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MODERN PHILOSOPHY |
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Select: René Descartes - Benedict Spinoza - Nicholas De Malebranche Blaise Pascal - Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibnitz - Christian Wolff |
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The prejudice shared by Rationalism and Empiricism is that man does not know things directly but grasps only their impressions (phenomena). Rationalism is concerned with the impressions made on the intellect, Empiricism with those on the senses. Hence the question arises: Can the knowing subject be certain of the existence of known objects? If so, to what extent can he be certain? Both Rationalism and Empiricism needed a new method; the former adopted mathematical deduction, the latter scientific induction. The Fallacy of Epistemological Idealism Elsewhere On the Internet René Descartes (picture) was born at La Haye, Touraine, the son of a noble family. He was educated by the Jesuits at La Fleche, and received a broad training. His early study did not satisfy him and he abandoned his instruction on leaving school and sought through travel a larger discovery of life and truth. He entered the armies of Maurice of Nassau and General Tilly (1617 and 1619), met all kinds of men, but never ceased to ponder over the problems of philosophic inquiry with a devoutly religious mind. In 1621 he left the army and devoted himself to study and travel. Four years later he associated with scientific friends in Paris (1625-1628). Feeling the need of solitude he removed to Holland and busied himself with the preparation of his writings. After twenty years (1629-1649) he was invited by Queen Christina of Sweden to Stockholm. The climate undermined his health and he died in 1650. His chief works: Discourse on Method (1637), Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Principles of Philosophy (1644), and The Passions of the Soul (1650). Descartes' Quest Descartes opposed the old authorities and emphasized the practical character of philosophy. "Philosophy is a perfect knowledge of all that man can know, as well for the conduct of his life as for the preservation of his health and the discovery of all the arts." He seeks a system of thought that possesses the certainty of mathematics independent of Scholastic tradition and theological dogma. Descartes was a geometrician with a taste for metaphysics and a great admirer of Francis Bacon. He developed the Cartesian method which consists of mathematical deductions generalized, and emphasizes self-observation. He maintains that sound judgments must be made from a mathematical basis. Mathematics proceeds from axioms, principles. These principles form the starting point for deduction and from them other propositions follow logically, hence the method of deduction. The Laws of the Cartesian Method The laws of the Cartesian method are four:
This is the method adopted in mathematics; Descartes transferred it to philosophy with the intention of constructing metaphysics on a new basis. Metaphysics "Cogito ergo sum." Descartes sought to determine what ideas are certain. In all his doubting one thing was certain -- someone was doubting, and this someone must exist. Therefore, to doubt is to think, and to think is to exist -- "Cogito ergo sum" -- "I think, therefore I exist." This is a self-evident proposition, intuitively grasped and not an inference. So he reasoned that the clearness and the distinctness of a proposition were the marks of its truth. Theodicy: Proof of the Existence of God Descartes' proofs are three:
In regard to the attributes of God, Descartes maintains that God alone is true substance; the divine veracity guarantees the validity of the clear and distinct ideas; granted the existence of Go, the hypothesis of the spell of the malignant spirit falls. In regard to the origin of ideas, Descartes holds that:
Only innate ideas enjoy the guarantee of validity. Cosmology: The Mechanism of the Universe Descartes proves the existence of the world through the clear and distinct idea of extension ("res extensa"). The universe is a machine, whose forces (movements), placed by God, govern the succession of phenomena in both inorganic and organic matter. Plants and animals also are machines. The Dualism of Substances The entire Cartesian rests upon a metaphysical dualism: thinking substance ("res cogitans," i.e., God and human soul) and extended substance ("res extensa," i.e., the corporal world). Any reciprocal action is impossible. Subsequent rationalists tried to explain the relationship between these two Cartesian substances. Ethics The norms of morality must be determined by reason according to the end of man. First, the philosopher constructs a temporary model of life. In rational morality Descartes holds that the principles of morality were appointed freely by God, who could have appointed opposite norms. Virtue and happiness can be obtained through knowledge of God, of soul and of the world. The ethics of Descartes is close to that of the Stoics. The Development of Cartesian Rationalism Descartes left two questions unsolved:
Three solutions were attempted:
In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
The positive contributions of René Descartes to the Perennial Philosophy In a word, none. In nearly every point, the philosophy of Descartes is misleading, and in most points it is plainly false. Yet this philosophy, or welter of theories, has had a tremendous influence upon human thinking for over three hundred years. See the essay: The Origins of Intellectual Insanity: What Is Wrong with Descartes' Philosophy?
II. Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) Benedict Spinoza (picture) was born in Amsterdam, of Jewish-Portuguese parents in good circumstances. He pursued theological studies (Hebrew literature) at his father's wish but found little in Jewish theology that satisfied him. He renounced Judaism and was excommunicated from the Jewish faith in 1656. He was forced to leave Amsterdam and he settled at The Hague in 1669, making his living by grinding lenses. He lived a simple and unselfish life, and his writings aroused intense interest and considerable indignation. The Elector Palatine, Karl Ludwig, offered Spinoza the professorship of philosophy at Heidelberg with the condition that he remain reasonably orthodox. Spinoza declined to accept it because he preferred to assert his independence of thought. The majority of his works were not written under his own name because of the strong charge made concerning his supposed atheism. His period of great production was from 1660 to 1677. He died at The Hague in his 45th year, a poor and persecuted man. Chief works: Under his own name he wrote Cogitata metaphysica (1663) which was an exposition of the system of Descartes whom he admired. His posthumous works are: Ethics; Tractatus politicus; Tractatus de intellectus emendatione, Letters. Of the two questions left unsolved by Descartes, Spinoza aimed to resolve the relationship between the infinite and finite substance by affirming the unity of substance. The relationship between the soul and the body was dogmatically affirmed in virtue of the psycho-physical law. Substance, Attributes, and Modes Spinoza holds that substance (the concept of which has no need of the concept of any other in order to be conceived) is one. The two substances of Descartes ("res cogitans" and "res extensa") are attributes of a single substance. This single substance is God conceived of as Natura naturans; from this proceeds "Natura naturata," the world of men and all things, which are infinite modifications (or modes) of the infinite attributes. The laws which govern Spinoza's substance are:
Man and Ethics Man is a derived mode of the attributes of God; the spirit is a mode of the attribute of thought, and the body is a mode of extension. Man's activities are three, and to each one there is a corresponding moral perfection:
Politics Spinoza maintains that society arose from a pact made by man, who at first lived in the state of irrational nature. Force and violence used by authority are irrational but necessary means for the advent of rationality. If the subjects are more rational than the sovereign, the state will fall in order to give place to another more rational. Importance of Spinoza's Philosophy It is important in three aspects:
Spinoza's system did not meet with good reception at first, perhaps because it was not understood. Idealism took it over because it found in it the principal lineaments for a metaphysics in the idealist sense. Summary The Absolute or God is substance which has two attributes: Thought and Extension. Substance is constituted by its attributes or the ability of the intellect to perceive the essence of thought; it is actual and eternal. Attributes are the essences of substance, the essence of God perceived by the intellect which expresses the substance. Modes are modifications of the substance. The individual substance is a mode of God. God is known through pure thought. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
The positive contributions of Benedict Spinoza to the Perennial Philosophy In a word, none. Spinoza has a particular attraction for the dilettanti and the parlor-philosophers. But with all due respect for the man's sincerity, and with proper commiseration for him as the butt of meanness and persecution, we must recognize his teachings as false and pernicious. III. Nicolas de Malebranche (1638-1715) Nicolas de Malebranche (picture) was born in Paris. After early studies in his paternal home he studied philosophy in the college of Marche, and theology at the Sorbonne. In 1660 he entered the Oratory, where he came under the strong influence of the thought of St. Augustine which predominated there. But his enthusiasm for Descartes was stronger, and he became an admirer of the father of modern philosophy. He published On the Search for Truth in 1674. It was well received, and caused considerable discussion. His other works can be considered as developments of the doctrine of this, this masterpiece. Of the two problems left unsolved by Descartes, Malebranche aimed to solve the one concerning the relationship between God and creatures by reducing the connection of causality to God alone. Doctrine In regard to the problem of knowledge, Malebranche follows St. Augustine's illumination. By illumination he means that our mind sees ideas in God. In respect to metaphysics, Malebranche proves the existence of God through the ontological argument of St. Anselm, St. Augustine and Descartes. The divine attributes are those of Catholic teaching. But Malebranche denies any action of spirit upon matter and vice versa. The sole cause of all effect is God. Finite things are occasions for the direct intervention of God (Occasionalism). Moral evil is reduced to a suspension of the divine intervention and is completely attributable to man. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
The positive contributions of Malebranche to the Perennial Philosophy In a word, none. His doctrine of Occasionalism, that creatures furnish the occasion (the "stage setting") for God to intervene and cause them to act or operate, is a quite fanciful and fallacious theory. Another center of Cartesianism in Paris was the abbey of Port-Royal. Some of its members were accused of Jansenism because, exaggerating certain aspects of the philosophy of St. Augustine, they insisted that human nature, as a result of sin, was completely incapable of acting correctly and that grace, therefore, was absolutely necessary. Opposed by the Jesuits and the Church authorities, the Jansenism of Port-Royal was condemned. Nevertheless, this center of philosophical thought could boast of some great writers, among whom was Antoine Arnault (1612-1697). One of the leaders of the center at Port-Royal was Blaise Pascal (picture), noted physicist and mathematician, a challenging thinker and to some extent a Jansenist. Pascal intended to write an apology of the Christian religion and had already gathered considerable material for the work when death overtook him at the age of thirty-nine. The notes for his projected apology were published in 1669 in a book entitled Pensées. It is difficult to reconstruct what was the thought of Pascal from what we know of him. It is certain that he appears to have noted the insufficiency of the scientific mathematical method of Cartesianism for arriving at the knowledge of God. For this reason, in place of mathematical deduction (good for the sciences but not for philosophy) he advocates an intuition of the intellect which, surpassing all logical deductions, arrives at a point that pure reason cannot reach. Notwithstanding the miseries and pain to which man finds himself subject, despite the sense of dismay which he feels when face to face with the great spectacles of nature, this spirit of finesse -- these "reasons of the heart" -- give us a consciousness of our greatness, for they lead us to God, "a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom He possesses." Scientists honor Pascal as one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists, as one of the founders of hydrodynamics and the mathematical theory of probability, and as a man who also made significant contributions by his investigations of vacuum, and gravity, and by his theory of conic sections. Men of all creeds revere Pascal's piety which was free from bigotry. Historians of literature admire Pascal's prose which contributed to the formation of modern French style. Philosophers highly esteem him as a profound psychologist and a thinker devoted to truth. Success and fame meant nothing to Pascal. He sought peace of mind. Dissatisfied with abstract science, Pascal turned to the study of man and his spiritual problems. His conviction that self-complacency is the most dangerous obstacle in the way to true knowledge led him to a severe examination of his own inclinations and disinclinations. In his search of truth, Pascal was steadily tormented by his passions and inner conflicts, but he overcame all these obstacles by his honesty of thought. He was equally opposed to those who despise human reason and to those who are overconfident of it. According to him. God enabled man to know religious truth by means of reason, and to feel truth, due to His grace. He protested with energy and courage any attempt to convert men to any creed by force. But he fought religious and moral laxity with no less energy, as his Lettres Provinciales, masterworks of polemics, have shown. In his Pensées (Thoughts), Pascal dealt with the fundamental problems of human existence from the psychological and theological point of view. He regarded truth as the expression of God's will and as a means to know and to love Him. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
The positive contributions of Blaise Pascal to the Perennial Philosophy In a word, none. V. Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716) Gottfried W. von Leibniz (picture), who had a mind of encyclopedic culture, was born in Leipzig where he acquired during his early studies a profound knowledge of philosophy itself and of the history of medieval and modern philosophy and of the mathematical sciences. In 1666 he received the degree of Doctor of Laws. In 1672 he went to Paris on a diplomatic mission to the court of Louis XIV, the Sun-King, whose desire to expand the realm of France represented a real danger for Germany. In Paris, Leibniz came into contact with the leading philosophers and scientists of his day and there he made the discovery of infinitesimal calculus. Newton made the same discovery at the same time; hence the two entered into a heated polemic regarding credit for the discovery. In 1676, invited by the Duke of Brunswick to accept the office of court librarian, he left Paris to go to the ducal court of Hanover. There he did not interrupt his studies of philosophy, science, history, religion and politics, despite the fact that he had to attend to many diplomatic and political matters. When the Duke of Brunswick succeeded to the throne of England, Leibniz remained in Hanover, where he died in solitude. Leibniz wanted to solve the two problems left unsolved by Descartes by means of the concept of the Aristotelian "form" developing itself from potency and actuality. Theory of Knowledge In regard to the problem of the origin of ideas, Leibniz holds a virtual innatism: Ideas are in the intellect virtually; the intellect reflecting upon itself makes them actual. The principles of reason are two:
Metaphysics The fundamental reality is the monad. Monads are entities devoid of extension but endowed with activity. This activity consists in representation. Every monad represents the universe from its point of view. Apperception is a conscious representation. The activity of the monads is regulated by God, the supreme Monad. Cosmology: The World as Phenomenal Extension Since the monads are unextended, any action of one upon another is impossible. Activity is developed from within the monad according to a pre-established divine harmony. In virtue of the pre-established harmony, the monads arrange themselves in colonies. Hence arises extension, which is not real but phenomenal. Rational Psychology Man is an aggregate of monads and the soul is the central monad. Theodicy The existence of God is proved:
God is the creator, and this world is the best that God could create. Ethics The metaphysics of Leibniz should logically lead to a denial of human freedom and of the possibility of moral evil. However, both are affirmed. Moral evil is an opposition of the free will to the will of God. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
The positive contributions of Leibniz to the Perennial Philosophy Although Leibniz made a contribution to mathematics with his discovery of the calculus, his contribution to the Perennial Philosophy was almost nil. His doctrine of monadology (the world is constituted of monads) is a theory in conflict with both reason and experience. Yet it intrigues unwary minds, particularly because the doctrine of pre-established harmony cuts many difficulties from the path of physicist and philosopher. But it is a doctrine of unreality. Monads are unextended, non-bodily, and hence the universe has no true existence as an extended reality; it becomes illusory, a dream-world. Thus Leibniz is but a step removed from idealism which denies value to the findings of the senses and reduces the world to a set of mental images. However, Leibniz' philosophy is not superficial; it considers the most important problems of metaphysics and psychology. Platonic in spirit, it is inclined toward a poetic rather than a scientific synthesis. Thus its principal defect is its unreality: the philosophy of Leibniz is not built on experimental data but on a priori principles and definitions. Still, Leibniz must not be underrated as a speculative thinker. He rendered great service to the cause of philosophy by opposing empirical sensism. His philosophy opens to the mind new vistas of philosophic syntheses, and is an invaluable aid to the understanding of later systems.
VI. Christian Wolff (1679-1754) Frederick William I, the "soldier king" of Prussia, dismissed Christian Wolff (picture), in 1723, from his post as professor at the University of Halle, forced him to leave the kingdom within forty-eight hours, and, some years later, decreed that everyone who used a book of Wolff's should be sentenced to wheelbarrow labor. What incited the fury of the king was an address given by Wolff in which he had praised the ethical teachings of Confucius, and had added that a man could be happy and good without the Divine grace or revelation. Furthermore, the king was impressed by the apprehension, expressed by some of his generals, that Wolff, as an adherent of determinism, might endanger the discipline of the Prussian army. Wolff's international fame was enhanced by the King's measures. Other governments offered him a professorship. Learned societies in France and England awarded him degrees and honors. However, the University of Halle suffered from the consequences of Wolff's expulsion, so that the King, reluctantly, invited Wolff to come back. Before the negotiations were completed, Frederick William I died, and his successor Frederick II used Wolff's final reappointment to exhibit himself as a tolerant ruler. General Philosophic Thinking Wolff was a disciple of Leibniz, but he completed the latter's system, or, as Leibniz saw it, deformed it, by concessions to Aquinas, Descartes, and even to Locke. Despite different opinions, Leibniz remained friendly to Wolff, and continued to recommend and advise him. For Leibniz was aware that Wolff had a faculty of clear expression and systematization which he himself lacked. Wolff's authority and influence with the German Enlightenment were immense until Kant shook the fundamentals of Wolff's system. But even Kant revered him as "the most powerful representative of dogmatic rationalism, of the standpoint of pure, unshaken confidence in the strength of reason." In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
The positive contributions of Christian Wolff to the Perennial Philosophy None of any significance.
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