuine stratification” (1980, 492). Scalar hierarchy is still ontologically “flat.” Hartmann notes that in stratification, by contrast, the higher always asymmetrically depends directly on the lower. “[T]he law of ontological stratification—that the higher forms are built on top of the next lower forms and presuppose them—is not valid here” (1980, 490). The Stufenbau is discontinuous, and it is not the case that every higher form depends directly on the lower.¹⁰ From the strata-perspective, individual things are not to be seen primarily as units in a hierarchical, granulated, or mereological series of forms, but as reticulate centers cross-cut by categorial principles. Individual things are “stratified within themselves,” suffering entanglement of categories and principles of different strata. All individuals, including the human investigator, are mixed, stratified, and each becomes comprehensible “only through the interrelatedness of the strata” (Hartmann 1953, 49). Accounts are incomplete when they ignore or dismiss one or another of the forms of determination that characterize the strata and their relations. Moreover, the relation of strata dependence, of “resting on,” of supporting and being supported, is not explicitly captured by scalar models. Thus, if both flat and hierarchical ontologies concern themselves exclusively with horizontal forms of determination, they are inadequate for revealing the second-order principles relating one stratum of categorial principles to another. These are the principles that may be used to characterize, among other relations, human asymmetrical dependence on nonhuman nature. Before following this

 For example, planets—large scale compositions—do not “depend” on smaller scale living things, and are not “composed” of them. Likewise, “humans are not composed of plants” (Hartmann , ).

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theme, I’ll talk about an instance where Hartmann’s theory of stratification has been mistaken for a theory of emergence.

4 The “Problem” of Supervenience In his aporetics, Hartmann is careful to distinguish between real problems and bogus problems on the basis of the initial phenomenological description of what is given. Hartmann argues that conflicts of theories often arise in philosophy because authors rush to generate theories without accurately assessing the phenomena themselves and the aporias they harbor. Were this done in the first place, certain false problems would never have arisen. Thus, where description of the phenomena or matter at hand differs, characterization of the aporias and their theoretical resolution will differ. In this case, ontological “emergence” theory (and theories of supervenience that try to improve on it) arises in response to an already assumed reductionist, monist materialist framework. Supervenience theorists approach their “problem” from an metaphysical “standpoint” (in Hartmann’s sense) already committed to ontological monism. Hartmann, from the start, rejects metaphysical materialism as a speculative theory that simply privileges certain phenomena over others and tries to use a single set of categories to understand everything in the world (Hartmann 1953; on the error involved, see Peterson 2012a). There is a “problem of emergence” at all because it is assumed that the world is ontologically homogeneous (not to mention atomistic and deterministic) from the materialist “standpoint.” Hartmann rejects this assumption based on his own phenomenological description and broad survey of experience, existing natural and human sciences, and their histories. Once an accurate phenomenological description is provided, he thinks, it is self-evident that living things cannot be explained by using only the categories that apply to physical things, and it is self-evident that consciousness cannot be explained by employing only categories that apply to merely living or physical objects. So, for Hartmann there is no need to explain how life “emerges” from matter, or how moral decisions arise from psychological processes. Where there is no reductionist assumption, there is no need for an emergentist reaction. If the metaphysical framework is rejected by Hartmann, so is the bogus problem. Therefore, the “problem” that Hartmann addresses and theoretically responds to with his ontological theory of stratification is simply not the same problem

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dealt with by supervenience theorists. This is the first reason to oppose the assimilation of Hartmann’s stratified ontology to the discourse of supervenience.¹¹ Secondly, supervenience discourse does not respect the distinction between the series of things (Stufenbau) and series of strata (Schichtung) just revealed in the previous section. Supervenience theorists are focused on objects that possess base and supervenient properties, conceptualized in terms of part-whole or many-one relationships. These parts and wholes may occupy different “levels” of a scalar or granular series of objects. As we have seen, Hartmann quite clearly distinguishes between this scalar series of forms and the series of ontological strata and the laws of stratification which determine their relations. Therefore, when supervenience discourse assumes that there is only one series, and that relations between levels are to be understood in terms of part-whole relations and their regularities, this only addresses one of the two series in Hartmann. The account of the scalar series of forms and part-whole relations provided above corresponds quite closely with Dahlstrom’s definition of “supervenient emergence.”¹² Dahlstrom explains his version of “supervenient emergence” as a “mereological” concept. A is an emergent property if and only if 1) A is a property of the whole, 2) A is a supervenient property that supervenes on the properties of the parts of this whole in a nomological way, and 3) there is a law that determines A as well as the connection of the properties of the parts with A, but which does not belong to those laws that determine the parts. I.e., some laws of the connection of properties of the parts with the properties of the whole are fundamental laws (laws that do not allow of being derived from other laws) (2012, 353).

This conception corresponds pretty closely to the sorts of examples Hartmann himself provides when he discusses the Stufenbau in nature. “[T]he surface tension and spherical shape of a droplet are a novum in relation to the molecular forces of H2O,” and to explain this novum we require reference to laws pertaining to forms of a higher scalar level, but we do not require reference to different special categories of another stratum. This example fulfills Dahlstrom’s definition of supervenience (substitute “surface tension” for ‘A’), but remains solidly within a

 Compare Dupre : “[Many philosophers] find the general metaphysics of reduction so compelling as to present supervenience as the weakest imaginable relation between higher and lower levels of organization. Since I advocate a more egalitarian conception of the relations between levels of organization, I see supervenience merely as a very weak, but still questionable, form of reductionism” (). I think Hartmann would agree with this assessment.  I am in agreement with what Dahlstrom says in his criticism of Johansson, Dahlstrom ,  – . Dahlstrom conceives of supervenience as an ontological and not merely epistemological issue.

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single stratum. Thus, there can be heterogeneous laws operative at different scalar levels within the same stratum. As noted above, instances of top-down, whole-to-part determination often occur. But in order to preserve Hartmann’s distinction, it is crucial to see that this is not the relation between a higher stratum and a lower. Failure to recognize the distinction between Stufenbau and Schichtung leads Dahlstrom to attempt to explain supervenience in terms of Hartmann’s ontological laws of stratification and dependence. “That Hartmann must have imagined something like the current conception of supervenience is [clear] when we bring in his laws of dependence” and stratification (2012, 355). “The concept of emergence can just as clearly be found in his theory. Hartmann’s ontology recognizes this as the ‘novum,’ as he has it in his formulation of the law of the novum …” (Ibid.). Throughout his discussion, Dahlstrom interprets superformation, novum, and dependence as categories that apply to the part-whole relations between things at different scales, which is correct. But he carries this usage in relation to the scalar series directly over to their usage in the strata laws, and in fact does not distinguish between the two cases. “Superformation” and “nova” can be discussed within a single stratum without the need to invoke the higher order strata laws at all. Thirdly, this equivocation reveals an even more serious misunderstanding. Hartmann claims that “categorial laws” do not apply to concreta directly; they apply to the strata of categories, which in turn apply to concreta (1940, 244).¹³ They are “principles of principles,” and do not bear directly on individual concreta (1940, 376). If such laws are also categories-principles, and every categoryprinciple is “for” a concretum, then the strata laws bear on some corresponding concretum. The structure of the whole real world is their concretum. Thus, applying the “law of strength” or of “law of indifference” directly to a single concretum is illegitimate, and these strata laws should not be used to address what are merely level relations. Finally, we have to reject the application of Hartmann’s strata theory to the supervenience-emergence question for another reason. This pertains to the question of the proper task of ontology. As Hartmann understands it, the primary task of ontology is to provide a kind of global taxonomy and structural account of

 Consider this analogy: For Kant, although Ideas do not directly contribute to the constitution of the objects of experience, they may serve a powerful regulative function in relation to the categories of the understanding, which are constitutive for human experience. So, to say that laws of stratification apply directly to concreta is like saying that Ideas apply directly to objects in Kant, which is clearly uncritical on his account. There is a disanalogy here, however, in that categorial laws do bear directly on one concretum (unlike Ideas in Kant), and that is the structure of the real world.

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things in the world. In order to accomplish this, it needs to avoid certain conceptions of “things” that may prejudice the investigation. In the Grundlegung he points out that “[i]n ancient thought the on was opposed to the phainomenon on one side, and to the gignomenon on the other. ‘That which is’ is thus distinguished in this formulation both from ‘what is’ as merely appearing, as well as from ‘what is’ as in its process of becoming. In this way, the interpretation that ‘being’ itself could consist in appearing, or in the process of becoming, are readily avoided” (1965, 39). He thus carefully navigates between phenomenological and scientific conceptions, arguing that ontology does not have a specific interest in understanding or explaining things in terms of their appearance, or in terms of how they come to be (genesis), as he explicitly states on many occasions. In addition to this more global consideration, his analysis of causality makes his studied indifference toward such questions abundantly clear. In his categorial analysis of causality in Philosophie der Natur, Hartmann discovers several characteristic features of the category. In addition to the features of linearity, unidirectionality, irreversibility, and lawfulness, the central feature of the causal nexus is its “production” of effects (1980, 325). Hartmann argues that the causal process “is an eminently creative process […] It consists in progressive production and being-produced” (1980, 324). Effects are not “contained” in causes, and nothing similar or identical need be “preserved” in the transition from cause to effect. “[N]ew always takes the place of old, and the overall impression is the variegated display of inexhaustible difference” (1980, 326). This continuous production of novelty or difference is usually obscured for naturalistic-pragmatic reasons, or by scientific methodological habits bent on finding uniformity, lawfulness and preservation of identity throughout processes. But the inability to recognize novelty is also rooted in the continued influence of historical misconceptions of causality. The historical distinction between “causa immanens” and “causa transiens,” where immanens emphasized the primacy of preservation of the same underlying metaphysical substance or form in the causal relation, continues to mislead us even when it comes to “mechanical” causality. In fact, Hartmann says, for modern science there is no causa immanens any longer. Cause has to be understood as transiens, “external” and fleeting in every case. Cause is that which disappears into its effect and ceases to exist, not something that is preserved. This, he claims, is the meaning of real temporal process (1980, 327). This means that the well-known Scholastic formula, “at least as much in the cause as in the effect,” referred to by Jonas above deriving from the sense of the causa immanens, is completely invalid for any contemporary concept of causality. The surprising conclusion is, therefore, that it is completely unnecessary to propose some “emergent” type of causality when the causal process itself, at its most basic level, is taken to be creative of the new (1980,

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326).¹⁴ In explicit polemical reference to Bergson, Hartmann argues that “creative evolution” is in fact a contradiction in terms, because “evolution” normally connotes the “unfolding” of what is already “preformed” in the cause. All concepts of development, he says, tend to misunderstand what is essential about real causal process: the production of what is new and different from the cause. “It is evolution that is sterile. Causation is productive” (1980, 328). Ultimately, Hartmann also claims that this productivity is itself a nonrational factor for knowledge, refractory to all attempts to conceptualize it. “Production (Hervorbringen) itself is unknowable” (1980, 329).¹⁵ This one important reason why he thinks it is not ontology’s task to deal with genesis questions, and also why “emergence” is for him a false problem. The novel is constantly being produced, and genesis is ultimately a mystery. “All genetic interpretations […] are speculative constructions. Ontology is by no means committed to providing such a thing” (Hartmann 1940, 464). But such a thing seems to be exactly what emergence theories hope to provide.¹⁶

 “From the bare form of a series one can never ascertain the particular kind of effect to be produced” (, ).  It is “the mystery of effectuation (Bewirken)” (). To think that we know what causality is when we cast it in the form of a law of causality is completely mistaken, he says, since that lawful aspect is just one factor in it. The production itself is what is central, and that remains inconceivable to us. Since causality (as cognitive category) is taken to be the most important category for our knowledge of nature’s processes, we have assumed that it must be transparently intelligible in itself. But because we cannot assume that cognitive categories are identical to ontological ones, nor that they are simple or fully comprehensible without remainder, we have to hold that causality is a presupposition for all explanations of nature, but is itself not completely transparent to us (, ; , ).  “To be sure, it cannot be the task of ontology to map out a [genetic history of the series of strata]” (Hartmann , ). Attempts to give a “genetic” explanation of stratification may be possible, but ontology does not have to provide them. This division of labor is not unproblematic in Hartmann’s work. In New Ways, he explicitly introduces the question of the genesis of categorial laws themselves. “Do the categorial laws of stratification and dependence, completely neutral as they are in regard to all genetic questions, admit of a genetic interpretation?” (). He answers in the affirmative. But in the reflections immediately following the question he subtly changes the topic after he introduces it. He in effect says nothing about the genesis of laws themselves, and only assumes them in his account of how one entity may pass from one categorial regime to another.

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5 Horizontal and Vertical Intersection The distinction between Stufenbau and Schichtung is at least clear, and it shows that Hartmann is not primarily interested in genesis, but in structure. If we are to preserve these distinctions, we should show that there is some value in doing so. As I have argued elsewhere, his strata theory has at minimum the negative function of avoiding reductionism of various types (Peterson 2012a). Therefore, it is still eminently useful in a contemporary context wherever there is a tendency toward reductionism of one kind or another. Consider this its global negative function. Preserving the distinction would be even easier if it also had a global positive function. By “positive” I mean that it contributes knowledge of “what there is” that is not revealed by other sources, knowledge of real structures which proves valuable from some situated perspective or other.¹⁷ One thing that Hartmann did not explain at all clearly was how to integrate explanations of the criss-crossing kinds of determination and dependence referred to in section 6.1. He said that “the determinative total structure of real interconnection consists in the interpenetration of the [vertical] atemporal-categorial and [horizontal] temporal-real determination. The former determines the form and the structure of the nexus according to its place in the strata, the latter determines the particular occurrence in the individual case, according to the total collocation of the real [horizontal] interconnections at the time” (Hartmann 1940, 289). We could perhaps take a hint from his “pluralist” conception of history in Das Problem des geistigen Seins. In the Introduction to the book he contrasts Hegelian and Marxian approaches as dualistically constructed standpoints on history; both contain some truth but are taken to extremes. The common presupposition of both views is that one set of factors (whether spiritual for Hegelians or economic-productive for Marxists) must be the determining factors of history, while the others are backgrounded (Hartmann 1962, 12– 13). “We may make the general observation that the tendency to conceive complex phenomena (Gebilde) one-sidedly and monistically from above or from below prevails in metaphysics, and this means that the tendency to conceive them in terms of categories that are not their own and at best constitute only partial aspects in them does as well.” This tendency fails to disclose “the distinctive nature of the whole” (1962, 15). In place of this reduction of factors, “pluralism” is precisely what the phenom Regarding “situatedness,” I think that Hartmann’s reinterpretation of epistemology and ontology in terms of anthropology later in his career opens the way for including Hartmann in the camp of “situated epistemologists” who recognize the multiple conditionedness of knowledge production, including its nonpernicious conditionedness by interests. See Peterson b.

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ena demand. The theory of ontological stratification is the appropriately pluralistic response to this persistent problem. In this case, the laws of stratification and dependence allow us to conceive history as a multifactoral process of criss-crossing determinations: “It is a process in which the factors of all of the strata of being play a determining role, a process which—if it can be understood at all—must be understood in each case only as the total result of heterogeneous forces that continuously collide with one another” (1962, 19). The problem for history, he says, is explaining how these categories of different strata intermingle. He does not explain this in the text because he expressly pays particular attention to spiritual factors in history, and does not attend to the nonspiritual factors (1962, 23). So we are left without a significant example that helps to explain such criss-crossing determinations, and only with an abstract schema for explanation. If we supplied a concrete case, the positive contribution of strata theory might be made visible. Although such an exercise should receive its own separate treatment, I will do so briefly here after summarizing where we are and Hartmann’s laws of dependence. We have seen that Hartmann uses the distinction between Stufenbau and Schichtung to argue that the structure of the real world is not simply a series of forms, systems, or scalar levels of organization (although it often is), but that these series are cross-cut by an encompassing real world structure that evinces gaps between major phenomenal domains. While part-whole hierarchies metaphorically stretch into a vertical dimension, the modes of determination they incorporate are entirely “horizontal,” that is, they are modes of determination in the real restricted to causal, reciprocal, holistic, or other serial modes of determination. The “vertical” dimension, according to Hartmann, is constituted first by the relation between principle and concretum, and by extension, by the relations between whole strata of categories determined by laws of stratification and dependence. He takes his laws of dependence to be the most important for comprehending the structure of the real world. The most important laws which relate the strata of the material, organic, mental, and socio-cultural to one another are the laws of dependence. The “fundamental categorial law” is that the lower categories on which higher strata depend are the “stronger,” meaning they are ever-present conditions or fundaments, while the higher are “weaker,” in inverse relation. The lower are indifferent to whether anything higher ever comes to “rest” on them or not, their vocation is not to serve the higher. As “matter,” the lower categories, if incorporated into higher levels, constrain what the higher may do with them but don’t determine it. Lastly, the higher always has leeway or autonomy despite its weakness and dependence on the lower (1940, 471– 72). These four principles have both a positive and negative sense: negatively, they defend against reductionism of various kinds (idealism, teleo-

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logy, determinism). Positively, they affirm realism, naturalism, and pluralism. This “global” conspective and strata-perspectival view on dependence relations is to be distinguished, both in terms of motive and function, from those accounts which trace relations of determination in some set of “local” events. The latter attempts engage in what may be called “genetic” explanation, while the former may be called genuinely “structural.” Hartmann does not reject flat ontologies, but incorporates them into the horizontal, serial dimension. Even if, in some versions, they themselves turn out to be pluralistic rather than reductivist, they still do not adequately recognize relations of asymmetrical dependence in vertical stratification of the sort emphasized in his laws of dependence, which form the basis for the concept of superposition.¹⁸ Let’s take an environmentalist example that involves the unruly complexity and entanglement of abiotic and biotic, human and nonhuman, individual and social, rational and nonrational, cultural and natural factors. Environmental problems have been called “wicked” problems due to the complex intersection of material, vital, psychological, economic, and socio-political factors in them. If Hartmann’s theory is useful, it ought to be applicable to such complex cases. A study of the practices involved in one case of heterogeneously constructing “ecosystem services” for sale on a market may provide an example. Robertson details how ecologists are recruited in attempts to formalize and stabilize the practice of “wetland banking” in North America, and his findings are applicable to other attempts by policymakers to commodify “ecosystem services.” The US Clean Water Act of 1977 protects many of the functions performed by wetlands, such as water purification.¹⁹ “With the rise of market-led environmental policies,” according to Robertson, “the protection of these functions is increasingly being accomplished through the definition and trading of ‘wetland credits’ in regional markets, where the credit commodity is defined in units of ecological function” (2006, 367– 368). While defining “units of ecological function” is a scientific challenge involving a range of disciplines and researchers (botanists, ecologists, hydrogeologists), it is also an economic necessity for such market-based policies. He shows explicitly how both human and nonhuman agents are enrolled in creating and translating ecological data into “units

 I thus disagree with Kleineberg’s interpretation of stratification in general and superposition in particular in this volume, Chapter .  The fundamental units of analysis in ecological ontology are regarded as more fluid and open to debate than those in other branches of science. The relation between ecological structures and processes is said to give rise to “functions,” and when valued by humans these functions become “ecosystem services.” On this relation, see De Groot et al. ; see Jax and Setälä  for a discussion of the “function” concept in ecology.

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of ecosystem function” to be commodified. For instance, the flower Aster simplex serves as an indicator species of the presence of a wetland ecosystem, and so of the units of ecosystem function that it might provide. And yet, scientific knowledge of the flower itself is contested. “There is, in fact, no current consensus on the very existence of a coherent and discrete species called Aster simplex” (Ibid.). If the most basic kind of identification of an entity or function cannot be relied upon to produce consistent results, we might question the validity of the entire enterprise. This taxonomic uncertainty about a group of plants in genus Aster is important to the US federal government, since only some of them indicate the presence of a functioning wetland ecosystem, and “[w]etland ecosystems that fit the federal definition produce ecosystem services that can now be sold on a market” (Robertson 2006, 368). Market-driven environmentalism is of course only one type, but an increasingly obtrusive one. The uncertainty about and contested descriptions of flowers, ecosystem functions, and processes may lead some to claim that it is the neoliberal political economic system that “creates” these entities (social macrodetermination); or that scientific descriptions of an independent nature will give us definitive proof of their existence on which sound policies may be based (naturalistic macrodetermination). Our responses to such complex scenarios will be conditioned by our ontological commitments in any case. It seems prudent to accept a multifactoral stance at the outset. In this brief glimpse at an enormously complex social-natural phenomenon, species of Aster, more or less experienced botanists, their field manuals, the US Clean Water Act of 1977, hydrogeologists, ecosystem functions, ecologists, quadrant markers, markets in ecosystem services, and the US federal government all become components of heterogeneously constructed knowledge and intersecting processes that may result in the commodification of some natural processes. A flat ontology accepts that all of these factors stand in ontological parity. The wildflower Aster simplex and the economic market in wetland ecosystem services, for example, are on the same horizontal plane. There is no “macrodetermination” from the economic side as a Marxian account might hold, nor from the side of “nature” determining how human groups should respond to it. Agency is “distributed” among interacting entities and processes, rather than concentrated in one component to the exclusion of others, since all outcomes have multiple contributing causes. Agents interact across heterogeneous webs of resources in a complex constructive process where components are linked over time, building on what has come before.²⁰ These claims are consis-

 I adopt some ideas of Taylor  in this recharacterization of flat ontology. Conceived in this way, there are multiple points of intervention or engagement that could modify a process

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tent with Hartmann’s view of serial determination. What is missing here is a global framework that identifies relationships between kinds of entities and processes at a higher structural level, and thus orients investigation into the priority of some resources or causes over others. According to Hartmann’s laws, to recap, the lower categories on which higher strata depend are the “stronger,” or indispensable conditions, while the higher are “weaker” and always dependent. The lower are indifferent to whether anything higher ever comes to “rest” on them, and are not there to “serve” the higher. The lower categories, if incorporated into higher levels, constrain what the higher may do with them but don’t determine it. The higher always has autonomy from the lower despite its weakness and dependence on it (1940, 471– 72). Setting aside the important distinction between rationalist and sociological accounts of knowledge production, the knowledge produced can nevertheless be regarded ontologically.²¹ The knowledge itself is a “spiritual good,” and is dependent on real material, vital, and economic processes, all of which have their own categorial coherence, dependency and autonomy. They are all unavoidably intertwined, but we should be able to sort out relations of dependence between them. For example, there is no knowledge of nor economic market based on “ecosystem services” like “water purification” without the existence of water purification “functions” and the ecological structures and processes that compose them. The existence of economic interests or a market does not bring “water purification” into existence for the first time, although it may be disclosed to our view in a new way and take on new social functions by the existence of such markets. “Units of ecosystem function” and even the species Aster simplex may be difficult to define, but without some entities or processes like them, there can be no market in ecosystem services, and no disputes about whether they exist. “Ecosystem services” in their social-natural complexity are an expression of asymmetrical relations, not merely horizontal interactions. They are not reducible to part-whole, hierarchical or supervenience relations. The categories “ecosystem” and “function,” if they are wholes at all, are not simply composed of their parts at different scales.²² The entities involved continue to adhere to the principles of their kind even when they enter into serial relations with entities of

or course of development—in contrast, for example, to an analysis of capitalist macrodetermination which sees overthrow of the system to be the only rational mode of intervention.  Different criteria for the assessment of these processes is also required. See Longino .  “Autonomy is not separateness (absoluteness), and being-carried is not to be composed out of that which is doing the carrying” (, ). This ontological point is important for making the ethical point that we need to prioritize care for the (real) functions on which we depend. (Axiologically higher values also depend on the existence of such goods.)

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other strata. On one hand, a human researcher enters into complex relations with equipment, flowers, and governments in order to produce knowledge. On the other hand, the human, equipment, flowers, and laws have their own ontological standing that is not interchangeable. They may be equally real from the perspective of genetic constructive processes, but they are not equal in the structure of the real world. How they differentially contribute to those processes has to be explained in terms of the principles that structure the entities involved, i. e., in terms of strata principles. That is at least what we would want to say as supporters of Hartmann’s views. Certainly the issue of criss-crossing determinations warrants further examination. Hartmann reveals important asymmetrical dependencies in real world structure that flat, relationalist ontologies do not. Put differently, we could say that the central contention is not between substance and relational ontologies; it is between kinds of pluralist ontologies. Obscuring dependence relations makes it impossible for us to prioritize their preservation or conservation. Environmentalism isn’t about caring for the interconnections between all things, but about prioritizing care of some things and relations over others. On Hartmann’s perspective, values too have a relation to real bearers of value—flowers, for instance—and those real bearers have ontological relations to other bearers in the structure of the real world. This means that values also have conditioning relations to each other. In short, Hartmann’s stratified scheme provides us with a conception of second-order ontological principles or categories (categorial laws) that orients our investigations and potential social engagements. By virtue of the laws of dependence, it allows us to see the Earth-bound economy and social life of humanity depend utterly on the healthy functioning processes of the biosphere. Since there is such an ontological dependence, there is also an axiological dependence—moral values depend on vital goods—and if the vital goods are destroyed or endangered through commodification processes (including privatization), we should be motivated to prioritize preservation of vital processes over pursuit of socio-economic processes of commodification.

6 Conclusion In a first global function, Hartmann’s view has the prophylactic effect of barring simplistic, one-dimensional accounts. For example, humanist “cultural landscape theorists” contend that avoiding environmental determinism requires acknowledging that “nature” is merely an idea, or socio-cultural construct, implying that real physical and ecological relations are unimportant, or at least

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subordinated to “meanings.” For Hartmann, on the contrary, without the physical and organic, there are no meanings. No one rides their bike in their idea of a landscape, and no one eats their idea of cheese. Positively, Hartmann’s conspective approach entails that in any “environmental” phenomenon, we have to account for the physical, organic, and social-cultural-political forms of determination. For example, global climate change is not only a matter of carbon in the atmosphere, but also a matter of what rising or irregular temperatures do to plants and animal life in different regions. It is not only a matter of melting ice caps, but also one of economic, political, and cultural causes and responses to such physical and ecological changes. The forms of determination among these phenomena differ, but they stand in stable relations to one another. In the vertical, “atemporal” dimension, the forms of determination are layered upon one another and run their course simultaneously. The important point is that the forms of determination are dependent from the top down. Hartmann’s frequent example of how two forms of determination—causality and purposiveness—coexist, where physical causality has to remain in operation while goalsetting action aligns means for its ends, is perhaps the simplest model. He does not metaphysically segregate a human realm of purposive action from the realm of material causal interaction, but recognizes that higher forms of determination depend upon lower forms of determination in a superposition relation. Thus, the second global function of the laws of dependence is to provide a weighted order of dependence among explanatory principles themselves, which gives an order to “ontological parity” in the horizontal dimension. Materialism and environmentalism accept asymmetrical dependence or superposition as a basic fact of world-structure that is not well-described in terms of relations of container and contained between parts and wholes on a flat plane of interacting processes. I believe the language of stratification better captures this than flat ontologies. This is what “the higher depend directly on the lower” means in strata relations. The fact that ecological principles require the existence of physical principles for their operation is a fact not captured by pointing out the ways in which ecological wholes incorporate physical ones. The challenge is to see beings as internally stratified and diffusely dependent in a weighted order of dependence among strata. I conclude that Hartmann’s categorial “laws of dependence,” the second order principles relating one stratum of categorial principles to another, can not only be used to characterize human asymmetrical dependence on nonhuman nature, but can also orient us in our environmentalist attempts to intervene in ongoing natural and social processes.

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7 References Bertalanffy, L. (1969): General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications. New York: George Braziller. Birch, C./Cobb, J. B. (1984): The Liberation of Life: From the Cell to the Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dahlstrom, D. (2012): “Zur Aktualität der Ontologie Nicolai Hartmanns”. In: Von der Systemphilosophie zur Systematischen Philosophie—Nicolai Hartmann. Hartung, G./Wunsch, M./Strube, C. (Eds.). Berlin: De Gruyter, 349 – 365. De Groot, R./Wilson M./Boumans, R. (2002): “A Typology for the Classification, Description and Valuation of Ecosystem Functions, Goods and Services”. In: Ecological Economics 41, 393 – 408. Dupre´, J. (1993): The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Dziadkowiec, J. (2011): “The Layered Structure of the Wolrd in N. Hartmann’s Ontology and a Processual View”. In: Poli, R./Scognamiglio, C./Tremblay, F. (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, 95 – 123. Hartmann, N. (1940): Der Aufbau der realen Welt: Grundriß der allgemeinen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, N. (1953): New Ways of Ontology. Trans. Kuhn. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company. Hartmann, N. (1962): Das Problem des geistigen Seins. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, N. (1965): Zur Grundlegiung der Ontologie. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, N. (1980): Philosophie der Natur. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartshorne, C. (1968): Beyond Humanism: Essays in the Philosophy of Nature. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Jax, K./Setälä, H. (2005): “Function and ‘Functioning’ in Ecology: What Does It Mean?”. Oikos 111, 641 – 648. Johansson, I. (2001): “Hartmann’s Nonreductive Materialism, Superimposition, and Supervenience”. In: Axiomathes 12, 195 – 215. Jonas, H. (2001): The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Longino, H. (2002): The Fate of Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. O’Neill, R./Deangelis, D./Waide, J./Allen, G. (1986): A Hierarchical Concept of Ecosystems. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Peruzzi, A. (2001): “Hartmann’s Stratified Reality.” In: Axiomathes 12, 227 – 260. Peterson, K. (2012a): “An Introduction to Nicolai Hartmann’s Critical Ontology”. In: Axiomathes 22, 291 – 314. Peterson, K. (2012b): “Nicolai Hartmann’s Philosophy of Nature: Realist Ontology and Philosophical Anthropology”. In: Scripta Philosophiae Naturalis 2, 143 – 179. Pickett, S./Kolasa, J./Jones, C. (2007): Ecological Understanding: The Nature of Theory and the Theory of Nature. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Academic Press. Poli, R. (2001): “The Basic problem of the Theory of Levels of Reality”. In: Axiomathes 12, 261 – 283. Robertson, M. (2006): “The Nature that Capital can See: Science, State, and Market in the Commodification of Ecosystem Services”. In: Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 24, 367 – 387.

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Taylor, P. (2005): Unruly complexity: Ecology, Interpretation, Engagement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Part Two: Hartmann and Others

Claudia Luchetti

Chapter 7 The Discovery of A Priori Knowledge: Hartmann’s Interpretation of Plato’s Theory of Recollection In the history of western thought, there is only one philosopher who has always been considered the true discoverer of Apriorismus: Immanuel Kant. In the work on which my contribution is focused, Das Problem des Apriorismus in der Platonischen Philosophie,¹ Nicolai Hartmann radically rejects this hermeneutical cliché by first analyzing the intrinsic difficulty of the notion of the a priori, and by indicating some tangible discontinuities within Kant’s own conception of transcendental knowledge. In this short inquiry, I will concentrate on two main topics, both concerning facets of Hartmann’s approach to the Platonic theory of knowledge (which is to say, to Plato’s ontology as such). I will raise some doubts regarding the identification of the epistemological and the ontological sides of Plato’s theory of Ideas that characterizes his approach in this essay, but we’ll see that in the end his fundamental view of the inclusion of both the Erkenntnistheorie and the Seelenlehre in the Ontologie actually remains unchanged.² First, I will discuss Hartmann’s acknowledgement of Plato’s Idealism as the only true Apriorismus. Secondly, I intend to reconstruct Hartmann’s interpretation of Plato’s argument of recollection and examine its consistency. Third, I will try to substantiate the accuracy of the distinction that Hartmann is willing to maintain between Plato’s ontological and objective Apriorismus and Kant’s formal and subjective Apriorismus.

 Written in  and published in the Sitzungsberichten der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-historische Klasse, XV, and republished in the second volume of the Kleinere Schriften, Berlin, .  This peculiarity of Hartmann’s approach to ancient epistemology and to epistemology in general will characterize him not only as a Platonist, but will follow him all through his work, after being initially developed in his systematic inquiry Platos Logik des Seins of .

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1 The utility of a misleading path: how modern apriorismus takes us back to the Platonic roots of transcendentalism Hartmann devotes a conspicuous section of his essay to several “preliminary” historical, methodological and theoretical reflections, that, far from being merely introductory, deserve to be considered a structural part of his argument. In particular, these observations lead us to a better understanding of the answer to the central question, “why does a purely theoretical investigation on Apriorismus not only suggest that we look back at Plato but oblige us to do so?” The answer to this question is twofold. Plato was not only, historically, the discoverer of the a priori root of knowledge. Above all, he was, theoretically, the only philosopher able to conceive an Apriorismus free from one-sidedness (in contrast, for example, to Descartes, Leibniz and, in some respects, Hegel), avoiding at once the fall into paradoxes and the circularity from which Kant’s transcendental philosophy suffers. The main reason why the great significance of Plato’s achievements was disregarded does not depend upon a presumed lack in his theory, but is instead a consequence of the mistaken tendency of modern Apriorismus to project and to superimpose the structure of Kant’s transcendental knowledge onto Plato, losing sight of the originality of his conception and reducing his thought to a “miniaturized image of the Critique of Pure Reason” (Hartmann 1957, 49). This strongly critical remark is explicitly directed against the Neo-Kantian philosophers, particularly against Paul Natorp and his Platos Ideenlehre. In Eine Einführung in den Idealismus of 1903, Natorp, during his analysis of the hypothetical method exposed in the dialogue Phaedo (the dialogue on which Hartmann’s inquiry is almost entirely focused, though he does not dwell on this particular section), carries out a misleading interpretation of the theory of Ideas presented by Plato. In Natorp’s examination of Plato’s method of identifying “the true causes of generation and corruption,” he considers them as if they were merely “formal” hypotheses, assumed only in order to explain and justify the changeability of the world of becoming. As a result, Ideal realities are a) confined to the role of merely “formal rules” (Gesetze) that “should” guarantee the objectivity of our judgments (Urteile) concerning phenomenal events; in other words, they are considered to be instruments to achieve “knowledge” of objects of sense perception. (I will note something perfectly obvious here: in Plato’s philosophy a knowledge of phenomena is not admitted, though it is possible to have opinions (doxai) about them. But the faculty of opinion is exactly as changeable and unstable as those objects to

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which it refers. In Plato’s view, knowledge (gnōsis, noēsis, epistēmē) is only of Ideas.³) b) This first assumption further implies that whenever empirical “evidence” clashes with the hypothesis, it is the hypothesis itself that should be refused and for which another should be substituted, more adequate for explaining the observed phenomenon, and so on. In this view, it does not make any difference whether we regard Ideas as pure intellectual concepts, as “categories,” or as empirical concepts. As a matter of fact, if both the truth of some epistemic content and of a statement pretending to be scientific derive from the correspondence of an a priori hypothesis to the phenomenal sphere, it is crystal clear that Plato’s ontology is seen in the perspective of an empirical science. Unfortunately, this is not what Plato’s description of the hypothetical method in the Phaedo tells us (in 101d-102a). It is said explicitly that even in those cases in which some implications of the same hypothesis may match (sumphōneīn), and some others do not (diaphōneīn)—and it is not obvious that these implications involve perceivable entities—the validity of the hypothesis itself does not have to be questioned unless it is necessary to demonstrate its existence as such. But the existence of an Idea can be proved only by involving other “higher order” intelligible realities that will necessarily have an even less proximate relation to phenomena. c) An additional consequence following from these premises is that Ideas, if one pretends to gain access to them independently of their empirical content, end up as simple abstract unities lying behind a multiplicity of sense perceptions. As such (auto kath’ hauto), Ideas are fated to be unknowable —more or less like Kantian noumena—unless one observes them as manifest, in their immanence, in the perceivable reality. In Natorp’s reading, a purely intellectual—intuitive as well as discursive—knowledge of ideal Beings is not foreseen, for it would require an ascent in the sequence of hypotheses starting from the first layer up to the no longer hypothetical vertex of the chain (to hikanon, he anypothetos archē). To paraphrase: knowledge of Ideas presupposes the understanding of the ontological dependence of the lower layer of Being upon the higher; only this kind of foundation enables a justification (logon didonai) and a definition (logos tēs oūsias) of the single ideal entities or of their mutual relationship. This path of “generalization,” which can be seen as a progressive process of inclusion of simpler Ideas (stoicheia for example) in more and more general Ideas (up to the megista genē) devel-

 See Republic V, and VI in particular.

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ops, as Plato explains in Book VI of the Republic in the well-known divided line simile, “starting from Ideas, going on through Ideas and ending up in Ideas, without appealing in any possible way to sensations” (511b-c). And this is the realm of Dialectics. Therefore, Natorp understands Plato’s hypothesis of the existence of ideal Beings not noetically, as the Platonic dialectician should, but dianoetically, that is to say, using them, like mathematicians, astronomers and musicians, as “axioms” that do not need to be investigated as regards their intelligible nature, and applying them to prove the coherence of the empirical implications immediately following from them. d) The final (and the worst) consequence of Natorp’s assumption is a reading of Plato’s ontology as strictly dualistic. While appreciating Plato’s supposed attempt to “save the phenomena,” Natorp believes that Plato’s tendency to maintain the transcendence of Ideas (most evident in the dichotomy stated in the third proof for the immortality of the Soul in the Phaedo), ends up leaving, “below” the perceivable world, as it were, as an “irrational residuum,” the problem that intelligible beings, as long as they are thought of as absolute unities, unchangeable, eternal, identical to themselves, invisible, non-composed, and indivisible, would not be able to “include” and to organize a rational structure.⁴ Apart from these few remarks, there is no need to raise further objections concerning the weak points of Natorp’s Apriorismus, because we will see how Hartmann’s reading of Plato’s theory of recollection constitutes on the whole a point by point refutation of such attempts to flatten Plato’s ontology and epistemology in the Kantian pattern. One has to admit, together with Hartmann, that the more or less hidden reasons for the failure of the modern theories of the a priori are, once again, just a Kantian inheritance. The radical separation between the empirical and the a priori sources of knowledge, stated in the Critique of Pure Reason, implies an overly unilateral view of the process of cognition. On the one hand, it cannot be ignored that during the lifetime of a human being ⁵ the hypothesis of a “purely” empirical experience is just as unrealistic as one of a “purely” a priori experience. On the

 The background of this hermeneutic mixture of my own and Hartmann’s objections to Natorp is the whole section of Natorp’s work dedicated to the Phaedo. For the misunderstanding of Plato’s ontological theory as a strict dualism, see Natorp ,  – .  This is a very important point that we must not forget: Hartmann is taking into consideration the development of the epistemic process starting from the condition of, to put it in Platonic words, an embodied Soul.

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other hand, it is necessary to admit that the synthetic activity of the thinking subject, on which both Kant’s whole theory of judgment and his fundamental distinction between transcendent and transcendental knowledge relies, is always a priori, whether it applies to an empirical (in the case of a posteriori judgments) or to an intellectual “material” (the categories and the transcendental schemes involved in the a priori judgments). From Hartmann’s perspective, there are no “pure” sense perceptions, for whatever we perceive must be at least an object or a relation,⁶ and these are already highly structured concepts that cannot be derived only from the passive faculty of perceiving. In this view, the structure (Aufbau; Hartmann 1957, 49) of every science and of every philosophical theory is always a priori, even if their point of departure is empirical facts (Erfahrungstatsachen), no matter whether the scientist or the philosopher elaborating his theory is entirely conscious of that or not. It is very remarkable that Hartmann is applying here, from the beginning of his analysis of the inner problems of modern Apriorismus, the core of Plato’s conception of anamnesis. Knowledge coincides with acquiring awareness or selfawareness (Bewußtsein, p. 49, or Selbstbewußtsein, later on) of the purely intellectual elements that both the subject and the object of knowledge have in common. He employs the very conception that he considers to be Plato’s biggest achievement, namely the acknowledgment that knowledge is nothing but a Vorwissen, a pre-cognition, as a methodological, as well as a hermeneutical criterion to measure successes and failures not only of the conceptions of Apriorismus prevailing among his close predecessors, but also of the whole history of western thought before and after Plato. For Hartmann rightly claims that an inquiry concerning the a priori sources of knowledge is the same as an investigation into the nature, significance and foundation of a speculative theory as such. Therefore, the theoretical problem of Apriorismus is identical with the problem of philosophy tout court. Hartmann’s attitude towards the history of philosophy, summarized in the statement of a perfect coincidence between history and theory (most likely both a Platonic and a Hegelian heritage), is the same attitude he seems to possess as a Platonist. No doubt the chronology of the Platonic Dialogues may be relevant in some respects, for instance in a philological perspective, but it is not relevant as regards the theoretical questions that Plato is dealing with. So,

 The earliest formulation of this distinction, which will become fundamental for the further speculative developments of the members of the Old Academy (especially for Xenocrates), and obviously for Aristotle’s drawing up of the distinction between substance and accident, one may find in Plato’s Sophist, c  – .

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the only possible form of philosophical thought in general, and the only sensible approach to Plato’s thought “in particular,” is systematic. Hartmann draws from his systematic assumptions a remarkable and very “provocative” conclusion. The misleading reduction of Plato’s Apriorismus to a somewhat naïve version of the Critique of Pure Reason did not just lead the modern theorist of the a priori to a mistaken exegesis of Plato’s thought (which would be a problem concerning only Plato’s reception), as well as a failure to appreciate him as the discoverer of Apriorismus (which would be a problem for the history of philosophical theories). Above all, the will to superimpose Kant onto Plato made them incapable of seeing that Plato never became involved in the difficulties (in the aporiai) of Kantian and Post-Kantian Apriorismus, for the very simple reason that he already resolved and overcame them long before. To sum up Hartmann’s stance just as radically and as explicitly as he does, Apriorismus is Platonism. It may sound paradoxical to say that Kant and the Neo-Kantian philosophers, who are on the whole defending an immanentistic position against the supposed ontological monism or dualism of the ancient metaphysics by countering transcendentism with transcendentalism, are exactly those who end up being the real dualists. The most serious aporia, deriving from the separation of a priori and empirical components—to put it more precisely, from the division of the two roots of transcendental knowledge (on the one hand intuitions, and on the other hand concepts, categories and the synthetic Principle of Apperception)—is the duplication of the sphere of the noumenon, which peeks out “below” the phenomena as well as “beyond” the intellectual dimension. The unavoidable consequence is that the objectivity of knowledge and the validity of our judgments must be sought only within the field of an abstract conception of subjectivity. To quote Hartmann, “the ‘material’ side [of knowledge] is left to the a posteriori datum (Gegebenheit). Consequently, the a priori elements are themselves understood as a function of the subject, in which a given manifold is unified through specific kinds of synthesis. Therefore, every a priori element of knowledge is to be understood in terms of its formal, functional, and subjective origin” (Hartmann 1957, 51).⁷ Through his own reading of Kant’s transcendental theory, by identifying the a priori essentially with the purely intellectual-intuitive (the Greek noēin or eidenai) and discursive (the Greek logos and the Socratic-Platonic logon didonai) el-

 There is also a further “foundational” problem concerning Kant’s Principle of the Ich denke and its physiological inability to function as a true synthetic and creative principle, about which I will make some remarks in the last section of this paper.

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ements of the epistemological process, Hartmann reveals himself to be not only very close to Plato, but also to the Greek conception of knowledge in general. From Hartmann’s point of view, all the ancient philosophers were already well aware of the necessity of appealing to a non-empirical source in order to explain phenomenal reality from an ontological as well as from an epistemological perspective. Hartmann acknowledges both Heraclitus’ vision of the omnipervasive character of Logos, ⁸ and Parmenides’ statement of identity between thought and being,⁹ as the historical and theoretical origin of Apriorismus. The culmination of this tradition is Plato’s theory of Ideas, and in particular, Plato’s conception (in the Phaedo) of the preexistence of the Ideas to the thinking subject and its epistemological approach to the phenomenal world. In transcendental terms, this amounts to the identification of ideal Beings with the condition of possibility of acquiring an objective knowledge.

2 Between Self-awareness and Dialectics, Realism and Idealism: Plato’s Anamnesis and Hartmann’s reading of the process of knowledge in its absoluteness Hartmann’s interpretation of Plato’s theory of recollection, despite the brevity of its core thoughts, offers itself to the reader as a “work in progress,” such that the exposition of the main theses appears to be much less “linear” and much more “layered” than in his work Platos Logik des Seins. In order to avoid redundancies it will be useful, at first, to give a concise overview of the fundamentals of Plato’s conception of recollection in general, and secondly, to briefly sum up the structure of the specific argument of the Phaedo on which Hartmann’s interpretation is entirely focused. The vision of knowledge as anamnesis occurs, explicitly, in the Meno, the Phaedrus and the Phaedo,¹⁰ but its premises are implicitly taken for granted, for instance, in the middle Books of the Republic as well. In Book VII Plato argues against the current conviction that education consists in “pouring” knowledge into the Soul, whether virtues or any other intellectually apprehensible reality, in the same manner in which one would write on a sort of Aristotelian tabula rasa. ¹¹ This assumption is untenable in Plato’s view, for it would mean

 See Fragments , , ,  (DK).  Fr.  (DK): to gar auto noēin esti te kai eīnai.  Respectively, in a ff., in b ff., and in e ff.  This conception of acquiring knowledge is explicitly rejected in the Theaetetus, c ff.

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“to infuse sight into blind eyes.”¹² It is precisely in order to differentiate his own conception of paideia, understood as a “conversion” (periagōgē) of the soul from becoming to being, from the common one, that Plato reminds us of the “divine nature of intelligence” (noūs, phronēsis), an omnipresent, unceasing and indestructible power in us (518e2– 4: hē de toū phronēsai pantos māllon theioterou tinos tunkhanei, […,] oūsa, ho tēn men dynamin oudepote apollusin). It is remarkable that this description of intelligence in the Republic not only coincides exactly with the conclusions drawn from the argument of recollection in the Phaedo regarding the continuity of knowledge and its persistence all through the alternation of embodiments (75d), but also reveals itself to be the direct answer to the question, posed in the Phaedo to Socrates (69e-70b), which proves that the soul, after bodily death, maintains its power (dynamis) and its intelligence (phronēsis). Then, later on in Book X of the Republic, Plato recalls, within a description that immediately follows a proof of immortality (see 608c 1– 611a 3), the congenericity (sungeneia) and the community (koinōnia) of the soul with the Ideas,¹³ as long as we consider it in its primordial nature (archaia physis). The possibility of observing the soul in its pure form “depends upon its philosophy” (611d 7-e 1: alla deī […] ekeīse blepein […] Eis tēn philosophian autēs), literally understood as the psychic élan of assimilation with “the divine eternal and immortal dimension of Ideas” (to theion, to athanaton, to aei on). In this context, philosophia is understood exactly as it is at the beginning of the Phaedo, where Socrates, before turning to his presentation of four proofs in favor of immortality, shocks his interlocutors in the dialogue by identifying philosophy with “training for death” (melētē thanatou).¹⁴ This means that the true philosopher is supposed to make as much effort as possible to “separate” the soul from the body even during the time of his earthly life (and Plato resorts here to particularly significant expressions for dialectics like chōrizein, lueīn, diaireīn). Only in this way will the soul gain access to knowledge of “beings truly existing,”

 b-c: tēn paideian oukh oian tines epangellomenoi phasin eīnai toiautēn kai eīnai. Phasi de pou ouk enousēs en tē psiche epistēmēs spheīs entithenai, oīon tuphloīs ophtalmoīs opsin entithentes.  Rep. X b  ff. Here it is the false community with the body that has to be dissolved (as in the Phaedo, c, d – a, d, e – b, d – a) in order to achieve knowledge of the “truest/true nature” (b , e  – ) of the psychic reality.  Phaed. c – e and e – a.

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by “retiring to itself all alone in itself” and by “relying only on itself” (autē kath hautēn en heautē di autēs).¹⁵ Hartmann himself takes the two central concepts emerging from this portrait of philosophy and considers them to be the core of the theory of anamnesis. A) There is an objective “truth of beings truly existing” (alētheia tōn ontōn); and B) we can acquire knowledge of this ideal reality through the proper instruments that our soul has at its disposal: intelligence (mostly called phronēsis in the Phaedo), and logoi, broadly understood both as “speeches,” as “definitions” and as “reasoning.” To conclude this brief overview of the basic assumptions of the arguments of recollection in Plato’s dialogues, it is necessary to make a further reference to the Theaetetus, where Socrates acknowledges the Soul to be a “unique Idea” (mia tis idea, 184d 3), the only true instrument (organōn, d 4) of knowledge, including in itself and holding together in its own being those “higher genera” (koina peri pantōn, 185e 1, megista genē, Soph. 243d 1, 254c 3 – 4, d 4), “remembered,” at the very first step of the epistemic process, through sense perception: Being, Not Being, Identity, Difference, Similarity, Dissimilarity, Unity and Number, Odd and Even (Theaet. 185c 9-d 4). Finally, mention should be made of the Timaeus, where the essential affinity connecting individual soul and world soul in their common contemplation of the intelligible paradigm, the “absolute or perfect Living Being” (to panteles zōon, 31b 1), works as the driving power of the reconstitution of that ancient nature (the archaia physis of Republic X), seen here in the Timaeus as the fusion of subject (psychē) and object (eidē) of knowledge in a higher level unity (90c – d).¹⁶ To address the specific structure of the argument of recollection in the Phaedo, an argument that Socrates presents to us in the dialogue as a second proof of immortality, it will suffice to summarize its main steps here. Socrates, after having already answered the challenging question of the two Pythagorean philosophers Simmias and Cebes with the argument of Opposites (70c ff.) to show that the soul is immortal, carries on with a further proof whose point of departure is the statement that knowledge is nothing else but recollection.¹⁷ Anamnesis works specifically in two ways, through similarity and through dissimilarity (homoiotēs, anomoiotēs, 74a 2 – 3), and at first Plato gives examples only concerning

 There is good reason to claim that all the following proofs of immortality in the dialogue are, so to speak, already “potentially” included in this extremely provocative definition of philosophy.  This passage is very important, though Hartmann never really makes an explicit reference to it to understand why, in his view, Plato’s Apriorismus is superior to Kant’s own.  The whole argument runs from Phaedo e  to a .

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objects of sense perception. In the case of an image of a man it may remind us of a man (similarity), and of an object belonging to someone it may remind us of that particular person (dissimilarity).¹⁸ Plato immediately turns to consider the relationship between phenomena and Ideas, examining the case of a multiplicity of “equal” things (stones or sticks). Considered from either the point of view of different observers, or of the same observer but in different moments of time, such objects will always appear to be both equal and unequal. The simple possibility of acknowledging their “contradictory” nature is based upon the existence of something radically different from them (heteron ti), that is, Equality itself (auto to ison). If we further examine the Idea of Equality as such, we see that it will never be the case that such an Idea becomes opposite to itself or even just different from itself. It is eternally identical, and dialectically identical in its being truly different from equal things, which maintain, relative to this Idea, only a relation of similarity or dissimilarity. Though equal phenomena are “longing to be” (horexis)¹⁹ like the intelligible Equal, they fail, and the only function they have, at the very first stage of epistemic development, is to remind us of the existence of the specific Idea upon which their property, though only apparent in its perceivable manifestation, depends. For Equality itself is not apprehensible through the senses, and we already presuppose its existence in judging equal phenomena as regards their greater or lesser capacity to approximate their Idea; we must have had a pre-cognition of it, “before the time” in which we were born as humans.²⁰ Therefore, according to the conclusion of the proof, the Ideas necessarily exist and the soul exists in the same manner, that is to say, having the same ontological status, the same necessity (isē anankē). Returning to Hartmann, I will now try to sum up his interpretation of Plato’s argument in two steps, and simultaneously start to show why, in Hartmann’s view, Plato already overcame the difficulties of Kantian and Post-Kantian Apriorismus.  It is interesting to observe that in the later dialogue Philebus, Plato will state a clear distinction between memory, a faculty that, as in the previous case, involves only phenomena (mnēmē), from the faculty of recollection as such (anamnēsis), activated only through contact with intelligible realities (see a  – c ).  Such a longing or yearning of phenomena for Ideas is explainable within the teleological conception of a living kosmos oriented towards the Good and guided by the intelligence of a good God (see Tim. d – c). This view is already clearly anticipated in Socrates’ autobiographical excursus in the Phaedo (see e ff.).  As regards the atemporality of anamnesis, allow me to make a reference to a paragraph of Luchetti ,  ff. My goal here was to prove the dependence of time from the inner dialectics of “subjective being.”

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A) Step one: If we take recollection into consideration relative to the thinking subject, or the soul, there are at least two reasons why knowledge of Ideas and Ideas themselves cannot be considered to be merely “formal.” Both reasons are, paraphrasing Hartmann, hidden in the secret of pre-cognition (Hartmann 1957, 56 – 58, 66 ff.): 1) Pre-Cognition implies and presupposes the eternal existence of Ideal realities, whose objective being does not depend upon the thinking activity of the subject. Therefore, Plato’s theory is neither a subjective Idealism, nor a simple realism. Hartmann prefers to describe it as an absolute, and transcendent, Apriorismus, or, reformulating the same concept in my own terms, an absolute, and transcendent, Idealism (compare Hartmann 1957, 62, 65, 74 and Hartmann 2004, 199 – 200, 225 – 226). 2) The epistemic process of recollection requires a change of the level of consciousness, or an ascent from unawareness to awareness, as it were.²¹ To better explain this point, Hartmann goes back to Socrates’ way of arguing in Plato’s earlier works (Hartmann 1957, 54 ff.): the main aim of the Socratic dialogue (dialeghesthai) is not just to reach an agreement (homologhia) with his counterparts about a definition of a specific or general Idea based on an empty abstraction (Beauty, Truth, Friendship, Virtue, particular Virtues like Sanctity and Courage). The typically Socratic methodology of refutation (elenchos) aims at freeing his counterparts from false opinions, in general terms, about being. In its maieutic and purifying attitude, the Socratic dialogue reveals, in the most direct possible way, how recollection works inside a human soul to awake in it the intuition of the ontological content of ideal being, that content which we could call essence. In the dialogue Phaedrus, Plato says very clearly that every human Being “must be able to grasp an intellectual unity, taking as point of departure a phenomenal multiplicity apprehensible through sense perception.” But the abstract cognition of both multiplicity and unity, or of the unity hiding beyond every multiplicity, is still not the same as the knowledge of Ideas in the Platonic sense. Immediately after this passage Socrates adds that only those “who are able to use recollection properly (orthōs) deserve to be called philosophers; and only those who are enlightened are philosophers” (see 249b 6-d 3). So, Hartmann understood very well that in Plato’s theory of the a priori,  Here Hartmann seems to be closer to Plato’s conceptual, i. e., dialectical, movement from an “unconscious” knowledge of the Idea, starting in Rep. VI d  and ending up in its “conscious” fulfillment in VII d , than to Plotinus’ conviction of the unconscious nature of that form of “non-thinking thought” that allows the soul to “become One with the One” in Enneades VI, .

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logic, epistemology, ontology and psychology coincide, and that knowledge of Ideas is no knowledge of abstract and empty unities. He further understood that “the disclosure of the secret of pre-cognition lies in Socrates’ hands.” To put it in other words, there is no knowledge of Justice, of Goodness, and of Beauty, without being (or having become) just, good and beautiful.²² And there is no paradox, nor any sort of negative circularity in this statement, exactly because we have the theory of recollection. B) Step two: If we turn to consider the “objective” side of the process of recollection, one may want to raise some doubts about the coherence of Hartmann’s reading, for he calls the phenomena onta, a word that Plato uses, with few exceptions, only to refer to ideal Beings (while the typical formulation for the objects of sense perception is ta polla onta or simply ta polla). So, when Hartmann argues that the soul, by re-acquiring knowledge of Ideas, simultaneously knows perceivable objects in their essence (Wesen), one may ask where the difference with the immanentistic thesis of Natorp really lies. Hartmann indeed defends an immanentistic interpretation of Plato’s Apriorismus as well, but he reads immanence, so to speak, upside down: it is not the immanence of being in becoming, but an immanence of phenomena in Ideas. Hartmann claims that it was Aristotle, with his mistaken understanding of Ideas as “separated” (chōris/ chōrismos) from appearances, who made out of Plato’s conception of reality a “two world ontology.”²³ In Hartmann’s view, the problem of participation (methexis) of phenomena in Ideas is just a Scheinproblem, because perceivable objects are simply aggregates of Ideas. Textual evidence for this claim lies in Plato’s Parmenides. In the first section of the dialogue, we have a very well-known discussion concerning the presumed difficulties (aporiai) involving participation, which are resolved in the famous sequence of hypotheses about the One that occupies the entire second section of the dialogue. There, the dialectical interaction existing among different and opposite Ideas and higher genera is considered. Therefore, in Hartmann’s view (and in Plato’s as well), ideal Beings can be regarded as true creative principles of the realm of becoming (though they are principles derived from the “principle as such,” the Idea of Good, Rep. VI, 508b 12 ff.), due to their power (dynamis, Soph. 251e 8, 252d 2, 254c 5– 6) to es-

 See, for instance, Republic IV d ff. and Symposium e  ff., having in mind the previous explanation given from Diotima of “giving birth in Beauty” (tokos en kalō) from b  on.  Hartmann’s anti-dualistic arguments have been deepened in his Zur Lehre vom Eidos bei Platon und Aristoteles, .

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tablish mutual dialectical relationships (koinōnia).²⁴ There is no dualism, but simply a unique ideal Being endowed with an inner dialectical driving power. As regards this only reality, phenomena are mere appearances of Beings, Schein des Seins, without their own ontological status. If the problem of methexis is resolved in such a way with regard to the objective side of the process of recollection (Hartmann 1957, 71 ff., and see Hartmann 2004, 314 ff.), it is slightly more difficult to explain the participation of the soul in Ideas. If there were only a relation of similarity between them, how could Plato guarantee a complete knowledge of Ideas, even through recollection (Hartmann 1957, 66 ff.)? Simply posing this question may lead to some doubts concerning the coherence of Hartmann’s account of Plato’s epistemology, for if we compare this essay and his Platos Logik des Seins, he claims in the latter that the only aim of all proofs of immortality expounded in the dialogues is to disclose the ideal nature of the soul as such, and actually there is some evidence in Plato’s texts for this statement (idea, Phaedr. 246a 3, Tim. 35a 7, Theaet. 184d 3). An immediate and logical consequence of Hartmann’s universalistic interpretation of Platonic psychology is that when we consider the soul in the act of knowledge, we have a perfect convergence, in the Idea, of subject and object of the noetic activity. To put it in other words, epistemology and ontology coincide, because the Idea becomes the trait d’union of subjectivity and objectivity.²⁵ There is no inconsistency, however, with what Hartmann says about recollection in his inquiry on Apriorismus, for the very simple reason that his point of departure in this context in the analysis of the Phaedo is the condition of an individual embodied soul. At the very beginning of the epistemic path, the thinking subject is not aware, yet, of the dialectical nature of Ideal Being, which is to say, of its own dialectical nature.²⁶ So, it is no wonder that epistemological and ontological beginnings seem not to coincide, at this initial stage, as long as we

 This Community within Ideas shows off its structural belonging to the nature of the Ideal Being in the last proof for the Immortality in the Phaedo (a  ff.). In his understanding of Ideas and Genere as “Powers,” Hartmann faithfully follows Plato’s vision of Being as a living reality in the Sophist (a  ff.)  See Hartmann ,  ff.  The dialectical structure of the knowing subject, though implicitly omnipresent in the dialogues, becomes explicit in the description of the “generation” of the World Soul in the Timaeus (a  ff.).

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don’t consider the soul in its pure form, as intelligence.²⁷ In Platos Logik des Seins Hartmann is, as it were, looking at the process of knowledge “from above.”

3 Beyond the limits of Kant’s Transcendentalism: Approaching the Antimomy of the Self-Knowing Principle of Thought and Being²⁸ Besides the limits that Hartmann already underlined within Kant’s conception of the aprioristic foundation of knowledge in the introduction to his inquiry, he further individuates that which we can consider to be the greatest difficulty involved in Kant’s attempt to recognize, in the I think of transcendental apperception, the “oberste Grundsatz aller synthetischen Urteile,” that is, the “highest principle of every synthetic judgment.”²⁹ The superiority of Plato’s Apriorismus to Kant’s consists in the discovery of a principle, the principle of ideal Being as such, common to subjectivity and objectivity, which is revealed to be their common root and foundation. The biggest task, at this point, would be to answer the question about the deeper nature of this common principle, of this Idea of Being (idea toū ontos), which Plato only calls it twice in his dialogues (in the Republic VI, 486d 10, and in the Sophist, 254a 8 – 9). This Idea must obviously be a dialectical community, a koinōnia, or perhaps the source itself of this community (see Hartmann 2004, 195 – 198 in particular). As I’ve just said, Hartmann believes that Kant’s transcendental apperception cannot be such a principle: it cannot be a principle of thought, for it is only the formal condition of the possibility of thinking and, I must add, it is not endowed with self-knowledge, in contrast to Plato’s ideal Being. In the Sophist, Plato calls the perfect or absolute Being (to pantelōs on) empsychon, lively or spirited (248e 6 – 249b 6), and in the Phaedrus the “supercelestial place” (hyperoūranios topos) is said to possess epistēmē, science, in regards to itself, a science that the disembodied soul, considered in its pure form of intelligence, can contemplate (247c 8, d 1, d 6 – e 2). For the same reason, Kant’s “I think” cannot be a creative principle of thought, and therefore, strictly understood, cannot even be considered to be really synthetic. Thought itself can-

 This is just one of the many reasons why the statement of similarity of the soul with Ideas in Phaed. d  – e  cannot be used as a claim against the acknowledgement of its Ideality.  I say “approaching” because I am looking forward to deepening this extremely layered and complex aspect of Hartmann’s understanding of Plato’s dialectics and of his own Platonism in the future.  Kant , §.  ff.

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not be a principle because Being is not a thought in someone’s mind, whether human, divine or transcendental.³⁰ Even if the core of Hartmann’s argument in support of the supremacy of Plato’s vision of the intelligible over Kant’s conception of the “I” is based, as we have already seen, on the identity of the Idea with the dialectical unity of subjectivity and objectivity, and can be reconstructed from his essay on Apriorismus, the theoretical premises of his view have also been made explicit elsewhere. In fact, to achieve a better understanding of Hartmann’s position concerning the fundamental aporia hiding beyond Kant’s explanation of the principle of synthetic knowledge, we have to look back at Platos Logik des Seins (p. 157 ff. in particular). It is in this context that Hartmann’s expectation of finding such a synthetic principle, “inside” Plato’s Idea of Being, is fulfilled and justified through a very careful inquiry into the principle of contradiction, an investigation that he based entirely upon Plato’s conception of the ideality of not-Being in the Sophist. Hartmann’s point of departure is the understanding of the principle of contradiction as the purest expression of the analytic character of thought in general, that is, as the “highest principle of analytic judgments.” One may doubt the correctness of interpreting the principle of contradiction as a merely negative assertion of identity. In fact, Hartmann’s thesis is consistent, because the analytic feature of the principle, far from being its essential characteristic, derives from its use within a merely formal logic. So, simultaneously carrying out an explicit and an implicit critique against Kant and against the excessive tendency to formalization of Aristotle’s logic, respectively, Hartmann follows the intuition that Plato’s use of the principle of contradiction in his ontological logic was slightly different and “transforms” it into a synthetic principle. In my view, Hartmann’s inclination to highlight the positivity of contradiction is not only very Hegelian, but very Platonic as well: there are many textual indications in the dialogues which show the principle of contradiction at work as a principle of coherence of ideal Being and as a principle of synthesis of ideal Differences and Oppositions.³¹ It is crystal clear that the synthetic inborn attitude of this “logical law” depends upon what lays behind it, i. e., a dialectical force where the anti-

 Plato argues against the two patterns of subjective Idealism following from the assumption that “Ideas are like Thoughts in the Soul” in the Parmenides, b  – c .  In Luchetti  I have dedicated a few pages to an account of Plato’s understanding of the Principles of Identity and Contradiction (pp.  – ).

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nomic coexistence of Identity and Difference, in more general terms, of Being and Not-Being, guarantees to thought its productive power.³² In other words, the principle of contradiction is the primordial antinomy that constitutes the nature of every determinate or individual Idea, as well as of Ideality as such. Idea is Identity, as Hartmann never ceases to repeat in Platos Logik des Seins, but an Identity that has to be conceived as a synthesis of Identity and Difference.³³ Radicalizing the consequences of Hartmann’s reconstruction, we could add that the principle of identity and the principle of contradiction are one and the same, and this conclusion recalls very closely Plato’s description of the archē toū pantos in the simile of the Sun in Republic VI (especially 508e 1– 509b 10). Both thought (or the soul regarded in its Ideality) and Being (or the “objective” intelligible realities) are a structural synthesis of Identity and Difference. The antinomic nature par excellence, the Good, is said to be here, though just analogically, the highest synthetic unity of noeīn and eīnai, when we consider it in its Being, in its immanence to the ideal realm (hē toū agathoū idea), and as the cause (aitia) of this unity, if we consider it in its Not-Being, in its transcendence (ouk oūsias ontos toū agathoū, epekeina tēs oūsias). The nature of the reality in which Plato recognizes the true principle of thought is thus challenging. Actually, Hartmann neither seeks for a principle “beyond Being” in Plato’s philosophy (compare Hartmann 2004, 174 ff.), nor really systematically takes into consideration the metaphysical dimension of Plato’s speculation, but in his defense of the ontological meaning of the logical principles he is surely very close to overcoming the “boundaries” between Platonic ontology and the Platonic theory of Principles.

 The structure of the soul or thought obviously has the same dialectical characteristics of intelligible Being. For two examples out of many, see Soph. e  – c  and Laws X a -c .  This theoretical foundation is in Hartmann an inheritance of Hegel’s penetrating view of Plato’s Dialectics. See, for instance, Hegel , ; Hegel  –  (e. g., Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften, §. ; Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, §. ß Die Endlichkeit auf dem Standpunkt der Reflexion; and the Wissenschaft der Logik, Logik des Seins, §. c Die affirmative Unendlichkeit). For an analysis of the stronger or weaker affinities between Plato and Hegel concerning both dialectics and the meaning given to the logical principles, see Krämer 1982, 190, and footnote 25 in particular.

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4 Conclusion I want to conclude with a quotation from the Phaedo. These few lines belong to a section of the dialogue that can be rightly considered, as Giovanni Reale said, the magna carta of western thought (Reale 1997). It is the well-known section of the dialogue where both the discovery of Ideas (as true causes of Being and Becoming) and the description of the hypothetical method are introduced. Socrates has just finished explaining the reasons why he decided to abandon the path of naturalistic inquiries concerning causes and principles of reality. These lines are emblematic in regards to showing us how Platonic Hartmann’s interpretation of Plato’s Apriorismus is, in its shifting from one layer of reality to another, from the phenomenal to the ontological, and eventually to the metaphysical level. Socrates says: After this […] when I had wearied of investigating things, I thought that I must be careful to avoid the experience of those who watch an eclipse of the sun, for some of them ruin their eyes unless they watch its reflection in water or some such material. A similar thought crossed my mind, and I feared that my soul would be altogether blinded if I looked at things with my eyes and tried to grasp them with each of my senses. So I thought I must take refuge in the logoi and investigate the truth of things by means of words. However, perhaps this analogy is inadequate, for I certainly do not admit that one who investigates things by means of logoi is dealing with images any more than one who looks at facts.³⁴

5 References Burnet, I. (1900 – 1907): Platonis Opera. Oxford: Clarendon Press. DK | Diels, H./Kranz, W. (2004): Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 3 Bde. Hildesheim: Weidmennsche. Kant, I. (1968): Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Krämer, H. (1982): Platone e i fondamenti della Metafisica. Milano: Vita e Pensiero. Hartmann, N. (1957): “Das Problem des Apriorismus in der Platonischen Philosophie”. In: Kleinere Schriften, Vol. 2. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, pp. 48 – 84. Hartmann, N. (1965): Platos Logik des Seins. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter. Hartmann, N. (1969): “Zur Lehre vom Eidos bei Platon und Aristoteles”. In: Gaiser, K. (Ed.): Das Platonbild. Zehn Beiträge zum Platonsverständnis. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchandlung, pp. 140 – 175. Hegel, G.W.F. (1979): Vorlesungen über Platon (1825 – 1826). Vieillard-Baron, J.L. (Ed.). Frankfurt am Main-Berlin-Wien: Ullstein Verlag. Hegel, G.W.F. (1986 – 1994): Werke in 20 Bänden. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

 d – , Grube translation (Plato ), slightly modified.

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Luchetti, C. (2014): Tempo ed Eternità in Platone. Il primo passo verso il Timeo: analisi dei nessi Essere-Eterno, Diveniente-Tempo nel Fedone ed esposizione della loro origine dialettica. Milano-Udine: Mimesis. Natorp, P. (2004): Platos Ideenlehre. Eine Einführung in den Idealismus. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag. Plato (1977): Phaedo. Trans. Grube, G.M.A. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co. Reale, G. (1997): Per una nuova interpretaizone di Platone. Rilettura della metafisica dei grandi dialoghi alla luce delle “Dottrine non scritte”. Milano: Vita e Pensiero.

Tina Röck

Chapter 8 The Being of Becoming in Pre-socratic Philosophy 1 Introduction In New Ways of Ontology, Nicolai Hartmann points out that ontological and metaphysical presuppositions have often hindered our understanding of reality— some of these presuppositions even implied that it was impossible to know reality at all. According to Hartmann, one of the most influential metaphysical presuppositions is the claim that “[b]esides the world of things, in which man, too, is encased, there is a world of essences which, timeless and immaterial, forms a kingdom of perfection and higher being” (Hartmann 1953 [hereafter NWO], 7). This separation between the world of human beings and the kingdom of perfection is problematic, since it usually leads philosophical investigations away from the real world of our experience and tends to redirect them toward an idealized world of utter intelligibility, populated only by universals and essences. Consequently, these universals and essences were the main objects of the “old ontology” for Plato and Aristotle (or more precisely for their interpreters). The aim of the old ontology was to gain knowledge about the universals, “crystallized in the essential as substantial form” (NWO, 6). Even through the shift in philosophical investigations that happened in the 18th and the 19th centuries, when epistemology took the place of ontology as prima philosophia, this focus on the ideal and the essential did not change much. Philosophical investigation was now concerned with what could be considered the mental counterparts of universals and essences, namely the unchanging and absolute mental categories structuring our experience of reality (as for example in Kant or Fichte). But this emphasis on the ideal or essential in philosophy has diminished in modern times. According to Hartmann, one reason for this decline is the fact that the deductive method on which the old ontology was based is no longer considered capable of providing a stable foundation for any modern ontology. Therefore, Hartmann calls for a new kind of ontology. This would be an ontology that does not rely on a deduction of reality from a priori principles and that is not based on a mere reflection of mental categories, since according to Hartmann the knowledge about the mental categories, even if they are a priori, can only be attained indirectly via the mediation of the objects of knowledge:

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Although cognitive categories are the first condition of our knowledge—especially of the a priori elements in it, which are nowhere absent, not even in the naive world view—they are not the first to be recognized in it. They are not unknowable, but can be known only indirectly, namely as mediated through the simple knowledge of the objects which is based upon their functioning. If they are known at all, they are, we might say, rather the thing known last. And this order is irreversible (NWO, 17).

But if neither the investigation of universals nor the deduction of categories from a priori principles can lead toward the new ontology, with what method are we supposed to discover the categorical structures of reality? “In so far as we can gain any knowledge at all of categories, we do not gain it by a priori methods nor by raising principles of reason into consciousness, but rather through an analysis of objects to the extent that they are intelligible to us” (NWO, 19). Hartmann is convinced that a new kind of ontology can only be the result of a thorough and critical investigation of our experience of reality. Therefore, we can arrive at the categories through a descriptive analysis as proposed by the phenomenological method: The categories with which the new ontology deals are won neither by a definition of the universal nor through derivation from a formal table of judgments. They are rather gleaned step by step from an observation of existing realities. And since, of course, this method of their discovery does not allow for an absolute criterion of truth, here no more than in any other field of knowledge, it must be added that the procedure of finding and rechecking is a laborious and cumbersome one. Under the limited conditions of human research it requires manifold detours, demands constant corrections, and, like all genuine scholarly work, never comes to an end (NWO, 14).

The aim of this new kind of ontology, based on a critical examination of experience and directed toward the concrete given in experience, is to provide an ontological system of the sensual and the ever-changing. And according to Hartmann, this is precisely the point where “the roads of the old and the new ontology part” (NWO, 13 – 14). As these passages indicate, there is a correlation between the methodological change Hartmann proposes and the kinds of objects that can be investigated by these methods and the respective results of these investigations. The turn from post factum justification of a priori principles to a focus on the kind of description preferred in phenomenological investigations as a basis for ontology leads to a substantial change in the problem of being, so that the new ontology “is not concerned with an imagined world of immobility [anymore] but rather with the Being of Becoming” (NWO, 29). In New ways of Ontology, Hartmann names Pre-socratic philosophy as an historical example for an investigation concerned with the singular, concrete and

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real, which, according to Hartmann, led to an ontology of the being of becoming: “An outstanding example of such a search is furnished by the whole sequence of the great Pre-socratics. And it cannot be denied that in this effort they really found various ontological principles which, in the course of a much later and critically mature exploration, have proved valid” (NWO, 18). Following Hartmann’s claim that an ontology based on a critical examination of experience yields an ontology of the being of becoming I want to examine the concept of φύσις in Pre-socratic philosophy to substantiate this claim. I will argue that the methods of investigation that led to the ancient concept of φύσις and the understanding of reality that results from this concept are analogous to the methodological criteria and investigative result stipulated by Hartmann: that is, that a focus on the concrete as we experience it leads to the understanding of reality as a being of becoming. As the term φύσις (usually translated as nature) already suggests, this similarity is most striking on this level, so the level of the organic will be the focal point of this comparison.

2 Philosophical Methodology: Parmenides and his Predecessors The first aspect to consider in this investigation is whether the method that led Hartmann to understand being as the being of becoming is in some ways analogous to the method of Pre-socratic thought, since Hartmann emphasizes that a certain method has to be adopted in order to be able to grasp the being of becoming. This method can be called phenomenological in the widest sense.¹ Hartmann’s methodology is phenomenological insofar as it is concerned with the phenomena as we experience them. In this respect Hartmann closely follows the early Husserl and his dictum: “Away with empty word analyses! We must question things themselves. Back to experience, to seeing, which alone can give to our words sense and rational justification.”² Hartmann considers this focus of the phenomenological method on experience and on “apperceptions”

 Here I have to emphasize that for Hartmann there are four steps of philosophical analysis, of which phenomenological description is just one step. These are (i) Epoche (the presentation of historical arguments concerning the issue at hand); (ii) phenomenological description of the given; (iii) Aporetics (the demonstration of contradictions in what is given); and finally (iv) the development of a new theory (Hartmann ,  or , ).  Translated by Quentin Lauer, Husserl . “Weg mit den hohlen Wortanalysen. Die Sachen selbst müssen wir befragen. Zurück zur Erfahrung, zur Anschauung, die unseren Worten allein Sinn und vernünftiges Recht geben kann” (Husserl , ).

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a “healthy tendency” (Hartmann 1933, 291). But Hartmann’s understanding of phenomenology also deviates from Husserl’s phenomenology. Husserl’s understanding of phenomenological description merely allows for the description of intentional objects as they are given in consciousness. These objects of experience or of knowledge qua intentional objects belong to the realm of immanent transcendence. ³ So, when Husserl calls an object “real,” this is just a descriptive characterisation of the form of givenness of the object as a bodily presence, and it is not supposed to have any metaphysical implications, or to imply that these objects exist mind-independently—thus the early Husserl adopts a neutral standpoint between realism and idealism. Especially after the turn to transcendental idealism around 1913, Husserl attempts to overcome both realism and idealism by “bracketing” our natural attitude and the question of a mind-independent world. So, in early as well as in later Husserl, there is no “reine Transzendenz,” no “true” transcendence of the intentionally given phenomenon. Disagreeing with this characterization of “phenomena,” Hartmann claims that some form of “true” transcendence of the object of knowledge is part of any phenomenon of experience: if experience and knowledge are taken seriously, then “true” transcendence reveals itself to be a part of the intentional object (Hartmann 1965, 77).⁴ So for Hartmann, what is intentionally given is not merely immanently transcendent, but at least in some respects it is “truly” transcendent. But to be fair, Husserl would not have considered this distinction between “true transcendence” and immanent transcendence helpful or even possible. Husserl had hoped to bridge precisely this distinction between immanence and transcendence with his concept of immanent transcendence. ⁵  A good introduction to this distinction can be found in Husserl , .  “Die Transzendenz des Erkenntnisgegenstandes gehört mit zum Phänomen und muß mit ihm beschrieben werden. Dadurch wird der Phänomenologie der Zugang zum Metaphysischen im Erkenntnisphänomen geöffnet, dadurch also kommt sie erst an den Gehalt des engeren und eigentlichen Erkenntnisphänomens heran. Es läßt sich nämlich gar kein Grund einsehen, warum der metaphysische Gehalt eines Phänomens der Beschreibung nicht zugänglich sein sollte.” (“The transcendence of the object of knowledge belongs to the phenomenon of knowledge, and must be described along with it. It is by means of this phenomenon that phenomenological access to the metaphysical aspects of the phenomenon of cognition is granted, and also by its means that it first encounters the substantive content of the narrower and genuine cognitive phenomenon. This means that there is no good reason why the metaphysical content of a phenomenon should not be accessible to phenomenological description.” (Hartmann , ))  A further feature separating Hartmann’s phenomenology from Husserl’s is the above-mentioned essentialist tendency, especially evident in later Husserl. According to Hartmann, this tendency is more conducive to some form of Wesensontologie in the tradition of the old ontology than to the new Realontologie that Hartmann was looking for (NWO, ). Hartmann thus adopts the descriptive method of phenomenology without adhering to any phenomenological school.

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Even though Hartmann attempts to describe the transcendental or a priori structures through his understanding of the phenomenological method, he considers these to be at least to a certain extent the structures of reality as such and not merely the a priori structures of consciousness. This combination of realism and phenomenology leads Hartmann to adopt a position best described as critical realism. The basic aim of his critical realism is described rather well in the first lines of Hartmann’s Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis: The following investigations begin with the assumption that cognition is not a creation, production, or generation of its object, as both old and new types of Idealism have led us to believe, but that it is a grasp of something that is present before all cognition and independent of it (Hartmann 1965, 1).⁶

This phenomenologically grounded realism leads Hartmann to a dual understanding of being. He distinguishes between two forms of being (Seinsweisen): the real and the ideal, which are both equally actual forms of being.⁷ So, via the realist tendencies of critical realism and this dual understanding of being, Hartmann breaks with the long-standing metaphysical tradition that places essences, logic and intelligibility at the centre of knowable reality, identifies true reality with knowable reality, and thoroughly separates it from material reality. He thus breaks with the central metaphysical presupposition already mentioned, namely that “[b]esides the world of things, in which man, too, is encased, there is a world of essences which, timeless and immaterial, forms a kingdom of perfection and higher being” (NWO, 7). Historically, the first signs of the fundamental shift in natural philosophy that led from an investigation of the concrete world to a focus on the ideal world can be traced back to Parmenides and the immense change that the introduction of Eleatic logic caused in natural philosophy. Before the introduction of

 “Die nachstehenden Untersuchungen gehen von der Auffassung aus, daß Erkenntnis nicht ein Erschaffen, Erzeugen oder Hervorbringen des Gegenstandes ist, wie der Idealismus alten und neuen Fahrwassers uns belehren will, sondern ein Erfassen von etwas, das auch vor aller Erkenntnis und unabhängig von ihr vorhanden ist.”  The sphere of the real, according to Hartmann, is characterised by concreteness and temporality but not by materiality, since historical events or human fate is just as real as any physical object, even though materiality characterizes some spheres of the real. But any real being is characterised by becoming, any real being is a Being of Becoming. The sphere of ideal being, on the other hand, encompasses mathematical structures, essences, as well as ethical and aesthetical values.

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Eleatic logic, philosophical investigations had to relate to direct experience in one way or another. But with Parmenides the explanatory primacy of experience and with it the explanatory primacy of the real world ended. Parmenides⁸ described the content of our experience as deceptive (DK 28B 8 52– 53),⁹ and was convinced that only references to the unchanging and eternal could lead to an adequate understanding of the true nature of reality. Parmenides thus founded the type of metaphysical methodology that was to shape ontology up until Kant. He attempted to explain true reality through the means of logical thought, by deducing the true categories of being from one (in this case ontological) principle: being is. Blinded and dazzled by the apparent ability of logic or thought to immediately grasp the essence of things, the value of (Eleatic) logic was not questioned much by those who used it, even though it rendered the world of our experience a mere illusion. But this method of arriving at knowledge of the real world through logic and thought entails many presuppositions. For example, it presupposes an identity of the structures of thought and logic as well as an isomorphism of the logically accessible ideal being and the relevant aspects of concrete material being, i. e., its essence or form. Thus, Hartmann can claim that “[w]hat constituted the essence of form from Aristotle to Wolff was its logical structure” (Hartmann 2012 [1923], 318/271).¹⁰ And “the realm of logic is taken to be that of thought itself. Accordingly, thinking does not need to follow the troublesome path of experience, but wherever it reaches it immediately grasps the essence of things that are” (CO, 318/273). Consequently, in the classical metaphysical conceptions that were influenced by Parmenides, experience ceased to be of great importance and was replaced by logical thought. Thus, faith in the information provided by our senses was all but lost and replaced by faith in logical consistency. So, to unearth the kind of Pre-socratic understanding of reality characterized by becoming that Hartmann had in mind when he talked about Pre-socratic philosophy being concerned with the being of becoming, we will have to look at the philosophers who are still concerned with their world as it is experienced, and

 This is the classical (monistic) reading of Parmenides, which has substantially informed the tradition and is still by far the most influential reading of the fragments. But there are other interpretations of Parmenides which are gaining traction. See Kingsley  or Marciano .  Diels/Kranz , from now on cited as DK.  Nicolai Hartmann, “How is critical ontology possible?,” from now on cited as CO. The first page number refers to the English translation, the second refers to the German original in Cassirer .

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not as it can be thought without contradiction.¹¹ Therefore, to discover the being of becoming in Pre-socratic philosophy we will have to look at those Pre-socratic thinkers not yet substantially influenced by Parmenides’ λόγος or his ἐόν.¹² Before proceeding, it is important to ask whether my earlier claim, namely, that the ancient philosophers actually were concerned with what they experienced, is valid. Heraclitus, for example, probably the last philosopher not substantially influenced by Parmenides, is often read as a rather abstract thinker only concerned with a universal principle of contradiction and the λόγος. But in Heraclitus we find fragments that point in a very different direction. For example DK 22B55: ὅσων ὄψις ἀκοὴ μάθησις, ταῦτα ἐγὼ προτιμέω. Whatever comes from sight, hearing, learning [from experience]: this I prefer.¹³

Here Heraclitus clearly states which source of learning he prefers. He prefers his senses to shape his learning and thus his investigations. However, since the actual textual base we have left of the thinkers that predate Parmenides is exceedingly thin, it is rather difficult to show conclusively from the remaining fragments themselves that Pre-Parmenidean thought was shaped by an epistemological stance that was oriented toward the experience of reality. But there are many indications in the commentators to support the claim that the term φύσις is central to Pre-Parmenidean thought, and that its aim is to elucidate the whole of reality, not merely the physical realm. One could, for example, mention Aristotle’s many comments about the φυσικοί (the students of φύσις, Aristotle, Phys. 184b15 – 19 or Met. 1026a4– 6.) and the φυσιλόγοι (the ones explaining φύσις, Aristotle, Met. 986b14, 989b30 – 1, 992b4– 6) when

 In the following pages I will use the expression “description of experience” or “description of what can be experienced” as a stand-in for phenomenological description. By this I mean that the perspective toward the real phenomena adopted by Hartmann, and the objects of experience in earliest western thought, are at least analogous.  This also excludes the atomists, since Leucippus (the first atomist as far as we know) traditionally is considered a student of Parmenides (Nikolaou , ) or as highly influenced by Parmenidean concepts (for example Aristotle, De gen. et corr. a = DK  A). Even if it is not clear whether Leucippus truly was a student of Parmenides, or whether he really listened to Zeno, it is very clear that Parmenidean thought had at least some influence on atomistic theories. Consider for example Bury . He weakens this link as much as possible, but still has to concede some relation.  I use the translation proposed by Kahn . In Kahn’s text this fragment has the number XIV.

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discussing the thinkers before him. Similarly, in the Physics Aristotle even calls his predecessors the older thinkers of φύσις (οἱ πλεῖστοι τῶν φυσιλόγων, Phys. 203b10). A further indication for the central role of φύσις is the fact that most of the texts and fragments that survived at one point received the title “περί φύσεως.”¹⁴ Even if the title περί φύσεως appears only in the 5th century and is probably a result of an order introduced in the Peripatos, this title is no less illuminating. The title On nature (περί φύσεως) does not merely imply an investigation into physical nature, but is used to refer to a much more general form of investigation into the nature of beings (as φύσις τῶν ὄντων): [T]he vast majority of commentators, both ancient and modern, concur that the primary goal of written Pre-socratic works was to provide a historia peri phuseōs, an investigation into the nature of things. In conjunction with this, Pre-socratics, beginning with the early Ionians, took “all things” (ta panta) or “the universe” (ta pan or to holon) as their primary object of study. In the expression historia peri phuseōs, it is this comprehensive sense that must be understood by the word phusis (Naddaf 2005, 64).

Although the term φύσις does not play a prominent role in the early Ionian writings, “it is as unanimously accepted today, as it was in antiquity, that the concept of phusis was a creation of Ionian science” (Naddaf 2005, 63). Physis is, of course, the catchword for the new philosophy. […] The early philosophers sought to understand the “nature” of a thing by discovering from what source and in what way it has come to be what it is. This was as true for the detailed study of man and of living things, as for the general theory of the world as a whole. […] Hence it is that physis can denote the true nature of a thing, while maintaining its etymological sense of “the primary source or process” from which the thing has come to be. “Nature” and “origin” are combined in one and the same idea (Kahn 1960, 201).

All things considered, it is very probable that the ancient thinkers were focused on the concrete and temporal world of experience,¹⁵ since generally speaking

 Other titles in use for Pre-socratic texts were “πάντα” (all things) as well as “περί τῶν μετεώρων” (“on the things in heaven,” to which “and under the earth” was added). For a thorough investigation into περί φύσεως as a title, see Schmalzriedt, .  One might consider Anaximander’s only genuine fragment (DK B) an exception, especially in the way he is read by Nietzsche. But modern scholarship tends to leave out the first part of the fragment (ἐξ ὧν δὲ ἡ γένεσίς ἐστι τοῖς οὖσι, καὶ τὴν φθορὰν εἰς ταῦτα γίνεσθαι) and to only consider the fragment beginning with: κατὰ τὸ χρεών· genuine. This allows for a much more “worldly” interpretation of the fragment; for examples of such a reading consider Bröckler ,  or Classen .

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they were not interested in discovering the unchanging principles of being, but in getting to know the world they lived in. “The early natural philosophers were not mere theoreticians; they were practical astronomers, interested in forecasting seasonal changes of weather, measuring the agricultural seasons, and establishing a reliable calendar” (Kahn 1979, 17). But we should not forget that the concrete world the earliest Greek thinkers lived in was not a merely material cosmos, it was considered a beautifully arranged whole that included Gods, human beings, politics and ethics, as well as matter. The Greek world was one whole. Thus, an investigation into nature, an ἱστορία περὶ φύσεως, does not only imply a cosmological investigation into mere physical nature, but also (and at the same time) an investigation into the nature of all things (Naddaf 2005, 3) and into how the present natural and social order emerged (Naddaf 2005, 35).

3 The Ancient Philosophers: Φυσις as the Being of Becoming To earliest thought, the world seemed like a living organism. “The insight that the world is a system, is organic, therefore both orderly and alive, is the Greek view as far back as we have records” (Cairns 1961, xvii). This earliest western understanding of the world as a corporeal living being, as a self-generating and self-ordering whole, is evident in the way these thinkers conceived of the concept of φύσις.¹⁶ This, of course, can only be deduced by looking at the way this term was used by these thinkers. And like many other concepts in Greek thought, this use developed and changed over time. Generally speaking, there are three basic uses of the term φύσις: it has been used to refer to a) growing and becoming life, b) origin or birth, and c) to essence or nature (as the nature of something in contrast to its accidental properties).¹⁷ After the fifth century BCE, the term φύσις

 Again, with the introduction of the concept of φύσις I am not implying that Pre-socratic thought can be reduced to cosmological interests. On the contrary, this concept refers to an understanding of reality that includes and integrates anthropological, ethical and cosmological aspects.  For a quite exhaustive list of the possible meanings of φύσις from the Pre-socratics until Aristotle see Heidel , . A) and b) are φύσις as γένεσις, and φύσις as the beginning of a process, an aspect leading to the understanding of φύσις as material substrate (causa materialis).

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was also used to refer to d) the material substrate of the world, and e) to Nature (as the sum of all beings that self-generate).¹⁸ The use I am concerned with in this paper is the earliest use of the term. Here the term combines at least two of the aspects mentioned, namely φύσις as a) the process of becoming and as b) the Being (or nature) of something.¹⁹ Accordingly, the term φύσις could not only be used to refer to the process of becoming,²⁰ but it could also be used to refer to the result of this process, namely stable Being (Mannsperger 1969, 41; especially 45 – 52). With Hartmann in mind, we can thus preliminarily consider the term φύσις to name the being of becoming. However, since the term also named the becoming of the continuous and intelligible aspects of reality, the stable Being, it also describes the becoming of being. In support of the claim that φύσις was used to refer to the being of becoming as well as to the becoming of being, I will look at the earliest known use of φύσις. Homer used this expression once in his Odyssey to characterize a healing herb: ὣς ἄρα φωνήσας πόρε φάρμακον ἀργεϊφόντης ἐκ γαίης ἐρύσας, καί μοι φύσιν αὐτοῦ ἔδειξε. ῥίζῃ μὲν μέλαν ἔσκε, γάλακτι δὲ εἴκελον ἄνθος […] – Saying this, Argeiphontes gave me the herb, which he had unearthed, and showed me its φύσις: the root was black, but the flower was like a kind of milk […] (Homer, Odyssey, X. 302)

This passage offers various interesting points for reflection. First, the passage implies that the φύσις of something is given in experience, it can be pointed out. This implies that the φύσις of something is a phenomenon of experience and not a transcendent one. But before this φύσις of the plant can be experienced, the passage suggests secondly, the plant has to be unearthed, so that its becom For example Bremer , . Even though Aristotle’s investigation is not concerned with the φύσις τῶν ὄντων anymore, but with φύσις as such, he still insists that only a concrete hypokeimenon can have a nature (Phys. b.). See also Mannsperger , . Our more abstract understanding of Nature as a term that refers to the sum of self-generating beings is a rather late development.  But this ambivalent concept used to describe the being of concrete, individual and temporal beings has even more ancient roots. The term φύσις is considered to be connected to the IndoGermanic term “*bheu,” which was used to refer to both “growth” as well as “being.” For an etymological investigation of this root see Mannsperger , . So the Indo-Germanic “*bheu” was used to describe the process of becoming as well as the effect of stability that resulted from this process. See for example Kirk ,  or Vlastos , .  An aspect emphasized by its root φύειν/φύεσθαι. For a more thorough presentation of this aspect of φύσις, consider for example Heidel , ; Diller , ; Heinimann ,  or Kahn , .

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ing, its growth can be experienced as a whole. This brings to mind the idea that the blossom alone cannot convey what it is to be this plant; only the dark roots and the white blossom considered as a whole can show the φύσις we are looking for. The whole plant, the entire living and becoming structure—from its roots in the past to the present bloom—embodies and shows the plants “becoming,” and thus its Being, its φύσις (Bremer 1989, 243). Some authors (for example Burnet or Ross) have argued against the relevance of this reading of φύσις by claiming that this use of the term was very rare.²¹ But there is evidence for the claim that Pre-socratic philosophers had this conception in mind, not only when explicitly using the term φύσις, but also when they were talking about the nature of reality. First and foremost it is enlightening that Plato as well as Aristotle felt that they had to argue against this understanding of reality as the being of becoming and the becoming of being suggested by the term. In Laws X, Plato argues against the λόγος περὶ φύσεως as the way of understanding reality that follows the φύσις instead of following the structures suggested by νοῦς. In the same context, Plato explains how these thinkers understand φύσις: φύσιν βούλονται λέγειν γένεσιν τὴν περὶ τὰ πρῶτα (“They understand φύσις to indicate production of first things”) (892c). In the context of the passage, these first things (τὰ πρῶτα) are named as the soul, the ideas or the gods. Therefore, the philosophers using the λόγος περὶ φύσεως consider the being of the Ideas, the soul and even of the Gods as a result of natural becoming. This is the view Plato argues vehemently against in this passage. Furthermore, even Aristotle still uses the term in the sense discussed above: ἡ φύσις ἡ λεγομένη ὡς γένεσις ὁδός ἐστιν εἰς φύσιν (Phys. 193b12). This passage, translated quite literally, means “nature in the sense of a coming-to-be proceeds towards nature” (translation by Jonathan Barnesas). But the context of the passage allows another, more interpretative, translation: “We speak of a thing’s nature as being exhibited in the process of growth by which its nature is attained” (translation by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye).

 For example, Burnet claims that the title περὶ φύσεως merely meant “concerning the primary substance” (Burnet ,  ff). Usually, philosophers who (like Burnet) claim that Greek philosophy strived for knowledge of what is permanent tend to translate φύσις as primary substance. In response to this, W. A. Heidel claims that “Greek philosophy did, indeed, seek the permanent amid the flowing; but, as the first determined effort of the human mind to frame a science, it sought an explanation of the fleeting phenomena. This explanation it found ultimately in that which abides, and gave to it various names: but it was not the permanence, but the causality, of the hypokeimenon to which, as scientists, the Greek philosophers devoted their chief attention” (, ). This leads him to defend a much more dynamic concept of φύσις, at least in earliest Greek philosophy.

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Further evidence for the use of the term φύσις as being of becoming and becoming of being can be found in Xenophanes (VS B29) and in Empedocles (DK 31B63, or 31B110). In addition, some of the later commentators still employ φύσις in this sense: “For Lucretius […] physis, especially as he knew it from the poetry of Empedocles, came alive in its root meaning of birth, genesis, increase (Empedocles B8)” (Clay 1996, 33). A further example is Plutarch, who in his commentary on the poetry of Empedocles uses the term in the sense discussed (Adv. Col. IIII I3F) (Clay 1996, 33). The term φύσις as it was used by the earliest thinkers—a use of which some traces are still present even in Aristotle’s works—has an ambivalent and aporetic character.²² The ambivalence conveyed by φύσις is somewhat analogous to the two Seinsmomente that Hartmann introduces in his ontology. What an entity is now—its Being—i. e., its essential and accidental properties, can be understood as the result of a becoming of being. Τhis aspect describes the Sosein of concrete entities. And the being of becoming names the fundamental way of Dasein of any real being, namely, as existing through a continuous process of becoming. This parallel is especially striking on the organic level, since here the continuity of becoming is guaranteed by the form generating (formbildend ²³) process of becoming itself: Matter exists in constant flux, it changes; and organic form keeps this movement going. In this way, the correlation between matter and form is driven into their background by the correlation between form and process, which becomes the primary correlation. In the latter, form only takes priority in terms of givenness. This is because organic form is something

 This ambivalent understanding of φύσις is prevalent when Aristotle defines φύσις in the Metaphysics as an extended process, by stating that this understanding of φύσις “would be suggested by pronouncing the υ of φύσις long.” “φύσις λέγεται ἕνα μὲν τρόπον ἡ τῶν φυομένων γένεσις, οἷον εἴ τις ἐπεκτείνας λέγοι τὸ υ” (Aristotle Met. b). In the Physics, he claims that nature is the effect of a process. “ἀνάγκη μὲν γὰρ ἀπὸ ἰατρικῆς οὐκ εἰς ἰατρικὴν εἶναι τὴν ἰάτρευσιν, οὐχ οὕτω δ’ ἡ φύσις ἔχει πρὸς τὴν φύσιν, ἀλλὰ τὸ φυόμενον ἐκ τινὸς εἰς τὶ ἔρχεται ᾗ φύεται. Τί οὖν φύεται; οὐχὶ ἐξ οὗ, ἀλλ’ εἰς ὅ. Ἡ ἄρα μορφὴ φύσις. Ἡ δὲ μορφὴ καὶ ἡ φύσις διχῶς λέγεται· καὶ γὰρ ἡ στέρησις εἶδός πώς ἐστιν. Εἰ δ’ ἔστιν στέρησις καὶ ἐναντίον τι περὶ τὴν ἁπλῆν γένεσιν ἢ μὴ ἔστιν, ὕστερον ἐπισκεπτέον” (Aristotle Phys. b – ).  “Die organischen Funktionen bestehen zwar keineswegs nur aus “formbildenden” (morphogenetischen) Prozessen, es gibt vielmehr auch die formabbauenden, sowie noch mannigfache andere Typen des Prozesses; wohl aber spielen die formaufbauenden Prozesse im Organismus eine führende und den gesamten Lebensprozeß besonders charakterisierende Rolle.” (“The organic functions do not consist merely of ‘form-generating’ (morphogenetic) processes; there are also catabolic ones, as well as a multiplicity of other types of processes. Of course the formbuilding processes in the organism play a leading role, one which particularly characterizes the whole vital process” (Hartmann , ).)

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spatial and as such is visible, while process is not only invisible, but even refined methods can only grasp it partially. For this reason, process has ontic priority. The reason for this priority lies not only in the fact that “life” itself has the form of a process, but mainly in the fact that all organic form only becomes through a process and endures only in expending itself (Hartmann 1980, 538).²⁴

4 The Division of φυσις as the Path to the Old Ontology So the term φύσις did not refer to some substantial or essential core behind a moving and changing reality, nor did it refer to some abstract ideal shaping reality—it was considered an inseparable part of a growing and becoming reality.²⁵ The term φύσις referred to the being of becoming as well as to the becoming of being of individual and temporal concrete beings, and it was the paradigmatic example of being in earliest thought. So any being, whether inorganic or endowed with mind, was conceived according to this paradigm. The nature of any being (φύσις τῶν ὄντων) was considered a result of its becoming. Thus, in earliest

 My emphasis. The original reads: “Der Stoff selbst also steht hier in andauerndem Fluß, er wechselt; und die organische Form selbst hält diesen Fluß in Gang. Auf diese Weise wird im Organismus die Korrelation von Stoff und Form auf den zweiten Plan abgedrängt, und die andere Korrelation von Form und Prozeß wird ihr übergeordnet. In dieser hat die Form nur das Prius der Gegebenheit. Denn die organische Form ist etwas Räumliches und als ein solches sichtbar; der Prozeß dagegen ist nicht nur unsichtbar, sondern auch verfeinerten Methoden nur teilweise zugänglich. Dafür hat gerade er das ontische Prius. Das hat seinen Grund nicht nur darin, daß das eigentliche “Leben” als solches Prozeßform hat, sondern mehr noch in der Tatsache, daß alle organische Form erst im Prozeß entsteht und in seinem Fortlaufen sich erhält.” For a further argument consider the following: “Das spiegelt sich getreulich im Verhältnis von Morphologie und Physiologie. Jede von beiden hat ein anderes Prius vor Augen. Erkennbar, erschließbar oder selbst erratbar wird die Funktion zunächst von der Form aus; aber begreifbar wird umgekehrt die Form stets erst von der Funktion aus. Das Begreifen eben ist der Rückgang der Erkenntnis auf die ratio essendi. Und diese besagt: der Prozeß ist nicht ein Akzidens der Form, sondern eher noch ist die Form ein Akzidens des Prozesses. Sofern sich hier überhaupt von einem Zugrundeliegenden sprechen läßt, muß es auf der Seite des Prozesses liegen, nicht auf der der [sic] Form, umgekehrt also, als man erwarten sollte.” (“This is faithfully reflected in the relation between morphology and physiology. Each of the two seems to have a certain priority. Function is first known, disclosed, or even guessed based on the form; but the form is always only conceivable from the point of view of its function. Conceptualization is precisely the regressive inference of cognition to the ratio essendi. And this means: the process is not an accident of the form, but the form is instead an accident of the process. To the extent that we can speak of something fundamental here at all, it has to lie on the side of the process, not on the side of the form. This is the opposite of what we would expect” (Hartmann , ).)  See Bremer , ; Diller , , as well as W. Schadewaldt , .

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Greek thought as well as in Hartmann’s New Ontology, “becoming” describes the way concrete, real things exist, “no matter whether it be a question of material things, living forms, or human beings” (NWO, 28). With the emerging Eleatic and Socratic philosophy of the 5th century BCE, a strategy to dissolve this aporetic character of φύσις was developed. This strategy was the introduction of a division: the being of becoming, the changing aspect of φύσις, was associated with the concept of matter and separated from the becoming of being, the essential and intelligible aspect of φύσις. This division slowly led to a complete separation of becoming and being, of matter and form,²⁶ and thus to a complete separation of changing materiality and unchanging ideal formerly united in the early understanding of φύσις. The reasons behind the separation in the concept of φύσις were mainly logical and epistemological, since an ambivalent concept like φύσις does not lend itself to rigorous logical manipulation in the Eleatic style. Nor can the concept of the becoming of being lead to an objective foundation for knowledge, because it is only conducive to the positing of an evolving and changing natural order and not to the conception of an unchanging intelligible system. If the world, including its essences and universals, is considered to be essentially shaped by becoming, this implies a remainder of irrationality at the heart of reality, which can never be accessed by the human mind, an aspect Hartmann emphasized again and again: “There are many […] unknowable factors in the processual structure of organic life” (NWO, 38). As already mentioned, the first step of this separation is usually traced back to Eleatic thought. Parmenides is usually considered to have introduced a separation between the physical world and true intelligible being. Thus, he distinguished between the moving and changing world that could be experienced, and true being that could be thought without contradiction. This split between what can be thought without contradiction and what can be experienced paves the way for the old ontology. At its heart lies the preference for logical consistency over the description of experience, and its result is the inadequate opposition of being and becoming (NWO, 28), which ultimately led to the complete

 Concerning the division of matter and form in Aristotle, Hartmann is very clear: “In the distinction between matter and form that lies at the basis of Aristotlian metaphysics, form acquires the character of the active, shaping, determining principle, while matter acquires that of the undergoing and passive element. Now since ‘principle’ in the narrower sense is only the determining and never the determined, the well-known prejudice arose that the essence of a principle is basically formal. A theory of categories based on this proposition automatically has the disadvantage that it has no use for matter at all, and excludes it from its system as the ‘unprincipled’ in itself, so to speak” (CO, /).

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disregard of experiential data in ontological and philosophical inquiries. While these developments denaturalized ontological thought more and more, it also allowed thought to depart from the immediacy of the concrete and allowed for insights not available to thinkers focused only on the concrete individual. Thus the separation of the ideal and the real allowed for a huge development in human thought, but the one-sided emphasis in the separation also had a price. It led to a slowly increasing loss of concreteness and reality, a loss of the “worldliness of world,” as Heidegger put it.

5 The Consequences of the Division of φύσις This division led to the curious fact that the term φύσις could only be used to refer either to unintelligible (becoming) materiality or to the intelligible and unchanging essential aspect of reality. Therefore, φύσις could either be used synonymously with ὕλη to refer to a “permanent ground” (Cornford 1957, 178), or φύσις could be used to refer to the nature or substance of something, its timeless essence. A consequence of this division is the complete separation of physical nature from any form of activity, order or intelligibility, which leads to the concept of a purely inert matter imprisoning and hindering the mind. So, what used to be considered to be the result of the self-generating power of φύσις in early Greek thought, namely the self-creation of life and organic order, was now interpreted as a result of some formal or intelligible mover introduced into the physical world. Instead of allowing for “the generation of purposeful structures out of purposeless nature” (“die Entstehung des Zweckmäßigen aus dem Zwecklosen”, Hartmann 1980, 648) as did the concept of φύσις, this separation led to the opposition of a material and a spiritual world. At this point again it is interesting that Hartmann explicitly attempts a reintegration of spiritual and material aspects within the strata of his ontology. Even though Hartmann’s reintegration is much more elaborate and sophisticated than anything we have seen in the ancient concept of φύσις, this is a further parallel between Hartmann’s thought and ancient philosophy: [T]heories of the spirit all shied away from incorporating non-spiritual factors into the structure of the spiritual world. They feared thereby to fall a prey to materialism. But there is no cause for this apprehension, provided the mistake is not made of setting up a radical either-or, as if by admitting certain organic components everything in the realm of the spirit becomes at once dependent on the organism. Non-spiritual factors of highly divergent types may very well enter without the spiritual life losing its uniqueness and characteristic independence. For all spirit rests on the broader cosmic context and depends upon it. It must, therefore, include, and be subject to, the manifold threads of determina-

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tion, not created by it, which form the cosmic context. But that does not prevent it from having its own self-determination and from confronting the powers of lower nature with a very definite independence (NWO, 41).

6 Summary It is precisely the separation of the active being of becoming and the systematic intelligible structure of pure being that according to Hartmann led many to disregard the ontological quest completely: Today many analysts, moved though they are by a genuine philosophical impetus, have a deep-seated aversion to every form of inquiry which gives precedence to the problem of being. By being they mean something rigid, motionless, and even inimicable to life, something which hampers man in his activity, depriving him of his independence and freedom (NWO, 27).

But if we take our experience of the world into consideration, we are not actually confronted with “a rigid system, not even with a world ‘finished’ in every respect, which is simply to be taken as a fact” (NWO, 28). Our ontology should not be characterized by finality or rigidity, but by what we can deduce from our experience—a continuous evolution of becoming. I hope to have shown in the course of this paper that the understanding of reality as φύσις is a result of a specific investigative perspective that does not strive for absolute knowledge about the universal and unchanging structures of the world, but aims at knowing the real world in the best way possible. This perspective is fundamentally influenced by its objects of investigation, which are the objects of our experience, as well as by the idea that reality is the indeterminable (and never absolute) sum of all becoming beings that inhabit the space of our experience. This focus on concrete natural beings and their becoming led the earliest Greek thinkers to an understanding of reality shaped by the being of becoming of φύσις, just as it led Hartmann to postulate a being of becoming. The being of becoming exemplified by φύσις refers to the being of becoming of organisms as its paradigm. But for Hartmann there are many forms of the being of becoming since “the condition of being alive—understood as the complex life process of the organic—differs from the simple spatial physical motion and, likewise, the psychic process from the organic, the spiritual-historical from the psychic. But all have the same mode of being, reality; they are all real occurrences, real life, and so forth” (NWO, 28 – 29). So, even though these investigations into the ancient concept of φύσις can probably only provide an analogy

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for the being of becoming of organic life, they still show the substantial similarities between the New Ontology and ancient Greek thought.

7 References Prom. | Aischylos (1988): Prometheus in Fesseln. Bilingual edition. Bremer, D. (Ed. and Trans.). Frankfurt: Insel Verlag. Aristotle (1991): Complete Works. Trans. Barnes, J. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bremer, D. (1989): “Von der Physis zur Natur. Eine griechische Konzeption und ihr Schicksal”. In: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 43, pp. 241 – 264. Bröckler, W. (1965): Die Geschichte der Philosophie vor Sokrates. Mainz: Vittorio Klosterman. Burnet, J. (1908): Early Greek Philosophy. 2nd Ed. London: Adam and Charles Black. Bury, R. G. (1916): “The Origin of Atomism”. In: The Classical Review 30. No. 1, pp. 1 – 4. Cassirer, E. (Ed.) (1924): Festschrift für Paul Natorp. Berlin: De Gruyter. Cairns, H. (Ed.) (1961): “Introduction”. In: The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. xiii – xxv. Classen, C. (1977): “Anaximander and Anaximenes: The Earliest Greek Theories of Change?” In: Phronesis 22, pp. 89 – 102. Clay, D. (1969): “De Rerum Natura: Greek Physis and Epicurean Physiologia”. In: American Philological Association 100, pp. 31 – 47. Cornford, F.M. (1957): From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation. New York: Harper and Row. Cornford, F.M. (Trans./Ed.) (1997): Plato’s Cosmology. The Timaeus of Plato. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Diller, H. (1939): “Der griechische Naturbegriff”. In: Neue Jahrbücher für Antike und deutsche Bildung 114, pp. 241 – 257. DK | Diels, H./Kranz, W. (Eds.) (1961): Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 3 Vols. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. Hardy, E. (1884): Der Begriff der Physis in der griechischen Philosophie. I. Theil. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. Hartmann, N. (1933): “Systematische Selbstdarstellung”. In: Schwarz, H. (Ed.): Deutsche systematische Philosophie nach ihren Gestaltern. Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, pp. 283 – 340. Hartmann, N. (1940): Aufbau der realen Welt. Grundzüge der allgemeinen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: DeGruyter. NWO | Hartmann, N. (1953): New Ways of Ontology. Trans. Kuhn, R. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company. Hartmann, N. (1965): Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, N. (1980): Philosophie der Natur. Abriss der speziellen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: De Gruyter. CO | Hartmann, N. (2012): “How is critical ontology possible?” Trans. Peterson, K. R. In: Axiomathes 22, pp. 315 – 354. Heinimann, F. (1965): Nomos und Physis. Band 1 der Schweizerischen Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft. Basel: Verlag Reinhardt.

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Heidel, W. A. (1910): “Περί Φύθεως. A study of the conception of nature among the Pre-socratics”. Proceedings of the American academy of arts and sciences 45, pp. 79 – 133. Husserl, E. (1965): Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy. Trans. Lauer, Q. New York: Harper & Row. Husserl, E. (1986): Die Idee der Phänomenologie. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag. Husserl, E. (2009): Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag. Kahn, C. (1960): Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology. New York: Columbia University Press. Kahn, C. (1979): The art and thought of Heraclitus. An edition of the fragments with translation and commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kingsley, P. (2004): Reality. Inverness: Golden Sufi Publishing. Kirk, G.S. (1962): Heraclitus. The Cosmic Fragments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mannsperger, D. (1969): Physis bei Platon. Berlin: De Gruyter. Marciano, L. G. (2009): Die Vorsokratiker in drei Bänden, Griechisch-Latein-Deutsch. Band 2: Parmenides, Zenon und Empedokles. Düsseldorf: Artemis & Winkler Verlag. Naddaf, G. (2005): The greek concept of nature. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Nikolaou, S-M. (1998): Die Atomlehre Demokrits und Platons Timaios. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung. Stuttgart: Vieweg + Teubner Verlag. Plato (1955 – 1966): Platon Œuvres completes. Paris: Collection des Universités de France, publiée sus le patronage de l’Association Guillaume Budé. Plutarch (1936): De defectu oraculorum. Loeb Classical Library Vol. V. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Schadewaldt, W. (1960): “Die Begriffe ‘Natur’ und ‘Technik’ bei den Griechen”. In: Schadewaldt, W. Hellas und Hesperien. Zürich, Stuttgart: Artemis, pp. 907 – 919. Schmalzriedt, E. (1970): Peri physeos: Zur Frühgeschichte der Buchtitel. München: Fink. Vlastos, G. (1975): Plato’s Universe. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Chapter 9 Beings in the World: Elements for a Comparison between Nicolai Hartmann and Roman Ingarden 1 Introduction In the context of contemporary philosophy, Nicolai Hartmann and Roman Ingarden have several common features. Firstly, both of them are “foreign” members of the German philosophical tradition, to which they belong by virtue of their educational backgrounds and the direction in which their theories head.¹ Secondly, both of them develop an ontology and, more precisely, an ontology we can call “phenomenological,”² as they are inspired by the descriptive rigor which characterizes the phenomenological method. (Though Hartmann never was Husserl’s student, he explicitly presents his ontology as an elaboration of phenomenological presuppositions.)³ Finally, both of them can be credited with being realist ontologists and phenomenologists, refusing Husserl’s transcendental turn and transcendental phenomenology as a whole.⁴ However, there are also fundamental differences in the way in which the two authors carry out their philosophical plans. First, in relation to the conception of ontology and the corresponding method: 1.) Ingarden takes ontology to be an eidetic discipline, i. e., a discipline referring to ideas and relations between them: ontology is “a purely a priori analysis of the contents of ideas” (Ingarden 1964, 45). This definition does not contradict

 Nicolai Hartmann was born in Riga () of German descent, and Roman Ingarden was born in Kraków (). After studying mathematics and philosophy in Lwów under Kazimierz Twardowski, Ingarden moved to Göttingen to study philosophy under Edmund Husserl with whom he travelled to Freiburg in , where, in , he submitted his doctoral dissertation. Hartmann went to Marburg in , where he studied with Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp. For biographical information, see Heiss ; Ingarden ; Hartmann ; Harich ; McCormick , I – VI.  On this topic, see Ghigi .  See Hartmann ,  – ; Hartmann ,  – . On this topic, see also Landmann ; Thyssen ; Mohanty .  For a discussion on the peculiar way that the realism of these two philosophers can be interpreted, see Rynkiewicz  and D’Anna .

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the fact that the author’s main work, Controversy over the Existence of the World, addresses the real realm and aims at unfolding the fundamental steps of its investigation in an attempt to resolve the controversy between realism and idealism, not least in response to Husserl’s phenomenology.⁵ The reality Ingarden has in mind, in fact, is not concrete reality, the reality in which we are always “embodied” in our everyday life, but exclusively an idea of reality, free of allusions to its actual existence.⁶ Starting from this general assumption, Ingarden subdivides ontology into three categories: existential ontology, which studies different modes of being and the existential moments characterizing them;⁷ formal ontology; and material ontology, which corresponds to Husserl’s homonymous pair of concepts, related to the non-qualitative form of objects and their qualitative “fulfillment.”⁸ Despite his plans, however, he did not succeed in completing his project. Only the existential and formal analysis is developed in Controversy over the Existence of the World, while no material ontology is ever actually presented.⁹ 2.) Hartmann explicitly affirms that “an ‘ideal ontology,’ distinguishable from an ontology of the real, does not exist” (Hartmann 1935, 318), thus excluding a “formal” ontology in the contemporary (phenomenological) sense. Unlike Ingarden, Hartmann indicates that the natural and “ingenuous” relation to the world (what he calls intentio recta) is the starting point of his ontological-categorial inquiry, which he views as an investigation of the main structures of both the concrete world and the ideal realm (this distinction emerges from the

 See Ingarden ,  – ; Ingarden . On this subject, see also, Wallner ; Sodeika ; Haefliger ; Kalinowski ,  – ; Rynkiewicz .  This problem just pertains to metaphysics, not to ontology; see Ingarden ,  – .  “Real-being” and “ideal-being” are examples of modes of being quoted by Ingarden at the beginning of his existential ontology in the first volume of Controversy (see Ingarden , ). Existential moments, the combination of which characterizes the various modes of being, concern different modes of ontological dependence or independence. From this point of view, an entity can be: ) autonomous or heteronomous, ) original or derivative, ) self-sufficient or non-self-sufficient, or ) independent or dependent (see Ingarden ,  – ). The English terminology was taken from Simons  and from Szylewicz’s translation of Ingarden . On this topic, also see Johansson . As Roberto Poli observes, “what Ingarden calls existential ontology is effectively a kind of modal ontology”; “Ingarden himself was perfectly aware that his existential ontology was in fact a modal ontology, as proved by his reference to Hartmann’s modal analyses” (Poli , ).  See Ingarden ,  – ; Ingarden a, chapter VII (Das essentiale Problem der Form und die grundlegenden Formbegriffe).  While the second volume (divided into two parts) of Ingarden’s Controversy addresses formal ontology, the third posthumous volume presents a specific formal study on the concept of causality; see Ingarden .

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“quadrilogy” started in 1935, in which the author sets out the architecture of his ontology).¹⁰ The direction of Hartmann’s method is, in some respects, opposite to that followed by Ingarden. While the former starts from the concreteness of reality and, from there, discovers a network of categories involving the ideal sphere as well,¹¹ the latter transforms the discussion of reality into an idealist discourse. In other words, whereas Ingarden, by virtue of the pure field of analysis he establishes, can clearly distinguish between formal and material ontology (and even develop the one without the other), Hartmann’s categorial analysis is always “fulfilled” by material contents, to which it is connected by a sort of “dialectical” relation.¹² While these differences make a symmetrical description of the two ontologies difficult, both authors nevertheless investigate a common subject matter. Ingarden and Hartmann both intend to discuss the real world and its peculiar structure in their respective “quadrilogies.” In these groups of works, in spite of the above-mentioned methodological distinctions, two models of structural delineation of the world are explained, which makes it possible to construct an area of dialogue and comparison between the ontological perspectives examined. In the present paper, I develop this comparison with respect to specific questions related to the kinds of relation connecting beings to each other and to the whole world. How can the structure of the individual being¹³ be described? And what kind of foundational relation is there between world-wholeness and the “things” in it? Is the world a composition of beings, or do beings require the world as their condition? The purpose of the paper is to answer these questions from the point of view of both Hartmann and Ingarden. Should there be different positions, they will be considered with regard to the methodological distinctions discussed above.

 Hartmann’s “quadrilogy” is composed of the following works: Hartmann ; Hartmann ; Hartmann ; Hartmann .  See Tegtmeier  on reality and ideality in Hartmann’s philosophy.  See the methodological considerations at the end of Hartmann  (V. Abschnitt).  We prefer to use the expression “being” instead of “object,” for Hartmann refers the word “object” to the specific sphere of givenness. Ingarden quotes Hartmann in this respect in Ingarden a, , footnote .

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2 Ingarden’s model: beings as “bearers” of the world 2.1 Objects persisting in time and processes: existential and formal priority In Ingarden’s ontology, the structure of beings coincides with their mode of being as “objects persisting in time” that represent particular “temporally determined individual objects,” which differ from both “processes” and “events” (Ingarden 1964, Chapter V; Ingarden 1965b, Chapter XIV). While the existence of events is characterized by the instantaneous coming-into-being of something (see Ingarden 1964, 193 – 198), and processes consist of several temporal phases (see Ingarden 1964, 198 – 215), objects persisting in time remain identical through the succession of instants and despite possible changes of their properties (Ingarden 1964, 215). As Ingarden specifies, these objects can be things (a stone, a mountain, a home, etc.) as well as living and human beings (see Ingarden 1964, 230 – 245). Using traditional terminology, we can say that this category includes all beings to which we can apply the concept of substance, understood as a synonym of ontological unity and persistence.¹⁴ With regard to the pivotal questions of this paper, we are focusing on the specific relation between objects persisting in time and processes. From an ontological (and not metaphysical) point of view, which objectuality is the primary one?¹⁵ Do processes presuppose enduring objects, or is the contrary the case?¹⁶ These questions can be answered by both ontological-existential and ontological-formal analysis. In the first volume of Controversy over the Existence of the World, while describing the modes of being of the different temporal objects, Ingarden claims: “without objects persisting in time there would be no processes (according to their essence), whereas, if processes take place, they modify objects persisting in time only in their properties; of course, they sometimes destroy them or even contribute to generating new persistent objects, but are themselves not necessary conditions for the objects persisting in the world” (Ingarden 1964, 217).

 However, the concept of substance is used without any metaphysical implication; see Ingarden a,  – , footnote .  The term “objectuality” is used to translate Gegenständlichkeit, which appears frequently in Ingarden.  Ingarden asks this specific question in Ingarden ,  – . This problem is to be considered in its existential and formal sense (Ingarden , ). Marek Piwowarczyk calls a controversy of this kind “the controversy over substantialism” and addresses it by comparing Ingarden’s theory of temporally determined objects and Simons’s theory of continuants and occurrents, see Piwowarczyk .

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The answer given by existential ontology is clear: although processes and objects persisting in time belong to real and temporal objectualities in common, the existence of the former (if they exist at all) requires the existence of the latter.¹⁷ A process without an identical “bearer” enduring “beneath” it would not be a process, but simply a sequence of detached states (Ingarden 1964, 218). By employing Ingarden’s terminology to address a variety of existential moments, we can affirm that processes are not simply “dependent” on persistent objects (abhängig, an existential adjective which means that a self-sufficient objectuality needs the existence of another objectuality in order to subsist),¹⁸ but are also “non-self-sufficient” (unselbständig, a more radical existential adjective which means that the essence of something requires “fusion” with something else).¹⁹ With regard to the claims of Ingarden, we can use the expression “ontologicalexistential priority” to refer to the status of objects. This kind of foundation, in turn, demonstrates that it is grounded on an “ontological-formal priority,” discussed by formal ontology and described in the third volume of Ingarden’s Controversy. Here, in chapter XIV, the above-mentioned dependence is explained and confirmed by describing the relation between the forms (the non-qualitative structures) of the two examined types of object. The beginning of the argument can be summarized in the following way: assuming that processes and objects persisting in time are differently structured, Ingarden wonders whether this difference excludes the possibility of any connection between them (Ingarden 1965b, 13 – 15). If so, two possibilities would be excluded: the case in which the process is situated within the object, “in which something happens in an object,” and that in which the process is external, “in which this object, as a whole, takes part in a process or in several processes embracing a plurality of objects” (Ingarden 1965b, 15). To summarize: both the changes in an object and its relations to other objects would be excluded from analysis. On the other hand, if we admit changes and relations, in which “substances” and processes “go together,” we run the risk of denying every clear-cut formal distinction between the two objectualities. By verifying and solving this conflict, Ingarden shows how the two kinds of form can be correlated without losing their specificity. To be more precise, he

 “Wenn überhaupt” (“If at all”) and “wenn es überhaupt existiert” (“if it exists at all”) are expressions which Ingarden often uses for emphasizing that his ontological reflections are not based on any metaphysical decisions regarding the effective existence of the objectualities examined.  See Ingarden ,  – .  See Ingarden ,  – . An example of a “non-self-sufficient” relationship is the one between color and extension (Ingarden b, ).

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confirms the above-quoted “formal priority” and emphasizes the fact that substances can correlate with processes, while processes, according to their conformation, must correlate with substances. Both in the cases in which an enduring object changes (we can employ the expression “internal process”) and those in which it is part of an “external” process involving other objects, it acts as “ontological ground” (Seinsfundament, Ingarden 1965b, 15 – 16) and “bearer”—once again—of the process (Ingarden 1965b, 16, 21– 22). Although they remain distinct objectualities, the process is always the “process of its bearer” (Ingarden 1965b, 17), i. e., its form is always together with that of an object persisting in time in which it “takes place” (sich vollzieht, Ingarden 1965b, 22). Thus, as soon as he deepens the formal analysis and addresses the formal relation between the different objects in question, it becomes clear that the initial formulation of the problem was not well-formed, because it is impossible to think of the form of processes without supposing that of persistent objects. Nonetheless, we cannot conclude that there is one form and not two. When a process bears on an enduring object, it does not “merge” with it, but always remains as something “new” and external (Ingarden 1965b, 20); as Ingarden specifies, it cannot belong to its form in the same “profound” (innig) way as “its constitutive nature, properties and subject-form” (Ingarden 1965b, 20). What finally emerges, therefore, is the image of two distinct objectualities, a fundamental one and a derived one. Although we never concretely experience isolated objects or beings that are separate from any condition (that is out of the question), the ontological-eidetic inquiry, based on ideas, leads to organizing the different types of objectualities in a sort of “hierarchy.”

2.2 The fundamental form of the object “Subject,” “properties,” and “constitutive nature” are the three central concepts Ingarden considers relevant to the constitution of the formal unity of any object.²⁰ More precisely, an object is thought of as: 1) a subject of properties, i. e., an identical ontological “self” finding expression in properties without coinciding with them (see Ingarden 1965a, 64– 66); 2) a subject of properties that is “materially” qualified by a specific nature, by means of which it is determined as this or that object (see Ingarden 1965a, 75 – 85); 3) a subject of “unconditional selfproperties (unbedingt eigene Eigenschaften)” which are required by the constitu-

 Die Form des seinsautonomen individuellen Gegenstandes is the title of chapter VIII (Ingarden a).

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tive nature itself and are different from conditioned-acquired properties (Ingarden 1965a, 362). Even though the constitutive nature “presents” a subject and defines its material determination, it corresponds neither to single qualities nor to the totality of them (Ingarden 1965a, 66). It is rather “the immediate qualification of the subject” (Ingarden 1965a, 66) that no complete list of properties can grasp (Ingarden 1965a, 77– 78); with respect to it, Ingarden also employs the expression “immediate morphé” (Ingarden 1965a, 79).²¹ This fundamental form (Grundform) pertains both to objects persisting in time and to processes; both of them have a “self” that is expressed by a constitutive nature and essential properties. Nevertheless, as stated above, the fundamental form of the process cannot subsist autonomously, but needs to be borne by the form of an enduring object with which it does not merge: Such a bearer does not cease to be a distinct subject of properties, but at the same time it does not, by virtue of its bearership (Trägerschaft), turn into the subject of properties of the process. Thus, the latter properties too are not properties of the bearer, and vice versa. The process and its […] bearer remain two different subjects of properties, although the process is indeed a process of its bearer, and its bearer, as a consequence, acquires certain derived properties determined by the execution of the corresponding process and its properties (Ingarden 1965b, 17).

On the one hand, objects persisting in time and processes have a common structure; on the other hand, the same structure has a different ontological “value” accordingly. This form demonstrates that processes are “secondary,” for it necessitates another kind of object (and its corresponding Grundform) under it. On the other hand, in relation to persistent objects, it acts as first and self-sufficient basis. These claims are of particular importance for completing the theoretical picture we have reconstructed. From them, it follows that the ground of Ingarden’s ontology is the concept of substance in its full traditional meaning (even if deprived of any metaphysical implication), insofar as this notion concerns an object both characterized by a nature and presenting its essential properties (related to this nature) by enduring in time.²² As we have just discovered, it is this

 This terminology was taken from Jean Héring’s essay published in  in Husserl’s Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, Héring . Ingarden often underlines the influence and the relevance of Héring’s reflections, see Ingarden a,  –  (footnote ),  (footnote ),  (footnote ); Ingarden .  In this context, we limit ourselves to referring to the general definition of substance derived from Aristotle, without taking into consideration the peculiar way in which Ingarden comprehends the concepts of constitutive nature and essence. See Ingarden a, par.  and chapter XIII for an analysis of this topic. Nevertheless, Aristotle’s presence in Controversy over the exis-

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whole structure that the author has in mind when speaking of persistent objects. And, accordingly, it is the same substantial basis to which he refers when stating that external and internal processes need persistent objects as their bearers. By saying that, Ingarden not only means that every relation bears on its enduring relata, but also that processes bring about changes of “accidents” within a persistent object (Ingarden 1965b, 22), and these changes presuppose both a stable constitutive nature and a fundament of essential properties due to it. Hence, we can conclude that the formal grounds of Ingarden’s ontological hierarchy coincide with beings characterized by a specific and enduring essence, ²³ in comparison to which any other objectuality (both processes and “accidental” properties due to them) is seen to be ontologically “inessential.”

2.3 Objects in a world The same hierarchy enables Ingarden to answer the question concerning the relation between objects and world, directly addressing the problem we posed at the beginning of the paper. In fact, while developing a new chapter of formal ontology, he is explicit in asserting that it is the processes that make the whole of the world possible, because no unity of the world (but only single objects) could be conceivable without them: “If there were no processes in which several objects persisting time participate, these […] would constitute realms of being strictly separated one from the other […]. But if they occur, they contribute to the constitution of a completely different kind of whole—a world, which indeed consists of many self-sufficient objects persisting in time, but which are, at the same time, interwoven in different processes” (Ingarden 1965b, 23). Also, in this

tence of the world is beyond question. As Mitscherling observes, while Ingarden’s “published works include only infrequent references to Aristotle, the presence of The Philosopher can be discerned throughout” (Mitscherling , ).  The concept of essence is strictly associated with that of constitutive nature, but does not coincide with it. It is determined “through the material a priori correlation between the matter of the constitutive nature of the object and the matter of the essential properties” (Ingarden b, ). In his attempt to distil one clear idea of essence from Ingarden’s Controversy, Daniel von Wachter writes that: “a thing’s essence consists not only of its individual nature but also that relative to which the nature is unambiguously non-self-sufficient. This may include some of its properties, the essential properties, and its mode of being” (von Wachter , ). See also Swiderski .

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case, it is not the concreteness of our “everyday world” which is at issue, but the formal conditions of a world as such and, at the same time, of a real one.²⁴ If the world is based on processes, and processes, as we have argued, are based on persistent objects, we can infer that enduring objects are the last formal fundaments of world-wholeness. This inference, properly developed, is confirmed by the argument Ingarden presents in paragraph 70, the title of which is, appropriately, The individual object as member of the world. In this part of the work, the use of the above-quoted concepts comes as no surprise. On the one hand, they act as theoretical-formulaic means of explaining mundane unity; on the other hand, they need to be “defended” from the potential implications this unity entails. In particular, given the importance that external-causal relations have in characterizing the form of the world, and given their relevance in determining the persistence of world-beings,²⁵ two previous statements are challenged. 1) Essential properties are present in world-objects (that is to say, the centrality of causality induces Ingarden to suppose that only “externally conditioned” and “acquired” properties are admissible); 2) that these objects, related to each other through processes, are ontologically “self-sufficient” (an existential moment to which formally corresponds, as already mentioned, an objectuality “closed” and “delimited” in its essence, without requiring the “fusion” with other essences).²⁶ If not considered in isolation, but as members of the world-totality, enduring beings appear as “dependent” on external conditions,²⁷ and seem to have a structure that is different from the one seen in the previous paragraphs. From an existential viewpoint, this intramundane dependence implies a “non-self-sufficiency” as well, so that the relation of non-self-sufficiency between enduring objects and processes would now be reciprocal. From a formal viewpoint, persistent objects seem to let their essence “dilute” into the flow of relations, thus losing their bearing role. In resolving such difficulties, Ingarden directs his thesis towards a broader field of questions. As far as the first doubt is concerned, he promptly claims that an object would be impossible if it did not own essential properties, for, in this way, “accidental” ones could not belong to it as well (see Ingarden

 The world is formally defined as a peculiar sort of ontological domain, the elements of which are interrelated with one another and are parts of a unitary system of causal relations. See Ingarden b, .  For example, living beings can only live in definite external conditions such as a specific temperature or with a specific quantity of oxygen, etc. (Ingarden b, ).  The strict interdependence of formal and existential features is evident in this case.  “Every intramundane individual object must be, at least partially […] , ontologically dependent on other intramundane objects” (Ingarden b,  – ).

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1965b, 141). The existence of constitutive properties does not contradict the fact that the same object is “ontologically dependent” on other objects that inhabit the same world. The fact that beings existentially depend on others does not exclude the formal “law” according to which this dependence primarily enables the existence of their essence. The concept of essence, the argument goes, is not concerned with the exclusion of other objects, but only with the “intimacy of the material-a priori relations between the matter of the properties belonging to the essence and the constitutive nature” (Ingarden 1965b, 146). Therefore, the formal difference between what is essential and what is “derived” accidentally is validated by the network of world-relations. Furthermore, the concept of essence that Ingarden can now take for granted allows him to resolve the second difficulty: “two objects (in particular two things) A and B, that are affecting each other and mutually provoking definite changes in themselves, are not generally obliged to stay in this relationship to each other. Their concrete essence only admits it, but does not require it” (Ingarden 1965b, 147). The ontological dependence of world-beings does not turn into non-self-sufficiency.²⁸ That is, claiming that the existence of an object depends on something else, according to its essence, is different from claiming that this essence, as such, involves the relation to other essences. The formal implications of the two possibilities differ significantly. Although objects need to be included in a net of relations in order to exist in a world, this existential tie does not affect the structures described in the previous paragraphs. On the one hand, an intramundane interdependence between enduring objects and processes comes to light in this relationship; on the other hand, this interdependence is formally “unbalanced” and does not exclude, within its inner articulation, the formal hierarchy according to which the form of processes requires that of persistent objects, and not the converse. As Ingarden argues, the worldtotality can always disintegrate into self-sufficient parts, and individual objects persisting in time can be defined as the “ultimate elements of the world” (Ingarden 1965b, 149). To be more precise, the world can be formally defined as an “object of a higher order” (Gegenstand höherer Ordnung): “the real world appears to be an individual object of a higher order, which is ultimately composed of a manifoldness of originally individual (autonomous) objects” (Ingarden 1965a, 144). In Ingarden’s philosophy, the notion of “object of a higher order” (or “derived individual object”) explains the form of complex individual objects, the essence of which is composed of more “elemental” essences (see Ingarden 1965a, par. 43). Ingarden describes its structure through the image of a two-floor edifice,

 This claim is confirmed in Ingarden , .

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where the ground-floor coincides with the single components, the first floor with the “summative whole” made up by these components, and, finally, the second floor represents the derived object as a new synthesis, as a new subject of properties (Ingarden 1965a, 130).²⁹ Defining the world as an object of a higher order is tantamount to saying both that the world has a proper essential definition and that it is grounded on “a manifoldness of originally individual objects,” quod erat demonstrandum. This means neither that relations are apparent or subjective, nor that they do not need to exist to have a world. Less radically, what emerges from Ingarden’s Controversy is the outline of a categorial gradation within the articulation of the world itself. Although several objectualities are admitted and required (substances, processes and events), they do not have the same ontological “weight,” insofar as an existential, formal, and explicitly non-metaphysical hierarchy is in force. According to this hierarchy, as argued, the structure of the world-whole can be divided into what belongs to essences and what is “in-essential” (in the literal sense), into what belongs to bearers and what bears on them.

3 Hartmann’s model: from the viewpoint of the world 3.1 Categories, relations, totality Hartmann criticizes the categorial priority that we have found in Ingarden’s reflections. Generally speaking, the world is not reduced to relations between bearers anymore. Every “atomistic” theory, taking wholes to be based on ultimate elements, is explicitly refused (Hartmann 1935, 68 – 69). According to Hartmann, in fact, it is “obvious” that “the part can only be part of a whole, and the member only member of a system,” and “at best it is precisely the ultimate and simple elements that are hypothetical” (Hartmann 1935, 69). Since ontology is now oriented by human intentio recta, and since this always shows singular beings which are embedded deeply within the totality of world-relations, no formal consideration has the right to overturn this truth by establishing an ontological hierarchy based on singularity. Moreover, no formal consideration is allowed to address the individual being’s structure as such, for individual beings can now be grasped only as intramundane elements, not as isolated ones. Hartmann’s method implies that he systematically conducts his

 This image is initially used in reference to machines, and then it is extended to all objects of higher order.

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ontological investigation from a “cosmic” viewpoint, i. e., with constant reference to the world-whole in which any being is experienced.³⁰ In this whole, singularity can never be separated from its overcoming,³¹ and relations are as fundamental as their relata. These premises are confirmed and reflected in the categorial architecture Hartmann displays in the third volume of his quadrilogy, The Structure of the Real World. Here the author, after having explained the main fundamentals of ontology (in the first volume) and distinguished the different modes of being through modal analysis (in the second volume), finally presents his theory of categories.³² Having provided the general definition of category as ontological principle, Hartmann describes the so-called “elementary categories,” which are regarded as universal structures of being (both ideal and real),³³ as a sort of ontological network which is presupposed by specific content. These categories are paired and organized in two groups of six: principle-concretum, structure-modus, form-matter, innerouter, determination-dependence, quality-quantity (first group); unity-manifoldness, harmony-conflict, opposition-dimension, discreteness-continuity, substratum-relation, element-complex (Hartmann 1940, 211– 212). Both groups of pairs, considered together and in their interrelation, constitute the most basic articulation of being (in general) and world (in particular). In this articulation, we can recognize the categorial and abstract rendition of the above-mentioned “cosmic” viewpoint. In order to acknowledge the difference from Ingarden’s formal hierarchy, it is necessary to observe the balance that Hartmann claims exists between the members of every pair. In this new “table” of categories, in fact, no hierarchy is af-

 This trait makes Hartmann closer to those exponents of the Freiburg phenomenology who attempted to develop a “phenomenology of the world,” such as Eugen Fink and Jan Patočka. For example, see Fink ; Patočka .  The influence of Hegel’s philosophy is evident here, which constantly represented for Hartmann both a critical paradigm and a relevant point of reference. See Hartmann ; Hartmann .  Roberto Poli presents a clear introduction to this theory in Poli a; see also Poli b.  Elementary categories, modal categories (at issue in Possibility and Actuality), and categorial laws constitute what Hartmann calls “fundamental categories,” which are principles “common to real and ideal being” (Hartmann ,  – ). Although fundamental categories do not involve the specific principles characterizing reality as such (as time, causality, individuality, etc.), they still pertain to the real world in terms of its general and universal conformation, thus helping confirm how Hartmann’s ontological architecture differs from Ingarden’s. For the same reason, these categories can be conceived as principles which are common to all the strata of the world Hartmann describes when formulating his theory of levels of reality (see Hartmann ,  – ), which was not analyzed in this study.

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firmed, for every member presupposes the other and is presupposed by it (Hartmann 1940, 224). As Hartmann emphasizes, Such reciprocal being-presupposed—one could also call it reciprocal implication—denotes rigorous correlativity (Korrelativität). It has little to do with the concepts in which human thinking clothes these categories […]. The reciprocal being-presupposed of the opposita in one another is purely ontic (Hartmann 1940, 224– 225).

The categorial articulation of being is based on correlation, as no single principle prevails over the others. This means that relation is not founded on substratum, complex is not founded on element, continuity not on discreteness, etc. Every substratum, on the contrary, is always determined by a relation: “There is no being which is not co-determined by internal or external relationships. Any isolation is secondary, if not actually just an abstraction. The interconnections (Zusammenhänge) are everywhere primary” (Hartmann 1940, 256). As the quotation confirms, singular elements do not have formal priority in Hartmann’s ontological scheme. And again, they cannot have formal priority because their isolation is just an epistemological abstraction, which contradicts the unity of being that humans always experience in the so-called “natural attitude.” Although Hartmann does not deny isolation (any kind of isolation, not only in reference to real substances), it is almost as if singularity, in his philosophy, constitutively extends beyond its borders, moving towards broader relations. If we apply this law to the real world, the image we get is not that of a structure we can decompose into parts, but that of a dynamic system in which relations, changes, and substances are strictly interconnected. From a formal point of view, there is no unilateral foundation between these components, but rather a simultaneous and “reciprocal implication.” In Ingarden’s terminology, the form of processes requires that of objects persisting in time, and vice versa. ³⁴

 Thus we are not affirming that Hartmann’s philosophy can be credited with being a Process Theory in the strict sense of the word (see, for instance, Johanna Seibt’s position: Seibt ; Seibt ). In actual fact, Hartmann supports the idea of a balanced relationship between processes and substances. It comes as no surprise that Hartmann employs the category of “complex” to conceptualize the same intramundane formations which Ingarden mentions in order to exemplify the notion of “object of a higher order,” such as the solar system, the form of the molecule, or the human community itself (see Hartmann , . Kapitel; Ingarden a,  – ,  – ). Unlike Ingarden’s concept, Hartmann’s category of complex is based on interconnection, not on gradation: “in the complex, elements are not as decisive as their relationship to each other and to the complex” (Hartmann , ).

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3.2 Dasein and Sosein In the second part of Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie, Hartmann provides preliminary and fundamental information on the real world that supports the conclusions we have drawn from the table of elementary categories. We find here a more specific confirmation of his difference from Ingarden. The guideline of the discussion is the distinction between Dasein and Sosein, which can be imperfectly translated as existence and being-thus. ³⁵ Dasein refers to the “pure” fact that something is and exists, while Sosein alludes to the determination of a being (including its individual differentiation) and, generally, to what contributes to determining it (Hartmann 1935, 92– 93). In discussing the relation connecting these ontological moments, Hartmann makes his “cosmic” point of view explicit. The starting point is the statement that there is not a clear-cut separation between Dasein and Sosein: we receive this false impression only if we focus on a single being, thus forgetting that singularity is just an abstraction and is always part of the becoming of the world (Hartmann 1935, 135 – 136). Once the ontologist embraces this global viewpoint, it becomes obvious that the division between existence and being-thus is only relative, since what is called the Dasein of a being contributes to the parallel determination (to the Sosein) of something else, while its being-thus, in turn, cannot be thought of without an existence. These assertions allow us to deny some ontological claims that emerge from Ingarden’s Controversy. Let us turn first to the latter claim: the being-thus of a single being coincides with an existence. This means, in Hartmann’s words, that the being-adjective of an object is also Dasein and is not separated from the beingsubstantive (Hartmann 1935, 130), that “there are properties in what is substantial exactly in the same sense as there are substances” (Hartmann 1935, 134). That is to say, properties are not something different from their subject. From a formal viewpoint, Ingarden’s conception of the object is thus overcome: although Hartmann maintains the distinction between subject and properties, subjects are not conceived to act as the founding bases of their determination anymore, just as properties are not taken to be secondary elements adhering to subjects. For Hartmann, it is true that properties are always related to an ontological focal point (they are properties of something), but this focal point is not their fulcrum and “Stützpunkt” (Ingarden 1965a, 66). The relation between a subject and its properties is not like the one between a support and what is support-

 The English terminology is taken from Poli a, .

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ed, but is rather the reciprocal reference connecting elements which are “on an equal level” with each other. Furthermore, as mentioned, what is called existence relating to a being contributes to the being-thus of another being, hence participating in the determination of the whole world: The existence of the tree is the being-thus of the forest, the existence of the branch is the being-thus of the tree, the existence of the leaf is the being-thus of the branch, the existence of the veins is being-thus of the leaf […]. The existence of the forest is also a being-thus of the landscape, the existence of the landscape is a being-thus of the earth, the existence of the earth is a being-thus of the solar system. This continuation of the succession leads to a final member, the world as totality (Hartmann 1935, 138 – 139).

This quotation contains two interesting claims. First, the pair Dasein-Sosein contributes to conceptualizing Hartmann’s methodological choice of not addressing single objects. Additionally, the pair confirms how relations have significance in the ontological architecture of reality. That the existence of a single being joins a broader being-thus means that the substantial persistence of this existence constitutively “overflows” its borders and expands in the direction of totality. Second, Hartmann speaks of beings having an existential center of gravity as well as their own essence; at the same time, he refuses to hypostatize this configuration and “opens” single essences towards a wider one. Unlike Ingarden, he not only means that the existence of an intramundane object depends on external relations, but also that the essence of the object is conditioned by this bond.³⁶ The proper existential term is now “non-self-sufficiency” (in Ingarden’s terminology), not simply “dependence,” insofar as the definition of individualities comprises the openness both to relations and to the world-essence that relations contribute to constituting. World-wholeness is thus confirmed to be the true “polar star” of Hartmann’s ontology, instead of “derived individual object[s]”: Relations are not only entirely essential from an ontological point of view, but they also always constitute the supporting network of every individual existence. They exist just as much as does the substantial individual (Hartmann 1935, 136). Things, and everything that appears as substantial as they do, do not have a privileged existence in comparison to the interconnections in which they exist (Hartmann 1935, 136). Just as properties only are something “in” a thing (or in some other being), in the same way things themselves only exist “in” or “within” a network of things “in” the cosmic becoming, “in” the world (Hartmann 1935, 136).

 Although we compare Hartmann’s conception of being-thus with Ingarden’s conception of essence, it does not mean that the two concepts apply to identical ontological structures, as Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka shows, see Tymieniecka ,  – .

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Here, Hartmann holds the same thesis he discusses in The Structure of the Real World with reference to the elementary category of relation. Since beings are interconnected in a network of further connections around them, the ontologist must consider them as part of this network, within a “complex” where connections are as essential as the poles they connect. That is to say, when ontology brings to light the structure of “objects persisting in time,” it cannot avoid defining the structure as a kind of “dialectical” conformation. The choice not to investigate isolated objectualities leads Hartmann to acknowledge that no closed individuality can be definitely conceptualized by ontological inquiry. In this sense, the beginning and the end of ontology coincide.

4 Conclusion The differences between Ingarden’s and Hartmann’s model can be summarized in the following way: 1.) As far as Ingarden is concerned, the world is constituted by single beings, as a sort of composition that we can take apart into its ultimate parts. These parts, in turn, are thought of as “substances,” i. e., as subjects that persist in time, that are shaped by an essence (by a constitutive nature), the properties of which can be divided into essential and accidental ones. Although Ingarden admits that single essences can be embraced and included in those of objects of higher order, these are conceived to be based on the essences “of a lower order,” from which they are constituted; as seen through the metaphor, the “second floor” is always based on the elements of the “ground-floor.” This argument is valid for the essence of the world as well.³⁷ 2.) The results to which these premises lead are different from those emerging from Hartmann’s work. Here, any distinction traced out by Ingarden, any formal stratification described in Controversy, is maintained and overcome at the same time. Even though the world keeps on being a world of individuals, and individuals keep on being shaped through essences, these essences do not represent the ultimate basis of world-wholeness anymore, because they structurally belong to the essence—to the being-thus—of the world itself and their definition can never be separated from this tie. Similarly, the hierarchical relation between subject and properties is denied in Hartmann’s quadrilogy (by virtue of the statement that the being-thus of a being coincides with existence), as well as the strict

 However, the specification of the world-essence pertains to the material determination, which is not a matter that concerns formal ontology. See Ingarden b, par. .

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difference between essential and accidental properties. With this in view, the author formulates a clear question: “Are there, in fact, particular determinations of something real which are not, at the same time, essential when considering the wholeness of cosmic interconnections?” (Hartmann 1935, 92) With respect to “cosmic interconnections,” everything is essential in equal measure and any ontological gradation is destined to be leveled. What I am arguing is neither that Hartmann and Ingarden propose radically different conceptions of world, nor that deep analogies between them are excluded in relation to other objects of comparison. What I have attempted to show is rather a difference in the analogy, i. e., a different equilibrium among similar parts. In this sense, the paper intends to take one of the first steps toward a profitable dialogue between the two ontologies.³⁸ The distinct conceptions of ontological method, mentioned in the introduction of this paper, contribute to motivating such differences. As mentioned, whereas the world investigated by Ingarden coincides with the content of an idea which can even remain deprived of its material “fulfillment,” the object of Hartmann’s ontological inquiry corresponds to the concrete world where categorial forms and their material differentiation constantly subsist together. If considered with reference to its method, Hartmann’s ontology can be defined as an embodied ontology, insofar as its description of the structures of reality passes through the “ingenuous” and natural attitude, instead of being based on the examination of pure ideas.³⁹ Consequently, since the natural attitude never refers to completely isolated beings or properties, it is not surprising that Hartmann does not indulge in conceptualizing fixed differentiations or strict hierarchies based on them. While these can be admitted within the context of eidetic ontology, they cannot in any way be the result of a philosophy oriented by the concrete encounter with intramundane variety. Once forms and categories are engaged in their concreteness, the structure of beings cannot avoid joining that of totality.

5 Acknowledgments I thank Roberto Poli and Frederic Tremblay for their suggestions and comments on a previous version of this paper.

 Yet this was certainly not the first step; in addition to Ghigi  and Tymieniecka , also see Ruttkowski .  Thus overcoming Husserl’s epoché and reduction; see the second section of Husserl .

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Ingarden, Roman (1998): “Bemerkungen zum Problem Idealismus-Realismus”. In: Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 5 (Schriften zur Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, pp. 21 – 54. Ingarden, Roman (2007): “Essentiale Fragen”. In: McCormick, P. (Ed.): Über das Wesen. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, pp. 47 – 53. Johansson, Ingvar (2013): “The Basic Distinctions in Der Streit”. In: Semiotica 194, pp. 137 – 157. Kalinowski, Georges (1992): Expérience et Phénomenologie. Husserl, Ingarden, Scheler. Paris: Éditions Universitaires. Landmann, Michael (1943): “Nicolai Hartmann and Phenomenology”. In: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 3. No. 4, pp. 393 – 423. McCormick, Peter (2007): “Einführung”. In: McCormick, P. (Ed.): Ingarden, Roman, Über das Wesen. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, pp. I – XVIII. Mitscherling, Jeff (2010): “Aristotelian Metaphysics and the Distinction between Consciousness and the Real World in Husserl and Ingarden”. In: Polish Journal of Philosophy 4. No. 2, 137 – 156. Mohanty, Jitendra Nath (1982): “Nicolai Hartmann und die Phänomenologie”. In: Symposium zum Gedenken an Nicolai Hartmann (1882 – 1950). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 13 – 23. Patočka, Jan (1988): Le monde naturel et le mouvement de l’existence humaine. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer. Piwowarczyk, Marek (2010): “Endurance and Temporality”. In: Polish Journal of Philosophy 4. No. 2, pp. 157 – 169. Poli, Roberto (2010): “Spheres of Being and the Network of Ontological Dependencies”. In: Polish Journal of Philosophy 4. No. 2, pp. 171 – 182. Poli, Roberto (2011a): “Hartmann’s Theory of Categories: Introductory Remarks”. In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 1 – 32. Poli, Roberto (2011b): “Ontology as Categorial Analysis”. In: Slavic, Aida/Civallero, Edgardo (Eds.). Classification and Ontology. Formal Approaches and Access to Knowledge. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, pp. 145 – 157. Ruttkowski, Wolfgang (2007): The Main Differences Between Roman Ingarden’s and Nicolai Hartmann’s Strata-systems. München: Grin. Rynkiewicz, Kazimierz (2008): Zwischen Realismus und Idealismus. Ingardens Überwindung des transzendentalen Idealismus Husserls. Heusenstamm: Ontos Verlag. Seibt, Johanna (2000): “The dynamic constitution of things”. In: Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 74, pp. 241 – 278. Seibt, Johanna (2008): “Beyond endurance and perdurance: recurrent dynamics”. In: Kanzian, Christian (Ed.): Persistence. Heusenstamm: Ontos, pp. 133 – 164. Simons, Peter (2005): “Ingarden and the Ontology of Dependence”. In: Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz (Ed.): Existence, Culture, and Persons: The Ontology of Roman Ingarden. Heusenstamm: Ontos Verlag, pp. 39 – 53. Sodeika, Tomas (1989): “The Ingarden-Husserl Controversy: The Methodological Status of Consciousness in Phenomenology and the Limits of the Human Condition”. In: Analecta Husserliana 27, pp. 209 – 221.

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Swiderski, Edward M. (1994): “Individual Essence in Ingarden’s Ontology”. In: Galewicz, Wlodzimierz/Ströker, Elisabeth/Strozewski, Wladyslaw (Eds.): Kunst und Ontologie. Für Roman Ingarden zum 100. Geburtstag. Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi, pp. 183 – 206. Tegtmeier, Erwin (2001): “Hartmann’s General Ontology”. In: Axiomathes 12. No. 3 – 4, pp. 217 – 225. Thyssen, Johannes (1953): “Zur Neubegründung des Realismus in Auseinandersetzung mit Husserl”. In: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 7. No. 2, pp. 145 – 170. Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa (1957): Essence et Existence. Étude à propos de la philosophie de Roman Ingarden et Nicolai Hartmann. Paris: Aubier. von Wachter, Daniel (2005): “Roman Ingarden’s Ontology: Existential Dependence, Substances, Ideas, and Other Things Empiricists Do Not Like”. In: Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz (Ed.): Existence, Culture, and Persons: The Ontology of Roman Ingarden. Heusenstamm: Ontos Verlag, pp. 55 – 81. Wallner, Ingrid M. (1987): “In Defense of Husserl’s Transcendental Idealism: Roman Ingarden’s Critique Re-examined”. In: Husserl-Studies 4, pp. 3 – 43.

Salvatore Vasta

Chapter 10 The Place of Nicolai Hartmann’s Ontology in Konrad Lorenz’s Epistemology

1 The “ideistic” philosopher A very important portion of the Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz’s theoretical work is founded upon a strong but indirect influence of Continental philosophy, in particular a German influence. When I say “indirect,” I mean that this influence consists in the acceptance of a conceptual framework underlying his naturalistic reflections throughout his entire scientific carrier. From this point of view, the most representative philosophers are Immanuel Kant, Wolfgang Goethe, Nicolai Hartmann, and Arnold Gehlen. If Goethe’s philosophy is strategically used in relation to Lorenz’s morphology, the philosophies of Kant, Hartmann, and Gehlen are respectively the pillars of his ontology and his anthropology. I aim to argue that the presence of Hartmann’s philosophy in building Lorenz’s epistemology is decisive for 1) strengthening his generally non-materialistic reductionism, which offers a more structured and static concept of reality; and 2) changing the scientific representation of the world from an “atomic” model of being (“Chinese puzzle,” as Lorenz calls it) to a scalar one. The consequence of these two points is an adjustment of both the structures of reality and the sciences, concluding that the special investigations of the sciences are less powerful than a holistic approach. Finally, 3) the link between “hypothetical realism,” ontology, and Darwinism is strengthened by it. By exploring these three paths in Lorenz’s epistemology, we detect a very important clue to resolving the issue about the concrete use of Hartmann’s ontology in Lorenz’s work. Before getting into theoretical questions, I would like to highlight the texts in which the thought of Nicolai Hartmann is present in Lorenz’s reflections. Since the 1940s, the general objective of Lorenz’s epistemology was the certain determination of two elements: a) the definition of the concept of natural reality common to all living beings; and b) the investigation of the relationship that exists between the adaptation of the being of individuals (in the Darwinian sense) and the being of reality (Lorenz 1941). However, in relation to these two basic problems that constitute an attempt—certainly not philosophical in the narrow sense —to construct an ontology, Hartmann appears only in the works of the mature Lorenz (1973, 1981), and Lorenz himself confessed (in a discussion with Robert

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Corti) that perhaps his interpretation of Hartmann may have been “ventured” rather than exact. I asked my friend Walter Robert Corti, who knew him [Hartmann] well, what Hartmann would have said to an evolutionary interpretation of his ideas. Corti thought he would have rejected it, then added, to console me: “But that is what makes his ideas palatable.” So at least one real philosopher shares my opinions (Lorenz 1973, 261).

Lorenz actually adds that he had some doubts about risking the claim that Hartmann was an evolutionist. Was this simply intellectual honesty then? Not only that. In both works Lorenz committed himself to the theoretical foundation of a new discipline: ethology. And these two works are always preceded by a large theoretical fresco, by means of which Lorenz aims to unambiguously place himself in the epistemological framework. Hartmann is present in both, and he addresses the whole of Chapter III of Die Rückseite des Spiegels (Lorenz 1973) to the German philosopher. Lorenz’s declared aim in using Hartmann is to demonstrate that there is a perfect identity between the categories of extra-subjective reality and those of human thought. The way in which humans conceive reality is not a process of superimposing categories on it, but of mirroring it. This is the strong component that Lorenz claimed to have borrowed from Hartmann to strengthen an idea that he had cherished for thirty years: to describe how possible knowledge of reality (hypothetical realism) is given by the co-presence of the “intellectual category” (Lorenz 1973, § III). Without this co-presence of the categories, according to Lorenz, it is not possible to speak of natural reality or of the cognitive processes connected to it. If philosophy (apart from the idealistic kind that Lorenz condemns) is not interested in finding out the origins of this co-presence of categories, it is at least fundamental for a natural history of knowledge. Its declared epistemological objective is to reconstruct how these two “complex systems,” reality and individuals, have been able to act in a complementary resonance, so as to be indissolubly linked at an evolutionary level. So, since the second half of the 1940s, he declares himself to be, not an idealistic, but an “ideistic” philosopher (Lorenz 1981, 10). Lorenz linked a very important factor to this initial claim, a teleological one. From a biological, evolutionistic and naturalistic point of view, what good is this cooperation between intellectual categories of thought and objective categories? Lorenz’s answer is: the survival of the species. Conversely, Hartmann’s answer in the very simplest terms could be: the resolution of the Kantian aporia regarding the “questions concerning the essence of being” that the Königsberg philosopher clearly set aside.

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From here it is possible to identify two different models of thought, “rationality” more narrowly and “consciousness” more broadly. Where the component of philosophical logic is indispensable in Hartmann’s ontology, in Lorenz it is certainly secondary. Where the theory of action in Lorenz embraces conscious behaviors as much as appetitive behaviors in inferior animals, in Hartmann only the conscious being is involved, i. e., human being. Where the historico-genetic component justifies the development of reality from the least complex to the most complex in Lorenz, in Hartmann the concept of evolution in the Darwinian sense does not explain anything about the relationship between the strata of real being and the categories of judgment. The tentative conclusion that can be drawn from a first comparison of these two thinkers is that there is a yawning gap between them. And one has the impression— as Lorenz himself admits—that one is dealing only with a very profound analogy between some aspects of his reflections and the basic principles of Hartmann’s thought. However, we intend to demonstrate that the “use” of Hartmann in Lorenz’s epistemology is much more than a secondary theoretical anchor. Unconscious adherence to the theory of the stratification of being represents for Lorenz a valid corrective to his vision of the relationship between categories and realities as he began to depict it in a brief but important essay of 1941.

2 Beyond Kant, why not? Lorenz should definitely not be given credit for being the first to discuss the Kantian a priori in biological terms, but the version that he presents is certainly the one that is most influenced by Darwinism. This has certainly contributed to fixing the stereotype of Lorenz as someone who shares with Darwin the “coarse” observation that the profound reasons for our cognitive style and, more radically, our gnoseological structure, derive from our biological descent from animals. However, this is not really the case. The “coarseness” that, as with Darwin, could even appear scandalous, should rather be seen in the light of a nonrestrictive and even liberating interpretation of human being, could mitigate Lorenz’s claims for an exasperated cognitive anthropocentrism, and disarm his expectations of absolute certainty or definitive truth guaranteed by a resort to objectivity. Lorenz’s criticism of Kant, and more generally of an anthropocentric gnoseology, is of a theoretical and methodological nature, and gives the Austrian ethologist a double perspective on the problem. Should one interpret Kant without considering the complexity of the neo-Kantian tradition, rejecting a mediated conversation; or enrich the comparison with Kant, following philosophical indications partially or completely extraneous to the Kantian current? Lorenz seems

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to have been completely convinced of the first perspective until 1940 – 41, that is, until his teaching activity in Königsberg. He seems to have opted for a partial engagement with the second in 1973, when he published his most famous theoretical work of a philosophical-naturalist character, Die Rückseite des Spiegels. At the center of it is the definitive demolition of behaviorism through the demonstration of the possible co-existence of the innate and the learnt, already present in Evolution and Modification of Behavior (Lorenz 1965). However, the re-examination of Kant is mainly unchanged in Lorenz’s thought throughout the years of his naturalistic studies, which assumed the clear outlines of a first confrontation in 1941, and unfolded in a richer form in the essay of 1973. But in this later work, the reading of Kant, after being judged to be wrong by Lorenz himself, reappears through the use of Hartmann. Over the thirty years that separate the two interventions, Lorenz laid down the basis for and developed a true anthropology, the result of which was Der Abbau des Menschlichen (Lorenz 1983). His previous conversations with Goethe and the German humanist tradition in general now happily join with the anthropology of Gehlen (Lorenz 1978), with the stratified conception of the real world of Hartmann, and with the philosophy of Wilhelm Windelband, having constantly in the background the already-completed criticism of behaviorism and philosophy of Karl Popper (Lorenz 1985). In taking this path, Lorenz’s conception encountered the problem of the Kantian a priori at at least two points. First of all, in the acceptance that for the conscious subject there is a privileged way to know, preformed to reality, he confronted the a priori; and secondly, he encounters it in his refusal of the Kantian conception that experience is not an image of, but a construction of reality. Lorenz’s entire investigation is centered between these two points; he is committed to de-structuring the Kantian a priori, and to understanding it in the light of the preservation of the species. But it is just the “corruption” of the concept of the Kantian subject within that of the species that allows Kant’s aporia to become fecund in Lorenz’s thought. The fact that cross-contamination of both was inevitable and that diversity would spring forth was already evident when Lorenz took up the chair in Königsberg, on 2 September 1940 (Lorenz 1981, 12). Lorenz’s “confrontation of principle” with Kant predicted the answer to what Donald Campbell defined as a “serious epistemological headache;” a rebus that the Austrian ethologist “resolved in a creative way,” providing a clear and unequivocal answer, taken up several times in his work (Wuketis 1990, 80). Kant’s query in Prolegomena § 11 asks the pressing question how intuition of the space-time forms could be possible before they were given in contact with things. Lorenz, accepting the challenge, asked how the phenomenon imagined

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by Kant was as real as things and came to pre-form individual experience in an absolute way only apparently, since the sensorial organization at the basis of the life of each human being derives phylogenetically “from counterposition and from the subsequent adaptation to those real elements that [our organization] makes appear to us as phenomenal space” (Wuketits 1990, 80 – 81). To be sure, with this reply Lorenz relied on his wide range of studies of a historical-genealogical kind, but at the same time, he benefitted from the pluralistic realism that the Kantian formulation implicitly suggested, since it recognized the epistemic legitimacy of both the existence of external things and the existence of the subject who experienced them. However, the Lorenzian claim bore with it an unappeased “inquisitorial” assumption concerning Kantian gnoseology, highlighting once more the “absent postulate” of the Critique of Pure Reason: the lack of an investigation into the genesis of a reasoning mind. Kant postulates its existence, necessitated by its own unchangeable (and therefore absolute) laws, which in another equally necessary form determine the quality of phenomenal being. As is known, despite the Kantian definition of a new idealism of a transcendental stripe in the second edition of the first Critique (1787), Kant tended to accentuate the radical dualism between reason and nature, placing as an unconditional foundation of the former the categorical forms of intuition, and an essential unknowableness at the basis of the latter. On the other hand, the phenomenal suture did not assure commensurability between the absolute principles of the faculty of reason “independent in principle from the laws of real nature,” and a real nature in principle unknowable. It confirmed in fact (and in Lorenz’s view) a subtraction of the constitutive principles that regulate the cognitive activity of the living being with the hypothesis that it can come into contact with “states and laws of organization” of the real world under some form or other. Just in this caesura, we claim that Lorenz discovered the possibility of an investigative approach, by maintaining that Kant’s realistic pluralism allowed ex se the possibility of a meeting between the human nature of knowledge and the nature of reality (Lorenz 1973, § VII). Therefore, to Kant’s unasked question about the origin of Reason and the nature of its a priori knowledge, Lorenz replied by re-examining the relationship between the phenomenon and the thing in itself (Lorenz 1973, § II). The biological perspective announced by Lorenz in 1941, the fruit of reflections matured over the course of the 1930’s, took form through two kinds of apparently obvious (but actually explosive) naturalistic considerations. The first hypothesized that the categorical structures of the intellect were, like the brain, open to continuous interrelation with the laws of nature and the environment, thus constituting a result of evolution. The second argued, consequently, for the need to consider the principles of the human intellect to be a function of both physiological and historical-cultural processes of formation (Lorenz 1973,

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§ IX). In both cases, the starting point remained a redefinition of the limits of the “thing in itself” in conjunction with the “unquestionable reality” of the entire history of scientific progress that had marked the Darwinian and post-Darwinian acquisitions (Lorenz 1941; 1981, 68). Lorenz’s considerations on this point were linear: if the entire structure of a priori thought is unchangeable, the independence of natural factors and the firmness Kant relegated to it, restores to us, inevitably, a static framework for the limits of possible experience regarding the border of the thing in itself. This limit, given once for all and in principle, forbids the possibility that the borderline be plausibly shifted more and more to the discredit of the “thing in itself” and to the advantage of a strengthening of the perceptive mechanisms on a phylogenetic basis. Therefore, correlating the Kantian intellectual mechanism to the real outside world on an evolutionistic basis means no longer invoking the real Kant, but a philosophical ghost, since the real Kant certainly ran in quite the opposite direction from the Darwinian goalpost. In fact, that ghost conjured up in Lorenz two irreconcilable concepts: “static” and “dynamic.” These were adjectives that, stemming from two diverse traditions (one philosophical, the other biological), supported Lorenz’s entire reasoning, and led him to measure himself with two diverse and antithetical gnoseologies, as he stressed in the “Prolegomena” to Behind the Mirror (Lorenz 1973). Given the possibility of considering a Lamarckian a priori that can be constituted and inherited by virtue of specific previous experiences, Lorenz sought in the Kantian a priori that flexibility that the Königsberg philosopher would never have granted him, and reinterpreted its structure. What in Kant was a “pure” requirement of knowledge, not only a temporal antecedent of sensitive experience, became for Lorenz the natural adaptive condition of the whole cognitive activity referred to the entire sphere of living being. The Kantian a priori and the activity of reasoning in general was in fact considered by Lorenz to be the mature fruit of that outline that, fittingly interpreted in the frame of evolutionist development, had allowed all living beings to refine their increasingly evolved cognitive apparatus. “In brief, these are the problems that the biologist, convinced of the reality of the great creative process of natural evolution, must raise with Kant: Is not human reason, with its forms of intuition and its categories, exactly like the brain, the organic result of a continual interrelation with the laws of nature and the environment?” (Lorenz 1941) In fact, it was a fascinating scientific hypothesis, which by no means, however, completed the Kantian argument from Kant’s viewpoint. On the contrary, it was philosophically remote, to such an extent that Lorenz himself intuitively perceived its theoretical damage, writing significantly in Lehre vom Apriorischen that “we must realize that this conception of the a priori as an organ implies its de-

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struction as a concept.” Philosophical destruction, then: pars destruens of a construens, no longer purely philosophical. It is an argument that says that the structure and the modes of factual knowledge, though innate, do not necessarily result in true knowledge. But why stigmatize the Kantian a priori, even when we substantially accept its foundation? Certainly not to “destroy” it, but rather, we claim, to demonstrate that the “novelty” of Lorenz’s operation did not consist in a biologistic armorplating of the a priori, but rather in making it still more flexible, opening it to a perspective certainly different from Kant’s, but with a great impact on the history of ideas and marked by biology and psychology. Thus, as Franz Wuketis (1984, 81) observed: “Though accepting the existence of a priori knowledge, evolutionary epistemology nevertheless destroys Kant’s concept of the a priori.” Lorenz’s project was revolutionary and raised the important question stressed in 1973: is it possible to widen the conception of gnoseology to cover every living species, in an anti-anthropomorphic and anti-idealistic way? The process of adaptation of all living organisms to elements of reality should be considered to be a process of knowledge. According to Lorenz, the immobility of the Kantian formulation of the a priori, since it did not take account of the phylogenetic matrix, ended up making rationality and knowledge interchangeable and absolute only for human being, excluding all other living organisms. As Erhard Oeser pointed out: The functional structure of short-term information processing, that necessarily has to be there before any experience, and also be emptied of any experience, is the only one equated by Lorenz with Kant’s a priori. The difference from the human cognition process lies in the fact that these structures, such as homoeostasis, amoeboid reactions, etc., are restricted to the processing of a specified kind of information, especially in lower organisms. The result is very narrow and closed programs. On the other hand, the a priori of the human cognition process, especially observing the differentiation and gradation that was made by Kant, is basically not specified to a certain kind of information, but has a universal character (in Wuketis 1984, 159).

The very visible attack on Kant actually disguised a complex reflection made by Lorenz himself in a naturalistic context. In the years between 1941 and 1973, this reflection was increasingly evident, and Lorenz maintained that in the 1950’s only the concept of Gestalt was able to put together the epistemological instances of individuals and reality (Lorenz 1971, 281– 322). Therefore, Kant was abandoned. The universal nature of his categories of thought did not coincide with the “worlds,” with the ecological niches that instead represented a more flexible way to describe how different beings relate to a single reality. It admits in fact that the existence of reality is independent of categories of thought, but both

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must draw on a common matrix of “being.” The central point lies in understanding the way in which diverse systems of perception can easily arrive at perceiving reality completely, in what Lorenz called the “world-image apparatus.” That means, from his point of view, leading back to the question at the “foundation of being.” In his 1973 essay, the reasoning that he had first carried out with Kant in 1941 was re-proposed through the mediation of Hartmann’s philosophy. Compare the two following passages: Our conception that a priori forms of thought and intuition have to be understood just as any other organic adaptation carries with it the fact that they are for us “inherited working hypotheses,” so to speak, whose truth content is related to the absolutely existent in the same manner as that of ordinary working hypotheses which have proven themselves just as splendidly adequate in coping with the external world. […] Even the smallest detail of the world of phenomena “mirrored” for us by the innate working hypothesis of our forms of intuition and thought is in fact pre-formed to the phenomenon it reproduces, having a relationship corresponding to the one existing between organic structures and the external world in general (e. g., the analogy of the fin of the fish and the hoof of the horse) (Lorenz 1975, 201; Lorenz 1941, 99). “[I]t is the inner, ontological meaning of judgment that transcends its logical form and this, in spite of misunderstandings, is what has given the concept of ‘category’ its ontological justification.” If, as is abundantly clear from these quotations, Hartmann takes it for granted that the “rational” category is at the same time an “objective” category; and if, as he does, he makes this the basis of his belief in the existence and the relative knowability of the outside world, then his fundamental epistemological position is very closely related to that of hypothetical realism, in which the categories and modes of perception of man’s cognitive apparatus are the natural products of phylogeny and thus adapted to the parameters of external reality in the same way, and for the same reasons, as the horse’s hooves are adapted to the prairie, or the fish’s fins to the water (Lorenz 1973, 37).

If in the first quotation we can see a prefiguration of the “world-image apparatus,” in the second this apparatus is depicted as the best form of the knowledge of reality.

3 Influence of Hartmann’s Ontology on Lorenz’s Ethology We propose the hypothesis that Hartmann’s work gave Lorenz a new conceptual schema to represent, in a new very effective way, the assumptions contained in his previous work, The Natural Science of the Human Species: An Introduction to comparative behavioral research: the “Russian Manuscript” (1944 – 1948) (Lorenz 1996), which was sketched out during his Armenian captivity and anticipates Behind the Mirror (Lorenz 1973). In this work, Hartmann’s Der Aufbau der realen Welt: Grundriss der allgemeinen Kathegorienlehre (Hartmann 1940) was quoted repeatedly.

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In particular, one may see a strong influence by analyzing both of the theoretical sections of Lorenz’s works (1948; 1973). Within them, two different conceptions of science are involved, and consequently two different models of reality are represented. It appears clear that during the period 1944 – 48, Lorenz thought that he could represent the whole structure of scientific reality in a “nested” or “atomic” model, stressing the idea that the “range of validity of natural laws” matches the “consistent hierarchical system of the natural sciences.” Therefore, in metaphorical terms, physics was the largest among the “boxes,” followed by chemistry, and finally biology (Lorenz 1996, 42– 43). Differently, in 1973 Lorenz states that from a physical conception of reality it is possible to come to a “spiritual” (cultural) one, without idealistic implications (Lorenz 1973, Chapter 8). In 1941, Lorenz put Kant into conversation with Darwin. In 1973, Hartmann was exposed to contamination by the phylogenetic discourse. In both cases, was it only about loan-words, or theoretical frames that strengthened the path of the Austrian ethologist? Or did Lorenz laboriously try to build an ontology for his theory of organic systems? We believe that only the second question merits a positive reply. We know that Lorenz read Hartmann’s work, and the quotations present in his texts certainly show that he read it, although not in the order of their publication: Der Aufbau der realen Welt (1940); Teleologisches Denken (1944); Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis (1921). In this way, he increasingly strengthened his conviction that from several quarters (philosophical and epistemological) it is possible to arrive at an absolutely certain knowledge of reality on an ontological level, despite the fact that, as Hartmann would have said, the categories “are not identical” to that which is, but they exist “dependent on what is” (Lorenz 1973, Chapter 3). This is the first way in which Hartmann clarifies Lorenz’s path. It has been proven that Hartmann’s categories of thought seem stronger to Lorenz than Kant’s a priori because: 1) They appear progressively in the scale of being and do not form an unchangeable structure. In Kant, being is given, but every discussion of its foundation cannot assume the characteristics of science. 2) Their appearance corresponds to an activity that reflects an uninterrupted scale linking inorganic and organic reality, material and spiritual reality. In Kant, an anthropocentric vision reigns. 3) The connections and the hiatus between the strata of being, and within each stratum, form a dynamic reality, which in Lorenz’s view is very close to what happens on the level of natural reality. In Kant, the laws of nature and those of knowledge remain distinct and separate.

The turning point in Lorenz’s thought that explains the incorporation of Hartmann is the essay in Innate Bases of Learning (Lorenz 1996). In it, Lorenz put to-

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gether the question of the reducibility of the different levels of a system with Hartmann’s reflections from an ontological perspective, using the studies of Michael Polanyi. The higher system is not “reducible” to its elements, as Michael Polanyi has emphasized again and again. Living systems are not reducible to inorganic matter and processes; nor, for that matter, are man-made machines. However, this does not mean that the higher system cannot be explained and understood on the basis of a thorough level-by-level analysis of the component sub-systems and the structure in which they are put together. Polanyi does not explain the existence of living systems, and, to avoid this suspicion, I prefer to say that the higher system is not deducible from the knowledge of its subsystems. Though it is indeed an event of “fulguration,” which is the evolutionary counterpart of what, in cultural development, we call an invention. This stratified building of organisms has the important consequence that the living system, in the course of its evolutionary progress, remains what it was in respect to practically everything it was before, while simultaneously becoming something entirely different with respect to new, additional properties and faculties. […] From their ontological aspects, all these facts have been recognized with superlative clarity by the German philosopher Nicolai Hartmann. A number of definitely non-vitalistic biologists—some of whom, I am quite sure, never have read Hartmann—have said the same, emphasizing that living beings comprise a whole series of levels, each of which we must study in terms of its own distinctive conceptions without for a moment forgetting its relationship to the levels below it (Lorenz 1996, 8).

Therefore, we can claim that Hartmann supports Lorenz in legitimizing the existence of a mind-independent real world, without resorting to the classical idealistic hypothesis. In it, nature can be led back to the mental faculties as creator of a plurality of bodies and models of knowledge, thus denying the right of nature to be explained on its own territory, which is ontology (natural reality for Lorenz). In addition, Hartmann frees Lorenz (from the point of view of the foundation of ethology) from the typically mechanistic aspect underlying it, thanks to the “mechanical” use of the stimulus-response system. Through Hartmann, Lorenz introduces the idea of explanation of all the different aspects of the world on the basis of one principle in his natural science of man and reality, either that of being or that of becoming (Lorenz 1973, 80). The unitary image of the world, constrained only to “converge towards the highest point,” which is spiritual being, only produces the effect of exercising violence on real phenomena. In the same way, thinking one can explain the highest portions of the strata of being only by resorting to the laws of the subsystems greatly reduces understanding of the quality of being. In fact, information-knowledge-learning (from the ethological and psychological point of view) are in line with the principles of stratification and of dependence established by Hartmann. Another visible and important influence of Hartmann’s arguments about the processes underlying goal-directed action (Hartmann 1964) is pointed out in The Foundations of

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Ethology (Lorenz 1981, 23 – 25). In this case, Lorenz borrowed the statement from Hartmann that a correlation between action-realization-goal can only be given in conscious activity. But the suggestion is used by Lorenz to stress that “the same is true for the admittedly somewhat more complicated processes of appetitive behavior through which an animal achieves a goal meaningful for species preservation, which are also programmed in the genome” (Lorenz 1981, 24). Lorenz’s reasoning is reported as follows: Processes which are determined by an end or a goal exist in the cosmos exclusively in the realm of organisms. According to Nicolai Hartmann (1966), a goal-directed action can only be understood on the basis of insight into the interaction between three processes: First, a goal must be set and in this setting something that will happen in the future must be anticipated by “skipping” spaces in time. Second, the choice of means, dictated by the set goal, must be made. Third, the realization of the set goal, through the causal sequential unfolding of the chosen means, is achieved. These three acts form a functional unit and are performed at various levels of integration within the realm of the organic (Figure 1). Nicolai Hartmann believed that the actor and the goal setter could never be anything but a consciousness for, as he said, “… only a consciousness has maneuverability within conceptual time, can leap beyond sequential time, can predetermine, anticipate, choose means, and retrospectively go back in thought over the skipped spaces through to the first one at the beginning.” Since Hartmann wrote this statement, research into the biochemistry of morphogenesis and also into that of appetitive behavior in animals has revealed processes in which the three acts required by Hartmann are performed in distinct interaction and yet in sequences that are certainly not dependent on or associated with consciousness. If the preexistent “blueprint” in the genome anticipates the construction of a new organism as a goal, and if, subsequently, this goal is attained through a quite variable and adaptive choice of those means proffered by the milieu and within a strictly causal sequence of developmental steps, this then conforms to the combined functions of the three acts postulated by Hartmann (Lorenz 1981, 23 – 24).

Figure 1. Hartmann’s conceptualization of the processes underlying goal-directed action. (Hartmann, N.: Teleologisches Denken. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1964.)

The consequence is that, although the processes of embryogenesis and those of behavior are not managed by an anticipatory individual consciousness, but are performed at a much lower level of organic processes, they must be regarded as entirely purpose-oriented, in line with Hartmann’s theory. According to these premises, the positive consequences that accrue to Lorenz’s epistemological system are therefore twofold:

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1) The vital processes are also, but not only, chemical-physical processes. Life has a necessary requirement of inorganic material, thanks to which it can manifest itself; at the same time, however, living creatures show new categorical qualities, not present in nonliving nature and cannot be derived from it in a direct way. Specifically, organic properties are, for example, the transformation of matter, assimilative propagation, systemic totality, teleonomy (the objective of which is the conservation of the species), becoming a unique history, ektropy (the progress of evolution from the simplest and probable to the most complex and improbable), and the presence of the psyche. Each of these properties represents an essential dimension and constitutes, though partially, life that in its multiform complexity does not allow any simple and univocal definition, centered on a single, totalizing principle. 2) The vital phenomena are products of a historical, unique, multicausal, contingent evolution, which appear from a process of gradual differentiation, integration and subordination of the parts to the service of the regulative conservation of the whole. Therefore, organisms are complex realities that owe their specific formation to the confluence and the interaction of a plurality of historical components that are different from each other and lacking a specific direction. Living organisms can be rationally understood a posteriori as the result of specific phylogenetic antecedents, but not foreseen a priori by their evolutionary conditions. These limit and condition, structurally and functionally, the subsequent evolved forms, but they do not contain them beforehand in themselves in an implicit way. Besides, those same forms do not necessarily predetermine the genesis nor, once they have effectively appeared, do they determine them totally. In fact, each subsequent form has the use of an environment within which it may exercise a free, formative activity to which it owes its peculiarity and autonomy, though within limits imposed by the forms on which it rests existentially.

A final important consideration of Hartmann’s influence on Lorenz concerns point (3) of the overview. It is less evident, but no less important than the previous ones. The point in question concerns the two different models of Lorenz’s epistemology.

4 Scientific and philosophical reductionism In his years of imprisonment in Armenia during World War II, Lorenz laid the basis of his future bio-epistemology. This hefty manuscript was found only at the beginning of the 1990s and was published posthumously (Lorenz 1996). Its discovery and subsequent study have not changed much of what we know of Lorenz. But it is important for better understanding the internal development of his thought. As regards the topic in question, the specific theme that would link Lorenz to Hartmann is apparently absent. The philosophical prolegomena of that work are all centered on the need to demonstrate how the exploration of behavior in a comparative fashion, the first step toward the foundation of ethology, cannot avoid a reflection on the relationship between science and philosophy.

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Comparative behavioral research itself arrives at an encounter with philosophy by another, more direct path than portrayed here in a generalized fashion as applying to all inductive natural sciences. In fact, comparative behavioral research is more closely related to the humanities than any other genuinely inductive science in that the theory of knowledge is applied not just as a means to the end of advancing the objectification of the outside world. Over and above this, comparative behavioral research has itself the direct goal of understanding human beings themselves and hence their capacities as perceiving subjects (Lorenz 1996, 25).

In addition, one may see that the strong influence of the Geisteswissenshaften is relevant by analyzing the two prefatory theoretical sections of Lorenz’s works (1996; 1973). In them, two different conceptions of science are involved and consequently two different models of reality are represented. However, the need to underline the unity of the world persists. As inductively operating fields of research, the natural sciences must fundamentally recognize the leading role that belongs to intuitively operating philosophy. Philosophy is really the “queen of all disciplines” and should remain so, or, to be more precise, it should become so. The natural sciences need such a queen more than ever because, with their rapidly increasing specialization, there is a growing danger that the individual research worker will lose the view of the great relationship that proves the rationale for his painstaking work on the details. But if the natural sciences are to accept the leading role to be played by philosophy, they must be allowed to make certain demands on philosophy. […] First of all, any philosophy that is nominated as the leader of the entire human quest for knowledge must of course be a materialistic philosophy that is convinced of the reality and unity of the world (Umbrella discipline) (Lorenz 1996, 65).

According to Lorenz, on both the logical and ontological horizons, Hartmann’s analysis matches the description of a forecast of his evolutionary epistemology, which is founded on a so-called “hypothetical realism.” This states that categories and conceptual forms of the human knowledge apparatus are an exclusive outcome of phylogeny. At first sight, it may seem that Lorenz assumes a late positivistic vision of the relationship between science and philosophy, but we believe that all this, as we have stated elsewhere (Vasta 2007), is the consequence of a continental cultural formation. In any case, this “umbrella” has the task of restoring unity to the overspecialized diversity of science. Therefore, Lorenz basically states that good metaphysical questions are good for the progress of science, without necessarily contaminating the method, which remains rigorously separated. In any case, the philosophical use of intuition, condemned by science, often helps to clarify scientific truths. However, we maintain that Lorenz is quite far from the twentieth century scientific philosophy of an analytical kind. He founded his bio-epistemology on this bilateral premise: a natural science of living beings cannot be separated from

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philosophy because of its tradition, and cannot be stolen from science for convenience. Therefore, clarifying the core question of reductionism is strategic: “I shall contend that there do not seem to be any good arguments in favour of philosophical reductionism, while, on the contrary, there are good arguments against essentialism, with which philosophical reductionism seems to be closely allied” (Lorenz 1981, 18). Despite the fact that Hartmann has never given any historicalgenetic explanation of the correspondence between cognitive categories and object categories, Lorenz thinks that the series of Hartmannian categories of being are similar to the phylogenetic order through which they have appeared in nature. According to the Austrian ethologist, Hartmann’s categories contain connections to phenomena that are “coincident” with the method accepted by the naturalistic scientist in describing different states of knowledge that species use when they have their own perceptual approach to the world. For this reason, in our opinion, Hartmann’s criticism of the oneness of speculative thought strengthens Lorenz’s idea that only a radical demolition of the idealistic stance granting humanity exclusive status as convergent lens (“mirror”) of reality is able to settle the conflict over cognitive diversity in the world. It does all this without denying the cohesion of reality. Lorenz permits Hartmann’s hierarchy to be mirrored in the world of living beings in an evolutionary way through the congruence represented by the socalled “world-image apparatus.” In Lorenz’s opinion, this cognitive medium is the same for all organisms and it overlaps with the scale of Hartmann’s beings. In addition, I claim that Lorenz’s epistemology, as influenced by Hartmann’s conceptions, made it possible for him to build a bridge between the scientific theory of systems (in particular von Bertalanaffy’s analysis) and the philosophical or gestalt image of the world as a whole. After the partial refusal of the Kantian a priori, Hartmann’s ontology is the only philosophical path remaining in Lorenz’s thinking. Through Lorenz’s reading of Kant on a Darwinian basis, I argue that Lorenz becomes aware that the correspondence between human being and reality is not only a relationship between thinking “categories” and ontological “properties,” but a relationship between different ontological properties (soft materialism) of a single global hierarchical system.

5 References Hartmann, Nicolai (1921): Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1940): Der Aufbau der realen Welt: Grundriß der allgemeinen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1944): Teleologisches Denken. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

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Lorenz, Konrad (1941): “Kants Lehre vom Apriorischen im Lichte gegenwärtiger Biologie”. In: Blätter fur Deutsche Philosophie 15, 94 – 125. Lorenz, Konrad (1965): Evolution and Modification of Behavior. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press. Lorenz, Konrad (1996): “Innate Bases of Learning”. In: Pribram, H.K./King, J. (Eds.): Learning as self-organization. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 1 – 56. Lorenz, Konrad (1970): Studies in Animal and Human Behaviour, Vol. I. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Lorenz, Konrad (1971): Studies in Animal and Human Behaviour, Vol. II. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Lorenz, Konrad (1973): Behind the Mirror: A Search for a natural history of human knowledge. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Lorenz, Konrad (1978): Das Wirkungsgefüge der Natur und das Schicksal des Menschen. München: R. Piper & Co. Verlag. Lorenz, Konrad (1981): The Foundations of Ethology. New York, Wien: Springer-Verlag. Lorenz, Konrad (1983): Der Abbau des Menschlichen. München: R. Piper & Co. Verlag. Lorenz, Konrad (1985): Die Zukunft ist offen. München: R. Piper & Co. Verlag. Lorenz, Konrad (1996): The Natural Science of the Human Species. An Introduction to Comparative Behavioral Research: The “Russian Manuscript” (1944 – 1948). Cambridge, London: The MIT Press. Vasta, Salvatore (2007): Visione e conoscenza. Il modello di una realtà formale nell’espistemologia di Konrad Lorenz. Acireale-Roma: Bonanno Editore. Wuketis, Franz M. (Ed.) (1984): Concepts and approaches in evolutionary Epistemology, Towards an Evolutionary Theory of Knowledge. Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster: D. Reidel Publishing Company. Wuketis, Franz M. (1990): Konrad Lorenz. München: Piper GmbH & Co.

Part Three: Individual and Objective Spirit

Robert Zaborowski

Chapter 11 Investigating Affectivity in light of Hartmann’s Layered Structure of Reality¹ 1 Introduction I must say I am not an expert in Hartmann. I have been using his model of multileveled reality in my analyses of affectivity because I am of the opinion that affectivity is more accurately considered when treated as multi-leveled since it precludes reductionism, be it downwards or upwards. Hartmann is one of the rare philosophers who insists on the layered structure of reality explicitly and, I tend to think, his model is in the same vein as, for instance, Plato’s, for whom reality, affective reality included, is also considered multi-leveled. In my monographs and papers on affectivity I embraced Hartmann’s claim about stratified reality and in 2011 I analyzed it in view of affectivity (Zaborowski 2011b, 164– 169).² I made an attempt there at applying four of his sixteen categorial laws to the domain of affectivity. Since this seemed fruitful to me, I had the idea of carrying on and of examining the remaining twelve laws. Because Hartmann’s laws are supposed to grasp relations between strata of reality, I hoped to contribute to constructing a model of categorial relations between several levels of affectivity and to advance a theory of affectivity. A one-level model of affectivity is too poor because it doesn’t take into account all affective phenomena. Practically, it leads to disagreements in discussions about affectivity, which according to a one-level view is either bodily or mental, either long-term or short-term, either passive or active, either aesthetic or moral, either egocentric or altruistic, either reactive or spontaneous, either determined or autonomous, either destructive or creative, either blind or intuitive, either inherited biologically or culturally influenced, etc. A downward reduction

 The paper was presented at the nd Nicolai Hartmann International Conference in Trento, Aug.  – , . The title of the oral version, “Nicolai Hartmann’s categorial laws as applied to affectivity,” was too optimistic (below I explain why).  There I considered (.) the law of distance between levels, (.) the law of categorial novum, (.) the law of recurrence, and (.) the law of freedom, while below I am going to deal with (.) the law of implication, (.) the law of modification (or variation), (.) the law of strength, and (.) the law of indifference.

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is as mistaken as an upward one is, for it is reduction of one part to another, respectively, of the soul (i. e., the psychic) to organic life and of organic life to the soul. This happens when there are not enough distinctions being made. Hartmann remarks on this and explains that “[t]he mistake in all these cases lies only in the generalization […] [it] lies in a false application to fields with which the discovered principle has nothing to do and in which it has never been discovered” (Hartmann 2012, 68 – 69). This is exactly what occurs when all affectivity is conceived according to a one-level model, for example, when spiritual affectivity is explained as an organic mechanism or when a basic, say reactive level of affectivity, is confounded with a manifestation of spirituality, perhaps not directly but by ignoring its biological dimension. For instance, while some writers are of the opinion that “emotions […] cannot be rational” (Elster 2010, 264), others claim that “emotions […] are rational responses” (Helm 2010, 304– 305). Both views are too general and, therefore, false even if, on the other hand, they are partly right. In this context Hartmann’s words about “metaphysics ‘from above’ and metaphysics ‘from below’” (Hartmann 2012, 71) are relevant and, more characteristically, his claim that “[t]he world can be ruled neither from above nor from below, because in every stratum it includes a categorial novelty” (Hartmann 2012, 91) is illuminating. Hartmann’s remarks are fully in force in what concerns current research on affectivity, insofar as “[o]f the two types of speculative metaphysics [here: of accounts of affectivity], the one seeks to explain everything by reference to the highest forms of being; the other, by reference to the lowest forms” (Hartmann 2012, 100). It is evident that this is what is often encountered in debates about affectivity, since for the most part two dominant stances come into play: a neuroscientific and, less frequent these days and without a special label, a purely rationalistic or spiritual approach to affectivity; the former committed to the downward and the latter to the upward reduction. Although a two-leveled model is better, i. e., fuller, than a one-level model, it is not sufficient for capturing the whole of the affective world either. Too often the two-leveled approach ends in dichotomies. True, affectivity is viewed no longer as “either” this or that but as “both” this and that. Affectivity is approached as being both bodily and mental, both long-term and short-term, both passive and active, both aesthetic and moral, etc. However, since “this” and “that” are too distinct—if not opposite—in character, the result is a dichotomous positivecum-negative appraisal of affectivity. This is the case for the Stoics who apparently support a one-level model, calling for a complete eradication of pathe. But, as a matter of fact, the Stoic position is a kind of concealed two-leveled model, because after having proclaimed an apatheia, they praise another class of affectivity they call eupatheiai. As it is, in this and similar cases, with a two-leveled

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model we are certainly doomed, sooner or later, to an oppositional appraisal of bad versus good emotions/feelings/affects/sentiments. Appraisal of affectivity is not what I am currently looking for, at least as long as I have not got a satisfactory account of it. Here Hartmann is of assistance, since he has recourse to a more-than-two-leveled model, which “put[s] an end to the strife between the extreme views” (Hartmann 2012, 91). Hartmann explicitly writes that “the middle strata are autonomous fields of being” (Hartmann 2012, 91) and the same is valid, I would say, for the stratification of affectivity and fields of affectivity, so to speak. In order to avoid dichotomization—and, thereby, the reductionism it involves —it is necessary to refer to a more complex model, with three, or four, or five levels. With the addition of a single middle stratum we arrive at a three-leveled model. This is the case with Plato. Plato introduced the middle element of the soul—and, accordingly, of affectivity as well—in order to better grasp the very core of the inner conflict. In his account of Leontinus’ inner tension between the high and the low element of the soul (Rep. 439e ff.), disgust (duscherainoi) is opposed to desire (epithumoi). The third element is added and appears as the right kind of anger (orge, or more generally thumos). In other passages, Plato seems to mean that none of three can be reduced to another, let alone all three to just one. Hartmann recognizes that “stratification of the world [is not] a new idea” (Hartmann 2012, 65),³ yet he gives no names as references. It would be interesting to know whom he has in mind, especially of whom he thinks in relation to more-than-twofold stratification. My candidate is Plato, yet, although Plato precedes Hartmann by a long time, Hartmann’s insistence on multi-levelness sounds more overt. Moreover, his presentation is more systematically worked out.⁴ Finally, Hartmann’s model is four-leveled.⁵ So far, so good. There are, unfortunately, two sorts of reasons which hinder a sound discourse on affectivity, in my view.

 Poli ,  points out the fact that “[e]ach of four levels […] contain other levels, organized according to a variety of patterns. The sublevels of the main levels may present their own types of gradation […],” but, Poli remarks, “[a]s soon as we pass from the four levels to their internal divisions, things become even more obscure.” A similar pattern is present in Plato, because the three elements of the soul are not simple but complex. And Jackson ,  speaks about “‘shallows’” and “‘depths’” and, later on (), about: “more or fewer ‘layers’.” He says explicitly: “There are really subdegrees or subdepths of the second depth, and no doubt of the first and third depth […]” ().  Plato is systematic in the Republic, while in the Phaedrus he sets forward his claims in allegorical form.  See Hartmann , : “[i]n this manner we obtain four main strata which embrace the whole sphere of the real world with the multiplicity of its ontic structures.”

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2 Terminological troubles First of all, any categorial framework requires a precise terminology. This is not the case nowadays as regards affectivity. I would say that investigation of affectivity is affected instead by a serious lack of strict vocabulary. This should be cause for wonder, since affectivity and emotions have become an important topic of research in philosophy and in psychology in recent decades. Although many questions have been addressed, basic agreements are lacking, or are not even looked for.⁶ To an observer, it looks as if he could choose any theory of affectivity he wants from the debate. For example, basic constitutive features of feelings, and especially of different kinds of them, are discussed (I will soon return to this point). In this context, I cannot get over the fact that, as I have just said, affectivity is discussed while neither its definition nor what features it possesses are often—though not always of course—not settled, even provisionally. I have come across a number of books, chapters and papers in which the way affectivity is to be understood is not spelled out. In consequence, we meet many disagreements, but can hardly judge their significance. They may happen to be purely verbal, or result from having in mind different aspects of affectivity, or from adopting various standpoints. Consequently, one could wonder how it is possible to analyze the world of affectivity with the intention to make definitive claims, especially claims that may have validity outside the given viewpoint and may be discussed by anyone having a different one. More particularly, in some respects there is (1) no terminology at all, while in others (2) terminology is vague and, finally, in other cases (3) there is no agreement on terms used differently by various authors, and as to what makes the issues of linguistic rather than, or firstly, of philosophical nature. I will give four examples. First, there is no general class term accepted; now the main word in use within research on affectivity is emotion. However, others use feeling.⁷ Maybe  See this excerpt from Fridlung’s message sent on  January  to the International Society for Research on Emotion (ISRE) forum: “Everyone claims to be studying ‘emotion’ while doing wholly different things, yet no one can be pinned down on a *working* definition of emotion. When asked, people either offer philosophy (essentialist definitions, newly-minted neurosophistry), promissory theses (one day ‘it’ will be localized in the brain in the Isle of Reil or down in the just-discovered Xenu protein complex), or hand-waving (it ‘emerges from a complex pattern of bodily and cognitive activity’).” (http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A=ind&L=ISREL&F=&S=&P=, retrieved on Jan. , ).  English-speaking people commonly use both interchangeably, e. g., Madison , : “Emotions are reactions you have to things that happen around you, and you use ‘feeling’ words to describe them.” Alternatively, English possesses affection and sentiment which are also, in var-

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this is just a verbal preference and they are synonymous.⁸ If so, this is insignificant and should simply be expressly stipulated. But maybe they refer to two distinct things, in which case it would be helpful to clarify the distinction. I have noticed that feeling, and not emotion, is the English standard translation for the basic German term, which is Gefühl.⁹ Next, feeling takes into account the fact the affectivity is about feeling rather than having an opinion and about an object being felt rather than being believed.¹⁰ Finally, feeling is more manageable than emotion in the sense that there is no verb that goes with the latter, and we must say to experience (or to feel) emotion or any particular emotion, e. g., joy, sadness, etc., if we avoid feel and feeling. But if feeling is accepted as the class term, i. e., corresponding to the whole of affectivity (or affectivity tout court), then emotions are just one kind or type of feelings.¹¹ This is a solution far from being adopted, and even in Hartmann we find, it seems to me, a kind of ambiguity. Once he speaks of feelings and emotions as two different manifestations of psychic life,¹² once he lists feelings as an element of which the “‘inner world’ is built up: the world of experience, feeling, perception, thinking” (Hartmann 2012, 87). There is also a huge lack of terms to discuss and describe non-bodily affectivity, more especially, what could be referred to as different-from-somatic feelings. Depending on the author, we read about ontological emotions (W. James), spiritual feelings (M. Scheler), metaphysical feelings (S. I. Witkiewicz), existential emotions (A. Morton), existential feelings (M. Ratcliffe), to reference some of the terms proposed so far. Needless to say, many will not be sat-

ious circumstances, used to speak about affective phenomena. Compare Ngai  and Pugmire .  See Wittgenstein , §  (where joy is an example of feeling) vs. §  (where joy is an example of emotion). See also Zaborowski b, n. .  And not Gemütsbewegung of which the standard translation is emotion, e. g., in Wittgenstein .  See, e. g., Stocker .  This seems to be the idea of two translators of Aristotle’s Rhetoric a, since we read that “[t]he Emotions are all those feelings that so change men as to affect their judgements” (transl. Rhys Roberts), or for the same passage, “[t]he emotions are all those affections which cause men to change their opinion in regard to their judgements” (transl. Freese), although the more general term (feelings, affections) is absent from the Greek text (esti de ta pathe di’ hosa metaballontes diapherousi pros tas kriseis …). Konstan ,  translates: “Let the emotions be all those things on account of which people change and differ in regard to their judgments […].”  See Hartmann , : “None of the manifestations of psychic life, not even the simplest feelings, emotions, or ideas, could be explained by this hypothesis.”

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isfied with such terminology, and to start with they may want to criticize the very notion of spiritual feelings. Thirdly, there is no agreement as to the terms used as labels at the genera and species level (and, all the more so, sub-species level) for several groups of feelings. For instance, there is a group constituted by several feelings sharing the same modus, call it fear, that includes anxiety, dread, horror, panic, scaredness, alarm, terror, awe, fright, concern, anguish, and, I suppose, some others. In order to proceed further, an agreement should be worked out as to whether or not we take fear as a genus term and other words to represent species of that group, i. e., species of fear. Next, it should be agreed what we are to do with species terms. I suggest understanding them as corresponding to fears situated at various levels. Obviously, we have in this case more words than levels, and we should, because of that, be able to say how they are redistributed.¹³ Finally, provided we have agreed that there is more than one level of affectivity, it would be helpful to determine the number and names of levels of affectivity. For example, could it be accepted that, say, (i) most basic and reactive (i. e., not at all rational) fears are dread, horror, scaredness, while (ii) more complex, yet still bodily, fears are alarm, terror, fright, then (iii) psychic fears come as panic and anxiety, and finally, (iv) spiritual (or existential) fears include awe, concern, and anguish. Please keep in mind that I am not discussing here the very meaning of these words. At this stage my point is only (1) to determine whether some of these names are reducible to one another or not, and (2) if the latter, to assign these names to levels, or to name the fear or fears of each particular level. Not being a native English speaker and lacking the sufficient linguistic competence in English I can suggest no authoritative solution. Let me say that, ideally, solutions in various languages should be coordinated in order to avoid troubles when passing from one language to another. The words accepted are to be taken more as labels than representations of their actual use. Let them turn out to be provisional in the end, provided we obtain a sound discourse in which we “investigate the nature of a phenomenon” (Wittgenstein’s words), or make it possible. It is a truism that “what puzzles us isn’t a word but the nature of a phenomenon” (Wittgenstein 1988, 5),¹⁴ yet in order to progress, it is neces-

 This is manifest in Scheler , , for he distinguishes four levels of affectivity, yet he lists eight words for joy.  See also Mill, , ch. , § : “definitions of names, and definitions of things. The former are intended to explain the meaning of a term; the latter, the nature of thing; the last being incomparably the most important;” and also Spinoza , III, def. XX; and earlier Plato ,  b  – .

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sary to reach agreement on terms and vocabulary so that we may get rid of terminological matters as quickly as possible and start tackling material issues. For this we have to rely on a minimum of firm notions. But here the crux of the problem lies. How is it possible to establish any kind of framework before being informed about the things whose names we are looking for, given that we need concepts in order to conceptualize what we are in the process of getting to know?¹⁵ And, secondly, how do we posit paradigmatic genera and species terms by means of existing words, given that existing terms are most often largely burdened with everyday and, a fortiori, vague meanings? For example, the group (modus) of joy can be stated as follows: the most basic (= pleasure), the more complex (= gladness or delight), the psychic (= happiness), and finally, the spiritual or existential (= bliss). Or alternatively: sensible joy; the mood of joy; psychic joy; spiritual joy. Or, what about another group of similar affects: liking, sympathy, love and spiritual friendship? I have no genus name for this group, unless we call it “attraction” (which is, I think, the modus of that group). It could also be called love, in which case the name of the whole group is the same as its middle term. Love would then be both a general and a specific name. It would be used both in a broad sense (as a genus term) and in a narrow sense (as a species term) and of this a mention should be made. We should clarify our positions on vocabulary and taxonomy insofar as we use the same feeling-words, and desire to be sufficiently precise. Knowing whether we have the same phenomenon in mind, or we simply mistakenly think so while in fact we apply these names differently, is crucial in preparing grounds for further investigation. For instance, many contradicting views on love are proposed. Sometimes, however, phenomena meant by this word by several exponents are so different that my impression is that they speak about different phenomena and, accordingly, cannot get out of confusion as long as they use the same word “love.” For example, I can understand love as a genus term including several kinds (species) of it, while you use it as a species term, more particularly as sensual love, and another person uses it as a species term referring to a spiritual feeling. It is obvious that such a disagreement is purely verbal. For example, Descartes is clear as to “mark off as many kinds of love […,] love only for the possession of the objects their passion is related to [….] In contrast

 See Plato , b: “How can we assert that they gave names or were lawgivers with knowledge, before any name whatsoever had been given, and before they knew any names, if things cannot be learned except through their names?” (Trans. Fowler).

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with that […] [in another kind of love a man] seeks their [i. e., beloved person’s] good as he does his own, or even more assiduously” (Descartes 1649, art. 82).¹⁶ This is why, in a word, a rigid vocabulary, even if it is provisional at this initial stage of research, will be helpful, even if terms accepted are in contradiction with everyday use. The same point is constantly returning. For instance, in his recent message Scheff wrote that much of the discussion on this list [the International Society for Research on Emotion (ISRE) forum] avoids what I consider the basic questions about emotion that we need to be facing if we are to make progress: 1. What is an emotion? 2. What are some of the basic emotions? 3. How do we define each one, both conceptually and operationally? The vernacular terms for the emotions that we use are simply inadequate, since, especially in English, they are a mass of chaos and ambiguity partly built upon tropes. Classic Mandarin Chinese seems to do a better job, and classical Maori even better. […] I know my approach is inadequate, but it (and several other attempts) give us something central to focus on. What do mine and the other attempts have in common, and what is different?¹⁷

This is why it doesn’t matter what these lexemes are used to actually mean, since we are looking to establish their meaning as a starting point for research. If this seems odd, a solution can be to use symbols or graphs to this end in order to pinpoint what genera, species and sub-species we are speaking about.

3 Conceptual troubles So much for the terminological issue. But, mutatis mutandis, the same matters arise for features of levels, genera, species and subspecies posited within affectivity. Plainly, the trouble is even bigger with (1) the whole class of affectivity, (2) the higher (or the highest) level(s), (3) groups (genera) of feelings and their species, and (4) levels of affectivity. Tackling these issues cannot be undertaken right now. Let me only say that given that there are too many unknowns, maybe a good solution would be to start with a formal scheme. To this end, I intended to approach the issue with an attempt at construing the general map of the world of affectivity, similar to the model set by Mendeleev for elements, without naming the items possibly involved (particular feelings), and simply using laws posited

 One of leading world experts in love conflates kinds of love as distinct as psychoanalytical projection, sex, romantic love and spiritual love.  http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A=ind&L=ISRE-L&F=&S=&P= (sent on Jan. ,  & retrieved on Jan. , ). I insist on the fact that I have a similar view, if I may say so, although Scheff’s background is totally different from mine, for he is social scientist.

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by Hartmann as describing relationships between affective levels. But, here, a second set of obstacles impeding a discourse on affectivity as I wish to carry it out is revealed. This second set of reasons is related to Hartmann’s philosophy itself, and stems from the fact that his description of strata and the laws that govern them are not fully worked out. If Hartmann ever points out, in his writings, an order of tasks to be completed, this means that they are not yet completed. This is clear from, for instance, the following: It is necessary to subject these strata to a closer examination. First, the basic determinants of the single strata, that is, their categories, must be worked out. Second, their mutual relations are to be determined. The first task is that of categorial analysis in the narrower sense; the second, that of an analysis of the strata. The former is predominantly concerned with the categorial difference of the strata; the latter, predominantly with their interrelatedness (Hartmann 2012, 65).

This agenda is similar to what I would like to do within an analysis of affectivity. But, here as there, a question arises: how is the first task, i. e., to find basic determinants of the single strata, to be performed, if, as Hartmann says, “[t]hese two tasks can be separated perhaps in the program of the work but in no way in its execution. One must attack them together,” and, more importantly, if “the single categories are by no means easily discovered” (Hartmann 2012, 65)? And how can we do this, i. e., look for categories of single strata, if “[i]n view of this we must look for categories which are common to all strata” (Hartmann 2012, 65)? It seems as if we are trapped in a vicious circle, unless one really can do both simultaneously. Additionally, in some aspects, the difficulties we face are due to the very nature of reality. As is pointed out by Poli, “[n]ot all the levels are equally wellknown” (Poli 2011, 23). More specifically, we deal with Hartmann’s “eminently negative description of psychic phenomena in the sense that he describes the psychic stratum by saying what it is not” (Scognamiglio 2011, 143). It is not surprising, therefore, that their description is poor. In the same vein, Poli says, “Hartmann acknowledges that the distinction between the psychological and the spiritual levels is problematic” (Poli 2011, 24). As it is, neither categories¹⁸ nor relations between strata are given by Hartmann in a definitive and productive form. What then to do? A promising solution may be to use a model of Max Scheler’s, with whom Hartmann was in contact in 1926. Scheler’s model is also fourfold and, what is more, the second, third, and fourth levels in Scheler have

 See Hartmann , : feelings are categories, while emotions, it seems, are not.

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names similar to those in Hartmann.¹⁹ Given that Scheler focused especially on capturing the whole of affectivity and introduced the notion of “well-delineated of feeling” (Scheler 1973, 332), one can expect his model to provide more descriptive elements of affectivity in the light of the four-leveled stratification. As such it can be considered, at least at this early stage of enquiry, as an illuminating solution for explaining and treating the variety and intricacy of feelings (Zaborowski 2011a). Although Scheler’s model is tailor-made for affectivity, Scheler did not, alas, fully work out what we are searching for, even if, to be sure, his description is more detailed than Hartmann’s. He gives a general idea of the stratification of affectivity, for which he uses the category, or rather metaphor, of depth (Scheler 1973, 332). He is clear about a sharp divide between strata, insisting on not confusing strata with intensity (Scheler 1973, 330),²⁰ and he gives labels for the four levels he distinguishes. But his description is not sufficient because, first, examples are few, and, second, though he speaks about affective levels and categories of affectivity, characteristics of the four levels are not elaborated strictly on the same basis. I attempted to reconstruct their explicit comparison (Zaborowski 2011a). I observed that for the first level Scheler gives seven features, for the second, ten, for the third only five, and for the fourth as many as six. It is obvious that this doesn’t allow a full comparison. Moreover, the same features are not always discussed, nor does Scheler even give categorial terms to these features in all cases. We notice that, for example, the categories of localization and extension are given for all four levels, and the same occurs in the case of subjection to will and control. For other categories, however, they are given for three, two or only one level. Another thing is that Scheler is not always explicit about what category he refers to in providing descriptions, or does not even conceptualize enough in the descriptions he provides. On the other hand, in Scheler’s descriptions we lack rigid distinctions within each category among the four levels. For example, the psychic as well as the spiritual is characterized by lack of corporeal relation. The sensible is subject to arbitrary changes, and the vital is characterized by a much lessened subjection “to practical and arbitrary changes,” while psychic feelings are “still less so” (Scheler 1973, 336). Since the difference is stated in terms of degree, and degree is not a

 For the second there are the terms vital or organic, for the third and fourth the terms are exactly the same: psychic and spiritual.  For example, “‘bliss,’ ‘blissfulness’ […], ‘being happy’ (the term happy is frequently used in the sense of ‘lucky’), ‘serenity,’ ‘cheerfulness,’ and feelings of ‘comfort,’ ‘pleasure,’ and ‘agreeableness’ are not simply similar types of emotional facts which differ only in terms of their intensities, or which are merely connected with different sensations and objective correlates.”

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categorial distinction, Hartmann’s laws turn out to be hardly applicable. Finally, Scheler’s first and second levels are better described than his third and fourth levels. But this should not be so surprising, and can be understood as complying with Hartmann’s remark about our limited knowledge of the levels. Roberto Poli underlines that “for most of the levels we know only some of their moments, possibly not the most important ones” (Poli 2011, 23). More importantly, “we do not know the central categories of the biological level […]; the same applies to the psychological and the spiritual levels” (Poli 2011, 23). If so, this explains why Hartmann’s and Scheler’s descriptions are sketchy, but, at the same time, unbalances any intention to adopt their models as firm foundations. This is why, although Scheler devotes a chapter to the idea of the stratification of the emotional life,²¹ what he gives us there is not enough to form a definitive basis for further analysis of affectivity. As unfinished it must be either completed or, at least, interpreted. To sum up: Hartmann’s model of fourfold reality is convenient for treating the heterogeneity of affectivity. Heterogeneity is what he is attentive to, as can be inferred from the fact that Hartmann aims at “an ontological clarification of the basic relationship between the heterogeneous strata of reality” (Hartmann 2012, 58). His model is open and Hartmann deliberately “leav[es] open many categorial problems […] because a complete and closed system would preclude further research” (Scognamiglio 2011, 144). I aim to complete it with elements from Scheler, who is centered more particularly on affectivity and especially because his model, too, is fourfold. But because of too many unknowns, I take Hartmann’s model as a purely formal scheme. Now I will move on to testing another four laws in the hope of opening some vistas for advancing the general theory of affectivity.

4 Four laws applied to affective strata To this end, I take for granted the fourfold vertical division of affectivity and use examples of particular feelings grouped according to their modi. But first, let me insist on borders between the four levels even more. I understand them as based on the outer (body) versus inner (psyche) distinction,²² on the one hand, and on the part versus the whole, on the other. This leads me to four separate categories:  All in all, sixteen pages.  See Hartmann , : “The human being as a whole is too much of an indivisible unity. His activity, passivity, and general condition are too obviously both corporeal and psychic. And, above all, the very life of man consists of an inseparable merging of the inner and the outer.”

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(i) part-body, (ii) whole-body, (iii) part-psyche, (iv) whole-psyche. Theoretically I should say more, first, about what exactly the distinction of the outer versus the inner is (i. e., (i) part-body and (ii) whole-body versus (iii) part-psyche and (iv) whole-psyche), and about the part versus the whole (i. e., (i) part-body and (iii) part-psyche versus (ii) whole-body and (iv) whole-psyche), then spell out the distinctions between (i) and (ii), (ii) and (iii), and (iii) and (iv). Since I am unable to do so now, let me limit myself to some examples that show sufficiently clearly, I hope, the essence of the right division: (i) part-body feeling (sensible feeling in Scheler) is any sensory feeling, say having a massage in this very moment, a feeling of having a particular part of the body massaged in this very moment (but not a feeling after having a massage, see (ii)); (ii) whole-body (vital feeling in Scheler) is a feeling felt through the body but with no particular localization in the body, say a gladness or comfort felt as result of/after a massage as in (i); a general feeling of being so and so, e. g., while in the sauna; (iii) part-psyche (psychic feeling in Scheler; this is, I think, what is commonly called emotion), a mental feeling, i. e., lacking corporeal relation,²³ or where corporeal relation is not essential, say a happiness occurring while hearing a nice piece of music, contemplating a wonderful picture, or meeting a friend missed for a long time, etc.; (iv) whole-psyche (spiritual feeling in Scheler), so-called metaphysical or existential feeling, e. g., Plotinus’ ecstasy (experienced four times, according to his biographer), Pascal’s second conversion (according to a note he kept with him and which was found after his death sewn in his coat), or Kierkegaard’s Abraham’s experience (as depicted in Fear and Trembling).²⁴

 Which is not to say that it could occur without a body, to a feeling but bodiless subject. Hartmann ,  – , denies any bodiless spirit: “There is no such thing as a floating spirit. All true spirit is supported—supported by nothing less than the whole hierarchical order of the world down to material reality. […] The spirit is, and remains, bound to the body.”  Maybe the distinction between the psychic and the spiritual, both lacking corporeal relation, can be described as experiencing the psychic feeling while still being conscious of other feelings (psychic; this is why I say part-psyche), or experiencing the spiritual feeling in the way of, so to speak, being lost in or entirely permeated by that experience. At the spiritual level the wholeness of the mental means that there is no distinction between the subject of an experience and the occurring experience. In a way, there is no I experiencing or feeling (or I have an experience or feeling) but I am the experience or feeling.

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Now let us apply the distinction to the group of “joy,” which is the one of rare groups²⁵ for which Scheler provides names at all four levels. They are: sensible pleasure, vital gladness or delight,²⁶ psychic happiness,²⁷ spiritual bliss. The three borders are necessary to maintain insofar as none of the four levels of joy is reducible to another one. They cannot be reduced to a difference of intensity, which is obvious if one thinks that however intense a pleasure is, it is never transformed into delight (let alone into happiness or bliss), and, inversely, however weak a happiness happens to be, it never changes into gladness. In a word, no quantity whatsoever of one level of joy can be explained by another level of joy. Intensity is a matter of degree, while two feelings of two different levels are not transferable one into another. All four are distinct dimensions of affectivity. Now let us focus on the “law of implication,” the fourth of the second group, i. e., laws of coherence. It states that “the totality of a level returns within each of its elements; every category implies all the other categories of the level” (Poli 2011, 26). Let us then examine if, by way of example, categories of sensible feeling present in pleasure all imply each other. According to Scheler these are, among others: 1. to be extended and localized in specific parts of the body; 2. to be a state of a part of the body of the person; 3. to be actual fact, occurring in some time and some place and being simultaneous with their object which must be present or represented as present (they cannot be given through remembering and expecting); 4. to be punctual, not lasting, and with no possible reference to the past and the future; 5. to be spatial and temporal feelings of contact, and revealing the value of what is present; 6. to be a consequence of stimuli.

As it seems, sensible pleasure is extended and localized in a specific part of the body, and therefore, is a state of that part of the body where it is extended and localized. If it is localized in some part of the body, this is because there is a spe-

 They are listed in Scheler , . In his chapter on the Stratification of the Emotional Life he enumerates “‘bliss,’ ‘blissfulness’ […], ‘being happy’ (the term happy is frequently used in the sense of ‘lucky’), ‘serenity,’ ‘cheerfulness,’ and feelings of ‘comfort,’ ‘pleasure,’ and ‘agreeableness’” as well as “their opposites, ‘despair,’ ‘misery,’ ‘calamity,’ ‘sadness,’ ‘suffering,’ ‘unhappy,’ ‘disagreeable’.”  I replace joy (as species) with gladness or delight, since I keep joy (as genus) for the name of the whole group.  I use happy in its original sense, i. e., being in a pleasant and contented mental state, as in the examples I give above, and not in the sense of being lucky, as in everyday talk.

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cific stimulus acting upon that part. Given that it is an effect of some stimulus, there is a sense of speaking about the contact between the stimulus and the part of the body sensing pleasure. And, the other way round, since there is a punctual contact, a specific part of the body is affected by the stimulus. Moreover, provided that there is a spatial and temporal contact, pleasure lasts as long as the contact is maintained and informs the part of the body in question about the value of the stimulus. Now, imagine a substance introduced in an organism. This is possible only by way of contact, one will remark. There are two different cases: in the first, it is, let’s say, a fine wine which produces a pleasant taste in the mouth. But it can also be a prolonged or delayed effect, say, a gaiety or a feeling of general easiness. In the latter case, this is a feeling extended and localized in a specific part of the body no longer, but belonging to the whole of the body and certainly without a special extension or place in it. It would be nonsensical to ask where you feel gaiety. Accordingly, it is not a state of a part of the body either, but of the whole body or related generally to the body. And it is not punctual. It lasts longer than the contact with the stimulus. Although it is a consequence of a stimulus, in this case it is not the taste of this very liquid but its effect on the organism. By introducing a comparison with a higher level it is even more obvious that categories of a level are not separable from one another and are inherent to it. For example, if we agree that bliss “seem[s] to stream forth, as it were from the very source of spiritual acts” (Scheler 1973, 343) and cannot be produced, we see better that these categories, again, imply one another and, more especially, do not imply or are in sharp contrast to the categories of sensible pleasure, say being produced by manipulating a stimulus. In other words, what is a result of a stimulus can be produced (and what can be produced is produced by means of stimulus), and what is unconditioned and unalterable cannot be produced. If it takes root in the value of the person it cannot be an effect of an external stimulus. And if bliss permeates the whole person she cannot, say, feel bliss in one part of her body and, say, despair in another part. I move on to the “law of modification” (or variation) which belongs to the third group of laws, i. e., laws of stratification. According to it “some moments of returning categories change; they are transformed by the character of the higher level; what persists unchanged is always only a fundamental categorial aspect” (Poli 2011, 27). Take the group of liking, sympathy, love and spiritual friendship. Liking recurs in sympathy but is modified, and the same happens with sympathy recurring and modified in love, as well as with love recurring but modified in spiritual friendship. What is modified in each case is not easy to say, but maybe we can agree that he who loves another person likes her as well (it would be odd to say: I love you but I don’t like you), yet love is not simply

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liking plus another element, a novum in Hartmann’s terms. What persists is the modus²⁸ common to the whole group. Love compared to sympathy contains a novum, absent in sympathy, and sympathy recurring in love is modified. This is why liking is not easily, if at all, discernible in love. In like manner, spiritual friendship is made up of or contains love, yet love in friendship is modified with regard to love itself. For example, love can be understood as a deep emotion, and more precisely as an affection with a desire for what is considered good for the one who is loved.²⁹ Such an affection and desire in love are “subject to their own laws of oscillation” (Scheler 1973, 342), while in friendship they are modified as to being absolute and, so to speak, fulfilling the entire existence (Scheler 1973, 343). This is where the distinction lies: love, either long- or longer-lasting, can end at some point of objective time, while friendship is forever. Although it does not make sense to say I love you now—while one can well say I like you now—it can be said that I loved that person. As for friendship, neither makes sense. These and similar expressions speak in favor of the fact that within the group of liking, sympathy, love, and friendship “[t]here is recurrence only to a limited extent and never without modification of the categorial content” (Hartmann 2012, 87). The “law of strength” belongs to the laws of dependence (fourth series of laws) and posits that “[l]ower categories are the foundational bases of higher categories” (Poli 2011, 27). In other words, what is higher is richer but what is lower is stronger. If we remain with the group liking, sympathy, love, friendship just mentioned, it can be observed that the category of liking (or attraction) is the basis for all four levels. It is stronger in the sense that it is present in all four levels of the group. There is no love that is not sympathy and no sympathy that is not liking. But the higher is based on the lower because the higher is “unable to exist ‘in the air’” (Hartmann 2012, 106) (see below). At higher levels, there are other categories, or nova, and they make them richer. By the same token,

 Since a modus is, on the one hand, what makes a group of feelings a separate group and, on the other, what distinguishes groups from one another, it is a fundamental categorial feature for each group. For instance, for the group “joy” let its modus be strengthening of the subject by way of accepting an object. If so, we could think that in the case of sensible pleasure the strengthening is partial and bodily, while in the case of gladness or delight, though it cannot be localized, it is still bodily. As such it involves the whole organism. As for psychic happiness the strengthening concerns the psyche, say the person taken as an ego, a conscious subject, and finally the experience of bliss would be the strengthening of the whole being of a subject, her ego as well as super-ego and id, so to speak. But in all four cases the force of the joy is its characteristic modus, i. e., strengthening.  See Aristotle, Rhetoric b, and also Descartes , art. .

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sympathy includes liking (not as such but modified, see above) plus other categories which make it richer. Yet the novum that appears in sympathy is weaker than attraction because it occurs only on that level (and, subsequently, in love and friendship). Sympathy’s novum recurs in love, in a modified form, to which another novum, love’s novum, is added. This novum is known only in love and friendship; thereby it is weaker than, say, sympathy’s novum, but, on other hand, it makes love richer than sympathy. Hartmann remarks that “the law of strength gains its full weight, standing revealed as the ‘fundamental categorial law.’ It forms the background of the indifference, and it is more fundamental than the law of recurrence.[³⁰] For it is more general, and its scope is unlimited. Not even the law of freedom[³¹] limits it” (Hartmann 2012, 96). I wonder what the hierarchy of laws is like. Sadly, it is not provided in full form by Hartmann. Let me then end with the “law of indifference,” which is, according to the above, the background of the law of strength. Since the law of indifference has been often misunderstood, Hartmann devotes more room to it. As he says, “[t]he fact that in the vertical relationship of two strata, one superimposed on the other, the lower stratum forms the supporting basis of the higher is so obviously and directly revealed by the phenomena that it has always been recognized wherever and in whichever way the problem of ontological stratification has been attended to” (Hartmann 2012, 94). The mistake is that “usually this is associated with the idea that the lower stratum is ordered toward the higher, being nothing but a basis for the latter” (Hartmann 2012, 94). The law of indifference (or autonomy) of the strata should be correctly formulated thus: the lower ontological stratum is, in fact, the basis of the higher, yet its essence does not consist in its being a basis; this is to say, it is more than just a basis. It rather exists also by itself, independent of the higher stratum. It is indifferent concerning the existence or nonexistence of the higher stratum and is certainly not ordered toward it. In no way is its existence tied up with that of the higher stratum (Hartmann 2012, 95).

Hartmann makes it clear that “[t]he higher stratum, for its part, is indeed tied to the lower. Only as supported by it can it exist. […] This indifference, then, involves independence of all lower strata in relation to the higher. It is a total (not just a partial) independence” (Hartmann 2012, 95).

 See Zaborowski b, .  See Zaborowski b,  – .

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Let us take the group of joy again. And let us refer to Descartes’ definition of joy as it is given in his Passions of the Soul: “Joy is a pleasant commotion in the soul” (Descartes 1649, §91). Manifestly, pleasure—though in a modified form, not as a state but as a quality of another state—recurs in joy. But pleasure is by no means ordered toward joy. Pleasure, for Descartes pleasurable sensation or titillation (and sensible pleasure in Scheler) “occurs when the objects of the senses arouse some movement in the nerves […] in a healthy condition. […] [It is] an impression that naturally testifies to the body’s healthy condition and strength” (Descartes 1649, § 94). There is no mention of joy at all. And even if, in what precedes it, Descartes recognizes that “joy ordinarily follows titillation,” the adverb ordinarily is crucial. It means that pleasure can very well not be followed by joy. But even if one objects and minimizes this qualification, he must agree that following can amount to resulting in but not to depending on what is resulting from it. In this sense, regardless of whether pleasure is followed by joy or not, it is still the same pleasure in its essence and the fact of being followed by joy is contingent.

5 Conclusion Hartmann model’s turns out to be promising for grasping the world of feelings. The model is about the whole of reality, but Hartmann is interested in anthropology too. He is careful to take into consideration the whole of human reality, both extremes included,³² and in viewing it as stratified. This is what is needed for deepening the analysis of affectivity. Consequently, I have attempted to use Hartmann’s model to consider affectivity in a different light. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go as far as I wished. The reason is that there are real limits to developing a new theory of affectivity in light of Hartmann’s stratified structure of reality. This is because, as Hartmann overtly says, “the purposes of anthropology, aside from anything else, demand a new ontology” (Hartmann 2012, 59). If so, a new ontology of affectivity cannot be offered as long as a new anthropology and a new ontology are not provided. Alas, the new ontology is only barely sketched. For instance in New Ways

 On the one hand, Hartmann writes “[w]ithout doubt man is a spiritual being. […] but he cannot really […] be where he is not. He can, of course, go there, but only in corpore” (Hartmann , ); on the other, he says that “it is an empty abstraction to regard him only as a spiritual being” (Hartmann , ).

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of Ontology, “a short book which summarizes his main ontological ideas” (Cicovacki 2012, 2), Hartmann left numerous questions unanswered or not even addressed. Hartmann also tells us that “categories […] are rather gleaned step by step from an observation of existing realities” (Hartmann 2012, 35),³³ and in our case, I would say affective realities. But I wonder what kind of observation he has in mind. We too often see that research that wants to be scientific and empirical, for example exprimental psychology, biochemistry and neurology, are silent about higher levels, which is why they are reductive in the way Hartmann is keen on avoiding. But can an observer be taking into account the whole realm of affectivity at all without having an a priori concept of stratification? If he can not, one has to agree with Hartmann that “a purely empiricist path is even less promising” (Hartmann 2012, 39). The question is, therefore: how can we determine the methods by which the whole of affectivity can be grasped, if categories are not a priori accessible, and if empiricism tends towards reductionism? Although the answer is complex, it is not reason to despair. There is always a small step to be taken, and even if the aim is still far away and a satisfactory elaboration needs long research, the minimum, I believe, has been attained: evidence that there is such a thing as heterogeneity of affectivity,³⁴ and that this phenomenon is better explicated by means of the concept of stratification. This is Hartmann’s contribution, regardless of whether his model needs to be completed or modified in several details. As he says himself, “[i]n the meantime much is won by clearly distinguishing between the character of the strata of being on the one hand and the structures of the hierarchy on the other” (Hartmann 2012, 64). And this is the stance and approach that are, in my view, the most welcome in analysis of affectivity. I deeply believe that if they were adopted, the progress in investigating affectivity would be significant.

 See also Hartmann , : “categories tied up with experience […] it is readily realised that it precludes a limine a purely a priori knowledge of the essence of things;” and Hartmann , : “The categories themselves must first be attained by induction.”  Heterogeneity of affectivity means that feelings of the same group(s) have something in common (their modus/modi) and something different (their categories depending on level). To use Hartmann’s words, they are “in part identical and in part completely different,” in the same way that this is the case for “inanimate object, plant, animal, and man” (Hartmann , ).

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6 References Aristotle (1926): Rhetoric. Trans. Freese, J. H. London: William Heinemann, Ltd. Aristotle (1955): Rhetoric. Trans. Rhys Roberts, W. London: Oxford University Press. Cicovacki, Predrag (2012): “Introduction.” In: Hartmann, N. New Ways of Ontology. Trans. Kuhn, R. C. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1 – 26. Descartes, René (1649): The Passions of the Soul. Trans. Bennett, J. Available at http://www. earlymoderntexts.com/pdfs/descartes1649.pdf. Retrieved 24 Jan. 2015. Elster, Jon (2010): “Emotional Choice and Rational Choice”. In: Goldie, P. (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 263 – 281. Fridlund, Alan (2015): http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1501&L=ISRE-L&F=&S=&P= 35419. Retrieved 31 Jan. 2015. Hartmann, Nicolai (2012): New Ways of Ontology. Trans. Kuhn, R. C. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Helm, Bennett W. (2010): “Emotions and Motivation: Reconsidering Neo–Jamesian Accounts”. In: Goldie, P. (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 303 – 323. Jackson, John Hughlings (1884): “Croonian Lectures on Evolution and Dissolution of the Nervous System, Lecture II”. In: The British Medical Journal, pp. 660 – 663. Konstan, David (2006): The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Madison, Lynda (2002): The Feelings Book. The Care & Keeping of Your Emotions. Middleton, WI: American Girl Publ. Mill, John Stuart (1843): A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive. London: John W. Parker. Ngai, Sianne (2005), Ugly Feelings. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Plato (1953): Cratylus. Trans. Fowler, H. N. London: William Heinemann Ltd. Plato (1914): Phaedrus. Trans. Fowler, H. N. London: William Heinemann Ltd. Plato (1935): Republic. Trans. Shorey, P. London: William Heinemann Ltd. Poli, Roberto (2011): “Hartmann’s Theory of Categories: Introductory Remarks”. In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 1 – 32. Pugmire, David (2005): Sound Sentiments. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Scheff, Tom (2015): http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1501&L=ISRE-L&F=&S=&P=23695. Retrieved 22 Jan. 2015. Scheler, Max (1973): Formalism in Ethics and Non–Formal Ethics of Values. A New Attempt toward the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism. Transl. Frings, M. S./Funk, R. L. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Scognamiglio, Carlo (2011): “Nicolai Hartmann’s Theory of Psyche”. In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 141 – 157. Spinoza, Baruch (1677): Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order. Trans. Bennett, J. Available at http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdfs/spinoza1665.pdf. Retrieved 31 Jan. 2015. Stocker, Michael (2002): “Some Problems About Affectivity”. In: Philosophical Studies 108, pp. 151 – 158.

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1970): Zettel. Ancombe, G. E. M. & von Wright, G. H. (Eds.). Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1988): Wittgenstein’s Lectures on Philosophical Psychology 1946 – 1947. Geach, P.T (Ed.) Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Zaborowski, Robert (2011a): “Max Scheler’s model of stratified affectivity and its relevance for research on emotions”. In: Appraisal 8. No. 3, pp. 24 – 34. Zaborowski, Robert (2011b): “Nicolai Hartmann’s Approach to Affectivity and its Relevance for the Current Debate Over Feelings”. In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 159 – 175.

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Chapter 12 From Value Being to Human Being: The Ways of Nicolai Hartmann’s Anthropology Nicolai Hartmann did not publish a particular work devoted to philosophical anthropology. In spite of that, his contribution to this field is notable (Fischer 2011, Peterson 2012) and his vision of the human can be reconstructed. This paper attempts to follow Hartmann’s path toward posing the problem of humankind in the frame of ontological theory. The ideality of moral values, as Hartmann seems to be aware, does not only make some trouble for philosophers, but is somehow related to everyone’s life. Moral values are connected to a human being. As Kinneging puts it, they are necessarily “affixed” to humankind, to his acts and personality (Kinneging 2007, xxii). The purpose of our study is to explore this nexus from the angle of its possible contribution to philosophical anthropology. In the first part, the peculiarities of Hartmann’s methodology and the major difficulties of his value theory relevant to this study are discussed. In the second part, the types of relations between values and humankind are specified, and the layered structure of human subjectivity is analyzed.

1 Approaching the problem: Value being versus human knowledge For an ethicist, positing the existence of ideal beings entails a serious epistemological problem, despite Hartmann’s intention to lessen the importance of epistemology among the preoccupations of philosophy. On one hand, ethics is some sort of knowledge. On the other, it is practical human conduct. This duality forms a core problem of Hartmann’s work and is going to be discussed first. Hartmann opens his Ethics (1926) with the well-known Kantian triad; three questions of modern philosophy he believes to be urgent. 1.) What can we know? 2.) What ought we to do? 3.) What may we hope for? The second question is the properly ethical one, as it opens the problem of the practical. For Hartmann, the practical sense of ethics consists in revelation of the ends which are absolute, the highest, and irreducible to the means. Those are the moral value contents that cannot be evolved nor invented but only uncovered by human beings.

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The discovery of the ends by ethical theory may only take place secondarily. In the first place, it occurs in human life. Paradoxically, the situations man encounters in his life serve as a posteriori occasions for revealing the a priori value contents. Human being is hardly able to realize the values in his consciousness unless he has experienced them, has “seen” them by his “eyes,” has sensed them by the “moral faculty,” the so-called organe morale. Kant’s morality of imperatives and the ethics of the Ought-to-Do, as Hartmann claims, implies the direct actuality of human actions, but does not take into account the variety of life and the uniqueness of situations. In addition, it deals with the outward action and disregards the inward actuality, the inner ethos as a certain attitude, the “position” of human individual towards situations and persons he encounters in his life (Hartmann 2002, 35 – 36). The inner ethos, according to Hartmann, is much greater in its scope and significance for human being than his outward actions. Thus, the moral imperative is not the only requirement for human morality. Humankind should participate in the fullness of life and be receptive to what is significant and valuable. Ethics itself responds to the second fundamental ethical question (after the Kantian one): “What are we to keep our eyes open for, so as to participate in the world’s values? What is valuable in life and in the world generally? What are we to make our own, to understand, to appreciate, so as to be man in the full meaning of the word? What is it for which we still lack the sense, the organ, so that we must first form our capacity, sharpen and educate it?” (Hartmann 2002, 36 – 37). This complex question poses the problem of the valuable as such. According to Hartmann, human being cannot recognize what he ought to do without distinguishing valuable from non-valuable: if I do not act chaotically but demiurgically (both elements are present in human ethos), I am definitely not supposed to destroy anything valuable by my actions. The epistemological problem is put forward concurrently with the ethical one. “How are pure, absolute, irreducible ends discovered? As they can be found in nothing real or are verifiable only afterwards, what cognitive pathway leads to them?” (Hartmann 2002, 34) Long before Hartmann elaborates his epistemology of values, he confines himself to the question of what kind of knowledge ethics provides with regard to the life of humanity. When we speak of ethical knowledge, Hartmann claims, we mean the knowledge of good and evil. But ethics cannot provide us with the knowledge of what is good here and now. Such an illusion would be a typical “discoverer’s error.” The minimum that may be expected is the criterion of good and evil (cf. Hartmann 2002, 69). Ethics does not intervene arbitrarily into human life without an individual’s own understanding, regardless of his intelligence. Such an inter-

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vention would be in conflict with the practical aim of ethics: the production of a person who builds his life on his own. Kant’s ethical task of lifting a person up to maturity turns out to be the ethical demand of maturing the individual’s inner sense of what ought to be (Hartmann 2002, 30 – 31). Hartmann does not presume that the awakening of value consciousness and development of the value sense can come from philosophy, but he points out that the philosophical cognition of values is crucial for overcoming the prejudices of human consciousness and emotional resistance by means of reflection and introspection (Hartmann 2002, 44).¹ Ethical knowledge, like any other, is passive and cannot educate people or make their life better directly. However, in spite of some doubts,² Hartmann leaves a chance for humanto-human education: “In general, however, it is possible to teach another to see, to wake up his emotional activity, to educate and train the capacity to discriminate values. There is such a thing as moral guidance, a leading into the abundant riches of life, an opening of eyes by means of one’s own vision, an admitting to participation through one’s own participation. There is a training in humanity as well as a training of oneself therein” (Hartmann 2002, 39). Here ethics finds the widest practical field. In the scope of theory, the discovery of values by means of ethical investigation is regarded more as a possibility than as a fact. With due respect to the long history and actual achievements of ethics, Hartmann argues that the research into values has much more ahead of it than behind: “In the realm of values, we are at the very beginning of deliberate investigation. No one can know whither it will lead. […] [W]hat is the short span of the known history of the mind compared with what we do not know and with what is to come! Ethics by its very nature looks towards the future” (Hartmann 2002, 64). Hartmann cherishes the possibility of the philosophical discovery of values as it allows him to regard the idea of ethics as “practical philosophy” and a “transforming power in life.” Although the transformation coming from ethics, he notes, cannot be a rapid reorientation or world-improvement hic et nunc, it has to be placed within the field of tasks. The tasks of human life that are seen a priori rather than in the actual achievement of empirical facts, and provide the normative character of ethics. Again, Hartmann argues against excessive expectations from ethical research: “Philosophical investigation is a modest absorption in the ethical phenomenon, not an eager hunt for actualities and sensations” (Hartmann 2002, 64). The tel I use the word introspection for Hartmann’s expression “turning of the eye of the soul inward.”  To a certain extent, this uncertainty might be the result of Hartmann’s discussions with Max Scheler (see Gadamer ,  – ).

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eological normativity of the “ethics of the future” is contrasted to the weak and doubtful normativity of the “ethics of the present.” Hartmann was criticized by Gadamer for his ambitious plan to connect the realm of absolute values with the changeable human ethos. Tackling this insurmountable challenge, he claims, results in aporias and some confusion (Gadamer 1987, 200). For Hartmann, nonetheless, it is very important to find the aporias in order to see the “metaphysical depth” of the problem. When we discover an insurmountable difficulty, he says, we never know if we cannot solve the problem just at the present stage of investigation, or whether it is beyond the power of human rationality in general.³ One thing is clear: in such cases, we cannot prove anything, but to some extent we can possibly make progress through discussing the knot of contradictions layered within the problem (cf. Hartmann 1962, 137– 138). And with all his criticism, it was Gadamer who acknowledged that Hartmann made the most consistent attempt to grasp the living human ethos with the philosophical cognition of values (Gadamer 1987, 199). Keeping in mind the old Platonic wisdom, “Unity must be seen in advance, seen a priori,” Hartmann is not going to carry his point by just relying on general testimonies or preset aprioristic statements. The new ontology must at least try to investigate the relations between the ideal and the real methodologically. Pure ethics, he claims, seeks for the criterion of the good, which is lacking in the current (“positive”) morality. An ethicist, we may add, seeks for the unity of ethics that would be at the same time the ethics of absolute values and of human ethos. The search for unity brings Hartmann close to the metaphysical barriers to knowledge. Characteristically, a section on “Metaphysical Perspectives” is the closing part of the first volume of his Ethics, just as “The Metaphysic of Morals” is the final volume of the whole study. Hartmann does not prohibit a wide vision of metaphysics throughout his corpus, though at certain points he obliges himself to hold it within strict limits. He makes a start from phenomena. Hartmann resorts to the support of phenomenology in order to prove his main epistemological claims. Along with Scheler, he criticizes the formal approach to values developed by neo-Kantianism. They both believe that values, as ideal entities or “essences” (Wesenheiten), are not empty structures (forms) but possess constitutive contents, and, as such, they exist a priori. The apriority of self-existent values is not simply intellectual or reflective but an emotional, intuitive one (Hartmann 2002, 185). But reaching the so-called “phenomena”

 Hartmann’s concept of rationality does not exclude the intuitive, sensitive component. It is only opposed to what is unknowable. The latter is called “irrational,” and goes to the realm of metaphysical matters (Cf. Tengelyi ,  – ).

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does not suffice in Hartmann’s ontology, since they are only “surfaces” of the things as they really exist (the being actu ens). Hartmann’s ethical investigation is directed to the ideal being of values. Knowledge of values is “genuine” knowledge of Being, which is conceived as “grasping” the objects, in contrast to “possessing” the contents of consciousness (“representations”) phenomenology has still to deal with in its descriptions (Hartmann 1935, 219, 256). In the first instance, Hartmann asserts the independence of Being from knowing, or the self-existence of Being. This appears to him as the natural intention of humankind towards the world, which corresponds to the realistic belief that the world we have as the object of our cognition already exists and continues existing independently of being or not being known. This is a direct, non-reflective intention (intentio recta). The theory of knowledge, psychology and logic, as well as other approaches he calls criticism, logicism, methodologism, and psychologism, transform this direct intention into the reflective one (intentio obliqua) (Hartmann 1935, 50). This is the cognitive reflection on which they totally rely, and from which they cannot find a way back to natural direct intention. Ontology, in Hartmann’s view, keeps the natural, non-reflected ontological stance and shares it with many other humanities and natural sciences. The self-existence of values, their being-in-themselves, should not be associated with unknowability as Kant’s thing-in-itself is. In Hartmann’s view, all that “is” is knowable in itself, it appears to cognition everywhere where the knowing subject is able to make it his object. Speaking phenomenologically, any pattern of being, as it is, announces itself in the knowledge relation (Jordan 1997, 289). “For us” it can be unknowable in part, as far as we do not possess the proper ability to comprehend it, for instance, due to the lack of categories (Hartmann 1982, 34). But values are essences, they exist a priori and can only be known a priori. Since Hartmann retains the epistemological subject-object opposition in the philosophical cognition of values, the main difficulty for his ethical theory is to find the balance between the epistemological objectivity of values and their ontological objectivity. In other words, he has to retain the possibility of the philosophical cognition of values (treating values as the objects of cognition), along with the objective character of their being, the independence of the self-existent values from the knowing subject. Thus, Hartmann articulates the basic ontological aporia as, in fact, a twofold onto-gnoseological one (Hartmann 1935, 242). The question is whether an object of ideal cognition exists in itself, or it is just an immanent, intentional object that is presented (since no kind of apriority can guarantee the existence of the objects beyond consciousness and the verity of their cognition); and whether ideal cognition is cognition in the proper sense of the word (whether it is not

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pure thinking with a strict form and logical correctness, or demonstrable representation, or just a sheer fantasy; this cannot be determined by the fact of realizing an object in consciousness). Is there a philosophical tool to solve the problem? Hartmann fails to find one in the phenomenological methodology he considers the most relevant and advanced in approaching being. Although the phenomenological analysis of the act of cognition may deliver an abundant descriptive material, it has no means to determine whether the described content is subjective or, in general, it complies with the act. This is indirectly confirmed, he notes, by the fact that Husserl introduces the aprioristic statement of the strong correlation between the act and its content, which thereafter can be defined as the firm interrelationship of the noesis and noema (Hartmann 1982, 30 – 31). As Hartmann previously argued in Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie (1935), the solution to the basic ontological aporia can hardly be found in the phenomenological analysis of the act, due to the specifics of human experience. The natural consciousness is exclusively disposed to the real. The givenness of real being is rooted in emotional transcendent acts that are prior to the act of cognition,⁴ and the most naïve consciousness is sure of the reality of the world it works in. The givenness of ideal being is not evident at all and constitutes the main epistemological problem. It refers to a specific kind of cognition, the aprioristic type that only points to possible being and is distinct from the givenness of real being. The aprioristic cognition is always mediated by the a posteriori givenness of the real when it comes to verification. The investigation of values deals with the qualities of real things, situations or persons, and may only rely on the transcendent acts of cognition undertaken by highly developed scientific consciousness. In effect, the problem of the philosophical cognition of values should not be regarded as their unprovability (the aprioristic statement should not be the final argument), nor their incomprehensibility, but rather as the poor level of philosophical scrutiny of ideal being, Hartmann concludes (Hartmann 1935, 242– 244). The onto-gnoseological aporia ever remains a challenge for the cognition of values, as Hartmann puts it in his study, and we cannot actually be sure if human consciousness grasps values or not. This leaves a lot of room for skepticism about aprioristic cognition, but Hartmann would never urge skeptical resignation. It should not be forgotten that the problem, as soon as it was identified as the greatest and unique difficulty of ethics, came along with his interpretation  After Scheler, Hartmann distinguishes between transcendent acts of pure cognition and the prior transcendent emotional acts that fix the involvement of man in life situations, including his passions, deeds, feelings, interests, etc. See more on Hartmann’s “gnoseology of values” in Perov & Perov ,  – .

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of the volitional question of ethics, “What ought we to do?” Besides theory, ethics has a concrete dimension of human acts loosely connected with the scarce and uncertain ethical knowledge we may currently have at our disposal. The problem is posed to everyone without exception: “Each person must somehow solve it for himself, in action if not in thought. He cannot take a step in life without actually settling it in one way or another. It is the highest claim which confronts him” (Hartmann 2002, 34). Thus, Hartmann’s message is that although the “scientific” ethical solution is suspended, the practical solution is immediately required. The significance of the practical question for human life is a kind of warranty and motivation for continuing the investigation.

2 Human being as subject and as person The term “subject” (Subjekt) is used in a number of different ways in Hartmann’s corpus. In ethics, it is the practical (ethical) subject that is of greatest interest. The subject is referred to as a personality. The practical subject is the one who discerns values and who actualizes them in life. This is not simply the direct transmission of the ideal as it is into the real. A human being has to transform the perceived values into his personal goals. As far as Hartmann’s “practical” teleology of values is concerned, the process of personal goal-setting can be explained in terms of determination. The teleological determination of values in ethical reality is “higher and more complex” than the causal nexus in nature, but it is still a type of determination. It consists of two parts, or members. The first member is the determination of the subject by the value. It takes place when the individual first “sees” or “feels” the value. It may be called the primary determination, which leads from the ideal to real Being, since the sensing of value is a real act. It is very close to epistemic beholding, but it is already a relation of conditioning as it is a relation between the principles and the sphere of their dominance, the moral consciousness. The second member is the determination that proceeds from the practical subject to value. It is subsidiary and is, in Hartmann’s language, “the finalistic determination.” It issues from the real subjects and lies totally within the real, within the entire sphere of the ethos. All human acts, inward and outward, carry this nexus (Hartmann 2002, 273 – 274). The human ethos has an actional character; it is not ideal and cannot be transferred into an ideal form. This means for Hartmann that the question of how ideal values become the principle of an actual ethos has something to do with the values themselves. He assumes that moral values do not only subsist in their ideality as essences, but penetrate into the actual sphere. Thus, we

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have them as the principles of the actual, the “positive” Ought-to-Be. The person first transforms the perceived Ought into his own ends, and then actualizes them in his practical conduct. Hartmann puts aside the metaphysical question of how the transition of the pure ideal values to the actual sphere proceeds, but he points out that in the real “the transformation of the ideal into the actual is already presupposed” (Hartmann 2002, 274). The actuality of values is evident, he notes, in such phenomena as conscience or the transcendent acts, the qualities of which are the object of our valuational judgment: “There is a valuational consciousness—the primary discernment—and this is determinant for every moral judgment, every accountability, for the sense of responsibility and for the consciousness of guilt” (Hartmann 2002, 236). The performance of ethos pertains to the moral subject, but this is not the essential characteristic of human being as a personality. Personality is, in the first place, the subject of freedom, and therefore, is the carrier of moral values, the “vehicle” of a good (Hartmann 2002, 266). According to Hartmann, these two “special elements” connected to each other constitute the metaphysical basis of the personal being. Freedom turns out to be the crucial link that permits the finalistic determination in the end. As the “mediating instance” that makes decisions concerning the actualization of values, it is the precondition for the transition of the Ought-to-Be of the object into the Ought-to-Do of the subject. Freedom is the potentia of the human to choose good or evil, hence, it determines both inner acts and the outward actualization of the Ought. In other words, the Ought in this nexus is subordinated to the existential principle, personal freedom (Hartmann 2002, 259 – 260). While neo-Kantianism, especially in Heinrich Rickert, paves the way for the “ontologization” of philosophical criticism⁵ by dividing the world into two separate realms, the realm of values with their absolute validity and the realm of reality with its causality, Hartmann draws a different conclusion from Kant’s critical teaching. There are different kinds of determination in different strata of reality, and it is possible that one of them does not exclude another. This happens in one particular “pattern” of reality, human being (cf. Hartmann 1962, 58 – 59). The human is the point of intersection of these two powers, hence, the point of unstable “ontological equilibrium.” The moral strength of the subject, in Hartmann’s view, is an exclusively ethical revelation of humankind’s greatness, his unique and powerful position in the world, in which he is otherwise physically negligible. But each subject has an individual moral “constitution” and acts in his own way. His own moral

 See, e. g., Šuber ,  – .

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“self-regulation” is entirely inserted into the nexus in question: he may commit to the value task with all his might, but it is always upon him to decide. “Ethics applies itself to the creative power in man” (Hartmann 2007, 31). This statement in the introduction to his three-volume work looks promising. Moreover, Hartmann almost sounds Nietzschean: the fulfillment of the human ethos consists in humankind’s self-creation, self-building, and to carry out this creative mission means to be fully human. In spite of the pathos of humanity’s creativity mentioned in the introduction (the human as the “colleague of the demiurge”), all possible illusions vanish in the first volume of the book. The so-called “creativity” of the human now resembles the ancient mimesis: “What he creates and forms, does not proceed from himself, it is not his product, it is overheard by him in another world, for perception of which he has an organ,” i. e., the above-mentioned organe morale (Hartmann 2002, 260). As a matter of fact, the individual does not create anything originally, authentically human that would have not been already there. Human subjectivity and value objectivity clash, and human creativity, in the sense we commonly use it, has to give way first. Hartmann’s use of the word should not mislead us. Wherever Hartmann calls humankind a creator, he means a mediator who transmits a higher worth to the real world. The human is the carrier of a higher principle, a higher law. Not himself, but this law through him creates in the world, as Hartmann once reformulates it, to his credit (cf. Hartmann 2002, 243). The actualization, not the creativity, would be the right word for the agency of the subject. Hartmann cannot accept the superpower of humanity in regard to the being of values. He also completely disagrees with the young Fichte, who derived the being of things from the creative activities of the Ego (Hartmann 1953, 5). Apparently, the knowing subject is quite impoverished. Already in Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis (1921) Hartmann takes the position that “cognition is not a creation, production, or bringing about of an object” (Hartmann 1965, 1).⁶ Later on, in the Ethics, the knowing subject turns out to be “purely receptive” in his beholding of values, “he surrenders himself to them. He sees himself determined by the object, the self-existent value; but himself, on his side, determines nothing” (Hartmann 2002, 219). The epistemological subject resides in the shadow cast by the light of the ethical subject (“man is primarily practical, only derivatively is he theoretical”). He seems to be involved in the subject-value relation, but he has a secondary role. Hartmann asserts that only the ethical subject is “a being who can will, act, set up ends and pursue them, who can foster

 Translation by A. Kinneging (Kinneging , viii).

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dispositions and feel values, is capable of moral conduct, either of a positive or negative kind” (Hartmann 2002, 214). The subject would be just a “dim mirror of being,” passive and receptive, if his connection with values were limited by knowing. But this is not so, as Hartmann’s argument suggests. As regards the Ought, he claims, consciousness itself appears to be “not a knowing, but an active striving, a willing, a doing” (Hartmann 2002, 259). This is the phenomenon of moral consciousness the practical subject possesses. Can any ontological prerequisites be defined for it? The fundamental ontological phenomenon of reality in Hartmann’s concept can be defined as “the unity of the real way of being in the diversity of its layers” (Perov & Perov 2002, 40). There is a hierarchy of the strata of being, where the non-organic stratum of nature is the lower one. It constitutes the foundation for the next stratum of organic life. Then come, in turn, the levels of psyche and spirit. Each stratum has its own categorical laws of being that are preserved in the upper one, but each upper stratum has its own categorical laws that are irreducible to the laws of the previous one. This ontological gradation is never reversible. The practical subject (personality) and the knowing subject (in this context, simply called “the subject”) can be discerned as different, albeit connected, levels of reality. “Personality exists only on a basis of subjectivity, just as subjectivity exists only on a basis of organic life, and life only on a basis of the whole subordinate uniformity of nature” (Hartmann 2002, 326). In terms of Hartmann’s categories, personality is the higher category, and therefore, weaker and more dependent, while its categorical novelty is autonomous. A knowing subject, by contrast, might conceivably exist in itself even without personality: a purely mirroring, representing entity, without any sensing of values, any dispositions and preferences. “We do not know of such a being, and have no right to assume its existence; but it is conceivable without inner contradiction; philosophically it has often been constructed from the point of view of epistemology, in order, then, to lead a shadow-like existence incapable equally of being confirmed or denied” (Hartmann 2002, 326). Hartmann’s ontological subject is by no means this sort of theoretical subject. As we know him in real life, he is “empirical,” “actual,” he is a real existent among others. In Kant’s distinction between humanity’s “natural” and “rational” character, the ontological subject using natural capacities of his mind would replace the former. The latter would go to the upper stratum, the moral subject who discerns values by means of the value sense. The personality exists at the connecting point of the ontological and axiological “worlds.” The practical subject, Hartmann claims, owes his existence to the existence of pure a priori value essences. The intrinsic criterion of the sense of values accompanies every act of the individual and thus constitutes him as a per-

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sonality. The statement is put straightforwardly: “the personality does not make the values, but the values make the personality” (Hartmann 2002, 200).⁷ According to Hartmann, this is a fundamental, irreversible relation. In knowledge, which is in this context secondary to the praxis of the subject, the direction may be changed, but the epistemic play with representations does not change the state of affairs: moral values are not a human product, they are self-existents. The relation between the ontological (in a narrower sense) and axiological levels, i. e., the form of their unity, is beyond the limits of the human capacity of understanding, Hartmann assumes. This is indeed the metaphysical nexus, the fundamental relationship of interdependence between values and humankind. The intermediate position is the condition of personality: “a personal being is metaphysically possible only at the boundary line between ideal and real determination—that is, at the point of their reciprocal impact, their opposition and their union, only at the connecting point of two worlds, the ontological and the axiological” (Hartmann 2002, 268). Since human beings participate in both “worlds,” they are themselves not merely ontological, but also axiological beings. This means there are valuational contents which are specifically personal; they relate to the individual and his acts. Human being is, therefore, “something more than a subject,” for which Hartmann reserves the term “person” (Person). The individual is a person, for he has the value of his personality. Personality is considered by Hartmann a basic value for all higher values, including the moral ones (Hartmann 2002, 268 – 270). Hartmann’s “person” is different from Scheler’s metaphysical person. It does exceed the bounds of human personality, but not in the same sense. It cannot be ascribed to collectives like the family, tribe, or nation. Hartmann argues against Scheler’s “collective persons,” who are supposed to be the carriers of values higher than individuals. For Hartmann, the collective structures do not possess the moral character of personality, nor are they axiological beings. Human being is the single carrier of moral values and disvalues, the subject of personal freedom, and the value of his own personality is applicable to him alone. As a person, the individual is the carrier of the value of personality proper. This also means for Hartmann that it can be distinguished “by the ethical phenomenon,” i. e., it can be pointed out by ethics, within the bounds of its givenness. “To this extent the metaphysics of personality lies still within the nature of what is de-

 My translation. The original translation by Coit reads “the person does not make the values, but the values make the person.”

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monstrable and nothing in any way speculative has been added to it. It contains a critical minimum of metaphysics” (Hartmann 2002, 317). The second fundamental question of ethics already approached the meaning of human existence from a wider metaphysical perspective: “He is the subject among objects, the recognizer, the knower, the experiencer, the participator: he is the mirror of Being and of the world, and, understood this way, he is the world’s meaning” (Hartmann 2002, 37– 38). The reflection of the world subsists in our consciousness, and we do not know any other consciousness except for this. Thus, human consciousness becomes the world’s consciousness, which is not just a theoretical abstraction comprised of representations, but also an active moral consciousness. For Hartmann, it is obvious that ontological research is balancing on the edge of metaphysics and “unavoidably” includes some metaphysical considerations. Yet, as has been discussed above, he does avoid using this sort of speculation excessively and prematurely. “Man’s issues” are not an exception. Hartmann tries to find an approach to human consciousness at the level of phenomena. Unlike Scheler, who insisted that an individual person can only be subject and never object, Hartmann believes that human subjects can also be objects. Persons live in the world of things and other people. They themselves, as well as their acts, are in fact ontic objects, as well as objects of cognition and moral conduct on the part of other people. The subjective consciousness may also become an object for itself. The specifics of self-knowing, when self-consciousness becomes the object of cognition (Gegenstand), is explained in more detail in “Die Erkenntnis im Lichte der Ontologie” (first published posthumously in 1955). Human consciousness is really a tough object for the subject, as distance between them is still required: cognition takes place when an object is opposed (gegenstehen) to a knowing subject. Hence, in order to know the content of one’s own consciousness, the subject needs another subject: “Consciousness, that is, the subject himself, can very well be made into an object, although not directly, but only by returning reflected in the other, to whom his immediate intention must initially be valid” (Hartmann 1982, 30).⁸ The knowledge we are able to acquire in this way would be doubtful, as well as insufficient, but this does not mean our consciousness is unknowable. Transcendent acts of cognition are one of many types of relations through which we experience the world and our own being-in-it. The context of all pos-

 “Das Bewuẞtsein, ja das Subjekt selbst, kann wohl zum Objekt gemacht werden, aber nicht direct, sondern nur in der Rückkehr von einem andern her, dem seine unmittelbare Intention zuvor gegolten haben muẞ.”

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sible relations is the entire context of the world (Being), is a part of its general relational structure. Humankind exists in the world, and its being belongs to the being of the world. This is another unidirectional thesis, as all ontological statements of Hartmann are. In this case, it is the character of transcendence of our acts that prohibits the opposite relation. The speculative abstractions of correlating the world and I arbitrarily make the world incomplete. Even the statement “I and my world” is false within the ontological context, since the world does not exist as “someone’s world,” nor as the “world for someone.” The particularity meant here can only be explained by the particular individual’s orientation in the world and its boundaries (Hartmann 1935, 220 – 222). Having put cognition within ontology, Hartman goes further. Cognition is not only inserted into individual human existence, but also into “shared historical existence.” At this point, the epistemological problem becomes, for Hartmann, a part of a greater anthropological problem. Cognitive categories, he notes, change in time, and this adjustment of categories (kategoriale Adequätion) is nothing other than an adaptation of the human to the world: “The process of knowing is overall a component of the greater process of spiritual life in history, and this is essentially determined by the progressive orientation of the human in the world. It belongs, therefore, to the universal tendency to adapt, and can only be separated from it by abstraction” (Hartmann 1982, 52).⁹ The adaptation that is peculiar to the human is not confined to the adjustment of organic functions to certain physical conditions; it proceeds at all levels of human being and involves all kinds of knowing and practical acts, both passive and active components of the individual’s subjectivity.¹⁰ Using the Hegelian concept of the “objective spirit,” Hartmann develops his concept of spiritual being (geistiges Sein) as human existence in cultural history. Human being, as a spiritual being, “grows into” the realm of the objective spirit that announces itself as moral consciousness, moral valuation, science, artistic forms, and historical consciousness. Thus, Hartmann reproaches some idealistic interpretations of both human being and culture. At the same time, the tendency

 Quoted in Peterson , .  At organic and psychological levels of being, as Hartmann supposes, knowing does not play a very important role in orientation. The orientation in the world of persons as individual spiritual beings, by contrast, requires the extension of knowing in its aprioristic form. The sphere of spiritual being, according to Hartmann, is not unknowable but understudied. The development of the wide spectrum of humanities (Geisteswissenschaften) dealing with the spheres of the spirit, both personal and shared with other persons (law, morality, arts, literature, morals and lifestyles, religion, language, etc.), is expected to change the situation (cf. Hartmann ,  – ; Hartmann ,  – ).

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to ontologization, as has been mentioned, was increasing in critical idealism. For Rickert’s disciple Sergius Hessen, the affinity appeared to be close enough to take Hartmann’s notion of the “objective spirit” as “the world of culture and history” to be his “applied” philosophy of values. Moreover, he employs the distinction Hartmann makes between the objective, subjective and objectified spirit in Das Problem des geistigen Seins (1933) in his analysis of education.¹¹ Indeed, with his turn from the ideality of values to the problem of the “spirit,” Hartmann finds himself among the proponents of humankind’s “idealistic qualities,”¹² who exert themselves to save the human from the offensive of naturalistic reductionism. But he does not have in mind rescuing philosophical idealism. Together with positivistic science, Hartmann does not accept the existence of a “spirit” that is “floating” without its foundation of corporeal life adjusted to the total structure of the real world. The “true spirit” for him is that which is “supported by the whole hierarchical order of the world” (Hartmann 1953, 34). The ontological structure of human being, in his view, corresponds to the ontological structure of the whole world, which his own whole is a part of. “The nature of man can be adequately understood only as the integrated whole of combining strata and, furthermore, as placed within the totality of the same order of strata which, outside of man, determines the structure of the whole world. Man cannot be understood unless the world in which he lives and of which he is a part is understood […], that one member in the world to which alone its structure is exhibited” (Hartmann 1953, 121– 122). It is crucial that the human is “ordered toward” the world, and not vice versa, for the fundamental ontological relation holds true: “Everything in [human being] is relative to the world and can be understood as an adaptation to general and all-comprehensive situation in which he must survive” (Hartmann 1953, 35). Thus, Hartmann’s “new ontology” entails a “new anthropology” delivered from a deceptive anthropocentric perspective. Nevertheless, the question may be asked, whether within the bounds of our investigation of humankind we are destined to stay with the human as the locus of any possible references we may discover.

 I write more on this case of reception in Danilkina .  J. Fischer’s term (Fischer , ).

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3 Conclusion Apparently, Hartmann did not follow in the footsteps of Kant or Scheler in articulating the anthropological problem. The three questions of philosophy did not immediately merge into one: “What is man?” But the fact that the problem is there from the very beginning is not difficult to see. With the question “What is valuable in life and in the world generally?” Hartmann has to tackle essentially the same problem. It becomes the fundamental question of his version of the material ethics he develops after Max Scheler. Consequently, his project of ontology arrives at a clear anthropological insight. The empirical evidence suggests that there is always a disagreement between the real and the ideal. They do not coincide. But apart from marking the difference, suggesting possible routes of communication between them is of high importance for Hartmann. In the course of his investigation, he finds a number of connections between the ideality of values and the reality of human being. Is there any place for philosophical anthropology among them? We can hardly draw such a conclusion. Even the examination of the complete set of the relations taken to the research lab of humanities would not be able to supply us with an exhaustive knowledge of humanity. There will always be an “irrational remainder” that we are not able to comprehend. Nonetheless, some results can be attained. Hartmann distinguishes between the ontological subject (mostly discussed as the epistemic subject) and the ethical subject (personality). Both of them belong to real being, although to different hierarchically ordered strata within it. Personality is the upper level, which rests upon the lower ontological subject and cannot exist without having it as a foundation. The notion of “person” exceeds the scope of subjectivity. The human is conceived in it as the carrier of specific valuational contents that used to be known to the ancients as virtues. The term “subject” implies that the human is the agent of different transcendent acts. As ideal entities or “essences,” values exist a priori and are indifferent to human acts. Moreover, they create the individual’s personality in the sense that their commandments accompany every step in his life. The individual himself does not create anything new, but actualizes in the real world what already exists in the ideal. The thesis “the values make the personality” is regarded as the irreversible relation within the scope of ethics. The knowing subject may vary the direction of his intention, while approaching being with the reflective mechanism of his cognition. But the epistemic nexus is derivative; it has no effect on the order of being. The knowing subject in this relation is purely receptive; the ideal moral values are not a product of the human mind. Hartmann’s knowing subject is not akin to the transcendental

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subject deprived of its ontological objectivity, which is discussed in some prominent philosophical theories. It is not at all an abstract theoretical one, but can be experienced as a real existent. It is the “natural” ontological foundation for the upper level of subjectivity, the personality. The practical (ethical) subject is able to sense values. He possesses the moral consciousness which, in contrast to knowing, is acting, willing, striving. He is the only carrier of moral values that actualizes them in his moral conduct (ethos), outward and inward, constructive or destructive. Moral values as absolute ends cannot be set or created by the individual, but it is up to him as the practical subject to reveal them by means of the sense of values. At the stage of primary discernment of the values, the determination issues from values to the subject. But only the individual himself can transform the perceived values into his personal ends, his Ought-to-Do. This is the inverse relation of dependence. The freedom of the subject plays the key role here: whether a value will be actualized, i. e., whether the finalistic nexus between values and humankind will work or not, depends only on the person’s free decision. The explication of how values transcend their ideality, according to Hartmann, does not fit within the critical limits of rationality. But there is an array of phenomena (e. g., conscience) which prove that it happens. To what extent Hartmann’s reference to this or that “phenomenon” is legitimate and the argument is persuasive is a separate question. Hartmann sticks to phenomena as long as possible and uses the methodological investment in phenomenology in order to keep a distance from metaphysics. At the same time, he admits that the real advancement in the ontological and axiological investigation is always threatened with crossing the boundaries of rationality, and allows his theory the “metaphysical minimum.” Among such “unavoidable” metaphysical issues, one may find the fundamental connection of interdependence between the ideal and the real, which is defined by Hartmann as the “metaphysical nexus.” This form of unity, he states, lies beyond human understanding.

4 References Danilkina, N.V. (2008): “The new-humanistic ideal of general education according to Hessen-Hartmann”. Voprosy gumanitarnykh nauk 5. No. 38, pp. 51 – 52. Fischer, Joachim (2011): “Nicolai Hartmann: a Crucial Figure in German Philosophical Anthropology – without Belonging to the Paradigm”. In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, pp. 73 – 94. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1987/1971): “Das ontologische Problem des Wertes”. In: Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 4. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, pp. 189 – 200.

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Hartmann, Nicolai (1935): Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1953): New Ways of Ontology. Trans. Kuhn, Reinhard C. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company. Hartmann, Nicolai (1962): Moral Freedom: Volume Three of Ethics. Trans. Coit, Stanton. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Hartmann, Nicolai (1965): Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1982): Die Erkenntnis im Lichte der Ontologie. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag. Hartmann, Nicolai (2007): Moral Phenomena: Volume One of Ethics. New Brunswick/London: Transaction Publishers. Jordan, Robert W. (1997): “Nicolai Hartmann”. In: Embree, Lester, et al. (Eds.): The Encyclopedia of Phenomenology. Dordrecht, London, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 288 – 292. Kinneging, Andreas A.M. (2007): “Introduction”. In: Hartmann, N. Moral Phenomena: Volume One of Ethics. New Brunswick/London: Transaction Publishers, pp. v – xxxvi. Perov, Juri/Perov, Vladimir (2002): “Filosofija tsennostej i tsennostnaja etika [Philosophy of Values and Value Ethics]”. In: Hartmann, N. Etika [Ethics]. Saint-Petersburg: Vladimir Dal’, pp. 5 – 82. Peterson, Keith R. (2012): “Nicolai Hartmann’s philosophy of nature: realist ontology and philosophical anthropology”. Scripta Philosophiæ Naturalis 2, pp. 113 – 149. Šuber, Daniel (2010): “Social Science Between Neo-Kantianism and Philosophy of Life: The Cases of Weber, Simmel, and Mannheim”. In: Feest, Uljana (Ed.): Historical Perspectives on Erklären and Verstehen. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York: Springer, pp. 267 – 290. Tengelyi, László (2014): “Nicolai Hartmanns Umkehrung vom Kants kopernikanischer Tat”. In: Egger, Mario (Ed.): Philosophie nach Kant, Neue Wege zum Verständnis von Kants Transzendental- und Moralphilosophie. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 671 – 688.

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Chapter 13 Nicolai Hartmann and Natural Law 1 Introduction

To my knowledge, Nicolai Hartmann never wrote anything about what he thought of natural law.¹ Neither in the Ethik (1926) nor in Das Problem des geistigen Seins (1933) does the topic turn up, even though the subject-matter of both works is evidently and intimately related to the subject-matter of natural law. Even if Hartmann himself was silent about it, others noticed and mentioned the resemblances between Hartmann’s practical philosophy and natural law. In his book The Natural Law, Heinrich Rommen, for instance, contends that “even in the more recent systems of ethics, as in that of Nicolai Hartmann, we find principles aplenty which contain good old natural law” (Rommen 1998, 121; see also Welzel 1990, 219 ff). Also, the so-called “Natural Law Renaissance” that occurred in Germany immediately after World War II explicitly and emphatically sought inspiration in Hartmann’s practical philosophy. Apparently, he was considered a natural law thinker, or at least close to natural law.² Hartmann himself never uttered a word about it, neither denying the link nor confirming it. One can only conjecture why this is so. Even if he had expressed his views on it, however, the matter would not have been settled. For it is one question how Hartmann saw the relation between his practical philosophy and natural law, it is another question what it actually is. It is the latter question we are concerned with in this chapter. In our view, Hartmann’s ideas do exhibit a considerable resemblance to the natural law tradition. The substantiation of this thesis is the goal of the following reflections. First, however, we must go into the relevance of the thesis. Isn’t natural law an “outdated approach”? Has it not been proved that it rests on a basic logical error, i.e., that of drawing a normative (“ought”) conclusion out of factual (“is”) premises?

 The notion of “natural law” is sometimes used in a broad sense, including such writers as Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, etc. Here, it is employed in a narrower sense, referring only to writers who are in some sense within the “eidetic” tradition, which is alternatively called “idealist,” or “realist,” or “essentialist.” What’s in a name? In any case, it is a tradition going back to Plato and Aristotle.  Maihofer  collects a number of important contributions to this “renaissance.”

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This claim is repeated over and over again.³ On the basis of it, many a scholar feels justified in setting aside with a few words a great intellectual tradition of more than twenty centuries that includes Plato and Aristotle, usually without having thoroughly studied it. This is deplorable. It is hard to believe that anyone could believe that so many great thinkers during the course of all these centuries, Plato and Aristotle included, would commit such a basic logical error. At the heart of every version of natural law, including Hartmann’s, are two convictions. Firstly, the conviction that good and bad are not, or not entirely, subjective, but given entities, which, like every other type of being, have to be discovered, and are not a product of the human imagination. Secondly, the conviction that the human person is somehow called to pursue what is good and to avoid what is bad. This calling is not a necessity; it implies an “ought,” not a “must.” A person can pursue the good, but he can also not do it, and pursue what is bad. His will is in this respect free. A combination of these two convictions results in the following immaculate syllogism: Major: A person ought to pursue the good and avoid what is bad. Minor: A, B, and C are good, X, Y, and Z are bad. Conclusion: A person ought to pursue A, B, and C, and avoid X, Y, and Z.

Hence, to judge that natural law rests on a logical error is clearly a mistake. It cannot be set aside that easily. As is generally known, however, the validity of a syllogism does not warrant the truth of its conclusion. That depends on the truth of the premises. So natural law might yet be “outdated,” namely if these premises have turned out to be mistaken. Inversely, if convincing arguments can be found for the premises, a case is made for the truth of natural law. We therefore need to explore how the tradition of natural law justifies the premises, and what Hartmann’s position is with regard to them. We will begin with the minor, since it puts forward a definition of good and bad that is presumed in the major premise.

 E. g., Zippelius ,  ff. On the Continent it is widely believed that Kant discovered the error. That belief is doubly mistaken. Firstly, it was Hume, not Kant, who was the first to discuss and criticize the “naturalistic fallacy.” Secondly, and more importantly, Kant wasn’t interested in exposing a logical error. His point was that no absolute moral law—“categorical imperative”— can be deduced from knowledge of human nature, but merely a “hypothetical imperative.” I.e., if one aspires to be happy, one should do x, y, and z. That, according to Kant, is not morality. For morality a “categorical imperative” is necessary, he thought. I.e., one should do x, y, and z, period. All natural law thinkers would agree with Kant’s logic. The difference between them is about what morality is.

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2 The minor premise One can only pursue the good and avoid what is bad if one knows what they are. For those who think that good and bad are wholly subjective, it is easy to determine: they are whatever a person or a community thinks they are. For natural law it is different, as for it good and bad are, at least partially, something that “is,” an objective quality, independent of human opinion and judgment. The objective part, according to natural law, is what is morally good and bad, i. e., evil. Contrary to the things that are good and bad in the amoral sense of (not) being useful, profitable, gainful, the morally good and bad are considered to be good and bad in themselves (an sich), and not merely for us (für uns). All natural law thinkers share the conception of morality as something objective. In their ontological and epistemological interpretation of it, however, they differ. There are essentially two different intellectual lineages within the tradition of natural law: one Platonist and the other Aristotelian. This distinction is disregarded by most of those who write on natural law. It is widely believed that natural law is merely or mainly a phenomenon in the history of Aristotelianism, a mistake the roots of which are not hard to fathom. It is obviously due to the dominance gained in natural law by Thomism, which is generally regarded as a type of Aristotelianism.⁴ This has led many scholars to take the part for the whole. And so Platonism was by and large evicted from the history of natural law. As a result, quite a few important philosophers are not recognized as natural law thinkers, even though they evidently belong to that tradition, since they regard morality as something objective. One could think for instance of the Cambridge Platonists, the later Leibniz, Max Scheler, Dietrich von Hildebrand, and Nicolai Hartmann. All Platonists, all natural law thinkers. And none of them is recognized as such. This blind spot might even be the reason why someone like Hartmann did not relate his work to natural law. Perhaps he himself identified it with Thomist Aristotelianism, and was hence unaware of how much he himself stood in the natural law tradition.

 Even that is not entirely correct. There are several Platonic aspects to Thomist natural law thinking, e. g., the fundamental role of the cardinal virtues, and the importance of the notion of “participation.” See O’Rourke ,  – .

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2.1 The ontology of morality Those in the Aristotelian lineage see morality as grounded in human nature, seen as something that needs to be perfected in order to achieve its ultimate good. Morality shapes or “forms” the matter of human nature and thus “actualizes” its perfection. It is hence unbreakably linked to human nature. It is ab ovo immanent in the latter (in re), waiting to be realized. Moreover, without human nature, i. e., where there are no human beings, there can be no morality. Suchlike teleology and anthropocentrism one will search for in vain in Plato and the Platonic lineage of natural law. Just as in the Aristotelian view, morality is regarded as a given. It is not a product of human subjectivity and discretion. But, contrary to the Aristotelians, Platonists do not see morality as something that springs from human nature and that is so intimately tied up with the latter that without human beings there is no morality. They believe that morality is an objective reality, independent of the existence of human beings, whether there are human beings or not. It is thus not immanent in human nature, but transcendent to it (ante rem). The human person nevertheless occupies a morally important place in the cosmos, since he is the only being that can recognize and realize morality, by “participating” (metechein) in it. This fundamental difference between Plato and Aristotle is, of course, widely known, but its ramifications are much less well known and understood. What exactly does it imply when morality is conceived as transcending human nature? As Plato himself suggested, the best way to learn to grasp it is to compare morality to mathematics. Platonically conceived, a moral good (or evil) is comparable to a mathematical constant like π. What does that mean? Ontologically, π is a cosmic constant, independent of the human mind, according to the Platonic view. It is an idea, an eidos. It was part of the structure of the cosmos before humankind came into existence, and before Archimedes succeeded in determining its approximate numerical value. It was there, just as it is there now, objectively, part of the furniture of the cosmos. It is true that there was no one who knew it and could use it for his purposes, but ignorance does not imply non-being. Morality, according to the Platonist, exhibits a comparable ontological nature. Justice, for instance, is a cosmic constant, like π. An eidos. It has a specific meaning, grounded in the cosmos. Like π, justice is part of the unchanging structure of the cosmos, independent of the human mind. Hence, before humankind existed, it was there. What was lacking was an animal capable of knowing and con-

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sciously applying it. Only the human person is capable of doing that, because he alone is able to “participate” in justice and other moral constants.⁵ Aristotle explicitly rejects this view. Whatever may have been his view of mathematics,⁶ morality, he thinks, is not grounded in the cosmos, independent of human nature, but grounded precisely in human nature. Without human beings there is no morality, no justice in the world. There is no practical application of it, of course, as Plato too had argued. But neither is its eidos, since the moral eidê, like justice, are inherent in human nature, as dunamis (potentiality). In this dispute on the ontological nature of morality, Hartmann is unequivocally on Plato’s side. His terminology is somewhat different from Plato’s, but in substance their views are more or less identical.⁷ Hartmann uses the notion of “value,” as well as the notion of “ideal being,” as a distinct sphere of being alongside “real being,” encompassing various types of being that are not material and not spatio-temporal, including the constants of mathematics and “moral values.”⁸ The words are new but the ideas behind them are old: “In ancient times,” Hartmann sets out in his Ethics, it was seen that there is another realm of being than that of existence, than that of “real” things and of consciousness which is not less “real.” Plato named it the realm of the idea, Aristotle that of the eidos [sic], the scholastics called it the realm of essentia. After having been long misunderstood and deprived of its right in modern times through the prevailing subjectivism, this realm has again come into recognition with relative purity in that which phenomenology calls the realm of Wesenheiten. Wesenheit is a translation of essentia. It means the same thing, if we disregard the various metaphysical presuppositions which

 Since π is cosmically effective and “working,” even if no one knows about it, since it is part of the effective structure of the cosmos, the analogy with morality presupposes that, e. g., justice too is effective in the cosmos, even though no one knows about it. Hence, a notion of “cosmic justice” is involved, always active, always “working,” also in the days of, e. g., the dinosaurs. As we will see further down, Hartmann does not believe in cosmic justice. According to him the analogy between morality and mathematics is thus not perfect. Unlike mathematical laws, moral laws are not effective, not “working” without the intervention of human beings. They are part of the make-up of the cosmos, but only as potential part, a possibility. Unlike mathematics, morality does not govern the cosmos absolutely. It can be and often remains unrealized.  Aristotle rejects Plato’s view of mathematics, that is clear, but what he puts in its place is far from clear. See especially his Metaphysics XIII,  – . See also Cleary .  See, however, note .  It cannot be sufficiently emphasized how great the influence of Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen ( – ) was, especially part I, in this respect and many others, on Hartmann and some other philosophers, such as Scheler and Hildebrand. It was this book that broke the spell of what was then called “psychologism,” i. e., the still prevailing “Kantian” habit of reducing everything “ideal,” like mathematics and morality, “moral values” in Hartmann’s idiom, to nothing but emanations of the psyche.

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have attached themselves to the idea of essence. But on its part essentia is a translation, although a very faded one, of the Aristotelian phrase ti ên einai, in which the past tense ên, understood as timeless, points to the sum total of the structural elements that are presupposed—that is, of that which in the concrete thing, act or occurrence constitutes the objective prius and on that account is always contained in it (Hartmann 1962a, 120).

Aristotle believes that the eidos, the essence, can be found only in the individual entity, absorbed in the “real.” Hartmann thinks that that is wrong, since it disregards “free ideality” (Hartmann 1965a, 253). Something like π, or any other mathematical constant or law, is part of being in two ways. First, as absorbed in a concrete thing, act or occurrence, but also, apart from that, in free ideality. This goes for “moral values” too. Hence Hartmann’s conclusion: “[Moral, A.K.] values are ontologically Platonic ideas. They belong to the other realm of being, first discovered by Plato [….] They are that as a result of which everything participating in it, is what it is, namely [morally, A.K.] valuable” (Hartmann 1962a, 121).

2.2 The epistemology of morality One question is what morality is, quite another how one can know it. The two questions are, however, related. If morality is merely a subjective opinion, no knowledge is needed. If it is something objective, one has to discover and learn to understand it. Both the Platonic and the Aristotelian varieties of natural law believe that this is the case, but because their respective ontology of morality is so different, their respective epistemology is quite dissimilar too. As has been said, morality is, Platonically conceived, ontologically comparable to mathematics. As a consequence, the way to acquire knowledge about values is also conceived as comparable. The knowledge of the mathematical constants and laws that the mathematician aspires to cannot be acquired empirically. Sense perception for him is thus not a useful method. His method is purely rational. All he uses is his reasoning capabilities (dianoia) (Plato, Republic 510d-511e). What do these discover? The mathematical eidê: unchanging, absolute truth. That is impressive. In contradistinction, empirical knowledge is always relative and uncertain, as the empirical world is in the grip of a permanent and general process of genesis and destruction. But isn’t such absolute, mathematical knowledge, which turns its back on the real world, irrelevant? No, because empirical reality turns out to be utterly subjected to the eidetic laws of mathematics. In Platonic idiom: it participates in them.⁹  For the Platonist, as for the Aristotelian, knowledge of the eidê is a goal in itself too, of course.

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What goes for the study of mathematics goes for the study of morality too. It has to be discovered. But it cannot be discovered empirically. Empirical investigations only tell us what morality is believed to be, what it is in public opinion. To find the eidê of morality, the only way forward is the way of pure thought. Without an understanding of these eidê, acquired by pure thought, morality cannot be realized, as to realize morality means to participate in the moral eidê. The Aristotelian view is wholly different. Mathematics is no longer the epistemological paradigm. Here the empirical world is the point of departure. The method is that of induction. Out of the flux of moral matter, by way of critical generalization, one must induce what is essential, to the extent possible. As Aristotle has it, reasoning about morality is bound to remain sketchy and imprecise, as in such matters there is nothing fixed.¹⁰ As in ontology, Hartmann is a Platonist in epistemology. Again, we find some terminological innovations, but in substance there is little difference. In Hartmann’s idiom, as we saw, moral values, like mathematical constants and laws, belong to the sphere of “ideal,” i. e., immaterial, non-spatial, non-temporal being. How does one identify and learn to understand such beings? Mathematical constants and laws cannot be grasped empirically, writes Hartmann. Knowledge in this field depends on an “inner gasping” of what is true, turned away from all sense-perception (Hartmann 1965b, 340). In his post-Kantian idiom: one gasps mathematical truths apriori and not aposteriori. Contrary to aposteriori knowledge, apriori knowledge is absolute. It is, in the Platonic phrase, epistêmê tou aei ontos: knowledge of eternal being (Hartmann 1965a, 225 – 226).¹¹ This knowledge appears to apply to a world far removed from the empirical world, real being, in which everything changes permanently. But appearances deceive. Real being wholly conforms to mathematical constants and laws, so that mathematics enables us to understand, compute, and predict all kinds of real, i. e., empirical processes. A wonderful phenomenon that has been the pride of all (exact) sciences since the Pythagoreans, writes Hartmann, and that has led to the remarkable achievements of modern natural science (Hartmann 1965b, 347). The epistemological method used in mathematics is paradigmatic for our approach to all forms of ideal being, including moral values. These too cannot be grasped empirically-aposteriori, but merely by a purely apriorist comprehension (Hartmann 1965b, 474). Whether a moral value is realized in an act, for instance, Hartmann writes, one can only know if one has already grasped the

 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, a – . Compare the famous remarks at b ff.  Obviously, “eternity” here refers to both non-temporality and non-spatiality.

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value, and can use it as a criterion on the basis of which the act is morally judged (Hartmann 1965a, 282). How does one grasp ideal being apriori? It is a matter of intuitive self-evidence, an immediate, unmediated certainty that something is so and so (Hartmann 1965b, 498 – 501; Hartmann 1962a, 116). In the case of values, it is based on a “sense of value” (Wertgefühl) (Hartmann 1962a, 117; 1965a, 283; 1965b, 553 – 559), of which, like mathematical ability, some persons have more than others (Hartmann 1965b, 560; 1962a, 156 – 158). Is this conception of a sense of value still in keeping with Platonism? Or does Hartmann turn in a different direction at this point? To focus on the word “valuesense” (Gefühl˗), and on that basis pit Hartmann’s presumed emotionalism against Plato’s presumed intellectualism, would be a mistake. Both in Hartmann and in Plato we are dealing with what Plato called noêsis: the intuitive grasp of first principles.¹² Hartmann argues that knowledge of values and value judgements are necessarily emotional, since bound up with approval or disapproval, like and dislike, love or hate, esteem and contempt, and so on (Hartmann 1962a, 554). That does not mean that they are only and exclusively emotional, however. Such knowledge and judgments must necessarily also contain a purely intellectual element. On the other hand, even the name of Plato’s first principle evinces that it is more than merely intellectual to him: the Idea of the Good.

3 The major premise Let us now turn to the major premise: a person ought to pursue the good and avoid what is bad. This immediately raises the question, “why?”

3.1 Eudaemonism A certain eudaemonism is characteristic of both the Platonic and Aristotelian tradition of natural law. The clearest expression of its basic tenets one finds in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, where it is said that happiness is the highest good everyone aspires to (Nicomachean Ethics, I. 1– 2). Consequently, the central question of practical philosophy is: “How to be happy?” The Aristotelian answer to this question is unequivocal: by leading a life oriented towards practicing the virtues (Nicomachean Ethics, I. 8). Some extra-moral goods, such as money, power,

 Republic d-e. In Aristotle it is called nous, in Aquinas intellectus.

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health, and beauty are useful, but virtue is by far the most important source of happiness (Nicomachean Ethics, I. 8), understood not as a momentary feeling, but as a successful, happy life in the broadest sense of the word, and that not for the isolated individual, but within the environment of family and community, since humankind by nature can live a successful, happy life only in such an environment (Nicomachean Ethics, I. passim; Politics, I. 2). It must be stressed that these eudaemonist views are not specifically Aristotelian. They are equally basic to Plato and the Platonist tradition in natural law. The Republic, Plato’s magnum opus, is about who is happier: the just, i. e., moral person, or the unjust, i. e., immoral person. Answer: the moral person. He is 729 times as happy, to be precise (Republic, passim; for the number, see 587e)! To what extent are Hartmann’s ideas about happiness comparable to this ancient eudaemonism? “Good” becomes “value” of course, and “the virtues” become “moral values.” But these are mere terminological differences. The meaning is the same. Moral values are higher than extra-moral values. They are even the highest values. And they are independent of human cognizance. Finally, many moral values also turn out to be virtues, just as in Plato and Aristotle.¹³ And what about happiness, as the highest good at which all human activity is aimed? “Striving for happiness, that somehow accompanies all human striving, is a natural tendency. Whatever is striven for is seen as good, and the good as something that makes happy,” writes Hartmann (Hartmann 1962a, 89). Thus far, the agreement is substantial. However, it is clear that in Hartmann’s view moral values are not good because and in so far as they make us happy. Moral values are values in themselves (an sich). They are categorically good, whether or not they are values for us (für uns), i. e., irrespective of whether they do or do not make us happy. One senses the influence of Kant’s categorical imperative here, and behind Kant the influence of the theological tradition for which God’s commands were absolute, and had to be obeyed irrespective of the consequences for one’s happiness. When a person grasps a moral value, he also grasps its “ought-to-be,” because the two are a unity, argues Hartmann. The “ought-to-be” is the mode of being of a moral value, the value the content of the “ought-to-be” (Hartmann 1962a, 178). This grasping of a moral value, and thus of its “ought-to-be,” is in no way related

 Hartmann reserves the notion of “virtue” for the “specific moral values” (Spezielle sittliche Werte) as opposed to the basic moral values (sittlichen Grundwerte) of the good, the noble, fullness, and purity. The former are seen as concrete manifestations of the latter. See Hartmann ,  – .

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to the human striving for happiness. The effects on my happiness are not relevant for the question whether I should realize a moral value. All of this sounds like a clear rejection of eudaemonism. But it is not that simple. Hartmann is not Kant, for whom happiness is simply of no concern in matters of morality.¹⁴ He is more like Hegel, for whom all earlier thought contains grains of truth. Thus we see eudaemonism reappear, but in a somewhat different guise. For although the moral values are not means to happiness, a person’s capacity for happiness depends on his ability to grasp (to feel) values in general and moral values in particular (Hartmann 1962a, 97, emphasis added). Someone who has no value consciousness, who is value blind, does not respond emotionally to anything. He neither approves nor disapproves, neither likes nor dislikes, neither loves nor hates, neither respects nor feels contempt. His soul is flat and empty. “The world must be meaningless and life senseless to one who has no capacity to perceive the sense of life’s relationships, the inexhaustible significance of persons and situations, or correlations and events” (Hartmann 1962a, 8). Hence, he cannot be happy, since happiness “lies in [participating in, A.K.] the fullness of values (Wertfülle) that is always there” (Hartmann 1962a, 97). This goes for moral values in particular, which are the highest, most valuable values. “May we believe,” Hartmann concludes, “that in this sense the person who is most worthy of happiness is also in reality the happiest—because he is the one most capable of happiness? Does it not look as though the proposition that ‘the best person is the happiest’ is still in a high sense true? And is not eudaemonism, then, in the end rehabilitated?” (Hartmann 1962a, 97).

3.2 Threats to morality Who does not know Socrates’ famous remarks in the Protagoras, that “no one willingly goes after evil or what he thinks to be evil; it is not in human nature, apparently, to do so—to wish to go after what one thinks to be evil in preference to the good; and when compelled to choose one of two evils, nobody will choose the greater when he may the lesser” (Protagoras 358c – d). The first sentence of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is synonymous: “Every art and every investigation, and likewise every practical pursuit or undertaking, seems to aim at some good: hence it has been well said that the good is that at which all things aim” (Nicomachean Ethics, I. 1).

 See Kant , especially Part I, in which duty (Pflicht) and inclination (Neigung) are stringently opposed to each other. Duty is morality and inclination is what makes happy.

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A superficial reading of these passages would seem to indicate that human beings have no choice but to pursue the good, and that the major premise is thus superfluous. But that is nonsense, of course, since the point of both Socrates (Plato) and Aristotle is that people often err in what they think is good. The true good is the morally good, i. e., the good referred to in the major premise. What people think is good, however, is something much broader than, and often excluding the morally good, encompassing everything that appears useful, profitable, or gainful to them. If the good is that at which all things aim, and the true good is the morally good, should not all things aim at the morally good? In a certain sense, yes. But in another, that is impossible. In general one should aim, e. g., at justice, at being just. At the same time, however, our concrete thoughts and actions never aim at something as general as that, but at concrete extra-moral goods, e. g., earning a living. The morally good, i. e., justice, weighs in as a constraint on the extra-moral good that is the goal of our thoughts and actions. In view of this, one might rephrase the major premise as follows: in striving for the good in the extra-moral sense, which is the natural tendency of human beings, one ought not to jeopardize the good in the moral sense. In other words, the morally good ought to restrain the human pursuit of the extra-morally good. All too often, however, this ought remains just that. It isn’t abided by and the morally good effectively remains unrealized. Hence, morality is always endangered. The natural law tradition has identified three different human flaws at the bottom of this: moral ignorance, weakness of will, and malevolence.¹⁵ Of moral ignorance there are two kinds. Firstly, ignorance of certain or all moral goods generally; and secondly, ignorance of how to apply a concrete moral good in a specific situation. In this case, one knows the relevant moral goods in general, but is ignorant that it is at stake here and now, or one does not know how to abide by it in the situation at hand.¹⁶ Both types of ignorance make it impossible to realize the morally good, even if one likes nothing better. If in such a case the morally good is realized none the less, it is by mere coincidence, and the action is hence not in the full sense moral. A second threat to morality is posed by weakness of will. In that case, a person knows the morally good, and knows what to do in the concrete situation, but  Clearly and distinctly, as usual, in Thomas Aquinas, De Malo, q. , a.  s.c., quoting Isidorus: Tribus modis peccatum geritur, hoc est ignorantia, infirmitate, industria: “In three ways sin occurs: that is through ignorance, through lack of strength, and on purpose.”  Dietrich von Hildebrand ,  – , calls this Subsumptionsblindheit: subsumption blindness.

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nevertheless does not act accordingly, because his will is too weak to prevail over the desires, i. e., his extra-moral good.¹⁷ The celebrated Pauline and Ovidian dicta non enim quod volo, hoc ago, sed quod odi, illud facio—“for I don’t do what I want, but what I hate, I do”—and video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor—“I see what is better and approve of it, but I do what is worse”—are poetic expressions of it (Letter to the Romans, 7:15 [Vulgate], and Metamorphoses 7.20, respectively). Who refrains from a morally demanding action out of fear, laziness, or some other cause, might “maximize his utility,” but sacrifices a moral good. That is precisely what is called weakness of will. A third and final threat to morality is malevolence or ill will (kakoêtheia, malevolentia). It is purposely, knowingly, and willingly violating the morally good. In it we encounter badness or evil in its perfect, complete form. Moral ignorance is moral obtuseness, and if culpable, moral negligence.¹⁸ One is incapable of grasping the moral ought, or has not given it enough thought. Weakness of will is a lack of inner strength, an infirmity of the soul. Malevolence, on the other hand, is the conscious breach of the moral order. It implies knowledge of what is morally good, both in general and in the specific circumstances, as well as the will power to abide by it, and the use of both to effect the contrary, i. e., the bringing about of what is evil. It is a conscious offense against the moral order. In malevolence one recognizes most clearly the human freedom to bring about the morally good, or not to do so. We are free. We ought to bring about the morally good. We are not predetermined to do so. All three threats to morality are permanent and irredeemable aspects of the human condition. Human nature is something limited, also and in particular in respect to morality. A belief in historical progress of moral awareness, such as one finds in the Enlightenment, is absent from the natural law tradition. That does not mean that moral enlightenment is regarded as unimportant or impos-

 Loci classici are the story of Leontius in Plato’s Republic, e ff, and book VII of the Nicomachean Ethics, the first eleven chapters of which are devoted to weakness of will (akrasia). In the Protagoras, e ff., Socrates maintains that that does not exist. Many have asked themselves how this relates to the views expressed in the Republic, where weakness of will is evidently considered to be a significant fact. See Kahn , Chapter , and the references given there. An interesting suggestion may be found in A.E. Taylor ,  – . He thinks that the Socratic view is found in the Republic in the psychology of the philosopher-kings. “If a man is inspired in all the acts of his life by the vision of the supreme good, he will be equal to all the emergencies of life alike; in having one virtue, he will necessarily have all.” Someone like that is beyond weakness of will. Kahn too comes to this conclusion.  Is moral ignorance a liability? Aristotle’s exposition in book III of the Nicomachean Ethics, b – a, has always remained authoritative. One is liable “if one could or should have known.” See also Thomas Aquinas, De Malo, q., a.c.

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sible. It is considered essential, in the form of a moral education of each and every generation in the traditional, i. e., classical and Christian virtues. What is lacking is the idea that mankind is slowly but inexorably moving in the direction of a higher moral awareness and standing. What is Hartmann’s position vis-à-vis these three threats to morality? By and large, he is in agreement with the natural law tradition. Apart from certain minor points, the main difference is the terminology. There is one lacuna, however. In Hartmann there is not a word on malevolence. Moral ignorance is called value blindness or narrowness of the consciousness of value.¹⁹ Like the tradition, Hartmann argues that it is inescapable. “A human being cannot all at once be ‘gripped’ by countless things. […] A single value can, in fact, very well determine, shape, fulfill a whole life. Indeed, it can become tyrannical in a person, stifle the awareness of other values, and turn someone into a value-fanatic” (Hartmann 1965a, 286). Such a limitation is characteristic of the individual consciousness of value, but also of the consciousness of value of all collectivities. It cuts out of the realm of value a small circle of what is seen, and is blind to the other values (Hartmann 1962a, 49, 158). And this visible section changes in time, both in the individual and in the collectivity. “Hence, it happens that actions, views, arrangements that were considered good only yesterday, can seem objectionable today. Neither reality has changed, nor the values. Only the selection of values that counts as benchmark of the real, has changed” (Hartmann 1962a, 49). Like the natural law tradition, Hartmann does not share the optimism of the Enlightenment. Not all people are equally value blind. As with regard to mathematical understanding, there are inequalities in the degree of moral understanding of individuals and of collectivities. Some are much more keen-sighted than others, who dimly pass by most of what is morally valuable (Hartmann 1962a, 155). Like the natural law tradition, Hartmann thinks the morally valuable is to a large extent to be found in the traditional, classical and Christian virtues. He complements these, however, with certain modern moral values, most importantly personality (Persönlichkeit) and personal love (persönliche Liebe) (Hartmann 1962a, 369 – 544).²⁰ Then there is weakness of will. Hartmann’s analysis of this phenomenon is traditional as well. “The feebleness of the flesh,” he writes, is something that obviously exists (Hartmann 1962a, 213). That is the case when the will, captivated by desires, breaches moral values in the pursuit of something merely subjectively

 Hartmann does not discuss the second type of moral blindness, i. e., subsumption blindness.  Like Aristotle and Hegel before him, Hartmann tends to find in all or most views expressed some truth.

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valuable (Hartmann 1962a, 272). It is the task of the virtue of self-restraint or temperance to oppose the tyranny of the desires (Hartmann 1962a, 435 – 439). A more traditional view is impossible. Finally, there is the threat of malevolence. Hartmann says nothing about it. There is hence a hiatus in his philosophy at this point. He does argue, in a Socratic fashion, that wanting evil and doing something for the sake of evil are impossible, since human volition is always tied to something good in the broadest sense (Hartmann 1962a, 271– 172). It would be a misunderstanding, however, to think that with these remarks malevolence is discarded or even as much as addressed. For malevolence also aims at something good. Just as in the case of weakness of will, malevolence aims for something merely subjectively good, whilst breaching moral values. But in this case the breach is conscious and intended. A malevolent act is phenomenologically a free choice, and hence the responsibility, the guilt is maximal. In view of the importance attached to the problem of free will in Hartmann’s Ethik—a third of the book is devoted to it—a thorough analysis of malevolence would have been fitting.²¹

4 Law, society, politics Until now, we focused on personal ethics. The natural law tradition, however, has a broader focus. The ought of the individual person is not its only interest. As the concept of natural law already makes clear, it is also focused on law. Thus, the natural law tradition is also a social and a political philosophy, since law, society, and politics are intimately connected. Each of them cannot be understood without involving the other two. So the questions arise what, according to the natural law tradition, is the relation of the moral values to law, society, and politics? And what is Hartmann’s view on this issue? Does it resemble the views of the tradition as much as his ideas on personal ethics do? The basic norm is the same in all natural law thinkers. Law, society, and politics should be wholly subject to the morally good, to absolute morality. It is the morally good that should rule law, society, and politics. But what does “to be subject to” and “to rule” mean here? Is it a total government, extended to the smallest detail? Does the rule of natural law include a complete civil and criminal code? A specific constitution? Does it fully prescribe how politicians should act? Is it a blueprint for the good society? Contrary to what some of its critics

 Had Hartmann gone deeper into the themes of good will (Hartmann , ) and consciousness of guilt ( ff.) he would probably have been brought onto the right track.

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have (ignorantly) suggested, none of this is the case. The natural law tradition maintains that the moral principles are spatio-temporally invariant. The conclusions drawn from and application of these principles in concrete opinions, acts, instructions, and laws varies, and ought to vary, given the fact that the circumstances are perpetually in flux. Indeed, under different circumstances, different things are called for, to stay true to the same invariant moral principle. The moral absolutism of natural law thus goes hand in hand with a practice that shows a large degree of relativism is well-understood, i. e., not the absolute relativism of moral skepticism, but a relativism grown from the consciousness that the way that leads to Rome depends upon the place where one happens to be. There are two different ways of concretization of moral principles. Locus classicus is Aquinas’ statement that something can be derived in two ways from natural law: firstly, as conclusions (conclusiones) from principles, and, secondly, as certain applications (determinationes) of general [principles]. The first mode is similar to the way in which demonstrative conclusions are produced from principles in the sciences. By contrast, in the second mode there is a similarity to the way in which general forms are applied to something more specific in the arts—for instance, a craftsman must apply the general form house to this or that specific shape for a house. Thus, some things stem from the general principles of the law of nature in the manner of a conclusion; for instance, One should not kill can be derived as a conclusion from One should not do evil to anyone. On the other hand, some things are derived in the manner of an application; for instance, the law of nature says Let him who does evil be punished, but by what specific punishment an evildoer should be punished, is an application of the law of nature. Both sorts of things are found posited in human law (Aquinas 1970, I.II.q.95.a2c).

Conclusions on the one hand, applications on the other; the first, in concretization, leaving little freedom to the human lawgiver, the second, much. What is the relative weight attached to each? The history of natural law thinking shows a change of heart at this point. If one compares the ideas of the ancient and medieval natural law thinkers to those of the seventeenth century and later,²² one perceives a notable difference. The older thinkers always emphasize the circumstances, as a consequence of which stringent limits are set to the drawing of con-

 The most famous of these are still well known by name, though little read. Think of Grotius, Pufendorf, Thomasius, Wolff, and (not to be forgotten) Hegel. These are only the tip of the iceberg, however. There are hundreds if not thousands of other authors in the modern era who stand in the natural law tradition, but are now entirely forgotten. Who has heard, e. g., of Friedrich Adolf von Trendelenburg, Heinrich Ahrens, and Johann Christoph Hoffbauer? Diethelm Klippels bibliography Naturrecht und die Rechtsphilosophie im . Jahrhundert () lists over  publications between  and  on natural law in German alone.

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clusions from principles. The concrete development of law, society, and politics was mainly seen as an application (determinatio) of natural law principles, which gave substantial leeway to spatio-temporal variation. The more recent thinkers, on the other hand, tend to believe that it is possible to deduce quite concrete rules and institutions from the principles of natural law, in the manner of conclusiones. ²³ What is Hartmann’s position in these matters? He never devoted a separate work to law, society, and politics.²⁴ What he has to say about it, and that is not much, is found in Das Problem des geistigen Seins, especially in the second part of that book, which deals with what Hartmann calls the “objective spirit” (objektive Geist), i. e., “the common life of the spirit, that transcends the individuals, connects them, and carries them” (Hartmann 1962b, 176).²⁵ This common life of the spirit includes customs, language, politics, religion, morals, the sciences, the arts, and the law (Hartmann 1962b, 186). All of these are real beings. They are in space and time, like all real beings. They are not themselves spatio-temporal, however, but rather inseparable from spatio-temporal reality. Thus, these beings are not like ideal beings, such as moral values, which are invariant through time and space. They are, to the contrary, part of the Heraclitean flux in which all real being is caught up. Translating the ideas of natural law concerning the relation between moral principles and concrete opinions, acts, rules, etc., into Hartmann’s language, the question clearly becomes how the real beings belonging to the objective spirit, including politics, morals, law, and religion, are related to the ideal being of the absolute moral values. Where should we place Hartmann in the spectrum of various natural law theories on this topic? Does he side with the “ancients” or with the “moderns”?

 Rommen ,  – . Of course, this modern, “rationalistic” variant was subject to severe and justified criticism by people like Herder and Savigny, which has discredited the whole natural law approach in broad circles. Given the deep differences between the newer and the older approach, this is unjustified, as Rommen points out. It is a typical case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, of which there are several examples in the history of ideas.  This reticence had nothing to do with Nazism. One will find little or nothing on these matters in all of Hartmann’s oeuvre, including the letters. His interests were entirely philosophical in the abstract sense of the word, i. e., oriented towards questions that lie beyond the concrete. When in  a student asked him what he thought of the war and its horrors, it was not only caution that led him to answer: “My sense of value responds to such things in a particular way, of course. But as a problem such a war with its horrors is too specific for me. If you were to ask me if world history as a whole has a purpose, that would be in my field. That is my business. I would say, probably not. But the war? Much too specific” (Harich , ,  – ).  “Objective spirit” is of course a term coined by Hegel.

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It is hard to say, because the issue is hardly treated. One reads very little about the relation between the objective spirit and the moral values. In the Ethik there is almost nothing; in Das Problem des geistigen Seins only a few scattered remarks (Hartmann 1962a, 62– 70). Apparently, this is another hiatus in Hartmann’s philosophy. Nevertheless, it should be possible to derive a rudimentary theory from the remarks that are made. Let us focus on what he has to say about law. Hartmann argues that its essence is not to be found in the letter, in the writing. For “where the letter is no longer alive in people, where their legal consciousness (Rechtsbewuβtsein) and legal sense (Rechtsgefühl) no longer carries it, there it isn′t really positive law anymore. […] A written law (Satzung) is really valid in a human community, only as long as it is carried by a living legal will (Rechtswillen), it is nothing but its expression” (Hartmann 1962b, 275). Valid, really existing law hence is a reflection of legal consciousness, legal sense, legal will. And when these change, and the letter of the law doesn’t change, or doesn’t change quickly enough, alongside of it, the two will more and more run contrary to each other, a situation that will eventually bring about a revolution (Hartmann 1962b, 278). So far, so good. But if one were to ask what exactly legal consciousness, etc., are, there is no answer. Is it perhaps analogous to the consciousness of moral values, which is an always one-sided and partial reflection of the ideal realm of unchanging moral values? In that case, there must be an ideal realm of unchanging law. That hypothesis is clearly falsified, however, by the simple fact that Hartmann nowhere in his discussions of ideal being mentions law. It is more likely that Hartmann would argue that legal consciousness is part of moral consciousness, in which case at least the basic legal values would be part of the realm of unchanging moral values. For law is always essentially directed at what is regarded as just, and justice is according to Hartmann a basic moral value. Moreover, in the footsteps of justice, one generally finds other moral values, such as impartiality, reasonableness, faithfulness, etc. If this interpretation is correct, it would mean that the realm of moral value is not only realized in concrete moralities, but also in concrete legal systems and traditions. In fact, we can probably draw the more general conclusion that moral values are realized in every sphere belonging to the objective spirit. It seems evident that moral values can “work their way into” real being, in all of these spheres. Of course, the realization of moral values in these spheres, certainly also in the law, would be limited and skewed, due to irredeemable human value-blindness. But given that, as Hartmann argues, we ought to realize the moral values, the lesson that can be drawn from all this is that we ought to serve morality as much as possible, not only in our individual lives but in all spheres of the objective spirit, and hence also in society, politics, and the law.

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Can we conclude anything on the basis of this about Hartmann’s position vis-à-vis the issue between the old and the new school of natural law? Yes, we can, if only ex silentio. It is undeniable that the relation between moral principles and the concrete morality inherent in the spheres of the objective spirit is rather loose, to Hartmann’s mind. The distance between them is great. Never can concrete rules or institutions be directly deduced from the moral values. Which is not to say that they are practically irrelevant. On the contrary. Hartmann maintains that all of reality, as far as it is touched by human beings, ought to be infused by moral values. How this is to be done, cannot, however, be taught by straightforwardly and mechanically deducing conclusions from premises. That is not the nature of moral life. Hartmann would probably add, “luckily.” For if that were possible, it would substantially reduce the difficulty of leading a good life, and with it human dignity, which lies precisely in overcoming this difficulty. In sum: Hartmann’s natural law belongs to the old school.

5 God A last question remains: the question of God. In many quarters natural law is perceived as a Christian tradition, or at least a tradition closely related to Christianity, especially to Roman-Catholicism. Hartmann, however, in the last chapter of the Ethik, takes a stand against such a faith in God, even maintaining that it is irreconcilable with morality (Hartmann 1962a, 808 – 821). At this crossroad, Hartmann and natural law appear to go their separate ways. Appearances deceive however, as we said before. In this case too. It is true that many natural law thinkers are Christians, and there is such a thing as Christian natural law, but that does not mean that natural law is an inherently Christian philosophy. The simple fact that not Christianity, but Greek philosophy gave birth to natural law is enough to falsify that idea. But what is more, most Christian natural law thinkers themselves, past and present, emphasize that faith is not the basis of natural law. In doing so, they always refer to the same passage in the Bible, which is considered to be pivotal, i. e., Romans 2:14– 15. “For when gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts.” The “law” here means the law of God. The “gentiles,” i. e., the unbelievers, do not believe in that law. Nevertheless, they often do by nature what the law demands. That proves that the law of God is to some extent at least innate. In other words: all human beings have by nature a degree of understanding of good and evil. Revelation is not necessary for that. It is already there, written

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on the heart. This phrase, “written on the heart,” comes very close to Hartmann’s “sense of moral value” (Wertgefühl). Perhaps they even express the very same idea. Only the words are different.

6 References Aristotle (1934): Nicomachean ethics. Trans. Rackham, H. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Aristotle (1932): Politics. Trans. Rackham, H. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Aristotle (1933 – 1935): Metaphysics. Trans. Tredennick, H./Armstrong, G. Cyril. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Aquinas, Thomas (1970): Summa Theologiae. Trans. Charlesworth, M. J. London: Blackfriars. Aquinas, Thomas (2001): The De malo of Thomas Aquinas: with facing-page translation by Richard Regan. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cleary, John (1995): Aristotle and Mathematics. Leiden: Brill. Harich, Wolfgang (2000): Nicolai Hartmann. Leben, Werk, Wirkung. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Hartmann, Nicolai (1962a): Ethik. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1962b): Das Problem des Geistigen Seins, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1965a): Grundlegung der Ontologie. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1965b): Metaphysik der Erkenntnis. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Hildebrand, D. von (1982): Sittlichkeit und ethische Werterkenntnis. Vallendar-Schönstadt: Patris Verlag. Husserl, Edmund (1968): Logische Untersuchungen. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer. Kahn, Charles (1996): Plato and the Socratic Dialogue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel (1986): Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Leipzig: Philipp Reclam Verlag. Klippels, Diethelm (2012): Naturrecht und die Rechtsphilosophie im 19. Jahrhundert. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Maihofer, Werner (Ed.) (1962): Naturrecht oder Rechtspositivismus? Darmstadt: WBG. Plato (1992): Republic. Trans. Grube, G. M. A./Reeve, C. D. C. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub. Co. Plato (2008): Protagoras. Trans. Denyer, Nicholas. New York: Cambridge University Press. O’Rourke, Fran (2003): “Aquinas and Platonism”. In: Kerr, Fergus (Ed.): Contemplating Aquinas. London: SCM Press. Rommen, Heinrich (1998): The Natural Law. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund. Orig. (1936): Die Ewige Wiederkehr des Naturrechts. Leipzig: Jakob Hegner. Taylor, A.E. (2001): Plato, the man and his works (1926). New York: Dover Books. Welzel, Hans (1990): Naturrecht und Materiale Gerechtigkeit. Vol. 4. Die Erneuerung des Naturrechts und die Rechtstheologie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Zippelius, Reinholt (1994): Rechtsphilosophie. München: Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung.

Katrin Lörch

Chapter 14 Personality, Autonomy, Fairness: On Nicolai Hartmann’s Material Ethics of Value in the Age of Human Enhancement¹ 1 Introduction It is not a new insight that humankind, due to its unique constitution as a being of nature and culture, has always been changing itself and its environment and striving for constant improvement of its abilities and specific qualities. Accordingly, in Das Problem des geistigen Seins, Hartmann stresses that “man is constantly wrestling with himself, constantly in the process of self-formation and self-realization” (Hartmann 1949, 104). For humankind is that being that has to make itself what it is meant to be according to its vocation (Bestimmung), as Hartmann states in “Naturphilosophie und Anthropologie.” As an individual “he has to discipline himself in order to reach the height of his capabilities” (Hartmann 1955a, 242). In addition to self-formation, “it is up to man to create society in such a way that it will become viable and sustainable” (Hartmann 1955a, 242). The classical forms of shaping the self are by far exceeded by rapid biotechnological developments and the resulting increase of options for modifying the human organism. These dimensions of biotechnological availability for the human—which have never been encountered before—pose new challenges to the fields of ethics and anthropology. Already possible or at least anticipated pharmacological, surgical or biotechnological interventions are aimed at the invasive potentiation of both physical and psychical qualities and capabilities (cf. Ach 2009, 107). In so far as these technologies are concerned with barely foreseeable potential, the methods of human enhancement have become a central point of controversy in both professional and social life. The controversy is so farreaching that there is not even a consensus concerning the conceptual definition of “human enhancement.”

 A version of this paper was presented during the nd International Nicolai Hartmann Conference in Trento (August  – , ). At this point I would like to thank Frederic Tremblay for proofreading my paper and for his helpful remarks. I also wish to thank Marcus Düwell for the critical reading and his valuable comments.

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In this paper, I want to address the current relevance of Hartmann’s philosophy—in particular his material ethics of value—for these contemporary questions in bioethics. The phenomenon of human enhancement serves here as a theme by means of which we may scrutinize Hartmann’s material ethics of value and its capacity to serve as an evaluative guideline for considering human self-design through biotechniques. More specifically, the question is raised as to what extent his approach could contribute to answering the question about the moral permissibility of human enhancement. I’m going to proceed in the following way: initially I want to comment on the motivation for reconsidering Hartmann’s approach in the context of bioethics with the help of just this concrete example of use. Without doubt, it is a highly complex subject, which I’m going to approach through some initial conceptual definitions. After this brief introduction to the subject of human enhancement, I shall reconstruct the core concepts of Hartmann’s ethics that seem helpful for the critical evaluation of human enhancement, and for recommendations for action. The following key concepts are very promising in these respects: First, the theory of values and their normativity, along with Hartmann’s significant conception of the bipolarity of morality. Due to their special meaning for the debate over the permissibility of human enhancement, I shall consider the values of autonomy and justice. Secondly, the “strong” concept of free will, which could serve as a sound basis for the valuation of human enhancement. Third, Hartmann’s conception of the person, grounded on the categorial assumptions of his stratified ontology, plus his axiological grasp of personality. Based on Hartmann’s ethics, I will draft a set of criteria for responsible conduct relative to the risks and opportunities of biotechnological self-design for the human being, and thus demonstrate the possibility of linking Hartmann’s theories to current ethical debates.

2 Human enhancement and ethical problems Together with Buchanan, I mean by human enhancement “a deliberate intervention, applying biomedical science, which aims to improve an existing capacity that most or all normal human beings typically have, or to create a new capacity, by acting directly on the body or the brain” (Buchanan 2011, 23). In addition to genetic enhancement and bodily enhancement (for example, doping), at present the prospects of neuro-enhancement are especially directly affecting our selfconception, due to the site and depth of intervention. In this respect, they seem to modify our general opinion of personal integrity in a very particular way, and they evoke uncertainty and an increasing unease. Generally speaking,

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the term “neuro-enhancement” describes measures and methods of a specific improvement of mental (i. e., cognitive) abilities or psychic states in healthy humans. American experts assume hundreds of thousands of people consume unregulated substances for medical treatment, although no precise data are currently available concerning the extent of the measures and user group. According to Nagel and Stephan (2009, 19 – 30), currently five dimensions of application are to be distinguished: 1) increase of physical performance (which means not only doping, but also the general improvement of the physical state); 2) increase in mood brightness; 3) enlargement of cognitive abilities; 4) corrections of moral deficits; and 5) transhuman extensions. Pharmacological interventions, however, are only the beginning of the future possible applications of human enhancement. Additionally, electric and magnetic procedures (like deep brain stimulation and TMS, i. e., transcranial magnetic stimulation), neuro-chips or computer-brain-interfaces begin to play an increasing role. A critical evaluation of all these options of biotechnological self-design is urgently needed due to their social relevance both for individuals and society, but we are confronted with imponderabilities in the field of theory as well as in practice. According to German ethicist Ludwig Siep, one can postulate freedom of conscience and freedom of opinion for the individual, as well as the primacy of private goals in life, with the help of a so-called “minimal ethics” (which is a result of the contemporary separation of ethics and the idea of humankind). Nevertheless, an inevitable skepticism towards values thereby ensues. Because the questions concerning the best way of life and achieving happiness are assigned to the private sphere, the use of “minimal ethics” as a general criterion for handling the new possibilities of enhancement is limited (cf. Siep 1999, 5 – 25). Into the bargain, the recommendations for practical use are based more upon legal, medical and societal considerations than on genuinely ethical ones. Obviously, many of those confronted with the spectrum of human enhancement within their practical or scientific work wish to have a higher-level guideline or directive based on principles or values that is independent of social conventions, legal agreements and empirical data, as Lieb points out (cf. Lieb 2010, 153 ff.). Sure enough, philosophical pessimism concerning values and the possibilities of philosophical value-perception falls short of considering the human self-conception and worldview, and fails to recognize the necessity of orientation vis-à-vis the multitude of challenges in human life (Krijnen 2006, 549). In light of the measures and procedures executed now and to be developed in the future, the phenomenon of human enhancement will have an extreme and profound impact on our self-conception as humans and on what we deem valuable. Consequently, the desire for a value-based orientation and recommendations in a field of conflicting basic values is understandably growing, especially in this

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sensitive context. It is particularly the prospective invasive neuro-enhancement technologies that make it urgently necessary to reconsider the foundations and conditions of personality and the presuppositions for autonomous action. It is, as Christoph Krijnen states, this special relation of the “human as a subject” to values, where the values are “constituents of meaning” used to shape himself and his world, that have received increased attention lately, expressed in a reawakening philosophical interest in value-ethical approaches (cf. Krijnen 2006, 549).

3 Nicolai Hartmann’s theory of values There is a disagreement in the debate over human enhancement (especially in the field of neuro-enhancement) about whether its measures might be considered “value-neutral” or not. Such enhancements might be seen as “general-purpose abilities,” which are, as such, not bound to a special set of values. Alternatively, the idea of “general-purpose enhancement” might be thought to implicitly convey a certain system of norms, as Joachim Boldt and Giovanni Maio claim (2009, 388). In what could such implicit moral concepts consist? Looking closer at those medical substances and psychotropic drugs that might come into question for the purpose of cognitive enhancement (e. g., the so-called nootropics or “smart pills” like modafinil, donepezil or the active groups of methylphenidates and ampakines for boosting brainpower, which sure enough all hold a high risk of abuse and drug addiction (cf. Nagel and Stephan 2009, 23 ff.)), it can be seen that by using these substances modifications are desired that all aim at an ideal of higher performance, efficiency and control. This is where one can critically ask to what extent such ideals can be seen to be expressed in personal goals and value concepts. More concretely: is there a value connected to human self-formation (perhaps by using biotechnologies) that could possibly justify a commandment to self-development and optimization (cf. for a critical take, see Siep 2006, 22). Or, is it possible to formulate a group of values that might be violated by the use of enhancement (cf. Boldt and Maio 2009, 389)? What contribution can Hartmann’s axiology provide to help us respond to these questions? The attractiveness of Hartmann’s ethics can be seen both in the profound analyses of virtues and in the explication of the bipolar order of our moral judgement (cf. Thies 2012, 417), as well as in the efforts to mediate between value objectivism and relativism (cf. Cadwallader 1984, 114 f.). His conception of the multidimensional realm of values, and the bipolarity of morals that orients us with respect to both height and strength of values, provide initial resources. Both concepts reveal Hartmann to be one of those

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thinkers who strives to balance the apparently divergent demands of values, and who searches for a unity of ethics above the multiplicity of morals. In Hartmann’s own words, it would be a “synthesis of the per se antithetical” (Hartmann 1935, 33 f.). It is in this connection that Hartmann introduces the distinction between the “height” and “strength” of a value, where both dimensions are characterized by hierarchical gradations. With this concept, he is oriented toward the significance of value. On the one side, appreciation increases (and significance is augmented), whereas the other side is connected with strong feelings at the bottom of the scale (which entails a decrease of significance). One example might be the negative duty to keep a promise, but it is likely that compliance in this case might gain less recognition than the fulfillment of positive duties, such as assistance to those in need (cf. Thies 2012, 424 f.). Hartmann recommends unifying both of these hierarchical orders in a synthesis so that the lower values are not violated and at the same time the higher can be realized (Hartmann 1935, 608). This idea of a bipolar order of the moral sense can be transferred to the current debate concerning the admissibility of the methods of human enhancement; specifically with regard to the consistency of our basic moral views and attitudes with the underlying idea of humankind. From Hartmann’s perspective, it can be argued that both the “conservative” opponents of enhancement and its “liberal” proponents are mistaken, by appealing to only half of morals from their particular perspectives (Hartmann 1935, 555). The proponents of the conservative view favor a “backward looking” ethics of value strength and abandon the dimension of value height, but they do not realize that “the meaning of humanity” consists in height (Hartmann 1935, 557), in raising the human spirit (Cadwallader 1984, 119). Vice versa, the proponents of liberal views solely pursue the ethics of progress, and therefore ignore the fact that value height without foundational value strength must lead to erosion from within (Cadwallader 1984, 119). Hartmann, who recommends this “idea of a synthesis of both the tendencies of preference,” reminds us that the secret of moral progressivity is that advancement must take place across the whole spectrum, not in fragments. That is, with the tendency towards the heights, the tendency towards the most elemental must always increase at the same time (Hartmann 1935, 557). This could be explained even more precisely with the help of the analyses provided by Hartmann’s theory of value types. This theory is based upon the differentiation of four species of values: elementary values, subject-values, goods-values (which are values of things and situations) and moral values (sittliche Werte), as explained in greater detail by A. Kinneging in his Introduction to the recent edition of Hartmann’s Ethics (2002, Vol. 1). For Hartmann, “values are principles of the ‘ought-to-do’” and they un-

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mistakably carry the character of commandments, of imperatives (Hartmann 1935, 18). Subject-values, goods-values and values of situation form quasi-foundations for actual moral values. They can be grasped as “the subject-adherent value-foundations” (Hartmann 1935, 309 – 335), as anthropological presuppositions of ethics. “The higher moral values are, strictly speaking, exclusively values of person and act. They do not belong to things and relations, but to action, volition, intention, and attitude” (Hartmann 1935, 128). It is important to emphasize here once more that moral values are intrinsically higher than goods-values. The morally good is a fundamental moral value. At this juncture, I refer to the good that is grounded in the intending act, in the intention itself. Hartmann himself remains somewhat unspecific in his analysis concerning the good.² Indeed, the value of the good is not precisely definable, but it can be grasped as an orientation toward the higher value (cf. Hartmann 1935, 345 – 347). In every situation in which a choice has to be made, “good” means not to violate the higher, moral value in favor of the lower, goods-value (Kinneging 2002, 17). What does this imply for our specific case? Let me specify this point by using the basic value of happiness as an example. As Kinneging argues, there is a hidden disvalue in happiness itself that pushes the higher, moral values out of sight. As it seems, the more the amount of happiness increases, the more we sink morally. With regard to an assessment of enhancement, an analogy to mood enhancement seems obvious. This is an already widespread field of application of neuro-enhancement, by using so-called mood lifters, like amphetamine or benzodiazepine, which pose a high risk of addiction as well. Initially, all those substances were aimed at an exclusively therapeutic application. However, the mood-lifting effects can be noticed in healthy subjects as well. With the help of such cosmetic psychopharmacology, the users should feel better than well. The substance fluoxetin (with the trade name Fluctin in Germany or Prozac in the US) has already become a classic. Besides the non-invasive measures of psychopharmacology, invasive interventions in the nervous system (like stimulation of the nervous vagus or deep brain stimulation) receive increasing attention in scientific research. Even though positive affects remain largely uninfluenced by the usage of the psychotropic drugs already mentioned, one can ask what the elimination of negative sensations and emotions, and with them the value of suffering (as guarantor of higher values) means for our moral nature. As Kinneging states, “[p]recisely that which happiness lacks, suffering provides, the deepening and steeling of

 See Eugene Kelly’s illuminating paper on the unity of moral value in Hartmann (Kelly ,  – ).

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man, the sharpening of his perception of value” (2002, 15). Based upon the discussion of the fundamental moral values, and similar to a systematic virtue ethics, a precise and detailed phenomenological analysis of the special moral values might be developed. Among them, a great number can be discovered, such as the values of humility, modesty, (self‐) control, the Aristotelian virtues and, not least, “love of the remote,” all of which come into question as a background for a critical examination of human enhancement. In fact, it is the openness towards the given and all future (scientific) expansion of knowledge (Cadwallader 1984, 116) that provides the possibility for reflecting de novo on Hartmann’s ethics with regard to current bioethical questions. Accordingly, his axiology allows amendments, and can include those values currently playing a specific role in the debate over the challenges of enhancement (for instance, naturalness, diversity and fairness). Furthermore, the new options and techniques peculiar to neuro-enhancement could necessitate revisions of our concepts of autonomy and personality (cf. Quante 2010, 142). Here and there, Hartmann’s comprehensive conception could deliver seminal links, as will be shown below. Hence, the specific value of the human person, as postulated by the material ethics of value, is of great significance for the present context. Due to their applicability to the current debate, Hartmann’s values of autonomy, justice and personality are certainly most important, as I outline in what follows.

4 Freedom of will as a value: no ethics without autonomy Autonomy is an immensely relevant concept to current bioethical debates. Remarkably, the theoretical foundation of the bioethical arguments is mostly not the Kantian approach of postulating a reason-driven obligation to moral self-legislation; rather, it is based on John Stuart Mill’s liberalistic concept, which assumes one’s own way of living to be independent and thus interdicts thirdparty interference (cf. Talbot 2009, 168 f.). The line of argument regarding human self-design by enhancement is thus predetermined, given that with reference to autonomy, a subject should fulfill their own personal (and thus self-responsible) desire for improvement. A popular criticism of the Kantian conception of autonomy concerns its strong orientation to principle, i. e., Kant’s emphasis on a “principle-based” autonomy, in opposition to “individual autonomy” (cf. O’Neill 2002, 83). Hartmann’s far-reaching conception of the freedom of will foregrounds its individual, subject-oriented component. By stressing the value of freedom of will, a “dignity specific to the ‘personal’ being” that enables it to oppose the principles it would be determined by, Hartmann stresses the particular potential-

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ity of decision, namely the “self-determination of the person in the aim of their ethically intentional acts” (Hartmann 1935, 628). Going beyond Kant, Hartmann claims that the “ought-to-do” can “never thoroughly determine the will, […] [but can] remain tendency only” (Tengelyi 2012, 287). Thus, personal freedom in the face of value demands can be characterized as “freedom of the pro and contra” (Hartmann 1935, 626). The moral subject encompassed by the respective situation is characterized by the will’s selfdetermination with respect to a conflict of oughts (Sollenskonflikt), a “conflict of value and value” (Hartmann 1935, 688 f.). This self-determination proves to be a genuine, value-based “freedom of choice” (Hartmann 1935, 710), the opportunity to actively advocate one of these conflicting demands within the situation. In his own conception of autonomy, Hartmann seizes on Kantian self-legislation and expands it by acknowledging the way the personal subject is confronted by a conflict of oughts in a concrete situation. The subject’s self-determination should not be construed as pure self-realization, but as a value-based and thus moral one, and with that he offers a serious alternative for present conceptions of autonomy within bioethics.

5 The value of justice as a conception of fairness Issues of justice and fairness are very significant to the human enhancement debate. They are especially volatile where neuro-enhancement is concerned, since it implies “the modification of important key competences” (Talbot and Wolf 2006, 265), and since an egalitarian approach would be most significant for human individual development as well as the development of society as a whole. Critics of (radical) enhancement fear that neuro-enhancement options will not be equally accessible to all citizens, a state of affairs that would, at best, subvert the right to equal opportunity and, at worst, lead to a “drastic form of two-tier society” (Gesang 2009, 225). This scenario seems very threatening in that it contradicts “our notions of the society we want to live in as well as our (Western) self-image because both contain social justice and equal opportunities, up to a certain degree” (Gesang 2009, 225 f.). Admittedly, considerations of just accessibility do not answer the question of the moral permissibility of enhancement per se, but instead deal with it in terms of “how accessibility of these means should be organized” (Gesang 2009, 266). If, however, we assume (like Hartmann) that equal opportunities and (social) justice are both foundational values, and that justice (sensu legality as a minimum of moral aspiration) creates latitude for the higher values in reality, then the result of those considerations indeed affects the question of the permissibility of enhancement. If

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equal access were not achievable, but more cases of social and intellectual injustice arose instead, then the question of permissibility could only be answered in the negative. A look at the potentiation and optimization of individual achievements shows that, beyond the issues of equal accessibility, issues of fairness in competition also need to be discussed. The basic term “justice” (to be conceived as intersubjective) is among the most controversial within practical philosophy. According to Mazouz, for example, one broad agreement holds that justice must be understood as that which we owe each other (cf. Mazouz 2006, 371), and rendering it is strictly reciprocal. But that conception of justice excludes all living creatures who do not meet the requirement of counting as moral agents. This makes it difficult to express justice demands towards future generations. In evaluating enhancement, attempts to foresee long-term effects with respect to future generations are also relevant, especially when enhancement calls for serious invasive procedures on the human organism (as with “transhumanist” deliberations). Initially, Hartmann interprets justice in terms of right and equality. Within his axiology, he distinguishes justice as a circumstantial value of the situation, a good for the human being, as opposed to justice as a value of the act, a moral value of the subject as personal being (cf. Hartmann 1935, 382). Wherever justice merely poses a minimal moral demand, namely the interdiction against doing wrong, its worth must be seen as the most fundamental and basic value among the virtues. Where justice remains in the sphere of the basic goods (life, property, family), “it is only a valued means for those goods-values.” If these goods-values make “something morally positive, namely the subject’s sphere of freedom” possible (Hartmann 1935, 383), then Hartmann takes them to be of higher value as they affect social coexistence and fair conduct among humans (cf. Hartmann 1935, 386 – 388). The justice guaranteed by law and legislation “with its objective order and equality [as] a protective authority” (Hartmann 1935, 384) is both a “requirement to all further realization of values,” and creates the foundation for “all higher cognitive, all actual cultural values [that can only] bloom where body, life, property, personal freedom of action, etc., are safeguarded” (Hartmann 1935, 384). In line with Hartmann’s view, measures should not be approved if they run contrary to justice as a founding goodsvalue (of the situation) or, in addition, run counter to the formation of a higher moral ethos. With respect to the difficulty that bolstering justice demands attending to the needs of future generations, we must consider Hartmann’s postulated value of the “love of the remote” in its relation to justice. Hartmann designates this value as the “responsibility towards generations to come” (Hartmann 1935, 444 f.). It seems to me that justice as a kind of preliminary value also forms the foundation of the love of the remote, and does not per se conflict with it.

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Roberto Poli has argued that subjects are future-oriented entities whose personhood is co-constituted by the property of accepting responsibility for the future (cf. Poli 2008, 601). If this is the case, then it follows that the biotechnological options for optimizing present and future generations can only be permitted within a narrow scope of our personal self-conception. Alterations so severe that they rob the beneficiary of their self-conception as a person would render the entire concept of the person absurd. Furthermore, to what extent Hartmann’s ethics is compatible with the notion of trans-generational justice in the sense of sustainability (that is, distributional justice between individuals and generations as well as the further development of the “Social State Principle”) needs to be reconsidered. The related idea of progress may very well outweigh the value of trans-generational justice. Admittedly, Hartmann himself speaks of the inequality of present and future generations and thus, of the “viability of the potential of humanity” (Hartmann 1935, 448 f.).

6 The theory of the person as a foundation for ethics As mentioned above, enhancement technologies (especially neuro-enhancement) cause insecurity in that they subvert our “ethical self-conception specific to our species” (Habermas 2001, 76). They may disrupt our identity as human subjects and our personal integrity in a quite singular fashion: “Points of applying modifying procedures” are no longer merely restricted to “external nature or [the] human body,” but also lie within the “human psyche and mind” and thus make the subject’s essence itself the object of self-design. Unlike the recourse to the intrinsic value of human nature, the notion of the “person” seems to function like a bridge between anthropology and ethics, and thus makes plausible a normative charging of human nature (cf. Bohlken 2009, 433). For this reason, it is a particularly fitting point of reference for assessing enhancement. Besides his detailed elaboration of a theory of values, it is mostly Hartmann’s comprehensive theory of the (human) person that makes a reconsideration of his work rewarding, especially in the light of its possible utilization for bioethics. In the framework of a new critical ontology, Hartmann sketches it as an alternative to strictly naturalistic as well as idealistic and teleological approaches (cf. Hartmann 1955a, 216). By means of the “categorial laws” (cf. Hartmann 1926, 201– 266), he elucidates the cross-dependencies between the categorial strata in his stratified model (cf. Wunsch 2012, 156 f.³). Crucially, for the

 See Wunsch ,  – .

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context at hand, the following basic law reads: “The higher categories always presuppose a number of lower categories, but they are not presupposed by the latter” (Hartmann 1926, 248). He also explains that the higher category “is, at any event, the more conditional, the more dependent and, in this sense, the weaker one” (Hartmann 1926, 248). This assumption of the asymmetrical presupposition of the lower categories by the higher ones allows diverse readings. According to Matthias Wunsch, a strong interpretation could “have it that vital categories are arranged with a view towards the cognitive categories, or that the nature of the cognitive categories mostly depends on the nature of the vital categories” (Wunsch 2012, 158). The stratified conception of ontological categories bears directly on the conception of the human being. Hartmann himself emphasizes that “the specifically human cannot simply be reduced to pure categories of the organic, mental and spiritual, but [is conceivable] only in the particular forms of their intertwining” (Hartmann 1955a, 220). Hartmann provides a twofold definition of this intertwining, as a “synthesis of nature and man:” first, it designates a basic anthropological relationship between man and nature; second, it designates the “most crucial relationship between layers of the interior and the exterior world in the multilayered human being” (Hartmann 1955a, 220). It is this twofold confinement to nature that endangers the human being from out of himself. While the human is without doubt a cognitive being, he is not only that: “There is a characteristic interdependency between corporeal and spiritual life” (Hartmann 1949, 105). With reference to Klages, Hartmann notes that exclusive interest in self-fulfillment and cognitive progress without regard to the corporeal leads to “depletion of life and self-destruction” (Hartmann 1949, 105). Based on what we’ve seen, I believe Hartmann’s ontology of the person as a stratified being would be numbered among the critical stances towards enhancement technologies, specifically those stances concerned with the corporeality of the human subject. Hartmann, who developed this “anthropological” sketch of the person against an ontological backdrop, uses it to explicitly invoke Gehlen’s concept of the “deficient being” (Mängelwesen) (Gehlen 2013) in his later writings, for example in philosophy of nature and anthropology (cf. Hartmann 1955a, 221). He construes the “deficient” being in a positive way, in that the human, as a mental and spiritual being, rises above its organically based nature and is bound to meaningfully design its world. By virtue of its spiritual capabilities, the person may eventually enter into the domain of morality. That is also why, however, this anthropological sketch of the person does not suffice for Hartmann’s ethics. The fundamental categorial determinations of purposive activity, freedom, and perception of values (construed as novelties beyond the four layers of the human being), establish the community-embedded

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human person as a moral and responsible being (cf. Hartmann 1958, 336). As such, a human is “not a merely ontological being anymore, but also an axiological one, as far as it is, in its conduct, a carrier of moral values and disvalues” (Hartmann 1935, 206). The unity and entirety of the human being manifests itself only in the concept of the person, and is expressed in its realization of values, because only value or ethos of the personality as the highest expression of personhood captures its individual, ethical existence. Its basis is constituted when perception of value and action fall together in meeting the moral demands of values upon it (cf. Hartmann 1955b, 311– 318).

7 Conclusion Current technologies of human enhancement doubtlessly provide a projection surface for anything that we—as social beings who can act individually and autonomously—deem valuable, and thus worthy of preservation or desire. Hartmann’s theory of values and their normativity basically proves compatible with current issues. It stands out by its precise phenomenological analyses of individual values, and it at the same time remains open for additions of current concepts of value from both applied ethics and our own axiological considerations. Consequently, Hartmann’s meaningful concept of the bipolarity of morals can emphatically reveal the one-sidedness of both strictly bioconservative and strictly bioliberal perspectives. Criteria for the societal parameters of enhancement can be distilled from the hierarchy of moral values. The far-reaching concept of the freedom of will provides a robust foundation for assessing enhancement technologies, especially considering the contemporary debate on free will and subject autonomy, and, in addition, the resulting explosion in biotechnological development and options of human self-design. The strength of Hartmann’s approach is seen in its orientation towards individual autonomy, which delineates it from the Kantian approach. Hartmann picks up Kantian self-legislation but expands it through personalization. In this respect, it accommodates the common usage of the term “autonomy” in current bioethical debates, although this discussion may not focus on the exclusive orientation towards personal preferences. As a case in point, Hartmann’s concept of the autonomous person is still obligated to morality. Hartmann’s holistic concept of the human person and personality is based on his anthropological conception of the person, the categorial assumptions of stratified ontology, and culminates in the axiology of material value ethics. Autonomy, as a prerequisite of personal being, as well as the variety of further values of personality, add up to guarantee the entirety of the human person and enable the de-

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velopment and the maturity of personality. As Hartmann would have it, the personality of the human being in its value-based entirety must be seen as beyond human influence, or even as sacrosanct. New bio- and medicinal technologies tend to propagate the image of the subject as an arbitrary “designer of its self” (cf. Maio 2008, 222– 225), which is a too one-sided image. Yet Hartmann’s conception of the human person offers a great response to it. It can help to argue against the conformism of taking the individual-oriented ethical stance. His axiology can offer orientation in protecting the person in its corporeal and spiritual constitution. In consequence, optimizing measures causing personality changes should be rejected, due to the danger of a one-sided realization of values.

8 References Ach, Johann S. (2009): “Enhancement”. In: Bohlken, Eike/Thies, Christian (Eds.): Handbuch Anthropologie. Der Mensch zwischen Natur, Kultur und Technik. Stuttgart: Metzler, pp. 107 – 114. Bohlken, Eike (2009): “Von der natürlichen zur künstlichen Künstlichkeit? Überlegungen zur ethischen Bewertung neurotechnologischen Enhancements aus anthropologischer Perspektive”. In: Müller, Oliver/Clausen, Jens/Maio, Giovanni (Eds.): Das technisierte Gehirn. Neurotechnologien als Herausforderung für Ethik und Anthropologie. Paderborn: Mentis, pp. 421 – 437. Boldt, Joachim/Maio, Giovanni (2009): “Neuroenhancement. Vom technischen Missverständnis geistiger Leistungsfähigkeit”. In: Müller, Oliver/Clausen, Jens/Maio, Giovanni (Eds.): Das technisierte Gehirn. Neurotechnologien als Herausforderung für Ethik und Anthropologie. Paderborn: Mentis, pp. 383 – 397. Buchanan, Allen (2011): Beyond Humanity? The Ethics of Biomedical Enhancement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cadwallader, Eva (1984): “The Continuing Relevance of Nicolai Hartmann’s Theory of Value”. In: The Journal of Value Inquiry 18. No. 2, pp. 113 – 121. Gehlen, Arnold (2013): Der Mensch. Seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt. Wiesbaden: Aula. Gesang, Bernward (2009): “Moderates und radikales Enhancement – die sozialen Folgen”. In: Schöne-Seifert, Bettina et al. (Eds.): Neuro-Enhancement – Ethik vor neuen Herausforderungen. Paderborn: Mentis, pp. 221 – 246. Habermas, Jürgen (2001): Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur. Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalen Eugenik? Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Hartmann, Nicolai (1926): “Kategoriale Gesetze. Ein Kapitel zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Kategorienlehre”. In: Philosophischer Anzeiger 1. No. 2, pp. 201 – 266. Hartmann, Nicolai (1935): Ethik. Berlin/Leipzig: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1949): Das Problem des geistigen Seins. Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der Geschichtsphilosophie und der Geisteswissenschaften. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1955a): “Naturphilosophie und Anthropologie”. In: Hartmann, Frida (Ed.): Kleinere Schriften, Bd. 1. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 214 – 244.

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Kelly, Eugene (2011): “Hartmann on the Unity of Moral Value”. In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 177 – 193. Kinneging, Andreas A. (2002): “Introduction”. In: Hartmann, N. Moral Phenomena. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, pp. v – xxxvi. Krijnen, Christian (2006): “Wert”. In: Düwell, Marcus/Hübenthal, Christoph/Werner, Micha H. (Eds.): Handbuch Ethik. 2. Aufl. Stuttgart, Weimar: Metzler, pp. 548 – 553. Lieb, Klaus (2010): Hirndoping: Warum wir nicht alles schlucken sollten. Mannheim: Artemis und Winkler. Maio, Giovanni (2008): “Medizin und Menschenbild. Eine Kritik anthropologischer Leitbilder der modernen Medizin”. In: Maio, Giovanni/Clausen, Jens/Müller, Oliver (Eds.): Mensch ohne Maß? Reichweite und Grenzen anthropologischer Argumente in der biomedizinischen Ethik. Freiburg: Alber, pp. 215 – 229. Mazouz, Nadia (2006): “Gerechtigkeit”. In: Düwell, Marcus/Hübenthal, Christoph/Werner, Micha H. (Eds.): Handbuch Ethik. 2. Aufl. Stuttgart, Weimar: Metzler, pp. 371 – 376. Nagel, Saskia K./Stephan, Achim (2009): “Was bedeutet Neuro-Enhancement? Potentiale, Konsequenzen, ethische Dimensionen”. In: Schöne-Seifert, Bettina et al. (Eds.): Neuro-Enhancement – Ethik vor neuen Herausforderungen. Paderborn: Mentis, pp. 19 – 48. O’Neill, Onora (2002): Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Poli, Roberto (2008): “Person and Value”. In: Pensamiento 64. No. 242, pp. 591 – 602. Quante, Michael (2010): Menschenwürde und personale Autonomie. Demokratische Werte im Kontext der Lebenswissenschaften. Hamburg: Meiner. Siep, Ludwig (1999): Ethik und Menschenbild. Münster: Rhema. Siep, Ludwig (2006): “Die biotechnische Neuerfindung des Menschen”. In: Ach, Johann S./Pollmann, Arnd (Eds.): No body is perfect. Baumaßnahmen am menschlichen Körper. Bioethische und ästhetische Aufrisse. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 21 – 42. Talbot, Davinia (2009): “Tiefenhirnstimulation und Autonomie”. In: Müller, Oliver/Clausen, Jens/Maio, Giovanni (Eds.): Das technisierte Gehirn. Neurotechnologien als Herausforderung für Ethik und Anthropologie. Paderborn: Mentis, pp. 165 – 186. Talbot, Davinia/Wolf, Julia (2006): “Dem Gehirn auf die Sprünge helfen. Eine ethische Betrachtung zur Steigerung kognitiver und emotionaler Fähigkeiten durch Neuro-Enhancement”. In: Ach, Johann S./Pollmann, Arnd (Eds.): No body is perfect. Baumaßnahmen am menschlichen Körper. Bioethische und ästhetische Aufrisse. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 253 – 278. Tengelyi, László (2012): “Nicolai Hartmanns Metaphysik der Freiheit”. In: Hartung, Gerald/Wunsch, Matthias/Strube, Claudius (Eds.): Von der Systemphilosophie zur systematischen Philosophie – Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 277 – 295. Thies, Christian (2012): “Was bleibt von Hartmanns Ethik?”. In: Hartung, Gerald/Wunsch, Matthias/Strube, Claudius (Eds.): Von der Systemphilosophie zur systematischen Philosophie – Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 415 – 433. Wunsch, Matthias (2012): “Kategoriale Gesetze. Zur systematischen Bedeutung Nicolai Hartmanns für die moderne philosophische Anthropologie und die gegenwärtige Philosophie der Person”. In: Hartung, Gerald/Wunsch, Matthias/Strube, Claudius (Eds.):

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Von der Systemphilosophie zur systematischen Philosophie – Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 153 – 169. Wunsch, Matthias (2013): “Stufenontologien der menschlichen Person”. In: Römer, Inga/Wunsch, Matthias (Eds.): Person: Anthropologische, phänomenologische und analytische Perspektiven. Paderborn: Mentis, pp. 237 – 256.

Jordi Claramonte

Chapter 15 Modal Aesthetics I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds. Wallace Stevens¹

1 “My father, methinks I see my father ….” Like Hamlet, I too think I see my father. But in my case, I remember him not covered in armor from head to toe, which would be very strange for a twentieth century man, but in his work clothes, absorbed in his tasks in the garden. When I recall him, I especially remember a little voice coming from his shirt pocket. My father always carried an old transistor radio with him, and he used to listen day and night to one station. Always the same station. In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing him change the station, and even today I’m tempted to think that such a possibility would never even have crossed his mind. My father had surely forgotten that the radio even had a dial for adjusting the frequency, allowing him to listen to first one station and then another, and perhaps even another. Such an operation might seem simple, but if we consider the ethos of the greater part of western thought over the past several centuries, the image of my father’s transistor radio forever stuck on a single frequency perhaps makes it seem less surprising. This is perhaps why Alfred North Whitehead affirmed that all of western philosophy was but a series of footnotes to Plato.² Maybe Whitehead was exaggerating a bit, and some philosophical systems have indeed managed to sufficiently distinguish themselves from Platonic idealism to erect radically different schemes (I’m thinking of Epicurus, Spinoza and Marx). But even if this were so, the resulting image wouldn’t be that of my father  From his poem “Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird” (Stevens ).  Alfred North Whitehead, as we know, held that forms of thinking in Plato are far more fluid than in Aristotle, whose integration of Logic and Ontology backfired in the form of Substantialism, which was derived acritically from his notion of the basic form of the predicate. See Whitehead , .

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finally changing stations, but rather that of a noisy neighbor tuned in to some other frequency and who never changed it either. Eventually my father would turn up the volume of his radio so as not to hear the neighbor’s, and the neighbor would do the same with his radio. But is that the point? I owe the inspiration for this essay partly to my father—consider it a tribute— with the aim of beginning to free the frequency dial, to prove that it exists and that it can offer us quite distinct ways of listening and thinking, so that our ontology, our epistemology and our axiology might be variably tuned, might be adjusted to different, changing “modes.”³ Modal thinking has to start from this very basic consideration. From here on, when we speak of modal thinking, we mean the crucial discovery that the radio can, in effect, change frequency; that the act of listening can be modulated and entwined at different moments, as if they were so many other stations, or other modes of being. But this would be just a first, timid step, since it is crucial to understand that the key lies not so much in operating under this or that mode, but in our capacity to build a well-measured web of intermodal laws and relations, ascertaining how they combine with and compensate one another, and how, when passing form one to another, we generate and explain changes. Of course, when we speak of modes, we mean the entire modal panoply, already present in the pre-Socratics and above all in the always neglected Megarian school: necessity, possibility and actuality as “positive modes;” and naturally their negative counterparts, contingency, impossibility and inactuality (Hartmann 2013). With the recuperation of the old modes for ontology, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics, the point is not just to offer another distinction, a further refinement of our vocabulary or philosophical erudition. Something much more radical, and more ambitious, is at stake; and it’s important to make this clear at the outset so that we are able judge whether or not we have been successful. With the reintroduction of modal thinking we aim to explore an ontology and a reasoning of a different order, as if we were passing from a flat, two-dimensional world to a four-dimensional one, from plane geometry to a historically deployed topology.⁴ Thus, philosophical problems or objects of reflection— such as the work of art or aesthetic experience—can be considered in the light of their simultaneous (and not exclusive) positions with regard to the various positive and negative modes, and above all as a specific distribution of intermo-

 Seinsmodi (modes of being) was what Nicolai Hartmann called them. See Hartmann .  Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a satirical and mathematical novella written in  by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott (Abbott ).

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dal relations, which in the future we shall call “dynamic complexes” (Hartmann 1950) or “modes of relation.” It’s not enough, of course, to simply proclaim this renewal, this veritable categorical revolution. We need to provide specific tools that will allow us to think and organize these intermodal relations, tools that will allow us to see them. To that end, we shall have recourse to an arsenal of graphic resources from the fields of mathematics, population ecology and classical philosophy.

2 These are hard times, and in hard times perhaps we need to justify why we should devote ourselves to such abstruse issues instead of something more obviously useful. But I hope to show that modal questions are at the very core of most of our epistemological, ethical and, of course, aesthetic dilemmas. And that if we don’t clarify these issues, we can hardly progress in other areas. While it’s true that the question of modes was already reaching its historical maturity in the lifetime of Nicolai Hartmann, that is, in the 1930’s, it’s only now that modernity has come full circle that we can finally address the problem of modality in all its radical relevance. In fact, I believe that it is, as our classics would have it, the pressing problem of our time. Epistemologically one could see it coming. Both Husserl and Bergson tried to limit the excesses of psychologism and the long-standing hegemony of the neoKantians. Kant himself initiated a reaction, as lucid as it was necessary, against the fluctuation marked by eighteenth century mechanistic theories and their epistemological naiveté. But once compensated for, we could not just remain indefinitely in the “opposite” fluctuation (and this was not always well understood by Kant’s followers), in a relativism that postulated as many worlds as there were percipient subjects, or even as many worlds as successive states of consciousness that appeared to be the case. If, as Shakespeare knew well, all passions die of their own “too much,” both the utterly predictable mechanistic world and the perceptually fragmented one of the neo-Kantians had reached their limits by the end of the nineteenth century. Hence, it became necessary to retrace part of the path taken by the neo-Kantians, to return to the things themselves and attempt to rescue the old notion, present in Spinoza as well as Kant, of common notions. In fact, the first decades of the twentieth century are replete with attempts to apprehend this return to common ideas: Jung’s theory of archetypes, Propp’s and Perry’s narrative structures, Wittgenstein’s language games, etc. All these developments led us toward structures of a rational nature; structures that were more than subjective and less than ob-

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jective and that in some measure appeared to be attempts to break the blockade between the world characterized by Jean Wahl as an automaton and a universe governed by divine will, or by the manifestation of divine will in every percipient subject. But once again what we find in these attempts—from Warburg to Wittgenstein—is that something more than mere intermediate structures, more than relational thinking, are needed. Such relational thought will inform and bolster much of structuralism, systems theory and even actor-network theory, but would remain insufficient, undoubtedly because it was incapable of sustaining as such the two poles hindering us: the constitutive and the regulatory, the Absolute and Relative, if you will, by adding a third element to mediate between them, as Kant attempted in his third Critique. It seems that it was necessary to entirely revise the system of concepts; it was not enough to simply add a joker to the deck; the whole game had to be rethought from the beginning, and that would be anything but easy. The recuperation of Nicolai Hartmann’s modal ontology in the 1930’s was a significant step in that direction. It was a matter of returning to the very roots of the western philosophical tradition in Socrates and Plato, and even earlier. In Hartmann’s case, it was the recuperation of modal concepts that had been broadly present in pre-Socratic thought, especially in the Megarian School. Of course, in what little we know about this current,⁵ there were a number of misunderstandings, deriving above all from their compromise with Eleatic metaphysics. But according to Hartmann, if these biases can be dodged, a modal ontology can be posited as an alternative to the most paralyzing dualisms inherent in our philosophical traditions.⁶ This resulted not only in a challenge to Aristotle’s relatively clumsy theory of change with its notions of potency and act; all of Ecclesiastic philosophy and its dependence in one way or another on a Prime Mover, opportune God, or obsessive Clockmaker was also thrown into doubt. It generated the foundations for an utterly different reception of Kant and modern epistemological and ontological thinking. This shift had been partially understood and undertaken by Wallace Stevens when he recognized reality as an activity and not a static object; or by Marx, when in his first thesis on Feuerbach, he affirmed that “the Object (der Gegenstand), actuality, sensuousness, are conceived only in the form of the object (des Objekts), or of contemplation (Anschauung), but not as human sensuous ac The city of Megara, then a proud rival of Athens, was among the losers of the Peloponnesian War, being on the side of which meant “the distribution of land and remission of debts.”  As Paul Valery liked to say, the world has got two enemies: order and disorder. Edgar Morin has also explored this issue, especially in Morin ,  – .

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tivities, [or] practices” (Marx 1976, 3). Here he was also positing the only domain where different forms of autonomy could be properly thought. Hartmann’s option is that through the interaction and succession of modes these different orders of autonomy might be rightly explained without having recourse to any metaphysical specter, such as the Aristotelian Prime Mover, fixed and eternal. It is through the specific combinations of modal sequences, of chaos and order—as contemporary biology likes to say⁷—of possibility and necessity (which would be a first modal translation of the chaos and order game), that we compose the world and are composed by it. This happens in the tension between what is dispositionally possible (what is still at stake since its conditions must still be produced), and what is repertorially necessary (what comes to fulfill some discrete field of coherence). We know that couplings and decouplings between possibility and necessity, between chaos and order, will always happen in the epigenetic landscape (Waddington 1961; 1966), conceived of as a matrix of viable conflicts where complexes are made up and destroy each other in an immense modal battlefield. That’s why, as Hartmann maintains, “the crucial matter of what reality is in general; that is, what is the proper ‘way of being’ of this world in eternal flux that includes our lives, that produces and moves over us —this question can only be answered through modal analysis” (Hartmann 2013, vii). Most of our ancient ethics and aesthetics were built upon the importance of finding a form of decantation, what could be called in Greek a krasis, a symmetria, or in Latin a proportio; a fluctuating but relatively stable combination of values or daimonoi ⁸—to continue with their terminological taste—which proves intimately suitable, by managing to offer an account of what we are and above all, of what we can and therefore must be, something that would allow us to realize or achieve ourselves.⁹ But that was the case in antiquity; in modern times, so out of joint, we may have passed from moralities which considered themselves eternal and universal —“catholic”, if you will—to an acknowledgment that every subject was first the container and then the accountant of his own moral law. Everything happens as if in the domain of practical philosophy we were to find ourselves facing the same pendular movement we saw in our epistemologies, condemning ourselves

 This is especially clear in the work of Murray Gell-Mann, Brian Goodwin or Stuart Kauffman.  Daimon comes from the root “daioi” meaning “to distribute.” Therefore, a daimon is just a distribution, that is, a section of our intelligence or our sensibility.  That’s one of the main concepts of Hartmann’s Ethics, one he gets undoubtedly from what could be called the “classical theory of action,” and which was also undertaken by other modern thinkers such as Hannah Arendt.

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to wander from some strict moral heteronomy to the most fragmented practical reason, making autonomy undesirable and extremely dry and difficult to inhabit. In such an arena, we seem forced to choose between being completely submissive or living completely out of the frame. This new approach to thinking and action will affect the scale of modal communities and their capacities for intervention; this is how the brilliant Berkeley astrophysicist Erich Jantsch put it in the 1970’s: [I]t is no longer whole structural platforms, whole civilizations, societal systems, art and lifestyles which must jump to a new structure. A pluralism emerges in which many dynamic structures penetrate each other at the same level. […] The reality of the human world becomes dissolved into many realities, its evolution into a multitude of horizontally linked evolutions (Jantsch 1980, 256).

These structures of action constitute agencies, communities organized around modes of acting, modes of relation that link, in a characteristic way, the necessary with the possible, a repertoire coupling with its inhabitant’s dispositions. The area in which the philosophical and the epistemological interact with the communities of action, the area characteristic of modal autonomy (Claramonte 2009, Third Section), is the area in which this research aspires to operate, and to be not only possible and necessary, but above all effective.

3 We believe that exploring this shift towards modal thinking can be especially fertile in the sphere of aesthetics. The modal paradigm can better explain why characteristically modern movements since Romanticism have steadily distanced artistic practices from anything resembling the repertoires accepted and legitimized in the classical tradition. Beginning with Romanticism and continuing through the European “fin-de-siècle” and the various avant-gardes that followed, western high culture has engaged in a dynamic that sought to accumulate and deploy “negativity” as a way to dissociate itself from the established languages, which were no longer fertile. Inherent to this dynamic of “modern autonomy” (Claramonte 2009, Second Section) was the fact that there could be no chance for the decantation of certain kinds of repertoires, such as those typical of all traditional culture. Modernism could not allow itself such a possibility, since any novelty would quickly become obsolete and would have to be sacrificed at the altar of ongoing progress. Such a dynamic has ended up imposing an extremely “dispositional” notion of culture, in which it seems to depend exclusively on the ingenuity and ideas of

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artists and curators, who have become high priests of the new religion of continuous novelty. No one would deny the riches that this commitment to “novelty,” at the expense of “confirmation,”¹⁰ has engendered for the exploration of the possibilities of our sensibility and capacity for experimentation. It is, however, difficult to ignore the bewilderment that such a unilateral option has meant for many who feel that artistic culture has lost not just its way, but any aptitude for axiological orientation (Virilio) whatsoever, any repertorial faculty for constructing ensembles of referents or potentially complete languages. Ortega y Gasset spoke of this in his famous diagnosis of the “dehumanization of art,” though this process could better be described as a conversion into contingency of what until then had been presented as necessary, an annulment, then, of the relations that lent cohesion to any given repertoire, and at the same time as a shift from the experimental-possible toward the impossible, toward what distances from and exposes any dispositional complicity. Ortega saw this as dehumanizing because the new culture was not nurturing, and proffered neither welcome nor tranquility. Perhaps this was because contemporary culture no longer consisted of providing an order through its fluctuations, but instead the fluctuations came and went from the contingent, without actually resulting in any form of necessity, any repertorial order capable of apprehending and establishing the promise of our potential. This dehumanization, this dissolution of relations susceptible of generating meaning, not only confirmed a loss of meaning of the whole, of repertorial consistency or necessity of artistic practices, it also confirmed that these practices had become increasingly distant from people’s ordinary lives. The virtuosity of avant-garde experimentalism thus became fatally decoupled not only from the material tasks of everyday life, but from its political and social concerns as well. This state of things soon led to a serious disconnection between the diverse modes of aesthetic and artistic practice, as well as from the critical and aesthetic thinking that was attempting to explain its evolution. The nearly universal norm of twentieth century aesthetic thought, of which Danto and Ranciere are two recent examples, was to account for some of these vectors and generate a theoret-

 Novelty and confirmation are terms used by Weizsäcker in his theory of information to refer to what tends toward instability and what tends toward stability. “Information can be conceived as being composed of two complementary components: novelty and confirmation. Whenever either of the two is zero, information is zero. Genetic information too requires both novelty and confirmation” (von Weizsäcker , ). Modally, we can translate novelty and confirmation by our terms dispositionality and repertoriality on the condition that we can add a third mode, actuality, absent in Weizsäcker; and we can also deploy negative modes, whose critical importance will become clear below.

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ical discourse that, though perhaps adequate for a chosen aspect, could only do violence to the rest. So if a conventional or social aspect of art was privileged, the formal or experimental component was disparaged. Or the other way around. An exception to this rule was the Hungarian theorist György Lukács. His unfinished Aesthetics, which the Italian philosopher Guido Morpurgo Tagliabue described as “the search for a synthesis between a historical-sociological perspective and a social-normative one” (Tagliabue 1971, 405), went much further, given that it was to be made up of three basic parts, dedicated to 1) a theory of the artwork, 2) a theory of aesthetic practices, and 3) a theory of art and sensibility as social and historical phenomena. Although Lukács’ proposal surpassed his nearly lifelong efforts, as it would probably surpass anyone’s, we can play with the idea that a modal theory of sensibility could find a coincidence between Lukács’ planned sections and the three classic modes: so that we could couple the necessary with the artistic, the possible with the aesthetic, and the effective with art and sensibility conceived as social and historical phenomena. This is of the greatest importance and must be very carefully explained.

4 In all that follows, we attempt to show how the necessary-artistic can account for practices possessing a higher formalization, more integrated within a tradition or a will to form ensembles that we will examine under the category of the repertorial. We are referring to practices that are inserted into an already initiated series, in order to complete and refine a tradition, as Eliot would say. The repertorial, which we’ll discuss in more detail below, is the modal category that allows us to comprehend an artistic gesture to the extent that it contributes to a formal and symbolic ensemble of meaning. As Ortega well knew, “every literary work belongs to a genre, like every animal to a species. And both artistic genres and zoological species have a limited repertoire of possibilities […,] with this repertoire of objective possibilities talent must work. And when this quarry is exhausted, talent, however great it may be, can do nothing more” (Ortega y Gasset 2012, 99). Moreover, belonging to a repertoire is what allows us to determine a level of “achievement.” Only in relation to a repertoire, to an ensemble of referents or shared meanings, can the artistic refine and define itself to the point of reaching maximum efficiency and economy. The negative mode of necessity is contingency. In modal terms, the contingent is everything that is repertorially insignificant or redundant, either because it doesn’t couple with an existing repertoire, or because it adds nothing to it ex-

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cept noise, like all mannerism and academicism does. Even so, this is not a particularly dangerous order of contingency. The terrible side of artistic contingency arises when, as Hartmann says, “its negativity […] negat[es] the very connections […] relations in general […] and emerges as an absolutely nonrelational mode” (Hartmann 2013, 99). This kind of contingency, when deployed in the artistic sphere, atomizes the sensibilities, dissolving them into disparate processes that remain detached, turning the whole aesthetic experience into something without referents. Perhaps a good part of postmodernism, characterized, from Jeff Koons to Damien Hirst, by an artistic will as inflated as it is impotent, is attuned to this modulation of the contingent, that not only says nothing, but tends to make it impossible for anything, any experience, to actually say anything. Modally, the contingent possesses two doors. If it follows the logic of remembering, it can serve as an eventual keystone of a new sensibility, a new repertoire; in fact, there is no necessity, or repertoire, whose very origin isn’t in itself contingent. This is why the contingent has to turn back, as it were, to the moment of “remembering,” as we may see in the concept of Panarchy. But it can also adopt a movement of revolt, and serve as a platform for initiating a new series of experimentations, of dispositional games that will lead us to the mode of possibility.

5 The possible-aesthetic distances itself modally from the necessary-artistic because under this modality, which is more than the configuration of a tendentially stable repertoriality, what interests us is the deployment of the dispositions, intelligences, resourcefulness or sensibilities which each of us possesses. The process is more important here than the goal, the participation more than the final result. Likewise, under the possible-aesthetic, achieving something is unimportant; merely acting is already something. The possible-aesthetic can be perceived in any artistic practice in which the experimental, the processual or performative interaction with the viewer comes into play. This is why we say that if the fundamental category of the mode of necessity is the repertorial, the mode of the possible is that of the dispositional. Of course, and as often occurs, each categorial organization includes its corresponding scheme of values, so that the beauty of the possible-aesthetic is distinct from that of the necessary-artistic, even if both are “modal optimals,” or precisely because they are. It’s also easy to observe a certain correlation or feedback between the different modal hegemonies and the perception that one has, at a social level, of his or her own potentialities. As is clear, societies with a

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greater propensity for stability, such as feudal or agrarian societies, tend to build an aesthetic culture favoring the repertorial, that is, any ensemble of expressive and relational forms that are relatively well defined and recognizable. In societies immersed in a process of change, or that are still unstable after having gone through some kind of transition, a predominantly dispositional aesthetic culture prevails, in which individuals can, and are practically required, to take an active part in the construction of their own aesthetic experience, even if this means not successfully establishing a common ground in which to encounter and recognize themselves. This need for acknowledgment and recognition, characteristic of the necessary-artistic mode, doesn’t then just disappear; it simply becomes difficult to achieve when society itself moves at such a pace that any process of repertorial sedimentation becomes unlikely, such as occurs in more sedentary societies. Needless to say this exacerbation of the dispositional, evident in the later avant-gardes, as Peter Burger has demonstrated, for instance, ends by finding its proper limits, leading to a decantation of the mode of the impossible, a decoupled intensification of the mode of the possible, of the dispositional decoupled from the repertorial, reminiscent, once again in the words of Ortega y Gasset, of a “skillful woodcutter in the Sahara desert; his lithe muscles and sharp ax are worthless. A woodcutter without a forest to cut down is an abstraction” (Ortega y Gasset 2012, 153). When this happens to experimentation, Beckett’s “endgame” ensues. And not just because, as Adorno well knew, after Auschwitz it was impossible, as well as terribly naïve, to continue resorting to parlor games and the performative entertainments of the first avant-gardes, but also because the passion for dispositional exploration, as with all passions (as we have already shown), die of their own excess: But that I know love is begun by time; And that I see, in passages of proof, Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it; And nothing is at a like goodness still; For goodness, growing to a plurisy, Dies in his own too much (Shakespeare 1973, Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 7, 935)

Under the mode of the impossible, what comes into play is precisely the limits of our dispositions. As often happens with negative modes, the impossible has a marked critical value. If the contingent, as the counterpart of the necessary-artistic, reveals the fragility of repertorial equilibriums—the facility with which they

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become redundant, the ease with which we shift from the classic work to the just academically correct, and from there to the openly kitsch—the mode of the impossible allows us to see how sterile mere good intentions are, the absurdity of our efforts to make ourselves look creative or just friendly, especially in contexts in which the performative or participative have become empty slogans wielded by politicians or museum directors. In order to learn to think modally, it’s important to keep in mind that one mode doesn’t necessarily exclude another; modes are not like Hegel’s spirit of the age, Kierkegaard’s states or Ranciere’s regimes. Modes are coextensive; that is, they are always present to a greater or lesser degree in every aesthetic culture. In fact, the two relative modes, the necessary and the possible, with their counterparts the contingent and the impossible, function as so many fundamental attractors whose tension has always yielded generativity. From Aristotle to Pareyson and the theory of information, the generative was always a combination of variable proportions between trial and organization, novelty and confirmation, between elements like the imitation of an unknown praxis and its presentation by means of a form, a mythos or a “Fable,” as Brecht affirmed (Weber 1994, 181, 183), and so familiar to spectators. Modal thinking is no mere reiteration of these contrasting concepts. Rather, their relevance derives precisely from constituting the systematic elaboration of a theory of change, or if you prefer to use the notions of the latest epistemology: a theory of dynamic stability or some order through fluctuations approach to the edge of chaos (Prigogine 1997). This can be done precisely because instead of limiting or opposing two terms, like the Aristotelian pairs “potentiality-actuality” or “dynamis-energeia,” modal thinking incorporates the two relative modes (possibility and necessity), their corresponding negative modes (impossibility and contingency) and above all because a third modal pole is added to the series: actuality.

6 Actuality would mean giving modal priority to what in fact occurs, and is there occupying and defining the commonplace in an irrefutable way. Actuality as such is not a structural moment of the real; it’s nothing but the node “be thus and no other way” without the reasons for not being another way. It’s important to note that actuality does not exclude invoking reasons, but in no way does it consist in depending upon them. Both “commercial” art or advertising, and political or committed art belong to this mode of sensibility and action. They all play on the plane of effects, on their effective being in the world, and in constituting it. If the necessary and the possible can be understood respectively in re-

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lation to the repertorial and dispositional categories, actuality can be defined according to its relation with the modal category of “landscape,” understood, as we’ve discussed elsewhere,¹¹ as a matrix of possible conflicts. Actuality is not only in the world, but often actively conspires to ingratiate itself or make life impossible for other decantations of the actual, and is in turn susceptible to being ambushed within its own game. It’s crucial to realize that the mode of actuality does not belong to the same order as the modes of necessity and possibility. As we have already noted, these are relative modes, since they are always qualified by actuality or inactuality, which are thus absolute modes. This correlation of relative and absolute modes, which Hartmann calls “the fundamental modal law,” should immunize us against any hint of proactive idealism or contrived good intentions. If we culturally aim to generate a repertoire that embraces what we are capable of as members of a culture or even of a species, if we wish to explore our dispositions in all their free play, or if we want to pursue both games dialectically, we will be checked by actuality. Whatever the case, the acid test will always be that of the actual work or experience we manage to produce. Aesthetics, despite its derealizational character, differs in this from other discourses perhaps more disposed to build castles in the air. You can have in mind a masterpiece of literature or art, but as long as you don’t produce it (and here the true power of the root poiesis is revealed) nothing actually exists.¹² The modal categories of repertoire and disposition would then be more or less convenient, but they would always be applied in regard to this or that actually produced work or experience.

7 References Abbott, Edwin (1992): Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Mineola, NY: Dover Thrift Editions. Claramonte, Jordi (2009): La república de los fines. Murcia: CENDEAC. Claramonte, Jordi (2015): Desacoplados: Estética y política del Western. Madrid: UNED.

 Claramonte . One of the reasons the book focused on Westerns was precisely because this notion of landscape as a field of forces in conflict, as epigenetic valley, was so clearly evident.  Time and speculation in the art world has confirmed this is so even in practices such as Conceptualism and Performance Art, which were strongly committed to the disappearance of the material work of art. In the end, and without detriment to the significance of Conceptualism, we’ve been witness to the way the followers of these movements collect vestiges of their actions, “documentation” of their interventions to prop up their more or less brilliant narratives.

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Hartmann, Nicolai (1950): Philosophie der Natur: Abriß der speziellen Kategorienlehre. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (2013): Possibility and Actuality. Trans. Scott, A./Adair, S. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter. Jantsch, Eric (1980): The self-organizing universe. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Marx, Karl (1976): Karl Marx/Frederick Engels Collected Works, Volume 5. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Morin, Edgar (1988): Culture, signes, critiques. Cahiers Recherches et the´ories, Collection ́ ´ de Que´bec. “Symbolique et ide´ologie” No. S 16. Montreal: Presses de L Universite Ortega y Gasset, J. (2012): Meditaciones del Quijote. Eastford, CT: Martino Publishing. Prigogine, Ilya (1997): The End of Certainty. New York: The Free Press. Shakespeare, William (1973): The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Craig, Hardin/Bevington, David (Eds.). Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company. Stevens, W. (2001): Harmonium. London: Faber & Faber Poetry. Tagliabue, Guido Morpurgo (1971): La estética contemporánea. Buenos Aires: Losada. Waddington, Conrad (1961): “The human evolutionary system”. In: Banton, Michael (Ed.). Darwinism and the Study of Society. London: Tavistock. Waddington, Conrad (1966): Principles of development and differentiation. New York: Macmillan Company. von Weizsacker, E./von Weizsäcker, Christine (1998): “Information, evolution and ‘error-friendliness’”. In: Biological Cybernetics 79. No. 6, pp. 501 – 507. Weber, Carl (1994): “Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble: the making of a model”. In: Thomson, Peter/Sacks, Glendyr (Eds.): The Cambridge Companion to Brecht. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitehead, Alfred N. (1955): The Concept of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Carlo Scognamiglio

Chapter 16 Nicolai Hartmann’s Thoughts on Education 1 Introduction Nicolai Hartmann was not a pedagogue. The sections of his work devoted to the topic of “education” are rare. We can find some of them in his Ethik (1926), and especially in Das Problem des geistigen Seins (1933). Nevertheless, Hartmann had a long career as a teacher. One of his students, Hans-Georg Gadamer, who exceeded his professor in fame, furnished a clear and fond portrait of Hartmann in his Philosophische Lehrjahre—Eine Rückschau (Gadamer 1977). The Italian philosopher Remo Cantoni met Hartmann in 1942 and described him as the epitome of the German professor (Cantoni 1972). Aside from these biographical details, my claim is that the contribution of Hartmann’s philosophy in the field of education can become—if treated correctly—highly significant. Moreover, it is important to note that this topic has never been deeply analyzed in Hartmann studies. The relationship between Hartmann and some important educational theorists, like John Dewey and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, was explored in the first part of the twentieth century in two monographs (Haslow 1935; Peterson 1947). Later, apart from some considerations included in papers devoted to the general problem of spiritual being (Roura Parella 1955, Dalgado 1956, Hala 2000), Anna Keiser wrote the only inquiry completely engaged with the question of education in recent years (Keiser 2004). However, this book fails to see all the implications of Hartmann’s ontology. I should start immediately in medias res. However, it is useful to recall the peculiar way in which we must consider Hartmann as a systematic thinker. His idea of a “philosophical system” is different from the meaning that a long tradition of historiography assigns to that expression. In Hartmann’s perspective, a theoretical system cannot be accepted as a closed web of concepts. Hartmann argues that philosophical discourse should make its internal categorical organization explicit by submitting it to a precise analysis, and then identifying its categorical structure, even if incomplete and including some obscure connections (Hartmann 1935, 1940). Since philosophy receives the largest possible quantity of data from all the results of scientific research, it should maintain a systematic vocation. Any philosophical discourse must be conducted to meet the basic needs of an ontological foundation. This consists of a theory on the categories of being and of the relationships among them. Indeed, Hartmann’s work deals

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with an impressive array of topics: from biology to history, from music to astronomy, from ethics to religion. And all these investigations are related to his ontological theory. This attitude, and Hartmann’s voluminous production, made him an isolated figure in his day. During the period of the wide affirmation of philosophies of “crisis” and the proliferation of struggles against the metaphysical tradition, Hartmann suggested reconsidering the “dusty” old ontological questions. It seems correct to note that Hartmann always remained indifferent to most of the philosophical fashion of his time. He had important links with neo-Kantianism, with the phenomenological movement, and with colleagues such as Martin Heidegger, Max Scheler, and Helmut Plessner. However, in spite of these relationships, if we read his books with especial care, we note that most of his conceptual efforts were devoted to measuring the validity of his theories against those of Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, as well as mediaeval scholasticism. There is no doubt that this approach contributed to Hartmann’s philosophical isolation. Since his death, we have not observed the development of a “school” inspired by his philosophy (apart from the single case of Wolfgang Harich). Only in recent years can we speak of a renewal of interest in Hartmann’s philosophy. The foregoing preamble has served to explain how my contribution implies a more complex ontological approach behind the object of the paper. Referring to the topic that I have chosen (the nature of education), the global categorial structure of the real and ideal world is presupposed, because education pertains to the highest level of reality (Hartmann 1926, 1933, 1940). In my opinion, Hartmann’s contribution to a theory of education, which is able to clarify some urgent problems in that field, is based on some crucial elements in his ontology that I will try to explain separately.

2 Rehabilitation of the concept of Geist The analysis of Hartmann’s idea of education gives us an opportunity to recover or rethink one of the classic categories of the Western philosophical tradition: the concept of Geist. Especially in the Italian debate, hasty dismissal of the different forms of idealism in recent decades has favoured abandonment of that notion. From Fichte to Dilthey, the concept of Geist was regarded as the noblest question in philosophy. Geist is a highly complex category. In the contemporary debate, however, this complexity is dissolved and fragmented through simplification due to the term’s inadequate translation with the English “mind.” All the domains related to the spiritual sphere, from education to ethics, from history to

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religion, are always simplified into the schema of a dialectic between an individual and a social perspective. Hartmann, instead, demonstrates the enigmatic nature of Geist, and of its ontological categories. Henceforth, I will prefer to use the term “spirit,” the same term that the Encyclopaedia Britannica adopts to translate the Hegelian Objektive Geist. ¹ Experience constantly presents us with various forms of spiritual life. Language, politics, religion, science or philosophy are forms of being that we cannot understand from a reductionist perspective, nor can we refer them to the sphere of organic life, or to the individual psychic consciousness (Scognamiglio 2009). Spiritual phenomena are understandable only through a special categorical system whose lawfulness governs those forms of being under an ontological point of view, distinguishing the spiritual stratum from the lower ones. Hartmann cautions us that looking for the principles of spiritual life amongst the structures of biological life is like fishing in water that is too deep. We can be sure that the spirit is alive, but we cannot invert the conceptual relationship. In fact, some living being is not due to the spiritual sphere. Looking for the spirit in individual consciousness is also like fishing in water that is too deep. There are ingenious minds in the natural world as well, for example, the great apes, but they are too tied to their life-needs. They are incapable of an autonomous will. In asserting the existence of an ontological novum that appears in the ontic bond between a psychic stratum and spiritual being, Hartmann uses the adverb “undoubtedly” (zweifellos) (Hartmann 1933, 48). In his view, because it is impossible to explain organic life as a developed form of mechanism, it should also be impossible to explain spiritual phenomena as more complex and richer organizations of psychic life (Scognamiglio 2011). Hartmann was not an expert in psychology. When he described the difference between psyche and spirit, he was probably thinking of the psychology of the late nineteenth century, which was almost exclusively dedicated to perception and consciousness. For this reason, he did not admit matters that he considered too complex and emergent into the field of psychological inquiry, like spiritual phenomena. Nonetheless, because we know the history of contemporary psychological research, we can assert that the majority of approaches to human behaviour, first of all the psychoanalytical approach, could be considered almost “spiritual sciences” in a broad sense. They extend beyond the boundaries of consciousness and include the analysis of other forms of being: lan-

 The habit of translating the term Geist with the English term “mind” has probably favored the abandonment of that crucial element in philosophical inquiry, without resolving the methodological and categorical difficulties of the Geisteswissenschaften.

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guage, communication, socialization, and every kind of influence by the environment and culture on the individual’s behaviour. While psychology has gradually expanded its horizons, the other human sciences have maintained a misguided tendency to reduce all spiritual phenomena to individual psychic life. According to Hartmann, education, as I will try to demonstrate, is not only a form of spiritual life; education is the fundamental form of Geist because it is superimposable on the peculiar category of spiritual being termed “transmissibility.” We note from the twentieth-century debate that the sciences of education seem dominated by the influence of psychological research and its empirical basis. This situation immediately imposes a choice. If we reduce spiritual being to individual consciousness, we make a remarkable conceptual mistake. If we instead adopt another idea of psychology, one able to include among its objects of research the relationship between the individual and his/her culture, we are transforming psychology into a sort of philosophical discipline. This alternative is crucial for the destiny of our idea of education. According to Dewey, educators need to know the results of psychological research because children are human, and humanity is primarily a physical and a psychical entity. However, in spite of the scrupulous scientific methodologies of contemporary psychology and social sciences, education is a phenomenon that can only be understood from a philosophical perspective, and that can only pursue its aims within a broad conception of the human sciences. If we deny that spiritual being may be defined as the mind of an individual, what, then, is the “spirit”? How can we imagine it? Following Hartmann, we proceed from a phenomenological analysis of the Seinsformen of the fourth stratum of being. At first, these phenomena exhibit a high degree of conceptual difficulty. What we call Geist emerges from at least three classes of phenomena that appear very different. There is no doubt that above the strata of inorganic, organic and psychical being there emerges a kind of activity that we can consider the action of a personal being. This activity is, first, the possibility for the individual to choose his/her aims for the future, and to organize his/her means to achieve them (Hartmann 1951). The person who considers the sphere of values before making a decision to act, and who also possesses a form of self-consciousness, is an ontological novum in the stratification of the real world. Nevertheless, this is not enough. The person is not understandable, nor thinkable, without considering his/her relationship with the historical and social structures of human life in which the person is embedded, and from which s/he is almost indistinguishable. I refer to traditions, language, every kind of usage and taste, political and juridical organizations: all of these together generate and “contain” the individual. Through education, the person derives from his/her environment all the elements necessary for a personal perspective on the world.

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Hence, besides personhood, a second class of spiritual phenomena was deeply analyzed in philosophical terms by Hegel and Dilthey (two fundamental sources for Hartmann). They denoted the vast field of those phenomena with the expression “objective spirit,” a term that refers to all the forms in which the living spirit realizes itself as a social being by means of shared and institutional modalities of existence. However, we also have a third class of spiritual phenomena, without which we cannot imagine any form of Geist, personal or objective. I refer to human labor. All the elements of human spiritual life must become concrete through material substances, which are the enigmatic custodians of spiritual contents. We can verify that they surround us. The products of human labor are the results of acts through which the living spirit fixes its contents in matter, and with these acts transmissibility to others becomes possible. Not only monuments or stone carvings are “works;” a simple gesture, verbal expressions, and the wide field of communication are works as well. In all these cases, a spiritual content is impressed in the material. The examples abound: they range from a simple note in my diary, to Shakespeare’s beautiful sonnets; from a child’s drawing, to the Arc de Triomphe. A spiritual content is objectified in all these entities. More importantly, without the objectified spirit, there is no education. According to Hartmann, spiritual being must be considered an inextricable relationship among three forms of being that cannot be regarded as separate substances: personal being, objektiver Geist, and objectified spirit. These are not three strata, but three moments of a single ontological dimension: Geist. Concerning education, the implication is clear. It is impossible to imagine education without the individual personhood of the teacher and the pupil. Moreover, it is impossible to imagine education without the culture of the period, that is, without books, works, or simple words. From a practical point of view, personhood may appear to be the only existencecondition for the spiritual being. This seems also true in pedagogy, when superficial considerations lead us to understand the educational process merely in light of the personhood of the individuals involved. In a certain sense, we spontaneously assume that we know what a “person” is, but Hartmann considers the notion “person” to be one of the most obscure for our comprehension. However, through closer analysis we may clarify it through the concept of objektiver Geist. Strictly speaking, there is no science of the personal spirit. Psychology only extends to its boundaries; its field is the mental, whose nature is for the most part non-spiritual. Ethics does comprehend it from a certain side, but not in its totality […]. On the other hand, nu-

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merous successful and well-established sciences deal with objective spirit, and philosophical analysis can benefit from their rich experience (Hartmann 1933, 187– 188).²

What we can understand about the phenomenon of personal being is not its specificity, but what it shares with other persons: the objective spirit. There is no ontological priority of individuals, and the shared contents of Geist are not derived from persons’ actions. Each person is born and grows in the Zeitgeist. A typical example for Hartmann is provided by language. The child only has the capacity to learn language; s/he actually acquires it from the people who use speech around him/her. Learning a language means a person’s progressive entrance into the network of spiritual contents of a certain period, and his/her subsequent growth within it. With this process, a child recovers the legacy of the human community in which s/he lives, a heritage that has acquired partial stability in the spoken language and presents itself to the child as something already formed. Nonetheless, as Hegel suggested, what is known is precisely for this reason not well-known, because it requires deeper inquiry through a descriptive analysis. One of the categories of the objective spirit that is truly significant for understanding the problem of education is what Hartmann calls “separability” (Ablösbarkeit ³). Spiritual contents, the correlates of the acts of consciousness (opinions, prejudices, beliefs, ideas, fairy tales, myths and spiritual forms in general), have the property of Ablösbarkeit. This means that they can be communicated through verbal and non-verbal means that rely on a material support (this can simply be the voice, ink or a film; the medium is not important, only the phenomenon). Ablösbarkeit is a form of “migration” of the spiritual content, which makes possible what we usually call “tradition.” Ablösbarkeit is guaranteed by the unity of reason, which Hartmann opposes to beliefs concerning the existence of private rationality. This is a problem that has traversed the entire history of Western philosophy, from Heraclitus and Plato to the present day, and it has received diverse definitions—from the Scholastic intellectus divinus to transcendental subjectivity—which Hartmann suggests should be synthesized into the simple statement that we are not thinking subjects. Rather, it is reason that thinks in us. This dictum means that the differences among the various opinions and percep-

 “Vom personalen Geist gibt es, streng genommen, keine Wissenschaft. Die Psychologie langt gerade nur bis an seine Grenze heran; ihr Feld ist das Seelische, und das ist seiner großen Masse ungeistig. Die Ethik faβt wohl eine bestimmte Seite an ihm, aber nicht das Ganze. […] Vom objektiven Geiste dagegen handeln viele alte Wissenschaften, und ihre reiche Erfahrung kommt der philosophischen Analyse zugute.”  “Die Ablösbarkeit der Inhalte von der Person ist eine fundamentale Eigenart des geistigen Lebens” (Hartmann , ).

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tions need a “common background” that depends on the interaction among nonspiritual elements, like common membership in the lower strata of being, but also on the existence of universal laws which govern our thinking. The category Ablösbarkeit implies the other important category Hineinragen, which is a crucial concept for understanding the historical development and essence of traditions (Scognamiglio 2012). The phenomenon of handing down (in latin: tradere) is the possibility for the spirit to survive beyond individuals, even if it exists only in individuals. The learning process consists precisely in growth steeped in tradition. The individual receives a heritage from this process, but it is very different from a material heritage. To obtain it, the individual must begin a spontaneous activity of appropriation, and the result is surprising: Once the child has learned the language, and if the child has mastered it, then the child’s thought will be entirely formed by it, and the language has become master of the child’s thinking. What we call “mastering a language” is really being inwardly mastered by it (Hartmann 1933, 215).⁴

The same holds for all the other forms of spiritual life, like science or morality. They extend beyond every possibility of the individual to appropriate them in their entirety. The fundamental, twenty-fifth chapter of Das Problem des geistigen Seins bears the title “The function of the essence of education in objective spirit,” and often repeats the claim that pedagogy, like history, is not an independent discipline. Instead, it is interdisciplinary by nature. One may educate others in language, in ethics, and in all the forms of spiritual life. Through education, the individual becomes a man or woman. However, perhaps from an anti-Augustinian perspective, Hartmann seems to look for the original source of education in the external world, beyond interiority. The real magister is not within the person, because we learn only from the objective spirit. The living Geist, through the mediation of other persons, is the only magister in the growth of an individual. All teachers guide young people into the objective spirit and by means of the objective spirit. For this reason, all societies need an institutional organization to deliver education precisely, because it is impossible to simply inherit Geist. It is only passed down:

 “Denn es formt sich innerlich an ihrem Formenreichtum heran. Hat es sie aber erlernt und ist es ihrer mächtig geworden, so ist es von ihr in seinem Denken durchformt, und sie ist über sein Denken mächtig geworden. Was wir “eine Sprache beherrschen” nennen, ist vielmehr das innere Beherrschtsein von ihr.”

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Conscious teaching and training aims fundamentally at the same goal toward which imitative and adaptive practical learning also tends, toward mastering the transmitted spiritual heritage, which, for the individual, is rather a being mastered by it (Hartmann 1933, 253).⁵

To summarize: the educational institution is the medium of historical reproduction, and the teacher is a manager of the spiritual heritage, which is not his/her property. Moreover, s/he has nothing more to offer: without spiritual being, teaching is empty. If we continue this reasoning in negative terms, we find that if people are always educated within the horizon of the objective spirit, it is impossible to educate the specificity of personhood. According to Hartmann, it is impossible to teach the features of individuality. The latter, indeed, is formed together with the objective spirit, in parallel with it; but activities like teaching or training can only leverage shared elements, never personal ones.

3 Education and historical change: the problem of inauthenticity Here Hartmann’s claim becomes more complex: if education were reduced to a fruitless reproduction or repetition of the historical heritage, we would never observe social change. Instead, history is a continuous transformation of what exists. To understand this apparent contradiction, our analysis must include natural rebellion, which is always connected with the transmission of culture. Hartmann writes: Young people always grow with a dual tendency; they want to become like the adults but, at the same time, not exactly like the adults. […] Growing up under the protection of adults, they have known their strengths and weaknesses, and long before they can judge their strengths and weaknesses objectively, their hearts have been entranced by the former, and repelled by the latter. Repulsion is the wellspring of the new (Hartmann 1933, 268).⁶

This is a typical Hegelian argument. Over time, a young person will acquire greater objectivity. But the element of “repulsion” is fundamental for the consti “Bewußte Lehre und Übung gehen grundsätzlich auf dasselbe Ziel, dem auch das bloß nachamende und sich angleichende Übernehmen zustrebt, auf die Beherrschung des überkommenen geistigen Gutes, die vielmehr ein Beherrschtsein des Einzelnen von ihm ist.”  “Die Jugend erwächst jederzeit in der doppelten Tendenz; sie will werden, was die Erwachsenen sind, und sie will zugleich doch auch nicht ganz so werden, wie die Erwachsenen sind […] Sie hat im Heranwachsen unter ihnen ihre Stärke und ihre Schwäche erfahren; und lange bevor sie eine oder die andere objektiv beurteilen könnte, ist ihr Herz schon von der einen gefangen, von der anderen zurückgestoßen. Das Zurückgestoßensein ist der Antrieb zum Neuen.”

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tution of change. The idea of the reception of tradition, conceived together with social transformation, is one of the most delicate phases in Hartmann’s theorization of the spiritual being. We are now faced by the difficult problem of the objectified spirit. The living Geist, according to Hartmann, steadily objectifies itself through written words, documents, monuments, or similar creations. It is like an escape of the spirit from its becoming, its lapse into inert material. However, the content impressed in it will continue to exist through the acts of recognition attributable to the living spirit. Human labor, which is inextricably connected with human nature, can become a problem for the living spirit, a sort of net, an obstacle to historical change. As in an argument by Friedrich Nietzsche, we meet the problem of the conflict between the historical heritage and life. The juridical sentiment of a people, for example, becomes objective in a code of positive law; but this may become a cage for the living spirit and its desire for change. The same applies to a religious dogma or a scientific paradigm. The Geist is self-transformation. Its change must continuously violate the rigidity of its objectified spiritual forms. It is as if Geist must generate its own prison and then accept it, with the essential purpose being to come into conflict with it. From an educational perspective, this conflict assumes a special nature. This is typical in the field of moral education. The pedagogue dedicated to moralist preaching, who desires to establish socially accepted notions of vices and virtues in the soul of his pupil, generates a natural desire for, or rejection of, the living ethos in the soul of the latter. Objectified morality makes the life of a nascent morality impossible. The same holds for style, good taste, manners, or decency. Hartmann writes: With the rearing of each new generation, the older generation experiences its opposition as a kind of tacit struggle against all that is traditional […]. That which, after the break with the past has been completed, is called “the good old days” with conciliatory indulgence, is an analogue to conceptually objectified morality with its “vices and virtues.” It is a purely innocuous analogue, and hatred for the rejected forms persists only as long as the struggle of the spirit against them is alive (Hartmann 1933, 528).⁷

 “Im Aufkommen jeder jungen Generation erlebt die alte diese Opposition als eine Art stillen Kampfes gegen das Hergebrachte […]. Was nach vollzogenem Durchbruch versöhnlich-nachsichtig ‘die gute alte Zeit’ genannt wird, das ist ein Analogon zur begrifflich-objektivierten Moral mit ihren ‘Tugenden und Lastern’. Es ist nur rein sehr unschuldiges Analogon, und das Odium bleibt an den abgeworfenen Formen nicht länger hängen, als der Kampf des lebenden Geistes gegen sie währt” (id., p. ).

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At this stage of the reasoning, we have, on the one hand, the need to transfer our cultural heritage to the younger generation, and on the other, we recognize the impossibility of young people accepting those contents passively. Not all the beliefs and ideas of an epoch are good for the next one. Moreover, young people may be able to choose the best ones. While referring explicitly to Heidegger’s treatment of the theme of inauthenticity in Sein und Zeit (1927), Hartmann rejects any putative accusation of being a conservative. It is manifest that Hartmann has been drawing inspiration from Heidegger on this topic, for in Chapter 39 of Das Problem des geistigen Seins, he dedicates a paragraph to discussing the Heideggerian concept of the impersonal das Man. Everyone knows the phenomenon of common sense in all fields: in aesthetics and in the common reaction to artistic innovations; in fashion, so closely connected to the lifestyle and taste of the majority; in superficial political opinions, or in moral habits—in short, in the social hypocrisy that objectifies itself in idle talk. All these cases are real, but in a certain sense, they are inauthentic. The objective spirit is dual: on the one hand, we have the concrete historical substance; on the other, there exists a sort of shadow of it. This is the sphere of the inauthentic. However, the latter must also possess authenticity. It must “truly” belong to the Geist. Hartmann explains this phenomenon by asserting the existence of a form of superficial existence that derives from the incapacity of people to understand the true essence of the living spiritual reality. The reaction to this kind of incompetence is the adoption of impersonal refuges. Here we have the Heideggerian das Man. It is important to read Hartmann’s analysis of this passage: “Doing what everyone else does” is the basic form of practical learning and enculturation. In this way, the child learns to speak when it speaks just as “everyone” speaks. But this primitive form of practical learning is blind, uncritical, and also applies to inauthenticity. This is the weakness in the objective spirit’s mode of being. The inner dimensions of the spirit require not only an adaptive and imitative form of practical learning, but one that also understands and processes what is transmitted (Hartmann 1933, 366 – 367).⁸

We are all dominated by an obscure feeling, Hartmann emphasizes, which helps us to identify the real historical becoming beneath idle chatter. Nevertheless, the place where Heidegger locates the distinction between them appears wrong, and

 “Das ‘Tun, wie man tut’, ist die einfache Form des Übernehmens und Hineinwachsens. So lernt das Kind sprechen, indem es spricht, wie ‘man’ spricht. Aber eben diese primitive Form des Übernehmens ist blind, kritiklos; sie gilt auch dem Unechten. Und das ist die Schwäche in der Seinsweise des objektiven Geistes. Denn die inneren Domänen des Geistes verlangen ein nicht nur annehmendes und nachamendes, sondern auch verstehendes und verarbeitendes Übernehmen.”

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the mistake resides in the apparent opposition between exclusive individual experience and the inauthenticity of collective forms of living. An individual who turns inwards eludes the real problem, and Hartmann suggests, s/he would be historically and ontologically impossible. Hartmann’s ability to overturn Heidegger’s theory, starting from his distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity, is surprising. In Hartmann’s argument, inauthenticity is not the result of uncritical learning of the objective spirit’s forms. The phenomenon of inauthenticity derives instead from a process of falsification. In addition, this process must begin with the individual’s illusion that he could possibly live without giving heed to the objektiver Geist: As long as individuals actually stand in the midst of the community spirit, and as long as they draw their sensibility and life from this common understanding, there will be no falsification and inauthenticity. When everyone trusts only their own individual consciousness, and tries to promote their point of view against the common understanding of things, then they have distanced themselves from it. In this way they effect the falsification of the shared understanding. Spiritual inauthenticity will always be the consequence of an incipient individualism (Hartmann 1933, 374).⁹

Individualism is then irresponsible because it releases itself from common life. But Hartmann seems worried that his position may be confused with a total negation of the value of the person. He therefore suggests that the objective spirit cannot forgo serious reflection by the individual on the individual, but this must be understood as the construction of a strong moral and civil responsibility of the individual. The authentic life of the Geist depends on the person’s ability to assert his/her moral will and to assume the consequences of his/her actions. Nevertheless, this idea of self-determination is very different from any unrealistic hypothesis of isolation or independence. Hence, learning cannot be understood to be the passive acquisition of common sense, and education is not the transmission of an inauthentic vision of reality. Education, according to Hartmann, must be a defense of authenticity. In other words, education is the building of knowledge with which to discriminate between authenticity and inauthenticity. Above all, at a moral level, it consists in

 “Solange die Individuen nur wirklich im Gemeingeiste drinstehen, solange sie aus dem Gemeinsinn heraus leben und empfinden, gibt es auch keine Verfälschung und kein Unechtes. Erst indem sie sich auf ihr Eigensein besinnen und jedes seinen Eigensinn gegen ihn durchzusetzen sucht, entfernen sie sich von ihm. Und dadurch bewirken sie die Verfälschung des Gemeinsinnes. Das geistig Uneigentliche ist dann immer schon die Folge des einsetzenden Individualismus.”

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the building of personal responsibility because the impersonal Heideggerian das Man is “general irresponsibility” (Hartmann 1933, 484).

4 Enhancement of study as a dimension of spiritual development Finally, yet importantly, I introduce another significant concept in Hartmann’s theory of education. It concerns the role of study as a spiritual activity. In a way similar to organic life, the spiritual individual develops as well. However, we lack an evaluative rule to govern spiritual being. This perspective differs from that of Hartmann’s contemporary, Jean Piaget. It is fundamental in Hartmann’s view that the Geist does not develop without effort. Capacities and dispositions are less important. Diligence is necessary. The defense of study for the effectiveness of education, in an anti-Rousseauian perspective, is acquired through discrimination between biological and spiritual life: Spirit is not inherited with life. Rather, it must be self-realized; it must commit itself with every step. It is not merely a development of predispositions. Think about the fact that a child learns to see and to walk with the progressive awakening of the capacities of his/ her organs and limbs; but s/he does not learn to speak as a simple outcome of organic development (Hartmann 1933, 103).¹⁰

The natural place of the individual within the objective spirit becomes complete only after the conquest of self-consciousness, the acquisition of which requires the activity of study. Hartmann often emphasizes the “necessity of utilizing all our forces in the most fruitful period of our development” (Hartmann 1933, 280). Learning, therefore, is not pedantry. However, Hartmann disapproves of the activist critics of sciolism. Also in German pedagogical activism, the first part of the last century saw an exaltation of the practical abilities to the detriment of theoretical learning. It is true that encyclopaedic notions are empty. Nevertheless, it is wrong to substitute technical-practical education for them. Practical notions, Hartmann observes, are few and easy to learn. Hartmann distinguished himself from an important part of the pedagogy of his time, because he defined education in this way:

 “[Der Geist] wird nicht mit dem Leben vererbt. Er muß sich aber erst selbst schaffen, muß Einsatz tun bei jedem Schritt. Er ist nicht einfach Entfaltung von Anlagen. Man bedenke: sehen und gehen lernt das Kind mit der erwachenenden Fähigkeit der Organe, Glieder; sprechen lernt es nicht einfach mit organischen Entwicklung” (p. ).

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We are dealing here with nothing less than the very becoming-human of the individual. This is because it involves his taking part in the spirit of the time, his enculturation into the living objective spirit—through his cultivation into its current state […]. The individual becomes human in the sense of that humanity, whose bearer and representative s/he is, just by means of its enculturation into the respective level of objective spirit into which it was born (Hartmann 1933, 223 – 224).¹¹

Obviously, we cannot draw methodological instruments for education from Hartmann’s theories, but only a conceptual horizon: studying language, sciences, history, techniques, and arts, making possible the student’s global appropriation of his spiritual heritage, which unconsciously makes us men of our times. According to Hartmann, there is nothing more inimical to our natural urges than the activity of studying. As the Geist develops, in fact, it “consumes his life,” and weakens the living instinct. Spiritual work sacrifices the body, which is thus damaged in its harmony. “Some of the most common phenomena are fatigue, sadness, and the collapse of bodily life under spiritual stresses” (Hartmann 1933, 106).¹² This is a topical question in the history of Western thought that we well know through the legacy of intellectuals like Kant, with his idea of freedom, or Freud with his conception of civilization. But Hartmann also tries to evaluate the social consequences of this conflict from an original, even if not shareable, perspective. Increasing knowledge and education among cultured people requires the consumption of an enormous quantity of life. On the one hand, the individual, if s/he desires to be actually an individual, must engage in a spiritual effort (this does not mean only intellectual work, but also ethos and creative activities). Nevertheless, this choice “depletes” life. For these reasons, Hartmann sees a social risk in the democratization of culture. A tendency towards elevation is natural; a tendency towards extension is dangerous. The problem, according to him, concerns the risk of humanity’s extinction: “In any immoderate exploitation that mankind makes of natural treasures, we must see a clear immaturity of the spirit. Mankind saws off the branch on which it sits” (Hartmann 1933, 107).¹³

 “Es handelt sich um nichts Geringeres als um die Menschwerdung des Einzelnen. Denn es handelt sich um seine Teilhabe am Geiste der Zeit, um sein Hineinwachsen in den lebenden objektiven Geist – durch die Heranbildung an dessen gegebenen Stand […] Das Individuum wird zum Menschen im Sinne desjenigen Menschentums, dessen Träger und Repräsentant es ist, nur durch sein Heranwachsen an die jeweilige Höhenlage des objektiven Geistes, in den es hineingeboren ist.”  “Die Belastung, das Verkümmern, Zusammenbrechen des leiblichen Lebens unter der Anforderung des Geistes ist die gewöhnlichste Erscheinung.”  “In allem Raubbau den der Mensch an den Schätzen der Natur treibt, ist deutlich Unreife des Geistes zu erkennen. Immer sägt er den Ast, auf dem er sitzt.”

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Here, Hartmann’s argument becomes conservative and weak. Moreover, in step with the sociological atmosphere of his time, he utilizes the deplorable expression Volkshygiene, which sounds like a Nazi expression. More important is his assertion of the central importance of effort in study at a time when the majority of educators argued the contrary. Hartmann, in analogy with authors like Antonio Gramsci and partially with Makarenko, emphasises that introducing the multiple forms of the cultural tradition, and enabling a pupil to find the concentration to undertake work that does not immediately attract his/her motivation or imagination, are the core components of education. A learner must find, through work upon the spiritual goods of the past, his/her motivation for study in itself. This is exactly the dividing line between spiritual being and non-spiritual living being: “An animal has the freedom to snatch at what it desires, but not the freedom to desire what does not attract it” (Hartmann 1933, 152).¹⁴

5 References Cantoni, R. (1972): Che cosa ha veramente detto Hartmann. Roma: Ubaldini. Delgado, H. (1956): Nicolaï Hartmann y el reino del espiritu. Lima: Talleres graficos de la Editorial Lumen S.A. Gadamer H.-G. (1977): Philosophische Leherjahre – Eine Rückschau. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann. Hala, V. (2000): “The question of cultural being in Nicolai Hartmann’s philosophy”. In: Filosoficky Casopis 48. No. 6, pp. 950 – 972. Hartmann, N. (1926): Ethik. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, N. (1933): Das Problem des geistigen Seins. Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der Geschichtsphilosophie und der Geisteswissenschaften. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, N. (1935): Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, N. (1940): Der Aufbau der realen Welt. Grundriss der allgemeinen Kategorienlehre. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, N. (1951): Teleologisches Denken. Berlin: De Gruyter. Harlow, R. F. (1935): The educational implications of the theories of value of Nicolai Hartmann and John Dewey. Austin, TX: University of Texas. Heidegger, M. (1927): Sein und Zeit. Halle: Niemeyer. Keiser, A. (2003): Pedagogia e ontologia. Saggio su Nicolai Hartmann. Brescia: La scuola. Peterson, E. (1947): Die Personalität Pestalozzis im Lichte der Philosophie von Nicolai Hartmann. Hamburg: Baltic University. Roura, Parella J. (1955): “Cultura e individuo en Nicolai Hartmann”. Revista mexicana de Sociologia 15. No. 2 – 3, pp. 533 – 554.

 “Das Tier hat wohl die Freiheit, nach dem zu greifen, was er begehrt; aber es hat nicht die Freiheit, zu begehren, was es nicht reizt.”

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Scognamiglio, C. (2009): “The Human Being and the Non-Reductionist Conceptions of Determination”. In: Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion 6, pp. 349 – 358. Scognamiglio, C. (2011): Nicolai Hartmann’s theory of Psyche, In: Poli, Roberto/Scognamiglio, Carlo/Tremblay, Frederic (Eds.): The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 141 – 157. Scognamiglio, C. (2012): “History and Tradition in Nicolai Hartmann’s Theory of the Spiritual Being,” In: Hartung, Gerald/Wunsch, Matthias/Strube, Claudius (Eds.): Von der Systemphilosophie zur systematischen Philosophie – Nicolai Hartmann. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 317 – 330.

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Chapter 17 “The Socratic Pathos of Wonder”: On Hartmann’s Conception of Philosophy The highest to which man may aspire is wonder. —Goethe to Eckermann (February 18, 1829)

1 Nicolai Hartmann’s conception of philosophy presents a singular challenge for an interpreter, for it is neither easy to say exactly what his conception of philosophy is, nor why his philosophy itself has been so consistently neglected after his death. With regard to the first issue, one of the most notable problems is that Hartmann calls his philosophy “new”—as in “new ways of ontology”— and yet also claims that it signifies a return to and a revival of something old. He says, for instance, “once again the primal passion of philosophy has become its attitude—the Socratic pathos of wonder” (Hartmann 2002, 46). It is certainly puzzling how philosophy can be both new and old at the same time. With regard to the second issue, the first thing to remark is that Hartmann’s philosophy cannot be properly classified as either “analytic” or “continental.” While it is becoming clear that this dichotomy does not exhaust all possible options, nor is the choice between analytic and continental philosophy an “eitheror,” the rift between these two philosophical orientations has dominated the Western philosophical scene throughout a good part of the twentieth century. Clarifying why Hartmann’s orientation cannot be classified as either analytic or continental can certainly bring us closer to a better understanding of his unique conception of philosophy. The plan for this attempted reconstruction of Hartmann’s conception of philosophy is as follows. We will take an initial look at his claim that the Socratic pathos of wonder has again become a primal attitude of philosophy and try to clarify it a bit. Then, we will examine the analytic-continental divide and elaborate Hartmann’s reasons for ignoring it. Despite some modern commentators who locate the source of this division in Kant, it seems that for Hartmann it relates back to Descartes and the modern turn toward subjectivity. Traveling back to the past, we will also need to discuss, however briefly, why the Judeo-Christian tradition did not seem to have any influence on Hartmann’s philosophy; quite

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the contrary, it seems that Hartmann is opposed to some of the central tenets of the Judeo-Christian way of thinking. Finally, we will go back to the Greeks and the pathos of wonder. We will reconsider Hartmann’s conception of philosophy in light of the original promise of philosophy—that it consists of love of wisdom.

2 The final section of Hartmann’s introduction to his Ethics is called “The Modern Man.” He opens it with the statement that “if there is such a thing as an awakening of the consciousness of value, it is our time that has need of it.” Such an awakening, however, “can hardly emanate from philosophy.” Nevertheless, “this is a field for philosophy to explore,” because “there are prejudices which only it can uproot. And there are emotional obstacles which reflection and the turning of the eye of the soul inward can meet” (Hartmann 2002, 44). Philosophy, then, certainly plays a negative role of uprooting the prejudices with regard to values. Does philosophy also have a role to play in “reflection and the turning of the eye of the soul inward”? It seems that Hartmann believes so, just as he seems to believe that philosophy is a form of self-knowledge. Hartmann does not clarify these issues right away, but instead continues with a criticism of “the modern man.” Modern man is not prone to reflection and soul-searching, and may be even less sensitive toward the values that surround him. Hartmann is uncompromisingly critical: “Not only is modern man restless and precipitate, dulled and blasé, but nothing inspires, touches, lays hold on his innermost being. Finally, he has only an ironical and weary smile for everything. Yes, in the end he makes a virtue of his moral degradation” (Hartmann 2002, 44– 5). Following Nietzsche, Hartmann suggests that, “what is bent on being destroyed one should allow to go to ruin” (Hartmann 2002, 45). Then he makes a significant addition, which shows that his ultimate intention is not destructive but constructive: “Yet from every downfall young healthy life shoots forth.” The goal of this regeneration is not the reevaluation of values, as Nietzsche suggests, but the reevaluation of life. The values are what they are, and we need to open ourselves to the fullness of life. “The philosophical ethics of to-day stands under the banner of this task. It stands at the parting of the ways between the old and the new kind of philosophizing” (Hartmann 2002, 45). The goal of this philosophizing “signifies a new kind of love for the task in hand, a new devotion, a new reverence for what is great. For to it the world which it will open is once more great, as a whole and in its smallest part, and is filled with treasure, unexhausted and inexhaustible” (Hartmann 2002, 46).

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Hartmann finishes this section, and the entire introduction, in the same prophetic tone: “The new ethics also has once more the courage to face the whole metaphysical difficulty of the problems which arise out of the consciousness of the eternally marvelous and unmastered. Once again the primal passion of philosophy has become its attitude – the Socratic pathos of wonder” (Hartmann 2002, 46). There are a number of issues to notice here. One of them is that Hartmann switches from talking about philosophy in the future tense to speaking of it as if the transformation has already taken place. This would be hard to explain unless he thinks that he practices philosophy in this spirit of the Socratic pathos of wonder. Second, if philosophy has to return to the Socratic pathos of wonder, then the line between the old philosophy that has to be—or has already been—abandoned and the new one is not along the line of the present (or future) versus the past. If the roots are still healthy and can (and should) be rejuvenated, then the old philosophy to be abandoned is not the entire philosophy of the past; rather, it seems to be some philosophy between Socratic times and our own. If the title of this section is any indication of Hartmann’s thought with regard to this matter, his discontent is not only with modern man but also with modern philosophy. We will return to this issue later. Perhaps the central question to discuss here is what Hartmann even means by expressions like “the primal passion of philosophy” and “the Socratic pathos of wonder.” The later phrase may be a clarification of the former: as Plato and Aristotle claimed, presumably following Socrates, philosophy begins with wonder (thauma, thaumazein). This concept of wonder, together with the concepts of amazement and admiration related to it, were not invented by Socrates. They are part of the Homeric tradition. As Bruno Snell clarifies, But amazement and admiration, even from Homer’s viewpoint, are not of a specifically religious character. Beautiful women and sturdy heroes receive admiration, artfully wrought implements are “a wonder to behold.” Admiration has always been widely in evidence, but the early Greeks were particularly susceptible to it. It is a response excited by things which are not totally strange to the onlooker, but merely more beautiful and more perfect than everyday objects. The Greek word for admiration, thaumazein, is derived from theasthai, which means “to look.” Admiration is a look of wonder in one’s eyes; it does not affect the whole man, as terror does. The eye lends a distance to things, it makes them into objects. With admiration of the beautiful usurping the place of terror before the unknown, the divine becomes once more remote and more familiar; it no longer thrusts itself upon man with the former intensity; the power of its spell over him is broken, and yet its presence appears more natural and convincing than before (Snell 1960, 33 – 4).

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To come back to the roots of philosophical thinking, we can say that to wonder is to marvel and to be astonished by the complexity and the beauty of the cosmos. Notice here the passive attitude that leads to philosophical thinking: “pathos” comes from “pathein,” which primarily means to suffer, although it also means to feel. We suffer and feel what comes to us, what happens to us, and what amazes us. In this sense, passion and pathos seem almost synonymous: they refer to something we cannot control, something that overwhelms us. To clarify the word “wonder” a bit more, let us distinguish it for a moment from (mere) “curiosity.” What causes our curiosity, most of all, are novel things which usually have no (deeper) consequence for the spectator. Wonder, by contrast, deals with things that matter to us (deeply). In fact, they matter so much that wonder normally leads to a self-forgetful participation in the miracle of life. This original sense of wonder, which Hartmann ascribes to Socrates, becomes in Plato and Aristotle associated with “theoria” in its original sense, that is, the sense of being totally involved in and carried away by what one beholds. According to Werner Jäger, “The theoria of Greek philosophy was deeply and inherently connected with Greek art and Greek poetry; for it embodied not only rational thought, the element which we think of first, but also (as the name implies) vision, which apprehends every object as a whole, which sees the idea in everything—namely the visible pattern” (Jäger 1945, xxi).

3 If a reader were not told who the author of the text with the title “The Modern Man” is, he or she would likely be tempted to think of a continental philosopher—perhaps Karl Jaspers. If the ultimate question of philosophy deals with the position and role of humankind in the universe, continental philosophy tends to bypass the question of the nature of reality and rushes toward an understanding of human existence. In the words of one of its recent champions, Simon Critchley, continental philosophy focuses on the meaning of human existence. It treats this existence—and the problems of its philosophical understanding—as historically situated. In Critchley’s words, Philosophical problems are textually and contextually embedded and, simultaneously, distanced. It is this combination of embeddedness and distance which perhaps explains why seemingly peripheral problems of translation, language, reading, text-reception, interpretation, and the hermeneutic access to history are of such central importance to the Continental tradition (Critchley 2001, 59 – 60).

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An important implication of this insight is that the central philosophical question about the meaning and value of human life can no longer be legitimately referred to the traditional topics of speculative metaphysics (such as God, freedom, and immortality). Our recognition of the essential historicity of philosophy implies our realization of the radical finitude of the human subject, together with the acknowledgement that there is no God-like point of reference outside of human experience from which our experience might be judged. It also leads toward our recognition of the thoroughly contingent (and created) character of human experience. In Nietzsche’s words, human existence is human, all-toohuman, that is, made and remade by us. Perhaps the culmination and the most radical development of this realization is Sartre’s insistence that there is no such thing as a pre-given human nature; in his words, “existence precedes essence.” Of course, not every continental philosopher would go that far. It is important to realize, however, that—even in far less radical forms—the historicity thesis seems to imply a certain kind of nihilism, which is a decisive concept for the continental orientation. Continental philosophers think of nihilism as an unforeseen consequence of the Kantian critique of traditional metaphysics and the modern loss of faith. To quote Critchley again, Nihilism is the breakdown of the order of meaning, where all that was posited as a transcendent source of value in pre-Kantian metaphysics becomes null and void, where there are no cognitive skyhooks upon which to hang a meaning for life. All transcendent claims for a meaning to life have been reduced to mere values—in Kant the reduction of God and the immortality of the soul to the status of postulates of pure practical reason—and those values have become incredible, standing in need of what Nietzsche calls “transvaluation” or “revaluation” (Critchley 2001, 80 – 81).

Heidegger, the most important representative of continental philosophy, reacts to this “break in the order of meaning” by changing the Aristotelian question of “being qua being” into the question of the “meaning of being.” According to Heidegger, The question of Being aims therefore at ascertaining the a priori conditions not only for the possibility of the sciences which examine entities as entities of such and such a type, and, in so doing, already operate with an understanding of Being, but also for the possibility of those ontologies themselves which are prior to the ontological sciences and which provide their foundations. Basically, all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and perverted from its ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and conceived this clarification as its fundamental task (Heidegger 1962, 31).

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The meaning of being, Heidegger argues, has been concealed, and can be recovered only in confrontation with its opposite, non-being. Furthermore, in order to overcome the centuries-old “forgetfulness of being,” we need to focus on human existence (Dasein) and on what Heidegger believes is the most faithful encounter of which this Dasein is capable: our anxiety over death. Although Hartmann does not usually engage in direct polemic, he has a number of criticisms not only of Heidegger but of the continental orientation as well. On the one hand, the concept of non-being is just a limiting concept that has no ontological significance; all ontological differences are but the articulations of being, not of the differences between being and non-being. On the other hand, Hartmann insists that fear of death is the worst possible guide toward finding out what an authentic life may be. Those who are filled with fear are incapable of an adequate view of life and reality as it is in itself. Since death is something we cannot control, nor really have a reason to be afraid of, Hartmann perceives an obsession with death as a pathological attitude and a form of self-torture (Hartmann 1965, 181– 2). Hartmann’s second objection is that Heidegger’s transposition of the question of being qua being into the question of the meaning of being destroys the old ontology without offering anything positive in return. Ontology cannot be limited to an analysis of Dasein, for this Dasein is still a Sein (a form of being), and the question of being as being returns back to the forefront one more time. The third major shortcoming of Heidegger’s approach is that, according to Hartmann, it limits the inquiry to my individual being (Dasein) and ignores any form of social being; it seems to thereby eliminate the spiritual as a separate stratum of reality. Heidegger’s anxiety over death limits us to the psychic stratum, and ignores perhaps not so much the personal spirit, as it ignores the objective spirit, which is the highest insight of German Idealism from Kant to Hegel. Fourth, Hartmann is opposed to Heidegger’s anthropomorphic understanding of reality in terms of concealment. Reality does not hide from us in any way; being is indifferent toward being known. It is what it is, and it reveals itself to us when we are open to it and grasp it. The truth is not relative to us, nor is it somehow historically colored. Of course, every problem may be presented in a way that reveals a certain historical bias, but the core of every problem is unaffected by its contextual wrappings. We need to go back to the ontological problems, which have their own ahistorical logic and their own essential characteristics. The contents of such questions are not arbitrary products of human curiosity, nor historically conditioned residues of linguistic expressions, but something rooted in the eternal mysteriousness of the world itself and its underlying order. In Hartmann’s eyes, continental philosophy not only cannot be claimed to be the highest and most serious form of philosophical thinking,

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but it leads to a relativism about truth which spells death to any philosophical inquiry and leads to an abandonment of genuine philosophical thinking (Hartmann 1965, 40 – 2; 71– 76).

4 If continental philosophy concerns itself with meaning (especially of human existence), analytic philosophy focuses on establishing facts and their structural interrelations (regardless of what meaning these facts and their relations may have). Analytic philosophy is more of a methodological orientation than a definitive set of views. Roughly speaking, it is science-like and, more generally, a kind of inquiry oriented toward science that aims at the same rigorous and systematic level of discourse. Some consider the true father of analytic philosophy to be John Locke, who in his famous Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) maintained that philosophy is an under-laborer of science, whose job is to clear away the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge and scientific progress. As Critchley ironically comments, with this orientation “philosophers become janitors in the Crystal Palace of the sciences” (Critchley 2001, 5). Following Locke, Berkeley, and especially Hume, their analytic successors focus on the mind and its work. What drives their focus toward the ever-more scrupulous investigations of the ways in which the human mind works is the menace of skepticism. While the undermining threat of the continental orientation is the fear of the meaningless of human existence (or nihilism), the worst fear of the analytic orientation is that we may be massively and systematically deceived in our cognitive beliefs about the world. Kant called it “a scandal of philosophy,” meaning thereby that philosophy was not able to offer a rigorous and satisfying proof for the existence of an external world. The project of the entire analytic orientation may thus be summed up as an attempt to show that our thoughts are not merely subjective mental experiences, but that they have an objective content, and also that their content must be capable of analysis with a scientific precision and systematicity. Just as scientific experiments have to yield the same results whether they are conducted in the USA or in China, regardless of the gender, race, age, and personal inclinations of those who perform them, the results of analytic thinking are expected to have the same universally sustainable and objectively verifiable results. Nevertheless, because of the always present skeptical threats and the never removable forms of human fallibility, most analytic philosophers admit, together with Karl Popper, that “our knowledge is a human—an all too human—affair, without at the same time implying that it is all individual whim and arbitrariness” (Popper 1968, 16).

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Reading Hartmann’s thick books on ontology would make one initially suspect that he is also an analytic philosopher in his orientation. While continental philosophy generally tends to have a popular appeal, analytic philosophy is usually scholastic and pedantic in its systematicity. A quick overview of any of Hartmann’s major books would reveal the same systematic approach, and there is, indeed, much that can sustain this impression of Hartmann as an analytic philosopher—at least for a while. As science is demanding and often not directly practical, philosophy follows the same blueprint. In Hartmann’s words, The basic problems of philosophy have always had an esoteric character. One cannot turn them around at will, back onto the beaten tracks of temporarily conditioned interests. They prescribe a peculiar path to the seeker, a path that is not for everyone. If the path has been recognized, then one merely has to decide to pursue it or to renounce any further foray. Renunciation of the path signifies the abandonment of philosophy. But the pursuit of the path is the undertaking of a task whose end cannot be foreseen (Hartmann 2013, 4– 5).

There are, however, some major differences between the approach of analytic philosophers on the one hand, and of Hartmann on the other. Let us begin by looking at Hartmann’s view of the relationship of science and philosophy. While Hartmann does not deny that their relationship can be, and in many ways is, collaborative, they have their own respective fields of inquiry. For instance, all science and, indeed, all human cognition, presupposes a certain number of fundamental categories, such as time and space, form and matter, unity and plurality, quantity and quality, harmony and conflict, element and structure, and so on. These categories, which, according to Hartmann, are common for all the strata of the real being, cannot be defined by science. They are metaphysical, not scientific concepts. Moreover, they are such basic concepts that their definitions are impossible, for the rest of our experience is determined through them. What is possible is their comprehensive analysis, which consists neither in purely a priori knowledge, nor in its purely a posteriori counterpart, but presupposes the whole breath of human experience, from everyday life to the most sophisticated scientific research. Despite his Herculean efforts to take this categorial analysis as far as possible, Hartmann recognizes that no such analysis can ever be decisively completed. While that would bother a scientist and an analytical philosopher, Hartmann is far more willing to recognize that the incompleteness of such analysis is not due (only) to our subjective limitations but (also) to the ontological nature of reality. Like all scientists and analytic philosophers, he would grant that the real must be structured, but he deviates from them with regard to whether or not this reality must be ultimately and in principle cognizable. Hartmann thinks that it is

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not, and that this is so because, among other things, “Being itself is disharmonious, and conflict is the form of its being” (Hartmann 1958, 311). This important insight has an implication for the limitation of human knowledge overall, scientific knowledge included. In the course of the last several centuries, science has advanced so much that it may appear that its progress is unstoppable and its limitations only temporal. With more research and even better scientific instruments, it may seem that science would be able to resolve all the mysteries of the universe. Things are not, however, that straightforward. Kant already made a distinction between temporary and permanent boundaries of human reason, and ultimately of human knowledge, which many subsequent philosophers and scientists wanted to repudiate. Kant’s recognition of the immovable limits of knowledge was based on his discoveries of what he called the “antinomies of pure reason.” Kant thought that there are only a few of those special antinomies, but Hegel’s discovery of many more such antinomies, and his proposal to resolve them through a dialectical movement from thesis and antithesis toward synthesis, somewhat devaluated Kant’s insight. Like Hegel, Hartmann discovers antinomies in every aspect of human experience, yet he does not admit their easy resolution through a higher synthesis. Only apparent (or pseudo‐) antinomies are really resolvable, while the genuine ones never are. Hartmann thereby hints not only at partial irrationality and uncognizability of the real, but he also intimates its recalcitrance and indifference toward any subject’s cognitive attitudes. Furthermore, he believes that we must avoid an oversimplified picture of how a subject approaches the world with its conflicts. Hartmann’s great merit is that, unlike virtually all modern philosophers after Descartes, he recognizes the relevance of intuitive cognition, which helps us understand why he is not too concerned about skepticism. The threat of skepticism has shifted the attention of philosophers from truth to justification, evidence or proofs, which all require elaborate argumentation and the use of discursive thinking. In the case of intuitive cognition, however, if we recognize something, we do so directly and immediately, without any need for further evidence, justification, and proof. Unlike Kant, who thinks that it is a scandal of human reason that we have not offered a conclusive proof for the existence of an external world, Hartmann’s reply is that the scandal consists in our thinking that such a proof is needed in the first place. The world is given, and it is intuitively obvious that this is so.¹

 For a very different discussion of this important issue, see Moore , and Wittgenstein .

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Part of the reason why so many philosophers would not be convinced by Hartmann’s repudiation is that we have traditionally separated rationality from other forms of human experience. This separation has been so deeply entrenched, and has been insisted on with such dogmatic persistence, that most analytic philosophers commit what Hartmann calls a “correlativistic mistake.” Just as Berkeley argued that “to be is to be perceived” (esse est percipi), many philosophers come to think that to be is to be known (or at least knowable). There is no cognitive object without some cognitive subject; no thing can be separated from consciousness, and there is no thing in itself; if any thing is, it is only for consciousness (Hartmann 1965, 14– 5; 156 – 8). This mistake is the result not only of our concession to skepticism, but also of the inversion of the roles of ontology and epistemology, to which we will return in the next section. Hartmann’s insistence that no rigorous proof for the existence of an external world is necessary is furthermore based on his insight regarding the inseparability of emotional and cognitive acts. While our non-emotional and rational cognition leaves the cognitive subject unchanged, our emotional acts affect the subject who experiences them.² Through various emotional acts we come to feel all the rigidity of the real, which gives us an immediate certainty of being itself, and instantly makes it obvious to us that no further proof of an external world is necessary. The fundamental and elementary aspect of cognition is that it does not consist in any kind of making, as we have increasingly come to believe. In our participation in reality, which results in our emotional awareness of it, we are more passive than active; we are overwhelmed by the real and so impressed upon by it that we cannot resist what it impresses on us. Thus, Hartmann is convinced that our emotional awareness of the real lies at the bottom of all our cognitive activity and that it is a fundamental mistake of analytic philosophy to separate cognitive phenomena from a larger life-nexus.

5 Historians of philosophy usually take it that the split between the continental and the analytic approaches occurs after Kant. He is taken to be the last great figure and the common denominator for both approaches. What happened in Kant’s philosophy that led to their separation?

 In German, this difference is captured even in ordinary parlance through the distinction between Erfahrung and Erlebnis. For a detailed discussion of the relevance of this distinction, see Gadamer .

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One way to present Kant’s central insights is to say that his philosophy brings a simultaneous recognition that human reason is creative (even in cognition), and also that this creative power is limited, for we can never know what things are in themselves but only in so far as they appear to us. The way I interpret what happened after Kant, is that most of his successors, from Fichte and Hegel to neo-Kantians and analytic philosophers, gladly accepted the first insight but were uncomfortable with the second conclusion and tried to overcome it. Hartmann is among those rare philosophers who is suspicious of the creative power of the human mind in cognition and who rather embraces its limitations. Simon Critchley sees Kant’s legacy in a related, yet somewhat different light. He argues that Kant’s transcendentalism led to two results that had earthquakelike shattering effects. On the one hand, Kant left us a legacy of various forms of dualism (e. g., between appearances and things in themselves). On the other hand, he steered us toward a loss of faith—not just in the power of reason to close those gaping dualisms, but also toward the loss of our faith in God. In the formulation of Kant’s contemporary, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Kant’s philosophy brings us to the crossroads at which we must make the most consequential choice: “Nothingness or a God.” Jacobi explains: “Choosing Nothingness, [man] makes himself into a God; that is, he makes an apparition into God because if there is no God, it is impossible that man and everything which surrounds him is not merely an apparition. I repeat: God is, and is outside me, a living being, existing in itself, or I am God. There is no third” (Critchley 2001, 27). It is hardly a matter of dispute that modern Western philosophy has for the most part turned away from faith and attempted to test the creative power of humanity. Critchley rightly warns that the results are unexpectedly alarming. In his words, In denying God we risk turning the human being into God. That is, there is a Promethean temptation in Kantian and Fichtean idealism, where the human being turns into some replica of God, creating from nothing (it is worth recalling that Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein [1819], was subtitled The Modern Prometheus, where something monstrous stalks the scientific rationalism of the Enlightenment) (Critchley 2001, 27).

Hannah Arendt is right to maintain that the Promethean (and Faustian) ambitions of the modern man lead to his spiritual homelessness, which, in her interpretation, is manifested most clearly by our thoughtlessness and the banality of evil. Even modern science, according to Arendt, is permeated with the Cartesian spirit of doubt and mistrust. Arendt is also right to claim that the loss of faith occurred long before Kant. Kant’s philosophy—especially the Transcendental Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason—undermined our faith in the power of reason; the decline of our faith in God, however, is already visible in Descartes’ de

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omnibus dubitandum est, “with its underlying suspicion that things may not be as they appear and that an evil spirit may willfully and forever hide truth from the minds of men” (Arendt 1968, 29). Descartes certainly gives the sharpest philosophical expression to the spirit of doubt and mistrust, but that spirit itself emerged even earlier. It emerged as a result of the collapse of the medieval worldview. This worldview was undermined by a series of geographical and scientific discoveries, as well as—and perhaps even more so—by the internal crisis within Western Christianity that led to its separation into Catholicism and Protestantism. What the Protestants protested against, and what they wanted to reform, was the corrupt Church that usurped for itself the right to interpret dogmatically the message of the Gospels. By rebelling against the ultimate authority of the Pope and claiming that it is the right of every believer to interpret the Bible in his or her own way, the Reformers like Luther and Calvin took their personal opinions and feelings as a base on which to rebuild the entire structure of religion and their way of life. It is this subjective turn of the Reformation that opened the Pandora’s box of modernity, with its most troublesome concern: Can it be shown that what is subjectively certain may be true not only for the individual but also objectively and even absolutely? This movement from subjective certainty to objective truth is also the central theme of Descartes philosophy: in his effort to answer the skeptical arguments and secure the edifice of scientific cognition, he uses the method of doubt in an attempt to demonstrate that what is subjectively certain had to correspond to the objective states of affairs.³ It is less important for our purposes whether or not, or to what degree, Descartes succeeded in his effort. What matters for us is that Descartes reoriented the entire philosophical enterprise from what Hartmann calls “intentio recta” toward “intentio obliqua” (Hartmann 1965, 46 – 7). This Cartesian subjective turn led philosophers to focus on the subject and its subjective states of mind. In terms of the philosophical disciplines, it led to prioritizing epistemology and philosophy of mind over ontology. Hartmann laments that soon after Descartes— more precisely, after Leibniz and his follower Christian Wolff—ontology fell into a deep sleep, and this is where Hartmann thinks that modern philosophy took a radically wrong turn. To explain Hartmann’s technical distinction between intentio recta and intentio obliqua, allow me to use a non-philosophical example. Consider this little “poem” by Mechthild of Magdeburg, who lived toward the end of the Middle Ages (roughly 1207– 1285):

 On this issue see Popkin .

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A fish cannot drown in water. A bird does not fall in air. Each creature God made, Must live in its own true nature.

We are the only species that gets confused about what our true nature is; it does not happen to fish or birds, or any other kinds of living beings. This confusion has both its good side and its bad side. The good side is that it may guide us toward further and deeper examination of our nature, and toward expanding the boundaries of what is possible for us as a species. The bad side is that in this search for the new and the better we may get misdirected, even lost. This is precisely what Hartmann believes happened in the course of the fourteenth to the seventeenth century: there were so many sweeping changes and so many radical discoveries that they made human beings dizzy and uncertain. Metaphorically speaking, they made us turn our gaze away from the goals we were trying to reach in the real world, and shift our attention toward the steps we are making. Think about it this way. When you are first teaching a child to walk (or to ride a bicycle, or swim) and make those crucial first steps, there is an important principle: instead of holding the child’s hand(s), you need to stand apart from the child, yet close enough to encourage the child to look at your eyes rather than down at its feet. When the child is looking down, it stumbles; when the child is too focused on each step it is trying to make, it falls down. Hartmann could say that the same principle can be generalized to describe our adult life and our philosophy. When we are so concerned about every step we are trying to make, we lose our focus on what really matters, and that is the sense of truth and the grasp of what is in front of us. Our balance in reality, our ability to make our steps naturally and without too much thought, becomes undermined by our desire to control every step and our fear that we may fail. Like the proverbial centipede, we become paralyzed: The centipede was happy, quite, Until a toad in fun Said, “Pray, which leg goes after which?” This worked his mind to such a pitch, He lay distracted in a ditch, Considering how to run.

It is in such cases that we begin to wonder if there is an evil demon that may deceive us about everything we believe. It is also in such states of self-absorbed confusion that we think we need to produce not only a rigorous proof for the ex-

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istence of an external world, but also to overcome a sense of nihilism that permeates our daily existence. Hartmann is convinced that he can undermine the main fears of both continental and analytic orientations by making us turn back to the world, with a sense of trust in that world and our ability to appreciate it.

6 One of Hartmann’s special strengths is his ability to avoid the pressure of the “either–or” dilemmas, which characterize not only Western philosophy but also much of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Recall how Jacobi formulated the turning point at which Western philosophy—and indeed the entire Western civilization— stood after Kant’s “Copernican Revolution”: “Nothingness or a God …. There is no third.” On Hartmann’s view, there is a third. Moreover, this third is the right choice. It is impossible for Hartmann to choose the side of God in Jacobi’s dichotomy. Cognitively, we simply have no ground for such a choice. Of course, the existence of God is accepted on faith, and Hartmann has no problem with that. What bothers him are the next steps that are almost automatically taken after the initial act of faith. Against the background of our almost automatic dogmatic assertions of God’s existence, which, as Kant demonstrates, we can never dogmatically either prove or disprove, there are two problematic further moves. One is to assign to this invisible, unknowable being an aura of reality much greater than any attached to the real beings existing around us. Frozen into the perfections that cannot be questioned—omniscience, omnipotence, all-benevolence—a figment of our imagination is turned into a dead, overwhelming, and arresting figure that supposedly creates our lives and determines our being. In the section of the Grundlegung entitled “Nimbus of the Sublime,” Hartmann exposes the fallacy of such reasoning, which is characteristic not only of religion but also of all utopian thinking (imaging a paradise to be somewhere else, or at some other time), as well as of what Leibniz termed “perennial philosophy” (which assumes that there is an infinite, changeless Reality beneath the world of change, the same Reality that lies at the core of every human personality, and that the purpose of life is to discover that reality and realize God here on Earth).⁴ The real is not that which lasts forever, arrested like a poolimage of Narcissus in its perfection. As Hartmann intends to show in his ontol-

 For the best discussion of perennial philosophy, see Huxley .

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ogy, the real is what is individual and unique, what is changeable and perishable, in the process of becoming and transforming. As Hartmann puts it: “That which is truly valuable in life cannot last, because it is real; and if it were to last, then for man it would not shine with the light that outshines everything” (Hartmann 1965, 292). Not selecting God does not imply choosing Nothingness in Jacobi’s dichotomy. Nor does it imply that, God forbid, man should assume the role of a god. One of the things that inclines us toward such either-or thinking is the lack of intellectual modesty and self-knowledge. In his Ethics, Hartmann illustrates this through his criticism of “the myth of the tree of knowledge,” which is one of the foundation stones of Judeo-Christian ethics. According to the Biblical account, while Adam and Eve were still in the Garden of Eden, the serpent pointed the tree of knowledge out to them and prophesized: “In the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And human being, comments Hartmann, “albeit cheated out of innocence and happiness, believes. To this day he thinks that he knows what good and evil are. He believes this so firmly that even the most critical thought has fallen a victim to the great deception” (Hartmann 2002, 83). The serpent’s prophecy, insists Hartmann, is “the great deception.” Against the insistence of Augustine, and later Luther and Calvin, Hartmann points out that sin has not opened humankind’s eyes, and he has become even more confused as to what his true nature is. Not only that he has not become a god, but also he has never learned properly what good and evil are. Quite the contrary, this whole obsession with sin has undermined his faith in the existing world and made him feel spiritually homeless. Of special importance for Hartmann is that this obsession with sin has also blinded humanity to “the glory of the imperfect,” the glory of this life and of this world. Instead of dreaming of a paradise distant in time or space (or heaven), and instead of obsessing with sin and suspecting the serpent, Eve, or himself, Hartmann leads us to look at the real world again; he wants us to realize that, as imperfect as we all are, “there is something good in everyone. And it grows with the exercise of [faith] and through encouragement. It languishes through lack of appreciation. Faith can transform a man, toward good or evil, according to what he believes. This is its secret, its power to remove mountains” (Hartmann 2003, 295).

7 Going against the mainstream of the entire Western tradition, Hartmann’s philosophical project aims at the rediscovery of reality and our renewed appreciation

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for it. The first step in the rediscovery of reality must, according to Hartmann, be a renewal of ontology. But why, exactly, must we return to ontology, this forgotten and abandoned discipline? Hartmann offers two reasons. The first is that we must return to ontology because all fundamental metaphysical questions are of an ontological nature and ultimately reduce to the question of being qua being. Just because these questions have been neglected, ignored, or misinterpreted for so long does not mean that they are thereby resolved, eliminated, or negligible. Speaking of the distinctions between real possibility, essential possibility, and logical possibility, for example, Hartmann comments that, “It is of no use to ignore such things because they seem formal and meaningless; one cannot overlook the consequences, and one cannot see in advance how disastrous it is if one loses one’s interpretation right at this initial crossroads” (Hartmann 2013, 3). The second reason for the renewal of ontology builds upon the first one. The contents of the metaphysical questions are neither accidental nor an arbitrary product of human curiosity; they are rooted in the eternal puzzlement (Rätselhaftigkeit) of the world and its structure. We are destined perpetually to raise these questions, and only through their systematic consideration can we prepare “the path for a well-grounded philosophy of humankind and creative action” (Hartmann 2013, 4). “The eternal puzzlement at the world and its structure” directs us again toward Hartmann’s vision of philosophy as the “Socratic pathos of wonder.” Let us use this opportunity to mention a few other steps, scattered throughout Hartmann’s vast opus, which will assist us in this direction. We have already mentioned the significance of trust, without which the Socratic pathos of wonder would be impossible. Instead of the existentialist’s angst and the Heideggerian “fear of death,” Hartmann proposes that we build our attitude toward reality on the open-mindedness and receptivity based in trust and faith. We have sufficiently indicated that, although Hartmann occasionally uses “trust” and “faith” as nearly synonymous, they do not have any narrow religious connotation. Hartmann understands trust and faith in the Greek way, rather than in the way we are accustomed to in our Judeo-Christian tradition. As Snell explains the difference, Our notion of faith or belief always allows for the possibility of disbelief; this is true in the world of ghosts, but is especially valid on a higher religious plane. “Faith,” the credo, requires as its opposite a false belief, a heresy; it is tied to a dogma which people must either attack or defend with their very lives. All this was foreign to the Greeks; they looked upon their gods as so natural and self-evident that they could not even conceive of other nations acknowledging a different faith or other gods (Snell 1960, 24).

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For Hartmann, trust and faith are the spiritual categories of utmost importance for the full development of our humanity. In his words, “The ability to trust is spiritual strength, a moral energy of a unique kind. Its foundation is not experience, not previous testing. For it is only by showing trust that a man can be tested; and doing so presupposes that spiritual energy. Faith exists prior to experience. It alone is the foundation of genuine trust” (Hartmann 2003, 292– 3). To clarify our trust and faith as the foundations of our overall orientation in reality, he adds: In life there is always something to which a man can look up. The upward gaze is not a result, but a cause. It does not arise out of comparison, but itself selects the points of comparison. In the ethos of upward gaze all reverence and awe have their basis, as everyone who is morally unspoiled proves by his reverence and awe for real worth and merit, for antiquity or for persons in positions of higher responsibility (Hartmann 2003, 299).

This upward gaze can be partially articulated in terms of foresight, by which Hartmann understands a human capacity to look forward in time, to foresee the future and prepare for it beforehand: Foresight is the intuitive vision in man; in its highest power, it is prophecy. Prevision makes him move forward, conscious of his goal. Man does not live in the present alone. He belongs to the future. And the future belongs to him—within the limit of his prevision. Indeed, to speak exactly, the future is the only thing that practically does belong to him. The past stands eternally still and is not to be changed. Nor is the present to be changed any more than the past, [for] it already has its irrevocable determination in itself (Hartmann 2003, 148).

Notice how important for Hartmann is a cluster of concepts including seeing, perception, vision, and intuition. A sense of wonder is not an intellectual process, even though it leads to attempts intellectually to grasp the real. Wonder depends on seeing and on something appearing to us. Put differently, a sense of wonder is possible only when the given seems to allow the appearance of something that in itself is not given. The facts that analytic philosophy (and science) tries to establish may be necessary but not sufficient for a philosophical grasp of reality. Nor does Hartmann have in mind the meaning of facts, which continental philosophers search for. There is again something third that Hartmann believes brings us closer to the true nature of philosophy, and indirectly to our understanding of our true nature as well. To articulate what that third is, let us return to the original promise of philosophy: philosophy as love of wisdom. Wisdom is not factual knowledge, and Hartmann tries to distance it from any overly intellectualistic reading, such as the one offered by Aristotle. Hartmann emphasizes that wisdom has only a pe-

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ripheral contact with the intellectual values of truth and knowledge. Truth and knowledge are important in our instrumental reasoning concerning the means we should choose in order to obtain some desired ends, but they do not touch the essence of wisdom. If anything, wisdom deals more with setting the ends rather than with any means. According to Hartmann, Aristotle’s conception of wisdom in terms of dianoia is a mistake because it pushes wisdom away from the real world and toward “contemplative self-indulgence.” In contrast to Aristotle, Hartmann emphasizes that, “in the practical significance of wisdom there is a complete rapport with the world, a sensing of everything which contains value” (Hartmann 2003, 238). Again, we notice a visual element, which is this time directly related to values and which Hartmann connects with a “cultivated taste” directed toward our perception of the fullness of life and an appreciation of everything that is of value. Wisdom is the penetration of the valuational sense into life, into every one of our actions and reactions. Wisdom is ethical spirituality that dominates an individual’s entire life and allows him not so much a discovery of meaning but a bestowal of meaning. In Hartmann’s memorable words, For the wise man the intuitive grasping of the situation is in part determined by this wider perspective, by that of the Idea. The understanding of the significance of a situation depends upon the perspective in which it is seen. The larger the perspective, the deeper the insight into the situation. Ethical divination is the bestowal of meaning. For at bottom it is the living sense of value—but obscure, foreboding, not yet clear as to content. With a thousand tentacles the wise man reaches out beyond himself and his own limited understanding; he does not live in what he already knows of himself, but always a span beyond. This is the strict meaning of sapientia (Hartmann 2003, 241).

The Idea of which Hartmann speaks here is the translation of the Greek word “eidos.” Although this word was “canonized” by Plato, it was a well-established term long before. In Homer, for instance, it means “what one sees,” “appearance,” and “shape” (normally of the body). It should come as no surprise that Hartmann returns to eidos in his monumental Aesthetics, where he examines the phrase a “life in the Idea.” Many who speak about art use this expression to mean “creation out of ideas,” interpreted as an active process of formal beholding of something that lies over and beyond all real existence. Understood in this way, in a work of art an artist brings into the world something that never was. Hartmann’s entire aesthetics is an attempt to repudiate this view of art. As he puts it, “The artist is not burdened in this way. He realizes nothing at all; he only lets appear, only represents” (Hartmann 2014, 510).

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More interesting for our purposes here is Hartmann’s view that “The ethical man leads a life in the Idea no less than the artist, likewise the statesman, the practically effective men of all kinds, as far as they survey only what is beyond the given” (Hartmann 2014, 510). The point of Hartmann’s claim is that a life in the Idea is a human way of being creative, not by creating ex nihilo, but by letting something appear and by our appreciation of it. He emphasizes that a life in the Idea does not consist in our turning away from real life but in a full absorption into it. In the remarkable conclusion of the Aesthetics, he continues to articulate this thought: This power is a purely spiritual one, the power to enlighten and to convince in places where no demonstration and no philosophizing ever could convince man; indeed the power to direct the gaze upon what is to be beheld—in the Platonic image, to execute the act of metastrofe [conversion, transformation]. For that is decisive. And just for that reason, so much in human life depends upon our living, alongside of all actuality, a “life in the Idea.” We can do that, because we possess the power of aesthetic beholding (Hartmann 2014, 513).

Should Hartmann not also have added that we can do that insofar as we are the lovers the wisdom, those overcome by the primal passion of philosophy—the Socratic pathos of wonder?

8 References Arendt, Hannah (1968): Between Past and Future. Eight Exercises in Political Thought. New York: Penguin. Critchley, Simon (2001): Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1993): Truth and Method. 2nd Ed. New York: Continuum. Hartmann, Nicolai (1958): Kleinere Schriften. Vol. 3. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (1965): Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (2002): Moral Phenomena. Trans. Coit, S. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Hartmann, Nicolai (2003): Moral Values. Trans. Coit, S. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Hartmann, Nicolai (2013): Possibility and Actuality. Trans. Scott, A./Adair, S. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hartmann, Nicolai (2014): Aesthetics. Trans. Kelley, E. Berlin: De Gruyter. Heidegger, Martin (1962): Being and Time. Trans. Macquarrie, J./Robinson, E. New York: Harper and Row. Huxley, Aldous (1945): Perennial Philosophy. New York: Harper & Brothers. Jäger, Werner (1945): Paideia. The Ideals of Greek Culture. New York: Oxford University Press. Moore, G. E. (1959): Philosophical Papers. London: George Allan and Unwin.

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Popkin, Richard H. (1960): The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes. Assen: Van Gorcum & Comp. Popper, Karl (1968): Conjectures and Refutations. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Snell, Bruno (1960): The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1969): On Certainty. Oxford: Blackwell.

Author Index Adorno, Theodor 292 Albertazzi, Liliana 12 f. Aquinas, Thomas 254, 257 f., 261 Aristotle 5, 65, 139, 146, 149, 153, 158 – 164, 166, 177 f., 213, 223, 247 f., 250 – 259, 283, 286, 293, 298, 315 f., 329 f. Ballauff, Theodore 66 Barad, Karen 115 Barbieri, Marcello 66, 76 – 78 Baumann, Willibald 66 Bergson, Henri 112, 122, 285 Bernard, Claude 71 Bertalanffy, Ludwig von 116 Bertolini, Simona 171 Blitz, David 19 Bollnow, Otto 9 Brentano, Franz 18 Brentari, Carlo 65 Bruno, Giordano 113 Butterfield, Jeremy 31, 40 f. Cadwallader, Eva 270 f., 273 Cassirer, Ernst 158 Chalmers, David 18 Cicovacki, Predrag 226, 313 Claramonte, Jordi 283, 288, 294 Cobb, John 115 Cohen, Herman 50, 59 f. Collingwood, Robin G. 57 Critchley, Simon 316 f., 319, 323 Dahlstrom, Daniel 109, 119 f. Danilkina, Natalia 229, 242 D’Anna, Giuseppe 171 Darwin, Charles 3, 9, 50 Deleuze, Gilles 115 Descartes, René 136, 215 f., 223, 225, 313, 321, 323 f. Dewey, John 297, 300 Dilthey, Wilhelm 3, 298, 301 Dziadkowiec, Jakub 8, 18, 109, 115

Ehrl, Gerhard 70 Einstein, Albert 31 Empedocles 164 Epicurus 283 Fichte, Johann G. 153, 237, 298, 323 Forsche, Joachim 7, 14 f., 22 Freud, Sigmund 309 Gadamer, Hans G. 231 f., 297, 322 Gehlen, Arnold 1, 4, 277 Goethe, Wolfgang 1, 4, 313 Griffin, David 16 f. Gurvitch, Georges 17 – 19 Habermas, Jürgen 12, 21, 23, 276 Harman, Graham 115 Hartshorne, Charles 115 Hegel, Georg W. F. 3, 45, 54, 59 f., 136, 150, 182, 256, 259, 261 f., 293, 298, 301 f., 318, 321, 323 Heidegger, Martin 45, 50, 52, 167, 298, 306 f., 317 f. Heraclitus 141, 159, 302 Herder, Johann G. 262 Hildebrand, Dietrich von 249, 251, 257 Homer 162, 315, 330 Hume, David 47, 248, 319 Husserl, Edmund 13, 155 f., 171 f., 177, 187, 234, 251, 285 Ingarden, Roman 171 – 187 Ingold, Tim 14, 24 Jacobi, Friedrich H. 323, 326 f. Jäger, Werner 316 James, William 13, 24, 213 Jantsch, Erich 14, 21, 24, 288 Jaspers, Karl 316 Johansson, Ingvar 8, 11, 119, 172 Jonas, Hans 112 f., 121 Jung, Karl 285

334

Author Index

Kant, Immanuel 1, 3 – 9, 12, 14, 45, 50, 52, 57, 59 f., 66, 70, 120, 135 f., 139 f., 143, 148 f., 153, 158, 230 f., 233, 236, 238, 243, 248, 255 f., 273 f., 285 f., 298, 309, 313, 317 – 319, 321 – 323, 326 Kelly, Eugene 272 Kinneging, Andreas A. M. 229, 237, 247, 271 f. Kleineberg, Michael 1, 11, 109, 125 Kuchař, Karel 26 – 28

Poli, Roberto 1 – 4, 6 f., 11 – 14, 16, 18, 25, 32, 46, 114 f., 172, 182, 184, 187, 211, 217, 219, 221 – 223, 276 Popper, Karl 4, 7 f., 12, 319

Latour, Bruno 115 Leibniz, Gottfried 17 f., 41, 45, 136, 249, 298, 324, 326 Leontiev, Alexei 22 Leucippus 159 Lörch, Katrin 267 Lorenz, Konrad XI, 191 – 204 Luchetti, Claudia 135, 144, 149 Lukács, György 2, 22, 45, 290

Sartre, Jean-Paul 317 Scheler, Max 213 f., 217 – 223, 225, 231 f., 234, 239 f., 243, 249, 251, 298 Schlittmaier, Anton 68 f. Scognamiglio, Carlo 11, 217, 219, 297, 299, 303 Shakespeare, William 285, 292, 301 Siep, Ludwig 269 f. Snell, Bruno 315, 328 Socrates 142 – 146, 151, 256 – 258, 286, 315 f. Sorokin, Pitirim 13 Spinoza, Baruch 214, 247, 283, 285 Stegmüller, Wolfgang 46 Stevens, Wallace 283, 286

Margulis, Lynn 22 McTaggart, John M. E. 3 Mohanty, Jitendra N. 171 Morgenstern, Martin 66, 69 Natorp, Paul 50, 60, 136 – 138, 146 Nietzsche, Friedrich 160, 305, 314, 317 Ortega y Gasset, José

289 f., 292

Parmenides 141, 146, 149, 155, 157 – 159, 166 Peruzzi, Alberto 109 Pestalozzi, Johann H. 297 Peterson, Keith R. 1, 109, 118, 123, 229, 241, 297 Piaget, Jean 308 Pinna, Simonluca 23 Plato 54, 135 – 151, 153, 163, 209, 211, 214 f., 247 f., 250 – 252, 254 f., 257 f., 283, 286, 298, 302, 315 f., 330 Plessner, Helmuth 298 Plotinus 145, 220 Plutarch 164

Reale, Giovanni 151 Rickert, Heinrich 236, 242 Robertson, Morgan 125 f. Röck, Tina 153 Rommen, Heinrich 247, 262

Taylor, Peter J. 126, 258 Tomasello, Michael 14, 24 Tremblay, Frederic 73 f., 187, 267 Uexküll, Jakob von

71

Vasta, Salvatore 1, 13 Väyrynen, Kari 45, 49, 55 Weber, Max 12, 55, 293 Whitehead, Alfred N. 8, 17 f., 22, 283 Wilber, Ken 2, 11 f., 14, 16 – 20, 22 – 25 Windelband, Wilhelm 4 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 213 f., 285 f., 321 Wolff, Christian von 158, 261, 324 Wright, Georg H. von 18, 45, 49, 57 f. Xenophanes

164

Zaborowski, Robert

209, 213, 218, 224

Subject Index Act

2 f., 10 – 13, 20, 25, 33, 55, 57 f., 70, 125 f., 147, 176 f., 179, 184, 222, 229 f., 234 – 241, 243, 252 – 254, 258, 260 – 262, 272, 274 f., 278, 284, 286, 292, 300 – 302, 305, 322, 326, 331 Action 3, 10 f., 46 f., 49 – 51, 56 – 58, 65, 70, 73, 75, 79, 111, 113 f., 129, 230, 235, 257 – 259, 268, 270, 272, 275, 278, 287 f., 293 f., 300, 302, 307, 328, 330 Activity 4 – 6, 9, 11 f., 66 f., 70, 77, 139, 145, 147, 167 f., 212, 219, 231, 255, 277, 286, 300, 303, 308 f., 322 Actuality 1, 6, 9 f., 54, 182, 230, 236, 284, 286, 289, 293 f., 331 Aesthetics 57, 283 f., 287 f., 290, 294, 306, 330 f. Affectivity 209 – 214, 216 – 219, 221, 225 f. – Affective strata 219 – Emotional acts, types of 234, 322 – Levels of affectivity 209, 214, 216 Analytic philosophy 45, 52, 62, 319 f., 322, 329 Anlage-system 72 Anthropology 1, 4, 24, 70, 123, 225, 229, 242, 267, 276 f. Antinomy 68, 150 Aporia 2, 4, 118, 140, 149, 232 – 234 A priori 3 – 9, 12, 14, 24, 68, 135 – 140, 145, 153 f., 157, 171, 178, 180, 226, 230 – 233, 238, 243, 317, 320 Art 51, 60, 216, 223, 241, 256, 261 f., 284, 288 – 290, 293 f., 305, 309, 316, 330 Autonomy 12, 111, 124, 127, 224, 267 f., 273 f., 278, 287 f. Becoming 2, 10, 12, 19 f., 34, 55, 113, 121, 136, 142, 146, 151, 153 – 155, 157 – 159, 161 – 169, 184 f., 305 f., 309, 313, 327 Being 1 – 11, 13 – 15, 18 f., 21 f., 24, 32, 34, 36 – 38, 42, 46 f., 50, 54, 60, 65 – 72, 74, 76 – 78, 110, 113, 116 f., 119, 121 f., 124 f., 127, 129, 135 – 138, 140 – 151, 153 – 155, 157 – 166, 168 f., 171 – 174, 176, 178 – 187, 210 f., 213 – 215, 218 – 226, 229 f., 233 –

243, 248 – 253, 257, 259, 262, 264, 267 f., 273, 275, 277 – 279, 286 – 289, 293 f., 297, 299 – 306, 310, 314, 316 – 318, 321 – 323, 325 – 327, 331 – Being qua being 1, 317 f., 328 – Mode of being 1, 8, 113, 168, 172, 174, 178, 182, 255, 284, 306 Bioethics 268, 274, 276 Biology 7, 9, 50, 60, 65 f., 72, 76, 116, 287, 298 Boundary 4, 10, 239 Category 2, 4 – 6, 8, 10, 16 – 18, 25, 32, 34, 38, 60 f., 67, 69, 74, 76, 110, 120 – 122, 174, 182 f., 186, 218, 221, 223, 238, 277, 290 f., 294, 298, 300, 303 – Categorial Analysis 1 – 3, 21, 32, 66, 75, 121, 173, 217, 320 – Categories, fundamental 5, 36, 182, 320 – Categories, special 119 Causality 3, 5, 42, 45 – 54, 56 – 62, 65, 67 – 71, 73 f., 76, 78, 111, 117, 121 f., 129, 163, 172, 179, 182, 236 – Contrastive 48 – Counterfactual 45, 48, 51 – 56 Code 66, 76 – 79, 260, 305 Co-evolution 2, 5 – 7, 12 – 16, 20 – 22, 24 f. Coherence 2 f., 10 f., 25, 31, 39, 127, 138, 146 f., 149, 221, 287 Complex (see also: ‘System’) 2 f., 5, 7 f., 12, 15, 17, 21 – 24, 45 – 49, 54 – 57, 59 f., 72, 75, 77, 113, 115, 123, 125 f., 128, 148, 168, 180, 182 f., 186, 211 f., 214 f., 226, 230, 235, 268, 285, 287, 298 f., 304 Concept 1, 3 f., 6 – 8, 10 f., 14 – 16, 19, 25, 30 – 33, 36, 40 – 42, 45, 47, 49, 51 f., 54 – 57, 59 – 61, 69 f., 119 – 122, 125, 137, 139 f., 143, 145, 155 f., 159 – 163, 166 – 168, 172, 174, 176 – 180, 183, 185, 215, 226, 232, 238, 241, 260, 268, 270 f., 273, 276 – 278, 286 f., 291, 293, 297 f., 301, 303, 306, 308, 315, 317 f., 320, 329 Concretum 10, 16, 110 f., 120, 124, 182

336

Subject Index

Consciousness 3, 10 – 13, 15, 17 – 19, 22 f., 37, 56 f., 70, 112, 115, 118, 145, 154, 156 f., 230 f., 233 – 236, 238, 240 f., 244, 251, 256, 259 – 261, 263, 285, 299 f., 302, 307 f., 314 f., 322 Continental philosophy 1, 313, 316 – 320 Contingency 17, 59, 284, 289 – 291, 293 Creativity 237 Culture 3 f., 13, 16 f., 23 f., 55, 241 f., 267, 288 f., 292 – 294, 300 f., 304, 309 Dasein (see: ‘Existence’) 15, 164, 184 f., 318 Definition 1, 5, 12, 38 – 40, 54, 60, 67, 70, 119, 125 f., 137, 143, 145, 154, 171, 177, 181 f., 185 f., 212, 214, 225, 248, 267 f., 277, 302, 320 Dependence 2 – 4, 10, 12, 15 f., 20 f., 45, 48, 51, 58, 69, 75, 109 f., 112, 114 f., 117, 120, 122 – 125, 127 – 129, 137, 144, 172, 175, 179 f., 182, 185, 223, 244, 286 Desire 211, 215, 223, 258 – 260, 269, 273, 278, 305, 309 f., 325 Determination 1, 3 – 5, 7 – 12, 15, 36 f., 46 – 48, 50 f., 54, 56 f., 59 – 61, 65 – 76, 78, 109 – 111, 113 f., 116 f., 120, 123 – 125, 127 f., 168, 177, 182, 184 – 187, 235 f., 239, 244, 261, 274, 277, 307, 329 – Forms of determination 46 f., 50, 56 f., 59 – 61, 65, 68 f., 71, 110 f., 114, 117, 129 Determinism 51 f., 54, 60, 111, 125, 128 Dialectical 145 – 150, 173, 186, 321 Dialectics 11, 138, 141 f., 144, 148, 150 Disposition 74 f., 238, 288, 291 f., 294, 308 Ecology 55, 112, 125, 285 Ecosystem 24, 55, 114, 125 – 127 Education 141, 231, 242, 259, 297 f., 300 – 305, 307 – 310 Effective 8, 18, 52, 175, 251, 288, 290, 293, 331 Element 1, 5, 7, 10, 24 f., 40, 67, 69 f., 76 – 78, 114, 116 f., 139 – 141, 154, 166, 171, 179 – 186, 211, 213, 216, 218 f., 221, 223, 230, 236, 252, 254, 286, 293, 298 – 301, 303 f., 316, 320, 330 Emergence 16 – 18, 29, 31, 39 – 41, 76, 110, 114 f., 118 – 120, 122

Empiricism 30, 37, 226 End 4, 6, 11, 13 f., 16, 24, 30, 33, 36, 39, 42, 50, 53, 57 f., 72 f., 109, 112, 129, 135, 137 f., 140, 154, 173, 186, 210 f., 214, 216, 219, 223 f., 229 f., 236 f., 244, 256, 285, 292, 294, 314, 320, 324, 330 Entity 6, 10, 13, 15, 32, 50, 60, 67 f., 122, 126, 164, 172, 238, 252, 300 Environment 5 f., 12, 55, 75, 114, 255, 267, 300 – Environmentalism 110, 114, 126, 128 f. Epigenesis 74 Epistemology 1, 3, 7, 12 – 14, 19 f., 39, 76, 123, 135, 138, 146 f., 153, 229 f., 238, 252 f., 284, 293, 322, 324 Equivocation 120 Essence 2, 23, 36, 38 f., 52, 112 f., 145 f., 153, 157 f., 161, 166 f., 174 f., 177 – 181, 185 f., 220, 224 – 226, 232 f., 235, 238, 243, 252, 263, 276, 303, 306, 317, 330 Ethics (see also: ‘Moral’) 19, 70, 161, 229 – 232, 234 f., 237, 239 f., 243, 247, 251, 253 – 256, 258, 260, 267 – 273, 276 – 278, 284, 287, 298, 301, 303, 314 f., 327 Event 3, 9 f., 14, 16, 32, 37, 40, 45, 48 f., 51, 56, 60, 69, 72, 111, 115, 125, 136, 157, 174, 181, 256, 277 Evolution 1, 3 – 6, 12, 122, 168, 288 f. Existence 4 f., 7 f., 10, 32, 34, 37, 40, 67, 69 – 71, 76, 113, 126 f., 129, 137 f., 144 f., 172, 174 f., 178, 180, 184 – 186, 223 f., 229, 233, 238, 240 – 242, 250 f., 278, 299, 301 – 303, 306, 316 – 319, 321 f., 326, 330 Existential dependence (see: ‘Dependence’) 68 Experience 3 – 7, 16, 30, 32, 40 f., 118, 120, 138, 151, 153 – 156, 158 – 160, 162, 166, 168, 176, 183, 213, 220, 223, 226, 234, 240, 284, 291 f., 294, 299, 302, 305, 307, 317, 319 – 322, 329 Fairness 267, 273 – 275 Feeling (see: ‘Affectivity’) 12, 18, 70, 211 – 223, 225 f., 234, 255, 271, 306, 324 Form 2 – 15, 17 – 19, 21 f., 27 f., 31, 35 – 37, 40, 45 – 52, 54, 57 – 61, 65 – 76, 78 f.,

Subject Index

110 – 117, 119, 121 – 125, 140, 142, 145, 148, 153, 156 – 158, 160, 164 – 168, 172 f., 175 – 177, 179 f., 182 f., 187, 210 f., 214, 217, 219, 224 f., 229 f., 232, 234 f., 237 – 239, 241, 244, 250, 253, 255, 258 f., 261, 267, 272, 274 f., 277, 283 f., 286 f., 289 f., 292 f., 298 – 307, 310, 314 f., 317 – 323 Freedom 3, 10, 46, 55, 57 f., 66, 168, 209, 224, 236, 239, 244, 258, 261, 269, 273 – 275, 277 f., 309 f., 317 Function 5, 11, 13 – 15, 23, 27, 40 – 42, 56, 71 f., 74, 76, 78 f., 109, 111, 120, 123, 125 – 129, 140, 144, 164 f., 241, 276, 293, 303 Geometry 23 – 26, 29 – 31, 35, 38 – 40, 284 Goal 10 f., 13, 57 f., 66, 70, 72 f., 76, 78, 129, 144, 160, 235, 247, 252, 257, 269 f., 291, 304, 314, 325, 329 God 144, 161, 163, 255, 264, 286, 317, 323, 325 – 328 Good, the 2, 10, 13 f., 41, 47, 78, 114, 127 f., 143 f., 146, 150, 156, 211, 216, 223, 230, 232, 236, 247 – 250, 254 – 260, 263 f., 271 f., 275, 291, 293 f., 305 f., 310, 313, 325, 327 Great Chain of Being 2, 22

290, 297 f., 300, 302, 305 – 307, 309, 316, 330 f. Ideal being 1, 4, 32 f., 46, 137 f., 141, 145 – 149, 157 f., 182, 229, 233 f., 251, 253 f., 262 f. Idealism 5, 59, 124, 135, 141, 145, 149, 156 f., 172, 242, 283, 294, 298, 318, 323 Independence 6, 26 – 28, 69, 110, 117, 167 f., 172, 224, 233, 307 Individuality 46, 111, 182, 186, 304 Infinite regress 35, 39 Instinct 309 Intentio 18, 172, 181, 212, 219, 229, 233, 240, 243, 272, 314, 324 Intuition 4 – 6, 8, 13, 32, 140, 145, 149, 329 Irrational 68 f., 75 f., 138, 232, 243 Justice (see: ‘Virtue’) 49, 146, 250 f., 257, 263, 268, 273 – 276 Knowledge (see : ‘Epistemology’) 2, 5 – 10, 13 – 15, 32, 59, 61, 68, 76, 122 f., 126 – 128, 135 – 143, 145 – 149, 153 f., 156, 158, 163, 166, 168, 215, 219, 226, 229 – 233, 235, 239 f., 243, 247 f., 252 – 254, 258, 273, 307, 309, 314, 319 – 321, 327, 329 f. Law

Hierarchy 1, 4, 14, 21, 109 f., 112 – 117, 176, 178, 180 – 182, 224, 226, 238, 278 History 1 – 3, 6 f., 12, 18, 25, 32, 49 – 52, 56, 59, 113, 122 – 124, 135, 139 f., 231, 241 f., 249, 261 f., 298 f., 302 – 304, 309, 316 – Big history 50 History of philosophy 23, 139 Horizontal 2, 6 f., 11 f., 15 – 17, 19, 21 f., 25, 110 – 112, 117, 123 – 127, 129 Idea

2, 6 f., 9 f., 14 – 17, 23 f., 27 f., 31 – 34, 36 f., 40 f., 47 – 51, 53 – 55, 59 – 61, 66 f., 69, 71 f., 79, 114, 120, 126, 128 f., 135 – 138, 141 – 151, 160, 163, 168, 171 f., 176, 178, 183, 187, 209, 211, 213, 218 f., 224, 226, 231, 247, 250 – 252, 254 f., 259 – 262, 264 f., 269 – 271, 276, 285, 288,

337

2 f., 5 f., 9 – 12, 14, 16, 19, 24 – 27, 45 – 47, 50 – 52, 54 f., 59 f., 111, 116 f., 119 f., 122, 124 f., 127 – 129, 149 f., 163, 180, 182 f., 209, 216 f., 219, 221 – 224, 237 f., 241, 248, 251 – 253, 260 – 264, 275 – 277, 284, 287, 294, 303, 305 Layer 1, 6 f., 9, 11 – 19, 23, 109, 137, 151, 211, 238, 277 Level (see: ‘Levels of reality’) 1 f., 4 – 6, 8 – 11, 13 – 25, 28 f., 31, 34, 36 f., 46 f., 49, 55 f., 58 – 61, 67 – 69, 74, 77 f., 109 f., 114 – 117, 119 – 121, 124, 127, 143, 145, 151, 155, 164, 185, 209 – 211, 214, 216 – 224, 226, 234, 238 – 241, 243 f., 269, 288, 290 f., 298, 307, 309, 319 Levels of reality 1 – 6, 8 f., 12 – 16, 18 – 25, 47 – 50, 59, 62, 182, 238 – Inanimate 3, 226 – Organic 3, 6, 8 f., 11 f., 15, 17, 22, 46, 56, 60, 66 f., 69 – 79, 111, 117, 124, 129, 155,

338

Subject Index

161, 164 – 169, 210, 218, 238, 241, 277, 299 f., 308 – Psychic 3, 10 f., 15, 67, 69, 142, 168, 210, 213 – 215, 217 – 221, 223, 269, 299 f., 318 – Spiritual 8 – 11, 13, 19, 50, 67, 69, 111, 123 f., 127, 167 f., 210, 213 – 223, 241, 277, 279, 298 – 310, 318, 323, 329, 331 Life 1, 3 – 10, 12 – 15, 19 f., 22, 24, 51, 53, 65 f., 70 – 72, 111 f., 118, 128 f., 142, 161, 165 – 169, 172, 210, 213, 219, 221, 229 – 231, 234 f., 238, 241 – 243, 254 – 256, 258 f., 262, 264, 267, 269, 275, 277, 289, 294, 299 – 301, 303, 305, 307 – 309, 314, 316 – 318, 320, 322, 324 – 327, 329 – 331 Linearity 1 f., 5, 9, 24 f., 121 Magnitude 8, 25, 27, 30, 32 – 39 Materialism 3, 14, 22, 118, 129, 167 Mathematics 171, 250 – 253, 285 Matter 1, 3 – 10, 12 f., 16, 18 f., 21, 24, 26, 29, 33 f., 38, 41, 50, 57, 65 f., 69 – 73, 76, 78 f., 113 f., 116, 118, 124, 129, 137, 139, 161, 164, 166 f., 173, 178, 180, 182, 186, 210, 215 f., 221, 232, 237, 247, 250, 253 f., 256, 262, 286 f., 299, 301, 315 – 317, 320, 323 – 325 Measure 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 25, 29 f., 32 f., 36 – 39, 139, 187, 269 f., 272, 275, 279, 286 Mechanism 6, 51, 66, 210, 243, 299 Metaphysics 1, 18 f., 45, 47 f., 50, 58, 70, 114 f., 119, 123, 140, 164, 166, 172, 210, 232, 239 f., 244, 251, 286, 317 Methodology 145, 155, 158, 229, 234 Modality 1, 46, 49, 52, 54 f., 59, 65, 67, 70, 172, 182, 283 – 288, 290 f., 293 f., 301 Moral (see also: ‘Ethics’) 70, 118, 128, 209 f., 229 – 232, 235 – 241, 243 f., 248, 250 – 265, 268 – 275, 278, 287 f., 305 – 307, 314, 329 Morphogenesis 11, 75 Motion 27, 30, 48, 168 Natural law 9, 247 – 250, 252, 254 f., 257 – 262, 264 Nature 1, 3, 5 – 12, 14, 21 f., 24 – 27, 32, 35, 47, 50 – 52, 54, 57, 60 f., 65 – 67, 69 – 71,

109, 112 – 117, 119, 122 f., 126, 128 f., 138 f., 142 – 145, 147 f., 150, 155, 158, 160 – 165, 167 f., 176 – 178, 180, 186, 212, 214, 217, 231, 235, 238 f., 242, 248, 250 f., 255 f., 258, 261, 264, 267, 272, 276 f., 285, 298 f., 301, 303, 305, 316 f., 320, 325, 327 – 329 Neo-Kantianism 232, 236, 298 Neoplatonism 113 Network 48, 53, 59 f., 114, 173, 180, 182, 185 f., 286, 302 New ontology (see: ‘Ontology’) 116, 154, 166, 169, 225, 232, 242 Nexus 3, 41 f., 46, 56 – 58, 60 f., 69 f., 72 f., 75, 110 f., 121, 123, 229, 235 – 237, 239, 243 f., 322 Norm 260, 270, 289 Noumenon 140 Novelty 7, 41, 71, 75 – 77, 121, 210, 238, 288 f., 293 Novum 3, 5 f., 19, 66, 71 f., 76, 78 f., 117, 119 f., 209, 223 f., 299 f. Object 3 f., 7, 14, 26 f., 32, 34, 36, 38 f., 74, 115, 118 – 120, 136, 139, 143 f., 146 f., 153 f., 156 f., 159 f., 168, 172 – 181, 183 – 187, 213, 215, 221, 223, 225 f., 233 f., 236 f., 240, 276, 284, 286, 298, 300, 315 f., 322 Objectification 9, 13 Ontogenesis 73 Ontology 1 – 3, 7 – 10, 14, 19, 24, 29, 32, 46, 48 – 50, 54, 61 f., 65, 67, 69 f., 109 – 113, 115 f., 119 – 123, 125 f., 135, 137 f., 146 f., 150, 153 – 156, 158, 164 – 168, 171 – 175, 177 f., 181 f., 185 – 187, 226, 233, 241, 243, 250, 252 f., 268, 276 – 278, 283 f., 286, 297 f., 313, 317 f., 320, 322, 324, 327 f. Opposition 4, 8, 10, 18, 51, 149, 166 f., 182, 233, 239, 273, 305, 307 Order 1 f., 4, 6 – 10, 14, 16 f., 20 – 22, 25, 28 – 30, 34 – 36, 39, 49 – 51, 57, 65 f., 68, 74, 77, 79, 109 f., 112 – 117, 120 f., 128 f., 136 f., 141 f., 154 f., 160 f., 166 f., 175, 180 – 183, 186, 211, 214 – 217, 220, 232, 238, 240, 242 – 244, 250, 258, 267,

Subject Index

270 f., 275, 284, 286 f., 289 – 291, 293 f., 317 f., 330 Organ 6, 74, 76, 230, 237, 308 Organism 7, 9 – 12, 14 f., 22, 49, 56, 65 f., 70 – 77, 114 f., 161, 164, 167 f., 222 f., 267, 275 Ought 38, 125, 229 – 231, 235 f., 238, 244, 247 f., 254, 257 f., 260 f., 263 f., 274 – Ought-to-be 255 – Ought-to-do 271, 274 Panpsychism 18 f., 24 f. Person 13, 16, 21, 70, 144, 215 f., 221 – 223, 230 f., 234 – 236, 239 – 241, 243 f., 248 – 251, 254 – 257, 259 f., 268, 272 – 274, 276 – 279, 300 – 304, 307, 329 Personality 3, 229, 235 f., 238 f., 243 f., 259, 267 f., 270, 273, 278 f., 326 Phenomenology 156 f., 171 f., 182, 232 f., 244, 251 Phenomenon 4 f., 8, 14, 17, 49, 59, 70, 72, 78, 126, 129, 137, 156, 162, 214 f., 226, 231, 238 f., 244, 249, 253, 259, 268 f., 300, 302 f., 306 f. Phenotype 78 f. Philosophical anthropology 229, 243 Platonic 110, 135 f., 138 – 140, 145, 147, 149 – 151, 232, 249 f., 252 – 254, 283, 331 Politics 161, 255, 260, 262 f., 299 Possibility 1, 4 – 6, 15, 32, 34, 36 – 38, 51, 53 – 56, 61, 65 f., 68 f., 141 f., 144, 148, 175, 182, 231, 233, 251, 268, 273, 283 f., 287 f., 291, 293 f., 300, 303, 317, 328 Potentiality 251, 274, 293 Principle 1 – 6, 10, 12, 18 f., 22 f., 25, 52, 55, 68, 71, 75, 109, 111 f., 116 f., 120, 124, 127 – 129, 140, 146, 148 – 151, 153 – 155, 158 f., 161, 166, 182 f., 210, 235 – 237, 247, 254, 261 f., 264, 269, 271, 273, 276, 299, 320, 325 Problem 1, 3 f., 6, 9, 15, 21, 23 – 26, 28 f., 32, 40, 45, 47 – 49, 52, 59 f., 65 – 69, 71, 73, 76, 114, 118, 122 – 125, 135, 138 – 140, 146 f., 154, 168, 172, 174, 176, 178, 215, 219, 224, 229 f., 232, 234 f., 241 – 243, 247, 260, 262 f., 267 f., 284 f.,

339

297 f., 302 – 307, 309, 313, 315 f., 318, 320, 326 Process 2 – 12, 14 f., 20, 27, 34, 37, 39, 41 f., 46 – 48, 50 – 58, 60 – 62, 66 – 69, 71 – 79, 109 – 111, 113 – 115, 118, 121 f., 124 – 129, 137 f., 141, 143, 145 – 148, 160 – 165, 168, 174 – 181, 183, 215, 235, 241, 252 f., 267, 289, 291 f., 301 – 303, 306 f., 327, 329 f. Production 58, 68, 121 – 123, 127, 157, 163, 231, 237, 298 Property 24, 26, 36, 42, 48, 117, 119, 144, 275 f., 302, 304 Psyche 1, 3, 5, 8, 10 – 16, 19, 22, 24, 59, 219 f., 223, 238, 251, 276, 299 Psychologism 3, 233, 251, 285 Quality 5, 10, 41, 49, 182, 225, 249, 320 Quantity 21, 28, 32, 35 f., 179, 182, 221, 297, 309, 320 Quantum gravity 23 – 26, 28 – 31, 34, 38, 40 f. Real

2, 4 – 19, 21, 24, 27, 29, 32 – 34, 36 f., 41 f., 46, 49, 51 – 57, 61, 65, 67 f., 71 f., 109 – 111, 113, 116, 118, 120 – 124, 127 – 129, 138, 140, 146, 150 f., 153, 155 – 159, 166 – 168, 172 f., 175, 179 f., 182 – 184, 186 f., 211, 225 f., 230 – 232, 234 – 239, 241 – 244, 251 – 253, 259, 263, 270, 293, 298, 300, 303, 306 f., 320 – 322, 325 – 331 Real being 1, 3 f., 8 f., 32 – 34, 46, 67 – 70, 74, 111, 157, 164, 234 f., 243, 251, 253, 262 f., 320, 326 Reality 1 – 10, 13 f., 23 – 25, 31, 33, 37 f., 40 – 42, 46, 51, 53 f., 58, 68 f., 112 f., 137, 141 – 143, 146 f., 150 f., 153 – 155, 157 – 159, 161 – 163, 165 – 168, 172 f., 182, 185, 187, 209, 217, 219 f., 225, 234 – 236, 238, 243, 250, 252, 256, 259, 262, 264, 274, 286 – 288, 298, 306 f., 316, 318, 320, 322, 325 – 329 Reductionism 1, 3, 12, 14, 23, 119, 123 f., 209, 211, 226, 242 Relation 1 – 9, 11 f., 14 – 16, 18 – 22, 24 f., 27, 31 f., 34, 36 – 38, 42, 46 – 49, 52, 54, 66, 109 – 111, 114 – 117, 119 – 121, 124 f., 127 –

340

Subject Index

129, 137, 139, 144, 147, 159, 165, 171 – 187, 209, 211, 217 f., 220, 224, 229, 232 f., 235, 237, 239 – 244, 247, 260, 262 – 264, 270, 272, 275, 284 f., 288 – 291, 294, 319 Representation 1, 6 f., 10 – 13, 15, 70, 73, 77 f., 214, 233 f., 239 f. Semiosis 66, 76 – 79 Skepticism 234, 261, 269, 319, 321 f. Society 2 f., 19 f., 22, 212, 216, 260, 262 f., 267, 269, 274, 292 Space 3 – 9, 11, 14, 23 – 26, 32 – 41, 60, 67 f., 168, 262, 320, 327 Spacetime 23 – 38, 40 f., 48 Species 2, 4, 7 f., 11 – 14, 21 f., 55, 77, 111, 126 f., 214 – 216, 221, 271, 276, 290, 294, 325 Spirit 1, 3 f., 8 – 14, 16, 18 f., 22, 24, 45, 113, 167, 207, 220, 238, 241 f., 262 – 264, 271, 293, 299 – 309, 315, 318, 323 f. Spiritual being 4, 8, 10 f., 225, 241, 277, 297, 299 – 301, 304 f., 308, 310 Stability 162, 289, 292 f., 302 Strata 1, 3 – 6, 8 – 12, 14 – 17, 22, 24, 46 f., 50, 67, 71, 109 – 112, 116 f., 119 f., 122 – 125, 127 – 129, 167, 182, 209, 211, 217 – 219, 224, 226, 236, 238, 242 f., 276, 300 f., 303, 320 Stratification 2 f., 6, 10 f., 14, 16, 19, 109, 116 – 120, 122, 124 f., 129, 186, 211, 218 f., 221 f., 224, 226, 300 Structure 1 – 3, 5 – 10, 12 f., 15 f., 19 f., 22 f., 28, 35, 37, 39, 49, 52, 56, 59 – 61, 66, 69, 71, 73 f., 76, 109 – 111, 113 – 116, 120, 123 – 125, 127 – 129, 136, 138 f., 141, 143, 147, 150, 154, 157 f., 163, 166 – 168, 172 – 175, 177 – 183, 185 – 187, 209, 211, 225 f., 229, 232, 239, 241 f., 250 f., 285 f., 288, 297 – 300, 320, 324, 328 Subject 4 f., 7, 12 f., 48, 70, 77 f., 139 – 141, 143, 145, 147, 167, 172 f., 176 f., 181, 184, 186, 217 f., 220, 223, 233, 235 – 240, 243 f., 247, 260, 262, 268, 270 – 279, 285 – 287, 302, 317, 321 f., 324 Subjectivity 15, 140, 147 – 149, 229, 237 f., 241, 243 f., 250, 302, 313

Substance 3 – 5, 34, 38, 41 f., 115, 121, 128, 139, 163, 167, 174 – 177, 181, 183 f., 186, 222, 251, 253, 269 f., 272, 301, 306 Substratum 67, 113, 182 f. Superformation 4 – 7, 10 f., 13, 15, 19, 25, 50, 58, 69 f., 73 – 75, 78, 116 f., 120 Superposition 4 – 8, 12 f., 16, 25, 69, 75, 125, 129 Supervenience 40, 109 f., 112, 118 – 120, 127 System 2, 6 – 15, 21, 23 – 25, 35, 38, 46, 52 f., 56 f., 59 – 61, 67, 69, 72 – 75, 77 – 79, 110, 114 – 117, 124, 126 f., 154, 161, 166, 168, 179, 181, 183, 185, 219, 247, 263, 270, 272, 283, 286, 288, 297, 299, 317 Teleology 2, 47, 50 f., 57, 65 f., 69 f., 72, 77, 111, 144, 232, 235, 250, 276 Temporality 5, 8 f., 11 f., 42, 157, 253 Thing in itself 5 f., 322 Time 2 – 20, 23 – 29, 32 – 37, 40 – 42, 46 f., 51 f., 57 – 59, 61, 67 f., 72 f., 75, 78, 110, 113, 123, 126 f., 142, 144, 153, 161, 174 – 180, 182 f., 185 – 187, 211, 219 – 221, 223, 232, 241, 244, 251, 255, 257, 259, 262, 271, 278, 285, 287, 289, 292, 294, 298, 304, 308 – 310, 313 – 315, 318 – 320, 326 f., 329 f. – Social time 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 15 – 19 Tradition 3 f., 6, 14, 16, 113 f., 141, 156 – 158, 171, 247 – 249, 254 f., 257 – 261, 263 f., 286, 288, 290, 297 f., 300, 302 f., 305, 310, 313, 315 f., 326 – 328 Universal 7 f., 32, 110 f., 153 f., 159, 166, 168, 182, 241, 287, 289, 303 Value 10, 12, 16, 25, 32, 36, 41, 45, 58, 70, 111 f., 123, 127 f., 157 f., 177, 221 f., 229 – 239, 242 – 244, 250 – 256, 259 f., 262 – 265, 267 – 279, 287, 291 f., 300, 307, 314, 317, 330 Variation 3, 11, 14, 55, 114, 209, 222, 262 Vertical 1 – 4, 7, 9, 12, 14 – 17, 19, 21 f., 25, 110 – 114, 116, 123 – 125, 129, 219, 224 Vice 1, 6, 14, 177, 183, 242, 271, 305

Subject Index

Virtue (See also: ‘Value’) 6, 78, 128, 141, 145, 171, 173, 177, 186, 243, 249, 254 f., 258 – 260, 270, 273, 275, 277, 305, 314 Vitalism 65 f.

341

Wonder 147, 175, 212, 224, 226, 313 – 316, 325, 328 f., 331