Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology (2 Vols) 388405080X, 9783884050804

Citation preview

Analytica Investigations in Logic, Ontology, and the Philosophy of Language Editors: Ignacio Angelelli • Austin (Texas, USA) Joseph M. Bochenski • Fribourg (CH) Christian Thiel • Erlangen Editor-in-Chief: Hans Burkhardt • Erlangen

Philosophia Verlag Munich Philadelphia Vienna

Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology Volume 1

A-K Editors

Hans Burkhardt Barry Smith Consulting Editors

Joseph M. Bochenski Keith Campbell Roderick M. Chisholm Kit Fine Jules Vuillemin Collaborating Editors

Ignacio Angelelli Graeme Forbes Jorge J. E. Gracia D. W. Graham lvor Grattan-Guinness Charles Lohr G. Nuchelmans Peter M. Simons T. L. S. Sprigge Richard Sylvan

Philosophia

CIP- Titelaufnahmeder DeutschenBibliothek Handbook or Metaphyslcsand Ontology/Hrsg.von Hans Burkhardtund BarrySmith.- Munich;Philadelphia;Vienna:Philosophia.1991 (Analytica) ISBN3-88405-080-X NE: Burkhardt,Hans (Hrsg.] Vol. 1. A-K. -1991

Llbraryof CongressCataloging-in-Publicalion Data Handbookor metaphysicsand ontology/ editors. Hans Burkhardt, Barry Smilh. p. cm. -- (Analytica.) lncludesbibliographicalreferences. ISBN3-88405-080-X (sei : alk. paper). -1. Metaphysics--Encyclopedias.2. Metaphysics--History-Encyclopedias. 3. Ontology--Encyclopedias. 4. Ontology--History-Encyclopedias. 1.Burkhardt.Hans. 1936- . II. Smith. Barry, 1952- . III. Series:Analytica(PhilosophiaVerlag) BD11I.H225 1991 110' .3--dc20 91-28837 CIP

ISBN3-88405-080-X

© 1991by PhilosophiaVerlagGmbH, München All rightsreserved.No part of this book may be reproducedin any manner.by print, photoprinl, microfilm.or anyother mcanswithout wriuenpermissionexceplin the caseof short quotationsin the contextof reviews. Type: TimesRoman Printcdon acid-freepaper Typesetting:CambridgePhotosettingServices. Cambridge,England Manufacturedby Kösel,Kempten Printedin Germany1991

Preface

The present project was conceived in Erlangen (Germany) in 1985 as a guide to the achievements of Brentano and his school. Our aim was to take account of the roots of Brentanian philosophy in classical realism and of the implications of the work of Brentano and his disciples for modern analytical metaphysics. lt became clear, however, that an adequate realization of even this restricted aim would call for a much (arger work than we had originally projected, and the enthusiastic reaction of those whom we invited to contribute led us to take on the task of preparing the present comprehensive Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology. This somewhat pleonastic title reflects the different histories of the terms 'metaphysics' and 'ontology' in the two cultures of Anglo-Saxon and Continental philosophy. On the one hand the term 'metaphysics' has pejorative overtones in continental philosophy as a result of the still pervasive influence of Kant's critique. On the other hand the term 'ontology' has an honourable history, above all in German philosophy from Goclenius and Wolff to Husserl and Ingarden, and both terms are employed ever more frequently in the writings of the more sophisticated analytic philosophers in ways which to some degree reflect an effort to build bridges to the classical metaphysical tradition. Although more than 450 articles are here presented, the reader will find that certain topics otherwise deserving of separate treatment have been dealt with in the longer survey articles (for example on 'Analytic Philosophy', 'Aristotelianism', 'Metaphysics', 'Ontology', 'Part-Whole', etc.), which are included as a basis for general orientation. The reader will find also that cross-references have been kept to a minimum in the body of the work, their purpose being served instead by the extensive index. lt cannot be emphasized enough that this work is the creation of its more than 250 contributors, who spared no effort in meeting our exacting demands. We should like to thank especially Charles Lohr, Peter Simons, and Timothy Sprigge, whose services went above the call of normal academic duty. Our warmest thanks must however go to Hilla Hueber, who encouraged us to take seriously our initial ideas, and whose great energy, skill, accuracy, and patience in co-ordinating the work of all the contributors, editors, copy-editors, and production staff over a span of more than five years made it possible for us to bring these ideas to fruition. Finally, it is a special honour for us to be able to thank also Uwe Spaniol, Director of the Dresdner Bank in Munich, whose active support for Philosophia in recent years has been indispensable to the project. The work grew out of a certain vision of philosophy as a discipline that is called upon to take account of the best results of logic and of the empirical sciences while at the same time nurturing a sound awareness of its own past achievements. We are gratified to see on all sides evidence of the fact that these two marks of philosophy are no longer regarded as incompatible. Hans Burkhardt Barry Smith June 1991

List of Contributors

Adams,MarilynMcCord,University of California, Los Angeles William Ockham Allaire,EdwinB., University of Texas, Austin Generality Anderson,C. A., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Church, Alonzo Angelelli,lgnacio, University ofTexas, Austin Accidents III: The Ontological Square Ashworth,E. J., University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Jungius, Joachim Logic II: Post-Medieval Logic (14-17th Centuries) Auletta,Gennaro,Rome Mendelssohn, Moses Aune, Bruce, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Metaphysics III: Metaphysics of Analytic Philosophy Ave-Lallemant,Eberhard,LudwigMaximilians-University, Munich Conrad-Martius, Hedwig Bäck, AltanT., Kutztown University, Pennsylvania Qua Baldwin,ThomasR., Clare College, Cambridge Stout, G. F. BarcanMarcus,Rulh. See Marcus Baruzzi,Arno, University of Augsburg, Germany Heidegger, Martin Baumgartner,Elisabeth,University of Würzburg, Germany Bühler, Karl Seiz, Otto Würzburg School (with W. Baumgartner)

Baumgarlner,Wilhelm,Universityof Würzburg, Germany Brentano, Franz Würzburg School (with E. Baumgartner) Bealer, George,University of Colorado. Boulder lntentionality Becker, Martin, Friedrich-AlexanderUniversity, Erlangen, Germany Predestination Bell, David A., University of Sheffield. England Number Benardete,Jose A., Syracuse University, Syracuse. New York Infinity Benzon,WilliamL., Troy, New York Common Sense Berg, Jan, Technical University, Munich Bolzano, Bernard Genidentity Kant, Immanuel I: A Synthesis of Empiricism and Rationalism Berman,Robert, Xavier University, New Orleans Existence I: History Bigelow,John C., La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia Forces Blakeley,ThomasJ. t, Boston College, Chestnut Hili Marxism-Leninism Blinder,David, Princeton University. New Jersey Gibson, J. J. Blumenthal,H. J., University of Liverpool, England Neoplatonism Simplicius

viii

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Bogdan,RaduJ., Tulane University. New Orleans Cognitive Science Information Boger,HorstWolfgang,Research Institute of the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation, Königswinter. Germany Social Sciences (with Axel Bühler)

Boh, Ivan,The Ohio State University, Columbus Walter Burley

Bokhove,Niels, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands Phenomenology Phenomenon Bradshaw,D. E., Memphis State University, Memphis. Tennessee Language 1: Propositions and Truth Brakel,Jaapvan, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands Chemistry Brand,Myles,University of Oregon. Eugene Action Brand!,Johannes,Karl-Franzens-University, Graz, Austria Judgement Brennan,AndrewA., University of Stirling, Scotland Persons Types and Tokens Broadie,Alexander,University of Glasgow. Scotland Analogy Anselm of Canterbury Authority Scholasticism, Post-Medieval 1: 15th and 16th Centuries

Brown,Clifford,Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey Strawson, P. F. Brunschwig,Jacques,University of Paris I Accidents II: Accident Theory in Greek Philosophy

Burge,Tyler, University of California, Los Angeles Frege. Gottlob

Burkhardt,Armin,Technical University. Braunschweig. Germany Speech Acts

Burkhardt,Hans, Friedrich-AlexanderUniversity, Erlangen. Germany Concept Leibniz. G. W. Part/Whole 1: History (with C. A. Dufour) Rationalists

Butchvarov,Panayot,University of Iowa, lowaCity Knowledge Knowledge Representation Thought

Campbell,Keith, University of Maryland. College Park Boscovich. Roger Joseph Williams, D. C.

Carboncini,Sonia, Leibniz-Forschungsstelle, Wilhelms-University. Münster. Germany Scholasticism, Post-Medieval III: Protestant Scholasticism of the 18th Century Wolff, Christian

Casati,Roberto,University of Geneva, Switzerland Cornelius, Hans Fusion Stumpf, Carl Caslafieda,Hector-Neri,Indiana University, Bloomington Morals

Cates, Lynn, University ofTexas. Austin Modes

Chisholm,RoderickM., Brown University, Providence. Rhode Island Mind

Bühler,Axel,University of Mannheim, Germany lndeterminacy Arguments . Scepticism Social Sciences (with H. W. Boger)

Clatterbaugh,KennelhC., University of Washington, Seattle Accidents I: History ldentity

ix

Cocchiarella,NinoB., Indiana University. Bloomington Conceptualism Logic V: Higher-Order Logics Ontology II: Formal Ontology Russell, Bertrand Coombs,Jeffrey, Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio. Texas Calovius, Abraham Clauberg, Johann Goclenius, Rudolphus (Göckel, Rudolf) Scholasticism, Post-Medieval II: 17th Century da Costa, NewtonC. A., University of Sao Paulo, Brazil Paraconsistency (with S. French) Cover,J. A., Purdue University, Indiana Absolute/Relative

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Dlllon,John M., Trinity College. Dublin Gnosticism Origen Proclus Dölling,Johannes, Academy of Sciences. Berlin Definition 1: History Dooren,Wim van, Technical University. Delft, The Netherlands Pomponazzi, Pietro Renaissance Philosophy Dufour,CarlosA., Friedrich-AlexanderUniversity, Erlangen, Germany Concursus Dei Copula De Dicto/De Re Fichte, Johann Gottlieb Part/Whole I: History (with Hans Burkhardt) Proprietates Terminorum

Creel,RichardE., Ithaca College, lthaca, New York Passion Passive Affection

Duxbury,Neil, University of Manchester, England Law

Crimmins,Mark, Cornell University, lthaca, New York Representation

Emmet,DorothyM., University of Manchester, England Alexander, Samuel

Crutchfield,JamesP., University of California, Berkeley Chaos I: Chaos and Complexity

Emt, Jeanette,Lund University, Lund. Sweden Art

Davies,Martin,Birkbeck College, London Meaning II: Litera) Meaning and Semantic Theories

Engel, Pascal, U niversity of Grenoble, France Contingentism Merleau-Ponty, Maurice Metaphysics IV: Contemporary French Metaphysics Sartre, Jean-Paul

Davis,DouglasP., St. Bonaventure University, New York Privation Degen,J. Wolfgang,Friedrich-AlexanderUniversity, Erlangen, Germany Accidents IV: The Ontological Hexagon Ego Gödel, Kurt Tense Logic

Engel-Tiercelin,Claudine, University of Paris I Peirce and Scholastic Metaphysics Porphyry

Devlin, Keith, Colby College, Waterville, Maine Situation Semantics (with S. Tutiya)

Ewald, William, Greenwich, Connecticut Nelson, Leonard

Dick, StevenJ., U .S. Naval Observatory. Washington. DC Worlds/Possible Worlds

Ernst, Germana, University of Florence Campanella, Tommaso

Felipe, Donald, Humboldt State University, Arcata, California Dialectics I: Dialectical Argument Disputatio, Post-Medieval

l.lST OF CONTRJBUTORS

X

Fellmann,Ferdinand,Wilhelms-University.

Gould,JosiahB., State University of New

Münster. Germany Bruno. Giordano Nicole Oresme Schapp, Wilhelm

York, Albany Chrysippus

Finster,Reinhard,Leibniz-Archiv. Hannover. Germany Cramer, Wolfgang Crusius, Christian August

FitzGeraldDesmondJ., University of San Francisco, California Angel Hylomorphism Immortality Maritain. Jacques

Forbes,Graeme,Tulane University, New Orleans Artefacts Kripke. Saul A. ModalLogic

French,Steven,Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau Paraconsistency (with N. C. A. da Costa)

Freuler,Leo, University of Geneva, Switzerland Ontology !: History of Ontology Gabler,Darius,Bern, Switzerland Modi Essendi

Gale,George,University of Missouri, Kansas City Cosmology I: Metaphysics

Gale,RichardM., University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Becoming

Gardies,Jean-Louis,University ofNantes, France Continuity Intension/Extension Port-Royal

Gerrard,Steven,Boston University, Massachusetts Family Resemblances

Gochet,Paul, University of Liege, Belgium Holism Quine, W. V. 0.

Gracia,JorgeJ. E., State University of New York, Buffalo Good and Evil Individuality/lndividuation Suarez. Francisco Graeser,Andreas,University of Bern, Switzerland Epicurus Zeno of Citium

Graham,DanielW., Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah Aristotle Greek Philosophical Terminology (with G. Schenk) Hyle Logos Grattan-Guinness, !vor, Middlesex Polytechnic, London Calculus Chwistek, Leon Potential Vagueness

Griffin,Nicholas,McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada Multiple Relation Theories

Gundlach,Horst, University of Passau, Germany Drobisch, Moritz Wilhelm Lewin, Kurt Gunter,PeteA. Y., North Texas State University, Denton Bergson, Henri

Gunzig,Edgard,Free University. Brussels Cosmology II: The Reasons for the Cosmos (with 1. Prigogine)

Baas, William,Manchester, England Language II: Linguistic Structure

Hackett,JeremiahM. G., University of South Carolina, Columbia Albert the Great II: Albert and Other Philosophers Roger Bacon

Goehr,Lydia,Wesleyan University,

Haller,Rudolf,Karl-Franzens-University.

Middletown, Connecticut Concepts, Open

Graz. Austria Bergmann, Hugo

xi

Hallett,Michael,McGill University, Montreal, Canada Cantor. Georg Hilbert, David Mathematical Objects SetTheory Hardin,ClydeLaurence,Syracuse University, New York Colour Hare, PeterH., State University of New York. Buffalo Whitehead, Alfred North Harrah,David, University of California, Riverside Questions Harre,Rom, Linacre College, Oxford, and Georgetown University, Washington, DC Psychology Hart, W. D., University College, London Proposition II: The Propositional Bond Variation Hartz,GlennA., Ohio State University, Mansfield Mass, Matter. Material Harvey,WarrenZev, Hebrew University, Jerusalem Crescas, Hasdai Hayes,Zachary,Catholic Theological Union, Chicago Bonaventure Heanue,JamesE., Northridge, California Ens Rationis II: From the Medievals to Brentano Hemecker,WilhelmW., Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach. Germany Ehrenfels, Christian von Herbar!, Johann Friedrich Henckmann,Wolßtart,Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversity, Munich Lipps. Theodor Hermeren,Göran, Lund University, Sweden Aesthetic Qualities Heyer,Gerhard, Research Division, Triumph-Adler AG, Nuremberg, Germany Artificial Intelligence Generics, Generic Objects Hickman,Larry, Texas A & M University. College Station Second Intentions

!.IST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Hirsch,Eli, Brandeis University. Waltham, Massachusetts Unity Hochberg,Herbert, University of Texas, Austin Bergmann, Gustav Moore, George Edward Segelberg, lvar Hoenen,Maarten,Catholic University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands Marsilius of lnghen Holzhey,Helmut, University of Zurich, Switzerland Neo-Kantianism Hookway,ChristopherJ., University of Birmingham, England Logic III: l 9th-Century English Logic Peirce, Charles Sanders Hopkins,Jasper, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Nicholas of Cusa Huby,PamelaM., University of Liverpool, England Theophrastus Hülser, Karlheinz,University of Konstanz, Germany Diodorus Cronus Hunter,Graeme, Bishops University, Lennoxville, Canada Descartes, Rene Inwagen,Peter van, Syracuse University, Syracuse. New York Determinism Entia Successiva Ivry, AlfredL., New York University, New York Arabic School Jacquette,Date, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park Definite Descriptions Extensionalism Lambda Abstraction Mally, Ernst Joerden,Jan C., Friedrich-AlexanderUniversity, Erlangen. Germany Supererogation

xii

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Johansson,lngvar,University of Umeä,

Leinsle,UlrichG., Regensburg, Germany Melanchthon, Philipp

Sweden Categories Natural Science Tendency Jori,Alberto,University of Padova, Italy Euclid of Megara John Duns Scotus

Manchester, England (retired) Lesniewski, Stanislaw Woodger, Joseph Henry

Joy,LynnS., Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee Gassendi. Pierre

LePore,Ernest,Rutgers University, New

Judson,Lindsay,Christ Church, Oxford Eleatics

Kaehler,KlausErich, Albert-LudwigsUniversity, Freiburg, Germany Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb

Kamitz,Reinhard,Karl-Franzens-University, Graz. Austria Truth Theory

Kamlah,Andreas,University of Osnabrück. Germany Reichenbach. Hans Kehl,Heinrich,Ludwigshafen, Germany Greiling, Kurt Kerferd,G. B., University of Manchester, England Heraclitus Protagoras Kidd,lan G., University of St. Andrews. Fife, Scotland Posidonius Kirn,Jaegwon,Brown University. Providence. Rhode Island Supervenience

Kitcher,Philip,University of California. San Diego Explanation

Knuuttila,Simo,University of Helsinki. Finland Plenitude Possibility

Lambert,Karel,University of California, Irvine Logic VI: Free Logic

Landolt,Stephan,University of Salzburg. Austria Nietzsche's Metaphysics (with Peter M. Simons)

Lejewski,Czeslaw,University of

Lennon,ThomasM., The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada Malebranche, Nicolas Brunswick. New Jersey Davidson, Donald Fodor, Jerry

Levinson,Jerrold,University of Mary land, College Park Attribute Music

Lobkowicz,Nicholas,Catholic University of Eichstätt, Germany Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Metaphysics I: History and Terminology Lohr,CharlesH., Albert-LudwigsUniversity. Freiburg, Germany Aristotelianism RaymondLull

Lombard,LawrenceBrian, Wayne State University, Detroit. Michigan Change Events Loux,MichaelJ., University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame. Indiana Substance

Lowe,EdwardJonathan,University of Durham. England Lewis, David

Luce,Lila, St. Johns College, Annapolis, Maryland Mathematical Structures (with M. Resnik) Lüthe,Rudolf,International Academy of Philosphy. Liechtenstein Hume, David McCall,Storrs, McGill University, Montreal. Canada Time Flow. Tempora! Passage

MacDonald,Scott, University of Iowa. IowaCity Boethius God I: Natural and Revealed Theology Theodicy. Natural Theology

xiii

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

MacLane, Saunders,University of Chicago, Illinois Category Theory

Moravcsik,Julius M., Stanford University. California Plato

McMullin,Ernan, University of Notre Dame, Indiana Galileo Galilei Newton. Isaac

Morton,Adam, University of Bristol, England Chaos II: Fractals and Chaos

Manekin,CharlesH., University of Maryland. College Park Moses Maimonides

Murau, Andrede, University of Geneva, Switzerland Form/Matter II: From Aristotle to Kant Hierarchy ldea Neale,Stephen, University of California. Berkeley Reference Nef, Frederic,University of Rennes I, France Grammar II: Modem Theories

Marcus,Roth Barcan,Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut Barcan Formula

Nerlich,GrahamC., University of Adelaide, Australia Relativity Theories

Madden,EdwardH., Universityof Kentucky, Lexington Causality Majer,Ulrich, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany Ramsey, Frank Plumpton Semantic Conventionalism

Martin,C. F. J., University of Glasgow, Scotland Sensus Communis Thomas Aquinas Martin,ChristopherJ., The University of Auckland, New Zealand Gilbert of Poitiers Martinich,A. P., University ofTexas, Austin Causa Sui Ens a se Maurer,Armand,Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto, Canada Gilson. Etienne Mayer,Cornelius,Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen. Germany Augustine Meixner,Uwe, UniversityofRegensburg, Germany Universals Mellor,D. H., University ofCambridge, England Dispositions Mondadori,Fabrizio, University of Wisconsin. Milwaukee Inevitability

Niiniluoto,llkka, University of Helsinki, Finland Realism, Scientific Nortmann,Ulrich, Rheinische FriedrichWilhelms-University. Bonn Counterfactuals Paradoxes Nuchelmans,Gabriel, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, The Netherlands Geulincx, Arnold Gregory of Rimini Peter Aureoli States of Affairs Null, GilbertT ., University of Wisconsin, Green Bay Gurwitsch. Aron Olson, KennethR., Xerox Corporation. Palo Alto. California Fact O'Meara,DominicJ., University of Fribourg, Switzerland Pythagoras, Pythagoreanism O'Meara,John, University of Dublin John Scottus Eriugena Omel'yanchik,Valentin,Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. Kiev Soviel Philosophy

xiv

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Orilia,Francesco,Olivetti Ricerca, Pisa,

Posy, CarlJ., Duke University, Durham,

Italy Guise Theory

North Carolina lntuitionism

Orth,ErnstWolfgang,University of Trier,

Potts,TimothyC., University of Leeds,

Germany Cassirer, Ernst

England Form/Matter I: Greek and Medieval Theories

Owens,Joseph,University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Mind-Body

Pabst,Bernhard,Friedrich-AlexanderUniversity, Erlangen, Germany Atomism I: Classical Theories Atomism II: Medieval Theories Pellegrin,Pierre,Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris Species,Genus Pelletier,FrancisJ., University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada MassTerms Peiia,Lorenzo,Spanish Institute of Advanced Studies. Madrid Dialectics II: Dialectics and lnconsistency Nothing Phonology Perreiah,AlanR., University of Kentucky, Lexington Paul of Venice Perzanowski,Jerzy,Jagiellonian University, Cracow Modalities, Ontological Ontological Arguments II: Cartesian and Leibnizian Petitot,Jean, Centre d'Analyse et des Mathematiques Sociales, Paris Structuralism Thom.Rene Plantinga,Alvin, University of Notre Dame, Indiana Essentialism Ontological Arguments I: Classical

Poltawski,Andrzej,Academy of Roman CatholicTheology, Warsaw, Poland Ingarden, Roman

Porebski,Czeslaw,Katedra Filozofii Akademii Ekonomicznej, Cracow, Poland Value Theory, Austrian

Post,JohnF., Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee Materialism. Physicalism

Prawitz,Dag, University of Stockholm, Sweden Dummett, Michael

Prigogine,llya, Free University, Brussels Cosmology II: The Reasons for the Cosmos (with E. Gunzig)

Prins,Jan, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands Common Notion Element Hobbes, Thomas Zabarella, Jacopo Puntel,LorenzB., Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversity, Munich Reductionism Truth Rahman,Shahid,University of Saarbrücken, Germany Topology Rapaport,WilliamJ., State University of New York, Buffalo Meinong, Alexius I: Meinongian Semantics Rapp,Friedrich,University of Dortmund, Germany Technology Redmond,Walter,The State University of Texas, Austin God II: Metaphysical Conceptions Resnik,Michael,University of North Carolina, Chapel Hili Mathematical Structures (with L. Luce) Richard,Mark, Tufts University, Medford, Massach usetts Belief Ricken,Friedo,Jesuit Philosophical Faculty, Munich Emotion, Affect Energeia/Dynamis First Philosophy Good Pre-Socratics

XV

Robins,RobertHenry, School of African and Oriental Studies, London Grammar I: History Rockmore,Thomas, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Schütz, Alfred Roncaglia,Gino, University of Florence, ltaly Denominatio Intrinseca/Extrinseca Fonseca. Peter of Solo, Domingo de RosadoHaddock,GuillermoE., University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Categorial Perception Rosenberg,Alexander,University of California, Riverside Teleology Rowlands,Mark, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa Content, Narrow Rudavsky,Tarnar,The Ohio State University, Columbus John Gerson Runggaldier,Edmund,University of Innsbruck, Austria Carnap, Rudolf (incl. Vienna Circle) Soul Sajama,Seppo, University of Joensuu, Finland Veber. France Salmon,Nathan, University of California, Santa Barbara Singular Terms Sauer, Werner, Karl-Franzens-University, Graz, Austria Aufbau-Theories Scanlon,John, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Avenarius, Richard Schantz,Richard, Free University, Berlin Armstrong, David M. Perception Scheibe, Erhard, Ruprecht-Karls-University. Heidelberg, Germany Natural Law

LIST OF CONTRIBU1ORS

Schenk, Günter, Martin-Luthcr-University, Halle-Wittenberg. Germany Albert the Great I: General Metaphysics Greek Philosophical Terminology (with D. W. Graham) John Buridan Ramus, Peter Schuhmann,Karl, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands Daubert, Johannes Encyclopaedists Ontology III: Regional Ontology Pfänder, Alexander Reinach. Adolf Telesio, Bernardino Schulte,Joachim, Bologna. Italy Wittgenstein. Ludwig Schulthess,Daniel, University of Neuchätel, Switzerland Reid, Thomas Schulthess,Peter, University of Zurich. Switzerland Function/Functional Dependence Relation I: History Schuwey,Bruno, University of Fribourg, Switzerland Adverbial Theory Schwartz,StephenP., lthaca College, New York Natural Kinds, Modem Theories of Putnam, Hilary Seiht, Johanna, University ofTexas, Austin Process Seilars, Wilfrid Seifert,Josef A., International Academy of Philosophy, Liechtenstein Hildebrand, Dietrich von Transcendence Transcendentals and Pure Perfections Voluntarism Will. the Sharples, RobertW., University College, London Alexander of Aphrodisias Shearmur,Jeremy, George Mason University. Fairfax, Virginia Hayek, Friedrich A. von Popper. Karl

xvi

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Sheehan,John, University of Aberdeen.

Sprigge,TimothyL.S., University of

Scotland Graph Theory (with G. Stock) Siegwart,Geo, University of Essen, Germany Lambert. Johann Heinrich Order Relations Relation II: Mathematical Relations

Edinburgh. Scotland Absolute ldealism/Realism James. William McTaggart, J. M. E. Monism/Pluralism Panpsychism Pantheism Relation III: Interna! Relations Royce. Josiah Santayana, George Schopenhauer, Arthur Spinoza, Benedict (Baruch) Stallmach,Josef, Johannes GutenbergUniversity, Mainz. Germany Hartmann, Nicolai Steinmetz,Peter, University of Saarbrücken, Germany Panaitios Stock,Eberhard,Philipps-University. Marburg. Germany Scholz. Heinrich Stock,Guy, University of Dundee, Scotland Bradley, F. H. Graph Theory (with J. Sheehan) Strehl,Volker,Friedrich-AlexanderUniversity, Erlangen. Germany Combinatorics Stroll,Avrum,University of California. San Diego Surfaces Stucchi,Natale,University of Geneva, Switzerland Gestalt Stuhlmann-Laeisz,Rainer,Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University, Bonn Transcendental Suppes,Patrick,Stanford University, California Definition II: Rules of Definition Metaphysics V: Probabilistic Metaphysics

Simons,PeterM., University of Salzburg, Austria Abstraction Analytic Philosophy Categorial Grammar Dependence Logic VII: Ontological Implications Mach, Ernst Nietzsche's Metaphysics (with S. Landolt) Nominalism Ontological Commitment Part/Whole II: Mereology since 1900 Tarski, Alfred Skiar,Lawrence,The Universityof Michigan,Ann Arbor Quantum Physics Space-Time Smith,Harry,International Academy of Philosophy. Liechtenstein Meinong. Alexius II: Meinong and the GrazSchool Naive Physics 1mith,DavidWoodruff,University of California, Irvine Acquaintance Indexicality Sober,Elliolt,University of Wisconsin, Madison Biology Emergence Sosa,Ernest,Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island Berkeley, George Chisholm, Roderick M. Experience Specht,Rainer,University ofMannheim. Germany Potential Actus Spinicci,Paolo,University of Milan, Italy Husserl, Edmund II: The Later Husserl Marty. Anton Modification

Sylvan,Richard,Ecological Organization, Bungendore, Australia Existence II: Existence and NonExistence Nature, Ontology of Relativism Relevant Logics Sistology

xvii

Tegtmeier,Erwin, University ofMannheim. Germany Determinate/Determinable Intensive Magnitudes Johnson, W. E. Measurement Theron,Stephen,The National University of Lesotho, Roma, Lesotho/Africa Cajetan. Thomas Ens Rationis I: Medieval Theories John of St. Thomas Naturalism Neo-Scholasticism Ontologism Substrate Thiel, Christian,Friedrich-AlexanderUniversity, Erlangen, Germany Boolean Algebra Thom, Paul, Australian National University. Canberra Logic I: The Syllogism Metaphysics II: Greek Metaphysics Parmenides Torretti,Roberto,University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Geometry Tragesser,RobertS., Columbia University. New York Topos Theory Tutiya,Syun, Chiba University, Chibashi. Japan Situation Semantics (with K. Devlin) Tweedale,Martin, University of Alberta, Edmonton. Canada Distinctions Peter Abelard Valadez,Jorge M., Southwest Texas State University. San Marcos Metaontology Volpi, Franco,University of Padova. ltaly Dilthey, Wilhelm Trendelenburg. Adolf Walker,RalphC.S., Magdalen College. Oxford Kant, Immanuel II: Kant's Metaphysics Walton,KendallL., University ofMichigan. AnnArbor Fiction

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Wildberg,Christian,Free University. Berlin Iamblichus John Philoponus Wildgen,Wolfgang,University of Bremen. Germany Catastrophe Theory Gestalt Linguistics Meaning I: Naturalistic Theories Willard,Dallas, University of Southern California. Los Angeles Beneke. Friedrich Eduard Husserl, Edmund I: The Early Husserl Lotze. Rudolf Hermann Proposition I: History and Systematic Role Williamson,A. Mark, Southwest Texas State University. San Marcos Metacosmology Williamson,Timothy, University College. Oxford Abstract/Concrete Wolenski,Jan, Jagiellonian University. Cracow, Poland Analytic/Synthetic A Priori/ A Posteriori Logic IV: Polish Logic Reism Semantics Twardowski. Kazimierz Wolniewicz,Boguslaw,Universityof Warsaw. Poland Logical Atomism Wolter,Allan B., The Franciscans Old Mission, Santa Barbara, California Scotism Woolhouse,RogerS., University of York, England Locke. John Yolton,John W., Rutgers University. New Brunswick, New Jersey Empiricism Zalta, EdwardN., Stanford University, California Metaphysics VI: Systematic Metaphysics

Introduction

The present work seeks to document the most important traditional and contemporary streams in the two overlapping fields of metaphysics and ontology. Both disciplines were, even just a few years ago, seen by many as of negligible contemporary interest. The editors, neither of whom had shared this general opinion, were none the less surprised to see how much valuable work had been achieved in these a·reas not only in the past but also in our own century. The intensity of contemporary work in metaphysics and ontology points indeed to a healthy renewal of these disciplines, the like of which has not been seen, perhaps, since the 13th century. In order to summarize what, from the editors' point of view, seem to be the most important trends underlying these contemporary developments, the present Introduction offers a brief and wilfully selective overview of the contents of this Handbook. Aristotle The founders of Western philosophy in ancient Greece initiated the development of metaphysical systems in a process culminating in the work of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoies. lt was especially Aristotle's metaphysics, called by him "first philosophy", that became paradigmatic for future research in the field, and this in at least seven respects: - Aristotle analyses a wide range of metaphysical concepts: the categories (substance and nine kinds of accidents), the praedicabilia (genus, species, proprium, etc.). modal concepts. concepts of essence, existence, identity, privation, and four different kinds of cause. - Aristotle uses four fundamental metaphysical relations, namely substanceaccident, part-whole, cause-effect, and means-end, for the purposes of metaphysical analysis. - Aristotle subscribes to a liberal methodological attitude, using different kinds of methods, such as definition. induction, and deduction, in his metaphysical works. - In all his works Aristotle shows a fundamental empirical attitude which enabled him to introduce into science new empirical disciplines such as biology and noncelestial physics, in addition to the Platonic disciplines of metaphysics, geometry, and astronomy. This was possible first of all because Aristotle - in contradistinction to Plato - accepts as scientific not only rnLon'jµT], i.e. necessary or certain knowledge, but also e:vöol;ct,i.e. probable or conjectural knowledge. But it was possible also because Aristotle embraced the idea that the sublunar reality in which we live manifests certain intrinsically intelligible structures our knowledge of which provides an a priori (pre-inductive) basis for science and philosophy. - An important consequence of Aristotle's empirical approach is that his metaphysics is not a closed system like that of Plato. but is rather open to new insights and is intimately connected to all kinds of scientific developments.

JNTRODUCTJON

XX

- Aristotle's metaphysics is controlled further by his syllogistic, or more generally by logical considerations both formal and philosophical in nature. Thus from the beginning his metaphysics is a rational enterprise, bound up with the search for truth, and has nothing to do with myth or poetry. - Yet even though Aristotle is the first to have developed a deductive system of logic. his metaphysics is not deductive but rather descriptive, defining its fundamental concepts in cumulative, empirical fashion.

Medieval and Post-Medieval Metaphysics Aristotle's empirical and liberal methodological attitude was shared by all important medieval and post-medieval Aristotelians such as Avicenna, Averroes, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus. William Ockham, Francisco Suarez, G. W. Leibniz. and Franz Brentano. The dominance of Aristotelianism is illustrated by the fact that, until the DisputationesMetaphysicae of Suarez in 1597, works on metaphysics standardly took the form of commentaries on writings in the Aristotelian corpus. Taking into account their empirical and rational attitude, it is not surprising that the scholastic Aristotelians - represented above all by the Dominicans, and later by the Jesuits- were the predecessors also of modern science. A new topic in medieval metaphysics, foreshadowed in Plato's and Aristotle's theology and in that of the patristic philosophers, is the reHection on concepts of God, his perfections, his thinking, and his action. From this stem also reHections on possible worlds. on modal concepts such as the necessity and contingency of divine and human action, on absoluteness and dependence, and on the methodological differences between philosophy and theology.

The 17th Century The 17th century brings three novelties. First. the name 'ontology' is introduced in 1613 by the German Protestant Scholastic Rudolphus Goclenius and from this time stands for metaphysicageneralis,as contrasted with the metaphysica specialis of, for example, cosmology and natural theology. The second is that Rene Descartes, in some respects treading in the footsteps of Augustine, develops a metaphysics in which there is added to the description and analysis of the external world a rational treatment of the inner world. which is to say a metaphysics resting on the description of the mind, its acts, and their cognitive and non-cognitive contents. A third novelty consists in the development by Spinoza in his Ethics and by Leibniz in his Monadology of a new kind of deductive. systematic metaphysics. Spinoza was inHuenced in this respect by the renaissance of Euclidean geometry in the 16th century. Leibniz by his own pioneering inventions in the field of logical calculi. Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza were all in addition profoundly shaped by the scholastic tradition in which they had been trained, and therewith also by the Aristotelian metaphysics of substance and accident. A central theme of metaphysics in the 17th century, though one which draws on earlier work above all by Scotus, is the problem of individuation, represented, for example. in the philosophies of Suärez and Leibniz. Not only the individuality of

xxi

INTRODUCTION

substances is discussed but also. in the tradition of Aristotle and the medieval Scholastics. that of accidents such as actual properties. dispositions. processes. and situations. Leibniz introduces to philosophy the notion of an individual concept, a concept under which all the accidents of an individual fall, and therewith also aspect• of the modern logical concept of a possible world.

The 18th Century Kant criticized traditional metaphysical systems such as those of Leibniz and Christian Wolff which were in his mind dogmatic in character. In order to avoid dogmatic metaphysics, Kant developed instead a view according to which the world of experience is somehow formed or shaped by what he called the "transcendental subject". reality in itself remaining intrinsically unknowable. German idealists such as J. G. Fichte, G. W. F. Hegel, and F. W. J. Schelling developed idealistic metaphysical systems not controlled or even disturbed by the existence of logic. and their work thus constitutes a deterioration in comparison with what had been achieved by earlier metaphysicians. Hegel replaced formal logic by dialectics, and the absence of logic in his philosophy. coupled with the lack of an analysis of the external world and the neglect of natural science and mathematics. yields as end-result a most peculiar absolutistic evolutionary idealism.

The Brentano School The standards of rigour and descriptive adequacy of Scholasticismwere re-established above all by Franz Brentano and his school. Brentano, a pupil of Adolf Trendelenburg, one of the few Aristotelians in the 19th century in Germany, created a philosophical system which was a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Cartesianism, and the empiricism of the British school. This system was modified in different and often highly original ways by his pupils, the most important of whom were Kazimierz Twardowski, Edmund Husserl, Carl Stumpf, Christian von Ehrenfels, Anton Marty, and Alexius Meinong. In contradistinction to Hegel and his fellow idealists, the Brentano School was very successful in associating its philosophical work in fruitful ways with modern developments in the sciences, above all in psychology and linguistics. Brentano's pupils were responsible for founding not only new philosophical movements such as phenomenology, but also new programmes of scientific research such as the Gestalt theories of the Graz and Berlin Schools. Brentano's pupils contributed in important ways to modern logic. above all through Twardowski and his students in Poland. And they contributed also to ontology, for example through Meinong and the members of the Graz School, who established the so-called theory of objects. Husserl. following in some respects in Meinong's footsteps. founded in turn the discipline of formal ontology and was the first to analyse in formal manner the ontological concepts of dependence. part and whole. Husserl's work in this field was then continued in philosophy above all by Adolf Reinach and Roman lngarden, and in its application to linguistic parts and wholes by Stanislaw Lesniewski and others in Poland. Husserl's philosophical ideas on formal and material ontology gave

xxii

INTRODUCTION

rise further to a new understanding of synthetic or material a priori truths. From the perspective of Husserl, Reinach, and Ingarden such truths are not, as for Kant, the products of a forming or shaping activity on the side of the subject. Rather, as for Aristotle, they represent intelligible structures on the side of the objects of experience, structures which are not invented but discovered, and which serve, again, as a pre-empirical basis for science and philosophy.

Early AnalyticMetaphysics The first analytic philosophers of our century, such as G. E. Moore, G. F. Stout, Bertrand Russen. and Ludwig Wittgenstein, did not, like many of their mid-century successors, suffer from an anti-metaphysical attitude. Moore's early ontological analyses focused on concepts and propositions. He understood concepts as nonsubjective, eternal, and immutable objects of thought, as things that are real, but not part of nature. Russell distinguished more carefuny between particulars and universals, developing in the wake of Gottlob Frege a logistic conception of mathematics which treats mathematical objects as logical constructions which are at the same time denizens of an eternal Platonic realm. Frege, too, was something of an ontologist, though bis peculiarly baroque brand of Platonism, recognizing the True and the False as supreme entities, has found few subsequent adherents. Wittgenstein's Tractat11s,also at least in part an ontological work, seeks to combine the Fregean ontology of function and argument with an ontology of states of affairs or Sachverhalte which draws on the logical atomism outlined by Russen. Ungering Kantianism, Vienna positivism, the philosophy of linguistic analysis, and above all W. V. 0. Quine, thereafter served for a time to render unfashionable the ontological and metaphysical concerns which bad for previous generations of philosophers formed the very centre of the discipline of philosophy. Quine's theory of ontological commitment is however far from eliminating the need for further ontological research. On the contrary, a theory of ontological commitment is one of the crucial meta-ontological presuppositions of every ontology. Other presuppositionsare a theory of ontological reduction and an account of dependence, of part and whole, and of the other formal and material relations in which the entities admitted by an ontology may be conceived as standing.

ContemporaryMetaphysics Contemporary metaphysics is in many respects similar to Aristotelian metaphysics: - In modern metaphysics, too, a wide range of concepts is subjected to analysis, concepts such as event, process, action, situation, state of affairs, particular, nexus, world, set, guise, and so on. In post-Meinongian ontological systems, moreover, the arsenal of entities treated is also in other respects much !arger than it was in former times. - As concerns the four fundamental ontological relations, it is above all mereological analysis that has seen the most impressive development, starting with

xxiii

INTRODUCTION

Stanislaw Lesniewski and Nelson Goodman and culminating in the work of Peter Simons and others. - Contemporary metaphysics, too, subscribes to a methodological liberalism, adapting its methods to the matters to be analysed. - Contemporary metaphysics has a solid empirical foundation, enjoying close connections to natural sciences such as physics and biology. as weil as to disciplines such as psychology and linguistics and to borderline areas such as artificial intelligence. - Modem metaphysics, too, is an open system taking over from the sciences concepts like emergence, field, and space-time, and concepts of social wholes and parts, and subjecting these to new types of philosophical treatment. - Different kinds of logic are fundamental for the development of metaphysical systems. The modern attitude leads to a logical pluralism, so that we have not only classical Frege-style logic, but also free logics. modal and paraconsistent logics, etc. - Modem metaphysical systems are to an overwhelming degree deductive in nature and are in this sense closer to the systems of Spinoza and Leibniz than they are to those of the Aristotelian metaphysicians. Of the two editors of this Handbook- who bear equal responsibility for all its parts and moments - one is an admirer of Leibniz and the 17th-century rationalists and thus finds himself strongly allied to certain modern deductive trends. The other feels more at home in the 13th or 14th centuries and is accordingly critical of the overenthusiastic and often over-simplistic use of formal logical techniques in contemporary metaphysics. The editors are however equally convinced that it is precisely the tension between the deductive and descriptive approaches to the problems of metaphysics and ontology which will be responsible for the future creative advances in these fields. And they are convinced also that such advances can be furthered by an understanding of the history of metaphysics and ontology. an understanding guided by the most sophisticated modern research and by the use of the most sophisticated modern techniques - of the sort this Handbook has been designed to facilitate.

THE ABSOLUTE

A Abelard.See: Peter Abelard The Absolute The expression 'the Absolute', as we will understand it here, was first introduced into philosophy by F. W. J. Schelling (1775-1854) and Hegel (1770-1831). lt stands for the whole of things conceived as unitary, as spiritual, and as rationally intelligible as the finite things included in it are deemed not to be when considered apart from it. Often it is thought of as that whose existence is what is proved by an adequate ontological argument. Just what expressions like 'the Absolute', 'the absolute ldea', and 'the ldea' mean in Hegel is controversial. Certainly he thought reality a dialectical progression from the simples! of all concepts (pure being) to the riebest (the absolute idea) - these constituting the basic categories through which anything can be thought - then moving on through this to physical Nature itself (not merely the concept thereof) which, by a series of further dialectical steps, issues in Spirit or Mind (Geist). Spirit then ascends in human life by a series of stages from a primitive form of sensory understanding, in which effectivelyit merely contemplates pure being, to philosophical insight into the whole system leading from pure being to itself as the highest manifestation of that Absolute ldea which has been operative throughout the series and is in some sense identical with it as a whole. The dialectical series is not primarily chronological, though in human life chronology partially reflects its structure. Somewhat similar ideas were held by other German philosophers, who constructed systems owing much to Kant but professing to break beyond the limits he had placed on human knowledge. Thus J. G. Fichte (17621814) interpreted human life and reality generally as an absolute ego which posits a non-ego for its moral development, and Schelling, Hegers one-time associate, saw the Absolute as the identity of knower and

known expressing itself both in mind and nature. For all such absolutists, the Absolute is that which unlike conditioned or finite things is intelligible in itself, and is without external conditions. Among the most powerful proponents of the Absolute were the philosophers misleadingly called the Anglo-American Hegelians, especially F. H. Bradley and Josiah Royce. For Bradley the Absolute is a harmonious timeless experiential whole in which its appearances (all finite things) exist in a harmonious unity which contrasts with what they seem to be individually to themselves and to each other. Finite things are appearances in a double sense. First, they are only specifiable by us in concepts which being internally contradictory cannot in literal truth apply to anything. Second, even as they really are they have no truly individual character which could be actualized out of their precise context in the whole, this being the main bar to their coherent conceptualization. We can dimlyconceive this absolute experience on an analogy with the whole of our experience at any one moment, in which changing events are conceived or experienced in a single synthetic glance. lt contrasts not only, and obviously, in the ungraspable contrast in the richness of its contents; but also in that our single experiences are, and feel themselves as, mere phases in an ongoing process, while it, though including the experience of the events of all time, has no temporal context and feels itself in an unchanging external moment. To prove the existence of such an absolute experience it is contended, first, that there is no genuine filling which reality could possibly have except sentient experience, and, second, that things which it is appropriate to think of as standing in relations to one another must help constitute, typically along with other things, a more comprehensive whole which is more of a genuine unit than they are. Since everything is related to everything eise, they must all be included in a unitary whole which, as composed of experiences, must unify them in the one way in which experiences can be unified, namely as elements in a single experience. (The unreality of relations, for which Bradley argued, consists in the fact that relational thinking

2

ABSOLUTE/RELATIVE

treats terms of relations as having a distinct• ness incompatible with the togetherness it also requires of them.) Royce argued somewhat similarly for a more personal Absolute nearer to a traditional conception of God. His most famous argument concerned the reference of thought to its objects. If it only picks them out by descriptions, then it can never be erroneous, for its objects, if it has any, must answer to its predicates; however, we do have erroneous beliefs so they must be picked out for us in some more basic way. This, claims Royce, can only be because we, together with our objects, are aspects of an absolute mind who deliberately intends objects in an initially inadequate way via our finite minds. These arguments may falter in detail, but the essential point may stand: that things can only be related to each other if they are elements together in a whole which is more of a genuine unit than each is separately. (Thal does not mean that the more comprehensive is always a more genuine unit than the less, only that at some level there must be a more genuine comprehensive unit which related terms help to form; however, the main argument may require only that they must help to forma unit at least as genuine as themselves.) Bertrand Russell's arguments against this 'monistic' view of relations have been thought successful,but really only showthat it requires a more careful statement than can be given here. Certainly for ordinary thought spatial relations between things are a matter of the !arger spatial wholes they make up together, and time, itcan be argued, must be conceived as some sort of embracing whole if there are to be temporal relations between events. If the idealist is right that space and time are merely objects of useful but finallyincoherent conceptions derived from features of our perceptual fields, then they cannot be the true more comprehensive wholes in which all things (which for the idealist means all experi• ences) come together. So at least the present author has argued. Anotherof the Absolute's more recent defenders, J. N. Findlay (190387) argues further that every philosopher has bis Absolute, something which needs no further explanation, but that only something like the Hegelian Absoluteis an adequate one.

FURTHER READING

Findlay, J. N., 1970, Ascem to the Absolute, London: George Allen and Unwin. Spriggc, T. L. S., 1987, The Vindication of Absolute ldealism, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. TIMOTHYL. S. SPRJGGE

Absolute/Relative A neat formal statement of this distinction would be immediately to band if 'absolute/ relative' denoted (as some have wrongly thought) the familiar monadic/relational distinction: despite its use to mark off things which are not, from things which are, essen• tially characterized by relation to something eise, no simple treatment captures its full range of application in historical or contemporary discussions. An influential and distinctively Protagorean relativism, emerging most notably in the Theaetetus, serves as a useful departure. If we claim that truth is not an absolute notion but a relative one, we are not offering the trivial observation that something (a proposition, say) is true only inso far as it stands in relation to something eise: our claim distinguishes itself from other theories of truth by entailing that, just as the wind is cold to him who feels cold and not to him who does not, so all truths are of the form 'I perceive that P' rather than 'P'. Thus a Protagorean absolute/relative distinction has traditionally been regarded as dividing truths according to whether or not they are minddependent (or dividing concepts or predicates according to whether or not they truly • apply independently of individual cognitive acts). Variantsofthis theme mark the distinc• tion along slightly different lines, with 'social practices' or 'conceptual schemes' replacing 'cognitive acts'. A concept F is plausibly said to be absolute, in a different sense, when 'absolutely F' is a proper but redundant predication when nothing cou/d be more F. Thus a concept Fis absolute in so far as asserting that x is F amounts to claiming that some other concept G, which admits of degree, is not instantiated by x: 'flat' (along with 'empty', 'dry', and others) is absolute, because any•

3 thing to which 'flat' truly applies is absolutely flat, not bumpy to any degree. 'Bumpy' expresses, on this proposal, the corresponding relative concept ( G above). According to this way of setting off absolute from relative concepts (Unger 1984), very few things, if any, fall under absolute concepts. Perfectly bumpless surfaces are hard to come by. But then perhaps they are not, if what counts as a bump is relativized to the kind of surface being described (Dretske 1981):flat tables are one thing, flatpolo fields another, and each may be perfectly bumpless relative to the standards appropriate to it. Hence it remains that ifx is flat, nothing could be flatter, where now the standards for what counts as a bump (and so, for what counts as bumpless) are relative to asortal underwhich x falls. Absolute concepts may be relational/y absolute (Dretske's term) - absolute, exactly as given above, but relative to sortal-specific standards. This latest strategy can be generalized to many other concepts, and to many other contexts of application: x is a !arge mouse, though not a large mammal, and nothing is !arge simpliciter. Two crucial points immediately arise. First, this familiar sort of context relativity does not entail !hat such predicates are many-ways ambiguous, for we are free to regard indices of co111extas parameters of their fixed semantic content, yielding different extensions under different contexts. But now the line between absolute and relative concepts becomes obscure. On the one band, resemblance is not an absolute relation because x and y may at once be similar (relative to overall appearance) and dissimilar (relative to age, intelligence, and mannerisms); on the other band, resemblance is an absolute relation, no longer of two terms but of three: x, y, and the respect of similarity. Second, our reference just now to absolute relational concepts, and Dretske's talk of relationally absolute concepts (even if teasingly close to double-talk for 'relative' after all), recommended that we distinguish relative from relational as categories. This is particularly crucial for discussions of space and time, in which the absolute/relative distinction is often forced into double duty as an

ABSOLUTE/RELATIVE

absolute/relational distinction. The latter distinction, but not the former, is at issue between Leibniz and the Newtonians: Newton regarded space as "absolute, ... fixed and immovable" - as a substantival entity in which material bodies have locations, and by virtue of which locations bodies have the spatial properties they do have; Leibniz, denying in the correspondence with Samuel Clarke (1675-1729) that space exists as something logically prior to things in it, argued instead that space is no more than a system of mutual relations among coexisting bodies, much as a genealogical tree is no more than a complex of relations among members of a family. Although 'absolute/relative' may characterize any number of distinctions in treatments of space and time (Horwich 1978), the most important relativity principles, featured in both Newtonian and Einsteinian theories of space and time, have little bearing on the absolute/relational controversy. A spatiotemporal property or relation is regarded by a theory as absolute if that property or relation is the same in any frame or kind of frame (invariance), and relative if it varies according to frame or kind of frame (covariance). Classical relativity thus says that elementary mechanical laws hold with respect to any arbitrary inertial frame, as guaranteed by the Galilean transforrnations, under which spatial and temporal separation are invariant. According to the Special Theory of Relativity, in which electrodynamic laws also hold in every inertial frame, the Lorentz transforrnations entail !hat spatial and temporal separation are no longer invariant across inertial frames. Perhaps the most famous consequence of this is the re/ativityof simultaneity. In classical physics, simultaneity is an absolute relation, and we may speak of two events as simultaneous simp/iciter: two events x and y simultaneous in one frame are simultaneous in all, and simultaneity is an equivalence relation (reflexive, symmetric, and transitive). In Special Relativity, if x and y are simultaneous relative to one frame, they will not be simultaneous relative to some other frame moving inertially with respect to the first. Relative to a particular frame, simultaneity remains an

ABSTRACT/CONCRETE

4

which may be empty). Although ordinary particulars are concrete and ordinary universals abstract (if objects at all), the modern distinction, the topic of this article, has diverged from the older one. Sets are abstract particulars, and Hegel did not contradict himself in speaking of concrete universals. The association between abstract and universal survives in the Fregean notion that the 'criterion of identity' for an abstract object is an equivalence relation on its instances. Thus the identity of directions consists in the equivalence relation of parallelism between lines which have directions; lines have the same direction if and only if they are parallel (note that lines too may be abstract). There are no agreed definitions of 'abstract' and 'concrete'. Many concrete objects exist contingently, are located in space and time, can be pointed at and perceived, have causes and effects, and change. Many abstract ones Jack all these features. However, attempts to extract a rigorous criterion from such contrasts face the problem of objects which are neither purely abstract nor purely concrete; they do not clearly explain, e.g. why Plato is concrete, but the set with him as its only FURTHERREADING member is abstract. Dretske,F., 1981, '"Thepragmaticdimensionof Are there any abstract objects? If so, are knowledge",Philosophica/ Studies,40, 363-78. they as mind-independent as concrete ones? Geach, P. T., 1980, Referenceand Generality, A Platonist may be defined as one who Ithaca,N. Y.: CornellUniversityPress. answers both questions affirmatively. Many Horwich,P., 1978, "On the existenceof time, Platonists argue, after Plato, that all prespace,and space-time",Nous, 12, 397-419. Unger,P., 1984, Philosophical Relativity,Minnea- dication involves implicit reference to mindpolis,Minn.:Universityof MinnesotaPress. independent abstract objects; they may exJ. A. COVER ploit the permissibility of nominalizations such as 'doghood' and 'hairiness'. However, the case for Platonism seems to be at its strongest in the philosophy of mathematics. Abstract/Concrete Three arguments for the existence of mathematical objects, assumed to be abstract, The process of abstraction, by which the are: mind somehow picks out a common feature of many individual items, has been discussed since at least Aristotle's PosteriorAnalytics. 1. '7' denotes something because it has the In traditional logic, abstract terms such as semantic function of a singular term in 'doghood' denote universals, while concrete the true statement '7 is prime' (Frege). terms such as 'dog' denote particulars. In 2. The ~xistence of mathematical objects more recent philosophy, 'abstract' and 'conprov1des the best explanation of mathcrete' have been applied to the things deematical intuition, just as the existence noted rather than to the denoting terms, with of physical objects provides the best intent to classifyall objects into two mutually explanation of perceptual experience (Gödel). exclusiveand jointly exhaustive kinds (one of equivalence relation; but in general, if x is simultaneous with y in one frame, and if y is simultaneous with z in another, then we are not guaranteed that x will be simultaneous with z in either frame. Equivalence relations are ubiquitous: for any sortal F, 'same F as' expresses an equivalence relation, and that, we are invited to suppose, is because 'same as' -identity-is an equivalence relation. But identity, perhaps the most hallowed of absolute equivalence relations among analytic philosophers, is, in the hands of relative identity theorists (Geach 1980), not absolute after all. On this view, asserting that x is identical with y is elliptical for ·x is the same F as y'. Sincex may be the same F as y but not the same G - the same gold but not the same golden coin identity emerges from the present reading, like simultaneity, as a relative equivalence relation. But regarding identity now as a three-place relation would scarcely incline many philosophers to judge it safely absolute, echoing again the intractibility of 'the' absolute/relative distinction.

5

ABSTRACTION

3. Mathematical existence claims figure in the mathematics which is an ineliminable part of our total physical theory, itself holistically confirmed by observation (Quine). Arguments for the mind-independence of mathematical objects typically proceed from the claimed mind-independence of mathematical truth; they may be opposed by constructivists who view mathematical objects as mind-dependent. Common replies to arguments 1.-3. are: 1. Numerals do not really have the semantic function of singular terms (Wittgenstein). 2. Since mathematical objects are supposed to be outside space-time, it is hard to see how they can be responsible for our mathematical intuitions (Benacerraf). 3. Mathematical existence claims can be eliminated from our total physical theory (Field). Naturally, there are replies to these replies. Much recent controversy has centred on the application of causal theories of reference and knowledge: if we cannot interact causally with mathematical objects, does it follow that we cannot refer to or know about them? Nonmathematical disciplines have also been said to need abstract objects (e.g. propositions in semantics). Some have argued that the natural sciences postulate properties and relations as weil as particulars, and these universals might be conceived of as abstract objects. For obvious reasons, the 'Pythagorean' view that all objects are abstract has been less popular than the view that they are all concrete. Quine's argument that our ontology could be interpreted as Pythagorean makes use of assumptions on which there is no fact of the matter as to what our ontology really is. As often, the methodological principles of economy and conservativism pul! in opposite directions. The former advises one not to multiply entities without necessity; the latter, not to abandon beliefs without necessity. If

one 's natve view of the world embodies belief in a multiplicityof abstract entities (numbers, shapes, and virtues), should one seek to abandon that belief if one can, or only if one must? FURTHER READING

Benacerraf, P. and Putnam, H., eds., 1983, Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings, 2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Field, H., 1980,Science Without Numbers, Oxford: Blackwell. Haie, R., 1987, Abstract Objects, Oxford: Blackwell. Künne, W., 1982, "Criteria ofabstractness", in B. Smith, ed., Parts and Moments: Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology, Munich: Philosophia. TIMOTHY WILLIAMSON

Abstraction 'Abstraction' has been used for numerous cognitive procedures, also for the entities (abstracta)thereby cognized, and more recently for sundry logical operations (set-, attribute-, lambda-abstraction) in which names for abstract entities are formed from non-nominal expressions by means of operators. Most forms of abstraction exhibit similar structural elements. The basis or input to an abstraction is one or more objects, concreta, with their complement of attributes. In abstraction, these attributes are partitioned into two classes: those which are retained, selected, or abstracted and those which are rejected, overlooked, or abstracted from. The end product or output is a new object, the abstractum, lacking the rejected attributes but inheriting the retained (or closely related) ones. In some theories abstraction may be iterated, using abstractawon in one round as concreta for the next round: for example, Aristotle thought numbers are abstracted from geometric abstracta. Abstraction theories can be classified in several dimensions, according to the entities abstracted and the position adopted on these structural elements: 1. According to the abstracta. Mathematical objects (numbers, geometric

ABSTRACTION

figures, sets, etc.), dependent moments, forms, universals, concepts, propositions, meanings, types, essences are all candidate abstracta. 2. According to the status of the abstracta. If abstracta pre-exist and are merely disclosed by abstraction, we have realism, whether Platonic (abstracta exist separately from concreta) or Aristotelian (abstractaexistin concreta). If abstraction creates abstracta,we have constructivism. If the constructs are mental, we have conceptualism. Sometimes 'nominalism' means a constructivism where the constructs are linguistic. If abstraction seems to disclose or construct abstractabut there really are none, we have fictionalism,which is sometimes also called 'nominalism'. The properties of abstracta also vary widely. Aristotelian abstracta are spatio-temporal, often perceivable, but dependent- incapable of separate existence - whereas Platonic abstracta are ideal: non-temporal, non-spatial, causally inert, immutable, unperceivable, etc. So 'abstract' can mean 'dependent', 'ideal', or (most properly) 'cognizable only by abstraction'. 3. According to the nature of the abstraction procedure. Psychological abstraction is a mental process (for example selective attention); if the abstractumis also psychological,as are John Locke's abstract ideas, we have psychologism. Edmund Husserl's method of intuiting essences, though he avoids the term 'abstraction', may be called phenomenological abstraction - it is a cognitive process 'purified' of psychologistic elements. Linguistic theories take abstraction as centred on the transition from concrete to abstractterms, whether via morphological devices like affixes ('-ness', '-itas', etc.) or syntacticosemantic devices like the generic 'the'. Regimented abstraction operators like sei- and lambda-abstraction are given with axioms laying down existence and identity conditions for the abstract entities thereby introduced and are seen as incurring greater ontological com-

6 mitments to corresponding abstracta than similar theories without the relevant operators. Positions in these three dimensions may be fairly freely combined. Thus one may be a psychological conceptualist about either concepts (Locke) or universals (William Ockham), a phenomenological Platonist about species (Husserl), a nominalist constructivist about universals (Thomas Hobbes), or a fictionalist about numbers (Hartry Field). Aristotle combined realism about mathematical objects with fictionalism about their properties: although really in concreta,they are profitably treated as ifthey were separate (Met. M). Abstraction is important to antirealists (constructivists, fictionalists) as the key to explaining how there seem to be mindindependent abstracta; it is important for some Platonic realists as an account of how abstractaare cognized which does not rely on occult faculties of intuition (such as are found in Plato or Kurt Gödel). Aristotelian realists (Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas, John Duos Scotus) often invoke abstraction to bridge the gap between individuals and universals: we perceive individuals, abstract from their matter, and retain a universal form in the mind. Use of abstraction to account for generality is a medieval development, which survived to become the keystone of many forms of empiricism. The conceptualist view that concepts or meanings come into being via abstraction ('abstractionism'), once a commonplace, has lost support under the criticismsof Ludwig Wittgenstein. Interest in abstraction has also been diminished by the tendency, following W. V. 0. Quine, tooffer pragmatic reasons (efficacy in organizing and expediting sciences) for ontological positions (in Quine's case, Platonism about classes). The basis for a more precise grasp of abstraction emerged slowly from mathematics in the use of equivalence relations to establish new mathematical domains, for example by K. F. Gauss (1777-1855) in his theory of integer congruences, though the beginnings are in the account of ratios given by Euclid. Giuseppe Peano (1858-1932) recognized a general method which he called

7 'definition by abstraction' and his views were extended by Hermann Weyl (1885-1955), who introduced the notion of attributes invariant under an equivalence as being those retained in abstraction. Weyl was probably influenced by the Erlanger Programme of Felix Klein. This classifiedgeometriesin terms of their invariants, more general or 'abstract' geometries such as projectivegeometry sometimes being derived by "arbitrary but logically useful abstraction" (Weyl 1949, p. 74) from more 'concrete' ones. The invariants of projective geometry are properly included among those of affine geometry, these in turn among those of Euclidean geometry. Richard Dedekind (1831-1916) regarded the natural numbers as a construction arising from simple infinite series by neglecting the special character of the elements and taking into account only the relations arising from their order. Dedekind's description of numbers thus abstracted as "a free creation of the human mind" (Dedekind 1901, §73)attracted the ire of Gottlob Frege, but Frege himself had rejected the idea that numbers are made cognitivelyaccessible by abstracting under an equivalence only because this failed completely to detennine identity conditions for abstracta. His solution, the introduction of extensions (later, value-courses) to provide fixed objects for numbers tobe, is vulnerable to the same criticism, and he later resorted to ad hoc stipulations to decide identity questions, opening the way for conventionalism (RudolfCarnap) and pragmatism (Quine) regarding abstracta. Bertrand Russen criticized Peano and advocated replacing definition by abstraction with the use of equivalenceclasses. Instead of taking the number 2 as that which abstraction finds all pairs to have in common, Russen regarded 2 simply as the class of all pairs. Although this approach is now almost universal in mathematics, its naturalness suffered through the need to restrict the size of sets to avoid paradoxes, thereby laying settheoretic reductions open to charges of arbitrariness (Benacerraf 1965).

FURTHER READING

Benacerraf, P., 1965, "What numbers could not be", Philosophica/ Review, 74, 47-73.

ACCIDENTS I: HISTORY

Dedekind, R., 1901, Essays on the Theory of Numbers, La Salle, III.: Open Court. Mikkola, E., 1964, Die Abstraktion: Begriff und Struktur, Helsinki: Suomalainen Kirjakauppa/ Leiden: Brill. Peano, G., 1915, "Le definizione per astrazione", •Mathesis' societil italiana di matematica, Bolletino, 7, 106-20. Weyl, H., 1949, Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science, Princeton, N .J.: Princeton University Press. PETER M. SIMONS

Accidents I: History Accident theory begins with the earliesl attempts to distinguish between a thing and its properties, and it ends with the death of substance toward the close of the modern period. Accident as a formal category first appeared in Aristotle's Categories. For some interpreters accident, along with substance, is an ontological category; accident is a kind of entity, For others accidents are predicates only, ways of talking about individual substances. In starting this brief history with the Categories it would be remiss, however, not to mention that Plato in the Phaedo (1024-E) distinguishes between the form itself and the instance of that form in particular, thus the form of Tallness is distinct from the ('accident') tallness-in-Phaedo which is Phaedo's way of participating in Tallness. Aristotle's Categories is critical of Plato for treating tallness as belonging to the category of substance rather than the category of quantity. But Aristotle's categories involve much more than a distinction between a subject and its properties; they also commit Aristotle to a distinction between the kinds of properties which an individual (primary substance) may be said to have. The essential properties or secondary substances (species and genera) are those which endure through change and without which the individual cannot retain its identity. Essential properties are predicable ofthe individual. Accidents are present in the individual; an individual may undergo accidental change while retaining its identity. In a cryptic comment, Aristotle (in Cat. 2. la20) notes that an accident is a 'this', presumably an individual in some sense. Accidents def-

ACCIDENTS1: HISTORY

initely are second-classcitizens in the Aristotelian ontology; they do not contribute to the identity of an individual, play no role in scientificexplanation, and are not an avenue of knowledge. As Aristotle notes, there is no science of the accidental. Porphyry's works on Aristotle keep alive the ambiguity between accidents as ontological entities and accidents as predicates. This ambiguity dominates the two ways of treating accidents in the medieval period. If somethingis an accidentper se, itis an entity, a reality, an ontological entity; if something is said per accidens, that is a way of saying something non-essential about a substance. Aquinas talks about accidents in both ways because he believes !hat although one can talk about things per accidens,accidents per se are needed in order to give a full account of natural change. Accidents per se are entities of explanation; medieval realists who posit substantial forms also posit accidental forms in order to explain change; nominalists, such as William Ockham, emphasize accidents as predicates, although Ockham thinks that they are irreducible predicates - that is, predicates necessary in order to give a complete description of the world. Thus, Ockham does not disagree with the realists in holding that accidents are necessary to science; the difference is that he means accidental predication and not accidentsper se. If accidents in either sense are needed to give a full account of nature and one keeps the Aristotelian notion that scientific explanation requires necessary statements, then some way of incorporating accidents into scientific syllogisms must be found. Thus Scotus and Ockham try to distinguish accidental nonnecessary predication (as in 'This wall is white') from accidental necessary predication (as in 'This wall is whiteable'), a distinction that is suggested in Aristotle's Metaphysics /l. 30, 1025a30-5.Thus, the medieval philosophers begin the departure from Aristotle's claim in the PosteriorAnalytics I.6.75a19-20 that there is no science of the accidental. If Aristotle claims that there is no science of the accidental, the modern philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries come to hold that there is no science except the accidental. Rene Descartes begins the departure, lead-

8 ing the attack on the concept of Aristotelian substance. But if there is no Aristotelian substance that can underlie the accidents, serve in a scientific explanation, or be an object of knowledge, something eise must be given these ontological roles. Descartes tries to collapse the distinction between substance and attribute, and attributes become the entities that were the subjects of modes, used in scientific explanation, and the proper objects of knowledge. Spinoza, the most systematic Cartesian, still uses the words 'substance' and 'attribute', but defines them as the same thing, that which is self-caused and can be known in itself. The attribute of extension is nothing more than the geometrical aspects of things; geometry for Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz becomes the very paradigm of scientific knowledge. But the shape and size of things is for Aristotle an accident, a quantity of which there could be no science. The empiricist tradition in modern philosophy moves in a slightly different direction. Starling with Galileo, a sharp distinction is drawn between properties that can be quantified and are open to geometrical description such as shape, size, motion, and rest - and those that are not - such as taste, smell, and texture. Galileo calls the first real and the second unreal accidents. The second are nothing but names. John Locke is not quite so willing to banish accidents of quality, but he draws a distinction between the primary qualities (powers in things to cause ideas of shape, size, and motion or rest) and secondary qualities (powers in things to cause ideas of smell, taste, and texture). The primary qualities are the proper study of science. In fact, it is the primary qualities of the atoms or corpuscles that are responsible for all of the accidents that are attributed to things. The primary qualities are the underlying causes of all ideas of things and they constitute the real essence of things. At this point substance as essence and its many ontological roles has been replaced with the geometrical accidents of things, and obviously the concept of a scientific explanation and the concept of cause have to change accordingly. The role of accidents in causation was one of the great ontological debates of the

9

ACCIDENTS II: ACCIDENT THEORY IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY

modern period. Descartes and Nicolas Malebranche often talk of an accident being communicated from one individual to another. Leibniz emphatically denies that such movement is possible; one individual can have no metaphysical influence on another. By this claim Leibniz means that an accident cannot transfer from one substance to another or exist in two individuals. To explain change without such metaphysical influence, Leibniz offers his theory of preestablished harmony. lf substance has been identified with attributes or its real essence is just a set of special accidents, it seems entirely possible that substance is ontologically nothing more than a set of accidents. George Berkeley argues that material substance is metaphysically, scientifically, and epistemologically useless. For Berkeley a material thing is nothing more than a collection of sensible qualities; David Hume applies the same analysis to minds and by the end of the modern period accidents or what are really their direct descendants, sensible qualities, are the basic ontological building blocks of reality. Even Kant, who tries to preserve the thing-in-itself, is clear that only sensible qualities are the appropriate objects of science. Talk about qualities and properties, and even the debate between essential and accidental properties, has not vanished in the 20th century. There is the great nominalismrealism debate about whether properties are universal or particular, which involved Bertrand Russen, G. E. Moore. G. F. Stout, and C. D. Broad to name a few of the participants. There have been efforts to identify the 'simples' that occur in experience or out of which events are constructed and these were usually properties such as 'red', 'here', and ·round'. There have been ongoing debates about the nature ofrelations and whether the distinction between the relational and non-relational even makes sense. But these debates are not really about accidents, although they are about the kinds of things Aristotle and the other substance philosophers would have called accidents. These issues are not part of the development of accident theory as much as they are a debate about what kind of theory should

replace accident theory once it is agreed that properties are no longer accidents which belong to a substantial individual. FURTHER READING

Abraham, E., 1982,Aristotle and His Philosophy, Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of Norlh Carolina Press. Bennen, J. F., 1971, Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Clanerbaugh, K., 1973, Leib11iz's Doctrine of Individual Accidents, Studio Leibnitiana, Sonderheft 4, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner. Copi, I.M., 1975,"Essence and accidenl", in M. J. Loux, ed., U11iversalsand Particulars, Notre Dame, Iod.: University of Nolre Dame Press. Leszl, W., 1975, Aristotle's Co11ception of Ontology, Padova: Editrice Antenore. Loux, M. J., 1978, Substance and Attribute: A Study in 011tology, Dordrechl: D. Reidel. McCabe, H., 1976, "Categories", in A. Kenny, ed., Aquinas: A Collection of Critical Essays, Notre Dame, Jod.: University of Notre Dame Press. Mackie, J. L., 1976, Problems from Locke, Oxford: Clarendon Press. KENNETH C. CLAITERBAUGH

Accidents II: AccidentTheoryin Greek Philosophy The notion of accident was not suddenly born from Aristotle's brain. lt might be suggested that the pre-Socratic attempts to find out what the nature or cpuot; of things really is (in contradistinction to their superficial and changing properties) were exercises in accident theory. Aristotle himself indicates that the Sophists used to build their fallacies on accidents (Met. 1026bl5). Precise anticipations are to be found in Plato, e.g. in the Euthyphro (lla) where Socrates rejects an alleged definition of 'the pious', on the grounds that it does not denote the 'essence' (ouoCa:) of the definiendum, but only an 'affection' (mnlo;) of it. lt seems to be the case, however, that Aristotle first introduced in a systematic way both the concept of accident and the word auµßeß11x6; as a designation of it. The word is semi-technical. lt is the perfect participle of auµßa:CveL v, a quite common

10

ACCIDENTSII: ACCIDENTTHEORYIN GREEKPHILOSOPHY

verb, roughly meaning 'to walk along with', and hence 'to agree' (of persons), 'to correspond with• (of things), 'to happen' (of events), 'to result', or 'to follow' (of factual consequences or logical conclusions - Aristotle uses the verb in his definition of the syllogism, Top. 100a25, Pr An .. 24bl8: the conclusion cruµßa(vELfrom the premisses). The standard panicipial form cruµßEßtJx6, sounds more technical; but its origins give it a rather wide range of meanings. :1:uµßEßtJx6, does not necessarily convey the notions of (1) contingency, (2) infrequency, and (3) painfulness (as 'accident' does in most modern languages). In a way, it could be helpful to translate it, not by the traditional 'accident'. but by less heavily loaded words (like 'coincident' or 'concomitant'). However, it does convey at least 1. and 2. in the specific, but by no means unique, definition given by Aristotle at Met. 1025a14:"we call 'accident' what belongs to something and is true to say of it, but neither of necessity nor for the most pan [w, bd ,ö 1101.u)". Tue complicated story of the notion, within Aristotle's work and after Aristotle, is largely rooted in this state of affairs. In what seems to be the earliest and most inftuentialAristotelian Statements about the accident (Top. 102b4-14), Aristotle offers no fewer than two different definitions of cruµßEßtJx6,.Here, as weil as in the definition in the Metaphysics,a cruµßEßtJx6,is a kind of predicate, not a kind of event. Tue notion of accidentalevent is derivative: roughly speaking, something happens 'by accident' (xa-ra cruµßEßlJx6,)when something x has an accidental predicate y, and is said to do or to undergo something under the description y. The general context of the definitions in the Topicsis a fourfold classificationof kinds of predicates (in relation to specific, not individual, subjects: e.g. 'man', not 'Socrates'). The dialectical rules of discussion will vary, Aristotle argues, according to whether the predicate of the statement to be discussed is claimed to be the definition (ogo,), or a 'propeny' or 'proprium' (il>wv), or a 'genus' (ytvo,), or an 'accident' (cruµßEßtJx6,) of the subject. This classification follows from a cross-application of two distinct criteria (cf. Top. 103b6-19):

1. either the predicate does or does not belong to the essence of the subject, and 2. either the predicate has or does not have the same extension as the subject. Tue definition is essential and coextensive; the property is coextensive and not essential; the genus is essential and not coextensive; the accident is neither essential nor coextensive. This is the dominant picture in Topics 1. Let us turn now to the actual Aristotelian definitions of accident, and say something about the problems involved. The first definition reads: (Al) An accident is sornething which, though it is none of the foregoing i.e. neither a definition nor a property nor a genus - yet belongs (um:XPXEL) to the thing (102b4-5). This definition might be expressed in the following way (using S(A,B) = 'A is a cruµßEßtJx6,of B'; E(A, B) = 'A reveals the essence of B'; C(A,B) = 'A is coextensive with B'; Y(A,B) = 'A belongs to B'): (Ala) S(A,B) = or. Y(A,B) & ,E(A,B) & ,C(A,B) Tue negations in (Al) are not, however, necessarily to be construed as actual exclusions as they are in (Ala); they might mean that the cruµßEßtJx6,just belongs to the subject, leaving open the question whether it has or does not have the supplementary features of essentiality and coextensivity. This gives a weak interpretation of (Al), namely: (Alb) S(A,B)

= or.

Y(A,B).

This weak sense of 'accident' accounts, I suggest, for some otherwise puzzling aspects of the use of cruµj3EßtJx6,in the Topics. Aristotle often says or implies that, in order to establish or to reject an accident-claim, it is enough simply to show that the predicate does or does not belong to the subject (cf. 139a24-b5; 155a3--36). Aristotle's second definition of accident now reads:

11

ACCIDENTS 11: ACCIDENT THEORY IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY

(A2) An accident is something which may ( EVÖEJ(Ei:CXL) possibly either belang or not belang to any one and the selfsame thing (crtq>oüvi;vt Ka:tt(jlcnn:q>) (102b6-7). The examples which follow are specifically fitted to (A2): "for instance 'tobe sitting' may belang or not belong to some self-same thing", etc. According to Aristotle himself, (A2) is a 'better' definition than (Al). In order to understand (Al), one must already know the three other notions listed, where (A2) is 'selfsufficient'. This epistemic privilege of (A2) does not, however, imply any logical difference between (Al) and (A2): they are most probably intended to capture a single notion. Do they actually do so? The complicated history of the concept has been largely determined by the puzzles to which this question gives rise. Standardly interpreted, (A2) apparently means: (A2a) S(A,B)= or.Y(A,B)&◊,Y(A,B). (A2a) seems to rule out the predicates which are in some (factual, conceptual, or other) sense inseparable from their subject, whereas such predicates could fall under (Al) in both its interpretations. Such is the case, apparently, with Aristotle"s own 'per se accidents' (auµßEßTJK6TCX Kcrlt' o:imi:), defined as "those which belang to their subject per se [hence necessarily), without being in its essence" (Met. 1025a31-2). and described as the proper predicates of demonstrated scientific conclusions (Post. A11.. 75bl; 76bll -16). 'Inseparable accidents' crop up repeatedly in the history both of ouµßEßTJK6s and of the Aristotelian tradition. Epicurus (Ep. Hdt. 68-71) restricts the use of the word ouµßEßJJx6ta: to inseparable qualities, in contradistinction to auµ,ttwµa:i:a:, transitory qualities (respectively co11iu11ctaand euema in Lucretius's Latin, DRN i 449-82). On the other hand, Alexander of Aphrodisias, commenting upon the Topics definitions (48,28-49.1 Wallies), discusses various kinds of 'inseparability' and various interpretations of 'possibility' in (A2). He eventu-

ally concludes that (Al) and (A2} are not logically equivalent, and that (Al), if not 'better' than (A2), is nevertheless 'necessary'. This is because itcan cope with casesof accidents which do not fall under (A2), namely "those which belang inseparably (&xwp(otws)to their subjects, without being in their essence and without being properties of them". Porphyry (Isagoge 12,24-13,5 Busse) puts forward another solution, which was to prove enormously influential. He introduces (together with two other definitions directly adapted from Aristotle) a new definition, following from one of Alexander's suggestions, and according to which: (AP) An accident is that which appears and disappears without entailing the destruction of the subject. This definition is explicitly designed to take care of both 'separable' and 'inseparable' accidents: for, Porphyry adds, there are two kinds of accidents, separable ones which obviouslyfall under (AP), and certain others, which are factually inseparable, but which still fall under (AP), because the subject can at least psychologicallybe conceived of without them, without thereby being destroyed. lt is not quite obvious that (AP) captures the Aristotelian notion of accident. lts faithfulness to Aristotle has been recently questioned by T. Ebert (1977), who (taking over a suggestion made, but abandoned, by Alexander) powerfully argues that the real meaning of (A2) in Aristotle is not (A2a), but: (A2b) S(A,B)= or.Y(A,B)&(EC) (◊Y(A,C)&◊,Y(A,C)).

In other words, Ais an accident of B iff (1) A belongs to B, and (2) there is a C such that A may belang and not belang to C. Accordingly, a given predicate, if it satisfies (2), will be an accident in respect to whatever subject it may be related to, even if it is in some sense 'inseparable' from this subject. This interesting suggestion is certainly at least compatible with the text of (A2); and it makes excellent sense of some puzzling

ACCIDENTSIII: THE ONTOLOGICALSQUARE

passages in the Topics (e.g. 120b21-35). However, it may be doubted that it solves all the difficulties,becauseit seemstobe demonstrably possible, in Aristotle's view, for a givenpredicate to be an accident of a subject A, and to belang in some non-accidentalway to a subject B. FURTHERREADING

Bames,J., 1970,"Propcrtyin Arislotle'sTapirs", Archiv für Geschichteder Philosophie, 52, 136-55. Brunschwig,J., 1967, Ari.stote,Topiques1-W, Paris: Les BeilesLeures. De Pater, W. A., 1965,Les Topiquesd'Ari.stoteet /a dialectiqueplatonicienne,Fribourg:Editions S1.Paul. Ebert, T., 1977, "Aris101elischer und tradilionneller Akzidenzbegrifr', in G. Patzig, E. Scheibe,and W. Wieland,eds., Logik, Ethik, Theorieder Gei.steswi.ssenschaften, Hamburg: Meiner. Kirwan,C., 1971,Ari.stotle'sMetaphysics,Books r, /l, E, translated wilh notes, Oxford: ClarendonPress. Owen, G. E. L., ed., 1968,Ari.stotleon Dialectic: The Topics,Oxford:ClarendonPress. Urbanas, A., 1988, La notion d'accidentchez Ari.stote,Monlr~al: Editions Bellannin and Paris: Les BeilesLeures.

12 The relation of 'being in' holds between accidents and substances, and has often been referred to as 'inherence'. The relation of 'being said or, or predication, holds between universals and particulars (in pre-Fregean logic also to other, 'inferior', universals). Thus, the four classes have been traditionally known as: I. 2. 3. 4.

universal substances, particular or individual accidents, universal accidents, individual substances.

Thus, in Pacius's commentary on the

Organon of 1598 we read: "rerum divisio quadripartita,aut enim est substantia universalis, aut substantiaparticu/aris,aut accidens universale,aut accidensparticu/are". In Angelelli (1967) the square appears as follows: not bemg in a subject

being in a subject

said of a subjecl

man

white

nol said of a subjccl

Ibis man

Ibis white

JACQUESBRUNSCHWJG

Accidents m: TheOntological Square The phrase 'ontological square' is found for the first time in Angelelli (1967), Chapter I. lt refers to a diagramoften included in early editions of logic books and manuscripts but above all to a theorywhichhas largely dominated the history of metaphysics.This theory has its first formulation in Aristotle's Categories,la20-lbl0. Aristotle explains that there are four classesof entities (ovra) generated by the combinationof two relations. The two relations are: 'x is predicated of y' and 'x is in y'. The first class of entities consists of those that are not in others but are predicated of others; the second class of those that are not predicated of others but are in others; the third of those both predicated of others and in others; andthe fourth of those neither predicated of others nor in others.

lt may be unclear whether Aristotle fully recognizes individual accidents in the real world in addition to the three other types of entities. However, the acceptance of this fourth type became weil established in the Aristotelian and scholastic tradition. There were many 'axioms' for individual accidents: 'individual accidents cannot pass from one subject to another subject', 'individual accidents cannot be in two subjects', etc. In spite of the clarity of the definitions involved in the theory of the ontological square, the associated terminology has often tended to be dangerously ambiguous (for example, 'inesse'as a term designating either one ofthe two basic relations; 'accident' as referring both to universal and to individual accidents).

13

ACCIDENTS IV: THE ONTOLOGICAL HEXAGON

Two powerful ideas have acted against the sharp separation of the four classesof entities: 1. the notion of essence, 2. the view of universalsas merely 'mental', so that the only 'real' classification has been held by many to be the division between accidents and substances. In the historical development of the ontological square, interesting discussions have emerged on the possibility of reiterating either of the two basic relations. In the case of 'being in' (inherence) this became the issue of whether to admit accidents of accidents (for example: white - an accident from the category of quality - is in surface - an accident from the category of quantity - where the surface in question is in some given individual substance). Here classical ontologists, for example Francisco Suarez (Disputationes Metaphysicae, XIV, 4) seem to have favoured parsimony. In the case of the relation 'said of, however, the attitude appears to have been, in general, far more liberal: predicates of predicates proliferated and were subject to a sophisticated treatment under the heading of 'second intentions •. Curious questions have also been considered, such as for example the general lack of proper names for individual accidents. A surprising, unusual formulation of the ontological square is found in De veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi contra pse11dophilosophos /ibri IV, 1533, of the

humanist Marius Nizolius (1498--1576),who wanted to replace universals by collections or multitudines. and accordingly bad, instead of 'universal substances', multitudines sing11/arium s11bstantiar11m(sets of singular substances), and instead of 'universal accidents'. multitudines si11gulari11mqua/itatum (sets of singular qualities). FURTHER READING

Angelelli, 1., 1967. Studies on Gottlob Fregeand TraditionalPhi/osophy. Dordrecht: Reidel. - 1985, "En tomo al 'cuadrado ontol6gico"', Anuario Filosofico, 18. ~32. Hickman, L., 1980, Modern Theories of Higher Level Predicates,Second Intentions in the Neuzeit, Munich: Philosophia. IGNACIO ANGELELLI

Accidents IV: The OntologicalHexagon The ontological hexagon presented in this article is an extension and modification of the Aristotelian ontological square, which is an ontological pendant to Aristotle's logical square of oppositions. At the beginning of the Categories, from la20 to 1b9, Aristotle exhibits two relations in which entities can or cannot stand. The first of these is the relation of i:v uitmmµev(jl dvcxi = insubiecto esse= tobe ('inhere') in a subject, which we abbreviate by 'enh'. The second is the relation of Kai'.}' imo,mµevou i.Eytcrlt°'L= de subiecto dici = to be said ('predicated') of a subject, which we abbreviate by 'cath'. Using the relations 'enh • and 'cath •, Aristotle considers, purely combinatorially, four sorts of entities. The names attached thereto are not found in Aristotle; they stem from the tradition. enh

cath (singular substances, SS)

+ (universal substances, US) + +

(singular moments, SM)

+ (universal moments, UM)

Here + means that the entity in question bears the relation in question to some subject, and - means the negation of this. Traditionally, moments are called accidents. But we prefer the term 'moment' (roughly in the Husserlian sense), since it is then possible to distinguish between essential and accidental moments. The term 'moment' has, unlike the term 'accidens', no modal connotations. Let us give some examples of each of our four sorts of entities: ss:

this individual man, star, stone, this soul. us: classes or concepts of ss's, the class of all men, the concept of star. SM: this individual fall, cry, reddening, being bot. UM: classes or concepts of uM's, like the class of all falls, the concept of reddening.

For more on moments see Smith (1982).

,..,.~ t'.! :~- ::..:,,,.: 1,•,i:, ,.\it-:t .,,). 111,· h'hl11qWITer,I r,ppr~ti,,m. held by many to bc thc division between At the beginning -ness, then it may be that qualities can be particularized in the fashion envisaged by Stout, but that properties - attributes of the form being

- cannot. And this at root may be because properties (e.g. being round) and qualities (e .g. roundness) are conceived tobe different sorts of attribute, the one indivisible conditions incorporating and expressing ways of being (e.g. round}, and the other abstract sruffs, partitionable into bits and admitting of more and less (see Levinson 1980). Objects and Their Attributes. Attributei are said to be possessed or exemplified b: objects. But what, exactly, is this relation oc tie supposed to be? There is an intimacy between an object and its attributes - between a !hing and the ways it is- that seems to confound any attempt to explicate this satisfactorily. F. H. Bradley, in fact, argued that it could not be explicated (Appearance and Reality, 1897), and that the whole idea of a relation between object and attribute was confused. Against it he offered his famous Regress argument: if in order to constitute a state of affairs an object and an attribute must be related by exemplification. then exemplification, it stands to reason, must itself be related to both object and attribute, by some yet further relation, call it metaexemplification, which would in turn need another relation to connect it to both exemplification and the attribute . . . and so on without end; on such premise, thus, a state of affairs cannot even be constituted. On the one band. we may ask whether Bradley's regress is as vicious as it appears. for it is not clear that such a state of affairs on the standard conception really requires or involves. rat her than merely generates, such an infinite sequence of relatednesses. On the other hand, where properties (e.g. being s) an: concerned, we might wish to regard the

ATTRIBUTE

exemp/ijicatio11 or possessio11 of a property by an object as something of afa,011de parler, as a misleadingly extemalized expression of a fundamental situation consisting in a11object bei11g a certai11 way. where the beinginvolved - predicative being - is acknowledged from the outset as primitive. We might rest with saying that certain properties were the properties of a given object, i.e. were the object's properties, where this was the case just in so far as the object was certain (correlative) ways, but abandon talk of possession. Another difficultyin how objects and attributes are related is almost the obverse of the preceding; if in thinking about the possession relation we come to doubt whether attributes can ever manage to conspire with objects to form states of affairs, then in thinking hard about these objects themselveswe begin to wonder whether they are anything more than their attributes taken collectively, whether they do not in fact dissolve without a trace into the states of affairs of which they were formerly thought to be constituents. The view that objects are not fundamental entities, but are instead collections or configurations of attributes, is usually called the 'bundle' theory of objects, and has its roots in George Berkeley and David Hume. But it is indeed hard to see how an assemblage of properties can amount to a thing, with nothing to 'have' them. One response to this, favoured by Bertrand Russell, among others, is to say that a spatio-temporal region is the real bearer of the properties involved. This, however, generates its own oddities: Can such a region be madeof tin? Can it be sweet, or heavy?Another response is to posit a 'bare particular' - a pure, inherently uncharacterized subject. attained in abstraction by progressivelystripping away from an object all of its real determinations - and to declare this the ullimate bearer of the object's attributcs. But the identity and individuation conditions of such an entity are at best clusive, and the oxymoronic air of something which is in itself uncharacterized yet the possessor of all characteristics rcduc17). Moreover. even if matter were comprehensible, it would be unknowable (§18). We don't know that there is any matter by the senses, sincc what we sense directly is only ideas or sensations. And wc don't know that therc is any by rcason, since there is no neccssary conncction bctwecn such matter and our i D, which sends each object C of C into an object FC of D and each arrow f of C into an arrow Ff of D so as to preserve domain, codomain, composite, and identities. This notion arose because algebraic topology rests essentially on such functors mapping TOP into VECT, say by homology or homotopy groups; it is essential in the formulation of axiomatic homology. For example, the operation transferring homotopy to homology is 11a111ra/ in the following sense: given F and a second functor G: C -> D, a natural transfonnation 8: f-, G assigns to each object C an arrow 8C:FC .....GCof D in such a way that (Gfl o 8C = 8B o Fffor every arrow f: C--+ BofC. Despite the apparent foundational difficulties, one often considcrs CA T, the category of all catcgories (!) with objccts categories, arrows functors. and (in addition) natural transformations as thc so-callcd 2-cclls. Adjunction is thc mosl basic notion. A functor F: C-. D has a righl adjoint U: o....c (and is then a lcft adjoint) whcn thcrc isgivcn a transformation ll: hom(FC, D) = hom(CV. UD) which is one-to-onc and natural in each of thc argumcnts C and D. Thcrc are many important cxamples; thus thc functor SET .... VEC..Twhich sends cach set S to the vector space with basis S has a right adjoint (the 'forgctful' functor) which scnds each vector space to lhe sei of its elements. An adjunc-

CAUSALITT

. 0 senclsthe identity map FC --- D = FC ~on an arrow lJ: C --- UFC which has an ~nto rtanl universal property. With such un!'° rsal properties one can formulate conuniveal descriptions of 'free' objects, of ceP~r products (of vector spaces), and of ien~esian products (of groups or sets). For Ca mple, this approach avoids the usual exafiition of product via the artificial seiden retic not1on . o f an or dere d pau. • th~0 addition to research on categories, ncategorical concepts have been notably theful in various branches of mathematics: use braic geometry, topo Iogy, an d m • parts 1 3 [~he study of manifolds. The use of cato fiesas an alternative foundation for mathego tiCSis subject to lively and continued ema caniroversy. Th". e 1ssue 1s: wh"at 1s mal hatics really about? About sets or about emows (functions)? arrSei theory proposes a single foundation for all mathematics, while categorical approaches alloWseparate foundations for separate arts. Tous the natural numbers can be pharacterized not by the Peano postulates. ~ut by a single universal pr?pe_rty.Also m~ny iegories are equ1pped wllh mtemal logical c~erations and hence with an 'intemal' logic 0 hieb may differ from the usual classical :xtemal" logic. Such categories may also be equipped with a corresponding language and semantics. Category theory replaces dements of sets by alternative descriptions ";th ai:ro~. Thus 3 tunction m: A - S from a set A 1ssa1dtobe one-one-into (an •injection') if ma = mb impliesa = b for any two elements a and b of A. Correspondingly. in a category an arrow m: A - S is a monomorphism if for any two arrowsf. g: B-A. mf= mg impliesf= g. (In thc catcgory of s.:ts these two notions happily coincid.:.) Similarly. in sets the ·pullback' of twoarrowsf:A- 8 andg: C--+ Distheset P of all pairs "· c withfa = gc in 8. This can be dcscribed n-ir/ioll/ dements. In sets every monomorphism m : A-> S has a characteristic function k : S - n where n is the set with two elements Oand I and ks = 0 if s is in A. otherwise ks = 1. Then A is the pullbackof k: s- n and (0) - {0,1}. In this case. n is two-valued. Such an object n. called a subobject classifier. is present in

many other categories (e.g., in a topos). lt carries the intemal logic - which then need not be two-valued. Thus the categorical language allows greater flexibility in forrning the 'intemal' logic. FURTHER READING

Eilenberg,S.. and MacLane,S., 1945, "General theoryof naturalequivalence",Transacrions of rheAmericanMarhemarica/ Sociecy,58, 231-94. Freyd, P., 1964, Abe/ian Caregories:an Inrroducrionto the Theoryof Functors,New York: Harper and Row. Mac Lane, S., 1971, Categories for the Working Mathematician,New York/Heidelberg/Berlin: SpringerVerlag. MacLane,S., andBirkhoff,G., 1988, Algebra,3rd ed., NewYork: Chelsea. and Functors,New Pareigis,B.. 1970, Categories York/London:AcademicPress. SAUNDERS MAC L\NE

Causality Causality is often the root ontological concept around which a philosophical system is built, and it has been interpreted in two radically different ways which systematically divide these systems. Are efficient causes guided by finalcauses or is an efficient cause whether the causal relation be construed as de facto or necessary - a basic concept? The historical examples given are meant to illustrate the systematic issues and are infinitely inexhaustive. Aristotle heads the !ist of those holding the primacy of final cause. He maintained that a cause has four components: material, efficient, formal, and final. This four-way analysis is at the heart of Aristotle's ontology, implicating, as it does, bis distinction between form and matter and bis concepts of substance and entelechy. The schoolmen accepted this view of cause, their distinction between rariones cognoscendi and essendi corresponding to the Master's distinction between knowledge-of-the-fact and knowledge-of-the-reasoned-fact. Unfortunately, this view has difficulty in explaining the prima-facie pointless and irrational features of the world. The first person in this tradition who seriously attempted to account for the

CAUSALITY

dysteleological features of the world was Leibniz. For Leibniz what we take to be material causality tums out to be apparent, not real; causality instead is a real teleological impulsion responsible for the sequence of phenomenal representations - all this being, of course. in confonnity with the final purpose envisionedby God. Tobe sure, he wrote, this is not a perfect world; there are all too many dysteleological elements. However, the creation of a11yworld would be less than perfect since it is less than God. God's genius lies in having created the best possible world that is commensurate with his creating any world at all. lt is in this sense that we have the best of all possible worlds. Unfortunately Leibniz was left with the impossible task of showing that this world would be less good without any of its dysteleological elements. The dysteleological features of the world which were never successfully dealt with in this tradition plus the emergence of modern science - which, while metaphysically neutral, according to Chauncey Wright (183075), nevertheless offers nothing but nonteleological explanations - caused a decline in the teleological ontology of causality. lt must not be supposed that final causality has disappeared from the scene; far from it, since it is at the heart of any theism that sincerelyoffers itself as an ontology as weil as a revealed religion. Outside these quarters, however, with one exception, discussion of final causation is muted except when talking about human agency. The exception is the recent manipulability analysis of the conccpt of cause. notably exemplified in the work of DouglasA. T. Gasking. Onthisviewacausal expression is ·very near' the same as the recipe for producing or preventing certain effects. The business of science, then, is to turn the basic causal ·recipes' into 'inference licenses'. The goal here is not to sustain ontological goals but rather to rid the world of ontological commitments: but few philosophers sccm contcnt with saying that a scientificlaw is a usdul cxpression but not a proposition which, in our world, is true. The concept of cfficicnt cause considcred non-teleologically. it sccms fair to ,ay. has been the focus of attention in most of modern

134 and contemporary philosophy. Among those who treat the causal relation, conceived nonteleologically, as ade facto relation is David Hume. Hume lends himself to various interpretations, one ofwhich, however, favoured by later positivists, is that cause means constant conjunction. Perhaps a more plausible interpretation of Hume is a sceptical one according to which he does not deny that there is a necessary connection between matters of fact but only sceptically shows that we cannot prove that this is so. However, the Hume that was most relevant to later philosophers is the positivistic Hume. This interpretation, however, a completely de facto one, is unable to explain the difference between nomic and accidental universals and the justifiability of counterfactual inference. John Stuart Mill (1806-73) was trying to repair these difficulties when he insisted that constant conjunctions must be ·unconditional' to qualify as causes. But he defined the latter concept wholly untenably as a constant conjunction for which a counterexample is inconceivable. Conceivability, of course, is a function of a given state of knowledge and hence cannot function as a universal criterion. lnnumerable recent philosophers, including Carl Hempel (b. 1905), Ernest Nagel (1901-85), and J. L. Mackie, have suggested ingenious ways of distinguishing between accidental and nomic universals (the latter, say, contain only purely qualitative predicates, arc unrestricted in scope. have a scope not closcd to further augmentation, and so on) and rclated ways of justifying counterfactual infcrcnce all within an extensional Humcan framcwork; but no one of thcm has secmcd to gain gcncral acccptancc. To be surc, W. V. 0. Ouinc in his 71,e W11yof Paradox(pp. 4~52), points out !hat counterfactual infcrcncc is sustaincd hy scicntilic theory, which, of coursc, is truc hut ncglects thc fact that thc cxtcnsional and I lumcan framework has becn abandoncd for an intensional framcwork of scicntilic mc,ming. Kant is not only a good rcprcscntative of one whu holds that thc rclationship bctween causc and cffect is ncccssary but he also has inllucnccd rcccnt thinkcrs who, though gctting rid of most of his metaphysical bag-

CAUSALITY

found an essential insight in bis work. gage;argued that causes are necessarily conJ{an d with their effects within the realm of necteomena - but only within that realm phelluse the human mind is constituted in be~ 3 fashion as to invariably and irresistibly suc ·bute such relationships to the events that ~tt;xperiences. We do not know with cerit. ty of course, just what causes produce talll • . h I effects, but we are certam that events w aeed one another with necessity precisely suc~use the person actually constitutes the beClmof phenomena, of which these events rea 3 part. in this way. Kant feil into a are • II Laplacean d"l I emma - s1_ricea events are used no human event 1s morally respons~:le in the phenomenal world. In bis discus1. n of practical reason Kant's juggling act to si:ount for free will is far from satisfactory. acRecent necessitarians. or singularists. as heY are sometimes called. who include :mong others Curt John Ducasse. William J{neale. Rom Harre. William Wallace. and Edward H. Madden, while rejecting Kant's categories and phenomenal-noumenal dist"nction etc .. beheve that Kant bad good r~asonsfor calling any de facto approach to efficient causality wholly bankrupt. Se,·eral recent necessitarians agree in the follo"ing wavs. First. they reject Kant's notion that ne~essary propositions are known only a priori. There are numerouspossibl~ scientific systems. each one of wh1ch exh1b11sconceptual necessity- or it wouldn't be a system. The scientific problem is to lind out which of suchnecessary systems our world exemplifies. And this is wholly an . 50. lll•l>-S: 51. I0:>-10. - 1966, Set Tht·ory·and th( CominuumHypothesis. Rcading: Benjamin. Gödel. K.. 19-47. "\\'hat is Cantor·s continuum problem?'". American .\lathematical .\lomhly.

54. 51>-25. Kuehnrich. ~1.. 19i-4. -Das Kontinuumprot,lem··. Mitteihmgen da ,\/mhc"murisdrc"n Gc'.ullsc/raft da DDR. 4. :>-3'1.

analysis is in every case adequate. From an ontological point of view, however, it is interesting to see how different conceptions of the role of the copula involve a commitment to different sorts of entities and structures: since every verb can be split into copula and predicate, some philosophers considered this as a signal for a special ontological position or status ofwhat they called 'being'. Furthermore, because the copula is a special relation, its assimilation either to the subject or to the predicate was taken as a signal for one or other partition of entities in general. Copula and Being. In Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas of Erfurt (perhaps also in Martin Heidegger, who commented on Thomas of Erfurt in bis habilitation), entities are classifiedaccording to whether names for them may or may not occur grammatically to the left of the copula. lf the predication 'Ais F can be true only if A exists, then it seems reasonable to permit also a sentence like 'A is' where the copula occurs as predicate. This 'A is' cannot, however, be affirmed if A is substituted by a verb. Considering this case not as a pure matter of grammar, the idea suggests itself that being is not, or is no rhing /esse 110nest). lf one wants to see in 'being' something more than a substantivization of a verb, for example the reason why an entity has the property expressed by •... is'. then one should introduce an ontological difference between being and thing (Sein and

GA.RDIES

Seiendes/. Copula and Funcüon. Even less daring

Conventionalism. See: Semantic Convenlionalism

analyses may lead to bizarre ontological commitments, as for example those incurred by Gottlob Frege. lf the copula is considered as part of the predicate, then expressions like:

JEA~-LOl'IS

Copula lt is a commonplace that the verb ·;s· can express such diverse relations as identity, the memberxhip relation and the relation of inclusion between classes. lf this verb is employed as a ,ign of predication. it is called the copula. lt is a question that belongs mainly to the philosophy of logic whether the copula divides every elementary proposition into subject and predicate and whether such an

(1) a (is 4>)

sanction the idea that predication is only possible if there are two categories of entities: objects and functions. Just as, for Boethius, 'is• is not predicable of being without making of being an entity. so for Frege it should analogously not be possible to say of two functions that they are identical or different. for this would convert them into objects. Frege. accordingly, needs to introduce special objects which ·represent' bis functions.

182

COPULA

Copulaas Relationto the Absolute. In F. H. Bradley and in the early writings of G. E. Moore there appears a division of conceptual content and of the copula along the Iines of:

(2) (a )is, such that every proposition expresses both a composition and an exemplification of properties. Thus (2) affirms that the properties 10 be a and 10 be are together exemplified in reality. Is the predication 'is', here, to be regarded as an ontological relation R between entities a and ? If so, then one could now go on to ask for a new relation R' between R and ,and so on in vicious regress. Bradley is Ied by these means to conceive predication - or the copula - as a relation between thought and the one single reality which he calls the Absolute and which serves as the subject of every judgement. Every true sentence says how the world is, so that (2) has more properly the form:

an esse actualis and an esse habitualis and discusses antinomies such as the following: "Suppose that there is nothing. Theo it is true that there is nothing. Hence there is something true. Hence there is something. Therefore, ifthere is nothing, there is something." Another important puzzle that stimulated the later discussions ahout the distinction between essence and existence was the fact that some predications (like Kant's analytical judgements) may be true without there being anything to which their terms refer. These considerations have nowadays a slightly different tinge. Henry Siggins Leonard observed against Bertrand Russell that Vx (x =x) is a logical truth, while (3x) (x = x) is a metaphysical one. This observation supports the idea of a free logic. One may ask also whether there are two kinds of predication, one internal and one external, the former not demanding existence of the entities to which predicates are seemingly applied. In the same way one could think that in:

(3) The absolute is (a). (4) Unicorns are animals with single homs, Copula and ldeotity. What is the meaning of 'is' when it occurs between two singular terms, as in 'Aristotle is the authorof the first five books of the Metaphysics'? Does the copula here express an identity, or some other equivalence relation between two nonidentical objects? Philosophers who plead for the latter can avoid the usual paradoxes of opaque contexts: if John believes that Aristotle is Aristotle, but does not believe that Aristotle is the authorof the first live books of the Melllphysics, then one can say that the name and the description refer to two nonidentical entities which are in some strong relation of coincidence. On the other band, however, in order to explain this relation, such philosophers have to introduce an ontologically complex assortment of new individuals: individual accidents, moments, guises, mereological ,tructures, and so on. Diverse Kinds or Copula. Thc Scholastics wondered whether sentence, like 'Caesar i, Caesar' or 'Men are human being,' woukl remain equally truc cvcn if therc cxisted no human beings at all. William of Shcrwood (c. 1200/10--c.1266/71)distinguishcs bctwccn

the copula indicates that the property expressed by the predicate is included in the essential properties of the subject. In: (5) Unicorns are fictitious animals, in contrast, the copula expresses a property which is alien to thc subject. lt is important to observe that thc internal copula of (4) cannot be expresscd via thc universal quantification of a conditional, since this would imply also that (6) Unicorns arc ccntaurs would bc truc: for cvcry .t it is falsc thatx is a unicorn, hence thc conditional rcading of (6) is true. Even an analysis of (4) which adds a modalization would not bc hdpful herc, since then: (7) Evcry perpe/1111111 mobile is a round squarc would also bc truc.

183 An alternative to the account of two types of copula appears in the modern reconstructions of Alexius Meinong's Gegensrandstheorie. Neo-Meinongians like Richard Routley and Terence Parsons interpret the copula as functional application, thereby identifying individuals with sets of properties. Thus in:

CORNELIUS, HANS

Comelius, Hans

Hans Cornelius ( 1863-1947) studied music, philosophy, mathematics, and history of art, and obtained a doctorate in chemistry (Munich, 1886) and a habilitation in philosophy (1894). He held professorial positions at the Universities of Munich (1903-10) and Frankfurt. His main works deal with aesthetics and theory of knowledge, for (8) [i..P(P (a))] cp, both of which he tried to find a sound psychologicalfoundation. His use of Gestalt the copula is absorbed into the subject in such concepts and accurate descriptions contains a way that 'a is cp'says that the property cphas interesting contributions to naive ontology. the property of being a properry be/ongingro In particular, he argued that attention can a. They distinguish thereby between nuclear modify the scnsory content of perception by properties like ·being round'. ·being square', producing different forms of figure-ground or 'being existent'; and extranuclear ones like configurations (e.g., when analysing a com'exists', 'is possible". •is thought or. etc. In plex tonal structure we select a sound by this way one can easily accept rhe round pushing other sounds into the background). exisringsq11areas an object. without falling Moreover, he stressed the importance of in101he well-known contradictions. On this temporal Gestalten, which play a fundaapproach the distinction between an internal mental role in the explication of the and an exlcrnal copula is lransferred 10 the phenomena of expectation. properties themsclves. Gestalt qualities, Cornelius argues, are lt remains unresolved. howe,·er. whether required as properties of complexes in order the above-mentioned lheories could cope to explain the similarity among the latter in wilh paradoxes like those of König or Berry. the absence of similarity of their constituent The least number that cannol be specified parts. However. they have no existence on wilhout using more 1han eighly s~mbols their own, and can in the final analysis be seems. here. 10 haw been specified "ithout reduced tosimilarity classes(1900,pp. 101-2; using more than eigh1y symbols. Theories of 1923. p. 232). 1hecopula and of predica1ion would recei,·e a There are two kinds of complexity: we decisive confirrna1ion if the dis1inction becan recognize either a plurality of contents tween internal and external copulas could having existential independence and capable resolve such difficul1ies independently of of existing when separated from their enintroducing h:wls of language. vironment; or a plurality of characteristics (Merkmale) of a content, which lack independence - as, for instance, the pitch, FURTHER REAlllNli intensity, and timbre of a sound. Burkhardt. II .. and Dufour. C.. 1990, ·zwei Cornelius's metaphysical position is Pri.ldikiltionsartcn unJ ihre ontologischen phenomenalist: things in themselves, which lmplika1iuncn··. in K. Jacobi and H. Pape, eds .. he identifies with common-sense things, are Das De11kt•n m,J ,fit• S1r11k111r~,1 dtr Wtlt. Berlin: but rttles for their appearances ( 1897, De Gruv1cr. 4111-90. Castancd:i',H.-N .. 1974, ·•Toinking and 1he strucChapter 5). He maintains. however, that turc of lhe world"". Pl,i/osophia. 4. 3-IO. things cannot be reduced to their appearHochberg, H .. 198-1.Logi x being true. Were D-> a truth functional operator, then the falsity of qi and xwould also suffice for the truth of the counterfactual. Evidently, this is not the case. lt is certain also that we accept as true many counterfactuals which are not such that the antecedent logical/y entails the consequent. This suggests that we interpret many counterfactuals as expressing a kind of dependence stricter than truth functional and less strict than logical dependence. How can one state of affairs bear such a relation of non-truth-functional and logically contingent dependence to another? And when it does, does this constitute a purely objective fact or are epistemic factors, introduced by individuals arguing by means of counterfactuals, irreducibly involved? In other words, is there 'objective modality in nature' (B. van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, 1980), that is, modality of the nonIogicalsort? Assuming that 'causation' is the appropriate labe! for the kind of dependence in question, then David Hume may be interpreted as affirming that there is an essential involvement of subjects, and more precisely of their habits or dispositions to expect certain events given certain others. Nicholas Rescher (1964) is an example of a more recent analysis of counterfactuals that takes into account such epistemic dispositions. Present epistemic analyses of counterfactuals and of strict conditionals in general proceed by combining theories of belief revision with the so-called Ramsey test for conditionals (as it is described in Gärdenfors 1988). To the extent that the counterfactual seems to refer to non-Iogicalmodality, it is sententiu non grata for s1ric1empiricists. In common discourse, counterfactuals scrve among other purposes as the natural means of explaining the meaning of disposition terms. To Rudolf Carnap, faced with the task of describing the construction of an empiricis1 language ("Testability and meaning·•, Philosophy of Science, 1936--7),this palh was nol open. Carnap preferred to conline himself rathcr 10 non-modal constructions even a1 thc cost of only partially defining thc mcaning of

190 disposition expressions. Nelson Goodman in hisFact, Fiction,and Forecast(1954) showsin detail how the problem of counterfactuals is entangled with this problem of the introduction of dispositions and with other topies of the philosophy of science such as the characterization of lawlike propositions. First of all, Goodman seeks to formulate an acceptable criterion of truth for counterfactuals. Grossly simplifying, we may say that, according to Goodman, qiD-+x is true in a situation i if there are sets M I of propositions true in i and M 2 of acceptable laws of nature which are such that M 1 U M2 u {qi) logically entails X-lt is then easily seen that a minimum requirement for the criterion not to have undesirable consequences is the employment of a notion of acceptable law which excludes non-lawlike ('accidental') generalizations. As an instance of a general proposition which is not to count as lawlike, Goodman mentions a statement saying that every coin in his pocket on a certain day was silver; in case this proposition were not excluded from the admissible sets M2, one could sustain the truth of a conditional to the effect that a given copper coin would have been silver if it had been in Goodman's pocket that day. As regards Goodman's M„ one has to think of sentences expressing conditions which are fulfilled in i and which are relevant for Xbeing connected with qi, but which are such that they can be expected to be fulfilled in normal circumstances (this is why they are not mentioned in the counterfactual). In onc of Goodman's examples ('"bad the match bccn scratched, it would have lighted"), onc such 'relevant condition' is that sufficient oxygcn bc prcsent. Goodman spem.ls much effort in looking for suitablc rcstriclions on M 1• He finally reaches the conclusion that in ordcr 10characterize the admissil>lc scls M I one has already to employ countcrfactuals. For according to Goodman cach proposition 'i' in M 1 must be mte11ubl,•with q, (if thc truth of q, D-+ Xis to rc:sl on M,), and the ,-otenabilitv of q, and 'i' is cxplained by the condition: it i~ not lhc casc that 1jJ would be false if qi were truc. In this way Goodman's considerations providc an argument against reductionist analyscs of countcrfocluals undertakcn, e.g.,

191 witb tbe intention of rendering counterfactuals palatable even to tbe empiricist. Tbe reductionist position is illustrated by Roderick M. Cbisbolm's "Tbe contrary-tofact conditional" (in Feigl and Seilars, eds., Readings in Philosophica/ Analysis, 1949). Some evidence against interpreting counterfactuals as being of tbe logical form cpD-+X (witb q, and x representing propositions) is provided by tbe case of propositions like: (1) iftbe winner bad not bribed the judge, then the winner would not have won (cf. D. Lewis 1973). Here, one of the arguments of 0- seems to be the proposition "the winner did not win". lt is implausible, however, that an inconsistentlooking proposition like that should be part of a perfectly reasonable proposition like ( 1). Lewis'ssuggestion is not 10 abandon 0--. but to symbolize ( 1) by means of: (2) 3.i:(x = the winner & (x did not bribe the j udge 0-- x did not "in)). This is plausible, and it throws light upon a further philosophicall)' important aspect of counterfactuals. Assume that ::- - formulae are interpreted as a kind of strict conditional in the sense of C. 1. Le\\is. that is (in lermsof possible-worlds semantics). as a kind of conditional for which truth means truth of the corresponding material conditional in all elements of a full dass of possible worlds. Then (2) comprises a modal de-re-predication of the form 3x O Fl.t) (whc:rc O is the necessity opc:rator of :1lcthic modal logic). Such predications arc characteristic of the metaphysical position of essentia/ism. l.ogic and •·ormal Semanlics. A promising way 10 learn about the semantics of counterfactuals and of non-material conditionals in general is 10 try 10 get information about their logicalproperties by an examination of common discourse. lt was quickly noted that lhere are sevc:ral peculiarities of the logic of counterfactuals. Hypothetical syllogism. for example. seems 10 be invalid. In dealing primarily with indicative conditionals, Ernest Adams gives the following example (in '"The logic of condilionals"", lnq11ir.v. 1965):

COUNTERFACIUALS

(1) if Brown wins the election, Smith will retire to private life; (2) if Smith dies before the election, Brown will win it; (3) if Smith dies before the election, then he will retire to private life. Circumstances rendering (1) and (2) acceptable are easily imagined; (3) will in no circumstances be acceptable. The same holds for counterfactual variants of (1), (2), (3). The explanation in terms of a Goodman-type analysis of conditionals is obvious: the negation of the antecedent of (2) is one of the relevant conditions associated with ( 1); therefore, hypothetically taking this antecedent tobe true amounts to being no longer entitled to make use of the connection normally holding between the antecedent and consequent of (1) (in case (1) is true). Attempts have been made to reproduce formally the intuitive logic of counterfactuals \\ith such peculiarities included. Several versions of formal semantics of counterfactuals have been developed forthis end (cf. Stalnaker 1984). As yet, the most inftuential version is that proposed by David Lewis (1973). Lewis's basic idea is: take q,D-+x to be true in a situation i if x holds in every situation in which q, holds and which is s11fficientlysimilar to i; here, the degree of similarity counting as sufficientmay be different for different counterfactuals. From a Goodmanian point of view, admitting such variation is justified for the following reason: in evaluating a counterfactual relative to i, only those situations are taken into account which are similar to i at least in that the relevant conditions continue to be fulfilled, and these conditions can be completely different for different counterfactuals. Accordingly, Lewis speaks of interpreting counterfactuals as vari11blystrict conditionals (in contrast to constantly strict conditionals a la C. 1. Lewis). The formal implementation looks like this: a structure is a triple with the properties: V is an assignment of truth values to formulae relative to elements of W; S is a sei {S,liEW). and for every iEW, S;is a sei of subsets of W. S; is to have the properties: (1) {i)ES,: (2) set inclusion is a connex

192

COUNTERFACTUALS

relation on S, ('nestedness-condition'); (3) if S~$,, then USeS; and, unless S is empty, nSe$,. q, D-+ Xis true in i given if and only if one of the following holds: for all Se$;andforalljeS, V(q,,j)isf;or: thereisan Se S, such that there is a je S with V(q,,j) = w, and V(q, :::ix,j) = w for all jeS. Intuitively, W is a set of possible worlds, and for all ieW, $, is a sei of spheres of similarity around i (where the truth in i of different counterfactuals may rest on different spheres). In demanding nestedness of spheres, Lewis means to take into account the following consideration. If S and T are sets in $;, then there are corresponding degrees of similarity s and / such that S contains precisely those possible worlds which resemble i to at least the degree s, and analogically for Tand t. Now suppose that j is in Sbut not in Tand that k is in Tbut not in S. Theo we have with dlj,i) the degree of similarityofjto i and with d(k,i) the degree of similarity of k to i: dlj,i);. s, dlj,i) t. This argument in favour of nestedness presupposes, of course, that for any two worlds there exists a unique degree of overall resemblance which does not depend on peculiarities of the counterfactuals which are to be evaluated. If we imposed the restriction that sets of spheres of similarity include only one element, the Lewis semantics would turn into a semantics for constantly strict conditionals. This is precisely the restriction which would render hypothetical syllogism a valid scheme of inference for counterfactuals. As was to be expected, Lewis's and Goodman 's accounts are closely connected. For assume q, D-+ X to be true in i in Goodman 's sense. Take j to be sufliciently similar to i if the elements of M 1 and M2 - which are supposed tobe true in i-are also true inj. Let S be the corresponding similarity sphere. Theo truth of q, ::J X in all elements of S means: each world which is a model of M1 U M2 U{q,) is a model of X, that is, M 1 U M2 U (q,) entaih XLewis's account still ha, ,hortcomings. (q,& x) :::i(q, D-+;r.J,forcxampk. i, a formula which is not acceptable as valid, which i,, however, validated in Lewis's semantics as a

consequence of condition (1). Lewis himself therefore considers weakening (1). Another problem is with nestedness. We may expect that for any true counterfactual the verifying sphere should be conceived of as being as wide as possible; in particular it should contain - against Lewis's idea of overall resemblance - all worlds which behave as we like in respects irrelevant to the counterfactual in question. (In other words: it seems reasonable not only to allow variation of what is to count as a sufficient degree of similarity, but to allow variation of the similarity measure itself.) This, however, blocks nesting of the associated spheres of two counterfactuals whenever there is an aspect of situations which is relevant as regards the lirst but irrelevant as regards the second, and vice versa. Nestedness seems in any case to be hardly acceptable; for example it has the consequence that ((q,D-+x) & ((q,&,,v)D-+,x))

:::i(q,D-+,v)

is valid. We may hope that by further refinement of formal semantics, presumably along Lewis's line, these and other deficiencies will be removed. But even if at any time we should possess semantical tools adequate to reproduce precisely the logic of counterfactuals as it shows up in our linguistic behaviour, one thing will not be accomplished: we will not thereby havc a rccipe for settling controversies about thc truth value of particular counterfactuals. For as D. Lewis points out, we are actually ablc to get a fairly clear picture of thc dcpcn1igariom was to challengc the Iogical atomi,ts" conception, of language and the metaphysical implications of philosophical analy,i,. After Wittgenstein. family resemblance has been u,ed in fidds ranging from aesthetics and law to biology and artilicial intelligence. FURTHER KEAl)Jt,;1 stcp into the same rivcr"". pnints out that a changing object can hc com:dvcd of as a scquence of non• idcntical states. Now the question arises in which wav states at different times are recknncJ as hclonging to the same object. Thc modern answer is that two different statcs hclong to the history of the same object if they arc geniJentical. In contrast to Heraclitus. Plato focused his attention on strict iJentity and was worried by the profound Heraclitean reflections on genidentity. According to the fundamental conception of Plato's theory of ldeas. certain general exprcssions of colloquial language

denote unique abstract objects distinct from human thoughts. Without such abstract ldeas there could be no mathematical or scientific knowledge, for even Plato accepted the Heraclitean doctrine that all sensible things are always in flux, and he was convinced that there is no knowledge of such things (cf. Aristotle's Met. 1078bl3-17). In modern philosophy of nature the Heraclitean problem can be handled in an exact manner by generalizing the relation of strict identity. Modem physics studies movements and coincidences of particles. Moments of particles are called 'wor/d points'. If two world points touch, they are said to coincide. The relation of coincidence is symmetric and transitive and hence an equivalence relation. Furthermore, it must be postulated that each world point belongs to the field of this relation. A local time order (Eigenzeit) is established by introducing a topological notion of being earlier than. This relation between world points is transitive and irreflexive and included in the complement of coincidence. World points are genidentical if and only if they are strictly identical or if the local time relation holds between them in either direction. Genidentity is an equivalence relation and therefore groups all world points into equivalence classes. The wor/d /i11esare the non-empty equivalence classes of the relation of genidentity. Hence, a world line is the set of all world points which are genidentical with some world point. A world line never ramifies into the past or the future. For continuous world lines a metric can be introduced which correlates world points to real numbers. All empirical qualifications of physics can be reduced to determinations of coincidence and local time relationships among genidentical world points. Furthermore. by defining a causal signal relation and the notion of simultaneity. the concepts of space and time and the topological properties of space can be constructed on the basis of coincidence and local time order. was introduced in The term ·ge11ide111iry· l 92~ by Kurt Lewin for three different relations between physical objects. biological organisms. and individuals of genealogical trees, respectively. The term was adopted for

298

GEOMETRY

a relation between world points by Reichenbach (1928) and Camap (1929) in their analyses of the topology of time and space. FURTHER READING

Camap, R., 1929, Abriss der Logistik mit besonderer Berrlcksichrigungder Relations1heorie und ihrer Anwendungen, Vienna: Springer. - 1958, lntroduction to Symbo/ic Logic and its App/icarions, New York: Dover. Lewin, K., 1922, Der Begriff Genese in Physik, Biologie und Entwicklungsgeschichte. Eine Untersuchungzur vergleichendenWissenschafts· lehre. Berlin: Springer. Reichenbach,H., 1957, The Philosophyof Space and Time. New York: Dover. JAN BERG

Genus. See: Species, Genus Geometry Issuing from the Sumero-Egyptian art of land surveying (Greek yEUiµEtptw). geometry grew in Greece as the demonstrative science of plane and solid figures constructible with ruler and compass. lts foundation was attributed to Thales of Miletus (ff. c. 580 sc), also the legendary father of philosophy. Greek geometry and philosophy interacted strongly. Geometrical proof sei standards of rigour for philosophical argument. The Eleatic School of philosophy supplied the geometers with the earliest examples of demonstration by reductio ad absurdum. The drastic idealizations of geometry- widthless lines, depthless planes. changeless figures- and their relation to sand drawings and wooden models inspired and documented Plato 's doctrine of the immutable Forms. 'imitated' by the things that surround us and constitutive of their being. Plato, in turn. by stressing that genuine science (,moTiJµYJJcannot take anything for granted, but ,hould seck to account for everything by "going right up to the principle of the univehe"' (cm TiJvrnü rcc:rvToc; ap;,:iJv 1ciiv, Rep. Vl.5llb), helped to motivatc the organization of gcumctric lorc intu Jung chains of reasons, nailcd to a fcw unimpcachable axioms. Decadcs hdorc it, dassical formulation in Euclid'~ Elements (c. 11HJHe),

Greek axiomatic geometry had provided the paradigm for Aristotle's idea of a demon• strative science, or bttcmjµY] properly socalled, as expounded in the Poslerior Analytics. In such a science, every statement must only employ words definable from a given list of terms !hat need no explanation, and must be deducible from a given list of assertions that need no proof. The latter express the principles of a particular domain of being, studied by the science in question; but not, indeed, the principle of everything, as in Plato's dream. Though notoriously alien to Aristotle 's own scientific practice, and only imperfectly realized in Euclid's book (Postulate V is not seif-evident, Pr. I, Book I does not follow from the stated axioms, etc.). this Aristotelian idea of btumjµT) has weighed heavily on Western science and philosophy. Driven by its own intemal demands, as witnessed by Euclid's quest for /oci, i.e. sets of points satisfying some specified condition, the science of figures unwittingly became the science of space - regarded as a repositoryof all conceivable sets of points - and of the necessary relations of neighbourhood, collinearity, and distance between such points. In this guise we meet it in Rene Descartes's Geometrie (1637), proffered as an illustration of the philosopher's new method for the advancement of knowledge, and rightly regarded as the first treatise of modern math· ematics. Descartes also identified space with the substance of material things, thus fumishing an ontological justilication for Johannes Kepler', (1571-1630) dictum that 'God al· ways gcometrizcs', for Galilco's claim that 'trianglcs, circlcs and othcr geometrical figures' arc the alphabet in which the book of nature is writtcn, and gcncrally for the modern programmc of natural philosophy built on mathcmatical principlcs. The geometry of Euclid and Descartes was too narrowly conccivcd for this programmc advance w1thout rcsorting to ungeomet· ncal 1deas, such as Newton's 'impressed force' .. But the luxuriant Howering of geomctry m thc 19th ccntury created the meuns for a thoroughly geomctrical rcpresentation of physical phenomena, a, illustrated by the now prevalcnt gaugc theories of fundamental

W

GEOMfilRY

299

interactions. The chief novelties are named and sketched in bares! outline in the following list. Geometrie Pluralism. The points of space of 'a' space - can be conceived as sustaining altogether different systems of neighbourhood, collinearity, and distance relations. Two research programmes did much to bring about this insight: 1. the study of collinearity without regard

to distance in projective geometry. and 2. the unsuccessful attempts to prove Euclid's Postulate V. culminating in the independent publication by Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevski (182~30) and Farkas Bolyai (1832) of consistent deductive systems based on its negation. Felix Klein (1849-1925) showed in 1871 how three different systems of distance relations, entailing that the sum of the three angles of a triangle is "" rr (Euclid). rr (Klein"s ·elliptic" geometry). can be alternatively imposed on a point system aligned by the laws of projective geometry. Transformation Groups. Panly prompted by this success. Klein ( 1871) proposed a grand scheme for classif)ing the burgeoning fauna of geometries. Take ordinary Euclidian geometry. and let S denote its underlying space of points. Consider the collection T of all transformations of S Ir E T 1 maps S onc-to-onc onto itsclf). Since two successive transforn1ations yield a single (composite) transformation and any transformation can hc followcd hy another (inverse) transformation that annuls it. T constitutes a gro11p.in the strict algehraic sense. An arbitrary I E T gencrally wreaks havoc with the geometric relations hetween the points of S; but different subgroups of T preserve. e.g„ the neighhourhood system but not the straight lines. or the lauer. but not the distances, or, finally. all three kinds of relations. Every such subgroup has its own peculiar algebraic structure. Klein proposes to define each geometry by the transformation group that preserves its charach:ristic relations. lf G 1•

=

G2 , and G3 are geometries respectively determined by groups r,, f 2, and f3, G2 and G3 are plainly subgeometries of G 1 if r2 and f 3 are subgroups of r,. The seerningly antagonistic geometries of Euclid and Lobachevski are thus reconciled: they study the invariants of different subgroups of the projective group, and, as Jules Henri Poincare (1854-1912) noted in 1887, 'the existence of a group is not incompatible with that of another'. In Hermann Minkowski's (1864-1909) geometrical formulation of Alben Einstein's (1879--1955) special relativity, invariance under the theory's characteristic group becomes the mark of physical objectivity. Manlfolds. The modern idea of a manifold - specifically, of a differentiable manifold can be traced to Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann's (182fHi6) lecture Über die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zugr11nde liegen (1854, published 1867). Subsequently elaborated by Gregorio Ricci (1853--1925), Tullio Levi-Civita (1873--1941), Elie Canan (1869--1951), Hermann Weyl (1885--1955), Roger Penrose (bom 1931), etc., this concept remains unmatched as a vehicle for the mathematical representation of nature. lt cannot be properly explained here. The books by Schutz and Choquet-Bruhat et al. mentioned below can assist the reader in understanding its power and its beauty.

FURTHER READING

Choquet-Bruhat. Y. er a/., 1977,Analysis. Manifolds and Physics. Amsterdam: North Holland. Coxeter. H. M. S.. 1961.ln1rod11ctiontoGeometry, New York: Wiley. Hilbert. D .. and Cohn-Vossen. S., 1952,Geomecry and the Imagination. New York: Chelsea. Schutz. B. F„ 1980, Geometrica/ Methods of Matliematkal Physics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winnie. J. A .. 1986. ··1nvariants and objectivity'", in R. G. Colodney. ed .. FromQuarks10 Q11aSars, Pinsburgh. Pa.: Umversity of Pinsburgh Press. ROBERTOTORRETII

Gerson. See: John Gerson

GESTALT

Gestalt After a period of neglect, Gestalt theory is now once more attracting scientificand philosophical interest (see Kubovy and Pomeranz 1981, which gives a survey of Gestalt-oriented concepts still active in current psychology; Beck 1982; Smith 1988, which includes an extensive bibliography; and Kanizsa and Caramelli 1988). lf we examine university textbooks on vision and perception we see that the empirical discoveries of Gestalt psychology are considered a secure part of our knowledge in this field. Nevertheless, classical Gestalt theory remains known only through its association with a few key terrns such as: 'phenomenological method', 'anti-elementarism', ·anti-associationism', •isomorphism', 'field theory', •Prägnanz', etc. These terrns are principally connected with the names of Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Kurt Koffka (1886-1941), and Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967), who were leadingfigures of just one of the Gestalt-oriented schools at the beginning of the century. Today only a few psychologists would accept a strict Gestaltoriented programme of the sort !hat has been pursued by such direct heirs of classical Gestalt theory as Wolfgang Metzger (18991985), Edwin Rausch (b. 1906), Cesare Ludovico Musatti (1897-1989), Gaetano Kanizsa (b. 1913). Fabio Metelli (1907-87), Gunnar Johansson (b. 1911), and their students. More precisely, we could say that, in contemporary psychology. certain general features of the Gestalt approach are still present but that they are not central to current work. The Emergeoa, aod Development of the Notion of Gestalt. lf we ignore certain possible predecessors such as Goethe (! 7491832), Jan Evangelista Purkinje (1787-1869), and Ewald Hering (1834-1918), the first

scientist and philosopher directly to inHuence the development of Gcstaltism was Ernst Mach (1838-1916). For Mach, in his nie Analysis of Semutiom of 1886, scnsations alone are real, while all ·complcxes' arc ideal, i.e. they are mental units which contribute to the 'economy of thought' hut corrcspond to nothing in reality. In criticizingJohann Friedrich Herbart's theory of complcxes, however,

300 Mach raises two intriguing questions which were to become fundamental to the development of Gestalt psychology: 1. How can we determine that two figures A and B, for example a white square and a black one, differing in position and colour, are the same figure? 2. If we play a melody first in the key of C on a trumpet and then in the key ofF on a violin, how does the hearer recognize that it is the same melody?

According to Mach, we can recognize the identity between A and B because the corresponding 'muscular sensations' (Muskelempfindungen) associated with the motor processes of the eye and head are qualitatively the same. For this account to work in the case of the melody, we must hypothesize that such Empfindungen have a temporal extension and that also memory processes arc involved. In 1890, Christian von Ehrenfels ( 1851)... 1932) reformulated Mach's problem in terms derived from a theory of whole and pans. A melody G, he argued, is qualitatively different from the sequencc of Iones ei, e2, ... en, of which it is composed. This is becausc: 1. We can change the components of a melody, c.g. by transposing it, and leave thc melody unchanged. 2. We can remember a melody direcdy. i.c. without nccessarily rememberingits Iones.

In Ehrcnfcls's papcr thcse two points scrve as crileria for individuating a class of perccptual cntitics which hc names Gestalr• quulitüten. Furthcr. hc stalcs that suchentities arc de facto objccts of dirccl cxperience. Bul hc leavcs open whcthcr thcy arc thc rcsuhof an activc and partially voluntary pcrceptual process or a passive and automatic one. Historically. Ehrenkls's papcr set in train a veritable cxplosion of theoretical debate and experimental work in which the mosl rcpresentativc psychologists of the period participatcd (sec Ash 1982). Here the contrihutions of the so-callcd Graz and Berlin Schuub arc thc most important.

301 The Graz School. In the Graz School, to which Ehrenfels was close, the MachEhrenfels problem is divided into two parts:

1. What is the ontologica/ relationship between a Gestalt and its components? 2. What is the psychological process which is involved in the perception of a Gestalt? The theory of objects or 'Gegenstandsof Ehrenfels's teacher Alexius Meinong tries to solve the first part of the problem. What place does a Gestalt have among the objects of our experience? A Gestalt is an object of a type distinct from things and facts: in Meinong·s terrninology it is an "object of higher order" which has the objectual character typical of the elements which underlie it but which does not exist in the same sense as they do, because it stands to them in a relation of existential dependence or foundation (Fundier1111g). The Produktionstheorie. developed in particular by Mcinong·s Student Stephan Witasek (1870-1915). tries to soI,·e the ps~·chological part of thc problem. The perceptual process underlying the experience of a Gestalt must. he argues. reflect thc objectual structure of that Gestalt. The existence of a Gestalt depends on the elcmcntary scnsations of which it is composcd. but its character as a Gestalt is something new. which must be ·produced' by the mind on the basis of thesc sensations. Production. for the !'.leinongians. operatcs exactly like perception: we can say, with Meinong. that pmduction is the perception of Gestalten. For Meinong. perception combincs the two clements of sensory presentation ( 1·ors1d/1111i:)of the object percdved and a judgement of existence of this objcct. Th" latter is an act of thinking. Production is like pcrception in that there is judgement-like acti\'ity of the mind involved in both. In the one case it deterrnines the status of the object as existent, and in the other as a produced Gestalt. Yittorio Benussi (1878--1927), the leading experimental psychologist of the Graz School. tried to confirm empirically Meinong's theories of Gestalt perception. Benussi's original contribution is the theory of the theorie'

GESTALT

sensory and non-sensory inadequacies of perception. Sensory inadequacies arise in virtue of certain peculiarities of physical stimuli and peripheral sensory processes. Consider, e.g„ the chromatic contrast: two grey surfaces which are equal in reflectance and luminance do not appear equally bright if they are placed one on a black background and the other on a white background. Nonsensory inadequacies arise in virtue of the fact that there are perceptual patterns which are ambiguous (mehrdelllig) even if all physical and physiological inforrnation remains constant. Consider, e.g. the Necker cube. The light reflected by the configuration of lines which we designate as 'Necker cube' (the physical or distal stimulus) contains always the same information and the energy which excites the sensory system (the physiological or proximal stimulus) may be supposed tobe the same. Yet we perceive always one of two possible objects: a cube with the lower face in foreground or a cube with the upper face in foreground. In such cases the observer can often decide what he wants to perceive among a number of alternatives. Benussi concludes !hat we must postulate the existence of some central process of elaboration or gestaltification of the data given in sensation. A perceived Gestalt is a typical example of such a non-sensory presentation. Benussi's theory coincides largely with the original Produktionst/reorie of Meinong and Witasek. Meinong and Benussi differ. however. in their views on perception. For Benussi. perception is a presentational phenomenon in which inferential activity or judgement is completely lacking. After World War I the Graz School practically disappeared. Benussi moved to Padua. where he inaugurated an ltalian tradition in experimental psychology continued by Cesare Ludovico Musatti, Fabio Metelli, and Gaetano Kanizsa. Kanizsa. especially, has produced contributions to Gestalt studies still important today (e.g„ see his Perceptual Organization of 1979). The Berlin School. In 1910 Wertheimer, a student of Ehrenfels in Prague and of Carl Stumpf in Berlin. carried out studies on movement perception which can be regarded as the starting-point of the Berlin School. The

GESTALT

study of movement perception is crucial to the solution of the Mach-Ehrenfelsproblem. Tue events constituted by movements of objects in three-dimensional space are, in fact, that sort of spatio-temporal Gestalten which forms the greatest part of our perceptual experience. Wertheimer focused bis attention on the so-called 'phi phenomenon', an apparent movement obtained when two identical visual stimuli at different points in space are presented successively. If the distance between the two stimuli and the rhythm of succession meet certain conditions, the stimuli will appear as one moving object which jumps from one position to the other. Such apparent movement was observed for the first time in the 19th century by Joseph Plateau (1801-83) in 1850 and then studied by Sigmund Exner (1846-1926), one of Wertheimer's teachers in Prague, in 1875. Two traditional theories have been pul forward to explain it. According to Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-94), my perception of a moving body is the result of an inference of my perceptual system with respect to the different discrete spatio-temporal states that the body has assumed during the movement. lt is for this reason that the phi phenomenon is usually interpreted as movement by our perceptual system. According to Exner, apparent movement is a sensation (Empfindung), i.e. something we experience immediately, something which it is impossible to decompose or analyse further into elementary components. Tue position of Wertheimer and of the Berlin School as far as movement perception is concerned is in the Exner tradition, except that Wertheimer postulates a neurophysiological theory of 'short circuits• or ·transversal functions' in the cortex as constituting a possible biological basis of the phi phenomenon. Tue position of the Graz School, on the contrary, b often identified as a theory belonging to the Helmholtz tradition. In 1913, Köhler wrotc a critique of what he called the 'constancy hypothesis' (Korutanzannahme), a doctrine accepted by Helmholtz and Stumpf which assumcs a onc-to-one correspondence betwccn stimuli and scnsations. When wc find a mi,match betwccn the physical level and thc pcrccptual lcvel we can still retain such a ·constancy' hctween

302

stimulus and sensation if we assume the intervention of 'unconscious inference' or 'unobserved processes' which explain the mismatch. Consider, for example, the illusory contours in the Kanizsa triangle. We perceive a contour which has no physical existence. Therefore, we lose the correspondence between stimuli and sensations. But, given a certain disposition of lines and coloured surfaces, our cognitive system is, as Helmholtz sees it, forced to infer the presence of a triangle and to 'invent' some non-existent contours. From the gestaltist perspective, however. these are ad hoc hypotheses designed to prop up traditional elementarism. In 1915 Kofflca utilized Köhler's arguments against the constancy hypothesis in a debate with Benussi. Koffka criticized Benussi's distinction between sensory and non-sensory presentations. There are, Koffka argues, no reliable criteria to distinguish them. In both cases, he argued, there is the same concrete perceptual relationship with an environment in which nothing other than Gestalten are perceived, and perceived directly. The problern with the Produktionstheorie is that it implicitly assumes the constancy hypothesis and holds that we first have sensations which stand in a one-to-one correspondence witb stimuli. We then combine them into a Gestalt by means of inference-like central processes. Koffka rejects this view. But the target of Koffka's critique is strictly Meinong·s position, which only partially coincides with that of Benussi. Tbc sole real contrast between Koffka and Bcnussi concerns the conception of the stimulus. For Bcnussi the latter is a flux of cncrgy which contains potential information conccrning thc cnvironmcnt. But, in ordcr to u,c such information, the stimulus is dccomposcd at thc pcripherul level and then rcstorcd at thc ccntral lcvel. For Koffka thc stimulus is a sei of organized information fouml and uscd as such by the organism without any neccssary previous decomposition. As Koffka writcs in his Principles of Gestuft Psyclwlogy of 1935, tad, thing say.1·what it is: ··a fruit says 'Eat me·: water says 'Urink me'; thunder says 'Fear me'; and woman says 'Love me•·· (p. 7). Kotfka"s account ot stimulus forms the basis ol the final step in thc Gestalt theory of

303 tbe Berlin School, first set out in Köhler's book Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationären Zustand of 1920. Köhler developed the new conception of stimulus as part of a defence of the programmatic thesis of psychophysical isomorphism. i.e. the hypothesis of a structural correspondence between perceptual experience and the underlying physiology of corresponding brain processes. The hypothesis was suggested by the discovery that there are physical phenomena which present all the characteristics typical of the Gestalten. Köhler did not. be it noted. assert that the relationship between perceptual experience and the physical world is isomorphic. lt is clear that human perception contains many phenomena the like of which never occur in the physical world. What he bad in mind is that there are certain ·structural properties· of Gestalten which are independenl of the psychological. physiological, or physical mauer which makes them up and which can occur on all these three different levels (see bis The Task of Gestall Psyclrology of 1969). The next step is to discover and accuratelv describe these structural properties. and this brings the Gestaltists to develop the electric tield analogy which leads in turn to an accounl of the ·laws· of perceptual organization. Consider. for cxample. thc follo..,ing two laws of grouping. The scquence of leners ppqqppqq is secn as four groups pp. qq. pp, qnal and predicate calculus of thc lirst ordcr. Thi> correspondcnce is applicd 10 thc relation between syntactic and semanti, ruks of interpretation. To cach syntai.:tk ruh.~.,,hich for a gi,·en category is Jt!'lincdas a i.:crtainSllTt of operation. there com:sponds a scmantic rule. which determincs. with thc hclp of quasi-Carnapian mcaning-p,,stulates. thc corresponding translation of thc linguistic expression into the intensional language of translation (a higherordcr modal logic). Finally. the matching betwecn syntax and semantics is based on a mathematical rclation (structural homomorphism). between the syntactic algebra and scmantic algebra of the two languages, the tirst ( thc language of translation. intensional logic) s.:mantically perfect. the second (natural language. or rather a certain fragment of r.:gimcnted English) semantically

GRAMMARII: MODERNTHEORJES

imperfect. A language is semantically perfect if each syntactic rule matches a corresponding semantic rule, and therefore if there is a definition of truth in this language. The idea of semantic perfection derives from the Tarskian theory of models. The model-theoretically based semantics is a foundation for Montague's semantics of natural language. Some logicians doubt that intensional languages are semantically perfect (Donald Davidson, W. V. 0. Quine)and some linguists doubt that natural language can be described in terms of semantic imperfection (Noam Chomsky). This homomorphism in the case of formal languages is already given in the theory of models. and is applied to the empirical relation between syntax and semantics of natural languagey. Montague's Universal Grammar contains therefore a universal theory of translation, which guides semantic interpretation. Some philosophers (e.g. Quine) have disputed the exact relation between interpretation and translation in semantics. Montague's theory of translation is. however. distinguished by the fact that it does away with the intuitive character of semantic interpretation such as is found in generative semantics and elementary logic textbooks, where the relation between logical form and superficial syntactic structure was grasped in a capricious way. Properties, Types, and Meaning.s. The matching between syntax and semantics is identical with that between categories and types. Two primitive categories are given, e (for entity) and 1 (for truth value). The matching mechanism gives for each primitive and derived category an extension and an intension. The category e of individual terms has as extension individuals and as intensions individual concepts; the category I of formulas has as extension truth values (in the oldfashioned Fregean style) and as intensions propositions. The catcgory 1/e of one-place predicates has as extension sets of individuals and as intensions individual properties. At least two important ontological theses are herehy presupposed. First. that there are two distinct ontological operations: assignments of category (in such a way as to obey compositional criteria) and assignments of type.

330

GRAPH THEORY

The classification of categories is distinct from tbe ascending order of types. Second, tbat tbere are intensional entities: individual concepts, properties, and propositions. Montague's grammar bas been criticized in at least two points: tbe lack of ftexibilityin tbe matcbing between types and categories; and tbe need for an explicit tbeory of properties. Recent developments in foundational studies bave toucbed on tbese two points. On tbe one band tbere is tbe construction of grammatical tbeories admitting categorial polymorpbism (Seils 1985); and on tbe otber band tbere is researcb into tbe tbeory of properties (Chiercbia et a/. 1989), botb of wbicb can be integrated into a totally explicit grammatical tbeory conserving tbe Montagovian postulate of matcbing. By 'categorial polymorpbism' is meant a ftexibility of categories and tbe introduction of rules for cbange of type (see van Bentbem in Cbiercbia et al. 1989). These two modilications are of uneven ontological weight, but tbe relation between grammar and ontology will surely be affected botb by categorial ftexibility and by property tbeory.

(1) V,E are disjoint sets (2) / is a subset of V x E (3) for eacb e e E, J n (V cardinality 1 or 2.

x {e}) bas

Witbout furtber comment it would seem tbat grapb tbeory is little more tban the thCOI}' of sets witb almost tbe most minimal structure imposed. Of course, our knowledge of set tbeory suggests tbe 'little more' might indeed be a great deal. Tbe inberent attraction of grapb tbeory is tbat we can give a pictorial representation of a grapb. This bas proved invaluable to tbe development of tbe theory. Elements of Vand E are called respectively vertices and edges. A vertex v and an edge e are incident with each other if ( v,e) e /. The picture below:

FIJRTHER READING

Chierchia. G .. Partee. B. H., and Turner. R., eds., 1989. Propenies. Types and Meanings. 2 vols., Dordrecht: D. Reidel. Davidson. D .. and Harmann. G., eds., 1975. Th, I..ogic of Grammar. Encino: Dickenson. Davis, S., and Mithum, M .. eds., 1979,Linguistics. Philosophy and Montague Grammar, Austin. Tex.: Texas University Press. Dominicy, M.. 191!4.Lanaissancedelagrammaire motkrne. Bru,...Js: Mardaga. Gardies. J.-L.. 1985,Rational Grammar, Munich/ Vienna: Philosophia. Monlague. R .. 1974. Formal Phi/osophy, ed. R. Thomason. New Haven. Conn.: Yale Universily Pre!iis.

Seils, P .. 1985. Lectures on l'ont,mporary Syn1ac1ic Theorie, (CSLI Lcclures Noles 3), Chicago. IJI.: Chicago Univcrsily Pre,s. Uzkoreil. H., 1986, Ca1egoriulU11ificu1ionGrammars (CSLI Report No. 66). Stanlurd, Calif.: CSLI Publieation,.

GraphTheory A graph is an ordered triple (V,E,IJ ,ucb that:

R

= red

W

= while

B

= blue

Y

= yellow

represents tbe grapb witb:

V= {a,b,c,d), E = {ei,e 2 ,e3 ,e,,e 5 ,e0 ,e1), (a,e 1) E /, (b,e 1) E /, (c,e,) E / etc. lf 'loops' and 'multiple edges' are excludcd then a grapb is simply a symmetric binary rclation on a sei. The Four Colour Theorem rclates to plant graphs. A plane grapb is a graph wbich L"Dn be drawn in tbe Euclidcan plane witbout any two edgcs crossing. Tbc tbcorcm states that the map in tbc Euclidcan plane determincd hy a planar drawing of a plane graph Gis four colourablc. Tbis means tbat tbc regions inlo wbicb G divides tbe plane (including the unbounded region 'outside' G) can be colourcd, as indicated ahove, witb four L"Olours,e.g. red, wbite, blue, and yellow, so thal each cdge o„ G lies hetween two regions to which distinct colours bave heen assigned. One could easily argue tbat interest in tbe map colouring problem was tbe central reason for

331

GREEK PHILOSOPHICALTERMINOLOGY

the development of graph theory from its early beginnings in the late 19th century. Graph theorists are still interested in generalizations of the Four Colour Theorem and in obtaining a more intuitive proof than the algorithm proof contained in Appel and Haken (1977). Modem research has focused on, among other topics, matchings, paths and cycles in graphs; Ramsey graph theory; extremal problems; the reconstruction problem; and the five-flow problem. FURTHER READING

Appel. K. l..and Haken, W.. Im. -Everyplanar map is four c:olorablc. I". Journal of Mathematics. 21. 421J-.90. Bollobas. B .. 1978. Extremal Graph Theory·. London: Academic Press. Lo,·asz, L„ and Plummer, M. D .. 1986. l\101ching Theory·. Budapesl: Akademiai Kiado. Nash-Williams. C. S1. J. A„ 1982. -A glanceat graph theory. pan 1•. Bulletin of the London Matlrematical Socirty. 14, 1n-212. JOHS SHEEJL\.lliA."'i'D Gt:\· STOCli:

Graz School. See: Meinoog II Greek Philosophical Termioology Technical terminology is important for any science or craft. lt giws the rommunity of practitioners a precisc and rigorous vocabula,y which makes relati,·ely unambiguous L-ommunication possible. While philosophical lerminology has never been rompletcly uniform. philosophers now enjoy a relatiwly st.1hlc sct of rommon terms. Our presenl philosophical ,·ocabulary is a legacy of Grcck philosophy. Beginning without any 1echnicalterminology and drawing only on its native resources. Greek philosophy gradually evolved a complex vocabulary which became the model for philosophical and indeed scientific terminology in all the Western languages. Thus the development of Greek terminology reveals some important relations between language and philosophy. Although it is diflicult to reronstruct vocabulary from the remains of early Greek philosophy. we can say that the lirst Greek

philosophers used new terms only incidentally. One of the terms associated with the early pre-Socratics is dr11 Pur,• P/re110111,•11olo11.1· und II Plrenomenolo11ict1/P/ri/o.mplr_1·( 1'-113).where ehe trnn-

scendental perspective is introduced. This distinction lies in a reformulation of the concept of intentionality. In his Logical Investigations(see "Husserl !"), Husserl had distinguished meaning as species (i.e. the function which permits consciousness to grasp its goal), from the object, which is independent of our experience of it. Husserl's Jdeas I, on the other hand, is characterized by a cognitive approach which understands objects as being essentially related to our experience. According to /deas l, every intentional act has an object of reference (i.e. the object as it is experienced). and Husserl calls the object so conceived the noema (v61]µ0:),a Greek word which means 'what is known' or 'what is experienced'. Certainly, what we know or intend at any given time about some object A does not exhaust A. Hence, 11oemata(voijµo:ro:)are not objects themselves. But the latter are not something essentially different: the object A is what Husserl calls an ideallyopen synthesis of noemata; it is - in other words - the outcome towards which every possible increase in knowledge about A leads. Therefore the Kantian 'thing in itself does not exist. According to /deas 1. objects are not absolute realities independent of our experience; their existence can be expressed, rather, in terms of the conditions under which we are able to posit them as existing: ••An object in itself is never such that it would make no difference to consciousnessand the conscious I" (/deas I, Hua III. p. 101). For Husserl. every object is a wriry of meaning constituted in experience as something real or unreal, inside or outside the ego. etc.: this is the transcendental thesis of Husserl's phenomenological idea/ism. Hence. the importance of the concept of phenomeno/ogica/co1rsti1111ion: to clarify the essential features of A means to describe the experience in which A 'takes shape' for us. Now. according to the ldeas, there are different categories of objects: things can be material. animal. mental. cultural. etc. As Husserl says. there are different regional 01110/o11ies to which the different categories of objects belong. For every regional ontology there is a set of apodictic propositions which state '"what must hold a priori and ·synthet-

HUSSERL, EDMUND II: THE LATER HUSSERL

ically' of an individual object of the region in question" (/deas l, p. 37). These are propositions such as ·every material thing is res extensa'. ·every animal body has sensations', 'people can enter into social relationships', etc. Phenomenological constitutive analysis has to solve problems such as what is a material (animal, cultural. etc.) thing as such? What kind of synthetic (or material) a priori propositions can be asserted in order to describe its essential features? Phenomenological constitutive analyses are also at work in the case of formal onto/ogy, which is not a regional ontology (a) because it relates not to the objects of any particular material category, but to every possible object, and (b) because its propositions are of an analytical nature. The structures of formal logic and formal ontology are not, for Husserl, the results of arbitrary convention or linguistic stipulation. On the other band. Husserl believes that the formal sciences cannot be based on metaphysical hypotheses about the nature of objects either. What an object is, according to Husserl. and what its formal properties are can be determined only by experience. which has also to account for the basic logical distinctions. Hence, the idea of a genea/ogy of logic: starting from the lowest level of perceptive experience, Husserl describes the process of constitution of logical categories and their being embedded in the theory of judgement. In the analyses devoted to grounding logic on experience. Husserl tackles the problem of the conditio11s on which the possibility of experiencing objects depends. There is, tirst of all, a formal condition: the single and instantaneous phases of our experience must be linked together by the consciousness of time. But there is also a material condition: there are, for Husserl. bond.1 ofaswciation. determined by the nalure of 1he experienced objec/s and linking them according to a priori Jaws. Thereforc, Husserl doc, not start from the ·1ablc of judgement". a, Kant docs. in ordcr to deduce the categorics which givc lorm to cxperience. His analyscs go in thc oppositc dircction: in bis view, cxpcriencc is not ,imply a collection of random data hut has itscll a definite structure. a necessary form on which it i, possible to ground logic.

370 Husserl's philosophical efforts were not limited to the constitution of the different categories of objects. Starting with bis ldeas, Husserl feit the need for a philosophical analysis of the world. In our everyday life we are certain of many things: that there is a world, that we live in this world with other persons whom we understand, and so on. Philosophers must pay attention to such ·truths', not because common-sense truisms are of philosophical value as such, but because they are in need of a phenomenological foundation. These themes are discussed in a new light in The Crisis of E11ropean Sciences (1936). Here he describes the phenomenological structures of the 'life-world', which is constituted as a correlate of intersubjeclive experience and on which, according to Husserl, sciences are based. Basing sciences on the 'life-world' implies, in bis view, the rejection both of a positivistic idea of rationality and of the naive realism which he maintains has prevented modern philosophy from grasping the real concept of subjectivity. Hence the increasing importance, in Husserl's later work, of the distinction between phenomenology and descriptive psychology, lf every object and every possible event must be constituted in our experience. experience cannot be regarded from a phenomenological point of view as a psychological event, as a real fact among others. Hcncc it is necessary, in Husserl 's vicw, to undcrstand phcnomenology as the science ofthe pure ego. !hat is, as a description of cxpcricncc conccrncd only with its constituting function, and not with its being a real psychological cvcnt in an animal body. The distinction bctwccn thc dcscriptivc psycholo!!y of thc Lo,:irnl Jm•,·stiga1icms and latc llusscrl's plt,·110111Ub~tanccs:matter'".

Philosophkul Rniew. K4. 372-413. Happ, H .. 1971. HYL/:.: Studien zum uriswtelischen Materiebegrifl. Berlin: !Je Gruyler. McMullin,E .. cd.. 1%3. 7/reCo11,·eptof Mutter i11 Greek u11dMedi,.-ul Philo,ophy. Nolre Dame, lnd.: Notrc Dame L'm\'crsityPrc!'J~. Solmsen, F .. 1%1S.··Amtolle·, word fur mauer". Kleine Schrifte11.vol. l . Hildesheim: Ci. Olms. UASJU. W. C,KAIIAM

Hylomorphism Aristotle's theory of matter and form ari!>C, from hi, conccrn with thc problcm of ,uh,tantial change. Like the rcst ol u,. Aristotlc cxpcricnccd gcncration and corruption going

on in the world. Things are bom and things die. Yet when something ceases to be it does not disappear. Rather from the ceasing to be as one substance, another substance, or many substances, arise. What must be the nature of sensible things, natural substances, such that this process is possible? When we reftect on our experiences of substantial change, it becomes evident that there is continuity in nature. When something comes tobe it is not entirely new. It has come out of something eise. Thus, there must be in nature a principle of continuity, an underlying substratum that continues on passing from one substance to . another. Looking for a name for this principle, Aristotle chose ÜAlJ.the term for wood or timber. If nothing eise, this expresses the passivity of the principle. for it passes on in nature from one substance to another, from one natural thing to whatever eise emerges via the process of substantial change. There is, thus. a certain eternal or unending character to this principle, which is indeterminate in itself but determinable in successive substances. The principle, prime or unformed matter, is regarded as being purely potential, for it represents a capacity to be formed in different ways by the different essences it receives through the substantial forms which inform it; a new substantial form which is actualizcd by thc cflicient causc of the change comc, to be not in prime matter as such, but in thc sccondary matter. the already formed matter of the preceding substance. This secondary matter, thc 111uteri11 q11u11titu1,• si1111utu of mcdieval philu.i>phy. is thus individualizcd by thc accidcntal form,. thc qu.ml• ity, and qualilics of thc prcvinus ,ubstuncc. In this ,en!>C, matter is spuken uf us thc principlc uf individuatinn. What cxist arc natural things: ,ubstanccs ,uch as trees. dngs. and humans. These arc definite kinds nf things; thcy have an intelligibility which wc grasp when we cxpericncc thcm and understand what thcy arc. The fact that thcsc things arc cxamplcs nf ccrtain kind, ur spccics needs an explanation. Form or l"'l''l''I was pusitcd by Aristotlc as thc dctcrmining princ1ph:. a, that which makes a ,uhMancc to hc a ccrtain kind of suhstance. lt cunfcr, an cM,cm.:c or nalurl! un passive

IAMBLICHUS

373 matter, tbereby actualizing tbe latter as a substance and at tbe same time making tbis substance to be a certain kind of thing. Tbis union of a potential principle and an actualizing principle gives us a composite, a hylomorpbic substance, a substantial unity of tbese two coprinciples wbicb acbieve tbeir being tbrougb being togetber. In tbe world of natural substances we note that some are alive; otbers are not. To apply tbe bylomorpbic tbeory to living tbings, it is fitting to call tbe principles by new names; tbe substantial form of a livingsubstance is called its soul; tbe matter of tbe living substance is its body. Thus a living natural substance is a composite of body and soul wberein tbe actualizing principle or soul confers on tbe potential principle or body tbe act ofliving. of being alive, of existing. as weil as conferring whatever nature it confers - for example, human nature. Aristotle"s hylomorphic theory was dc\'eloped across the centuries by bis Greek disciples. the Arabian commentators. and especially by the Christian theologians - such scholastic thinkers as Thomas Aquinas. Thus, incorporated into the Catholic intellectual tradition. it came to be the basis of philosophic anthropology in most Catholic universities after the scholastic revival at the beginning of the :?Othcentury. Already the nominalism associated with William Ockham bad begun to undermine the idea of substantial forms as conferring essences or natures on things. and the theory fared badly in rcllection of the rcpudiation of Aristotle's physics brought about through the development of modern sciencc in thc 17th century. Still, therc: is much to recommend the thcory. W.: note that there are many species or kinds of things; and within a species many individual members, for example many human beings within the human race. What makes possible their individuation'? Aristotle's theory posits quantified matter as the principle of individuation in thc sense that the same substantial form can be received into many different quantities of matter many different bodies in the case of mankind - the diffc:rent accidental qualities of each individual body giving rise to the variety of individual membc:rs of the human race.

FURTIIER READING

McMullin, E., ed„ 1963, The Conceptof Matterin Greek and MedievalPhi/osophy,Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. Owens, J., 1951, TheDoctrineofBeingin AristotelianMetaphysics,Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Press. - 1988, "Thomas Aquinas: Dimensive quantity as individuating principlc", Mediaeva/Studies, 50, 279-310. DESMOND J. FITZGERALD

I lamblichus Iamblichus, Neoplatonist, bom c. 245 in Chalcis in Coele Syria (the modern Qinnesrin), died c. 326 in Apamea or Daphne near Antioch. Only part of lamblichus's philosophical output has survived intact; we possess a manifeste of pagan faith and theurgical practice (On the Mysteriesof the Egyptians, a reply to Porphyry now considered as genuine); four (or live) volumes of a ten-volume sequence on Pythagorean philosophy (The Lifeof Pythagoras,E:chortation to Philosophy,On the GeneralTheory of Mathematics,On Nicomach11s'lntroduction 10 Arithmetic, and TheologicalSpeculations on Arithmetic-authorship not certain; much ofthis material has only doxograpbicalvalue). Of his other works, including a treatise On the Soul and several commentaries on Plato and Aristotle, only fragments survive (see Dalsgaard Larsen 1972, Dillon 1973, pp. 18-25). Iamblichus'scontribution to Neoplatonism as regards both philosophical methodology ( 1) and doctrine (2) appears to have been substantial. 1. In bis commentaries on Plato and

Aristotle. lamblichus presupposes that each treatise possesses a specific aim or objective, be it ethical. physical. or

374

IDEA

metaphysical. Once the objective has been grasped, the exegete is asked to interpret virtually every line of the treatise in the light of that objective. A further methodological aspect of lamblichus's exegesis which secured him the admiration of bis followers is the consistent use of allegory as a means to illuminate the structures of the intelligible world (see Praecbter 1973). 2. From Iamblicbus tbe Neoplatonic Scbool received new doctrinal impulses: due to bis initiative Neoplatonic ontology comes to be worked out elaborately in a scbolastic fasbion (Proclus), and tbe actual practice of pbilosopby receives a mucb stronger religious bias. Whereas Plotinus (c. 205--70) divided the intelligible realm into tbe One, tbe Intellect, and tbe Soul, Iamblicbus, modifying tbis scbeme, introduces (in bis lost Cha/daean Theology) a second, creative First Principle probably in order to soften tbe inberent tension between tbe One's absolute transcendence on tbe one band and its function as cause of all subordinate levels of being on the otber (see Dillon 1973).

symbols (see Dodds 1947). This prominent religious trait in Iamblicbus's pbilosopby may explain, perbaps, wby modern critics bave sometimes cbarged Iamblicbus, the Syrian, witb subjecting Greek pbilosopby to tbe oriental syncretism of bis time. FURTHER READING

Dalsgaard Larsen, B., 1972,Jamblique de Chalcis, ex;gete et philosophe, Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget. Dillon, J. M., 1973, lamblichi Chalcidensis in Platonis dialogos commentariorum fragmenta, Leiden: E. J. Brill. Dodds, E. R., 1947, "Theurgy and its relation to Neoplatonism", Journal of Roman Studies, 37, 5~9; reprinted 1951 in The Greeks and the /ffational, Berkeley, Calif., and Los Angeles, Calif.: University of Califomia Press, 283-311. Lloyd, A. C., 1967, "The later Neoplatonists", in A. H. Armstrong, ed., The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Mediaeval Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge Univcrsity Press, chs. 17-19. Praechter, K., 1973, "Richtungen und Schulen im Neuplatonismus", in H. Dörrie, ed„ Karl Praechter, Kleine Schrifte11,Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 165-216. Reverdin, 0„ ed., 1974, De Jamblique iJ Proclur, Entretiens sur l'antiquite classiq11eXXI, Geneva: Vandoeuvrcs.

Wallis, R. T., 1972,Neoplatonism, London: Duck-

In addition, lamblicbus assumes intermediary ontological subdivisions in botb tbe noetic and psycbic realms, wbicb, convoluted as tbey may be, tend to Jet the process of emanation of tbe various levels of being appear less abrupt. The conviction of a complete barmony between pbilosophy and religious mytb and experience is central in Iamblichus, and tbe framework of his ontology owes mucb to tbeological speculation, above all to the notorious Cha/daean Oracles. lamblichus depicts tbe psycbic realm in particular as crowded by numerous classes of gods, angels, demons, and heroes. On presuppositions such as tbeM: the spiritual ascent into tbe world yonder, which every Platonist aspires to, could not bc achieved by tbe philosopbcr's intcllectual virtucs alone and witbout the help of divinc guides and mediators. lamblichu~ advocatcd and actively engaged in the practice of theurgy, a ritual designed to invoke the presencc and help of gods by means of magic spells and

worth. CIIRISTIAN WILDBERG

ldea lt was Plato who gave thc first dcfinition of tbe term 'idea' and thc charactcristics hc listed have remaincd idcntical throughout the subsequent history of thc word. 'ldca' signifies: 1. the essential form (r(bo~) of a thing: 2. which exists separately from the thing: 3. which, as an exemplary modcl of the thing, determines the thing's being: 4. and which is in itself the object and absolute terminal point of the act of the intellect.

Thus Platonic ideas constitute a world of csscnccs which an: intdligible per se existing ~cparately from perccptihle hodies, and con-

IDEA

31S sidered as impersonally divine. Each positive and natural thing participates in its corresponding idea, wherefrom a reason is given for the thing's being. Furthermore, each idea participates in all the other ideas accordingto an order that Plato begins to describe in the Sophist. This dialogue defines the ideal relations between notions (Aoycn).The human intellect's participation in this system of relations constitutes philosophical knowledge as such so that by means of its participation in ide~ according to 1heir ideal relations the soul possesses de iure, if not de facto, all possible knowl~dge whatsoever. Plato'_sdoctrine is very d1fficult to understand 1f one wishes 10 avoid being misled by the magnificent images that express it. lt is rendered yet more difficult by Plato's adding a fifth characteristic 10 ideas:

s. that

of being entities which are intellectually apprehended per sein intrinsic denomination. i.e. the esseof an idea is identical with its inte/ligi. Plato expresses this by sa)iog that an idea is •·vo1JT6vxaö' ai•T6-. (ldeas are thus contrasted with extramental things. whose inte/ligi is distinct from thcir esse. The intelligi of such things is not one of their real accidents. but an extemal accident of reason: it is a d,mominatio e.rtrinsecaof the esse these things have per se.)

Medleval Developments. lt is not surprising. then. that outo:d somc:timc:sto realists liko: Duns Sc,11u,. The sc~-.,ndvic:w holds that het\\ een the indi, idualit,· of the indiviJu,11anJ ns nature therc: is a co~~-eptual distinction onl,·. In realil\· thc:indi,idualitv of thc:inJi,·idual ·,mJ 1ts n,1iurc:are one and ·the samc. ,1lthough conceptually they can be separato:J. Thi, ,·icw is often attributed to nominalists like William Ockham. Third. thcrc is a position that tric:sto bridge the gap bc:twccnthcso: two. lt uses diverse terminology. John Duns Scotus introduced the term 'formal Jistinction • anJ Suarez and others usc:d tc:rms such as ·modal distinction' and 'distinction ,·x 1111111r11 rei". In gcnc:ral all thesc terms aim to convey thc: point that thc: Jistinction bctwcc:n a nature and the individuality of an inJividual is something less than real bu1 morc than conceptual.

s,;

The Principleor Individuation. Historically, the most important metaphysical issue related to individuality involves the identification of the principle of individuation. However. different conceptions of individuality willyield a search for different principles. For it is one thing to ask, for example, for a principle of indivisibility and another to ask for a principle of difference and distinction. Different extensional and ontological views of individualitywill likewiseaffect the answer given to our present question. 1. lndividuation of Substances. Tue different types of theories that have been proposed conceming the individuation of substances may be classilied as follows: bundle theories; theories of accidental, essential, and existential individuation; mixed theories; and theories based on extemal principles. Although there are different varieties of bundle theories of individuation, most agree that the principle of individuation is the bundle of all the characteristics that an individual has. Thus Socrates is individual because he has a unique bundle or cluster of characteristics !hat separates him from all other beings. There have been defenders of this sort of view in every period of the history of philosophy from Boethius to Leibniz and Russell. In contrast with the bundle theory. the theory of accidental individuation holds that it is only cenain accidents that are responsible for the individuality of things. There are various versions of this view. depending on the accidental characteristics identilied as individuators, but the most commonly found are relational theories that identify spatial, temporal. or spatio-temporal location as individuators. The spatio-temporal theory originated with Boethius and became standard in the early Middle Ages. but has subsequently been held by John locke and Strawson. Others, in contrast. choose characteristics esse111i11/ to a thing as individuators. Again there are different varieties of this view. Three in particular stand out. The lirst, frequently auributed to Aristotle and recently dc:fendedby Anscombe. argues that it is the mauer that individuates. A second. auributed to Averroes by Scholastics and

388

INDMDUALITY, INDMDUATION

more recently defended by Jan Lukasiewicz and David Wiggins, posits the form of a thing as its individuator. The third holds that individuation is due to a sui generis principle whose function is only to individuate and which has no characteristics of its own. lt is for this reason - namely, that it is decharacterized - that the principle in question has been called by Bergmann and bis followers a 'bare particular'. In the Middle Ages, Scotus and bis disciples referred to it as thisness (haecceitas). Much less popular than these theories is the theory of existential individuation. This view, which in the Middle Ages was generally attributed to A vicenna and may have also been defended by William of Auvergne and Locke, has recently been adopted by Gracia. According to this position, the principle of individuation is existence. Same views mix essential and accidental charactenst1cs. For example, Thomas Aquinas identilied the principle of individuation with matter under dimensions. Tue dimensions in question were understood 10 be indeterminate in the early part of bis career, but determinate later on. Finally, there have been authors like Roger Bacon who have found the source of individuation in principles external to a thing, for example in the natural or supematural agents that produced it. But these views have not been frequently defended in the history of philosophy and are very delicient from a theoretical point of view. 2. Individuation of Accidents. The views mentioned above are the most important with respect to the individuation of substances, and most other vi.:wscan be reduced to one of them. Now, those who, like most late Scholastics and like G. F. Stout and certain others in our own century, hold thal not only Aristotelian primary substances but also the propertics and accidcnts of substances, too. are subj.:ct IO individuation, have devised three basic type, of lheories to account for this individuation. The lirsl maintains that properties and accidcnh arc individuated through the substancc in which they are found. This is the vicw of Thomas Aquinas, for example. The second holds lhal the propertics and accidents of a subslancc

are individuated through other properties and accidents of that substance; this view has been defended by Boethius, for example. The third, adopted by Suarez and Stout, maintains that properties and accidents are individual through themselves. Dlscemlbllity of lndivlduals. The issue of the discemibility of individuals is epistemic, although it is frequently confused or purposefully identilied with the issue of individuation, as Russell and Strawson do. Individuation involves the identilication of the principle that makes something individual. The discernibility of individuals, on the other band, has to do with the principles that make possible the identilication of an individual by a knower: how and by what means are we able to discem individuals qua individuals? Obviously, the two issues are closely related, and this has made possible their frequent confusion in the history of philosophy. But there are authors, such as Suarez, Popper, and Castaiieda, who do not confuse them. In contemporary circles many authors believe, however, that the only legitimate issue for philosophers is the epistemic one. With respecl to the principles that philosophers have identilied as principles of discernibility, we find as many theories as there are of individuation, and they follow along much the same lines. There are bundle theories, and theories based on accidental, essential or evcn sui ger,eris principles. FURTHF.RREAUING

Armstrong, D. M„ 1989, Nmninulism und Rra/iJm, 2 vol~.. Camhritlgc: Cumhridgc Univcrsily PfC!):',,

Gracia, J. J. E .. l'JXH, l11divid1mlit\': "" Entn· or,

tht• fo11nclatim1.,of M1•taphv>in.•Alhany, N.Y.: Slali: Univcr!!.ity of New York Prc~s. 1988, lntruductw11 w tht• l'rohl,•m of ltuiil•ic/u. ution III the Ear/_1·Mi1/tllt•A11e.,.2nd rcv. cd„ Munich/Vicnna: Philosuphia. ln,li1·id1talitv, Marlinc, H. J„ 191!-1,lndi1•i1/11ulrnml Alhany, N.Y.: Stute Univcrsity ol New Yo;k Prc!io~. Munrtz, M. K„ cd„ 1971, /d,•mit1· und /111/i..,duutiun. New York: New York Ünivcrsitv Prcs!io, Straw,011, P. F .. 1959, /mlii•id1wls, London: -

Mclhucn amJ l'o.

Wrggin,, D„ 19XO, Sam,•11,.1·.1· ,md S1thsta11ce, Oxford: Hlackwcll.

389

Inevitability 'lnevitable' may be used to express either ( 1) a kind of time-dependent, conditioned natural necessity: or (2) a kind of time-independent natural necessity; or eise (3) a kind of (time-independent) absolute necessity. With (1) in mind we assen, for instance, that an event (or state of affairs, or action), which was not inevitable e.g. yesterday, has now become inevitable; or that, although it is not inevitable righ1 now, it is just about to become inevitable. The distinction between (1) and (2H3) is probably 10 be traced back 10Aris101le:··10say that everything that is. is of necessity. when it is. is not the same as saying unconditionally that it is of necessity~ (De lnt. 19a25-26). Two interrelated factors are al play in (1). Time: an event e mav be ine,itable at ,. but nol ha,·e been inevit~ble al anv earlier time: and a set of conditions c (plus.the pre,·ailing laws of nature). which need not have obtained at all. but whose ob1ainin2 at 1 depri,·es e of whatever possibilities ii bad. before ,. of not ix.-curring.More specifically. lhe obtainine of c at I neutralizes. as of after,. at least lh~ possible ways for e 00110 occur whose realization would not in,·oh·e any gratuitous departure from the way in which evenls of lhc type excmplificd by e are ·normally' or ·naturallf a,·ened. (For examplc: fullilmenl. on your opponent's part, of a sudden and irreversible craving for selfdestruction on lhe chessboard hardly qualilies as a ·normal' or 'natural" way for you to aven male, whereas an accurate defence on your part so qualifies. Now suppose male is inevitable at ,: c will then neutralize, as of after r. all possible ways of the latter. but not necessarily of the former. type.) Notice that ·e is inevitable at r' is actually shonhand for 'The occurrence of e at I + n is inevitable at r': e is first inevitable - e.g. at 1; then it occurs - e.g. at 1 + 11. (The present inevitability of the past is no exception here.

INEVITABILITY

A past event first occurred, and then it became inevitable: we still have two temporal indices. Not so the present inevitabilityofthe present, which only involves one temporal index - viz. now.) In a more familiar language: at all the physically, or causally, possible worlds whose history may or may not coincide with the history of our own world up to ,, but wherein c obtains at t, e occurs at t + n. Given c at t, that is, there is no physically, or causally, possible way for e not to occur: the proviso, 'if nothing "natural" interferes' makes little or no difference when the inevitable, be it taken in sense (1) or (2) or (3), is being dealt with. Things take a rather more drastic turn when it comes to (2) and (3) above. There being no question of anything's becoming inevitable here, talk of temporally dependent inevitability naturally gives way to talk of inevitability simpliciter. With (2) in mind we assen, to take the extreme case, that what will be is already inevitable, and always has been; and that, of what is and was, it always bad been inevitable that it would be. (This fairly accurately captures the idea of a wholly deterministic world: whether or not such a world counts as a world at which everything happens by absolute necessity, however, depends on whether or not the laws of nature prevailing !herein are themselves absolutely necessary. To say they are is to have (3) in mind: the strongest possible instance ofinevitability simpliciter.) Talk of a sei of conditions c, in turn, gives way 10talk of a chain of conditions the obtaining of each of which bad always been inevitable: such a chain will of course extend downwards in time to the very first instant of the history of the universe. Now clearly, taken in sense (1) •inevitable' expresses no kind of absolute, but rather a kind of conditioned or conditional. necessity. The distinction between conditioned necessity - the schoolmen's necessity ex suppositione (or ex h_vpothesi), or necessity secundum quid, or necessitas consequentiae - and absolute necessity or necessity simpliciter or necessitas consequentis goes back to Aristotle: very likely at play in the passage quoted at the outset of this article, it is explicitly stated in Analytica Priora 30b31-33: ··one might show by an exposition of terms that the

INEVITABILnY

conclusion is not necessary without qualifications, though it is necessary given the premisses". lt is essentially meant to show that something's being necessarily the case need not be incompatible with its being contingently the case. The idea is this: something may be necessary only on the hypothesis that suchand-such conditions obtain, contingently, at such-and-such a time (hence, plainly, the fact that inevitability in sense ( 1) is a kind of conditioned necessity). Or it may be necessary without any such hypothesis, hence necessary in an unconditioned or absolute way (as in the case of propositions which are true purely by virtue of the relations of concepts), hence incompatible with contingency. For instance: Diodorus is now running; then. given rhat he is, he could not but be moving (now). No (absolute) necessity, bowever. need attach to Diodorus's moving now. taken in and of itself. What is absolutely necessary here is the entire conditional (or ·consequence': necessiras consequentiae), 'lf Diodorus is running, then he is moving', not the consequent thereof - a questionable way of saying that the latter is ·merely' necessary secundum quid or ex supposirione. But let both the ·consequence' and the antecedent be necessary: then. the schoolmen maintained, the consequent will be necessary as weil. by necessiras consequentis. (This is the familiar modal principle. ·Jf (necessarily (if p, then q)), then (if necessarily p, then necessarily )' .) q Future contingents. The distinction just briefly described plays a fairly important role in scholastic and contemporary discussions of the problem of ·tuture contingents' (events whose futurition is a purely contingent mal· ter), the source of which is tu be found in Chapter 9 of Aristotle·s De lnterpretatione. There are two aspech of the problem: a theological aspect - thi, is the question whether or not God's (fort: )knowlwry of Later Medieval Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 358-83. Peter de Rivo. 1950.in L. Baudry, ed .. La Querelle des futurs con1ingen1,. Paris: J. Vrin, 7(1-106. 332-417. Prior. A .. 1967. Pa51,Presenl, und Future, Oxford: Oxford University Press. _ 1968. Pupen on Time und T,nse, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ryle, G., 1954. ···11was 10 1,e···, Uil,mmw.·. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 15-35. fABKIZIO MUNOAIJOIU

Infinity Which came first, the chicken or thc egg'! On the basis of such familiar empirical gcncralizations a, that every chicken comcs from a

chicken egg and every chicken egg from a chicken, even fairly young children can be brought to recoil laughingly from the logical consequence - an infinite sequence of those barnyard episodes reaching back into the past - and one is thus theologically ripe to accept the cosmological argument for the existence of God (as first cause). Notice that there is a non-standard as weil as a standard version of any such regress where the former features the small as opposed to the !arge infinite. Dividing an hour Zeno-fashion into successive segments each of which is respectively !. ¼,A etc. of the whole, the entire sequence consisting of chicken-egg--gical criteria for intention,11l,mguagc (i.c .. sentences that repon intentional phenomena). These criteria were found to hc delident in various ways (see. c.g.. Bealcr 1911:!).but they ne\·enhelcss constituted prnmising suggestions. In later years Chisholm ahandoned bis effon to give purely logical criteria for intentionality. lndced. he implicitly adopted the 'circle-ofintentional-concepts' posture pursuing a delinitional strategy that tries to deline ccrtain basic logical notions (e.g .. the notion of one property's involving another) in terms of certain intcmtional notions (e.g .. the

INTENTIONALil'Y

notion of a person's conceiving something). Within this scheme he then attempts general delinitions of intentionality and of the psychological. While not formally circular, this way of proceeding is far less illuminating philosophically, for it uses intentional notions in thc very delinition ofintentionality and the psychological.Moreover, within this scheme the prospect of a satisfactory logical theory is far less likely, given that some ultimate primitives in Chisholm's logical theory would be psychologicalnotions which are resistant to rigorous theoretical treatment. A LogicaJ Analysis of Intentionality.On the face of it, the term 'about' does not seem 10 be a psychologicalterm; on thecontrary, it seems topic neutral and, if anything, belongs to logic. broadly construed. In view of this, it would not be implausible that an analysis of the notion of an intentional phenomenon could be stated within an appropriate logical theory. Such an analysis was ventured by Bealer (1982 and 1986). A slightly altered version is presented below. By logic, we understand intensional logic, the son of logic in which equivalent expressions cannot always be substituted for one another without changing the truth-value of the sentences in which they occur. lntensionality in language results from reference to intensional entities, entities that can be equivalent without being identical. Propenies, relations, and propositions are the paradigmatic intensional entities. Among the various propenies and relations, cenain ones stand out as 'basic' or 'natural' (for example, green and blue) whereas others are derivative (e.g., grue, bleen, being identical to green, being distinct from blue, etc.). These basic or natural propenies and relations are called, respectively. qualities and connections. Derivative intensions can be obtained from these distinguished propenies and relations (and perhaps subjects of singular predications) by means of fundamental logical operations (conjunction. negation, existential generalization, singular predication, etc.). The intensions that can be so obtained may in that sense be considered complex. Notice that propositions (and other complt:x intensions) just on theirown, independ-

404

INTUmONISM

ently of whether anyone believes (or otherwise employs) them, are said to be abolll things. For example. the proposition that Socrates is wise is about Socrates and wisdom; and this would be so even if no one bad ever considered the proposition. The aboutness of complex intensions can evidently be successfully analysed within a suitably rieb intensional logic. Our thesis here is that the aboutness of all intentional phenomena derives from individuals' bearing relevant connections (namely, intentional connections) to complex intensions that, just on their own, are about things. We suggest the following definitions. Dl. A connection is hyperintensional if and only if it can contingently connect some individual to some complex intension without connecting the individual to some necessarily equivalent complex intension and without the original intension having veracity. D2. A connection is a mediating intentional connection if and only if it is-or is necessarily included in - a hyperintensional connection whose range is necessarily restricted to complex intensions. D3. A connection is a mediated intentional connection if and only if, necessarily. it connects an individual to an item only if some mediating intentional connection connects the individual to a complex intension !hat is about the item. D4. A conneclion is a direct intentional connection if and only if it is a hyperintensional connection thal is neither mediating nor mediated. (A complex intension has veracity if il is a irue proposition or a complex property or relation that applie~ lo ~mething actual.) Seeming, believing, knowing, and deciding are examples of mediating intentional connections; looking for and seeing ubjecn are examples of mediated intc:ntional connc:ctions; acquainlancc: is an c:xample uf a direct intentional conneclion. (These examplc:san: only heuristic; settling which intentional relation~ are genuine connecliun~ and which

intentional connections are mediating, mediated, or direct is ultimately a matter of theory.) With these definitions in place, we can state a purely logical analysis of the notion of an intentional phenomenon. Intentional phenomena are either basic or derived. A phenomenon p is a basic intentional phenomenon if and only if, for some individual x, some mediating, mediated, or direct intentional connection c, and some item y, p is the phenomenon of x's bearing c to y. Derived intentional phenomena are phenomena whose analysis depends in some essential way on basic intentional phenomena. FURTHER READING

Bealer, G .• 1982, Quality and Co11cep1,Oxford:

Oxford University Press. 1986, "The logical status or mind", Midwe,1 Studiesin Phi/osophy, Minneapolis, Minn.: University or Minnesota Press, 231-74. Chisholm. R., 1957, Perceiving: A Philosophica/ Study. lthaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. - 1960, Reali.sm and tlre Background of Phenomenology, New York: The Free Press. - 1989. "The nature or the psychological", On Metaphysic,, Minneapolis, Minn.: Universityof Minnesota Press. Dretske, F.• 1981, Knowledge and the Flow of Information. Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press. Searle. J .. 1983, lntelllionality, Cambridge: Cambridge Univer.-ityPress. Seilars, W., and Chisholm, R., 1958, "lntentionality and thc mental", in H. Feigl et al .. eds., Concepu, Theorie,, a11dthe Mind-Body Problem, Minncapoli,, Minn.: Univcrsity of Minncsota Pres., 507-39. -

UF.ORGE Bf.ALER

Intentions. Sec: Second Intentions Intuitionism Intuitionism is a mathc:matical programmc: founded by the Dutch mathematician Luitzc:n Egbc:rtus Jan Bruuwc:r ( ll!Kl-1%6). lt c:mc:rgc:d frum lhe tum-of-thc:-century drive: tu give a sel-lheorelic analysis of tht continuum (lhc: sei of real numbers. lhe sei of puints un lhe linc:) and uf funclions over lhe cunlinuum. During Ibis period it becume clc:ar !hat mathc:matics cannul dispensc: with

405 infinitistic methods. The continuum, for instance, was shown to be representable as a non-denumerably infinite set whose elements are themselves infinite sequences of rational numbers. Philosophically, Brouwer espoused an epistemological idealism which claimed that tbere can be no unexperienced truths, and an ontological idealism which claimed that all objects originale in the activity of a primordial consciousness. Brouwer, like Kant, held that empirical objects are generated by mental acts and that mathematical objects stem from the abstract a priori form of such acts. His approach, however. was more solipsistic than that of Kant. Moreover. he rejected the aprioricity of space. and based mathematics entirely on a refined conception of the aprioricity of time. Number Theory. The simplest mathematical act is that of distinguishing two diveße elements in the flow of consciousness. lf we add to this the possibility of repetition and concatenation. we can generate all of the individual natural numbers. the rational numbers. and the standard arithmetical operations. Equations like 358 + 27:! = 630 are. for Brouwer. repons of completed rompound constructions. The Continuum. l'nfonunately. the simple. terminating processes imol,ed in such arithmctical constructions cannot produce the infinit.: si:quenc~ "'hieb rompose the continuum. ·Proto-intuitionists'. such as Emile Borel l IS71-l) and Henri Leun Lebesguc l IH75-leiplines: 1. In epistemology a j udgement is a claim to have cognized or grasped something as true. lt is the episodic manifestalion of a subject's belief ur of a change of belief. 2. In the philosophy of languagc a j udgcment is defined as thc mental cuunlerpart of assertion. Even 1hough judgements need not be exprcssed in uverl

linguistic acts they can always be conceived as intemalized assertions. 3. In the philosophy of mind, making a judgement is a way of relating oneself to an object. The object can be a simple one if the relation is established by accepting or rejecting something; complex objects are needed as relata if the relation is derived from attitudes like believing. 4. Finally, in formal ontology a judgement can be explained as a case of imposing a certain grammatical form upon a segment ofreality. The projected structure is called a propositional form; what the judgement brings into being or locates in reality is called a state of affairs. All four explanations hint at a relation between the performance of a judgement and what is judged in such a performance. This distinction has become famous as that between act and object, or more recently between thought and content. Quite apart from explaining these categories, this raises the problem of what having an object or having a content means. How one addresses this question will depend on which philosophical discipline (from the above list) one regards as competent in analysing the relation between an act and its object or content. In virtue of what do judgemcnts mcan anything'! Should we appeal: 1. to our sensual cxperiences which bring us into contact with thc cxtcrnal world, 2. to our capacity tu undcrstand scntcnces and thcrcby grasp thc bcarcrs of ubjective truth and falsity, 3. tu thc dircctcdncss towards a mindindepcndcnt objcct as thc distinguishing mark of thc mental. or 4. tu the projcclions involvcd in passing from a world of disconnccted objects to a world uf interrclated facts'! The ClllliSicalView. An cxplanation of type ( 1) b given by the so-called 'idealist theory of

judgcmenl' according to which a judgcment consish in the pcrception of agreement or disagrecmcnt bctween clcments of consciousm:ss. For such comparison to bc: pos-

417 sible, the elements must be given to the mind separately. The mind recognizes their identity or diversity and thereby unifies these elements into the complex content of a judgement. This account received its classical form in the epistemological tradition of British empiricism, and was sustained particularly by the German idealists. Its starting-point is sensual experience. on the basis of which knowledge is gained by fitting together ideas which are in agreement or by keeping them separate ifthey are distinct (cf. John Locke's Essay Conceming Human Understanding, Book 4, xiv. 4). An advantage of Locke's theory. which partly explains its inftuence, lies in the fact that it agrees with traditional logic. Aristotle had defined the proposition as a combination ofsubject and predicate. Locke. similarly. takes the act of judgement as a combining together of elements of thought. Howe\'er. the logical combinations Aristotle is dealing wilh need not in\'01\·eany commitment to truth or falsity. Thus it was natural to conclude that the unif)ing (or separating) aspect does not exhausr the notion of judgement. Kant draws this conclusion when he argues that for any combination of ideas to become a j udgement it must include an awareness of ·objecti\'e \'alidity· (B 14lf., Prolegomena. §22). The classical ,iew is thereby not rduted but only modified. Where Lo,:kc says that in making judgements we percei"e some relalion within our consciousncss. Kant adds that .-·e percei\'e this rclation 1l< ho/ding rmder objectil'e conditions. Oth~r subjects may just as weil realize thcsc conditiom 10 oblain on the basis of similarly rclatcd clements in rheir consciousness. This objecti,·e character of judgement plays a crucial role also in Edmund Husserl (cf. Logical ln.-esrigarions V. Chapter 5) and. from yct anolher point of view. in logical positi\'ism (cf. Moritz Schlick. General Theon· of Knowledge. §8). The Bolzano-Fnge View. If judgements were contined 10 lhe mental synthesis of purely mental ideas, lhen lheir truth would be exclusively a matter of the private states of 1he judging mind. Bernard Bolzano and Gottlob Fri:ge avoid such idealism or im-

JUDGEMENT

manentism by introducing sentences-inthemselves and thoughts as objective bearers of truth and falsity (Bolzano, Wissenschafts/ehre, §25; Frege "The thought"). Truths-inthemselves are not only supposed to exist independently of being affirmed; they are supposed also to be accessible to us without being acknowledged as true. The problem what it is for a judgement to have content is thus exchanged for the problem how such access is tobe understood. What is it to grasp a sentence-in-itself or a Fregean thought, in contrast to understanding the utterances of a speaker or enjoying a reflexive awareness of one's own thinking? Provided with an answer to these questions we may then ask: what has to be added to the mere entertaining of a thought in order to yield a judgement? Frege describes a judgement as a step from the sense of a sentence to what the sentence refers to (cf. "On sense and reference""). But we do not know how to "advance from a thought to its truth value" unless we already know how to arrive at a thought in the first place. The Bolzano-Frege approach does, however. have advantages from a linguistic point of view. There are two reasons for introducing objective truth-value-bearers into a theory of language. First, the same sentence can either be used to express a judgement or to express a mere content without any intellectual stand as to its truth or falsity. The lauer is the case e.g. when the sentence occurs as the antecedent of an if-then clause or as a relative clause reporting a belief the speaker does not share. Second. to every sentence expressing a judgement there are variant sentences expressing questions, promises. commands, etc. Though Frege did not develop a speechact theory. bis Begriffsschrift provides a special sign for the illoculionary force of judging. As M. Dummett has pointed out, this suggests adding to Frege 's theory of sense and reference a systematic treatment of asserrion (see his Frege. Philosophy of Language, Chapter lO). To a certain extent such an integrated theory of meaning and assertion might take the place of traditional theories of judgement. Attitudes: the Psychological Aspect of

JUDGEMENT

Judgements. The major obstacle confronting

the linguistic approach is that of giving a unitary explanation for the use of sentences in making statements. What are we doing when we assert something? Since nothing is added to what is claimed tobe true it might be assumed that the distinctive feature of an assertion can lie only in the attitude which the subject takes towards what it has grasped. Assertions can then be explained as the making public of such an attitude. Attitudinal theories of judgement divide into two main classes. depending on whether propositions are or are not accepted as the objects of thought. Non-propositional variants have been developed by Franz Brentano. Bertrand Russell. Peter Geach. and Roderick M. Chisholm. Propositional variants are accepted by David Hume. John Stuart Mill. Alexius Meinong. and probably by the majority of contemporary philosophers. The contrast between these different frameworks is often blurred by an inaccurate reading of Brentano. According to Brentano. everv mental phenomenon is characterized bv it; directedness towards an object. Judge~ents are then tobe understood as manifesting a special case of this directedness relation. Tue standard view is that in judging we are directed to what is claimed to be true. This explication. however. presupposes a notion of objects which are capable of being true or false. in contrasl to objects like chairs and tables which either exist or do not exist. Only the former are ·judgeable". as Frege puts it. Brentano. however. claims that judgcments are not directed to objects of a peculiar sort. lf we can conceive of A. we can also take an intellectual or emotional stand with respecl to A. This forces him lo rejecl the subject/ predicate analysi, as revealing the general_ form of a judgement. Pred1catmg that A 1sf cannot be the most basic form. since therc are judgements of ·acceptancc. and ·rcjcction. taking simply A as thc1r urnquc ohJccl (Brentano. Die Lehre vom richtigen Urteil, p. 98). Brentano insists that thc objcct of a judgement is a non-propositional cntily. ff onc judges that A exists, it is simply A. nol A 's cxi,ting. which is acccptcd. Thc tcrm 'cx1,1cncc • adds nothing to thc conlent cxprcsi,cd.

418

just like Frege's assertion-sign. But whereas Frege puts his sign in front of complete sentences, Brentano uses it to turn a singular or general term into the expression of a judgement. This makes it impossible to quote any sentence of the analysed form •A +' or 'A- •. Once we pul the sentence in quotation marks it loses its assertive force. The only way of giving an example for an asserted sentence would be actually to use it for making a statement. lt is such sentences-inuse which are of the form 'A+' or 'A-'. As soon as we mention one of them it will not exhibit this form any more. Such difficulties are avoided in a multiple relation theory of judgement as first proposed by Russell in a paper „On the nature of truth" (Proceedings of the Aristo1eliu11 Society, 1906-7) but later dismissed in his essay on „The philosophy of logical atomism" of 1918. Like Brentano. Russell is opposed to the view that in making judgements wc take an attitude towards some preconstituted proposition. lnstead he claims that every judgement consists in a many-termed relation. the number of terms bcing theoretically unlimited. Many objcctions have been raised against this theory, most importantly that it does not explain the common feature in virtue of which all the multiple relations constitute a judgement. What distinguishes the relation bctwccn S, A. and F. if S judges that A is F. from any othcr rclation which may obtain bctwccn thcsc terms'? Geach. in his Memul Acts (1957). proposes a revisiun of Russcll's thcury which. he claims, solvcs this difficulty. Thc upshot of his proposal is thal whcncvcr a judgcmcnl• rc:lation R obtains bctwccn S, A and f". thcrc is an analogous rclalion R' ub1aining bctwcen S's conccption uf A aml his conccption of F. In vinuc of th1s intramcntal rclalion R' it is as if somc ·mental uttcrnncc· of S reprc,sents the stalc of alfairs lh,11 A is f". llcrc Gcach rdics on thc idc,1 of an 'inner languagc· and on a Tractarian pictun: theory of rcprcsc,ntation. Bul 1hcrc: might bc othcr ways of re,cuing thc multiplc-n:lation thcory. At presenl lhc must promising candidate would seem tobe Chisholm ·, theory of direct and indirect allribution. as cxpoundcd in his book nie 1-ir.\'Il'emm (1981).

419 Where non-propositional theories of judgement are entangled with all sorts of difficulties, their propositional competitors are marked by a surprising simplicity and it has been in its propositional form that tbe explanation of judgement in terms of attitudes has bad a predominant inftuence of late. The act of judgement, according 10 this kind of explanation, is (or at least depends on) an attitude towards a proposition. Here the term 'proposition' may be replaced by any expression designating a truth-valuebearer. After all, what makes propositions interesting for the judging mind is exactly their being true or false. Hence the attitude in question can only be some variant of holdingtrue or of assuming tobe true (cf. Meinong. On As.sumptions. 1902). lt has often been observed tbat a judgement is more than a mere sequence of concepts and ideas. But is there an additional ingredient which binds together its successi,·e elemenls'! Someone holding a propositional attitude theory will argue that in judging we lake a ~land towards what is alread,· a unified whole. We cannot believe a mere.conglomeration of ideas. but neither can we hope it or wish it. etc. Thus the problem of propositional unitv is shifted to a more eeneral le,·el. lt has no panicular bearing on ~be notion of judgement but concems equall~-all the other attitudes we ma~·take to\\ard,; a proposition. lt is exactly this in,-orpl,rJtion into the larger project of a theo~ of propositional allitudes which lends apparent simplicity 10 the analysis of juJgement. Once the nature of propositional a11i1uJes has been taken for grnntcJ it hecomes ,1 matter of spadework to formul.11ene.:essan· and surficient criteria for the different kinds ~,fallitudes. (John Searle·s pruje.:1 of founding spcech-act theory on a theury of intentionality proceeds along these lines.) Howe,·er. lhere is still a need to explain what makes an enlily a possible objecl of belief. The need for such a distinclion as Meinong drew between 'objects' and ·obje,1ives' makes the explanation of judgemenl in terms of propositional allitudes less simple than it appcars al lhe outsel. Slates or Alfairs: thc OntologicalAspect or Judgements. A fourth possible approach to the theory of judgement starts from thc:

JUDGEMENT

premiss that judgements, along witb questions, wishes, etc., have not one, but two different kinds of content. On the one band, all these mental acts may share a content as their conceptual input, i.e. they may contain the same descriptive elements. But judgements are distinguished from tbe rest wben their content is conceived as an output. Hence the output of an act cannot be fully detennined by tbe concepts which it involves. A distinction along these lines was suggested by Husserl in bis Logical /nvestigations,V, Chapter 4. Every judgement, Husserl says, intends a certain object, which can be specifiedwhetherornot the judgement is true. But what is it, Husserl asks, that determinestbe specified object tobe the one intended in the present act? There must be something in tbe act which directs it to its object. Husserl calls that what directs the act to its object the maner of the act, what we have called its conceptual input. This be contrasts with tbe qualityof the act, which may vary even if the matter remains the same. Now, if the content, taken as an input, is not sufficient for determining the content, taken as an output, the quality of tbe act must somebow contribute to this detennination. We must expec the object of an act 10depend on its qualil) Even if a judgemenl and a wish or questior. agree in their conceptual elements, they do not mean 'the same thing'. Tue judgement intends that such and such is the case, the wish intends that such and such werethe case. and so on. Husserl's initial move in this direction was introducing states of affairs as the objects of judgements. However. this alone would not suffice to distinguish judgements from other mental acts. One can not only judge that some state of affairs obtains. one can also conceive it witbout believing or ·positing' it, and one can even name it, as Husserl says. However. all these lauer acts are 'modifications' of the act of judgement, which is therefore most directly linked to the state of affairs intended in each case (op. eil., §38). This is eontrary to tbe view tbat one may first ,-onceive a state of affairs and arrive at a judgement by adding a positing quality 10 it. Husserl opposes this view wben he says tbat in judging "we perfonn not a mere succession

420

JUDGEMENT

of presentations, but ... a peculiar 'unity of consciousness' which connects lhe presentations. Andin this conneclion the grasping of a state of affairs is conslituted for us" (op. eil., §36). The idea that judgement has intrinsically 10 do with 'formation' or ·constilution' was lhe modern view in Husserl's day. This can be seen from the book Die Urteilsfunktion (1895) of William Jerusalem (1854-1923) where we read lhat "in judgement a forming and structuring takes place of what is presented'" (p. 76). lt is important 10 notice how this view differs from Locke 's dictum that judgement consisls in a unification of ideas. The new spirit comes from whal is taken 10be the result of this unificatory process. For Locke the resulling judgement differs only in complexity from the ideas as separately given. Husserl mighl argue that the process of formation does not concern the matter al all. Rather the judging mind uses what is separately given in presentation for constituting a complex not of these enlilies, bul of whatever these presenlations are presentations of. From Ibis il follows that states of affairs must be given to us as the complexes resulting from possible judgements. There is an ontological dependence here of the notion of state of affairs on the notion of judgement. lt is claimed not only that we cannot conceive of states of affairs except as the intended objects of possible judgements, but also that there are no states of affairs without foundations in judgement. States of affairs are intentional objects. in the sense of being necessarily linked to the intentional phenomenon of judgement. This linkage can be defended only by referring to certain formal properties of states of affairs. They have tobe considered as structured entities in such a way that for reality to contain such parts there must be judgements cleaving it apart in just these ways. This formal aspect is best cxplained if we consider how states of affairs are rcprcsented in Janguage. This is done cither by completc sentences or by that-clauscs. lf wc arc Platonisb about states of affairs it does not matter which ofthese grammatical forms wc choose. But if wc think of statcs of affairs as dcpcnding on some operation of thc human mind,

then it is the sentence which has priority. lt is in senlences lhal we express our judgements. Hence it is in a sense the grammatical form of the ( asserted) sentence which is projected onlo reality. However, such onlological modesty has its difficulties too. How are slates of affairs related 10 facts? ls it sufficient to distinguish between obtaining and non-obtaining slates of affairs or must we acknowledge positive and negative ones also? Adolf Reinach, a student of Husserl, classified states of affairs in both ways (see bis "On the theory of lhe negative judgemenl", 1911, reprinted in Reinach's Sämtliche Werke). Ludwig Wittgenstein, in lhe Tractatus (1921), accepts 1he obtaining/non-obtaining distinction, but he has no use for negative states of affairs. Both conceptions may be criticized for not taking sufficiently seriously the requirement that states of affairs be merely imended objects. Thus they come near to reducing the ontological account of judgements to a variant of the propositional attitude theory. States of affairs whose obtaining is independent of being intended are just likc propositions which are true or falsc indepcndently of being grasped. The attitude of holding a proposition to be true is simply replaced by the attitude of taking a state of affairs to obtain. Only the terminology has changed. FURTifER READING

Bell, 0., 1979, Fre11,., 11rt•ur_v"f Judgrment, Oxford: Clarcndon PrcS>. McNicholl, A„ 197~. ··On Judging"', Thr Thomist, 3H. 7~H25. Mulligan. K .. IIJHH.••Judgings: lhcir Pan, and Coun1crpar1,··, 7,,,wi. Supplcmcnl 2, 117--IN. Nuchclmam•. ü., 11J7.l, '/'lwor,,•.'ioj tht' l'ropm;itiun, Am\tcrJam: :\iorlh I lollarnJ.

Schmu, R .. l'JH5. "Allgcmcinhcil und Exi,1cn,. Zur Analy,L" tlc, kalcgori,l·hL·n Ur1cils hc1 Hcrharl. Sigwart. Brcntano und Frc~c", Ciru:er Philusophi.H"he Studim. 23. 5~ 7H.

Smilh, B .. 1982. ··(n1roduc1iun lo Adolf Reinach 'On thc thcory uf thc ncl,!all\'C judgcmcnt'". in B. Smith. c.physical_geogra_phy, and mineralogy. He was pres1dcnt ot the university from ]786 to 1788. Thc works of his later, ·critical' period represent. a grand unified theory of British cmpmct;\m and continental European rationahsm. 1 hts conceptual synthcsis had a trcmen_dousmflu~~ce on thc development of phtlosophy. _rhc critical realism of Kant's carly pubhcattuns shinc, through in his •critical' works, which

422

have often been misconstrued as an expression of idealism. Early Atomism. In his early work Monadologia physica (1756), Kant advocated an atomistic conception of matter, stating that all physical bodies are composed of a finite number of absolutely simple substances. He rejected, however, both Rene Descartes's theory of corpuscles, in which matter is identified as extension without any force acting at a distance, and Sir Isaac Newton's postulation of mechanically passive atoms. lnstead, Kant maintained a modified version of the Leibnizian theory of monads. Leibniz's monads are dynamic in an organic sense; they have a vis viva, a vivid, perceptive force without action at a distance. On the other hand, Kant's monads are dynamic in a physical sense; they are carriers of a repulsive and an attractive external force. These composition-dependent forces are inversely proportional to the third and second power of the distance, respectively. By virtue of its repulsive force, each monad has a sphere of influence which is impenetrable. This sphere of influence corresponds to the notion of an atom in modern physics, so that, apart from their indivisibility, Kant's monads correspond to modern atomic nuclei. Moreover. Kant accepted Newton's law of inertia and the law of conservation of momentum on impact. The mass of a body is proportional to the sum of the inertial forces of its monads. Spuce is infinitely divisible and, thcrefore, is not made up of monads; it emerges from the external relations of collcctions of monads. At this time Kant w:1sinnucnccd hy Lcibniz's relativistic thcory of spacc. Thus, ir two physical bodic~ al different timcs havc the samc external rclations lo an arhitrarily choscn sei of n:fercncc suhstam:cs, then they occupy thc ~amc po~ition. Thc position of u substancc x may bc rcprcscntcd hy thc collcction of all suhstanccs occupying thc samc position as x at somc time. Hcnce, p is a position if and only if thcre is an .r such that p is thc position of x. Spacc for Kant in this carly pcriod may bc conccivcd of as a threedimcnsional continuum of all positions. l'he l:ritical Phllrn.ophy. Thc thcory or matter in Kant's works from thc 'critical' period diffcrs considcrahly from his earlicr

423

KANT, JMMANUEL J: A SYNTHESIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONAUSM

atomistic view and is entangled in bis complex epistemology. In the Critique of Pure Reason ( 1781) he propounded a conception which is in certain respects reminiscent of the Aristotelian doctrine of primary matter, and he tried to combine Ibis tenet with a purely kinematic science of matter. He postulated a constant persisting substance, the thing-assuch (Ding an sich), which is the basis of all changes of phenomena. (This suggests a comparison between the thing-as-such and Aristotle's unmoved mover.) Tue existence of this persisting substance is a necessary condition for the concatenation of successive states in time. According to a further principle of Kant's, every transition from one state to another is subject to the law of causality. Moreover, as in bis earlier period. Kant assumed the existence of an attractive and a repulsive force, both acting at a distance. Tue magnitude of these fundamental forces determines the state of matter as a persisting substance. We experience matter as a persisting substance by means of these forces only; all other properties of matter "'ill remain unknown to us. Knowlcdge results from the combination of sensuous intuition and conceptual thougbt. To Kant an imuition (Anschauung) is a singular idea (Ein=efrorstellung) directly representing exactly one object, whereas a concept is a general idea indirectly representingseveral objects. In an intuition an object is shown, whereas in a thought a concept is shown and obje,·ts an: thereby apprehended. A p11re intuition exhibits only the space and time n:lati,,nships under which an object is apprdu:ndcd. In an empirical intuition a scnsation is excited by an object. An empincal intuition presupposes the presence of thc cnrresponding ohject and therefore is a posteriori. i. e „ dependent on experience. The pure intuition. however, is independent of the spatial and temporal existence of any objects: it only depends on the capacity ofthe senses and is a priori. During his critical period Kant held the view that space is a form of the intuition and that human beings discover all geometrical properties through this form. The knowledge acquin:d by mi:ans of thi: spatial intuitiw form is said to bi: synthetic a priori. Accord-

ing to Kant, therefore, Euclidean geometry is synthetic a priori, i.e., an abstract description of the world of experience independent of the existence of particular objects of experience. This implies that the universe has an exact scale model. Kant tried in vain to find a synthesis of the Newtonian and Leibnizian theories of space by postulating that the universe is both finite and unlimited (and hence homogeneous). 1nbis famous antinomy about space he grappled with the incompatibility ofthese properties and it was thus that he came to his conclusion that space is not an object but a form of the intuition. The Aristotelian notion of designated matter (materia signata in the terminology of Thomas Aquinas) corresponds in certain respects to Kant's notion of matter as a substance in space. This aspect of matter can be constructed in the intuition by means of the two fundamental forces. As an object of the intuition, matter is completely reducible to the fundamental forces. According to the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (1786), physics - in contrast to metaphysics and philosophy in general should use only kinematic and dynamic concepts and get on without the primitive notion of matter. In contrast to the philosopher, the physicist employs exclusively pure and empirical intuitions and, therefore, does not need the concept of matter. Tue quantity of matter of a body must be determined in a purely kinematic manner by measuring the quantity of motion, i.e., the magnitude and direction of velocities and the length of time intervals. Tbe Synthetic a priori. According to the Critique of Pilre Reason, metaphysics is the discipline of synthetic a priori knowledge. A true judgement is synthetic if it is not analytic, and it is analytic if it is equivalent to a true judgement of subject-predicate form in which the predicate is included in the subject. From Kant's exposition in the Logik (1800), it appears that a concept B is included in the concept A if and only if A is a conjunction of concepts: X and Band Y, where X or Y may be an empty conjunction. Hence, a judgement is analytic or synthetic depending on the definitions of its concepts. In his discussion of mathematical judge-

KANT, IMMANUEL I: A SYNTHESIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM

ments Kant employed a generalized criterion of analyticity: a true judgement is analytic if it follows from the logical axiom of contradiction. If we combine Kant's two definitions of analyticity, we arrive at the Fregean notion: an analytic truth is one that can be derived exclusively from logical axioms and definitions. According to Kant, analytic judgements do not extend our knowledge. Thus Gottlob Frege, who adhered to the view that arithmetical truths are analytic, ran into difficulties when trying to account for the inforrnativeness of arithmetical laws and numerical equations of the form of 'a = b', where •a' and •b' refer to the same number in different ways. This dilemma was eluded by Kant who declared most truths of arithmetic to be synthetic a priori. Kant's conception of the nature of arithmetical judgements is based on the presupposition that the concepts of arithmetic are conjunctions of simple concepts and that their properties can be discovered by a resolution into constituent marks. A further presupposition is the distinction between the notions of composition (Zusammensetzung) and addition. According to Kant, the arithmetical operation of addition can only be carried out by constructing examples in the intuition. This reference to the intuition constitutes the synthetic character of the judgements of arithmetic. Other synthetic a priori judgements are the theorems of Euclidean geometry, ethical judgements such as the categorical imperative, and the so-called analogies of experience, i.e., the principles of causality and conservation of matter and a generalized law of gravity. The central problem of Kant's metaphysics is to show that such synthetic a priori judgements are possible. How can the truth of a non-logical judgement be comprehended without reference to experience? Kant tried to answer this question, which originated in David Hume ·s attempt to justify the rules of induction, by certain arguments in his transcendental analytil:s. These arguments are 'transcendental' in the sem,e that they start from a priori premisses and establish fundamental propertics of our capacity for knowledge. The proofs of the transcendental analytics

424

depend on the notions of experience (Erfahrung) and phenomenon. In Kant's terminology, a phenomenon is a content of apperception which is apprehended by the pure seif beyond space and time (in Kant's sense). The contents of perception may form either a chaos or a synthetic whole organized by the categories, which are concepts (such as quantity, quality, relation, etc.) embedded in the mind. An experience is a structured set of all contents ofperception in a person's mind. A substance in space and time may be conceived of as a sequence of phenomena. Under this interpretation, a phenomenon is a substance in space at a particular time. A transcendental proof essentially amounts to the deduction of a necessary condition of the following form: 'The set M of phenomena has the property P', from a judgement of the form of 'M is an experience'. A necessary premiss of such proofs is the •fact of experience', namely that M exists. To guarantee that the conclusion is a priori, this premiss must also be a priori. Kant's transcendental aesthetics, the science of the a priori principles of empirical knowledge, is based on an ontology reminiscent of that of Aristotle with its distinction between primary matter, designated matter, and pure form. Hence, we may say that part of the unstructured matter outside the mind (i.c., the thing-as-such) is mapped into a visual spacc in an empirical intuition. By this mapping thc undeterrnined matter obtains a form, a structure. In a pure intuition, matter is disrcgardcd and only pure forms arc considcrcd. TheThlng-as-Such.Thc notion of thing-assuch is one of thc most clusivc constructions in thc history of philosophy. Yet a rational rcconstruction of Kant's ontology dcpcmls on the interprctation of this notion. In order to achieve such a synthcsis wc may idcntify the thin,:-as-such as an opcn sei D without any structure. Wc thcn considcr a triple such that F is a sct of onc-to-one mappings of D into an a priori intuitive. threc-dimcnsional Euclidcan point set and such that q is a rcal-valued function of subsets of /J ubtained hy denumcrably many unions ur intcrsections ut subscts of D. Thc function 1/indicatc~ thc distrihution of thc quantity uf

425

KANT, IMMANUEL II: KANT'S METAPHYSICS

motion at a given time. Tue subsets of tbe basic set D are tbe ranges of definition of tbe F-functions; otberwise tbeir elements have no representable properties. We shall call such a triple a 'transcendental structure' on D. A phenomenon (in the sense of a substance in space) is essentially a transcendental structure on the thing-as-such. A phenomenon at timet ( in tbe sense of a content of apperception) is a structure , where f, is a member of some Fand exhibits the geometric form of the phenomenon at t. The position of a region X of D in the Fconfiguration f, is the region f,(X] of an intuitive space R. The motion of a phenomenon in R is a set of functions in F. A transcendental structure on the thing-as-such tbus determines the physical properties of tbe corresponding phenomenon. Hence, the elements of F represent a kind of interaction (called ·affection· by Kant) between tbe thing-as-such and the intuiti\'e spaces. The pure seif is essentially an automorphism of the thing-as-such. Ft:RTIIER READING

Eislcr. R .. 1989. Kant•Lnikon. .\"acluchl.i,e,,·,rk =uKant.ssümt/1ch,nSchnften.Bnef,n unj handschrijilich,m .\"a,·hlaß. reprint. Hildesheim: Olms. Ratke. H .. l'ln. SutityPress. privation is that, when identified with evil, it Kirk,G. S., Raven,J. E., andSchofield,M.,1983, appears to make evil illusory, since privation, Tlie Presocratic Philosop/,ers, Cambridge: and hence evil, is a lack of being. This is an CambridgeUnivcrsityPress. Mansfield,J., 1983-6,Die Vorsokratiker,2 vols., objection voiced by both medieval and conStuttgart:Reclam. temporary authors. For the medievals, tbe FRIEDO RICKEN question focused on the explanation of positive evil, evil which does not appear to be privative, such as pain, error, and avarice. Contemporary writers, especially in the Privation existentialist camp, focus on the palpable Privation has long been understood to be a reality of experienced evils such as blindness. kind of lack, a lack of what naturally belongs Underlying these questions are both epito a subject. lt is a normative concept, stemological and ontological puzzles over the making reference to the nature of the subject. status of privation. How can privation be Human nature, for example, requires sight, glaringly evident and in some sense real but not wings. Thus, the lack of wings is not a while at the same time be unreal because privation, but the lack of sight is. The normatthe absence of being? ive force is to be found in the requirements A response endorsed by Suarez and of the subject's nature. A mere lack, unqualiThomas Aquinas makes clear that the ontofied by the requirements of some nature, logical s~atus of privation is that it is an object such as a human's lack ofwings, is known as a ofthe mmd (ens rationis) which has a foundanegation. Privation and negation were distion in reality, i.e., it refers to real entities. tinguished by Aristotle and the distinction Positive evil they characterize as a privative was observed by bis successors. In Metarelation between real entities. In neither physics IV 2, Aristotle says: author is there any denial of the reality of the experience of evil or a turn toward a subjectfor negationmeansjust the absenceof the thingin ivism in which thinking something evil makes question.whilein privatio~ther~is ~lso_employed it so. At the same time, neither claims that an underlyingnature of wh1chpnvauon 1sasserted evil itself has being, since it would then be (1004al5;cf. !022b22and 1046a31). good. Their middle course is to say that the referents of privation have being while privaThis understanding of privation is nontion itself does not. moral and arises out of a conception of the Much of contemporary philosophy sidecoextension of value and being. Since everysteps the above questions by denying the thing which is good has being, evil is idennormative conception of natures and the tified with privation because privation is a coextension of value and being. lack of being. This, bowever, is not a moral sense of evil, since pain, bitterness of taste, and the lack of heat in water are all examples FURTHER READING of evil on such a view. Moral evil is but one instance of the more general concept of Barrel!, W., 1958, Irrational Man, AppendixI, New York: Doubleday. privation. The chief historical sources of this Gracia, J. J. E., and Davis, D., 1989, The view are Plato (Rep. 6, 509; Phaedo 77),

impelled by 'spirit'. The most influential effort to explain nature via an Eleatic is the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus.

oi

725

PROCESS

Mrtap/1ysic,·of Gootl am/ Evil Accortli11g ltJ

S11,irez, Munich/Hamdcn/Vicnna:Philosophia. Hcnningcr, M„ 1989, Relatio11s: Mctliel'lll Theori,s1250-1325, Oxford: Oxford Univcrsity Press.

McCloskcy, H. J., 1974, Gotl am/ Evil. Thc Hague:M. Nijhofr. PerczRuiz.F.. 1982,Metafisica de/ mal, Madrid: Universidad PontificiaComillas. DOUGLAS P. DAVIS

Probabilistic Metaphysics. See: MetaphysicsV Process Process,change. and event are the main ontological 'categories of becoming•. The categoryof process is used primarily to express a continuous dynamic character of reality.i.e., continuous activity, emergence, or transiency. Process Philosophy. The earliest philosophicaltradition which promoted the view that the category of process expresses the truenature of reality is Buddhism. Heraclitus ofEphesus. who held that the universe maintainsitself as constant flux between opposiles, was the first Western philosopher to developa process-philosophical approach. In Westernthought. the history of ontological schemesdisplays a strong bias against the categoriesof becoming. This can partly be explained by the influence of Christian thought; the reality of change was denied becauseit contravenes the immutability of God who, knowing of a genuinely changing world.would appear to change himself. More importantly, the disregard for dynamic notionscan be said to result from the influential alliance between the categories of being (object (substance), attribute, fact) and the epistemologicalthesis that knowledge proper concernseternal truths. Although Aristotle's notionofform (in particular as interpreted by Averroes) and Leibniz's notion of a monad address processual aspects of empirical reality. most traditional ontologies from Plato onwards downgrade dynamic features of appearance and relegate dynamic categoriesto the domain of opinion. Similarly, most contemporary ontologies neglect

dynamical categories in so far as they have no straightforward representation within the 'canonical' logical frameworks (i.e.. predicate logics) normally used for the philosophical reconstruction of knowledgeclaims. Some of the philosophers who explicitly consider the notion of proccss accept the epistemological thesis that we can explicitly know only of items belonging to a static category (i.e., a fact or state of affairs), and stress that the 'exclusive fixations' of our common conceptual analysis of experience are inadequate for expressing what is dynamic. The true processual nature of reality is then either seen as being radically prior to, and thus inaccessible to, fully categorized reßective awareness(Henri Bergson, William James, Samuel Alexander); or it is declared to be cognitively accessible only from within a 'movement' of reflection about traditional categories which establishes their dynamic interpretation (Hegel). Process philosophers of a second variety, however, reject the thesis that the dynamic aspect of reality is ineffable or such as to require a particularstyle ofthinking. Some of these process thinkers consider it the task of process philosophy to introduce a new scheme of categories, in order to overcome the fixed oppositions of traditional 'absolutist' metaphysics. Here the idea of process is used to mediate between realms of being (e.g., inorganic and organic nature) that are traditionally separated (cf. C. Lloyd Morgan, Emergent Evolutio11,1923).The most speculative forms of process metaphysicsundercut the traditional nature-spirit dichotomy by stipulating that whatever belongs to reality is constituted by atomic processes which are modelled on feelings (Charles S. Peirce, "The architecture of theories", 1891;Francis H. Bradley. Appearance 011dReality, 1893; Alfred N. Whitehead, Processand Reality, 1929; Charles Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God, 1941). In Whitehead's 'philosophy of organism', these constituent 'feelings' introduce a valuative dimension into all forms of being and manifest divine creativity; this aspect has stimulated the development of process thought in theology. Peirce, on the other hand, postulates as the initial character of the universe an 'unpersonalized feeling'

PROCESS

which by a process of evolutionary selection is transformed into the natural regularities described in scientific laws. Other process philosophers of this second kind hew more closelyto the methodological approach of contemporary analytical philosophy; they try to accommodate the categories of becoming within ontological schemesthat explicate the logicalstructure of conceptual frameworks employed in science and common sense. (Paul Weiss, Reality, 1938; Andrew P. Ushenko, Power and Events, 1946; Roman Ingarden, Time and Modes of Being, 1964; Wilfrid Seilars, "Foundations for a metaphysicsof pure process", T/ie Monist, 1981.)The followingconsiderations focus on this properly ontological strand of process thinking. Accountsof Process. Taken in its wide sense, the notion of process refers to any change, whatever its complexity and structure (a sneezing, a waltzing, the Industrial Revolution). On-goingsin this general sense, whichin Aristotelian metaphysicsare characterized as "actuality of potentiality as such" (Phys. III, 1), may be defined extensionally as follows: p is a process if and only if p is continuant in space and bounded in time, and the same parts of p cannot be at thc same place at different times (cf. E. Zemach, 1970 "Four ontologies", Joumal of P/1ilosop/1y 61, 231-47).

In its narrow sense, the notion of 'process' demarcates a certain type of change as contrasted with events. For some authors the category 'event' applies to instantaneous changes while 'process' characterizes a temporally extended development (e.g. Ingarden, op. cit.). Recent work in verb semantics has seized on elements of Arislotle's distinction between 'activities' and 'movements' (Met. IX, 6) in order to classify processes, as 'homeomerous' happenings which, unlike events, have no structure or internal development (A. Mourelatos, 1978, "Events, processes, and states", Ling11istics and Philosophy 2, 415-34). Rather, in analogy to masses, processes are considered to be spatio-temporallyextended entities whose spatio-temporal parts are 'qualitatively' the same as the whole entity itself (e.g., running,

726 buzzing, spinning) (E. Bach, 1986, "The and Phllosophy algebra of events", Li11g11istics 9, 5-16). Due to homeomerity the logical properties of processes suggest a formal representation in terms of mereological relationships (cf. P. Simons, Parts, 1987). Motivationsfor Process Ontology. There are several reasons for introducing 'process' (in either the wide or the narrow sense) as a basic category in ontology. First, if philosophy is to evolve an ontological framework able to integrate the basic categories of the sciences, it must deal with the fact that contemporary physics (e.g., quantum field theory) seems to postulate dynamic entities as the ultimate constituents of matter that apparently cannot be accommodated within the traditional substanceontological scheme. Furthermore, the aspect of dynamicity involved can be articulated neither in terms of a sequence of facts nor in terms of an object's having at different times mutually exclusive properties. Second, the process category is not strictly dependent on the category of object or substance: not only in scientific theories but also within our common-sense framework there are 'absolute processes' which cannot possibly be considered to be the dynamic accidents of any underlying substance (C. D. Broad, Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy, 1933; Seilars, op. cit.). On the one band, absolute processes, which are often expressed by sentences with impersonal subject (e.g., 'it is thundering'), may be causally produced by changes in objects (e.g., masses of air colliding) but do not spatio-temporally coincide with them; thus they cannot be treated as qualitative or relational dynamic accidents of the objects involved. On the other band, absolute processes cannot be conceived of as relations or facts, since they have spatio-temporal location, move, change, and are causally efficient. Third, as Donald Davidson has argued, in order to give (within predicate logic) an analysis of the logical form of sentences with adverbial modifiers (in particular, to explain inferences that involve 'adverb dropping'). one must quantify over happenings; givenW. V. 0. Quine's quantificational criterion for ontological commitments, this amounts to

727 acceptingdynamic entities in one's ontology. There are competing semantic analyses of 'adverb dropping' which circumvent quantifyingover dynamic entities (e.g., P. Roeper, 1987,"Principles of abstraction for events and processes", Joumal of Philosophica/ Logic 16, 273-307). These proposals explain at best inference relations among sentences about 'subject-based' processes (e.g., Herodotus's journey to Egypt), not, however, inferences from sentences about absolute processes. Fourth, even assuming that all processes have substances as substrata, object-geared ontology has difficulty in accommodating persistencethrough change, in particular the unityof a living organism. In order to explain howone and the same !hing can at different times have different properties (being bent vs. being straight, being a tadpole vs. being a frag), one must either assume that 1. objects have time-indexed properties Fat-1,or stand in a relation to properties and times; or 2. the change in question consists in a rearrangement of the constituent particles; or 3. things are compounds of space-time slices. None of these alternatives is attractive. The first option is committed to ascribing to an object a time-indexed property or relation at a time when it has not yet displayed this property or relation; if I am bent at I and straight at a later time t' then. in order to remainidentically the same at all times of my existence,I must at all times of my existence have the property being-straight-at-1' or stand in a relation to straightness and r'. But this amounts to a commitment to metaphysical determinism. The second two alternatives pose particular difficulties for a definition of the unity of the object. Tasks of Process Ontology. Perhaps the most important task for those who would wish to promote 'process' as a basic ontological category is that of specifying the relationship among process, time, and tense in a way that complies with the following three requirements.

PROCLUS

1. The account of time chosen must warrant that objective becoming is continuous because only on the basis of this thesis can processes be claimed to be, first, categorially irreducible and, second, unaffected by Zeno of Elea's paradoxes of motion. 2. If processes are to be objects of human experience, the relationship between time and tense must be specified in such a way as to allow for a synthesis of the continuous durationless present of the objective world and the discontinuous durational 'specious present' of a subject. 3. Process ontology is committed to the claim that processes are basic concrete individual constituents of reality, i.e., are at least spatio-temporally extended and causally efficient. Thus, the time-tense framework must be designed to resolve the conflictresulting from our intuitions that processes qua concrete entities seem to ·exist' only while going on or taking place and yet are said tobe extended in time. FURTHER READING

Browning, D., cd., 1965.Plrilosoplrersof Process, New York: Random Housc. Gray, J. R., 1982, Modem Process Thoug/11. A Brief Ideologien/ History, Washington, D.C.: University Press or America.

Hartshomc, C„ 1984, Creatfrity i11 American Plri/osoplry,Albany, N.Y.: State University o[ New York Press. Sibley, J., and Guntcr, P., cds., 1978, Process Plri/osoplry:Basic Writi11gs,Washington, D.C.: Univcrsity Press or America. JOHANNA SEIBT

Proclus Life and Works. Proclus was born in Constantinople, of a prosperous pagan Lycian family from Xanthos, around 410 AD. His father. a lawyer, sent him for higher education to Alexandria, with a view to his following him into the profession. However, a visit to Constantinople around 430 seems first to have turned him towards philosophy,

PROCLUS

and shortly afterwards he sei out for Athens to pursue the deeper truths of Platonism. In Athens, he attached himself to the aged Plutarch, until Plutarch's death in 432, and then to Syrianus, who died in 437, but who bad a decisive influence on bis thought. Proclushimself became head of the academy at Athens after Syrianus, presiding over it for almost fifty years, till bis death in 485. During this time he turned out a prodigious body of work, most of whichsurvives, at least in partial form. His most important works are a series of commentaries on Platonic dialogues. We also have three systematicworks: two, the Elemellls of Physics and the Elements of Theology, relativelyearly; while the third, the Plotonic T/reology, a vast synthesis of Neoplatonic metaphysicsand theology, is certainly late. A number of monographs, on providence, fate, and the problem of evil, previouslyknown only from the Latin translation of William of Moerbeke (c. 1215--86), have recently been recognized as being preserved in Greek, plagiarized by Isaac Sebastocrator. Philosophical System. Much of what currently passes for Proclus's philosophy is really to be ascribed to bis master Syrianus, and even to Syrianus's spiritual master, Iamblichus of Chalcis; and indeed Proclus does not try to disguise bis indebtedness. However, he must be given credit at least for synthesizing and organizing later Neoplatonist doctrine. The first principle of Proclus's system, common to all Platonism, at least from Plotinus on, is the derivation of all reality from one simple cause, itself absolutely unitary. How this comes about is a problem basic to Neoplatonic metaphysics, explored in the opening propositions of the Elements of T/reology. Arising from this is the principle of cyclic creotivity, linking causes to their effects, in a cycle of progression from (1tQ6oöoc;) and reversion upon ( EJtLITTQOcplj) a higher principle, which itself remains ot rest (µovlj). This in turn involves the doctrine of porticipotion (µtOE~1c;), which sees each level of being as having 'unparticipated-in', 'participated-in', and 'inherent' aspects, according as the level of being below it participates in it and absorbs something of it

728 into itself. Resulting from this process is a relation of potentiality and actuality linking higher and lower entities. Already for Plotinus, tbe One is tbe "potency of all tbings" (öuvaµLc; mhrrwv, Enn., V 1, 7, 9), wbere tbe two kinds of öuvaµLc;,potentiality and "( creative) power" are fused. So it is for Proclus (except tbat be exempts tbe One even from being a öuvaµLc;, Plat. Theo/. III 9); lower entities bring to actuality tbe higher, wbile never, of course, attaining equality witb tbem: intellect, for instance, can be taken as an octuolizotion of tbe One. As regards levels of being, later Neoplatonism instigates a proliferation of subdivisions or 'moments' of eacb level, generally in tbe form of triads arranged according to tbe sequence 'being-life-intellect'. On the level of tbe One, bowever, tbe chief innovations are a system of 'units' (EVÖTI\---97. Ricketts,T. G., 1985,..Frege, the Tractatus, and the logocentricpredicament", Noü.s, 19, J---16. - 1986, ..Objectivity and objecthood: Frege's metaphysicsof judgement", in L. Haaparanta and J. Hintikka, eds., Frege Sy111/iesized, Dordrecht:D. Reidel, 6'.>---95. W. 0. HART

ProprietatesTerminorum Since the 12th century the scholastic authors were interested in the analysis of certain syntactical and semantical properties of denoting terms as these appear in propositions. The syntactical analysis nowadays can be reproduced by the tools of standard logicor by a Montague grammar; the semantical one, however, contains some ideas typical of Aristotelian philosophy. lt was with the 13th-century logicians Peter of Spain (1210/20--77) and William of Sherwood (c. 1200/l!H,. 1266/71)that there began the scholarly elaboration of distinctions between the diverse functions of the terms in propositional contexts. These distinctions involve a catalogue of the principal variations of meaning and reference of the terms and a series of typical examples. These examples were used to prove the adequacy of the 'rules' making up the theory. In the course of time - until about the 15th century - the complexity of the contexts grows: not only categorical propositions but also propositions with relational, tense, and modal particles were used as examples by the scholars. The general characteristics of the theory can be resumed in the following way: 1. A distinction between meaning (significatio) and reference (suppositio). 2. Admission of a multiple denotation of general terms. 3. Rules for the elimination of quantifiers ranging over a universe of Aristotelian individuals (substances and accidents). 4. A distinction of opaque contexts, whether created by self-reference or by the occurrence of intentional or modal particles. In these contexts the usual reference of terms changes.

In spite of a certain parallel to the ideas of Frege in bis "Über Sinn und Bedeutung" there exist, apart from 2., notable differences: thus for proper names the significatio and s11ppositiocoincide. Furthermore, scholastic philosophers did not accept the principle of compositionality to the effect that it is the reference of each constituent term which determines the reference of the whole. The

734

PROPRIETA TES TERMINORUM

reference always depends on certain types of contexts and on intuitive entailments between them. Finally they accepted that the reference of a term is extended to merely possible objects. Other properties of terms are hereby created, to be inserted between significatioand suppositio - properties such as ampliatio,restrictio,diminutio, and appellatio. Thus for example in the sentence: (1) lt is possible that some man is white the reference of 'man' is extended (ampliatio) to the set of possible men. In the sentence: (2) All ravens are necessarily black the reference of 'black' is restricted (restrictio) to the set of all substances which are necessarily black. These discussions are reftected by the treatment of the modal syllogism, which can in this way be assimilated to the assertoric one. On the other band these discussionscause certain ontological difficulties, since a compound of substance and accidents appears always to be contingent. In the sentence: (3) On the wall there is a painted man the particle 'painted' exerts a modification (diminutio)of the meaning and therefore the reference of the term 'man'. The expression 'appellatio'bad been used to express two different semantical properties: the existence of an object denoted by the term (this property was also called 'copulatio' by certain authors) and the modification of the reference due to a modification in the habitual meaning. In this last case the term modified by the appellatiodoes not refer to the object but to the abstract property which constitutes the meaning of the term. Consider the following fallacies: (4) Suppose that all white things are sweet and that Socrates sees somethingwhite. Then Socrates sees the sweetness. According to the scholastic analysis, 'videt album' does not mean a relation of a subject

to an object which possesses the property of being white only incidentally. To see somethi11gwhite is analysed rather as a triadic relation between a subject, an accident, and an object possessing this accident. Therefore the most approximate meaning would be 'Socrates sees the whiteness of an object.' And this is the reason why the conclusion: 'Socrates sees the sweetness' is not acceptable. The following example shows that this is not an idiosyncratic question of Latin: (5) To die without pain is to die. Socrates wants to die without pain. Ergo Socrates wants to die. The term 'to die without pain' in the context 'Socrates wants ... ' refers not to a fact but to a property. This scholastic analysis showsthe proximity to Gottlob Frege's dictum that reference in intensional contexts points to the meaning and not to the habitual object. A commonly discussed example is: (6) I promise you a horse where the term 'horse' occurs opaquely. The discussions centred on the type of supposition of this term. Nominalists such as William Ockham and John Buridan tried to explain (6) by an instantiation of the type: (7) I promise you (this horse or that one or that one, and so on) and argued that the reference of the term 'horse' in (6) is indeterminate (suppositio confusa tantum). Anti-nominalists like Walter Burley (c. 1275--c. 1344) insisted that this strategy did not propose any concrete object of reference and that therefore in order to explain the truth of (6) we have to look for abstract objects. In this case the term 'horse' would refer to a property. But it is not clear what it means to promise a property. Leaving aside questions of detail, the scholastic controversies as to the properties of terms focused on the possibility or impossibility of reducing abstract to concrete entities. William Ockham and John Buridan thought that it is necessary to reduce the

735

PROTAGORAS

sig11ificatio to the suppositio. The argument usedin William's Summa Logicae (! cap. 33) is partially identical with Rudolf Carnap's reconstruction (1947) of intensions in terms of extensions in possible worlds. But to reduceabstract universal properties William uses the Aristotelian theory of individual accidents(Dufour 1989). The scholastic theories of the properties of terms form a fragmentary meaning-theory whichdepends on two presuppositions: the acceptance of the analysis of elementary propositionsrequired by syllogistics and the acceptanceof the Aristotelian ontology. lt is interesting to see how these two presuppositionsmake themselves manifest in a theory of language, but the theory of the proprietates terminorum is otherwise of mainlyhistorical interest. FURTHER READING

Camap, R., 1947, Mea11i11g a11d Necessity, Chicago, III., and London: University of ChicagoPress. Dufour, C. A., 1989, Die Lehre der Proprietates Termü,orum, Munich/HamdenNienna: Philosophia. Geach,P., 1962, Refere11ceand Generality, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Henry, D. P .. 1972, Medieval Logic and Metapliysics, London: Hutchinson. CARLOS A. DUFOUR

Protagoras Protagorasof Abdera, a Greek colony on the Aegean coast of Thrace, was bom not later than 490 ec and probably died soon after 421 ec. Statements that he was a pupil of the atomist Democritus are probably Jater fictionsas Democritus was some thirty years hisjunior. Protagoras was the most famous of all the 5th-century Sophists, and Plato suggeststhat he was the first to adopt the name of Sophistand to charge fees for the rhetorical instruction which he offered. He travelled extensivelythroughout the Greek world, but wasbest known at Athens where he had the support and friendship of Pericles (c. 495-429 ec). An incomplete !ist from the 3rd century AD mentions twelve titles of works com-

posed by him. The two best known were entitled Truth and On the Gods, but all that survives is a bare handful of brief quotations and we depend for information on his doctrine upon summaries and interpretations by Plato, and briefer statements in Aristotle, Plutarch (c. 46-c. 120), and Sextus Empiricus (c. 150-c. 225). The most famous and controversial of all his doctrines is his Man-measure statement, apparently standing at the beginning of his Truth, in words which were ambiguous already in antiquity: "man is the measure of all things, of those that are, how (or !hat) they are and of those that are not, how (or that) they are not". Plato in the Theaetetus treats this primarily as a doctrine about sense-perception as experienced by each man individually.When a wind blows to some it seems hat and to others cold, and it is hat for those to whom it seems hot, and cold for those to whom it seems cold. lt followsthat all perceptions are true. This has led in modern times to three different interpretations: 1. All perceptions are true for every individual because it is a fact that he does experience bis own perceptions. But bis perceptions are merely subjective to himself and da not exist extemally there is no extemally existing wind. 2. Individual perceptions are causally induced by features not necessarily like what is perceived, but which are truly present in extemal objects. 3. All perceptions are true because all perceived qualities are actually present in the external object, and differences in perception are due to selective factors in the individual.

This last view, implying the co-presence of opposite qualities in objects, would relate Protagoras more closely with earlier preSocratics such as Heraclitus and Anaxagoras (c. 500-428 ec). Of special interest is the application of this doctrine to moral and aesthetic predicates. He seems to have held that whatever seems just, is just for the man or city to whom it seems just. But Plato at least suggests that he may have regarded some views of what is just as bringing greater

736

PSYCHOLOGY

advantages (objectively) to cities and individuals than other views, although all such viewswill be equally true. Probably related to the Man-measure doctrine is his contention that concerning every matter there are two opposed doctrines or arguments, perhaps taking the form that it both is and is not, e.g. hot and cold, just and unjust, and that the function of the Sophist is by the power of rhetorical argument to teach students how to make one view stronger or more persuasive than the other. This doctrine of two opposing arguments was known technically as a:vnkoy1xij (the art of contradiction). At the same time Protagoras was credited with holding the view that contradiction was impossible, a doctrine found in other Sophists, above all with Antisthenes. lt seems to have rested on a doctrine of meaning according to which only those statements can have meaning which refer to something which is actually the case. If two apparently opposing arguments are both meaningful they must be so because they refer respectively to two different states of affairs, both actually the case, and because of their difference in reference they cannot actually constitute a contradiction. In the dialogue Protagoras, Plato ascribes to the Sophist partly in the form of a stated myth the doctrine that all men come by education to possess qualities of mutual respect and a sense of justice or what is right, and that these attributes are the necessary condition for all human societies. lt is because all men share in these, not necessarily equally, that it is appropriate, as the Athenians themselves thought, for all men to be given the opportunity to express opinions on matters of public policy, a view sometimes acclaimed as the first theoretical justification for democracy. Of course, while for Protagoras all views about what is fair and just will be equally true, some will be better than others and it is the function of the Sophist to help citizens to substitute better opinions for those that are worse. In his treatise On the Gods, Protagoras said that he could not tel1 how (or that) they are or are not. This led to his prosecution and condemnation for impiety and a reputation for atheism. More probably here as elsewhere he was expressing agnosticism on matters which were not sub-

ject to direct perception, and this would accord with his general position which today would probably be classed as a form of phenomenalism. FURTHER READING

Diels, H., and Kranz, W., 1956, Die Fragmenteder Vorsokratiker, vol.11, eh. 80, Berlin: Weidmann. Fritz, K. von, 1957, "Protagoras", in G. Wissowaer al., eds., Paulys Rea/encyclopädie der c/assi• sclren Altert11mswisse11sc/raft,vol. 23, Stuttgart: Druckenmüller, 908--21. Kerfcrd, G. B., 1981, The Sophistic Movement, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 42-4, 59-110. GEORGE 8. KERFERD

Psychology The investigation of ontological questions relevant to particular sciences turns on our capacity to attend to the unexamined assumptions upon which both the theorizing and the empirical practices of the sciences depend. What does psychology as it is or might be practised take for granted about the kinds of entities there are in the world? To begin the investigation it would be advisable to start with a brief sketch of a piece of psychological research as an illustration of how the programme of the investigation of a common given phenomenon has developed. I will take the development of research into memory as my example. The first point to notice is that the very terms in which I have expressed the idea of this research project already contain an implicit ontological step. The project is described as the search into memory, a substantive, but in the real world of human activity there are people remembering, doing something. Memory is an abstract entity standing in for a variety of processes and activities. Sometimes this tendency towards the creation of abstract objects is harmless. But in certain branches of psychology, in particular, the study of emotions, it has bad a seriously deleterious effect. At the outset then, I will move directly to a processual or activity view of the subject matter of psychology. So my first ontological recommendation will be to eschew abstract

737 entitiesand try as far as we may to express the topicin terms of activities, things that people do. So, it is people remembering with which we should be concerned. Classical studies of remembering are centredaround the phenomenon of recollection.They take the form of the presentation of what are still sometimes called stimulus objectsin various combinations and temporal distributions. Subjects, as they are called that is the people involved in the experimentare asked to carry out certain tasks, in particularto try to recognize the type, order, and temporal distribution of the objects that are on show, that are supposed to have been perceivableat some past time. Out of these developmentshave come a series of interesting observations on the number of objects one can recollect, on the effect of tapse of timeon recollection and so on. All this work was begun by Hermann Ebbinghaus ( 18501909)and has continued in much the same veinto the present day. Much has been found out about the individual capacity for recollection. Now it is worth noticing that not only is this programme based upon the idea of the psychology of remembering as the investigation of an individual capacity, but it also classicallypresupposes a subjectivist conceptionof what recollection is. The reports given bythe people involved are not themselves the objectof investigation, they are taken a11 pied de /ettre as authentic reports of what someone has experienced. Recollection then is individualand subjective. So far, so good. But, is that remembering? When we turn to everyday life, to look at the phenomenon of remembering therein, the way in which the thoughts that are our recollections are introduced into the public conversation and there dealt with, comes to the fore as a topic of immense interest. The performative utterance, 'l remember that so and so'. is a conversational intervention and as such is a contribution towards what is essentially a social process. Incidentally, in the investigations of the conversational activities of Tlte family that served as the subject for the BBC programme of that name, Marga Kreckel noticed that there is in general a disparity between claims to have recollected and the acceptance of those claims as the

PSYCHOLOGY

basis for the authentication of a recollective past event as part of the working past of some social group. I say 'working past', because how the group continues to live in the future depends in part in what it believes itself to have done in the past. Marga Kreckel showed that the claims to authentic recollection were accepted by the family more on the basis of the social location of the individual who made the claim than on any apparently empirical ground for its authenticity. As a matter of fact, it is extremely difficult to prove, as one might say in the archaeological frame, what happened to oneself in the more or less immediate past. lt is a cliche that people find the reading of their last year's diaries astonishing. So, the authentication of recollections is not generally achieved by assembling empirical evidence of what occurred. On the contrary, it is achieved by a social process of negotiation, so power and status enter into the matter intimately. In Tite Family the mother had memory rights and in general delivered verdicts that were by and (arge unfavourable to the recollections of the lower-status members of that family. Reflecting on this complex and developing research programme into the human activity of remembering suggests that at least a dual ontology is called for. The phenomenon of remembering as a process or activity is embedded in two separate but interacting realities, interacting through the production of speech elements which link experiential matters, such as recollection with social matters, such as claims. The dual ontology is then on the one hand individual and subjective, and depends upon the idea of mental events, but on the other hand it is public and social and depends upon the idea of a conversational matrix constructed of speech acts. Malters have not rested there. By and large the research programme involving the study of remembering has concentrated on the alleged mental events. Attention to these with their intimate relationship to individual physiologicalprocesses, has led to a proliferation of extraordinarily interesting research into the neurochemistry and neurophysiology of long- and short-term memory. A great deal has been learned about the processes that are involved in recollection, but

PSYCHOLOGY

research into the processes that are involved in the certification and authentication of recollection as legitimate memory is very new. So our perception that the full story about remembering involves a dual ontology is not only a matter of interest to philosophers, but of course bears directly on the kind of psychological investigation which one includes in one's paradigm. Cartesianism.Going further into this story leads us back to a watershed in the history of psychology which we can date roughly to the beginning of the 17th century. Until that time the idea of a person as composed of two substances, a corporeal and a mental substance, though it had been touched on from time to time, was not the animating ontology of the psychologicalsciences. The writings of medieval psychologists took it for granted that the intimacy of the mind-body relation precluded the idea of a duality of substance. Two things seemed to have happened at the beginning of the 17th century. The social dimension of psychological functioning was systematically forgotten and remained in discard for about 400 years. The individual side of the dual ontology of seif developed another duality. On the one band there are mental events and on the other there are physiologicalevents and processes. The task of the psychologist was traditionally defined in terms of a kind of Millian investigation of the correlations and lawful concomitances of such events. Philosophical reflection very quickly produced the mind-body problem. Similar events occurring in radically different substances were thought to be somehow either causally or harmoniously interrelated in such a way that goings on in the mind had corporeal consequences and vice versa. All of this dominated the ontological scene for centuries. lt began to be displaced only in the 1930sby the reflections first of all of L. S. Vygotsky (18%--1934). Vygotsky was struck by the fact that much of the mental activity of small children occurred in public and was mediated by speech. He did not believe that there was a hidden mental world of psychological activity which was encoded into words and then publicly displayed. He became convinced that all mental psychology must be conceived by the exact reversal of the

738 model. Mental activity is primarily public, consisting in the displays of verbal and manipulative skills. lt is late in the development of a child that these become tucked away behind a barrier to the eye and ear of other people. Now this difference between Vygotskian and Cartesian metaphysics comes out very sharply when we think about how people can converse with one another. We might reflect upon what each viewpoint presupposes as tbe basic process of education. In the Cartesian view the dual individualist ontology would have two conversants in physical interaction by vibrations in the air, say, but not in mental interaction. lndividuals, as joint sums of a mental and a physical substance, in so far as the physical substance is concerned, are part of one and the same world. The causal relation that links their bodies is common, but their mental worlds are radically disjoint. So in the Cartesian picture of a conversation there are three processes involved, the mind of a, the joint bodily universe of a +band the mind of b. lt is only too easy to see how the spurious mind-body problem with the illusion of the total separateness of the psychological states and processes of the other could come to be. The Vygotskian picture is based on the idea of appropriation. Vygotsky thought that the world of interpersonal interaction was shot through with symbolic content, so that the interactions of people, if taken as ontologically fundamental, presupposed a universe of symbols. This included, and we can take it as the model, conversational interactions, so that the developing human being played a part in an almost wholly public world. lndividuality is a secondary formation and comes about by the appropriation by individuals from the common stock of interaction for useful processes, which can be clipped, private, and performed sotto voce, so to speak. So, the mind of an individual is part of the public conversation that has been partially fenced off. The contribution of Vygotsky through the ontology of psychology is twofold. First of all it proposes a thoroughgoing revision of Cartesian dualism to eliminate the bogus chasm between the physical and the mental. Second, it provides the foundations for the larger duality upon which

739

a psychologywhich recognizes both physiologicaland conversational processes must be based. Neo-Cartesianism.Vygotsky was writing and researching in the 1930s. Many of bis ideaswere re-created again in the 1940s and 1950sby Gilbert Ryle (1900-76) and Ludwig Wittgenstein, who each in their own way contributed towards an anti-Cartesianism of muchthe same character as Vygotsky's conversational ontology. But it is one of the curiositiesof contemporary thought that the consequences of the profound analysis proposed by Ryle and Wittgenstein were not effectual in reforming the science of psychology.To a very considerable extent psychologyis still highly influenced by a neoCartesianpoint ofview. I will return in a later sectionto develop the contributions of Ryle and Wittgenstein, which I see as complementaryto Vygotsky, in more detail, but for the moment I want to turn to the revival of Cartesian ideas in some contemporary psychology. There are two strands of thought involved, one of which leads to the recent idea of a cognitive science out of which has come a somewhat disappointing, but enthusiasticallypromoted series of research programmes. The other has been the development of a philosophical thesis, currently dubbed 'eliminative materialism' which depends upon a strangely distorted conception of the conversational realization of psychological matters in what has been called 'folk psychology'. These two viewpoints are apparently at loggerheads over what there is, but nevertheless depend on taking the ordinary language, English, and many of its psychological terms dead seriously. So, for example, both viewpoints take it for granted that there are such entities as beliefs, pains, etc; the only question is what their status is. Cognitive scientists have developed an ontology which takes a variety of different forms, but perhaps the most instructive for our purposes is modularity theory. Every human psychological function or activity is seen as the output of a processing module, a devicewhich transforms information. So, for instance, to the human activity of rememberingcorresponds a memory module. A mind is the totality of such modules and, in the

PSYCHOLOGY

version of this theory influenced by computer science, the modules are thought of as constituting a system with links between them through which information is passed. The modules are not physiological entities. though I suppose most cognitive scientists would take a generally materialist view, and in the end the capacities for processing are to be found in the structure of certain physiological components of the brain and central nervous system. But by and large the metaphor - and it is widely employed - of computation involves the idea of something very like software and hardware, programmes and processors. At the back of this idea is the important step whichmoves from a verbal expression like 'I remember' to an alleged mental entity such as a memory module. The folk psychology expressed in the English language, so it is believed, legitimizes such a move. Admiralion for folk psychology is not confined to the cognitive scientists. Eliminative materialism is the latest version of an attempt to drive out mentalistic concepts altogether, but it is a good deal more subtl< than the crude reductionisms of the past Folk psychology is promoted as a kind o· theory which, it is claimed, ordinary folk use to understand their own and others' behaviour. lt involves such alleged entities as beliefs, feelings, intentions. and so on. These entities are arrived at by exactly the same processes of reification as we have noticed to be central to cognitive science. The performative utterance 'I intend so and so'. or ·J will so and so', or 'I am going to so and so', is taken, without argument, as the display of the existence of an underlying entity, an intention. In just the same way '[ believe' is taken as the display of the underlying entity, a belief. The eliminative materialist then claims that neuroscience will gradually replace folk psychology as an explanatory theory of human behaviour andin the course of so doing the terminology which is typical of the psychological parts of English will come to change its meaning. Or perhaps it may even be dismissed from our conversation in favour of directly neurophysiological terminology. To take a comic example that is seriously promoted by John Searle, in the end

PSYCHOLOGY

one may cease to talk about one's pains and talk instead of neuronal firings in the c-fibres. I am inclined to think that cognitive science and eliminative materialism are based upon the same ontological move, that is, they depend upon the reification of speech categories, either as the material, so to say, basis of the cognitive system or as the 'material' in another sense of the subtle reductive argument of the eliminative materialists. The ontological claim would have to be sustained by a convincingargument that to my mind has not yet been produced that justifies the claim that performative Operators like, 'I believe', 'ltrust', 'I think', 'I suppose', are the outward and visible signs of these relevant cognitive entities. How to argue the matter out? Weil, much will depend upon the role that one believes such operators play in the conversation. If we can give a complete account or at least a plausiblycomplete account ofthe rules of use of such expressions by reference to the necessities of a developing conversation, then we will hardly need, or it will seem otiose, to introduce alleged entities as the referents of such expressions. Furthermore, anthropologicallinguisticsmust be consulted upon this matter. If, as Rodney Needham has claimed, there are cultures which do not use the performative operator, 'I believe', and have no use for the concept ofbelief, then this lackof culturaluniversalitymust be explained. Is it that one !arge piece of the cognitive machinery of Europeans is missing in the heads of people who live in certain parts of Africa? This is clearly a highly implausible proposal. On the other hand, if, as Needham plausiblydemonstrates, the cultural demands of East African society call for interpersonal relations of trust and their certification in language, rather than individual claims for knowledge and their certification in performatives of belief, then we have a social cultural explanation of the difference between these languages which does not involve the reification of any pseudo-objects. One might carry this type of investigation a very long way. For example, in work that P. Mulhausler and I have been doing on pronominal systems, it is apparent that there is no such conception amongst the Japanese as purely individual responsibility. The pro-

740 nouns or their equivalents in Japanese are not indexical of individual speakers or actors, even though they are used to pick out the speech of a particular person. But there is another very important and rather deep error in the ideas of the cognitivists that they have carried over from the older to the newer Cartesianism, an unexamined individualist assumption. There can be no doubt that physiologically we are pretty much individuals; though we have to breathe the tobacco smoke of others, nevertheless our brains are pretty disjoint and the physiological processes that occur in them are very individualized. However, we are not and could not be conversational individuals. As Wittgenstein has argued, highly convincingly, every language presupposes the possibility that the meanings of the expressions that occur in it could be learnt by anyone. So whatever grounds we have, talking the way we do must in the end have a public component, be it in behaviour, or in what other people have said. In general, conversations are joint actions. I will develop this theme in more detail when I look at the details of conversations and their ontological basis. Now, in so far as individualism is false as an ontological thesis concerning conversation and in so far as conversation is the essential second component of the dual ontology required for adequate psychological investigations of such processes as remembering, the neo-Cartesianist position must be rejected and with it the associated research programmes. A Conversational Ontology. If we take seriously the idea that much that passes for psychology, for instance, remembering, reasoning, declarations of emotions, and so on, is intimately embedded in conversational processes, then the complementary ontology of psychology, complementary to a physiology of individual states, must be found in the metaphysics of conversation. We have already rejected the Cartesian picture of conversation as the causally mediated exchange between two disjoint minds. Instead we will adopt the Vygotskian view that conversation is a public and social entity and individual minds partially fenced-off parts of it. Persons, speakers on this view, become

741

placesat which conversational events occur. Sothe 'I' which prefaces an 'I believe' and the ·you' which prefaces 'you must eat up your cabbage', are not so much expressions referringto psychologically complex entities, but simpleindexicals identifying the person playingthe role of speaker or listener. So, instead of a Newtonian world of space and time locations with material objects present at someof them, we are to envisage a conversationalworld of people-locations, a kind of people-space, and a public time constituted by the flux and flow of speech acts. In this picture the entities of conversation are the significantutterances themselves. What binds these utterances into a world of conversation? Weil, it can't be anything subjective, according to this point of view. Whateverbinds a conversation together must itself be conversational in character, i.e. public and social. John Austin (1911-60), langago, pointed out that a speech act is only completed in the illocutionary uptake by he or she who receives it. If you don't take my proposal as an offer, then conversationally speakingno offer has been made, no matter whatI intended. From a conversational point of view, then, the conversational world is created by displays of intention and manifestations of uptake, because these are the public and social aspects of the completion of a speech act as intended and understood. Now, one might object, surely there is a subjective intending and an individual and subjective understanding. Weil, is there? Of course, it is individual persons who intend and understand, but how do these capacities come to be amongst their skills? Weil, one picture would have it that persons have a complex inner structure and intentions and understandings are states, processes in that inner structure. But then their inner structure itself is subject to just the same kind of ontological analysis as the conversation. What is the seif to which 'I' refers, once again within the partially closed-off conversation? But the 'I' is once again no more than the conversational indexical that labels particular subjective conversational acts as belonging to the speaker, the person. So even within the subjective arena we have leamed to separate off from the public conversational world,

PSYCHOLOGY

there is nothing but indexicality, there is nothing but speakers. This idea has profound consequences. The first and most important of these can be seen by reflecting on the fact that speech acts have direction: I confess to you, the judge condemns the prisoner and not the prisoner the judge, I make you an offer, you refuse it, and so on. So offers, refusals, condemnations, proposals, insults, and apologies are directed. In the conversational world they are extended objects, because, as I have pointed out, a speech act is not completed until it has been accepted, understood, etc. by the target. This means that speech acts, according to this model, are extended objects aligned in certain directions in people-space. Now what determines these directions? The most important determinant is that of the rights, obligations, and duties the members have as speakers according to each one's social role. So only certain people in a role are licensed to condemn, to judge, to give absolution, to make certain requests, and so on. These role-related rights and duties constitute what one might call the moral order for the conversation. Different societieshave different types of conversation moral orders and different systems of performative utterances with different kinds of force. A very simple, but striking, example of how a conversation convention can readily be confused with a Cartesian inner property is the phenomenon of rationality. Historical studies show that the claim that women were irrational and had special psychologicalattributes such as intuition, is simply a reification and subjective individuation of a conversational convention. During the course of the Industrial Revolution the convention sprang up amongst the bourgeoisie that as part of their display of decorative Jack of utility women should speak in a distrait, charming, and disorderly fashion, leaving the hard work of rational discourse to men. So the normal conversational convention of accountability, which makes it proper formen and women to demand of each other the reasons for what they said, was suspended in the conversations between men and women, among people of that social dass. Similarly the alleged rationality of scientists has been shown by invest-

742

PUTNAM, HILARY

igators such as B. Latour and S. Woolgar to be a reification of a conversational 'convention' governing the way scientific discourse is pul together in written scientificwork, or in a lecture given to a scientific meeting. Psychology then, on this view, must make good its dependence on this ontological basis, so that an enormously important dimension of psychological research can now be identified. lt is the study of the organization of speech acts in conversations in the course of which the psychologicalaspects of human life are largely constituted. There are certain other consequences too, because by adopting this point of view features of our psychologicallives that are hidden from us if we look at the world with only the Cartesian concepts in mind become visible. In particular there is the important phenomenon of psychological symbiosis. If such matters as rationality, remembering, emotions, and so on are constituted by the interaction between conversation and physiological events, and conversation is something that in general and in principle involves a multitude of people, the possibility exists for one group of people or one person to perform the conversational acts that are attributed psychologically to another. In psychological symbiosis one person routinely complements or subtracts from the psychological competence of another by inserting utterances into the conversation, which either strengthen the impression of competence that the other person displays or takes away from it. Developmental psycholinguists have long been aware that a necessary condition for the development of linguistic skills in an infant is the conversational symbiotic relationship in which it stands primarily to its mother from the day of its birth. E. Goffman and others have identified symbiotic processes in the conversations of adults. Now, this has a profound effect on our willingness to accede to a generally individualist psychology. If many of our psychological attributes are not ascribed to us on the basis of our individual performances, but on how our performances are supplemented or depleted by the activities of friendly or hostile others, then there is no such thing as the psychology of an individual person.

FURTHER READING

Billig, M., 1987, Argui11g and Thinking, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruner, J. S., 1986. Actua/ Mi11ds.Possib/e Worldr, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Fodor, J. A., 1983, Modularity of Mind. An Essay i11Faculty Psycho/ogy, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Latour, B., and Woolgar, S., 1979, Laboratory Life, Los Angeles, Calif.: Sage. Pearce, W. B., and Cronen, V., 1981, Communi• cation, Action and Thought, New York: Praeger. Poller, J., and Wetherell, M., 1987, Discourseand Socia/ Psychology, London: Sage. Shotter, J., 1985, Social Accountability and Selfhood, Oxford: Blackwell. ROM HARR!

Putnam, Hilary Hilary Putnam was born in 1926 in Chicago, Illinois. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania and at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he worked under Hans Reichenbach. During the 1950sPutnam worked closely with Rudolf Camap, who strongly influenced bis thinking. Putnam has made important contributions to virtually every major area of philosophy, but he is best known for bis work in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and metaphysics. His early work supported a science-based version of metaphysical realism but more recently he has criticized such views, and now rejects all forms of metaphysical realism. He has adopted instead a position that he calls 'internal realism' or 'pragmatic realism', which he sees as a middle road between metaphysical realism and cultural relativism. According to pragmatic realism we cannot ask what exists apart from a conceptual scheme. Within a conceptual scheme, however, we can say quite straightforwardly what really exists. Pragmatic realism is considered by Putnam to be a moderate form of realism but is closely allied with and influenced by the work of contemporary anti-realists such as Michael Dummett and Nelson Goodman. In the philosophy of mind Putnam proposed a programme that came tobe knownas 'functionalism'. Functionalism is an altema-

743 liveboth to central state materialism, accordingto which thoughts, feelings, and attitudes are identical with brain states, and to behaviourism. The functionalist hypothesis is that thoughts and feelings are not specific physical states of a human being but are functionalstates. A functional state would be characterized in terms of its functional rote rather than its physical constitution. For example,a mental state could be described as a function from a state of the person plus stimulationto behaviour. A given functional statecould be physically realized in a limitless numberof different ways, not just in the way that the human brain realizes it. Entities of many diverse physiologies could have the same functional organization. At first Putnam argued that the functional organization of human beings is that of a Turing machine, a very basic sort of idealized computer, but he has now given up that view as overly simplistic. In the philosophy of language, Putnam was instrumental, along with Saul Kripke and others, in arguing that the meaning of a natural-kind term such as 'water', 'gold', or 'tiger' cannot be given in a definition that states a non-trivial necessary and sufficient condition for falling under the term. This is notjust because the terms are vague or family resemblance terms. Putnam argued that we introduce a term such as 'water' by 'baptizing' a paradigm - an instance that we take to be a good example of the kind. We thereafter mean to refer with the term to whatever is of the same kind as the paradigm. Thus according to Putnam the essence of a natural kind would not be a concept that could be expressed in a linguistic definition. Essences of natural kinds are not to be discovered by linguisticanalysis, rather they are the objects of empirical scientific study. We learn what the essence of water is when we learn about the chemical make-up of that stuff we refer to as water. We have learned, in fact, that water is H 2 0. This is not a matter oflinguistic definition, nor does it become a definition of 'water', since it is always revisable on the basis of further research. Putnam claims that most natural-kind terms are subject to what he calls 'the division of linguistic labor'. Although speakers of

PYTHAGORAS,PYTHAGOREANISM

English are able to use such terms as ·gold', 'diamond', and 'elm', they need not be able to distinguish, say, gold from other yellow metals or elms from beeches - for that, we have experts on whom we rely. I may not be able to distinguish elms from beeches and my mental concept of elm may be the same as my mental concept of beech, yet it still is not the case that when I use the term 'elm' I mean the same thing as when I use the term 'beech'. According to Putnam, there are strong social, historical, and scientific dimensions to linguistic meaning. Meanings are not concepts in the heads of individual speakers of the language. FURTHER READING

Putnam, H„ 1971, P/rilosophy of logic, New York: Harper and Row. 1975-83,Philosophica/ Papers, 3 vols„ Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress. - 1978,Meaning and the Moral Sciences, Boston, Mass.:Routledgeand KeganPaul. - 1981,Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress. - 1987,The Many Faces of Rea/ism, LaSalle,III.: Open Court.

-

STEPHEN P. SCHWARTZ

Pythagoras,Pythagoreanism Pythagoras has inspired or attracted ideas of such great range and vitality that it is a difficult task to sort out how these ideas accumulated around bis name. He spent bis earlier years on Samos, an island near Miletus, birthplace of pre-Socratic cosmology. Around 532 ec he moved to Croton in southern ltaly where he founded a religious sect that acquired political power in the Greek cities of the area. He taught survival and transmigration of the soul to other bodies. Care of the soul involved such practices as vegetarianism and ritual purification. His fame as polymath and enquirer, derided by Heraclitus in the early 5th century, suggests he shared the philosophical interests of bis contemporaries in Ionia. However, in the absence of Pythagorean texts of the 6th century and first half of the 5th century ec, it is difficult to be sure that these interests

PYTHAGORAS,PYTHAGOREANISM

included the mathematical cosmology that Aristotle attributes to 'Pythagoreans• and that is found in the fragments of Philolaus. a Pythagorean of the late 5th century ac. Philolaus saw the universe as made up of two kinds of things, the ·unlimited' and 'the limiting'. 'Harmony' is necessary for the combination of these, and this harmony seems to be constituted of numerically expressible ratios (hence the 'music' of the heavens). Philolaus also claimed that all that is known has number, for without number nothing can be known, and that the first thing constituted was 'the one'. Aristotle believes (Met. I, 5) that the Pythagoreans, confusing arithmetical, geometrical, and physicalunits, both made things out of numbers and saw things as expressiblein numerical ratios. The number 10 is perfect as containing all numbers, being made up of the first four integers which also express the basic musical intervals. We cannot now determine how much of all this goes back to Pythagoras and bis immediate followers. When Plato visited southem ltaly and Sicilyin 387 ac, bis contactswithPythagoreans there (in particular Archytas) bad a profound effect. He refers to wise men for whom the cosmos is ordered in friendship and to 'geometric equality' ( = proportion?) as of great importance for gods and men (Gorgias 508a). He writes of a Prometheus who conveyed to man the divine doctrine that things that always are, are from 'one' and the 'many', being made oflimit and the unlimited (Philebus 16cd). This doctrine implies a method for disceming all forms intervening between the one and the unlimited, a method which Plato himself applies. Such ideas suggest that the philosopher may use a method inspired by mathematics (cf. Meno 86e-87b). However, as Plato expressesit in the Rep11blic, mathematics, though indispensable, is subordinate to the highest philosophical knowledge ('dialectic'), for dialectic grounds the hypotheses of mathematics and is concerned with the very source ofbeing and knowledge, 'the Good'. Dialectic is to guide rulers of the ideal state who remind us of the Pythagorean figureTimaeuswho shows, in Plato's Timaeris, how mathematical structures constitute souls and the elements of the world.

744 Aristotle 's reports on Plato suggestan cven more extensive mathematizing approach. All reality, Aristotle says (Met. I, 6), derives for Plato from two principles, the 'one' (= the Good) and the 'indefinite dyad'. From these come Plato's Forms, which Aristotle identifies as ideal or transcendent numbers, whence derives the physical world. Much of Aristotle's reports remains obscure. Plato's immediate successors in the Academy, Speusippus (c. 407-339 ac) and Xenocrates, (c. 395-314 ac) elaborated on the theories reported by Aristotle, which they regardedas 'Pythagorean'. However, Aristotle rejected this Pythagorizing Platonism, distinguishing it from pre-Platonic Pythagoreanism. The confusion between the metaphysicsof Plato's Academy and ancient Pythagoreanism was complete in the first centuries ac and AD, when a number of writings were composed and attributed to Pythagoras and ancient Pythagoreans, sometimes plagiarizing Plato and Aristotle and even showing traces of Stoicism. Philosophers in the first centuries AD such as Numenius (c. 150-200) and Nicomachus claimed that Plato merely followed Pythagoras, a claim elaborated by the Neoplatonist Iamblichus. For him Pythagoras was the source of Platonism (and of what is true in Aristotle), Pythagoras himself sharing in the ancient divine wisdom of the Chaldeans and Egyptians. Iamblichus developed the identifications made by Nicomachus and others between the first ten numbers and aspects of the world, of man and of the gods ('numerology') in a Neoplatonic framework. Physics, ethics, and politics he saw as being modelled on mathematics, just as mathematics foreshadows the science of the divine. Numbers correspondingly function as paradigms of the physical world and as images of the gods. As evidence of the divine origin of this doctrine, lamblichus collected in his Vita Pythagorica the legends associated with Pythagoras. Later Neoplatonists did not 'Pythagorize' quite so much. But mathematics remained for them (and geometry in particular for Proclus) the model of scientific method, the key to thc universe and to the divine. Pythagorizing Neoplatonism was transmitted to the Latin Middle Ages in particular

745 by Augustine and Boethius. lt was hardly a dominant trend. However, some thinkers, notablythose associated with Chartres in the 12th century, went beyond numerology in discussingthe cosmological and theological applications of numbers. Nicholas of Cusa, whoread Proclus, inaugurated the retum of PythagorizingNeoplatonism in the Renaissancein bis studies of mathematics in relation to the world and God. In the second half of the 15thcentury, Marsilio Ficino popularized Ibis sort of Pythagoreanism as part of an ancienttheory more compatible, he thought, with Christianity than with Aristotelianism. Thussuch ideas as the music of the heavenly spheres, the harmony of the universe, the mathematical structure of the universe as imagingthe divine mind, became commonplace and turn up, for example, in Nicholas Copemicus (1473-1543) and in Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), who quotes, in bis Harmonice mundi (1619), from Proclus's Commentary on E11clid.This text, which bad attracted the interest of Renaissance mathematicians, presents mathematics as an exemplary scientific method that can be transposed to other domains, in particular physicsand metaphysics. This is not far from the projects of a universal scientific method explored by Rene Descartes and by Leibniz. lf today numerology has been driven from mathematicsinto the realm of popular superstition,if philosophers who hear the heavenly harmony or discem the divine mind in the geometry of the world are few, if mathematics provides physics with a language rather than with its basic truths, if metaphysicslooks more to words than to numbers for its insights, still aspects of (Platonist or Neoplatonist) Pythagoreanism remain, such as the idea that mathematical objects exist, the belief in the purity and even beauty of the knowledgeof such objects, and the aspiration to measure, proportion, and harmony as ethical ideals.

fl/RTHER READING

Burken, W., 1972, Lore a11dScie11cein Ancienr Pythagorea11ism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

QUA

Crapulli, G., 1969,Mathtsis univtrsalis. Genesi di un"idea nel XVI secolo, Romc: Edizioni dcll'Atcnco. Fritz, K. von, Dörrie, H., and Wacrden, B. van der, 1963, "Pythagoras", in G. Wissowa et al„ cds.. Paulys Realencyc/apädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. 24, Stuttgan: Druckenmüller, 171-300. Mahnke, D., 1937, Unt11dliche Sphiire und Allmittelpunkt. Beitrtige zur Genealogie der mathematischen Mystik, Halle: Niemeycr. O'Meara, D. J., 1989,PythagorasRevived. Mathematics and Philasaphy in Latt Anriquity, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Zimmermann, A., ed., 1983, Mensura, Mass. Zahl, Za/1/ensymbalik im Mitttlalttr (Miscellanea Medievalia 16), Berlin: De Gruyter. DOMINICJ. 0 1 MEARA

Q Qua A 'qua' connective, like other conjunctions, such as 'ir and 'since', links up sentences, clauses, and phrases in other sentences. (1use 'qua' to stand for the generic connective, of which also 'in so far as', 'in virtue or. 'with respect to' are instances.) 'Qua', and equivalent expressions, occur at important points in the work of many philosophers: in Aristotle's doctrine of being qua being (Met. IV); in the supposition of subject terms in sentences like 'man is the worthiest of creatures' according to William of Sherwood (lntroductiones ad /ogicam, 77, lS-28); in the analysis of the lncamation by Aquinas (Sentences 111.Xl.1; Sum. Theo/. 111.16.S-10),and Scotus (Sentences 111.Xl.2). lt occurs also in Leibniz's formulation of the identity principles and in his reduction of relationships; in one of Bertrand Russell's solutions to Russell's Paradox (Principles of Mathematics I.X.104); andin Martin Heideggers's discussionof 'als' in Sein 11nd Zeit. The reasons for this repeated occurrence are fairly obvious: whenever senses of concepts are to be distinguished, whenever different aspects and

QUA

modes of a thing are to be singled out and abstracted, whenever an assertion is to be qualified in a certain respect, the appearance of qua expressions is nearly inevitable. There have accordingly arisen analyses of the logical properties of qua propositions. According to the standard Aristotelian analysis, worked out in its full form by the end of the 12th century, there are two main logical types of qua propositions, the reduplicative and the specificative. A standard example of the reduplicative is: 'every man qua rational is risible'; for the specificative, 'the Ethiopian is white with respect to his teeth' (Aristotle, Soph. EI., 167a7). For the reduplicative, the inference, 'S is P qua M; therefore S is P' is valid; for the specificative it is invalid. In a specificative qua proposition, the qua phrase changes the reference of the unqualified subject; in a reduplicative one, it does not. An exhaustive analysis of reduplicative propositions was given by such philosophers as William Ockham and Walter Burley (De puritate artis /ogicae tractatus longior). The basic analysisfor •S is P qua M' is •S is M, and every M is P'; most medieval analyses also add: 'and being M entails being P'. Further conditions were also added for special types of reduplicative propositions; e.g., 'M is the cause of P' for the causal reduplicative. Thus, to take the standard medieval example, 'man in so far as rational as risible' is to be analysed as: 'man is rational, and man is risible, and every rational thing is risible, and if something is rational, it is risible'. On the causal analysis, a fifth exponent, 'being rational is the cause of being risible' is added (William Ockham, Summa /ogicae 11.16). As was recognized explicitly by those such as J oho Wyclif (c. 1320-84), however, some of the conjuncts of these expositions are redundant; thus the basic reduplicative analysis may be reduced to: 'S is M, and being M entails being P' (Tractatus de logica, 1.5). Specificative propositions were not analysed further, except that explanations were offered in such a way as to make their meaning plainer. Here the formal work centred more on how the qua phrase changes the reference of the unqualified subject into something related to it. This discussion was generally pul in terms of parts and wholes;

746 e.g., by Albert the Great (De Sophisticos Elenchos 1.111.6). Thus, as teeth are an integral or material part of a whole human body, 'in respect of his teeth' when attached to 'the Ethiopian', changes the reference from the whole, the human body, to tbe integral part, the teeth. Aristotle himself, though not giving an explicit systematic theory of qua expressions, does discuss formal properties of propositions containing qua expressions (in De /nt. 21a7, Post. An. 73b26, and in Top. 115bl5). Later Aristotelians codified Aristotle's remarks, and developed various theories from them. Propositions containing qua express_ionswere called 'reduplicative', because Anstotle uses the term 'reduplication' ( &valiCn)..oaLs}in discussing them as his examples of qua propositions gener~Uy bad a repetition, or reduplication, of one of the terms. Thus consider his syllogism: "the it is good; justiceis good is known. that (C>'tL) good; therefore justice is known, that it is good" (Pr. An. 49all). In the medieval period, many important philosophers devoted much attention to formal properlies of reduplicative propositions; A vicenna (AIQfyas,485, 1), Albert the Great, and William Ockham, in particular. Llkewise, there was much discussion of reduplicative propositions in the post-medieval period, thougb not as much originality. •In the modern period, with the decline of interest in fonnal logic, reduplicative propositions feil into obscurity. Still, in the 20th century, with tbe renewal of interest in logic, interest in qua propositions has revived. FURTHER READING

Albert the Great, (c. 12~).

Opera ad /ogicam perlinemia, Opera omnia, vol. I, Venice. Aristotle, 1986, The Complete Works, ed. J.

Barnes, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univenity Press. Avicenna, 1952ff.,AI-Shifa, Badawi et al., eds., Cairo: Government Press. Bäck, A., 1992, On Red11plication,Municb/ Philadelphia/Vienna:Philosophia. Fine, K„ 1982,"Acts, events, and things",in W. Leinfellnerer a/., eds., Language and Ontolory, Dordrecht: D. Reidel. Ockham, W., 1974, Summa /ogicae, St. Bonaventure, N. Y.: St. BonaventureUniversity Press.

747

QUANTUM PHYSICS

Simons, P., 1987, Parts, Oxford: Oxford Univcrsily Press. Wiggins,D., 1980, Sameness and Substance. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. AL LAN T. BÄCK

QuantumPhysics Allrevolutionary results in physics result in a necessity of our rethinking our intuitive ontologicaVmetaphysicalcategories in order to reviseour picture of the world so as to, in one way or another, make our metaphysical pictureand our scientific theories compatible with one another. No scientific result has been as intractible to metaphysical comprehension,however, as has been the quantum mechanicalpicture of the world. While the specialand general theories of relativity have forced us to revise our traditional metaphysicsof space and time, quantum mechanics seems to be calling out for a radical revision in our very notions of what is to constitutethe 'objective' states of the world. So puzzling are the features of the world it describes, and so radical is the theory developed to account for these features, that even now, half a century after the discovery of quantum mechanics, no satisfactory metaphysicalaccounts of the world exist which will do justice to all the perplexing features of the quantum mechanical picture of the world. From the very beginning the basic experimental facts on which the theory rested seemed to force us to consider the basic structure of the world to be, at one and the sametime, that of a continuous wave yet that of discrete, spatially localized, particles. Werner Heisenberg's (1901-76) famous "Uncertainty Relations" pointed out the direction in which blatant inconsistency could be avoidedin this world picture, but only at the costof, at least, placing severe restrictions of principle on our epistemic access to the world.From this arose the earliest claims that the quantum picture of the world was incompatible with determinism or even with the claim that each event could be causally explained by reference to a sufficient antecedent state of the world.

Max Born's (1882-1970) understanding of the wave-function as generating probabilities of outcomes of measurements carried the understanding of the theory further, but interference effects showed that a naive 'ensemble' model of these probabilities could not succeed. Niels Bohr's (1885-1962) extraordinary 'Copenhagen Interpretation' of the theory provided the first systematic 'metaphysics' for quantum mechanics with its notion of a quantum description as instrumentalistic and relative to a chosen measurement process, and its evasion of inconsistency by the notion of features of the world being 'complementary' so that only one framework of description was applicable relative to any one possible set of measurements. But the special role played by 'measurement' as a process not describable within the physical theory, a role represented in the formal theory by the so-called 'projection postulate' of John von Neumann (1903-57), left one dissatisfied with the account and perplexed by its retention of classical concepts for the results of measurement while at the same time proposing their illegitimacy from the quantum point of view. Over the years the early suspicionthat the theory led to a radically indeterministic picture of the world has been buttressed by a series of demonstrations that no positing of 'hidden variables' is compatible with the statistical correlations posited by the theory. An early proof of von Neumann's which rested on posits stronger than those justified by quantum mechanics has been replaced by newer developments at the hands of A. Gleason, S. Kochen and E. Specker, and J. Bell. Tue Bell result suggests also a radical 'non-locality' of the world described by quantum mechanics. Systems once spatially united but now separated so as to be unable to causally influence one another show correlations in outcomes of measurements performed upon them which are, by an extraordinarily simple argument, incompatible with their being explained by a causal route which traces back to their initial local correlation in a classical way. Tue 'measurement problem' remains the most distressingly perplexing puzzle about quantum mechanics. Tue theory seems to

748

QUANTUM PHYSICS

describe the world entirely in terms of quantum mechanical states of a radically nonclassical nature. Yet its interpretation refers to 'measurements' whose dynamics falls outside the dynamical evolution posited for all physical interactions by the theory, and which results in final states characterized in a purely classical way. Formally superposition states fail to evolve in a 'unitary' way upon measurement. Instead 'interference terms' disappear and the wave-packet ·collapses' into one of its components in the decomposition of it into components appropriate to the measurement performed. How is this to be understood? Many approaches try to solve the puzzle by denying that projection really takes place. The quantum state function is understood 'realistically' to characterize the objective state of the world. All measurement interactions are taken to preserve superposition, the appearance of projection being due to the macroscopicsize of the measuring instrument which allows one to take the interference terms to be zero without much predictive error. But these accounts fail to explain why only one component (instead of the set of all of them) appropriately describes the world. The ·many worlds' interpretations, initiated by H. Everett, try to solve that problem by arguing that the world 'splits• into many different worlds at each interaction, one world for each possible component. Here the major problem seems to be to explain our experience which is of one world and one component only. Other interpretations are 'instrumentalistic' with regard to the quantum state. In some it is classical states of physical measuring apparatus which are taken as reality. In others it is the subjective states of the minds of 'observers' which are real. The former version suffers from treating !arge physical objects as ·outside· the physical realm which ought to be universally describable by quantum theory. The latter is, clearly, far too 'idealistic' an account ofthe world for many, especially given the propensity to seek for a materialist account of mind. These instrumentalistic accounts are all the successors of Bohr's 'Copenhagen Interpretation', and all utilize in one way or another variants of bis

subtle methods for avoiding inconsistencyin the interpretation. Many still share Albert Einstein 's ( 1879-1955) view that this way of viewing the theory achieved irrefutability at the price of obscurity and evasion. In the 1930s G. D. Birkhoff {1884-1944) and von Neumann showed that there was an interesting formal sense in which the propositions of quantum mechanics formed a 'logic' weaker than traditional Boolean propositional logic. In particular, distributivity was violated in this schema. Hans Reichenbach bad once proposed that the puzzles of quantum mechanics could be avoided by using a many-valued logic. More recentlyD. Finkelstein, Hilary Putnam, and others have attempted to show that one could maintaina 'realistic' metaphysics for quantum mechanics if one understood the Birkhoff-von Neumann 'logic' as really being the logicof the world, !hat is if one took quantum mechanics as showing !hat we needed to modify logic as general relativity showed us we needed to modify our geometry of the world. The ability of this move to solve the puzzlesis controversial, as is, of course, the coherence of the claim that logic is 'empirical'. Related suggestions try to save a realist account of the world in the quantum mechanical picture by rejecting orthodox probability theory in favour of a modified theory. One such version avoids the apparent demonstration of indeterminacy and non-locality of the Bell results by allowing conditional probabilities to exist where absolute probabilities do not.

FURTHER READING

Bub, J., 1974, The /111erpretatio11 of Quantum Dordrccht: D. Reidel. Mec/1a11ics, d'Espagnat, B., 1971, Co11cep111al Fou11datiomof Q11a111um Meclra11ics,Mcnlo Park, Calif.: Benjamin. Jammer, M .. 1966, T/1e Co11cep111a/ Development of Q11a11111m Meclra11ics,New York: McGrawHill. - 1974,The Plrilosoplryof Q11a11111m Mtcl1a11ia, New York: John Wiley. Jauch, J., 1968, Fo1111datio11s of Q11a111u111 Mtcl1a11ics,Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wcsley. Pagcls. H., 1982, Tlre Cosmic Code, New York: Simon and Schuster. Pitowsky, 1., 1983, ··Deterministic model of spin and statistics", Plrysica/Rer•iewD. 27, 2316-26.

749

QUESTIONS

Pulnam,H., 1974,"How 10 think quantum logically",Sy11these, 29, 55---61. Slachcl,J., 1986,"Do quanla nccd a ncw logic?", in R. Colodny. ed .. From Q11arks to Q11asars Pinsburgh,Pa.: Univcrsityof Pinsburgh Press. LAWRENCE SKLAR

Questions Thistopic has been discussed since Aristotle. Herewe describe three approaches of current import. systems approach is repThe a111011omo1,s resentedby a system of Nuel Belnap. Belnap. assumesa standard formalized language and addsspecial symbols to form interrogatives. An eleme111ary interrogative has a form that indicates a subject and a request. Thus for whetherinterrogatives, the subject is a !ist of distinctstatements; these are the altematives presented by the subject. For which interrogatives, the subject indicates a formula F that has free variables, and perhaps also indicates some category conditions corresponding to someof those variables; this subject presents as alternatives all the statements that come from F by substituting closed terms t for the free variables in F. where each / must satisfy the category condition, if any, that has been specified. For all elementary interrogatives, the request component has a form that indicates: 1. lower and upper bounds on selectio11 size, 2. presence or absence of a complete11ess c/aim, and 3. presence or absence of a distinc/lless c/aim. For any elementary interrogative, each direct answeris a statement that: 1. Selects a number II of the alternatives presented, where II is within the bounds on the selection size; 2. claims that these are all of the true alternatives if the relevant request indicates that a completeness claim is to be made; and

3. claims that these are distinct alternatives if the request calls for a distinctness claim. Xis a complete, partial, eliminative, or quasi elimi11ativeanswer to a given interrogative / just in case X implies some direct answer to /, is implied by some direct answer to /, implies the negation of some direct answer to /, or is implied by the negation of some direct answer to /, respectively. If the semantics is such that every individual has a name, then / is true just in case some direct answer to / is true. Where not all individuals have names, each formula F with free variables presents not only nominal alternatives(which are like the alternatives described above) but also realaltematives (which are pairs consisting of F plus a function that assigns denotations to the variables that are free in F). Then a which-interrogative can fail to have true nominal direct answers and fail to be nominally true, but still have true real direct answersand be real/ytrue. An interrogative/ presupposes X just in case Xis true whenever / is true. If an interrogative has any presuppositions, a unique one can be chosen as the presupposition. The imperative-epistemicapproach is that of Lennart Aqvist and Jaakko Hintikka. They assume a language with imperative and epistemic operators (including 'Make it the case that' and 'I know that'). Then, e.g., they can use 'Make it the case that either I know that P or I know that Q' to ask whether P or Q, and can use 'Make it the case that, for some x, l know that Fx' to ask for one example of a !hing with the property F. In the approaches described above we construct a system of interrogatives and then either equate questions with the interrogatives or stipulate that questions are denoted or expressed by the interrogatives. The Platonist approach finds that questions exist as independent entities, whether interrogatives exist to express them or not. In Pavel Tichy's system a question is a function on possible worlds. Common types of questions are propositions. individual concepts, and properties; their values for a given world are a truth-value. an individual. and a set of individuals. To answer a question is to cite an

QUINE W. V. O.

750

entity of the right type; the answer is right if necessary that S imply the presupposition of the entity is the value of the function at the this interrogative. For S to suppress I it is actual world. A completeanswer cites a single sufficient that S imply the negation of fs entity; an i11completeone cites a class and is presupposition. When in doubt about the truth of this presupposition, the safe wayto correctif the right complete answer is in the ask / is to use the conditional 'lf the presupclass. position holds, then I'. Consider, for example, the question 'Does God exist?' In Belnap's system there is an interrogative that presents as alternatives the FURTHER READING two statements 'God exists' and 'God does Harrah, D., 1984,"The logic of questions", in D. not exist', and requests that the respondent Gabbay and F. Guenthner, eds., Handbookof assert 'God exists' or 'God does not exist', Philosophica/ Logic, vol. II, Dordrecht: D. those two statements being the two Reidel, 715-64 (includes bibliography). direct answers. In the imperative-epistemic DAVID HARRAH ap-proach one issues the command: 'Make it the case that either I know that God exists or I know that God does not exist'. In some versions of this approach the respondent may Quine, W. V. 0. satisfy the command by some means other than simply asserting 'God exists' or its Willard Van Orman Quine was bom on 25 negation. In Tichy's approach there exists a June 1908 in Akron, Ohio. He majored in proposition that God exists. The given quesmathematics at Oberlin College and wrote tion can be expressed by saying that God bis Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard under A. exists, and it can be answered completely by N. Whitehead's supervision. Several of his saying 'true' or 'false'. philosophical views grew out of bis critical There is a relation between questions that examination of Rudolf Carnap's ideas. After holds when every direct answer to the first Carnap and Bertrand Russell, Alfred Tarski question implies some direct answer to the is probably the author who bad the strongest second. Some theorists regard this as a relainfluence on Quine, even though Quine's tion of implicatio11, some call it co111ai11me111,originality makes the word 'influence' inappropriate. and some call it obviatio11. Most theorists agree on the meaning of Language-theory Conglomerate. lt is comwhetherand which. There is less agreement monly held that there is a difference between on what, who, lww, and why. There is dictionaries and encyclopaedias. The fonner agreement that two interrogatives can be provide information about linguistic meanconjoined via a11d,and agreement that they ing. The latter supply factual infonnation can be disjoined via one type of or (meaning about the world. Quine mitigates this distinc'answer either question') or by another type tion. Sentences are associated with sentences of or (meaning 'Try to answer the first; if you in a "vast verbal structure which, primarilyas can't, answer the second'). Most theorists a whole, is multifariously linked to nonallow conditionals 'If P, then I' (where Pisa verbal stimulation" (Word a11dObject, 1960). declarative and / an interrogative) and adopt Thus, for instance, the sentence 'There is copper in this test tube' can be elicited by the the rule: given P, one may detach /. There is disagreemenl on whether every / observation of a green tint resulting from the presupposes that some direct answer to / is mixing of the contents of two lest tubes. true, or merely that some core assertion Admittedly, in this example chemical theory which secures the connection can be dissoci(which is implied by every direct answer to /) ated from linguistic meaning. In most cases, is true. Most theorists agree that, if the however. there is no sharp distinction to be presupposition of an interrogative is false, drawn. Commonsense is nothing but a primthen the given interrogative commits the fal/acy of ma11yquestio11s.For a set S of itive theory. But common sense is built into our language. For instance the very existence sentences to raise a given interrogative it is

QUINE W. V. 0.

751

of common nouns dcnoting rcidentifiablc particulars is a linguistic featurc which is connected with ··the immemorial doctrine of ordinary enduring middlc-sizcd physical objects·· (ibid. ). Hence the above-mentioned ·vast structure· is neither a language. nor a theory. but both: it is a conglomerate for which D. F01lesdal has coined the word ·1anguage-theory·. Pierre Duhem ( 1861-1916) claimed that Statements of physical theory cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed in isolation. Quine goes further. Seeing that all branches of scienceshare logic and some mathematics. he subscribes10 a generalized form of epistemological holism: Holism at its moM extreme holds that scicncc faccs lhc trihunal of cxpcncncc not scntcncc hy sentcncc hut as ,:i corporntc hm.ly: thc whoh• or scicncc (sec

Hahn and Schilpp 1986).

Consequences of Epistemological Holism. When epistemological holism is combined with a verification theory of meaning it leads lo semantic holism. as F01lesdal has emphasized. Isolated statements abstracted from the scientific theories to which they belong do not have a fund of experiential implications attached to them. From this it follows that „it is nonsense ... to speak of a linguistic component and a factual component in the truth of any individual statemenr· ( From a Logica/ Poim of View. 1953). Hence the distinction between synthetic Statements (true in virtue of the facts) and analytic statements ( true by virtue of the linguistic conventions alone) collapses. lt also f~llows that the reductionist programme of rationally reconstructing theoretical concepts of the natural sciences in terms of observation terms has tobe abandoned. Quine replaces it by the study of how we actually learn the language of scientific theory: Thc !(x)such that for all xR(x,(x))"- or, more generally, the justification of an inductive generalization with respect to certain empirical judgements by introducing a theoretical function which would explain the success of the inductive generalization. Furthermore, it is clear that this goal can only be accomplished, at least from a finitist point of view, through the actualconstruction of such a function c1>,not through a mere existence claim. Hence, Carnap's proposal to use Ramsey sentences instead of theories in order to get rid of the somehow suspicious theoretical functions is quite contrary in spirit to Ramsey's own philosophical convictions.

FURTHER READING

Camap, R., 1966, Philosophica/Fow1dationsof Physics,New York: BasicBooks. Church, A„ 1932, Review or Fo1111da1io11s, The AmericanMathematicalMo111hly, 39, 355-7. Majer, U., 1989, "Ramsey's conception of theories", Historyof PhilosophyQuarterly,6, 233-58.

Ramsey,F. P., 1931, The Fo1mdatio1rs of Mathematics,ed. R. B. Braithwaite,London: Routledgeand Kcgan Paul. - 1990,On Tr111h, ed. N. Rescherand U. Majcr, Dordrecht:Kluwer.

Russen. B„ 1931, Review of Foundations,Mind, 40, 476-82.

Sneed, J. D., 1971, Tlie Logica/ Structureof Mat/rematicalPhysics,Dordrecht: D. Reidel. ULRICHMAIER

Ramus, Peter Peter Ramus was born in 1515 in Cuth (Vermondois) and died in 1572 in Paris. He was a French humanist, philosopher, educational reformer, and rhetorician. In his philosophical works he makes use of different schools of his time: of the humanistic critique of Aristotle, of Cicero's dialectics, of Plato's theory of ideas, and of Aristotelian and scholastic teachings - without, however, arriving at a unified system. Tue many revisions of his Dialectics, reflecting his continuous debates with his contemporaries, start from the metaphysical position of the Dialecticae Institllliones (1543), which rests on Platonically based presuppositions, and culminate in the Dialecticae libri duo (1572), a syncretistic compendium of Aristotelian dialectics and Ciceronian terminology. Today the version of 1572 is considered as the 'Logic of Ramus' because it shaped Ramism throughout Europe. Ramus's point of departure here is 'natural dialectics' which, as a naturally given faculty of thinking, is considered a gift of God (i.e. the intellect as copy of God). Thus it must be the a priori basis of all thinking. This Platonic archetype finds its representation first of all in man's natural ability to reason. But it is represented also as art or doctrine, that is as the sum of the rules one has to follow in order to use this aptitude properly, and also as exercise (exercitatio), that is as the methodical practice of these rules. The dialectics follows from the a priori presuppositions of the intellect. Tue theorems of its system are a priori reasooable, not induced from experience. As a methodically adequate discussion of problems, the Dialecticae begin with the 'invention', that is with the doctrine ofthe discovery of proofs. In the second part, Ramus attempts to give the rules for arriving at the presentation of arguments and the evaluation

755

of their coherence. Perfect cognition is tobe reached through the three degrees of the "i11dicwn': 1. Syllogism, which as a complex of problems Ieads to a preliminary definition of truth as knowledge of simple states of affairs (according to Ramus dialectics arises from the confused or 'common sense' of truth which has been implemented in the human mind). 2. From the knowledge of simple states of affairs we move to a unified system of all knowledge in order to achieve clarity and order of knowledge. Method hereby Ieads us to the rational judgement of truth. 3. Ideas found dialectics, that is make reasonable the presuppositions of all truth (i.e. the vision of pure truth in the ideas).

After being established via a systematic insight into essence, dialectics are applied in the particular, which leads to the third part of the Dia/ecticae, the 'exercitatio' (i.e. the exerciseof reason). In the 1572 edition the Platonictheory of ideas has been dropped as the basis of the argument; the new basis is an extendedAristotelian doctrine of principles. Dialecticsare now defined as a theory for discovering truth. As a result a 'logic of content' is formed, resting on the material meaningof the concepts used, and taught in applications.Ramus and his followers understand this logic as a 'fundamental scientifictheoretical instrument' (i.e. method, practice, theory of order). After his death Ramus's immediate influence affected four 'schools': 1. Ramists, who explained the doctrines of Ramus's work (e.g. Audomarus Talaeus, Franciscus Sanetius Brocensis, Rolandus Makilmenaeus, William Temple, Johannes Piscator). 2. Philippo-Ramists, who tried to reconcile the doctrines of Philipp Melanchthon with those of Ramus (e.g. Michael Sonleutner, Heizo Buschner). 3. Semi-Ramists or 'systematists', who founded a syncretistical logic (e.g.

RATIONALISTS

Zacharias Ursinus, Bartholomew Keckermann, Rudolphus Goclenius). 4. Logicians who analysed the difference between the teaching of Ramus and bis opponents (e.g. Severinus Sluter, Johannes Riger, Paulus Frisius). FURTHER READING

Hooykaas, R., 1958, Humanisme, science et reforme. Pie"e de la Ramie, Leiden: E. J. Brill. Nelson, N. E., 1947, Ramus and the Confusion of Logic, Rhetoric and Poetry, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press. Ong, W. J., 1974,Ramus, MethodandtheDecayof Dia/ogue, New York: Octagon Books. Risse, W., 1974, Die Logik der Neuzeit, vol. 1. 150l>-1640,Stuugan-Bad Cannstau: FrommannHolzboog. GÜNTE.RSCHENK

Rationalists Rationalism is a 17th-and 18th-centuryphenomenon. The most important rationalists are Rene Descartes, Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Nicolas Malebranche. Other philosophers belonging to this group are Antoine Arnauld, Arnold Geulincx, Christian Wolff, and Christian August Crusius. The characteristic biographical feature of the four most important rationalists is that they were never professors and thus never taught philosophy at a university. Descartes and Leibniz were courtiers, and Spinoza was a craftsman. Spinoza was indeed nominated to a professorship at Heidelberg, but he did not accept this nomination. All these philosophers had, however, studied philosophy in scholastic universities: Descartes with the Jesuits in La Fleche, Malebranche at the College de Ia Marche and as a member of the Congregation of the Oratory, Leibniz with Protestant Scholastics in Leipzig, and Spinoza with rabbinic scholars. Thus it was the scholastic philosophy of the 16th and 17th centuries that formed the philosophicalbackground and was at the same time the piece de resistanceof the rationalists' thinking. This dependence on scholasticthinking was in our century first shown by Etienne Gilson in his

756

RATJONALISTS

Index Scolastico-Cartesie11 of 1912andin bis commentary to the Disco11rsde la methode in 1925. One important indication of this dependence is the fact that in their writings all Rationalists use scholastic Latin - a language containing a philosophical terminology developed by analysis and distinctions over six centuries. lnnate ldeas and Inner Experience. Descartes, in bis Disco11rsde la metltode, was seeking for certainty, represented by clear and distinct perceptions. He does not, however, find it in metaphysics, logic, or mathematics as bis predecessors did, but in inner experience. This inner experience of our own mental acts is for Descartes more certain than the perception of the extemal world. As example Descartes chooses the cogito, an act perhaps best captured by the phrase 'I am thinking' and whichis characterized, like certain other cognitive mental acts. by the property of being reflexive. Thus if I think, then I think that I think; but if I hate, then I do not hate that I hate. Descartes uses this reflexivity of higher mental acts, already mentioned by Aristotle in bis De Anima (III. 4), to infer from the existence of an act of thinking to the existence of an ego or thinking substance. Descartes's thought is in some respects a continuation of that of Augustine, the first to have introduced the notion of inner experience into philosophy. Augustine, however, did not distrust logic in the way that Descartes did. On the contrary, he knew that logic provides us with necessary propositions and with necessary knowledge. Intimately connected with the prevalence of inner experience in the writings of the rationalists is the theory of innate ideas. This Platonic theory, already expressed in the Meno, claims that the fundamental ingredients of our thinking, e.g. the ideas of substance (ofGod, mind, and matter), ofthe ego, of identity. and difference, are innate. These ideas, the materials of judgement and belief, are not dependent on experience, though their appearance can as it were be provoked by perception. Thus we can say that innate ideas are psychological dispositions, containing an ideal structure which

can be revealed by thought and by perception. The scholastic tradition knows and accepts only ideas as contents of the divine mind; the human mind, however, contains in addition notions or concepts which can be contradictory or to which nothing in the world might correspond. 'ldeas' here are tobe understood in something like the Platonic sense. As Descartes puts it: Someof my thoughts are as it were the imagesol things, and it is only in lhese cases lhat the Jerm 'idea' is stricllyappropriate; for example,when1 think of a man, or a chimaera, or the sky, or an

angel, or God.

The thesis that ideas can be present in the human mind is not accepted by all rationalists. Malebranche, for example, holds that ideas are only in the divine mind, and thusall perception and cognition of the extemal world is mediated by God. Thus thinking and perception are only occasions for participation in the ideas in God. This occasionalism was also shared by Geraud de Cordemoy (1620-84) and by Arnold Geulincx. Leibniz tries to find a compromise between the Aristotelian and the Platonic traditions. His formula is: 11ihilest i11intellec/11quod non prillS fuerit in sensu, nisi intel/ectus ipse. (Nothing is in the intellect which was not earlier in the senses, except the intellecl itself.) Descartes's analysis was historically very successful and important metaphysical systems of the Neuzeit each try to achievea synthesis between the metaphysics of Aristotle and the thinking of Augustine as revived by Descartes. This is so, for example, in the systems of Leibniz and also in those of Franz Brentano and bis pupils. Method. Characteristic of rationalist thinking is the reflection on method. Descartes favours two methods: intuition and deduction. Intuition, which is characterized by Descartes in the R11/esas a matter of what is produced "by the light of reason alone", is the method of inner experience. lt gives us first of all a direct knowledge of our own mental acts. But then also it gives us knowledge of the so-called "principles of natural light" like: "the same thing cannot be and not

757 be" or "nothing cannot be the efficient cause of something" and "two is even and three is odd". Characteristic of the method of intuition is that there is no room for doubt in the results that it yields. Deduction is a mathematical, not a logical, method, and as such it is responsible for more complicated inferences. Descartes, more mathematician than logician, prefers as model for this method Euclidean geometry rather than Aristotelian syllogistic, both of whichhave an axiomatic structure. The universalityof this method is expressed by the Cartesian term 'mathesis universa/is'. Spinoza favours a deductive or axiomatic method. He calls it more geometrico, which meansthe way mathematicians infer, and he uses this method in bis Ethica, bis most important work. lt is not surprising that bis idea of a total deductive system has attracted logiciansever since. Leibniz reveals in bis works on method an Aristotelian attitude, i.e. he adapts bis method to the objects he is analysing, and in contradistinction to the Cartesians he uses also induction. With Descartes, Leibniz regards the cognitio i11tuitivaas the most perfect cognition and in his Meditationes of 1684 he describes this kind of cognition, which does not use symbols, as the possibility to think together and intuitively all the part-concepts of a composed concept. Thus the cognitio intuitiva is a kind of non-combinatoric synthesis and Leibniz's account of it is related to later theories of perception like the theories of Gestaltin the 20th century. In bis later works, forexample in the Nouveartx Essais ( 1703--5), Leibniz concedes that intuitive cognition is not so unusual and that we can train it, especially in mathematics and logic. Substance and the Mind-Body Relation. A

central object of reflection is the concept of substance, a concept which the rationalists took over from Aristotle via the Scholastics. The reasons for reflecting on substance are quite different among the different rationalists and therefore so also are their respective results. Descartes is especially interested in the relation of mind and body. and opposes the spiritual substance, which he calls res cogi-

RATIONALISTS

tans, to the so-called res extensa. These two kinds of substance are represented on the one band by human selves, and on the other hand by all non-human substances like stones, plants, and animals. This conception is quite new and can be called 'anthropocentric', in contrast to the Aristotelian cosmocentric view that had hitherto prevailed. The mechanistic euphoria of his time leads Descartes to a mechanistic conception of life: animals and plants are seen as machines, and the soul is not the principle of life. The Cartesian conception of the relation between mind and body is rightly called 'dualistic'. But there is nevertheless for Descartes a causal relation or interaction between mind and body, serving as the foundation of sensual perception. For Descartes the res extensa qua substance can very weil have a causal influence on the production of ideas. This thesis is compatible with the Augustinian theory of degrees of reality, also held by Descartes. Followingthis theory, individualssuch as substances,belonging to the highest level of reality, can have a causal relation to individualsof lower levels, for example to accidentssuch as mental acts. Leibniz argued in many texts against thii conception. He is influenced by Descarte, in the sense that he, 100, renounces Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphism as an account of the connection of mind and body. But, like Bonaventure (1221-74), he accepts a hylomorphic structure of monads or spiritual substances. These do not have parts, but only apperceptions (or reflexive mental acts) and perceptions or (non-reflexive mental acts). Apperceptions represent the mind or active ingredient and perceptions the bodily or passive ingredient of spiritual substances. In the world, however, there are never spiritual monads alone; every monad is related to a body. though bodies are only phenomena where minds are real. There is no causal relation between monads, but only the relation of expression or representation. The most intensive expression consists in that between a monad and its body, more intensive than that between different monads and called by Leibniz 'pre-established harmony'. Leibniz evidently subscribes to the view now called ·psychophysical parallelism'.

RATIONALISTS

With Aristotle. Leibniz embraces a cosmocentric view of the world, and he thinks that there are levels of life: a11i111a vegetativa, a11i111a seruitiva. and a11i111a ratio11alis.These levels are cumulative, in the sense that we share nutrition and growth with plants, and perception and memory with animals. Between human beings and animals there is only a gradual difference. Animals do not have apperceptions and consequently they have no ego, no knowledge of necessary truths. and no morality. In bis Mo11adology he reproaches the Cartesians for not recognizing that animals have perceptions and memory. and that they therefore cannot be machines of the artificial sort. His main argument is a mereologicalone: in the case of natural machines each part is itself a machine; not however in the case of artificial machines. A peculiar theory of substance is proposed by Spinoza. He criticizes Descartes's view of the mind-body relation. and argues that there is exactly one (necessarily existing) substance identical with God or Nature. What we normally conceiveas individuals are in fact individual accidents of this single universal substance. There is an infinite number of attributes of the single world substance, but we know only the spiritual and corporeal ones, representing the res cogita11s and the res exte11sa as different aspects of one and the same psychophysicalwhole. Reductionism. There are tendencies to ontological reduction in rationalist thinking, for example the reduction of substances to their accidents or to sets of accidents. This tendency we find especially in Leibniz, who bad introduced the individual concept as an epistemic analogue to the nexus of the individual substance and its accidents. containing as part-concepts all concepts under which the accidents of that substance fall. Every individual has one and only one individual concept. There are also however certain antireductionist conceptions in rationalist thinking, as e.g. in the concept of the co11a11,s or in-built tendency of a substance to persist. is first expressed in The idea of the co11at11s the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. but we find it later also in Spinoza and Leibniz. For

758 Leibniz. the substance has an organwng function in respect to its accidents; it embraces as it were a law of succession which regulates the different states or accidents of the monad as its life unfolds. God and His Creation. A typical feature of rationalist philosophers is their interest in philosophy of theology or in theodicy. In this regard rationalism is, surprisingly, much more theologically orientated than scholastic philosophy has ever been. Spinoza and Leibniz even tried to give a metaphysical description of the world from God"s perspective. Anselm "s proof for the existence of God is given new life in rationalist philosophy. The reformulation is found in Descartes's Meditationes and is repeated also by Spinoza. Leibniz was not content with Descartes's formulation, however. He thought that we first have to show that the concept of God is possible or without contradiction. Leibniz formulates a very sophisticated proof of God's existence on the basis of bis perfections or bis attributes as maximally perfect. Leibniz's proof, which employs the notion of actual infinity, was later reformulated by Bemard Bolzano and Kurt Gödel. Ever since Origen 's De Principiis of the 2nd century. God's creation of the world has been seen as being connected with the concept of possible worlds. Descartes, too, in bis Discours de la 1111/thode and in bis Principia Philosophiae, discusses the problem of possible worlds. He thinks that God could have created other possible worlds. but that he would always have to take the same res extensa, the same stuff, so that he would really have created always the same world. Natural laws are necessary for Descartes: they are valid in every possible world, because there is only one res extensa and this is identical with the entire physical universe. Leibniz. in contrast, holds that God has in bis mind an infinity of genuinely distinct possible worlds, and that he chooses from this infinity the best, applying the minimax principle. In this decision he follows 'moral necessity'. i.e. bis decision is possessed of a very high degree of probability. Even the physical necessity of the world is dependent on this moral necessity. Hence Leibniz

759

RATIONALISTS

maintains.contrary to Descartes. !hat natural callcd by Leibniz the ·principle of continlaws are very probable but not in fact gcncy'. This principle cxplains lhe structure of a contingent world containing emia realia necessary. Spinoza·s theme in this contcxt is the existentialiu. modalstatus of the creation of the world. i.e. Leibniz like Descartes believed in innate the modality of God"s action. He thinks that ideas: but he believcd also in innate prinGod created the world as a matter of necesciples. i.e. the principlesof non-contradiction sity.Here he follows the Stoic tradition: God and identity on the onc hand and the prinhas to follow his nature and from this nature ciple of sufficient reason on thc other. there necessarily results the creation of the Christian Wolff latcr made a step backward world. This conception was present already and tried to base his whole system of metain Peter Abelard when he says „necessary is physics on the principle of non-contradiction alone. thal which is demanded by nature ... Leibniz opposes this conception. He. too. The real world - as opposed to the ideal thinksthat for a wise man what is obligatory world. which is dominated by possibility as andwhat is necessarv fall together. But there consistency - has a modal structure that is is no perfect identiiy of th~se two kinds of dominated by compossibility. and compossibility is characterized by Leibniz with: modalities.i.e. of deontic and alethic modalcompossibileest, quod 11011 implicatco111radicilies.The creation of the world is very probtio11emrnm alio. (Compossible is. what does ableand converges to absolute necessity: but not include contradiction with other things.) it is never absolutely necessary. i.e. the For Leibniz there is in God's mind a comcontrary is always possible. even if not very petition between compossible systems and probable.There is always a place for freedom not between individuals. and the compossible of choice. Rea/itas Esse11tialisand Existe11tialis. The system which fulfils the minimax principle is relation between possibility. reality. and chosen by God and identical with our world. thinkabilitv is fundamental for rationalist Thc competition between compossible sysphilosoph~rs. Their philosophical optimism tems is decided by the principle of the best. leads 10 the maxim formulated by Leibniz: Thus e111iarea/ia exi.we111ia/ia depend on a ·•11ihil aliud realitas q11m11 cogitabi/i,as·· (realcertain compossible system which is their context. They do not exist in an isolated way. ity falls together with thinkability). For logical and mathematical objects this Mathematics and Logic.The philosophy of mathematics and logic is intensively dismaxim is unproblematic. These depend for cussed by the rationalists. The Cartesians. their existence only on the principle of noncontradiction. A composite mathematical or represented by Descartes and Malebranche. logicalconcept free of contradiction is posalways defended the view that algebra is the sible or consistenl and thus automatically basic mathematical discipline in the sense real.and a composite mathematical or logical that other mathematical disciplines and logic concepl full of contradiction is impossible or are dependent upon it. Leibniz opposes this inconsistent and therefore not real. But this view. and he is convinced that there is a basic realityis only the reality of emia mathematica or fundamental formal discipline belonging or the reality of the emia realia essemialia. to metaphysics. a discipline which embraces entities which have only essential or necesboth mathematics and logic. and which he calls „c/wracteristica1111il-ersa/is'". sary properties. The world of substances. accidents. and In spite of all their work on method. only states of affairs. on the other hand. is conLeibniz among the rationalists was seriously tingenl. and consequently the principle of interested in logic and his contributions to the non-contradiction is not sufficient. Leibniz discipline rank with those of Aristotle. therefore introduces the principle of suffiGeorge Boole. Gottlob Frege. and Gödel. cienl reason which teils us why the existence Leibniz was not only the fim to develop of an entity is more probable than its nonlogical calculi. he was also active in applying existence. This principle is accordingly also logic to metaphysics. and his most abstract

760

RAYMOND LULL

calculi can be interpreted both in a settheoretical and in a modal and mereological manner. FURTHER READING

Bennen. J .. 1984. A Smdy of Spi11oza'sEt/Jics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clarke. D. M.. 1982. Descartes' P/1ilosop/1yof Scie11ce,Manchester: Manchester University Press. Ratio11alists, Collins, J., 1967, T/1e Co111i11e111a/ Milwaukee. Wis.: Bruce. Gilson. E .. 1930, Emdes sur /e rö/e de la penste midie,,a/e da11sla formatio11du systeme carttsie11.Paris:J. Vrin. Hintikka, J., 1962,··Cogito, ergo sum: inference or Rei•ieiv,71. 3-32. performance?", P/Jilosop/1ica/ Jolley. N., 1987, "Descartes on the action of body 19, 41-53. on mind". Studia Leib11itia11a. of His P/1iloKenny. A., 1968, Descartes.A S111dy sopliy, New York: Random House. HANS BURKHARDT

RaymondLull With thinkers like Anselm of Canterbury, a new dynamic understanding of reality appeared in the West. Although this understanding was submerged for a time by the effort to recover Aristotelian science, it surfaced again in many forms around the beginning of the I 4th century. One of the most important figuresin this evolution was that of the Majorcan polymath, Raymond Lull (c. 1232-1316).Working at the frontier between Islam. Judaism. and Christianity, Lull sought by means of a new science - the renowned Ars /111/iana- to convince all peoples of the truth of Christianity. Because this science was addressed to all faiths, it should not be specificallytheological, but rather a general science which could be applied to all the particular sciences of his time. Behind this general science there lay, however, the fundamental vision of a natural theology which should approach the true God through a method of contemplation on the divine names. Lull called these names 'dignities' or 'axioms' and listed in the final form of the Art nine of them: goodness, greatness. eternity: power, wisdom, love; virtue, truth. and glory. His idea seems to

have been based on an lslamic method of contemplation which attempted to ascendby way of created reflections of the divine perfections to the infinite perfection whichis God himself. He thought that through contemplation on combinations of these names, which are common to all religions, agreement could be reached between Moslems and Jews, Greek and Latin Christians. One recognizes the Neoplatonic Bonum est diffusivum sui behind goodness as the firstof the dignities, perhaps the 12th-century triad of potestas, sapientia, benignilas behind the second group of three divine names, and most importantly - Anselm's id quo maius cogitari nequit behind the inclusion of greatness. But Lull's inspiration for the way in which these names are to be understood seems to have been taken from Islamic mystical writers. He teils us that Moslems believe that God has placed even more power in his names than in animals, plants, and precious stones. His method of contemplation can, therefore, only be understood correctly if we take the dignities to stand for the active powers in things which must be referred to the supreme power of the Creator. Accordingly, Lull developed his methodof contemplation not only by spelling out horizontally. so to speak - nine different names of God, but also by making explicitvertically- three degrees of the powers of the names. He conceived his Art as a means of intellectual ascent which proceeds by way of two stages: a transcending of senseknowledge by an ascent from the positive to the comparative degree of the dignities (bonum - meli11s), and a transcending of rational knowledge by an ascent from the comparative to the superlative degree (meli11soptim111n). On this level of eternal truth the multiplicity and differences encountered on the first two levels disappear. In God it is no langer possible to distinguish the best from the greatest or the most powerful. At the superlative degree of reality the mystic discovers the supreme being in whom all the divine names coincide or fall together. But Lull went even further in his analysisof what it means when we say that the powersof the divine names are active. He held that we can not truly call something good whichdoes

761

not produce a good. Because action presupposes a principlc or source. that which is produced. and a bond hetween them. hc spoke not only of dignities but also of their acts and the ·correlatives' of action. As he explained: "Acllls . .. bo11iu11is dico bo11ificlltil'ltlll, bo11ificabile, bo11ificare; llC/11setictm 111ag11it11di11is .rn111 mag11ificlltivum, mag11ificabile, 111ag11ificare; et sie de llliis om11ibus divi11isdig11iuttibus". Lull generalized this ideato the extent that he could speak even of the abstract moments of activity as -tiv11111, -bile,and -are. He defined these moments as the substantial and intrinsic principles of action valid for all reality. In this way Lull was able to recognize imagesof the triune God in all aspects of the created world - in the form. subject, and property which make up the nature of the angelsandin the form. matter, and conjunctionwhich constitute material things. He was aided in his purpose by the analysis of the knowledgeof the illuminated mystic current among some Moslem thinkers who understood Aristotle's description of God as VOIJClL\; votjaEOJsas an analogy for the mysticalknowledge in which knower, the object known, and the act of knowing itself are one. Lull was able to join this analogy with Augustine's famous comparison of the Trinity with human love. In his De amic e amat he maintained that true, active love presupposes a lover. the beloved. and the love itself which unites them. Because the correlative principles are intrinsicto all activity. it follows that for Lull it is not being. but activity and relatedness whichare the absolute ontological principles. Even the divine unity known through faith mustbe structured: as an active unity it must havea moment which is tobe united. Accordingly. Lull added. in the later forms of the Art. nine relative dignities to the absolute ones: difference. contrariety. concordance; greaterness. lesserness. equality: beginning. middle. and end. Contrariety and lesserness are found in the created world. but on the Superlative level of the divine activity there remain only equality and concordance. The divine opti111ll11s can only produce a divine opti111at11111 which is its equal: the difference between them must he transcended in the

concordancc which is a divinc opti11111re. thc threc forming thc hcginning. middlc. and end of all things. FURTHEK READING

Colomcr. E.. 1961. Nikolaus vo11 K11esund Rai,mmd Llull, Bcrlm: De Gruy1cr. Gaya.J., 1979,Lu teoria /11/icmade lo.rcorrelatil•o.r;.

Palma de Mallorca: Lopc. Hillgarth. J. N„ 1971. Rm11onL11//a11dL11//1smi11 Fo11rtee111h-Ce11t11ry France. Oxford:Clarcndon Press. Platzcck. E. W.. 1962-4,Raim1111d Lu//. sei11Lebe11, seine Werke, 2 vols., Düsseldorf: Schwaan.

Pring-Mill. R„ 1962, EI microcosmos /11/.lia, Oxford: Dolphin. CIIARI.FS H. I.OIIR

Realism, Scientific Scientific realism is a labe! which has been used for a variety of different philosophical views about scientific knowledge. Common to these views is the 01110/ogical thesis that there exists a reality independent of human minds. and the epistemologirnl thesis that scientific theorizing (even when it transcends the boundaries of the observable) is a good or the best method for gaining knowledge about the mind-independent reality. In Opposition to naive or dogmatic forms of realism. 'critical' scientific realists further maintain that even the most advanced results of scientific enquiry are never certain or completely true, but at best ·approximate' and 'approach' the truth. The roots of scientific realism go back to the critical. dynamic. empiricist. fallibilist. and evolutionary epistemologies of the 19th century - such as C. S. Peirce's pragmatism and Friedrich Engels's ( 1820--95)dialectical materialism. In the 20th century. the demise of logical positivism was followed in the 1950s by the rise of scientific realism (Karl Popper. J. J. C. Smart. Wilfrid Seilars. David Bohm. Hilary Putnam. Mario Bunge. Rom Harre). but thc tide of neo-pragmatism in the 1970s has made anti-realist views fashionable once more (Thomas Kuhn. Paul Feyerabend. Larry Laudan. Nelson Goodman. Michael Dummett. Putnam. Richard Rorty. Bas van Fraassen).

REALISM. SCIENTIFIC

The ontological position of scientific realism is opposed to all forms of subjective idealism (such as solipsism and phenomenalism). On the other band, the minimal thesis that at least part of reality is independent of human minds can be combined with reductionist materialism or physicalism (Smart, Armstrong), emergent materialism (Engels, Popper, Bunge), mind-body dualism, or even objective idealism (Peirce, Bohm). lt is compatible with nominalism (Seilars) as weil as 'scholastic' realism about universals (Peirce, Armstrong), or with object ontology as weil as process (Popper) or system ontology (Bunge). Further, it may, or may not, assert the reality of potencies (Harre). Scientific realists typically are semanlic realists: they define truth in terms of a correspondence relation between language and reality (formally explicated in Alfred Tarski's model-theoretic account oftruth), and distinguish a definition of truth from the epistemic indicators of truth. Thus, truth about the mind-independent reality is also independent of our knowledge and beliefs. Seilars prefers to define truth in terms of assertability within a language, but bis concept of 'picturing' reintroduces a language-world relation. Metaphysical Versus Interna) Realism. Putnam distinguished in 1977 between metaphysical and internal realism. The former regards truth as a radically non-epistemic notion, while the )alter defines truth as ideal rational acceptability. In this sense, internal realism is a variant of the philosophical position which, unlike semantic realism, defines truth in epistemic terms- and so is allied with pragmatism, verificationism, mathematical intuitionism. and the consensus theory of truth. According to Putnam, metaphysical realism presupposes a unique 'ready-made' world and a privileged conceptual framework for describing its structure, while internal realism insists that the world can be 'carved into pieces' in several alternative ways. Interna) realism thus opposes all ontological and epistemological versions of the 'Myth of the Given'. Raimo Tuomela's variant of internal realism is based on bis scientia mensura principle: the ultimate results of science, the best-explaining theories, are the arbiters as to

762 what there is. Ian Hacking has characterized Putnam's new position - all naming and classification of objects is imposed by our languages and theories - as "transcendental nominalism". The semantic realist may accept the fact that the world can be described by alternative conceptual frameworks, but he will insistthat it is still the world itself (rather than we or our epistemic states) which decides the truth of such descriptions. Realism and Truth. Further, while a semantic realist denies a definitory or analytic connection between being true and being knowable, he will urge that the method of science is self-corrective and truthproducing in the lang run. Even if our observations and best theories are corrigible orcan fail to be true (as fallibilism claims, against the naive realism of classical empiricism and rationalism), scepticism and Kantian agnosticism can be avoided, since science is able to approach the truth. The best explanation for the practical success of scientific theories is the hypothesis that they are true or at least sufficiently 'close to the truth'. The use ofthe systematic methods of science at least makes it highly probable that the scientific community will eventually reach truth-like or approximately true information about reality. These intuitive ideas (Peirce) have been explicated by contemporary realists with the aid of the concept of verisimilitude (Popper, Pavel Tichy, Graham Oddie, Ilkka Niiniluoto). As a doctrine about scientific theories, scientific realism claims that theories are true or false attempts to describe reality. In particular, postulates about the existence of unobservable theoretical entities have a truthvalue- and may receive indirect support from the empirical success of the theory. Thus, scientific realism is here opposed to descriptivism (Ernst Mach, the early Vienna Circle), which regards theories as merely economical descriptions ofthe phenomena, and toinstrumentalism (Pierre Duhem, Henri Poincare), which treats theoretical statements as uninterpreted symbolic tools for observational prediction and systematization. Some scientific realists share with instrumentalism the view that theoretical lawshave no truth-value, but still endorse 'entity real-

763 ism', i.e., they accept the existence of theoreticalentities by appealing to the success of the experimental practice in science (Harre, I. Hacking, Nancy Cartwright). Some philosophers of science accept that theories have a truth-value, but still come closeto anti-realist instrumentalism by claiming that truth is methodologically irrelevant: the virtues of scientific theories and research programmes should be analysed by their predictive power, empirical adequacy (van Fraassen), simplicity, or problem-solving ability (Kuhn, Laudan). Against this view, scientificrealism claims that truth (with information content and explanatory power) is an essential element of the cognitive aims of science.

REDUCTIONISM

ence) and of 'phenomenological rcduction' (or cancelling of the natural attitude). More important today is Rudolf Carnap's assertion according to which there is: a unity of Ianguagein scicnce. viz. a common

reduction basis for the terms of all branches of sciencc. this basis consisting of a very narrow and

homogcneousclassof tcrmsof the physicalthingEncyclopediaof Unified languagc (lnterna1io11a/ Science,1938, p. 61).

For Carnap, then, terms like 'red', 'hot', 'small', 'anger', etc., would be reduced to 'observable thing-predicates'. There is no general consensus in contemporary philosophy about the concept of reduction and as to how reductions are to be performed. Two broad tendencies can be distinguished: either an item X is totally See also: ldealism/Realism eliminated when reduced to (or by) an item Y; or (the reduced) item X continues to have FIJRTHER READING some place or play some role in (the reduArmslrong,D. M„ 1978, U11iversa/s and Scielllific cing) item Y. In general, the understanding Rea/ism, Cambridge: Cambridge University and application of the concept of reduction is Press. situated somewhere between these two posiBunge,M„ 1974-. Treatise011Basic Plrilosop/ry, tions. Dordrecht:D. Reidel. Reductions occur in widely different areas, and b11ervenit1g, Hacking,1.. 1983, Represe11ti11g of which the most important are: Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. Harre. R„ 1986. Varietiesof Realism, Oxford: Blackwell. 1. the ontological area: entity Xis reduced Realism.Berkeley, Leplin,J., ed., 1984, Scie111ific to entity Y; Calif.:University of California Press. 2. the conceptual area: concept f is reNiiniluoto,1., 1984, ls ScienceProgressive?.Dordrechl:D. Reidel. duced to concept f'; Oxford: Popper.K„ 1972, Objectil•eK11owledge. 3. the linguistic area: expression e is reOxfordUniversity Press. duced to expression e'; Pu1nam,H .. 1981. Reaso11,Trrit/1and History, 4. the theoretical area: theory Tis reduced Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. Seilars,W .. 1968. Scie11ce a11dMetap/rysics.Lonto theory T' (e.g., Newtonian mechdon: Routledge and Kegan Paul. anics to Einsteinian mechanics, chemActio11,a11dReality, Tuomela,R„ 1985. Scie11ce, istry to physics); Dordrecht:D. Rcidel. 5. the logical area: a procedure or strucILKKA NIINILUOTO ture is reduced to another procedure or structure.

Reductionism The general idea of ·reductionism' is a very old one (cf. e.g. the notion of a red11ctioad abs11rd11m proof). The expression 'reduction • has however been used in a number of quite different connections. In this century Edmund Husserl introduced the concept of 'eidetic reduction' (or bracketing of exist-

Of these five areas, the most fundamental questions concern the ontological. All other types of reductions imply in some form or other an ontological reduction of a conceived (or expressed or theoretically articulated) entity X to (or by) another entity or type of entity Y. On one problematic formulation, ontological reduction is seen as a procedure which

REDUCTIONISM

presupposes the existence of an entity (or category) X and of an entity (or category) Y, and then seeks to displace X in favour of Y. But if entity X really exists, then it cannot be eliminated simp/iciter. It can at best be ignoredwith respect to some goal or petspeclive. One can distinguish a strong and a weak conception of ontological reduction. Toe stro11gconception implies a change or shift in ontological attitude towards the reduced entity X. Implicit in this conception is the presupposed existence of both the reduced and the reducing entity. Ifa mental entity Xis reduced to a physical entity Y in this sense, then it is assumed that both X and Y really do exist. According to one version of strong reduction, the reduced entity is somehow incorporated into the reducing entity. A variant of strong reduction in this sense is the classical account of intertheoretic reduction according to which a new theory reduces an older theory just in case the new theory, conjoined with appropriate bridge laws, logicallyentails the principles of the older theory (cf. Nagel 1961).By means of the bridge laws or correspondence rules the disparate ontologies of the two theories are co,rnected.(This connection can be expressed via an identity statement, such as temperature =mv213k;in these terms it seems more appropriate to take Ibis classicalaccount as a kind of weak reduction (sec below).) According to another account of strong reduction, however, which recalls the discussion of supervenience in the philosophy of mind, the reduced and the reducing entities are each assigned to different ontological domains or worlds. Tois necessitates the acceptance of and accounting for an ontological plurality of domains or worlds. The strong conception of reduction on this second account amounts to abandoning or ignoring a (kind of) entity belonging to one domain or world in favour of another (kind of) entity belonging to a different domain or world. The weak conception of ontological reduction also involves a change or shift. Here, however, the shift does not occur in the ontological dimension. but rather in the dimension of the linguistic expression or

764

theoretical articulation of our knowledge concerning an entity. The entity itself remains unchanged or unshifted. Toere seem to be tlireepossible readingsof this epistemological shift. Toe fa/sity or mistake account sees it as the rep/acementof a wrong conception (or expression or theoretical articulation) by a more correct one. Reduction means elimination of the false conception (or of the mistaken expressionor theoretical articulation). This position seems to rely on the presupposition that the entities talked about are completely independent of our mind, language, conceptual schemes, and theories. lt appears inadequate to speak of reduction in such a case, however, since reduction does not mean the same as elimination. Toe arbitrariness account of weak reduction, on the other band- a reading defended, for example, by Paul Feyerabend - understands the reductive shift as the replacement of a conception (or linguistic expression or theoretical articulation) by another on an arbitrary basis: both the reducing item and the reduced item are assigned the same degree of acceptability (or even of 'truth' in some sense). This concept of reduction assumes that the two items are incommensurate and that therefore a reduction can only be performed for external (or contingent) reasons. To reduce is to choose. This understanding of reduction seems to be presupposed, for example, by those authors (like Thomas Kuhn) who take theories to be incommensurable and yet still reducible to each other. The ontological implications of this position, if explored, are considerable. But it clearly fails to capture the intuitive undetstanding of reduction. Finally, the adequacy account of weak reduction understands the reductive shift as the replacement of one conception (or linguistic expression or theoretical articulation) by another more adequate one. This understanding presupposes that a notion ofincreasing ontological adequacy among concepts (linguistic expressions, theories. disciplines) can be worked out. This seems tobe the most acceptable concept of weak reduction. Are the conceptions of strong reduction and weak reduction mutually exclusive?And

765 how might the relation of increasing ontological adequacy be exactly understood? To theseand to similar questions one can find no clear answer in contemporary philosophy. In general, attempts to determine the concept of reduction are limited to standard formulations which symptomatically do not address these problems. The following passage ofW. V. 0. Quine illustrates this omission. He distinguishes two kinds of reductive reinterpretation. The first enables us "to dispense with one of two domains and make do with the other alone". The second is of: the sort where we save nothing but merely change

or seemto change our objects without disturbing eitherthe structure or the empirical support of a scientific theory in the slightest. All that is needed in either case, clearly. is a rule whercby a unique

objectof the supposedly new sort is assigned to eachof the old objects. 1 call such a rule a proxy

REFERENCE

questions about reference. Typically, reference is taken to be a relation between expressions of a language and entities in the world. Consider the following sentences: (!) Bertrand Russen was British. (2) Paris is in France. In these sentences there is a natural division between the grammatical subject and the grammaticalpredicate. How do the meanings of these two major grammatical components contribute to the meaning ofthe sentence as a whole? The following seems plausible: the subject noun phrase - here a proper name refers to some individual, and the predicate attriblltessome property to that individual. Sentences like (3) and (4), although superficially of subject-predicate form, do not appear to function in this way:

function. Then. instead of predicating a general

term•P' of an old object x, sayingthat x is a P, we reinlefPretx as a new object and say that it is the f o[ a P, where 'f' expresses the proxy function (Quine1981, p. 19).

(3) No Englishman has been into space, (4) Every politician is a crook.

Following the lead of Gottlob Frege, it is anacustomary to provide q11antificational lyses of such sentences. If we remove overtly quantified phrases from the class of noun phrases we seem to be left with a class admitting of the following major divisions: propernames ('Russell', 'Paris', etc.), personal and impersonal pronouns ('she', 'her', 'herselr, 'you', etc.), demonstrative pronouns ('this', 'that'), definite descriptions ('the first man into space', 'the positive FIJRTHERREADING square root of 4'), indefinite descriptions ('a Grossmann, R., 1973, 01110/ogica/Red11ctio11, man', 'a man I met last night', etc.), and Bloomington,lnd.: Indiana University Press. demonstrative descriptions ('that man', 'that Hooker,C. A., 1981, '"Towardsa generaltheory of man in the comer', etc,), Several interconreduction",Dialogue,20, 3$-59, 201-36, 496-529. Kuhn,T. S., 1970, Tlre Str11ct11re of Scie111ific nected questions now arise. Are all of these Rel'o/11tio11s, 2nd ed., Chicago, III.: Universityof expressions referential?How do those that ChicagoPress. are referential come to refer? Does the refNagel,E„ 1961, Tlre Structureof Science, New erent of a referential expression exhaust its York: Harcourt, Brace and World. meaning? Quine,W. V. 0„ 1981. T/reoriesa11d Things,Cambridge,Mass. and London: The Belknap Press. According to Frege in his paper "On sense and reference", a theory of reference is LORENZ B. PUNTEL inadequate as a complete theory of meaning because of the possibility of informative identity statements, vacuous names, and the Reference failure of substitutivity of co-referring exMany questions of a metaphysical and ontopressions in certain linguistic environments. Consider (5) and (6): logical nature are intimately connected to

Quine adds that "the original objects have been supplanted and the general terms reinterpreted". He speaks of a "revision of ontology" and the conclusion he draws from thisis the inscrutability of reference. But it is, of course, by no means clear what is meant by expressions like "old objects", "supplantation", "reinterpretation", and the like.

766

REFERENCE

(5) Cicero = Cicero. (6) Tuny = Cicero. Frege argued that these sentences must differ in meaning because only (6) is informative and that 'Cicero' and 'Tuny• must therefore differ in meaning despite having the same referent. His case was furthered, he thought, by the fact that substitution of 'Tuny• for 'Cicero' will not always preserve truth: (7) Bill believes that Cicero wrote De fato. (8) Bill believes that Tuny wrote De fato. Even though (6) is true, (7) and (8) may differ in truth-value. Such considerations led Frege to distinguish between the reference and the sense of an expression. For Frege, a sense is an objective entity - to be distinguished from a subjective idea - that determines the expression's referent. For instance, the sense of the name 'Cicero' might be characterized using a definite description such as 'the greatest Roman orator', in which case, the referent of 'Cicero' will be the unique individual satisfying this description. On Frege's account definite descriptions themselves are treated just like names. However, Bertrand Russen in "On denoting" presented arguments for the view that descriptionsare reallyquantifiedexpressionsand not genuine referential expressions.A variety of interconnected ontological, epistemological, and semantical considerations liebehind this claim. Take the tonowing sentences: (9) The largest prime number lies between 1023 and 1027. (10) John thinks that the largest prime number lies between 1023 and 1027 . (11) Mrs Jones wants Mary to marry the king of France. How are we to treat 'the largest prime number' and 'the present king of France', which fail to single out objects? Since (9)( 11) might be used to make meaningful assertions, it simply will not do to say that they are meaningless. On Frege's account, the occurrence of 'the largest prime number' in (9) has no referent

and hence the sentence as a whole has no truth value, a conclusion which conflicts sharply with the intuition that the sentenceis false. (Frege does not face this problem with (10) and (11) because he takes a name occurring in the context of a psychological verb to refer to its customary sense.) One approach to non-referring expressions would be to posit a realm of non-existent entities to serve as their referents. This approach was taken by Russen in some of bis works and especially by Alexius Meinong, Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie, Leipzig: Barth (1904). But by 1905 Russell feit that this position conflicted with a "robust sense of reality", and bis famous Theory of Descriptions came about, in part, as an attempt to purify bis ontology. According to Russen, if a singular noun phrase R can be supposed not to refer, yet a sentence containing R still be supposed to express a determinate proposition, then R cannot be a genuine referring expression. Whenever we face this state of affairs, the Theory of Descriptions provides the sentence in question with a quantificational analysis, i.e., an analysis in which there is no 'logical subject'. Informany, we may state the main thesis of Russen's theory thus: If 'the F is a definite description and '( ) is G' is a predicate phrase, then the proposition expressed by an utterance of 'The F is G' is logicany equivalent to the proposition expressed by an utterance of 'There is one and only one F, and everything that is Fis G'. That is, 'The Fis G' is treated as equivalent to (3x)(Fx & (\/y)(Fy :) y

= x) & Gx).

On this account, a sentence like (9) is straightforwardly false as there is no largest prime number. As Russen noted, his analysis opens up the possibility of accounting for certain de dicto-de re ambiguities in tenns of scope permutations. For example, (10) above may be represented as either (12) or (13), according as the description 'the largest prime number' is given wide or narrow scope with respect to 'John thinks that': (12) (3x)(largest-prime x & (\/y)(largestprime y :J y = x) & John thinks that: (x lies between 1023 and lü27)).

767 (13) John thinks that: (3x)(largest-primex & (\/y)(largest-prime y :::,y = x) & x lies between la23 and HJ27). (12)is false because there is no largest prime; but (13) could still be true. Similarly with (11);there is no king of France (at present), so(11)is false on the de re reading that results from giving the description 'the king of France' wide scope. But (11) may express a truthon the de dicto reading that results from givingthe description narrow scope. Thus Russellis able to avoid positing an ontology that includes such things as a largest prime, a kingof France, a round square, and so on, and at the same time he can treat a sentence like(9) as expressing a perfectly determinate proposition. The proposition is objectin the sense that there is no i11dependent object for which its grammatical subject stands, upon which the existence of the proposition expressed depends. Unlike a genuine referring expression, a definite description 'the F, although it may in fact be satisfiedby a unique object, does not actually refer to that object. Sentences containing descriptions are quantificational. As pointed out by A. F. Smullyan (1948), Russell's theory can also be used to explain the de dicto-de re distinction as it arises in modalcontexts. For example, (14) is ambiguous between (15) and (16): (14) The number of planets is necessarily odd. (15) Necessarily (3x)(x numbers the planets & (\/y)(y numbers the planets :::>y = x) & x is odd). (16) (3x)(x numbers the planets & (\/y)(y numbers the planets :::>y = x) & Necessarily (x is odd)). (15)is false - there might have been, say, six planets-whereas (16) is true, on the assumption that 9 is necessarily odd. As Smullyan observes, ~ubstitutivity problems simply do not arise in modal contexts if one accepts Russell'sview that descriptions are devices of quantification rather than reference. P. F. Strawson (1950) argues that referring is something that speakers (rather than expressions) do, and that, partly as a result of this, Russell's quantificational analysis of

REFERENCE

sentences containing descriptions does not do justice to the ways descriptions are actually used. According to Strawson, when one uses a description 'the F one typically intends to refer to some object or other (usually an F) and say something about it; there is no question of claimingthat some object uniquely satisfies F. Consideration of the behaviour of descriptions in non-extensional contexts (e.g., attitude, modal, and temporal contexts) and the possibility of misdescribing an individual but successfully communicating something about that individual, have led many authors to suggest that neither Russell nor Strawson bad the whole story: sometimes descriptions are quantificational, at other times they are referential. (See, e.g., Rundle 1965, Donnellan 1966.) But Saul Kripke (1977) has demonstrated that (1) no quantificationaVreferential distinction can replace Russell's notion of the scope of a description, and (2) so-called referential uses of descriptions can plausibly be accommodated by invoking an antecedently motivated Gricean distinction between semantic referenceand speaker'sreference,the !alter being of relevance to the theory of communicationbut not to semantics itself. Russell went on to extend bis Theory of Descriptions to cover ordinary proper names, which he views as 'disguised' or 'truncated' descriptions. For instance, the name 'Cicero' might be unpacked as the description 'the greatest Roman orator'. On the face of it, this provides Russell with accounts -not dissimilar from Frege's-of why (5) and (6) differ in informativeness, and of why (7) and (8) need not agree in truth value: 'Tully' and 'Cicero' are unpacked as different descriptions. But in the light of Kripke's (1972) seminal work on names, it is now widely held that descriptive analyses of proper names cannot succeed. That names cannot be disguised descriptions is best illustrated by thinking about counterfactual circumstances. Let us grant that the name 'Cicero' abbreviates some description or other, say, 'the greatest Roman orator'. Then on Russell's account, (17) will be equivalent to (18): ( 17) Cicero was bald. (18) The greatest Roman orator was bald.

768

REFERENCE

On the assumption that Cicero was in fact the greatest Roman orator, the actual truth conditions of (17) agree extensionally with those of (18). But as Kripke points out, in cou111erfac111a/circumstances they may differ. Suppose someone other than Cicero was in fact the greatest Roman orator; the truth of (18) would depend on whether or not that ot/rer persoll was bald; but the truth of (17) would not depend upon how things are with that individual, it would depend upon how things are with Cicero. For Kripke a proper name is a rigid desigllator, i.e., an expression that refers to the same individual in every possible world in which that individual exists. (A consequence of this is that, unlike definite descriptions, proper names in modal contexts do not give rise to the type of scope ambiguity illustrated by (14)-(16) above.) Although some descriptions turn out tobe rigid because of the predicates they contain - for instance 'the positive square root of 4' - unlike names, descriptions are not by their very nature rigid. The description 'the greatest Roman orator' may weil pick out Cicero in this world. But things would doubtless have tumed out otherwise if, say, Cicero had decided to become a carpenter, or had died at birth. In such circumstances 'the greatest Roman orator' picks out someone other than Cicero. David Kaplan (1977) has argued that demonstrative expressions like 'this' and 'that', indexical pronouns like 'I' and 'you', and demonstrative occurrences of personal pronouns like 'he' and 'she', are also rigid designators. Since these expressions are context-sensitive, in orderto see that they are rigid, one must be careful to distinguish the context of utterance from the possible world at which the proposition expressed is evaluated for truth or falsity. Suppose I point to someone at a party and say to you: (19) That man is a spy. The referent of the demonstrative 'that man' is the person I am demonstrating in the context of utterance. However, we do not want to say that the description 'the man I am demonstrating' gives the meaning, or fixes the referent of 'that man' (as used on this occasion). The proposition expressed by (19)

is true at worlds in which I never point during my lifetime. And descriptions such as 'the man I am talking about' or 'the man I havein my mind' will not do because the proposition expressed by (19) is true at some worlds in which (e.g.) I never utter a ward or !hink about anyone. A sentence of the form 'That F is G' is semantically very different from a sentence of the form 'The Fis G'. Whereas 'that F is a rigid designator, 'the F need not be. The semantical and ontological concems that drove Russell to distinguish between genuine referring expressions and definite descriptions crop up again with pronominal reference. While some occurrences of personal pronouns are rigid referring expressions, there are anaphoric occurrencesthat are not. (Let us say that a pronoun 0 C ->. A & -C-> -B) and Disjunctive Syllogism (e.g. A & (-A v B)-> B);

2. conceptive or co11tai11me111 logics, which limit Addition (e.g. A ->. A v B); 3. co,mexive logics, which restrict Simplification (e.g. A & B-> A) as weil as Addition; 4. 11011-1ra11sitive logics, which limit Transitivity (e.g. at least the rule, A -> B, B-> CIA -> C); and 5. 11011-po11iblelogics, which restrict Modus Po11e11s (i.e. A, A-> BIB). Logics of these overlapping types may weil not be subsystems of classical (i.e. Boolean) logic; all types admit of non-classical extensions, and some are characteristically classically incompatible, such as· connexive logic which normally includes Aristotle's thesis: -(A-> -A), no statement implies its own negation. All these types of sociative logics have historicalroots, most reaching back at least to medieval times. For example, semantical reasons for the serious qualification of Disjunctive Syllogism were anticipated in the 15th century by the Cologne School and Domingo de Soto; for they realized that where both A and -A hold (as in non-trivial inconsistent theories and many kinds of intensional situations), A does not exclude -A, A 's negation, so B's holding is in no way guaranteed. Generally, however, the historical connections were rediscovered later, after contemporary investigations had begun. In particular, technical studies of the best known of these sociative types, relevant Iogics proper, were weil advanced before it was realized that some of the ideas (e.g. that relevant implication explicated genuine deducibility) were not quite so new, and !hat popular arguments against the theory appealing to the logical tradition could be matched by rival traditional arguments from dissenting schools. But certain recently neglected features of logical tradition - notably the requirements of preservation of releva11ce and necessity in an implication - were early seized upon by Anderson and Belnap (1975). who made these requirements central to their

788

elaborations of entailment, as encapsulated in the system E (of 'entailment'). Tothem we owe both the title 'relevance Iogic' and the main systems of relevance logics, a subclass of properly relevant logics in the vicinityofE, a system itself adapted from the (theoremwise equivalent) system of 'rigorous implication' of W. Ackermann (1896-1962), who really initiated contemporary technical studies in 1956. A great deal is now known about the main relevance logics, E ('entailment'), R ('relevant implication'), and T('ticketentailment'), promoted by the Pittsburgh School that flourished around Anderson and Belnap; and also about certain deep relevant logics, the D (for 'deducibility' and 'depth') systems, rival, more appropriately powered systems favoured in Australia. These rival classes do have an important common core, as will be explained in a small technical detour. For all the zero order (or propositional) logics share a common first-degree logic (where no nested implications occur), they are all distributive lattice-based, witha De Morgan negation as opposed to a paradox-inducing Boolean negation (though of course relevantized intuitionisms are feasible ). Where the rival classes differ is as to higher degree principles, such as the nested (S3-ish)principle B-> C->.A->B->.A ➔ C (typical of strengthening to 7), the necessitation theme ((A -> A) -> B) -> B (of the stronger E), and the commutation theme A ->. (A -> B) -> B ( of the still stronger R). For relevant logics virtually all the interesting styles of mainstream logical formulation have been matched in one way or another: natural deduction, Gentzen, tableaux, semantical, algebraic, and so on (an important exception is resolution, which depends upon irrelevant principles). Moreover, the stronger, relevance logics have proved to have certain interesting technical features, such as undecidability and uninterpolability. Much less is known - yet, for work proceeds apace - about elaborations (e .g. to higher order) and about applications (e.g. in higher mathematics) of relevant logics. But some important results have already been obtained (e.g„ positively, R. Brady"s on the nontriviality of relevant set theory, and, negat-

789 ivelyso far, R. K. Meyer's on the admissibilityof Ackermann 's rule y in relevant arithmetic).Less still is known, in the main, about other types of sociative logics. Useful inlormationhas, however, been gleaned by a synthesizingstrategy: that of carrying these otherlogics on better-understood basic systems.For example, the systems of analytic implication (worked out by W. I. Parry, lollowingKantian intuitions, beginning in the 1920s)can be carried by modal logics ( upon addingarequirement of content inclusion, as K. Fine showed). Similarly, relevant containmentlogics can be carried by relevant logicsproper; non-transitive relational logics canbe carried by modal logics ( upon adding a relational coupling), these again having relevantanalogues; and so on (for details, see Sylvanet a/. 1989). Although the main motivation for investigationsof relevant logic was initially philosophicaland mathematical - those of paradox, puzzle and problem neutralization or removal - more recently, especially with automatization of logical procedures, these investigationshave acquired a technical life of their own in computing and information theory.Early objectives obviously included the quest for satisfactory theories of entailment and implication, theories which were paradox-freeand natural but adequate for all legitimateinferential purposes; but also soon envisaged were applications to paradoxremovalin mathematics, in the development of coherent type-free foundational systems. AlthoughAckermann's rigorous implication was not suitable for formalization of nontrivialinconsistent theories (because it contained the primitive rule y of Material Detachment: A, -A v BIB). subsequent relevantlogics were ( the main art in reaching systemE consisted in deletion of y, which subsequentlyproved an admissible rule), and accordingly admit immediate foundational application to inconsistent theories. In fact relevantlogics proper form a central sort of paraconsistent logics, logics which allow for handlingof inconsistent information, that is, theyadmit extension by contradictions which do not trivialize them. Because there is no need to reset such systems should they encounter inconsistency ( or incomplete-

RENAISSANCEPHILOSOPHY

ness), some ofthese systems, the deeperones especially, are ideally suited to neutralize logical and semantical paradoxes. Tue penalty of triviality such paradoxes carry in stronger and irrelevant settings is defused. With implicational and logical paradoxes eliminated, and therewith many paradoxes parasitic on these (e.g. those of deontic logic, of conditionality, of confirmationtheory, and so on), a grander project came into view: total removal of paradoxes of logical kinds, and the development of appropriate logicsto implement paradox-freed reasoningsatisfactorily. For with the vision came the realization that a great many puzzles,problems, and paradoxes, have been induced elsewhere in theory and in conceptual thought by imposition of the wrong logic or reasoning procedures, typically through disastrous classical procedures. Thal logical liberation programme is still in process. FURTHER READING

Anderson, A. R., and Belnap,N. D., lr., 1975, Entai/ment.TheLogicof Relevance andNecessity, vol. 1, Princelon,N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press;vol. II, ibid.(1990). Norman,J., and Sylvan,R., eds., 1989,Directions in RelevalJILogic, Dordrecht:Kluwcr.

Read, S., 1989, Re/evalllLogic,Oxford:Blackwcll. Logicsa11d Tlreir Routley, R. etal., 1982,Re/eva111 Rivals, vol. 1, Atascadero,Calif.: Ridgeview Publishing. Guide10Sociative Sylvan, R., 1989, Bystanders' Logics, Research Series in Logic and Metaphysics, No 4, Canberra: RSSS, Australian National University.

Sylvan,R. et a/., 1989,Reaso11, Causea11d Relevant Containment, will, an applicationto frameprob-

lems,ResearchSeriesin LogicandMetaphysics, No. 3, Canberra: RSSS, AustralianNational University. RICHARDSYLVAN

RenaissancePhilosophy Renaissancepliilosopliyrefers to a movement that is connected with the renewal of ancient culture. especially in Italy, in the period 1400-1600. This 'humanist' movement is to be distinguished from the university philosophy of this period which continued the

RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY

medieval concern with Aristotle's philosophy. Outside the universities Platonism and Stoicism form the background for philosophical reflection and speculation; together with the humanist ideal of individual fulfilment they offer a completion or an alternative to Christianity. University philosophy itself develops autonomously during this period, and becomes more critical towards older interpretations; the most progressive thinker in this respect is Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525).The main representatives ofthe non-university philosophy, in contrast - that is to say, of thinkers at the courts and in the cities - are Lorenzo Valla (c. 1405-57), MarsilioFicino (1433-99), and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola ( 1463-94). These try to reconcile Christianity and (ancient) philosophy, taking a critical attitude towards medievalpositions. Knowledgeof the ancient sources increases; manuscripts are discovered and are read in the original Greek or are newly translated. Tue main characteristics of the Platonist view of man and the universe are: the universe is infinite and is united by the band of love; in the whole cosmic hierarchy everything has its own place and man is at the centre; by means of love he can strive to higher levels and finally be united with God; but he can also fall and become lower than the animals; his will is superior to his intellect and he has an immortal soul; true knowledge is formed by the intellect and is not dependent upon the senses; the universe is to be understood in its own mathematical order. Lorenzo Valla was the first great Renaissance philosopher, working in the fields of ethics and rhetorics. He studied in Rome, taught at Pavia, and became secretary to Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and later papal secretary. His most influential work was a handbook of Latin style ( E/egances of the Latin Language, 1444), but his ethical work was also highly esteemed by many later thinkers, including Martin Luther and Leibniz. He used the dialogue form. perhaps in order to conceal his own convictions, so that there is still discussion about his true opinions. He appreciated the Epicurean moral viewpoint as against that of the Stoies, and seemed to combine the Christian and the

790 Epicurean position by showing that in botb cases the highest good consisted in lust and pleasure, either in this life or hereafter. In his On Lust (1431, later called On the True Good, 1433) Valla defends the Epicurean ideal of a normal life on earth with its own specific happiness, but this is attacked by the Christian partner in bis dialogue. ln bis On Free Will, written between 1435and 1443, he tries to reconcile God's foresight with human freedom, continuing the argumentof Boethius in bis Consolation of Phi/osophy. He defends human responsibility, sees human acts as resulting from character and free choice, yet affirms that one's cbaracter itself is not chosen, but created by God. lt remains a mystery why God created bad people. In bis rhetorical work Dia/ectica/ Disputations ( 1439) he favours Aristotle against medieval scholastic logic. With critical acumen he discovered that the so-called Donatio Constantini, meant to support tbe papal power, was a medieval forgery. Marsilio Ficino was the most influential Platonic philosopher of the Renaissance movement. He studied philosopby and medicine in Florence, where one of bis teachers was Niccolo Tignosi. He leamed Greek and, stimulated by Landino and Cosimo de Medici, started in 1462 his translations ofthe Hermetica, Plato, Plotinus, and other Greek philosophers and commentators. Also in 1462 the Platonic academy at Careggi near Florence was established as a centre for the study and discussion of Plato's philosopby. Ficino wrote commentaries on Plato's dialogues On Love (1469) and systematic works Platonic Theo/ogy (1482), and On Christian Religion (1476). His main concern was to create a synthesis between Christian theology and (Platonic) philosophy; for him both were in harmony and supported each other; faith and reason are in full agreement. In his concept of God, the universe, and man he sees all three as being connectedin mutual relationship in one hierarchical order represented as a circular movement fromand towards God. The whole universe is divided into five levels: God, the angelic world, tbe rational world, qualities, and matter. Wbat binds them together is eros or Platonic love (identified with the Christian caritas). Manis

791 in the central position, related to everything, andstrivingtowards his ultimate goal which is the contemplation of God. In so far as he cannotreach this in this life. he will reach it hereafter. Therefore he has an immortal soul; he will gain total knowledge in his etemallife, for real knowledge does not need thebody and the senses. The soul participates in the whole universe and transcends its own individualexistence. In this way man is 'God on earth'. True morality is not the obedience of prescriptions, but the fulfilment of the contemplative, inner life. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was a brilliantrepresentative of Renaissance syncretism.He studied law at Bologna at the age of 14and philosophy at Ferrara and Pisa, where histeacher was the J ewish A verroist Elia de! Medigo. He learned Greek, Hebrew, and Arabicand was very much interested in the Cabbala. In 1496 he planned to defend 900 theses;as an introductory speech he wrote his 0ratio(later called Oration on the Dignity of Man), the delivery of which was, however, forbiddenby Pope lnnocent VIII. Pico fled to France, was arrested, and was thereafter allowedto stay in Florence (in close connection to Ficino) until bis early death. Pico's intention was more ambitious than that of Ficino. He tried to create one allinclusivephilosophical system, but in fact he wasable to present only some few elements of it in his short lifetime. He published an interpretation of the book of Genesis in a cabbalistvein ( 1489) and combined Plato and Aristotle in About Being and One (1491). Pico's view on the universe was not unlike Ficino's. He, too, divided it into different levels in a hierarchical order: God, the angelicsphere, a celestial sphere of the eternal souls, the sphere of man in the centre and below man the lowest sphere of animal life andmatter. Man is not fixed in his sphere: he has it in his power to ascend or to descend. The dignity of man consists in his freedom to live his own life. Man is an independent being, free from influence from outside, especiallyfrom the stars. Pico attacked astrologybecause of its determinist tendency. His glorificationof man is in sharp contrast with the vision of many contemporary theologians whostressed the misery of man. Pico believes

REPRESENTATION

that philosophy is able to develop the human potentialities and find universal truth. In the dream of Jacob about the angels ascending and descending, Pico sees a metaphor of the movement of the universe from and towards God. FURTHER READING

Cassirer,E., 1963,Thelndividual andtheCosmos NewYork:Harper. in Renaissance Philosophy, Collins,A. B., 1974,TheSecularis Sacrtd,The Hague: M. Nijhoff. Kristeller,P. 0., 1943,ThePhi/osophyo/Marsilio Ficino,NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress. - 1964,EightPhi/osophers of theltalianRenaissance, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Schmitt,C. B. ,r a/., eds., 1988,TheCambridgt Cambridge: Historyof Rtnaissance Philosophy, CambridgeUniversityPress. WIMVAN DOOREN

Representation Representation is bound up with two phenomena: that of one thing (event, state of affairs, etc.) standingfor another (e.g., a dot on a map standing for a town), and that ofone thing indicating something about another (e.g., the height of a mercury column indicating the current temperature ). Most philosophers have concentrated on standingfor. The efforts of Charles Sanders Peirce and Charles Morris (1901-79) are notable among modern studies of 'standing for' but neither of them provides an acceptable analysisof the phenomenon. Peirce wrote ( CollectedPapers,2.228) that all representation involvesa sign, standing in some respect for an object, so as to bring about the existence of a second sign (the interpretant)which also stands for the object. In the central case the interpretant is a mental 'sign' employed by the person understanding the original sign. A sign is a sign to a person because it creates a sign of its object in the person. For one thing to standfor another to an interpreter is for it to be treated by the interpreter, for certain purposes, as if it were that other thing (2.273). lt remains somewhat mysterious just in what ways names, signalflags, musical notations, and so on are treated

REPRESENTATION

as if they were the things represented. In addition, on Peirce's theory, any utterance ·•signifieswhat it does only by virtue of its being understood to have that signification". This seems wrang; representation may certainly presuppose, e.g., that in most cases there is correct understanding, but it does not require correct understanding in every instance. Morris provided a clear and non-trivial analysisof what it is for one thing to stand for another (in Signs, Language and Behavior, 1946). Following Peirce, he concentrates on things that represent other things 10 interpreters. Morris analyses this relation in a behaviouristic way: a sign creates in the interpreter a disposition to behave, under appropriate conditions, in a goal-seeking manner toward the object. Whatever its merits as a hypothetical tesl for whether something is a sign, Morris's analysis no langer seems a plausible principle about what it is for a thing to stand for another. At first blush, it does not seem very likely that an account of 'standing for' can be given in terms of indication. Surely, indication is the easier notion to grasp; when one thing indicates something about another, some of its features correspond for law-like reasons to certain features of the other thing. Peirce gave the name 'index' to signs that, for reasons of real, causal connections, indicate something about their objects. The problem with explaining ·standing for' in terms of indication is that, first, not every case of indication is either a case of standing for, or even of representation (witness the coloured soil which indicates, but does not represent or stand for, the climatic conditions of its neighbourhood in a certain era); and, second, not every case of 'standing for' is a case of indication (witness false statements, like one of 'David is here·, when he is not). Fred Dretske has presented an analysis of 'standing for' which avoids those pitfalls. A thing stands for or represents another, he claims, when it is its function to indicate something about the other thing. Of course, such a thing need not a/ways indicate something about its object; in the case of the false Statement, the words used stand for their objects in virtue of their linguistic function of

792 indicating facts about these objects, not because they indicate such facts on the occasion of that statement. The analysis also avoids the other problem with assimilating 'standing for' to indication: the soil's colour indicates facts about the climate, but it is in nosenseits function to do so. lt is an open and interesting question whether the elusive notion of 'function' can bear the weight placed on it in Dretske's analysis. Certainly, the analysis seems more satisfactory with regard to the central cases of mental and natural-language representation than it does with regard to musical notation, artistic depiction, and allegory. Complex Representation. Although Ludwig Wittgenstein shed no light on what it is for a thing to stand for another, he gavein the Tractat11san interesting account ofhow structured combinations of signs can represent possible states of affairs. According to bis 'picture theory' of representation, a complex sign like a sentence shares a logical form with, or is isomorphic to, the state of affairs it represents. The component signs stand for things and relations, and the holding of structural relations among the component signs within the complex sign reflects the logical structure of the represented state of affairs - determining just which relationsarc represented as holding between which objects. For example, suppose that 'the cat' stands for the cat, 'the mat' stands for the mat, and 'is on' stands for the relation of being atop. Consider, now, the sentence 'the cat is on the mat'. Wittgenstein held that it is the fact that, in the sentence, the term 'the cat' stands to the left, and 'the mat' to the right, of 'is on', that represents the state of affairs of the cat being atop the mat. Very roughly, representation of complex statesof affairs demands structural isomorphism between the representation and what is represented. The isomorphism presupposes an unexplained 'projection' relation which relates the simple, component signs with the things and relations they stand for, andwhich relates structural features of the complexsign with logical features of the designated stateof affairs. Intentionality. In the philosophies of mind and language. discussions of representation

793

arebound up with debates about 'intentionality'. Our thoughts and words are about things;things are represented in thought and language.A live issue in this area is whether or not the representational ability - the intentionality- oflanguage is derivative upon that of mind: can we talk about things only because we can think about them? This thesis has been defended, as has the opposite thesis, that the intentionality of thoughtis dependent on our abilities to use language. Artilicial lntelligence. The view that mental representation involves an organized system of mental entities is familiar from theoriesof concepts and ideas, and has been givennew support by advocates of represe11tatio11alism. Recent work in artificial intelligenceand cognitive science under the nameof 'knowledge representation' explores fonnal,computational models of mental representation (see Brachman and Levesque 1985).A widely held thesis in this field is that mentalrepresentation demands a system of represe11tatio11S - a language-like vocabulary of structured states or objects internal to the mind, which is endowed with representationalability, and upon which the mind operatescomputationally (see Fodor 1975). This thesis may be placed in some peril by the successof 'connectionist' models of various cognitivephenomena. notably memory and language understanding. which one might have expected to be the chief grist for the conceptualistmill. Connectionist models involvenetworks of simple 1111its. or processing nodes,together with connections of various weights,or strengths, between them. While it isplausibleto hold that connectionist systems performrepresentational tasks, one is at least uncomfortablewith the claim that they do so in virtue of having a system of representatio11s. Such a system, which can represent, or remember. many states of affairs simultaneously, does not break up naturally into parts which themselves represent states of affairs.Instead, the burden ofrepresentation seemsto be distributed in a very woolly way acrossthe entire system (see Rumelhart and McClelland1986).

ROGERBACON

FURTHER READING

Block, N., 1981, Readingsi11the Philosophyof vol. 2. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Psyclrology. UnivcrsityPress. Brachman, R., and Levesque, H„ 1985,Readings in KnowledgeRepresentation,Los Altos. Cali(.: MorganKaufmann. Dennell, D„ 1987, TlreIntentional Stance,Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Dretskc, F„ 1988, ExpfainingBehavior,Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. of Thought,New Fodor, J., 1975, The Language York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. Rumclhart, D., and McClelland,J., 1986,Paraffe/ DistributedProcessi11g, 2 vols., Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. MARKCRIMMINS

Roger Bacon Roger Bacon (c. 1214/20-92)lectured on the Physics and Metaphysicsof Aristotle at Paris sometime between 1237and 1247.His metaphysics and ontology, however, are not purely Aristotelian. He interpreted Aristotle with the aid of Neoplatonic sources. The De hebdomadibus of Boethius, the Fons vitaeof Avicebron (Ibn Gabirol), the Metapltysicsof Avicenna, and the Liber de Ca11Sis are the texts which Bacon used to interpret the problems in the Aristotelian Metaphysics. Bacon 's philosophy dividesinto two separate parts: !. His early commentaries on Aristotle and the Liber de Cm,sis (c. 1237-47). 2. His later works c. 1247-92, especially 126(>...92.

The latter emphasized grammar, logic, language studies, mathematics, optics, experimental science, and moral philosophy. Unfortunately, he left no treatise on metaphysics or on ontology from this period. His ideas on these topics have to be discovered from his Comm1111ia11at11ralium. The one work from this period entitled Metaphysica Fratris Rogeri (= Opera, ed. Steele, Fase.!) is a rhetorical piece concerned with the vices treated in the study of theology. None the less, from a readingofthis work and from the Mora/is philosop/ria. one can discover that in bis later works there is a marked tendency on

794

ROYCE, JOSIAH

Bacon's part to subordinate an Aristotelian ontology to a Neoplatonic metaphysics, and to subordinate metaphysics to morals. Bacon's doctrine of the ontology of the person is clearly influenced by Boethius; Bacon's rejection of the agent intellect as a part of the soul, and bis identification of the agent intellect with God as illuminative source is clearly a favouring of Neoplatonic metaphysics.The close connection between metaphysics and morals is in imitation of Avicenna. Bacon's theory of universal hylomorphism and plurality of forms simply reproduces the doctrine of Thomas of York (c. 1200-60) as represented in the latter's Summa sapientia/e. Indeed, Bacon's work makes no advance at all on Thomas of York and Robert Kilwardby (1215-79). The central doctrine of Bacon's physics and metaphysicsis bis account of the multiplication of species. Central to this is a physics of light. lts proximale historical origin is the metaphysics of light in Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168-1253). Species is not Porphyry's fifth universal. lt is the name for the first effectof any naturally acting thing. In any natural action, the agent changes the matter so that a form can be brought forth. Bacon treats of being and becoming in the context of bis account of generation. For Bacon, generation confers existence on things. And like all forms of becoming, generation in the strict sense, that is, animate generation, involvesa material, a formal, an efficient, and a final cause. For Bacon, matter has a number of meanings: 1. Matter as the subject of action, 2. Matter, in its most proper sense, as the essence that with form constitutes the composite, and which in this manner exists in every created substance, 3. Matter as the subject of generation, 4. Matter as the subject of alteration, 5. Matter as individual in relation to universal.

In brief, Bacon, followingThomas of York, holds !hat matter in essence is ingenerable and incorruptible; it is generable only by accident and through privation. lt is the

subject of contraries and is knowable onlyby analogy with form. Bacon rejects a nominalist account of universals. Scholars disagree as to whether Bacon's account of universals is one of moderate or extreme realism. In Communia naturalium (from 1260s), Bacon assignsontological priority to individuals over universals. In doing so, he anticipates Duns Scotusin speaking about the absolute nature of the individual as something that is more important than the universal by which one individual agrees with another. FURTHER READING

Hacken, J. M. G., 1992, "Individuation in Roger Bacon", in J. E. Gracia, ed., Individuation in

the LaterMidd/eAges and Counter-Reformadon,

Munich/HamdenNienna: Philosophia. Huber-Legnani, M., 1984, Roger Bacon.Lehrer derAnschaulichkeit,Freiburg: Hochschulsammlung Philosophie. Lindberg, D. C., 1983, Roger Bacon'sPhi/osophy of Nature, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Maloney, T. S., Irans., 1989, ThreeTreatmtnrsof Universa/sby Roger Bacon, Binghamton,N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studios. JEREMIAHM, G. HACKE'IT

Royce, Josiah The main metaphysical works of Josiah Royce (1855-1916) are The ReligiousAspect of Philosophy (1885), The Spirit of Modern Philosop/ry (1892), The Conception of God (1897), T/re World and the Individual (1900, 1901), and The Problem of Christianity (1913). Royce argues for absolute idealism through reflections on the relation between an 'idea' and its object. These show that the universe is an infinite eternal thought (alias the Absolute, the ultimate seif, or God}, which experiences itself as a single unit. lts basic elements are finite states of mind like ours, organized into finite selves, and other units of the same essential kind. The argument in The Religious Aspectof P/rilosop/ry is roughly this. Whatever eise may be doubtful one thing is for sure, that there is such a thing as error. For the belief that there is cannot be false; if it is true, then there is error, while if, per impossibile,it is

795 not,it itseifwould be an error. Even so, there isa problemas to how error is possible. For it canonly consist in an idea which misrepresentsthe character of its object. But how can an idea ascribe to its object any character whichclashes with what it is envisaged as possessing?For no merely causal account of howan idea is related to its object is viable. lnsteadit must pick it out either by the way it depictsit or through an immediate confrontation.But in the first case it can pick out only ils own intentional content and cannot but depictit correctly and, in the second, only whatis so present to it that error is impossible. Fora solution we must examine falsehoods recognized as such. lf I attend to some presentcontent of consciousness I can entertainfalsethoughts about it, e.g. that this blue sense-impression is red. Here the senseimpressionis my idea's object because it is consciouslydirected towards it, and the idea is false as predicating of it what manifestly clasheswith its given nature. Now suppose thatthere is a consciousness in which an idea issimilarlyapplied to some content which it manifestlymisrepresents but that the idea (andnot the content) falls within some part of thetotal consciousness with an illusory sense of itself as a unit on its own (an illusion manifest to the including but not to the includedconsciousness). Then the idea could be an error, for it could contain some dim senseof being about something beyond its ownboundaries while envisaging !hat only in thecharacterit predicates ofit. Such, indeed, contendsRoyce, is the only possible account of error, which shows that our thoughts, as possiblyerroneous, must be elements in a more comprehensive mental totality which includeseverything they are capable of being about, in short. everything. One might object that an error need not be 'about' some actual object. lt may simply say that there is something which there is not. However, Royce claims that our 'ideas' or thoughtsalways have a certain de re character, even if only by being about some time beyondthe presen t. Royce·s argument may impress more now than in the heyday of Bertrand Russell's theory of descriptions. which might once

ROYCE,JOSIAII

have seemed to provide its refutation. For thc de re element in thought is now widely emphasized, while usually explicated in causal terms along lines Royce effectively criticized. As it is, the most notable response to it to date is that of WilliamJames whom it stimulated to the pragmatist view that the object of an idea is that with whichit prepares us to cope practically. In The Wor/d and the Individual Royce reaches the same point via an enquiry into the meaning of 'to be'. This is assimilatedto the question what it is for there tobe a thing such as some idea posits. He describes three traditional answers and proposes his own fourth. 1. For the realist conception the object posited by an idea real/yis if and only if its possession of its own character is logically independent of the possession by the idea of its. Royce professes to show the impossibility of such independence by two (shaky) arguments. 2. Tue mystical conception identifies being with an immediate experience in whose luminous presence all ideas of it or of anything eise must simply fade away. Royce objects that ideas, after all, have their own being and that a reality incompatiblewith their presence has no claim to be a reality. 3. The critical rationalist view (typifiedby Kant) identifies the being of the object of an idea with the possibilityof experiences which the idea would recognizeas verifying it. But this, says Royce, rests on a notion of possibilitiesand of counterfactual conditionals which can only be explicated by a more basic notion of the object's being. Moreover, a genuine existent must have an individualitynot fully cashable in the universalsby which a merely verifiable, and not verilied, idea can alone specify its object. 4. The fourth conception utilizes a contrast between the intemal meaning of an idea, roughly its intension, and its external meaning. roughly its extension or reference. The lirst is an incompletely fullilled purpose which the idea feels itself as embodying, while the

796

RUSSELL, BERTRAND

second can only be an experience of that purpose 's complete fulfilment. This must be actual, not merely possible, if the idea has an object to be right or wrong about. Thus every idea points to an all-containing consciousness in which it is feit together with some fuller experience ofwhich it is the more or less adequate intimation. The distinction between thought and will is superficial, since a true thought is a satisfied volition, satisfied, at least, in the Absolute (hence Royce calls himself an 'absolute pragmatist'). Royce is clearer about time and eternity than most absolute idealists, exploiting brilliantly the notion of a specious present. The duration of these varies greatly, and the 'in itself of most of the physical world consists in minds so different in this respect from ours that social relations between us are impossible. The total Universe or Absolute is a frozen specious present and it feels within itself the genuine temporal relations between its elements. However, it is not itself in time for it does not emerge from or pass into any other experience. In opposition to F. H. Bradley and others, Royce thought a mathematical model of how the Absolute combines the many into one possible. Discoveries such as Georg Cantor's (1845--1918)and Richard Dedekind's (18311916)pul paid to Hegelian objections to the 'bad' infinite of mathematics and to Bradley's objections to relations for leading to an infinite regress. (He acknowledged, however, that bis own main argument was an application of Bradley's principle that relatedness can only hold within a concrete whole.) The Absolute experiences the actual infinity of details that follow from the freely chosen fonnula by which it defines itself as an infinitely self-representing conscious system of such systems. But Royce's discovery of defects in bis handling of such topics in The World and the Individual led to substantial revisions of bis metaphysics in The Problem of Christianity. Here the feit unity of the Absolute, if not abandoned, falls into the background and it is depicted rather as a community of minds, or more ultimately

(inspired by C. S. Peirce's doctrine ofsigns)a network of ideas the meaning of each of which is interpreted to another idea by a mediating idea. Evil, like error, is central to Royce's thought. The model for both lies withinour own consciousness. The highest good wefind there is the overcoming of our own evil propensities and weaknesses. This shows how evil at large may be an essential ingredient in the greatest good there can be, thatol an infinite series converging on a limit situation in which it would be finally overcome. Royce 's metaphysics was closely relatedto bis ethics. Initially moral goodness wascbaracterized as an openness to the aspirationsof all other consciousnesses falling within tbe single absolute consciousness. Later it was identified with loyalty to loyalty, that is, a loyalty, to some community or cause, which encourages all others in loyalty to their own community or cause. Royce is also important in the history of formal logic in the United States. FURTHER READING

Kuklick, B„ 1972, Josiah Royce, An lntelltclllßl Biography, Indianapolis, lnd.: Bobbs-Merrill. 1977, The Rise of American Philosophy, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. McDermott, J. J „ 1969, The Writings of Josiah Royce, Chicago, III.: University or Chicago Press. Smith, J. E., 1950, Royce's Social Jnfinitt, New York: Liberal Arts Press.

-

TIMOTHYL. S. SPRIGGE

Russell, Bertrand Bertrand Arthur William Russell (18721970) attended Trinity College, Cambridge (1890-94) where he was 'indoctrinated' with the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, and where he was awarded a fellowship (18951901) and later became a lecturer in philosophy (1910-16), a position he lost in 1916 because of bis militant pacificism. His public written advice to conscientious objectorsled to bis imprisonment for six months in 1918. He subsequently visited Russia, lecturedin China, and later held professorships at the

797 universities of Chicago and Califomia. In 1944he was re-elected to a fellowship at Trinity, and in 1950 he was awarded the Order of Merit and the Nobel Prize for Literature. Russen held a number of different metaphysicalpositions throughout bis career, with the idea of logic as a logically perfect languagebeing a common theme that ran through each.His first such position, when he was still a Studentin 1894, amounted to abrief flirtationwith absolute idealism and the doctrine of internal relations, from which he quickly movedon to a form of semi-Kantianism that hedefended in bis 1896 book on the foundations of geometry. In that book Russen agreedwitb Kant that the mind must innately possesssome form of extemality in order to experience space; but whereas for Kant Euclidean geometry provided tbe a priori lawstbat explained our experience of space, for Russell it was the a priori laws of projective geometry (which includes nonEuclidean as weil as Euclidean geometry asSpecialcases) that were the logically necessarybasis of any form of externality. By tbe turn of the century, under the influenceofG. E. Moore, Russellrejectedall intemal relations and developed a form of realismtbat he called pluralism but which today would be called a possibilist form of Platonisticlogical realism. Tbe position was possibilistbecause it was committed to there beingpossible real concrete objects (such as theobjects of fiction) that do not in fact exist but which could have existed bad certain propositions having those objects as constituents been true. (Contrary to a view sometimesascribed to him, Russell was never willingto admit into bis ontology the impossibleobjects that he. thougbt Alexius Meinong was committed to.) The possibilism lasted until 1905 when, armed with bis new theory of denoting, Russen came to believe that merelypossible objects were superfluous and could be analysed away in terms of bis now wen-known tbeory of definite descriptions. ThePlatonism remained, however, in Russell's continued commitment to such abstract entities as properties, relations, and propositions. The position was Platonist not only becausepredicates and sentences were taken

RUSSELL, BERTRAND

to stand for such abstract entities, but also because, unlike Gottlob Frege's form of logical realism, the same abstract entities were taken as the denotataof the nominalized forms of tbose predicates and sentences as abstract singular terms. (Russen briefly held a quasi-Fregean view in 1898wben he maintained, e.g., that human does not havebeing until it is transformed into a term, humanity; but he later rejected that view.) A fundamental notion of Russen•s logical realism, sometimes also caned ontological logicism,was that of a propositionalfunction, the extension of which Russen took to be a class as many. Initially, as part of bis response to the problem of the One and the Many, Russen bad assumed that each propositional function was a single and separate entity over and above the many propositions that were its values, and, similarly,that to each classas many there corresponded a class as one. Upon discovering bis paradox, Russellmaintained tbat we must distinguish a class as many from a class as one, and tbat a dass as one might not exist corresponding to a class as many. He also concluded tbat a propositional function cannot survive analysis after all, but 'lives' only in tbe propositionstbat are its values, i.e. tbat propositional functions are nonentities. In bis 1906 substitutional tbeory, Russen attempted to carry out bis logicistprogramme without assuming the existence of either classes or propositional functions. Being was univocal in tbis framework in the sense that every entity, wbetber concrete or abstract, was assumed to be the value for a single type of unrestricted variable. Properties, relations, and propositions, but not classesor propositional functions, were all values of that variable. The proposed reduction of classes and propositional functions was given in terms of a double form of quantification over propositions and their constituents as values of the one typeof unrestrictedvariable. (E.g., instead of (q,)(TllCENTURIES

already have distanced oneself from entanglement. Life has to be transformed by fantasy into symbolic pictures. At this point it appears that aesthetic moments become important for the narrative constitution of reality. FURTHER READING

Fellmann. F .. 1973. ··Das Ende des Laplaceschen Dämons". in R. Kosclleck and W.-D. Stempel. cds.. Geschic/ue - En•1g11isu11d Erzählu11g.

Munich: Fink. 1l'.>-38. 1989. Phänomenologie als iis1hetischeTheorie. Freiburg and Munich: Alhcr. Lübbe. H„ 196()-1.·"Sprachspiele' und ·Geschich-

-

ten'. Ncopos11ivismus und Phänomenologie im

Spätstadium". Ka111-S111die11. 52. 220--IJ. Schapp. J .. 1968. Sl'i111111d Ort der Rechtsgebilde. The Hague: Nijho!f. FERDINAND FELUIANN

Scholasticism. See: Aristotelianism; Distinctions; Peirce and Scholastic Metaphysics; Scotism, and •articles

on individual Scholastics. Scholasticism, Post-Medieval 1: 15th and 16th Centuries Tue greatest centuries for Scholasticism were the 13th and 14th. but it continued to flourish thereafter, even though coming und er strong and increasing attack. especially from the humanists. Lorenzo Valla (1407-57), for example. believed that the scholastic preoccupation with a certain type of logic had been disastrous for metaphysics. This logic was based on a highly artificial language, a •scientific' Latin. which was far from the linguistic practices of ordinary people. practices by which people were weil equipped, linguistically at least. to talk about reality; but the sheer artificiality of the language of the scholastic logicians. Valla held. made it impossible for them to make serious advances in the philosophical enterprise of revealing new and profound truths about realitv. In this criticism Valla was followed by R~dolph Agricola (c. 1443-85). andin the followingcentury by Peter Ramus. Whatever the merits ofthis criticism. however. import-

80-I

ant work in the field of metaphysics and ontology continued to be done. and by men who had been educated in the despised logic of the Scholastics. Amongst those who made a major contribution to scholastic metaphysics in the 15th century is Nicholas of Cusa. As with all scholastic philosophers, his metaphysics are God-oriented although, in line with a wellestablished tradition. he stressed the fact !hat the chief topic of metaphysics. the beingol God, is opaque to human understanding. We find within the created order, according to Nicholas, a whole host of differences and oppositions, and of course in the created order oppositions must remain even though we might regard ourselves as committed by our nature to an ethical imperative to seekto overcome oppositions, and to replace them by harmony and synthesis. At the heart ol Nicholas·s metaphysical system lies precisely this concept of a harmonization of the differences which characterize our world. What differences and oppositions are at issue here? Among them are unity and multiplicity. and essence and existence. Each of us is one, buta one which is characterized by a configuration of many distinct parts and features. Each of us has an essence but it is no part of our essence that we exist. Whatever exists. other than God himself. exists by virtue of an actol God's will. not by virtue of its own nature. Nicholas·s doctrine is that God exists as a coi11cide111iaoppositorum. Opposites which characterize creatures exist in God without being in opposition to each other. He tran• scends them. though he does so in a waywe cannot grasp. Most especially. the distinction in us between essence and existence is not a d1stinction in God. His essence is to exist. This chief metaphysical opposition in creatures is, then. one in God. But having said all lhat, Nicholas reminds us of our inability to grasp the mystery of this oneness; we can at best grasp its mysteriousness. By an exercise ol reason we can follow through the logicof the concept of God as the coincidence of opposites. but the knowledge yielded up by this exercise of reason is not positive knowledge. lt is negative. We remain ignorant. This is not. however. the ignorance of the unedu-

805

SCHOLASTICISM, POST·MEDIEVAL 1: 15TH AND 16TH CENTURIES

caledperson, but of the metaphysician who hassuch a clear grasp of the metaphysical realiliesthat he knows why he is and, in this lile,must remain ignorant. Hence the title of Nicholas's most famous work, De Docta lg11ora111ia (Educated Ignorance). In adopting lhis epistemological response to the melaphysical verities he has presented, Nicholasis clearly an heir to a tradition which hadincluded central figures such as Moses Maimonides (whose influence is acknowledgedby Nicholas) and Thomas Aquinas. Thetraditionwould, in due course, exercise a proloundinfluence on others such as Thomas Cajelanwho, at the end of the 15th century, developedhis highly detailed theory of analogyas a means of accounting for the fact lhal,despite the opaqueness of the transcendent reality, our language is not totally inadequateas a means of describing that reality. The ignorance in question, one routinely acknowledgedby men in the scholastic tradilion, is of the transcendent God. But in a senseGod is also immanent, and merely to know the world is to know him, for all exislencecomes from God, and in a sense is God's. Thus for all the emphasis the late Scholasticsplace on the otherness of God, lheyfully acknowledge that that otherness is onlyhalf the story; the other half is the being of God in the created order. In the following century a major battle was foughtby scholastic metaphysicians over the relalionbetween God and his creatures, a battle in which 20th-century philosophers with20th-century concerns are now greatly interested.The main protagonists were from lhe lberian peninsula. not surprisingly since the Spanish and Portuguese universities remained bastions of scholastic philosophy throughout the century of the Reformation, producingsuch important scholastic thinkers as Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1483/6-1546), Domingo de Soto ( c. 1494/5-1560), and Domingo Baiiez (1528--1604), all of them Dominicans;and Francisco de Toledo (153296), Luis de Molina (1535-1600), Peter of Fonseca (1528--99), and the great metaphysicianFrancisco Suarez ( 1548--1617), who wereall Jesuits. The major battle in question, one which found Dominicans and Jesuits of Spain

ranged against each other in the latter part of the 16th century, has an important metaphysical aspect, namely the existence of creaturely free will. The context of this metaphysical debate is, as usual with scholastic metaphysicians, theological. The Jesuit Luis de Molina employs the distinction between sufficient and efficacious grace. Sufficient grace is the grace by whicha human agent has the power to perform a given act; efficacious grace is the grace by which the agent is empowered to perform a given act where in fact he does perform it. Accordingto Molina there is no difference in essence between these different sorts of grace, the differenceis in the outcome; efficaciousgrace is, crudely stated, sufficientgrace where the agent in fact freely performs a salutary act. Molina'sproblern concerns how a free act of human willcan exist given the all-encompassingscope ol divine providence. Such providenceseemsto exclude the possibilityof an efficaciousgrace simply because that grace involvesthe exercise of human free will. Molina's famous answer is that God has scientiamedia(middle knowledge), knowledge which is neither knowledge ofhow thingsare, nor ofhow they are not, but rather a knowledgeof how they would be if other conditions were fulfilled. Thus God knows from all eternity whether a person would or would not freely perform a given act if he were empowered by grace to perform it. Molina's chief opponent, however, the Dominican Domingo Baiiez, objected that Molina has turned metaphysicsupside-down, that he has started by assumingthe existence of human freedom and has constructed a metaphysic of grace upon that assumption, whereas he ought to have started from the fact that efficacious grace is not merely sufficient grace plus the co-operation of the human will, but instead has a distinctessence. According to Baiiez, efficacious grace is by itself, and without the co-operation of the human will, effective in securing the act foreseen by God when he gave the person the grace to perform it. Such grace, then, does not merely empower the agent, it impels him. Efficacious grace is thus in part a push (a 'premotion ') which gets the agent goingin the direction dictated by God's plan for the

806

SCHOLASTICISM, POST·MEDIEVAL II: 17TH CENTURY

universe. lt is no wonder that Molina argued that Baöez's position was in effect a denial of the existence ofhuman free will, as weil as an affirmation that the evil in all evil human acts must be imputed to God. There are clearly a number of fundamental metaphysical issues involved here. One which has recently received close attention concerns the fact that Molina's concept of scientia media can be expounded in terms of a possible worlds semantics. Thal is to say, if God has scientia media then not only does he know every event that occurs in this world, but he also knows every event that occurs in every unactualized, though possible, world. lt is worth noting that Molinists were inclined to accuse Baöezians of Calvinism. This serves as a reminder that metaphysics, and even what might fairly be called scholastic metaphysics, was not solely the preserve of Catholic thinkers; Protestants, in particular Calvinists and Lutherans, also needed metaphysics,as much to defend themselves against each other as to defend themselvesagainst the Jesuits. But to an overwhelming degree the major works of 16th-rentury scholastic metaphysicswere written by Catholics, and certainly there is no Protestant work of that period to compare with such masterpieces as the Metaphysicarum Disp11tation11mby Francisco Suarez with its immensely detailed analysis of the nature of being, the transcendental attributes of being, the principle of individuation, and other central metaphysicalconcepts. FURTHER READING

Adams, R. M., 1987, The Virtueof Faith and Other Essays, Oxford: Oxford Universily Press. Bett. H., 1932.Nic/10/aso/Cusa,London: Methuen. Jensen, K., 1990, "Protestanl rivalry- metaphysics and rhetoric in Germany c. 1590-1620",Joumal of Ecclesiastical History, 41, 24-43. Mahieu, L., 1921, Franfois Suärez, sa philosophie et /es raports qu'e/le a avec sa tlreologie, Paris: Desclee de Brouwer. Plantinga, A., 1979, The Nawre of Necessity, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Region, T. de, 1883. Baliez et Molina, Paris: H. Oudin et Cie. Schmilt, C. B.. Skinner. Q., and Kessler, E., eds., 1988, The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ALEXANDER BROADIE

Scholasticism, Post-Medieval II: 17th Century Historical research into scholastic metaphysics in the 17th century is still in its embryonic stage. No reasonably complete bibliography of scholastic metaphysical tcxts exists for the period, and there is no ge~eral history of its development, except one-s1ded accounts of the metaphysical views of northern European Protestant Scholastics, the best account of which is contained in Max Wundt's book, Die deutsche Schulmetaphysik des 17. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: Mohr, 1939). Still, although thegoldenageof modern scholastic metaphysics ended in thc year 1617 with the death of Francis Suarez, what we do know concerning scholastic metaphysics of the 17th century indicates!hat there are philosophers in this tradition worthy of study in their own right. Further, these men were the teachers of Rene Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and the great figures of the Enlightenment. These Scholastics are the bridge between the acbievements of Iberian metaphysical speculationin the 16th century and modern metaphysicians. But there is yet another reason why Ibis tradition should be of interest to the modern philosopher. No philosophical tradition of the modern age, other than that of the late 19th and 20th centuries which trains its members in the techniques of modern symbolic logic, contains better logicians thanthat of the Scholastics of the 16th and 17th centuries. As long as logic is the tool by which ontology is best investigated, one can expect interesting and fruitful discussion ofits problems within this tradition. The meaning of the term 'Scholasticism'is often unclear. As one studies scholasticphilosophers, one is often surprised at tbe wide range of philosophical views they espouse. This problem is especially difficult whenone considers how eclectic the early modern period was. Most philosophers were not hesitant to borrow views from the medieval scholastic tradition, or any other traditionfor that matter, when doing so suited their purposes. We will therefore begin our investigation conservatively with the Catholic scholastic philosophers. and then proceedto

807 ronsider two groups which may be dcemcd scholasticin a broader sense: thc Protestant andCartesian Scholastics. I will focus on a controversy which raged among 17th-century Scholastics: the controversyover the possibility of entities (possibilitasrerum). in order to present some examplesof their metaphysical views. This controversygrows out of Francis Suarez·s discussion of the distinction between existence and essencein Dispurationes Metaphysicae 31. In thisdisputation. the old question again arises concerning the ontological status of the essenceof. for example. Socrates before the individual Socrates comes into existence. Socrates·sessence consists of his humanity andrationality. exactly all those things that make Socrates possible. Those acquainted withthe secondary literature about Thomas Aquinaswill note that the essences of creaturesare called ·possibles· because the presenceof such essences entails that the creature is a possible creature. Anything lacking suchan essence would be impossible. Thus. a roundsquare (philosophers of the time would callthis impossible entity a "chimera ") would haveno essence. Cat/ro/ic Scholasrics were committed to reconciling Aristotelian metaphysical doctnnes (usually as interpreted by the medieval scholastictradition) with the revealed dogma of the Catholic Church. Perhaps the most striking aspect of Catholic Scholasticism of the 17th century is its variety. While the traditional schools of Thomism and Scotism wererevitalized in the 16th century. the 17th centurywitnessed revivals of less well-known schoolsof medieval Scholasticism. Scholars began commenting on medieval Scholastics such as Henry of Ghent (c. 1217-93). John Baconthorp ( died 13~8). and Giles of Rome (c. 124317-1316) as a result of the renewal, and indeed the founding. of many Catholic orders during the Catholic Reformation. We may divide these Catholic Scholastics into lour groups: the Thomists. the Scotists. the Suarezians. and a catch-all category for those who follow less well-known strains of medievalScholasticism. Nominalism. except in so far as it is absorbed into the other schools such as the Suarezian. disappears. partially due to the Council of Trent"s discomfort with

SCHOLASTICISM. ~OST·MEDIEVAI. 11: ITIII CENTl.:RY

that movement"s vicws concerning divine grace. The Thomists.These werc generally found in the Dominican. Spanish ·barefoot" Carmelite. and Benedictine Orders during this period. Thc most conservative of these are the Dominicans and their closc allies. the barefoot Carmelitcs. Their philosophical conservatism is so entrenched as to motivate them to defend old-fashioned medieval cosmology in the face of the successesof the new physics. Three important metaphysicians of this school were John of St. Thomas (15891644) and Anton Goudin (1639-95). both Dominicans. and the Carmelite Philippus a Sanctissima Trinitate ( 1603--71 ). With regard to the possibility of entities. Philippus claimed that because faith holds that all (finite) beings were created in time. the essences of entities are not eternal. at least independently of God. Yes. he admitted. Socrates·s humanity and animality are eternally capable of coming into existence as Socrates. but before Socrates exists. his humanity and animality are mere potencies. not in themselves. but only as they can be created by God. Thus. their possibility derives from God"s power to create them. John of St. Thomas indicated that he was in general accord with Philippussince John said that God not only creates what is actual but also what has the potency to be actual. Less conservative Thomists were the Benedictines. Among these were Saenz d"Aguirre ( 1630-99) at Salamanca. Coelestinus Sfondrati (1644-96) of St. Galli. and Ludwig Babenstuber (1660-1726)of Salzburg. The Scotists. The Scotists of this period were very active. Their activity is due to the Franciscans· acceptance of Duns Scotus as their theological leader early in this century. As a result of this. Luke Wadding (158&1657) began his famous edition of Scotus's Opera 011mia. Principal representatives of this school were John Punch (or Poncius) (c. 1599-1661). who helped Wadding edit Scotus·s work. and Punch"s rival Banholomaeus Mastrius (1602-73). who wished to reconcile Scotus·s philosophy with that of Thomas Aquinas. John Punch"sview concerning the possibility of entities was the object of attacks from

SCHOLASTICISM.POST-MEDIEVAL11: 17TH CENTURY

fellowScotists (especially Mastrius) as weil as from Thomists. Punch held that every created entity had some etemal being as the object of God's intellect. If created essences did not have such an etemal being in virtue of which they are said to be possible, then all creatures would be impossible. This eternal being whichcreatures have, Punch insisted, is neither a real being nor a mere being of reason (ens ratio11is).Beings of reason are beings which are conceivable, such as a round square, but which cannot exist. Clearly, Socrates' essence cannot be a being of reason. Otherwise, it would be impossible for Socrates to exist. On the other hand, Socrates's essence cannot be the real, actual individual Socrates because then there would be no difference between the non-existent, possible Socrates and the actual Socrates. Thus, the eternal being of Socrates is a 'diminished' being (esse diminutum) which is an intermediate type of being between real beings and beings of reason. Mastrius, however, thought that this doctrine of diminished being was based on a misreading of Scotus. Mastrius held instead that the possibility of an entity was based upon a logical potency which the formal character of the possible entity has in itself quite independently of anything eise, even God. A man, in so far as he is a man, and whether this is a real man or a man conceivable in the mind, is not opposed to existence. This lack of opposition (non repugnantia) to existence constitutes the logical potency of a man. Lack of oppositionis not a mere negation or privation, however; it is something positive. This positive something is to be understood, Mastrius claimed, by means of a positive connectionof terms expressedas a conditional. Thus, man is a logical possibility because if there existed a connection of animal with rational (the usual scholastic definition of 'man'), then no contradiction would follow. The Suarezians.The Jesuits comprise the majority of Suarezians, that is, those who accepted many of the views of Francis Suärez. Chief among these are Petrus Hurtadus de Mendoza (1592-1651), who taught at Salamanca. Roderigo de Arriaga (15921667),who worked at Valladolid and Prague, and Francis Oviedo ( 1602-51).

808 Hurtadus held that the possibility of an entity is detennined by God's omnipotence and his ability to create it. Arriaga thought, on the contrary, that we do not call an entity possible because God can bring it about. Instead, God can bring about the entity because it is in itself not opposed to existing. Arriaga agrees with Mastrius in expressiug the possibility of an entity by the conditional: if such an entity existed, no contradiction would follow. Oviedo follows Arriaga's approach. Others. Finally, there were several revivals of less inftuential medieval philosophical schools. The Serviles in Italy followedHenry of Ghent. One finds among these interestiug metaphysicians like Henricus Antonius Burgus (ff. 1627) and Angelus Ventura (fl.1701). The calced Cannelites followed John Bacon• thorp. Their most important representative was the Spaniard Elisaeus Garcia (ff. 1701). Followers of the Augustinian Giles of Rome were also active during this century. Garcia follows Baconthorp in holdingtbal the possibilities of creatures are not simply derived from the omnipotence of God, nor are they a pure nothing, since 'nothing' expresses the negation of the total entity, including, it seems, its possibility. Possibilities have an objective being, which Garcia also calls diminished being, etemally as tbe objects of God's thought. One aspect of l 7th-century metaphysics requiring more research is the state of metaphysical studies among Catholic Schol• astics outside Europe. Contrary to Ibis trend, one finds the Bibliography of the Philosophy in the Jberian Colonies of America (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972)by Walter Redmond. Redmond himself tellsus that "the colonial period of Latin Americais perhaps the least studied areain the historyof western philosophy", and that the 17thcentury is the 'forgotten century' of Latin American philosophy. The Protestalll Scholastics were as heavily inftuenced by the work of Iberian Catholics like Suärez and Peter of Fonseca as the Catholics themselves. Their main metaphysical task was not to reconcile Aristotle with Catholic dogma, but to reconcile him with the truths revealed through their Protest-

11m antfaith. lt is not surprising that they wcre l~ssdependent on mcdieval Scholasticism. butin turn one must admit that thcrc is lcss detailedand careful discussion of particular doctrines than one finds among the best Catholicwriters. Here there wcre two general movements: the Reformed (Calvinists and Zwinglians) and the Lutheran. The Reformed philosophers absorbed Suarez's workearlier than the Lutherans. ancl. at least helore the Thirty Years· War. enjoyed a livelyperiod. Worth mention among these are Rudolphus Goclenius (Göckel) (15471628)and Clemens Timpler ( 1567-1624). Of theLutherans. Cornelius Martini ( 156&-1621) and Jacob Martini ( 1570-1649) were verv influentialand substantial thinkers. From this branchgrew a school of philosophers. who. independently of Descartes, became very mterested in epistemology and had a great mfluenceon philosophcrs of thc early German Enlightenment. Among these Georg Gutke (1589-1634) and Abraham Calovius (Calov)should be listed. Goclenius held that possibilitics exist etemallyas ideas in God's mind. Timpler thought thatGod's omnipotence was restricted to the non-contradictory since evt,n God could not separate the humanity from Socrates. The phrase Cartesian Scholasticism is not an oxymoron. Few scholars today would deny that many of Descartess views were drawnfrom scholastic philosophy. Furthermore. several scholars of the 17th century were won over to Descartes·, philosophy eventhough thev also thought Scholasticism with its basis in- Aristotle ~ould be at least partially reconciled with Cartesianism. Preeminentamong thesc scholars were Johannes Clauberg( 1622-65). the eclectic Jesuit JeanBaptiste Duhamel (162+-1706). the English Franciscan Anthony Legrand (died 1669). and Christian Thomasius ( 1655-1728). Thomasius and Clauberg provided models for the synthcsis of Scholasticism and Cartesianismwhich ultimatelv guides the work of Leibniz. • Legrand borrowed Descartess description of God as a king who has absolute dominion overnot only what is but also what ispossible. Essences are eternal and immutable onlv because God freely decreed that they are. it

SCflOI.ASTICISM, POST MEDIEVAI.II: 17THl'ENTVRY

is possible. thcn. that God could have sei up things differcntly and that. for cxamplc. trianglcs havc four sides. Still. Legrand thought. a king can change his laws because his will can change. God's will is unchangcable and thus possibilities cannot be changcd. Duhamel revcals his independence from Cartesianism by holding that thc possibilities of entities stem primarily from the lack of opposition (11011 repug1111111ia) among the ideas of these entities. Their possibility cannot be derivcd from God's omnipotence since then the notion of omnipotence would be circular. Omnipotence is the ability. Duhamel said, to do or make anything which is possible. Scholastic philosophy of the 17th century holds much of interest to the historian of philosophy. Besides the sophisticated treatments of the concept of possibility I have outlined. there are interesting discussions concerning universals. identity. freedom of the will. and God's foreknowledge. among many others. There is a further important reason for studying the Scholastics more closely. Until we have a better understanding of scholastic philosophy in the 17th century. any claim concerning the originality of the ·main • philosophical figures of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as Descartes. Spinoza. Leibniz. and Christian Wolff. must be viewed with suspicion.

FURTHER READING

Bohatcc. J.. 1912.Die nmesia11iscl1e Scholastikm Dogmutikdes der Philosophieund reformier1e11 Teil I: Emstelumg.Eigeuurt, 17. Je1hrlumder1s. Geschichtewul philosoplriscl1t• Auspriigungder cartesiauische11 Scholastik. Leipzig;repr. Hil-

desheim:Georg Olms. 1966. Jansen. B„ 1936."Zur Philosophieder Scotisten des 17.Jahrhunderts". Fra11:iska11ische Studien. 23. 25-58. 150-75.

-

1938."Die Pflegeder Philosophieim Jesuitenorden des 17.118.Jahrhunderts". P/Ji/osop/11sc/Jes111/Jrbuc/1 der Gorm-Gesd/sclwft. 51. 172215. 3-1-1-66.435-56.

-

1938.··zur Phänomenologieder Philosophie der Thomistendes 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts". Sc/wlmtik. 13. 49-71. JHFRF.Y COOMBS

SCHOLASTICISM, POST·MEDIEVAL III: PROTESTANT SCHOLASTICISM OF THE 18TH CENTURY

Scholasticism,Post-Medieval III: ProtestantScholasticismof the 18thCentury During the 17th century the Gennan universities had experienced a revival of Aristotelianism. This phenomenon, which is known as Deutsc/iaristotelismus, originated with the Lutheran theologians at a time when a philosophical differentiation inside the Protestant confession was taking place. Lutheran philosophers committed themselves to Aristotelianism all but dominated the universities in central Germany. Tue reformed philosophers (Calvinists, Zwinglians), on the other hand, impressed by Cartesianism and natural science, had moved to Holland. Though by the end of the century Deutscharistotelismus was on the decline, it nevertheless influenced the subsequent development of philosophy in Gennany. This occurred not only in a negative way, via the critical rejection of Scholasticismwhich occurred at the beginning of the Enlightenment. Metaphysical and scholastic themes and questions survived also positively into the 18th century, thanks first of all to Leibniz and then later to Christian Wolff, who gave to the middle and late Enlightenment its characteristic metaphysical tone. Tue Gennan Enlightenment differs from contemporary movements in France and England also through its academic character. In the 18th century German philosophy is, with only a few exceptions- most importantly the movement of Popularphi/osophen around the end of the century - associated with the universities. The systematic exposition that is an important characteristic of the philosophy of the Germ an Enlightenment (and still appears in Kant's lectures) can be traced to the demands of philosophical teaching. According to the well-known definition given by Max Wundt (1879-1963): 'Protestant Scholasticism' in the 18th century means Deutsche Schulphilosophie.

Three main phases can be distinguished in the academic Gennan philosophy of the 18th century. They are, in chronological order: 1. Tue early Enlightenment 2. Wolffianism and its first opponents 3. Tue decline of Wolffianism.

810

The Early Enlightenment. Tue beginning of the Enlightenment in Gennany is characterized by a detennined oppositionto Deu/Sch· aristote/ismus. The main figure in this movement is Christian Thomasius (J65SI 728), who first taught in Leipzig and laterin Halle and who held lectures in Gennan. Having studied law, Thomasius displayedan eclectic, anti-authoritarian philosophicalattitude which reflected the influence of Cartesian scientific circles and especiallyof Johann Christopher Sturm (1635-1703). When Wolff moved in 1706 to Halle, Thomasius's fame was on the decline. Wolffianism and its First Opponents.Tue second phase is constituted by the dominance and diffusion of Wolffianism from approximately 1720 to 1750. Wolff's pbilosophy represents an integration of Catholic Scholasticism (mainly Thomas Aquinas and Francisco Suarez) and Deutscharistotelismus on the one band with Cartesianism and Leibnizianism on the other. Wolff attempted to pul the metaphysical ideas of the scholastic tradition into a strictly systematic form. Wolff's concept of system was to play an important part in German philosophyat least until the beginning of the 19th century.In addition he contributed substantially to a new appreciation of ontology as a basic philosophical discipline or Grundwissenschaft. In this respect his philosophy transmitted typical concepts of the scholastic metaphysical tradition to Kant and to idealism. Wolff also elaborated a new conceptof metaphysics: the latter is neither the uoion of ontology and natural theology (the viewof Deutscharistotelismus), nor the union of natural theology and psychology (the view of the Cartesians). Rather, it representsa systematic framework constituted by tbe common principles of all these disciplines, including cosmology. Ontology itself is, like the metap/iysica generalis of the Deutscharistotelians, the doctrine of ens qua ens. At the same timeit is also a science that includes all the principles of human knowledge, centred around thetwo highest principles of human reason, namely the principles of identity and of sufficient reason. Ontology begins with the explanation of these principles, which yield the founda-

811 lionfor the system as a whole. This transitionfrom ontology to logic has led some aulhorsto associate Wolffs ontology with 11anscendentalphilosophy. Kant himself identifiestranscendental philosophy as the "Syslemaller 1111serer rei11e11Erke1111111isse a priori', where ontology is for him a "Lehre ro11den Dingen iiberha11p/''.

Wollfs philosophy was embraced enlhusiasticallyaround the middle of the cen1ury.Before this triumph, however, Wolff had 10 neutralize the attacks of his first opponents. Thomasius's pupil Andreas Rüdiger(1673--1731)taught at the University orHalle. He propounded a philosophy of moderate sensualism and empiricism and crilicizedWolffs mechanism and determinism.Philosophy, which deals with reality, has 10be distinguished from mathematics, which deals with possibility. Philosophy should adoplthe synthetic method, mathematics the analylicmethod. Pietism,in order to combat the dominant Wolffianism,soon joins forces with the representatives of Thomasius's school. The ardent Pietist Joachim Lange (1670-1744) auackedWolffs metaphysical principles as being deterministic and Spinozistic. The more independent Johann Franz Budde (1667-1729).who may be considered the falherof the modern history of philosophy becauseof his great influence on the historian Jakob Brucker (1696-1770). fought Wolffianismfrom a complex eclectic point of view involvingCartesianism as weil as elements of mysticismand cabbalism. Although very different, all these philosophicalconceptions have one common aspect:the rejection of Aristotelianism in its traditionalscholastic form. as weil as in the newform given to it by Wolff. Declineof Wolffianism. This third phase is represented by opponents of Wolffianism of lhe second Pietistic generation. The main figurein this movement is undoubtedly the Leipzigphilosopher and theologian Christian August Crusius. Crusius did not take part directly in the Pietists' fundamental opposition to metaphysics and systematic philosophy. Consequently he did not try 10 fight Wolffianism simply by disputing controversial points. but rather by

SCHOLZ, HEINRICH

presenting a philosophical system of bis own.

Crusius used empiristic and sensualistic elements from Thomasius's school; with Rüdiger he emphasized the relation of philosophy to reality and accordingly the ontological priority of reality over possibility. Crusius also called into question the applicability of the mathematical method to philosophy as weil as the general validity of the principle of sufficient reason. The latter involves a mechanistic determinismthat overrules human freedom and morality. These reflections, embracing also the problem of the bounds of the human intellect and the priority of will over intellect, bad a considerable influence on Kant's precriticalthought. Crusius's philosophy was very successfulin university circles as an alternative to Wolffianism and represented the last important academic philosophy before the Kantianera. FURTHER READING

Beck, L. W., 1969,Early GermanPhilosophy, Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversityPress. Gurr, J. E„ 1959, T/re Principleof Sufficient Reason in Same Sc/wlaslicSystems1750-1900, Milwaukec,Wis.: MarqucttcUniversityPress. Petersen, P., 1921,Geschichteder aristotelisclren Philosophie im proteslantischenDeutschland, Leipzig: Meiner. Weber, H. E., 1908.Der Einflussderprotesta11rische11Sc/111lphilosophie auf die orthodoxlutherisclreDogmatik, Leipzig:A. Deichert. Sch11/philosophie Wundt, M„ 1945,Die de11tsche im Zeilal/erder Aufklärung.Tübingen:J. C. B. Mohr. SONIACARBONCINI

Scholz, Heinrich Heinrich Scholz (1884-1956)is one of the outstanding German scholars of the 20th century. After studies in theology (under Adolf von Hamack. 1851-1930)and philosophy (under Alois Rieb!, 1844-1924), he served as professor at Breslau (1917-19), Kiel (1919-28), and Münster (192&-56).His chair at Münster wasoriginallyin philosophy, but was changed into the first German professorship in 'mathematische Logik und Grundlagenforschung' in 1943.

812

SCHOPENHAUER,ARTHUR

Scholz enriched three different fields with his research: theology, philosophy, and symbolic logic. Theo/ogy is indebted to Scholz for important contributions to the interpretation of Friedrich Schleiermacher ( 1768-1834) and to the discussion of scientific method in theology. His Religionsphilosophie (1921) set in its revised edition (1922) a new standard of discussion within the field of philosophy of religion both in content and in methodology. lt was the first German 'analytical' philosophy of religion. Scholz identifies two crucial questions for philosophy of religion: whetherthe proposition 'God exists' is true and whether religious experience is possible. Phi/osophy is indebted to Scholz for his work on the history of the axiomatic-deductive method and for his historical-systematic reconstruction of the concept of metaphysics. Scholz'sresearch in symbo/ic logic is summed up in his massive posthumous work Grundzüge der mathematischen

Logik

(1961),

which is based on a Platonic ontology. Here Scholz insists on the precise distinction between merely syntactically arranged calculi, for which Scholz introduces the term "Zeichenspiele" (game of signs), and "calculi of logic" as semantically interpreted calculi in whichlogical truth is defined as "validity in all possible worlds". The semantic interpretation is given with reference to the work of Alfred Tarski. The thinking of Scholz is centred around the crucial philosophical question of metaphysics: is metaphysics possible in the modern age? Here Scholz saw symbolic logic as playing an important role and gave this field increasing attention from 1921 on. He did not agree with Rudolf Carnap and the Vienna Circle that symbolic logic would destroy metaphysics. Rather, he saw it as the culmination ofthe tradition ofWestern metaphysicsand he attempted to demonstrate this systematically in his Geschichte der Logik (1931). He analyses the traditional concept of metaphysics set out by Aristotle and Leibniz and shows how this concept was modified by Rene Descartes and especially by Kant. As a result of these analyses Scholz defines metaphysics as "Gru11dlage11forsclu111g",a term

perhaps best translated as 'research into the fundamental structures of reality'. Scholz held, in agreement with Leibniz, that this research must be formalized. Preciselythis concept of Aristotelian-Leibnizian metaphysics came to realization, accordingto Scholz, in the work of Bemard Bolzano, Gottlob Frege, and Bertrand Russell. Scholz understands his own work within this tradition and shows how symbolic logic and metaphysics can be combined into "formalisiene in his book MetaGrundlagenforschung" physik als strenge Wissenschaft (1941).

He illustrates what he means by presenting especially a formalized theory of identity.As a complement to this formalization of metaphysics, Scholz urges also an ontological interpretation of logic. According to Scholz. the axioms of logic are properly understood only if they are interpreted as expressing fundamental laws of being. The ultimate question whether we know the truth of these axioms Scholz answers with reference to the Augustinian-Leibnizian notion of 'illumination' (see e.g. Leibniz, Philosophisclie Schriften, ed. Gerhard!, vol. 7, p. 111).In this categorically different but nevertheless indispensable new type of metaphysicsone can no langer speak in the mode of Wissen (knowledge) but only in the mode of Glauben (faith): a personal 'statement of faith' is the only adequate form of speech. FURTHERREADING

Scholz, H .. 1941, Metaphysik als strengeWisstnschaft, Colognc: Staufen Verlag. - 1961, Mathesis Universalis, H. Hermesetal., cds .. Basel and Stuttgart: SchwabeandCo. Stock, E., 1987, Die Konzeption einer Metaphysik im Denken von H. Scholz, Berlin and New York: De Gruytcr. EBERHARD STOCK

Schopenhauer, Arthur The main work of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was The World as Will and Representation. first published in 1818in one volume. later published with an additional volume of supplementary chapters. Imponant supplements to this are: 011 the Fourfo/d

813

Rootof the Pri11cipleof S11fficie111 Reaso11 (1813),011the Basis of Morality (1841), and 011t/reFreedom of the Will (1841). Schopenhauer adopts Kant's transcendentalidealism on a similar. but simplified,basis. The ordinary natural world has a merely phenomenal existence, that is, it onlyexists for the actual and possible perceptionof observing minds such as ours. This,as with Kant, alone explains the fact of ourapriori knowledge of the space and time inwhichall natural things exist, and of the lawof causality under which all events must lall.In developing this theme Schopenhauer arguesthat the different forms of the a priori arespecifications of one basic principle, that ofs11fficie111 reaso11,according to which there mustbe a reason for everything. There are foursuch specifications:

1. T/repri11cip/eof the s11fficie11t reason of which says that every proposik11owi11g, tion which is to be accepted as true must have some type of justification or proof. 2. T/iepri11cip/eof the s11fficientreason of becoming, or /aw of ca11sa/ity, which says that every event must be determined according to some causal law by previous events. This is the guiding principle of natural science. 3. T/re principle of sufficient reason of bei11gsays that the character of every part of space is determined by its relation to other parts of space. and of every moment of time by its relation to other moments of time. The full articulation of this principle consists in Euclidean geometry. which characterizes spatial relationship; and arithmetic, which characterizes temporal relationship (in virtue of the temporal nature of counting). 4. T/repri11cipleof the sufficient reason of actio11or law of motivation which says that every human action must have had its motive and which underlies all understanding of human behaviour at the phenomenal level. Of these 2., 3 .. and 4. draw attention to pervasivefacts about the world our a priori

SCHOPENHAUER,ARTHUR

knowledge of which can be explaincd only as the self-knowledge we have of the way in which we ourselves construct it. lt follows that the world only exists for minds such as ours. Thus 3. is really the knowledge we have of our own sensibility and 2. the knowledge we have of our understanding( = the propensity to make causal inferences). Principle 1., however, does not concem the character of the phenomenal world but articulates the manner in whichwe are bound to organize our thoughts about it when we reflect on it in conceptual thought. This is the activity of reasonwhich separates man from animals. lt is less fundamental than understanding which we have in common with them, and which givesus our basicawareness of the physical world. For this is the object of a causal hypothesis concemingthe causation of our sensations, developed under the guidance of the a priori representationsof space and time supplied by sensibility.The sum of all four principles is that there can be no object without a subject and that to knowthe general nature of objects and to know the general nature of the subject are in the end the same. But though the natural world is no more than an object for a subject, without independent existence, it must be the appearance to him of something whichexists,so to speak, on its own bottom. This is the inevitablething in itse/f, the true nature of which Kant has said knowledge, as opposed perhaps to faith, can never grasp. Schopenhauer's distinctive metaphysical position turns on his hypothesis that something of its nature is, after all, available to metaphysical knowledge. The clue to it lies in the one case in which each of us does have direct knowledgeof a thing in itself, namely his own will, which he can recognize as being that of which his bodily behaviour and form is the phenomenal appearance (and of which the consciousness which constructs the objectiveworld is but an accident). Reflection shows that the inner core of all other things must similarlybe will, indeed the same one cosmicwill, since there can be but one thing-in-itself. For number applies only to objects in space and time, and these are merely phenomenal (the oneness of the thing in itself is not a number but the

814

SCHÜTZ. ALFRED

negation of plurality). Any doubts on this score can be laid to rest by reflection on nature as it presents itself empirically. For all its phenomena suggest endless restless striving. So the reality behind nature is a single will. a kind of mostly unconscious futile yearning. of which all natural phenomena. including ourselves. are in their true being but aspects. However. it evidently 'objectifies· itself at different levels. as for instance in the inorganic. in plants. in animals. andin humans. (There seems tobe an ambiguity to Schopenhauer"s notion of will objectifying itself: it should refer simply to its appearance to a consciousness. but it sometimes seems to imply a more real way in which the will realizes itself within phenomena.) These different levels must somehow express different grades of willingwithin the one will. and the common grades to which all phenomena of a single type belong are the same as Plato's forms. properly understood. lt is evident a priori that the one cosmic will whichmanifests itself to itself as the phenomenal world must be wretched. For will is of its nature unsatisliable. The empirical nature of the world fully bears this out a posteriori. But some kind of salvation is possible for man and through him for the universe as a whole. A temporary haven from misery is provided by aesthetic experience. when the will suspends its frenetic activity to contemplate the Platonic form (i.e. particular grade of will) manifesting itself in something perceived. More complete is the self-denial of the saint. These fragmentary self-denials of the will in different persons (each in itself a distinct form, or grade of the one will, governed by a distinctive law of motivation freely chosen at the noumenal level) may be the harbinger of some final self-denial of the will at !arge. •after' which it will no longer manifest itself to itself as a phenomenal world. Then there will be nothing. or at least nothing of which we can conceive. neither nature nor will (since what was will will have ceased its willing). However. so Schopenhauer darkly hints. so far a, we are concerned what is 1101hi11g may in its own terms be a somethi11g. a something mystics may experience and which may finally rectify the mistake it made in

becoming will. (Of course. the use of tenses here can only depict some deeper non• temporal contrast between the will asserted and the will denied.) Schopenhauer. wemay note finally. relished aspects of Hindu and Buddhist thought as corresponding to an outlook he bad developed through personal experience and through bis reflectionson Plato and Kant. FURTHER READING

Fox. M .. cd .. 1980. Sclwpe11ha11er: His Philosoph• ical Acl1ie11eme111. Sussex: The HarvesterPress. Gardingcr. P .. 1963. Schope11hu11er. Harmonds· worth. Middlcscx: Pcnguin Books. Hamlyn. D. W .. 1980. Sc/1opet1ha11er. London: Routlcdgc and Kcgan Paul. Magcc. B.. 1983. The Phi/osophy of Sr/10· pe11!,a11er. Oxford: Clarendon Press. TIMOTHYL. S. SPRIGGE

Schröder, Ernst. See: Boolean Algebra Schütz, Alfred The work of Alfred Schütz ( 1899-1959)was the main inspiration for the developmentof phenomenological sociology. In the penod since bis premature death. bis influencehas continued to increase. His work has inßuenced recent discussion in ethnomethodology (sec Harold Garfinkel. Et/111ome1/1odology. 1967: Erving Goffman. FrameAnalysis. A11Essay 011rite Orga11izatio11 of Experie11ce. 1986). Phenomenology in America took root in the work of Marvin Farber (1901~0) and Dorion Cairns (1901-73). Together with other refugee phenomenologists from Eur• ope such as Felix Kaufmann (1895-1949). Fritz Kaufmann. Aron Gurwitsch (1901-73). and Helmut Kuhn. Schütz was importantin further developing the phenomenological impulse in the United States. Sch~tz. more than anyone eise. extended Edmund Husserrs phenomenological thought to the social world. But bis thought is important in itself. as an original attempt in the study of social phenomena. and as an approach to developing the philosophical foundations of Max Weber"s ( 1864-1920) sociology.

815 Schütz was born in Vienna, and studied law. economics, philosophy and social sciencesthere with Ludwig von Mises (18811973),Othmar Spann (1878--1950), Hans Kclsen(1881-1973), Friedrich von Wieser (1851-1926),and others. He was introduced to Husserl in 1932, and maintained close contactuntil Husserl died. Schütz left Austria becauseof the Nazis. He spent a year in Paris before emigrating to the United States, wherehe was active in law and banking, and wherehe taught and wrote until the end of bis life.The American phase of bis career pro1ideda useful encounter with American pragmalism,including the thought of G. H. Mead (1863-1931) and above all William James. Schütz's wide learning has meant that commentatorsoften try to locate him with respectto others' views, which he is said to bring together or even to synthesize. Althoughuseful, this type of approach tends toobscurethe originality of bis thought. For instance,the frequent claim that in bis first book (Der si1111/tafteAufbau der sozialen !Veit,Vienna, 1932, translated as The Phenomenology of tlte Social World), Schütz attempted to bring together Husserl and Weber is probably neither true nor false, sinceit suggests a simple eclecticism in bis position. Schütz's view has been called a phenomenology of the natural attitude and the Husserlianterm ·•natural attitude" provides a clueto Schütz's deep, but also critical, relation to Husserl. lt has been said that more than anyoneeise he carried the authentic impulse ofHusserl'sthought to the realm of daily life, includingits essential structure. With the possibleexception of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Schützis arguably the first thinker to understand the paramount reality of commonsenselife, which is a synonym for Husserl's "life-world".In bis last, unfinished treatise, Tlie Crisis of rite E11ropea11 Scie11ces and Transcendenral Pltenomenology, Husserl employsthis concept to focus on the phenomenon of the world. In Husserrs last work, "life-world" refers to the world in whichwe are immersed in the natural attitude, whichis never an object as such, which is the pre-givenbasis of all experience. and which is the presupposition of all science.

SCHÜTZ, ALFRED

Schütz attempts a systematicdescriptionof the eidetic structure of the life-world. His intention is arguably to undercut the traditional barrier between philosophyand social science by reviewing the phenomena dealt with in the social sciences in a deepermanner. In bis writings, phenomenology integrales analyses of concrete phenomena in a wide variety of fields, such as sociology, social psychology, economics,history, political theory, jurisprudence, etc. Schütz provides detailed discussion of the commonsense and scientificinterpretationsof human action as well as detailed treatment of concept and theory formation in the social sciences. FollowingHusserl, he insistson the rootedness of scientific conceptions in the everyday world. In bis writings, Schütz analyses various themes. In his first book, the only book published during bis lifetime,bis studyofthe philosophical foundations of Weber's sociology used Bergsonian and particularly Husserlian categories to explore the temporal constitution of social action and to analyse our understanding of other people. But he differs from Husserl in bis transition from the ego in the world. In bis analysisof the multiple realities, or of the worlds in which we are embedded, he leanspanicularly on James, with emphasis on the world of working as the paramount sub-universeof reality. But Schütz depans from James in holding that the multiple realities are provinces of meaning and not of sub-universes, since it is the meaningof our experiences,and not the ontological structure of objects, which constitutes reality. This change has important consequences for the theory of knowledge. lt has been said that in this way he effects a transition from perception to action as the basic epistemologicalconcept. In bis theory of meaning, Schütz relies on Husserl, but shifts the analysis from the logical sphere to the social plane. Here he introduces a series of useful distinctionsbetween social ambiance (Umwelt), the social environment (Mitwelt), and the social world (Vorwelt) of our ancestors (Vorfahren) and successors (Nachfahren). The limits of individual action are set by a nature and society which the individual did not make, but to

816

SCOTISM

which it belongs and which constitutes its biographicalframework. Schütz believes that the individual grasps the actuality of ordinary life through the typification of daily, taken for granted, being with others. For this reason, it bas been suggested that anonymity is a transcendental clue to the understanding of bis view of the social world. Schütz holds that the social world is the home of anonymity and anonymization, which refers to the typified structures of the objective aspect of the social world, that is, the series of interlockingmeanings which enable the individual to function in the world of working and to find bis way in other spheres of meaning. FURTHERREADJNG

Cox, R., 1978,Schütz's Theory of Relevance: A Phenomenologica/Critique, The Hague and Boston: M. Nijhofr. Embree, L., ed., 1988,Worldly Phenomenology. The Continuinglnf/uence of Alfred Schütz on NorthAmericanHuman Science,Lanham, Md.: Univcrsity Press of America and London: Centre for Advanced Research in Phenomenology. Gonnan, R. A., 1977, Tlie Dual Vision: Alfred Schütza11dthe Myt/1of Plie11ome110/ogica/ Social Science, 1977, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Natanson, M., ed., 1970,P/1enomenologyand SocialReality.Essaysi11Memory of Alfred Schütz. The Hague: M. Nijhofr. Wagner,ff., 1983,Alfred Schütz: An lntellectua/ Biography, London and Chicago, III.: University of Chicago Press. fflOMAS ROCKMORE

Scotism Scotism, the philosophical and theological heritage of the Franciscan John Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308), represented one of the three major trends of scholastic philosophical theology, the first being that of Thomism, and the last that of nominalism, inspired by another Franciscan, William Ockham. The mendicant orders founded by St. Dominic and St. Francis of Assisi initially supplied the majority of shining lights at the University of Paris and its rival at Oxford. While the Dominicans by the end of the 13th century bad officially adopted Thomas Aquinas as

their 'Common Doctor', the Franciscans, with so many prominent theologians, including Alexander of Haies (c. 1185-1245),St. Bonaventure (1221-74), and Scotus himself, were not so quick to choose a single doctor for their order. Scotus, however, despitebis relatively short life and the unfinishedstateof most of bis writings, bad introduced somany seminal ideas into the scholasticismofhisday as to permanently change its character. Ifbis philosophical insights and theological positions were not always fully accepted, they were often either partially modified or became the target for special constructivecriticism by subsequent theologians, both outside and especially inside the Franciscan Order. For Scotus's gift for synthesis bad eoabled him to bring the Augustinian insightsad• mired by earlier Franciscan thinkers intothe mainstream of scholasticism and bis following quickly grew into a distinct schoolof thought. But it was only several centuries later, in 1633, that the Franciscan Order confirmed and adopted Scotism officially. The resull was a vigorous impulse to Scotistic studies, stimulated by Luke Wadding's Operaomnia edition of 1639. This gave rise to the golden age of Scotism between the 16th and 18th centuries, when Scotistic chairs were established in the principal universities of Europe. So popular bad the school become that tbe Cistercian moral theologian John Caramuel at Louvain, writing in the mid-17th century, was able to declare that "the school of ScolUs is more numerous than all the others combined". But this widespread acceptanceofhis philosophy also made it the special butt of criticism, either for those who rejected its orthodoxy, like the reformers, or for those who deplored its subtleties, like the humanists, who coined the term 'dunce' for those Scotists insensitive to the merits of the new leaming. With the decline ofscholasticism ingeneral in the 18th century, augmented by the suppression of religious orders in many European countries, interest in Scotus waned. Nevertheless, Scotism was taken seriously and wasan influential factor in the thinkingof men like Galileo, Rene Descartes, and Leibniz, and indeed ofC. S. Peirce, whodeclared

817 lhat"Duns Scotus and William Ockham are decidedlythe greatest speculative minds of lhe Middle Ages as weil as two of the profoundestmetaphysicians that ever lived". Characteristic of Scotism, as contrasted withother forms of scholasticism, are the following.Metaphysics is the science of being q11a being, where being is a simple substantivenotion univocally predicable of God and creatures,substance and accident. One ofthe primarygoals of metaphysics is to use the transcendental properties of being to prove lheexistence of one being infinite in perfeclionas the necessary condition for the possibilityof any finite being. Scotus himself showedin a most ingenious and elaborate wayhowsuch a proof could be constructed so as to meet the technical requirements of an Aristotelian demonstration. Scotist theologianscontinued to present this proof as the philosophical interpretation of what God meantwhen he revealed his name to Moses as ·Jam'. Like Scotus, they stressed particularly that, since contingency cannot be derived from necessity and is an empirical datum, Godmust have created the cosmos by a free and generous act of bis will. Hence those philosophers, like the Averroists, who viewedcreation as a necessary emanation fromthe Creator, were clearly in error. In contrast to nominalism. Scotists maintainedthat to each correct formally distinct notion of any real thing there corresponds someisomorphic reality. called technically a •formality'or ratio rea/is. lf such a notion is substantive (i.e., descriptive of that thing's realessence), the corresponding formality is known as its 'common nature', since the nature in this individual is isomorphic with the natures of other individuals of the same species.In addition to its nature each thing has some additional unique positive entity lhat individuates it, called for want of any descriptiveterm its 'haecceity' (thisness). A formal distinction exists between a real thing's common nature and its haecceity. Becauseformalities are not separable from one another in the thing itself, but are only separated conceptually in the rational mind, Scotusdeclared the formal distinction could alsobe called 'rational', provided each ratio it distinguishesis understood to be a character-

SCOTISM

istic of the real thing rathcr than just a concept created by the mind. The distinction could also be called 'virtual' inasmuchas each extramental ratio has the virtue of producing a distinct concept of itselfin the intellect. This is in essence the meaning of 'Scotistic realism'. Besides its recognizedpowerof abstracting such general descriptionsof things, the intellect also has some direct intuitiveknowledge of existents, such as a person's cognitive states, affections, and volitions.But it has no direct intuitive knowledgeof any substance, whether material or spiritual. The wiUguided by right reason is the most God-like of human powers.We have a moral obligation to use it properly,that is to say: to love God as our supreme good and ultimate end, and secondarily to love seif and other persons in an orderly and balanced way. Since this secondary obligationis botb multiple and complex, conflictsof interest can arise, and in certain cases God can reasonably dispense one from a lesser obligationof the natural law to prevent one violating a higher one. However, God can never dispense man from his primary obligation to love and reverence God. The theory of 'haecceity' invests each individual,and especially each person, with a unique value in the eyes of God. Hence, Scotists regarded all creation with reverence, and it is not surprising that they held a populist interpretation of political authority in contrast both to the monarchism of Dante and the absolutism sired largely in Scotus'sown day by Philipthe Fair of France. Scotists were also the principal university defenders of these following controversial tenets. Prime matter as the basic essential constituent of bodies is not sheer potency, but has some actuality of its own apart from what it receives from its substantial forms. Living bodies, in addition to the form of the soul, the principle of life. have a forma corporeitatis that gives them structure or organization. Other distinctiveScotisticdoctrines are: theology is essentially a practical rather than a speculative science; charity rather than wisdom is the supreme virtue; the motive of Christ's incarnation was not primarily redemptive, and Mary bis immaculate

818

SECOND INTENTIONS

mother never contracted original sin. (These last two were especially marks of difference between the Scotists and Thomists.) Later Thomists and even nominalists often unwittingly adopted with subtle changes elements of Scotism. What V. J. Bourke said in his historico-critical survey, The Will in Westem Thought (1964), holds for other key ideas of Scotus as weil: Tue viewof ThomasAquinasthat willis a rational appetite with some necessary activities and some

freeones.dropsout of sightand is rcplaced(during the fourteenthcenturydownto the present day, in mostwritingsby Catholicphilosophersand theologians)by a theory of "frcewill' whichis basically Scotistic... In most practicaldetails this theory doesnot differessentiallyfromthe viewcommonly held by the Schoolmen.The only thing that needs tobe addedis that practicallyall of the Schoolmen are under the impression that they are teaching

Aquinas theory of will. Since the Wadding edition included several inauthentic works, controversies arose as to what Scotus really held. Thus he was credited with Avicebron 's (Ibn Gabirol) conception of matter and Vital du Four's theory of an intellectual intuition of individual material objects. To correct such misconceptions, the Scotistic Commission under Carl Balic began in 1950the critical Vatican edition of Scotus's Opera om11iathat is still in progress. FURTHER READING

Balic,C.. and Weisheipl.J. A., 1967, "Scotism", New Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: McGrawHili, 12, 1226-9. Benoni,A., 1917. le bie11heureiuc Jea11Duns Scot; sa vie, sa doctrine, ses disciples. Lcvanto: Typoa

grafiadell'lmmacolta.433-580. ALLAN B. WOLTER

SecondIntentions The term 'intention' is most likely a medieval rendering of Avicenna's technical term 'ma'na' (cf. Gyekye 1971), a term which he developed to designate 'conceptual' forms, as opposed to the more familiar 'Forms in themselves' of Plato and the 'forms in individuals' of Aristotle (cf. Kneale and Kneale 1962). 'lntentio', 'attentio', and 'conceptus'

are virtual synonyms in the logical literature of medieval and late scholasticism (see Hickman 1980). G. Harderwych, in the 15th century, inhis Comme/1/aria in lsagoges Porphyrii (1494) noted three senses of the term 'intention': 1. an act of intending, 2. the thing which is intended (or attended to), and 3. that by means of which something is intended. Put in contemporary terms, sense 1. would be the concern of psychology, sense 2. the concern of epistemology, and sense 3., as what is capable serving as a term of a proposi• tion, the province of logic. Harderwych's distinction bears a close resemblance to what Karl Popper has termed bis worlds two, one and three, respectively. Another late scholastic, Francisco Suärez (Disputationes Metaphysicae), collapsed Harderwych's senses 2. and 3., which he then termed 'objective' concepts or intentions, and opposed them to sense 1., which he called 'formal' concepts or intentions. This distinction between 'objective' and 'formal' intentions was also maintained by Gottlob Frege in bis Foundations of Arithmetic (see Angelelli 1967). For both Suarez and Frege, only objective intentions or concepts are the properconcem of logical theory, whereas formal intentions are identified with real mental activities. To characterize this latter distinction more precisely, formal intentions may be said tobe real psychological occurrences in the intellect; they have temporal duration, and are characterizable as acts, images, similitudes, or ideas. Objective meanings or intentions are neither spatially nor (necessarily) temporally located, but are intended or understood by such mental acts. They are the 'places' where those mental acts 'terminale' or come to rest. A recognizable versionof this distinction was articulated by William James in bis Pri11ciples of Psychology (1950, p. 243), where he wrote of the ''resting places" of thought, which he called its "substantive parts'", and of its "places of flight", which he called its "transitive parts".

819 Inaddition to being 'formal' or 'objective', intentionswere also said tobe either 'first' or 'second'. For some scholastic followers of Thomas Aquinas (see R. Schmidt 1966), amongthem J. Sanchez Sedegno (see Quaestiones... 1616), John of St. Thomas (15891644),and Domingo de Soto, first intentions weregenerally said to be 'entia realia', or to havereal being. This position was an attempt 10 be true to Aristotle 's 'mirror' theory of perception,in which the form or similitude of anobject was captured in or reflected by the mind.First intentions, such as the referent of ·man'in 'Socrates is a man', were said tobe t11tia realiabecause they are as they are by virtueof the conceived entity alone, without respectto any modification on the part of the intellect.This Thomist position was thus a varietyof epistemological realism. For some followers of John Duns Scotus, however,such as C. Sarnanus (died 1595) (seeA. Gothutius, ed., Gymnasium Speculativum,1607), first intentions were said tobe entiarationis, or beings of reason. They arguedthat even in conceptualization of the mostbasic type there must be present some constitutiveactivity of the intellect, setting lhingsin an order which makes them availableto it. For the Scotists, then, first intenlions are as they are only 'thanks to the intellect', and 'concepts' are so called becausethey are the 'children' of the intellect. Still other scholastics, such as William Ockhamin his Summa Logicae in the 14th centuryand John Major (S111nmuleMaioris Nunquam. .. ) at the beginning of the 16th, largelyignored objective intentions, thought thedistinction between e11tiarealia and entia rationissuperfluous, and argued that first intentions are mental terms which stand naturallyfor the things they signify, provided !hat those sig11ificata are not themselves signs.First intentions in this sense are mental signs,as distinguished from written signs and spoken signs, which are said to stand only conventionally for their significata. Since mental signs may either be interpreted as mentalacts or similitudes, on the one side, or as terms of a mental grammar, on the other, Ockham's position remained somewhat ambiguousfrom the viewpoint of the objectivists.

SECONDINTENTIONS

Whereas the objectivists held different views regarding the nature of first intentions, they held quite similar views regarding second intentions. For both Thomists and Scotists, second intentions were entia rationis,beings of reason, as opposed to real beings. Beings of reason were said to be divided into three types: privations, such as blindness; negations, such as chimerae and squared circles; and relations of reason. Logical second intentions were defined as relations of reason whose foundations are first intentions. Thus the second intention 'species', for example, wasidentifiedby most Scotists and Thomists alike as the name of a relation of reason which arises when the intellect relates a classto an individualwhich is an element of it. The relation between 'man' and 'Socrates' in 'Socrates is a man' may thus have as its foundationa real physical or metaphysical relation (in causandoor in essendo),but qua logical,it is a relationof reason. Most objectivists were also careful to acknowledge the difference between a relation of reason and its converse. The second intention 'individual', the relation of reason between 'Socrates' and 'man' in the preceding example, was taken as the converse of 'species', another second intention which is the relation of reason between 'man' and 'Socrates'. The objectivists also characterizedsecond intentions as properties of higher levels. J. Sanchez Sedegno, for example, defined second intentions in the followingway: 'A second intention is a property (proprietas) belonging to things from the beingwhichthey have in the intellect'. A remark by John of St. Thomas in this connection teils us why there were for the objectivistsno 'third' intentions, as there are for us today properties of the 'third' level. "The reason", he wrote, "why some intentions are called second... is that they are connected with a secondstate of the object." For John the function of logic is to arrange things in so far as they exist in knowledge, and properties of levels 2 through n are thus all 'second', because of their 'being in apprehension'. In his Summa Logicae, William Ockham genera!Iy treated second intentions as natural concepts of first intentions, that is, as mental

820

SEGEi.BERG, IVAR

signs of signs which are not themselves signs of other signs. Even though Ockham most often identified these mental signs with mental acts or similitudes. his position admitted sufficient ambiguity to allow John Major and his students at the University of Paris. 150 years later. to interpret him as having emphasized the grammatical characteristics of second intentions. Their view. like that of Ockham. was that a second intention "is a term which signifies a thing which is a sign by virtue of that principle according to which it (the sign) is significant". But whereas Ockham·s primary examples of second intentions had included ·genus' and ·species'. Major's examples of second intentions are almost entirely grammatical ones such as 'name • and 'adverb'. By the time of Thomas Hobbes. nominalists were treating second intentions as ·names of names and speeches'. The nominalist doctrine of first and second intentions was. then. apart of a philosophy of logic which was at first psychologistic. but later placed its emphasis on predication in the grammatical sense and looked to Aristotle ·s Topicsfor inspiration. First and second intentions were for the objectivists a part of a logicaltheory which emphasized an aspect of predication closer to that of Aristotle in the Categories. and to what we today know as predication theory in the Fregean sense and as naive set theory. FURTHER READING

Angclelli. 1.. 1967. S111die,· 011 Go11/obFrege am/ Tmditio,wl Pl,i/uso11J,y.Dordrecht: D. Rcidel. Gyckyc. K„ 1971. ·"Thc terms 'pri11wi111e111iu' and ·secw,da i111e11110·in Arahic logic··. Speculum. 46. 32-8. Hickman. L.. 1980. Motlem Tl,eories uf Higher Lei' F(not-a). E(a) -> D(not-a). This symmetrical relationship between Operators corresponds exactly to what Meinong ( 1894.p. 89) referred to as the ''law of omission··. which he considered necessary to the logical relationship between moral judgements. FURTHER READING

Chisholm. R. M.. 1963. ··Supcrerogalion and offcncc - a conccplual schcmc for cthics". Ratio. 5.1-1-l.

Chisholm.R. M.. and Sosa. E .. 1966."lntrinsic prcfcrability and thc problcm of supcrerogation··.Sw11/1t•s.·.16. 321-31. lts Stcllusin Ethica/ Hcyd. D .. 1982. Sup