Part Two - What is Realism

Characteristics of Idealism

What does the Magisterium of the Church mean when it condemns “idealism”? Until the pontificate of Pope Francis, it had not explained this to us, assuming that we already knew, given the existence of excellent Thomistic critiques of idealism, which have followed one another especially over the past century[1]. The current Pontiff ( the article was written during the pontificate of Pope Francis, translator's note ), however, provides a definition that is as clear as it is simple and profound: “the primacy of the idea over reality”. And he expands on this when speaking of Gnosticism, even though he does not use the term “idealism”, referring instead to its claim to be a form of knowledge equal to divine knowledge, and accusing it of an abuse of abstract thought, the consequence of which is a neglect of attention to the concrete demands of love for one's neighbor.

The idealist is not a crude sensualist, materialist, positivist, or empiricist, enclosed within the limits of sensation or imagination. He does not initially appear to be that carnal man of whom St Paul speaks, but rather a spiritual man, perhaps an ascetic — in any case, a most elevated mind of the highest order, a genius or a giant of thought, superior even to St Thomas and to Christ himself, with their naïve realism.

He presents himself — whether through the charm of eloquence or the obscurity of an esoteric language — as a master and guarantor of absolute certainties and definitive truths; an unsurpassed investigator and scrutinizer of the deepest depths of the spirit; a mind open to the totality of being; a demanding, impeccable, rigorous, and irrefutable reasoner. But if we examine closely the implications — and the further consequences that follow from them — we shall find that his discourse collapses into its negation, and that each pole of his dialectic inevitably begets the other.

But in truth, the idealist, who wishes to substitute the idea for reality, must appeal to reality to deny reality. Fichte claims that it is idealism, not realism, that truly grasps reality — thereby demonstrating that he does not know what reality is, in his desire to substitute the ideal for the real and to deem real what is the fruit of the imagination.

Human thought, by its very nature, is oriented toward reality, and when it takes the ideal as its object, it does so only by presuming that the ideal bears some relation to reality. Even when thought errs, the thinker still believes himself to have the truth-that is, in conformity with reality.

Even when he lies, he seeks to give the other the illusion of speaking the truth — that is, of saying something that adheres to reality. It is in doubt that the mind is separated from reality, but only because doubt is not true thinking: it is merely a wavering of thought that either cannot or will not decide where to rest.

The difference between a realist and an idealist does not lie in the fact that the former comes into contact with reality while the latter encloses himself within his ideas, for the mind of both is, by nature, inclined toward reality. The difference lies in this: the realist consents to the natural movement of thought, whereas the idealist forces it to go against nature, distorting it, diverting it from its natural end, and folding it back upon itself, upon his false idea.

In doing so, however, the idealist splits, doubles, and sets thought against itself: compelled to serve reality, it simultaneously attempts to serve itself. But, as Christ warns us, no one can serve two masters, and our speech cannot be yes and no at the same time. This logical and ethical principle is expressed in the so-called principle of the excluded third.

It follows, then, that the idealist, on the level of moral conduct, is prone to hypocrisy, pretence, duplicity, and falsehood. In human and social life, this way of exercising thought and using language becomes the source of endless misunderstandings and conflicts — because quot capita, tot sententiae, as St Thomas astutely observes[2].

Idealism, far from being a radical and critical mode of thinking, far from being the revelation of truth and reality hidden from the realist, is grounded in systematic doubt rather than in objective certainty. It is a mode of thought contrary to nature and marked by contradiction; it is the suicide of thought, the denial of reality and being, the affirmation of nihilism, the triumph of total skepticism, the rejection of truth, and the apologia for falsehood.

Idealism is condemned by the Church’s Magisterium under the name of subjectivism. But what does the Church mean by this term? Why does it condemn subjectivism? And why is it synonymous with idealism? The term subject (Subjekt) has been illegitimately derived from the scholastic sub-jectum, which refers to the cosmological subject (hypokeimenon) of form — that is, to matter.

Thus, Schelling and later Hegel adopted the term to express the Cartesian cogito, filtered through the Kantian “I think” (Ich denke) and the Fichtean “I” (Ich). Since the cosmological subjectum is subsistent, Schelling and Hegel found the term useful for conveying the subsistence of the Cartesian cogito.

But there is more. In idealist epistemology, the cogito has lost its reference to the object — that is, to the thing, to external reality — an element of realism that remains in Descartes. The cogito becomes the absolute self, such that it is no longer the subject that conforms to the object, but rather, following Kant’s “Copernican revolution”, the object—the—thing, the real—is made relative to the subject.

Hence, the subjection of reality to the idea that characterizes German idealism[3], which surpasses even Cartesian idealism. Cartesianism thus reveals itself as only an apparent realism, and Fichte was right to detect in the Cartesian cogito the absolutization of the self, the very hallmark of German idealism. This is subjectivism, and it is precisely why the Church condemns it: as the self-absolutization or self-deification of the human ego by itself.

If idealism is to be rejected as the illegitimate reduction of reality to the idea, or to concept, thought, thinking, or consciousness, the ideal itself remains something noble and worthy of respect, as a model and paradigm of moral, spiritual, aesthetic, artistic, technical, or poetic perfection. The ideal is that which ought to be: the goal toward which moral action must tend.

Whoever dissolves being into thought, matter into spirit, the real into the ideal, in fact conceals and generates the very opposite of what he initially proclaims: flesh reduced to spirit becomes, in turn, spirit reduced to flesh; matter reduced to thought becomes thought that is materialized; the real reduced to idea gives rise to sensualism. Descartes’ res cogitans will collapse into La Mettrie’s man-machine; Berkeley’s immaterialist idealism will provoke, in reaction, Hume’s empiricist skepticism; Hegel’s historicist idealism will overturn into Marx’s dialectical materialism.

The idealist is not more intelligent than the realist; he is not the sage who comes to liberate the realist from his ignorance of subjectivity, thinking, self-consciousness, and spirit, nor the one who rescues him from his dogmatism, crudeness, naivety, and illusions by offering him a critical eye and the true principle of certainty and knowledge.

For the idealist, the Thomistic realist is a frustrated soul, bound by the chains of Catholic dogma — a petty, backward, servile mind, short-sighted, unaware of the dignity and infinite power of thought, submissive to clerical authority, and incapable, whether out of fear or convenience, of thinking freely with his head.

The idealist refuses to presuppose anything that is not posited by his ideas. He does not accept the limits of his reason, nor is he willing to submit it to the rule of divine reason. Kant, who affects humility by imposing exaggerated limits upon speculative reason—going so far as to forbid it from venturing beyond experience, and thereby undermining the very possibility of metaphysics—nonetheless grants reason unlimited authority in the moral sphere, as though it could know its duty without any reference to the knowledge of natural or divine law. Thus, there resurfaces, in this domain, an a priori and pragmatic metaphysics of Cartesian origin, paving the way for Fichte’s ethical idealism of the I, which does not in the least feel itself created by God, but posits itself as if it were God.

It is not without reason that St. Thomas defines truth as adaequatio. True knowledge presupposes obedience, receptivity, openness—acceptance of reality as it is, even when we do not like it, even when we would prefer it otherwise. From this comes the idealist’s attempt to make reality say not what reality wants to say, but what he wants reality to say.

He does not accept that reality possesses its inherent form; rather, he wants to impose form upon it himself, like the a priori forms of the Kantian intellect. St. Pius X was therefore right to denounce the modernists for their pride—even if it must also be acknowledged that traces of idealism can be found even in noble minds, and, in good faith, even in philosophers with realist intentions, given the fallibility of human reason.

Idealism stands in opposition to realism just as ideology stands in opposition to ontology. Today, the term ideology no longer carries the meaning that Rosmini once gave it—namely, the doctrine concerning the origin, nature, and ends of human ideas—but has acquired a negative connotation: a distorted and tendentious vision of reality, veiled by preconceived ideas rather than revealed by truth. This is the very vice of idealism condemned by the Church.

The value of the ideal, however, does not lie primarily in the fact that it is an idea conceived by the mind. To speak meaningfully of an ideal, and for it to be valid—a genuinely beneficial ideal—it must always refer back to reality and, more precisely, to a good or licit end. Thus, for instance, one might say that the ideal of justice consists in giving to each his due, perfectly or as perfectly as possible, by the noblest examples.

To the idealism condemned by the Church must also be linked those theories which, though not explicitly idealist in the classical sense of reducing reality to idea, nevertheless share its essential error, such as Heideggerian ontology and Severino’s eternalism.

The Accusations of Idealists Against Realists

Naivety—this is the most frequent accusation leveled at realists, especially by thinkers from Fichte to Hegel and Husserl. It is the charge of accepting, without critical examination, the immediate data of sensation or intellection as indisputable and certain reality.

Hegel, at the beginning of the Encyclopedia, presents three mistaken conceptions of philosophy, arranged on an ascending scale. The first and crudest of these is realism, which he describes in the following terms:

"The first position is given by the naive procedure, which, without yet being aware of the contrast of thought in and with itself, contains the belief that through reflection one knows the truth and acquires knowledge of what objects are. In this belief, thought goes straight to objects [4], reproduces the content of sensations and intuitions, makes them the content of thought, and is satisfied with them as with truth. All philosophy in its beginnings, all sciences, and even the daily procedure of consciousness live by this belief [5].... Such was the old metaphysics in its most pronounced and closest form to us, as it was constituted before Kantian philosophy…

This science regarded the determinations of thought as the fundamental determinations of things, and because of its presupposition that what is, by the fact that it is thought, is known in itself, it certainly stood higher than the later critical philosophy... But metaphysics took them from the representative consciousness and therefore placed them at the foundation by applying to them the determinations of the understanding, as subjects already beautiful and made [6]. This metaphysics became dogmatism [7] because, following the nature of finite determinations, it had to admit that of two opposite affirmations, as those propositions presented, one had to be true and the other false."[8]

The idealist acknowledges that realism, which consists of believing that things exist independently of us, so that truth is given by adapting ourselves to them, is a common, everyday experience and plays a role in technical-experimental knowledge. However, the idealist maintains that, to reach philosophical knowledge, we must, following Descartes, replace the senses with the cogito as the principle of certainty and truth. It is crucial to remember that the certainty founded upon the cogito is not an objective certainty that eliminates universal doubt, as realists assert[9], but rather a certainty desired by the will, which thus remains in the face of universal doubt. For cogito does not mean "I think about things," but rather "I doubt." In Cartesianism, the intellect stands firm through the will’s power, not because it is necessitated by the object. For the Cartesian, being is not what it is, but what the will makes it to be. Therefore, the conclusion that is drawn is not itself a certainty, but is voluntarily posited by the ego as the ego’s being or, as Fichte will interpret, as absolute being posited by the ego.

Dogmatism. This is Kant’s accusation: assuming what must be demonstrated. Absolute affirmations without foundation or critical verification. The imposition of one’s opinion as though it were the absolute truth. Asserting as certain what is, in fact, doubtful or even false. Categorical affirmations that are neither confirmed nor, indeed, refutable by experience.

Materialistic externalism. This is Armando Carlini’s accusation[10]: the realist does not understand what interiority is, nor what consciousness and self-consciousness are. He does not comprehend the value of the spirit, which is not external to the subject, but the very soul of the subject itself.

(Translator’s Note: Armando Carlini (1878–1959) was an Italian philosopher and student of Giovanni Gentile. Though rooted in idealism, he showed an openness to classical metaphysical realism, particularly of Thomistic inspiration.)

Objectivism. For the idealist, such as Fichte and Schelling, the foundation of truth lies not in the object, but in the subject. It is the subject, not the object, that governs truth. The object is posited and produced by the subject, and it is not the object that produces the subject. The subject is superior to the object, just as the cause is superior to the effect.

Empiricism. The idealist argues against the realist, asserting that the starting point of knowledge is not the supposed contact with external sensible things, but, as Descartes teaches, is self-consciousness. This self-consciousness is the condition for the possibility of experience. A posteriori knowledge follows from a priori knowledge. The realist places first that which comes afterward, and thus is mistaken.

The realist, the idealist continues, claims to demonstrate the existence of the spirit starting from sensory experience. However, this only reveals the empirical. The spirit does exist, but it is only apprehended through the Cartesian cogito, that is, as an immediate datum of consciousness. Metaphysics is possible only as an experience of the contents of consciousness. Being is not external to consciousness, but rather is a being immanent to consciousness itself.

Abstractionism. The realist fails to understand that being is not an abstract void indistinguishable from nothingness; being is the concrete and singular subject—it is I existing here and now, as Fichte logically deduced from the Cartesian sum. This constitutes true metaphysics.

I exist not because I received my being from a superior or supreme Being, who would have created me from nothingness. Rather, my being is simply being, as Hegel saw. I exist because, with my very act of thinking of myself, I have posited my being, as Fichte clearly understood. If God exists, He does not exist as an entity before me, outside of me, or above me, but as immanent to my consciousness, as the supreme idea of my reason, as Kant elucidated.

Dualism. This is Bontadini’s accusation of dividing being, where thought is one with being, into two separate horizons, so that one appears foreign to the other: that of thought and that of being. In this way, being is posed as external to thought, superior and transcendent to it. The idealist objects that being is not foreign to thought, but is nothing other than being thought.

(Translator’s Note: Gustavo Bontadini (1903–1990) was a prominent Italian metaphysician who sought to renew classical realism within a modern philosophical framework. Engaging critically with idealism, he developed a form of “critical metaphysics” (the so-called “neoparmenidism”) that strongly influenced post-war Catholic philosophy in Italy.)

Insufficient radicalism and critical rigor. This is Husserl’s accusation: mistaking sensible appearance for truth; an inability to establish the first and original certainty of knowledge.

Superficiality. This is Severino’s accusation: a failure to recognize the deep, first, and original level of reality. There are no entities as substances distinct from one another; there is only one Being, which is Being itself, and the entities, eternal like Being, are fleeting apparitions.

End of Part Two (2/4)

Fr. Giovanni Cavalcoli OP

Fontanellato, December 5, 2022

source:

https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/che-cosa-e-il-realismo-seconda-parte-24.html

Notes:

[1] Benedikt Schwalm, Les illusions de l’idéalisme. Leurs dangers pour la foi, in Revue Thomiste, n.28, 1897, pp.415-444; Emilio Chiocchetti, La filosofia di Giovanni Gentile, Edizioni Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1922; E.T. Toccafondi, La ricerca critica della realtà, Edizioni Arnodo, Roma 1941; Vincenzo Kuiper, Lo sforzo verso la trascendenza. Studio sulla filosofia di B. Varisco e sull’idealismo, Edizioni Angelicum, Roma, 1940; Mariano Cordovani, Cattolicismo e idealismo, Editrice Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1928; Angelo Zacchi, Il nuovo idealismo italiano di B. Croce e G. Gentile, Edizioni Francesco Ferrari, Roma 1925; J. Maritain, Riflessioni sull’intelligenza, Editrice Massimo, Milano 1987; Les degrés du savoir, Desclée de Brouwer, Bruges 1959. c. III.

[2] Sum. Theol., I, q.84, a.2.

[3] A good overview of German idealism is provided by Nicolai Hartmann, La filosofia dell’idealismo tedesco (Mursia, Milano 1972), although he presents idealism as if it were a grand, all-encompassing vision of reality capable of systematically and exhaustively explaining the totality of the human and divine real within the ideal and self-consciousness, without fully recognizing its radical aporias, which render it absurd at its very foundations.

[4] In contrast to the convoluted manner in which the idealist approaches the real, affirming and negating at the same time, playing on equivocation.

[5] Which, for Hegel, is illusory, as it is for Descartes, despite the cogito and the certainties he hopes to derive from it.

[6] Realism assumes that things already exist independently of the thinking activity that contemplates them. Things exist before we think of them, and even if we do not think of them. It is not for us to constitute them in their being, or to create or bring them into being. This is the domain of divine creative causality. The arrogance of the idealist is the desire to take God’s place. The power and duty of our thought is to reflect them in the mind and consciousness as they truly are.

[7] The idealist’s thought does not recognize the principle of identity, and consequently, neither the principle of non-contradiction nor that of the excluded middle (bold by the translator). For the idealist, absolute affirmations cannot be made, and there are no eternal truths, because the foundation of idealism, beyond its irrefutable assertions, is a profound skepticism. This skepticism stems from the inner rupture between the natural realistic inclination of thought and the turn inward that defines idealism. This does not prevent the idealist from attempting to cover his fundamental uncertainty with the aforementioned assertions, which are, in fact, pure dogmatism. Meanwhile, the idealist sees dogmatism in what is merely the grounded certainty of the realist.

[8] Enciclopedia delle scienze filosofiche, in compendio, Edizioni Laterza, Bari 1968, pp.36-39.

[9] Even in Aristotle, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas, there is the cogito, but it is not the consciousness of doubting everything; rather, it is the consciousness of knowing that there is an external reality, which I know through the senses.

[10] Il mito del realismo, Sansoni Editore, Firenze 1936.