What is Realism - Part One (1/4)

Why does the Church care about realism?

The Holy Father has repeatedly called for realism in response to the illusion of idealism—or, as he puts it, the illusion of the primacy of the idea over reality. On the contrary, it is the idea that must subordinate itself to reality: it must submit to it, conform to it, and be governed by it. This posture defines what we mean by realism.

But what is reality? Reality is the real being of the real entity. And what does real entity mean? The term entity (ens) is rarely used today, except in certain bureaucratic phrases like “autonomous entity,” “lyrical entity,” or “public housing entity.” Nevertheless, the notion of entity is the most fundamental of all: the best known, the most spontaneous, the most universal, the broadest, the most indeterminate, the most immediate, and the most abstract. All our concepts ultimately resolve into it, and by comparison, all other notions are narrower in scope. In philosophical terms, entity (ens) refers to that which possesses an essence (essentia), or exists (existere) in any way, whether real or ideal, actual or merely possible. In ordinary speech, the most common words used to indicate a real entity, or reality, are “thing” (res) or “something” (quoddam).

Reality is something external to our thoughts, our ideas, and our consciousness. We are a reality. Reality is given to us, it is independent of us, and it is presupposed to our thinking about it. From it, we derive our thoughts, our ideas, and the contents of our consciousness. We can indeed modify it through our actions and work, but it exists independently of us, both before and after us. We do not create it.

The notion of the real coincides with the idea of the entity (ens), implying at least that it is real, as one can also speak of an ideal, logical, or rational entity. Reality is also things. Reality comes from res, the thing. Even regarding the thing, one can speak of a real, logical, or imaginary thing, whether material or spiritual, concrete or abstract, existing or non-existent, possible or absurd.

When we speak of a real entity, we may refer either to the common entity or to the entity as such. The common or universal entity is the entity that is the object of the natural intellect, as an intuitive, univocal, primary, simplest, and most universal notion, indifferent to any division, determination, or inferior difference. It can be connected to the idea of existence. It is obtained through an abstraction of the universal essence from all individual entities. Likewise, it is the essence that Avicenna speaks of, which is independent of its being in the mind or reality.

The entity as an entity is, instead, the analogous real entity, whose act is being, the object of metaphysics, which imperfectly prescinds from the inferior entities, being analogically predicable of every entity, conceived through a separative and negative existential judgment[1], by which the intellect, abstracting from all matter, conceives the spirit as distinct from matter and perceives the purely intelligible entity: the soul, the angel, and God.

The notion of the entity is the most abstract of all, because it prescinds also from the highest genera of things and any single or determined entity. But this does not mean, as Hegel thought, that it is empty of content and does not mean anything, to be identified with nothingness. Quite the opposite: there is no more radical opposition than that between being and nothingness, reality and nothingness. The notion of being is the most abstract because no genus, not even the largest, can be identified with being, because otherwise another genus would no longer be being.

The question of realism is very delicate because it involves the notion of being, which in turn involves the notion of God, who in the Scripture deigned to reveal His Name: “I Am He Who Is”[2] or more simply: “I Am.” It is impossible to have the right concept of God without having the right concept of being.

The notion of being is indeed spontaneous, inevitable, very simple, very well-known, and universal, so that everyone has it. However, the error can arise from considering as real being something different, insufficient, too narrow, or contrary.

A typical mistake is to confuse being with thinking, with our idea of being, thus mistaking the ideal for the real. Realism, instead, uses the idea to know the real and to distinguish the ideal from the real. This is the central question addressed by this article.

The Clash between Realism and Idealism

Here lies the point of friction between realism and idealism. The idealist is convinced that his thought coincides with being; for him, being is being thought by him. Thus, nothing exists outside his thought, and he believes that he produces reality through his thought.

Psychologically, in modern man—who praises himself as "modern"—this reflects the unconscious persistence of the magical mentality from primitive thought[3] or the infantile mentality found in the world of magicians and fairies, who can make characters appear or disappear with a magic wand, just as we make images appear or disappear by clicking on a computer.

Ultimately, it is a confusion of being with appearing: being is not considered something that exists independently of me, but rather, being, the real, the thing, is what appears to me. And just as I can create ideas or images with my mind or imagination, reality for me is not a thing in itself outside of me, but simply my idea, the product of my thought within my thought. Nothing exists beyond my thought. Thought, as Bontadini says (note from the translator: Bontadini, a central figure in the Milanese neoclassical school, assumed a neoparmenidean position. He emphasized that thought is transcendent, meaning that it is not merely a reflection of external reality but shapes and directs our understanding of being itself), is intranscendable.

Idealism, ultimately, represents a failure of critical thinking—it is, rather, a childish mentality, or one that remains in a childlike state. It has failed to grow intellectually, trading reality for imagination and knowledge for magic. While it can traverse the world of spirit and thought, it lacks the humility to recognize that it is not at the center of reality but a mere creature created by God ex nihilo.

Realism and idealism have always contended for the human mind. Contrary to the Cartesian myth that realism belongs to ancient philosophy and idealism to the modern era, idealism, with its monistic-pantheistic inclinations, can be traced back to Parmenides and ancient Indian philosophy. Realism, however, remains firmly entrenched in Catholic thought and will persist until the end of time, as Catholic epistemology, grounded in the Gospel, will endure.

Both realism and idealism draw us. Realism pulls us toward reality, toward being, toward God—He Who Is, the summum ens, ipsum Esse per Se subsistens. The pursuit of this reality is arduous; it requires intellectual sacrifice, renouncing the delights of the concrete and the sensible to ascend to the pure intelligible. Yet, even Aristotle found supreme joy in this ascent.

It must feed on the insipid manna instead of the tasty onions of Egypt. Yet, it is precisely by leaving everything for Christ, the Truth, that the intellect receives from Him, multiplied and purified a hundredfold, in the experience of charity, that sensible and concrete, from which it had to abstract.

On the other hand, the spirit of pride suggests that we focus on our ideas, enchanted by the power and greatness of our thought, thus founding our will not in the light of being but in the sinister glare of a carnal spirit, for "these things—to quote Saint Paul—have a semblance of wisdom with their affected religiosity and humility and austerity regarding the body, but in reality they serve only to gratify the flesh" (Col 2:23).

Thus, there are degrees of realism and degrees of idealism. The most radical realism is that of Saint Thomas; the most extreme idealism is that of Hegel. And curiously, the two philosophies almost touch each other precisely on the point of being, therefore on the question of reality, if it were not that while Thomas sees in being the divine name, Hegel, without excluding that being can be the predicate of God or the Absolute [4], dialectizes it with nothingness, falling into nihilism.

In German idealism, the will to connect reality not with the entity or with things, but with the Cartesian cogito, is evident. Starting from Descartes, this will progressively reveal its anthropocentric, subjectivist, and pantheistic virtualities over three centuries, culminating in Hegel.

Wolff's metaphysics shows a concern to begin not with a reference to the entity, but to the certainty of self-consciousness. For Kant, it is the a priori form of the intellect that gives form to the phenomenon or the object. The ego, Fichte said, posits the non-ego. It is what Fichte calls "productive imagination." For Schelling, the object is posited by the subject. For Hegel, the real is the rational; it is what is posited by reason. Likewise, for Gentile, the subject creates itself: it is what he calls "autoctisi." For Husserl, it is not reality that regulates our subjectivity, but it is subjectivity that gives "constitution" to reality, as cogitatum.

There are also attempts at mediation between realism and idealism, such as that of the mature Schelling or Bontadini[5], which, however, risk duplicity and opportunism[6]. Not that there cannot be some truth in idealism, if only because it certainly knows the value of the spirit, and there are indeed forms of crude, materialistic, cynical, bitter, or pessimistic realism.

On the other hand, even the inferiors of the notion of being, the genera, the species and the individuals, even the differences and determinations are being, so it is evident that the notion of being abstracts from everything, to be able to embrace everything, but at the same time it cannot abstract from anything of all that is being, including all the possible ones, down to the smallest beings and imaginary or rational beings.

(Translator's note: The references to autoctisi reflect Gentile's unique concept of self-creation in his idealism, emphasizing the active, self-affirming subject. Similarly, productive imagination in Fichte stresses the subject's power to form reality. The term cogitatum is important in Husserl's philosophy as it reflects the object of thought in the phenomenological process.)

Far from being an empty notion, the notion of being is the richest of all, not in act, otherwise we would be omniscient, but implicitly and confusedly, because with it we know everything, think everything, understand everything. It is the only notion that we use in all our thoughts, since it is assumed that everything is an entity. Even our ideas are entities, entities of reason, thought thoughts (thoughts in their reflective state, translator’s note), mental entities, but entities. We even conceive of nothingness on the model of an entity.

What does the Pope mean here by the term "idea"? He refers to the most common sense of the word, as when we say "my ideas", "I have an idea", "wrong idea", "what a great idea!", and the like. These are mental entities that refer to other ideas or reality.

In everyday language, we use the term idea as a synonym for concept. But they are not the same thing. The idea is a productive mental project or intent, either in a moral sense or in an operational sense. The concept is the mental representation of a thing, a reality, or an ideal or rational, mathematical, logical, or imaginary entity, derived by abstraction from sensitive experience.

Pope Francis notes how idealism, which he also calls Gnosticism, due to an excessive presumption of knowledge and an exaggerated importance given to ideas, makes itself a prisoner of empty abstractions, which isolate it from concrete reality and a profitable attention to others and their needs, for a self-celebration of one's ego made the center of everything, almost as if it were the Absolute.

(Translator's note: The term idea in the Pope's context refers to a mental construct or project, which differs from the more abstract and conceptual notion of a concept, the latter typically linked to more formal thought processes in philosophy and logic.)

Thus it happens that ideas, instead of being mental means to grasp and represent reality, are interposed between the mind and reality, resulting in our no longer seeing reality beyond them, but only seeing our ideas, mistaking them for reality. We no longer see the other, our brother, but only ourselves with the vain products of our mind.

It is clear that abstraction is the work of thought; otherwise, we would only have the sensitive perception common to animals. Ideas belong to the world of the spirit, but it is not true spirituality that stops at ideational activity, perhaps even adhering to reality, or stops at conceiving the moral law in its abstract universality, perhaps even authentic natural or divine law, without actually applying it to the concreteness of situations, similar to those scribes and Pharisees who "say and do not do" (Mt 23:3) or those who say "Lord, Lord, but do not do the will of the Lord" (cf. Mt 7:21).

Characteristics of Realism

Realism is the attachment or attention of the intellect to reality, the adhesion of thought to reality as it is, the honest and faithful recognition of things as they are, and the acceptance of reality even when we do not like it. Realism certainly emphasizes the concrete and the material, but in a broader and higher sense, it is the pure and simple adhesion to what is true, to the truth of not only the material but also and above all the spiritual.

The realist does not stop at appearances but verifies that they correspond to reality. If it is the same reality that appears or manifests itself to him, he willingly accepts it. Whether reality is present or absent, hidden or evident, comprehensible or incomprehensible, transcendent or immanent, material or spiritual, mysterious or perceptible, thought or thinkable, distinct or indistinct, the realist does not care; it is enough for him that it is reality.

The realist has a vigilant and reflective intellect, so he is not fooled by appearances. He loves to verify the accuracy of his opinions and is ready to change his mind if he realizes he has been wrong. He knows he can be wrong, but at the same time, he has basic convictions, starting points of knowledge, about which he is certain he will not be wrong.

He demands that what is not evident be demonstrated, but avoids the foolishness of trying to give a foundation to first evidence, such as the senses or the first principles of reason. He knows that there is no "before" what is first, or else it would not be first.

He rejects the accusation of naivety from the idealist, who believes in a foundation of knowledge and certainty more radical than the realist's. Idealism refutes itself because it depends on the same realism it seeks to overcome. Realism is natural to thought. Either thought is realistic or thought does not exist. Thought is made for reality.

The higher something is, the more it interests him, so he prefers the living to the non-living, the human to the animal, the spiritual to the material, the supernatural to the natural, the divine to the creaturely.

What is—more precisely, what is in general—that reality to which the realist remains unconditionally faithful, never wants to lose, separate from, betray, conceal, and always desires to know and show, no matter the cost?

We all spontaneously have the concept of reality as well as the concept of "thing," res, from which reality comes. Opinions vary about what reality consists of. For the idealist, reality is the idea, thought, self-consciousness, or the ego. For Husserl, it is the cogitatum; for Hegel, the concept; for Bontadini, the unity of experience; for Heidegger, Dasein, or being-there, which is man; for Hume or Berkeley, it is the sensed; for the phenomenalist, it is the phenomenon; for the materialist, it is matter.

For the realist, there is no doubt: reality is the real being of the entity or thing. Reality is the objective truth. Real is the entity in front of us, the ob-iectum, an object given to us, existing outside and independently of us. It exists even if we do not think it, it existed before we were, and it will continue to exist even after we are gone, like Mont Blanc.

Realism requires attention to phenomena as empirical manifestations of things or material realities. They have a nature and are governed by physical laws that can be formulated mathematically, which enables man to have rational dominion over nature and use it to satisfy physical needs. There is no problem in considering phenomena as things, whether they are accidents or substances, whose nature or essence can be known.

The famous Kantian distinction between an empirically observable phenomenon and the unknown thing-in-itself appears to be artificial. One could say, if anything, that in the natural sciences we are unable to identify species of phenomena, whose essence can be traced back to intelligible, distinct, and formally differentiated forms. Thus, we know broad regions of reality, like the distinction between plants, animals, and humans, but we do not know the ontological difference between donkeys and horses or panthers and leopards. In this sense, Kant is right in saying that we must stop at the phenomenon, while we do not know the thing-in-itself.

Realism is also attentive to the interior reality of our spirit, to the contents of consciousness, the internal senses, and the entities of reason formed in order to know external reality. The adaptation of the intellect to objective data is, for the realist, an imperative that applies both to the external world and to the interior world of one’s spirit and consciousness. The realistic need extends to the world of one’s thoughts, judgments, ideas, and concepts, the world of the logical, rational entity, and the world of mathematical and imaginary entities. The realistic need is nothing other than a need for knowledge and truth. Certainly, the realist is particularly concerned with the entity in its substantial consistency. But wherever there are traces of entities, even the most minute and weak, purely mental or imaginary, there the realist is interested in grasping the truth.

The question of reality is indeed closely tied to that of truth as correspondence between thought and being, between intellect and reality. It is linked to the question of objective judgment, which is the true judgment, adequate to reality, that reflects the state of things.

The objectivity of knowledge is the truth of knowledge, the knowledge that respects or reflects its object, which is reality or the real entity or the thing in itself as it is. Object comes from ob-jectum: that which is before or in front of the cognitive power. And this object is reality.

Today, we speak of "objects" to mean sensible physical things. This is an improper use of the term, not to say an abuse, because it leads to the absurd expression where the object of experimental knowledge would be the object.

The question of reality is also closely connected to that of being. The real entity is that which is in the act of being. Now this is the object of metaphysics. So, realism is fundamentally the method of metaphysics.

End of Part One (1/4)

P. Giovanni Cavalcoli OP

Fontanellato, December 5, 2022

Source:

https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/che-cosa-e-il-realismo-prima-parte-14.html

Notes:

[1] «The immaterial entity is not material».

[2] Heb. Ehièh escer Ehièh, from the verb hauà=to be.

[3] Cf. J. Maritain, Quattro saggi sullo spirito nella condizione d’incarnazione (Four essays on the spirit in the condition of incarnation), Morcelliana, Brescia 1978, pp.64-91.

[4] Enciclopedia delle scienze filosofiche in compendio ( Encyclopedia of philosophical sciences in compendium), Edizioni Laterza, Bari 163, pp.91-92.

[5] Bontadini in his book Studi sull’idealismo (Edizioni Vita e Pensiero, Milan 1995), would like to demonstrate that what he calls «classical metaphysics», that is, Parmenidean metaphysics, has grasped being better than Saint Thomas did using Aristotle, that is, understanding being as an act of the entity initially perceived by the senses. In fact, according to Bontadini, the true and deepest and highest Greek thought on being would be that of Parmenides, who surpasses and completes modern idealism by highlighting true realism, which is not the pure act of thinking on the model of Gentile, but the thought of being, recovered in his opinion by Severino, who is based on Parmenides. However, Bontadini, who wants to be Catholic, cannot decide between the Thomistic realism of the creation of the contingent entity and the Parmenidean idealism of Severino of the only Being as a necessary Being, because he cannot understand the positivity of becoming and therefore how it can be created from nothing rather than being, as Severino wants, a finite apparition of Being.

[6] The Husserlian epoché itself, although founded on idealism, does not have that acrimony against realism that can be found in Fichte, and gives space to realism, professing not to want to refute it, but simply to construct a philosophizing that sets it aside. One wonders, however, what kind of philosophy is that which claims to consider essences (Wesenschau) without taking into account real being.