Part Four - What is Realism
Hegelian Idealism
The form of idealism censured by the Church is undoubtedly that of German provenance, the so-called transcendental idealism[1], which, particularly with Hegel, came to define itself in such terms. This idealism conceives the divine Idea as the absolutization of the human idea, such that—given that in God the idea coincides with being—the ideal ultimately coincides with the real, or, by Hegel’s celebrated formula, the rational, that is, the idea, the concept, the logical, “is the real.”
Hegel explicitly acknowledges his Cartesian lineage in the following passage:
“The simple inseparability of thought from being is given by the cogito, ergo sum: it is entirely the same as if being, reality, the existence of the ego were immediately revealed to me in consciousness (Descartes expressly declares, Princ. Phil., I, 9, that he means by the word thought nothing other than consciousness in general as such), and that this inseparability is without doubt the first (not mediated, proven) and most certain knowledge”[2].
Hegel, however, was able to exploit a fortunate threefold terminological distinction, proper to the German language, to express what in Italian is encompassed by the single term realtà: Realität, Wirklichkeit, and Sachlichkeit. This linguistic resource lends his idealism a certain flavor of realism. While Realität refers to essence—that is, to abstract being or the simple idea—and Sachlichkeit denotes thinghood in the sense of business (cf. the Latin res or reus in the juridical domain), Wirklichkeit designates effective, active, productive reality—that is, causality, reality in its full and concrete sense. The English cognate work serves as a meaningful parallel in this respect.
Moreover, we are well aware of the importance Hegel assigns to becoming and to history, even to the point of identifying them with being, in the manner of Heraclitus. Now, the Hegelian Idea is not primarily Realität or Sachlichkeit, but rather Wirklichkeit. And yet it is precisely in this that Hegelian idealism becomes more problematic: the more it assumes the guise of realism, the more it degenerates.
Hegel recognized that the principle of the identity between thinking and being is already found in Descartes:
“The concept of Cartesian metaphysics is that being and thinking are in themselves the same thing; being, pure being, is not a concrete actuality but rather a pure abstraction—and vice versa, pure thinking, that is, self-equality or essence, on the one hand is the negation of self-consciousness and thus is being, while on the other hand, as immediate simplicity, it is once again nothing but being; thinking is reality (Sachlichkeit) or reality is thinking”[3].
Let us now consider some fundamental affirmations of Hegel:
“The substantial or real, that which unites and assumes within itself all abstract determinations and constitutes their pure and absolutely concrete unity, is precisely logical reason”[4].
“Logic is the science of pure thought, a science whose principle is pure knowledge, the unity not abstract but concrete and living, because within it the opposition proper to consciousness”—that is, the distinction between intellect and reality, between thought and being—“is overcome, and being is recognised as pure concept in itself, and the pure concept as true being”[5].
“The concept as such is not yet complete, but must rise to the idea, which alone is the unity of concept and reality”[6].
“The concept is the absolute unity of being and reflection, such that being in and for itself exists only insofar as it is at the same time reflection or posited being”—i.e., that being is posited by thought, or by the I, or by consciousness[7]—“and that posited being is being in and for itself”[8].
“The concept, insofar as it has attained such existence—which is precisely free—is nothing other than the I, or pure self-consciousness. I do indeed possess concepts, that is, determined concepts; but the I is the pure Concept itself, which has attained being-there (Dasein) as concept”[9].
“The concept, in relation to being and essence, is determined in this way: that it is essence returned as simple immediacy to being, whose appearance therefore possesses reality, and whose reality is, at the same time, a free appearing in itself”[10].
“The concept is every determinacy, but as determinacy in its truth. It is therefore, although abstract, precisely that which is concrete, the subject as such”[11].
“Being has attained the meaning of truth, insofar as it is the idea, which alone is the unity of concept and reality; it is now only that which the idea is”[12].
“Thought is also the thing-in-itself, or the thing-in-itself is likewise pure thought”[13].
“The infinite reflection in itself (i.e., self-consciousness), that is, being in itself and for itself, exists only because it is posited being, is the fulfilment of substance. But this fulfilment is no longer substance itself, but something higher: the concept, the subject”[14].
“The idea has not only the most general sense of true being, of the unity of concept and reality, but also the more specific sense of the subjective concept and objectivity. The concept as such is already itself its identity with reality”[15].
“Intelligence knows the universal in itself; its product, thought, is the thing, the simple identity of the subjective and the objective. It knows that what is thought is, and what is, is only insofar as it is thought for itself”[16].
“By object we do not mean merely an abstract being, or a thing that exists, or something real in general, but something independent, concrete, and complete in itself: this completeness is the totality of the concept”[17].
The Form Changes, but Not the Substance
We are well aware of how various philosophical schools reacted to the Hegelian system, chief among them Marxism, Spencerian evolutionism, Comtean positivism, Herbartian psychologism, and Kierkegaardian existentialism. Yet the Cartesian background remains present in all of them; and since Hegel was its most consistent and thorough explicator, Hegelian idealism by no means disappeared. Rather, beginning in the last century, it sought to endure in its essential spirit, even as it changed its name. The ambition to transform metaphysics into logic has been set aside—except in the case of Husserl, who nonetheless prefers the intuition of essence over the concept of essence.
The term 'idea' has been largely abandoned, supplanted by others such as 'I', 'subject', 'thought', 'experience', and 'consciousness'; however, the fundamental principle has remained: namely, the Parmenidean identity of noein with einai, of thinking with being. Being is thinking, thinking is being, and the cogitatum, as Husserl puts it, is one with thought.
Thus, the modernists—from the early twentieth century to the present day—have believed themselves able to survive merely by replacing or downplaying the term concept or idea with words like “phenomenon,” “immanence,” “subconscious,” “feeling,” or “experience,” such that idealism continues to live on and flourish to this day, in defiance of the Church’s condemnations dating back to the nineteenth century.[18]
Closely related to idealism—and likewise condemned by the Church, as in the famous encyclical Pascendi of Saint Pius X—is immanentism. This consists in conceiving of reality not as an objective fact external to the subject or the thinker, but as essentially internal to thought, even including divine reality itself—as though God were God precisely insofar as He is immanent to the human spirit, and could not exist independently of it. God in man, not by gift, but by essence. Immanentism stops short of the audacity of reducing God to a mere idea, yet still errs gravely in holding that God cannot be God unless He exists within man—as though man were an attribute of the divine essence.
According to Bontadini, thought does not require regulation by any external reality, for “it is already in itself the guarantee of its value, its measure, its foundation.”[19] The distinction between thought and reality, between thought and being, is for Bontadini a mere “prejudice,” the product of “imagination.” He therefore ridicules the very possibility of a correspondence between thought and being. No such correspondence is needed, and indeed it is impossible, for in his view, “being is thought and therefore, far from constituting a sphere external to thought, it is truly included within thought.”[20]
(Translator’s Note on Gustavo Bontadini: Gustavo Bontadini (1903–1990) was an influential Italian metaphysician known for attempting a synthesis between classical metaphysics and elements of idealist thought. He maintained that being is not external to thought but immanent within it—a position sometimes described as neo-Parmenidean. The Author critiques this stance for its identification of being with thought, which, in his view, undermines the real distinction between intellect and reality that is foundational to metaphysical realism.)
For Heidegger, reality is given by the “preunderstanding of being” (Vorverständnis des Seins), which is both “experience” (Erfahrung) and at the same time “project” (Entwurf), “transcendence” (Transzendenz), and “openness” (Offenheit), beyond the being (Seiende), toward the existential being (Sein) as “phenomenon” (Erscheinung), “manifestation” or “appearance” (Offenbarung), or “presence of the present” (Vorhandensein), “clearing” (Lichtung), and “question concerning being” (Frage über das Sein). In this consists the essence of man: the self-conscious ego (Cartesian cogito), in “anguish” and in “concern” (Sorge); man as “being-toward-death” (Sein-zum-Tode); man as the temporal “there” of Dasein; man bordering on the Nothing (Nichts) and before the “divine God” (der göttlich Gott), expressed in silence and poetic language.
The Idealism of Severino
Severino likewise entirely disregards the emphasis with which Hegel centres his system on the doctrine of the Absolute Idea, but this in no way prevents him from taking up the Parmenidism underlying Hegel’s conception of being, purging it of its Heraclitean and historicist admixtures. He claims instead to recover authentically the Parmenidean being by rejecting the Hegelian nihilism of dialectical becoming, and by rediscovering—again in light of Parmenides—the principle of non-contradiction, which Hegel had barbarously violated. Hence the demand for a recovery of the Identity of Being, of the One, of the Necessary, the Immutable, the Eternal. All is One: essence and being, thought and being, being and appearance.
(Translator’s Note on Emanuele Severino: Emanuele Severino (1929–2020) was a prominent Italian philosopher who argued for a radical form of metaphysical necessity rooted in Parmenides. Severino denied the reality of becoming and affirmed that all beings are eternal, ungenerated, and immutable, placing him in stark opposition to both classical metaphysics and Christian theology. The Author engages critically with this position, which he sees as emblematic of a nihilistic departure from the realist tradition.)
Severino may be qualified as an idealist insofar as he is not only a univocist in epistemology but also a monist in metaphysics. For him, the concept of being is one because it is identical with the being which is one. In this sense, for him, thought is identified with being. For Severino, every being is Being.
For Duns Scotus, it is the concept of being that is one—but not being itself. Scotus has no difficulty in admitting the analogy among beings, and between them and God, the supreme Being. The supreme Being is distinct from other beings and is their Creator. Severino, by contrast, extends his monism from thought to being: being is one, just as thought—thought of being—is one. And multiplicity is not the multiplicity of contingent beings, each different from the others, but is rather the multiplicity of different, limited, and temporary appearances and disappearances of the only Being, which is Being itself, which cannot not be.
For Severino, being is the absolute and eternal Being. Only Being exists—and this Being is the absolute I. For this reason, Severino praises the I Am of Scripture,[21] not, however, as the expression of a personal God who stands at the summit of beings—beings that are only in a limited way—but rather as the limited expressions of Being, which is the only being, such that every being is, as God is.
For Severino, it is being as such that constitutes the identity of essence and being, thought and being. It would thus appear to be the same original Being as that of Rahner. Being, as the identity of essence and being, is not a subsistent Being transcending all other entities as their Creator, but is being qua being—that is, the being of all entities and of every entity—which is therefore divine. Thus, for Severino, everything is eternal, everything is God, all entities are eternal as different and successive appearances of the one Being, which is the total Being, of all and each.
Rahner’s Idealism
(Translator’s Note on Karl Rahner: Karl Rahner (1904–1984), a major figure of 20th-century Catholic theology, sought to reinterpret Thomism through a transcendental and existential lens. His emphasis on human subjectivity, the “supernatural existential,” and the notion of “anonymous Christianity” made him both influential and controversial. The Author refers critically to some of these tendencies.)
Rahner affects to avoid idealism by declaring himself an opponent of Hegelian dialectical idealism. And indeed, one notices how he never speaks of the value of ideas or of the ideal; he never explicitly acknowledges any primacy of the idea over reality—much less does he affirm that reality is produced by our ideas.
He does not conceive, like Hegel, of God as the absolute Idea. He never speaks, as Schelling does, of the coincidence of the ideal with the real. Likewise, he never speaks of the idea of being, as Rosmini does. Furthermore, he never speaks of the ideal as a model of the real, as do Socrates, Plato, and Augustine. In doing so, Rahner would have us understand that he is not an idealist.
(Translator’s Note on Antonio Rosmini: Antonio Rosmini (1797–1855) was an Italian priest and philosopher whose Idealist-inspired metaphysics sought to reconcile Catholic doctrine with modern thought. Though some of his propositions were condemned posthumously (Denzinger, 1901), his reputation was later rehabilitated, and he was beatified by Benedict XVI in 2007. The Author refers to tendencies in Rosmini’s thought—especially regarding being and the origin of ideas—that diverge from Thomism.)
But by the term idealism, the Church does not only mean Hegelian idealism; it refers to that grave vice of identifying thought with being—characteristic that is not that of being as such, ens ut ens, of metaphysical being, but that of divine being and thus of absolute, theological being. That one can move from metaphysics to theology is beyond doubt, but this can only be done by passing from the analogical notion of being to the univocal notion of absolute or divine being.
Therefore, Rahner, rejecting Hegel but maintaining the identity of thought and being, cannot believe he has so easily protected himself from the accusation of idealism; in fact, he remains an idealist in his deepest essence[22], despite the use of certain terms such as idea. Even when this term is replaced with thought, consciousness, self-consciousness, categorical, transcendental, spirit, I, a priori, subject, and similar terms, what changes? Are these not interchangeable terms, or at least connected to one another?
It is enough to read some propositions of Rahner to prove what I say. First of all, he begins with two improper expressions. He speaks of being in general and of the essence of being, thereby claiming to refer to the object of metaphysics, while ignoring that this is not its object.
It is not about the generic being of logic, but about real being, and there is no such thing as an essence of being. Rather, it is the essence that has being as its act. Of course, we can try to say or describe what being is; we certainly have a concept of it, but we cannot form a definition for it by genus and difference, because in this case, there is no superior genus to the definiendum by reference to which we could define it. On the other hand, everyone simply knows what being is without needing to define it, since we all use the verb to be in our judgments.
Now let us turn to the substance of Rahner's theses.
"In the metaphysical problem of being, the being in general is first investigated. This means, however, that the essence of being is knowing and being known in an original unity, which we want to call the consciousness or transparency (subjectivity, knowledge) of the being of every entity. This is the first proposition of general ontology that concerns us here. … The nature of being is knowing and being known in an original unity. … The being of the entity and knowing constitute an original unity. … The being of the entity and knowing are therefore correlative, because in their depth they are in themselves one. … Being, insofar as it is and appears … is the very knowing of being in original unity with it, which “is” then the same knowing subject. … The nature of being is knowing and being known in an original unity, which we call, from a gnoseological point of view, self-consciousness. … Being is in itself knowing and knowing is the capacity that being has, by its very constitution, to reflect upon itself, it is its subjectivity" [23].
Rahner seems to admit an original, absolute, and divine being, in which thought coincides with being, and a derived being, which would suggest a distinction between thinking and being, as happens in our thinking; thus, an original divine knowing and a derived knowing of a creaturely nature.
If this were the case, Rahner's thesis would be correct: indeed, the original divine being, God Himself, as the unity of knowing and being, gives rise through creation to the intellectual creature, man and angel, for whom the distinction between thought and being holds.
But Rahner leaves his discourse open both to a realistic, analogical, participatory, and creationist interpretation and to a monistic, univocal, idealist, pantheistic, or at least immanentist or emanationist interpretation.
What does derived being consist of? Is it the created entity? And who is the original being? Is it the creator God? And how does the derived emerge from the original? By causality? By creation? By degradation? By explicitness? By weakening? By finiteness? By emanation? By descent? By revelation? By appearance? How water springs from the source, or how the rays of the sun emerge from the sun, or simply how the sun appears, or how the artifact is produced by the artisan?
Rahner does not explain this. However, if we examine other writings of his, particularly his conception of human knowledge, we encounter his well-known idea of the unconscious preconceptual transcendental experience of being, of oneself, and God. This idea is, in reality, an idealistic explication, heavily influenced by Heidegger, of the Cartesian cogito. Rahner himself points to this model as the paradigm of modern philosophy. He even urges the Church to embrace it, warning that failure to do so would leave the Church behind in the progress of history.
The Notion of Being is Necessary for the Construction of Christian Theology
The opposition of Scotus to Thomas regarding the question of the univocity or analogy of the concept of being is extremely serious, because, ultimately, the question is whether and how we can make God the object of our thinking and speaking—this is a fundamental issue for two religious Orders, the Dominican and the Franciscan, both dedicated to the preaching of the Gospel.
At first glance, the opposition between the two Doctors could not be clearer. While Thomas asserts that "it is impossible to predicate something of God and of the creature univocally" [24], according to Duns Scotus, if one does not use a univocal concept of being, it is impossible to conceive of God and speak of Him: “Deus non est a nobis cognoscibilis naturaliter nisi ens sit univocus creato et increato” (Ordinatio, I, 3, 1, 3, n.139, pp.86-87).
Probably, Scotus did not fully understand what Thomas was trying to say, while Thomas would certainly have understood Scotus' concern to avoid equivocity. The reasons Thomas presents to support analogical predication are fully understandable and could not but have won Scotus' approval, since Thomas essentially means that God does not possess spiritual virtues in the same way or to the same degree as man does: something evident to any reasonable person, excluding pantheists, whose ideas in metaphysics are the consequence of idealism.
It is also worth noting that Scotus probably did not express himself well, and it should be thought that his intention to elaborate a concept of being that would allow the conception of God and an appropriate way of speaking of Him was the same as that of Saint Thomas. These things are attested to by the wisdom of his theological writings and the holiness of his life.
For if he had truly conceived of God in a sense univocal to that of creatures, we would have had a pantheist like Spinoza or Fichte or Schelling or Hegel or Gentile, or Severino. The notion of being, taken as it is, does indeed lend itself to a pantheistic application, which, on the other hand, is entirely impossible for the analogical notion of Saint Thomas. Not by chance do pantheists and atheists hold the analogy of being in disdain and look favorably upon the univocal notion, because it gives space to their aberrations.
(Translator’s Note on Giovanni Gentile: Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944) was an Italian philosopher and statesman, best known as the founder of actual idealism—a system in which reality is identified with the pure act of thinking (atto puro), thereby collapsing the distinction between thought and being. He held that no reality exists outside the self-conscious act of thinking. This radical immanentism had significant metaphysical and theological implications, sharply diverging from Christian realism.
Gentile was also a key architect of the modern Italian education system: as Minister of Education under Mussolini, he reformed the national curriculum, drawing a sharp distinction between primary and secondary instruction, removing theology from university-level studies (considering it suitable only for early intellectual development), and placing philosophy—especially the philosophy of language, as taught in the Liceo classico—at the summit of the human sciences. His reforms institutionalised a secular, idealist vision of education that remains, in structure, substantially intact to this day.)
What is astonishing in Scoto is why it never occurred to him to heed the very clear biblical teaching on this matter, where in the Book of Wisdom it is noted that “from the greatness and beauty of creatures, by analogy one understands their Creator” (Wis 13:5), and where it speaks of man being created in the image and likeness of God. Moreover, there are countless comparisons in Scripture between the divine being and that of creatures, particularly between human virtues and divine virtues. And what are all these comparisons if not an application of the method of analogy?
Another surprising aspect of Scotus is why he did not think to delve deeply into St. Thomas's rich doctrine of analogy, as his disciples did, and as they would continue to do up to our day with fruitful developments of this doctrine, which are extremely useful for theological work and preaching. [25]
One might also wonder how the idea of the univocity of being came to Scotus’ mind in a Christian climate whose biblical inspiration has always favored the analogy of being. From where or from whom did Scoto derive this dangerous idea? It may have been an excessive reaction to certain overly apophatic tendencies of theologians of his time. As an admirer of Avicenna, it is possible that he derived it from Avicenna’s conception of essence. However, he should have been more cautious, considering that Avicenna was a Muslim, and his mysticism can easily lead to pantheism. Certainly, Aristotle was a pagan; nevertheless, in his conception of being, he is in special consonance with the Bible. And St. Thomas had noticed this.
The thesis of the univocity of being prevents Scotus from conceiving of God as pure being, as pure act, unmixed with potency [26]. In fact, for Scotus, purity does not primarily belong to the divine being, but to the concept of being as such, a concept that is indeed very simple, but in its indifference can be applied to both God and the finite being.
For this reason, to distinguish the divine being from the created being, the notion of being alone is not enough for Scotus, since for him it is univocally common to both God and the creature. He feels the need to add the attribute of infinity. This is certainly a praiseworthy act on Scoto's part, which protects him from the accusation of pantheism (since being is one and it is God, everything would then be God). However, it also shows that Scotus does not realize that to define the divine being, there is no need to add infinity to the notion of being, because God is the Subsistent Being, and therefore pure Act of being, as St. Thomas explained well in his commentary on Exod. 3:14. For this reason, St. Thomas observes that the fundamental and exclusively proper attribute of the divine being is its simplicity, meaning that it is not composed, as we are, of essence and being, and of potency and act.
It is clear, observes the Aquinate, that God is infinite. But where does this infinity come from? What does it mean? It means precisely that God is pure being; He is nothing other than being, not limited by a given and determined essence (being John and not Francis), as happens in us, where the limited essence restricts the boundless vastness of the ratio essendi, a little bucket, which, so to speak, cannot contain all the water of the sea, but only as much as it is capable of containing.
There is no doubt, however, that there exists a univocal concept of being, which has nothing to do with the Parmenidean, Spinozian, Severinian, or Hegelian conception—principles of pantheism or metaphysical monism. It is a notion of the ente with a unitary meaning, very well known, very simple, and indeterminate, the broadest of all concepts, predicable of everything, abstracted from everything.
It is the common generic ente, which, however, must be clearly distinguished from being as being, transcendental, super-generic, super-categorical, tending to unity (pros en), proportionally and gradually plural and diversified (pollacòs legomenon). This is the analogical notion of being. The first serves as the original notion, as being of reason, leading to the second, which is functional to reality, the fundamental notion of realism.
P. Giovanni Cavalcoli OP
Fontanellato, December 5, 2022
Source:
https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/che-cosa-e-il-realismo-quarta-parte-44.html
Notes:
[1] Thus, Schelling defined it in his treatise Sistema dell’idealismo trascendentale, Edizioni Laterza, Bari 1990.
[2] Enciclopedia delle scienze filosofiche. Op. cit., in compendio, Edizioni Laterza, Bari 1968, p.83.
[3] Fenomenologia dello Spirito, La Nuova Italia, Florence, vol. II p. 120.
[4] Scienza della Logica, Edizioni Laterza, Bari, 1984, p.29.
[5] Ibid., p.43.
[6] Ibid., p.663.
[7] It is the Cartesian cogito interpreted by Fichte.
[8] Logica, op. cit., p.652.
[9] Ibid., p.658.
[10] Ibid., p.143.
[11] Ibid., p.148.
[12] Ibid., p.859.
[13] Ibid., p.31.
[14] Ibid., p.654.
[15] Ibid., p.860.
[16] Enciclopedia delle scienze filosofiche in compendio, Edizioni Laterza, Bari 1968, p.430.
[17] Ibid., p.167.
[18] In the form of pantheism, at the First Vatican Council, pantheism is the metaphysical outcome of idealist epistemology.
[19] Introduzione a Cartesio, Discorso sul Metodo, Editrice La Scuola, Brescia 1957, p. XVII.
[20] Ibid.
[21] L’essenza del nichilismo, Edizioni Adelphi, Milan 1995, p.58.
[22] All declared idealists acknowledge that the fundamental principle of idealism is the identity or unity of thought with being. For this reason, anyone who supports this identity is, by that very fact, an idealist, even if they do not wish to recognize it or are unaware of it.
[23] Uditori della parola, Edizioni Borla, Rome 1977, pp.66-70.
[24] Sum. Theol., I, q.13, a.5.
[25] Cf.. for example, the powerful work by Padre Tomas Tyn, Metafisica della sostanza. Partecipazione e analogia entis, Edizioni Fede&Cultura, Verona 2009.
[26] This is the Second of the famous XXIV Theses of Thomistic philosophy prepared by Guido Mattiussi, SJ, approved by Pope St. Pius X as a rule for the teaching of Thomism in the Church’s schools, edition of the Gregorian University, Rome 1947.