The True Essence of Modern Philosophy - Part Four

The Three Levels of the Self

An important application of idealistic transcendentalism is the doctrine of the transcendental self, derived by extension from the Cartesian self, which is Descartes' self. Indeed, having become aware of his existence as a spirit constituting fundamental certainty, he wonders if he possesses a body and if he might be the only one existing in the world since he has not yet demonstrated the existence of things around him.

To solve this difficult problem, Descartes universalizes the self, expands his scope, and makes it a principle valid for all selves. Thus, he obtains the transcendental or pure self, encompassing other different selves. In this way, he ensures the existence of other-selves.

But since the idea of the absolute truth of God resides in the transcendental self, Descartes deduces from the transcendental self the absolute or divine self, which guarantees him the existence and knowability of the external world, while the sum makes possible, as Fichte will note, the juxtaposition of the empirical self to the Egò èimi  (“I am") of Jesus Christ, opening the door to pantheism.

Faced with the famous Cartesian sum, the idealists have deceived themselves. They did not realize that I, as a man, can say I exist, not I am. Only God can say of Himself I am (Exodus 3:14). The Cartesian sum is ambiguous because it can be understood in two distinct ways. In the case of the human self, "I exist" does not include any nominal predicates, whereas "I am" is followed by a nominal predicate, such as "I am a man." In the case of God, He alone can say not only I exist, but also I am without predicates. And why is that? Because to say "I am" without predicates means "I am" infinitely and absolutely, which only applies to God. In contrast, in the case of myself, whose being is limited, I must specify and say, for example, "I am a man," as my being is limited to being a man and excludes being a woman.

The A Priori Knowledge in Kant

As we know, Kant indeed admits a priori knowledge, which is scientific, universal, and necessary, but of what? Not of things in themselves, but of "phenomena." He says:

"The a priori knowledge of our reason extends only to phenomena, while it allows the thing in itself to be indeed real in itself, but unknown to us. Because what drives us to go beyond the limits of experience and all phenomena is the unconditional, which reason necessarily and rightfully demands in things in themselves, for everything that is conditioned, in order to close the series of conditions with it. Now, if it is admitted that our experimental knowledge is regulated on objects as things in themselves, it is found that the unconditional is not found without contradiction; while, on the contrary, if it is admitted that our representation of things, as they are given to us, is not regulated on them as they are in themselves, but rather that these objects, as phenomena, are regulated on our way of representing them, it is found that the contradiction disappears, and therefore the unconditional must not be found in things as we know them (they are given to us), but in things as we do not know them as things in themselves, which we have previously admitted, only by way of attempt, it is seen to be well-founded" [1].

For Kant, the phenomenon is twofold: it is both the thing as it appears to the subject, which retains a residue of realism, and it is also, in terms of the form of the phenomenon, a modification of the subject, reflecting idealism. This is because Kant confuses the mode of knowing with its content. Consequently, the content, at least in its form, is not a reflection or representation of the thing-in-itself, which remains unknown, but rather a concept produced by the subject.

But if science is only the science of phenomena, that is, experimental science, how does Kant propose a knowledge that has as its object reason, intellect, spirit, self-awareness, and knowledge, which are not phenomena, but supersensible realities? How does he propose a foundation for metaphysics if metaphysics, by its essence, is knowledge that goes beyond experimental knowledge and encompasses the spiritual?

Yet Kant, with remarkable confidence, embarks on a 750-page odyssey in his Critique of Pure Reason, where he serenades us with a parade of supersensible entities: reason, the transcendental, the a priori, form, spirit, truth, concept, thought, judgment, idea, knowledge, consciousness, soul, intellect, logic, the unconditional, the necessary, the universal, God, morality, and the list goes on.

Here’s the classic flaw of idealism: it turns inward and rejects the external world, focusing instead on self-awareness. Without grounding in reality, this inward focus often ends up either being hollow or filled with superficial, abstract ideas that are disconnected from the real world, ultimately confusing reality with merely the idea of it.

Since the mode of knowing belongs to the subject and the content of knowledge is, for Kant, partially determined by the subject (the "form"), the object loses its independence from the subject and becomes, albeit partially, dependent on the subject. This is the essence of idealistic subjectivism.

Kant's Unconditioned

Kant's mention of the "unconditioned" is intriguing, yet he doesn't elaborate on its meaning at the moment. A clearer explanation emerges later in the Critique of Pure Reason [2] when he tackles the existence of God, which he describes as "absolutely necessary." However, Kant does not use the term "Absolute," a concept that will later become central in the works of Schelling and Hegel. It’s important to note that Kant asserts the affirmation of the unconditioned relies on his "Copernican revolution"—the shift from viewing the object (reality) as the rule of truth to placing the subject (idea) at the center. This principle of idealism, though framed as revolutionary, was already established by Descartes. And Descartes had already argued that the cogito establishes the idea of God. Thus, we can understand how the idea of the unconditioned is made possible precisely by the Copernican revolution, a continuation of the Cartesian revolution.

At this point, it’s worth shifting from idealism to ontologism. Certainly, the latter admits the distinction between being and thought, like realism. But ontologism, like Descartes, does not start from the senses, but from the idea of being, confused moreover with the divine being. The experience of things occurs within the thought of being.

Kant seems to suggest that we encounter the unconditioned within things themselves, as long as we do not claim to know them as things in themselves, but only as phenomena. What is this unconditioned? Kant speaks of the "unconditionally necessary" concerning God, who, however, for him is not a thing in itself, not an external reality to the subject, but the supreme ideal of reason.

Why can we only be open to the unconditioned by viewing things not as independent entities but as phenomena shaped by the a priori forms of the intellect? The answer is that the unconditioned—identified with God—is not a thing in itself but rather an idea that we can grasp only by transcending our experience of phenomena.

For this reason, when Kant asserts that the intellect cannot reach the supersensible through the experience of phenomena, he is not suggesting that the world of the spirit—encompassing the subject, intellect, reason, consciousness, and morality—is unknowable. On the contrary, its existence is for him absolutely certain; however, for him, it is not a matter of the thing-in-itself but rather of the explicit manifestation of the Cartesian "I think." For Kant, the object of metaphysics is not the thing-in-itself or the external reality. That belongs to the domain of the science of phenomena.

The A Priori for the Idealists

One might ask: What does the term 'a priori' mean for the Idealists, and who coined it? The answer is Kant. Since he introduced the term, any serious Idealist has felt compelled to use it frequently. The term itself carries weight and significance: 'a priori' refers to that which is known independently of experience, derived from what comes before

However, we immediately face a potential pitfall: the Idealists often obscure what 'prior' truly means. Are they referring to something axiological or merely temporal? Is it about what holds the greatest significance, or just what appears first in the discourse of thought? What exactly does a priori knowledge entail? Is it knowledge of what is most fundamental, spiritual, certain, and universally necessary? Or is it simply a presumed starting point for understanding the spirit, from which we then move to knowledge of empirical phenomena, termed 'a posteriori'? The Idealists seldom clarify this, leaving readers to grapple with interpretations of which form of a priori is intended. The reality is, that Idealists frequently conflate these concepts.

It is evident that, while we realists concur with the Idealists on the greater significance of the spirit over matter, we part ways on how we approach knowledge. When we assert that human knowledge begins with the a posteriori and ascends to the a priori, we are not implying that the spiritual is secondary or that, as materialists claim, the spirit derives from matter. There is a crucial distinction between epistemological order and ontological order, between the realm of thought and the realm of being. The progression of thought differs fundamentally from the progression of reality. The Idealists, however, often blur these lines by conflating their core principle—that thought and being are identical, that the ideal or rational is the same as the real. This conflation leads to significant confusion.

With Fichte, who abolishes the thing-in-itself, the object, matter, and form, will become totally the product of the subject. Certainly, there remains in Fichte the infinite moral tension, characteristic of Romantic Sehnsucht, of the subject towards the object, but by now the total resolution of being into thought is evident.

This idea will be adopted by Hegel, who equates the real with the rational and merges metaphysics with logic. Similarly, Schelling will align the ideal with the real and the subject with the object. Yet, even they fail to completely close the circle of absolute self-consciousness, because they persist in wanting to mix the finite with the infinite, thus compelled to introduce dialectics, conflict, and contradiction even into the absolute.

Restless souls that find no peace anywhere because they either do not know or refuse to leave the pacification of their cor inquietum (restless hearts) to God, always ready to vainly accuse realists of "dualism," while they are ensnared in the most profound of dualisms, the most tragic of conflicts: that between the self and God. These are souls torn between yes and no, between two masters: God and Mammon; between two services: to the world and the truth; between two wills: their own and God's. They are called by God to holiness and seduced by Satan toward perdition. [3].

Idealism and Ontologism

Idealism resembles ontologism, but the latter remains a realism, although not sufficiently founded on adequate epistemology. The ontologist accepts the objectivity of being and reality, external to thought. God is transcendent. However, the ontologist understands the intellect not as a rational activity, which, starting from the data of sense, elevates itself, applying the principle of causality, to the knowledge of God. The ontologist, like Descartes, starts from the idea of God and, based on this idea, believes to know that God exists, not, however, as a mere Idea, in the manner of Kant and Hegel, but precisely as extramental reality, in the manner of the realists.

The ontologists, following Hegel, revived the primary interest in being as the object of intellect, which Kant was not interested in, all occupied in the comparison between phenomenon and thing-in-itself. However, the being of the ontologists is not the Thomistic esse, the act of being, but being in the Hegelian sense, coinciding with God. Yet they, against Hegel, and here with the realists, maintained the distinction of thought from being.

However, they remained with Descartes as they did not start the intellectual activity from sensory contact with external things, like the realists, but from self-awareness, so they could admit an immediate intuition of being, similar to how Descartes admitted an immediate intuition of innate ideas.

At this juncture, one might rhetorically question: How can they claim to acknowledge the transcendence of the divine being if, according to their views, the divine being is merely an elaboration of being (as Rosmini suggests) or the idea of being (as Gioberti argues) inherent in self-awareness? For this reason, the realism of the being and existence of God is more affirmed than demonstrated.

They claimed to stand simultaneously with Thomas in admitting the transcendence of God and with Descartes in starting from self-awareness, which led them to the intuition of being immanent to consciousness and transcendent not to consciousness, but in consciousness [4]. The case of Rosmini provoked many discussions on this point. The Holy Office, in the Decree of 1887, condemned his Cartesian approach. However, subsequent investigations that led to his Beatification confirmed that the profound intention of the Roveretan was to recognize the ontological transcendence and not just the consciousness-related transcendence of the Christian God, of which he gave convincing testimony with his holy life.

Ontologism carries significant implications for theology because its focus on the intuition of being leads it to perceive God as the very essence of the concept of being—a notion that is, at least in part, consistent with what St. Bonaventure already articulated [5].

However, it happens then that, deceived by St. Anselm's ontological argument, the ontologists give as the ultimate end of natural intellect not the knowledge of God per ea quae facta sunt (Romans 1:20), since for them the notion of being is a priori and not a posteriori, but the immediate vision of the divine essence [6], which in reality is not possible by simple reason, but only by faith; not by philosophy but by Christian revelation, since it is a supernatural end superior to the natural end of the human intellect, infinitely superior to human reason's comprehension. Their approach, instead, favors Hegelian idealism, for which reason alone is sufficient to know the essence of God, because, according to Kant, God is nothing but an idea of reason. For this reason, Hegel said that the human mind, as in every thought it thinks of being, always thinks of God.

Idealism Is a Subjectivism

Idealists often see themselves as the true defenders of spiritualism, with some even claiming that Kantianism, Hegelianism, or Heideggerianism are better suited than Thomistic realism for conveying the Christian message. They dismiss Thomistic realism as materialistic or naïve, likening it to the simplistic understanding of a barber or peddler, lacking the critical depth of Kantian thought.

On the other hand, Liberation theologians believe aligning themselves with Marxist realism is good. Thomistic realism is not socialist realism. Marxian realism is a Hegelian-Fichtean crypto idealism of the production of the real in praxis. For Marx, the dependence of consciousness on material reality is not the Thomistic intentional adaequatio (adequacy) of intellectus to the res materialis sive spiritualis, but the ontological dependence of the spirit on the matter.

Realism recognizes with idealism the intentional identity in act of thought in act with the thought in act, therefore undoubtedly the intentional identity of thought with being in the act of thinking. However, the thinking in potency remains ontologically distinct from the thinkable entity that is not yet thought.

Certainly, for the realist, the object of thought as thought is indeed the object itself, as Hegel asserts, within the realm of thought. Otherwise, the truth of knowledge would be compromised; if there were no coincidence or identity between the knower and the known, I would know something other than the intended object, mistaking it for the actual one. This would transform error from an incidental issue into a fundamental problem of knowing.

Or what I know would no longer be the thing itself, but only my idea of the thing. In this sense, even idealism rejects this subjectivism, realizing its actual inadmissibility, which Descartes himself tried to overcome by resorting to divine truth.

Successive idealism, starting with Kant, replaced divine truth with that of the ego, which seemed sufficient to Descartes. However, Kant, realizing the epistemological resources of the ego cogito in possession of a priori ideas, believed that, by going against Descartes to admit the indubitable existence of external things, the intellect could itself reach a priori knowledge both as an explication of the immediate data of consciousness and through the use of the a priori forms of things, which constitute phenomena.

But subjectivism remained because Kant, with the famous Copernican turn, advanced the principle of cogito, thus founding the objectivity of knowledge on the objectification performed by the subject, and not on the representation of the object by the subject. For this reason, he did not entirely avoid subjectivism as the realists do, for whom the object is not the result of a synthesis between the empirical data coming from the external thing and the a priori form of the intellect, but the subject receives and reproduces the object in its entirety in the concept, without the subject having any part in the constitution of the object. This is the total absence of subjectivism, characteristic of realism, and the true objectivity of science, namely universal and necessary knowledge, which does not vary according to the diversity of subjects.

Idealism, despite its desire to be a science, fails to rid itself of the worm of subjectivism because it is already present in the Cartesian cogito, at the moment when Descartes decides not to be guided by sensory experience but to found the certainty of knowledge on an act of will, consisting in the fact of forcing doubt and becoming certainty.

Let's not forget that cogito means doubt. Now doubting is not true thinking. For this reason, Descartes has no right to say: I think. And this is why deriving his being from his false thinking is illegitimate. It would be legitimate if, as in the case of Aristotle, Augustine [8], and Thomas, it were true thinking with its object. But the object should be thinking about external reality, something Descartes refuses to do because he doubts external reality. And here is a forced imposition of will to transform that doubt into certainty. Certainly, I know that I am, and if I think, I know that I am.

But the certainty of the ego sum in Descartes is not given by I know, like I, but by I doubt, without the doubt being resolved, but it is violently removed, not resolved. Instead, suspended or set aside by the will, which has no right, because it is not up to it but to the intellect to remove speculative doubts. For this reason, in cogito, the intellect is not necessitated by the object, but certainty is the effect of a forcing of the will on the object, which obliges the object to obey it.

For Hegel, reason actually and exhaustively knows the thing, the ontological real, contrary to what Kant thought. Only it is no longer about Kant's thing-in-itself, the last remnant of a realism already challenged by Descartes.

In Hegel, idealists manifest the gnostic direction of idealism. Recently, the Pope - something that has never happened before in the entire history of the Church's Magisterium - vigorously condemned Gnosticism [9] understood as the absolute subjectivism of the mind presumptuously closed in its abstract ideas with the pretense of a rational understanding of the totality of reality according to a supreme and absolute science that mimics divine knowledge.

As historians of philosophy and theology know well, Gnosticism in the early centuries of Christianity was a widespread spiritual movement that sought to use Christian doctrine as an expression of absolute epistemological egocentrism.

The Gnostic believes in knowing God better than Jesus Christ. The Gnostic is attracted by the desire for an absolute knowledge of the Absolute, which ultimately is nothing but their ego. It's clear that for the Gnostic, being resolves into being thought by them. They are a perfect idealist. They aspire to demonstrate possessing such supreme knowledge as to command veneration or even worship.

For the Gnostic, God is both the gnóstón, the Known by them, and the àghnoston for others. They present themselves as a mystagogue guiding towards the awareness of their original self, which transforms from àghnoston to gnóstón. It's somewhat akin to yoga discipline.

The Supreme Pontiff opposes Gnosticism with the humble acknowledgment of things as they are, created by God for our good, the biblical epistemological realism of the "primacy of reality over idea." This should be said without diminishing the dignity and power of speculative thought, which, however, according to the Pope, must be animated by love and oriented towards the good of others. Without this concrete connection, without "touching the flesh of the brother," as the Pontiff says, speculation drifts away from reality into empty abstractions, serving only to feed pride. The spiritual declines into the carnal, and the flesh distances from the spirit. The most valuable service we can offer our neighbor is the gift of truth that saves both body and spirit.

Fr. Giovanni Cavalcoli OP

Fontanellato, September 6, 2022

Source:

https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/la-vera-essenza-della-filosofia-moderna_22.html

[1] Critique of Pure Reason, loc. cit., pp.22-23.

[2] Loc. cit., pp.477, 478, 493.

[3] Ultimately, the destiny of man is resolved in the choice to listen to either God or the demon (emphasis mine). Either-or. The first choice is the effect of realism; the second, of idealism. I have dealt with this topic in my booklet Il progetto del demonio. La prospettiva di Satana e quella di Gesù Cristo (The Devil's Project: Satan's Perspective and Jesus Christ's,) Chorabooks Editions, Hong Kong 2021. In choosing the path to take, man must certainly undertake a personal inquiry into the meaning of his own life. From here arise the great moral philosophies of humanity. But in his conscience and looking around, he also and above all has the possibility of perceiving two contrary proposals, two radical alternatives, between which he cannot remain neutral nor can he find agreement: that of Christ and that of Satan. To him the choice.

[4] What Teodorico Moretti-Costanzi called "intimate transcendence."

[5] IItinerario e Riduzione (Itinerary and Reduction), edited by Silvana Martignoni, Patron Editions, Bologna 1969, pp.105-111.

[6] When Saint Thomas says that the intellect naturally desires to see God, aiming to be perfectly happy, it is clear that he refers to a conditional desire, namely, in the assumption of possessing faith, because Thomas knows very well that the vision of God is a supernatural fact, the effect of faith and not of simple reason. Otherwise, we would make Thomas a Hegelian, which is not at all displeasing to the so-called "transcendental Thomists."

[7] See the discussion of this issue in Henri de Lubac, Le mystère du surnatural (The Mystery of the Supernatural), Aubier, Paris 1965.

[8] Augustine's Si fallor, sum is not the same as Descartes's Si dubito, sum, and it does not suppose the exercise of a universal doubt, because one who knows they are wrong thinks and knows they are wrong, but doubting is not true thinking, it is a simple oscillation of the mind. Therefore, while Augustine does not need to force certainty with an act of will, because the intellect is necessitated by the truth, in the case of Descartes, the will intervenes to force the intellect to assent to the proposition "I am" without it being necessitated by a true "I think." If I doubt, I conclude nothing. Only true thinking leads to self-awareness. Many Cartesians have understood the cogito as a true act of thinking. But even so, the cogito does not live up to its founding claims.

[9] Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate of March 19, 2018.