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wodeham | ## 1. Life
Adam Wodeham [Goddam/Woodham] (c. 1295-1358) was born near
Southampton. He entered the Franciscan order at a young age.
Wodeham's earliest philosophical education was at the Franciscan
*studium* in London where he first studied under Walter Chatton
(c. 1317-1321) and then William of Ockham (1320-1324).
During this period of intense study, Wodeham collaborated with Ockham
on his massive *Summa logicae*, editing it and preparing it for
publication. After Ockham departed for Avignon in the summer of 1324,
Wodeham was sent to Oxford to complete his studies. At Oxford he
attended the sentential lectures of Richard FitzRalph
(1328-1329), and subsequently qualified to read the
*Sentences*.
Wodeham lectured on the *Sentences* of Peter Lombard at the
London convent sometime in the 1320s, although his earliest lecture
notes have not survived. He later lectured at the provincial school in
Norwich sometime in the late 1320s, a work that is now referred to as
the *Lectura secunda* [LS]. Finally, Wodeham delivered the
Oxford lectures (referred to as the *Ordinatio Oxoniensis*
[OO]) between 1332 and 1334 (Streveler and Tachau 1995, 22-23,
n. 61). According to Thomas de Eccleston (Eccleston 1951, 57), Wodeham
was the 61st lector at Oxford, Greyfriars. As is the case
with many medieval philosophers, little is known about his latter life
after he completed is education. He apparently traveled to Basel in
1339, survived the plague in 1348-49, and died at the Franciscan
convent at Babwell in 1358 (Courtenay 1978, 181).
## 2. Writings
The extant writings of Adam Wodeham include: his two commentaries on
the *Sentences* of Peter Lombard (the *Lectura* and the
*Ordinatio*); a prologue to William of Ockham's *Summa
logicae*; a short *quaestio* on the *continuum*; a
longer *Tractatus de indivisibilibus*; the *Tractatus
alphabeticus*, and perhaps the 51st chapter of part I
of Ockham's *Summa logicae* and the last question of book
IV of the same author's *Reportatio*.
Adam Wodeham's most significant philosophical and theological
works are his two commentaries on the *Sentences*. The
*Lectura* (c. 1320s) is the earlier of the two works and is a
loose commentary on the first 26 distinctions of the first book of the
Lombard's *Sentences*. The single manuscript of the
*Lectura* (Cambridge, Gonville and Caius, Ms 281 (674), ff.
105-250) has been published in a modern critical edition
(Gal and Wood 1990). The *Ordinatio* (1332-34),
Wodeham's most mature extant work, is a more expansive
commentary, treating all four books of the Lombard's
*Sentences* and extensively re-writing and re-organizing the
first 26 distinctions of the first book. A critical edition of the
*Ordinatio* is available at the
Scholastic Commentaries and Texts Archive.
The shorter works of Wodeham comprise several collaborations with his
teacher William of Ockham. These include Wodeham's brief
introduction to Ockham's *Summa logicae*, which has been
edited in the critical edition. Further, Courtenay argues that Wodeham
is probably the disciple who wrote the 51st chapter of part
I of Ockham's *Summa logicae* (Courtenay 1978, 34). Both
of these short works were written between 1320 and 1324, as Wodeham
collaborated with the Venerable Inceptor. Finally, Gedeon Gal
also noted that in one of the manuscripts of Ockham's
*Reportatio* (Milan, Ambros. 281 inf., fol. 69rb) on
book IV of the *Sentences*, a marginal notation attributes the
final question of the work to Wodeham (Courtenay 1978, 34, fn.
61).
Wodeham's shorter works also include two tracts on the
*continuum* written against the indivisibilists or atomists and
the *Tractatus alphabeticus*. The shorter work on the
*continuum* (Murdoch and Synan 1966, 212-288), consisting
of a single *quaestio*, is an early redaction of the longer
work, the *Tractatus de indivisibilibus* (Wood 1988). Both of
the works were probably written between 1323 and 1331 (Wood 1998, 16).
The *Tractatus alphabeticus* considers the latitude of forms
and was written around 1333 (Wood 374).
Finally, the lost works of Adam Wodeham include Biblical commentaries
on the *Canticum canticorum* and the first book of
*Ecclesiasticus*. And, based on historical and textual
evidence, it is generally held that Wodeham wrote a set of
*Determinationes*, some of which were probably included in the
*Tractatus de indivisibilibus*.
## 3. Position in the History of Philosophy
Adam Wodeham's place in the history of philosophy remains
difficult to appreciate because of two related problems, here referred
to as: (1) the historiographical problem; and (2) the textual problem.
Historiographically, the field of medieval philosophy has been plagued
by various narrative accounts of the twelfth through fifteenth
centuries that characterize the period in which Wodeham flourished as
an age in which fideism, skepticism and scholastic decadence ruled the
day (Inglis, 1998). This basic historiographical approach to the late
medieval period has recently come under serious attack and scrutiny by
specialists working in the field, but a balanced picture of the
philosophers and theologians working during this period remains in its
infancy. Second, an accurate understanding of Adam Wodeham's
place within the history of philosophy is handicapped by the lack of
critical editions for Adam Wodeham, his immediate contemporaries, and
numerous medieval philosophers and theologians working in the late
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Regarding Wodeham, it is important
to recognize that a critical edition of any complete text of Wodeham
was not available until recently (Wood 1988; Gal and Wood
1990). Further, as already noted, an edition of Wodeham's most
mature and complete work, the *Ordinatio*, is only now
underway. As such, the place of Adam Wodeham within the history of
medieval thought is difficult to trace at present, and William
Courtenay's important study remains the most relevant point of
reference (Courtenay, 1978).
Based on the work of Courtenay, the first references to
Wodeham's place within medieval thought must begin by
considering his *socii* (or contemporary
*sententiarii*). Wodeham lectured on the *Sentences* at
Oxford in 1332-1334, and contemporaneous with his lectures there
were other bachelors lecturing on the *Sentences*
(*baccalarius sententiarius*) in the various other convents or
theological schools (Courtenay 1978, 89). Understanding who these
bachelors are is important because they often engaged with each
other's work. In the case of Adam Wodeham the list of
*socii* includes: Monachus Niger (Benedictine), Robert Holcot
OP, William Crathorn OP, Roger Gosford OP, Edmund Grafton OFM, Hugh
Grafton OESA, William Chiterne OFM, William Skelton: Mertonian,
Richard of Radford, and an unnamed Carmelite (Courtenay 1978,
89-111).
Beyond his immediate *socii*, Wodeham's influence between
1334 and 1346 is evident in England, Paris and Cologne. English
theologians, between 1334 and 1350, often do not cite contemporaries
by name. That said, there is substantial evidence that Wodeham's
contemporaries took his thought seriously. During these decades,
Courtenay lists the following English theologians as making either
implicit or explicit reference to Adam Wodeham's
*lecturae*: Thomas Bradwardine (Mertonian), Robert of Halifax
OFM, Roger Roseth OFM and Thomas Buckingham (Mertonian) (Courtenay
1978, 116-123). In contrast to the English authors discussed
above, the Parisian authors between 1342 and 1345 were much more
willing to cite a contemporary author (Courtenay 1978, 123). Thus, in
this period almost all of the Parisian theologians commenting on the
*Sentences* cite Wodeham: Gregory of Rimini OESA, Alphonsus
Vargas OESA and John of Mirecourt (Cistercian). These authors exhibit
a strong knowledge of Wodeham and all had some access to the Oxford
(*Ordinatio*) redaction of Wodeham's work (Courtenay
1978, 132). In particular one should note Gregory of Rimini's
extensive knowledge of the thought of Wodeham. The spread of
Ockham's philosophical and theological thought into Germany
(both directly and indirectly through the study of Wodeham) took place
between 1335 and 1350 and is evident in Cologne. This is perhaps due
to the fact that Wodeham traveled to Basel in the summer of 1339
bringing with him a copy of his *Ordinatio* (Courtenay 1978,
133 and 181). How long Wodeham remained in Germany, or where he
traveled, remains unknown. But, it is significant that in Cologne,
sometime before 1348, one theologian lectured on the *Sentences
secundum Adam* (Courtenay 1978, 133). This and other evidence
suggest that Wodeham was being studied seriously in Cologne before
1348.
In the aftermath of the Parisian condemnations of Nicholas of
Autrecourt in 1346 and John of Mirecourt in 1347, one may expect that
the influence of Wodeham would have waned in subsequent years. But,
Courtenay argues that the citations of Wodeham throughout this
turbulent period demonstrate that this was not the case (Courtenay
1978, 135). Evidence of Parisian masters engaging the thought of
Wodeham in the years after 1347 is evident in the works of: Peter
Ceffons O.Cist. and Hugolino Malabrancha of Oriveto OESA.
In the final four decades of the fourteenth century there is an
increase in the citations of the *moderni* as evidenced in the
extant commentaries. The list of commentaries that cite Wodeham
includes: the anonymous author of ms. Vat. Lat. 986, John Hiltalingen
of Basel OESA, James of Eltville O.Cist, Conrad of Ebrach O.Cist.,
Pierre d'Ailly, Henry Totting of Oyta, John of Wasia, Henry of
Langenstein, Nicholas of Dinkelsbuhl, Peter of Candia, John
Brammart O.C., Peter Plaoul, and Marsilius of Inghen. This period of
medieval philosophy remains understudied, but it is clear that there
was a strong interest in Wodeham at the close of the fourteenth
century. Further evidence of this is found in Henry Totting of
Oyta's *Abbreviato* of Adam Wodeham's
*Ordinatio* produced between 1373 and 1378 (Courtenay 1978,
147). Oyta's *Abbreviato* of Wodeham was influential in
the fifteenth century, as is clear from the number of extant
manuscripts spread throughout Europe.
The influence of Wodeham's thought in the fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries is a chapter of medieval philosophy and theology
that has yet to be written. There are citations of Wodeham in the
works of Arnold of Sehnsen O.C., Peter Reicher/Pirchenward, John
Capreolus, Gabriel Biel and John Mair (Major), although the evidence
at this point has yet to be analyzed in detail (Courtenay 1978,
150-156). What is certain is that Wodeham remained important for
philosophers and theologians in the long fifteenth century, and John
Mair eventually, in the sixteenth century, published an edition of
Oyta's *Abbreviato*. This has been both positive and
negative for Wodeham studies: positive, as Wodeham has remained
available to those who do not have access to the manuscript tradition;
and negative as it has meant that scholars often read and cite an
inferior text that significantly abbreviates the original work. More
attention should be given to the influence of Wodeham in this
period.
## 4. Psychology and Cognition
To the present day a significant part of Wodeham scholarship has been
focused on his philosophy of mind and the sequence of events from
sense impression to complex scientific judgment. Modern
scholarship's focus here is partly due to the fact that this was
a clear area of interest for Wodeham, to which he devoted significant
energy. But it is also a reflection of the availability of texts; the
contracted nature of the *Lectura secunda* has focused the
efforts of scholarship on book I and issues of cognition. In the
following section, we will try to give an overview of the general
consensus and debates of modern scholarship on the process of
cognition as it is currently found in the *Lectura
secunda*.
### 4.1 Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition
Wodeham turns first to the question of intuitive and abstractive
cognition: two concepts developed by John Duns Scotus and William of
Ockham. But while they identify the parallel notions of intuitive and
abstractive cognition proper to the sensitive and intellective souls
respectively, Wodeham distinguishes himself from his predecessors by
insisting that this parallel reduplication is redundant and violates
the principle of parsimony.
Regarding intuitive cognition Wodeham begins by stating that:
"every act of science naturally caused presupposes evidence of
some proposition or of the thing signified through the proposition.
Science (or a scientific act of assent) is caused by the mediation of
this evidence" (LS I:9, ll. 44-46).
The question is: what is the source of this evidence? The assumption
is that an evident proposition arises from, or is formulated from,
certain types of simple evident apprehensions, namely, intuitive
apprehensions. Wodeham, then asks: does the intellect require an
intuitive apprehension distinct from the act of sensation?
The definition of intuitive apprehension states that such an
apprehension must be sufficient for the intellect to make a judgment
about the existence of the object. Given this definition Wodeham
wonders why a second act of intuitive apprehension, beyond the
apprehension of sensation, is necessary in order for the intellect to
make this judgment. The fact that the present object in question has
been "sensed" ought to be sufficient for the intellect to
feel confident that such an object exists.
Wodeham's position is distinctive because he denies what was a
traditional distinction for Scotus and Ockham, namely, a distinction
between the sensitive and intellective soul (a real distinction in the
case of Ockham and a formal distinction in the case of Scotus). For
Wodeham, the assumption of two separate acts of intuition mandates
that a human being have either two souls or that the human has one
soul and also another vital power, separate from that soul. But,
drawing on the authority of Augustine, Wodeham identifies the notion
of two souls as a heresy to be avoided. Another option is to think
that the sensitive soul is not really a soul at all, but rather a
power distinct and separate from the one human soul. But this too is
unacceptable. To be a true sensitive potency, Wodeham insists that it
must be a living form (*viva forma*); if it were not, it would
not be able to receive "living" or vital acts, among which
apprehensive and appetitive acts are numbered. But if one admits that
the sensitive power remains a "living form", then two
souls are once more introduced into the single human being. This, at
least, is the case for Wodeham, who holds that to be a
"soul" is to be a "living form" (LS I:11, ll.
44-55). Thus, Wodeham is adamant that there can only be one soul
in the single human being, and the intuitive act of sensation alone is
sufficient for the simple apprehension "presupposed" by an
"evident assent" (LS I:9, ll. 44-48). However, by
denying this distinction, Wodeham must be willing to say that,
strictly speaking, the "intellect senses" because it is
the same intellectual soul that both senses and thinks. This was an
unsavory consequence for a thinker like Ockham, but one that Wodeham
was fully willing to accept (Wood 1990, 21\*; LS I:14-15,
ll.1-49).
Despite disagreeing with Scotus and Ockham on the nature of the
intellective and the sensitive soul, Wodeham affirms the formal
definition of intuition originally given by Scotus. This definition is
formulated in the third conclusion of the second question of the
prologue to the *Lectura Secunda*: "the incomplex act,
which is able to cause evident assent about a contingent truth of a
present object, and which naturally requires the existence and
presence of that object, is intuitive knowledge" (LS I, 37, ll.
69-72). The presence of the object is required and not just its
existence because intuitive cognition requires the object to function
as an efficient cause. The object, however, cannot function as an
efficient cause unless it is also present to the knower (LS
I:45-46, ll. 40-44).
With this definition Wodeham is also rejecting an important and
controversial part of Ockham's definition of intuitive
knowledge. For Ockham, not only was an intuitive knowledge able to
produce an affirmative judgment of the existence of an extant object,
but it was also able to affirm the non-existence of a non-extant
object. By insisting on the criteria of a present object for any kind
of intuitive knowledge, Wodeham denies that an intuition of a
non-extant, non-present object is possible. Here Wodeham offers an
illustrative example. He remarks that sometimes we can judge that
something does not exist as a consequence of having a positive
intuition. He gives the example of intuitively seeing the dead body of
Socrates and knowing that Socrates *does not exist.* While
acknowledging that such an example might be the inspiration behind
Ockham's controversial claim about an intuitive knowledge of
non-existents, he points out that in this example, we do not have an
intuitive knowledge of the same thing about which we are making a
judgment. Rather we are making an inference from our intuitive
knowledge of (and a judgment about) the existence of the dead body of
Socrates (LS I:38-39, ll. 4-15).
The difference, then, between intuitive knowledge and abstractive
knowledge is again taken from Scotus. Here, in Wodeham's sixth
conclusion, of the second question, the difference is attributable,
not to diverse objects of knowledge, but to the attitude that one can
take towards that object with respect to existence (LS I:45, ll.
22-26). Unlike intuitive knowledge, abstractive knowledge does
not require the existence or presence of the object to be known.
However, in this case "what is known" is indifferent to
the existence of that object and no judgment about that object's
existence can be made.
### 4.2 Skepticism and Aureoli
Wodeham's decision to identify the difference between intuitive
and abstractive knowledge with the presence or absence of an object,
as Scotus and Ockham did, meant that he shared with these two thinkers
a common opponent, namely Peter Aureoli. In response to Scotus's
definition of intuitive knowledge Aureoli identified several
experiences wherein a person appears to have a sensitive intuition of
a non-present object. Such experiences, according to Aureoli, were the
consequence of lingering sensitive images that remain even after an
object is no longer present. Such lingering images (sometimes called
*esse perspectivum* or *esse apparens*) were used to
explain all sorts of visual anomalies that do not correspond to
reality. Such experiences were enough for Aureoli to define intuitive
knowledge, not as the direct grasp of a present object, but as
*direct* knowledge (as opposed to knowledge arrived at through
a discursive reasoning process). Rega Wood explains:
>
>
> Abstract and intuitive cognition were distinguished by the manner in
> which their objects were presented. The objects of abstract cognition
> appeared in a quasi-imaginary mode (*quasi modo imaginario et
> absente*); intuitive cognition was direct rather than discursive,
> and it conveyed the impression that its objects existed and were
> actually present (Wood 1982, 216).
>
>
>
In short, this meant that a direct grasp of a lingering appearance or
*esse apparens*, even after the object was no longer present,
could count as intuitive knowledge.
For those who came after Aureoli, his definition and his notion of
*esse apparens* raised a host of skeptical concerns. If
sensation produces an *esse apparens*, the intellect must also
produce a similar object, something Peter Aureoli called *esse
intentionale*. And if intuitive knowledge is a direct knowledge of
either the *esse apparens* or the *esse intentionale*,
and not of the object itself, from where does the certainty come by
which one can firmly and confidently state that "this thing
exists"? Aureoli's *esse apparens* opened up the
possibility of an experience, wherein what appears to be present,
might actually not be present or even in existence.
Ockham's answer to Aureoli's insistence on the need for an
*esse apparens* to explain certain strange and misleading
phenomena was to relocate the source of the error. The error does not
come from the impression of some non-existent object. On the contrary,
the naturally produced intuitive cognition does not lie. Instead, as
Wood paraphrases Ockham, "error arises when the observer infers
a proposition which does not follow formally from his
perceptions" (Wood 1982, 224). Ockham calls the intuition of
those appearances that cause apparitions "imperfect intuitive
cognition". In such cases, the immediate judgment of the
intellect is not "that the object represented exists", but
"that the object was impressed" (and, it would seem, that
this impression exists). The intellect errs, then, when it assents to
what the "imperfect" intuition does not warrant.
A central concern with Ockham's account, raised by Walter
Chatton and responded to by Wodeham, was the character of these
apparition causing "after-images". For Ockham, the after
images were not caused by the object, but by a lingering impression
distinct from the object or impression-causing species. For Chatton,
it could not be overlooked that these after-images appeared *as
if* they were the object, not *as if* they were some
left-over impression caused by the object. Thus, he argued that the
after-images are caused by the lingering of the representative species
of the object, even after the object is no longer present. Chatton was
therefore willing to admit that intuition of a non-present object was
possible, as long as its representative species lingered.
On this issue Wodeham takes sides with Ockham against Chatton. He
expressly attacks Chatton's description of the lingering species
as having a likeness sufficient to cause the observer to believe in
the existence of the original object. Wood writes of Wodeham's
position:
>
>
> In after-images only the remains of the form or species caused by the
> first act of perception are seen. But the belief that the principal
> object is seen when after-images are present is not caused by the
> first vision or even by the remains of the species imprinted during
> vision. It is caused by strong imagination which leads the observer to
> judge falsely that what he sees in an after-image is the same as what
> he saw when the principal object was presented (Wood 1982, 228).
>
>
>
In short, against Chatton, Wodeham defends an Ockham-like position,
suggesting that the source of error is not the intuitive cognition of
something not actually there, but the fact that the intellect chooses
to make a judgment about the existence of something other than what
was intuited. In many ways, the case is similar to that inference made
about Socrates' non-existence, when Socrates' dead body is
intuitively grasped. The inference made from one intuitive cognition
is not always correct, even if the intuition itself remains
reliable.
### 4.3 Three Degrees of Evidence
What then does all this mean for the question of certitude and the
possibility of building a genuine and trustworthy science based on
these foundational impressions received from the natural world?
Wodeham defended the reliability of our immediate simple
apprehensions, but he also admitted the possibility that the
imagination can severely distort these impressions such that we are
inclined to assent to what the simple apprehension itself does not
warrant.
Wodeham discusses the question of evidence for a proposition which can
be built from these initial apprehensions in the sixth question of the
prologue. He says that the idea of "complex evidence" can
be understood in two ways: either as referring to the apprehension of
an evident proposition itself or to the so-called "evident
judgment" which has been caused by this evident proposition.
What Wodeham means by an evident proposition is complicated and
requires that we have a clear sense of the distinction between
apprehension and judgment, which are for Wodeham two distinct and
separate acts. An evident proposition for Wodeham can be of three
kinds. The first and lowest degree of evidence is identified with the
apprehension of the proposition (or what it signifies). Wodeham uses
as his example the proposition, "a stick submerged in water is
broken". The apprehension of this state of affairs has all the
trappings of an evident proposition, to such an extent that it
inclines us to perform the separate act of producing an affirmative
judgment. Nevertheless, this type of proposition is one that can still
be false, despite the fact that it has all the appearance of truth.
This lingering possibility, however, allows the intellect to suspend
its judgment on the basis of other experiences or reasons. Distinctive
of such propositions is their contingent nature. Though they can
appear true, it remains possible that they are false.
The second degree of certainty associated with evident propositions is
exemplified by a proposition that not only appears certain and
inclines the judgment to assent, but is also a proposition that cannot
fail to signify correctly. According to Wodeham all propositions of
this type are categorical and necessary. And, he distinguishes them
from those contingent types of propositions which may have every
appearance of being true but yet may turn out to be false (LS II:163,
ll.17-20).
Finally, Wodeham distinguishes this second type of evident proposition
from a third type of proposition which is also categorical and
necessary. This third type of proposition is the highest degree of
evidence, because, not only can it not fail to appear *and be*
true, but it also cannot be doubted. That is, it not only inclines to
assent, but necessitates the intellect to assent. For Wodeham, this is
distinct from the second and less-evident type of proposition. While
this second type cannot fail to be true, it nevertheless can still be
doubted owing to the fact that other conflicting propositions also
appear to be true. The third type cannot be doubted in this way, no
matter what other propositions appear to be true. If other evident
propositions are genuinely in conflict with (i.e., are inconsistent
with) the proposition in question, those propositions cannot be
evident in the highest degree. But nor can these conflicting
propositions be evident in the second highest degree since the second
and third types are both supposed to be necessary. Therefore they
cannot actually be in conflict, though it is still possible that they
may appear to be in conflict. For Wodeham, propositions of the third
and highest type can be known in themselves and are necessarily
*per se nota* (LS I:164, 36).
### 4.4 Evident Judgments
If this is how we can understand an evident proposition, what then
constitutes an evident judgment? Again, a judgment, for Wodeham, is
sharply distinguished from the distinct act of apprehension or the
mental proposition. It amounts to a mental nod of approval to the
correspondence between the apprehended proposition and the reality
signified. (See LS I, prol., d. 6, SS 20, I:176-178.)
Clearly, the first two types of propositions do not provide us with
absolute certainty. These propositions have all the appearance of
truth, but the judgment that follows from them cannot be called
evident as long as doubt remains, even if the judgment in question is
correct.
When it comes then to a truly evident judgment, propositions which are
*per se nota* can cause evident judgments because the truth of
those propositions can in no way be doubted. However, besides
propositions *per se nota* there are certain mechanisms through
which originally dubitable propositions can come to be evident in the
third degree, thereby necessitating assent and causing a truly evident
judgment.
The most obvious mechanism is the demonstrative syllogism, which leads
us finally to Wodeham's conception of a science and the
immediate object of this act of assent. In article two of question
one, he discusses whether a scientific act of knowing (the evident
assent given to the conclusion of a syllogism) has as its immediate
object "that which is signified by only one proposition, i.e.,
the conclusion" or "that which is signified by the
conclusion and the premises joined together at the same time through a
syllogism" (LS I:199, ll. 5-11). Wodeham's
conclusion is decidedly in favor of the latter; namely, in order for a
previously dubitable proposition to be elevated to the third degree of
evidence, whereby the intellect is necessitated to assent, it must
acquire that evidence from the force of the syllogism as whole. The
conclusion by itself is not *per se nota*. Thus, for a truly
evident judgment to take place, a single evident proposition cannot be
its cause, rather all three propositions of the syllogism must be
taken together in order for the concluding proposition to have the
evidence it needs to not only appear true, but to compel the
mind's assent (LS I:199-208). This requirement that
scientific assent be given to the syllogism as a whole (and cannot be
sustained if one of the premises is forgotten) is a position that will
be explicitly opposed by the later Parisian reader of Wodeham, Gregory
of Rimini (*Lectura*, I, Prol., q. 3, a. 1, Trapp I:107ff).
### 4.5 The Complexe Significabile
If there is a topic that has dominated Wodeham scholarship, it is the
*complexe significabile* or alternatively, that which is
signifiable in a complex way, i.e., through a proposition. This
mysterious entity was intended by Wodeham to function both as the
immediate object of propositional knowledge and as a genuine *via
media* between two extreme theories regarding the object of
knowledge offered by his contemporaries. Representing one extreme was
William of Ockham, who was thought by Wodeham to identify the terms of
a proposition as the actual object. This is sometimes referred to as
the anti-realist position. On the other hand there was Walter Chatton,
who argued that the object of propositional knowledge was the actual
entity signified by the subject term of the proposition. Wodeham, in
turn, rejected both these positions and stated that the object of
science was an actual state of affairs which could only be signified
through a complex or a proposition. Questions and puzzles have
continued to linger regarding the exact ontological status of these
states-of-affairs. While insisting that they have some real
ontological weight, they do not fit nicely under either of the
Aristotelian categories of real being, substance or accident. Thus,
within an Aristotelian framework, it is difficult to articulate
exactly how or in what way the *complexe significabile* is
actually real.
The legacy of the *complexe significabile* has a somewhat
involved history. We can find several examples of its use and
discussion throughout the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. However, for many years the idea was thought to originate
with Gregory of Rimini. Modern scholarship slowly discovered, albeit
not immediately, that this particular terminology was original to
Wodeham and only later adopted by Rimini. (The idea, however, has many
precursors evident in earlier debates over terms like *dicta*
or *enuntiabilia*. See Klima 1993; Nuchelmans 1973; Bermon
2007.) The most frequently cited misattribution in modern scholarship
has been Hubert Elie's "Le complexe significabile"
(Elie 1936). In the following generation, Gedeon Gal
(Gal 1977) discovered that Wodeham was actually the author of
this idea. Gal edited the first modern edition of the
*Lectura Secunda* dist. 1, q. 1, the traditional point of entry
into Wodeham's thought on the matter. Since Gal's
article, several studies have followed: Nuchelmans (1980), Tachau
(1987), Grassi (1990), Zupko (1994-1997), Karger (1995), and
Brower-Toland (2007). A frequent part of the contemporary discussion
involves distinguishing the genuine doctrine of Adam Wodeham from
later versions. Gal's initial characterization of
Rimini's position as a "mutilation" of
Wodeham's position has exerted its influence over the subsequent
scholarship (cf. Nuchelmans, and esp. Zupko). Most complaints stem
from the idea that Rimini gives too much ontological weight to this
mysterious entity or at least lacks the nuance of Wodeham, exposing
the doctrine to objections that could not be addressed to Wodeham
himself (cf. Zupko 1994-1997). Brower-Toland has recently
challenged this traditional reading. She suggests the "radical
nature of Wodeham's claims" have largely gone
unrecognized, and that his *complexe significabile* represents
a significant "ontological addition" to the Aristotelian
substance-accident framework (Brower-Toland 2007:600n7,
638-640).
## 5. Philosophical Theology
### 5.1 Proofs of God's Existence
Wodeham's approach to philosophical theology begins with a
traditional attempt to determine whether or not God's existence
can be philosophically and demonstratively proved.
In both the *Lectura secunda* and the *Ordinatio* his
strategy is structured by two proofs. The first is taken from and
explicitly attributed to Scotus. Of the Scotist proof, Wodeham remarks
that it seems very persuasive and more evident than any reason that
can be brought against it. The second argument appears to be original
to Wodeham.
The first proof taken from John Duns Scotus is found both in his
*Ordinatio* and *De Primo Principio*. The argument
follows from an initial disjunctive premise: there is either some
first uncaused cause or there is not. If the former, Scotus and
Wodeham argue that it is obvious that this is God. If the latter is
chosen then unacceptable consequences follow. The most notable is that
there would be an infinite series of caused causes without a
terminating point. Two reasons are offered for why such an infinite
series is impossible. The first is that, the whole of all
"essentially ordered" causes must have a cause, but if the
cause of this multitude comes from the totality of caused causes, then
this cause will be the cause of itself, which is impossible. The
second reason that an infinite series of causes will not work is this
would require that there are an infinite amount of causes acting at
the same time. This requirement is built into Wodeham's (and
Scotus's) conception of essentially ordered causes--which
Wodeham later sharply distinguishes from a series of accidentally
ordered causes.
Wodeham offers a second proof for the existence of God. Regarding this
proof he states that it is sufficient to incline the intellect to
assent, but he also acknowledges that it is still able to be doubted
by "shameful adversaries" (LS II:121; OO I, d. 2, a. 1).
According to Wodeham's description of different types of
evidence, it is clear that this "proof" is not able to
compel a truly evident judgment because the proof remains open to
doubt and thus only reaches the second degree of evidence.
The proof begins from another disjunctive proposition inspired by
Anselm's *Proslogion*. Either there is some most noble
being about which no more noble thing is able to be thought, or there
is no such most noble thing. Wodeham remarks that one possible
consequence that might follow is that there would be an infinite
succession of more noble things, thus permitting an infinity of
beings. This conclusion, he says, is unpleasant to the mind; that is,
the intellect is not able to admit an infinity of beings without
"grumbling" (*murmere*). For this option at least,
it is clear that the intellect can incline us to assent that God
exists, but it is still possible to doubt it, which is the
distinguishing mark of the second degree of evidence. The other
alternative is that there must be some most noble thing actually
existing (*in actu existens*), even though this is not the most
noble thing possible. Wodeham finds this alternative opposed by the
most evident of reasons--something akin to Anselm's
ontological argument: whatever is actually existing (*existens in
actu*) is *de facto* more noble than what is not in
existence. Thus, it is nonsensical to speak of something more noble,
which is only potentially existing (LS II:121, ll.13-15).
### 5.2 Proof of God's Unicity
From the philosophical proof of the existence of the highest being,
not always demonstrative, but evident in at least the second degree,
Wodeham turns to the question of whether there is one highest being or
many. The question found in *Lectura*, I, q. 1, a. 3, and the
*Ordinatio* I, d. 2, a. 2 is posed in an ambiguous way. It asks
whether it is *evidently probable* that something absolutely
uncausable is only one in number. The question is ambiguous because it
is not immediately clear whether Wodeham's intention is to show
that there is only one God or if he intends to evaluate the relative
degrees of evidence of the existing proofs of God's unicity or
multiplicity.
As the question progresses, it appears that Wodeham is primarily
interested in evaluating the evidence of both pro and con arguments.
Wodeham juxtaposes arguments of Scotus against counter arguments of
Ockham in order to argue that the unicity of God cannot be
demonstrably proven. Ultimately, he argues that its seems that natural
reason is not able to prove evidently the numerical unity of God (LS
II:144). He argues for the inconclusiveness of several arguments
including: the argument that proceeds from the belief that there
cannot be several total causes of the same effect (LS II:144); that
there cannot be more than one necessary being (LS II:159); and that
there cannot be more than one final cause (OO I, q. 2, a. 2, dubium
5). In the end, Wodeham is not interested in denying that there is
only one God, but he simply wants to show that the relatively strong
arguments for God's unicity do not reach the third and highest
degree of evidence.
Even when it comes to the specific unity of God, which is granted only
a brief discussion in the *Lectura secunda* and is left out of
the *Ordinatio* altogether, Wodeham shows some hesitation. He
writes: "I say that the argument of Scotus given above is
probably able to be persuasive" (LS II: 171). Thus he again
shows that even though it is his own opinion that God is specifically
one, it is possible for doubt to continue to linger.
### 5.3 Philosophy and the Trinity
Adam Wodeham's trinitarian theology is developed in the
*Lectura* (d. 2, d. 3 q. 5; d. 7; dd. 9-16; dd.
18-21; dd. 23-26) and the *Ordinatio* I, d. 3; d.
33 qq. 1-9. The two accounts, despite their various formal
placements in the two works, are often identical (e.g., LS d. 11, q.
un. and OO d. 33, q. 6). Wodeham, however, did substantially re-work
his discussion of the *imago Trinitatis* (LS d. 3, q. 5; OO I,
d. 3), focusing in the latter work on the writings of Richard
FitzRalph instead of Richard Campsall. Further, in the closing
discussion of distinction 2 of the *Ordinatio*, Wodeham tells
his readers that the discussion of the Trinity will be collected into
the numerous questions of distinction 33.
Wodeham's trinitarian theology has received little attention
from scholars. However, there are several notable exceptions. Hester
Gelber offers an analysis of *Ordinatio* I, dd. 33, qq.
1-3, concerning the formal distinction and formal non-identity
(q. 1) and the complex problem of trinitarian paralogisms (qq.
2-3) (Gelber 1974, 235-264, 629-648). Russell
Friedman treats the relationship between Peter Auriol and Adam Wodeham
in the *Lectura secunda*, d. 7 on the question: *utrum
potentia generandi possit communicari Filio* (whether the power to
generate can be communicated to the Son) (1997, 342-349). Olli
Hallamaa considers Wodeham's discussion of trinitarian
paralogisms within the context of other fourteenth-century Franciscans
(Hallamaa 2003). For our purposes Gelber's and Hallamaa's
analyses of trinitarian paralogisms are the most relevant
philosophically, as Wodeham debates the universality of Aristotelian
logic with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity.
Like many of his Oxford contemporaries, Adam Wodeham was particularly
concerned with solving the tension between Aristotelian logic and
trinitarian theology. In the *Lectura secunda*, Wodeham did not
address the problem in a substantial way (see LS III, 446-448),
although in the *Ordinatio* he devotes a specific question to
the problem of whether there is a "certain rule or art"
through which one can solve trinitarian paralogisms (OO I, d. 33, q.
3).
The problem of trinitarian paralogisms arises when one considers
certain syllogisms regarding the Trinity. God, according to Church
teaching, is one simple divine essence and three distinct divine
persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). And, when some valid syllogisms
are formulated according to Aristotelian rules, paradoxes arise in
which both premises are true and the conclusion is false. For
example:
| | |
| --- | --- |
| This divine essence is the Father | *Haec essentia divina est Pater* |
| This divine essence is the Son | *Haec essentia divina est Filius* |
| Therefore, the Son is the Father | *Ergo Filius est Pater.* |
In this valid expository syllogism, both of the premises are true
according to Church teaching, but the conclusion is false. The
theologians of the first half of the fourteenth century developed two
strategies when confronting such syllogisms. First, some theologians
denied the universality of Aristotelian logic outside of the natural
order. This approach, which remained in the minority, can be found in
the author of the *Centiloquium theologicum* (*OPh* VII,
SS 56-59, 469-472) and in Robert Holcot's
commentary on the *Sentences* (Holcot 1518, q. 5) (albeit
Holcot's position changes in other parts of his corpus, cf.
Gelber 1974). In his commentary, Holcot remains ambiguous about his
eventual solution, although he writes that there are two logics: the
logic of faith (*logica fidei*) and the logic of the natural
order (*logica naturalis*). Second, and more moderately, most
theologians insisted that Aristotelian logic is universal--thus,
valid in both the natural and supernatural realms--but that the
trinitarian syllogisms in question are not valid syllogisms, despite
their seemingly valid form. This approach was shared by William of
Ockham and Adam Wodeham.
Adam Wodeham, in the first two questions of distinction 33, surveys
the traditional methods of solving the problem of trinitarian
paralogisms (Gelber 1974, 235-253), and in the third question
finally offers his own response. It is not possible to recount all of
Wodeham's methods for addressing such paralogisms, but it is
useful to consider the following syllogism:
| | |
| --- | --- |
| Every divine essence is the Father
| *Omnis essentia divina est Pater* |
| Every divine essence is the Son | *Omnis essentia divina est Filius* |
| Therefore, the Son is the Father | *Ergo Filius est Pater.* |
In the above case, the two premises are universal. As such, the
syllogism should be governed by "all or none": meaning
that, with respect to a given subject and predicate, what is said of
all (*dici de omni*) of the subject (essence) must also be said
of the predicate (Father) (OO I, d. 33, q. 3, a. 2). In the above
argument, there is a fallacy of the figure of speech because not
everything said of the divine essence is predicable to the Father,
because the term *divine essence* (subject) supposits for the
Son and Holy Spirit while the term *Father* (predicate) does
not. Thus, the premise is not sufficiently universal and violates the
rules of a valid expository syllogism (Gelber 1974, 255-256).
This is one of Wodeham's methods for addressing trinitarian
paralogisms, and effectively captures his basic method and approach to
such problems. Further, it helps elucidate Wodeham's broader
approach to the role of Aristotelian logic within theology and his
characteristically "analytic" approach to questions of
philosophical theology.
## 6. Natural Philosophy
Adam Wodeham's *Tractatus de indivisibilibus* and
*Tractatus alphabeticus* establish him as one of the leading
representatives of the *theologia Anglicana*. This group of
thinkers, including the Oxford Calculators, was heavily influenced by
natural philosophy and its implications for a range of philosophical
and theological problems. Wodeham's discussion of the
*continuum* and the latitude of forms demonstrates his place
within this philosophical tradition.
### 6.1 The *Continuum*
Adam Wodeham, like many of his English contemporaries in the first
decades of the fourteenth century, was embroiled in the debate over
divisibilism and indivisibilism (atomism). Following William of
Ockham, Adam Wodeham was a divisibilist who argued in his
*Tractatus de indivisibilibus* against philosophical atomism
(indivisibilism). Wodeham cites extensively from the writings of
divisibilists and indivisibilists, such that his *Tractatus de
indivisibilibus* is a rich source for tracing the history of this
long and complex debate (Wood 1988, 14).
Aristotle, in the sixth book of the *Physics*, develops several
arguments against the idea that *continua* are composed of
atoms or indivisibles. The majority of medieval philosophers accepted
Aristotle's position, but by the end of the thirteenth century
there developed a minority opinion that supported indivisibilism. The
most famous proponents of indivisibilism were Robert Grosseteste (d.
1253), Henry Harclay (d. 1317), Walter Chatton (d. 1343), Gerard Odon
(d. 1349), William Crathorn (fl. 1330s) and Nicholas Bonet (d. 1360).
The divisibilists/indivisibilist debate in the fourteenth century was
concerned with the philosophical status of space and time.
Spacial-temporal reality, according to the traditional Aristotelian
view, was infinitely divisible. Thus, authors like Thomas Bradwardine
and Adam Wodeham follow Aristotle and Averroes in defending the view
that the *continuum* is composed of divisible parts without
end, and not of atoms. This view (divisibilism) is the one defended by
Adam Wodeham in his magisterial *Tractatus de
indivisibilibus*.
In response to the classical divisibilist position supported by
Aristotle, the indivisibilists held that there were
"indivisibles" which constituted the composition of
temporal and spatial *continua*, e.g., temporal instants and
lines respectively. Such "indivisibles", in the early
14th century, were understood to be an extended and simple
ontological unit, but not physical atoms *per se*. It is
helpful here to consider briefly an indivisibilist account, before
turning to the divisibilism of Wodeham.
Henry Harclay and Walter Chatton are two relatively well known
medieval philosophers who supported indivisibilism. Thinkers such as
Harclay and Chatton argued, in response to Aristotle, for the
possibility that a *continuum* is composed of indivisibles. The
individual components, or indivisibles, were generally held to be
extensionless regardless of whether or not the individual thinker
understood there to be an infinite (Harclay) or finite (Chatton)
number of indivisibles in a given *continuum*. But, as is well
know, such indivisibilists accounts were generally so defensive in
their posture--arguing for the mere possibility of
indivisibles--that it is difficult to ascertain the broader
philosophical motivations which grounded such arguments. John Murdoch
argues that there are perhaps two motives that can be gleamed for the
texts: (1) indivisibles may have been useful as a method of accounting
for the motion of angels; or (2) indivisibles may have been useful
when addressing the inequality of infinites (Murdoch 1982,
576-577). Although, he notes that such motivations are mentioned
only in passing and that a broader motivation could have simply been
that "the analysis of Aristotle's arguments against
indivisibilism uncovered loopholes in them" (Murdoch 1982,
577).
The *Tractatus de indivisibilibus* consists of five questions
and it is instructive to consider the content briefly.
1. In the first question, containing three articles, Wodeham
considers whether or not forms, or extended *continua*, are
composed of indivisibles. In the first article Wodeham develops twelve
arguments against the indivisibilists, anticipates responses to those
arguments, and rejects them (TI 35-93). In the second article,
he considers twelve arguments, from Henry Harclay and Walter Chatton,
in support of the thesis that forms are composed of indivisibles (TI
93-101). And, in the third article, Wodeham responds to the
arguments of Harclay and Chatton (TI 103-121). This first
article comprises about a third of the work, and the first article in
particular contains many of Wodeham's most significant
arguments.
2. In the second question, Wodeham treats the problem of whether or
not extended forms or objects are composed of indivisibles. In
response, Wodeham (following Ockham) argues in the first article
against the existence of points, lines or surfaces (TI 123-139).
And, as with the previous question, the second and third articles
consider arguments in defense of indivisibles and responses to those
arguments (TI 139-163).
3. The third question entertains seven doubts relating to the
divisibilist position. In the first four doubts Wodeham treats
Zeno's famous paradoxes (as reported by Aristotle in his
*Physics* VI) (TI 165-183), and in the last three doubts
he treats more contemporary arguments (TI 183-211).
4. The fourth question considers whether or not a *continuum*
is infinitely divisible. Thus, if a *continuum* can be divided,
why cannot it be infinitely divided? To this question Wodeham provides
an argument that a *continuum* cannot be divided (a. 1) (TI
213-225) and an argument to the contrary (a. 2) (TI
225-235).
5. The final question considers whether or not there are more parts,
of the same proportion, in a larger *continuum* than in a
smaller one. In three articles, Wodeham considers an argument for the
claim that there are more respective parts in a larger
*continuum* (a. 1) (TI 239-247), objections to this
argument (a. 2) (TI 247-261), and finally replies to the
objections (a. 3) (TI 261-273).
In the second doubt of question 3 (LT 171-175;
P13-20), as noted above, Wodeham considers the argument of
Zeno (recorded in Aristotle's *Physics*) against those
who argue that motion is compatible with the divisibility of a
*continuum*. This particular argument, familiar to all students
of ancient philosophy, is exemplary both of Wodeham's historical
approach to the questions posed by the *continuum* and his own
method of argumentation. Thus, it is instructive to consider the
argument in some detail. Wodeham records Zeno's argument as:
>
>
> If every continuum is infinitely divisible, then every movable object
> traversing any space will reach the middle of that [space] before the
> end, and consequently it will reach the middle of the second half
> before reading [the end] of the completing [part] of that half, and
> then [it will reach] the middle of that next fourth [before] its
> completing [part]. Therefore if such halves are infinite proportional
> [parts], and if it does not happen that [a moveable object] traverses
> infinitely many [parts] in a finite time, then it is impossible that
> any space be traversed in a finite time. And consequently, it is
> impossible that anything move locally (LT 172-173;
> P14).
>
>
>
Wodeham, who is a divisibilist, offers a response to Zeno's
"paradox" because it is necessary to avoid the
*reductio ad absurdum* (i.e., there is no motion) posed by the
claim that an infinitely divisible finite space is not
traversable.
Wodeham begins by considering Averroes's argument that
Aristotle, in the *Physics* VI, contradicts the "words,
not the substance, of Zeno's discourse" (LT 173;
P15). But, Wodeham does not agree with Averroes's
interpretation of Aristotle, and he defends Aristotle's
argument. Wodeham argues that Aristotle recognizes that Zeno's
argument "supposes falsely" that it is "not possible
to traverse something infinite ... in a finite time" (LT
173; P16), although he also correctly recognizes that there is
more to be said in response to Zeno. Further, Wodeham argues that
Aristotle recognized that there is an equivocation with respect to the
term "infinite" as applied to a *continuum* of
space or time: infinite can be understood with respect to
"division", or with respect to "infinite
ends". That is, the term infinite can refer to the infinite
divisibility of a given finite *continuum* of space or time, or
the term can refer to the fact that space or time extends without end
or termination (LT 173; P17). Because of this equivocation, the
phrase "a moveable object may traverse infinitely many things in
a finite time" can be understood in two ways: either (1) as
stating that a moveable object traverses infinitely many things that
are extensively never terminated in a finite time; or (2) as stating
that a moveable object traverse infinitely many non-equal things (that
a given *continuum* is divided into) in a finite time (LT
173-175; P18). In the former sense the claim is false, in
the latter sense it is true. And, in this way, Aristotle solves
Zeno's "paradox" to Wodeham's
satisfaction.
Finally, Wodeham analyzes William of Ockham's
interpretation--in the *Expositio Physicorum* (OP V, ll.
49-56)--of Averroes's argument that Aristotle
addresses the words and not the substance of Zeno's argument.
Wodeham, recording Ockham's argument, implies that
Ockham's reading of Averroes is too "charitable",
concluding that "if [Averroes] did understand [the matter] in
the manner expounded here, both his exposition and what he expounds
are false" (LT 175; P175).
As demonstrated by this brief example, in the *Tractatus de
indivisibilibus* Adam Wodeham engages at length with the ancient
and medieval philosophical tradition. Further, throughout the work he
quotes extensively from William of Ockham's *Exposition
Physicorum* and his *Tractatus de quantitate*. Wodeham also
considers in detail the arguments of Henry Harclay and Walter Chatton,
all of which provides a useful historical record of this heated
debate. But, ultimately, the work remains a barrage of arguments
against the indivisibilist, or atomist, position as defended in the
early fourteenth century.
### 6.2 The Latitude of Forms
In his minor work, the *Tractatus alphabeticus*, Wodeham takes
up the question of qualitative change and offers a position that is
consistent with his overall opposition to atomism (cf. Wood 1990).
According to Sylla, there were three dominant views of qualitative
change that shaped the context of the discussion: the succession
theory, the addition theory, and the admixture theory (Sylla 1973,
230-232). The succession and addition theory distinguish
themselves from the admixture theory in that they are both committed
to the fact that qualitative forms themselves do not change in degree.
Rather it is the subject that changes in degree through the
acquisition of a new qualitative form (cf. Sylla 1973, 232; Wood 1990,
375). Wodeham, in relative concord with the views of Ockham and
FitzRalph and against the Mertonian Campsall and his usual nemesis
Walter Chatton, argues against the admixture theory. He claims that it
is impossible for one and the same quality to be changed while
retaining its identity. As Wood says:
>
>
> Addition and succession of forms theorists agree on this issue; in no
> sense is it true that the same form undergoes remission or
> intension...strictly speaking it is the subject, not the form,
> which becomes more white, more hot or more charitable. (Wood 1990,
> 375)
>
>
>
A helpful analog can be found in the case of numbers. When the number
9 is increased to 10, Wodeham understands the admixture theorist to be
claiming that the same form has been intensified, but he wonders how
this numerically identical form can really be said to retain its old
identity now that it has been increased to 10 and is no longer 9.
While the succession and addition theorist are united in their
opposition to any admixture, and while both believe that intension and
remission occur in the subject and not in the qualitative form, they
disagree about just how this intension and remission occurs. In the
*Tractatus alphabeticus*, Wodeham shows himself to be numbered
among the addition theorists. The key difference here is that the
succession theorist believes that when a quality increases a new form
of a given quality destroys and then replaces the old form. Wodeham
and the addition theorist disagree. They hold that when qualitative
change happens, a new form is indeed acquired, but it does not destroy
the proceeding form. On the contrary, the new form takes in the
preceding form as one of its parts. And here, the analogy of
quantitative change is again helpful. When 9 increases to 10, the
succession theorist argues that the old form of 9 is completely
destroyed and replaced by an entirely new form, where no part of the
old form of 9 contributes to the new form of 10. In opposition, the
addition theorist argues that when a quality increases, this is
analogous to the number 1 being added to 9, and through this addition,
the new form of 10 is created. In this case, the old form of 9 has not
been destroyed, but rather becomes a part of the new whole.
A critical underlying difference between the succession and addition
theorists is the question over whether forms are indivisible or can be
perpetually broken down into smaller parts. The succession theorist
thinks forms are indivisible and do not contain parts (Sylla 1973,
231). But Adam Wodeham, in harmony with his general anti-atomists
position, argues that forms can be infinitely divided. In this way,
there is no trouble in saying that, through addition, a new form is
created, which contains the old form as one of its parts.
## 7. Ethics
### 7.1 Moral Goodness
Since the *Lectura secunda* does not extend beyond book I, the
moral philosophy of Adam Wodeham found in book IV of the
*Ordinatio* has remained relatively unexamined. However, in
1981 Marilyn Adams and Rega Wood edited the tenth question of Book IV
of the *Ordinatio*, providing us with a glimpse into
Wodeham's moral philosophy.
Question ten concentrates on the moral worth or goodness of an action.
Here the philosophical debate is about whether the moral worth of
action resides in the choice of the will alone (in the manner of Kant)
or whether moral goodness can be ascribed to the performance of
actions themselves, independent of the intention of the agent.
Wodeham's discussion is embedded in a larger Franciscan
discussion, whose main players are Scotus and Walter Chatton on the
one hand, and Ockham and Wodeham on the other.
The discussion is grounded in the distinction between purely internal
acts (or volitional acts, acts within the power of the will) and
external acts (or acts that can only be indirectly controlled by the
will). In the case of the latter (an external act), the power of the
will is not sufficient, and another source of power is needed.
Scotus's position, as understood by Wodeham, states that while
an external act can only be good if it falls under the control of the
will (cf. Adams and Wood 1981, 9), the external and indirectly
controlled act can nevertheless contribute *an additional*
moral goodness beyond the moral value accrued through the act of
volition. The result is that while willing to do the right thing or
bad thing is in itself praiseworthy or blameworthy, executing and
performing that act can impute to the agent further praise or blame,
depending on how well one performs the willed act (cf. Adams and Wood
1981, 9).
Wodeham, like Ockham, finds this position rather confusing. If someone
performs a morally praiseworthy volition, but this volition is not
able to be executed, the only reason for this failure of performance
is some impotency within the agent. But Wodeham insists that no one
should be damned for not doing what is not in their power to do (OO
IV, 57-59, ll. 11-30; cf. Adams and Wood 1981, 14). Thus,
no one can earn more merit for simply having the potency to perform
the action that they willed meritoriously. Having or not having the
potency to execute that volition does not fall under the free power of
the agent, and, even for Scotus, only those acts that "are under
the free power of the agent" are imputable acts (Adams and Wood
1981, 9 and 14).
### 7.2 Morality, the Will, and the Nature of Faith
For Walter Chatton, Ockham and Wodeham's position on the amoral
status of external acts leads to unsavory consequences. Among other
things, Chatton is concerned about the implications of Wodeham's
position for the necessity of faith. Wodeham's reply not only
gives us a nice illustration of how his moral theory plays out in
concrete instances, but also provides us with a helpful introduction
to his position on the nature of belief and its connection to the
will.
Chatton is concerned that if one holds a position similar to the one
of Wodeham there will no longer be any need for faith or belief, but
only the desire to believe. Chatton has this concern because, for him,
the act of belief is not directly under the control of the will (cf;
OO IV 36, ll. 20-23). Wodeham responds by starkly distinguishing
between two kinds of faith. Infused faith, which appears to be a pure
act of the will and acquired faith which is not a direct act of the
will and is not required for salvation (OO IV 58, ll.13-14).
Presumably, this act of acquired belief is an act of the intellect and
a response to the relative evidence of a given proposition or an
entire syllogism taken together (see above *An Evident
Judgment*).
With this distinction in place, Wodeham uses his moral theory to show
that the act of acquired belief, described as the act of believing
calmly (*quiete*) and presumably without intellectual
hesitation or doubt, does not add any moral worth. This is the case
since, as we have already seen, if one wishes to believe, but is
prevented from doing so *by a lack of power*, the agent should
not be held responsible for this lack of power. Reasons for such a
lack of power include a melancholic disturbance, a passion, or sophism
(OO IV 58, ll. 15-18). He further concludes, it is quite
possible that the person who wishes to believe, but is not able to do
so calmly (*quiete*), may be more morally praiseworthy than the
person who intellectually believes "quietly" and is not
beset by doubt. Intriguingly, he critiques Lombard at this point,
saying:
>
>
> If the Master means to say that in order to achieve salvation one must
> believe with something more than a perfect will, but must also have
> belief calmly (*quiete*), then he does think
> correctly ... . (OO IV 58, ll. 26-29)
>
>
> |
wolff-christian | ## 1. Biographical Sketch
Christian Wolff was born 24 January 1679 in Breslau in the province of
Silesia (now part of Poland) to parents of modest
means.[1]
Wolff was educated at the Lutheran-humanist
Maria-Magdelena-Gymansium, where his teachers included Christian
Gryphius (1649-1706), a baroque poet and dramatist, and Caspar
Neumann (1648-1715), the latter of whom Wolff credited with
introducing him to the Cartesian philosophy. In 1699, Wolff enrolled
at the University of Jena, where he pursued a course of study in
theology, physics, and mathematics, moving from there to Leipzig in
1702 where he would sit the *Magisterexamen* and then complete
his *Habilitationsschrift* in 1703 entitled: *Philosophia
practica universalis, methodo mathematica conscripta* (On
Universal Practical Philosophy, composed according to the Mathematical
Method). Otto Mencke (1644-1707), the founder of the learned
journal *Acta eruditorum*, served as an examiner for the
dissertation and, impressed, sent it to Leibniz, with whom Wolff
subsequently struck up a correspondence that continued until Leibniz's death in 1716.
Due in part to Leibniz's support, Wolff was soon offered, and
accepted, a position in Giessen (though he had also been offered
positions at Danzig and Wismar) which he intended to take up after
visiting his family in Breslau. However, on his homeward journey the
occupation of Saxony by Charles XII of Sweden required Wolff to take a
detour through nearby Halle in Prussia, whose recently founded
university also happened to be in need of a professor of mathematics.
Wolff was offered the position and, again with Leibniz's
assistance, was able to extricate himself from his commitment to
Giessen, delivering his inaugural lecture at Halle in early 1707.
During the next 15 years he enjoyed a prolific period, publishing and
lecturing at first primarily in mathematics and natural science,
though he began to lecture in philosophy proper around
1710.[2]
Wolff's first major philosophical textbook was published in
1713, the *Vernunfftige Gedancken von den Krafften des
menschlichen Verstandes und ihrem richtigen Gebrauche in
Erkantnis der Wahrheit* (Rational Thoughts on the Powers of
the Human Understanding and its Propert Use in the Cognition of Truth)
[the *German Logic*, hereafter GL]. In 1720, Wolff published
his German textbook on metaphysics, the *Vernunftige Gedanken
von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen
uberhaupt* (Rational Thoughts on God, the World and the Soul
of Man, and on All Things in General) [the *German
Metaphysics*, hereafter GM]. These were followed by further German
textbooks on ethics (1720), politics (1721), and physics (1723).
Wolff's expanding philosophical activity, especially concerning
topics in natural theology, as well as his popularity as a lecturer
and growing influence within the university drew the ire of his
Pietist colleagues in the faculty of theology, including August
Hermann Francke (1663-1723), the founder of the famous
*Waisenhaus* (orphanage), and Joachim Lange (1670-1744).
They took exception to a number of doctrines expressed in
Wolff's *German Metaphysics*, including its privileging
of the intellect to the will, its apparent demotion of freedom to mere
spontaneity, and the diminished role played by revelation in matters
of theological interest. While the Pietists were at first content to
wage a behind-the-scenes campaign, Wolff's address as outgoing
rector of the university on 12 July 1721, in which he defended the
reasonableness of Confucian moral philosophy, led to a significant
escalation of the dispute. Wolff, asserting the independence of the
philosophical faculty, refused to submit the text of his lecture for
subsequent examination by the faculty of theology, a conflict that
came to involve the university senate and even king Frederick Wilhelm
I (the "soldier king") himself. While Wolff enjoyed the
support of officials within the royal court, the Pietists exploited
their personal connections with the king, who was ultimately persuaded
that Wolff's endorsement of the pre-established harmony
represented a threat to military discipline (as the acts of deserters
would be pre-established and so not subject to sanction). On 8
November 1723, the king issued an edict removing Wolff from his
university position and ordering him to leave Prussia within 48 hours
on pain of hanging. The edict was received in Halle four days later,
and Wolff immediately left Prussian lands on 12 November 1723.
While Wolff's Pietist colleagues celebrated Wolff's exile
(reportedly even from the pulpit), it ultimately served only to
enhance Wolff's reputation, bringing him to the attention of
luminaries of the Enlightenment, including Voltaire. He was
immediately offered positions in Leipzig and Marburg, the latter of
which he accepted though a special exemption had to be granted to
allow a Lutheran to teach at a Reformed university. And even as the
dispute with his critics continued, generating a substantial
literature in its own right, Wolff managed during his Marburg years to
complete a reworked Latin presentation of his theoretical philosophy
intended to make his ideas available to a pan-European audience. These
texts include: *Philosophia rationalis sive Logica*
(*Rational Philosophy, or Logic*) of 1728 [the *Latin
Logic*, hereafter LL], the first part of which is the
*Discursus praeliminaris de philosophia in genere*
(*Preliminary Discourse on Philosophy in General*) [DP]; the
*Philosophia prima sive Ontologia* (*First Philosophy, or
Ontology*) of 1730 [Ont.]; *Cosmologia generalis*
(*General Cosmology*) of 1731 [Cosm.]; *Psychologia
empirica* (*Empirical Psychology*) of 1732 [EP]; the
*Psychologia rationalis* (*Rational Psychology*) of 1734
[RP]; and the two-volume *Theologia naturalis* (*Natural
Theology*) of 1736-37 [NT].
Friedrich Wilhelm I eventually thought better of his precipitous
action against Wolff, as he attempted in 1733 to entice him
(unsuccessfully) back to Halle and in 1736 lifted a prohibition he had
enacted against the teaching of Wolffian texts. However, Wolff
remained in Marburg, collecting tributes and memberships in learned
societies, until the ascension of Friedrich Wilhelm I's son,
Friedrich II (the Great), himself an enlightened monarch and admirer
of Wolff. Wolff accepted the new king's offer of a
professorship and vice-chancellorship at his previous institution in
Halle and returned to the city on 6 December 1740 to take up his new
position. Wolff continued to lecture and publish actively, with his
later efforts devoted particularly to works on the law of peoples,
natural law, and ethics. He died in Halle on 9 April 1754.
## 2. Philosophical Sources and Relationship with Leibniz
Wolff's wide intellectual interests saw him exposed to a diverse
set of influences. Neumann not only acquainted Wolff during his time
at Gymansium with the Cartesian philosophy but impressed on him the
need for "mathematical" treatments of philosophical topics
(including natural theology and practical philosophy). Wolff also
familiarized himself with late Scholastic philosophy, through a
textbook by Johannes Scharf (1595-1660), a follower of Suarez;
indeed, Wolff's mastery of Scholastic thinking was displayed in
his successful disputations with students at the rival (Catholic)
St.-Elizabeth-Gymnasium. While Wolff's own later philosophy
would likewise be branded a form of scholasticism, or
*Schulphilosophie*, the extent of the influence of Scholastic
philosophers, such as Suarez, upon his thought is debated
(Ecole 2001, Leduc 2018). Wolff's interest in mathematics
was encouraged by his teachers, which interest ultimately brought him
to Jena where he attended classes from G. A. Hamberger
(1662-1716), the successor of Erhard Weigel (1625-99); he
also studied a Euclidean textbook by J. C. Sturm (1635-1703),
though his reflection on its obscurities reportedly brought him his
"first light concerning the ancient method of
demonstration" (Wuttke 1841: 122-3).
A rather important if under-appreciated early influence on
Wolff's thinking, particularly concerning scientific method, was
Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651-1708). Tschirnhaus, a
Saxon nobleman, studied at the University of Leiden where the
Cartesian Geulincx was
active,[3]
and was an important member of Spinoza's circle of friends
(among whom he circulated the *Ethics*). Yet, Tschirnhaus was
also an active scientist, mathematician, and inventor, who among other
things played a (perhaps *the*) key role in the discovery of
the secret for making porcelain. Tschirnhaus' principal
philosophical work is his *Medicina mentis* (1687,
2nd ed. 1695), and he characterizes his aim there as
outlining a "certain and constant method" for the
discovery of all unknown truths. Wolff first gained an interest in
reading the *Medicina mentis* while at Gymnasium, but it was
only after taking up his mathematical studies in Jena in 1699 that he
found himself able to profit from reading it. Wolff evidently read the
text with great interest and care, marking his own copy with comments
and queries and later preparing an excerpted text for use in lectures
for students without the requisite mathematical background. Wolff even
sought out Tschirnhaus himself during an Easter book fair in Leipzig
to press him with his concerns relating to his method. (After
Tschirnhaus' death in 1708 Wolff inquired as to the status of
his manuscripts but was disappointed to learn that, like Spinoza, he
had ordered them destroyed).
It was G. W. Leibniz, however, who would exercise the most
consequential influence on Wolff, both professionally (as seen above)
and philosophically. Wolff is often described as a disciple or
follower of Leibniz, a characterization for which there is some
justification. So, central tenets of Wolff's philosophical
system closely resemble those advanced by Leibniz. The commitment to
metaphysics, the extensive use of the principle of sufficient reason,
and the (qualified) endorsement of the pre-established harmony are
among many striking points of agreement. Indeed, Wolff appears not
only to accept the principles and methods of analysis posed by
Leibniz, but he also identifies opponents to his system, such as
Descartes, Spinoza, and the Atomists, that Leibniz opposed in his
own.
To describe Wolff as merely a disciple of Leibniz, however, is
misleading in several respects. First and foremost, this
characterization undercuts the important philosophical differences
that existed between the two men. Second it misconstrues the nature of
their relationship and the type of intellectual exchange that
transpired between them. During the early part of Wolff's
career, and the period when he corresponded with Leibniz,
Wolff's primary focus was in the field of mathematics. It is
maintained that Wolff was the first to teach calculus formally in
Germany (Beck 1969: 257). According to Wolff's own report
(Wuttke 1841: 146), when he arrived at Halle in 1707, mathematics was
"entirely neglected, nay quite unknown, in that
place". With the
exception of his *German Logic*, Wolff's energy early in
his career was directed at producing a four-volume *Elements of All
the Mathematical Sciences* [German edition 1710, and Latin edition
1713] as well as a *Mathematical Lexicon* [1716]. In this
light, it is perhaps not surprising to find the bulk of the
Wolff-Leibniz correspondence dedicated to issues in mathematics.
Although they also exchanged ideas on philosophical topics (for
discussion, see Rutherford 2004), their philosophical
correspondence centered primarily on ethics and philosophical
theology.
Leibniz published his *Theodicy* in 1710, and this work
remained the only extended presentation of his philosophical ideas
published in his lifetime. Apart from a handful of other smaller
articles written on philosophical topics, most notably,
*Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas* [1684], *A
Specimen of Dynamics* [1695], and *On Nature Itself*
[1698], there were relatively few texts available, and hardly any from
what is regarded today as the core of Leibniz's *corpus*,
from which Wolff could have extracted a definitive statement of
Leibniz's philosophy. Consider a remark by Leibniz to Nicolas
Remond, in a letter dated July 1714:
>
>
> Mr. Wolff has adopted some of my opinions, but since he is very busy
> with teaching, especially in mathematics, and we have not had much
> correspondence together on philosophy, he can know very little about
> my opinions beyond those which I have published. (Leibniz 1989b:
> 657)
>
>
>
The philosophical works by Leibniz that we typically consider today to
represent his mature philosophical views were published posthumously.
*The Principles of Nature and Grace* appeared in 1718, *The
Monadology* in 1720, and the *New Essays Concerning Human
Understanding* as late as 1765. Although the early Kant and later
German thinkers had the benefit of these texts, Wolff had no such
luxury when writing his *German Metaphysics* in 1719.
What is significant about considering the relationship between Wolff
and Leibniz is that although there is clear evidence that Leibniz was
a direct influence on Wolff, there is also equal evidence that
testifies to Wolff's independence from Leibniz, particularly
when Wolff was formulating and first presenting his philosophical
views (cf. Corr 1975 for an influential discussion). Recognizing
Wolff's independence is perhaps important for understanding what
Kant and his contemporaries understood by the expression
"Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy". Instead of taking this
expression to mean "the philosophy of Leibniz, interpreted and
presented by Wolff and his followers", as it commonly is, it is
perhaps preferable to understand the expression to mean
"Wolff's philosophical system, variously corrected and
improved through the posthumously discovered views of
Leibniz".
## 3. Wolff on Philosophy, Science, and Method
Early in his career, until shortly after his expulsion from Halle,
Wolff primarily presented his work in the German vernacular. His
reasons for choosing German, rather than Latin, the standard languages
for academic texts in Germany at the time, were both tactical and
theoretical. Before Wolff, there were very few philosophical works
written in German. By providing treatises on logic and metaphysics,
Wolff was able to service a noticeable gap in the German university
curriculum while at the same time promoting his own philosophical
agenda. Prior to Wolff's contributions, the standard text books
in philosophy were largely outdated Lutheran-scholastic treatises
modeled after the treatises of Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560)
(cf. Beck 1969: 189-94, 101-10). Unlike English and French
universities, which had set aside hidebound scholasticism and embraced
modern ideas and systems, German universities (often under the direct
jurisdiction of local theological authorities) were slow to make such
a change.
But Wolff also had deep-seated theoretical reasons for writing a
German-language philosophy. He believed that the goal and purpose of
philosophy should not only be rooted in what he calls "the
pursuit of the knowledge of the truth" but also in its utility
and the practical value it has for humans in their everyday life. In
the preface to his *German Logic*, he writes:
>
>
> a person should learn philosophy ...[not with] a view to the
> vicious taste of the schools for idle disputation and wrangling, but
> in order to [enjoy its] usefulness in future life.... (GL:
> lxxvii; cf. also Corr 1970)
>
>
>
By writing a German-language philosophy, Wolff sought to transform
philosophy from a discipline that had become mired in formalism and
centered around traditionally defined topics to a discipline that had
genuine utility for German students.
Among the practical aims of Wolff's philosophy is outfitting the
mind with the tools it needs to pursue and attain properly scientific
knowledge, in contrast with "common" or
"vulgar" knowledge, or as Wolff sometimes says "the
natural way of thinking". If certain groups of facts can be
shown to follow from "well-grounded" assumptions according
to strict requirements of demonstration, the class of facts is deemed
by Wolff to constitute a "science". Wolff gives several
definitions of the term science:
>
>
> By science, I understand, that habit of the understanding, whereby, in
> a manner not to be refuted, we establish our assertions on
> irrefragable grounds or principles (GL: c. 1, SS2).
>
>
>
> By science here I mean the habit of demonstrating propositions, i.e.,
> the habit of inferring conclusions by legitimate sequence from certain
> and immutable principles (DP: SS30).
>
>
>
> Science is the capacity to prove from indisputable grounds everything
> one asserts or, in a word, the capacity to demonstrate; and in
> demonstration truths are connected together; therefore through science
> one knows the connection of truths, and thus science comes from reason
> (GM: SS383).
>
>
>
While Wolff emphasizes that science is a "habit of the
understanding", this should be taken to also involve the human
capacity of *reason*, inasmuch as it is the faculty for
perceiving the connection between truths. When properly employed,
then, human reason can discern groups of facts, establish a certain
order and interconnectedness between these facts, and ultimately
justify them as being certain parts of human knowledge. Put slightly
differently, science is a disposition or ability of the human mind to
conceive the facts of reality in an ordered and structured way.
Individual sciences, therefore, such as theology, cosmology, or
psychology, are simply the various sets, or subsets of demonstrable
cognitions and the principles (including axioms, definitions, and
empirical facts) from which they are derived.
Wolff's system is also structured according to a notion of
rational order. The "order of science" pertains to the
relationship not only between individual sciences but also between the
sets of discoverable facts within each given discipline (cf. DP:
SSSS132-5). The central idea here is that certain truths
are known prior to, and serve as a basis for discovering, other
truths. And just as there are certain facts that are more fundamental
and serve as a basis for discovering other facts, there are, Wolff
believes, certain sciences whose subject matter is more basic and
which ultimately stand as the foundation for other sciences that have
a more specialized focus. For example, in the "order of
demonstration", physics follows general cosmology which, in
turn, follows ontology (or first philosophy) (DP:
SSSS94-5).
It appears, at first glance, that Wolff's insistence on the
rational order of science simply follows from a dogmatic metaphysical
claim about the structure of reality. A reasonable objection to Wolff
might be that his conception of the rational order of science is based
on an unwarranted assumption about the harmonious order he believes to
be present in all facets of reality. This harmonious order (the
objection continues) illicitly presupposes that a divine architect has
created everything according to a plan and thus the rational order of
human science is simply an upshot of God's creative power. There
are certainly passages of Wolff's works that lend support to
such an objection (see for instance GL: c. 16, SS3). However, to
reduce Wolff's view of the rational order of science to simply a
dogmatic metaphysical claim really ignores the practical and common
sense dimensions to his thought. An important part of the reason why
Wolff believes that there is a rational order to science is because of
the progress he believes he has witnessed in such sciences as
astronomy and optics, which he believes have utilized such an order
when establishing various scientific truths (DP: SS139). By virtue
of the very interconnectedness of the different disciplines (most
notably, mathematics with physics and physics with astronomy) the
claim for an intrinsic rational order among the sciences is seen by
Wolff to be a pragmatic explanation for what is already largely
observed and accepted as the *status quo* among many natural
philosophers (GL: c. 1, SS39). Unlike Leibniz, Wolff was much more
willing to embrace the advances brought in the name of Newtonian
natural philosophy (on this, see the next section).
Wolff gives the following definition of philosophy in his *German
Logic*: "[p]hilosophy is the *science* of all
possible things, together with the manner and reason of their
possibility" (Preface, SS1). Now because of its subject
matter, philosophy is considered by Wolff to be the broadest and most
fundamental science. In the classification of sciences given in his
*Preliminary Discourse*, Wolff first divides philosophy into
two branches: practical philosophy, on one hand, and theoretical
philosophy, on the other. Practical philosophy deals (in general) with
human actions and includes morality, politics, jurisprudence, and
economics. Theoretical philosophy, by contrast, deals with sets of
possible and actual objects and is (itself) divided into three
separate branches: (1) ontology, or metaphysics *proper*, (2)
"special" metaphysics, which includes general cosmology,
psychology and natural theology, and (3) physics (DP: SS92).
Whereas ontology and general cosmology are considered by Wolff to be
completely "pure" (or *a priori*) sciences,
psychology, natural theology, and physics are considered to be based
upon empirical (i.e., historical) principles. As a brief aside, Wolff
and the Critical Kant hold very different views on the relationship
between practical and theoretical philosophy. Whereas Wolff believes
that all of practical philosophy is subordinated to metaphysics (i.e.,
ontology as well as the three sub-disciplines that comprise special
metaphysics), the Critical Kant argues for the independence of
practical from theoretical principles. Wolff, in stark contrast,
maintains that discoveries and conclusions made in practical
philosophy are necessarily based upon prior conclusions drawn from
ontology or metaphysics.
Before turning to an examination of Wolff's theoretical
philosophy, and metaphysics in particular, it will be helpful to first
consider Wolff's distinctive, and often misunderstood,
rationalism.
## 4. Wolffian Rationalism
Philosophical rationalism can be understood to involve any or all of
the following: commitment to the existence of innate ideas or
principles, the privileging of *a priori* cognition to
cognition known *a posteriori*, and endorsement of the
principle of sufficient reason (*PSR*). Even though Wolff is
officially agnostic regarding innate ideas, *a priori*
cognition (at least in the traditional sense of a cognition *from
grounds*) enjoys a privileged place in his system, and to be sure,
*PSR* is central to Wolff's entire exposition of
metaphysics and figures prominently in all levels of his philosophical
system. Wolff is, accordingly, correctly identified as a philosophical
rationalist; yet, this label has often inspired misleading
characterizations of Wolff's thought as abjuring all reliance
upon experience in the aim of constructing a pure intellectual system
founded solely on the principle of contradiction. Such a caricature,
however persistent, is to be firmly rejected on both historical and
philosophical grounds.
Historically, this misrepresentation of Wolff as an arch-rationalist
ignores his liberal borrowings from, and deep engagement with,
empiricistic and scientifically-minded thinkers, most notably Locke
and Newton. In his capacity as reviewer for the *Acta
eruditorum*, Wolff was intimately familiar with intellectual
developments in England--indeed he was brought on by Mencke
specifically in order to comment on the mathematical and scientific
developments there (for which task Wolff taught himself English over a
Summer)--and he wrote approving early reviews of Newton's
*Optics* and Locke's *Opera posthuma*. In general,
Wolff took Locke's "historical, plain method" as a
model for his own empirical psychology, and admired the blending of
reason and experiment that characterized Newton's method, even
if Wolff was deeply skeptical of Newton's speculative and
metaphysical excursions in the Queries in the Latin edition of the
*Optics* and in the General Scholium of the second edition of
the *Principia* (not to mention the metaphysical views
explicitly defended by Samuel Clarke in the correspondence with
Leibniz, for the German edition of which Wolff wrote the preface).
Even so, Wolff's importance for the reception of Locke in
Germany is currently under-appreciated (*vide* Fischer 1975),
and his contributions to the reception of Newton have only recently
been explored in some detail (see Dunlop 2013, Stan 2012).
It might nonetheless be thought that Wolff's philosophy itself
does not reflect this engagement with empiricism. Indeed, Wolff
himself gives this impression when he states in the *German
Metaphysics* that experience is opposed to reason such that they
constitute "two paths to truth" (GM: SS372), and while
the path of experience might suffice for the concerns of ordinary
life, Wolff makes clear that the philosopher cannot rest content with
it but must use reason to press beyond what experience offers. That
this is so is reflected in Wolff's distinction between
"common knowledge or cognition [*gemeine
Erkantniss*]" and "the cognition of a philosopher
[*Erkanntniss eines Welt-Weisen*]" which he first
offers in the *German Logic*:
>
>
> It can now be seen how common cognition is distinguished from the
> cognition of a philosopher, namely, one who has no understanding of
> philosophy can learn many things about what is possible from
> experience, yet, he will not know how to indicate the reason why it
> [i.e., that which he learns from experience] can be. For instance, he
> learns from experience that it can rain, but cannot say how it happens
> [...] nor indicate the causes why it rains. (GL: Preface,
> SS6)
>
>
>
This would suggest, then, that for Wolff the path to genuinely
philosophical truth is ultimately that of reason pursued independently
of experience.
Yet, a more careful look at Wolff's texts reveals that, rather
than representing completely divergent paths, reason and experience
are envisioned as forming a complementary whole, where experience
provides an indispensable basis for properly philosophical cognition
and even serves to confirm the latter's results. Indeed, the
important *dependence* of philosophical cognition upon
experiential cognition is emphasized in Wolff's later discussion
in the *Preliminary Discourse*. There, Wolff labels the
cognition of that which is and which happens *historical*
cognition (DP: SS3), and contends that cognition of the reason of
that which is or occurs, that is, philosophical cognition (DP:
SS6), frequently relies on historical cognition as its foundation
(*fundamenta*). This is the case, for instance, when we
discover by means of experience something that can serve as the ground
for something else that is or occurs (DP: SS10). Since that which
is known directly through experience is, for Wolff, "firm and
unshakeable" (DP: SS11), it follows that anyone who strives
for philosophical cognition should not neglect the historical, or as
Wolff claims, that
>
>
> historical cognition should precede philosophical cognition and be
> constantly conjoined with it so that it does not lack a firm
> foundation. (DP: SS11; cf. Kreimendahl 2007)
>
>
>
Unsurprisingly, Wolff sets up his distinctive emphasis on experience
and introduces his innovations in philosophical method in conscious
opposition to his rationalist predecessors. He faults Descartes, for
instance, for attempting to posit universal metaphysical principles
"from which one will deduce through the mere understanding
everything that is possible in nature" (Wolff 1723
[Preface]). Instead,
Wolff recommends near the end of the *German Logic* that the
philosopher should be trained
>
>
> to draw determinate propositions from experience and with the help of
> some to find the ground of others, consequently, to unite reason with
> experience (GL: c. 16, SS11)
>
>
>
and later, in his oft-used metaphor, Wolff characterizes philosophical
cognition itself as a "marriage of reason and experience
[*connubium rationis et experientiae*]" (LL: SS1232;
cf. Cataldi Madonna 2001). Ideally, then, Wolff construes reason and
experience as converging toward a common end rather than constituting
divergent paths, and the philosopher is warned against pursuing one at
the expense of the other (DP: SS11). In this way, Wolff's
rationalism clearly separates itself from the spirit of classical
rationalism.
## 5. Metaphysics
Philosophy is a science of possible and actual reality. According to
Wolff's own taxonomy, theoretical philosophy is divided into
three separate branches: ontology (or metaphysics *proper*),
special metaphysics, and physics. Cosmology, as a branch of
metaphysics, is a special or restricted science insofar as its subject
matter deals with the "world-whole" rather than
"being in general" (the subject matter of ontology).
Although there is an important sense for Wolff in which ontology is
relevant for, and even necessarily grounds cosmology and the other
special sciences, cosmology (itself) stands in a grounding
relationship to physics that is, yet again, a more narrow and
specialized discipline (Cosm. SS121). Just as there are certain
principles and certain truths established in ontology that are
relevant for cosmology, there are certain principles and certain
truths established in cosmology that are relevant for the more
specialized science of physics. In fact, within Wolff's system
there is complete uniformity from the top-down (so to speak), so that
even principles of ontology are relevant for the discipline of
physics.
### 5.1 Ontology
Wolff's ontology is constructed on two foundational principles,
namely, the principle of contradiction [*PC* hereafter] and the
principle of sufficient reason. According to Wolff, *PC* is the
fundamental principle of human thought, the very first principle of
"all metaphysical first principles", and the "font
[or source] of all certitude" (Ont. SSSS54-5). It
is regarded by him to be a self-evident first principle, its truth
made manifest through our inability to think in a manner contrary to
it. In the *Ontologia*, he writes:
>
>
> SS27. We experience...[*PC*]... in the nature of
> our mind, in that, while it judges something to be, it is impossible
> at the same time to judge the same not to be....
>
>
>
> SS28....[I]t cannot happen that the same thing simultaneously
> is and is not....
>
>
>
> SS30....[For] ... contradiction is simultaneity in
> affirming and denying.
>
>
>
*PC* is the "font of all certitude" insofar as, if
it were called into question, the most evident and secure judgments of
human knowledge, such as knowledge of the self (as a thinking thing),
could likewise be called into question. We recognize the fact of our
own existence by recognizing the psychological impossibility of
denying it. But if it were possible both to affirm and also deny our
own existence (simultaneously), then the experience of certitude that
accompanies this cognition would thereby be undermined.
Wolff contends that *PC* is not only for our thinking but, in
defining the limits of what is conceivable or not, also serves to
distinguish the possible from the impossible. So, impossibility,
defined formally, is that which involves a contradiction, whereas that
which does not is taken to be possible. Now for Wolff,
"possible" and "possible thing" are basically
synonymous terms. What is possible as a concept is simply reducible to
what is possible as a thing. The realm of concepts and the ontological
realm of objects converge in the Wolffian system (Kuehn 1997). A thing
or "being" is defined as "that which does not
involve a contradiction" (Ont. SS135). A possible concept,
consequently, is that which corresponds to a possible object (Ont.
SSSS57, 59, 60). This analysis of the concept of the possible
typifies Wolff's non-existential and essence-centered approach
to ontology. Very briefly, Wolff's understanding of being (or
what is) involves regarding being in its most general sense. A being
is "something" if and only if it is intrinsically
possible, and something is intrinsically possible, if and only if its
predicates or "determinations" are not contradictory.
"Nothing", in contrast, is simply a term that is empty of
all content. In the ontological realm of objects there is literally
*no thing* to which "nothing" corresponds (Ont.
SS57). Nothing, by definition, is not thinkable or
conceivable.
One important point to emphasize about Wolff's exposition of
ontology is that existence (or the actual reality of being) is
regarded exclusively as a determination or "complement" of
a possible thing (Ont. SS174). Although existing things are
included in his overall description of reality, they are not as a
class of objects his primary focus. More accurately, existing objects
figure into Wolff's metaphysical account only insofar as
existing objects are a subset of possible things.
With the notions of "possible thing",
"something", and "nothing" firmly in hand, we
can now explain the notion of reason (*Grund* or
*ratio*) that Wolff includes in his definition of philosophy.
Insofar as the subject matter of philosophy concerns the realm of all
possible things, Wolff believes that the task of the philosopher is to
provide "the manner and reason" of their possibility.
Warrant for this claim is grounded in the idea that everything,
whether possible or actual, has a "sufficient reason" for
why it is rather than not. In SS56 of his *Ontologia*, he
writes: "By sufficient reason we understand that from which it
is understood why something is [or can be]". Unlike Leibniz who
essentially restricts the notion of sufficient reason to
"contingent truths of fact", Wolff considers the notion to
have a much broader scope of application to include the set of all
possible objects and what Leibniz calls "necessary truths of
reason". The idea that everything has a sufficient reason is
presented formally by Wolff as the principle of sufficient reason.
Wolff's most extensive treatment of the *PSR* appears in
SSSS56-78 of his *Ontologia*. In this discussion,
Wolff appears to give two separate accounts of the theoretical origin
of the principle. On the one hand, in SS70, Wolff provides a proof
(or derivation) of *PSR* from *PC* and the notions of
"something" and "nothing". And, on the other
hand, in SS74, Wolff claims *PSR* is a principle of the
human mind and a self-evident logical axiom. Although *prima
facie*, it is unclear why Wolff attempts to advance both views, it
is perhaps worth pointing out the difference between (1) being able to
be demonstrate the truth of a proposition and (2) knowing the truth of
a proposition because it is self-evident. While demonstrating the
truth of a proposition yields knowledge of it, to know a proposition
because it is self-evident may or may not mean the proposition is also
demonstrable. There is no inconsistency, for example, in holding that
one and same proposition is both self-evident and demonstrable. A
proposition could be known immediately one way and yet, in another
way, follow as a conclusion of a sound deductive argument.
Wolff believes that the fact that *PSR* obtains becomes
apparent when we consider three specific aspects of our
rational/conscious experience. The first is that *PSR* is never
contradicted by experience; the second is that we can recognize
singular instances, or examples, of it in our experience of the world,
and the third is that we have an inquisitive attitude toward our
surroundings and future life (Ont. SSSS72-4). For Wolff,
these characteristics are not regarded as empirical evidence for
*PSR*, but rather that *PSR* is a necessary
presupposition for these characteristics to be a part of our conscious
experience. Thus by simply reflecting on the nature of our
understanding of the world, Wolff believes that we arrive at the
manifest truth of *PSR*.
Now according to Wolff there are at least four self-evident
(axiomatic) principles of human thought: *PC*, the principle of
excluded middle, the principle of certitude (or principle of
identity), and *PSR* (Ont. SSSS52-55). Of these,
only *PC* is indemonstrable in the sense that the truth of the
principle cannot be proved to follow from a formal deductive
inference. As we have seen, Wolff believes that we gain assurance of
the truth of this principle by attending to the psychological
experience of not being able to both affirm and deny our own existence
in introspection. Thus only in a weak (and non-Wolffian) sense of
"demonstration" can Wolff be said to demonstrate the truth
of *PC*. The remaining principles, however, are demonstrable in
the strict sense and each, he believes, can be derived from
*PC*. His demonstration of *PSR* in SS70 of the
*Ontologia* is as follows:
>
>
> Nothing exists without a sufficient reason for why it exists rather
> than does not exist. That is, if something is posited to exist,
> something must also be posited that explains why the first thing
> exists rather than does not exist. For either (i) nothing exists
> without a sufficient reason for why it exists rather than does not
> exist, or else (ii) something can exist without a sufficient reason
> for why it exists rather than does not exist (SS53). Let us assume
> that some *A* exists without a sufficient reason for why it
> exists rather than does not exist. (SS56) *Therefore nothing is
> to be posited that explains why A exists. What is more, A is admitted
> to exist because nothing is assumed to exist*: since this is
> absurd (SS69), nothing exists without a sufficient reason; and if
> something is posited to exist, something else must be assumed that
> explains why that thing exists.
>
>
>
The crucial premise (italicized above) purports to reveal a
contradiction that follows from the assumption that something exists
without a sufficient reason. Since "nothing" cannot both
be something and nothing at the same time (according to *PC*),
the conclusion (or *PSR*) is claimed to follow. This proof was
the subject of an incisive critique by Wolff's contemporary and
critic, Christian August Crusius (1715-75), who (among other
things) accuses Wolff of an equivocation with the term
"nothing", and once the two different meanings of this
term are identified (*viz*. nothing as the opposite of
something, on one hand, and nothing as a non-being, on the other), the
supposed contradiction, purported to follow from the assumption,
cannot be established (Crusius 1741).
In any case, for Wolff, the expression "to provide the reason of
something" can be taken in two different ways. On the one hand,
if the something for which a reason is provided is regarded solely as
a possible thing, then "reason" stands to account for why
that thing (as a possible thing) is the possible thing that it is.
According to Wolff, every being is endowed with an essential nature.
Possible things have natures insofar as they as are comprised of a
number of non-contradictory determinations or predicates. Different
sets of determinations, and the relationships among these
determinations, serve as the principle of individualization within the
realm of possible things. Hence, to provide the reason for a possible
thing is simply to enumerate the determinations that make that thing
the kind of possible thing that it is. A reason, in this sense, is
regarded by Wolff as *ratio essendi* or the "reason of
being".
If, on the other hand, the something to which a reason is provided is
an actual (i.e., existing) thing, then "reason" stands to
explain why that thing as an actual thing comes into existence.
Reason, in this sense, is regarded as *ratio fiendi* or the
"reason of becoming". Recall that for Wolff existence is
simply a predicate or determination of possible things. A familiar
expression appearing in Wolff's writings is that existence is
"the complement of possibility" (Ont. SS174). The
basic idea here is that existence, as a predicate, perfects a possible
thing by making it actual and a "real individual". Real
individuals differ from nominal beings insofar as the former are
"complete and determinate". To be "complete and
determinate", in Wolff's sense of the expression, means
that every aspect or determination of a thing can be specified and
that its determinations are sufficient to individuate it from all
other things. Nominal beings, although "complete", are
indeterminate (cf. GL: c. 1, SS15). That is to say, although there
is a certain set of specifiable determinations that is sufficient to
pick out a given possible thing among all possible things, the total
set of its determinations is not specifiable. A being, in the most
general sense, is comprised of three different types of
determinations: *essentialia*, attributes, and modes. Essential
determinations define the essential nature of a being and a
being's attributes follow from, or are determined by, its
*essentialia*. Whereas *essentialia* and attributes are
both necessary properties of a thing, modes are contingent or
accidental properties. Thus to say a nominal being is indeterminate is
to say that there are modes of it that may or may not be present. In
the weakest sense, since existence is a mode, and nominal beings do
not exist (as such) but are able to come into existence under certain
conditions, all nominal beings are indeterminate.
Discerning the difference between the "reason of being"
and the "reason of becoming" is important for
understanding the different ways Wolff employs *PSR* in his
exposition of metaphysics. Depending on how exactly
"reason" is interpreted, the principle, "nothing is
without a sufficient reason for why it is rather than not" may
apply either to the realm of possibility or to the realm of actual
reality. Toward the end of his *Ontologia*, Wolff makes an
attempt to recognize formally two different versions of *PSR*
as "the Principle of Being" and "the Principle of
Becoming" respectively (Ont. SS866). As a Principle of
Being, *PSR* stands as a definition of a thing's
essential nature. Yet as a Principle of Becoming, *PSR* serves
to furnish the causes, or grounds, for why a real individual comes
into actuality.
It is on the basis of *PC* and *PSR* that Wolff proceeds
to explicate the fundamental concepts of his ontology. Recall that for
Wolff a being in the most general sense is any possible thing.
Possible things have essential natures insofar as they are composed of
a number of non-contradictory determinations or predicates. The
essence of any given possible thing is its principle of being, or
principle of individualization. Whereas the essence of a simple being
is defined by its essential properties, the essence of a composite
being is defined by the manner in which its parts are combined
together. In SS532 of his *Ontologia*, Wolff explains:
>
>
> A being is called composed which is made up of many parts distinct
> from each other. The parts of which a composite being is composed
> constitute a composite through the link which makes the many parts
> taken together a unit of a definite kind.
>
>
>
In one respect, simple beings and composite beings are not simply two
different species of beings. It is not the case, for example, that
within the realm of all possible things simple beings exist separate
from, and in addition to, composite beings. More accurately, at the
nominal level of reality simples and composites result from an
epistemological distinction imposed by a perceiving mind in its
analysis of what "exists" (i.e., exists in a nominal
sense). Strictly speaking, the only substantial things to exist at any
level of reality are simple substances. Simples are defined by their
*essentialia*, and to borrow an expression from Gilson,
*essentialia* are both "compatible and prime"
(Gilson 1952: 114). That is to say, the essential properties that
define a given simple substance do not contradict one another, or
cancel each other out, and they are (themselves) not determined by any
other thing and/or property. In this light, Wolff's notion of
substance is perhaps best regarded as a notion of essence, where each
simple substance is a different set of compatible and prime essential
properties (see Burns 1966: 26 and Gilson, 1952: 115). Furthermore,
essential properties should not be viewed as the accidents of
substance because, according to Wolff, they are the substance itself.
In Wolff's system, the accidents of substance are the properties
that exist by virtue of a thing's *essentialia*. And
according to Wolff, there are three basic classes of accidents: proper
attributes, common attributes, and modes (Ont. SS148).
Proper and common attributes of substance follow from and are
determined by a thing's *essentialia*. Proper attributes
are the properties of a thing that are determined by all the
*essentialia* taken together, and common attributes are the
properties of a thing that are determined by only some, but not all,
its *essentialia*. Attributes (as such) are perhaps best
understood as necessary accidents, since they are determined by and
necessarily follow from a thing's *essentialia*. Modes,
in contrast, are only contingent accidents of substance. They are the
properties of a thing that may or may not be present, and if actually
present, they are causally the result of some contingent state of
affairs. More precisely, the possible presence of any given mode
follows from a substance's *essentialia*, but the actual
presence of a given mode is the result of something outside the
substance's essence that is causally responsible for its
presence in a being. At the nominal level of reality, composite beings
exist insofar as the accidents of a certain simple substance, or set
of simple substances, are linked and/or arranged together in a certain
sort of way. In SS789 of his *Ontologia*, Wolff writes:
>
>
> [t]he essence of a composite being consists only in mere accidents for
> the essence of a composite consists in the manner in which its parts
> are combined with one another.
>
>
>
### 5.2 Cosmology
The notion of "extended-composite" lies at the heart of
Wolff's doctrine of the world-whole. Cosmology, as a special
metaphysical science, is the study of the world-whole in general. The
world, as such, is an extended composite of extended composites. In
SS544 of his *German Metaphysics*, Wolff explains:
>
>
> The world is a collection of mutable things that are next to each
> other, follow upon one another, but which are overall connected with
> one another.
>
>
>
In precise terms, Wolff believes the world is an extended whole that
is composed of a finite number of interacting physical bodies. To
better understand the types of cosmological claims that Wolff defends
about the universe, it is perhaps helpful to consider first his
conception of physical bodies. Ultimately, the conclusions that Wolff
draws at the macroscopic level about the world-whole are simply
extrapolated from his analysis of physical bodies. After considering
Wolff's analysis of body, this section will conclude with an
overview of Wolff's view of space, time and material
extension.
Wolff's analysis of physical bodies is given from two different
perspectives. First is the "bottom-up" metaphysical
account of bodies, where bodies are defined as aggregates of simple
substances, and second is the "top-down" mechanistic
description, where the reality of bodies, given by the testimony of
the senses, is explained in terms of interacting primitive
*corpusula* (or corpuscles). To facilitate our discussion, we
should identify the three levels of description that Wolff employs
when giving his two perspective account. Identifying these three
different levels is helpful in understanding at what respective point
the mechanical and metaphysical accounts each terminate or bottom
out.
The ground floor (so to speak) is the atomic level that is occupied by
a "multitude" of simple substances. Unlike simple
substances at the nominal level of reality that lack the "mode
of existence", simples at the atomic level are real individuals
(i.e., complete and determinate, actually existing beings). In
addition to the term "simples", Wolff also refers to these
occupants of the atomic level as "elements" and
"atoms of nature" (*atomi naturae*). Atomic
elements (as such) are conceived by Wolff to be "unextended
points of force" that lack internal motion (*motus
intestinus*) but yet remain in a constant state of change. Each
atomic element is defined, or individuated, by its own distinctive
internal state and each is considered to be indivisible in-itself.
Although later Wolffians, such as Baumeister, would eventually refer
to Wolff's atomic elements as "monads", there is at
least one important respect in which Wolff's atomic elements are
different from Leibniz's monads (Baumeister 1747: 226). Leibniz
conceives monads as simple unextended substances, and hence Leibnizian
monads are "windowless" substances that do not interact or
influence one another. Wolff's atomic elements, in contrast, do
interact and have real dynamic influence over each
other.[4]
The second level of description that Wolff employs when giving his
account of bodies is the microphysical level. The occupants of this
level are the primitive parts of bodies which Wolff calls corpuscles
or material atoms. In SS186 of his *Cosmologia*, Wolff
provides a helpful contrast between atoms of nature, on one hand, and
material atoms, on the other:
>
>
> That is called an atom of nature which is indivisible in itself
> because it is devoid of parts into which it can be divided. That is
> called a material atom which in itself is able to be divided, but for
> actually dividing it, existing causes in *rerum natura* are not
> adequate.[5]
>
>
>
Material atoms or corpuscles are indivisible in the sense that there
is nothing within the world that is capable of reducing them into
further parts. Corpuscles represent the lowest level of explanation
that is possible within a mechanical account of bodies. Similar to the
atomic level, the microphysical level lies beyond the boundaries of
human perception. Wolff believes that although corpuscles are
extended, fill space, and are endowed with the "force of
inertia", a precise statement of their size, magnitude, and
shape cannot be empirically determined. It is unclear, for example,
whether all corpuscles retain homogeneity with respect to their
magnitude and shape. Yet because corpuscles are a species of composite
beings, Wolff is confident that the essence of a corpuscle consists in
the manner in which its parts are joined together. A corpuscle is an
aggregate of atomic elements. Its component parts are simply the
unextended points of force that occupy the atomic level.
The third level of description that Wolff employs when giving his
account of bodies is the level of appearance or sensible reality. It
is at this level that bodies and their phenomenal properties, such as
extension, the force of inertia, and motor force (*vis
motrix*), are described in mechanistic terms. In SS793 of his
*Ontologia*, Wolff writes:
>
>
> I prefer that aggregates of simple substances, namely, those compound
> beings of which the material world is composed, be called bodies
> rather than simple substances...
>
>
>
In a strict sense, a body is considered by Wolff to be a composite of
composites. The interacting atomic elements (conceived as unextended
points of force) give rise to primitive corpuscles and from the
cohesion of corpuscles, a body is thereby constituted at the level of
appearance. Wolff writes, " ... each body has its origin in
that which is not extended, although it is itself extended"
(*Cosmologia*, SS223). At the level of appearance, bodies
display a number of determinate properties. Each body has a
specifiable size or magnitude (i.e., it can be measured), it occupies
a fixed space or place (insofar as it is extended), it displays a
certain shape, and it is divisible to the primitive corpuscles from
which it is composed. Yet, according to Wolff, the properties of
bodies should not be considered as the accidents of anything
substantial because bodies are merely phenomenal manifestations of
real, interacting, atomic elements. Even the principal properties of
bodies used in the analysis of bodily change and motion (i.e., the
properties used in mechanics), such as extension, the force of
inertia, and motor force, are deemed by Wolff to be phenomenal
properties.
Now according to Wolff all sensible properties of bodies should be
considered as secondary (or mind-dependent) qualities. In SS144 of
his *Cosmologia*, Wolff writes: "...extension is a
phenomenon in the same sense in which color is accustomed to be called
a phenomenon...". And somewhat later in this same work, he
states in SS298: "[t]he force of inertia is called a
phenomenon in the same sense in which all sensible qualities are
called phenomena". Perhaps the best way to understand
Wolff's view of sensible properties is to consider a quick
comparison with Locke's corpuscularian view of bodies. For
Locke, the primary qualities of bodies, such as extension, solidity,
shape, size and texture give rise to the secondary qualities that we
perceive in bodies, such as color, sound, taste, smell and
temperature. According to Locke, secondary qualities are nothing in
the objects themselves but are the result of certain
"powers" inherent in the primary qualities of things which
effect various sensations in us, such as the sensation of a certain
color or temperature. Thus it is by virtue of a body's
micro-structure that we are able to perceive its secondary qualities.
Wolff, for the most part, accepts this causal-corpuscularian theory of
secondary qualities. However, unlike Locke, Wolff believes that all
sensible properties are secondary qualities that result from a
body's atomic structure. In very simplistic terms, sensible
properties are for Wolff what color, sound, taste, smell and
temperature are for Locke. For both philosophers, secondary qualities
are phenomenal and mind-dependent properties having their causal
origin in some objective (i.e., mind-independent) reality. For Locke,
this reality is the independently existing corpuscles that comprise
the material world; and for Wolff, this reality is the unextended
points of force, or simple substances, that occupy his atomic level
cf. Cosm. SS191).
Before explaining Wolff's view of how extended composites come
into being (i.e., the causal process that allows us to form our ideas
of extended objects), it is necessary to say a few prefatory words
about his view of space and time. The notions of "place"
and "space", on one hand, and the notion of
"time", on the other, figure in at different stages of
Wolff's exposition of extended reality.
First and foremost, there is an important distinction in Wolff's
cosmology between "general space" and "particular
space". Particular space (or a given place) is what an extended
body "fills" or "occupies" by virtue of its
corpuscular parts (Cosm. SSSS122-4). Its reality is
derivative of the interacting atomic elements that give rise to
individual corpuscles. For Wolff, a corpuscle's place simply
results from a corpuscle's extension. A given place is conceived
as an imaginary immobile container that has the same dimensions as the
extended thing that occupies it (Ont. SSSS676-9).
General space, in contrast, is conceived as the perceived order of
coexisting bodies. As explained above, the existence of bodies is
established by Wolff experientially and amounts to an instance of
historical cognition. In SS45 and SS46 of his *German
Metaphysics*, Wolff explains:
>
>
> If we pay attention to ourselves [as thinking things], we will find
> that we are conscious of many things outside ourselves. However, we
> set them apart from us in that we recognize that they are
> distinguishable from us, just in the same way as they are set beside
> each other, we recognize they are distinguishable from each
> other.... In that there are many things now which exist at the
> same time and which are presented apart (and yet at the same time
> different) from each other, such things come into being under a
> certain order. And as soon as we perceive this order we perceive
> space. Therefore, if we do not want to examine the matter differently
> than we recognize it, we must assume space is the order of such things
> which are simultaneous.
>
>
>
Wolff's derivation of general space essentially involves three
steps. First, knowledge of the self, as a thinking thing, affords a
distinction between consciousness, on one hand, and consciousness of
external things, on the other. Second, since that which is conscious
(*viz.* the self) is different from that of which it is
conscious (*viz.* the world), the self can recognize the
historical and mathematical fact that it is conscious of many external
things at one time (i.e., the world as a plurality). And third, since
this empirical fact affords knowledge of real existences, the order or
way the self represents these things is what becomes known as space.
To borrow Kant's terminology, Wolffian space lacks
"objective reality" because it is simply abstracted from
the coexistence of things in the world, and therefore takes on purely
a subjective character (cf. Beck 1969: 270).
In contrast to his theories of place and general space, Wolff holds a
much more realistic theory of time. In a strict sense, place and space
serve an explanatory role for Wolff at two distinct levels of
description (*viz*. the micro-physical level and the level of
appearance). Since atomic elements are unextended, the concepts of
place and space are considered by Wolff to be extraneous at the atomic
level. Time, however, is not. Atomic elements are in time insofar as
each element is in a constant state of change. In his most general
description of time, Wolff writes: "[t]ime is the order of
successive things in a continuous series" (Ont. SS572).
Since each atomic element produces in-itself a constant and continuous
series of changes, time is regarded by Wolff as the objective measure
of such changes. One clear statement of the Wolffian view of the
relationship between time and change can be found in a letter to Kant
(dated 13 October 1770) from Johann Heinrich Lambert. Lambert
(1728-77) writes:
>
>
> All changes are bound to time and are inconceivable without time. If
> changes are real, then time is real, whatever it may be. If time is
> unreal, then no change can be real. I think, though, that even an
> idealist must grant at least that changes really exist and occur in
> his representations, for example, their beginning and ending. Thus
> time cannot be regarded as something unreal. It is not a substance,
> and so on, but a finite determination of duration, and like duration,
> it is somehow real in whatever this reality may consists (AA
> 10:107\*\*\*AA?\*).
>
>
>
For Wolff, Lambert, and Moses Mendelssohn, time is real insofar as it
is an objective measure of change (cf. Falkenstein 1991 for
discussion). Change is a constant feature of existing reality in that
real individuals are finite and created beings with a determinate
duration. Real individuals come into and go out of existence. Time,
therefore, is applicable to the series of changes that occur within a
given individual and, in the same respect, it is applicable to the
totality of all the individuals that compose the world-whole. Thus for
Wolff there is a meaningful sense in which real individuals and the
world-whole (itself) are "in time". This is not to say,
however, that time is granted its own ontological existence. In
Lambert's words, time is not a substance (i.e., something real
in-and-of itself). More precisely, time is the measure of the
objective order of change that real things undergo.
Understanding the sense in which atomic elements are "in
time" is important for grasping the manner in which
Wolff's atomic elements interact. Since atomic elements lack
extension, the nature of atomic interaction is not spatial. It is not
the case, for example, that Wolff's simple substances influence
one another by physical contact and repulsion. Instead, atomic
elements as unextended points of force affect, and are responsive to,
degrees of change by communicating with each other in time. The series
of changes internal to a given atomic element are the result of its
own power (or motor force) as well as the motor forces of other
elements to which it is connected. Ultimately Wolff believes that it
is the interacting forces of a multitude of simple substances that
gives rise to our idea of an extended object. In particular, we
perceive extended objects at the level of appearance insofar as there
are unextended points of force interacting in time at the atomic
level. Our confused perception of this temporal interaction results in
the idea of an extended object. Similarly to Locke, Wolff believes
that it is the primitive qualities of a composite that produce, or
effect in us, the various ideas we have of its secondary qualities.
Since all sensible properties are considered by Wolff to be secondary
qualities, extension, or a composite's extendedness, results
from the primitive forces of a composite at the atomic level. The
analogy that Wolff presents to help explain the phenomenal
manifestation of extension involves a rapidly ringing bell (Cosm.
SS789; cf. Burns 1966: 52). According to Wolff, just as the
impression we gain from a rapidly ringing bell is the sound of one
prolonged peal, where the successive strikes of a bell's clacker
are perceived as one monomial sound, our impression of extension is
likewise the result of many successively acting atomic forces that
give rise to our confused perception of one continuous extended
object.
The notion of "extended-composite", as already mentioned,
is what ultimately stands at the heart of Wolff's doctrine of
the world-whole. Insofar as the world is a composite being, it follows
from the principles of Wolff's ontology that the world's
essence consists in the manner in which its parts are linked together.
The world's parts, as described from the standpoint of
appearance, are simply the multitude of interacting physical bodies
that are perceived in everyday life. And, if described from a
metaphysical standpoint, the world's parts are conceived by
Wolff to be the interacting unextended points of force that occupy his
atomic level. Yet regardless of what standpoint or level of
description is employed, it is clear that a necessary condition of the
world's existence is that its parts need to be interconnected.
According to Wolff, the world is conceived as a substantial whole
(*totum substantiale*) by virtue of the fact that all of its
parts form real reciprocal connections with one another. On the basis
of this "interconnection-thesis" the world is defined
formally by Wolff as "a whole which is not also a
part".
### 5.3 Psychology (Empirical and Rational)
While the soul, as a simple substance, is understood to be a part of
the world, and so is implicated in the treatment of cosmology, this
does not exhaust what can be known of it, a fact that leads Wolff to
treat it as a separate topic of metaphysics. Indeed, Wolff's
psychology constitutes one of his signal and most historically
influential innovations. Most generally, insofar as Wolff seeks to
offer a scientific account of the *human* soul specifically,
and indeed with a focus on its cognitive and conative functions, his
psychology represents a significant, and distinctly modern, departure
from both the treatment of the soul in the context of a generic
science of living things, still prevalent among Aristotelian natural
philosophers in seventeenth century Germany, and from the metaphysical
treatment of the soul in the context of a pneumatology, or doctrine of
finite *and* infinite spirit (Stiening 2003, Vidal 2011). More
narrowly, Wolff's principal, and best-known innovation in
psychology consists in his clear separation between two distinct
investigations of the soul, the first based on the observation of
one's own mind, identified as *empirical psychology*, and
the second which seeks to use reasoning to uncover truths about the
soul that are not readily disclosed by experience, identified as
*rational psychology*.
Wolff's distinction between empirical and rational psychology
proved to be enormously consequential, but no less important (if less
well attended to) is the fact that these disciplines remain
intrinsically connected. For Wolff, the observations catalogued in the
course of empirical psychology serve as principles for the inferences
of rational psychology, and the resulting findings on the part of
rational psychology serve to guide our empirical observation in search
of confirmation. Thus, Wolff writes, that which everyone can
experience of themselves will serve "as a principle for deriving
something else that not everyone can immediately see for
themselves" (GM: SS191), and that which is known of the soul
from experience "is the touchstone [*Probier-Stein*] of
that which is taught [in rational psychology] of its nature and
essence" (GM: SS727). Rather than constituting distinct
disciplines, empirical and rational psychology amount to complementary
parts of a *single* science, working together in the same way
in which observation and theory co-operate in astronomy (EP: SS5).
Consequently, Wolff's rational psychology is not to be
identified as a narrowly *rationalistic* psychology, insofar as
the latter is taken to intend a science of the soul that proceeds
*completely* independently of experience. Nor is this
interdependence of the two parts of psychology an aberration as Wolff
takes their union as exemplifying his ideal for science of a
*connubium rationis et experientiae* (EP: SS497; cf., Dyck
2014, Rumore 2018).
Turning first to empirical psychology, Wolff's treatment can be
divided into four parts: (1) the initial consideration of the human
soul in an attempt to arrive at an initial definition; the
consideration of the soul's (2) cognitive faculty and (3)
appetitive faculty; and (4) a consideration of what can be known of
the soul's relation to the body through experience. In the first
part, Wolff begins, in Cartesian fashion, by first considering the
grounds for our certainty in the existence of the soul (EP:
SS11-14). Wolff begins by asserting that we are conscious of
ourselves and other things, which he takes to be confirmed by our own
indubitable experience (for to doubt it would presuppose such
consciousness), and inasmuch as anything that is so conscious must
exist, a claim Wolff identifies as an identical proposition or axiom
(cf. GL: c. 3, SS13), it follows that we can be certain that we
exist. Wolff conveniently reconstructs this as a syllogism:
>
> * Whatever being is conscious of its self and of other things
> outside of it, exists.
> * We are actually conscious of ourselves and of things outside of
> us.
> * Therefore, we exist. (EP: SS16)
>
>
>
In addition to assuring ourselves of the indubitability of the
knowledge of our own existence (cf. Euler 2003), this initial
consideration supplies a touchstone for what will count as
demonstratively certain, but also provides the elements for a nominal
definition of the soul. Thus, the soul is identified just as
"that being in us which is conscious of itself and other things
outside of it" (EP: SS20) which, as an existing thing, can
serve as the object of empirical psychology.
The next task for empirical psychology consists in cataloguing the
various capacities that the soul has, which Wolff brings under two
general headings: the cognitive faculty (*facultas
cognoscendi*) and the appetitive faculty (*facultas
appetendi*). Relevant to the distinction between (sub-)faculties
in both cases is the distinction, borrowed from Leibniz, between
obscure and clear perception (where the latter but not the former
suffices for recognition of the perceived thing), and (clear but)
confused and (clear and) distinct perception (where the latter but not
the former involves the ability to explicate what serves to
distinguish the perceived thing from others). Accordingly, both the
cognitive and appetitive faculty are distinguished into lower and
higher parts, where the lower includes capacities relating to ideas
and notions that are obscure or clear but confused, and the higher
those relating to ideas and notions that are distinct (EP:
SSSS54-5, 584). (It bears noting that Wolff also
distinguishes between obscure and clear perceptions inasmuch as the
former are not *apperceived* but the latter are; cf. EP:
SSSS25, 35; RP: SS20, and for discussion see Wunderlich
2005 and Thiel 2011).
Among the faculties Wolff considers within the lower cognitive faculty
are the faculty of sense, imagination, the fictive faculty, and
memory. Sense, which includes the five sensory modalities, is
understood as the capacity for sensations, where these are perceptions
the reason for which is contained in the organs of our bodies, given
the presence of an external thing (EP: SSSS67, 65).
Imagination, by contrast, is the faculty for producing perceptions in
the absence of sensible things. Wolff further claims that the
imagination's activity is guided by a general (associative) law
that, when we have perceived things together (as parts of a whole, for
instance, or as contiguous in space), if the perception of one is
produced, then the imagination supplies the perception of the other
(EP: SS117). It is the imagination that is likewise responsible
for the order of ideas in dreams. The fictive faculty (*facultas
fingendi*) is our capacity to combine or divide the products of
the imagination to create new representations (SS144), and memory
is defined as the faculty through which we *recognize*
reproduced ideas as previously had (SS175).
Where the lower cognitive faculty handles the generation and
(re)production of obscure and confused ideas, the higher cognitive
faculty encompasses the capacities and operations through which we
introduce clarity and distinctness into those ideas. Accordingly,
Wolff first considers the faculties of attention, whereby we introduce
more clarity into a part of a composite perception (EP: SS237),
and reflection, through which we successively direct attention to what
we perceive (as well as, in a Lockian vein, to the soul and its
operations--SS261) and thereby make distinct perception
possible (SS266). The capacity for distinct representation in
general is identified as the understanding, which can be pure or
non-pure depending on whether it admits confused representations,
though since these are unavoidable in the case of the human being, our
understanding is never pure (EP: SSSS313-4; for general
discussion see Chance 2018). With an eye to his discussion of logic, Wolff further
distinguishes three operations of the intellect with respect to its
cognitions: simple apprehension (through which notions or
representations of what is common to multiple things are formed),
judgment (through which agreement or disagreement between
representations is asserted), and discursion or reasoning (where
judgments are formed on the basis of previous judgments) (EP:
SSSS325, 366-7; cf. Dyck 2016, Rumore 2018). This latter
operation informs Wolff's definition of the *faculty* of
reason as the capacity to perceive the interconnection among universal
truths (SS483), though Wolff again emphasizes that our reason is
never pure but is always to some extent reliant upon
*experience* (SSSS495-7).
Where the discussion of the cognitive faculty is relevant to
Wolff's aims in logic and metaphysics, the treatment of the
appetitive faculty in empirical psychology is significant for
Wolff's practical philosophy. Wolff likewise distinguishes the
appetitive faculty into lower and higher parts, where the distinction
turns on whether there is an obscure or confused cognition of the good
or evil (grounding a sensory desire or aversion), or a distinct
cognition of the good or evil (grounding our act of willing or not
willing). In connection with the latter, Wolff takes up the issue of
freedom. He rejects the conception of freedom in terms of a capacity
to act contrary to determining motives as counter to our experience
and to the principle of sufficient reason (EP: SS944), and instead
defends a (Leibnizian) compatibilist conception, in accordance with
which a freely willed act involves a distinct cognition of the
perfection of some thing (which generates a motive to act in its
favor); is spontaneous, or has its reason within the agent (insofar as
the agent chooses it because it is pleasing); and is contingent, or
the agent is not determined to choose it through its essence (EP:
SSSS933-41; cf. Kawamura 1996; Dyck forthcoming[a]).
Lastly, but importantly, empirical psychology takes up the
distinctively early modern problem of what can be experienced of the
soul's relation to the body. Here Wolff notes that we experience
that some states of the soul depend upon the body (such as
sensations), and some states of the body depend upon the soul (such as
voluntary actions), such that the body and soul stand in a union or
*commercium*. Nonetheless, Wolff contends (following
Malebranche and in anticipation of Hume) that we have no experience of
the causal power through which the soul influences the body and vice
versa, but rather that our experience only confirms the general
agreement between the states of each without penetrating to its ground
(EP: SSSS961-2).
In turning to the rational consideration of the soul, Wolff's
aim is not to determine what can be known completely independently of
experience but rather to employ what has been discerned in empirical
psychology as principles from which its demonstrations proceed and as
cognitions for which reasons are to be given (RP:
SSSS3-4; Richards 1980). Conforming to this, the topics
of rational psychology proceed from those which are closest to and
draw most heavily from empirical psychology, such as the account of
our soul's nature and essence, to the increasingly more
speculative topics, such as the defense of the pre-established harmony
to the demonstration of the soul's immortality and consideration
of its state after death.
The determination of the soul's nature and essence sets out from
the definition of the soul given in empirical psychology as that in us
which is conscious of itself and other things. Wolff argues that this
consciousness is the result of a complex activity that involves
reflection on and comparison of parts of a given perception as well as
attention and memory (RP: SSSS22-3, 25). Given this,
Wolff contends, the soul must be distinct from body since such an act
cannot be explained in terms of a change in figure, magnitude, or the
location of parts, through which alone changes in body are possible.
Similar considerations serve to show that no composite can think, and
thus that the soul, as conscious, must not be composite and is
therefore simple, and indeed, a simple substance, since it perdures
through changes in its thoughts (RP: SSSS44, 47-8). That
the soul is a substance further implies for Wolff (as it did for
Leibniz) that it is endowed with a power, understood as a sufficient
reason for the actuality of the states that are possible for it
through its faculties (RP: SSSS54-5; cf. Blackwell 1961,
Hessbruggen-Walter 2004). Wolff proceeds to determine the
character of this power (which must be a single one given the
soul's simplicity), and he concludes that, because sensations
are representations of the world in accordance with the position of
the organic body, and because all of the representations the soul is
capable of are derived from sensations, it follows that the
soul's power is just a power of representing the world in
accordance with the position of the body, which power Wolff finally
identifies as the essence and nature of the soul (RP:
SSSS64-9).
Rational psychology also takes up the question of what best explains
the agreement between the states of the soul and the body. Wolff
considers three possible systems that purport to explain this
agreement: (i) the system of physical influx, according to which one
substance produces a state in another directly through its own
activity (RP: SSSS558-60), (ii) the (Cartesian) system
of occasional causes, according to which God modifies one substance on
the occasion of some state arising in another
(SSSS589-91); and (iii) the (Leibnizian) system of
pre-established harmony, where the agreement between states of
substances is the result of God's initial activity in
actualizing this world of substances (SSSS612-13). Wolff
provides a number of familiar objections to the first two systems,
claiming for instance, that physical influx conflicts with the laws of
physics (cf. SSSS578-9), and that occasionalism relies
on what amounts to a perpetual miracle (cf. SS603), while
defending the pre-established harmony from similar criticisms (cf.
Watkins 2005: 45-51). Even so, given that any possible
explanation cannot be confirmed or rejected by experience (as was
disclosed at the conclusion of empirical psychology), each of these
systems amounts to a mere *hypothesis*, and Wolff's
conclusion is only that the pre-established harmony is a more
*probable* hypothesis than the other two (RP: SSSS503,
685; cf. Dyck 2014: 34-6), though he thinks that nothing
significant turns on settling this contentious issue.
The last major topic Wolff turns to is the most speculative, namely,
the demonstration of the soul's immortality of the soul and its
state after death. Immortality is taken to presuppose the
incorruptibility of the soul, that is, that the soul does not
naturally pass away after the death of the body, but (contrary to the
Cartesians) Wolff does not think that this is all that is involved as
any immortality worth having (and that would be consistent with
Scripture) must also extend to the preservation of the soul's
capacity for distinct perception (that is, its spirituality) and its
consciousness that it is the same being in the afterlife as it was
before the body's death (or its *personality*). The
soul's incorruptibility follows straightforwardly from the fact
that it is simple (and so incapable of decomposition); inductive
grounds are offered in favor of the soul's preservation of its
spirituality (namely, that the clarity of the soul's perceptions
is enhanced in all "great changes"--RP: SS745);
and the soul's maintenance of its personality is shown by
reference to the law of imagination in accordance with which its
subsequent perceptions will lead it to recall previous ones. The
relative merits of these arguments were hotly debated, with especially
notable contributions by Wolff's colleague in Halle, G. F.
Meier, and later by Mendelssohn (in his famous *Phaedo*), and
ultimately Kant (for discussion, see Sassen 2008; Dyck 2014:
141-72).
### 5.4 Natural Theology
Wolff's treatment of metaphysics concludes with a consideration
of natural theology defined as "the science of those things that
are possible through God" (NT: I, SS1, see Corr 1973). Yet, at the same
time, natural theology also provides a bottom-up justification for
metaphysics insofar as metaphysics is concerned with actual existing
beings of a contingent, and so created, reality. Wolff indicates that
natural theology has two principle aims: (1) to prove the existence of
God and (2) to determine what pertains to the essence and attributes
of God, and what follows from these.
Concerning the demonstration of God's existence, Wolff had
offered criticisms (much to the chagrin of his Pietist opponents) of a
variety of traditional proofs early in his career (cf. Theis 2018:
221-3). In his *Natural Theology*, however, Wolff
presents and defends two proofs: an *a posteriori* proof
presented at the outset of the first volume, and an *a priori*
proof provided at the beginning of the second. Wolff's *a
posteriori* proof sets out from the fact (elaborated at the outset
of empirical psychology) that we exist, and proceeds to argue that the
reason for our existence must be found in a necessary being:
>
>
> The human soul exists or we exist. Since nothing is without a
> sufficient reason why it is rather than is not, a sufficient reason
> must be given why our soul exists, or why we exist. Now this reason is
> contained in ourselves or in some other being diverse from us. But if
> you maintain that we have the reason of our existence in a being
> which, in turn, has the reason of its existence in another, you will
> not arrive at the sufficient reason unless you come to a halt at some
> being which does have the sufficient reason of its own existence in
> itself. Therefore, either we ourselves are the necessary being, or
> there is given a necessary being other and diverse from us.
> Consequently, a necessary being exists (NT: I, SS24).
>
>
>
From there, Wolff argues that the necessary being must also be
independent, or have its sufficient reason in itself, and cannot have
a beginning or end in time or is eternal. As such, the necessary being
cannot be identified with the world (which is composite) or anything
within it (since these have a beginning and end); moreover, it cannot
be identified with the soul since unlike the soul it does not depend
on the world. Therefore, the necessary being is identified as God,
understood as an independent being in which the reason for the
actuality of the world and the soul is found (NT: I, SS67, see Corr 1973).
By contrast, Wolff's *a priori* proof for God's
existence proceeds from the identification of God as the most perfect
being (*ens perfectissimum*):
>
>
> God contains all compossible realities in the absolutely highest
> degree. But He is possible. Wherefore, since the possible can exist,
> existence can belong to it. Consequently, since existence is a
> reality, and since realities are compossible which can belong to a
> being, existence is in the class of compossible realities. Moreover,
> necessary existence is the absolutely highest degree. Therefore,
> necessary existence belongs to God or, what is the same, God
> necessarily exists (NT: II, SS21, see Corr 1973).
>
>
>
From the notion of a most perfect being, Wolff purports to prove God
is an *ens realissimum* (or most real existing being). However,
like Leibniz before him commenting on the Cartesian ontological proof,
Wolff believes God must first be shown to be possible in order to be
shown to exist. According to Wolff, arriving at the knowledge of God
as an *ens perfectissimum* involves first contemplating the
attributes that are present in the human soul, to a limited degree,
and then extrapolating those attributes as unlimited qualities to God.
Things are compossible insofar as they can coexist in the same
subject. Since existence is a mode or reality for Wolff, existence is
considered to fall within the class of compossible realities. And just
as it is better to exist than not to exist, it is better to exist
necessarily than just to exist contingently, therefore Wolff concludes
that God's existence is necessary.
With God's existence assured, Wolff considers what can be known
of Him. God is taken to have an understanding, consisting in His
distinct representation of all possible worlds and which
representation itself originates from the divine essence (NT: II,
SSSS81, 84). God is also shown to have a will, through which
He chooses one possible world to make actual, and since God's
choice in doing so finds its sufficient reason in his distinct
cognition of the supreme perfection of that world, Wolff identifies
God's will as *free* (in the same sense of freedom
presented in the empirical psychology, albeit in the highest possible
degree--NT: II, SS277). Wolff additionally considers
God's *wisdom*, which consists in His choice of the
appropriate means to realize His end in creation, namely, the
manifestation of His own glory and perfection (NT: I, SS629), and
*goodness*, which consists in His conferring of as much
goodness on creatures as is consistent with His wisdom (NT: I,
SSSS697-9).
While these discussions conclude the proper subject matter of natural
theology, in the second half of the second volume Wolff additionally
turns to critically examining various systems of atheism and radical
thought. Significantly, among the views discussed is
*Spinozism*, and indeed his treatment is considerably detailed
(spanning SSSS671-716 of the second volume), likely
reflecting the fact that Wolff had himself faced a persistent
accusation of supporting Spinoza on the part of his Pietist critics.
In contrast, however, with other discussions of Spinoza by
philosophers of this period, Wolff's does not trade in
convenient caricatures or speculation concerning the real (immoral)
motives behind Spinoza's thought but hews closely, if
critically, to the text of the *Ethics*. Wolff scrutinizes
Spinoza's definitions, particularly of God, substance,
attribute, mode, and finite thing (which he contrasts with their
proper definitions in the Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy), and
proceeds to show how these figure into Spinoza's account of
extension (NT: II, SSSS688-93), doctrine of bodies
(SSSS694-6), claims of the uniqueness and necessary
existence of substance (SSSS697-706), and his faulty
account of infinite thought as composed of an infinite number of
finite thinking things (SSSS707-8). Wolff's
discussion proved rather influential, with Mendelssohn echoing and
developing it, and the accuracy of Wolff's characterization of
Spinoza was also a point of discussion in the famous
*Pantheismusstreit* (cf. Beiser 1987: 103).
## 6. Practical Philosophy
The subject matter of Wolff's practical philosophy is restricted
to those things that have to do with human action. In Wolff's
Latin texts, practical philosophy is divided into four main
disciplines: universal practical philosophy, natural law, politics,
and moral philosophy. And just as ontology purportedly provides the
foundational underpinnings for the disciplines of "special
metaphysics" in the theoretical realm, universal practical
philosophy plays an analogous role for the disciplines of natural law,
politics, and moral philosophy in the practical realm.
A central and perhaps unifying concept in Wolff's practical
writings is the concept of "perfection". In an early
letter to Leibniz, dated 4 May 1715, Wolff explains the importance
that the concept serves in his ethics:
>
>
> I need the notion of perfection for dealing with morals. For, when I
> see that some actions tend toward our perfection and that of others,
> while others tend toward our imperfection and that of others, the
> sensation of perfection excites a certain pleasure [*voluptas*]
> and the sensation of imperfection a certain displeasure
> [*nausea*]. And the emotions [*affectus*], by virtue of
> which the mind is, in the end, inclined or disinclined, are
> modifications of this pleasure and displeasure; I explain the origin
> of natural obligation in this way... From this also comes the
> general rule or law of nature that our actions ought to be directed
> toward the highest perfection of ourselves and others. (Leibniz 1989a:
> 231-232)
>
>
>
According to Wolff, the ultimate goal of human action is to attain, or
at least approximate, the highest degree of perfection that is
possible. Humans, as individuals or groups, should strive for
perfection insofar as moral worth and goodness reside in the objective
essence of humankind. In a strict sense, each person is obligated by
the law of nature to instantiate perfection in his/her own life.
Actions that tend toward perfection produce pleasure and actions that
tend toward imperfection produce displeasure (or pain). In many
respects, this consequentialist feature of Wolff's ethical
theory resembles various forms of utilitarianism that were emerging in
England during the mid-to-late eighteenth century.
Also central to Wolff's practical philosophy is its autonomy
from theological doctrine. Although maintaining that a universal
ethics is certainly compatible with the teachings of Sacred Scripture,
Wolff is adamant that morality does not depend on revelation or
God's divine commands. Advocating the separation of philosophy
and religion is a theme that Wolff developed and defended throughout
his entire career and it is a feature of his thought that secures him
a place among other philosophers of Europe's Enlightenment.
## 7. Other Philosophical Contributions
Wolff's prominence in eighteenth-century Germany, and his
wide-ranging interests, have meant that he is an important figure in
the history of a number of established fields in the eighteenth
century, including mathematics, physics, political theory, and even
economics. Wolff also made notable, even pioneering contributions to
disciplines that were not as yet recognized as distinct areas of
philosophical inquiry. Wolff had, for instance, an early interest in
the philosophy of language, having devoted a dissertation to the topic
in 1703 (*Disquisitio philosophica de loquela*), an interest he
continued to pursue in subsequent discussions in his logical writings,
relating to semiotics and hermeneutics, and in his psychological
texts, concerning the relation between mental and linguistic entities
(see Favaretti Camposampiero 2018 for details). Wolff is also widely
recognized as a founding figure in the discipline of
aesthetics--while his only text devoted to the topic is a
treatise on civil architecture (a volume in a mathematical textbook),
Wolff's account of aesthetic pleasure in terms of the intuitive
cognition of perfection (EP: SS511), and identification of that
perfection as consisting in a unity in multiplicity, were taken up and
discussed by later aesthetic theorists, including A. G. Baumgarten
(the father of modern aesthetics), J. C. Gottsched, J. G. Sulzer
(1720-79), and Mendelssohn (see Beiser 2009; Buchenau 2013). |
wollstonecraft | ## 1. Biography
The second of seven children, Mary Wollstonecraft was born in
Spitalfields, London, on 27 April 1759, in a house on Primrose Street.
Her paternal grandfather was a successful master weaver who left a
sizeable legacy, but her father, Edward John, mismanaged his share of
the inheritance. He tried to establish himself as a gentleman farmer
in Epping. This was the first of the family's several moves, each of
which marked its financial and social decline. Only Mary's brother,
Edward (Ned), was to receive a formal education; he became a lawyer.
He had also inherited directly from his grandfather a substantial part
of the latter's legacy.
Wollstonecraft's own somewhat haphazard education was, however, not
entirely unusual for someone of her sex and position, nor was it
particularly deficient. Her published writings show her to have
acquired a true command of the Bible and a good knowledge of the works
of several of the most famous Ancient philosophers. The latter is
partly explained through her personal acquaintance with Thomas Taylor,
famed for his translations of Plato (Tomaselli 2019). She also drew on a variety of
early modern sources, such as Shakespeare and Milton's works. Through
her own writing for the *Analytical Review* she was to become
widely read in the literature of her period. Initially, the nature and
extent of her reading was partly owed to the friendship shown to her
in her youth by a retired clergyman and his wife. Nevertheless, as a
woman from an impecunious family, her prospects were very limited. In
relatively rapid succession, she was to enter the most likely
occupations for someone of her sex and circumstances: a lady's
companion, a schoolteacher, and a governess.
In 1778, she was engaged as a companion to a Mrs Dawson and lived at
Bath. She returned home to nurse her ailing mother in the latter part
of 1781. After Mrs Wollstonecraft's death, in the spring of 1782, Mary
lived with the Bloods, the impoverished family of her dearest friend,
Fanny. In the winter of 1783, Mary left them in order to attend to her
sister Eliza and her newly born daughter. There followed the first of
the emotionally very difficult episodes in Mary's life. What prompted
Mary to intervene as decisively as she did in her sister's marriage
remains somewhat of a mystery; but in the course of January 1784, Mary
took her sister away, and the two women went into hiding, leaving
Eliza's infant daughter behind; the baby died the following
August.
By February of that year, the two sisters had already been planning to
establish a school with Fanny Blood. Mary's other sister, Everina,
joined in the project a little later. They first set their sights on
Islington, then moved to Newington Green, where Mary met the moral and
political thinker, the Reverend Richard Price, head of Newington's
thriving Dissenting community, and heard him preach. This was a
crucial encounter for Mary. Several years later, she was to rise to
his defence in a *Vindication of* *the Rights of Men*
(1790), and it was through her connections to members of this
community that she was to gain an introduction to her future
publisher, friend, and one might even say, patron, Joseph Johnson.
In November 1785, Wollstonecraft set off on a trip to Lisbon, where
her friend Fanny, who had married that February, was expecting her
first child. On board the ship, Mary met a man suffering from
consumption; she nursed him for a fortnight, the length of the
journey. This experience is related in her first novel, *Mary, a
Fiction* (1788). She gained a very unfavourable opinion of
Portuguese life and society, which seemed to her ruled by
irrationality and superstitions. Mary's brief stay in Portugal was,
furthermore, to be a profoundly unhappy one, for both Fanny and her
baby died shortly after the delivery.
On her return to England, Wollstonecraft found her school in a dire
state. Far from providing her with a reliable income and some
stability, it was to be a source of endless worries and a financial
drain. Only Joseph Johnson's advance on her first
book, *Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: with Reflections on
Female Conduct in the more important Duties of Life* (1787) helped
ease her considerable financial difficulties. It consists of brief
discussions on such topics as 'Moral Discipline',
'Artificial Manners', 'Boardings-Schools',
'The Benefits Which Arise From Disappointments',
'The Observance of Sunday', and 'On the Treatment of
Servants'. Although it might seem somewhat cursory, this book
served as the groundwork for many of the topics to which she would
return in her more famous works of the 1790s.
Following the collapse of her school, Wollstonecraft became a
governess to the family of Lord Kingsborough for a brief and
unsatisfactory period. The position took her to Ireland, where she
completed *Mary, A Fiction*. On her return to London, Joseph
Johnson came to the rescue once again by giving her some literary
employment. In 1787, she also began, but never completed, *The Cave
of Fancy. A Tale*. The same year, she wrote *Original Stories
from Real Life; with Conversations, calculated to Regulate the
Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness* (1788); it
appeared in two other London editions in her life time (1791 and
1796), the last of which illustrated by William Blake.
Wollstonecraft's anthology, *The Female Reader; Miscellaneous
Pieces in Prose and Verse; Selected from the Best Writers and Disposed
under Proper Heads; for the Improvement of Young Women* (1789),
was compiled in the same period and published under the name of
'Mr. Cresswick, teacher of Elocution'; it pursues themes
to be found in her previous works and contains excerpts mostly from
the Bible and Shakespeare's plays, as well as many by various
eighteenth-century authors, such as Voltaire, Hume, Steele, Charlotte
Smith, and Madame de Genlis.
To understand the extent to which Wollstonecraft made up for the lack
of a formal education, it is essential to appreciate fully that her
talents were to extend to translating and reviewing, and that these
two activities, quite apart from her own intellectual curiosity,
acquainted her with a great many authors, including Leibniz and Kant.
She translated into English Jacques Necker's *Of the Importance of
Religious Opinions* (1788) from French, Rev. C. G. Salzmann's *Elements of Morality, for the Use of Children; with an Introductory
Address to Parents* (1790) from German, and Madame de Cambon's
*Young Grandison* (1790) from Dutch. In each case, the texts
she produced were almost as if her own, not just because she was in
agreement with their original authors, but because she more or less
re-wrote them. The Reverend Salzmann is unlikely to have resented her
for this, as he was to translate into German both *A Vindication of
the Rights of Woman* and William Godwin's *Memoirs of the
Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman* (1798).
Throughout the period covered by these translations Wollstonecraft
wrote for the *Analytical Review*, which her publisher, Joseph
Johnson, together with Thomas Christie, started in May 1788. She was
involved with this publication either as a reviewer or as editorial
assistant for most of its relatively short life. Despite her own
practice of the genre, her many reviews reveal the degree to which,
she, like many other moralists in the eighteenth century, feared the
moral consequences of reading novels. She believed that even those of
a relatively superior quality encouraged vanity and selfishness. She
was to concede, however, that reading such works might nonetheless be
better than not reading at all. Besides novels, Wollstonecraft
reviewed poetry, travel accounts, educational works, collected
sermons, biographies, natural histories, and essays and treatises on
subjects such as Shakespeare, happiness, theology, music, architecture
and the awfulness of solitary confinement; the authors whose works she
commented on included Madame de Stael, Emanuel Swedenborg, Lord
Kames, Rousseau, and William Smellie. Until the end of 1789, her
articles were mostly of a moral and aesthetic nature. However, in
December 1789, she reviewed a speech by her old friend, Richard Price,
entitled *A Discourse on the Love of our Country, delivered on Nov.
4, 1789, at the Meeting-House in the Old Jewry, to the Society for
Commemorating the Revolution of Great Britain. With an Appendix,
containing the report of the Committee of the Society; and Account of
the Population of France; and the Declarations of the Rights by the
National Assembly of France* (1789). This address to the
Revolution Society in commemoration of the events of 1688 partly
prompted Burke to compose his famous *Reflections on the
Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in
London Relative to that Event* (1790).
Burke's attack on Price in that work in turn led Wollstonecraft, egged
on by her publisher, Johnson, to take up her pen in the aged
Reverend's defence. *A Vindication of the Rights of Men* (1790)
was almost certainly the first of many responses Burke's
*Reflections* elicited*.* Initially published
anonymously at the end of November, the second edition that quickly
followed in mid-December bore its author's name and marked a turning
point in her career; it established her as a political writer. In
September 1791, Wollstonecraft began *A Vindication of the Rights
of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects,* which
elaborated a number of points made in the previous
*Vindication*, namely, that in most cases, marriage was nothing
but a property relation, and that the education women received ensured
that they could not meet the expectations society had of them and
almost certainly guaranteed them an unhappy life.
Following the publication of her second *Vindication*,
Wollstonecraft was introduced to the French statesman and diplomat,
Charles Talleyrand, on his mission to London on the part of the
Constituent Assembly in February 1792. She dedicated the second
edition of the *A Vindication of the Rights of Woman* to him.
In December 1792, she travelled to France where she met Gilbert Imlay,
an American merchant and author of *A Topographical Descriptions of
the Western Territory of North America* (1792) and *The
Emigrants* (1793). As British subjects were increasingly at risk
under the Terror, Wollstonecraft passed as Imlay's wife so as to
benefit from the security enjoyed at the time by American citizens.
They never married. Imlay was probably the source of Wollstonecraft's
greatest unhappiness, first through his lack of ardour for her, then
because of his infidelity, and finally because of his complete
rejection of her. Most of all, her love of Imlay brought
Wollstonecraft to the realisation that the passions are not so easily
brought to heel by reason.
Wollstonecraft had a girl by Imlay. She was born at Le Havre in May
1794 and named Fanny, after Wollstonecraft's friend, Fanny Blood. A
year after Fanny's birth, Wollstonecraft twice attempted suicide,
first in May, then in October 1795. She broke with Imlay finally in
March 1796. In April of the same year, she renewed her acquaintance
with William Godwin and they became lovers that summer. They were
married at St Pancras church in March 1797. On the 30th
August, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, future author of
*Frankenstein* and wife of Shelley, was born.
## 2. Pedagogical Writings
Apart from *Mary, a Fiction* and *The Cave of Fancy*
Wollstonecraft's early writings were of a pedagogical nature (Jones 2020). These
reveal the profound influence John Locke had on Wollstonecraft's
thought, and several of the arguments of his *Some Thoughts
Concerning Education* (1693) are echoed in Wollstonecraft's
conception of morality and the best manner to inculcate it in
individuals at the earliest possible age. The opening paragraph of her
*Thoughts on the Education of Daughters* speaks of the duty
parents have to ensure that 'reason should cultivate and govern
those instincts which are implanted in us to render the path of duty
pleasant--for if they are not governed they will run wild; and
strengthen the passions which are ever endeavouring to obtain
dominion--I mean vanity and self-love.' Similarly, the
beginning of her *Original Stories from Real Life* stated its
author's intent, namely to seek 'to cure those faults by reason,
which ought never to have taken root in the infant mind. Good habits,
imperceptibly fixed, are however far preferable to the precepts of reason; but
as this task requires more judgement than generally falls to the lot
of parents, substitutes must be sought for, and medicines given, when
regimen would have answered the purpose better'.
Wollstonecraft's prescriptions to counter the deplorable education she
thought her contemporaries were inflicting on their children takes the
form of a tale about two girls, Mary and Caroline. At the beginning of
the story, the reader finds the girls left to the management of
ignorant servants (one of Locke's great bugbears), but they are
eventually placed under the tuition of a woman of tenderness and
discernment. The book shows how the latter succeeds in teaching
contemptuous Mary and vain Caroline to avoid anger, exercise
compassion, love truth and virtue, and respect the whole of God's
creation. It is important to note however that whilst Locke advocated home education to shield boys from the bad influences to which they might be subject at school, Wollstonecraft was mostly inclined to think the opposite on the grounds that children needed to be with persons of their own age. In an ideal world, boys and girls would be educated together in schools. Many of these concerns would appear again in her *Vindication of the Rights of Woman* (1792): indeed Sandrine Berges reads this work primarily as a treatise on education (Berges 2013).
That reason must rule supreme could easily appear to be a running theme of Wollstonecraft's
works written prior to her sojourn in Revolutionary France and, all
the more, prior to her travels through Scandinavia. It is stressed in
her *Vindication of the Rights of Woman*. Other
continuities between her *Thoughts on the Education of
Daughters* and the *Vindication* include her insistence that girls and
young women be made to acquire 'inner resources' so as to
make them as psychologically independent as possible. The
*Thoughts* also reveals Wollstonecraft's conviction that
universal benevolence is the first virtue, as well as her faith in a
providentially ordained universe. She enjoined her readers to prepare
their children for 'the main business of our lives',
that is, the acquisition of virtue, and, unsurprisingly given her own
history, she urged parents to strengthen their children's characters
so as to enhance their capacity to survive personal tragedies.
Self-mastery was thus the aim of education and it was the duty of
parents to ensure that their children received it. However, she insisted that there was a time for everything, including for the development of each of the mind's faculties, not least the imagination. Ultimately, she wanted children and young people to educated in such a way as to have well balanced minds in strong and healthy bodies. That mind and body
needed to be exercised and prepared to face the inevitable hardships of life is
the fundamental point of her of her pedagogical works (Tomaselli 2020).
## 3. Moral and Political Writings
When Wollstonecraft began to engage in political commentary in
reviewing Price's *A Discourse on the Love of our Country*, she
praised him for his account of true patriotism as 'the result of
reason, not the undirected impulse of nature, ever tending to selfish
extremes' as well as his defence of Christianity's prescription
of universal benevolence against those who argued that such sentiments were
incompatible with the love of one's country. She endorsed his view of
liberty of conscience as a sacred right and wrote sympathetically
about his plea for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, which
imposed civil disabilities on Dissenters. She also seemed to support
his claim that the political Settlement of 1689 was wanting in that it
did not make for full representation of the people and hence made only
for partial liberty. Finally, Wollstonecraft reproduced the passage in
which Price linked the American and French revolutions and clamoured
for the end of despotism throughout Europe.
When not so long thereafter she came to write her *Vindication of
the Rights of Men* (1790), Wollstonecraft attacked Edmund Burke
for having set upon an harmless elderly preacher in his
*Reflections*; yet her own review justifies Burke's depiction
of Price's sermon as inflammatory. Far from thinking that the events
taking place in France gave grounds for rejoicing, Burke feared their
consequences from the very start. The National Assembly's confiscation
of the Church's property, he predicted, would lead to further
confiscations, undermine the fundamental right to property, and result
in anarchy, which only the rise of a charismatic, authoritarian figure could bring to
an end.
Of the disagreements between Price and Wollstonecraft, on the one
hand, and Burke, on the other, one of the deepest was over their
respective view of the nature of civil society and of political power
in general. The two friends believed that government, the rule of law,
and all human relations could be simplified, explicated, and rendered
transparent, and both were convinced that this was the task ahead for
all lovers of liberty. For Burke, on the contrary, civil society
consisted of countless ineffable links between individuals. The
latter's relationship to authority was for the most part no less
ineffable; moreover, he believed sound political judgement to be the
product of experience, and he cautioned prudence. To sweep away
established practices and institutions and think of politics as a mere
matter of administrating in accordance with a set of abstract rules or
rights uninformed by the customs and culture, and hence the national
character, of a people was, in his view, to demonstrate a crass
disregard for the most obvious facts of human nature and history (Conniff 1999).
Burke's argument led him to dwell on France's financial position in
some detail, and he defended its royal family and its Church; he
insisted, moreover, that it was already benefiting from a policy of
gradual reform. The overall effect Burke sought to achieve was to depict
his opponent as theoretically confused, politically naive, generally
misinformed; and to show, most damnably of all, that Price's sermon on the *Love of
our Country*, with all its affirmation of feelings for humanity,
proved him to be unpatriotic.
Wollstonecraft's *Vindication* was the first of many replies.
Amongst those that followed was one by Catharine Macaulay, who had
influenced Wollstonecraft's pedagogy and was much admired by her (Gunther-Canada 1998; Coffee, 2019). Wollstonecraft's riposte is an interesting and rhetorically powerful
work in its own right as well as a necessary introduction to the
*Vindication of the Rights of Woman*. It consists mostly of a
sustained attack on Burke rather than a defence of the rights of man.
This is partly because Wollstonecraft took for granted a Lockean
conception of God-given rights discoverable by reason, except when the
latter was warped by self-love. Wollstonecraft further believed that
God made all things right and that the cause of all evil was man. In
her view, Burke's *Reflections* showed its author to be blind
to man-made poverty and injustice; this she attributed to his
infatuation with rank, Queen Marie-Antoinette, and the English
Constitution. Demonstrating her familiarity with Burke's other works
and speeches, especially *A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin
of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful* (1757) and the
*Speech on Conciliation with America* (1775), she also argued
that he was inconsistent, if only because of the impossibility, as she
saw it, of reconciling his sympathy for the American cause with his
reaction to events in France. In this, Wollstonecraft was far from
alone and many who had followed Burke's parliamentary career and heard
his Speeches to the House of Commons were astonished by what they
thought was a radical and inexplicable change of position.
As she was to do in her next and more famous *Vindication*,
Wollstonecraft did not simply clamour for rights, but emphasised that
these entail duties; but she also insisted that none could be expected
to perform duties whose natural rights were not respected. Furthermore
she used David Hume's *History of England* (1754-62) to
contend that England's laws were the product of historical contingency
and insisted that only those institutions that could withstand the
scrutiny of reason and be shown to be in conformity with natural
rights and God's justice merited respect and obedience. There was no
question of blanket reverence for the past and its juridical legacy.
As for civilization, she thought its progress very uneven and
dismissed the culture of politeness and polish as nothing but a screen
behind which hypocrisy, egotism and greed festered unchecked. Finally,
opposing nature and reason to artifice and politeness, she made
herself the true patriot and Burke the fickle Francophile. She was the
clear-headed independent thinker, he the emotive creature of a system
of patronage. She exhibited manly virtues, he effeminacy; although Mary Fairclough argues that, in truth, there was much in common between each thinker's treatment of feelings and instincts (Fairclough 2020).
In the midst of her tirade she turned, rather unexpectedly, to the
subject of family life and the limits of parental authority,
especially in relation to arranged marriages (Tomaselli 2001). She condemned marriages
of convenience together with late marriages: both fostered immorality
in her view. Indeed, from her perspective, nearly every aspect of the
prevailing culture had that consequence, for, in bringing girls up to
be nothing but empty headed playthings, parents made for a morally
bankrupt society. Such beings could never make dutiful mothers, as
they took the horizon to be the eyes of the men they flirted with. The
moral depravity of a society devoted to the acquisition of property
and its conspicuous display rather than to the pursuit of reason and
the protection of natural rights found the means of its reproduction
in the family, she contended. Here her dispute was not just with
Burke, but implicitly also with Price (Jones, 2005). In his sermon, he had deplored
the sexual depravity of the times that he saw embodied even in those
he considered patriots. But to seek only to vindicate the rights of
men, as Price had done, was insufficient and misconceived, according
to Wollstonecraft. If one sought a truly moral society, the family had
to change, and this, in turn, required a complete transformation in the
nature of the relationship between men and women before, and within,
marriage (Botting 2006). Only a sound upbringing of both the sexes could secure that.
This was the nub of her attack on political theorists and
educationalists alike.
When Wollstonecraft came to write *The Vindication of the Rights of
Woman*, which she did within a matter of months following the
publication of her first overtly political work, the moral
rejuvenation of society and the happiness of individual women were
woven together. Women were ill-prepared for their duties as social
beings and imprisoned in a web of false expectations that would
inevitably make them miserable. She wanted women to become
rational and independent beings whose sense of worth came, not
from their appearance, but from their inner perception of self-command
and knowledge. Women had to be educated; their minds and bodies had to
be trained. This would make them good companions, wives, mothers and
citizens (Brace 2000). Above all it would make them fully human, that is, beings
ruled by reason and characterised by self-command. Besides criticisms
of existing pedagogical practices and theories, most notably
Rousseau's *Emile* (1762), the *Vindication* contains
many social and political proposals which range from a detailed
outline of necessary changes in school curriculum to the suggestion
that women be granted not only civil and political rights, but have
elected representatives of their own. It argues that women should be
taught skills so as to be able to support themselves and their
children in widowhood, and never have to marry or remarry out of
financial necessity. It seeks to reclaim midwifery for women, against
the encroachment of men into this profession, and contends that women
could be physicians just as well as nurses. It urges women to extend
their interests to encompass politics and the concerns of the whole of
humanity. It also contains advice on how to make marriages last. In
Wollstonecraft's view, marriages ought to have friendship rather than
physical attraction as their basis (Kendrick 2019). Husbands and wives ought not,
moreover, to be overly intimate and should maintain a degree of
reserve towards each other. This said, she thought sex should be based on genuine mutual physical desire.
Wollstonecraft wanted women to aspire to full citizenship, to be
worthy of it, and this necessitated the development of reason.
Rational women would perceive their real duties. They would forgo the
world of mere appearances, the world of insatiable needs on which
eighteenth-century society was based, as Adam Smith had explained more
lucidly than anyone, and of which France was the embodiment, in
Wollstonecraft's conception (Leddy 2016).
That she embraced the social and economic consequences of her vision
of happy marriages, based on friendship and producing the next moral
generation was spelled out further in her subsequent work, *An
Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French
Revolution; and the Effect It Has Produced in Europe* (1794). In
that work, she endeavoured, amongst other things, to assess the merits
and demerits of the progress of humanity and establish the causes of
French despotism. The picture she drew of *ancien*
*regime* France was of a country ruled by superstition,
and morally and politically degenerate. Borrowing from Smith, whose
*Theory of Moral Sentiments* (1759) and *Inquiry into the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations* (1776) she had drawn
on previously, she sketched a possible future society in which the
division of labour would be kept to a minimum and the sexes would be
not only educated together but encouraged to work in family units.
Single sex institutions and, for instance, all-male workshops
encouraged lasciviousness in her view. She thus looked forward to a
society in which small businesses and farms would provide basic,
instead of superfluous, needs.
The combination of her experience of her unrequited love for
Imlay, the dictates of her own emotions, and the tribulations of a
trip in Northern Europe led her to reconsider her view of the power of reason.
Indeed, she was also to review her opinion of France, polite culture and
manners, even Catholicism which she had abhorred, a loathing that her
stay in Portugal had done much to strengthen. The *Letters Written
During A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark* (1796),
whose influence on travel literature as well as the Romantic movement
is by no means negligible, show Wollstonecraft to have begun to
espouse an increasingly nuanced view of the world, and to have sought to
develop an even more fluid account of the relationship between reason, the imagination, and the
passions, as well as of modernity. Thus she grew a little closer to
Burke in that she came to think that the tyranny of commercial wealth
might be worse than that of rank and privilege. Whilst in France, she
had already begun to write less critically of the English system of
government. She had witnessed the Terror, fallen in love, born a child
out of wedlock, been rejected, and attempted suicide. A second suicide
attempt lay ahead. So did the prospect of happiness with William
Godwin, a prospect cut short by her death in childbirth. Posthumous
notoriety was to follow as Wollstonecraft became identified only with
the *Vindication of the Rights of Woman* and that work was
ironically, in turn, equated with a flouting of social conventions,
principally in relation to marriage.
## 4. Reputation
Although she was very much encouraged by her publisher, Joseph
Johnson, she received little support from fellow intellectuals in her
lifetime. Even Godwin did not take to her on their first meeting. Relatively few of the foremost women writers gave Wollstonecraft their
wholehearted support in the eighteenth century. She received some encouragement for her first publications from Catharine Macaulay, but the latter unfortunately died in 1791, before Wollstonecraft's career reached its peak. Some mocked her, but rarely were her ideas genuinely assessed in the way they have come to be since the second half of the twentieth century. The
leading poet, Anna Barbauld (1743-1825) was one of the few members of the radical intelligentsia of the time whose opposition to Wollstonecraft was the product of a real engagement with her views on women. By the end of the 1790s and for most of the nineteenth century, Wollstonecraft was derided by many, if only because of what was deemed to have been a scandalous personal life. There were, to be sure, important exceptions, especially in America (Botting and Carey 2004). But such praise as she did receive on both sides of the Atlantic came from arguably limited acquaintance with her ideas or her intellectual persona.
Thus it seemed that from the end of the eighteenth century and throughout the
next, she, who had endeavoured to place marriage on a solid foundation
by providing an account of the education that would prepare spouses
for it, would be thought of as someone who had sought to pass
as married when she wasn't and as the mother of an illegitimate child.
Much of this reputation was owed to Godwin's frank, arguably
unnecessarily frank, account of Wollstonecraft's life, in *Memoirs
of the Author of a 'Vindication of the Rights of
Woman'* (1798). It revealed, amongst other personal details,
her relationship with Imlay and thereby cast a deep shadow over her
reputation. In any event, John Stuart Mill's *Subjection of
Women* (1869) was to eclipse most other contributions to feminist
debates of the period.
In the twentieth century, and especially following the growth of
feminism in the Anglo-Saxon world in the 1960s, scholars disregarded
the vicissitudes of Wollstonecraft's private life and heralded her as
the first English feminist. She came to be read principally within the
context of the history of the women's movement. Since the last decades
of the twentieth century, however, a growing number of commentators
have looked at *A Vindication of the Rights of Woman* in its
historical and intellectual context rather than in isolation or in
relation to subsequent feminist theories. This has led to renewed
interest in her other political writings, including her *Letters
Written During A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark*.
Wollstonecraft has now long ceased to be seen as just a scandalous
literary figure, or just the embodiment of a nascent feminism which
only reached maturity two hundred years later, but as an Enlightenment
moral and political thinker whose works present a self-contained
argument about the kind of change society would need to undergo for
men and women to be virtuous in both the private and the public sphere
and thereby secure the chance of a measure of happiness.
What is more, with growing interest in reception history, the extent
of her influence in Europe and beyond as been the subject of
reassessments. It is becoming increasingly evident that
Wollstonecraft was widely read and respected as a pioneer of woman's
rights around the world, especially in America, continental Europe, and Brazil (Botting 2013). She was translated into several languages, in the 1790s and throughout the nineteenth century (Johns 2020).
Efforts to place Wollstonecraft's thought within an international, and specifically an imperial, context have focused on her use of abolitionist discourses, or what Laura Brace (2016) calls the 'social imaginary' of anti-slavery, to criticize British society. Moira Ferguson (1994) places Wollstonecraft in dialogue with nineteenth-century representations of sexual exploitation within the colonial context by such women authors as Jane Austen and Jamaica Kincaid.
Wollstonecraft's reference to slavery and the slave trade as "an atrocious
insult to humanity" in *Vindication of the Rights of
Men*, and her call for social justice more generally, has been
noted by Amartya Sen in his *The Idea of Justice* (2009). Often
seen as a proponent of liberal values (Sapiro 1992), Wollstonecraft
continues also to placed within a republican tradition, most recently
by Sandrine Berges (2013), Alan Coffee (2014), and Lena Halldenius
(2015), who have analysed her view of freedom in terms of independence
and the absence of subordination to the arbitrary power of others.
In recent years, scholars have also made use of Wollstonecraft to inform modern feminist discussions, especially those regarding autonomy, education, and nature. Catriona Mackenzie (2016) argues that Wollstonecraft's understanding of freedom as independence is a forebear to feminist theories that emphasise female autonomy. Sandrine Berges has compared Wollstonecraft's model of education to modern 'capabilities' approaches that favour grassroots educational programmes. Barbara Seeber (2016) places Wollstonecraft within the tradition of ecofeminism: she argues that Wollstonecraft linked social hierarchies with the domination of nature by human beings. Sandrine Berges (2016) identifies a contradiction in her position on feminist motherhood that remains relevant for feminism today.
Twenty-first century studies have displayed new interest in the philosophical and theological underpinnings of Wollstonecraft's work. Isabelle Bour (2019) has charted her engagement with competing epistemological models in the 1790s, while Sylvana Tomaselli (2016; 2019) asserts that Wollstonecraft engaged closely with the aesthetic theories of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke, as well as Plato's theory of knowledge, Emily Dumler-Winckler (2019) argues that Wollstonecraft appropriated and sometimes subverted a set of conceptual tools from theology in order to make her arguments for women's equality. Wollstonecraft's complex relationship with the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been investigated by Christopher Brooke (2019).
Whether Wollstonecraft is best seen as belonging to one tradition or
any other will remain a matter of dispute. What is important to
remember is that she responded to a fast changing political situation
and that she continued to engage critically with public opinion, the
leading intellectual and political figures of her age, and most
remarkably, her own views in the light of her experiences in France,
Northern Europe and Great Britain. Her critique of Burke, the English
political system, even the aristocracy, became more muted as she found
the continued expansion of commerce and growth of the luxury economy
to lead to even greater inequities than the world it was
replacing. |
word-meaning | ## 1. Basics
The notions of *word* and *word meaning* are problematic
to pin down, and this is reflected in the difficulties one encounters
in defining the basic terminology of lexical semantics. In part, this
depends on the fact that the term 'word' itself is highly
polysemous (see, e.g., Matthews 1991; Booij 2007; Lieber 2010). For
example, in ordinary parlance 'word' is ambiguous between
a type-level reading (as in "*Color* and *colour*
are spellings of the same word"), an occurrence-level reading
(as in "there are thirteen words in the tongue-twister *How
much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck
wood?*"), and a token-level reading (as in "John
erased the last two words on the blackboard"). Before proceeding
further, let us then elucidate the notion of word in more detail
(Section 1.1),
and lay out the key questions that will guide our discussion of word
meaning in the rest of the entry
(Section 1.2).
### 1.1 The Notion of Word
We can distinguish two fundamental approaches to the notion of word.
On one side, we have *linguistic* approaches, which
characterize the notion of word by reflecting on its explanatory role
in linguistic research (for a survey on explanation in linguistics,
see Egre 2015). These approaches often end up splitting the
notion of word into a number of more fine-grained and theoretically
manageable notions, but still tend to regard 'word' as a
term that zeroes in on a scientifically respectable concept (e.g., Di
Sciullo & Williams 1987). For example, words are the primary locus
of stress and tone assignment, the basic domain of morphological
conditions on affixation, clitization, compounding, and the theme of
phonological and morphological processes of assimilation, vowel shift,
metathesis, and reduplication (Bromberger 2011).
On the other side, we have *metaphysical* approaches, which
attempt to pin down the notion of word by inquiring into the
metaphysical nature of words. These approaches typically deal with
such questions as "what are words?", "how should
words be individuated?", and "on what conditions two
utterances count as utterances of the same word?". For example,
Kaplan (1990, 2011) has proposed to replace the orthodox type-token
account of the relation between words and word tokens with a
"common currency" view on which words relate to their
tokens as continuants relate to stages in four-dimensionalist
metaphysics (see the entries on
types and tokens
and
identity over time).
Other contributions to this debate can be found, a.o., in McCulloch
(1991), Cappelen (1999), Alward (2005), Hawthorne & Lepore (2011),
Sainsbury & Tye (2012), Gasparri (2016), and Irmak
(forthcoming).
For the purposes of this entry, we can rely on the following
stipulation. Every natural language has a *lexicon* organized
into *lexical entries*, which contain information about word
types or *lexemes*. These are the smallest linguistic
expressions that are conventionally associated with a
non-compositional meaning and can be articulated in isolation to
convey semantic content. Word types relate to word tokens and
occurrences just like phonemes relate to phones in phonological
theory. To understand the parallelism, think of the variations in the
place of articulation of the phoneme /n/, which is pronounced as the
voiced bilabial nasal [m] in "ten bags" and as the voiced
velar nasal [NG] in "ten gates". Just as phonemes are
abstract representations of sets of phones (each defining one way the
phoneme can be instantiated in speech), lexemes can be defined as
abstract representations of sets of words (each defining one way the
lexeme can be instantiated in sentences). Thus, 'do',
'does', 'done' and 'doing' are
morphologically and graphically marked realizations of the same
abstract word type *do*. To wrap everything into a single
formula, we can say that the *lexical entries* listed in a
*lexicon* set the parameters defining the instantiation
potential of word types in sentences, utterances and inscriptions (cf.
Murphy 2010). In what follows, unless otherwise indicated, our talk of
"word meaning" should be understood as talk of "word
type meaning" or "lexeme meaning", in the sense we
just illustrated.
### 1.2 Theories of Word Meaning
As with general theories of meaning (see the entry on
theories of meaning),
two kinds of theory of word meaning can be distinguished. The first
kind, which we can label a *semantic* theory of word meaning,
is a theory interested in clarifying what meaning-determining
information is encoded by the words of a natural language. A framework
establishing that the word 'bachelor' encodes the lexical
concept adult unmarried
male would be an example of a semantic theory of word meaning.
The second kind, which we can label a *foundational* theory of
word meaning, is a theory interested in elucidating the facts in
virtue of which words come to have the semantic properties they have
for their users. A framework investigating the dynamics of semantic
change and social coordination in virtue of which the word
'bachelor' is assigned the function of expressing the
lexical concept adult
unmarried male would be an example of a foundational theory of
word meaning. Likewise, it would be the job of a foundational theory
of word meaning to determine whether words have the semantic
properties they have in virtue of social conventions, or whether
social conventions do not provide explanatory purchase on the facts
that ground word meaning (see the entry on
convention).
Obviously, the endorsement of a given semantic theory is bound to
place important constraints on the claims one might propose about the
foundational attributes of word meaning, and *vice versa*.
Semantic and foundational concerns are often interdependent, and it is
difficult to find theories of word meaning which are either purely
semantic or purely foundational. According to Ludlow (2014), for
example, the fact that word meaning is systematically underdetermined
(a semantic matter) can be explained in part by looking at the
processes of linguistic negotiation whereby discourse partners
converge on the assignment of shared meanings to the words of their
language (a foundational matter). However, semantic and foundational
theories remain in principle different and designed to answer partly
non-overlapping sets of questions.
Our focus in this entry will be on *semantic* theories of word
meaning, i.e., on theories that try to provide an answer to such
questions as "what is the nature of word meaning?",
"what do we know when we know the meaning of a word?", and
"what (kind of) information must a speaker associate to the
words of a language in order to be a competent user of its
lexicon?". However, we will engage in foundational
considerations whenever necessary to clarify how a given framework
addresses issues in the domain of a semantic theory of word
meaning.
## 2. Historical Background
The study of word meaning became a mature academic enterprise in the
19th century, with the birth of historical-philological
semantics
(Section 2.2).
Yet, matters related to word meaning had been the subject of much
debate in earlier times. We can distinguish three major classical
approaches to word meaning: speculative etymology, rhetoric, and
classical lexicography (Meier-Oeser 2011; Geeraerts 2013). We describe
them briefly in
Section 2.1.
### 2.1 Classical Traditions
The prototypical example of speculative etymology is perhaps the
*Cratylus* (383a-d), where Plato presents his well-known
naturalist thesis about word meaning. According to Plato, natural kind
terms express the essence of the objects they denote and words are
appropriate to their referents insofar as they implicitly describe the
properties of their referents (see the entry on
Plato's *Cratylus*).
For example, the Greek word '*anthropos*'
can be broken down into *anathron ha opope*, which
translates as "one who reflects on what he has seen": the
word used to denote humans reflects their being the only animal
species which possesses the combination of vision and intelligence.
For speculative etymology, there is a natural or non-arbitrary
relation between words and their meaning, and the task of the theorist
is to make this relation explicit through an analysis of the
descriptive, often phonoiconic mechanisms underlying the genesis of
words. More on speculative etymology in Malkiel (1993), Fumaroli
(1999), and Del Bello (2007).
The primary aim of the *rhetorical tradition* was the study of
figures of speech. Some of these concern sentence-level variables such
as the linear order of the words occurring in a sentence (e.g.,
parallelism, climax, anastrophe); others are lexical in nature and
depend on using words in a way not intended by their normal or literal
meaning (e.g., metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche). Although originated
for stylistic and literary purposes, the identification of regular
patterns in the figurative use of words initiated by the rhetorical
tradition provided a first organized framework to investigate the
semantic flexibility of words, and laid the groundwork for further
inquiry into our ability to use lexical expressions beyond the
boundaries of their literal meaning. More on the rhetorical tradition
in Kennedy (1994), Herrick (2004), and Toye (2013).
Finally, *classical lexicography* and the practice of writing
dictionaries played an important role in systematizing the descriptive
data on which later inquiry would rely to illuminate the relationship
between words and their meaning. Putnam's (1970) claim that it
was the phenomenon of writing (and needing) dictionaries that gave
rise to the idea of a semantic theory is probably an overstatement.
But the inception of lexicography certainly had an impact on the
development of modern theories of word meaning. The practice of
separating dictionary entries via lemmatization and defining them
through a combination of semantically simpler elements provided a
stylistic and methodological paradigm for much subsequent research on
lexical phenomena, such as decompositional theories of word meaning.
More on classical lexicography in Bejoint (2000), Jackson
(2002), and Hanks (2013).
### 2.2 Historical-Philological Semantics
Historical-philological semantics incorporated elements from all the
above classical traditions and dominated the linguistic scene roughly
from 1870 to 1930, with the work of scholars such as Michel
Breal, Hermann Paul, and Arsene Darmesteter (Gordon
1982). In particular, it absorbed from speculative etymology an
interest in the conceptual mechanisms underlying the formation of word
meaning, it acquired from rhetorical analysis a taxonomic toolkit for
the classification of lexical phenomena, and it assimilated from
lexicography and textual philology the empirical basis of descriptive
data that subsequent theories of word meaning would have to account
for (Geeraerts 2013).
On the methodological side, the key features of the approach to word
meaning introduced by historical-philological semantics can be
summarized as follows. First, it had a diachronic and pragmatic
orientation. That is, it was primarily concerned with the historical
evolution of word meaning rather than with word meaning statically
understood, and attributed great importance to the contextual
flexibility of word meaning. Witness Paul's (1920 [1880])
distinction between *usuelle Bedeutung* and *okkasionelle
Bedeutung*, or Breal's (1924 [1897]) account of
polysemy as a byproduct of semantic change. Second, it looked at word
meaning primarily as a psychological phenomenon. It assumed that the
semantic properties of words should be defined in mentalistic terms
(i.e., words signify "concepts" or "ideas" in
a broad sense), and that the dynamics of sense modulation, extension,
and contraction that underlie lexical change correspond to broader
patterns of conceptual activity in the human mind. Interestingly,
while the classical rhetorical tradition had conceived of tropes as
marginal linguistic phenomena whose investigation, albeit important,
was primarily motivated by stylistic concerns, for
historical-philological semantics the psychological mechanisms
underlying the production and the comprehension of figures of speech
were part of the ordinary life of languages, and engines of the
evolution of all aspects of lexical systems (Nerlich 1992).
The contribution made by historical-philological semantics to the
study of word meaning had a long-lasting influence. First, with its
emphasis on the principles of semantic change, historical-philological
semantics was the first systematic framework to focus on the dynamic
nature of word meaning, and established contextual flexibility as the
primary explanandum for a theory of word meaning (Nerlich & Clarke
1996, 2007). This feature of historical-philological semantics is a
clear precursor of the emphasis placed on context-sensitivity by many
subsequent approaches to word meaning, both in philosophy (see
Section 3)
and in linguistics (see
Section 4).
Second, the psychologistic approach to word meaning fostered by
historical philological-semantics added to the agenda of linguistic
research the question of how word meaning relates to cognition at
large. If word meaning is essentially a psychological phenomenon, what
psychological categories should be used to characterize it? What is
the dividing line separating the aspects of our mental life that
constitute knowledge of word meaning from those that do not? As we
shall see, this question will constitute a central concern for
cognitive theories of word meaning (see
Section 5).
## 3. Philosophy of Language
In this section we shall review some semantic and metasemantic
theories in analytic philosophy that bear on how lexical meaning
should be conceived and described. We shall follow a roughly
chronological order. Some of these theories, such as Carnap's
theory of meaning postulates and Putnam's theory of stereotypes,
have a strong focus on lexical meaning, whereas others, such as
Montague semantics, regard it as a side issue. However, such negative
views form an equally integral part of the philosophical debate on
word meaning.
### 3.1 Early Contemporary Views
By taking the connection of thoughts and truth as the basic issue of
semantics and regarding sentences as "the proper means of
expression for a thought" (Frege 1979a [1897]), Frege paved the
way for the 20th century priority of sentential meaning
over lexical meaning: the semantic properties of subsentential
expressions such as individual words were regarded as derivative, and
identified with their contribution to sentential meaning. Sentential
meaning was in turn identified with truth conditions, most explicitly
in Wittgenstein's *Tractatus logico-philosophicus*
(1922). However, Frege never lost interest in the "building
blocks of thoughts" (Frege 1979b [1914]), i.e., in the semantic
properties of subsentential expressions. Indeed, his theory of sense
and reference for names and predicates may be counted as the inaugural
contribution to lexical semantics within the analytic tradition (see
the entry on
Gottlob Frege).
It should be noted that Frege did not attribute semantic properties
to lexical units as such, but to what he regarded as a
sentence's logical constituents: e.g., not to the word
'dog' but to the predicate 'is a dog'. In
later work this distinction was obliterated and Frege's semantic
notions came to be applied to lexical units.
Possibly because of lack of clarity affecting the notion of sense, and
surely because of Russell's (1905) authoritative criticism of
Fregean semantics, word meaning disappeared from the philosophical
scene during the 1920s and 1930s. In Wittgenstein's
*Tractatus* the "real" lexical units, i.e., the
constituents of a completely analyzed sentence, are just names, whose
semantic properties are exhausted by their reference. In
Tarski's (1933) work on formal languages, which was taken as
definitional of the very field of semantics for some time, lexical
units are semantically categorized into different classes (individual
constants, predicative constants, functional constants) depending on
the logical type of their reference, i.e., according to whether they
designate individuals in a domain of interpretation, classes of
individuals (or of *n*-tuples of individuals), or functions
defined over the domain. However, Tarski made no attempt nor felt any
need to represent semantic differences among expressions belonging to
the same logical type (e.g., between one-place predicates such as
'dog' and 'run', or between two-place
predicates such as 'love' and 'left of'). See
the entry on
Alfred Tarski.
Quine (1943) and Church (1951) rehabilitated Frege's distinction
of sense and reference. Non-designating words such as
'Pegasus' cannot be meaningless: it is precisely the
meaning of 'Pegasus' that allows speakers to establish
that the word lacks reference. Moreover, as Frege (1892) had argued,
true factual identities such as "Morning Star = Evening
Star" do not state synonymies; if they did, any competent
speaker of the language would be aware of their truth. Along these
lines, Carnap (1947) proposed a new formulation of the sense/reference
dichotomy, which was translated into the distinction between
*intension* and *extension*. The notion of intension was
intended to be an *explicatum* of Frege's
"obscure" notion of sense: two expressions have the same
intension if and only if they have the same extension in every
possible world or, in Carnap's terminology, in every *state
description* (i.e., in every maximal consistent set of atomic
sentences and negations of atomic sentences). Thus,
'round' and 'spherical' have the same
intension (i.e., they express the same function from possible worlds
to extensions) because they apply to the same objects in every
possible world. Carnap later suggested that intensions could be
regarded as the content of lexical semantic competence: to know the
meaning of a word is to know its intension, "the general
conditions which an object must fulfill in order to be denoted by
[that] word" (Carnap 1955). However, such general conditions
were not spelled out by Carnap (1947). Consequently, his system did
not account, any more than Tarski's, for semantic differences
and relations among words belonging to the same semantic category:
there were possible worlds in which the same individual *a*
could be both a married man and a bachelor, as no constraints were
placed on either word's intension. One consequence, as Quine
(1951) pointed out, was that Carnap's system, which was supposed
to single out analytic truths as true in every possible world,
"Bachelors are unmarried"--intuitively, a
paradigmatic analytic truth--turned out to be synthetic rather
than analytic.
To remedy what he agreed was an unsatisfactory feature of his system,
Carnap (1952) introduced *meaning postulates*, i.e.,
stipulations on the relations among the extensions of lexical items.
For example, the meaning postulate
* (MP)\(\forall x
(\mbox{bachelor}(x) \supset \mathord{\sim}\mbox{married}
(x))\)
stipulates that any individual that is in the extension of
'bachelor' is not in the extension of
'married'. Meaning postulates can be seen either as
restrictions on possible worlds or as relativizing analyticity to
possible worlds. On the former option we shall say that "If Paul
is a bachelor then Paul is unmarried" holds in every
*admissible* possible world, while on the latter we shall say
that it holds in every possible world *in which (MP) holds*.
Carnap regarded the two options as equivalent; nowadays, the former is
usually preferred. Carnap (1952) also thought that meaning postulates
expressed the semanticist's "intentions" with
respect to the meanings of the descriptive constants, which may or may
not reflect linguistic usage; again, today postulates are usually
understood as expressing semantic relations (synonymy, analytic
entailment, etc.) among lexical items as currently used by competent
speakers.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Montague (1974) and other
philosophers and linguists (Kaplan, Kamp, Partee, and D. Lewis among
others) set out to apply to the analysis of natural language the
notions and techniques that had been introduced by Tarski and Carnap
and further developed in Kripke's possible worlds semantics (see
the entry on
Montague semantics).
Montague semantics can be represented as aiming to capture the
inferential structure of a natural language: every inference that a
competent speaker would regard as valid should be derivable in the
theory. Some such inferences depend for their validity on syntactic
structure and on the logical properties of logical words, like the
inference from "Every man is mortal and Socrates is a man"
to "Socrates is mortal". Other inferences depend on
properties of non-logical words that are usually regarded as semantic,
like the inference from "Kim is pregnant" to "Kim is
not a man". In Montague semantics, such inferences are taken
care of by supplementing the theory with suitable Carnapian meaning
postulates. Yet, some followers of Montague regarded such additions as
spurious: the aims of semantics, they said, should be distinguished
from those of lexicography. The description of the meaning of
non-logical words requires considerable world knowledge: for example,
the inference from "Kim is pregnant" to "Kim is not
a man" is based on a "biological" rather than on a
"logical" generalization. Hence, we should not expect a
semantic theory to furnish an account of how any two expressions
belonging to the same syntactic category differ in meaning (Thomason
1974). From such a viewpoint, Montague semantics would not differ
significantly from Tarskian semantics in its account of lexical
meaning. But not all later work within Montague's program shared
such a skepticism about representing aspects of lexical meaning within
a semantic theory, using either componential analysis (Dowty 1979) or
meaning postulates (Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet 2000).
For those who believe that meaning postulates can exhaust lexical
meaning, the issue arises of how to choose them, i.e., of
how--and whether--to delimit the set of meaning-relevant
truths with respect to the set of all true statements in which a given
word occurs. As we just saw, Carnap himself thought that the choice
could only be the expression of the semanticist's intentions.
However, we seem to share intuitions of *analyticity*, i.e., we
seem to regard some, but not all sentences of a natural language as
true by virtue of the meaning of the occurring words. Such intuitions
are taken to reflect objective semantic properties of the language,
that the semanticist should describe rather than impose at will. Quine
(1951) did not challenge the existence of such intuitions, but he
argued that they could not be cashed out in the form of a
scientifically respectable criterion separating analytic truths
("Bachelors are unmarried") from synthetic truths
("Aldo's uncle is a bachelor"), whose truth does not
depend on meaning alone. Though Quine's arguments were often
criticized (for recent criticisms, see Williamson 2007), and in spite
of Chomsky's constant endorsement of analyticity (see e.g. 2000:
47, 61-2), within philosophy the analytic/synthetic distinction
was never fully vindicated (for an exception, see Russell 2008).
Hence, it was widely believed that lexical meaning could not be
adequately described by meaning postulates. Fodor and Lepore (1992)
argued that this left semantics with two options: lexical meanings
were either *atomic* (i.e., they could not be specified by
descriptions involving other meanings) or they were *holistic*,
i.e., only the set of all true sentences of the language could count
as fixing them.
Neither alternative looked promising. Holism incurred in objections
connected with the acquisition and the understanding of language: how
could individual words be acquired by children, if grasping their
meaning involved, somehow, semantic competence on the whole language?
And how could individual sentences be understood if the information
required to understand them exceeded the capacity of human working
memory? (For an influential criticism of several varieties of holism,
see Dummett 1991; for a review, Pagin 2006). Atomism, in turn, ran
against strong intuitions of (at least some) relations among words
being part of a language's semantics: it is because of what
'bachelor' means that it doesn't make sense to
suppose we could discover that some bachelors are married. Fodor
(1998) countered this objection by reinterpreting allegedly semantic
relations as metaphysically necessary connections among extensions of
words. However, sentences that are usually regarded as analytic, such
as "Bachelors are unmarried", are not easily seen as just
metaphysically necessary truths like "Water is
H2O". If water is H2O, then its
metaphysical essence consists in being H2O (whether we know
it or not); but there is no such thing as a metaphysical essence that
all bachelors share--an essence that could be hidden to us, even
though we use the word 'bachelor' competently. On the
contrary, on acquiring the word 'bachelor' we acquire the
belief that bachelors are unmarried (Quine 1986); by contrast, many
speakers that have 'water' in their lexical repertoire do
not know that water is H2O. The difficulties of atomism and
holism opened the way to vindications of molecularism (e.g., Perry
1994; Marconi 1997), the view on which only some relations among words
matter for acquisition and understanding (see the entry on
meaning holism).
While mainstream formal semantics went with Carnap and Montague,
supplementing the Tarskian apparatus with the possible worlds
machinery and defining meanings as intensions, Davidson (1967, 1984)
put forth an alternative suggestion. Tarski had shown how to provide a
definition of the truth predicate for a (formal) language *L*:
such a definition is materially adequate (i.e., it is a definition of
*truth*, rather than of some other property of sentences of
*L*) if and only if it entails every biconditional of the
form
* (T) *S* is true in
*L* iff *p*,
where *S* is a sentence of *L* and *p* is its
translation into the metalanguage of *L* in which the definition
is formulated. Thus, Tarski's account of truth presupposes that
the semantics of both *L* and its metalanguage is fixed
(otherwise it would be undetermined whether *S* translates into
*p*). On Tarski's view, each biconditional of form (T)
counts as a "partial definition" of the truth predicate
for sentences of *L* (see the entry on
Tarski's truth definitions).
By contrast, Davidson suggested that if one took the notion of truth
for granted, then T-biconditionals could be read as collectively
constituting a theory of meaning for *L*, i.e., as stating truth
conditions for the sentences of *L*. For example,
* (W) "If the
weather is bad then Sharon is sad" is true in English iff either
the weather is not bad or Sharon is sad
states the truth conditions of the English sentence "If the
weather is bad then Sharon is sad". Of course, (W) is
intelligible only if one understands the language in which it is
phrased, including the predicate 'true in English'.
Davidson thought that the recursive machinery of Tarski's
definition of truth could be transferred to the suggested semantic
reading, with extensions to take care of the forms of natural language
composition that Tarski had neglected because they had no analogue in
the formal languages he was dealing with. Unfortunately, few of such
extensions were ever spelled out by Davidson or his followers.
Moreover, it is difficult to see how, giving up possible worlds and
intensions in favor of a purely extensional theory, the Davidsonian
program could account for the semantics of propositional attitude
ascriptions of the form "A believes (hopes, imagines, etc.) that
*p*".
Construed as theorems of a semantic theory, T-biconditionals were
often accused of being uninformative (Putnam 1975; Dummett 1976): to
understand them, one has to already possess the information they are
supposed to provide. This is particularly striking in the case of
*lexical axioms* such as the following:
* (V1) Val(*x*,
'man') iff *x* is a man;
* (V2) Val(\(\langle
x,y\rangle\), 'knows') iff *x* knows
*y*.
(To be read, respectively, as "the predicate 'man'
applies to *x* if and only if *x* is a man" and
"the predicate 'know' applies to the pair \(\langle
x, y\rangle\) if and only if *x* knows *y*"). Here
it is apparent that in order to understand (V1) one must know what
'man' means, which is just the information that (V1) is
supposed to convey (as the theory, being purely extensional,
identifies meaning with reference). Some Davidsonians, though
admitting that statements such as (V1) and (V2) are in a sense
"uninformative", insist that what (V1) and (V2) state is
no less "substantive" (Larson & Segal 1995). To prove
their point, they appeal to non-homophonic versions of lexical axioms,
i.e., to the axioms of a semantic theory for a language that does not
coincide with the (meta)language in which the theory itself is
phrased. Such would be, e.g.,
* (V3)
*Val*(*x*, 'man') *si et seulement si
*x* est un homme.*
(V3), they argue, is clearly substantive, yet what it says is exactly
what (V1) says, namely, that the word 'man' applies to a
certain category of objects. Therefore, if (V3) is substantive, so is
(V1). But this is beside the point. The issue is not whether (V1)
expresses a proposition; it clearly does, and it is, in this sense,
"substantive". But what is relevant here is informative
power: to one who understands the metalanguage of (V3), i.e., French,
(V3) may communicate new information, whereas there is no circumstance
in which (V1) would communicate new information to one who understands
English.
### 3.2 Grounding and Lexical Competence
In the mid-1970s, Dummett raised the issue of the proper place of
lexical meaning in a semantic theory. If the job of a theory of
meaning is to make the content of semantic competence
explicit--so that one could acquire semantic competence in a
language *L* by learning an adequate theory of meaning for
*L*--then the theory ought to reflect a competent
speaker's knowledge of circumstances in which she would assert a
sentence of *L*, such as "The horse is in the barn",
as distinct from circumstances in which she would assert "The
cat is on the mat". This, in turn, appears to require that the
theory yields explicit information about the use of
'horse', 'barn', etc., or, in other words,
that it includes information which goes beyond the logical type of
lexical units. Dummett identified such information with a word's
Fregean sense. However, he did not specify the format in which word
senses should be expressed in a semantic theory, except for words that
could be defined (e.g., 'aunt' = "sister of a
parent"): in such cases, the *definiens* specifies what a
speaker must understand in order to understand the word (Dummett
1991). But of course, not all words are of this kind. For other words,
the theory should specify what it is for a speaker to know them,
though we are not told how exactly this should be done. Similarly,
Grandy (1974) pointed out that by identifying the meaning of a word
such as 'wise' as a function from possible worlds to the
sets of wise people in those worlds, Montague semantics only specifies
a formal structure and eludes the question of whether there is some
possible description for the functions which are claimed to be the
meanings of words. Lacking such descriptions, possible worlds
semantics is not really a theory of meaning but a theory of logical
form or logical validity. Again, aside from suggesting that "one
would like the functions to be given in terms of computation
procedures, in some sense", Grandy had little to say about the
form of lexical descriptions.
In a similar vein, Partee (1981) argued that Montague semantics, like
every compositional or *structural* semantics, does not
uniquely fix the intensional interpretation of words. The addition of
meaning postulates does rule out some interpretations (e.g.,
interpretations on which the extension of 'bachelor' and
the extension of 'married' may intersect in some possible
world). However, it does not reduce them to the unique,
"intended" or, in Montague's words,
"actual" interpretation (Montague 1974). Hence, standard
model-theoretic semantics does not capture the whole content of a
speaker's semantic competence, but only its structural aspects.
Fixing "the actual interpretation function" requires more
than language-to-language connections as encoded by, e.g., meaning
postulates: it requires some "language-to-world
*grounding*". Arguments to the same effect were developed
by Bonomi (1983) and Harnad (1990). In particular, Harnad had in mind
the simulation of human semantic competence in artificial systems: he
suggested that symbol grounding could be implemented, in part, by
"feature detectors" picking out "invariant features
of objects and event categories from their sensory projections"
(for recent developments see, e.g., Steels & Hild 2012). Such a
cognitively oriented conception of grounding differs from
Partee's Putnam-inspired view, on which the semantic grounding
of lexical items depends on the speakers' objective interactions
with the external world in addition to their narrow psychological
properties.
A resolutely cognitive approach characterizes Marconi's (1997)
account of lexical semantic competence. In his view, lexical
competence has two aspects: an *inferential* aspect, underlying
performances such as semantically based inference and the command of
synonymy, hyponymy and other semantic relations; and a
*referential* aspect, which is in charge of performances such
as naming (e.g., calling a horse 'horse') and application
(e.g., answering the question "Are there any spoons in the
drawer?"). Language users typically possess both aspects of
lexical competence, though in different degrees for different words: a
zoologist's inferential competence on 'manatee' is
usually richer than a layman's, though a layman who spent her
life among manatees may be more competent, referentially, than a
"bookish" scientist. However, the two aspects are
independent of each another, and neuropsychological evidence appears
to show that they can be dissociated: there are patients whose
referential competence is impaired or lost while their inferential
competence is intact, and *vice versa* (see
Section 5.3).
Being a theory of individual competence, Marconi's account does
not deal directly with lexical meanings in a public language:
communication depends both on the uniformity of cognitive interactions
with the external world and on communal norms concerning the use of
language, together with speakers' deferential attitude toward
semantic authorities.
### 3.3 The Externalist Turn
Since the early 1970s, views on lexical meaning were revolutionized by
semantic externalism. Initially, externalism was limited to proper
names and natural kind words such as 'gold' or
'lemon'. In slightly different ways, both Kripke (1972)
and Putnam (1970, 1975) argued that the reference of such words was
not determined by any description that a competent speaker associated
with the word; more generally, and contrary to what Frege may have
thought, it was not determined by any cognitive content associated
with it in a speaker's mind (for arguments to that effect, see
the entry on
names).
Instead, reference is determined, at least in part, by objective
("causal") relations between a speaker and the external
world. For example, a speaker refers to Aristotle when she utters the
sentence "Aristotle was a great warrior"--so that her
assertion expresses a false proposition about Aristotle, not a true
proposition about some great warrior she may "have in
mind"--thanks to her connection with Aristotle himself. In
this case, the connection is constituted by a historical chain of
speakers going back to the initial users of the name
'Aristotle', or its Greek equivalent, in baptism-like
circumstances. To belong to the chain, speakers (including present-day
speakers) are not required to possess any precise knowledge of
Aristotle's life and deeds; they are, however, required to
intend to use the name as it is used by the speakers they are picking
up the name from, i.e., to refer to the individual those speakers
intend to refer to.
In the case of most natural kind names, it may be argued, baptisms are
hard to identify or even conjecture. In Putnam's view, for such
words reference is determined by speakers' causal interaction
with portions of matter or biological individuals in their
environment: 'water', for example, refers to *this*
liquid stuff, stuff that is normally found in *our* rivers,
lakes, etc. The indexical component (*this* liquid,
*our* rivers) is crucial to reference determination: it
wouldn't do to identify the referent of 'water' by
way of some description ("liquid, transparent, quenches thirst,
boils at 100degC, etc."), for something might fit the
description yet fail to be water, as in Putnam's (1973, 1975) famous Twin
Earth thought experiment (see the entry on
reference).
It might be remarked that, thanks to modern chemistry, we now possess
a description that is sure to apply to water and only to water:
"being H2O" (Millikan 2005). However, even if
our chemistry were badly mistaken (as in principle it could turn out
to be) and water were not, in fact, H2O,
'water' would still refer to whatever has the same nature
as *this* liquid. Something belongs to the extension of
'water' if and only if it is the same substance as this
liquid, which we identify--correctly, as we believe--as
being H2O.
Let it be noted that in Putnam's original proposal, reference
determination is utterly independent of speakers' cognition:
'water' on Twin Earth refers to XYZ (not to
H2O) even though the difference between the two substances
is cognitively inert, so that before chemistry was created nobody on
either Earth or Twin Earth could have told them apart. However, the
label 'externalism' has been occasionally used for weaker
views: a semantic account may be regarded as externalist if it takes
semantic content to depend in one way or another on relations a
computational system bears to things outside itself (Rey 2005; Borg
2012), irrespective of whether such relations affect the
system's cognitive state. Weak externalism is hard to
distinguish from forms of internalism on which a word's
reference is determined by information stored in a speaker's
cognitive system--information of which the speaker may or may not
be aware (Evans 1982). Be that as it may, in what follows
'externalism' will be used to mean strong, or Putnamian,
externalism.
Does externalism apply to other lexical categories besides proper
names and natural kind words? Putnam (1975) extended it to artifactual
words, claiming that 'pencil' would refer to
pencils--*those* objects--even if they turned out not
to fit the description by which we normally identify them (e.g., if
they were discovered to be organisms, not artifacts). Schwartz (1978,
1980) pointed out, among many objections, that even in such a case we
could *make* objects fitting the original description; we would
then regard the pencil-like organisms as impostors, not as
"genuine" pencils. Others sided with Putnam and the
externalist account: for example, Kornblith (1980) pointed out that
artifactual kinds from an ancient civilization could be re-baptized in
total ignorance of their function. The new artifactual word would then
refer to the kind *those* objects belong to independently of
any beliefs about them, true or false. Against such externalist
accounts, Thomasson (2007) argued that artifactual terms cannot refer
to artifactual kinds independently of all beliefs and concepts about
the nature of the kind, for the concept of the kind's creator(s)
is constitutive of the nature of the kind. Whether artifactual words
are liable to an externalist account is still an open issue (for
recent discussions see Marconi 2013; Bahr, Carrara & Jansen 2019;
see also the entry on
artifacts),
as is, more generally, the scope of application of externalist
semantics.
There is another form of externalism that does apply to all or most
words of a language: *social* externalism (Burge 1979), the
view on which the meaning of a word as used by an individual speaker
depends on the semantic standards of the linguistic community the
speaker belongs to. In our community the word 'arthritis'
refers to arthritis--an affliction of the joints--even when
used by a speaker who believes that it can afflict the muscles as well
and uses the word accordingly. If the community the speaker belongs to
applied 'arthritis' to rheumatoids ailments in general,
whether or not they afflict the joints, the same word form would not
mean arthritis and
would not refer to arthritis. Hence, a speaker's mental
contents, such as the meanings associated with the words she uses,
depend on something external to her, namely the uses and the standards
of use of the linguistic community she belongs to. Thus, social
externalism eliminates the notion of idiolect: words only have the
meanings conferred upon them by the linguistic community
("public" meanings); discounting radical incompetence,
there is no such thing as individual semantic deviance, there are only
false beliefs (for criticisms, see Bilgrami 1992, Marconi 1997; see
also the entry on
idiolects).
Though both forms of externalism focus on reference, neither is a
complete reduction of lexical meaning to reference. Both Putnam and
Burge make it a necessary condition of semantic competence on a word
that a speaker commands information that other semantic views would
regard as part of the word's sense. For example, if a speaker
believes that manatees are a kind of household appliance, she would
not count as competent on the word 'manatee', nor would
she refer to manatees by using it (Putnam 1975; Burge 1993). Beyond
that, it is not easy for externalists to provide a satisfactory
account of lexical semantic competence, as they are committed to
regarding speakers' beliefs and abilities (e.g., recognitional
abilities) as essentially irrelevant to reference determination, hence
to meaning. Two main solutions have been proposed. Putnam (1970, 1975)
suggested that a speaker's semantic competence consists in her
knowledge of *stereotypes* associated with words. A stereotype
is an oversimplified theory of a word's extension: the
stereotype associated with 'tiger' describes tigers as
cat-like, striped, carnivorous, fierce, living in the jungle, etc.
Stereotypes are not meanings, as they do not determine reference in
the right way: there are albino tigers and tigers that live in zoos.
What the 'tiger'-stereotype describes is (what the
community takes to be) the *typical* tiger. Knowledge of
stereotypes is necessary to be regarded as a competent speaker,
and--one surmises--it can also be considered sufficient for
the purposes of ordinary communication. Thus, Putnam's account
does provide some content for semantic competence, though it
dissociates it from knowledge of meaning.
On an alternative view (Devitt 1983), competence on
'tiger' does not consist in entertaining propositional
beliefs such as "tigers are striped", but rather in being
appropriately linked to a network of causal chains for
'tiger' involving other people's abilities,
groundings, and reference borrowings. In order to understand the
English word 'tiger' and use it in a competent fashion, a
subject must be able to combine 'tiger' appropriately with
other words to form sentences, to have thoughts which those sentences
express, and to ground these thoughts in tigers. Devitt's
account appears to make some room for a speaker's ability to,
e.g., recognize a tiger when she sees one; however, the respective
weights of individual abilities (and beliefs) and objective grounding
are not clearly specified. Suppose a speaker *A* belongs to a
community *C* that is familiar with tigers; unfortunately,
*A* has no knowledge of the typical appearance of a tiger and
is unable to tell a tiger from a leopard. Should *A* be
regarded as a competent user 'tiger' on account of her
being "part of *C*" and therefore linked to a
network of causal chains for 'tiger'?
### 3.4 Internalism
Some philosophers (e.g., Loar 1981; McGinn 1982; Block 1986) objected
to the reduction of lexical meaning to reference, or to
non-psychological factors that are alleged to determine reference. In
their view, there are two aspects of meaning (more generally, of
content): the *narrow* aspect, that captures the intuition that
'water' has the same meaning in both Earthian and
Twin-Earthian English, and the *wide* aspect, that captures the
externalist intuition that 'water' picks out different
substances in the two worlds. The wide notion is required to account
for the difference in reference between English and Twin-English
'water'; the narrow notion is needed, first and foremost,
to account for the relation between a subject's beliefs and her
behavior. The idea is that *how* an object of reference is
described (not just which object one refers to) can make a difference
in determining behavior. Oedipus married Jocasta because he thought he
was marrying the queen of Thebes, not his mother, though as a matter
of fact Jocasta *was* his mother. This applies to words of all
categories: someone may believe that water quenches thirst without
believing that H2O does; Lois Lane believed that Superman
was a superhero but she definitely did not believe the same of her
colleague Clark Kent, so she behaved one way to the man she identified
as Superman and another way to the man she identified as Clark Kent
(though they were the same man). Theorists that countenance these two
components of meaning and content usually identify the narrow aspect
with the *inferential* or *conceptual role* of an
expression *e*, i.e., with the aspect of *e* that
contributes to determine the inferential relations between sentences
containing an occurrence of *e* and other sentences. Crucially,
the two aspects are independent: neither determines the other. The
stress on the independence of the two factors also characterizes more
recent versions of so-called "dual aspect" theories, such
as Chalmers (1996, 2002).
While dual theorists agree with Putnam's claim that some aspects
of meaning are not "in the head", others have opted for
plain internalism. For example, Segal (2000) rejected the intuitions
that are usually associated with the Twin-Earth cases by arguing that
meaning (and content in general) "locally supervenes" on a
subject's intrinsic physical properties. But the most
influential critic of externalism has undoubtedly been Chomsky (2000).
First, he argued that much of the alleged support for externalism
comes in fact from "intuitions" about words'
reference in this or that circumstance. But 'reference'
(and the verb 'refer' as used by philosophers) is a
technical term, not an ordinary word, hence we have no more intuitions
about reference than we have about tensors or c-command. Second, if we
look at how words such as 'water' are applied in ordinary
circumstances, we find that speakers may call 'water'
liquids that contain a smaller proportion of H2O than other
liquids they do not call 'water' (e.g., tea): our use of
'water' does not appear to be governed by hypotheses about
microstructure. According to Chomsky, it may well be that progress in
the scientific study of the language faculty will allow us to
understand in what respects one's picture of the world is framed
in terms of things selected and individuated by properties of the
lexicon, or involves entities and relationships describable by the
resources of the language faculty. *Some* semantic properties
do appear to be integrated with other aspects of language. However,
so-called "natural kind words" (which in fact have little
to do with kinds in nature, Chomsky claims) may do little more than
indicating "positions in belief systems": studying them
may be of some interest for "ethnoscience", surely not for
a science of language. Along similar lines, others have maintained
that the genuine semantic properties of linguistic expressions should
be regarded as part of syntax, and that they constrain but do not
determine truth conditions (e.g., Pietroski 2005, 2010). Hence, the
connection between meaning and truth conditions (and reference) may be
significantly looser than assumed by many philosophers.
### 3.5 Contextualism, Minimalism, and the Lexicon
"Ordinary language" philosophers of the 1950s and 1960s
regarded work in formal semantics as essentially irrelevant to issues
of meaning in natural language. Following Austin and the later
Wittgenstein, they identified meaning with use and were prone to
consider the different patterns of use of individual expressions as
originating different meanings of the word. Grice (1975) argued that
such a proliferation of meanings could be avoided by distinguishing
between what is asserted by a sentence (to be identified with its
truth conditions) and what is communicated by it in a given context
(or in every "normal" context). For example, consider the
following exchange:
* A: Will Kim be hungry
at 11am?
* B: Kim had breakfast.
Although B does not literally assert that Kim had breakfast on that
particular day (see, however, Partee 1973), she does communicate as
much. More precisely, A could infer the communicated content by
noticing that the asserted sentence, taken literally ("Kim had
breakfast at least once in her life"), would be less informative
than required in the context: thus, it would violate one or more
principles of conversation ("maxims") whereas there is no
reason to suppose that the speaker intended to opt out of
conversational cooperation (see the entries on
Paul Grice
and
pragmatics).
If the interlocutor assumes that the speaker intended him to infer
the communicated content--i.e., that Kim had breakfast *that
morning*, so presumably she would not be hungry at
11--cooperation is preserved. Such non-asserted content, called
'implicature', need not be an addition to the overtly
asserted content: e.g., in irony asserted content is negated rather
than expanded by the implicature (think of a speaker uttering
"Paul is a fine friend" to implicate that Paul has
wickedly betrayed her).
Grice's theory of conversation and implicatures was interpreted
by many (including Grice himself) as a convincing way of accounting
for the variety of contextually specific communicative contents while
preserving the uniqueness of a sentence's "literal"
meaning, which was identified with truth conditions and regarded as
determined by syntax and the conventional meanings of the occurring
words, as in formal semantics. The only semantic role context was
allowed to play was in determining the content of indexical words
(such as 'I', 'now', 'here', etc.)
and the effect of context-sensitive structures (such as tense) on a
sentence's truth conditions. However, in about the same years
Travis (1975) and Searle (1979, 1980) pointed out that the semantic
relevance of context might be much more pervasive, if not universal:
intuitively, the same sentence type could have very different truth
conditions in different contexts, though no indexical expression or
structure appeared to be involved. Take the sentence "There is
milk in the fridge": in the context of morning breakfast it will
be considered true if there is a carton of milk in the fridge and
false if there is a patch of milk on a tray in the fridge, whereas in
the context of cleaning up the kitchen truth conditions are reversed.
Examples can be multiplied indefinitely, as indefinitely many factors
can turn out to be relevant to the truth or falsity of a sentence as
uttered in a particular context. Such variety cannot be plausibly
reduced to traditional polysemy such as the polysemy of
'property' (meaning quality or real estate), nor can it be
described in terms of Gricean implicatures: implicatures are supposed
not to affect a sentence's truth conditions, whereas here it is
precisely the sentence's truth conditions that are seen as
varying with context.
The traditionalist could object by challenging the
contextualist's intuitions about truth conditions. "There
is milk in the fridge", she could argue, is true if and only if
there is a certain amount (a few molecules will do) of a certain
organic substance in the relevant fridge (for versions of this
objection, Cappelen & Lepore 2005). So the sentence is true both
in the carton case and in the patch case; it would be false only if
the fridge did not contain any amount of any kind of milk (whether cow
milk or goat milk or elephant milk). The contextualist's reply
is that, in fact, neither the speaker nor the interpreter is aware of
such alleged literal content (the point is challenged by Fodor 1983,
Carston 2002); but "what is said" must be intuitively
accessible to the conversational participants (*Availability
Principle*, Recanati 1989). If truth conditions are associated
with what is said--as the traditionalist would agree they
are--then in many cases a sentence's literal content, if
there is such a thing, does not determine a complete, evaluable
proposition. For a genuine proposition to arise, a sentence
type's literal content (as determined by syntax and conventional
word meaning) must be enriched or otherwise modified by *primary
pragmatic processes* based on the speakers' background
knowledge relative to each particular context of use of the sentence.
Such processes differ from Gricean implicature-generating processes in
that they come into play at the sub-propositional level; moreover,
they are not limited to *saturation* of indexicals but may
include the replacement of a constituent with another. These tenets
define contextualism (Recanati 1993; Bezuidenhout 2002; Carston 2002;
relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson 1986) is in some respects a
precursor of such views). Contextualists take different stands on
nature of the semantic contribution made by words to sentences, though
they typically agree that it is insufficient to fix truth conditions
(Stojanovic 2008). See Del Pinal (2018) for an argument that radical
contextualism (in particular, truth-conditional pragmatics) should
instead commit to rich lexical items which, in certain conditions, do
suffice to fix truth conditions.
Even if sentence types have no definite truth conditions, it does not
follow that lexical types do not make definite or predictable
contributions to the truth conditions of sentences (think of indexical
words). It does follow, however, that conventional word meanings are
not the final constituents of complete propositions (see Allot &
Textor 2012). Does this imply that there are no such things as lexical
meanings understood as features of a language? If so, how should we
account for word acquisition and lexical competence in general?
Recanati (2004) does not think that contextualism as such is committed
to meaning eliminativism, the view on which words as types have no
meaning; nevertheless, he regards it as defensible. Words could be
said to have, rather than "meaning", a *semantic
potential*, defined as the collection of past uses of a word
*w* on the basis of which similarities can be established
between source situations (i.e., the circumstances in which a speaker
has used *w*) and target situations (i.e., candidate occasions
of application of *w*). It is natural to object that even
admitting that long-term memory could encompass such an immense amount
of information (think of the number of times 'table' or
'woman' are used by an average speaker in the course of
her life), surely working memory could not review such information to
make sense of new uses. On the other hand, if words were associated
with "more abstract schemata corresponding to types of
situations", as Recanati suggests as a less radical alternative
to meaning eliminativism, one wonders what the difference would be
with respect to traditional accounts in terms of polysemy.
Other conceptions of "what is said" make more room for the
semantic contribution of conventional word meanings. Bach (1994)
agrees with contextualists that the linguistic meaning of words (plus
syntax and after saturation) does not always determine complete,
truth-evaluable propositions; however, he maintains that they do
provide some minimal semantic information, a so-called
'propositional radical', that allows pragmatic processes
to issue in one or more propositions. Bach identifies "what is
said" with this minimal information. However, many have objected
that minimal content is extremely hard to isolate (Recanati 2004;
Stanley 2007). Suppose it is identified with the content that all the
utterances of a sentence type share; unfortunately, no such content
can be attributed to a sentence such as "Every bottle is in the
fridge", for there is no proposition that is stably asserted by
every utterance of it (surely not the proposition that every bottle in
the universe is in the fridge, which is *never* asserted).
Stanley's (2007) *indexicalism* rejects the notion of
minimal proposition and any distinction between semantic content and
communicated content: communicated content can be entirely captured by
means of consciously accessible, linguistically controlled content
(content that results from semantic value together with the provision
of values to free variables in syntax, or semantic value together with
the provision of arguments to functions from semantic types to
propositions) together with general conversational norms. Accordingly,
Stanley generalizes contextual saturation processes that are usually
regarded as characteristic of indexicals, tense, and a few other
structures; moreover, he requires that the relevant variables be
linguistically encoded, either syntactically or lexically. It remains
to be seen whether such solutions apply (in a non-*ad hoc* way)
to all the examples of content modulation that have been presented in
the literature.
Finally, *minimalism* (Borg 2004, 2012; Cappelen & Lepore
2005) is the view that appears (and intends) to be closest to the
Frege-Montague tradition. The task of a semantic theory is said to be
minimal in that it is supposed to account only for the literal meaning
of sentences: context does not affect literal semantic content but
"what the speaker says" as opposed to "what the
sentence means" (Borg 2012). In this sense, semantics is not
another name for the theory of meaning, because not all
meaning-related properties are semantic properties (Borg 2004).
Contrary to contextualism and Bach's theory, minimalism holds
that lexicon and syntax together determine complete truth-evaluable
propositions. Indeed, this is definitional for lexical meaning: word
meanings are the kind of things which, if one puts enough of them
together in the right sort of way, then what one gets is propositional
content (Borg 2012). Borg believes that, in order to be
truth-evaluable, propositional contents must be "about the
world", and that this entails some form of semantic externalism.
However, the identification of lexical meaning with reference makes it
hard to account for semantic relations such as synonymy, analytic
entailment or the difference between ambiguity and polysemy, and
syntactically relevant properties: the difference between "John
is easy to please" and "John is eager to please"
cannot be explained by the fact that 'easy' means the
property easy (see the
entry on
ambiguity).
To account for semantically based syntactic properties, words may
come with "instructions" that are not, however,
constitutive of a word's meaning like meaning postulates (which
Borg rejects), though awareness of them is part of a speaker's
competence. Once more, lexical semantic competence is divorced from
grasp of word meaning. In conclusion, some information counts as
lexical if it is either perceived as such in "firm, type-level
lexical intuitions" or capable of affecting the word's
syntactic behavior. Borg concedes that even such an extended
conception of lexical content will not capture, e.g., analytic
entailments such as the relation between 'bachelor' and
'unmarried'.
## 4. Linguistics
The emergence of modern linguistic theories of word meaning is usually
placed at the transition from historical-philological semantics
(Section 2.2)
to structuralist semantics, the linguistics movement started at the
break of the 20th century by Ferdinand de Saussure with his
*Cours de Linguistique Generale* (1995
[1916]).
### 4.1 Structuralist Semantics
The advances introduced by the structuralist conception of word
meaning are best appreciated by contrasting its basic assumptions with
those of historical-philological semantics. Let us recall the three
most important differences (Lepschy 1970; Matthews 2001).
* *Anti-psychologism*. Structuralist semantics views language
as a symbolic system whose properties and internal dynamics can be
analyzed without taking into account their implementation in the
mind/brain of language users. Just as the rules of chess can be stated
and analyzed without making reference to the mental properties of
chess players, so a theory of word meaning can, and should, proceed
simply by examining the formal role played by words within the system
of the language.
* *Anti-historicism*. Since the primary explanandum of
structuralist semantics is the role played by lexical expressions
within structured linguistic systems, structuralist semantics
privileges the synchronic description of word meaning. Diachronic
accounts of word meaning are logically posterior to the analysis of
the relational properties statically exemplified by words at different
stages of the evolution of the language.
* *Anti-localism*. Because the semantic properties of words
depend on the relations they entertain with other expressions in the
same lexical system, word meanings cannot be studied in isolation.
This is both an epistemological and a foundational claim, i.e., a
claim about how matters related to word meaning should be addressed in
the context of a semantic theory of word meaning, and a claim about
the dynamics whereby the elements of a system of signs acquire the
meaning they have for their users.
The account of lexical phenomena popularized by structuralism gave
rise to a variety of descriptive approaches to word meaning. We can
group them in three categories (Lipka 1992; Murphy 2003; Geeraerts
2006).
* *Lexical Field Theory*. Introduced by Trier (1931), it
argues that word meaning should be studied by looking at the relations
holding between words in the same lexical field. A lexical field is a
set of semantically related words whose meanings are mutually
interdependent and which together spell out the conceptual structure
of a given domain of reality. Lexical Field Theory assumes that
lexical fields are closed sets with no overlapping meanings or
semantic gaps. Whenever a word undergoes a change in meaning (e.g.,
its range of application is extended or contracted), the whole
arrangement of its lexical field is affected (Lehrer 1974).
* *Componential Analysis*. Developed in the second half of
the 1950s by European and American linguists (e.g., Pattier, Coseriu,
Bloomfield, Nida), this framework argues that word meaning can be
described on the basis of a finite set of conceptual building blocks
called semantic *components* or *features*. For example,
'man' can be analyzed as [+ male],
[+ mature],
'woman' as [[?] male],
[+ mature],
'child'
as [+/[?] male]
[[?] mature] (Leech
1974).
* *Relational Semantics*. Prominent in the work of linguists
such as Lyons (1963), this approach shares with Lexical Field Theory
the commitment to a style of analysis that privileges the description
of lexical relations, but departs from it in two important respects.
First, it postulates no direct correspondence between sets of related
words and domains of reality, thereby dropping the assumption that the
organization of lexical fields should be understood to reflect the
organization of the non-linguistic world. Second, instead of deriving
statements about the meaning relations entertained by a lexical item
(e.g., synonymy, hyponymy) from an independent account of its meaning,
for relational semantics word meanings are constituted by the set of
semantic relations words participate in (Evens et al. 1980; Cruse
1986).
### 4.2 Generativist Semantics
The componential current of structuralism was the first to produce an
important innovation in theories of word meaning: Katzian semantics
(Katz & Fodor 1963; Katz 1972, 1987). Katzian semantics combined
componential analysis with a mentalistic conception of word meaning
and developed a method for the description of lexical phenomena in the
context of a formal grammar. The mentalistic component of Katzian
semantics is twofold. First, word meanings are defined as aggregates
of simpler conceptual features inherited from our general
categorization abilities. Second, the proper subject matter of the
theory is no longer identified with the "structure of the
language" but, following Chomsky (1957, 1965), with speakers'
ability to competently interpret the words and sentences of their
language. In Katzian semantics, word meanings are structured entities
whose representations are called *semantic markers*. A semantic
marker is a hierarchical tree with labeled nodes whose structure
reproduces the structure of the represented meaning, and whose labels
identify the word's conceptual components. For example, the
figure below illustrates the sense of 'chase' (simplified
from Katz 1987).
![a tree of the form [.((Activity)_{[NP,S]}) [.(Physical) [.(Movement) (Fast) [.((Direction of)_{[NP,VP,S]}) ((Toward Location of) _{[NP,VP,S]}) ] ] ] [.(Purpose) ((Catching) _{[NP,VP,S]}) ] ]](word-meaning-tree.png)
Katz (1987) claimed that this approach was superior in both
transparency and richness to the analysis of word meaning that could
be provided via meaning postulates. For example, in Katzian semantics
the validation of conditionals such as \(\forall x\forall y
(\textrm{chase}(x, y) \to \textrm{follow}(x,y))\) could be reduced to
a matter of inspection: one had simply to check whether the semantic
marker of 'follow' was a subtree of the semantic marker of
'chase'. Furthermore, the method incorporated syntagmatic
relations in the representation of word meanings (witness the
grammatical tags 'NP', 'VP' and
'S' attached to the conceptual components above). Katzian
semantics was favorably received by the Generative Semantics movement
(Fodor 1977; Newmeyer 1980) and boosted an interest in the formal
representation of word meaning that would dominate the linguistic
scene for decades to come (Harris 1993). Nonetheless, it was
eventually abandoned. As subsequent commentators noted, Katzian
semantics suffered from three important drawbacks. First, the theory
did not provide any clear model of how the complex conceptual
information represented by semantic markers contributed to the truth
conditions of sentences (Lewis 1972). Second, some aspects of word
meaning that could be easily represented with meaning postulates could
not be expressed through semantic markers, such as the symmetry and
the transitivity of predicates
(e.g., \(\forall x\forall y (\textrm{sibling}(x, y) \to
\textrm{sibling}(y, x))\) or \(\forall x\forall y\forall z
(\textrm{louder}(x, y) \mathbin{\&} \textrm{louder}(y, z) \to
\textrm{louder}(x, z))\); see Dowty 1979).
Third, Katz's arguments for the view that word meanings are
intrinsically structured turned out to be vulnerable to objections
from proponents of atomistic views of word meaning (see, most notably,
Fodor & Lepore 1992).
After Katzian semantics, the landscape of linguistic theories of word
meaning bifurcated. On one side, we find a group of theories advancing
the *decompositional* agenda established by Katz. On the other
side, we find a group of theories fostering the *relational*
approach originated by Lexical Field Theory and relational semantics.
Following Geeraerts (2010), we will briefly characterize the following
ones.
| *Decompositional Frameworks* | *Relational Frameworks* |
| --- | --- |
| Natural Semantic Metalanguage | Symbolic Networks |
| Conceptual Semantics | Statistical Analysis |
| Two-Level Semantics | |
| Generative Lexicon Theory | |
### 4.3 Decompositional Approaches
The basic idea of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach
(henceforth, NSM; Wierzbicka 1972, 1996; Goddard & Wierzbicka
2002) is that word meaning is best described through the combination
of a small set of elementary conceptual particles, known as
*semantic primes*. Semantic primes are primitive (i.e., not
decomposable into further conceptual parts), innate (i.e., not
learned), and universal (i.e., explicitly lexicalized in all natural
languages, whether in the form of a word, a morpheme, a phraseme, and
so forth). According to NSM, the meaning of any word in any natural
language can be defined by appropriately combining these fundamental
conceptual particles. Wierzbicka (1996) proposed a catalogue of about
60 semantic primes, designed to analyze word meanings within so-called
reductive paraphrases. For example, the reductive paraphrase for
'top' is a part of
something; this part is above all the other parts of this
something. NSM has produced interesting applications in
comparative linguistics (Peeters 2006), language teaching (Goddard
& Wierzbicka 2007), and lexical typology (Goddard 2012). However,
the approach has been criticized on various grounds. First, it has
been argued that the method followed by NSM in the identification of
semantic primes is insufficiently clear (e.g., Matthewson 2003).
Second, some have observed that reductive paraphrases are too vague to
be considered adequate representations of word meanings, since they
fail to account for fine-grained differences between semantically
neighboring words. For example, the reductive paraphrase provided by
Wierzbicka for 'sad' (i.e., *x* feels
something; sometimes a person
thinks something like this: something bad happened; if i didn't
know that it happened i would say: i don't want it to happen; i
don't say this now because i know: i can't do anything;
because of this, this person feels something bad; *x*
feels something like
this) seems to apply equally well to 'unhappy',
'distressed', 'frustrated',
'upset', and 'annoyed' (e.g., Aitchison 2012).
Third, there is no consensus on what items should ultimately feature
in the list of semantic primes available to reductive paraphrases: the
content of the list is debated and varies considerably between
versions of NSM. Fourth, some purported semantic primes appear to fail
to comply with the universality requirement and are not explicitly
lexicalized in all known languages (Bohnemeyer 2003; Von Fintel &
Matthewson 2008). See Goddard (1998) for some replies and Riemer
(2006) for further objections.
For NSM, word meanings can be exhaustively represented with a
metalanguage appealing exclusively to the combination of primitive
linguistic particles. Conceptual Semantics (Jackendoff 1983, 1990,
2002) proposes a more open-ended approach. According to Conceptual
Semantics, word meanings are essentially an interface phenomenon
between a specialized body of linguistic knowledge (e.g.,
morphosyntactic knowledge) and core non-linguistic cognition. Word
meanings are thus modeled as hybrid semantic representations combining
linguistic features (e.g., syntactic tags) and conceptual elements
grounded in perceptual knowledge and motor schemas. For example, here
is the semantic representation of 'drink' according to
Jackendoff.
\[\left[
\begin{align\*}
&\text{drink} \\
&\mathrm{V} \\
&\underline{\phantom{xxxi}}\langle \text{NP}\_j \rangle \\
&[\_{\text{Event}} \text{CAUSE} ([\_{\text{Thing}}\quad]\_i,
[\_{\text{Event}} \text{GO} ([\_{\text{Thing}} \text{LIQUID}]\_j, \\
&\quad [\_{\text{Path}} \text{TO} ([\_{\text{Place}} \text{IN}
([\_{\text{Thing}} \text{MOUTH OF} ([\_{\text{Thing}}\quad]\_i)])])])])]
\end{align\*}
\right]\]
Syntactic tags represent the grammatical properties of the word under
analysis, while the items in subscript are picked from a core set of
perceptually grounded primitives (e.g., event,
state, thing, path, place, property,
amount) which are assumed to be innate, cross-modal and
universal categories of the human mind. The decompositional machinery
of Conceptual Semantics has a number of attractive features. Most
notably, its representations take into account grammatical class and
word-level syntax, which are plausibly an integral aspect of our
knowledge of the meaning of words. However, some of its claims about
the interplay between language and conceptual structure appear more
problematic. To begin with, it has been observed that speakers tend to
use causative predicates (e.g., 'drink') and the
paraphrases expressing their decompositional structure (e.g.,
"cause a liquid to go into someone or something's
mouth") in different and sometimes non-interchangeable ways
(e.g., Wolff 2003), which raises concerns about the hypothesis that
decompositional analyses a la Jackendoff may be regarded as faithful
representations of word meanings. In addition, Conceptual Semantics is
somewhat unclear as to what exact method should be followed in the
identification of the motor-perceptual primitives that can feed
descriptions of word meanings (Pulman 2005). Finally, the restriction
placed by Conceptual Semantics on the type of conceptual material that
can inform definitions of word meaning (low-level primitives grounded
in perceptual knowledge and motor schemas) appears to affect the
explanatory power of the framework. For example, how can one account
for the difference in meaning between 'jog' and
'run' without ut taking into account higher-level,
arguably non-perceptual knowledge about the social characteristics of
jogging, which typically implies a certain leisure setting, the
intention to contribute to physical wellbeing, and so on? See Taylor
(1996), Deane (1996).
The neat dividing line drawn between word meanings and general world
knowledge by Conceptual Semantics does not tell us much about the
dynamic interaction of the two in language use. The Two-Level
Semantics of Bierwisch (1983a,b) and Lang (Bierwisch & Lang 1989;
Lang 1993) aims to provide such a dynamic account. Two-Level Semantics
views word meaning as the result of the interaction between two
systems: *semantic form* (SF) and *conceptual structure*
(CS). SF is a formalized representation of the basic features of a
word. It contains grammatical information that specifies, e.g., the
admissible syntactic distribution of the word, plus a set of variables
and semantic parameters whose value is determined by the interaction
with CS. By contrast, CS consists of language-independent systems of
knowledge (including general world knowledge) that mediate between
language and the world (Lang & Maienborn 2011). According to
Two-Level Semantics, for example, polysemous words can express
variable meanings by virtue of having a stable underspecified SF which
can be flexibly manipulated by CS. By way of example, consider the
word 'university', which can be read as referring either
to an institution (as in "the university selected John's
application") or to a building (as in "the university is
located on the North side of the river"). Simplifying a bit,
Two-Level Semantics explains the dynamics governing the selection of
these readings as follows.
1. Because 'university' belongs to the category of words
denoting objects primarily characterized by their purpose, the general
lexical entry for 'university' is \(\lambda x
[\textrm{purpose} [x w]]\).
2. Based on our knowledge that the primary
purpose of universities is to provide advanced education, the SF of
'university' is specified as \(\lambda x [\textrm{purpose}
[x w] \mathbin{\&} \textit{advanced study and teaching}
[w]]\).
3. The alternative readings of
'university' are a function of the two ways CS can set the
value of the variable x in its SF, such ways being \(\lambda x
[\textrm{institution} [x] \mathbin{\&} \textrm{purpose} [x w]]\)
and \(\lambda x [\textrm{building} [x] \mathbin{\&}
\textrm{purpose} [x w]]\).
Two-Level Semantics shares Jackendoff's and Wierzbicka's
commitment to a descriptive paradigm that anchors word meaning to a
stable decompositional template, all the while avoiding the immediate
complications arising from a restrictive characterization of the type
of conceptual factors that can modulate such stable decompositional
templates in contexts. But there are, once again, a few significant
issues. A first problem is definitional accuracy: defining the SF of
'university' as \(\lambda x [\textrm{purpose} [x w]
\mathbin{\&} \textit{advanced study and teaching} [w]]\) seems too
loose to reflect the subtle differences in meaning among
'university' and related terms designating institutions
for higher education, such as 'college' or
'academy'. Furthermore, the apparatus of Two-Level
Semantics relies heavily on lambda expressions, which, as some
commentators have noted (e.g., Taylor 1994, 1995), appears ill-suited
to represent the complex forms of world knowledge we often rely on to
fix the meaning of highly polysemous words. See also Wunderlich (1991,
1993).
The Generative Lexicon theory (GL; Pustejovsky 1995) takes a different
approach. Instead of explaining the contextual flexibility of word
meaning by appealing to rich conceptual operations applied on
semantically thin lexical entries, this approach postulates lexical
entries rich in conceptual information and knowledge of worldly facts.
According to classical GL, the informational resources encoded in the
lexical entry for a typical word *w* consist of the following
four levels.
* A *lexical typing structure*, specifying the semantic type
of *w* within the type system of the language;
* An *argument structure*, representing the number and nature
of the arguments supported by *w*;
* An *event structure*, defining the event type denoted by
*w* (e.g., state, process, transition);
* A *qualia structure*, specifying the predicative force of
*w*.
In particular, qualia structure specifies the conceptual relations
that speakers associate to the real-world referents of a word and
impact on the way the word is used in the language (Pustejovsky 1998).
For example, our knowledge that bread is something that is brought
about through baking is considered a Quale of the word
'bread', and this knowledge is responsible for our
understanding that, e.g., "fresh bread" means "bread
which has been baked recently". GL distinguishes four types of
qualia:
* constitutive: the relation between an
object *x* and its constituent parts;
* formal: the basic ontological category of
*x*;
* telic: the purpose and the function of
*x*;
* agentive: the factors involved in the
origin of *x*.
Take together, these qualia form the "qualia structure" of
a word. For example, the qualia structure of the noun
'sandwich' will feature information about the composition
of sandwiches, their nature of physical artifacts, their being
intended to be eaten, and our knowledge about the operations typically
involved in the preparation of sandwiches. The notation is as
follows.
*sandwich*(*x*)
const = {bread, ...}
form = physobj(*x*)
tel = eat(P, *g*, *x*)
agent = artifact(*x*)
Qualia structure is the primary explanatory device by which GL
accounts for polysemy. The sentence "Mary finished the
sandwich" receives the default interpretation "Mary
finished *eating* the sandwich" because the argument
structure of 'finish' requires an action as direct object,
and the qualia structure of 'sandwich' allows the
generation of the appropriate sense via type coercion (Pustejovsky
2006). GL is an ongoing research program (Pustejovsky et al. 2012)
that has led to significant applications in computational linguistics
(e.g., Pustejovsky & Jezek 2008; Pustejovsky & Rumshisky
2008). But like the theories mentioned so far, it has been subject to
criticisms. A first general criticism is that the decompositional
assumptions underlying GL are unwarranted and should be replaced by an
atomist view of word meaning (Fodor & Lepore 1998; see Pustejovsky
1998 for a reply). A second criticism is that GL's focus on
variations in word meaning which depend on sentential context and
qualia structure is too narrow, since since contextual variations in
word meaning often depend on more complex factors, such as the ability
to keep track of coherence relations in a discourse (e.g., Asher &
Lascarides 1995; Lascarides & Copestake 1998; Kehler 2002; Asher
2011). Finally, the empirical adequacy of the framework has been
called into question. It has been argued that the formal apparatus of
GL leads to incorrect predictions, that qualia structure sometimes
overgenerates or undergenerates interpretations, and that the rich
lexical entries postulated by GL are psychologically implausible
(e.g., Jayez 2001; Blutner 2002).
### 4.4 Relational Approaches
To conclude this section, we will briefly mention some contemporary
approaches to word meaning that, in different ways, pursue the
theoretical agenda of the relational current of the structuralist
paradigm. For pedagogical convenience, we can group them into two
categories. On the one hand, we have *network* approaches,
which formalize knowledge of word meaning within models where the
lexicon is seen as a structured system of entries interconnected by
sense relations such as synonymy, antonymy, and meronymy. On the
other, we have *statistical* approaches, whose primary aim is
to investigate the patterns of co-occurrence among words in linguistic
corpora.
The main example of network approaches is perhaps Collins and
Quillian's (1969) hierarchical network model, in which words are
represented as entries in a network of nodes, each comprising a set of
conceptual features defining the conventional meaning of the word in
question, and connected to other nodes in the network through semantic
relations (more in Lehman 1992). Subsequent developments of the
hierarchical network model include the Semantic Feature Model (Smith,
Shoben & Rips 1974), the Spreading Activation Model (Collins &
Loftus 1975; Bock & Levelt 1994), the WordNet database (Fellbaum
1998), as well as the connectionist models of Seidenberg &
McClelland (1989), Hinton & Shallice (1991), and Plaut &
Shallice (1993). More on this in the entry on
connectionism.
Finally, statistical analysis investigates word meaning by examining
through computational means the distribution of words in linguistic
corpora. The main idea is to use quantitative data about the frequency
of co-occurrence of sets of lexical items to identify their semantic
properties and differentiate their different senses (for overviews,
see Atkins & Zampolli 1994; Manning & Schutze 1999;
Stubbs 2002; Sinclair 2004). Notice that while symbolic networks are
models of the architecture of the lexicon that seek to be
psychologically adequate (i.e., to reveal how knowledge of word
meaning is stored and organized in the mind/brain of human speakers),
statistical approaches to word meaning are not necessarily interested
in psychological adequacy, and may have completely different goals,
such as building a machine translation service able to mimic human
performance (a goal that can obviously be achieved without reproducing
the cognitive mechanisms underlying translation in humans). More on
this in the entry on
computational linguistics.
## 5. Cognitive Science
As we have seen, most theories of word meaning in linguistics face, at
some point, the difficulties involved in drawing a plausible dividing
line between word knowledge and world knowledge, and the various ways
they attempt to meet this challenge display some recurrent features.
For example, they assume that the lexicon, though richly interfaced
with world knowledge and non-linguistic cognition, remains an
autonomous representational system encoding a specialized body of
linguistic knowledge. In this section, we survey a group of empirical
approaches that adopt a different stance on word meaning. The focus is
once again psychological, which means that the overall goal of these
approaches is to provide a cognitively realistic account of the
representational repertoire underlying knowledge of word meaning.
Unlike the approaches surveyed in
Section 4,
however, these theories tend to encourage a view on which the
distinction between the semantic and pragmatic aspects of word meaning
is highly unstable (or even impossible to draw), where lexical
knowledge and knowledge of worldly facts are aspects of a continuum,
and where the lexicon is permeated by our general inferential
abilities (Evans 2010).
Section 5.1
will briefly illustrate the central assumptions underlying the study
of word meaning in cognitive linguistics.
Section 5.2
will turn to the study of word meaning in psycholinguistics.
Section 5.3
will conclude with some references to neurolinguistics.
### 5.1 Cognitive Linguistics
At the beginning of the 1970s, Eleanor Rosch put forth a new theory of
the mental representation of categories. Concepts such as furniture
or bird,
she claimed, are not
represented just as sets of criterial features with clear-cut
boundaries, so that an item can be conceived as falling or not falling
under the concept based on whether or not it meets the relevant
criteria. Rather, items within categories can be considered more or
less representative of the category itself (Rosch 1975; Rosch &
Mervis 1975; Mervis & Rosch 1981). Several experiments seemed to
show that the application of concepts is no simple yes-or-no business:
some items (the "good examples") are more easily
identified as falling under a concept than others (the "poor
examples"). An automobile is perceived as a better example of
vehicle than a rowboat,
and much better than an elevator; a carrot is more readily identified
as an example of the concept vegetable
than a pumpkin. If the concepts speakers
associate to category words (such as 'vehicle' and
'vegetable') were mere bundles of criterial features,
these preferences would be inexplicable, since they rank items that
meet the criteria equally well. It is thus plausible to assume that
the concepts associated to category words are have a center-periphery
architecture centered on the most representative examples of the
category: a robin is perceived as a more "birdish" bird
than an ostrich or, as people would say, closer to the
*prototype* of a bird or to the *prototypical* bird (see
the entry on
concepts).
Although nothing in Rosch's experiments licensed the conclusion
that prototypical rankings should be reified and treated as the
content of concepts (what her experiments did support was merely that
a theory of the mental representation of categories should be
consistent with the existence of prototype *effects*), the
study of prototypes revolutionized the existing approaches to category
concepts (Murphy 2002) and was a leading force behind the birth of
cognitive linguistics. Prototypes were central to the development of
the Radial Network Theory of Brugman (1988 [1981]) and Lakoff (Brugman
& Lakoff 1988), which proposed to model the sense network of words
by introducing in the architecture of word meanings the
center-periphery relation at the heart of Rosch's seminal work.
According to Brugman, word meanings can typically be modeled as radial
complexes where a dominant sense is related to less typical senses by
means of semantic relations such as metaphor and metonymy. For
example, the sense network of 'fruit' features product
of plant growth at
its center and a more abstract outcome
at its periphery, and the two are
connected by a metaphorical relation). On a similar note, the
Conceptual Metaphor Theory of Lakoff & Johnson (1980; Lakoff 1987)
and the Mental Spaces Approach of Fauconnier (1994; Fauconnier &
Turner 1998) combined the assumption that word meanings typically have
an internal structure arranging multiple related senses in a radial
fashion, with the further claim that our use of words is governed by
hard-wired mapping mechanisms that catalyze the integration of word
meanings across conceptual domains. For example, it is in virtue of
these mechanisms that the expressions "love is war",
"life is a journey") are so widespread across cultures and
sound so natural to our ears. On the proposed view, these associations
are creative, perceptually grounded, systematic, cross-culturally
uniform, and grounded on pre-linguistic patterns of conceptual
activity which correlate with core elements of human embodied
experience (see the entries on
metaphor
and
embodied cognition).
More in Kovecses (2002), Gibbs (2008), and Dancygier &
Sweetser (2014).
Another major innovation introduced by cognitive linguistics is the
development of a resolutely "encyclopedic" approach to
word meaning, best exemplified by Frame Semantics (Fillmore 1975,
1982) and by the Theory of Domains (Langacker 1987). Approximating a
bit, an approach to word meaning can be defined
"encyclopedic" insofar as it characterizes knowledge of
worldly facts as the primary constitutive force of word meaning. While
the Mental Spaces Approach and Conceptual Metaphor Theory regarded
word meaning mainly as the product of associative patterns between
concepts, Fillmore and Langacker turned their attention to the
relation between word meaning and the body of encyclopedic knowledge
possessed by typical speakers. Our ability to use and interpret the
verb 'buy', for example, is closely intertwined with our
background knowledge of the social nature of commercial transfer,
which involves a seller, a buyer, goods, money, the relation between
the money and the goods, and so forth. However, knowledge structures
of this kind cannot be modeled as standard concept-like
representations. Here is how Frame Semantics attempts to meet the
challenge. First, words are construed as pairs of phonographic forms
with highly schematic concepts which are internally organized as
radial categories and function as access sites to encyclopedic
knowledge. Second, an account of the representational organization of
encyclopedic knowledge is provided. According to Fillmore,
encyclopedic knowledge is represented in long-term memory in the form
of *frames*, i.e., schematic conceptual scenarios that specify
the prototypical features and functions of a denotatum, along with its
interactions with the objects and the events typically associated with
it. Frames provide thus a schematic representation of the elements and
entities associated with a particular domain of experience and convey
the information required to use and interpret the words employed to
talk about it. For example, according to Fillmore & Atkins (1992)
the use of the verb 'bet' is governed by the risk
frame, which is as
follows:
| | |
| --- | --- |
| *Protagonist*: | The central agent in the frame. |
| *Bad*: | The possible bad outcome. |
| *Decision*: | The decision that could trigger the bad outcome. |
| *Goal*: | The desired outcome. |
| *Setting*: | The situation within which the risk exists. |
| *Possession*: | Something valued by the protagonist and endangered in the
situation. |
| *Source*: | Something or someone which could cause the harm. |
In the same vein as Frame Semantics (more on the parallels in Clausner
& Croft 1999), Langacker's Theory of Domains argues that our
understanding of word meaning depends on our access to larger
knowledge structures called *domains*. To illustrate the notion
of a domain, consider the word 'diameter'. The meaning of
this word cannot be grasped independently of a prior understanding of
the notion of a circle. According to Langacker, word meaning is
precisely a matter of "profile-domain" organization: the
profile corresponds to a substructural element designated within a
relevant macrostructure, whereas the domain corresponds to the
macrostructure providing the background information against which the
profile can be interpreted (Taylor 2002). In the diameter/circle
example, 'diameter' designates a profile in the circle
domain. Similarly,
expressions like 'hot', 'cold', and
'warm' designate properties in the temperature
domain. Langacker
argues that domains are typically structured into hierarchies that
reflect meronymic relations and provide a basic conceptual ontology
for language use. For example, the meaning of 'elbow' is
understood with respect to the arm
domain, while the meaning of 'arm'
is situated within the body
domain. Importantly, individual profiles
typically inhere to different domains, and this is one of the factors
responsible for the ubiquity of polysemy in natural language. For
example, the profile associated to the word 'love' inheres
both to the domains of embodied experience and to the abstract domains
of social activities such as marriage ceremonies.
Developments of the approach to word meaning fostered by cognitive
linguistics include Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995), Embodied
Construction Grammar (Bergen & Chang 2005), Invited Inferencing
Theory (Traugott & Dasher 2001), and LCCM Theory (Evans 2009). The
notion of a frame has become popular in cognitive psychology to model
the dynamics of *ad hoc* categorization (e.g., Barsalou 1983,
1992, 1999; more in
Section 5.2).
General information about the study of word meaning in cognitive
linguistics can be found in Talmy (2000a,b), Croft & Cruse (2004),
and Evans & Green (2006).
### 5.2 Psycholinguistics
In psycholinguistics, the study of word meaning is understood as the
investigation of the *mental lexicon*, the cognitive system
that underlies the capacity for conscious and unconscious lexical
activity (Jarema & Libben 2007). Simply put, the mental lexicon is
the long-term representational inventory storing the body of
linguistic knowledge speakers are required to master in order to make
competent use of the lexical elements of a language; as such, it can
be equated with the lexical component of an individual's
language capacity. Research on the mental lexicon is concerned with a
variety of problems (for surveys, see, e.g., Traxler & Gernsbacher
2006, Spivey, McRae & Joanisse 2012, Harley 2014), that center
around the following tasks:
* Define the overall organization of the mental lexicon, specify
its components and clarify the role played by such components in
lexical production and comprehension;
* Determine the internal makeup of single components and the way
the information they store is brought to bear on lexical
performance;
* Describe the interface mechanisms connecting the mental lexicon
to other domains in the human cognitive architecture (e.g.,
declarative memory);
* Illustrate the learning processes responsible for the acquisition
and the development of lexical abilities.
From a functional point of view, the mental lexicon is usually
understood as a system of *lexical entries*, each containing
the information related to a word mastered by a speaker (Rapp 2001). A
lexical entry for a word *w* is typically modeled as a complex
representation made up of the following components (Levelt 1989,
2001):
* A *semantic form*, determining the semantic contribution
made by *w* to the meaning of sentences containing
*w*;
* A *grammatical form*, assigning *w* to a
grammatical category (noun, verb, adjective) and regulating the
behavior of *w* in syntactic environments;
* A *morphological form*, representing the morphemic
substructure of *w* and the morphological operations that can
be applied on *w*;
* A *phonological form*, specifying the set of phonological
properties of *w*;
* An *orthographic form*, specifying the graphic structure
of *w*.
From this standpoint, a theory of word meaning translates into an
account of the information stored in the semantic form of lexical
entries. A crucial part of the task consists in determining exactly
what kind of information is stored in lexical semantic forms as
opposed to, e.g., bits of information that fall under the scope of
episodic memory or general factual knowledge. Recall the example we
made in
Section 3.3:
how much of the information that a competent zoologist can associate
to tigers is part of her knowledge of the meaning of the word
'tiger'? Not surprisingly, even in psycholinguistics
tracing a neat functional separation between word processing and
general-purpose cognition has proven a problematic task. The general
consensus among psycholinguists seems to be that lexical
representations and conceptual representations are richly interfaced,
though functionally distinct (e.g., Gleitman & Papafragou 2013).
For example, in clinical research it is standard practice to
distinguish between *amodal* deficits involving an inability to
process information at both the conceptual and the lexical level, and
*modal* deficits specifically restricted to one of the two
spheres (Saffran & Schwartz 1994; Rapp & Goldrick 2006;
Jefferies & Lambon Ralph 2006; more in more in
Section 5.3).
On the resulting view, lexical activity in humans is the output of
the interaction between two functionally neighboring systems, one
broadly in charge of the storage and processing of
conceptual-encyclopedic knowledge, the other coinciding with the
mental lexicon. The role of lexical entries is essentially to make
these two systems communicate with one another through semantic forms
(see Denes 2009). Contrary to the folk notion of a mental lexicon
where words are associated to fully specified meanings or senses which
are simply retrieved from the lexicon for the purpose of language
processing, in these models lexical semantic forms are seen as highly
schematic representations whose primary function is to supervise the
recruitment of the extra-linguistic information required to interpret
word occurrences in language use. In recent years, appeals to
"ultra-thin" lexical entries have taken an eliminativist
turn. It has been suggested that psycholinguistic accounts of the
representational underpinnigs of lexical competence should dispose of
the largely metaphorical notion of an "internal word
store", and there is no such thing as a mental lexicon in the
human mind (e.g., Elman 2004, 2009; Dilkina, McClelland & Plaut
2010).
In addition to these approaches, in a number of prominent
psychological accounts emerged over the last two decades, the study of
word meaning is essentially considered a chapter of theories of the
mental realization of concepts (see the entry on
concepts).
Lexical units are seen either as ingredients of conceptual networks
or as (auditory or visual) stimuli providing access to conceptual
networks. A flow of neuroscientific results has shown that
understanding of (certain categories of) words correlates with neural
activations corresponding to the semantic content of the processed
words. For example, it has been shown that listening to sentences that
describe actions performed with the mouth, hand, or leg activates the
visuomotor circuits which subserve execution and observation of such
actions (Tettamanti et al. 2005); that reading words denoting specific
actions of the tongue ('lick'), fingers
('pick'), and leg ('kick') differentially
activate areas of the premotor cortex that are active when the
corresponding movements are actually performed (Hauk et al. 2004);
that reading odor-related words ('jasmine',
'garlic', 'cinnamon') differentially activates
the primary olfactory cortex (Gonzales et al. 2006); and that color
words (such as 'red') activate areas in the fusiform gyrus
that have been associated with color perception (Chao et al. 1999,
Simmons et al. 2007; for a survey of results on visual activations in
language processing, see Martin 2007).
This body of research originated so-called *simulationist* (or
*enactivist*) accounts of conceptual competence, on which
"understanding is imagination" and "imagining is a
form of simulation" (Gallese & Lakoff 2005). In these
accounts, conceptual (often called "semantic") competence
is seen as the ability to simulate or re-enact perceptual (including
proprioceptive and introspective) experiences of the states of affairs
that language describes, by manipulating memory traces of such
experiences or fragments of them. In Barsalou's theory of
perceptual symbol systems (1999), language understanding (and
cognition in general) is based on perceptual experience and memory of
it. The central claim is that "sensory-motor systems represent
not only perceived entities but also conceptualizations of them in
their absence". Perception generates mostly unconscious
"neural representations in sensory-motor areas of the
brain", which represent schematic components of perceptual
experience. Such perceptual symbols are not holistic copies of
experiences but selections of information isolated by attention.
Related perceptual symbols are integrated into a *simulator*
that produces limitless simulations of a perceptual component, such as
*red* or *lift*. Simulators are located in long-term
memory and play the roles traditionally attributed to concepts: they
generate inferences and can be combined recursively to implement
productivity. A concept is not "a static amodal structure"
as in traditional, computationally-oriented cognitive science, but
"the ability to simulate a kind of thing perceptually".
Linguistic symbols (i.e., auditory or visual memories of words) get to
be associated with simulators; perceptual recognition of a word
activates the relevant simulator, which simulates a referent for the
word; syntax provides instructions for building integrated perceptual
simulations, which "constitute semantic
interpretations".
Though popular among researchers interested in the conceptual
underpinnings of semantic competence, the simulationist paradigm faces
important challenges. Three are worth mentioning. First, it appears
that imulations do not always capture the intuitive truth conditions
of sentences: listeners may enact the same simulation upon exposure to
sentences that have different truth conditions (e.g., "The man
stood on the corner" vs. "The man waited on the
corner"; see Weiskopf 2010). Moreover, simulations may
overconstrain truth conditions. For example, even though in the
simulations listeners typically associate to the sentence "There
are three pencils and four pens in Anna's mug", the pens
and the pencils are in vertical position, the sentence would be true
even if they were lying horizontally in the mug. Second, the framework
does not sit well with pathological data. For example, no general
impairment with auditory-related words is reported in patients with
lesions in the auditory association cortex (e.g., auditory agnosia
patients); analogously, patients with damage to the motor cortex seem
to have no difficulties in linguistic performance, and specifically in
inferential processing with motor-related words (for a survey of these
results, see Calzavarini, to appear; for a defense of the embodied
paradigm, Pulvermuller 2013). Finally, the theory has
difficulties accounting for the meaning of abstract words (e.g.,
'beauty', 'pride', 'kindness'),
which does not appear to hinge on sensory-motor simulation (see Dove
2016 for a discussion).
### 5.3 Neurolinguistics
Beginning in the mid-1970s, neuropsychological research on cognitive
deficits related to brain lesions has produced a considerable amount
of findings related to the neural correlates of lexical semantic
information and processing. More recently, the development of
neuroimaging techniques such as PET, fMRI and ERP has provided further
means to adjudicate hypotheses about lexical semantic processes in the
brain (Vigneau et al. 2006). Here we do not intend to provide a
complete overview of such results (for a survey, see Faust 2012). We
shall just mention three topics of neurolinguistic research that
appear to bear on issues in the study of word meaning: the partition
of the lexicon into categories, the representation of common nouns vs.
proper names, and the distinction between the inferential and the
referential aspects of lexical competence.
Two preliminary considerations should be kept in mind. First, a
distinction must be drawn between the neural realization of word
forms, i.e., traces of acoustic, articulatory, graphic, and motor
configurations ('peripheral lexicons'), and the neural
correlates of lexical meanings ('concepts'). A patient can
understand what is the object represented by a picture shown to her
(and give evidence of her understanding, e.g., by miming the
object's function) while being unable to retrieve the relevant
phonological form from her output lexicon (Warrington 1985; Shallice
1988). Second, there appears to be wide consensus about the
irrelevance to brain processing of any distinction between strictly
semantic and factual or encyclopedic information (e.g., Tulving 1972;
Sartori et al. 1994). Whatever information is relevant to such
processes as object recognition or confrontation naming is standardly
characterized as 'semantic'. This may be taken as a
stipulation--it is just how neuroscientists use the word
'semantic'--or as deriving from lack of evidence for
any segregation between the domains of semantic and encyclopedic
information (see Binder et al. 2009). Be that as it may, in
present-day neuroscience there seems to be no room for a correlate of
the analytic/synthetic distinction. Moreover, in the literature
'semantic' and 'conceptual' are often used
synonymously; hence, no distinction is drawn between lexical semantic
and conceptual knowledge. Finally, the focus of neuroscientific
research on "semantics" is on information structures
roughly corresponding to word-level meanings, not to sentence-level
meanings: hence, so far neuroscientific research has had little to say
about the compositional mechanisms that have been the focus (and,
often, the entire content) of theories of meaning as pursued within
formal semantics and philosophy of language.
Let us start with the partition of the semantic lexicon into
categories. Neuropsychological research indicates that the ability to
name objects or to answer simple questions involving such nouns can be
selectively lost or preserved: subjects can perform much better in
naming living entities than in naming artifacts, or in naming animate
living entities than in naming fruits and vegetables (Shallice 1988).
Different patterns of brain activation may correspond to such
dissociations between performances: e.g., Damasio et al. (1996) found
that retrieval of names of animals and of tools activate different
regions in the left temporal lobe. However, the details of this
partition have been interpreted in different ways. Warrington &
McCarthy (1983) and Warrington & Shallice (1984) explained the
living vs. artifactual dissociation by taking the category distinction
to be an effect of the difference among features that are crucial in
the identification of living entities and artifacts: while living
entities are identified mainly on the basis of perceptual features,
artifacts are identified by their function. A later theory (Caramazza
& Shelton 1998) claimed that animate and inanimate objects are
treated by different knowledge systems separated by evolutionary
pressure: domains of features pertaining to the recognition of living
things, human faces, and perhaps tools may have been singled out as
recognition of such entities had survival value for humans. Finally,
Devlin et al. (1998) proposed to view the partition as the consequence
of a difference in how recognition-relevant features are connected
with one another: in the case of artifactual kinds, an object is
recognized thanks to a characteristic coupling of form and function,
whereas no such coupling individuates kinds of living things (e.g.,
eyes go with seeing in many animal species). For non-neutral surveys,
see Caramazza & Mahon (2006) and Shallice & Cooper (2011).
On the other hand, it is also known that "semantic" (i.e.,
conceptual) competence may be lost in its entirety (though often
gradually). This is what typically happens in semantic dementia.
Empirical evidence has motivated theories of the neural realization of
conceptual competence that are meant to account for both
modality-specific deficits and pathologies that involve impairment
across all modalities. The former may involve a difficulty or
impossibility to categorize a visually exhibited object which,
however, can be correctly categorized in other modalities (e.g., if
the object is touched) or verbally described on the basis of the
object's name (i.e., on the basis of the lexical item supposedly
associated with the category). The original "hub and
spokes" model of the brain representation of concepts (Rogers et
al. 2004, Patterson et al. 2007) accounted for both sets of findings
by postulating that the semantic network is composed of a series of
"spokes", i.e., cortical areas distributed across the
brain processing modality-specific (visual, auditory, motor, as well
as verbal) sources of information, and that the spokes are two-ways
connected to a transmodal "hub". While damage to the
spokes accounts for modality-specific deficits, damage to the hub and
its connections explains the overall impairment of semantic
competence. On this model, the hub is supposed to be located in the
anterior temporal lobe (ATL), since semantic dementia had been found
to be associated with degeneration of the anterior ventral and polar
regions of both temporal poles (Guo et al. 2013). According to more
recent, "graded" versions of the model (Lambon Ralph et
al. 2017), the contribution of the hub units may vary depending on
different patterns of connectivity to the spokes, to account for
evidence of graded variation of function across subregions of ATL. It
should be noted that while many researchers converge on a distributed
view of semantic representation and on the role of domain-specific
parts of the neural network (depending on differential patterns of
functional connectivity), not everybody agrees on the need to
postulate a transmodal hub (see, e.g., Mahon & Caramazza
2011).
Let us now turn to common nouns and proper names. As we have seen, in
the philosophy of language of the last decades, proper names (of
people, landmarks, countries, etc.) have being regarded as
semantically different from common nouns. Neuroscientific research on
the processing of proper names and common nouns concurs, to some
extent. To begin with, the retrieval of proper names is doubly
dissociated from the retrieval of common nouns. Some patients proved
competent with common nouns but unable to associate names to pictures
of famous people, or buildings, or brands (Ellis, Young &
Critchley 1989); in other cases, people's names were
specifically affected (McKenna & Warrington 1980). Other patients
had the complementary deficit. The patient described in Semenza &
Sgaramella (1993) could name no objects at all (with or without
phonemic cues) but he was able to name 10 out of 10 familiar people,
and 18 out of 22 famous people with a phonemic cue. Martins &
Farrayota's (2007) patient ACB also presented impaired object
naming but spared retrieval of proper names. Such findings suggest
distinct neural pathways for the retrieval of proper names and common
nouns (Semenza 2006). The study of lesions and neuroimaging research
both initially converged in identifying the left temporal pole as
playing a crucial role in the retrieval of proper names, from both
visual stimuli (Damasio et al. 1996) and the presentation of speaker
voices (Waldron et al. 2014) (though in at least one case damage to
the left temporal pole was associated with selective sparing of proper
names; see Martins & Farrajota 2007). In addition, recent research
has found a role for the uncinate fasciculus (UF). In patients
undergoing surgical removal of UF, retrieval of common nouns was
recovered while retrieval of proper names remained impaired (Papagno
et al. 2016). The present consensus appears to be that "the
production of proper names recruits a network that involves at least
the left anterior temporal lobe and the left orbitofrontal cortex
connected together by the UF" (Bredart 2017).
Furthermore, a few neuropsychological studies have described patients
whose competence on geographical names was preserved while names of
people were lost: one patient had preserved country names, though he
had lost virtually every other linguistic ability (McKenna &
Warrington 1978; see Semenza 2006 for other cases of selective
preservation of geographical names). Other behavioral experiments seem
to show that country names are closer to common nouns than to other
proper names such as people and landmark names in that the
connectivity between the word and the conceptual system is likely to
require diffuse multiple connections, as with common nouns (Hollis
& Valentine 2001). If these results were confirmed, it would turn
out that the linguistic category of proper names is not homogeneous in
terms of neural processing. Studies have also demonstrated that the
retrieval of proper names from memory is typically a more difficult
cognitive task than the retrieval of common nouns. For example, it is
harder to name faces (of famous people) than to name objects;
moreover, it is easier to remember a person's occupation than
her or his name. Interestingly, the same difference does not
materialize in definition naming, i.e., in tasks where names and
common nouns are to be retrieved from definitions (Hanley 2011).
Though several hypotheses about the source of this difference have
been proposed (see Bredart 2017 for a survey), no consensus has
been reached on how to explain this phenomenon.
Finally, a few words on the distinction between the inferential and
the referential component of lexical competence. As we have seen in
Section 3.2,
Marconi (1997) suggested that processing of lexical meaning might be
distributed between two subsystems, an inferential and a referential
one. Beginning with Warrington (1975), many patients had been
described that were more or less severely impaired in referential
tasks such as naming from vision (and other perceptual modalities as
well), while their inferential competence was more or less intact. The
complementary pattern (i.e., the preservation of referential abilities
with loss of inferential competence) is definitely less common. Still,
a number of cases have been reported, beginning with a stroke patient
of Heilman et al. (1976), who, while unable to perform any task
requiring inferential processing, performed well in referential naming
tasks with visually presented objects (he could name 23 of 25 common
objects). In subsequent years, further cases were described. For
example, in a study of 61 patients with lesions affecting linguistic
abilities, Kemmerer et al. (2012) found 14 cases in which referential
abilities were better preserved than inferential abilities. More
recently, Pandey & Heilman (2014), while describing one more case
of preserved (referential) naming from vision with severely impaired
(inferential) naming from definition, hypothesized that "these
two naming tasks may, at least in part, be mediated by two independent
neuronal networks". Thus, while double dissociation between
inferential processes and naming from vision is well attested, it is
not equally clear that it involves referential processes in general.
On the other hand, evidence from neuroimaging is, so far, limited and
overall inconclusive. Some neuroimaging studies (e.g.,
Tomaszewski-Farias et al. 2005, Marconi et al. 2013), as well as TMS
mapping experiments (Hamberger et al. 2001, Hamberger & Seidel
2009) did find different patterns of activation for inferential vs.
referential performances. However, the results are not entirely
consistent and are liable to different interpretations. For example,
the selective activation of the anterior left temporal lobe in
inferential performances may well reflect additional syntactic demands
involved in definition naming, rather than be due to inferential
processing as such (see Calzavarini 2017 for a discussion). |
work-labor | ## 1. Conceptual Distinctions: Work, Labor, Employment, Leisure
It is not difficult to enumerate examples of work. Hence, Samuel
Clark:
>
> by *work* I mean the familiar things we do in fields,
> factories, offices, schools, shops, building sites, call centres,
> homes, and so on, to make a life and a living. Examples of work in our
> commercial society include driving a taxi, selling washing machines,
> managing a group of software developers, running a till in a
> supermarket, attaching screens to smartphones on an assembly line,
> fielding customer complaints in a call centre, and teaching in a
> school (Clark 2017: 62).
>
Some contemporary commentators have observed that human life is
increasingly understood in work-like terms: parenthood is often
described as a job, those with romantic difficulties are invited to
'work on' their relationships, those suffering from the
deaths of others are advised to undertake 'grief work,'
and what was once exercise is now 'working out' (Malesic
2017). The diversity of undertakings we designate as
'work', and the apparent dissimilarities among them, have
led some philosophers to conclude that work resists any definition
(Muirhead 2007: 4, Svendsen 2015) or is at best a loose concept in
which different instances of work share a 'family
resemblance' (Pence 2001: 96-97).
The porousness of the notion of work notwithstanding, some progress in
defining work seems possible by first considering the variety of ways
in which work is organized. For one, although many contemporary
discussions of work focus primarily on *employment*, not all
work takes the form of employment. It is therefore important not to
assimilate work to employment, because not every philosophically
interesting claim that is true of employment is true of work as such,
and vice versa. In an employment relationship, an individual worker
sells their labor to another in exchange for compensation (usually
money), with the purchaser of their labor serving as a kind of
intermediary between the worker and those who ultimately enjoy the
goods that the worker helps to produce (consumers). The intermediary,
the *employer*, typically serves to manage (or appoints those
who manage) the hired workers -- the employees--, setting
most of the terms of what goods are thereby to be produced, how the
process of production will be organized, etc. Such an arrangement is
what we typically understand as having a *job*.
But a worker can produce goods without their production being mediated
in this way. In some cases, a worker is a *proprietor*, someone
who owns the enterprise as well as participating in the production of
the goods produced by that enterprise (for example, a restaurant owner
who is also its head chef). This arrangement may also be termed
*self-employment*, and differs from arrangements in which
proprietors are not workers in the enterprise but merely capitalize it
or invest in it. And some proprietors are also employers, that is,
they hire other workers to contribute their labor to the process of
production. Arguably, entrepreneurship or self-employment, rather than
having a job, has been the predominant form of work throughout human
history, and it continues to be prevalent. Over half of all workers
are self-employed in parts of the world such as Africa and South Asia,
and the number of self-employed individuals has been rising in many
regions of the globe (International Labor Organization 2019). In
contrast, jobs -- more or less permanent employment relationships
-- are more a byproduct of industrial modernity than we realise
(Suzman 2021).
Employees and proprietors are most often in a transactional
relationship with consumers; they produce goods that consumers buy
using their income. But this need not be the case. Physicians at a
'free clinic' are not paid by their patients but by a
government agency, charity, etc. Nevertheless, such employees expect
to earn income from their work from some source. But some instances of
work go unpaid or uncompensated altogether. Slaves work, as do
prisoners in some cases, but their work is often not compensated. So
too for those who volunteer for charities or who provide unpaid
*care work*, attending to the needs of children, the aged, or
the ill.
Thus, work need not involve working *for* others, nor need it
be materially compensated. These observations are useful inasmuch as
they indicate that certain conditions we might presume to be essential
to work (being employed, being monetarily compensated) are not in fact
essential to it. Still, these observations only inform as to what work
is not. Can we say more exactly what work *is*?
Part of the difficulty in defining work is that whether a
person's actions constitute work seems to depend both on how her
actions shape the world as well on the person's attitudes
concerning those actions. On the one hand, the activity of work is
causal in that it modifies the world in some non-accidental way. As
Bertrand Russell (1932) remarked, "work is of two kinds: first,
altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface
relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do
so." But work involves altering the world in presumptively
worthwhile ways. In this respect, work is closely tied to the
production of what Raymond Geuss (2021:5) has called
'objective' value, value residing in
"external" products that can be "measured and valued
independently of anything one might know about the process through
which that product came to be or the people who made it." By
working, we generate goods (material objects but also experiences,
states of mind, etc.) that others can value and enjoy in their own
right. In most cases of work (for example, when employed), a person is
compensated not for the performance of labor as such but because their
labor contributes to the production of goods that have such
'objective' value. Note, however, that although work
involves producing what others *can* enjoy or consume,
sometimes the objective value resulting from work is not in fact
enjoyed by others or by anyone at all. A self-sufficient farmer works
by producing food solely for their own use, in which case the worker
(rather than others) ends up consuming the objective value of their
work. Likewise, the farmer who works to produce vegetables for market
that ultimately go unsold has produced something whose objective value
goes unconsumed.
Geuss has suggested a further characteristic of work, that it is
"necessary" for individuals and for "societies as a
whole" (2021:18). Given current and historical patterns of human
life, work has been necessary to meet human needs. However, if some
prognostications about automation and artificial intelligence prove
true (see section 4 on 'The Future of Work'), then the
scarcity that has defined the human condition up to now may be
eliminated, obviating the necessity of work at both the individual and
societal level. Moreover, as Geuss observes, some work aims to produce
goods that answer to human wants rather than human needs or
necessities (that is, to produce luxuries), and some individuals
manage to escape the necessity of work thanks to their antecedent
wealth.
Still, work appears to have as one of its essential features that it
be an activity that increases the objective (or perhaps
intersubjective) value in the world. Some human activities are
therefore arguably not work because they generate value for the actor
instead of for others. For instance, work stands in contrast to
*leisure*. Leisure is not simply idleness or the absence of
work, nor is it the absence of activity altogether (Pieper 1952,
Walzer 1983: 184-87, Adorno 2001, Haney and Kline 2010). When at
leisure, individuals engage in activities that produce goods for their
own enjoyment largely indifferent to the objective value that these
activities might generate for others. The goods resulting from a
person's leisure are bound up with the fact that she generates
them through her activity. We cannot hire others to sunbathe for us or
enjoy a musical performance for us because the value of such leisure
activities is contingent upon our performing the activities. Leisure
thus produces subjective value that we 'make' for
ourselves, value that (unlike the objective value generated from work)
cannot be transferred to or exchanged with others. It might also be
possible to create the objective value associated with working despite
being at leisure. A professional athlete, for instance, might be
motivated to play her sport as a form of leisure but produce (and be
monetarily compensated for the production of) objective value for
others (spectators who enjoy the sport). Perhaps such examples are
instances of work *and* leisure or working *by way of*
leisure.
Some accounts of work emphasize not the nature of the value work
produces but the individual's attitudes concerning work. For
instance, many definitions of work emphasize that work is experienced
as exertion or strain (Budd 2011:2, Veltman 2016:24-25, Geuss
2021: 9-13). Work, on this view, is inevitably
*laborious.* No doubt work is often strenuous. But defining
work in this way seems to rule out work that is sufficiently
pleasurable to the worker as to hardly feel like a burden. An actor
may so enjoy performing that it hardly feels like a strain at all.
Nevertheless, the performance is work inasmuch as the actor must
deliberately orient their activities to realize the objective value
the performance may have for others. Her acting will not succeed in
producing this objective value unless she is guided by a concern to
produce the value by recalling and delivering her lines, etc. In fact,
the actor may find performing pleasurable rather than a burden because
she takes great satisfaction in producing this objective value for
others. Other work involves little exertion of strain because it is
nearly entirely passive; those who are paid subjects in medical
research are compensated less for their active contribution to the
research effort but simply "to endure" the investigative
process and submit to the wills of others (Malmqvist 2019). Still, the
research subject must also be deliberate in their participation,
making sure to abide by protocols that ensure the validity of the
research. Examples such as these suggest that a neglected dimension of
work is that, in working, we are paradigmatically guided by the wills
of others, for we are aiming in our work activities to generate goods
that others could enjoy.
## 2. The Value of Work
The proposed definition of work as the deliberate attempt to produce
goods that others can enjoy or consume indicates where work's
value to those besides the worker resides. And the value that work has
to others need not be narrowly defined in terms of specific
individuals enjoying or consuming the goods we produce. Within some
religious traditions, work is way to serve God and or one's
community.
But these considerations do not shed much light on the first-personal
value of work: What value does one's work have *to*
workers? How do we benefit when we produce goods that others could
enjoy?
### 2.1 The Goods of Work
On perhaps the narrowest conception of work's value, it only has
*exchange* value. On this conception, work's value is
measured purely in terms of the material goods it generates for the
worker, either in monetary terms or in terms of work's products
(growing one's own vegetables, for instance). To view work as
having exchange value is to see its value as wholly extrinsic; there
is no value to work as such, only value to be gained from what
one's work concretely produces. If work only has exchange value,
then work is solely a cost or a burden, never worth doing for its own
sake. Echoing the Biblical tale of humanity's fall, this
conception of work's value casts it as a curse foisted upon us
due to human limitations or inadequacies.
But work is often valued for other reasons. One powerful bit of
evidence in favour of work's being valued for reasons unrelated
to its exchange value comes from studies of (involuntary)
unemployment. Unemployment usually adverse economic effects on
workers, inasmuch as it deprives them, at least temporarily, of
income. But prolonged unemployment also has measurable negative
effects on individuals' health, both physical and mental (Calvo
et al 2015, Margerison-Zilko et al. 2016, Helliwell et al 2017), as
well as being among the most stressful of live events. (Holmes and
Rahe 1967). That being deprived of work is evidently so detrimental to
individual well-being indicates that work matters for many beyond a
paycheck.
Many of the goods of work are linked to the fact that work is nearly
always a social endeavour. As Cynthia Estlund (2003:7) observes,
"the workplace is the single most important site of cooperative
interaction and sociability among adult citizens outside the
family." Individuals thus seek out many social goods through
work. Gheaus and Herzog (2016) propose that in addition to providing
us wages, work fulfills various social roles. For example, work is a
primary means by which individuals can achieve a sense of community.
In working with others, we can establish bonds that contribute to our
sense of belonging and that enable us to contribute to a distinctive
workplace culture. In a similar vein, communitarian theorists often
argue that work, by embedding us in shared practices or traditions, is
essential to social life (Walzer 1983, Breen 2007). MacIntyre
(1984:187) defines a practice as a "any coherent and complex
form of socially established cooperative activity through which goods
internal to that form of activity are realised in the course of trying
to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and
partially definitive of, that form of activity." Those working
together in (say) a bakery are cooperating to produce the goods
internal to that activity (bread), with the result that they extend
their capacities and enrich their appreciation of the goods they
cooperatively produce.
Many philosophers have closely linked work's value to different
aspects of human rationality. For instance, philosophers inspired by
thinkers such as Aristotle have underscored work's ability to
allow us to perfect ourselves by developing and exercising our
rational potential in worthwhile ways. On this picture, work is a
central arena for the realization of our natures across our lifetimes
(Clark 2017). Marxists typically agree that work allows us to develop
and exercise our rational powers, but add that work's value also
resides in how it enables us to make those powers visible by imparting
human form to a natural world that would otherwise remain alien to us.
Hence, for Marxists, work is an expression of our active nature, a
pathway to self-realization inasmuch as work creates products that
"objectify" the human will. Work thus represents a
counterweight to the passive consumption characteristic of modern
societies (Elster 1989, Sayers 2005).
Another value associated with work is *meaningfulness*.
Philosophical inquiry into meaningful work often parallels
philosophical inquiry into
the meaning of life.
One central dispute about meaningful work is whether it is
fundamentally subjective (a matter of how a worker feels about her
work), fundamentally objective (a matter of the qualities of
one's work or of the products one makes), or both (Yeoman 2014,
Michaelson 2021). Some accounts of meaningful work are broadly
Kantian, seeing meaningful work as grounded in the value of autonomy
(Schwartz 1982, Bowie 1998, Roessler 2012). Such accounts judge work
as meaningful to the extent that it is freely entered into, affords
workers opportunities to exercise their own independent judgment, and
allows them to pursue ends of their own that are to some extent
distinct from the ends mandated by their employers. Other accounts
locate the meaningfulness of work in its potential to enhance our
capabilities, to manifest virtues such as pride or self-discipline, or
to emotionally engage our sense of purpose (Beadle and Knight 2012,
Svendsen 2015, Yeoman 2014, Veltman 2016).
At the same time, some argue that meaningful work is in turn a
precondition of other important goods. John Rawls, for example,
proposed that a lack of opportunity for meaningful work undermines
self-respect, where self-respect is the belief that our plan for our
lives is both worth pursuing and attainable through our intentional
efforts. Meaningful work, as Rawls understood it, involves enjoying
the exercise of our capacities, particularly our more complex
capacities. Given that meaningful work is a "social basis"
for self-respect, a just and stable society may have to offer
meaningful work by serving as an "employer of last resort"
if such work is otherwise unavailable (Rawls 1996, Moriarty 2009).
Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of interest in the
*dignity* of work. Christian thought, and Catholicism in
particular (John Paul II 1981), has long advocated that work manifests
the dignity inherent in human beings. The claim that "all work
has dignity," regardless of its nature or of how much social
esteem it enjoys, rests on egalitarian ideals about labor, ideals
articulated by Black American thinkers such as Booker T. Washington
and Martin Luther King, Jr. As Washington expressed it, "there
is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem"
(Washington 1901:220). At the same time however, this tradition has
also deployed the notion of dignity as a critical concept, to
highlight labor injustice and to decry exploitative forms of work
(including slavery) that fail to serve or uplift humanity (Washington
1901: 148, King 2011: 171-72, Veltman 2016: 29-31). This
position thus seems to assert that work as such has dignity but that
work can also vary in its dignity depending on workers' economic
conditions or social status. More recent philosophical scholarship on
the dignity of work has investigated its relationship to human rights.
For instance, Paolo Gilabert (2018) distinguishes between dignity as a
status and dignity as a condition. Status dignity is grounded in
certain valuable capacities that individuals have, capacities that in
turn that require workers be treated with respect and concern.
Condition dignity is achieved when individuals are treated in
accordance with the 'dignitarian' norms mandated by such
respect or concern. Gilabert's distinction may allow the
affirmation both of the inherent dignity of work, inasmuch as work
gives evidence of human capacities worthy of respect, and of the claim
that failing to provide decent working conditions is at odds with (but
does not undermine) dignity.
### 2.2 Opposition to Work and Work-centred Culture
That work is a potential source of income, social and personal goods,
meaning, or dignity, does not entail that work *in fact*
provides these goods or that work is good for us *on balance*.
Since the Industrial Revolution in particular, many philosophers and
social theorists have been sceptical about the value of work and of
the work-centred cultures typical of contemporary affluent societies
(Deranty 2015).
Crucially, much of the scepticism surrounding the value of work is not
scepticism about the value of work *per se* but scepticism
about the value of work in present day social conditions or scepticism
about the veneration of work found in the "Protestant work
ethic" (Weber 1904-05) or in work-centred societies.
Sceptics about work-centred culture question whether popular
enthusiasm for work is rational or well-informed or whether it gives
adequate credence to alternatives to work-centred culture (Cholbi
2018b, Sage 2019). Indeed, many critics of contemporary work
arrangements essentially argue that good or desirable work is possible
but rarer than we suppose. In "Useful Work versus Useful
Toil," (1884), for example, the socialist activist William
Morris rejects "the creed of modern morality that all labor is
good in itself" and argues for a distinction between work that
is "a blessing, a lightening of life" and work that is
"a mere curse, a burden to life," offering us no hope of
rest, no hope of producing anything genuinely useful, and no hope of
pleasure in its performance. Similarly, the anarchist Bob Black opens
his essay "The Abolition of Work" (1985) as follows:
>
> No one should ever work. Work is the source of nearly all the misery
> in the world. Almost any evil you'd care to name comes from
> working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop
> suffering, we have to stop working.
>
But Black proceeds to define work as "forced labor, that is,
compulsory production." His 'abolition' of work is
thus compatible with individuals *voluntarily* engaging in
economically productive activities, which (as we have seen) can
resemble work in its essentials.
Danaher (2019:54) allows that work can contribute to human well-being,
but as presently organized, the world of work is "structurally
bad" and unlikely to change in these respects:
>
> The labor market in most developed countries has settled into an
> equilibrium pattern that makes work very bad for many people, that is
> getting worse as a result of technical and institutional changes, and
> that is very difficult to reform or improve in such a way as to remove
> its bad-making properties.
>
Thus, even those espousing stridently 'anti-work'
positions usually target not work as such, but work as it has been
organized or understood in the contemporary world. Indeed, much of
their ire is directed at current conditions of employment, which (as
noted earlier) is only one prominent species work can take.
The sceptical case against work or work culture has many dimensions,
but can be fruitfully analysed as having four strands:
1. *Goods not realized:* While work can be a source of various
goods, many people's working lives fail to provide them these
goods. Popular enthusiasm for work thus seems misplaced, according to
work sceptics, for "the moral sanctity of work is painfully out
of step with the way that a vast proportion of people actually
experience their jobs" (Frayne 2015: 62-63).
With respect to the exchange value of work, work is often poorly
compensated or insecure. Contemporary economies are increasingly
characterized by a 'hollowing out' of middle class labor,
wherein wages continue to increase for those at the upper end of the
wage scale, wages stagnate at the bottom end of the scale, and the
number of workers in the middle strata shrinks. This has resulted in
the emergence of a class of 'working poor,' individuals
who lack sufficient income to pay for basic needs such as housing or
food *despite* being employed.
Many of the other potential goods of work are enjoyed by some workers,
but many receive little social recognition or do not achieve a greater
sense of community through their work. A good deal of socially
valuable or 'essential' work is largely invisible to its
beneficiaries. Many jobs are dull or unchallenging, contributing
little to the development or exercise of our more sophisticated human
capacities. It is difficult to envision, for instance, that toll booth
workers find their jobs or stimulating or challenging (aside from
testing their ability to withstand repetition or boredom).
Modern work has been oriented around the *division of labor*,
i.e., the increasing separation of productive processes into ever
smaller tasks. (The factory assembly line provides the model here.)
The division of labor results in workers becoming hyper-specialists,
who repetitively perform narrow or simple tasks. Although the division
of labor increases overall economic productivity, critics such as the
classical economist Adam Smith worried that it eventually makes
workers "as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human
creature to become." (Smith 1776 [1976]: V.1.178) As to meaning
or dignity, a wide swath of human work neither engages workers nor
allows them to exercise their autonomous judgment, and many work in
oppressive or exploitative conditions seemingly at odds with the
dignity of the work they perform.
2. *Internal tensions among work goods:* A characteristic of
work-centred societies is that their members look to work to provide
them with many different goods. But work (and employment in
particular) may be ill-suited to provide this package of goods, i.e.,
work may be capable of providing some of these goods but only at the
expense of others. For instance, many of the professions that
individuals view as offering the greatest opportunities for meaningful
work (such as education, counseling, or care for the sick, young, or
disabled) are among the poorest paid professions. Contemporary labor
markets thus seem to offer a workers the opportunity for an inadequate
income or meaningful work, but rarely both. The psychologist Barry
Schwartz argues (2015) that our non-material motivations for work,
such as seeking meaningfulness, social engagement, and opportunities
for autonomy, are in motivational competition with the monetary
incentives associated with work. The monetary incentives distort
workplace attitudes and behaviours so that the non-material goods we
seek in work are crowded out by a focus on productivity and the
economic goods work makes available. That labor markets are
competitive may also undermine the social benefits of work, for even
those who succeed in the labor market do so by being 'pitted
against' other workers in ways that reduce solidarity among
them, turning fellow citizens into rivals who are indifferent (or even
hostile to) each other's interests (Hussain 2020).
3. *Unrecognized bads or costs:* Sceptics also point to
'bads' or costs associated with work that tend to go
unrecognized. The most obvious of these is the opportunity costs
resulting from the amount of time spent working. Typically, full-time
workers spend 1,500-2,500 hours per year on the job, equivalent
to around nine to fifteen weeks annually. These are hours that, were
they not allocated to working, could be devoted to leisure, sleep,
exercise, family life, civic and community engagement, and so on (Rose
2016). These hours do not include the considerable amount of time that
workers expend on training or educating themselves for work or on
commuting to and from workplaces. Nor does it include the hours that
many salaried workers are expected to be 'connected' or
'on call' by their employers. Formal employment also tends
to preclude workers from work other than that performed for their
employers, with the result that workers often end up paying other
workers for that labor. Such costs include the hiring of housekeepers,
child care providers, maintenance experts and landscapers, etc. And
while unemployment seems to have adverse effects on our physical and
mental well-being, working is not free of adverse health effects
either, including stress, emotional frustration, and physical ailments
from repetitive work tasks or ergonomic deficiencies in workplace
design.
Sceptics also argue that when work fails to deliver certain kinds of
goods, workers suffer certain psychological bads. Three such classes
of bads merit particular attention:
* Marx's critique of work under capitalism rests on the notion
that work often lacks goods whose absence gives rise to the further
bad of *alienation*. Marx (1844) proposed that work under
capitalism alienates workers from what they produce, inasmuch as
workers have little if any say over what is produced and how; from the
act of work itself, inasmuch as workers are compelled by economic
necessity to work and so do not take intrinsic satisfaction in
working; from their own human nature or "species-essence,"
inasmuch as workers do not witness their own agency or intentions
"objectified" in the products of their work; and from
other workers, inasmuch as capitalism treats workers as
interchangeable inputs of production and pits worker against worker.
In terms of our earlier enumeration of the goods of work, Marx's
appeal to alienation suggests that the absence of these goods is not
merely a lack or a deprivation but is a positive bad of work in its
own right (Elster 1989, Brudney 1998, Kandiyali 2020).
* Many work sceptics emphasize how work may distort our priorities
or values. The value of work, in their eyes, has come to be an
unquestioned ethical dogma. "The economists and the moralists
have cast a sacred halo over work," according to Paul LaFargue
(1883), instilling us in the "delusion" of the "love
of work." (See also Frayne 2015.) Bertrand Russell (1932) argued
that the veneration of work has eroded our appreciation of the value
of leisure and idleness. (See also O'Connor 2018.) Economists
such as Keynes (1930) observed that the dramatic increases in economic
productivity have often not led to reductions in work time, a
development he attributes to a work ethic that stymies our capacity to
enjoy leisure and abundance.
* The social cachet of work may end up warping our moral
relationship to ourselves, treating ourselves not as intrinsically
valuable but as mere instruments of production. Hannah Arendt (1958)
argued that conceiving of ourselves primarily as workers leads to a
sort of instrumental stance on ourselves and other human agents, in
which we come to view ourselves purely as resources for production or
sites of consumption. More recent critics have proposed that
work-centred cultures encourage us to view the self as a commodity to
be 'branded' or marketed to prospective employers (Davis
2003).
Lastly, work can have costs to others besides workers themselves. The
aforementioned opportunity costs deriving from time devoted to work
may worsen workers' relationships with others or bar their
communities from making use of those workers' skills for
socially worthwhile purposes. Some work arguably makes workers
complicit in harmful or unjust practices, such as the sale of tobacco
or unhealthy foods. Workers may also impose *negative
externalities* through their work. For example, working outside
the home typically results in a greater environmental impact,
including contributions to the carbon outputs responsible for global
climate change (James 2018).
4. *Alternatives sources of work-related goods:* A last thread in
'anti-work' thinking is that, even to the degree that work
is good, it is not obviously uniquely situated to provide the goods it
provides. A sense of social recognition or identity can be rooted in
domains of human life besides employment, such as volunteer work,
family life, religion, or friendship. "Ludic" activities,
i.e., play, can offer opportunities to exercise and hone our rational
capacities (Black 1985, Nguyen 2019). Some have proposed that virtual
reality will provide us simulacra of work-like activities that could
thereby substitute for work itself. Contrary to Gheaus and Herzog
(2016) then, work may not be a "a privileged context" for
realizing the goods we associate with work.
Anti-work theorists typically call for work to be re-valued such that
individuals will 'work to live, not live to work,' as well
as policies (such as reductions in the mandated weekly working time)
to minimize the influence of work on our quality of life. That work is
both unavoidable and seemingly necessary but frustrating might suggest
the wisdom of an ironic stance toward work (de Botton 2010).
## 3. Justice and the Politics of Work
Human societies can be seen as cooperative endeavours aimed at
securing their members' interests. If so, then social justice
will be centrally concerned with those practices within societies by
which individuals cooperate to produce goods for one another's
use. Work is therefore a central concern of social justice. Questions
of work and justice arise both with respect to the design of
institutions and the choices of individuals.
### 3.1 Distributive Justice
Most accounts of justice assume that a large number of individuals
within a given society will engage in paid work. A crucial moral
question, then, is what individuals are entitled to with respect to
both the benefits and the harms of work. How, in other words, are the
goods and bads of work justly distributed?
One possible answer to this question is that each worker is entitled
to whatever benefits their talents and abilities enable them to secure
in a labor market governed purely by supply and demand. This answer
entails that those whose talents or abilities are in high demand
and/or short supply will command greater benefits from prospective
employers than those whose talents or abilities are in low demand
and/or generously supplied (Boatright 2010). (This same logic would
apply to those who use their labor to produce goods for sale rather
than those in employment arrangements.)
After the early decades of the twentieth century, many nations
implemented policies at odds with this 'pure market'
vision of work and labor. Most have wage regulations, for example,
mandating a minimum level of pay. But the justice of minimum levels of
pay is disputed, with some theorists arguing that disallowing a person
to sell her labor at a price she judges adequate infringes on her
personal liberty. According to many libertarian thinkers, our labor is
an exercise of our bodies or our talents, each of which we own in a
way akin to our ownership of private property. To disallow someone the
right to sell their labor even at a very low cost thus infringes on
their rights of self-ownership. (Mack 2002) The fairness of wage
differentials is also disputed. Should wages track the economic value
of a worker's contributions or their effort, or are wages
primarily an incentive to encourage worker commitment and motivation?
(Heath 2018, Moriarty 2020) Some theorists have proposed that
inequalities in pay ought to be eliminated altogether (Ortenblad
2021), while some supporters of an unconditional basic income, in
which individuals receive regular payments regardless of their working
status, see it an alternative way to ensure a sufficient minimum
income, one immune to workers becoming unemployed (van Parijs and
Vanderbroght 2017).
Distributive justice also pertains to various *protections against
harms* *or wrongs* associated with work. Again, most
societies place legal limitations on various conditions of work. These
include protections against overwork via limitations on the length of
the workday or workweek; bans on discrimination in hiring or promotion
based on race, gender, religion, or other social categories;
assurances that workplace risks and dangers are mitigated; and, at a
wider societal level, prohibitions aimed at ensuring that individuals
lives are not dominated by work at particular life stages (bans on
child labor and provisions to make retirement possible). One important
moral question about these protections is whether workers should have
the right to bargain away some of these protections either for
increased pay (as when employees negotiate higher wages in exchange
for performing more dangerous jobs) or for enhancements in other
protections.
### 3.2 Contributive and Productive Justice
The questions of distributive justice addressed in the previous
section concern what goods workers receive from work *if* they
work at all. But critical questions about justice also pertain to
whether workers are entitled to work and whether they are obligated to
do so. Work thus raises questions of *contributive* and
*productive* justice respectively.
For one, do workers have a right to work in the first place? The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights states as much, assuring each
individual "the right to work, to free employment, to just and
favorable conditions of work and to protection against
unemployment." (United Nations 1948, Article 23) A right to work
would presumably be more than a negative liberty, i.e., not simply a
right that others not interfere with one's attempts to work,
secure employment, etc., but a *claim* to be provided work if
one wishes (Schaff 2017). The right to work has been defended both for
specific populations (such as the disabled; see Kavka 1992) or for the
populace writ large (Tcherneva 2020). If there is such a right, it
will presumably be because work is an essential (or at least the
prevailing) means for the acquisition of vital goods. Elster (1988)
proposes a job guarantee on the grounds that work is essential to
self-realization. Gomberg (2007) argues that work is a key social good
because it is the primary path by which to make a socially validated
contribution to one's wider community, a contribution that can
provide us recognition and a sense of meaning. Two crucial questions
that arise in connection with the putative right to work are (a)
against whom is this right held, i.e., who must provide work if
workers have a right to it, or (b) whether work provided so as to
honour this right will in fact provide the goods on which the right to
work is based (e.g., the work provided under a government-provided job
guarantee could prove unfulfilling).
A right to work would mean that any person (or at least any adult) who
wished to work would be able to do so. But do individuals have a right
*not* to work, or is work in any sense morally obligatory? The
most obvious basis for such an obligation appeals to notions of
*fair play or reciprocity*: Individuals act wrongly when they
fail to contribute to social enterprises from which they benefit, and
since the productive economy benefits most everyone in a society,
individuals have an obligation to contribute to the productive economy
by working. (Becker 1980, White 2003) Opponents of this fair play
rationale argue that the conditions for just reciprocal relations
between societies and particular groups (e.g., the ghetto poor; see
Shelby 2012) do not obtain, thereby exempting members of such groups
from the obligation to work, or that contemporary economic
developments fail to provide the background conditions for the
obligation to apply (Cholbi 2018a). Other opponents of an obligation
to work argue that it represents a violation of the state's duty
to treat citizens equally; citizens who are compelled to work are made
to pursue a conception of the good life with which they may not agree,
and a just state should treat citizens as equals by remaining neutral
among rival conceptions of the good life (van Parijs 1991, Levine
1995). An obligation to work would in effect amount to the
state's endorsement of the 'work ethic' and the
rejection of ways of life (e.g., being a beachcomber) that themselves
oppose the work ethic. Other opponents of a duty to work argue that
requiring individuals to work is likely to stand in the way of
self-realization for particular people (Maskivker 2012).
Another possibility is that even if there is not a general obligation
to work, we might be subject to limitations on our work-related
liberties in order to satisfy demands of distributive justice. Many of
the goods provided by a just society, including education and health
care, are labor-intensive. But societies often face shortfalls of
workers in the very occupations that provide these goods. Some
philosophers have argued that the demands of distributive justice may
permissibly constrain our work choices, and in fact, may license
governments conscripting labor in order to secure workers to provide
these goods, on the model of the military draft during wartime.
(Fabre 2008, Stanczyk 2012). Similar concerns arise concerning
socially necessary but undesirable 'dirty' work.(Walzer
1983, Schmode 2019). Conversely, if justice can require individuals to
perform certain kinds of work, this might speak against a right to
strike (Borman, 2017, Gourevitch 2018), particularly on the part of
essential workers (Munoz 2014).
How one's choice of work contributes to justice and the overall
good is a moral question that individuals face as well. Some jobs
(hired assassin, for example) seem immoral as such. But to what
extent, if any, are we obligated to choose careers or jobs that
promote justice or the welfare of others? On the one hand, choice of
jobs and careers does not appear exempt from moral considerations,
inasmuch as the work one performs affects others and society at large,
and given the often dismal state of the world, perhaps we are
obligated to choose jobs and careers for moral reasons rather than
solely on the basis of self-interest. Norman Care (1984:285) proposes
"that in today's world morality requires that service to
others be put before self-realization in the matter of career
choice." In contrast, some philosophers who believe that
individuals (and not merely institutions) within a society are subject
to demands of justice nevertheless accord individuals discretion in
their choices of occupation. G.A. Cohen, for instance, asserts that we
should each enjoy a "personal prerogative" that allows us
to be something more than an "engine for the welfare of other
people" or "slaves to social justice." (2008:10) We
might likewise worry that requiring that our job or career choices be
optimal from the standpoint of justice or social welfare is
excessively demanding in light of how such choices both reflect and
shape our identities (Cholbi 2020).
### 3.3 Equality and Workplace Governance
In recent years, egalitarian philosophers have begun to critique
typical workplace arrangements as antagonistic to requirements of
equal relations among individuals in society. Particularly influential
here is Anderson's suggestion that many workplaces amount to a
form of "private government," at least as authoritarian as
many forms of state government.
>
> Imagine a government that assigns almost everyone a superior whom they
> must obey. Although superiors give most inferiors a routine to follow,
> there is no rule of law. Orders may be arbitrary and can change at any
> time, without prior notice or opportunity to appeal. Superiors are
> unaccountable to those they order around. They are neither elected nor
> removable by their inferiors. ...The government does not
> recognize a personal or private sphere or autonomy free from sanction.
> It may prescribe a dress code and forbid certain hairstyles. Everyone
> lives under surveillance, to ensure that they are complying with
> orders. ...The economic system of the society run by this
> government is communist. The government owns all the nonlabor means of
> production in the society it governs. It organizes production by means
> of central planning. The form of the government is a dictatorship
> (Anderson 2017: 37-38).
>
The 'society' Anderson invites us to imagine is of course
the contemporary workplace, at least as it stands in the United States
and many other nations. Anderson and other *relational*
egalitarians view the relationships defined by the powers that
employers usually have over their employees as oppressive and unjust.
Workers are subject to employers' 'governance,' but
this governance consists in employees being arbitrarily and
unaccountably subject to the wills of employers. The relational
egalitarian thus concludes that workplaces, as presently constituted,
do not involve employees and employers relating as genuine equals. And
while employees will generally have the right to exit employment
relationships, this may be little protection against oppression if
most workplaces are organized in the way Anderson illustrates.
To some degree, the inequalities to which Anderson points are products
of labor law and policies specific to different nations. There are,
however, ways of altering the relationships between employers and
workers so as to potentially prevent or address these (and other)
inequalities.
Perhaps the most familiar such method is *unionization* or
collective bargaining. Worker unions amplify the power of individual
workers in relation to their employers by compelling employers to
negotiate contracts with workers as a body. Unions may organize
workers within a particular profession, within many professions, or
within a single workplace or firm. Societies vary considerably in the
degrees to which their workers are unionized and their labor laws
friendly to union formation and power. Unions are presumptively
justified on the grounds that workers who consensually form or join
unions are exercising their right to freely associate with others with
whom they share interests in order to promote those interests
(Lindblom 2019), though if union membership is required in order to be
employed in a particular workplace or industry, unionization may
violate individuals right *not* to associate with others or to
associate with (in this instance, to enter into an employment
relationship) any party of their choosing (White 1998).Appealing to
"republican liberty," Mark Reiff (2020) has argued that
unions should be viewed as a basic institution of society that
protects workers' liberty from exploitation by employers. On
Reiff's view, unionization should therefore be universal and
*compulsory*.
Other methods for redressing the seemingly unequal and oppressive
relations between employers and employees involve breaking the
monopoly on decision making that management typically has within a
given firm or employment arrangement. Typical workplaces are
hierarchical rather than democratic. Many egalitarian critics of work
call for the workplace to be more democratized, with workers having a
greater say not only concerning their own working conditions but also
concerning decisions usually reserved for management. Advocates for
workplace democracy often argue that it is likely to be the most
effective workplace organization in protecting workers'
interests. (Gonzalez-Ricoy 2014). Others emphasize that the
workplace is a microcosm of larger society and hence serves as a
training ground for the development of virtues needed to live in a
larger democratic society (Pateman 1970, Estlund 2003). But perhaps
the most basic argument for workplace democracy is that firms are
analogous to states, and so if the state ought to be governed
democratically, so too should firms and other workplaces (Dahl 1986,
Mayer 2000, Landemore & Ferreras 2016). Workplace democracy would
seem to render the workplace more just inasmuch as it makes
workers' conditions a partial byproduct of their consent and a
reflection of their autonomy (Schaff 2012).
### 3.4 Gender, Care, And Emotional Labor
Work's role in justice is further complicated by the fact that
work is a highly gendered phenomenon in many societies. For one, women
typically perform much of the housekeeping and child care that
traditionally have not been recognized with monetary compensation.
Within the formal labor market, many societies have a wage gap wherein
women are paid less than men for similar work, and there are
significant differences in gender representations in different
professions (traditionally, women highly represented in fields such as
primary school teaching, nursing, and social work, men highly
represented in fields such as engineering and finance). Feminist
philosophers have detected in these differentials an undervaluation of
the kinds of work, particularly care work, that women have often
performed (Gurtler and Smith 2005) as well as a blind spot in
philosophical theorizing about justice wherein
'relational' goods that matter to our life prospects but
are usually not provided via market exchange are ignored (Gheaus
2009). One intricate set of issues here is understanding the
underlying relations of cause and effect: Are women in societies with
sexist norms pushed toward low pay or low prestige jobs because they
are women, or are these low pay or low prestige jobs because women
tend to perform them (or both)? In a similar vein, we may wonder how
norms of gender intersect with the gendered division of labor
(whether, for example, the stereotype that women are more eager to
care for children feeds the gendered division of labor or whether the
gendered division of labor reinforces that stereotype, or both).
The gendered division of labor is open to objections of different
kinds: On the one hand, it appears to result in distributions of
work-related goods (such as income, free time, etc.) in which women
are systematically shortchanged. In addition, the gendered division of
labor may be unjust because it contributes to hierarchies between the
genders that render them unequal. (Hartley and Watson 2018) Schouten
(2019) argues that, although many individuals embrace traditional
gender norms and the gendered division of labor these entail, those
who instead favour gender-egalitarian ways of life have a reasonable
ground to complain when societies create institutions and policies
that support expectations -- the gendered division of labor chief
among these -- that serve as impediments to such ways of life.
According to Schouten then, a just society will regulate work time,
family leave, and dependent care so as to foster gender-egalitarian
ways of life and a non-gendered division of labor. (See also Wright
and Brighouse 2008, Gheaus 2012.)
A further strand in feminist thought about work arises from
Hochschild's scholarship (2012) on *emotional labor*.
Some work involves intensive monitoring or management of one's
own emotions in order to engage or manipulate the emotions of others.
Although Hochschild offers examples of such emotional labor undertaken
both by women and men, some professions in which women predominate are
saturated with emotional labor. Hochschild notes that female flight
attendants, for instance, are subject to a wide array of emotional
expectations vis-a-vis air travellers (smiling, friendly
banter, interest in travellers' destinations or professions,
etc.). Scholars have highlighted a number of ethically salient
features of emotional labor (see Barry, Olekalns, and Rees 2019 for a
useful overview), but the phenomenon has been subject to little
systematic philosophical analysis. Hochschild primarily emphasizes the
detrimental effects of emotional labor on workers themselves, arguing
that it can estrange workers from their own emotions and lead to
struggles to identify or express authentic emotion both within and
outside the workplace. Furthermore, when emotional labor results in
employees' "surface acting," that is, displaying
emotions at odds with their own internal feelings, employees'
health suffers. Other ethical concerns are more interpersonal --
for example, that emotional labor is deceptive or lacks integrity.
Barry, Olekalns, and Rees (2019) offer a useful starting point by
noting that emotional labor raises the prospect of conflicts between
workers' rights and the rights of their employers, between
workers' rights and workers' duties, and between employer
rights and employer duties.
## 4. Work and its Future
A number of social commentators have predicted that economic and
technological trends will soon culminate in societies become
increasingly 'post-work,' that is, far fewer individuals
will engage in paid work, work hours will dramatically decrease, and
work will have a far smaller role among individuals' values or
concerns.(Frey and Osborne 2013, Thompson 2015, Brynjolofsson and
McAfee 2014). Whether this prospect should be welcomed or avoided
depends to a large extent on issues addressed earlier in this article:
how good work in fact is, whether there are other avenues for
attaining the goods associated with work, etc.
Some welcome a post-work future as liberating (Livingston 2016,
Chamberlain 2018, James 2018, Danaher 2019), arguing that diminutions
in the centrality of work will afford us greater leisure, freedom, or
community, especially if activities such as play or the appreciation
of the natural worlds supplant work. Others worry that the decline of
work will deprive us of a central arena in which to realize goods
central to our natures (Deranty 2015) or will instigate high levels of
inequality or economic distress (Frase 2016). Others express concern
about individuals' ability to psychologically transition from a
work-centred to a work-optional society (Cholbi 2018b).
## 5. Conclusion
Work and labor bear intrinsic philosophical interest. But their
centrality to the human condition also entail that work and labor
intersect with still broader philosophical questions about the human
good and the just organization of human societies. Ongoing and
anticipated changes to the world of work should provide rich fodder
for philosophical inquiry in coming decades. Philosophy is likely to
have a special role to play in addressing what Appiah (2021:7) has
called the "hard problem," to determine "how to
produce the goods and services we need, while providing people with
income, sociability, and significance." |
world-government | ## 1. Historical Background
For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be;
...
Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were
furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Locksley Hall" (1837)
United States President Harry Truman, who oversaw the founding of the
United Nations after the Second World War, kept these lines from
Tennyson's poem in his wallet (Kennedy 2006: xi). After this
brutal global war that claimed over fifty million lives, just like
after the previous world war in which almost ten million perished,
ordinary people and statespersons alike sought to establish a post-war
international order that would be able to prevent another war of
global devastation from occurring. In fact, since the problem of war,
or large-scale socially organized violence, has been with us
throughout human history, the ideal of a universal community of
humankind living in perpetual peace was not at all new.
Derek Heater's history of ideas of world government and
citizenship begins by noting their presence in ancient Chinese and
Indian as well as Graeco-Roman thought (1996: ix-x). According
to Heater, the concept of human unity produced an ideal that such
unity ought to be expressed in political form. The exact nature of
that form, however, has changed radically over time. While Stoic ideas
about the oneness of the universe were politically inchoate, they
inspired medieval Christian proposals for a global political
authority; at the same time, the historical model of imperial Rome (or
its myths) inspired medieval quests for world empire.
The Italian poet, philosopher, and statesperson, Dante
(1265-1321), perhaps best articulated the Christian ideal of
human unity and its expression through a world governed by a universal
monarch. In *The Banquet* [*Convivio*], Dante argued
that wars and all their causes would be eliminated if
>
>
> the whole earth and all that humans can possess be a monarchy, that
> is, one government under one ruler. Because he possesses everything,
> the ruler would not desire to possess anything further, and thus, he
> would hold kings contentedly within the borders of their kingdoms, and
> keep peace among them. (*Convivio*, bk 4, ch 4 [2000: 169])
>
>
>
In *De Monarchia* (1309-13: 8]), a full political
treatise affirming universal monarchy, Dante draws on Aristotle to
argue that human unity stems from a shared end, purpose or function,
to develop and realize fully and constantly humanity's distinct
intellectual potential. In Book I, Dante argues that peace is a vital
condition for realizing this end, and peace cannot be maintained if
humanity is divided. Just as "[e]very kingdom divided against
itself shall be laid waste" (*Monarchia* bk 1, ch. V,
quoting Luke 11:17 [1995: 10]), since humankind shares one goal,
>
>
> there must therefore be one person who directs and rules mankind, and
> he is properly called "Monarch" or "Emperor".
> And thus it is apparent that the well-being of the world requires that
> there be a monarchy or empire. (*Monarchia* bk 1, ch. V [1995:
> 10])
>
>
>
Most importantly, when conflicts inevitably arise between two rulers
who are equals, "there must be a third party of wider
jurisdiction who rules over both of them by right"; a universal
monarch is necessary as
>
>
> a first and supreme judge, whose judgment resolves all disputes either
> directly or indirectly. (*Monarchia* bk 1, ch. X [1995:
> 14])
>
>
>
In the absence of a universal monarch, humanity is "transformed
into a many-headed beast", striving after "conflicting
things" (*Monarchia* bk 1, ch. XVI [1995: 28]); humankind
ordered under a universal monarch, however,
>
>
> will most closely resemble God, by mirroring the principle of oneness
> or unity of which he is the supreme example. (*Monarchia* bk 1,
> ch. VIII [1995: 19])
>
>
>
Dante completes his treatise by extolling the Roman Empire as a part
of God's providence (*Monarchia* bks 2 and 3 [1995:
30-94). And while Dante argued for a universal emperor whose
temporal power was distinct from the pope's religious power, and
not derivative from the latter, he envisioned that God's will
must require pope and emperor to forge a cooperative and conciliatory,
rather than competitive and antagonistic, relationship.
The idea of uniting humanity under one empire or monarch, however,
became an ambivalent appeal by the seventeenth century with the
entrenchment in Europe of the system of sovereign states after the
Peace of Westphalia (1648). At the same time, European encounters with
non-European worlds precipitated European ambitions based on the
principle of promoting civilization as an organizing framework for
legitimizing European imperial and colonial expansion into other parts
of the world (Keene 2002).
In *Leviathan* (1651), Hobbes (1588-1679) gave the
quintessential formulation of sovereignty as supreme legal coercive
authority over a particular population and territory. Hobbes argued
that although mutual vulnerabilities and interests lead individuals to
give up their liberties in the state of nature, in exchange for
protection--thereby instituting sovereign states--the
miseries that accompany a plurality of sovereign states are not as
onerous to individuals, hence there is less rational basis for
political organization to move towards a global leviathan:
>
>
> because states uphold the Industry of their Subjects; there does not
> follow from the international state of nature, that misery, which
> accompanies the Liberty of particular men. (1651: ch. 13 [1986:
> 188])
>
>
>
Contrary to realist interpretations of Hobbes in international
relations thought, Hobbes did not consider international law or
cooperation between sovereign states to be impossible or impractical.
Anticipating the development of international law, collective security
organizations, the League of Nations and the United Nations, he
affirmed the possibility and efficacy of leagues of commonwealths
founded on the interests of states in peace and justice:
>
>
> Leagues between Common-wealths, over whom there is no humane Power
> established, to keep them all in awe, are not onely lawfull [because
> they are allowed by the commonwealth], but also profitable for the
> time they last. (1651: ch. 22 [1986: 286])
>
>
>
In Hobbes, we find the first articulation of the argument that a world
state is unnecessary, although he envisaged that the development of a
lawful interstate order is possible, and potentially desirable.
In the eighteenth century, Charles Castel, Abbe de Saint-Pierre
(1658-1743), in his *Project for Making Peace Perpetual in
Europe* (1713), extended Hobbes's argument that a rational
interest in self-preservation necessitated the creation a domestic
leviathan to the international realm, asserting that reason should
lead the princes of Europe to form a federation of states by social
contract. The contracting sovereigns would form a perpetual and
irrevocable alliance, establishing a permanent Diet or Congress that
would adjudicate all conflicts between the contracting parties. The
federation would also proscribe as "a public enemy"
(Rousseau 1756 [1917: 63]) any member who breaks the Treaty or
disregards the decisions of the congress; in such a situation, all
members would "arm and take the offensive, conjointly and at the
common expense, against any State put to the ban of Europe" in
order to enforce the decisions of the federation (1756 [1917:
61-4]). In other words, perpetual peace can be achieved if the
princes of Europe would agree to relinquish their sovereign rights to
make war or peace to a superior, federal body that guaranteed
protection of their basic interests.
In his comments on this proposal, Rousseau (1712-78)
acknowledged its perfect rationality:
>
>
> Realize this Commonwealth of Europe for a single day, and you may be
> sure it will last forever; so fully would experience convince men that
> their own gain is to be found in the good of all. (1756 [1917:
> 93])
>
>
>
To Rousseau, however, existing societies had so thoroughly corrupted
humans' natural innocence that they were largely incapable of
discovering their true or real interests. Thus, the
Abbe's proposals were not utopian, but they were not
likely to be realized "because men are crazy, and to be sane in
a world of madmen is itself a kind of madness" (1756 [1917:
91]). At the same time, Rousseau noted that the sovereigns of Europe
were not likely to agree voluntarily to form such a federation:
>
>
> No Federation could ever be established except by a revolution. That
> being so, which of us would dare say whether the League of Europe is a
> thing more to be desired or feared? It would perhaps do more harm in
> the moment than it would guard against for ages. (1756 [1917:
> 112])
>
>
>
This *consequentialist* objection to the idea of world
government speculates that even if it were desirable, the process of
creating a world government may produce more harm than good; the
necessary evils committed on the road to establishing a world
government would outweigh whatever benefits might result from its
achievement.
Rousseau viewed war as a product of defectively ordered social
institutions; it is states as public entities that make war, and
individuals participate in wars only as members or citizens of states.
Far from viewing the achievement of a domestic leviathan as moral
progress, Rousseau noted that the condition of a world of entangled
sovereign states puts human beings in more peril than if no such
institutions existed at all. Isn't it the case, he argued,
that
>
>
> each one of us being in the civil state as regards our fellow
> citizens, but in the state of nature as regards the rest of the world,
> we have taken all kinds of precautions against private wars only to
> kindle national wars a thousand times more terrible? And that, in
> joining a particular group of men, we have really declared ourselves
> the enemies of the whole race? (1756 [1917: 56])
>
>
>
In Rousseau's view, the solution to war is to establish
well-governed societies, along the lines he established in *The
Social Contract* (1762); only in such contexts will human beings
realize their full rational and moral potential. To establish
perpetual peace, then, we should not pursue world government, but the
moral perfection of states. A world of ideal societies would have no
cause for war, and no need for world government.
Kant tried, in his *Idea for a Universal History with a
Cosmopolitan Purpose* (1784), to refute the claim that the
development of the domestic state constituted a moral step backwards
for humankind, by placing it and its trials
>
>
> in the history of the entire species, as a steadily advancing but slow
> development of man's original [rational] capacities. (1784
> [1991: 41])
>
>
>
Nature employs the "unsociableness of men" to motivate
moral progress; thus war is a means by which nature moves states
>
>
> to take the step which reason could have suggested to them even
> without so many sad experiences--that of abandoning a lawless
> state of savagery and entering a federation of peoples in which every
> state, even the smallest, could expect to derive its security and
> rights not from its own power or its own legal judgment, but solely
> from this great federation (*Foedus Amphictyonum*), from a
> united power and the law-governed decisions of a united will. (1784
> [1991: 47])
>
>
>
This is the "inevitable outcome" (1784 [1991: 48]) of
human history, a point Kant reiterated in *Perpetual Peace*
[1795], when he argued that rationality dictated the formation of
>
>
> an *international state (civitas gentium),* which would
> necessarily continue to grow until it embraced all the peoples of the
> earth. (1784 [1991: 105])
>
>
>
In present conditions, however, Kant noted that "the positive
idea of a *world republic* cannot be realized", thus his
treatise on perpetual peace begins with the social fact of a world of
distinct but interacting states. What would be required, given such a
world, to achieve perpetual peace? Kant makes three arguments. First,
every state must have a republican constitution that guarantees the
freedom and equality of citizens through the rule of law and
representative political institutions. The internally well-ordered
republican state is less likely to engage in wars without good
reason;
>
>
> under a constitution where the subject is not a citizen, and which is
> therefore not republican, it is the simplest thing in the world to go
> to war. (1784 [1991: 100])
>
>
>
Second, such internally well-ordered states would need to enter into a
"federation of peoples", which is distinct from an
"international state" (1784 [1991: 102]). A
>
>
> *pacific federation (foedus pacificum)* ... does not aim
> to acquire any power like that of a state, but merely to preserve and
> secure the freedom of each state in itself, along with that of the
> other confederated states. (1784 [1991: 104])
>
>
>
In this context, a federal union of free and independent states, he
argued,
>
>
> is still to be preferred to an amalgamation of the separate nations
> under a single power which has overruled the rest and created a
> universal monarchy.
>
>
>
His reasons against a universal monarchy combine fears of an
all-powerful and powerless world government:
>
>
> For the laws progressively lose their impact as the government
> increases its range, and a soulless despotism, after crushing the
> germs of goodness, will finally lapse into anarchy. (1784 [1991:
> 113])
>
>
>
Most forcefully articulating the tyranny objection, Kant argued that a
"universal despotism" would end "in the graveyard of
freedom" (1784 [1991: 114]). The third condition for perpetual
peace in a world of distinct but interacting states is the observance
of cosmopolitan right, which Kant limits to universal hospitality.
Although the human race shares in common a right to the earth's
surface, Kant argued that strangers do not have entitlements to settle
on foreign territory without the inhabitants' agreement. Thus,
cosmopolitan right justifies visiting a foreign land, but not
conquering it, which Kant criticized the commercial states of his day
to have done in "America, the negro countries, the Spice
Islands, the Cape" and East India (1784 [1991: 106]).
Kant's views on the desirability of world government were
clearly complex (Kokaz 2005: 87-92; Pogge 2009). On the one
hand, Kant provides two of the most trenchant objections to world
government. The *tyranny* argument posits that world government
would descend into a global tyranny, hindering rather than enhancing
the ideal of human autonomy (Kant 1795 [1991]). Instead of delivering
impartial global justice and peace, a world government may form an
inescapable tyranny that would have the power to make humanity serve
its own interests, and opposition against which might engender
incessant and intractable civil wars (Waltz 1979; DuFord 2017). In
another argument against its desirability, the inevitable remoteness
of a global political authority would dilute the laws, making them
ineffectual and meaningless. The posited weakness of world government
leads to objections based on its potential *inefficiency* and
*soullessness* (Kant 1795 [1991]).
On the other hand, Kant also provides a republican vision of world
government based on universal reason. His endorsement of the ideal of
human unity prompted him to see a world republic, under which free and
equal individuals, united by one global sovereign, would achieve a
"fully juridical condition" (Pogge 2009: 198), as the
ideal end of the progress of human history. At the same time,
Kant's faith in human unity through reason coexisted with his
subscription to a theory of racial hierarchy in human development, and
he came to be critical of the dominant modes of European expansionist
policies in world politics in the late eighteenth
century--through colonial wars, exploitation, and
conquests--as undermining the moral progress of Europeans (Valdez
2019). More generally, Kant condemned any move towards a universal
monarchy, because a monarchy, in contrast to a republic, does not
guarantee, but undermines, the freedom and equality of individuals.
Although a world republic is Kant's ultimate political ideal, a
universal despotic monarch that exercises power arbitrarily is
equivalent to a global anarchic state of nature, which is his ultimate
dystopia. In between lies his "realistic utopia" (Rawls
1999: 11-6) consisting of a federation of free (republican)
states short of a world state. As Habermas has put it,
>
>
> This weak conception of a voluntary association of states that are
> willing to coexist peacefully while nevertheless retaining their
> sovereignty seemed to recommend itself as a transitional stage en
> route to a world republic. (2010: 268)
>
>
>
Kant's work shows that even in the eighteenth century, debates
about world government were alive and well, including arguments by
radical political cosmopolitans such as Anacharsis Cloots
(Jean-Baptiste du Val-de-Grace, baron de Cloots, 1755-1794), who
used social contract theory to advocate the abolition of the sovereign
states system in favor of a universal republic encompassing all
humanity (Kleingeld & Brown 2002). At the same time, philosophical
projects for perpetual peace in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries were Eurocentric in adopting Europe as the centre of world
order, in failing to recognize non-European peoples in equal standing,
and in obscuring the global inequalities and injustices being
established by European commercial enterprises and states (Pitts 2018:
6-7).
The nineteenth and twentieth centuries witnessed revivals of proposals
for world government that were fueled by racialized theories of
progress that buttressed European-led colonial and imperial expansion
over much of the world, technological developments in travel and
communications, the rapid ascent of a global capitalist system, as
well as the devastating impact of wars fought with modern technology.
Theories of "scientific racism" continued to pervade
European thought on world order:
>
>
> White supremacist visions of global governance circulated widely in
> the Anglo-American world. (Bell 2018: 871)
>
>
>
One of the most prominent proponents of world order, H.G. Wells
(1866-1946), envisaged in 1901 a "New Republic" of
Anglo-American dominance, and while he repudiated racial theories, his
vision of a universal world state included a civilizing mission (Wells
1902; Bell 2018: 870). The construction of racial and civilizational
hierarchies, backed by military domination, meant that the inclusion
of non-Europeans and non-whites, whether in imperial projects,
colonial civilizing missions, or later, in a system of formally
independent states embedded in a capitalist global economy, would be
marked by deep asymmetries and inequalities in standing, status,
rights, burdens, and powers (Anghie 2005; Bell 2019; Getachew
2019).
In the Second World War, after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, atomic scientists lobbied for the international control of
atomic energy as a main function of world federalist government.
Albert Einstein wrote in 1946 that technological developments had
shrunk the planet, through increased economic interdependence and
mutual vulnerability through weapons of mass destruction. Although his
adherence to the idea of a world government to guarantee interstate
peace preceded the development of nuclear weapons, Einstein's
advocacy gained momentum with the risk of nuclear annihilation:
>
>
> A world government must be created which is able to solve conflicts
> between nations by judicial decision. This government must be based on
> a clear-cut constitution which is approved by the governments and
> nations and which gives it the sole disposition of offensive weapons.
> (1946 [1950: 132]; Nathan & Norden 1960)
>
>
>
Organizations such as the United World Federalists (UWF), established
in 1947, called for the transformation of the United Nations into a
universal federation of states with powers to control armaments. World
peace required that states should give up their traditional
unrestricted sovereign rights to amass weapons and wage war, and that
they should submit their disputes to authoritative international
institutions of adjudication and enforcement; world peace would only
be achieved through the establishment of world law (Clark & Sohn
1958/1960 [1962]).
Calls for world government in the post-World War Two era implied a
deep suspicion about the sovereign state's potential as a
vehicle for moral progress in world politics. Emery Reves'
influential *The Anatomy of Peace,* is a condemnation of the
nation-state as a political institution: "The modern Bastille is
the nation-state, no matter whether the jailers are conservative,
liberal or socialist" (1945: 270). Echoing Rousseau, Reves
argued that nation-states threaten human peace, justice and freedom,
by diverting funds from important needs, prolonging a global climate
of mistrust and fear, and creating a war machine that ultimately
precipitates actual war. The experience of the world wars thus made it
especially difficult to view states as agents of moral progress. David
Mitrany, perhaps motivated by such suspicions, bracketed the idea of a
world federation or world state, and focused on the role that "a
spreading web of international activities and agencies" could
play in the pursuit of world integration and peace (1966: 38;
Trachtman 2013).
Some did not reject the nation-state *per se*, but only
authoritarian nondemocratic states as unfit partners for building a
peaceful world order. The Atlantic Union Committee (AUC), formed in
1949 by Clarence Streit, for example, called for a federal union of
democratic states that would be the genesis of a
>
>
> free world government, as nations are encouraged by example to
> practice the principles which would make them eligible for membership,
> namely the principles of representative government and protection of
> individual liberty by law. (1950, quoted in Baratta 2004: 470; for a
> critique see Rosenboim 2017)
>
>
>
In the context of the Cold War (1945-89), however, the division
of the world into two ideologically opposed camps--led by the
United States (US) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR)--produced mutual distrust that pervaded the reception of
all proposals for world government. Soviet opposition to all Western
proposals as attempts to impose "American monopolistic
capitalism" on the world (Goodman 1953: 234) made the world
federalist movement's goal of establishing a universal
federation infeasible. The Soviet leadership also condemned the
AUC's proposal for an exclusive union of democracies as part of
the Cold War rivalry--an attempt to strengthen the anti-communist
(anti-Soviet) bloc.
In a distorted fashion, the Soviet Union became the historical
manifestation of socialist or communist thought. Socialist ideas can
be traced back to the French Revolution, but developed more fully as a
response to negative aspects of the rapid growth of industry in the
nineteenth century. At the same time that technological advancements
promised great material progress, the changes they wrought in social
and economic relations were not all positive. While the many workers,
or "proletarians", in new industrial factories worked
under terrible conditions for meager wages, the few factory owners,
"the bourgeoisie" or "capitalists", amassed
great wealth and power. According to Karl Marx (1818-1883),
human history is a history of struggles not between nations or states,
but between classes, created and destroyed by changing modes of
production. The state as a centralized, coercive authority emerges
under social modes of production at a certain stage of development,
and is only necessary in a class society as the coercive instrument of
the ruling class. The capitalist economic system, however, contains
within it the seeds of its own destruction: capitalism necessitates
the creation of an ever-growing proletarian class, and a global
revolution by the proletariat will sweep away "the conditions
for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally"
(Marx & Engels 1848 [1988: 75]). The state will fall along with
the fall of classes:
>
>
> The society that will organize production on the basis of a free and
> equal association of the producers will put the whole machinery of
> state where it will then belong: into the Museum of Antiquities, by
> the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe. (Engels 1884 [1978:
> 755])
>
>
>
In a communist vision, capitalism is a necessary but transitional and
ephemeral order of things; the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism
by forces it unleashed itself is necessary to attain a new world
order, "in which the free development of each is the condition
for the free development of all" (Marx & Engels 1848 [1988:
75]). World peace and freedom as nondomination for all (Roberts 2017),
including freedom from the "alienated" or
"estranged" labor (Marx 1844 [1978: 71-81]) produced
under capitalism, will be achieved through the transformation of a
capitalist to a communist social order:
>
>
> In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation
> vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.
> (Marx & Engels 1848 [1988: 73])
>
>
>
The Russian revolutionary, V.I. Lenin (1870-1924), drew on Marx
to argue that the proletarian class needed to seize the coercive
apparatus of the state to oppress the resisters and exploiters, the
bourgeoisie, however, Lenin was committed to world revolution, and to
the view that the state is "the organ of class rule", and
that even the
>
>
> proletarian state will begin to wither away immediately after its
> victory because the state is unnecessary and cannot exist in a society
> in which there are no class antagonisms. (Lenin 1918: 65)
>
>
>
In the context of the post-World War I world that witnessed the
collapse of empires as well as the fortification of others, buttressed
by the League of Nations, Lenin's vision of a new communist
world order entailed an appeal to the colonized to mount
anti-imperialist revolutions. This contrasted with U.S. President
Woodrow Wilson's less radical interpretation of
self-determination as good self-government, a formulation that was
consistent with the civilizing narrative based on racial hierarchies,
and the continuation and extension of a colonial international order
(Pedersen 2015).
Later Soviet leaders and elites who rejected Western proposals for
world federation somewhat inconsistently envisaged the transcendence
of nation-states and world capitalism, and the establishment of a
world socialist economy governed by a "Bolshevik World
State" (Goodman 1953: 231). In communist ideology, ultimately,
balance-of-power politics between states enjoying unrestricted
sovereignty did not cause war; the real cause of war was capitalism.
In practice, the Soviet Union's internally and externally
repressive policies made a mockery of socialist ideals of a classless
society, or a world of peaceful socialist republics, and the
disintegration of the Soviet Union itself spelled the practical end of
one alternative to a capitalist world order.
The end of Cold War ideological divisions led some to have great
expectations in the 1990s of enhanced global cooperation to rid
humanity of the threat of global nuclear annihilation and to increase
global commerce and spread prosperity, the material bases for building
a truly global moral and political community of humankind. The end of
the twentieth century was marked by an unbridled faith and optimism in
the inexorable twin triumph of capitalism and liberal democracy as the
end of history (Fukuyama 1992). With the collapse of Soviet-style
state socialism, the world witnessed neoliberal transformations on a
global scale, driven by the "ideology of free markets, trade
liberalization, deregulation, and the small state" (Luthi
2020: 596). Quinn Slobodian has described the paradoxical ascendancy
of "globalist" neoliberalism, entailing the development of
a world state and regulatory laws that privileged the
"encasement" of markets from domestic democratic
regulation and accountability, leading to an institutional project to
redesign "states, laws, and other institutions to protect the
market" (2018: 4 and 6). As neoliberalism spread on a global
scale, so did the deterioration of conditions for robust democratic
politics, precipitating serious backsliding of democratization.
The optimism of the 1990s and early 2000s was thus short-lived as a
variety of persistent and deepening structural injustices of the
modern international system produced conditions ripe for violent
conflict and mass atrocities, the global war on terror after 2001, the
global financial crisis of 2007-9, growing numbers of displaced
people, rising socioeconomic inequality, and the hollowing out of
social welfare protections, not to mention the disruptive consequences
wrought by climate change, and the Covid-19 global pandemic. The
persistence of racial subordination and gender inequalities, as well
as the ascendancy of a neoliberal world order, have provoked much
critical debate about how these and other dominating hierarchies,
backed by powerful international institutions, law, states, and
corporations, can be tamed or overthrown, or how the crises they
generate may accelerate structural transformations at the global level
in a more emancipatory direction.
## 2. Debates in Contemporary Political Theory
### 2.1 International Relations Theory
Contemporary international relations theory developed out of the
urgent need to explain and predict the causes of war and peace in
world politics. International relations theory has also developed in
response to globalization, which has wrought "fundamental
changes in the spatial and temporal contours of social
existence" (Scheuerman 2002 [2018]), characterized by the uneven
increase and intensification of social interconnectedness, economic
integration, and the "shrinkage of geographic distance on a
world scale" (Keohane 2001). While much of international
relations theory's approach to world government has remained
focused on the problem of overcoming interstate anarchy for the sake
of human security in the face of common global threats, a
"global politics paradigm" (Zurn 2018) has emerged
which understands world government as only one possible institutional
development among others in a system of global governance
characterized by the co-constitution of transnational, international
and domestic realms of politics and political contestation.
Contemporary international "realists" or
"neorealists" claim not to evaluate the contemporary
states system in normative terms. They liken the international order
to a Hobbesian state of nature, where notions of justice and injustice
have no place, and in which each unit is rationally motivated to
pursue every means within its power to assure its own survival, even
at the expense of others' basic interests. Some realists have
thus held that ideas of world government constitute exercises in
utopian thinking, and are utterly impractical as a goal for human
political organization. Assuming that world government would lead to
desirable outcomes such as perpetual peace, realists are skeptical
that world government will ever materialize as an institutional
reality, given the problems of egoistic or corrupted human nature, or
the logic of international anarchy that characterizes a world of
states, all jealously guarding their own sovereignty or claims to
supreme authority. World government is thus infeasible as a solution
to global problems because of the unsurpassable difficulties of
establishing "authoritative hierarchies" at the global or
international level (Krasner 1999: 42). Furthermore, Kenneth Waltz, in
his seminal account of neorealism, *Theory of International
Politics*, clearly favors a system of sovereign states over a
world government (1979: 111-2). World government, according to
Waltz, would not deliver universal, disinterested, impartial justice,
order or security, but like domestic governments, it would be driven
by its own particular or exclusive organizational interests, which it
would pursue at the expense of the interests and freedom of states.
This realist view thus provides a sobering antidote to liberal and
other progressive narratives that foretell peace through
interdependence.
William Scheuerman has argued (2011: 67-97), however, that
so-called "classical" realists of the mid-twentieth
century were more sympathetic to ideas of global institutional reform
than contemporary realists. "Classical" and
"progressive" realists such as Reinhold Niebuhr, E.H.
Carr, and Hans Morgenthau, as well as John Herz and Frederick Schuman,
supported a global reformist agenda, prompted by the advent of
economic globalization, technological change, modern total warfare,
and the nuclear revolution. Although a desirable end-goal, the
feasibility of global political change towards a world government in
the form of a global federal system, according to Reinhold Niebuhr,
would depend on deeper global social integration and cohesion than was
evident in the mid-twentieth century (Scheuerman 2011: 73). In
addition, Niebuhr was concerned that absent the required social and
cultural basis for global political unity, the achievement of world
government would be undesirable, since in such conditions, a world
government would require authoritarian devices to rule, raising the
specter of a global tyrannical power (72-6). Others, such as
James Burnham, posited that a world state could only arise through
imperial conquest (Deudney 2019). Despite these caveats, realist
prudence-based as well as functional arguments for a Weberian world
state have gained traction again (Cabrera 2010; Ulas 2016; Araujo
2018; Craig 2019).
"International society" theorists, or the "English
school", argue that although there is no central overriding
authority above sovereign states, their relations are not wholly
lawless or devoid of authoritative and enforceable norms and rules for
conduct. The anarchy between states does not preclude the concept of a
norm-governed society of states (Bull 1977). Since
"international society" theorists do not see the absence
of a central global authority as necessitating a state-eat-state
world, they regard the idea of world government as unnecessary, and
potentially dangerous, since it may serve as a cloak in the struggle
for imperial domination between states. Martin Wight has noted that
the moral ideals of cosmopolitanism typically translate in practice
into political tyranny and imperialism (1991). As an alternative to
world government, and echoing both Rousseau and Kant, Chris Brown
forwards
>
>
> the ideal of a plurality of morally autonomous, just communities
> related to one another in a framework of peace and law. (1995:
> 106)
>
>
>
Establishing an international society, ideally conceived, would make a
supreme world government unnecessary. Andrew Hurrell, however, argues
that
>
>
> it is important to recognize the extent to which social, environmental
> and, above all, technological change is likely to affect the
> *scale* of governance challenges, the *sources* of
> control and governance, and the *subjects* of control. (2007:
> 293)
>
>
>
For these reasons, Hurrell does not consider a retreat to a
traditional state-based pluralism to be feasible, but argues that the
development of a "stable, effective and legitimate international
society" requires redressing global inequality through the
significant redistribution of political power to buttress the
collective political agency of the weak and marginalized (2007:
318).Liberal internationalist accounts of world order are motivated by
more than just the traditional preoccupation with problems of war and
peace. This school of international relations thought, more than the
preceding two, is explicitly critical of traditional accounts of state
sovereignty. Richard Falk has depicted the contemporary world order as
one of "inhumane governance", identifying the following
ills: global severe poverty affecting more than one billion human
beings, denial of human rights to socially and culturally vulnerable
groups, the persistent use and threat of war as an instrument of
politics, environmental degradation, and the lack of transnational
democratic accountability (1995: 1-2). A liberal
internationalist agenda is advanced when progress is made on
alleviating or correcting these ills. However, Falk is explicit
that
>
>
> humane governance can be achieved *without* world government,
> and that this is both the more likely and more desirable course of
> action. (1995: 8)
>
>
>
By world government, Falk means a form of global political
organization that has, at minimum, the following features:
>
>
> compulsory peaceful settlement of all disputes by third-party decision
> in accordance with law; general and complete disarmament at the state
> and regional levels; a global legislative capacity backed up by
> enforcement capabilities; and some form of centralized leadership.
> (1995: 7)
>
>
>
Instead of world government, Falk calls for "transnational
democratic initiatives" from global civil society as well as
United Nations reform, both of which would challenge and complement
the statist and market forces that currently produce our contemporary
global ills (1995: 207). Most liberal international theorists thus
envision the need for authoritative international and global
institutions that modify significantly the powers and prerogatives
traditionally attributed to the sovereign state.
Anne-Marie Slaughter has also rejected the idea of cosmopolitan
democracy and a global parliament as infeasible and unwieldy (2004: 8
and 238). Slaughter is an advocate of "global governance",
in the sense of "a much looser and less threatening concept of
collective organization and regulation without coercion", to
solve common global problems such as transnational crime, terrorism,
and environmental destruction (2004: 9). According to Slaughter,
states are not unitary, but "disaggregated" and
increasingly "networked" through information, enforcement,
and harmonization networks (2004: 167)--producing
>
>
> a world of governments, with all the different institutions that
> perform the basic functions of governments--legislation,
> adjudication, implementation--interacting both with each other
> domestically and also with their foreign and supranational
> counterparts. (2004: 5)
>
>
>
A networked world order, she argues,
>
>
> would be a more effective and potentially more just world order than
> either what we have today or a world government in which a set of
> global institutions perched above nation-states enforced global rules.
> (2004: 6-7)
>
>
>
Although Slaughter is keen to highlight the promise of "global
governance through government networks" as "good public
policy for the world and good national foreign policy" (2004:
261), she acknowledges that in contemporary world conditions of
radical social, economic and political inequality between states and
peoples, effective and fair global governance will require the
networks comprising global governance to abide by the norms of
"global deliberative equality", toleration of reasonable
and legitimate difference, and "positive comity" in the
form of consultation and active assistance between organizations; in
addition, global governance networks would need to be made more
accountable through a system of checks and balances, and more
responsive through the principle of subsidiarity (2004: 244-60).
Without movement towards a more equitable world of mutual respect,
however, it is difficult to see actually existing global governance
networks operating in an impartial and generous spirit to help
>
>
> all nations and their peoples to achieve greater peace, prosperity,
> stewardship of the earth, and minimum standards of human dignity.
> (2004: 166)
>
>
>
In this vein, Thomas Weiss has lamented the intellectual and political
shifts in perspective from world government to global governance,
arguing that current voluntary associations, organizations and
networks at the global level are "so obviously inadequate"
to meeting global challenges that we
>
>
> are obliged to ask ourselves whether we can approach anything that
> resembles effective governance for the world without institutions with
> some supranational characteristics at the global level. (2009:
> 264)
>
>
>
While many contemporary international relations theorists seem to
reject the feasibility, desirability, or necessity of world
government, constructivist theorist Alexander Wendt has argued that
the "logic of anarchy" contains within it the seeds of
transformation towards a "global monopoly on the legitimate use
of organized violence--a world state" (2003: 491). Using
Aristotelian and Hegelian insights, Wendt offers a teleological
account of the development of world order from an anarchic states
system to a world state, arguing that
>
>
> the struggle for recognition between states will have the same outcome
> as that between individuals, collective identity formation and
> eventually a state. (2003: 493)
>
>
>
Technological changes, especially those that increase the "costs
of war" as well as "the scale on which it is possible to
organize a state", affect the struggle for recognition among
states, undermining their self-sufficiency and making a world state
"inevitable" (2003: 493-4). Wendt draws on the work
of Daniel Deudney (1995 and 1999), who argued that the evolution of
destructive technology makes states as vulnerable as individuals in a
Hobbesian state of nature:
>
>
> Hence nuclear one-worldism--just as the risks of the state of
> nature made it functional for individuals to submit to a common power,
> changes in the forces of destruction increasingly make it functional
> for states to do so as well. (Wendt 2003: 508)
>
>
>
Deudney, however, has recently argued that the world state solution,
involving a top-down hierarchical mode of government, is impractical
and conceptually dead; his proposed alternative is a
"negarchic", republican-federalist conception of world
order that solves the problems of anarchy through the development of
regimes of mutual restraint and obligation, but without the risk of
despotism or totalitarianism accompanying hierarchical world
government (2019 and 2020).
According to Wendt, however, the path of world state formation is
inevitable, and would be characterized by the emergence of "a
universal security community", in which members expect to
resolve conflicts peacefully rather than through force; a
"universal collective security" system that ensures the
protection of each member should "crimes" occur; and a
"universal supranational authority" that can make binding
authoritative decisions about the collective use of force (2003: 505).
Driving this transformation is the struggle for recognition, and
the
>
>
> political development of the system will not end until the
> subjectivity of all individuals and groups is recognized and protected
> by a global Weberian state. (2003: 506; for a critique of teleological
> arguments about institutional forms, see Levy 2020)
>
>
>
Wendt recognizes that powerful states enjoying the benefits of
asymmetrical recognition may be most resistant to world state
formation. He argues, however, that with the diffusion of greater
violence potential to smaller powers (such as al-Qaeda and North
Korea),
>
>
> the ability of Great Powers to insulate themselves from global demands
> for recognition will erode, making it more and more difficult to
> sustain a system in which their power and privileges are not tied to
> an enforceable rule of law. (2003: 524)
>
>
>
Based on the assumption that systems tend to develop toward stable
end-states, a world state in which individuals and
>
>
> states alike will have lost the negative freedom to engage in
> unilateral violence, but gained the positive freedom of fully
> recognized subjectivity. (2003: 525)
>
>
>
is the inevitable end-state of the human struggle for recognition. At
the same time that Wendt sees world state formation as an inevitable
trajectory of the struggle for recognition between individuals and
groups, he argues that a world state could take various forms: while
collectivizing organized violence, it need not collectivize on a
global scale culture, economy or local politics; while requiring a
structure that "can command and enforce a collective response to
threats", it need not abolish national armies, or require a
single UN army; and while it requires a procedure for making binding
choices,
>
>
> it would not even require a world "government", if by this
> we mean a unitary body with one leader whose decisions are final.
> (2003: 506)
>
>
>
### 2.2 The Liberal Rejection of World Government
We now turn to debates about world government among contemporary
liberal theorists. Since the publication of John Rawls's
landmark *A Theory of Justice* in 1971, liberal theorists such
as Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge have sought to formulate a
cosmopolitan version of liberalism by extending Rawlsian principles of
domestic justice to the international realm. According to Beitz, a
cosmopolitan liberal conception of international morality is
>
>
> concerned with the moral relations of members of a universal community
> in which state boundaries have a merely derivative significance. (1979
> [1999a: 181-2])
>
>
>
Cosmopolitan liberalism evaluates the morality of domestic and
international institutions based on "an impartial consideration
of the claims of each person who would be affected" (1999b:
287). A cosmopolitan liberal theory of global justice thus begins with
a conception of humanity as a common moral community of free and equal
persons. There is debate among contemporary theorists about the
relationship and distinction between moral cosmopolitanism and
political or institutional cosmopolitanism in the form of a world
state or government (Beitz 1994; Dufek 2013; Ypi 2013; Cabrera 2018
and 2019).
Contemporary liberal theorists have traditionally argued that world
government, in the form of a global leviathan with supreme
legislative, executive, adjudicative and enforcement powers, is
largely unnecessary to solve problems such as war, global poverty, and
environmental catastrophe. World government so conceived is neither
necessary nor sufficient to achieve the aims of a liberal agenda (Yack
2012). Even cosmopolitan liberals have not argued that moral
cosmopolitanism necessarily entails political cosmopolitanism in the
form of a world government.
Although Rawls himself rejects cosmopolitan liberalism, disagreeing
with his liberal critics on several critical issues related to global
distributive justice, they are united in their agreement that a world
state is not part of a liberal ideal for world order. In his treatise
on global order, *The Law of Peoples*, Rawls forwards the
concept of a society of peoples, governed by principles that will
accommodate "cooperative associations and federations among
peoples, but will not affirm a world-state" (1999: 36). He
explicitly states his reason for rejecting the idea of a world state
or government:
>
>
> Here I follow Kant's lead in *Perpetual Peace* (1795) in
> thinking that a world government--by which I mean a unified
> political regime with the legal powers normally exercised by central
> governments--would either be a global despotism or else would
> rule over a fragile empire torn by frequent civil strife as various
> regions and peoples tried to gain their political freedom and
> autonomy. (1999: 36)
>
>
>
Other liberal thinkers have similarly rejected the desirability of
world government in the form of a domestic state writ large to cover
the entire globe (Beitz 1999b: 182; Jones 1999: 229; Tan 2000 and
2004; Pogge 1988: 285; Satz 1999: 77-8; Risse 2012).
In a related objection, "communitarian" liberals, such as
Michael Walzer, argue against a centralized world government as a
threat to social pluralism. Walzer thus endorses "sovereign
statehood" as "a way of protecting distinct historical
cultures, sometimes national, sometimes ethnic/religious in
character", and rejects a centralized global order because he
does not
>
>
> see how it could accommodate anything like the range of cultural and
> religious difference that we see around us today. ... For some
> cultures and most orthodox religions can only survive if they are
> permitted degrees of separation that are incompatible with globalism.
> And so the survival of these groups would be at risk; under the rules
> of the global state, they would not be able to sustain and pass on
> their way of life. (2004: 172 and 176)
>
>
>
At the same time that distinct communities may constitute intrinsic
human goods, Walzer also endorses social and political pluralism as an
instrumental good: given the diversity of human values, he argues that
they
>
>
> are best pursued politically in circumstances where there are many
> avenues of pursuit, many agents in pursuit. The dream of a single
> agent--the enlightened despot, the civilizing imperium, the
> communist vanguard, the global state--is a delusion. (2004:
> 188)
>
>
>
A world of distinct, autonomous communities may be important to
curbing the appetite of a hegemonic or global state to re-make the
world in its own image. Liberal nationalists and communitarians thus
object to world government due to the *homogeneity*
argument--world government may be so strong and pervasive as to
create a homogenizing effect, obliterating distinct cultures and
communities that are intrinsically valuable. Liberal political
pluralists (Muniz-Fraticelli 2014) are concerned that any
state, including a world government, could destroy associative groups
that constitute legitimate sources of political authority; and by
destroying the rich social pluralism that animates human life (Walzer
2004), produce a loss of value (Miller 2007; Valentini 2012).
The liberal rejection of world government, however, does not amount to
an endorsement of the conventional system of sovereign states or the
contemporary international order, "with its extreme injustices,
crippling poverty, and inequalities" (Rawls 1999: 117).
Rawls's rejection of a world government does not negate the
legitimacy and desirability of establishing international or
transnational institutions to regulate cooperation between peoples and
even to discharge certain common inter-societal duties. Thus, after
his rejection of a world state, Rawls goes on to say that in a
well-ordered society of peoples, organizations
>
>
> (such as the United Nations ideally conceived) may have the authority
> to express for the society of well-ordered peoples their condemnation
> of unjust domestic institutions in other countries and clear cases of
> the violation of human rights. In grave cases they may try to correct
> them by economic sanctions, or even by military intervention. The
> scope of these powers covers all peoples and reaches their domestic
> affairs. (1999: 36)
>
>
>
Rawls's vision of global order clearly rejects a world of
atomistic sovereign states with the traditional powers of absolute
sovereignty. Instead, his global vision includes "new
institutions and practices" to "constrain outlaw states
when they appear" (1999: 48), to promote human rights, and to
discharge the duty of assistance owed to burdened societies.
Thomas Pogge argues that realizing
>
>
> a peaceful and ecologically sound future will ... require
> supranational institutions and organizations that limit the
> sovereignty rights of states more severely than is the current
> practice. (2000: 213)
>
>
>
He sees this development to be possible only when a majority of states
are stable democracies (2000: 213-4). Pogge thus appears to
agree with Rawls that the path to perpetual peace (and environmental
safety) lies in promoting the development of well-ordered states,
characterized by democratically representative, responsive and
responsible domestic governments.
As these lines of argument by Rawls and Pogge suggest, liberals have
been quick to reject framing the choice of world orders as one between
*either* a world of traditional sovereign states *or* a
world with a global central government. Pogge has asserted that
liberals should
>
>
> dispense with the traditional concept of sovereignty and leave behind
> all-or-nothing debates about world government.
>
>
>
Instead, he argues for an
>
>
> intermediate solution that provides for some central organs of world
> government without, however, investing them with [exclusive]
> "ultimate sovereign power and authority". (1988: 285)
>
>
>
In this "multi-layered scheme in which ultimate political
authority is vertically dispersed", states that retain ultimate
political authority in some areas would be juxtaposed with a world
government with "central coercive mechanisms of law
enforcement" that has ultimate political authority in other
areas (Pogge 2009: 205-6). Debra Satz has also argued that
framing the choice as one between the current states system and
"an all-powerful world-state" poses a false dilemma:
>
>
> the contrast between a system of sovereign states and a centralized
> world-state is too crude. There are many other possibilities,
> including a state system restrained by international and
> intergovernmental institutions, a non-state-based economic system, a
> global separation-of-powers scheme, international federalism, and
> regional political-economic structures, such as those currently being
> developed in western Europe and the Americas (via NAFTA). (Satz 1999:
> 77-8)
>
>
>
Simon Caney has also endorsed a system of international institutions
designed to
>
>
> provide a reliable and effective means of protecting people's
> basis interests (and instrumental consideration) and also to provide a
> fair forum for determining which rules should govern the global
> economy (a procedural component). (2006: 734)
>
>
>
As the many liberal proposals for moral improvement of the world order
indicate, liberal objections to world government--whether they
take the form of tyranny/homogeneity arguments and/or the
inefficiency/soullessness objections--are not motivated by a
complacent attitude towards the contemporary world order and its
resulting conditions (Pogge 2000). As Charles Jones has put it, these
valid and plausible objections to world government do not show that
"the status quo is preferable to some alternative
arrangement" (1999: 229). While liberal theorists acknowledge
the tyrannical potential of a world government, they also acknowledge
that "sovereign states are themselves often the cause of the
rights-violations of their citizens" (1999: 229). Kok-Chor Tan
characterizes liberal proposals for world order to involve, therefore,
neither world government nor absolute state sovereignty. Instead,
liberals have argued consistently for restrictions on the traditional
powers of sovereignty, as well as for the vertical dispersion of
sovereignty, "upwards towards supranational bodies, and also
downwards toward particular communities within states" (2000:
101). In such a world order, states become "another level of
appeal, and not the sole and final one" (2000: 101).
David Held argues that this dispersion of sovereignty is inevitable
given that the nation-state does not exist in an insular world, but a
highly interdependent and complex system: the contemporary reality
consists of a globalized economy, international organizations,
regional and global institutions, international law, and military
alliances, all of which operate to shape and constrain individual
states. Although national sovereignty still has a place in the
contemporary world order,
>
>
> interconnected authority structures ... displace notions of
> sovereignty as an illimitable, indivisible and exclusive form of
> public power. (1995: 137)
>
>
>
In Held's account of cosmopolitan democracy, the universal
realization of the liberal ideal of autonomy, derived from Kant,
ultimately requires long-term institutional developments such as the
creation of a global parliament, an international criminal court, the
demilitarization of states, and global distributive justice in the
form of a guaranteed annual income for each individual (1995:
279-80). Although cosmopolitan theorists tend to reject the
dichotomy posed between a political system of sovereign states and one
with a centralized world government, and have tended to eschew the
terminology of the world state in their accounts of global democratic
institutional reform, William Scheuerman has argued that some of their
proposals of supranational institutions mimic core attributes of
traditional statehood, thus inadvertently bringing the world state
back into liberal cosmopolitan visions of world order (2014). It is
thus an open question whether "statist cosmopolitanism"
(Ypi 2011), which considers states as viable agents of cosmopolitan
justice, is feasible, or whether cosmopolitanism requires transcending
the state system (Ulas 2017).
### 2.3 Republican Nondomination and Global Democracy
Democratic, republican and critical theorists have become concerned
with the global context of order and justice due to its importance for
establishing protective external conditions for the moral and
political achievements of centuries of domestic democratic political
struggle. Traditionally, the main global threat was interstate war,
thus the projects for perpetual peace. Today, democratic theorists
worry that contemporary processes of globalization are undermining the
achievements of democratic societies in the areas of civil and social
rights such as access to education and healthcare, and the economic
securities provided by the welfare state. From this perspective,
economic globalization and the growing power of international and
transnational institutions pose a potential threat to democratic
ideals of civic equality and self-determination. The task of the
democratic theorist is to think about how democracies can respond to
these global developments in ways that best help preserve the fragile
achievements of domestic democratic justice (Habermas 2004 [2006]; see
also Scheuerman 2008). Increasingly, theorists of global democratic
reform envisage the need to develop new institutions and practices of
representation and accountability rather than merely to extend
traditional constitutional models and electoral mechanisms of domestic
democratic governance (Archibugi 2008; Macdonald 2008; Marchetti 2008;
Tinnevelt 2012; Tanyi 2019; Erman 2019).
Key to discussions in democratic, republican and critical theory about
global order and justice is the political ideal of nondomination.
Neo-republican theorist Philip Pettit understands commitment to this
ideal to entail reducing people's vulnerability to alien control
or the arbitrary power of others to interfere with their choices and
their lives. In the international context, Pettit has outlined a
"republican law of peoples" that has the twin goals of
ensuring that every people is represented by a non-dominating
government in a non-dominating international order (2010). Starting
with a world of states, Pettit argues that a state which is
"effective and representative of its people" fulfills the
republican ideal of nondomination, and "it would be
objectionably intrusive of other agents in the international
order" to bypass such states and assume responsibility for its
members (2010: 71-2). A legitimate international order is
one
>
>
> in which effective, representative states avoid
> domination--whether by another state, or by a non-state
> body--and seek to enable other states to be effective and
> representative too. (2010: 73)
>
>
>
In an international context, the sources of domination include other
states; "non-domestic, private bodies" such as
"corporations, churches, terrorist movements, even powerful
individuals"; and "non-domestic, public bodies" such
as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (2010: 77). While representative states
realize nondomination internally for their members, individuals'
enjoyment of freedom as nondomination is not secured unless their
states are protected in their external relations from dominating
strategies, including "intentional obstruction, coercion,
deception, and manipulation" as well as
"invigilation", and "intimidation" (2010:
74).
Pettit's account presupposes the legitimacy of domestic
democracies that ensure nondomination as a starting point for thinking
about a legitimate international order, and he explicitly rejects the
idea of a world state, modeled on a domestic republican regime, as an
infeasible remedy for the challenges posed by domination in an
international context (2010: 81; but see Koenig-Archibugi 2011). There
is no easy solution, but Pettit considers feasible improvements to the
current international order can be made by further developing
multilateral
>
>
> international agencies and forums by means of which states can work
> out their problems and relations in a space of more or less common
> reasons
>
>
>
as well as fostering greater solidarity among subgroups of weaker
states so that they can form rival blocs that can resist domination by
more powerful agents (2010: 84). While Pettit is mostly concerned with
the dominating potential of powerful states, and considers
international agencies to be less threatening (2010: 86),
Cecile Laborde adds to Pettit's account not only a
concern for agent-relative domination, but also, and more centrally,
systemic domination, which entails a greater awareness of the
dominating potential of international organizations such as the
International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization and the World
Bank (2010). One of the ways that powerful states dominate weak states
is by "entrenching and institutionalizing" their dominant
position through unfair international social structures in areas such
as trade (2010: 57).
Indeed, Nancy Kokaz, in a republican interpretation of Rawls's
*Law of Peoples*, argues that "a global republic cannot
be dismissed by a civic [republican] theory of global justice"
(2005: 94). The civic pluralist ideal that is threatened by the advent
of global capitalism and ensuing deracination requires "a global
state powerful enough to protect local communities" from the
homogenizing tendencies and "excesses of global
capitalism" (2005: 93). In a further development of republican
ideas about global order and justice, James Bohman has argued that a
republican ideal of freedom as nondomination in the new global
"circumstances of politics" requires political struggle in
the direction of transnational democracy (2004 and 2007). According to
Bohman,
>
>
> under conditions of globalization, freedom from tyranny and domination
> cannot be achieved without extending our political ideals of
> democracy, community and membership. (2004: 352)
>
>
>
Not only are currently bounded democratic communities ineffective in
resisting new global sources and forms of domination, they are also
"potentially self-defeating", constituting
>
>
> a thousand tiny fortresses in which the oldest form of domination is
> practiced at many different levels: the domination of noncitizens by
> citizens, or nonmembers by members, using their ability to command
> noninterference much like those who live within gated communities.
> (2007: 175 and 180)
>
>
>
Daniele Archibugi has termed this
>
>
> democratic schizophrenia: to engage in a certain [democratic] behavior
> on the inside and indulge in the opposite [undemocratic] behavior on
> the outside. (2008: 6)
>
>
>
Such vicious circles of "democratic domination" can only
be overcome by making borders, membership and jurisdiction the
subjects of democratic deliberation across *demoi*
(Bohman 2007: 179). Whether or not democracy serves global justice
depends on the possibility of transnational democratization, and
Bohman sees two primary agents of such transformation, in democratic
states pursuing "broadly federalist and regional projects of
political integration", such as the European Union, and in the
less institutionalized activities of "participants in
transnational public spheres and associations" (2007: 189).
While some think that the formal development of regional or global
institutions must be democratized in order to realize republican
nondomination or democratic agency (Valentini 2012), others argue that
global democracy may be justified mainly for its instrumental role in
protecting and promoting
>
>
> the fundamental interests of all the world's citizens, rather
> than by that of maximizing citizens' democratic agency
>
>
>
at the global level (Weinstock 2006: 10).
Critical theorist Iris Marion Young similarly calls for a global
politics of nondomination, that would support "a vision of local
and cultural autonomy in the context of global regulatory
regimes" (2002: 237). Her model of global
governance--"a post-sovereign alternative to the existing
states system" (2000: 238)--entails a "decentred
diverse democratic federalism" (2000: 253). While everyday
governance would be primarily local, it would take place in the
context of global regulatory regimes, built upon existing
international institutions, that would be functionally defined to deal
with
>
>
> (1) peace and security, (2) environment, (3) trade and finance, (4)
> direct investment and capital utilization, (5) communications and
> transportation, (6) human rights, including labor standards and
> welfare rights, (7) citizenship and migration. (2002: 267)
>
>
>
Young envisages these global regulatory regimes to apply not only to
states, but also to non-state organizations, such as corporations, and
individuals. In terms of feasibility, Young points to the development
of a robust "global public sphere" (Habermas 1998) as
crucial to bringing about "stronger global regulatory
institutions tied to principles of global and local democracy"
(Young 2002: 272).
Increasingly, then, republican and democratic theorists view
transnational and supranational institutions not as intrinsic threats
to democratic freedom and justice, but as potentially instrumental
institutional developments that are necessary to fortify the
capacities of contemporary states to deliver on democratic and
republican values. In this sense, supporting the development of
transnational democratic institutions is consistent with upholding the
values of national identity and belonging, and the proper functioning
of states, by providing a robust framework to coordinate and
discipline states into solving problems of human rights and global
justice in areas such as labor, health, migration, and taxation, in a
more fair, equitable, and non-dominating manner (Abizadeh 2008;
Ronzoni 2012; Valentini 2012; Dietsch 2015; Fine & Ypi 2016;
Cabrera 2018). Paradoxically, it may be that in conditions of
globalization, only a world state can provide the essential supporting
conditions for all states, including democratic ones, to enjoy
effective and legitimate collective self-determination (Lu 2018).
Thus, republican cosmopolitanism in the form of a world state may be
less of an oxymoron than Pettit suggests.
### 2.4 Critics of Capitalism and a Neoliberal World State
An abiding controversy about the contemporary world economy is its
potential to enhance or destroy societal goals of securing justice,
freedom, and welfare provision, including the protection of human
rights and democratic politics (Stiglitz 2002; Kinley 2009). Craig
Murphy has worried that globalization would
>
>
> inevitably be accompanied by the anti-democratic government of
> "expertise" or by the non-government of marketization at
> ever more inclusive levels. (2000: 800)
>
>
>
Economists have warned that the relationship between global economic
integration, national self-determination, and democratic politics can
be fraught (Rodrik 2011), and that capitalism has a tendency to
reproduce and intensify inequality (Piketty 2013 [2014]). In the
twentieth century, Immanuel Wallerstein (2011) developed the
world-systems approach to analyzing the contradictions inherent in a
capitalist world-system. Although imperial military competition gave
way to a world of sovereign states in the era of decolonization, he
noted that a capitalist world order perpetuates systems of domination
to maintain capitalist interests, at the expense of the developing
world. World-systems theory thus explains how capitalism forms a
stable set of exploitative relations between core and peripheral
states, resulting in an international division of labor that benefits
the core at the expense of the periphery.
While world-systems theory posits that "economic exploitation of
the periphery does not necessarily require direct political or
military domination" (Kohn & Reddy 2006 [2017]),
contemporary postcolonial theorists argue that the rise of neoliberal
globalization can be marked by the establishment of international
economic institutions that have dislocated the power of sovereign
states to make economic decisions, and relocated them in international
economic institutions--the WTO, IMF and World Bank--with
effective enforcement powers.
Whereas realist, liberal and republican theorists typically posit that
a world state is a possible futuristic institutional development to
evolve from anarchy, postcolonial theorists have argued that anarchy
does not accurately describe the global historical institutional
reality. Some also argue that world government is already here, albeit
in a nascent form (Albert et al. 2012; Goodin 2013). Critical and
postcolonial theorists argue that the course of capitalist modernity
has produced a nascent world state of neoliberal domination (Chimni
2004; Slobodian 2018). In such conditions of structural domination, a
world state may be undesirable as a political project due to
established and entrenched global hierarchies based on racist,
patriarchal, and capitalist domination and exploitation (Robinson
1983; Pateman and Mills 2007). As B.S. Chimni has put it,
>
>
> A network of economic, social and political [International
> Institutions] has been established or repositioned, at the initiative
> of the first world, and together they constitute a nascent *global
> state* whose function is to realize the interests of transnational
> capital and powerful states in the international system to the
> disadvantage of third world states and peoples. The evolving global
> state formation may therefore be described as having an
> *imperial* character. (2004: 1-2)
>
>
>
Although fragmented in structure, the future global state, according
to Chimni, is in the process of congealing to actualize and legitimize
a world-view that ultimately serves the transnational capitalist class
comprising the owners of transnational capital. This class allies with
the networks of international law and institutions to undermine the
decision-making powers of states, especially those with weak
institutional capacities, and to make decisions without transparency
or effective participation of those affected.
While increasingly intrusive, the decisions of international economic
and financial institutions remain largely unaccountable. According to
Slobodian, neoliberal globalists actively sought to construct the
institutions of the global economy to evade accountability, "to
contain potential disruptions from the democratically empowered
masses", so that the global economy could be "protected
from the demands of redistributive equality and social justice"
(2018: 264). While the Washington Consensus seemed to be based on
sound economic principles--that free markets "and
competition enable the efficient allocation of scarce
resources"--and forecast economic growth based on
liberalizing trade, investment, and capital flows, its failure to
produce growth or inclusive development in many countries has revealed
the importance of empirical analysis to check ideological distortions
of economic policy (Rodrik 2015). China's economic
transformation illuminates global challenges arising from the decline
of "managerial capitalism", or Fordism, which generated
the regulatory state-model of governance, and the rise of
"neoliberal capitalism", or post-Fordism, defined by the
"hollowing out" of the state, reduction of central
regulatory capacity, coupled with flexible production processes
disaggregated into production chains and networks, and increasing
vulnerability of the peripheral workforce (Dowdle 2016:
207-229).
In response to these predicaments of contemporary capitalism, critical
and postcolonial theorists emphasize that there is no option to return
to a mythical world of autarkic or autonomous and insulated states
with traditional sovereign prerogatives (Winter & Chambers-Letson
2015). Instead, globalized domination can only be transformed through
globalizing transnational labor and social movements that struggle for
greater democratization of the decision-making processes of both
domestic and international institutions (Chimni 2004). In calling for
a revision of the principles that regulate the relationship between
the global economy and sovereign states, in order to buttress state
power, especially of Third World states, against international
economic and financial institutions, critical theorists join
contemporary liberal (Isiksel 2020) and republican theorists who view
the state as continuing to play an important role in securing equal
human freedom. According to Adom Getachew, "postcolonial
cosmopolitanism" acknowledges the persistent unequal integration
and hierarchy produced by the world politics of empire, and views the
reinforcement of the sovereign state, as well as the dispersion of
sovereignty in regional federations and a redistributive international
economic order, as key to anti-colonial struggles to resist domination
and remake the world (2019: 34).
Given that the Eurocentric narrative of civilizational progress
forwarded the nation-state as a marker of civilization, and fated
Indigenous peoples to extinction with the advent of modernity,
however, Indigenous political theorists have reason to be ambivalent
about a Weberian state at any level of political organization. Some
Indigenous political theorists have mounted radical challenges to the
settler colonial state as well as the statist international order.
Glen Coulthard's critique of the liberal politics of
multicultural recognition reveals that the struggle for recognition
may not emancipate, but entrench subjects in the settler colonial
subjectivity offered by the settler colonial state (2014). Following
anti-colonial thinker Frantz Fanon, Coulthard argues that dominated
agents need to struggle to create new decolonized frameworks of
recognition that they can call their own, and not only seek equal
recognition based on structures of settler colonial power,
otherwise
>
>
> the colonized will have failed to reestablish themselves as truly
> self-determining: as creators of the terms, values, and conditions by
> which they are to be recognized. (2014: 139)
>
>
>
Coulthard also understands the political project of Indigenous
"resurgence" to be inextricably linked to the struggle to
construct alternative social and economic systems to capitalism; thus
for Indigenous resurgence to be successful, "capitalism must
die" (2014: 173). Such Indigenous politics of refusal (Simpson
2014) of both statism and capitalism underscore that the struggle for
recognition of Indigenous humanity in conditions of racial capitalist
modernity entails radical structural transformations of global order
(Lu 2017 and 2019).
## 3. Conclusion
The aim of much normative theorizing about global institutions and
global justice is to interrogate whether a world government is
feasible, desirable, or necessary for realizing human aspirations for
just, inclusive, peaceful, and prosperous relations between the
diverse individuals and groups that comprise a common moral community
of humankind. Some think that the idea of world government involves a
paradox: however it is conceived institutionally, when the winning
conditions exist for establishing a desirable form of world
government--one that will guarantee human security with
individual liberty, protect the environment, and advance global social
justice--it will no longer be necessary (Nielsen 1988: 276). Once
all governments, especially the most powerful ones, are willing to use
their power to build government networks that promote global peace,
justice and environmental protection, and to cede some traditional
rights of sovereignty to supranational institutions in areas such as
the use of military force, the management and protection of the
environment and natural resources, and the distribution of wealth, the
establishment of a global political authority might seem superfluous.
As Alexander Wendt has pointed out, however, a stable end-state of
world order development requires such ideal conditions, should they
ever develop, to become institutionalized into a world state that
enacts "a global monopoly on the legitimate use of organized
violence" (1988: 491); enforcement mechanisms are not
superfluous, since there is always the possibility of violations by
outlaw states and groups. In a similar vein, the Swedish philosopher
Torbjorn Tannsjo has argued that neither voluntary
multilateral cooperation under conditions of anarchy, nor a hybrid
arrangement of "*shared* sovereignty between the world
government and nation-states", will be effective in resolving
contemporary challenges in the realms of human security, global
justice and the environment (2008: 122-125). Since sovereignty
is indivisible, Tannsjo posits that a world state must have
ultimate decision-making authority over nation-states over
jurisdictional issues:
>
>
> Unless there are sanctions available to the central authority to back
> up a decision as to where a question is to be handled, the system of
> states will be thrown back into a state of nature. (2008:
> 125-6)
>
>
>
From critical and postcolonial perspectives, however, the state of
nature reference point of much of international relations theory is a
normatively obscuring myth that occludes the hierarchies of structural
domination that have pervaded the development of world order (Jahn
2000; Lu 2017: 120). Postcolonial and critical theorists often share
the ethical concerns and moral commitments of normative theorists
(Kohn 2013)--justice, equality, freedom, nondomination--but
their theorizing focuses on the diagnostic task of analyzing the
causes and character of contemporary structural and institutional
developments, as well as the global processes and conditions that make
them possible. They view contemporary global order, marked by radical
imbalances and disparities produced by historic and ongoing structural
injustices based on class, race, and gender, as serving certain
functions and interests, in terms of what they naturalize, enable,
suppress, and obscure. In 2020 and 2021, as a world divided by deep
political, social and economic structural inequalities faces pandemic
conditions, economic recession, and environmentally deleterious
developments, the questions of *whose* sense of world community
and *whose* global needs will define the global political
agenda and order are more salient than ever. |
impossible-worlds | ## 1. Reasons for Introducing Impossible Worlds
Why might one believe in impossible worlds? One argument is the
so-called "argument from ways" (Vander Laan 1997), which
is related to the first definition of impossible world given above.
This draws on the analogy with
David Lewis's
notorious argument concerning our quantifying over ways things could
have been (see Lewis 1973: 84). The world could have been different in
so many ways: Hilary Clinton could have won the 2016 US election, I
could be dancing on the ceiling, and Fermat's Last Theorem could
have remained without proof. Our belief in possible worlds is just a
paraphrase of our belief that there are many ways the world could have
been.
Aren't there also ways the world could *not* have been?
Some authors endorse the claim that *anything* is possible
(e.g. Mortensen 1989). However, the majority of philosophers believe
that not everything is possible, in the sense that some things just
*can't* happen. If I tell you that my college has a
cupola which is both fully round and fully square, you are likely to
reply, "it can't be *that* way!". So it seems
that "'ways' talk goes both ways" (Beall and
van Fraassen 2003: 86). If quantification on ways the world could have
been should be taken at face value as providing evidence for possible
worlds, then quantification on ways the world could not have been
should be taken at face value as providing evidence for impossible
worlds.
The argument as such is hardly convincing. Firstly, one author's
*modus ponens* is another's *modus tollens*. Some
have used similar considerations to argue against Lewis's modal
realism (see Skyrms 1976; Naylor 1986): if one believes in possible
worlds (of the Lewisian kind) as ways things could have been, then by
parity of reasoning one should believe in impossible worlds (ditto) as
ways things could not have been. But impossible worlds are too much to
swallow, so (by *modus tollens*) one should not believe in
Lewis's modal realism.
Secondly, taking quantification over any kind of entity whatsoever at
face value, just because it is embedded in ordinary language,
doesn't look like a promising general strategy. Lewis's
case for accepting commitment to possible worlds did not consist just
in an argument from *ways*. He also provided independent
motivation for taking quantification over possible worlds at face
value. A non-reductive account of possible worlds, according to Lewis,
brings net theoretical utility. The ontological cost is compensated by
a theoretical gain, given the variety of ontological, semantic, and
conceptual explanations allowed by our taking the notion of possible
world seriously. This is likely to be the main motivation for
believing in impossible worlds. As we will see below, defenders of
impossible worlds claim that they are are theoretically useful.
Another argument on behalf of impossible worlds, quite pervasive in
the literature, comes from *counterpossible reasoning* (e.g.
Beall and van Fraassen 2003, Chapter 4; Nolan 1997; Restall 1997;
Brogaard and Salerno 2013). This is reasoning from suppositions,
assumptions, or conditional antecedents which are not only false, but
impossible. We can reason non-trivially from impossible suppositions,
by asking what *would* be the case, were (say) the Law of
Excluded Middle false. To say that we reason *non-trivially*
from an assumption means just that we accept some conclusions but
reject others on the basis of that assumption. If we hypothetically
suppose the Law of Excluded Middle to be false, for example, then we
would likely conclude that intuitionistic logic would be preferable to
classical logic, given that supposition. We are unlikely to conclude
that classical logic would be a satisfactory logic, or that scarlet
would be a shade of green, given that supposition. The point readily
generalizes to reasoning about entire theories and to serious
philosophical and logical debates. We often reason from suppositions
about the truth of certain logical, mathematical, or metaphysical
theories which, if in fact false, are necessarily false, because of
the very nature of their subject matter.
This kind of reasoning is related to our assessment of certain
conditional statements with impossible antecedents, often called
*counterpossible conditionals* or, more simply,
*counterpossibles.* These include:
(1.1) If Hobbes had
squared the circle, then mathematicians would have been
amazed.
Let's call a conditional like this *trivially true* when
it is true and the conditional with the same antecedent and opposite
(negated) consequent is also true. (1.1) is intuitively
true, and yet
(1.2) If Hobbes had
squared the circle, then mathematicians would not have been
amazed.
is intuitively false. If that's correct, then there are
non-trivially true counterpossibles. These considerations impact on
our preferred semantics for such conditionals, for the possible worlds
semantics for conditionals has trouble accommodating this position.
Yet the analysis in terms of worlds does a good job for conditionals
with possible antecedents. This motivates a semantics for
counterpossibles in terms of impossible (as well as possible) worlds.
We will get into more detail in
section 2.5.
These kinds of argument highlight the usefulness of impossible worlds
as devices for analyzing particular linguistic, logical, and
philosophical issues. The point can be expanded into the general
"argument from utility" mentioned above: we should believe
in impossible worlds because they are useful tools for logicians and
philosophers. Whether that general argument is acceptable depends on
how persuasive the specific impossible worlds analyses are.
Let's look at some.
## 2. Applications of Impossible Worlds
This section briefly describes various applications of impossible
worlds, which collectively provide the main motivation for introducing
them.
### 2.1 Intentional States
Modelling intentional states, such as knowledge and belief, is a
prominent motivation for introducing impossible worlds. The intuitive
idea is that one gains knowledge or belief by ruling out would-be
possibilities (the *epistemic/doxastic possibilities* for that
agent). An agent's knowledge is whatever is true according to
all epistemically possible worlds accessible to that agent, i.e., the
worlds which represent ways things could be, for all the agent knows
(and similarly for belief).
Impossible worlds are useful within this approach because these
would-be possibilities often turn out to be impossible. Our beliefs
are often (covertly) inconsistent with one another. Moreover, our
knowledge and belief is not closed under (classical) logical
consequence: we do not know or believe all consequences of what we
know or believe. It is hard to accommodate these features using only
possible worlds. Possible worlds models usually generate the problem
of *logical omniscience* (see
epistemic logic),
which we will discuss in
section 5.3.
One feature of rational agents' intentional states is that they
typically reject *obvious* impossibility or absurdity whilst
being subject to *subtle* inconsistency (Lewis 2004). One
attempt to capture this feature is developed in Jago 2006, 2007, 2009,
2014a. The idea is that only genuine possibilities and non-obvious
impossibilities should be epistemically accessible to rational (but
imperfect) agents such as us. For some agents, it may be epistemically
possible that Fermat's Last Theorem's is false, but 0
being 1 shouldn't be epistemically possible for anyone.
That's why we know the latter but may fail to know the former,
says Jago. One worry with this approach is that it is partly
proof-theoretic (invoking proof rules as relations between worlds),
whereas it isn't clear that proof length correlates well with
obviousness. Bjerring (2013) presents other objections to the view. A
strategy similar to Jago's is adopted in Berto 2014, 2017.
A quite different application of impossible worlds to epistemic states
has been proposed by JC Beall 2009, in relation to the
Church-Fitch knowability paradox.
The Church-Fitch reasoning is supposed to show that is contradictory
to suppose that any truth can be known (as some anti-realists claim).
The reasoning is this. Suppose all truths are knowable but some are
not in fact known. Then some truth \(A\), is not known: \(A \wedge
\neg KA\). By assumption, it's possible to know this: \(\Diamond
K(A \wedge \neg KA)\). Seemingly good reasoning (in classical
epistemic logic) implies that it's possible both to know and not
know that \(A\): \(\Diamond(KA \wedge \neg KA)\), which of course
isn't possible at all. The usual moral to draw is that not all
truths are knowable. Beall's idea, by contrast, is that the
knowability principle can be maintained (and the corresponding kind of
anti-realism along with it). His suggestion is to deny
*distribution of knowledge over conjunction*: the principle
that knowing that \(A \wedge B\) implies knowing that \(A\) and
knowing that \(B\). He achieves this using impossible worlds in which
conjunctions may be true even if their conjuncts are not.
### 2.2 Inconsistent Information
Closely connected with inconsistent information (e.g., information
including or entailing contradictions) is the issue of modelling
*inconsistent databases* (see Belnap 1977a,b, Barwise 1997).
These may consist, for instance, in sets of data supplied by different
sources which are inconsistent with each other, such as incompatible
evidence presented by different witnesses in a trial. Intuitively, we
are allowed to draw the logical consequences of data fed in by a
*single* source, but should not conjoin data from distinct
sources which may be inconsistent with each other. The database is
"compartmentalized": occasional inconsistencies are placed
in separate sectors and should not be asserted conjunctively (see
e.g., Belnap 1977a,b, Hyde 1997, Brown and Priest 2004). Impossible
worlds are useful in such models--particularly
*non-adjunctive* worlds, where a conjunction may be false even
if both conjuncts are true. (We discuss such worlds further in
section 5.2.)
### 2.3 Fiction
Inconsistent information is at issue also in certain works of fiction.
Lewis's classic 1978 paper proposed an analysis of the
expression "true in such-and-such fiction" in terms of
possible worlds. What holds in a certain fictional work is what holds
at a set of possible worlds, properly selected via a series of (quite
subtle and complex) clauses. But fiction can be occasionally
inconsistent. Sometimes, this happens unintentionally: Conan
Doyle's *The Sign of the Four* describes Watson as
limping because of a war wound at his leg. In *A Study in
Scarlet*, however, Watson has no wound at his leg (for his wound
is in his shoulder and he doesn't limp). One may claim that the
set of worlds that make such stories true has to be split into
disjoint subsets, making true consistent fragments of the fiction.
This strategy won't always work, however, for inconsistencies in
fiction may be intentional (as stressed in Proudfoot 2006). Suppose we
write a novel, and in its first chapter we have the Mad Mathematician
produce a round square. If the intentional inconsistency is excised,
the fact that mathematicians all over the world are amazed by this
result in the second chapter becomes unexplainable. A natural
treatment of these cases, then, is obtained by admitting
(appropriately selected) impossible worlds in the set of situations
that realize what is told in the story (see e.g. Priest 1997b; Woods
2003, Chapter 6; Berto 2012, Chapters 7 and 8; Badura and Berto
2019).
### 2.4 Propositional Content
Closely connected to belief is the notion of *propositional
content*. Within possible worlds semantics,
propositions
can be defined as functions from worlds to truth values, or as sets
of worlds: a proposition is the set of worlds at which it is true. The
account is notoriously too coarse-grained (Barwise 1997). Intuitively
distinct impossible propositions (that swans are blue and not blue;
that Fermat's Last Theorem is false; that Charles is a married
bachelor) all hold at precisely no possible worlds. And we have a dual
problem with (unrestrictedly) necessary propositions, which are all
identified with the set of all possible worlds. Treating propositions
as set-theoretic constructions out of possible worlds leads to a very
coarse individuation of propositions, and because of this it has been
subject to seemingly devastating attacks, for instance, by Scott
Soames 1987. However, impossible worlds allow for fine-grained
distinctions unavailable in standard possible worlds semantics. An
impossible proposition need not be equated with the empty set of
worlds, for it may be a set which includes (only) impossible worlds.
We can have an impossible world \(w\_1\) with impossibly coloured
swans, a distinct impossible world \(w\_2\) at which Fermat's
Last Theorem is false, and a further impossible world \(w\_3\) at which
bachelors are married (but at which swans and Diophantine equations
behave correctly). Ripley (2012) argues that an account along these
lines is a better strategy for addressing the coarse-grainedness
problem than resorting to
structured propositions.
One other application of impossible worlds concerns
*perceptual* impossibilities. When we see an Escher drawing or
a Penrose triangle, our experience has content. But that content is
impossible: such structures cannot be realised. The content of our
experience in such cases is naturally captured using impossible
worlds. Splitting that content into smaller internally consistent
parts would lose the essential feature of the whole. This issue is
explored in Mortensen 1997.
### 2.5 Counterpossible Reasoning
Perhaps the most important application of impossible worlds has to do
with counterpossible reasoning, understood as counterfactual reasoning
from impossible antecedents. As we saw in
section 1,
this kind of reasoning is often taken to provide independent
motivation for believing in impossible worlds. (For a recent overview
of the literature on counterpossibles, see Kocurek 2021.) In
Lewis-Stalnaker theories of counterfactuals, a conditional of the
form, "if it were the case that \(A\), then it would be the case
that \(B\)" is true if and only if, at the closest world (or
closest worlds) at which \(A\) is true, \(B\) is also true. (This is a
simplification of the truth conditions provided in the full-fledged
semantics of Lewis 1973.)
While the standard conditional logics based on this idea have been
quite successful in the treatment of counterfactuals, the approach
entails that any counterfactual whose antecedent is impossible is
vacuously true. For if there are no possible worlds at which \(A\) is
true, then trivially, all closest \(A\)-worlds (worlds where \(A\) is
true) are \(B\)-worlds. This is unsatisfying in many respects, for we
often need to reason nontrivially about theories that (perhaps
unbeknownst to us) cannot possibly be correct; and we often need to
reason from antecedents that may turn out to be not only false, but
necessarily so. (Compare the conditionals (1.1) and (1.2) in
section 1
for an example.) Recent defences of the view that counterpossibles
are not all vacuously true include Sendlak 2021 and McLoone
2021.
Three contexts in which theories of this kind show up are discourses
on (1) alternative logics, (2) mathematical conjectures, and (3)
metaphysical views. We will now say a few words on each of them.
(1) A famous Quinean motto has it that "to change the logic is
to change the subject": apparently disagreeing logical parties
are actually speaking of different things. So when intuitionists deny
that the Law of Excluded Middle holds in non-finitary contexts, they
are actually changing the meaning of logical operators; when
paraconsistentists claim that some formula can be true (in some weird
circumstances) together with its negation, they are not talking of
*negation* anymore (see e.g., Berto 2008).
But this does not make good sense of many disputes between
intuitionists, classical logicians, paraconsistentists, quantum
logicians, etc. It is more fruitful to assume that each party
generally understands the rival logics as intelligible, albeit
necessarily false, theories. Even if classical logic actually is the
one true logic, one can reason counterpossibly about what would be the
case if a certain non-classical logic were the correct one (e.g.,
"if intuitionistic logic were correct, then the Law of Excluded
Middle would fail" is true and "if intuitionistic logic
were correct, then the Law of Explosion would fail" is false).
One can take into account situations in which the Law of Excluded
Middle fails and argue about what would and would not be the case in
them. These situations are, by classical standards, just impossible
worlds (of the third kind: Classical Logic Violators).
(2) Similar claims can be made for mathematical conjectures. Different
set theorists have different views on controversial subjects such as
non-well-founded sets, the
Continuum Hypothesis,
the Axiom of Choice, the set/(proper-)class distinction, etc. If one
embraces the Platonic view (subscribed to, at least implicitly, by
many set theorists) that there is One True Universe of sets, then at
most one of the alternative set theories can be correct: the others
are wrong, and necessarily so. But people can work under the
hypothesis that a necessarily false basic mathematical principle
holds, and reason coherently from this:
>
> It is doubtless true that nothing sensible can be said about how
> things would be different if there were no number 17; that is largely
> because the antecedent of this counterfactual gives us no hints as to
> what alternative mathematics is to be regarded as true in the
> counterfactual situation in question. If one changes the example to
> "Nothing sensible can be said about how things would be
> different if the axiom of choice were false", it seems wrong
> ... : if the axiom of choice were false, the cardinals
> wouldn't be linearly ordered, the Banach-Tarski theorem would
> fail and so forth. (Field 1989: 237-8)
>
Field takes this as an argument to the effect that mathematical
necessity is not coextensive with logical necessity. But we can turn
the tables around: mathematical necessity is unrestricted and false
mathematical theories are just impossible theories.
(3) The third area in which counterpossible reasoning comes into play
are metaphysical disputes (and more broadly, any philosophical dispute
whose subject matter is necessarily true or necessarily false). Much
metaphysical talk is made with our quantifiers "wide
open", that is, aiming at stating truths about all that there
was, is, or could possibly be. This is evident in modal ontology, when
people advance a theory on the totality of worlds and on their nature.
But other metaphysical debates easily come to mind. Suppose a
philosopher wants to evaluate metaphysical theories which she
considers wrong (say, in order to draw unpalatable consequences by way
of criticism), such as Spinoza's monism or Hegel's
metaphysics of the Absolute. She must envisage situations where such
metaphysics are correct and wonder what would be the case according to
them: situations at which there is only one substance, or at which the
Absolute *Geist* necessarily shapes the teleological
development of history. These situations will be, under the hypotheses
we have made, impossible worlds.
Counterpossible reasoning may also show up in philosophical analyses
of various kinds. For example, Boris Kment (2014) has proposed an
account of modal notions which grounds them in explanatory reasoning,
in particular of the counterfactual kind. To account for non-trivial
counterpossibles, Kment uses impossible worlds taken as as collections
of structured Russellian propositions.
Semantic structures for counterfactual conditionals involving
impossible worlds were first introduced by Routley 1989, and have been
proposed e.g. by Read 1995, Mares and Fuhrmann 1995, Mares 1997, Nolan
1997, Brogaard and Salerno 2013, Bjerring 2014, Berto et al. 2018.
Most of these are natural extensions of Lewis's 1973 semantics
for counterfactuals and capture several intuitions about
counterpossible reasoning. The main task for such theories consists in
accounting for the concepts of closeness and qualitative similarity
between worlds once impossible worlds enter the stage. How to
fine-tune these notions is not a trivial matter (for an extensive
discussion, see Vander Laan 2004; we will say more in
section 4.2).
Non-trivial treatments of counterpossibles require the failure of
several logical principles which hold in the standard Lewis-Stalnaker
approach to counterfactuals (Williamson 2007 chapter 5, Brogaard and
Salerno 2013). (Williamson uses these failures to argue that
counterpossibles are always trivially true.) One important principle
that fails is the entailment from a strict conditional, "if
\(A\) then-strictly \(B\)", to the corresponding counterfactual,
"if it were the case that \(A\) then it would be the case that
\(B\)". Normally, the former entails the latter. A strict
conditional is true when all the (accessible) possible worlds where
the antecedent is true also make the consequent true. If all the
possible \(A\)-worlds are \(B\)-worlds, then in particular all the
closest possible \(A\)-worlds are \(B\)-worlds. In an account which
admits impossible worlds, however, we can have closest impossible
worlds where \(A\) obtains and \(B\) fails, making the counterpossible
false even though the corresponding strict conditional is true.
The ensuing anarchy can be mitigated to some extent, e.g., by assuming
what Nolan 1997 calls the *Strangeness of Impossibility
Condition* (SIC): any possible world, however weird, should be
closer to any possible world \(w\) than any impossible world is to
\(w\). Reality will be turned upside down before logical laws or
mathematical truths abandon us. Then it is plausible that the
Lewis-Stalnaker principles will still hold whenever the relevant
antecedent is *possible*. For then we will consider only the
closest antecedent-worlds when we evaluate the conditional, all of
which will be possible worlds: the impossible ones will be too far
away (Berto et al. 2018).
## 3. The Metaphysics of Impossible Worlds
Supporters of impossible worlds disagree over their metaphysical
nature, just as supporters of possible worlds do. If one accepts
ontological commitment to worlds of any kind, then one faces the
follow-up question: just what are they, metaphysically speaking?
The two main options among *modal realists* (philosophers who
accept possible worlds in their ontology) are David Lewis's
*extreme* or *genuine modal realism* and
*ersatzism* (or *actualism* or *abstractionism*:
these terms all have slightly different connotations, which
we'll ignore here). It is a common thought among impossible
worlds theorists that impossible worlds should just inherit the
ontological status of their possible mates: whatever your favorite
metaphysics of possible worlds is, impossible worlds are of the same
kind. This has been called the *Parity Thesis* (see Rescher and
Brandom 1980). As Graham Priest puts it:
>
> As far as I can see, any of the main theories concerning the nature of
> possible worlds can be applied equally to impossible worlds: they are
> existent nonactual entities; they are nonexistent objects; they are
> constructions out of properties and other universals; they are just
> certain sets of sentences. ... There is, as far as I can see,
> absolutely no cogent (in particular, non-question-begging) reason to
> suppose that there is an *ontological* difference between
> merely possible and impossible worlds. (Priest 1997b: 580-1)
>
Yagisawa's *extended modal realism* proposes a
Lewis-inspired realist account of impossible worlds and
*impossibilia* (the objects exemplifying absolute
impossibilities which inhabit impossible worlds). On this view,
impossible worlds are concrete mereological sums of real individuals,
which are causally and spatiotemporally interrelated within each world
but never across worlds (see Yagisawa 1988). Yagisawa exploits the
"argument from ways" we met above: if quantification on
ways the world might be or have been commits us to possible worlds,
then, by parity of reasoning, quantification on ways the world might
not be commits us to impossible worlds. The argument is backed by
Yagisawa's considerations on the additional logical and
philosophical applications allowed by impossible worlds, which are not
available, in his view, to traditional Lewisian modal realism.
Extended modal realism is a strong position: concrete impossible
worlds represent absolute and logical impossibilities directly, by
*instantiating* them. So impossibilities and, in particular,
logical inconsistencies, are "out there" in reality.
In his 2010 book, Yagisawa is more distant from Lewisian modal
realism. He still admits impossible worlds and *impossibilia*,
and he rejects ersatz accounts of them. However, he now takes worlds
to be points in modal space. Worlds are modal indices for truth, just
like times are temporal indices for it; and modal matters are treated
in a way similar to how four-dimensionalist philosophers, who believe
in
temporal parts,
treat temporal matters. According to four-dimensionalists, material
objects are like temporal worms extended across time: an object has a
property at time \(t\) by having a temporal stage at time \(t\) which
has that property. Analogously, for Yagisawa an object has a modal
property, a property at world \(w\), by having a modal stage at world
\(w\) which has that property.
More moderate (Yagisawa would say: *too* moderate) realists
treat impossible worlds as *ersatz* constructions: abstract
entities on a par with ersatz possible worlds (see e.g. Mares 1997,
Vander Laan 1997). Modal ersatzism comes in various shapes (Divers
2002, Part III, is by far the best critical evaluation in the
literature). If one takes possible worlds as maximally consistent sets
of propositions (as per Adams 1974), impossible worlds could be sets
of propositions that are inconsistent and/or incomplete. Similarly,
Plantingan ersatzism (possible worlds are particular states of
affairs) or Stalnakerian ersatzism (possible worlds are world-natures
or maximal properties) could be easily extended to accommodate
impossible worlds. All hands agree that such worlds come at no great
ontological or theoretical cost, once one has accepted ersatz possible
worlds. After all, ersatz worlds are abstract: they account for
impossibilities, not by instantiating them as Lewisian worlds do, but
by representing them in some way or other. Jago (2012) takes both
possible and impossible worlds to be constructions out of positive and
negative facts, such as Barack Obama's not being French (see the
entry on
facts).
The extension of ersatzism from possible to impossible worlds appears
to be particularly straightforward for *linguistic* ersatzism.
On this approach, possible worlds are *world-books*: sets of
sentences of a special "worldmaking" language.
(Carnap's (1947) state-descriptions and Jeffrey's (1983)
complete consistent novels are examples of this strategy.) It is easy
to admit impossible worlds of the same kind, that is, world-books
which are locally inconsistent or incomplete, which fail to comply
with some logical law or to be closed under some notion or other of
logical consequence.
However, there may be reasons to reject the Parity Thesis. If
Lewis's criticisms of ersatzism in *On the Plurality of
Worlds* are right, then each ersatz account of impossible worlds
inherits the limits of ersatz theories of possible worlds: each of
these theories has to resort to intensional entities taken as
primitive (such as propositions or states of affairs) in its
explanation of what ersatz worlds are, or to primitive modal notions
(most often, to both). Suppose that, instead, one wants to retain the
advantages of both worlds (no pun intended), ersatz and genuine, when
it comes to impossibilities. Suppose, that is, that (a) one wants to
employ a modal framework including both possible and impossible worlds
to retain the theoretical benefits provided by the latter; and (b) one
wants to stick to Lewis's project of a reductive account of
intensional and modal notions to fully extensional ones
(*contra* ersatzism); but also (c) one wants to avoid the
unwelcome consequences of concrete impossible worlds instantiating
impossibilities, such as having true contradictions "out
there" in reality (*contra* Yagisawa's extended
modal realism). One could then try the following hybrid solution: (1)
go realist about possible worlds, and (2) exploit the set-theoretic
machinery of modal realism to represent different impossible worlds as
distinct ersatz, abstract constructions.
To fulfil these desiderata, Berto 2010 sketches an intermediate
account, labeled as *Hybrid Modal Realism* (HMR), which
dispenses with the Parity Thesis. The account follows suggestions from
Divers 2002, Chapter 5, and is similar to a strategy pursued in
Kiourti 2010, Chapter 3. On this view, genuine, concrete possible
worlds are the basic stuff. Atomic propositions are taken as sets of
possible worlds. Distinct impossible situations can then be
represented by distinct world-books, taken as set-theoretic
constructions from atomic propositions. Krakauer 2013 gives a similar
account in terms of
structured propositions
built out of ordinary possible worlds. Jago 2012 and Sendlak
2015 criticise Berto's approach on the basis that it cannot
distinguish the proposition *that Hesperus is the second planet
from the sun* from the proposition *that Phosphorus is the
second planet from the sun*. Reinert 2018 attempts to do better by
combining Lewisian possible worlds with an ersatz situation-based
account of impossible worlds. Fouche 2022 develops
Berto's hybrid account into a full-fledged hyperintensional
theory of content.
A metaphysical account of impossible worlds, alternative both to
ersatzism and to Lewisian realism, has been proposed in Zalta 1997.
Zalta's powerful theory of abstract objects is based upon his
logic of *encoding*, whose core idea consists in postulating an
ambiguity in the copula of predication: "\(x\) is \(P\)"
can mean that object \(x\) exemplifies property \(P\), as per ordinary
predication; but it may also mean that \(x\) *encodes* \(P\),
encoding being a special mode of predication. Abstract objects encode
properties, besides exemplifying them; in particular, they can encode
properties they do not exemplify (see Zalta 1983). Within this theory,
*situations* are defined as abstract objects that encode states
of affairs (taken as 0-ary properties); and impossible worlds are
taken as maximal situations that are not possible, that is, such that
it is not possible that all the states of affairs encoded by them
simultaneously obtain.
Zalta claims that, despite treating worlds as abstract objects, this
is not an ersatz conception of worlds. A given state of affairs
\(p\)'s obtaining at world \(w\) (no matter whether \(w\) is
possible or impossible) is analyzed as:
* (Z) \(w\) encodes the
property *being-such-that-p*,
and so *being-such-that-p* is ascribed, in the encoding sense,
to \(w\). As such, \(w\) *is* (in the encoding sense of the
copula, at least) such that \(p\). Thus, according to Zalta's
theory of encoding, worlds are in some sense metaphysically
characterized or determined by such states of affairs. And according
to Zalta nothing of the sort can be claimed of ersatz conceptions of
worlds.
All the ontological accounts of impossible worlds presented so far are
in a broad sense realist. They all accept that sentences referring to
or quantifying over impossible worlds can be literally true, and take
the entailed ontological commitment at face value, although they
disagree with each other about the metaphysical status of worlds. A
deeply anti-realist alternative to modal metaphysics has also been
developed:
modal fictionalism.
The view is fictionalist (or anti-realist) about *worlds*. Its
key claim is that talk of and quantification over worlds ought to be
understood as literally false: it is only true within a "worlds
fiction". We make-believe in the fiction because it delivers
useful results in the explanation of modal notions. Modal fictionalism
promises the theoretical benefits of modal realism without the
ontological costs. We should not include worlds (other than the actual
world) in our ontological catalogue. But talking *as if* there
were worlds is useful. Gideon Rosen (1990), a major proponent of the
view, takes Lewisian modal realism to be the relevant fiction. But it
is relatively easy to extend such modal fictionalist accounts into
fictional treatments of possible *and* impossible worlds,
taking e.g. Yagisawa's extended modal realism as the fiction
which we make-believe. JC Beall (2008) proposes an approach to
impossible worlds (see
section 5.1),
which can be motivated by the idea that these are worlds where
"logical fictions" take place.
## 4. The Structure of Impossible Worlds
Another issue which theories of impossible worlds disagree on concerns
the amount of logical *structure* such worlds have. This issue
affects impossible worlds specifically: there is no correlative issue
concerning possible worlds (beyond our choice of logic). Various
classes of impossible worlds display different degrees of anarchic
logical behavior: as we shall see, non-normal worlds for non-normal
modal logics
(section 5.1),
for instance, are such that only modal sentences behave in a
non-standard fashion at them, whereas sentences that include just the
Boolean operators of classical logic get the standard treatment. Such
worlds appear to be logically more structured than fully anarchic
"open" worlds
(section 5.3).
For, we shall see, even principles of classical logic involving only
the extensional, truth-functional connectives can fail at open worlds:
their openness consists in their not being closed under any
non-trivial logical consequence principle.
Should we require impossible worlds to comply with *any*
logical rules? And if we allow different classes of impossible worlds,
each exhibiting different degrees of logical structure, can these
classes be ordered in a meaningful way? This section focuses on these
two issues.
### 4.1 The Granularity Issue
Are there any logical principles which impossible worlds must obey?
More precisely, is there any logical inference such that, for any
(impossible) world \(w\), if the premises are all true according to
\(w\), then so is the conclusion? There is at least one such
inference: the trivial inference from \(A\) to \(A\). (For if \(A\) is
true at world \(w\), then \(A\) is true at world \(w\)! An impossible
world may represent *that it is not the case that A entails A*;
but unless there are true contradictions, it cannot both represent and
not represent that *A.*) Are there any others? This is the
*granularity issue*.
In addressing the issue, a good starting place is the *Nolan-Zalta
Principle* (Nolan 1997: 542; Zalta 1997: 647):
* (NZ) If it is
impossible that \(A\), then there's an impossible world which
represents that \(A\).
(This is not an 'if and only if', since the converse is
clearly false: some impossible world represents your reading this
article, yet that's not at all impossible. Impossible worlds
represent possible *and* impossible situations. The things they
represent make for an impossible bunch, but might each be possible
when taken individually.)
The principle has some intuitive force. Nolan thinks of it as a kind
of unrestricted 'comprehension principle' for
impossibilities. It tells something about which impossible worlds
there are. There will be worlds which represent that water is not
H\(\_2\)O, that \(2+2=5\), and that snow both is and is not white. One
might think that (NZ) entails that 'anything goes' with
regard to impossible worlds: that any logical principle (except \(A
\vDash A)\) will be broken by some impossible world. If so, then (NZ)
delivers the open worlds mentioned above. However, to apply (NZ), we
need a single object-language sentence \(A\) which describes an
impossibility. Logical laws, by contrast, are stated as relationships
between *multiple* object-language sentences. So it is not
clear that (NZ) does its intended work.
Priest (2016) adopts two principles that are similar to, but stronger
than, (NZ): 'everything holds at some worlds, and everything
fails at some worlds' (Priest 2016, 5) and, for any distinct
\(A\), \(B\), 'there are worlds where \(A\) holds and \(B\)
fails' (Priest 2016, 7). More specifically, in our
terminology:
* (4.1) For any \(A\),
there is a world which represents that \(A\) and a world which does
not represent that \(A\).
* (4.2) For any distinct
\(A\) and \(B\), there is a world which represents that \(A\) but does
not represent that \(B\).
Priest calls these the 'primary directive' and
'secondary directive' on impossible worlds, respectively.
The latter implies the former, which in turn implies (NZ), but neither
converse holds.
To illustrate the extra power (4.2) gives us (over (4.1) and (NZ)),
consider *Simplification*, the inference from \(A \wedge B\) to
\(A\), or *Disjunction Introduction*, from \(A\) to \(A \vee
B\). (4.2) directly entails that there are worlds where these rules
fail. So, if we find (4.2) plausible, we can infer that impossible
worlds are not, in general, governed by standard
paraconsistent logics.
A *paraconsistent logic* is any one in which cont radictory
premises \(A\), \(\neg A\) do not entail arbitrary conclusions. But
standardly, paraconsistent logics maintain the principle that
conjunctions are true just in case both conjuncts are; disjunctions
are true just in case at least one disjunct is; and double negations
\(\neg \neg A\) are true just in case \(A\) is. If we accept (4.2),
then these relationships will break down in some impossible
worlds.
Yet even with (4.2) in play, it doesn't follow that
'anything goes' with impossible worlds. No principle so
far entails that some impossible world breaks the Adjunction rule,
from \(A\) and \(B\) to \(A \wedge B\), simply because 4.2
doesn't apply to inferences with multiple premises. (We discuss
Adjunction-violating worlds further in
section 5.2
below.) To infer the 'anything goes' conclusion, that for
any logically valid inference there is some impossible world that
breaks it, we'll need this principle:
* (NZ\(^+\)) If it is
impossible that \(A\_1, A\_2,\ldots\) but not \(B\), then there's
an impossible world which represents that \(A\_1, A\_2,\ldots\) but not
\(B\).
However, we can hardly claim that we've derived the
'anything goes' picture of impossible worlds from this
principle, for it is, in effect, an explicit statement of that very
view. Whilst the original (NZ) has a good deal of intuitive force,
it's much harder to feel that way about (NZ\(^+)\).
There may be no completely general, intuitively motivated principle
(along the lines of (NZ)) from which we can ascertain just how
fine-grained impossible worlds should be. Nevertheless, there are
arguments which support the 'anything goes' picture, on
which there exist open worlds (those closed under no valid inferences
except \(A \vDash A)\). We'll briefly consider three such
arguments.
The first is simple. If impossible worlds can break some logical rule,
then why can't they break all of them? Suppose we fix on
standard proof rules for the connectives. Each such rule is as closely
tied to the meaning of the associated connective as the others are (to
their associated connectives). Yet, as each logically impossible world
breaks at least one of those rules, what's to stop some other
impossible world from breaking any of the other rules? This argument
has some intuitive force, but is clearly far from conclusive.
The second argument is from epistemic states. When we consider
real-world finite and fallible epistemic agents, there seem to be no
rules of the form: if someone believes \(A\_1, A\_2,\ldots\), then they
must believe (distinct) \(B\) (that's why the logical
omniscience problem discussed in 2.3 is hard!). If we model their
epistemic states in terms of worlds, then at least one of the worlds
must break the inference from \(A\_1, A\_2,\ldots\) to \(B.\) So each
logical inference (except \(A \vDash A)\) is broken by some world
(Jago 2014a; Priest 2016).
The third argument is from counterpossible reasoning. Suppose, in a
class on alternative logics, we consider what would happen if Excluded
Middle \((\vDash A \vee \neg A)\), Double-Negation Elimination \((\neg
\neg A \vDash A)\), or the Law of Explosion \((A, \neg A \vDash B)\)
were to fail. If classical logic is the one true logic, and logical
necessity is absolute, we're then reasoning counterpossibly. If
we want to analyse counterpossibles in general using impossible
worlds, then we'll need worlds where these principles fail. But
we seem to be able to reason this way, non-trivially, for any kind of
logical principle, and so our analysis will require open worlds
(Priest 2016).
Why have we spared \(A \vDash A\) so far? Well, it seems that in order
to break this, an impossible world would simultaneously have to
represent that \(A\) and not represent that \(A\). Such a world would
itself be an impossible object, one with inconsistent features. Since
most impossible worlds theorists maintain that impossible worlds
(actually) exist and that actuality is not inconsistent, this position
is ruled out. It is available to *dialetheists* and others who
allow reality to have inconsistent features. There seems to be no
theoretical cost in requiring \(A \vDash A\) to hold at all worlds
(impossible or otherwise). Going back to epistemic states, for
example, we want to represent inconsistent beliefs, such as
someone's believing both that \(A\) and that \(\neg A\) at the
same time; but it would be a mistake to infer that she both believes
and does not believe that \(A\).
### 4.2 The Closeness of Impossible Worlds
If impossible worlds display different degrees of logical structure
(or lack thereof), it may make sense to order them. A natural way to
do this is via an extension of the traditional "closeness"
relations between possible worlds. How to spell out the ordering in
detail, though, is far from straightforward. Within standard
conditional logics, and in the treatment of counterfactual
conditionals in terms of possible worlds due to Robert Stalnaker
(1968) and David Lewis (1973), worlds stand in similarity relations;
and similarity comes in degrees. This is usually represented by having
each possible world, \(w\), come with a system of
"spheres". If \(W\) is the set of all worlds, let \(\$\)
be a function from worlds to sets of subsets of \(W\), so that \(\$w =
\{S\_1, S\_2 , \ldots \}\), with \(w \in S\_1 \subseteq S\_2 \subseteq
\ldots = W\). Worlds within a given sphere \(S\_i\) are more similar to
\(w\) than worlds outside it.
If we take the special case in which \(w =\) the actual world (call it
"@"), we get a natural arrangement of possible worlds in a
system of spheres that mirrors their degree of (dis)similarity with
respect to @, according to the different kinds of possibilities and
(relative) impossibilities they represent. For instance, a world which
is exactly like @, except that Franz wears a white t-shirt instead of
the black one he's actually wearing while writing these lines,
is, intuitively, closer to @ than a world at which the laws of physics
are turned upside down. Some people have a general, intuitive
depiction of such closeness relations, and set out a hierarchy of
modalities accordingly: possible worlds where the laws of physics are
different from ours are naturally seen as more eccentric than worlds
where only biological, but not physical, laws are different; and these
are more eccentric than possible worlds with minimal factual changes
with respect to @, such as the white t-shirt world.
Can such a natural view be extended to impossible worlds? First, it is
intuitive to claim that some impossible worlds are more similar to the
actual world @ than others. For instance, the "explosion"
world (call it \(e)\) at which everything is the case (every sentence
is true) seems to be as far from @ as one can imagine, if one can
actually imagine or conceive such an extremely absurd situation. Now,
pick the impossible world, \(t\), at which everything is as in @,
except that Franz wears an impossible t-shirt which is white all over
and black all over. Intuitively, \(t\) is closer to @ than \(e\).
Next, some authors (e.g. Mares 1997) favor Nolan's SIC principle
(introduced in
section 2.5).
This implies that any possible world is closer to @ than any
impossible world is to @. A system of spheres for impossible worlds
centered on @ will just extend the intuitive possible worlds spheres
described above, by adding further, larger spheres where worlds
outside (logical, or more generally unrestricted) possibility stand.
But how are these latter to be internally ordered?
One very general option is the following. Even though we subscribe to
some unrestricted comprehension principle for impossible worlds, we
may admit that worlds where only the intensional operators, e.g., the
box and diamond of necessity and possibility, behave in a non-standard
fashion are less deviant than worlds where also the extensional
operators, like classical conjunction and disjunction, do. Let us call
worlds of the former kind *intensionally* impossible and worlds
of the latter kind *extensionally* impossible. This picture
(inspired by Priest 2005, Chapter 1) has some intuitive force to
recommend it. Kripkean non-normal worlds, where only the behaviour of
the modal operators is non-standard (see
section 5.1),
are intuitively less deviant than open worlds, where all formulas may
behave arbitrarily. Generalizing, the view would entail arranging the
respective spheres in such a way that any intensionally impossible
world is closer to @ than any extensionally impossible one.
This very general ordering of impossibilities, albeit intuitive, may
not be fully satisfying. A general qualm concerns the SIC principle
itself. For one may claim that, intuitively, some slightly deviant
impossible worlds may be *more* similar to the actual world @
than some possible but very weird worlds. For instance, the impossible
world \(t\) above, which is like @ except for Franz's wearing an
inconsistent T-shirt, may look more familiar than a world which is
logically possible, but where the laws of physics are turned upside
down. Several authors (Nolan 1997, Vander Laan 2004, Bernstein 2016)
have proposed putative counterexamples to SIC along these lines.
Although we cannot pursue this topic further within the limits of this
entry, the discussion developed so far should show that the issue of
the structure, closeness, and ordering of impossible worlds is quite
open.
## 5. The Logic(s) of Impossible Worlds
This section is a bit more technical than the others. None of the
other sections presuppose this material.
### 5.1 Impossible Worlds in Non-Normal Modal Logics
Possible worlds semantics
is celebrated for providing suitable interpretations for different
axiomatic systems of
modal logic,
such as
C.I. Lewis's
systems \(\mathbf{S4}\) and \(\mathbf{S5}\) (Lewis and Langford
1931). In each model, sentences are evaluated as true or false
relative to a possible world. Modal sentences \(\Box A\) and
\(\Diamond A\) (usually read as 'it is necessary that
\(A\)' and 'it is possible that \(A\)',
respectively) are evaluated in terms of \(A\)'s truth at all or
some of the *accessible* worlds. By placing various conditions
on the accessibility relation between worlds, different modal logics
can be accommodated. (Readers unfamiliar with modal logic are advised
again to read the entities on
possible worlds
and
modal logic
before going further in this section.)
This approach validates the *Necessitation* inference rule:
If \(A\) is valid, then so is \(\Box A\). (In symbols: if \(\vDash A\)
then \(\vDash \Box A\).)
To see why, suppose \(A\) is a logical truth. Then in any model, it is
true at all possible worlds. So given any world \(w\) in an arbitrary
model, \(A\) is true at all worlds accessible from \(w\), hence \(\Box
A\) is true at \(w\), and so \(\Box A\) too is valid.
Logics in which the Necessitation rule is valid are called *normal
modal logics*. But historically, not all of the modal logics of
interest are normal logics. C.I. Lewis's systems \(\mathbf{S2}\)
and \(\mathbf{S3}\) (Lewis and Langford 1931) are non-normal logics,
for example. These logics are *weaker* than normal modal
logics, in the sense that they support fewer valid inferences. To give
a worlds-based semantics for such logics, we need to look beyond
possible worlds.
In 1965, Saul Kripke introduced a special kind of world, the
*non-normal worlds*, in order to provide semantics for
non-normal modal logics. Let us introduce some simple semantic
machinery for propositional modal logic. Take a non-normal
interpretation of a propositional modal language, \(\langle W, N, R,
v\rangle\), where \(W\) is a set of worlds; \(N\) is a proper subset
of \(W\), the set of *normal* worlds; \(R\) is a binary
accessibility relation between worlds; and \(v\) is a valuation
function assigning truth values to formulas at worlds:
"\(v\_w(A)\)" denotes the truth value of \(A\) at world
\(w\). Worlds in \(W - N\) are the non-normal worlds. The truth
conditions for the extensional logical vocabulary (negation,
conjunction, disjunction, the material conditional) are given the
usual way. The same holds for the modal operators of necessity
\(\Box\) and possibility \(\Diamond\), but only at *normal*
worlds. If \(w\) is non-normal, the truth conditions for the
modalizers go as follows:
\[\begin{align}
v\_w (\Box A) &= 0 \\
v\_w (\Diamond A) &= 1
\end{align}\]
where 1 stands for *true*, 0 for *false*. At non-normal
worlds, formulas of the form PS\(A\), with PS a modal, are
not evaluated depending on the truth value of \(A\) at other
(accessible) worlds, but get assigned their truth value directly: all
box-formulas are false and all diamond-formulas are true. In a sense,
at non-normal worlds nothing is necessary, and anything is possible.
These worlds, however, are deviant only in this respect: their
behavior, as far as the extensional connectives are concerned, is
quite regular.
In some (though not all) worlds semantics, logical validity and
consequence are defined relative to just the *normal* worlds.
The idea is that the normal worlds behave 'appropriately'
with respect to the logic in question, whereas the non-normal worlds
do not. For example, \(\Box(A \vee \neg A)\) is valid in
\(\mathbf{S2}\) and \(\mathbf{S3}\), but (by definition) it is false
at the non-normal worlds. So we need to ignore the non-normal worlds
when defining validity and consequence, which we do as follows:
\(A\) is *valid* \((\vDash A)\) if and only if, for all
*normal* worlds \(w\) in all models, \(v\_w (A) = 1\).
Premises \(S\) entail \(A (S \vDash A)\) if and only if, for all
*normal* worlds \(w\) in all models: if \(v\_w (B) = 1\) for all
premises \(B \in\) S, then \(v\_w (A) = 1\).
Even though we have ignored the non-normal worlds in this definition,
they still play a role in invalidating Necessitation. For take any
classical propositional tautology, say \(A \vee \neg A\). This holds
at all worlds of all models, so \(\Box(A \vee \neg A)\) holds at all
normal worlds and hence is valid. But \(\Box(A \vee \neg A)\) holds at
no non-normal world. Now suppose \(w\) is a normal world that has
access to any non-normal world. Then \(\Box \Box(A \vee \neg A)\) is
false at \(w\) and so (since \(w\) is normal) \(\Box \Box(A \vee \neg
A)\) is not valid. That's a counterexample to Necessitation.
In these semantics for non-normal modal logics such as \(\mathbf{S2}\)
and \(\mathbf{S3}\), the valuation function assigns the same truth
value to all box formulas (false) and all diamond formulas (true) at
non-normal worlds. But we can do things differently. In
Cresswell's (1966) semantics for the modal system
**S0.5** (due to E.J. Lemmon 1957), sentences beginning
with a modality are assigned *arbitrary* truth values. The
valuation function \(v\) treats modal sentences as if they were atomic
sentences. (Interpretations for \(\mathbf{S2}\) or \(\mathbf{S3}\) are
thus special cases of the interpretations for **S0.5**.)
The idea of considering impossible (non-normal) worlds as worlds at
which complex formulas are treated as atomic one is a popular one, as
we will see below.
Kripke introduced non-normal worlds as a technical device in order to
treat C.I. Lewis' non-normal modal logics; the question of the
*interpretation* of such structures (particularly, of the
ontological status of impossible worlds), then, makes perfect sense
-- and the answer is not straightforward, as have seen in
section 3.
### 5.2 Nonadjunctive and Nonprime Impossible Worlds
In 1980, Nicholas Rescher and Robert Brandom published *The Logic
of Inconsistency. A Study in Non-Standard Possible-Worlds Semantics
and Ontology*. They introduced a modal semantics including,
besides ordinary possible worlds (taken as maximally consistent
collections of states of affairs), also non-standard worlds that are
locally inconsistent (such that, for some \(A\), both \(A\) and \(\neg
A\) hold at them), and incomplete (such that for some \(A\), neither
\(A\) nor \(\neg A\) hold at them). These are obtained
combinatorially, via two recursive operations having standard worlds
as their base, and called *schematization* \((\cap)\) and
*superposition* \((\cup)\). Given two worlds \(w\_1\) and
\(w\_2\), a schematic world \(w\_1 \cap w\_2\) is one at which all and
only the states of affairs obtain, which obtain both at \(w\_1\) and at
\(w\_2\). Dually, a "superposed" or inconsistent world
\(w\_1 \cup w\_2\) is one at which all and only the states of affairs
obtain, which obtain at \(w\_1\) or at \(w\_2\). Rescher and
Brandom's inconsistent-superposed worlds are, therefore,
impossible worlds of the fourth kind: Contradiction Realizers making
both \(A\) and its negation true, for some \(A\) (just superpose, for
instance, a possible world, \(w\_1\), at which I am 1.70m tall, and
another possible world, \(w\_2\), at which I am 1.90m tall).
The assignment of truth values at such worlds is not (obviously)
compositional with respect to conjunction. The standard semantic
clause interprets the '\(\wedge\)' symbol using our world
'and':
* (S\(\wedge\)) \(v\_w (A
\wedge B) = 1\) if and only if \(v\_w (A) = 1\) and \(v\_w (B) = 1\)
But the right-to-left direction will have to go, if \(w\) is one of
Rescher and Brandom's impossible worlds. These worlds are
*nonadjunctive*: they allow two sentences to be true even
though their conjunction is not true. (*Adjunction* is the
principle that the truth of a conjunction follows from the truth of
its conjuncts.) Rescher and Brandom's worlds can also be
*nonprime*: a disjunction may hold at them even though neither
disjunct does. They may also make some \(A\) and its negation \(\neg
A\) both true. But the corresponding conjunction, \(A \wedge \neg A\),
doesn't follow. These impossible worlds retain a certain amount
of logical structure. They are closed under any classically valid,
essentially single-premised inference (such as *Disjunction
Introduction*); but they are not closed under essentially
multiple-premised inferences (such as *Adjunction*).
Rescher and Brandom's approach falls in the nonadjunctive
tradition (see Berto 2007, Chapter 6) of
paraconsistent logics:
a tradition started by Jaskowksi's *discussive logic*
\(\mathbf{D}\_2\) (also labeled as \(\mathbf{J}\) in the literature,
Jaskowski 1948), and based on the idea of rejecting or limiting
the Adjunction principle. Such an approach has been revived in works
by Hyde (1997), and Varzi (1997 and 2004).
### 5.3 Impossible Worlds in Epistemic Logic
To model a concept such as knowledge, we can use a modality
'\(K\)' for 'knows that', with semantics along
the lines of '\(\Box\)', quantifying over all
epistemically possible worlds: worlds which are ways things could be,
for all one knows, or given the information or evidence one has
available. This is *epistemic modal logic*. (See the entry on
epistemic logic
for background material.)
This approach has proved to be very useful. However, when
epistemically possible worlds confirm to the rules of logically
possible worlds, the following principle is valid:
(Closure) If \(KA\) and \(A\) entails \(B\), then \(KB\)
This principle says that one knows all the logical consequences of the
things one knows. A special case of this principle says that all valid
formulas are known:
(Validity) If \(A\) is valid, then so is \(KA\)
But these principles seem false. You don't know all the logical
and mathematical truths, and there are truths which follow from what
you know which you don't know. (You might be indifferent to
those truths; you might even disbelieve them.) This is the problem of
*logical omniscience* (see
epistemic logic
again). There is a rich literature on the problem (Alechina et al.
2004, Duc 1997, Hintikka 1975, Jago 2014a,b, Rantala 1982a), including
some who defend these seemingly false principles (Stalnaker 1991,
1999).
Exactly the same holds for belief (treated with a modality
'\(B\)' along the lines of '\(K\)'). The modal
epistemic approach tells us that, as well as believing all
consequences of what we believe, we must hold a perfectly consistent
set of beliefs:
(Consistency) \(\vDash \neg(BA \wedge B\neg A)\).
This is a hard principle to defend, as anyone who has reflected on
their own beliefs will appreciate.
A popular method of avoiding these principles (beginning with
Cresswell 1973 and Hintikka 1975) is to allow impossible worlds into
the account. Consider again Rescher and Brandom's nonadjunctive
and nonprime worlds, at which conjunction and disjunction behave
anarchically. Rantala (1982a) takes the idea further, introducing
worlds at which *any* connective may behave anarchically.
Rantala's approach divides the worlds into *normal* and
*non-normal* ones. Normal worlds behave like possible worlds
whereas at non-normal worlds, *every* sentence is assigned an
arbitrary truth value. In effect, complex sentences \(\neg A, A \vee
B\), and so on, are treated as if they were atomic sentences. The
truth value of \(\neg A\) is independent of \(A\); the value of \(A
\vee B\) is independent of the values of \(A\) and \(B\) at a
non-normal world; and so on for the other complex sentences. These
non-normal worlds are thus a very anarchic form of impossible world.
Priest (2005, 2016) calls them *open* worlds, since they are
not closed under any rule of inference (other than the trivial rule
allowing one to infer \(A\) from \(A\); see also Jago 2014a).
Logical consequence and validity are defined with respect to possible
(normal) worlds only. Impossible worlds come into play only when
evaluating knowledge claims, \(KA\). So, ignoring \(K\)-sentences, the
logic is classical. But the logic of \(K\)-sentences is not closed
under any non-trivial rule of inference, thereby dispensing with
Closure, Validity, and (in the case of belief) Consistency. An agent
is modelled as having inconsistent beliefs, for example, simply by
treating an impossible world where both \(A\) and \(\neg A\) are true
as being epistemically accessible (from the actual world) for that
agent.
The approach has been generalized to quantified modal logics (Rantala
1982b) and developed into a unified framework for epistemic logics
(Wansing 1989, 1990). Wansing has shown that various logics for
knowledge and belief developed in Artificial Intelligence can find
equivalent models in structures including impossible worlds. Further
equivalence results in this area have been obtained in Sillari 2008,
where it is shown that impossible worlds structures using binary
epistemic accessibility relations are equivalent to structures using
Montague-Scott neighborhood semantics.
This kind of approach faces problems, however. If there's no
logical structure to impossible worlds, then we might do as well to
model an agent's knowledge using an arbitrary set of sentences,
as in Konolige 1986. The worry is that unconstrained impossible worlds
semantics makes no real progress over this purely syntactic approach
(Jago 2007, 2009).
One may instead adopt impossible worlds that retain *some*
logical structure, e.g., worlds closed under some
weaker-than-classical logical consequence. One approach of this kind
is found in Levesque 1984 (see also Cresswell 1973). This employs
impossible worlds of the kind used in paraconsistent relevant logics,
which can be locally inconsistent and incomplete but are well-behaved
with respect to conjunction and disjunction, that is, they are
adjunctive and prime. Laws of classical logic fail at them, and by
accessing them a cognitive agent can have inconsistent beliefs.
However, we still have a weakened form of logical omniscience: the
beliefs of an agent are closed under the weaker
paraconsistent-relevant logic at issue. This seems incorrect as an
attempt to model finite agents.
Rasmussen (2015) and Bjerring and Skipper (2019) present a
*dynamic* impossible worlds solution to the logical omniscience
problem. Agents' beliefs evolve over time due to *epistemic
actions*, on this approach (see the entry on
dynamic epistemic logic
for background). Bjerring and Skipper focus on *deductive*
actions. Agents count as competent insofar as they unfold the
consequences of their beliefs, up to a certain depth of reasoning.
Their operator "\(\langle n\rangle KA\)", says:
"After some \(n\)-step chain of logical reasoning, the agent
comes to know that \(A\)". The agent can update its epistemic
state by kicking out choices of impossible worlds which were epistemic
possibilities before the deduction took place. One can show that if a
formula \(A\) follows from formulas \(A\_1, \ldots, A\_n\) in \(n\)
steps of reasoning, then \(KA\_1, \ldots, KA\_n\) together entail
\(\langle n\rangle KA\).
Impossible worlds are starting to be used not only in formal, but also
in mainstream and Bayesian epistemology. Modal accounts of knowledge
invoking possible worlds, whether based on the notion of
safety
or on that of
sensitivity,
make all necessary or logical truths trivially sensitive and safe.
Melchior 2021 proposes to address the issue by using impossible
worlds. Probabilistic-Bayesian accounts of credences or degrees of
belief can be formulated using logically possible worlds and sets
thereof, to which probabilities are assigned by credence functions
obeying the Kolmogorov axioms of probability. As noted by Pettigrew
2021, this models logically omniscient, idealised agents who assign
probability 1 to all logical truths and never have higher credences in
any given premises than in their logical consequences. To model
rational but more realistic agents, Pettigrew introduces a setting
similar to that Berto and Jago 2019 had for all-or-nothing beliefs. He
resorts to "personally possible worlds" which make true
what a rational but cognitively limited agent believes and has not
(yet) ruled out using its bounded cognitive resources. Such worlds are
in fact impossible worlds of the open kind.
### 5.4 Impossible Worlds in Relevance Logic
Relevance logic
(or relevant logic) is an attempt to capture the idea that good
reasoning requires a genuine condition between premises and
conclusions. This should go beyond a mere guarantee of truth
preservation. For when a conclusion \(A\) is guaranteed to be true
(for example, when it is a logical truth), *any* argument
concluding in \(A\) will preserve truth from premises to conclusions.
But those premises may have no genuine connection whatsoever to what
\(A\) is about. The same consideration applies when taking a
conditional \(A \rightarrow B\) to be valid: there should be a genuine
connection between \(A\) and \(B\).
With this in mind, relevance logic attempts to avoid the
'fallacies of relevance' (also called 'paradoxes of
the material conditional'). These are conditionals that are
valid in classical and modal logic, simply because the antecedent is a
necessary falsehood or the consequent is a necessary truth, but
without a guarantee of any real connection between them. Examples
include \(A \wedge \neg A \rightarrow B\) (*ex contradictione
quodlibet*, or the Law of Explosion), \(A \rightarrow B \vee \neg
B\), and \(A \rightarrow (B \rightarrow B)\) (*verum ex
quolibet*).
Contradiction-realizing impossible worlds can help us avoid *ex
contradictione quodlibet*, if they are worlds where some
contradiction \(A \wedge \neg A\) is true but some other \(B\) is not
true. For that reason, various systems of relevant logic have been
given semantics which include (things naturally thought of as)
impossible worlds.
A *Routley-Meyer* interpretation (see Routley and Routley 1972;
Routley and Meyer 1973, 1976; Routley 1979) for relevant
(propositional) logics is a structure \(\langle W, N, R, {}^\*,
v\rangle\), where \(W\) is a set of worlds; \(N\) is a proper subset
of \(W\) including the normal or possible worlds (the remaining worlds
are the non-normal or impossible worlds); \(R\) is a *ternary*
accessibility relation between worlds, and \({}^\*\) (the *Routley
star*) is a function from worlds to worlds. \({}^\*\) and \(R\)
figure prominently in the truth conditions for negation and the
(relevant) conditional. Their task is precisely to provide a semantics
for negation that allows for the truth of \(A\) and \(\neg A\) at some
worlds, and a semantics for the conditional that frees it from the
fallacies of relevance.
#### 5.4.1 The Relevant Conditional
In order to get rid of such entailments as \(A \rightarrow (B
\rightarrow B)\), we need some world at which \(A\) holds but \(B
\rightarrow B\) fails. One way to achieve this may be to admit
"partial" or incomplete situations of the kind studied in
situation semantics,
at which \(A\) holds but \(B \rightarrow B\) fails to hold, just
because they carry no information about \(B\). Another way is via
impossible worlds: an understanding of such worlds, as we have seen,
is as scenarios where logical laws may fail, and the Law of
(propositional) Identity, stating that any formula entails itself, is
one of them. At possible worlds, we still require for the truth of
conditionals \(A \rightarrow B\) that at every accessible world where
\(A\) holds, \(B\) holds, too. Consequently, \(A \rightarrow(B
\rightarrow B)\) is not logically valid. Technically, when \(w\) is an
impossible world, we state the truth conditions for the conditional,
by means of the ternary \(R\), as follows:
* (\(\rightarrow\))
\(v\_w (A \rightarrow B) =\) *true* if and only if, for all
worlds \(w\_1\) and \(w\_2\) such that \(Rww\_1 w\_2\), if \(v\_{w1}(A) =\)
*true*, then \(v\_{w2}(B) =\) *true*.
The key difference between \((\rightarrow)\) and the standard modal
clause for the strict conditional (which is true at a world if and
only if, at all accessible worlds where the antecedent is true, the
consequent is true), is that the worlds of the antecedent and the
consequent have been "split". Specifically, \(B
\rightarrow B\) fails at impossible worlds \(w\) when there are worlds
\(w\_1\) and \(w\_2\) such that R\(ww\_1 w\_2, B\) holds at the former,
but fails at the latter. Since we do not want \(B \rightarrow B\) to
fail at normal/possible worlds, we can add a *Normality
Condition*, saying that the accessible worlds \(w\_1\) and \(w\_2\)
are one and the same:
* (NC) For normal worlds
\(w, Rww\_1 w\_2\) only if \(w\_1 = w\_2\).
Using the ternary relation \(R\), one can build models for different
relevant logics. Starting with the basic relevant system
\(\mathbf{B}\), one obtains models for stronger logics such as
\(\mathbf{R}\), the system of relevant implication, by adding
additional conditions on \(R\). (This is similar to the way we may
move on from basic modal logic \(\mathbf{K}\) to the systems
\(\mathbf{T}, \mathbf{S4}\), and \(\mathbf{S5}\), by adding extra
conditions on the accessibility relation.) The constraints to be added
to the ternary \(R\) are more complex than those of standard modal
logic and some involve the star operator \({}^\*\) (which we'll
address shortly).
It isn't easy to provide an intuitive reading for the ternary
relation \(R\). The basic idea is that the truth of an entailment \(A
\rightarrow B\) at a world \(w\) depends on \(w\)'s
"seeing an accessibility" (Bremer 2005: 67) between two
other worlds \(w\_1\) and \(w\_2\), such that if \(A\) is true at the
former, \(B\) is true at the latter. But what does this mean? This is
perhaps the most important philosophical issue facing semantics for
relevant logics. One approach is the information-based account of
Mares (2004, 2009, 2010) and Restall (1995), based on
situation semantics.
Another approach draws on various interpretations of
*conditionality*, such as those found in the literature on
conditional logics (Beall et al. 2012). (See the entry on
relevance logic
or Jago 2013c for further discussion.)
#### 5.4.2 The Routley Star
Given a world \(w\), the Routley star function outputs a world \(w^\*\)
which is, in a sense, its "reverse twin". The truth
conditions for negation within the Routley-Meyer semantics are:
* (\(\neg\)) \(v\_w
(\neg A) =\) *true* if and only if \(v\_{w^\*}(A) =\)
*false*.
So \(\neg A\) is true at a world \(w\) if and only if \(A\) is false,
not at \(w\) itself (as it happens with standard negation), but at its
twin \(w^\*\). Relevant negation is therefore an *intensional*
operator: in order to evaluate negated sentences at \(w\), we may need
to check the goings on at some other world.
Adding appropriate constraints provides this negation with many
intuitive inferential features. If \(w^{\*\*} = w\) for all worlds
\(w\), for example, Double Negation introduction and elimination is
valid. This is often called *De Morgan* negation, for De
Morgan's Laws hold of it. But it does not validate the Law of
Explosion (that a contradiction entails any sentence). For a
counterexample, take a model where \(A\) holds at \(w, B\)
doesn't hold at \(w\), and \(A\) doesn't hold at \(w^\*\).
Then, both \(A\) and \(\neg A\) hold at \(w\), whereas \(B\)
doesn't: \(w\) is an inconsistent but non-trivial world.
What is the intuitive connection between \(w\) and \(w^\*\)? The idea
is that the twins are "mirror images one of the other reversing
'in' and 'out'" (Dunn 1986: 191). If
\(w\) is \(A\)-inconsistent (both \(A\) and \(\neg A\) hold), then
\(w^\*\) is \(A\)-incomplete (neither \(A\) nor \(\neg A\) hold), and
vice versa. The \({}^\*\) takes local inconsistency into local
incompleteness and vice versa. It may also be the case that \(w =
w^\*\): the twins are in fact one. In that case, \(w\) must be a
maximal and consistent world, where negation behaves classically:
\(\neg A\) is true if and only if \(A\) is false *there*.
## 6. Objections to Impossible Worlds
This last section discusses some difficulties for impossible worlds
theories.
### 6.1 The Exportation Principle
Suppose that the expression 'at world \(w\)' works as a
restricting modifier: its main task consists in restricting the
quantifiers within its scope to parts of \(w\) (Lewis 1986). If so,
then it should distribute through the truth-functional connectives.
This means in particular that
\[ \text{At } w: (A \wedge \neg A) \]
will entail the contradiction
\[ (\text{At } w: A) \wedge \neg (\text{at } w: A). \]
This is the *exportation principle*. It is disastrous for any
theory of impossible worlds. It implies that an inconsistency at some
impossible world will spill over into an overt inconsistency. A true
contradiction at some \(w\) implies that there are true
contradictions, full stop. This is hard to swallow, unless one is a
dialetheist. (And even
dialethists
may want to reject the exportation principle for impossible worlds:
see Jago 2013b.)
Avoiding the exportation principle is not difficult, however (Kiourti
2010, Chapter 4; Jago 2013b). For it to be valid, it seems to require
genuine worlds, as in Lewis's (1986) genuine modal realism or
Yagisawa's (1988, 2010) extended modal realism. Adopting an
ersatz conception of worlds blocks the principle. If a world
represents that \(A\) (say, by containing a sentence or proposition
expressing *that A*), but is not in itself such that \(A\),
then the principle is blocked. 'At \(w: (A \wedge \neg
A)\)' will be interpreted as: \(w\) contains the sentence (or
proposition) *that A* \(\wedge \neg A\), whereas 'at \(w:
A\)' will mean that \(w\) contains the sentence (or proposition)
*that A*, and 'not at \(w: A\)' will mean that
\(w\) does not contain the sentence (or proposition) *that A.*
But an impossible world may contain both, or neither, of \(A\) and
\(\neg A\), so that containing one implies nothing about containing
the other. An impossible world may (depending on how fine-grained we
take them to be) also contain the conjunction \(A \wedge \neg A\)
independently of whether it contains both \(A\) and \(\neg A.\) So the
inference from 'at \(w: (A \wedge \neg A)\)' to '(at
\(w: A) \wedge \neg\)(at \(w: A)\)' is blocked (possibly twice
over).
It is controversial whether any genuine account of worlds can block
the exportation principle. Jago 2013a,b argues not; Yagisawa 2015
responds in defence of genuine impossible worlds.
### 6.2 Defining Possibility
If there are impossible worlds, then we cannot accept the simple
clause for possibility:
* (P) It is possible
that \(A\) if and only if there's a world \(w\) such that, at
\(w\), \(A\).
Once impossible worlds enter the stage, (P) becomes false from right
to left. We therefore need a principle that restricts the
quantification in the right half of the biconditional to
*possible* worlds. How to do that, without appealing to modal
notions, is not straightforward. A hybrid account (Berto 2010) can
answer the objection, by taking possible worlds to be all and only the
genuine ones, with impossible worlds as ersatz constructions of some
kind. We can then capture the intent of (P) as:
* (P\({}^\*\)) It is
possible that \(A\) if and only if there's a genuine world \(w\)
such that, at \(w\), \(A\).
Note that it doesn't matter if the hybrid account accepts the
existence of ersatz possible worlds in addition to her genuine
possible worlds: (P\({}^\*\)) will still give the right result.
The ersatzist may respond by biting the bullet. Even without admitting
impossible worlds, most possible worlds accounts do not aim at
providing a reductive and complete analysis of modality.
(Lewis's modal realism does. But it may not succeed, when
so-called 'alien' properties, not instantiated by anything
at the actual world nor obtainable as constructions out of actually
instantiated properties, enter the stage. See Divers 2002, Chapter 7;
Divers and Melia 2002.)
### 6.3 The Usefulness of Impossible Worlds
Stalnaker (1996) argues that, whilst there is nothing wrong in
admitting impossible worlds, not much explanatory work can be expected
from them. For instance, if one takes worlds as sets of propositions,
one cannot then analyze propositions as sets of worlds. But an
advocate of impossible worlds may respond that the same point can be
made against any account of possible worlds (such as Adams's)
that takes them to be maximally consistent sets of propositions. And,
just as ersatz possible worlds needn't be constructed in this
way, nor need ersatz impossible worlds. Impossible worlds have found
many uses in the recent literature, as we have abundantly seen. So we
don't find Stalnaker's worry convincing.
### 6.4 The Semantics of Negation
The standard semantic clause for negation has it that \(\neg A\) is
true if and only if \(A\) is not true. So there could not be worlds at
which both or neither of \(A\) and \(\neg A\) are true, unless we
revise the semantics of negation. Stalnaker (1996) argues that
negation is such a basic operator, whose semantics is 'learned
in a first logic class' that it had better be left alone.
To this, the impossible world theorist can reply that it is in fact
the case that \(\neg A\) is true if and only if \(A\) is not true; for
this concerns truth *simpliciter*, that is, truth at the actual
world. She may also agree that the same holds for any possible world.
But it is precisely *im*possible worlds that we are talking
about here; how negation works at any possible world need not be
affected by the fact that, at some impossible world or other, some
sentence can hold together with its negation: this is one of the
things that makes them impossible, after all.
### 6.5 Counterpossible Reasoning
Timothy Williamson (2007, Chapter 5) has objected to non-trivial
treatments of counterpossibles, in particular (though not perforce)
when they resort to impossible worlds. Consider the claim:
1. If \(5 + 7\) were 13, then \(5 + 6\) would be 12.
*Prima facie*, this is a non-trivially true counterpossible.
However, Williamson argues, other non-trivial consequences of the
supposition would then be that \(5 + 5 = 11\), and \(5 + 4 = 10\), and
... , and \(0 = 1\). Therefore,
2. If the number of answers I gave to a given question were 0, then
the number of answers I gave would be 1.
But (2) is clearly false.
Brogaard and Salerno (2007) pose a dilemma for Williamson: either we
hold the context fixed in this kind of counterpossible reasoning, or
we don't. If we don't, then (2) does not follow from (1).
In particular, the context at which (2) comes out false is one at
which the closest antecedent worlds are possible and, to be sure, at
those worlds, 0 is not 1. But if we hold the context fixed, then what
does follow is just the following counterpossible:
3. If 0 were 1 and the number of right answers I gave were 0, then
the number of right answers I gave would be 1.
Now this is intuitively true, and non-trivially so.
Williamson (2007) also argues that non-trivial treatments of
counterpossibles create opaque contexts, in which the substitutivity
of co-referential terms fails. Supporters of non-trivial
counterpossibles will take the following conditional as false:
4. If Hesperus had not been Phosphorus, then Phosphorus would not
have been Phosphorus.
Given the necessity of identity, (4) is a counterpossible: as Hesperus
is Phosphorus, its antecedent can only be true at impossible worlds.
That's false, supposedly, because even if Hesperus and
Phosphorus had been distinct, Phosphorus would have remained
self-identical. However, all accept that
5. If Hesperus had not been Phosphorus, then Hesperus would not have
been Phosphorus
since it is an instance of 'if it had been that \(A\), then it
would have been that \(A\)'. Yet substituting
'Phosphorus' for the first occurrence of
'Hesperus' in the consequent of (5) gives (4). Since (5)
is true and (4) is (supposedly) false, substitution of identicals has
failed. This failure of substitutivity, Williamson claims, is a bad
result, for counterfactuals should *not* create opaque
contexts.
Brogaard and Salerno (2013) accept that counterpossibles do create
opaque contexts. They argue that the impossible worlds similarity
semantics for counterpossibles should be "partially
epistemic" (Brogaard and Salerno 2013: 654), and this epistemic
component explains the failure of substitution.
An alternative reply to Williamson is that the objection is
question-begging. It is clearly false that counterfactuals allow
substitution of identical terms (of arbitrary type). 'Had
Aristotle never taught, Aristotle would still have been
Aristotle' is true, and Aristotle is the teacher of Alexander,
yet 'had Aristotle never taught, Aristotle would still have been
the teacher of Alexander' is clearly false. The substitution
principle must (at the least) be restricted to *rigid
designators*: terms that denote the same entity in all
*metaphysically possible* worlds. But if the definition of
'rigid designator' is to be restricted to
*possible* worlds, then the application of the corresponding
substitution principle should likewise be restricted to contexts which
do not invoke impossible worlds. Viewed from this perspective, it is
question-begging to insist at the outset that the substitution
principle (for rigid designators) is valid for all counterfactuals
(including counterpossibles).
Berto et al. 2018 is an extensive discussion of a number of
Williamsonian objections to non-trivial treatments of
counterpossibles.
### 6.6 Compositionality
*Compositionality* is the principle that the meaning or content
of a complex expression is a function of the meanings of its
constituent expressions. It's commonly taken to be a mandatory
feature of any adequate theory of meaning and content. The argument is
that, as competent speakers of a language, we are in principle capable
of grasping the meanings of a potentially infinite number of
sentences. And since we've learnt the meanings of a limited
number of words, this is possible only if the meanings of complex
sentences are obtainable recursively from the meanings of their
constituent parts (Davidson 1965).
The worry is that a theory of meaning or content which includes
impossible worlds will not be compositional. Consider what we said
above about the exportation principle (Section 6.1) and the semantics
of negation (Section 6.4). An impossible world may represent that
\(\neg A\) independently of whether it represents that \(A\). But
then, for such worlds, the truth-value of \(\neg A\) is not a function
of the truth-value of \(A\). So, the worry goes, the content or
proposition that \(\neg A\), understood as a set of possible and
impossible worlds, will not be a function of the proposition that
\(A\). Certainly, the latter is not the set-theoretic complement of
the former, as it is on the possible worlds account. The same goes for
all the other logically complex sentences. This is perhaps the most
serious objection to the impossible worlds approach. If it can't
be met, it may well be fatal.
To address the worry, defenders of impossible worlds must show that
their notion of content is compositional, even if it does not provide
uniform truth-conditions across all worlds. In other words, they must
specify a way to calculate complex contents from constituent contents,
but which does not go via the usual truth-at-a-world clauses for
connectives. As far as we know, the only attempt to achieve this is in
Berto and Jago 2019, Chapter 8. They view contents as sets of
(possible and impossible) worlds, which are themselves sets of
sentences of some 'worldmaking' language. They argue that
grammatical structures can thus be recovered from semantic contents,
via the syntactic structure of the worldmaking sentences involved.
This provides a functional map between grammatical structure and
semantic content which in turn, they argue, provides a means for
calculating complex contents from their constituents. Whether this
provides an acceptable notion of compositionality (as they claim)
remains to be seen.
The compositionally objection also appears in Williamson 2020, a book
mostly devoted to a defense of the extensional material conditional as
giving the meaning of the indicative "if", but also
dealing with counterfactuals. Williamson accuses hyperintensional
approaches to conditionals and to content in general -- whether
based on impossible worlds, or of other kinds, e.g., based on
truthmakers -- of "overfitting": complicating the
semantics in order to account for the variability and systematic
inconsistencies of speakers' judgments, with the result of
incorporating "noise" in their models. At the extreme of
fine-graining, open impossible worlds approaches "must
individuate meanings so finely as to restrict synonymy to
self-synonymy, and thereby render the conception of meaning
theoretically useless, because it filters nothing out"
(249).
Of course, hyperintensionalists (with impossible worlds sympathies, or
of other kind) may equally accuse extensional or merely intensional
semantics of "underfitting": conflating contents we may
have good reasons to keep distinct. We seem to need some principled
way to mark the proper boundaries of semantics. Williamson proposes
one: we should pay more attention to a cognitive or epistemic level,
intermediate between semantics and pragmatics. Many intuitive
distinctions hyperintensionalists try to force into the semantics are
better explained as belonging to competent speakers'
cognitive-epistemic heuristics. He grants, for instance, that the view
that counterpossibles are not all trivially true speaks to our
intuitions; but objects that "sometimes, the robustly shared
verdicts of native speakers on a sample sentence will simply be false,
the predictable output of a fallible human heuristic."
(265).
Some authors, e.g. Rothschild (2021), argue that the Williamsonian
stance is at odds with standard practice in semantics. The early
chapters of any textbook introduction to semantics (e.g., Chierchia
and McConnell-Ginet 1990; Heim and Kratzer 1997) tell us that one key
task of semantics is to account for (rather than explain away)
competent speakers' intuitions and judgments of synonymy,
antonymy, entailment, etc. Williamson's endorsement of the
extensional material conditional gives, of course, a very simple
semantics for the indicative "if"; but, says Rothschild,
"the simplicity comes at the cost of failing to integrate
conditionals with the compositional semantics of natural
language" (22). And once the heuristic procedures are developed
in order to carry out the aforementioned key task, "it is not
clear that Williamson's overall system will still look
simple". (Ibid.)
The compositionally objection is also raised by Fine 2021, who
proposes his truthmaker semantics as a hyperintensional account of
content in place of possible and impossible worlds-based accounts.
Fine's semantics (2017a,b) uses *states* in place of
worlds, where states are things that may fail to be maximal (making
some sentences neither true nor false), and they may be inconsistent.
Inconsistent states may be formed as mereological sums of consistent
states, e.g., summing the state in which the table is round with one
in which it is square gives an impossible situation in which there is
a round square table. (To handle conjunction, Fine requires each set
of states to have a mereological sum, so he is committed to
inconsistent states like this.) Impossible worlds, too, may be
inconsistent and incomplete. One live issue is thus whether truthmaker
semantics is a notational variant of a kind of impossible worlds
semantics, rather than an alternative to it. Ontologically, they seem
on a par and, in this sense, truthmaker semantics can be seen as a
form of impossible worlds semantics. However, it is probably more
appropriate to view truthmaker semantics as a rival to standard
impossible worlds accounts. Central to truthmaker semantics is the
notion of *exact truthmaking*, whereby the state in question is
wholly relevant to the sentence's truth. Truthmaker semantics
stakes its reputation on the utility of this notion, whereas standard
impossible worlds semantics does not.
Fine's approach is appealing with respect to the compositionally
worry: it provides uniform clauses for the Boolean connectives at a
state, irrespective of whether the state is consistent. But the same
can be said of some impossible worlds semantics, e.g. the worlds
semantics for First Degree Entailment (FDE), a simple four-valued,
paraconsistent logic (Dunn 1976, Belnap 1977a-b) which has been
provided with a worlds semantics including worlds where formulas can
be both true and false, or neither true nor false. But whether uniform
clauses can be given for all operators is unclear. In Fine's
2012 semantics for counterfactuals, for instance, counterfactuals may
be evaluated only with respect to possible worlds (which are, in
effect, maximal possible states), with the consequence that embedded
counterfactuals are not permitted. It is currently unclear whether
evaluation of counterfactuals at impossible states would require
non-uniform clauses.
Another compositionally-based worry concerns negation: are the
negations of equivalent sentences themselves equivalent? This will not
be the case in general within impossible worlds semantics. The
situation with truthmaker semantics is not straightforward: it holds
in some but not all systems (e.g. not in Fine and Jago 2019).
Fine's response is not to banish those weaker systems, but to
prefer certain systems for certain purposes. That response is also
open to friends of impossible worlds.
Undoubtedly, other objections to impossible worlds can and are likely
to be raised. The current debate on impossible worlds appears to be at
the same stage as the one on *possible* worlds was, some forty
years ago. At that time, people struggled to make sense of the concept
of a possible world. Many declared it meaningless. Nowadays, the
variety of its applications has placed the notion firmly at the core
of much philosophical and logical practice (see e.g., Divers 2002,
Chapter 4). Impossible worlds may undergo the same fate, should they
prove as useful as they appear to be in the treatment of
impossibilities of various kinds. |
possible-worlds | ## 1. Possible Worlds and Modal Logic
Although 'possible world' has been part of the
philosophical lexicon at least since Leibniz, the notion became firmly
entrenched in contemporary philosophy with the development of
*possible world semantics* for the languages of propositional and
first-order modal logic. In addition to the usual sentence operators
of
classical logic
such as 'and' ('[?]'), 'or'
('[?]'), 'not' ('!'),
'if...then' ('-'), and, in the
first-order case, the quantifiers 'all'
('[?]') and 'some'
('[?]'), these languages contain operators intended to
represent the modal adverbs 'necessarily'
('#') and 'possibly'
('*'). Although a prominent aspect of logic in both
Aristotle's work and the work of many medieval philosophers, modal
logic was largely ignored from the modern period to the mid-20th
century. And even though a variety of modal deductive systems had in
fact been rigorously developed in the early 20th century, notably by
Lewis and Langford (1932), there was for the languages of those
systems nothing comparable to the elegant semantics that Tarski had
provided for the languages of classical first-order logic.
Consequently, there was no rigorous account of what it means for a
sentence in those languages to be *true* and, hence, no account
of the critical semantic notions of validity and logical consequence
to underwrite the corresponding deductive notions of theoremhood and
provability. A concomitant philosophical consequence of this void in
modal logic was a deep skepticism, voiced most prominently by Quine,
toward any appeal to modal notions in metaphysics generally, notably,
the notion of an essential property. (See Quine 1953 and 1956, and the
appendix to Plantinga 1974.) The purpose of the following two
subsections is to provide a simple and largely ahistorical overview of
how possible world semantics fills this void; the final subsection
presents two important applications of the semantics. (Readers
familiar with basic possible world semantics can skip to SS2 with
no significant loss of continuity.)
### 1.1 Extensionality Lost
Since the middle ages at least, philosophers have recognized a
semantical distinction between *extension* and
*intension*. The extension of a denoting expression, or
*term*, such as a name or a definite description is its
referent, the thing that it refers to; the extension of a predicate is
the set of things it applies to; and the extension of a sentence is
its truth value. By contrast, the intension of an expression is
something rather less definite -- its *sense*, or
*meaning*, the semantical aspect of the expression that
determines its extension. For purposes here, let us say that a
*logic* is a formal language together with a semantic theory for
the language, that is, a theory that provides rigorous definitions of
truth, validity, and logical consequence for the
language.[2]
A logic is *extensional* if the truth value of every sentence
of the logic is determined entirely by its form and the extensions of
its component sentences, predicates, and terms. An extensional logic
will thus typically feature a variety of valid *substitutivity
principles*. A substitutivity principle says that, if two
expressions are coextensional, that is, if they have the same
extension, then (subject perhaps to some reasonable conditions) either
can be substituted for the other in any sentence *salva
veritate*, that is, without altering the original sentence's truth
value. In an
*intensional* logic,
the truth values of some sentences are determined by something over
and above their forms and the extensions of their components and, as a
consequence, at least one classical substitutivity principle is
typically rendered invalid.
Extensionality is a well known and generally cherished feature of
classical propositional and predicate logic. Modal logic, by contrast,
is intensional. To illustrate: the substitutivity principle for
sentences tells us that sentences with the same truth value can be
substituted for one another *salva veritate*. So suppose that
John's only pets are two dogs, Algol and BASIC, say, and consider two
simple sentences and their formalizations (the predicates in question
indicating the obvious English counterparts):
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | All John's dogs are mammals: [?]*x*(*Dx* -
*Mx*). |
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | All John's pets are mammals: [?]*x*(*Px* -
*Mx*) |
As both sentences are true, they have the same extension. Hence, in
accordance with the classical substitutivity principle for sentences,
we can replace the occurrence of (1) with (2) in the false sentence
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | Not all John's dogs are mammals: ![?]*x*(*Dx*
- *Mx*) |
and the result is the equally false sentence
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | Not all John's pets are mammals: ![?]*x*(*Px*
- *Mx*). |
However, when we make the same substitution in the true sentence
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | Necessarily, all John's dogs are mammals:
#[?]*x*(*Dx* - *Mx*), |
the result is the sentence
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | Necessarily, all John's pets are mammals:
#[?]*x*(*Px* - *Mx*), |
which is intuitively false, as John surely could have had a
non-mammalian pet. In a modal logic that accurately represents the
logic of the necessity operator, therefore, the substitutivity
principle for sentences will have to fail.
The same example illustrates that the substitutivity principle for
predicates will have to fail in modal logic as well. For, according to
our example, the predicates '*D*' and
'*P*' that are true of John's dogs and of John's
pets, respectively, are coextensional, i.e.,
[?]*x*(*Dx* - *Px*). However, while
substituting the latter predicate for the former in (3) results in a
sentence with the same truth value, the same substitution in (5) does
not.
Modal logic, therefore, is intensional: in general, the truth value of
a sentence is determined by something over and above its form and the
extensions of its components. Absent a rigorous semantic theory to
identify the source of its intensionality and to systematize
intuitions about modal truth, validity, and logical consequence, there
was little hope for the widespread acceptance of modal logic.
### 1.2 Extensionality Regained
The idea of possible worlds raised the prospect of extensional
respectability for modal logic, not by rendering modal logic itself
extensional, but by endowing it with an extensional semantic theory
-- one whose own logical foundation is that of classical
predicate logic and, hence, one on which possibility and necessity can
ultimately be understood along classical Tarskian lines. Specifically,
in *possible world semantics*, the modal operators are
interpreted as *quantifiers* over possible worlds, as expressed
informally in the following two general principles:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Nec** | | A sentence of the form [?]Necessarily,
ph[?]
([?][?]ph[?]) is true if and only
if ph is true in every possible
world.[3] |
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Poss** | | A sentence of the form [?]Possibly,
ph[?]
([?]*ph[?]) is true if and only
if ph is true in some possible world. |
Given this, the failures of the classical substitutivity principles
can be traced to the fact that modal operators, so interpreted,
introduce contexts that require subtler notions of meaning for
sentences and their component parts than are provided in classical
logic; in particular, a subtler notion (to be clarified shortly) is
required for predicates than that of the set of things they happen to
apply to.
**Tarskian Semantics.** Standard model theoretic semantics for the
languages of predicate logic deriving from the work of Tarski (1933,
1944) is the paradigmatic semantic theory for extensional logics.
Given a standard first-order language L, a Tarskian
*interpretation* **I** *for* L specifies a set
**D** for the quantifiers of L to range over (typically, some
set of things that L has been designed to describe) and assigns,
to each term (constant or variable) t of L, a referent
**a**t [?] **D** and, to each *n*-place
predicate p of L, an appropriate extension
**E**p -- a truth value (TRUE or FALSE) if
*n* = 0, a subset of **D** if *n* = 1, and a set of
*n*-tuples of members of **D** if *n* > 1. Given these
assignments, sentences are evaluated as true under the interpretation
**I** -- true**I**, for short -- according
to a more or less familiar set of clauses. To facilitate the
definition, let **I**[n/**a**] be the interpretation that
assigns the individual **a** to the variable n and is otherwise
exactly like **I**. Then we have:
* An atomic sentence
[?]pt1...t*n*[?]
(of L) is *true***I** if and only if
+ *n* = 0 (i.e., p is a sentence letter) and the extension
of p is the truth value TRUE; or
+ *n* = 1 and **a**t1 is in the
extension of p; or
+ *n* > 1 and <**a**t1,
..., **a**t*n*> is in the
extension of p.
* A negation [?]!ps[?] is
true**I** if and only if ps is not
true**I**.
* A material conditional[?]ps -
th[?] is true**I** iff, if ps is
true**I**, then th is true**I**.
* A universally quantified sentence
[?][?]nps[?] is
true**I** if and only if, for all individuals **a**
[?] **D**, ps is
true**I**[n/**a**].[4]
Clauses for the other standard Boolean operators and the existential
quantifier under their usual definitions follow straightaway from
these clauses. In particular, where
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | [?]nph =*def*
![?]n!ph |
it follows that:
* An existentially quantified sentence
[?][?]nps[?] is is
true**I** if and only if, for some individual **a**
[?] **D**, ps is true**I**[n/**a**].
It is easy to verify that, in each of the above cases, replacing one
coextensional term, predicate, or sentence for another has no effect
on the truth values rendered by the above clauses, thus guaranteeing
the validity of the classical substitutivity principles and, hence,
the extensionality of first-order logic with a Tarskian semantics.
**From Tarskian to Possible World Semantics.** The truth
conditional clauses for the three logical operators directly reflect
the meanings of the natural language expressions they symbolize:
'!' means *not*; '-' means
*if...then*; '[?]' means *all*. It is
easy to see, however, that we cannot expect to add an equally simple
clause for sentences containing an operator that symbolizes necessity.
For a Tarskian interpretation *fixes* the domain of
quantification and the extensions of all the predicates. Pretty
clearly, however, to capture necessity and possibility, one must be
able to consider alternative "possible" domains of
quantification and alternative "possible" extensions for
predicates as well. For, intuitively, under different circumstances,
fewer, more, or other things might have existed and things that
actually exist might, in those circumstances, have had very different
properties. (6), for example, is false because John could have had
non-mammalian pets: a canary, say, or a turtle, or, under
*very* different circumstances, a dragon. A bit more formally
put: Both the domain of quantification and the extension of the
predicate '*P*' could, in some sense or other, have
been different.
Possible world semantics, of course, uses the concept of a possible
world to give substance to the idea of alternative extensions and
alternative domains of quantification. (Possible world semantics can
be traced most clearly back to the work of Carnap (1947), its basic
development culminating in the work of Hintikka (1957, 1961), Bayart
(1958, 1959), and Kripke (1959, 1963a, 1963b).[5])
Similar to Tarskian semantics, a possible world interpretation
**M** of a modal language L specifies a nonempty set
**D**, although thought of now as the set of "possible
individuals" of **M**. Also as in Tarskian semantics,
**M** assigns each term t of L a referent
**a**t in
**D**.[6]
Additionally however, **M** specifies a set **W**, the set of
"possible worlds" of **M**, one of which is designated
its "actual world", and each world **w** in **W** is
assigned its own domain of quantification, **d**(**w**) [?]
**D**, intuitively, the set of individuals that exist in
**w**.[7]
To capture the idea of both the actual and possible extensions of a
predicate, **M** assigns to each *n*-place predicate p a
function **M**p -- the *intension* of
p -- that, for each possible world **w**, returns the
*ex*tension **M**p(**w**) of p
*at* **w**: a truth value, if *n* = 0; a set of
individuals, if *n* = 1; and a set of *n*-tuples of
individuals, if *n* >
1.[8]
We can thus rigorously define a "possible extension" of a
predicate p to be any of its ***w**-extensions*
**M**p(**w**), for any world **w**.
The Tarskian truth conditions above are now generalized by
relativizing them to worlds as follows: for any possible world
**w** (the *world of evaluation*):
* An atomic sentence
[?]pt1...t*n*[?]
(of L) is *true***M** *at* **w** if
and only if:
+ *n* = 0 and the **w**-extension of p is the truth
value TRUE; or
+ *n* = 1 and *a*t1 is in the
**w**-extension of p; or
+ *n* > 1 and
<**a**t1,...,
**a**t*n*> is in the
**w**-extension of p.
* A negation [?]!ps[?] is
true**M** at **w** if and only ps is not
true**M** in **w**.
* A material
conditional[?]ps-th[?] is
true**M** at **w** iff, if ps is
true**M** at **w**, then th is
true**M** at **w**.
* A quantified sentence
[?][?]nps[?] is
true**M** at **w** if and only if, for all
individuals **a** that exist in **w**, ps is
true**M**[n/**a**].
And to these, of course, is added the critical modal case that
explicitly interprets the modal operator to be a quantifier over
worlds, as we'd initially anticipated informally in our principle
**Nec**:
* A necessitation [?][?]ps[?]
is true**M** at **w** if and only if, for all
possible worlds **u** of **M**, ps is true**M**
at
**u**.[9]
A sentence ph is *false***M** at **w** just
in case it is not true**M** at **w**, and ph is
said to be *true***M** just in case ph is
true**M** at the actual world of **M**.
On the assumption that there is a (nonempty) set of all possible
worlds and a set of all possible individuals, we can define
"objective" notions of truth at a world and of truth
*simpliciter*, that is, notions that are not simply relative to
formal, mathematical interpretations but, rather, correspond to
objective reality in all its modal glory. Let L be a modal
language whose names and predicates represent those in some fragment
of ordinary language (as in our examples (5) and (6) above). Say that
**M** is the "intended" interpretation of L if
(i) its set **W** of "possible worlds" is in fact the
set of all possible worlds, (ii) its designated "actual
world" is in fact the actual world, (iii) its set **D** of
"possible individuals" is in fact the set of all possible
individuals, and (iv) the referents assigned to the names of L
and the intensions assigned to the predicates of L are the ones
they in fact have. Then, where **M** is the intended interpretation
of L, we can say that a sentence ph of L is *true
at* a possible world **w** just in case ph is
true**M** at **w**, and that ph is *true*
just in case it is true**M** at the actual world.
(Falsity at **w** and falsity, *simpliciter*, are defined
accordingly.) Under the assumption in question, then, the modal clause
above takes on pretty much the exact form of our informal principle
**Nec**.
Call the above *basic* possible world semantics. Spelling out the
truth conditions for (6) (relative to the intended interpretation of
its language), basic possible world semantics tells us that (6) is
true if and only if
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | For all possible worlds **w**,
'[?]*x*(*Px* - *Mx*)' is true at
**w**. |
And by unpacking (8) in terms of the quantificational, material
conditional, and atomic clauses above we have that (6) is true if and
only if
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | For all possible worlds **w**, and for all possible
individuals **a** that exist in **w**, if **a** is in the
**w**-extension of '*P*' then **a** is in the
**w**-extension of '*M*'. |
Since we are evaluating (6) with regard to the intended interpretation
of its language, the **w**-extension of '*P*' that
is returned by its intension, for any world **w**, is the (perhaps
empty) set of John's pets in **w** and that of
'*M*' is the set of mammals in **w**. Hence, if
**w** is a world where John has a pet canary -- COBOL, say
-- COBOL is in the **w**-extension of '*P*'
but not that of '*M*' , i.e.,
'[?]*x*(*Px* - *Mx*)' is false at
**w** and, hence, by the truth condition (9), (6) is false at the
actual world -- that is, (6) is false *simpliciter*, as it
should be.
Note that interpreting modal operators as quantifiers over possible
worlds provides a nice theoretical justification for the usual
definition of the possibility operator in terms of necessity,
specifically:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | [?]*ph[?] =*def*
[?]![?]!ph[?]. |
That is, a sentence is possible just in case its negation isn't
necessary. Since, semantically speaking, the necessity operator is
*literally* a universal quantifier, the definition corresponds
exactly to the definition
(7)
of the existential quantifier. For, unpacking the right side of
definition (10) according to the negation and necessitation clauses
above (and invoking the definitions of truth and truth at a world
*simpliciter*), we have:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | [?]*ph[?] is true iff it
is not the case that, for all possible worlds **w**, ph is not
true at **w**. |
Clearly, however, if it is not the case that ph fails to be true at
all possible worlds, then it must be true at some world; hence:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | [?]*ph[?] is true iff,
for some possible world **w**, ph is true at **w**. |
And that corresponds exactly to our intuitive truth condition
**Poss**
above. Thus, spelling out the negation
'!#[?]*x*(*Px* - *Mx*)'
of our false sentence
(6)
above in accordance with definition (10) (and the standard definition
of conjunction [?]), we have:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | Possibly, one of John's pets is not a mammal:
*[?]*x*(*Px* [?] !*Mx*), |
for which (12) and the possible world truth conditions for quantified,
Boolean, and atomic sentences yield the correct truth condition:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | There is a possible world **w** and an individual **a**
existing in **w** that is in the **w**-extension of
'*P*' but not that of '*M*', |
that is, less stuffily, there is a possible world in which, among
John's pets, at least one is not a mammal.
**Summary: Intensionality and Possible Worlds.** Analyzed in terms
of possible world semantics, then, the general failure of classical
substitutivity principles in modal logic is due, not to an irreducibly
intensional element in the meanings of the modal operators, but rather
to a sort of mismatch between the surface syntax of those operators
and their semantics: syntactically, they are unary sentence operators
like negation; but semantically, they are, quite literally,
quantifiers. Their syntactic similarity to negation suggests that,
like negation, the truth values of
[?]#ph[?] and
[?]*ph[?], insofar as they are
determinable at all, must be determined by the truth value of ph.
That they are not (in general) so determined leads to the distinctive
substitutivity failures noted above. The possible worlds analysis of
the modal operators as quantifiers over worlds reveals that the unary
syntactic form of the modal operators obscures a semantically relevant
parameter. When the modal operators are interpreted as quantifiers,
this parameter becomes explicit and the reason underlying the failure
of extensionality in modal logic becomes clear: That the truth values
of [?]#ph[?] and
[?]*ph[?] are not in general
determined by the truth value of ph at the world of evaluation is,
semantically speaking, nothing more than the fact that the truth
values of '[?]*xFx*' and
'[?]*xFx*' are not in general determined by the
truth value of '*Fx*', for any particular value of
'*x*'. Possible world semantics, therefore,
*explains* the intensionality of modal logic by revealing that
the syntax of the modal operators prevents an adequate expression of
the meanings of the sentences in which they occur. Spelled out as
possible world truth conditions, those meanings can be expressed in a
wholly extensional fashion.
(For
a more formal exposition of this point, see the supplemental article
The Extensionality of Possible World Semantics.)
### 1.3 Two Applications: The Analysis of Intensions and the *De Re* / *De Dicto* Distinction
As noted, the focus of the present article is on the metaphysics of
possible worlds rather than applications. Of course, the semantics of
modal languages is itself an application, but one that is of singular
importance, both for historical reasons and because most applications
are in fact themselves applications of (often extended or modified
versions of) the semantical apparatus. Two particularly important
examples are the analysis of intensions and a concomitant explication
of the *de re*/*de dicto*
distinction.[10]
**The Analysis of Intensions.** As much a barrier to the acceptance
of modal logic as intensionality itself was the need to appeal to
intensions *per se* -- properties, relations,
propositions, and the like -- in semantical explanations.
Intensional entities have of course featured prominently in the
history of philosophy since Plato and, in particular, have played
natural explanatory roles in the analysis of
intentional attitudes
like
belief
and
mental content.
For all their prominence and importance, however, the nature of these
entities has often been obscure and controversial and, indeed, as a
consequence, they were easily dismissed as ill-understood and
metaphysically suspect "creatures of darkness" (Quine
1956, 180) by the naturalistically oriented philosophers of the early-
to mid-20th century. It is a virtue of possible world semantics that
it yields rigorous *definitions* for intensional entities. More
specifically, as described above, possible world semantics assigns to
each *n*-place predicate p a certain function
**I**p -- p's intension -- that, for
each possible world **w**, returns the extension
**I**p(**w**) of p at **w**. We can define
an intension *per se*, independent of any language, to be any
such function on worlds. More specifically:
* A *proposition* is any function from worlds to truth
values.
* A *property* is any function from worlds to sets of
individuals.
* An **n*-place relation* (*n* > 1) is any
function from worlds to sets of *n*-tuples of individuals.
The adequacy of this analysis is a matter of lively debate that
focuses chiefly upon whether or not intensions, so defined, are too
"coarse-grained" to serve their intended purposes. (See,
e.g., Stalnaker 1987 and 2012 for a strong defense of the analysis.)
However, Lewis (1986, SS1.5) argues that, even if the above
analysis fails for certain purposes, it does not follow that
intensions cannot be analyzed in terms of possible worlds, but only
that more subtle constructions might be required. This reply appears
to side-step the objections from granularity while preserving the
great advantage of the possible worlds analysis of intensions, viz.,
the rigorous definability of these philosophically significant
notions.
**The *De Re* / *De Dicto* Distinction.** A particularly
rich application of the possible world analysis of intensions concerns
the analysis of the venerable distinction between *de re* and
*de dicto*
modality.[11]
Among the strongest modal intuitions is that the possession of a
property has a modal character -- that things exemplify, or fail
to exemplify, some properties *necessarily*, or
*essentially*, and others only *accidentally*. Thus, for
example, intuitively, John's dog Algol is a pet accidentally; under
less fortunate circumstances, she might have been, say, a stray that
no one ever adopted. But she is a dog essentially; she couldn't have
been a flower, a musical performance, a crocodile or any other kind of
thing.
Spelling out this understanding in terms of worlds and the preceding
analysis of intensions, we can say that an individual **a** has a
property **F** essentially if **a** has **F** in every world
in which it exists, that is, if, for all worlds **w** in which
**a** exists, **a** [?] **F**(**w**). Likewise,
**a** has **F** accidentally if **a** has **F** in the
actual world @ but lacks it in some other world, that is, if **a**
[?] **F**(@) but, for some world **w** in which **a**
exists, **a** [?] **F**(**w**). Thus, let
'*G*' and '*T*' symbolize 'is
a dog' and 'is someone's pet', respectively; then,
where '*E!x*' is short for
'[?]*y*(*x*=*y*)' (and, hence,
expresses that *x* exists), we have:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | Algol is a dog essentially: #(*E!a* -
*Ga*) |
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | Algol is a pet accidentally: *Ta* [?] *(*E!a*
[?] !*Ta*) |
More generally, sentences like (15) and (16) in which properties are
ascribed to a specific individual in a modal context -- signaled
formally by the occurrence of a name or the free occurrence of a
variable in the scope of a modal operator -- are said to exhibit
modality *de
re*[12]
(modality *of the thing*). Modal sentences that do not, like
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | Necessarily, all dogs are mammals:
#[?]*x*(*Gx* - *Mx*) |
are said to exhibit modality *de dicto* (roughly, modality *of
the* *proposition*). Possible
world semantics provides an illuminating analysis of the key
difference between the two: The truth conditions for both modalities
involve a commitment to possible worlds; however, the truth conditions
for sentences exhibiting modality *de re* involve in addition a
commitment to the meaningfulness of
*transworld identity*,
the thesis that, necessarily, every individual (typically, at any
rate) exists and exemplifies (often very different) properties in many
different possible worlds. More specifically, basic possible world
semantics yields intuitively correct truth values for sentences of the
latter sort by (i) permitting world domains to overlap and (ii)
assigning intensions to predicates, thereby, in effect, relativizing
predicate extensions to worlds. In this way, one and the same
individual can be in the extension of a given predicate at all worlds
in which they exist, at some such worlds only, or at none at all. (For
further discussion, see the entry on
essential vs. accidental properties.)
## 2. Three Philosophical Conceptions of Possible Worlds
The power and appeal of basic possible world semantics is undeniable.
In addition to providing a clear, extensional formal semantics for a
formerly somewhat opaque, intensional notion, cashing possibility as
truth in some possible world and necessity as truth in every such
world seems to tap into very deep intuitions about the nature of
modality and the meaning of our modal discourse. Unfortunately, the
semantics leaves the most interesting -- and difficult --
philosophical questions largely unanswered. Two arise with particular
force:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **QW** | | What, exactly, is a possible world? |
And, given **QW**:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **QE** | | What is it for something to exist in a possible world? |
In this section we will concern ourselves with, broadly speaking, the
three most prominent philosophical approaches to these
questions.[13]
### 2.1 Concretism
Recall the informal picture that we began with: a world is, so to say,
the "limit" of a series of increasingly more inclusive
situations. Fleshed out philosophical accounts of this informal idea
generally spring from rather different intuitions about what one takes
the "situations" in the informal picture to be. A
particularly powerful intuition is that situations are simply
structured collections of physical objects: the immediate situation of
our initial example above, for instance, consists of, among other
things, the objects in Anne's office -- notably Anne herself, her
desk and her computer, with her seated at the former and typing on the
latter -- and at least some of the things in the next room
-- notably, her husband and the phone he is talking on. On this
view, for one situation **s** to include another **r** is simply
for **r** to be a (perhaps rather complex and distributed) physical
part of **s**. The actual world, then, as the limit of a series of
increasingly more inclusive situations in this sense, is simply the
entire physical universe: all the things that are some spatiotemporal
distance from the objects in some arbitrary initial situation,
structured as they in fact are; and other possible worlds are things
of exactly the same sort. Call this the *concretist* intuition,
as possible worlds are understood to be concrete physical situations
of a special sort.
#### 2.1.1 Concrete Worlds and Existence Therein
The originator and, by far, the best known proponent of concretism is
David Lewis.
For Lewis and, as noted, concretists generally, the actual world is
the concrete physical universe as it is, stretched out in space-time.
As he rather poetically expresses it (1986, 1):
>
> The world we live in is a very inclusive thing....There is nothing so
> far away from us as not to be part of our world. Anything at any
> distance is to be included. Likewise the world is inclusive in time.
> No long-gone ancient Romans, no long-gone pterodactyls, no long-gone
> primordial clouds of plasma are too far in the past, nor are the dead
> dark stars too far in the future, to be part of this same
> world....[N]othing is so alien in kind as not to be part of our world,
> provided only that it does exist at some distance and direction from
> here, or at some time before or after or simultaneous with now.
>
The actual world provides us with our most salient example of what a
possible world is. But, for the concretist, other possible worlds are
no different in kind from the actual world (*ibid.*, 2):
>
> There are countless other worlds, other very inclusive things. Our
> world consists of us and all our surroundings, however, remote in time
> and space; just as it is one big thing having lesser things as parts,
> so likewise do other worlds have lesser other-worldly things as parts.
>
It is clear that spatiotemporal relations play a critical role in
Lewis's conception. However, it is important to note that Lewis
understands such relations in a very broad and flexible way so as to
allow, in particular, for the possibility of spirits and other
entities that are typically thought of as non-spatial; so long as they
are located in time, Lewis writes, "that is good enough"
(*ibid.*, 73). So with this caveat, let us say that that an
object **a** is *connected* if any two of its parts bear
some spatiotemporal relation to each
other,[14]
and that **a** is *maximal* if none of its parts is
spatiotemporally related to anything that is not also one of its
parts. Then we have the following concretist answers to our questions:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **AW1** | | **w** is a possible world =*def*
**w** is a maximal connected
object.[15] |
And, hence, to exist in a world is simply to be a part of it:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **AE1** | | Individual **a** exists in world **w** =*def*
**a** is a part of **w**.
|
It follows from **AW1** (and reasonable assumptions) that distinct
worlds do not overlap, spatiotemporally; that no spatiotemporal part
of one world is part of
another.[16]
Moreover, given
Lewis's counterfactual analysis of causation,
it follows from this that objects in distinct worlds bear no causal
relations to one another; nothing that occurs in one world has any
causal impact on anything that occurs in any other world.
#### 2.1.2 Actuality
Critically, for Lewis, worlds and their denizens do not differ in the
*manner* in which they exist. The actual world does not enjoy a
kind of privileged existence that sets it apart from other worlds.
Rather, what makes the actual world actual is simply that it is
*our* world, the world that we happen to inhabit. Other worlds
and their inhabitants exist just as robustly as we do, and in
precisely the same sense; all worlds and all of their denizens are
equally
*real*.[17]
A significant semantic corollary of this thesis for Lewis is that the
word 'actual' in the phrase 'the actual world'
does not indicate any special *property* of the actual world that
distinguishes it from all other worlds; likewise, an assertion of the
form '**a** is actual' does not indicate any special
property of the individual **a** that distinguishes it from the
objects existing in other worlds. Rather, 'actual' is
simply an *indexical* whose extension is determined by the
context of utterance. Thus, the referent of 'the actual
world' in a given utterance is simply the world of the speaker,
just as the referent of an utterance of 'the present
moment' is the moment of the utterance; likewise, an utterance
of the form '**a** is actual' indicates only that
**a** shares the same world as the speaker. The speaker thereby
ascribes no special property to **a** but, essentially, expresses
no more than when she utters '**a** is *here*',
understood in the broadest possible sense. By the same token, when we
speak of non-actual *possibilia* -- Lewis's preferred label
for the denizens of possible worlds -- we simply pick out those
objects that are *not* here in the broadest sense. In the mouth
of an other-worldly metaphysician, we here are all among the
non-actual *possibilia* of which she speaks in her lectures on
*de re* modality.
#### 2.1.3 Modal Reductionism, Counterparts, and the Analysis of Intensions
**Modal Reductionism and Counterparts.** Lewis parted ways
dramatically with his mentor
W. V. O. Quine
on modality. Quine (1960, SS41) stands in a long line of
philosophers dating back at least to
David Hume
who are skeptical, at best, of the idea that modality is an objective
feature of reality and, consequently, who question whether modal
assertions in general can be objectively true or false, or even
coherent. Lewis, by contrast, wholly embraces the objectivity of
modality and the coherence of our modal discourse. What he denies,
however, is that modality is a fundamentally *irreducible*
feature of the world. Lewis, that is, is a *modal
reductionist*. For Lewis, modal notions are not primitive. Rather,
truth conditions for modal sentences can be given in terms of worlds
and their parts; and worlds themselves, Lewis claims, are defined
entirely in non-modal terms. The earliest presentation of Lewis's
theory of modality (Lewis 1968) -- reflecting Quine's
method of regimentation
-- offers, rather than a possible world semantics, a scheme for
*translating* sentences in the language of modal predicate logic
into sentences of ordinary first-order logic in which the modal
operators are replaced by explicit quantifiers over
worlds.[18]
The mature account of Lewis 1986 is much more semantic in
orientation: it avoids any talk of translation and offers instead a
(somewhat informal) account of concretist possible world truth
conditions for a variety of modal assertions. Nonetheless, it is
useful to express the logical forms of these truth conditions
explicitly in terms of worlds, existence in a world (in the sense of
**AE1**, of course), and the *counterpart* relation, which
will be discussed shortly:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| *Wx*: | | *x* is a *world* |
| *Ixy*: | | *x* *exists in* world *y* |
| *Cxy*: | | *x* is a *counterpart* of *y* |
For sentences like
(17)
involving only *de dicto* modalities, Lewis's truth conditions
are similar in form to the truth conditions generated by the modal
clauses of basic possible world semantics; specifically, for (17):
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | For every world **w**, every individual **x** in **w**
that is a dog is a mammal: [?]*w*(*Ww* -
[?]*x*(*Ixw* - (*Gx* - *Mx*))).
|
As in possible world semantics, the modal operators
'#' and '*' "turn
into" quantifiers over worlds in concretist truth conditions
(1986, 5). Also as in possible world semantics, a quantifier (in
effect) ranging over individuals that occurs in the scope of a
quantifier (in effect) ranging over worlds --
'[?]*x*' and '[?]*w*',
respectively, in (18) -- is, for each value **w** of the bound
world variable, restricted to the objects existing in **w**.
However, unlike possible world semantics, predicates are not to be
thought of as having different extensions at different worlds. Rather,
for Lewis, each (*n*-place) predicate has a single extension that
can contain (*n*-tuples of) objects across many different worlds
-- intuitively, all of the objects that have the property (or
*n*-tuples of objects that stand in the relation) expressed by
the predicate across all possible worlds. Thus, in particular, the
predicate '*G*' picks out, not just this-worldly dogs
but other-worldly canines as well. Likewise, the pet predicate
'*T*' picks out both actual and other-worldly pets.
Such a move is not feasible in basic possible world semantics, which
is designed for a metaphysics in which one and the same individual can
exemplify a given property in some worlds in which they exist but not
others. Hence, a typical predicate will be true of an individual with
respect to some worlds and false of it with respect to others. But,
for Lewis, as we've seen, distinct possible worlds do not overlap and,
hence, objects are worldbound, thereby eliminating the need to
relativize predicate extensions to worlds.
However, this very feature of Lewis's account -- worldboundedness
-- might appear to threaten its coherence. For example, since
Algol is in fact a pet, given worldboundedness and the definition
**AE1**
of existence in a world **w**, we have:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | There is no world **w** such that Algol exists in **w**
and fails to be someone's pet: ![?]*w*(*Iaw* [?]
!*Ta*), |
But, according to Lewis's analysis, the modal operators
'#' and '*', semantically, are
quantifiers over worlds. Hence, (19) might appear to be exactly the
concretist truth condition for the denial of (the right conjunct of)
(16),
i.e., it might appear that, on Lewis's analysis, Algol is not a pet
accidentally but essentially; likewise, more generally, any individual
and any intuitively accidental property of that individual.
In fact, Lewis whole-heartedly accepts that things have accidental
properties and, indeed, would accept that
(16)
is robustly true. His explanation involves one of the most
interesting and provocative elements of his theory: the doctrine of
*counterparts*. Roughly, an object **y** in a world
**w**2 is a counterpart of an object **x** in
**w**1 if **y** resembles **x** and nothing else
in **w**2 resembles **x** more than
**y**.[19]
Each object is thus its own (not necessarily unique) counterpart in
the world it inhabits but will typically differ in important ways from
its other-wordly counterparts. A typical other-worldly counterpart of
Algol, for example, might resemble her very closely up to some point
in her history -- a point, say, after which she continued to live
out her life as a stray instead of being brought home by our kindly
dog-lover John. Hence, sentences making *de re* assertions about
what *Algol* might have done or what *she* could or could
not have been are unpacked, semantically, as sentences about her
*counterparts* in other possible worlds. Thus, when we analyze
(16) accordingly, we have the entirely unproblematic concretist truth
condition:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | Algol is a pet, but there is a world in which exists a
counterpart of hers that is not:
*Ta* [?] [?]*w*(*Ww* [?]
[?]*x*(*Ixw* [?] *Cxa* [?] !*Tx*)).
|
Ascriptions of essential properties, as in
(15),
are likewise unpacked in terms of counterparts: to say that Algol is
a dog essentially is to say that
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | All of Algol's counterparts in any world are dogs:
[?]*w*(*Ww* - [?]*x*((*Ixw* [?]
*Cxa*) - *Gx*)). |
**The Analysis of Intensions.** Lewis's possible world truth
conditions are expressed in classical non-modal logic and, hence, they
are to be interpreted by means of standard Tarskian semantics. Thus,
*n*-place predicates p are assigned extensions
**E**p -- in particular, for 1-place predicates,
sets of individuals -- as their semantic values, as described in
the exposition in
SS1.2
above. However, given worldboundedness and the fact that predicate
extensions are drawn not simply from the actual world but from all
possible worlds, these extensions are able to serve as
*in*tensions in Lewis's theory. As in basic possible world
semantics, intensional entities in general can be defined in terms of
the basic ontology of the theory independent of the linguistic roles
they can play as the intensions of predicates. And because individuals
are worldbound, Lewis is able to simplify the definitions given in
SS1.3
by defining intensions as sets rather than functions:
* A *proposition* is any set of worlds.
* A *property* is any set of individuals.
* An **n*-place relation* (*n* > 1) is any set
of *n*-tuples of
individuals.[20]
Thus, on this analysis, a proposition **p** is *true in* a
world **w** just in case **w** [?] **p** and an individual
**a** has a property **P** just in case **a** [?]
**P**. (Note that propositions are thus simply properties of worlds
on these definitions.) **a** has **P** *accidentally*
just in case **a** [?] **P** but **b** [?] **P**
for some other-worldly counterpart of **b** of **a**; and
**a** has **P** *essentially* if **b** [?] **P**
for every counterpart **b** of **a**.
In Lewis's theory of modality, then, modal operators are understood
semantically to be quantifiers over concrete worlds, predicates denote
intensions understood as sets of (*n*-tuples of) parts of those
worlds, and sentences involving *de re* modalities are understood
in terms of counterparts. To the extent that these notions are free of
modality, Lewis has arguably reduced modal notions to non-modal.
#### 2.1.4 Plenitude and Recombination
That Lewis's truth conditions for modal statements are themselves free
of modality and, hence, that his theory counts as a genuine reduction
of modal notions to non-modal is not terribly controversial (albeit
not undisputed -- see Lycan 1991, 224-27; Divers and Melia
2002, 22-24). Significantly more controversial, and perhaps far
more critical to the project, is whether or not his account is
*complete*, that is, whether or not, for all modal statements
ph, (i) if ph is intuitively true, then its Lewisian truth
condition holds (ii) if ph is intuitively false, then its Lewisian
truth condition
fails.[21]
The challenge to Lewis, then, is that his account can be considered
*successful* only if it is complete in this sense.
The chief question Lewis faces in this regard is whether there are
*enough* worlds to do the job. The truth condition
(20)
for the intuitively true
(16)
says that there exists a possible world in which a counterpart of
Algol is no one's pet. By virtue of what in Lewis's theory does such a
world exist? The ideal answer for Lewis would be that some principle
in his theory guarantees a *plenitude* of worlds, a maximally
abundant array of worlds that leaves "no gaps in logical space;
no vacancies where a world might have been, but isn't" (Lewis
1986, 86). From this it would follow that the worlds required by the
concretist truth condition for any intuitive modal truth exist. Toward
this end, Lewis initially considers the evocative principle:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Ways** | | Absolutely every way that a world could be is a way that some
world is. |
Since, in particular, a world satisfying
(20)
seems quite obviously to be a way a world could be, by **Ways**
such a world exists. But there is a fatal flaw here: Lewis himself
(1973, 84) identifies *ways* that a world could be with worlds
themselves. So understood, **Ways** collapses into the triviality
that every world is identical to some
world.[22]
Lewis finds a replacement for **Ways** in a principle of
*recombination* whereby "patching together parts of
different possible worlds yields another possible world" (1986,
87-88). The principle has two aspects. The first is the
principle that "anything can coexist with anything". For
"if there could be a dragon, and there could be a
unicorn," Lewis writes, "but there couldn't be a dragon
and a unicorn side by side, that would be ... a failure of
plenitude" (*ibid*., 88). Given that individuals are
worldbound, however, the principle is expressed more rigorously (and
more generally) in terms of other-worldly *duplicates*:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **R1** | | For any (finite or infinite) number of objects
**a**1, **a**2, ..., there is a world
containing any number of duplicates of each of those objects in any
spatiotemporal arrangement (size and shape permitting). |
The second aspect of the principle expresses "the Humean denial
of necessary connections" (*ibid*., 87), that is, the idea
that anything can *fail* to coexist with anything else. For
"if there could be a talking head contiguous to the rest of a
living human body, but there couldn't be a talking head separate from
the rest of a human body, that too would be a failure of
plenitude" (*ibid*). To express this a bit more rigorously,
say that objects **a**1, **a**2, ..., are
*independent of* objects **b**1,
**b**2, ..., if no sum of any parts of the former are
parts or duplicates of any sum of any parts of the latter and vice
versa; then we have:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **R2** | | For any world **w** any (finite or infinite number of)
objects **a**1, **a**2, ..., in **w**
and any objects **b**1, **b**2, ..., in
**w** that are independent of **a**1,
**a**2, ..., there is a world containing duplicates of
**a**1, **a**2, ..., and no duplicates of
**b**1, **b**2, ... . |
Worlds that satisfy the concretist truth conditions for workaday
possibilities like
(16)
are easily conceived as consisting of duplicates of relevant parts of
the actual world -- suitably organized to retain their actual
properties, or not, as needed. Hence, the existence of such worlds
does indeed appear to follow from the existence of the actual world by
recombination. Worlds containing talking donkeys, exotic species
resulting from a wholly different evolutionary history, worlds with
silicon-based life forms, and so on present a bigger challenge to the
view. Nonetheless, it is not entirely implausible to think such worlds
exist given suitable duplication and reorganization of microphysical
objects.[23]
Whether recombination completely captures our modal intuitions
regarding plenitude is still a matter of some
dispute.[24]
However, even if it doesn't, it is less than clear whether this
counts against the success of Lewis's reductionist project. For, as a
realist about worlds, Lewis does not seem to be under any obligation
to "derive" plenitude from more fundamental principles.
Hence, there is no obvious reason why he cannot respond to charges of
incompleteness by saying that it is simply a presupposition of his
theory that logical space has no gaps, that there are always enough
worlds to satisfy the concretist truth condition for any intuitive
modal
truth.[25]
So understood, the role of recombination for a realist about worlds
like Lewis is something like the role of such axioms as powerset and
replacement for a realist about sets: given some sets, these
principles provide us with a detailed -- but always less than
complete -- characterization of what further sets there are.
Their role, therefore, is to give us insight into the richness and
diversity of set theoretic space, not a complete mechanism for proving
which particular sets do or do not exist. Likewise recombination
vis-a-vis worlds and logical space.
#### 2.1.5 A Brief Assessment of Concretism
Lewis's theory is particularly commendable for its striking
originality and ingenuity and for the simple and straightforward
answers **AW1** and **AE1** that it provides to our two
questions **QW** and **QE** above. Furthermore, because worlds
are (plausibly) defined entirely in nonmodal terms, the truth
conditions provided by Lewis's translation scheme themselves appear to
be free of any implicit modality. Hence, unlike many other popular
accounts of possible worlds (notably, the abstractionist accounts
discussed in the following section), Lewis's promises to provide a
genuine *analysis* of the modal operators.
Perhaps the biggest -- if not the most philosophically
sophisticated -- challenge to Lewis's theory is "the
incredulous stare", i.e., less colorfully put, the fact that its
ontology is wildly at variance with common sense. Lewis faces this
objection head on: His theory of worlds, he acknowledges,
"*does* disagree, to an extreme extent, with firm common
sense opinion about what there is" (1986, 133). However, Lewis
argues that no other theory explains so much so economically. With
worlds in one's philosophical toolkit, one is able to provide elegant
explanations of a wide variety of metaphysical, semantical, and
intentional phenomena. As high as the intuitive cost is, Lewis (135)
concludes, the existence of worlds "ought to be accepted as
true. The theoretical benefits are worth it."
Additional discussion of, and objections to, concretism can be found
in the supplemental document
Further Problems for Concretism.
### 2.2 Abstractionism
A rather different set of intuitions about situations is that they are
*abstract* entities of a certain sort: They are *states*
or *conditions*, of varying detail and complexity, that a
concrete world could be in -- they are *ways* that things,
as a whole, could
be.[26]
Thus, returning to our original example, one very simple way things
could be is for our philosopher Anne to be in her office. We can now
imagine, as in our example, further detail being successively added to
that description to yield more complex ways things could be: Anne
working at her desk in her office; music being in the background; her
husband being on the phone in the next room; her neighbor mowing the
lawn next door; and so on. Roughly speaking, then, a possible world
for an abstractionist is the *limit* of such a
"process" of consistently extending and adding detail to
some initial state of the world; it is a *total* way things
could be, a consistent state of the world that settles every
possibility; a consistent state to which no further detail could be
added without rendering it inconsistent.
#### 2.2.1 Abstract Possible Worlds and Existence Therein
To give the notion of a state, or condition, of the world a little
more metaphysical substance, abstractionists typically appeal to more
traditional ontological categories. Thus, for example, that things
could be in the simple state described above might be spelled out in
one of the following ways:
* The *proposition* **that Anne is in her office and at her
desk** is possibly true.
* The *set of propositions* {**that Anne is in her
office**, **that Anne is at her desk**} is such that, possibly,
all of its members are true.
* The *property* **being such that Anne is in her office
and at her desk** is possibly exemplified (by "things as a
whole").
Possible worlds are then defined as special cases of the type of
entity in question that are in some relevant sense *total*.
Adams (1974), for example, defines possible worlds to be consistent
sets of propositions that are total in the sense of containing, for
every proposition **p**, either **p** or its negation; Fine
(1977), fleshing out ideas of Prior, defines a possible world to be a
consistent proposition **w** that is total in the sense that, for
every proposition **p**, **w** entails either **p** or its
negation. For purposes here, however, we will sketch the fundamentals
of the abstractionist view in terms of *states of affairs*,
following the basic features of the account developed by Plantinga
(1974, 1976), an account that, in the literature, frequently serves as
a particularly trenchant abstractionist counterpoint to Lewis's
concretism.[27]
States of affairs (SOAs) are abstract, intensional entities typically
signified by sentential gerundives like "Algol's being John's
pet" and "There being more than ten solar planets".
Importantly, SOAs constitute a primitive ontological category for the
abstractionist; they are not defined in terms of possible worlds in
the manner that propositions are in
SS1.3.
Just as some propositions are true and others are not, some SOAs are
*actual* and others are
not.[28]
Note, then, that to say an SOA is non-actual is *not* to say
that it does not actually *exist*. It is simply to say that it
is not, in fact, a condition, or state, that the concrete world is
actually in. However, because '\_\_\_\_ is actual' is often
used simply to mean '\_\_\_\_ exists', there is considerable
potential for confusion here. So, henceforth, to express that an SOA
is actual we will usually say that it *obtains*.
An SOA is said to be *possible* (*necessary*,
*impossible*) insofar as it is possible (necessary, impossible)
that it obtain. One SOA **s** is said to *include* another
**t** if, necessarily, **s** obtains only if **t** does;
**s** *precludes* **t** if, necessarily, **s** obtains
only if **t** doesn't. So, for example, **Algol's being John's
pet** includes **Algol's being someone's pet** and precludes
**there being no pets**. Thus, on the abstractionist's
understanding of a situation as a state or condition of the physical
world rather than a concrete, structured piece of it, the inclusion of
one situation in another is a purely *logical* relation, not a
mereological
one. Finally, say that an SOA **s** is *total* if, for every
SOA **t**, **s** either includes or precludes **t**.
(Abstractionists often use 'maximal' instead of
'total', but we have already introduced this term in the
context of concretism.) Abstractionist possible worlds are now
definable straightaway:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **AW2** | | **w** is a possible world =*def*
**w** is an SOA that is both
possible and
total.[29] |
It is easy to see that this definition covers the more intuitive
characterizations of abstract possible worlds above: they are
consistent -- i.e., possible -- states of the world that
settle every possibility, consistent states to which no further detail
could be added without rendering them inconsistent. Note also that,
for the abstractionist, as for the concretist, the actual world is no
different in kind from any other possible world; all possible worlds
exist, and in precisely the same sense as the actual world. The actual
world is simply the total possible SOA that, in fact, obtains. And
non-actual worlds are simply those total possible SOAs that do not.
What of existence in such worlds? As we've seen, on Lewis's account,
to exist in a concrete world **w** is literally to exist *in
**w***, that is, within the spatiotemporal boundaries of
**w**. Clearly, because SOAs are abstract, individuals cannot exist
in abstractionist worlds in anything like the same literal,
mereological sense. Accordingly, the abstractionist defines existence
in a world simply to be a special case of the inclusion relation:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **AE2** | | Individual **a** *exists in* possible world **w**
=*def* **w** includes
****a**'s existing**. |
Unlike concretism, then, abstractionism does not entail that
individuals are worldbound; there is no inconsistency whatever in the
idea that many distinct worlds can include the existence of one and
the same individual. Indeed, typically, abstractionists are staunchly
committed to transworld identity and hold that most any given
individual exists in many possible worlds and, moreover, that
contingent individuals, at least, can exemplify very different
properties from world to world. Abstractionists, therefore, have no
need to appeal to counterparts to understand *de re* modalities
and can therefore accept the truth conditions for such modalities
given by basic possible world semantics (spelled out, of course, in
terms of their definitions **AW2** and **AE2**). In particular,
they can take the standard possible world truth condition for, e.g.,
the right conjunct of
(16)
at face value: '*(*E!a* [?] !*Ta*)'
is true on the abstractionist's approach if and only if there is is a
world in which Algol herself, rather than some counterpart of hers,
exists but fails to be anyone's pet.
#### 2.2.2 Irreducible Modality and Intensional Entities
It is important to note that the possible worlds of abstractionism do
not yield a reductive analysis of modality. The reason for this is
clear: abstract possible worlds are defined in irreducibly modal terms
-- a possible world is an SOA that (among other things)
*possibly* obtains; or a set of propositions such that it is
*possible* that all of its members are true; or a property that
is *possibly* exemplified; and so on. Hence, unpacked in terms
of the abstractionist's definitions, the possible world truth
conditions for modal propositions are themselves irreducibly modal.
For example, when we unpack Plantinga's definition of a possible world
in the semantic clause for sentences of the form
[?][?]ps[?] in order to derive
the truth condition for
(17),
'#[?]*x*(*Gx* - *Mx*)', we
end up with this:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | For all SOAs **w**, if (i) *possibly*, **w** obtains
and (ii) for all SOAs **s**, either (a) *necessarily*,
**w** obtains only if **s** does or (b) *necessarily*,
**w** obtains only if **s** doesn't, then,
'[?]*x*(*Gx* - *Mx*)' is true at
**w**. |
If we now unpack the modal operators in (22) using the corresponding
truth conditional clauses of standard possible world semantics, the
result will contain further world quantifiers. And spelling out those
world quantifiers in turn using Plantinga's definition will
re-introduce those same modal operators yet again.
More generally, and a bit more exactly, put: As noted above, the
logical framework of basic possible world semantics is classical
predicate logic. The logical framework of abstractionism is modal
predicate logic. Hence, if possible world semantics is supplemented
with abstractionist definitions of possible worlds, then the logical
framework of possible world semantics becomes modal predicate logic as
well and, as a consequence, the extensionality of the semantics is
lost once again. (This point is expressed somewhat more formally in
the supplemental document
The Intensionality of Abstractionist Possible World Semantics.)
Since, as noted above, the central motivation for possible world
semantics was to deliver an extensional semantics for modal languages,
any motivation for abstractionism as a semantic theory is arguably
undermined.[30]
However, it is not entirely clear that this observation constitutes an
objection to abstractionism. For abstractionists can argue that the
goal of their analysis is the converse of the reductionist's goal: The
reductionist wants to understand modality in terms of worlds; the
abstractionist, by contrast, wants to understand worlds in terms of
modality. That is, abstractionists can argue that we begin with a
primitive notion of modality and, typically upon a certain amount of
philosophical reflection, we subsequently discover an intimate
connection to the notion of a possible world, as revealed in the
principles
**Nec**
and
**Poss**.
The analysis that abstractionists provide is designed to make this
connection explicit, ideally, in such a way that **Nec** and
**Poss** fall out as theorems of their theory (see, e.g., Plantinga
1985 and Menzel and Zalta 2014).
Hand in glove with the irreducible nature of modality is the nature of
intensional entities. Concretists define intensional entities in terms
of worlds, as described in
SS2.1.3.
Abstractionists, by contrast, define worlds in terms of intensional
entities. This divergence in their choice of ontological primitives
reflects, not only their differing stances toward modality, but also
an important methodological difference with regard to metaphysical
inquiry. The concretist is far more pragmatic; notions of
*property*, *relation*, *proposition*, and the
like play certain roles in our theorizing and are subject to a
"jumble of conflicting *desiderata*" (Lewis 1986,
54). Within a given theory, any entities that can play those roles
fruitfully for the purposes at hand are justifiably identified with
those notions -- regardless of how well they comport with
pre-theoretic intuitions. Thus, Lewis finds it to be a strength of his
position that he is able to adopt the set theoretic definitions in
SS2.1.3. By contrast, at least some abstractionists --
Plantinga (1987) perhaps most notably -- believe that we have
intuitive, pre-theoretic knowledge of intensional entities that
precludes their being identified with set theoretic constructions of
any
sort.[31]
(See Stalnaker 1976 for a particularly illuminating discussion of the
contrast between concretism and abstractionism with respect to the
treatment intensional entities.)
#### 2.2.3 Actuality and Actualism
As was noted in
SS2.1.2,
for the concretist, there is no special property of the actual world
-- *actuality* -- that distinguishes it, in any
absolute sense, from all of the others; it is simply the world that
*we* inhabit. For abstractionists, however, actuality
*is* a special property that distinguishes exactly one possible
world from all others -- the actual world is the only world that
happens to *obtain*; it is the one and only way things could be
that is the way things as a whole, in fact, *are*. However, for
most abstractionists, the distinctiveness of the actual world does not
lie simply in its actuality but in its ontological comprehensiveness:
the actual world encompasses all that there is. In a word: most
abstractionists are *actualists*.
Actualism
is the thesis that everything that there is, everything that has
*being* in any sense, is actual. In terms of possible worlds:
Everything that exists in any world exists in the actual
world.[32]
Possibilism, by contrast, is the denial of actualism; it is the
thesis that there are *mere possibilia*, i.e., things that are
not actual, things that exist in other possible worlds but fail to
exist in the actual world. Concretists are obviously not actualists
(on their understanding of 'actual', at any
rate).[33]
Indeed, for the concretist, since individuals are worldbound,
everything that exists in any nonactual possible world is distinct
from everything in the actual world. However, although possibilism and
abstractionism are entirely compatible -- Zalta (1983), for
example, embraces both positions -- abstractionists *tend*
to be actualists. The reason for this is clear: Basic possible world
semantics appears to be committed to possibilism and abstractionism
promises a way of avoiding that commitment.
The specter of possibilism first arises with regard to
*non-actual* possible worlds, which would seem by definition to
be prime examples of mere *possibilia*. However, we have just
seen that the abstractionist can avoid this apparent commitment to
possibilism by defining possible worlds to be SOAs of a certain sort.
So defined, non-actual worlds, i.e., worlds that fail to obtain, can
still actually exist. Hence, the commitment of basic possible world
semantics to non-actual worlds does not in itself threaten the
actualist's ontological scruples.
However, the specter of possibilism is not so easily exorcised. For
non-actual worlds are not the only, or even the most compelling,
examples of mere *possibilia* that seem to emerge out of basic
possible world semantics. For instance, it is quite reasonable to
think that evolution could have taken a very different course (or, if
you like, that God could have made very different creative choices)
and that there could have been individuals -- call them
*Exotics* -- that are biologically very different from all
actually existing individuals; so different, in fact, that no actually
existing thing could possibly have been an Exotic. According to basic
possible world semantics, the sentence 'There could have been
Exotics' or, more formally,
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | *[?]*xEx* |
is true just in case there is a world in which
'[?]*xEx*' is true, i.e., when all is said and
done, just in case:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | There is a possible world **w** and an individual **a**
in **w** such that **a** is an Exotic in **w**, |
which, a bit less formally, is simply to say that
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | Some individual is an Exotic in some possible world. |
However, since no actually existing thing could have been an Exotic,
anything that is an Exotic in some possible world cannot be among the
things that exist in the actual world. Thus, the truth conditions that
basic possible world semantics assigns to some of our intuitive modal
beliefs appear to entail that there are non-actual individuals as well
as non-actual possible worlds. Defining possible worlds as SOAs
provided a way for the actualist to embrace non-actual worlds without
compromising her actualism. But how is the actualist to understand the
apparent commitment to non-actual *individuals* in such truth
conditions as (25)?
Answers that have been given to this question represent a rather deep
divide between actualist abstractionists. On the one hand,
"trace" actualists introduce actually existing entities
into their ontologies that can play the role of mere *possibilia*
in (25) and its like. Trace actualists come in two varieties:
*new* actualists and *haecceitists*. New actualists like
Linsky and Zalta (1996) and Williamson (1998, 2000, 2013) argue that,
in fact, all individuals are actually existing, necessary beings but
not all of them are necessarily *concrete*. Some concrete
individuals -- those traditionally (mis-)categorized
as contingent beings -- are
only contingently concrete. Likewise, some non-concrete individuals
-- those, like possible Exotics, traditionally (mis-)categorized
as contingently non-actual mere
*possibilia* -- are only contingently
non-concrete.[34]
This novel take on modal metaphysics allows the new actualist to
reinterpret possible world semantics so as to avoid possibilism.
Notably, the domain **d**(**w**) of a world **w** is
understood not as the set of things that exist in **w** -- for
all individuals exist in all worlds -- but the set of things that
are *concrete* in
**w**.[35]
Hence, for the new actualist, the correct truth condition for
(23)
is:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | There is a possible world **w** and an individual **a**
that is (i) concrete in **w** and (ii) an Exotic in **w**. |
On the other hand, haecceitists like Plantinga introduce special
properties -- haecceities -- to similar ends. The haecceity
of an individual **a** is the property of being *that very
individual*, the property **being **a****. A property is a
*haecceity*, then, just in case it is possible that it is the
haecceity of some
individual.[36]
It is a necessary truth that everything has a haecceity. More
importantly, for haecceitists, haecceities are necessary beings. Thus,
not only is it the case that, had any particular individual **a**
failed to exist, its haecceity **ha** would still have
existed, it is also the case that, for any "merely
possible" individual **a**, there is an actually existing
haecceity that would have been **a**'s haecceity had **a**
existed. More generally (and more carefully) put: Necessarily, for any
individual **a**, (i) **a** has a haecceity **h** and (ii)
necessarily, **h** exists.
Like the new actualists, then, the metaphysics of the haecceitists
enables them to systematically reinterpret possible world semantics in
such a way that the truth conditions of modal discourse are expressed
solely in term of actually existing entities of some sort rather than
actual and non-actual individuals. More specifically, for the
haecceitist, the domain **d**(**w**) of a world **w** is
taken to be the set of haecceities that are *exemplified* in
**w**, that is, the set of haecceities **h** such that **w**
includes ****h**'s being exemplified**. Likewise, the
**w**-extension of a (1-place) predicate p is taken to be a
*set* of haecceities -- intuitively, those haecceities
that are coexemplified in **w** with the property expressed by
p. So reinterpreted, the truth condition for
(23)
is:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | There is a possible world **w** and a haecceity **h**
that is (i) exemplified in **w** and (ii) coexemplified with the
property **being an Exotic** in **w**. |
By contrast, "no-trace", or *strict*, actualists
like Prior (1957), Adams (1981), and Fitch (1996) hew closely to the
intuition that, had a contingent individual **a** failed to exist,
there would have been absolutely no trace, no metaphysical vestige, of
**a** -- neither **a** itself in some non-concrete state
nor any abstract proxy for **a**. Hence, unlike trace actualism,
there are no such vestiges in the actual world of objects that are not
actual but only could have been. The logical consequences for no-trace
actualists, however, appear to be severe; at the least they cannot
provide a standard
compositional
semantics for modal languages, according to which (roughly) the
meaning of a sentence is determined by its logical form and the
meanings of its semantically significant constituents. In particular,
if there is nothing to play the role of a "possible
Exotic", nothing that is, or represents, an Exotic in some other
possible world -- a mere *possibile*, a contingently
non-concrete individual, an unexemplified haecceity -- then the
strict actualist cannot provide standard, compositional truth
conditions for quantified propositions like
(23)
that yield the intuitively correct truth value. For, understood
compositionally,
(23)
is true if and only if '[?]*xEx*' is true at
some world **w**. And that, in turn, is true at **w** if and
only if '*Ex*' is true at **w** for some value of
'*x*'. But, as just noted, for the strict actualist,
there is no such value of '*x*'. Hence, for the
strict actualist, '*Ex*' is false at **w** for all
values of '*x*' and, hence,
(23)
is false as well. (These issues are explored in much greater detail
in the entry on the
possibilism-actualism debate.)
#### 2.2.4 A Brief Assessment of Abstractionism
Like concretism, abstractionism provides a reasonably clear and
intuitive account of what worlds are and what it is to exist in them,
albeit from a decidedly different perspective. Although, as noted in
SS2.2.2,
the fact that modality is a primitive in abstractionist definitions
of possible worlds arguably compromises its ability to provide
semantically illuminating truth conditions for the modal operators,
those definitions can be taken to illuminate the connection between
our basic modality concepts and the evocative notion of a possible
world that serves as such a powerful conceptual tool for constructing
philosophical arguments and for analyzing and developing solutions to
philosophical problems. In this regard, particularly noteworthy are:
Plantinga's (1974) influential work on
the ontological argument
and the free will defense against
the problem of evil;
Adams' (1974, 1981) work on
actualism
and actuality; and Stalnaker's (1968, 1987) work on
counterfactual conditionals
and
mental content.
A number of important objections have been voiced in regard to
abstractionism. Some of these are addressed in the document
Problems with Abstractionism.
### 2.3 Combinatorialism
As its name might suggest, our third approach --
*combinatorialism* -- takes possible worlds to be
recombinations, or rearrangements, of certain metaphysical simples.
Both the nature of simples and the nature of recombination vary from
theory to theory. Quine (1968) and Cresswell (1972), for example,
suggest taking simples to be space-time points (modeled, perhaps, as
triples of real numbers) and worlds themselves to be arbitrary sets of
such points, each set thought of intuitively as a way that matter
could be distributed throughout space-time. (A world *w*, so
construed, then, is *actual* just in case a space-time point
*p* is a member of *w* if and only if *p* is occupied
by matter.) Alternatively, some philosophers define states a world
could be in, and possible worlds themselves, simply to be maximally
consistent sets of
sentences[37]
in an expressively rich language --
"recombinations", certainly, of the sentences of the
language. (Lewis refers to this view as *linguistic
ersatzism*.[38])
However, the predominant version of combinatorialism finds its
origins in Russell's (1918/1919) theory of
logical atomism
and Wittgenstein's (1921, 1922, 1974) short but enormously
influential
*Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus*.
A suggestive paper by Skyrms (1981) spelling out some of the ideas in
the *Tractatus*, in turn, inspired a rich and sophisticated
account that is developed and defended in great detail in an important
series of books and articles by D. M. Armstrong (1978a, 1978b, 1986a,
1989, 1997, 2004b, 2004c). In this section, we present a somewhat
simplified version of combinatorialism that draws primarily upon
Armstrong's work. Unless otherwise noted, this is what we shall mean
by 'combinatorialism' for the remainder.
#### 2.3.1 The Basic Ontology of Combinatorialism
Wittgenstein famously asserted that the world is the totality of
*facts*, not of things (*ibid.*, SS1.1). The
combinatorialist spells out Wittgenstein's aphorism explicitly in
terms of an ontology of objects (a.k.a., particulars), universals
(a.k.a., properties and relations), and facts. Facts are either atomic
or molecular. Every atomic fact -- *Sachverhalt*, in the
language of the *Tractatus* -- is "constituted"
by an *n*-place relation (= property, for *n*=1) and
*n* objects that *stand in*, or *exemplify*, that
relation. Thus, for example, suppose that John is 1.8 meters tall.
Then, in addition to John and the property **being 1.8 meters
tall**, there is for the combinatorialist the atomic fact of John's
exemplifying that property. More generally, atomic facts exist
according to the following principle:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **AF** | | Objects **a**1, ..., **a***n*
exemplify *n*-place relation **R** iff there is the fact
**a1, ..., a*n*'s exemplifying R**
([**R**,**a**1,...,**a***n*], for
short). |
Say that the **a***i* are the *constituent
objects* of the fact in question and **R** its *constituent
universal*, and that **R** and the **a***i*
all *exist in*
[**R**,**a**1,...,**a***n*].
A fact is *monadic* if its constituent universal is a property.
A *molecular* fact **f** is a conjunction of atomic facts.
Its constituent objects and universals are exactly those of its
conjuncts and an entity exists in **f** just in case it exists in
one of its conjuncts. (For simplicity, we stipulate that an atomic
fact has (only) itself as a conjunct and, hence, is
"trivially" molecular.) One fact **f** *includes*
another **g** if every conjunct of **g** is a conjunct of
**f**. (Note, importantly, that inclusion, so defined, is quite
different from the homonymous notion defined in the discussion of
abstractionism above -- most notably, combinatorial inclusion is
not a *modal* notion.) For purposes below, say that an object
**a** is a *bare particular in* a molecular fact **f** if
there is no monadic conjunct of **f** of which **a** is the
constituent object, no conjunct of the form **a exemplifies F**,
for some property **F**. **a** is a *bare particular* if
it is bare in every molecular fact. Intuitively, of course, a bare
particular is an unpropertied object.
There is no upper bound on the "size" of a molecular fact
and no restriction on which atomic facts can form a conjunction; for
any atomic facts at all, there is a molecular fact whose conjuncts are
exactly those facts. As a first cut, then, we can spell out
Wittgenstein's characterization of the (actual) world as the totality
of facts by defining the world to be the largest molecular fact, the
molecular fact that includes all of the atomic
facts.[39]
Although objects and universals are typically included along with
facts in the basic ontology of combinatorialism, facts are typically
considered more fundamental. Indeed, taking his queue from the
Tractarian thesis that the world consists of facts, not things,
Armstrong (1986a, 577) argues that facts alone are ontologically basic
and that objects and universals are simply "aspects of,
abstractions from" facts. Accordingly, he calls the object
constituent of a fact of the form [**P**,**a**] a
"thin" particular, an object "considered in
abstraction from all its [intrinsic] properties" (1993, 433);
and where **N** is the conjunction of "all the non-relational
properties of that particular (which would presumably include
**P**), the atomic fact **a's exemplifying N** itself is the
corresponding "thick" particular " (*ibid*.,
434 -- we will occasionally use italics to distinguish a thin
particular *a* from the corresponding thick particular **a**).
Though not all combinatorialists of every stripe buy into Armstrong's
"factualist" metaphysics (Bricker 2006), they do generally
agree that facts are more fundamental, at least to the extent that
both the notion of a bare particular, i.e., an object exemplifying no
properties, and that of an unexemplified property are considered
incoherent; insofar as they exist at all, the existence of both
particulars and universals depends on their "occurring" in
some fact or other. Whatever their exact ontological status, it is an
important combinatorialist thesis that exactly *what* objects
and universals exist is ultimately a matter for natural science, not
metaphysics, to decide.
Objects can be either simple or complex. An object is *simple* if
it has no proper parts, and *complex* otherwise. Like objects,
universals too divide into simple and complex. A universal is simple
if it has no other universal as a constituent, and complex otherwise.
Complex universals accordingly come in two varieties: conjunctive
-- the constituents of which are simply its conjuncts -- and
structural. A structural universal **U** is one that is exemplified
by a complex object **O**, and its constituents are universals
(distinct from **U**) exemplified by simple parts of **O** that
are relevant to **O**'s being an instance of
**U**.[40]
It is important to note that, for Armstrong, the constituency
relation is not the mereological parthood relation. Rather, complex
universals (hence also complex facts of which they are constituents)
enjoy a "non-mereological mode of composition" (1997,
119-123) that, in particular, allows for a richer conception of
their
structure.[41]
(An assumption of our simplified account here will be that both the
*proper part of* relation and the constituency relation are
well-founded. It follows that (i) there is no
*gunk*,
i.e., that every complex object is composed, ultimately, entirely of
simples and (ii) complex universals -- hence the complex facts in
which they are exemplified -- are ultimately
"grounded" in simple facts, i.e., that they cannot be
infinitely decomposed into further complex
universals/facts.[42])
To illustrate the basic idea: in Figure 1, the left-hand diagram
depicts a water molecule **W** comprising an oxygen atom **o**
and two hydrogen atoms **h1** and **h2**.
For the combinatorialist, "thick" particulars like the
molecule itself as well as its constituent atoms are themselves facts:
**o** is the fact [**O**,*o*] in which the universal
**oxygen** (**O**) is exemplified by a thin particular
*o*;[43]
likewise **h1** and **h2**. **W** in
turn comprises those monadic facts and the relational facts
[**B**,**o**,**h**1],
[**B**,**o**,**h**2] wherein the covalent bonding
relation **B** holds between the oxygen atom and the two hydrogen
atoms. The structural universal **Water** itself, then, shares this
structure -- it is, so to say, an *isomorph* consisting of
the monadic universals **O** and **H** and the binary relation
**B**, structured as indicated in the right-hand diagram of Figure
1.[44]
Figure 1: A Water Molecule **W** and the Structural Universal
**Water**
#### 2.3.2 States of Affairs and Recombination
It should be clear from
principle **AF**
that all atomic facts *hold*; that is, all of them reflect
actual exemplification relations. Obviously, however, possibility
encompasses more than what is actual, that is, there are
*possible* facts as well as actual facts; the world's
universals might have been exemplified by its objects very
differently. If they had -- if the world's objects and universals
had combined in a very different way -- there would have been a
very different set of atomic facts and, hence, a very different world.
To spell out the idea of a possible fact, the combinatorialist
introduces the more general notion of an atomic *(combinatorial)
state of affairs*, that is, an entity that simply has the
*form* of an atomic fact -- *n* objects exemplifying
an *n*-place relation -- but without any requirement that
the exemplification relation in question actually holds between them.
More exactly:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **AS** | | For any objects **a**1, ...,
**a***n* and any *n*-place relation **R**,
there is an atomic (combinatorial) state of affairs
**a**1, ..., **a***n*'s exemplifying
**R** (again,
[**R**,**a**1,...,**a***n*], for
short). |
Thus, even if the two hydrogen atoms **h**1 and
**h**2 in a water molecule do not in fact stand in the
covalent bonding relation **B**, there is nonetheless the
(non-factual) state of affairs
[**B**,**h**1,**h**2].
Combinatorialism takes facts to be literal, structured parts of the
physical world. This suggests that a non-factual state of affairs
-- a merely *possible* fact -- must be part of a
merely possible physical world. This idea is at odds with the strong,
scientifically-grounded form of actualism that typically motivates
combinatorialism. Two options are available: The combinatorialist can
follow the (actualist) abstractionists and define states of affairs to
be philosophical or mathematical constructs consisting only of actual
objects, properties, relations, and facts. For example, the state of
affairs
[**R**,**a**1,...,**a***n*] can
simply be identified with the ordered *n*-tuple
<**R**,**a**1,...,**a***n*> .
So long as the combinatorialist is willing to adopt the additional
metaphysical or set theoretic machinery, this sort of approach offers
a way of introducing non-factual states of affairs that does not
involve any untoward ontological commitments to merely possible
entities. Alternatively, following Armstrong (1989, 46-51; 1997,
172-4), the combinatorialist can refuse to grant non-factual
states of affairs any genuine ontological status and adopt a form of
modal fictionalism
that nonetheless permits one to speak *as if* such states of
affairs exist. The exposition to follow will remain largely neutral
between these options.
Constituency for states of affairs is understood as for facts.
Additionally, analogous to molecular facts, there are molecular states
of affairs -- conjunctions of atomic states of affairs. Inclusion
between states of affairs is understood exactly as it is between facts
and being a *bare particular* in a molecular state of affairs
**s** is understood as for facts: **a** is a bare particular in
**s** if there is no monadic conjunct of **s** of the form
****a** exemplifies F**. The notion of recombination is now
definable straightaway:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | **s** is a *recombination* of a molecular state of
affairs **f** =*def*
**s** is a molecular state of affairs whose constituent objects and
constituent universals are exactly those of **f**. **s** is a
*non-trivial* recombination of **f** if it does not include
the same states of affairs as **f**. |
Very roughly then, a *possible world* will be a certain sort of
recombination of (some portion of) the *actual* world, the
molecular fact that includes all of the atomic facts. This idea will
be refined in the following sections.
#### 2.3.3 Structural States of Affairs and Supervenience
Say that a state of affairs is *structural* if it is atomic and
its constituent universal is structural or it is molecular and
includes a structural state of affairs; and say that it is
*simple* otherwise. The difference between structural and simple
universals and states of affairs is particularly significant with
regard to the important concept of *supervenience* (Armstrong
1989, Ch
8).[45]
Entity or entities **S** supervene on entity or entities **R**
if and only if the existence of **R** necessitates that of **S**
(*ibid.*, 103). (Necessitation here is, of course, ultimately to
be spelled out in terms of combinatorial possible worlds.)
Non-structural states of affairs supervene directly on their atomic
conjuncts.[46]
However, things are not in general quite so straightforward for
structural states of affairs. For, although structural states of
affairs are ultimately constituted entirely by simple states of
affairs, unlike non-structural states of affairs, structural states of
affairs typically supervene on more than the totality of their
constituents. For, in many cases, whether or not a structural fact
exists depends not only on the existence of its constituent facts but
also on the *absence* of certain others (Armstrong 1997, 34ff).
For example, as noted in our example above, our water molecule
**W** comprises two further facts in which two hydrogen atoms
**h**1 and **h**2 both stand in the
covalent binding relation with an oxygen atom **o**. However, if
**o** were to bind with a further hydrogen atom
**h**3, then, despite the fact that the constituent
facts of **W** would still hold, **W** would not be water; there
would be no such fact as **W's being
water**.[47]
Rather, **W** would exist only as a complex part of a hydronium
ion; the new binding [**B**,**o**,**h**3] would,
so to say, "spoil" the instantiation of **Water**.
Thus, more generally, whether or not a structural state of affairs
**S** exists in a possible world typically requires something over
and above its constituent states of affairs being "welded
together" in the right sort of way (Armstrong, 1997, 36); it
requires also that there be no relevant "spoilers" for
**S**.[48]
Armstrong draws directly on the initial passages of the
*Tractatus*[49]
for the necessary apparatus: a structural state of affairs **S**
in any possible world **w**, supervenes, not simply on its
constituent atomic states of affairs but on a certain
*higher-order* state of affairs **T****w**,
namely, the state of affairs that the (first-order) atomic states of
affairs of **w** are *all the (first-order) atomic states of
affairs* and, hence, that **w** includes no spoilers for
**S**. Armstrong (*ibid.*, 35, 134-5, 196-201)
calls **Tw** the *totality* state of affairs for
the atomic states of affairs of
**w**.[50]
#### 2.3.4 Combinatorial Possible Worlds and Existence Therein
The idea of possibility being rooted in arbitrary recombinations of
the actual world, rearrangements of its objects and universals, is
intuitively appealing. Clearly, however, not just any such
recombination can count as a possible world. Some states of affairs
are intuitively impossible -- [**being an elephant**,
**e**], where **e** is an individual electron, say -- and
some pairs of states of affairs, while individually possible, are not
*com*possible -- the states of affairs [**having 1kg
mass**, **a**] and [**having 2kg mass**, **a**] for a given
object **a**, or, for a given mereological sum **m** of simples,
the states of affairs [**being a baboon**, **m**] and [**being
a hoolock**, **m**]. But nothing that has been said rules out the
existence of recombinations of the actual world -- rearrangements
of its objects and universals -- that include such states of
affairs. Obviously, however, such recombinations cannot be thought to
represent genuinely possible worlds. Of course, like the
abstractionist, the combinatorialist could simply stipulate as part of
the definition that all legitimate recombinations must be genuinely
*possible* states of affairs of a certain sort, genuinely
*possible* recombinations. But this will not do. For, like
concretism, combinatorialism purports to be a *reductive*
account of modality, an account of possible worlds that does not
depend ultimately on modal notions (see Armstrong 1989,
33).[51]
Here the distinction between simple and structural states of affairs
together with the combinatorialist's strong notion of supervenience
come to the fore. For, given that structural facts supervene on simple
facts and the actual totality fact **T**@, the actual
world can be defined more parsimoniously as the molecular fact that
includes all the *simple* atomic facts and the totality fact
**T**@. And at the level of simples, there are no
limitations whatever on recombination (Wittgenstein 1921,
2.062-2.063); hence, any recombination of simple objects and
universals is by definition considered possible. Thus Armstrong
(1986a, 579):
>
> The simple individuals, properties, and relations may be combined in
> *all* ways to yield possible [simple] atomic states of affairs,
> provided only that the form of atomic facts is respected. That is the
> combinatorial idea.
>
Worlds, in particular, can be defined as special cases of such
recombinations, together with appropriate totality facts. To state
this, we need a condition that ensures the existence of a unique
actual world:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | States of affairs **s** and **t** are identical iff they
include exactly the same states of affairs. |
Given this, we have:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | The (combinatorial) actual world =*def*
the fact @ that includes exactly all
the simple atomic facts and the totality state of affairs
**T**@ for the conjunction of those facts. |
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **AW3** | | **w** is a (combinatorial) possible world =*def*
**w** is a recombination of the
simple atomic facts of the actual world conjoined with the totality
fact **Tw** for that
recombination.[52] |
Armstrong's ontological commitments are notoriously rather slippery
but, given **AW3**, a reasonably complete notion of existence in a
world is forthcoming. First, let us note that, for Armstrong, the
"combinatorial idea" yields a substantial metaphysical
thesis, as well, viz., the *ontological free lunch* (1986,
12ff), i.e., the thesis that "[w]hat supervenes is no addition
of being"; that "whatever supervenes ... is not something
ontologically additional to the subvenient entity or entities."
Hence, for Armstrong, it appears that *simple* states of
affairs and their constituents exist most fundamentally and that the
existence of more complex entities is in a certain sense
*derivative*. Thus:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | Entity **a** exists *fundamentally* in
(combinatorial) possible world **w** =*def*
(i) **a** is a simple state of
affairs that **w** includes or (ii) **a** is a constituent or
conjunct of an entity that exists fundamentally in **w**. |
Given this, existence in a world generally -- both fundamental
and derivative -- both for simples and
(*first-order*[53])
non-simples alike, is definable as follows:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **AE3** | | Entity **a** exists in (combinatorial) possible world
**w** =*def* either (i)
**a** exists fundamentally in **w** or (ii) **a** supervenes
on entities that exist in **w**. |
Semantics receives rather short shrift in Armstrong's version of
combinatorialism -- at least, semantics in the model theoretic
sense of
SS1.2
-- but, as it has played an important role in our discussion of
concretism and abstractionism, we note briefly how the ontology of
combinatorialism might be taken to populate a possible world
interpretation of the language of modal predicate logic. Specifically,
we can take the range of the modal operators -- understood,
semantically, as quantifiers -- to be all of the combinatorial
possible worlds in the sense of **AW3**. The domain
**d**(**w**) of each world **w** is the set of all simple and
complex objects that exist in **w** according to **AE3** and the
**w**-extension **I**p(**w**) of a predicate
p expressing a simple or complex universal **R** is the set of
all *n*-tuples, <**a**1, ...,
**a***n*> such that the atomic fact
[**R**,**a**1,...,**a***n*] exists
in **w**.
#### 2.3.5 Analytic and Emergent Modalities; Essential Properties
There are, then, for the combinatorialist no intrinsically modal
phenomena; there are just all of the various worlds that exist on
unrestricted combinatorial grounds alone. Ultimately, all genuine
possibilities, simple or not, are just states of affairs that exist in
these combinatorial worlds in the sense of **AE3**. However, it is
not immediately as clear how to understand many intuitive
*necessities*/*impossibilities* involving complex
structural universals, for example, the impossibilities noted in the
previous section, viz., that something simultaneously have a mass of
both 1kg and 2kg or simultaneously be both a baboon and a hoolock.
Likewise, it is not entirely clear how combinatorialism accounts for
intuitive facts about essential properties, such as that our water
molecule **W** is essentially water or that Algol is essentially a
dog. Combinatorialists argue that such modal facts can nevertheless be
explained in terms that require no appeal to primitive modal features
of the world (Armstrong 2004b, 15).
**Analytic Modalities.** Armstrong argues that many
intuitive modal facts -- notably, the impossibility of an object
exemplifying more than one determinate of the same determinable
-- can be understood ultimately as logical, or analytic,
modalities that are grounded in meaning rather than any primitive
modal features of reality. For example, intuitively it is impossible
that an object simultaneously exemplify the structural properties
**having 2kg mass** and **having 1kg mass**. The combinatorial
reason for this (cf. Armstrong 1989, 79) is that, for an object
**a** to exemplify the former property is simply for there to be a
division of **a** into two wholly distinct parts, both of which
exemplify the latter property. Moreover, this division into parts is
entirely arbitrary, that is, for *any* part **a**1
of **a** exemplifying **having 1kg mass**, there is a (unique)
part **a**2 of **a** wholly distinct from
**a**1 that also exemplifies that property. It follows
that, if our 2kg object **a** itself *also* exemplifies
**having 1kg mass**, then, as **a** is a part of itself, there
must be a 1kg part of **a** that is wholly distinct from **a**.
And that is analytically false, false "solely by virtue of the
meaning we attach to" the word 'part' (*ibid*.,
80).[54]
**Emergent Modalities.** Combinatorialism purports to
explain a further class of intuitive modal facts as features that
simply "emerge" from facts about structural
properties.[55]
The discussion of structural states of affairs and supervenience
above provides an example. Let us suppose the actual world
**w**1 includes our water molecule **W** from Figure
1 plus a further hydrogen atom **h**3. In this world,
only **h**1 and **h**2 bind to **o**.
Hence, this world includes the state of affairs **W's being water**
but not the state of affairs **I's being hydronium** in which
**o**, **h**1, **h**2, and
**h**3 are so bonded as to constitute a hydronium ion
**I**. Conversely, however, given the unrestricted nature of
recombination, there is a world **w**2 that includes
**W** structured as it actually is in **w**1 but
which also includes the spoiler
[**B**,**o**,**h**3] -- where **o** and
**h**3 bond -- and, hence, the structural state of
affairs **I's being hydronium**. Thus, the absence of
[**B**,**o**,**h**3] in **w**1
enables the emergence of **W's being water** and precludes **I's
being hydronium** whilst its presence in **w2**
enables the emergence of the latter but precludes the former. As a
consequence, it is impossible that the states of affairs **W's being
water** and **I's being hydronium**
coexist.[56]
Figure 2: **W**'s being water and (given a bond between **o**
and **h**3) **I**'s being hydronium
Although more dramatic, large-scale examples of incompatible states of
affairs -- such as a thing's being simultaneously both a baboon
and a hoolock -- might be vastly more complex, there is no
obvious reason why their impossibility could not have the same sort of
combinatorial explanation.
**Essential Properties.** It follows from the
unrestricted nature of recombination that, for any simple object
**a** and simple universal **P**, **a** recombines with
**P** in some worlds and fails to recombine with **P** in
others. Generalizing from this fact, it follows that no simple or sum
of simples has any simple universal or conjunction of simple
universals essentially. It also follows that no such object has any
structural property essentially. For assume **o** is such an object
and that it exemplifies a structural property **P**. Since **P**
is structural, it supervenes on some set of simple states of affairs.
But by the nature of recombination, there are combinatorial worlds in
which those states of affairs do not exist and, hence, in which
**P** doesn't but **o** -- being a simple or a sum of
simples -- does.
Thick particulars like our water molecule **W** don't fare much
better because of the possibility of spoilers. For Armstrong (1997,
35), **W** is simply the conjunction of its constituent states of
affairs. As we've just seen, however, in the presence of spoilers,
that conjunction would exist -- hence, **W** would exist
-- without being **Water**. Hence, it would seem that at least
some properties that, intuitively, are essential to their bearers turn
out not to be for the combinatorialist. The problem is compounded by
the fact that some intuitively non-essential properties of some thick
particulars are arguably essential for the combinatorialist. The shape
properties of a thick particular **A**, for example, would seem to
be a function of its constituent states of affairs. Moreover, the
exemplification of such properties are not obviously subject to
spoilers the way that natural kind properties like **Water** are.
Hence, as **A** is identical to the conjunction of its constituent
states of affairs, it would seem that it will have the same shape in
any world in which it exists, i.e., it will have that shape
essentially.
That said, combinatorialism can arguably provide a reasonably robust
analysis of intuitions about the essential properties of ordinary
thick particulars like dogs or persons. Such objects can be taken to
be temporal successions of sums of simples and each sum in the
succession as its temporal parts. Sums in the same rough temporal
neighborhood are composed of roughly the same simples and are
structured in roughly the same way. Similarities between such objects
across worlds in turn determine counterpart relations. Following
Lewis, the essential properties of such objects can then be identified
with those properties exemplified by (all of the temporal parts of)
all of its counterparts in every world in which it exists (Armstrong
1997, 99-103,
169).[57]
#### 2.3.6 Fewer Things and Other Things: Modified Combinatorialism
Since a possible world is a recombination of the actual world and
every recombination includes states of affairs involving every simple
individual and every simple universal, by **AE3**, every simple
entity exists in every world. Hence, there could not have been fewer
of them; nor could there have been simples other than the ones there
actually are. In this section, we address this issue and the issue of
contingent existence generally in combinatorialism.
**Fewer things.** Combinatorialism as it stands has no
problem accounting for the general intuition that there could have
been fewer things. We have already noted in
SS2.3.3
and again in
SS2.3.5
how our water molecule **W**, as such, might not have existed.
More generally, given the unrestricted nature of recombination, for
any **a** involving a structural fact **S**, there are
recombinations of the actual world wherein either (a) some of the
relations among **a**'s constituents that are critical to
**S**'s structure fail to be exemplified by those constituents, or
(b) there are further states of affairs included by those
recombinations that act as spoilers for **S**. Consequently, the
combinatorialist seems to have no difficulty explaining how there
might have been fewer water molecules, humans, etc.
Intuitively, however, there isn't anything in the idea of a simple
that suggests that simples are necessary beings -- especially if,
as combinatorialists generally agree, simples are physical things of
some sort and simple universals are properties of, and relations
among, those things. For there is nothing in the nature of a simple
object to suggest that any given simple had to have existed. Likewise,
there is nothing in the nature of a simple universal to suggest it had
to have been exemplified and, hence, on the combinatorialist's own
conception of universals, that it had to exist. Otherwise put, as
simples exist only insofar as they are constituents of facts, there
seems no reason why there couldn't have been a very small number of
facts, indeed, just a single simple, atomic, monadic fact and, hence,
a lone simple object and a lone simple universal.
In fact, however, **AW3** can be easily modified to accommodate
these intuitions without doing any serious violence to
combinatorialist intuitions. Specifically, the combinatorialist can
admit "contracted" worlds in which fewer simples exist by
allowing any recombination of *any* simple fact -- that
is, equivalently, by allowing any state of affairs -- to count as
a possible world:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **AW3'** | | **w** is a (combinatorial) possible world =*def*
**w** is a recombination of some
simple fact **f** conjoined with the totality state of affairs
**Tw** for that recombination. |
**AE3** requires no modification, as it was defined with sufficient
generality above. Under **AW3'**, however, **AE3** entails
that all entities alike -- objects and universals, simple and
structural -- are contingent and, indeed, that every simple
object is the sole constituent of some combinatorial possible world.
**Other things.** Intuitively, not only could there have
been fewer things, there could have been more things or, more
generally, things *other* than those that actually exist. As
above, combinatorialism as it stands seems able to account for many
instances of this intuition: Figure 2 illustrates how a non-actual
hydronium ion **I** might exist in another world. Likewise, there
seems no reason to deny, e.g., that there are rearrangements **w**
of the actual world's simples wherein exist all of the human beings
that actually exist (at, say, 0000GMT 1 January 2013) and more besides
that are composed of simples that, in fact, constitute things other
than human beings (Armstrong 1997,
165).[58]
Combinatorialism also seems able to account for the possibility of
conjunctive and structural universals that are simply rearrangements
of actual simples. It is not implausible to think that such
recombinations can give rise to, say, exotic biological kinds that
have no actual instances (Armstrong 1989, 55-56). Thus, in
particular, combinatorialism seems quite able to provide the truth
condition
(24)
for
(23)
and, hence, can account for some possibilities involving
"missing" universals that, intuitively, ought to be
possible.
However, it is far from clear that such possibilities exhaust the
modal intuition that other things could have existed. Notably,
intuitively, there could have been different *simple*
universals distinct from any that actually exist -- different
fundamental properties of simples, for example. Likewise for simple
objects. Either way, there seems to be nothing in the idea of a simple
object or simple universal that suggests there couldn't have been
simples other than, or in addition to, the simples there are in fact.
But **AW3**' does not allow for this; the simples of every
possible world are a subset of the actual simples and there is no
obvious way of modifying the principle to accommodate the intuition.
Nor is there any obvious way of modifying the principle to accommodate
the intuition in
question.[59]
The combinatorialist could of course abandon actualism and include
merely possible simples into her ontology. Again, she could follow the
new actualists and draw a division between actually concrete and
non-actual, possibly concrete simples; or she could introduce
Plantinga-style haecceities to go proxy for merely possible simples.
But all of these options would be badly out of step with the strong,
naturalist motivations for combinatorialism: There is but the one
physical world comprising all of the facts; recombinations of (at
least some of) those facts -- arbitrary rearrangements of their
simple objects and universals -- determine the possible worlds.
Mere *possibilia*, merely possible non-*concretia*, and
non-qualitative haecceities have no real place in that picture.
The "purest" option for the combinatorialist is simply to
brazen it out and argue that the actual simples are, in fact, all the
simples there could be (Armstrong 1989, 54ff; Driggers 2011,
56-61). A more robust option suggested by Skyrms (1981) makes
some headway against the problem by introducing an
"outer", or "second-grade" realm of
possibility, but at the cost of moving beyond the basic intuitions of
combinatorialism (Armstrong 1989, 60; 1997, 165-167). Finally,
Sider (2005, 681) suggests that combinatorialists who (like Armstrong)
are modal fictionalists can deal with the problem of missing entities
simply by appealing to yet more fictionalism: As the combinatorialist
fiction *already* includes non-actual states of affairs with
actually existing constituents, there seems no reason not to extend
the fiction to include non-actual states of affairs whose constituents
include non-actual particulars and universals. Fictionalism itself,
however, leaves the combinatorialist with the deep problems detailed
by Kim (1986), Lycan (1993), and Rosen
(1993).[60]
#### 2.3.7 A Brief Assessment of Combinatorialism
As with concretism and abstractionism, combinatorialism provides
reasonably clear definitions of possible worlds and existence in a
world and is noteworthy for its attempt to avoid what might be thought
of as the metaphysical excesses of the two competing views. In
contrast to concretism, combinatorialism is staunchly actualist:
instead of an infinity of alternative physical universes, each with
its own unique inhabitants existing as robustly as the inhabitants of
the actual world, the worlds of combinatorialism are simply
rearrangements of the universals and particulars of the actual world;
and commitment even to them might be avoided if some version of
fictionalism is tenable. Likewise, in contrast to abstractionism's
rather rich and unrestrained ontology of SOAs, combinatorialism's
states of affairs are comparatively modest. Moreover, in contrast to
nearly all versions of abstractionism, combinatorialism shares with
concretism the virtue of a reductive theory of modality: Modal
statements, ultimately, are true or false in virtue of how things
stand with respect to worlds that are themselves defined in non-modal
terms.
Combinatorialism's ontological modesty, however, is also a weakness.
For, unlike, the two competing approaches, there are modal intuitions
that the combinatorialist is not easily able to account for, notably,
the intuition that there could have been other things. Additional
difficulties are discussed in the supplemental document
Further Problems for Combinatorialism. |
wright | ## 1. Biographical Sketch
Chauncey Wright was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1830, where
his family had lived since colonial times and where his father had
been a merchant and deputy-sheriff of the county. In 1848, he entered
Harvard College. His education there included two years of advanced
study in natural sciences. Graduating in 1852, he took employment with
the Nautical Almanac office in Cambridge as a computer. This work
constituted his livelihood throughout his life. He concentrated his
work for each year into the last three months of the year, devoting
the rest of the time to his own studies in the logic of science and
metaphysics.
The first philosophical influence on Wright was the Scottish
realist, Sir William Hamilton, whose works formed the curriculum for
Francis Bowen's teaching of philosophy at Harvard. Wright was, however,
greatly influenced by John Stuart Mill's criticism of Hamilton, and the
influence of Mill is evident in Wright's views on utility in science
and ethics. The great conversion of his life came, however, with his
reading of Darwin's *Origin of Species*, published in 1859.
Wright became an American defender of Darwin against his religious
antagonists and also, like Harvard's Asa Gray, against Darwin's
scientific critics in America.
Wright taught for a short time at Harvard, but was not successful as
a lecturer. He was an intellectual conversationalist and
through his participation in a succession of study groups in Cambridge,
influenced Charles S. Peirce, William James, and Oliver Wendell Holmes,
Jr., among others. In spite of his perspicacity and his dispassionate
logical approach to discussion, he also had a gentle, sometimes
angelic, temperament. Children liked him and he was willing to spend
time entertaining them. He was close to Charles Eliot Norton and his
family and exchanged many letters with Norton's sisters. When his
friends were away for extended periods, Wright's spirits and health
suffered. He endured two bouts of deep depression from which his
friends roused him. Among his friends Wright counted both William and
Henry James. William James said of Wright, "Never in a human head
was contemplation more separated from desire." Wright died of a
stroke in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1875, at the age of
45.[3]
## 2. Wright's Philosophy of Science
### 2.1 Verification
Wright's writings are contained in two volumes, *Philosophical
Discussions*, a collection of his articles published in American
and British periodicals of the time, and *Letters*, collected
shortly after his death by his friend James B.
Thayer.[4]
Two fundamental epistemological themes are prominent throughout his
work: 1) sense perception provides the only *evidence* whose authority
all humankind acknowledges, and 2) sense experience alone can produce
the *conviction and permanence* that we believe knowledge should
have. The first point addresses the problem of the diversity of truth
claims, the second the expectation that genuine truth claims not be
superseded. He said:
> All observers not laboring under hallucinations of the
> senses are agreed, or can be made to agree, about facts of sensible
> experience, through evidence toward which the intellect is merely
> passive, and over which the individual will and character have no
> control. Such evidence is not the only kind which produces belief;
> though positivism maintains that it is the only kind which
> *ought* to produce so high a degree of confidence as all minds
> have or can be made to have through their agreements. (*L*
> 96)
Conviction should be accompanied by consensus, and only sense
perception can claim consensus among honest investigators. Wright often
acknowledged there were legitimate sources of *belief* besides
sense perception -- faith or rational introspection for instance
-- but none of them were adequate as sources of
*knowledge*. Wright did not analyze sense experience into sense
data, preferring to trust the holistic character of ordinary experience
and most scientific observation. He introduced no theory of perception
nor did he address the possible contamination of sense experience by
preconceived notions. He rather placed the weight of conviction upon
the employment of verification, which he allied at different times with
scientific method, the philosophical doctrine of induction, and Comte's
positivism. He said that the ancients did not make more progress in
science because "they did not, or could not, verify their
theories" (*PD* 45). Furthermore, all that really
distinguishes metaphysics from science in the modern era is that
metaphysics lacks method and "well-grounded canons of research
and criticism" (*PD* 366).
Wright, then, regarded the nature of verification as evident and
without problems of interpretation. Verification was part of the
solution to the problems that beset theory-making and explanation,
e.g., the competing claims about what theoretical entities exist, and
what factors should militate for or against acceptance of any theory
or cosmology. Asserting the priority of verification as the judge of
theory, Wright said that discussion of the origin of theories or any
claim for their *a priori* character is of no moment in
science, "which maintains strict neutrality toward all
philosophical systems" (*PD* 47). He said that the only
difference between theories and facts is that theories are more
complex and less directly testable (*PD* 44). Unlike later
logical positivists, however, Wright did not hold that terms or
descriptions for theoretical entities were meaningless or to be
resolved only into propositions stating their verifiable
consequences. The unobservables postulated by science are "for
the purpose of giving a material or visual basis to the phenomena and
empirical laws of life in general" (*PD* 164-65),
and some of them will be proven to exist. In this regard, he likened
Darwin's gemmule theory to Newton's corpuscular theory of light and
the molecular theory of matter. In alluding to the difficulty of
representing the extremely small size of molecules as measured by
Thomson, Wright said:
> But there is no reason to doubt that in every such molecule
> there are still subordinate parts and structures; or that, even in
> these parts, a still finer order of parts and structures exists, at
> least to the extent of assimilated growth and *simple* division.
> Mr. Darwin supposes such growths and divisions in the vital gemmules.
> (*PD* 166)
The important thing about hypothesized unobservables is that they be
related to actual phenomena in such a way as to have verifiable
consequences.
Even at this, unobservables should not be specialized natures or
forces taken to account just for certain phenomena. This was,
according to Wright, the problem with scholastic substantial forms
(*PD* 166-67). His criticism of metaphysical concepts was
that they are empirically poor; they do not link different phenomena
and do not generate predictions that can be verified at the level of
the tangible and visible. Unlike early modern critics of scholastic
metaphysical concepts, Wright did not claim that scientific concepts
are by comparison clear and simple. Indeed, theoretical entities in
modern science can be hard to represent to ourselves because of the
limitations of our conceptions to perceptible forms and properties
(*PD* 166). Wright speculated that there were "orders of
forces" between the physico-chemical and the vital, just as
there are intermediate phenomena between the vegetative functions of
an animal and sensibility, i.e., sensation and perception. But since
sensibility presents the elements from which conceptions of size and
movement must come, our conceptions of forces and hidden elements are
limited to the sensible (*PD* 167). There are thus areas of
nature we would investigate that are largely inaccessible to us
because of empirical limitations. Wright did not resort to
reductionism to bridge this gap in our knowledge. He said, "Can
sensibility and the movements governed by it be derived directly by
chemical synthesis from the forces of inorganic elements? It is
probable, both from analogy and direct observation, that they
cannot" (*PD* 167). To determine what theoretical
entities are real is difficult but is nevertheless the task of
science, which always concerns itself with
facts.[5]
Given the realist tendency of his treatment of unobservables, indirect
verification is an important part of Wright's conception of the
empirical basis of all knowledge. The theory of gravity, which Wright
takes to be proven, "fails to become a fact in the proper
sense" because it can never be verified by direct and immediate
sensory activity. Its truth must be verified indirectly. He said:
> Modern science deals then no less with theories than with
> facts, but always as much as possible with the verification of
> theories, -- if not to make them facts by simple verification
> through experiment and observation, at least to prove their truth by
> indirect verification (*PD* 45).
Wright did not elaborate upon the difference between direct and indirect
verification in actual practice. He had much more to say about differences in
method between science and philosophy. He believed that all branches of
knowledge had to follow the method of verification belonging to
science. The "philosophy of method" is incomplete, however,
in that it cannot say what constitutes verification in all the
departments of knowledge. Because there is no "complete inventory
of our primary sources of knowledge," there can be disagreement
as to what constitutes a legitimate appeal to observation or what is a
real verification (*PD* 45). Platonists or rationalists claim
verification for their theories because they have made an observation
of what reason reveals to them. In fact, they have made an induction
from rational introspection (*PD* 46). The positivists' claim,
which Wright endorsed, is simply that "verification by reason
settles nothing" and that only data from sensible experience are
reliable enough to admit ideas into the range of what is held to be
true.
Wright added to this that verification means empirical judgment made
upon *deduction* of consequences, not induction either from
sense data or examination of self-consciousness (*PD* 47).
Nevertheless, even science that aims at a complete empiricism must
admit some "ideal or transcendental elements." In every
case, however, these elements must yield consequences that are
testable, either by themselves or in conjunction with empirically
derived notions (*PD* 47). For example, from Wright's
standpoint, the cosmological theory that the universe is developing,
not just changing, might be a plausible interpretation of the data
available to astronomers of his day. But he thought the notion of
development relies implicitly on the idea of an end or culmination. So
this "development theory," which he calls
"transcendental," must still submit to empirical test
(*PD* 17, 118). He denied Kant's division of knowledge into
"*data* of experience and *conditions* of
experience" and so did not admit the transcendental in the sense
of the rational a priori (*L* 106).
### 2.2 Induction
Despite Wright's distinguishing verification from induction, the
latter, nevertheless, played an important role in his philosophy of
science. Induction is relevant to his views of what makes for a
rigorous science and what constitutes truth in science. Wright did not
think it informative to contrast intuition and induction, because they
do not refer to different ultimate grounds of belief (*PD*
373). Intuition is "rapid, instinctive judgment, whether in the
objective sensible perception of relatively concrete matters, or in
the most abstract" (*PD* 372). Intuition is properly
contrasted to inference, i.e., reasoning, whether inductive or
deductive. 'Inductive,' then, refers to the a posteriori
*source* of reasoning, i.e., from evidence. It does not refer
to a procedure for generalizing from evidence. He said, "In
their primary signification and in this connection the terms
'induction' and 'inductive' refer directly to
evidences, and not to any special means and processes of collating and
interpreting them" (*PD* 372). So, induction may begin
from a variety of sources. What philosophers, either Platonist or
Cartesian, usually call intuition he understood to be induction from
the data of self-consciousness.
Even induction from sense experience is not of one type. It may
start with evidence taken from different levels of perceptual and
experiential complexity and is at work at different stages of an
investigation. This approach to induction is guided by the character of
scientific knowledge itself, which Wright understood to be the relating
of particular facts to more general ones (*PD* 205-206). But it
also follows the character of natural phenomena. In biology in
particular, the new science of evolution concerns the "external
economy of life" and thus must investigate an accumulation of
related facts of observation at the level of secondary causes
(*PD* 99-100). Induction may come from ordinary experience,
experiment, or the inspections of the field naturalist. He said,
"Inductions are still performed for the most part unconsciously
and unsystematically.... But when and however ideas are developed
science cares nothing, for it is only by subsequent tests of sensible
experience that ideas are admitted into the pandects of science"
(*PD* 47).
For Wright, no axioms of science can be absolute. He said:
> But all that is really implied in the name [axiom] is that
> truths when *called* axioms are *used* for the deductive
> proof of other truths, and that their own proof is not involved in the
> process. This does not deny, however, that they may be, as truths, the
> conclusions of other processes; to wit, the inductions of experience.
> If they are, then the only ultimate truths are the particulars of
> concrete experience, and no postulate or general assumption is inherent
> in science until its proceedings become systematic, or the truths
> already reached give direction to further research (*L*
> 109).
In this passage, axioms are not foundational in an
epistemological sense. We seek simple principles of physical reality
but must be wary of taking them as foundations in the sense of
ultimate simple facts. The only ultimate in knowledge is recourse to
the empirical in verification. Though verification depends on
deduction, it does not depend on absolutely true starting points of
deduction to yield reliable knowledge. This part of Wright's view
reflects his assimilation of the positivist understanding of science
as a taxonomy of practical experience with nature.
### 2.3 Positivism
Several issues were involved in the view of science as a taxonomy or
grammar. The influential French positivist, Auguste Comte, along with
scientific positivists like Mach, distrusted theoretical concepts in
science because they saw that these concepts rely on elements of
practical
experience.[6]
A prime example was the relation of the concept of gravity to the
experience of weight on the surface of the earth. Comte said that
gravitation is a "general fact" which is itself "a
mere extension of [a fact] which is perfectly familiar to us, and
which we therefore say that we know; -- the weight of bodies on
the surface of the earth" (*Comte* 28-29). Positivists
believed we cannot avoid the anthropomorphic origin of theoretical
concepts. It had, however, become clear to positivists who were
actually engaged in the practice of science that the structure of a
science is what sustains prediction, not the meaning
of the theoretical terms of the science. A system of principles
constitutes a logical form of explanation, and the ability of the
system of principles to link disparate phenomena, more than concepts,
is the truth in science. As a result, descriptions of the
logical character of a science come to the fore in discussions of
theory.
Wright's emphasis on verification, his pluralism about induction, and
his focus on the logical character of scientific principles together
show that he had absorbed important aspects of scientific
positivism. He often highlighted scientific theory as classificatory
(*PD* 363) and emphasized the relating of higher and lower
levels of generality as the hallmark of science. He referred to the
positivists often and to Comte in particular. In a passage that
parallels Auguste Comte, Wright said that every scientific distinction
is of value in classification and "must coincide with and be of
use as a sign of other distinctions -- that is, be a mark of the
things distinguished by it" (*PD*
370).[7]
This passage points to Wright as a link between Comte's positivism and
C.S. Peirce, who believed that concepts are indexical signs. Although
he had no semiotic theory, Wright's view of scientific discourse as a
device substituting for useless thought made him sensitive to the role
of signs (*PD* 280). Wright also identified the objective value
of science with its use. He meant by this "its relatedness or
ulterior value, whether as leading to other and wider ranges of
knowledge, or as a discipline of the mind, or even as leading to
'bread and butter'" (*PD* 282). Peirce, as is
well-known, insisted that the meaning of a concept *is* its use
or effect. In contrast, Wright believed theoretical statements have
meaning other than their effects, but the truth of the statements is
judged by whether predicted effects or results are
verified.[8]
His own approach to signs is evident in his speculation, undertaken
at the urging of Darwin, about the origin of self-consciousness. Here
Wright treated concepts as images. He traced the emergence of
self-consciousness in terms of human awareness of different kinds of
signs (usually vocal, he said) that recall images in thought. The
images themselves act as signs when a human being reasons, but
"with reference to the more vivid outward signs, they are, in the
animal mind, merged in the things signified, like stars in the light of
the sun" (*PD* 209). The conscious awareness of the
difference between outward and inward signs is crucial to human
awareness, he believed. This awareness may have come with the
"consciousness of simultaneous internal and external
suggestion" and the recognition of the outward sign as a
substitute for the inward sign (*PD* 210). The key to
rationality is the outward sign itself, i.e., elements of language,
being made the object of attention (*PD*
206).[9]
It is worth noting that, in a letter of 1869, Wright used the term
consilience to explain the advantages of positivism over the
"older
philosophy."[10]
Positivism, he said, is a system of "universal methods,
hypotheses, and principles" founded on the sciences. It is not a
universal science itself but must be "coextensive with actual
knowledge, and exhibit the consilience of the sciences" (L,
141). Consilience was a term used by William Whewell in 1858 to
describe the coherence and mutual consistency of different scientific
disciplines as they develop. This coherence, for Whewell, was a test
of the truth of the
sciences.[11]
In summary, Wright's understanding of
science and its method are distinguished by (1) his refusal to theorize about sense data
and his consequent grounding of empiricism in the type of data
available to everyday perceiving, (2) his nuanced treatment of
induction, which rejects Cartesian starting points, and (3) his
combination of verification with methodological realism about theoretical
entities.
## 3. Interpretation of Darwin
Wright was in advance of his contemporaries in his understanding
of Darwin's change in organisms and species, in part because he
applied the foregoing interpretation of science to Darwin's
theory. Wright highlighted the overall structure of the theory of
evolution, which he believed illustrated the principle of utility. He
also characterized evolutionary change in terms of different levels of
causative and explanatory principles. Natural selection is a
descriptive principle that unifies these other principles in a
comprehensive account. It is a template, a form of explanation, by
which an investigator may be guided in finding how more basic
explanatory principles -- the principles of chemistry and the
laws of inheritance, for instance -- issue in features of living
things observable by direct perception.
Wright said that natural selection is a manifestation of the
all-pervasive principle of utility, which governs adaptation. Utility
he characterized in this way: "Let the questions of the uses of
life, then, be put in this shape: To what ascertainable form or phase
of life is this or that other form or phase of life valuable or
serviceable?" (*L* 274-75). Features or parts of a living
thing are forms or phases of life that serve the organism's more
general functions and its survival. Perception of colors, for instance,
serves to avoid the effects of dispersion of light in perception and to
make possible definition of objects in vision through limits in
sensibility (*L* 279). Using teleological language without
teleological intent, he said, "Colors were invented by Nature to
avoid the confusing effects of dispersion" (*L* 279). The
physical laws of optics in this case lend themselves to an adaptation
useful to living things.
Theorists of evolution are sometimes criticized for offering
'just so' stories of adaptation. How a given serviceable
feature might have evolved is taken as tantamount to how it actually
did evolve. There is, however, a valuable insight about the nature of
evolutionary science to be gleaned from the practice of giving likely
stories of evolution. The general form of explanation by utility is
more important than which particular explanation by natural selection
is advanced to explain a feature or structure. At this very early
stage of reception of Darwin's theory, Wright had already realized
this. In correspondence with Darwin, Wright said, "The inquiry
as to which of several real uses is the *one* through which
natural selection has acted for the development of any faculty or
organ ... has for several years seemed to me a somewhat less
important question than it seemed formerly and still appears to most
thinkers on the subject" (*L* 335). Wright thought there
might be a plurality of uses for the same feature in the history of an
organism. Sometimes these uses are contemporaneous; at other times
they succeed one another in the course of evolution. Wright believed
that thinking in terms of natural selection would shed light on
physiological questions and connect chemical and physical explanations
to the more complicated phenomena of life (*PD* 296). He
realized that natural selection promised to be a research program for
investigation that would unify biological science.
Wright strongly criticized Herbert Spencer's philosophy of
evolution, both because of its excessive claims for the range of
evolution and because of Spencer's understanding of evolution as a
force or operative cause. There is no Law of Evolution applicable to
nature and civilization. Spencer's examples drawn from the history of
civilization are not truly scientific and are "liable to the
taint of teleological and cosmological conception." (*PD*
73). Wright said, "To us Mr. Spencer's speculation seems but the
abstract statement of the cosmological conceptions, and that kind of
orderliness which the human mind spontaneously supplies in the absence
of facts sufficiently numerous and precise to justify sound scientific
conclusions" (*PD* 73). In a review of a collection of
essays by Alfred Wallace, the co-discoverer of the principle of natural
selection, Wright said:
> Strictly speaking, Natural Selection is not a cause at all,
> but is the mode of operation of a certain quite limited class of
> causes. Natural Selection never made it come to pass, as a habit of
> nature, that an unsupported stone should move downwards rather than
> upwards. It applies to no part of inorganic nature, and is very limited
> even in the phenomena of organic life (*PD* 108).
Wright held that three different "classes of causes" are
involved in natural selection. The first has to do with the external
conditions of the life of a living thing, its relation to other
organisms and the non-organic world. Second are physical laws; he
mentions specifically principles of mechanics, optics, and acoustics.
These are the best known and most basic of all the principles of
science. They are the principles by which means come to be fitted to
ends, the fulfilling or supplying of the needs of the organism. They
are the laws in accordance with which an arm or wing, an eye or ear,
can be of use. Third are the causes introduced by Darwin, "the
little known phenomena of variation, and their relations to the laws of
inheritance" (*PD* 142). He said there are several
divisions within this third class, distinguishing in particular
diversities always existing in a population from abnormal or unusual
variations. In responding to St. George Mivart's criticism of natural
selection, he said that diversities existing normally in a population
are the source of evolutionary change more than "unusual and
monstrous variations" (*PD* 144). Wright made this point
both to highlight the level at which natural selection operates and to
drive home the role of natural selection as an alternative to
teleological explanations of the usefulness of adaptations. Variations
in inherited characteristics in individuals are not themselves the
direct causes of changes in species. Natural selection is a complex
general fact of which utility is the organizing principle.
Wright's study of Mill's utilitarianism undoubtedly influenced his
understanding of Darwin. Although he rejected Spencer's application of
the principle of evolution to history and civilization, he thought many
aspects of human behavior and psychology could be treated by the
principle of natural selection. Utilitarian ethics provided a model for
him. He used the way humans make moral choices as an analogy for
unconscious selection in the change of human language over time.
Utility is not the motive of moral decision-makers. In the moral agent
thinking rightly according to his principle of virtue, conscience will
display the utilitarian principle. Similarly, there may be a variety of
motives for adoption of a change in linguistic form or behavior:
authority, ease of pronunciation, or distinctness from other
utterances. The adoption of the change is what concerns natural
selection. Natural selection shows the utility implicit unconsciously
in selection by the agency of one of these motives (*L* 244). In
commenting on moral behavior itself, Wright in effect based ethics on
human nature, because of the importance he accorded to habit in human
behavior:
> The pains of disconcerted or frustrated habits, and the
> inherent pleasure there is in following them, are motives which nature
> has put into our wills without generally caring to inform us why; and
> she sometimes decrees, indeed, that her reasons shall not be ours. So
> that, practically, we find ourselves acting the more reasonably and
> more for the real ends of nature, in proportion as these are not our
> immediate motives, but give place to more completely devoted,
> single-purposed, and therefore effective powers, or to instincts and
> habits (*L* 242).
We see in this passage the separation of immediate causes of action,
namely pleasure and pain, from the pattern of action serving nature's
real end, namely utility. Wright thought utilitarianism needed, as a
supplement, a developed philosophy of habit. In a way similar to his
explanation of natural selection, he separated (1) the conditions
militating toward habit, (2) immediate motives for choosing action, and
(3) the larger principle governing selection of
action.[12]
Wright labored in his essays and review articles to make Darwin's
theory understandable to the educated American public by countering the
questions about what kind of explanation natural selection offered.
Realizing that utility as a principle provided the logical form for
Darwin's theory, he insisted that natural selection could not submit to
requirements of demonstration. It could not serve as an axiom from
which deduction starts. Indeed, it should be compared to the principle
of gravitation not as this concept figured in celestial mechanics or
even in the laboratory but as gravitation is manifest "in the
concrete courses of outward nature, in meteorology and physical
geology." Natural selection could be compared to the fundamental
laws of political economy, as these laws actually emerge in the fixing
of value and prices through demand and supply (*PD* 137). Here
we see both the influence of utilitarianism and Wright's belief in the
interdependence of different levels of explanatory principles.
His understanding of induction figures also in his defense of
Darwin. In a review essay of 1870, he commented on the almost universal
acceptance of Darwin's theory by the scientifically minded and
attributed its success to "the skillful combination of inductive
and deductive proofs with hypothesis." This combination must
rely, however, on a preceding simpler induction, he said. The near
simultaneous discovery by Wallace and Darwin of the principle behind
biological evolution testifies to their ability as naturalists to
appreciate "the force of obscure and previously little studied
facts" (*PD* 99). In this context, he also insisted upon
the importance to science of investigating principles operating at a
level in nature comparable to the level of political economy. He said
that to fail to investigate a principle operating at the level of the
whole organism or at the level of populations would go against the
"Aristotelian" tendency of mind of the scientific culture.
The scientific mind cannot regard the intricate system of adaptations
in nature as arbitrary and is not satisfied "so long as any
explanation, not tantamount to arbitrariness itself, has any
probability in the order of nature" (*PD* 100).
In responding both to friends and enemies of Darwin's evolution,
Wright sought to keep clear the minimal meaning of natural selection in
scientific terms. In this way, he did great service to Darwin. Like a
good positivist, he was protecting the new theory of evolution from
annexation into cosmological speculation or alliance with the final
causality that was always a part of natural
theology.[13]
## 4. Cosmology and Argument Against Natural Theology
Wright had interesting and original views about the origin of the
universe and changes in the
heavens.[14]
He saw no evidence in astronomical data or known scientific law for
ascribing purpose or direction to the evolution of the cosmos as a
whole. He believed it most likely that the universe is eternal,
constituting "an order without beginning and without
termination" (*PD* 4). It is governed by the principle of
"counter-movements," which he believed was manifest
already in biological phenomena in the cycle of life and death,
nutrition and decay. Gravitation and heat were the chief forces
involved in counter-movements. Geology manifests the principle, in the
relation of forces producing elevations, compressions, erosion, and
deposits, and it is even more markedly evident in meteorological
phenomena. Wright believed that changes in interstellar space
constituted, in a way similar to meteorology, "cosmical
weather" (*PD* 10). He was concerned that the nebular
hypothesis of the origin of solar systems, presented as a plausible
scientific hypothesis by Laplace and supported by the observations of
Herschel, was too readily taken in support of a "developmental
hypothesis" about the universe, namely that the universe was
created and had evolved toward an end congenial to supporting human
life. For Wright, teleological notions in science were always
anathema. He accepted the nebular hypothesis in terms of the physical
laws that yielded the developmental hypothesis, both in astronomy and
biology. But he called it the "derivative hypothesis" to
connote the fact that "in several classes of phenomena hitherto
regarded as ultimate and inexplicable, physical explanations are
probable and legitimate" (*PD* 17). He meant by this that
scientific cosmology need entertain no extra-scientific principles as
fundamental: "the constitution of the solar system is not
archetypal, as the ancients supposed, but the same corrupt mixture of
law and apparent accident that the phenomena of the earth's surface
exhibit" (*PD* 9).
Wright was aware that the second law of thermodynamics militated
against his cosmology of cosmic weather continuing in an endless
succession of phenomena in infinite time. But he believed the
"tendency to diffuse the mechanical energies of nature"
that was characteristic of the laws of heat was considered too narrowly
by Thomson and others. There was a "round of actions" in
the complex interactions of heat and gravitation through space that set
up the counter-movements of continuous change (*L* 177). To the
scientific Aristotelian mind that Wright claimed to have, the theory of
"wasting" raised more questions than it answered, and so he
deferred his own full acceptance of it (*PD* 87). Wright's
approach to this issue illustrates his penchant, evident also in his
acute and ready understanding of natural selection, to focus on
large-scale effects of natural law as making sense of nature. In this,
his mind worked against the reductionist tendencies of philosophers who
had less experience with and sympathy for science itself. He was
interested in the persistent patterns evident to sense perception set
up by the operation of natural law at levels inaccessible to
perception.
A constant theme for Wright is the rejection of
natural theology. He did not believe that there could be philosophical
arguments, starting from natural phenomena, whether motion or the
intelligible forms of living things, that prove the existence of a
deity. He also believed it was impossible to identify in nature genuine
final causes, ends present naturally that are always prior to the
subordinate causes that bring about those ends. He said:
> By what criterion ... can we distinguish among the
> numberless effects, that are also causes, and among the causes that
> may, for aught we can know, be also effects, -- how can we
> distinguish which are the means and which are the ends? (*PD*
> 36).
That the universe has a purpose or that the forms of living things
given by nature have an inevitability or natural priority to them can
be believed on grounds of faith but can in no way be disclosed or
supported by scientific investigation of nature. Perhaps judging from
the state of philosophy and theology in the American institutions of
higher learning in the mid-nineteenth century, Wright believed that
metaphysics had no other purpose than the service of natural theology.
He was never precise about what he meant by metaphysics, but he said
that the motives for theological and metaphysical speculation come
from "the active emotional life of man" (*PD*
49-50). He seemed to equate metaphysics and philosophy. He
continued, "The questions of philosophy proper are human desires
and fears and aspirations -- human emotions -- taking an
intellectual form" (*PD* 50). A spirit of inquiry free of
these influences motivates science, but it is "necessarily, at
all times, a weak feeling" and could have little effect on
civilization until a body of scientific learning had been
developed. He said, "And we owe science to the combined energies
of individual men of genius, rather than to any tendency to progress
inherent in civilization" (*PD* 51). Philosophy belongs
with the fine arts and religion. Its attainments are not great but its
motives are noble (*PD* 52). This *ad hominen* argument
against philosophers -- that their enterprise is not rational and
disinterested -- would have found ready reinforcement in Comte's
rejection of metaphysics in favor of scientific method. Wright never
followed Comte, however, in Comte's recommendation of a religion of
humanity to take the place of religion for the masses. Although
Wright's own thinking is highly philosophical, the rejection of
metaphysics and philosophy together is fundamental for him and lies in
the background of all his pronouncements in philosophy of science.
## 5. Consciousness, Evolution, and Philosophy
Wright's philosophical position is a type of naturalism, though not a
naturalism endorsed by most twentieth century philosophers who have
used that term. Given his view of philosophy, he resisted skepticism,
idealism, and realism, regarding them all as defects of
thought. Nevertheless, compared to twentieth century philosophies of
science, his own philosophy of science is decidedly realist. He
believed scientists discover structures and features of natural
things, and previously unknown hidden entities, as well as phenomenal
laws that govern the behavior of natural things. In this respect, his
positivism is methodological and precautionary, a preparation for
scientific realism. In treating the origin of consciousness, he said
that idealism and natural realism are the two philosophical positions
to issue from taking sense data and emotions as the primarily real. In
idealism, the conscious subject is immediately known through his
perceptions, i.e., the phenomena, and the existence of an external
world can only be an inference from the phenomena known to belong to
the self (*PD* 230). He rejected this but also rejected natural
realism, which holds that "both the subject and object are
absolutely, immediately, and equally known through their essential
attributes in perception." This view, he says, "is more
than an unlearned jury are competent to say" (*PD*
231).
According to Wright, the immediacy of sensible qualities to
consciousness entails that there is no way to separate subject and
object in consciousness. But, he continued:
> All states of consciousness are, it is true, referred to
> one or the other, or partly to each of the two worlds [subject and
> object]; and this attribution is, in part at least, instinctive, yet
> not independent of all experience, since it comes either from the
> direct observation of our progenitors, or, possibly, through the
> natural selection of them; that is, possibly through the survival of
> those who rightly divided the worlds, and did not often mistake a real
> danger for a dream or for an imagined peril, nor often mistake a dream
> of security for reality. If. . . we mean by immediacy such an
> instinctive attribution, independent of repeated connections of
> attributes in their subject through the individual's own experiences,
> then "natural realism" is most in accordance with our view.
> (*PD* 231)
In this quotation, Wright suggests that the division of subject
from object may constitute "rightly dividing the world" as
indexed by survival value. A division made in these terms, rather than
by an individual's experiences of himself and the world, is a
reasonable basis for natural realism. Wright's view in this passage is
consistent with the position of Hume that human beings by nature make
connections between ideas and the world and that skepticism about
these connections is useless and idle. In this regard, Wright's
position anticipates that of P.F. Strawson, a twentieth-century
logical analyst. Strawson said our beliefs, e.g., in the existence of
bodies, "are not grounded beliefs and at the same time are not
open to serious doubt" (Strawson 1985, 19). Wright here
articulates a similar point couched in terms of natural selection of
beliefs. Also like Strawson, Wright took for some purposes ordinary
experience as what is primarily real, while for other purposes he took
the entities and properties given in physical theory as the real. This
pluralistic approach came from Wright's acceptance of different levels
of experience as equally valid starting points for science. Also
evident in this passage, however, is the way Wright made biological
evolution the basis for all other accounts of nature and human
psychology. In this respect, his approach is a forerunner of John
Dewey's philosophy of nature. |
wilhelm-wundt | ## 1. Biographical Timeline
1832 born at
Neckarau/Mannheim, August 16
1845 enters Bruchsal
Gymnasium
1851-2 study of
medicine at Tubingen
1852-5 study of
medicine at Heidelberg
1853 first publication
"on the sodium chloride content of urine"
1855 medical assistant
at a Heidelberg clinic
1856 semester of study
with J. Muller and DuBois-Reymond at Berlin;
doctorate in
medicine at Heidelberg; habilitation as *Dozent* in
physiology;
nearly fatal
illness
1857-64 *Privatdozent*
at the Physiological Institute,
Heidelberg
1858 *Beitrage
zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung*; Helmholtz becomes director of
the Heidelberg Physiological Institute
1862 first lectures in
psychology
1863 *Vorlesungen
uber die Menschen- und Tier-Seele*
1864 made
*ausserordentlicher Professor*; lectures on physiological
psychology (published as Wundt 1873-4)
1870-71 fails to
be named Helmholtz's successor at Heidelberg; army doctor in
Franco-Prussian War
1873-4 publishes
*Grundzuge der physiologischen
Psychologie*[5]
1874 called to
Zurich to the professorship in "inductive
philosophy";
1875 called to Leipzig
as professor
1879 founds the
*Institut fur Experimentelle Psychologie*, Leipzig; birth
of son, Max
1881 *Philosophische
Studien* founded
1880-83 *Logik*,
2 vols.
1886 *Ethik*, 3
vols.
1889 *System der
Philosophie*, 2 vols.
1889-90 Rector of
Leipzig University
1904 *Volkerpsychologie*,
2 vols.
1915 emeritus
1917 retires from
teaching; replaced by his student, Felix Krueger (Sluga 1993:
95)
1920 dies at
Grossbothen, near Leipzig, at the age of 88, August 31
## 2. Life & Times
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was born on August 16, 1832, in the German
town of Neckarau, outside of Mannheim, the son of a Lutheran minister
(Titchener 1921b: 161). The family moved when Wilhelm was six to the
town of Heidenheim, in central Baden (Boring 1950: 316). By all
accounts, he was a precocious, peculiar boy, schooled mainly by his
father's assistant, the vicar, Friedrich Muller; young
Wilhelm was so attached to Muller that he moved in with him when
the latter got a post in a neighboring village (Boring 1950: 316).
Wundt studied at the *Gymnasien* at Bruchsal and Heidelberg and
entered the University of Tubingen at 19, in 1851 (Boring 1950:
317). After one year he transferred to the University of Heidelberg,
where he majored in medicine. By his third year, his intense work
ethic yielded his first publication (Boring 1950: 318). Nevertheless,
doctoring was not Wundt's vocation and he turned instead to
physiology, which he studied for a semester under Johannes Muller
(the "father of experimental physiology") at Berlin
(Boring 1950: 318). In 1856, at the age of 24, Wundt took his
doctorate in medicine at Heidelberg, and habilitated as a
*Dozent* in physiology. Two years later, the physicist,
physiologist, and psychologist, Hermann von
Helmholtz,[6]
received the call to Heidelberg as a professor of physiology, a
decisive moment for Wundt's career, with Wundt working as
Helmholtz's assistant from 1858 until 1865 (Boring 1950: 300,
319; Araujo 2014: 55).
When Helmholtz moved to Berlin in 1871, Wundt was passed over as
Helmholtz's replacement; three years later he took the chair in
"inductive philosophy" at the University of Zurich.
He remained at Zurich for only one year before receiving an
appointment to "a first-class chair of philosophy at Leipzig in
1875" (Ben-David and Collins 1966: 462). Leipzig's
philosophy department, dominated by Herbartians, provided the ideal
environment for his intellectual flowering, the soil having been
prepared by Fechner, Weber, and Lotze (Littman 1979: 74; cf. Kim
2009). Wundt became famous at Leipzig. It was here, in 1879, that the
university formally recognized his little room of equipment as a
*bona fide* laboratory, the world's first devoted to
psychology.[7]
Students flocked to
Wundt,[8]
and while he set the tone and direction of research, it was largely
they who constructed apparatus, performed experiments, and published
results.
>
>
> Enrollment in his courses doubled about every 15 years, reaching a
> peak of 620 students in the summer of 1912. Wundt ended up sponsoring
> 186 Ph.D. dissertations, about a third of which apparently involved
> purely philosophical topics (Tinker, 1932). (Quote--including
> reference to Tinker-from Hearst 1979b: 22)
>
>
>
Though Wundt participated actively in labor politics in his early
years at Heidelberg, even being elected to the Baden parliament, he
steadily drifted rightwards, eventually being persuaded by his
"virulently
anti-Semitic"[9]
son, Max, a historian of philosophy, to join the ultranationalist
*Deutsche Philosophische Gesellschaft*, after
1917.[10]
It is hard to ignore Wundt's unattractive
"application" of his late social and cultural psychology
to the tendentious critique of Germany's enemies (Kusch 1995:
220-1). Nevertheless, his drive and unflagging intellectual
advocacy will arouse admiration in some: even at age 80, he remained
involved in academic
controversy.[11]
But let us consider the man through his work.
To understand Wundt's philosophical importance one must know
something of his intellectual context. Early nineteenth-century German
psychology labored under the looming shadow of Kant and his arguments
that a science of psychology is in principle impossible. This fact by
itself illustrates the oddity of the situation, from our point of
view: why would a psychologist care what a philosopher thought about
his practice? The answer is that since ancient times, psychology had
been a basic part of philosophical speculation, though after
Kant's criticisms many considered it a dying branch, dangerously
close to breaking off. Psychologists were philosophers on the
defensive (cf. *L* III: 163).
Psychology, as a part of philosophy, had already several times changed
the way it defined its object: as "soul", "mental
substance", "mind", etc. By the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries, many regarded psychology to be the account
of consciousness or "inner experience", distinct from the
natural scientific accounts of external, sensible reality. After
having dealt the *coup de grace* to the speculative,
rational, *a priori* psychology of the soul epitomized by
Christian Wolff, however, Kant tried to cut off any retreat into the
empirical study of consciousness, as well. In the *Metaphysical
Foundations of Natural Science*, he argued that empirical
psychology cannot be an exact science because the phenomena it seeks
to explain are not mathematically expressible (Kitcher 1990: 11).
Moreover, it can never become an experimental science "because
it is not possible to isolate different thoughts" (Kitcher 1990:
11). Finally, and most fatally, the only access to the phenomena of
inner experience, introspection, *ipso facto* alters those
phenomena: if I try, by introspection, to study what it's like
to be tristful, the phenomena of my sadness are now something
different, namely, phenomena of my sadness-being-studied-by-me
(Kitcher 1990: 11). Thus psychologists found their object declared
beyond the limit of possible investigation and their methods vain.
While such arguments did not persuade all of Kant's successors
of the hopelessness of their enterprise, their attempts were
unpromising. On the one hand, the German Idealists' fanciful
speculation about *Geist* collapsed upon itself. On the other
hand, the efforts of
J.F. Herbart
to devise a mathematical mental mechanics suggested a possible way
forward although in the end it proved equally fruitless. Thus, for
those mid-nineteenth-century enthusiasts of mental phenomena, the
future of a genuine psychology seemed blocked.
At the same time, however, progress was being made in human
physiology, especially of the sensory systems. In 1834, the
physiologist, E.H. Weber, published a startling discovery in his
*De tactu*. His experiments on the sensation of weight had led
him to find that there obtains a constant ratio between, on the one
hand, a given stimulus and, on the other hand, a second stimulus
sufficiently larger for the difference between the two stimuli to be
just noticeable, no matter the magnitude of the first
stimulus.[12]
In other words, if the first stimulus is of intensity \(I\), then
\(\Delta I\) is the amount by which it must be increased for the
difference to be just noticeable; the ratio of \(I\) and \(\Delta I\)
is constant (\(k\)): \(\Delta I / I = k\) (cf. *L* III: 186).
This equation, which later came to be known as Weber's
Law,[13]
was crucial to the development of psychology because it apparently
demonstrated that where Herbart had failed in his aprioristic
construction of mathematical regularities of mind, experimentation
could succeed. The situation nevertheless remained murky as
interpretations of Weber's Law multiplied. Fechner, for example,
elaborated Weber's experiments but took his results as the basis
for an arcane panpsychic monism (Wundt's own
"psychological" interpretation is treated in
Section 4)
(cf., e.g., Boring 1950: 286).
In founding the experimental science of psychology, Wundt in effect
"triangulated" a *media via* between the available
options: he rejected Fechner's mysticism while maintaining his
experimental approach; at the same time, Wundt went beyond the purely
physical interpretation of physiological experiments a la
Helmholtz, arguing that at least in humans experimentation could
reveal law-like regularities of *inner* (psychological)
reality. Thus, to use the phrase of Ben-David and Collins, he
established the "hybrid science" whose dual provenance is
expressed in Wundt's name for it, "physiological
psychology" (Ben-David and Collins 1966: 459; Kusch 1995: 122,
ff.).[14]
Wundt's interest, both to scholars of the history of philosophy
and to contemporary philosophers of mind, flows ultimately from the
definition, methodology, and "metaphysics" of this
physiological psychology. Sections
3
and
4
are devoted to a description of its definition, method, and doctrine,
while
Section 5
is concerned with its theoretical underpinnings. The practical and
theoretical limits of experimental psychology will be treated in
Section 6,
on *Volkerpsychologie*.
## 3. Experimental psychology: object and method
### 3.1 Object
"The exact description of consciousness [*Bewusstsein*]
is the sole aim of experimental psychology" (cited by Titchener
1921b: 164). Wundt identifies "physiological" with
"experimental"
psychology.[15]
Thus, for Wundt, experimental psychology is the unmediated study of
consciousness, *aided* by the experimental protocols of the
natural sciences. Yet this definition involves two contestable
assumptions: first, that "consciousness" is susceptible to
experiment (rejected by Kant); second, that psychology, even if
conceived as experimental, has for its object consciousness or
"the mental" (later rejected by the Behaviorists) (cf.
Hearst 1979b: 10). Let us focus on the first assumption, since it is
one Wundt addresses.
Wundt defines consciousness as "inner experience;" it is
only the "immediately
real"[16]
phenomena constituting this experience, and nothing behind or beyond
it, that is the object of *psychological*, as opposed to
physiological or psychophysical investigation (*PP* II: 636).
Wundt's project is not only a "psychology without a
soul", in F.A. Lange's phrase, but also a science without
a substrate *tout
court*.[17]
Wundt therefore presents himself as a radical empiricist. The subject
of psychology "is itself determined wholly and exclusively by
its predicates", and these predicates derive solely from direct,
internal observation (on which below). The basic domain of inquiry,
accordingly, is that of "individual psychology" (cf. e.g.
*L* III: 160, ff), i.e. of the concrete mental contents
appearing to particular human beings, and not some mental substance or
bundle of
faculties.[18]
In Wundt's declaration that individual psychology must become a
science via the experimental manipulation of inner phenomena, we see a
pragmatic attitude perhaps peculiar to the working scientist: the
future science as *doctrine* takes shape in and through the
present *practice* of experimentation, its essays, assays,
trials, and errors. Instead of simply submitting to Kant's
injunctions against the very possibility of a scientific psychology,
Wundt finds that certain aspects of our inner experience can be, and
in fact have been, made susceptible to experiment and mathematical
representation: Weber and Fechner did this.
### 3.2 Method
Nevertheless, Wundt repeatedly addresses the objections raised against
the very possibility of psychological, as opposed to physiological or
psychophysical, experimentation. How are we to subject the mind-body
complex to physiological stimulation such that the reactions may be
given a purely psychological interpretation? From the physiological
point of view, experimentation with stimulus and response are not
experiments of sensation, but of externally observable excitations and
reactions of nerve and muscle tissue. For example, a nerve fiber or a
skin surface may be given an electric shock or brought into contact
with acid, and twitches of muscle fiber are observed to follow. It is
obvious, especially when the nerve-tissue in question belongs to a
dead frog (Wundt describes such an experiment in *PP*), that
these experiments say nothing about the "inner" experience
or consciousness of sensation. Wundt's innovation is the attempt
to project the experimental rigor of physiology into the domain of
inner experience by supplementing these experiments with a
*purely* psychological set of procedures. These procedures
constitute Wundt's well-known yet misunderstood method of
*Selbstbeobachtung*, i.e. "introspection" or,
better, "self-observation".
Because "inner" distinguishes itself from
"external" experience by virtue of its immediacy, all
psychology must begin with self-observation, so that physiological
experiment is given an ancillary function (Boring 1950: 320-21).
Now Wundt is well aware of the common criticism that self-observation
seems inescapably to involve the paradoxical identity (described in
the previous section) of the observing subject and observed object.
Indeed, he takes pains to distinguish his notion of self-observation
from that of "most advocates of the so-called empirical
psychology", which he calls "a fount of self-delusions
[*Selbsttauschungen*]":
>
>
> Since in this case the observing subject coincides with the observed
> object, it is obvious that the direction of attention upon these
> phenomena alters them. Now since our consciousness has less room for
> many simultaneous activities the more intense these activities are,
> the alteration in question as a rule consists in this: the phenomena
> that one wishes to observe are altogether suppressed [i.e., by the
> activity of focused attention upon them]. (*L* III: 162)
>
>
>
Wundt believes that one can experimentally correct for this problem
by
>
>
> using, as much as possible, unexpected processes, processes not
> intentionally adduced, but rather such as involuntarily present
> themselves [*sich darbieten*]. (*L* III:
> 162)[19]
>
>
>
In other words, it is in the controlled conditions of a laboratory
that one can, by means of experimenter, experimental subject, and
various apparatus, arbitrarily and repeatedly call forth precisely
predetermined phenomena of consciousness. The *psychologist* is
not then interested in the *psychophysical* connections between
the somatic or nervous sense-mechanisms and the elicited
"inner" phenomena, but solely in describing, "and
where possible measuring", the *psychological*
regularities that such experiments can reveal, viz., regular causal
links within the domain of the psychic alone (*L* III: 165).
According to Wundt, psychological experiments thus conceived
accomplish in the realm of consciousness precisely what
natural-scientific experiments do in nature: they do not leave
consciousness to itself, but force it to answer the
experimenter's questions, by placing it under regulated
conditions. Only in this way is
>
>
> a [psychological] *observation* [as opposed to a mere
> perception {*Wahrnehmung*}] at all possible in the scientific
> sense, i.e., the attentive, regulated pursuit of the phenomena.
> (*L* III:
> 165)[20]
>
>
>
A detailed account of these experiments themselves, however, lies far
beyond the scope of this
article.[21]
## 4. Wundt's "individual psychology"
### 4.1 Sensation
Wundt, like most early experimental
psychologists,[22]
concentrated his investigations upon sensation and perception; of all
psychic phenomena, sensation is the most obviously connected to the
body and the physical world (Hearst 1979b: 33). For Wundt, sensations
and our somatic sensory apparatus are especially important for the
project of physiological psychology for the simple reason that
sensations are the "contact points" between the physical
and the psychological (*PP* I: 1). Sensations
(*Empfindungen*), as the medium between the physical and
psychic, are uniquely susceptible to a double-sided
inquiry,[23]
viz. from the "external" physical side of stimulus, and
the "internal" psychological side of corresponding mental
representation
(*Vorstellung*).[24]
The Wundtian psychologist therefore controls the external,
physiological side experimentally, in order to generate diverse
internal representations that can only "appear" to the
introspective observer. According to Wundt, the representations
(*Vorstellungen*) that constitute the contents
(*Inhalt*) of consciousness all have their elemental basis in
sensations (*Empfindungen*) (*PP* I:
281).[25]
Sensations are never given to us as elemental, however; we never
apperceive them "purely", but always already
"combined" (*verbunden*) in the representation of a
synthesized perception (*PP* I: 281). Yet, the manifestly
composite nature of our representations forces us to abstract such
elementary components (*PP* I: 281) (cf. *PP* II: 256).
Pure sensations, according to Wundt, display three differentiae:
quality, intensity, and "feeling-tone"
(*Gefuhlston*) (*PP* I:
282-3).[26]
His treatment of quality and intensity are especially important for
getting a clearer notion of his notion of psychological
experimentation. It is a "fact of inner experience" that
"every sensation possesses a certain intensity with respect to
which it may be compared to other sensations, especially those of
similar quality" (*PP* I: 332). The outer sensory stimuli
may be measured by physical methods, whereas *psychology* is
given the corresponding
>
>
> task of determining to what degree our *immediate estimation*
> [*Schatzung*] [of the strength of sensory stimuli] that we
> make aided by our sensations--to what degree this estimation
> corresponds to or deviates from the stimuli's *real*
> strength. (*PP* I: 332-3)
>
>
>
There are two possible tasks for psychophysical measurement of
sense-stimuli: the "determination of limit-values between which
stimulus-changes are accompanied by changes in sensation"; and
"the investigation of the lawful relations between
stimulus-change and change in sensation" (*PP* I: 333).
Sensation can thus be measured with respect to changes in intensity
*corresponding* to changes in strength of stimuli (*PP*
I: 335-6).
Weber's Law (WL) is the most striking example of such a
relation, and Wundt's interpretation of WL sheds much light on
what he means by "physiological psychology". Wundt
writes:
>
>
> We can formulate [this law] as follows: A difference between any two
> stimuli is estimated [*geschatzt*] to be equal if the
> relationship between the stimuli is equal. Or: If in our apprehension
> [*Auffassung*] the intensity of the sensation is to increase by
> equal amounts, then the relative stimulus-increase must remain
> constant. This latter statement may also be expressed as follows: The
> strength of a stimulus must increase geometrically if the strength of
> the apperceived sensation is to increase arithmetically. (*PP*
> I: 359)
>
>
>
Now these various
formulations[27]
of WL admit, as Wundt says, of three different, and indeed
incompatible interpretations; that is, there are three different
conceptions of what WL is a law *of*. First, the physiological
interpretation takes it as a manifestation of the "peculiar laws
of excitation of the neural
matter;"[28]
second, the psychophysical (Fechnerian) interpretation takes WL as
governing the interrelation between somatic and psychic activity
(*PP* I: 392). Wundt rejects both of these in favor of a third,
the psychological interpretation; his arguments are instructive.
Against the physiological interpretation Wundt raises the following
main point, viz. that
>
>
> the estimation of the intensity of sensation
> (*Empfindungsintensitat*) is a complicated process, upon
> which--in addition to the central sensory excitation--the
> effectiveness of the center of apperception will exert considerable
> influence. We can obviously say nothing *immediate* about how
> the central sense-excitations would be sensed independently of the
> latter; thus Weber's Law, too, concerns only
> *apperceived* sensations, and therefore can just as well have
> its basis in the processes of the apperceptive comparison of sensation
> as in the original constitution of the central sensory excitations.
> (*PP* I: 391-2)
>
>
>
Now apperception (see below) is a purely psychological act in
consciousness--and it is solely as a law of the psychological
processes involved in the "measuring comparison of
sensations" that Wundt understands WL (*PP* I: 393). In
other words, WL
>
>
> does not apply to sensations in and for themselves, but to processes
> of apperception, without which a quantitative estimation of sensations
> could never take place. (*PP* I: 393; cf. *PP* II:
> 269)
>
>
>
Wundt sees WL as simply a mathematical description of the more general
experience that
>
>
> we possess in our consciousness no absolute, but merely a relative
> measure of the intensity of the conditions [*Zustande*]
> obtaining in it, and that we therefore measure in each case one
> condition against another, with which we are obliged in the first
> place to compare it. (*PP* I: 393)
>
>
>
For this reason Wundt's "psychological
interpretation" makes WL into a special case of a more general
law of consciousness, viz. "of the *relation* or
*relativity of our inner conditions*
[*Zustande*]" (*PP* I: 393). WL is therefore
not a law of sensation so much as of apperception.
This solution typifies Wundt's general view that the domains of
psychic and physical phenomena do not stand in conflict, but rather
constitute separate spheres of (causal) explanation. His
interpretation of WL nicely illustrates how, on his view,
physiological experiments can yield mathematically expressible
results, not about the physical, somatic processes involved in
sensation, but about the relationships among these sensations *as
apperceived*, i.e., as *psychological* elements and objects
of consciousness. He writes that "the psychological
interpretation offers the advantage of not excluding a simultaneous
[i.e. parallel] physiological explanation" (presumably once the
neurophysiological facts of the matter have been better elucidated
-- cf. *PP* I: 391); by contrast, the two competing
interpretations "only permit a one-sided explanation" of
WL (*PP* I: 393).
### 4.2 Consciousness
Psychology finds consciousness to be constituted of three major
act-categories: representation, willing, and feeling; our discussion
is limited to the first two. Now while Wundt is forced to speak of
representations and representational acts as distinct, he is
nevertheless clear that they are merely different aspects of a single
flowing process. This is his so-called theory of actuality
(*Aktualitatstheorie*) (1911a: 145). Representations are
representational *acts*, never the "objects with constant
properties" propounded by adherents of a so-called theory of
substantiality (*Substantialitatstheorie*) (1911a: 145).
This identity of representation and representational act typifies what
we may call Wundt's "monistic
perspectivism".[29]
Everywhere he insists that the "psychic processes form a
*unitary* flow of events [*einheitliches
Geschehen*[30]
]", the constituents of which--"representing,
feeling, willing, etc."--are "only differentiated
through psychological analysis and abstraction" (1911a: 145).
Keeping in mind the underlying active unity of the psychic, let us
examine some of Wundt's "analyses and
abstractions".
As discussed in the previous section, all consciousness originates in
sensations. These, however, are never given to consciousness in a
"pure" state as individual sensory atoms, but are always
perceived as already
compounded[31]
into representations (*Vorstellungen*), that is, into
"images of an object or of a process in the external
world" (*PP* II: 3; 1). Representations may be either
perceptions (*Wahrnehmungen*) or intuitions
(*Anschauungen*): the same representation is called a
"perception" if considered as the presentation of
objective reality, and an "intuition" if considered in
terms of the accompanying conscious, subjective activity (*PP*
II: 1). If the representation's object is not real (cf.
*PP* II: 479) but merely thought, then it is a so-called
reproduced
representation.[32]
Now the formative *process*, by which sensations are connected
into representations either through temporal sequencing or spatial
ordering (*PP* II: 3), constitutes a main aspect of the
activity we call consciousness; the other is the "coming and
going of [these] representations" (*PP* II: 256). On the
evidence of "innumerable psychological
facts",[33]
Wundt claims that all representations are formed through
"psychological synthesis of sensations", and that this
synthesis accompanies every representational act (*PP* II:
256). We are therefore entitled to take the act of representational
synthesis as a "characteristic feature of consciousness
itself" (*PP* II: 256). Although consciousness consists
in the formation of representations, on the one hand, and of the
coming and going of such representations, on the other
hand--i.e., although its contents are a continuous streaming of
fusing and diffusing representations--yet it is not merely this
(*PP* II: 256). We are also aware within our consciousness of
another activity operating upon our representations, namely of paying
them attention (*PP* II: 266).
Attention may be understood in terms of the differing degrees to which
representations are present (*gegenwartig*) in
consciousness. These varying degrees of presence correspond to the
varying degrees to which consciousness is "turned towards
[*zugewandt*]" them (*PP* II: 267). Wundt appeals
to an analogy:
>
>
> This feature of consciousness can be clarified by that common image we
> use in calling consciousness an inner vision. If we say that the
> representations present [*gegenwartig*] at a particular
> moment are in consciousness's field of vision
> [*Blickfeld*], then that part of the field upon which our
> attention is turned may be called the inner focal point of vision
> [*Blickpunkt*]. The entry of a representation into the field of
> inner vision we call "perception", and its entry into the
> focal point of vision we call "apperception". (*PP*
> II: 267)
>
>
>
Thus consciousness is a function of the scope of attention, which may
be broader (as perception) or narrower (as
apperception[34]
). Apperception, in turn, may either actively select and focus upon a
perceived representation, or it may passively find certain
representations suddenly thrusting themselves into the center of
attention (*PP* II: 267; 562). There is no distinct boundary
between the perceived and the apperceived, and Wundt's analogy
may be misleading (cf. esp. *PP* II: 268) to the extent that it
gives the impression of two separable forms of attention able in
principle to subsist together simultaneously (that is, apperception
focusing upon a point in the perceptual field while that field
continues to be perceived). No: perceptive attention becomes
apperceptive attention just as it focuses more strenuously,
constricting the perceptive field. The more it contracts, the
"brighter" the representation appears, now becoming the
focal point of apperception as the fringes of the perceptual field
retreat into "darkness" (*PP* II: 268). For Wundt,
the distinguishing feature of the apperceptive focus is that it
"always forms a unitary representation", so that a
narrower focal point (or rather, the focal "field"
[*PP* II: 268; 477]) results in a correspondingly higher
intensity of attention (*PP* II: 269). Hence
>
>
> the degree of apperception is not to be measured according to the
> strength of the external impression [i.e. physically or
> physiologically], but solely according to the subjective activity
> through which consciousness turns to a particular sense-stimulus.
> (*PP* II: 269)
>
>
>
Thus,
apperception[35]
is closely akin to the will, indeed is a primordial expression of
will: "the act of apperception in every case consists in an
inner act of will [*Willenshandlung*]" (*L* I:
34). By contrast, Wundt argues that the processes by which the
representations are themselves formed, fused, synthesized, and
"delivered" into the perceptual field, are associative
processes "independent of apperception" (*PP* II:
278-9; 437, ff). Passive apperception may be characterized
simply by saying that here the associative form of representational
connection is predominant (cf. *L* I: 34), whereas when
"the active apperception successively raises representations
into the focal field of consciousness", this *active*
passage of representations obeys the special laws of what Wundt calls
"apperceptive connection" (*PP* II: 279). He does
not consider the types of association to be genuine psychological
laws, i.e. laws governing the "succession of
representations", because they merely generate the
*possible* kinds of representational compounds. It is
apperception, in accordance with its own laws, that
"decides" which of these possible connections are realized
in consciousness (*L* I: 34). We see here the important role
played by his so-called
voluntarism:[36]
associationist psychologists, according to Wundt, cannot give an
account of the (subjective) *activity* that immediately
characterizes consciousness (cf. Wundt 1911b: 721, ff.; Lipps 1903:
202, ff.; cf. esp. *L* I: 33). Yet this is not to deny
association of sensations altogether. Rather, it is to conceive of
association as merely a subliminal process, the products of which,
representations, then become the actual objects of consciousness. Thus
the "apperceptive connections of representations presuppose the
various types of association", especially the associative
fusion[37]
of sensations into
representations.[38]
Apperception operates according to its own peculiar laws (*PP*
II: 470). These laws, like those of association, govern acts of
combination (*Verbindung*) and separation (*Zerlegung*).
How do apperceptive laws differ from those of association? Wundt
writes:
>
>
> Association everywhere gives the first impetus to [apperceptive]
> combinations. Through association we combine, e.g., the
> representations of a tower and of a
> church.[39]
> But no matter how familiar the coexistence of these representations
> may be, mere association does not help us form the representation of a
> church-tower. For this latter representation does not contain the two
> constitutive representations in a merely external coexistence; rather,
> in the [representation of the church-tower], the representation of the
> church has come to adhere [*anhaften*] to the representation of
> the tower, more closely determining the latter. In this way, the
> *agglutination of representations* forms the first level of
> apperceptive combination. (*PP* II: 476; on
> "agglutination of representations", see also *L* I:
> 38, f.)
>
>
>
It is on the basis of such "agglutinative"
representations, exhibiting characteristics essentially different from
their constituents, that apperception continues to synthesize ever
more representations, a process resulting in their compression
(*Verdichtung*) or displacement (*Verschiebung*)
(*PP* II: 476-7; cf. *L* I: 43). The more the
original associative or agglutinated representations are compressed or
displaced, the more they disappear altogether from consciousness,
leaving in their stead a *single* representation whose original
composite structure has disappeared. This process, which Wundt calls
"representational synthesis" proper, is reiterated at ever
higher levels until even the sensory foundation vanishes, as in the
case of abstract and symbolic concepts (*L* I: 39).
Apperception is not only a synthetic process; it is also governed by
rules of separation. Apperceptive separation operates only upon the
representations already synthesized out of the "associative
stock [*Assoziationsvorrath*]", but does not necessarily
decompose them into their original parts (*PP* II: 478).
Wundt's notion of apperceptive separation is one of the most
philosophically original, consequential, and ambiguous of his
theories. He argues that it is usually the case that
>
>
> the original representational totality [*ursprungliche
> Gesammtvorstellung*] is present to our consciousness at first as
> an indistinct complex of individual representations. These individual
> parts and the manner of their connection become distinct only through
> the separative activity of apperception. (*PP* II: 478)
>
>
>
Thus, conscious thought and judgment (on judgment, see *SP* I:
34, ff., esp. 37, ff.) (separating and combining subject and
predicate) is not, as may seem at first blush, an act of
>
>
> gathering together [representational] components and then fitting them
> together in the successive articulation of the total representation
> [*Gesammtvorstellung*]. (*PP* II: 478)
>
>
>
Rather, "the whole, albeit in an indistinct form, must have been
apperceived prior to its parts" (*PP* II: 478). Only in
this way can one explain the
>
>
> well-known fact that we can easily and without trouble finish
> [composing] a complicated sentence-structure. This would be impossible
> if the whole had not been represented at the outset. The
> accomplishment of the judgment-function therefore consists, from the
> psychological point of view, only in our successively making clearer
> the obscure outlines of the total picture [*Gesammtbild*], so
> that at the end of the composite thought-act the whole, too, stands
> more clearly before our consciousness. (*PP* II: 478)
>
>
>
Because according to Wundt's principle of "actuality
[*Aktualitat*]" consciousness is purely an activity,
it is impossible to render his theory in terms of
"structures". It consists in constantly interacting
*processes*: on the one hand, there are associative processes
that fuse sensations into elemental representations. These stream into
and thereby constitute a *fluctuating* field of attention:
flowing and broad, it is called "perception;" ebbing and
concentrate, "apperception". As an activity, attention is
an expression of will; since consciousness just is attention in its
shifting forms, it is the activity of will manifested in the
selection, combination, and separation of disposable representations
(*PP* II: 564). These representations are constantly
"worked over" by apperception, which through its synthetic
and diaeretic activity constructs them into ever "higher
developmental forms of consciousness", such that in the end
their origins in sensation and perception might be completely erased.
In other words, as the apperceptive activity becomes increasingly
intense it seems as it were to rise above the field of perception,
above the field of its own constructs, becoming aware of itself as
*pure* activity, as pure *self*-consciousness:
>
>
> rooted in the constant activity [*Wirksamkeit*] of
> apperception, [self-consciousness] ... retreats completely into
> apperception alone, so that, after the completion of the development
> of consciousness, the *will* appears as the only content of
> self-consciousness.... (*PP* II:
> 564)[40]
>
>
>
Thus the self as will appears to itself as independent from and
opposed to an external world of both sensation and culture, though
Wundt hastens to add that this is but an illusion; in reality,
"the abstract self-consciousness maintains constantly the full
sensible background of the empirical self-consciousness"
(*PP* II:
564).[41]
## 5. The theoretical framework of experimental psychology
As we have seen
(Section 3.2),
for Wundt the possibility of a physiological *psychology* (as
opposed to a purely physiological inquiry into sensation, behavior,
learning, etc.) depends on the possibility of self-observation.
Self-observation, in turn, is of scientific use only if the sequence
of "inner" phenomena of consciousness is assumed to fall
under an independent principle of psychic causality. For if it does
not, then these phenomena could never be more than a chaotic muddle,
of which there could be no science. Alternatively, if the
"inner" phenomena could be shown to fall under the
physical causality of the natural sciences, then there would be no
need for a special psychological method, such as self-observation (cf.
Natorp 1912). In fact, however, a system of psychic causality can be
determined, Wundt argues, one that at no point is reducible to
physical causality: "no connection of physical processes can
ever teach us anything about the manner of connection between
psychological elements" (Wundt 1894: 43, quoted in Kusch 1995:
134). This "fact", which Wundt thinks is given in the
psycho-physiological experiments described above, leads him to his
so-called principle of psychophysical parallelism (PPP).
The PPP has caused a great deal of confusion in the secondary
literature, which persists in characterizing it as a
metaphysical[42]
doctrine somehow derived from Leibniz (e.g., Wellek 1967: 350;
Thompson and Robinson 1979: 412) or Spinoza (cf. *L* I: 77).
Wundt however is crystal-clear that the PPP is not a metaphysical
"hypothesis". It is merely an admittedly misleading name
for an "empirical postulate" necessary to explain the
phenomenal "fact" of consciousness of which we are
immediately aware (Wundt 1911a: 22; cf. esp. 28). By denying any
metaphysical interpretation of his principle, Wundt insists that the
"physical" and the "psychic" do not name two
ontologically distinct realms whose events unfold on separate yet
parallel causal tracks. He is therefore not an epiphenomenalist, as
some commentators have claimed. Rather, the "physical" and
"psychic" name two mutually irreducible perspectives from
which one and the same world or Being (*Sein*) may be observed:
"nothing occurs in our consciousness that does not find its
sensible foundation in certain physical processes", he writes,
and *all* psychological acts (association, apperception,
willing) "are accompanied by physiological nerve-actions"
(*PP* II: 644). In distinguishing the empirical from the
metaphysical PPP, Wundt contrasts his own view against
Spinoza's, which, according to Wundt, makes the realm of
material substance exist separately from, though parallel to that of
mental substance (Wundt 1911a: 22, 44-5; cf. esp. Wundt 1911a:
143, ff.).
The investigator of psychological phenomena, therefore, must assume,
solely for heuristic reasons, two "parallel" and
irreducible causal chains by which two distinct types of phenomena may
be accounted for (Wundt 1911a: 143; cf. Van Rappard 1979: 109). Wundt
compares the distinction between psychological and physiological
explanation to the different viewpoints taken by chemistry and physics
of the same object, a crystal. The chemical and physical accounts are
not of two different entities; rather, they describe and explain the
same entity from two distinct points of view, and in this sense the
two accounts are "parallel". Similarly, (neuro-)
physiology and psychology do not describe different processes, one
neural and one mental, but the same process seen from the outside and
the inside, respectively. As Wundt writes,
>
>
> "inner" and "outer" experience merely
> designate distinct *perspectives* that we can apply in our
> grasp and scientific investigation of what is, in itself, a unitary
> experience. (Wundt 1896a; quoted at Natorp 1912: 264).
>
>
>
## 6. *Volkerpsychologie*
Whereas experimental psychology focuses in the first place on the
effects of the physical (outer) upon the psychic (inner), the willing
consciousness is characterized by intervening in the external world,
that is, by *expressing* the *internal* (*PP* I:
2). This latter feature of consciousness lies beyond the scope of
experiment, because the origins of conscious expression cannot be
controlled. Moreover, psychological development is obviously not
determined merely by sensation, but also by the meaningful influences
of the individual's "spiritual [*geistig*]
environment"--his culture--influences again not
obviously susceptible to
experimentation.[43]
Hence, just as Wundt reserved for physiology an ancillary role in
experimental psychology, so too he now argues for the utility of a
distinct methodological approach to analyze and explain the
>
>
> psychic processes that are bound, in virtue of their genetic and
> developmental conditions, to spiritual communities [*geistige
> Gemeinschaften*]. (*L* III: 224)
>
>
>
It is the inquiry into "cultural products
[*Erzeugnisse*]" of the "totality of spiritual life
[*geistiges Gesammtleben*] in which certain psychological laws
have embodied themselves", specifically, language, art, myth,
and customs (*Sitten*) (*PP* I: 5; *L* III: 230).
These objects cannot be investigated in the same way as those of
individual "inner" experience, but require a mode of
explanation appropriate to their external, yet non-physical
phenomenology. This inquiry, which complements and together with
experimental psychology completes the discipline of psychology, Wundt
calls "*Volkerpsychologie*" (hereafter
abbreviated: *VP*) (*L* III:
225).[44]
While Wundt had already discussed the role of a *VP* necessary
for the completion of psychology in his early writings, it was not
until old age that he committed himself to its realization. The result
was his ten-volume work, entitled *Volkerpsychologie*.
While an examination of the contents of these tomes lies beyond the
scope of this article, his justification and clarification of the
*volkerpsychologisch* project as such are of interest for
those interested in truth and method in the social and human sciences.
Wundt stresses that although *VP* shares object-domains with
such sciences as history, philology,
linguistics,[45]
ethnology,[46] or anthropology (*L* III:
226), yet it is only interested in these domains insofar as they
"are determined by general psychological laws, and not just by
historical conditions" (*PP* I: 5). In other words,
*VP* is not interested in the unique and specific facts of this
nation's history or that tribe's language as such, but
only insofar as these reveal "the general psychological
developments that arise from the connection of individual
[developments]" (*L* III: 226). This quotation is
important. While *VP* does not concern itself with historical
or linguistic facts as such, this does not mean that it is not
concerned with individuality. Indeed, it is through the study of the
psychological motives only apparent in history or language--i.e.,
in communal existence--that our understanding of the
*individual* is completed (cf. *L* III: 224, 228). This
view is typical of Wundt's perspectivism. Just as psychology is
an alternative perspective to that of physiology, so too
(*within* psychology) *VP* provides an alternative
perspective to that of experimental psychology. Wundt considers none
of these various perspectives dispensable, since each one is a
complement necessary for total science. But while each of these
perspectives reveals a (phenomenologically) irreducible
("parallel") network of causal chains, the
*process* so explained, Wundt holds, is in every case one and
the same. There is just *one* empirical world and reality, but
many irreducible varieties of experience. Thus, in the case of
*VP*, too, he claims that there is no "general law of
spiritual events [*geistiges Geschehen*] that is not already
completely contained in the laws of the individual
consciousness" (*L* III: 225).
## 7. The order of knowledge
### 7.1 Psychology in its relation to the sciences
As we have seen, Wundt was concerned not only with expanding the set
of known psychological facts, but also with interpreting them within
an appropriate explanatory framework. Of course, the necessity of
establishing such a closed framework distinct from physiology amounted
to distinguishing psychological causality from physical causality in
general, and hence psychology from the natural sciences altogether.
But psychology has to be defined against two other areas of
"scientific" (*wissenschaftlich*) inquiry; first,
in its *volkerpsychologisch* dimension, against the
*Geisteswissenschaften* or "human sciences", and
second, against the non-psychological domains of philosophy. As these
relationships are laid out below, it must always be remembered that
although these four areas--psychology, philosophy, natural
science, human science--are irreducible, this irreducibility is
not a metaphysical or ontological one, but merely one of explanatory
function (and commensurate methodology). They do not have distinct
objects, but again merely represent ways of describing irreducible
perspectives upon the same object, namely experience. Wundt
writes:
>
>
> Objects of science do not in and of themselves yield starting points
> for a classification of the sciences. Rather, it is only regarding the
> *concepts* that these objects call for that we can undertake
> this classification. Therefore, the same object [*Gegenstand*]
> can become the object [*Objekt*] of several sciences: geometry,
> epistemology, and psychology each deals with space, but space is
> approached in each discipline from a different angle. ... The
> tasks of the sciences are therefore never determined by the objects in
> themselves, but are predominantly dependent upon the logical points of
> view from which they are considered. (*SP* I: 12-3; cf.
> *L* III: 228)
>
>
>
Wundt's monism has serious consequences for the sort of claim
philosophy (and thus psychology) can make to be scientific. The most
obvious is that neither can lay claim to synthetic knowledge that is
not founded in or (also) describable in terms of the natural or human
sciences.
For Wundt, it is only the sciences that have methodologies by which to
synthesize our representations, sensible as well as
"processed", into "facts" or "pieces
of" knowledge (*Erkenntnisse*). Hence, while strictly
speaking he is committed to considering psychology (i.e.,
physiological psychology and *VP*) a part of philosophy, he
usually speaks of them as distinct enterprises. This is because
psychology is hybrid, adapting scientific methodologies to its
particular aims; in this sense psychology, although part of
philosophy, synthesizes facts, just like the
sciences.[47]
By contrast, philosophy's *pure* task is universal,
operating over *all* scientific domains; it is, he writes,
"the general science whose task it is to unify the general
pieces of knowledge yielded by the particular sciences into a system
free of contradiction" (*SP* I: 9). Philosophy's
positive role, therefore, is not to provide the foundations of
science, nor can it ever "step into the role of a particular
science" (cf. Kusch 1995: 129); rather it is "to take in
every case the already secured results of those sciences as
*its* foundation", and organize them into a single,
overarching system by determining their points of connection
(*PP* I: 8; 6). Wundt calls this side of philosophy
*Prinzipienlehre* or "doctrine of principles". By
contrast, its negative or critical role is to regulate the sciences in
accord with the imperative of consistent systematicity. In short, it
has no constitutive but merely a regulative role
*vis-a-vis* the sciences. Thus, when we return to the
philosophical as opposed to the scientific aspect of
psychology's hybrid structure, we see that this aspect consists
in its aim (as opposed to its method) of explaining rules of genesis,
connection, and separation of those mental representations with an
epistemic character. Wundt calls this psychological contribution to
philosophy *Erkenntnislehre* or "doctrine of
knowledge" (i.e., the theory of the coming-to-be of knowledge).
This explanation then provides to philosophy the scientific foundation
for its pure
task.[48]
Wundt divides up the sciences into two large families, the
"formal" sciences and the "real" sciences. The
former include mathematics; the latter study the natural and spiritual
aspects of
reality,[49]
and correspondingly are divided into the natural and the human
sciences. The human sciences in turn are divided into two genera, one
of which deals with spiritual processes (*geistige
Vorgange*), the other with spiritual products (*geistige
Erzeugnisse*). The former just is the science of psychology; the
latter includes the general study of these products as such (e.g.,
philology, political science, law, religion, etc.), as well as the
parallel historical study of these products as they have *in
fact* been created (This taxonomy is given in *SP* I:
19-20). Since the process precedes the product (cf. Kusch 1995:
132), psychology as "the doctrine of spiritual
[*geistig*] processes as such" is the foundation of all
the other human sciences (*SP* I:
20).[50]
Philosophy, in turn, takes *psychology*'s results and
again abstracts from them the normative rules governing the
organization of the human *and* natural sciences, something the
latter cannot do themselves. In this way psychology as a science
mediates between the sciences and philosophy.
### 7.2 Psychology and logic
One aspect of Wundt's hierarchy of method and knowledge deserves
special attention, namely the place of logic in the sciences. Like
almost all the similarly titled tomes produced by the German
mandarins, Wundt's *Logik* (in two, later three 600-page
volumes in four editions) molders away in research libraries. Its
contents are for the most part unrecognizable as "logic"
in any contemporary sense. What most philosophers meant by
"*Logik*" in Wundt's day was the rules and
procedure of inference governing the sciences, where this often
included lengthy treatments of the actual scientific application of
these rules. What we would expect to find in a book called
"*Logik*" today, viz., symbolic or mathematical
logic, was called at that time "*Logistik*", and
was considered by some a mathematical (that is, merely formal) game
unworthy of philosophy's *scientific* (that is,
substantive) role (cf., e.g., Natorp 1910: 4-10). Thus we should
not be surprised to read Wundt, too, declare logic's task to be
the justifying and accounting for "those laws of thinking active
in scientific knowledge" (*L* I: 1).
For Wundt, however, this task involves psychology, and indeed much of
his *Logik* is devoted to this topic. As he reasonably points
out, logic comprises the rules of correct thinking, and the principles
of logic are known to us as conscious representations (*L* I:
76; 13; cf. Wundt 1920: 267); thinking and consciousness are objects
of psychological inquiry; therefore any account of logic must include
a psychological description of the genesis of logical principles
(*L* I: 13). Even the normative character of logic had, in his
view, to be given a psychological interpretation (cf. *L* I:
76). Inevitably Wundt was accused of logical
*psychologism*--the all-purpose term of abuse flung about
in fin-de-siecle German philosophical debate. Husserl, for
example, condemned him for expounding an "extreme" form of
psychologism (Husserl 1901: 124-5; cf. Farber 1943: 123, 208,
ff.; cf. Wundt 1910b: 511, ff.), viz.
"species-relativism", the notion that "truth varies
with different species" of animal (Kusch 1995: 49). Yet Wundt
himself calls his *Logik* the "most rigorous rejection of
the psychologism that reigned at the time [i.e., 1880]" (Wundt
1920: 264), and held that "logical thinking is universally
binding for every thinker" (Wundt 1920: 266). How can we
reconcile these statements?
Wundt's view of logic is unusual, but fully in line with his
rigorously anti-metaphysical monistic perspectivism. That is, there is
no logical "third realm", but merely a single process
called "thinking [*Denken*]" (*L* I: 6); it
is an immediately given fact of thinking that there are logical laws
that stand over against all our other thoughts and representations as
norms (*L* I: 76). Their psychological immediacy does not,
Wundt thinks, compromise their normativity, since what is given in
consciousness precisely *is* their normative
character.[51]
Once this character is taken for granted, the science of logic
develops its systems of correct deductions (*Schliessen*)
without further worry about the source of that normativity. All that
remains is "develop[ing] the foundations and methods of
scientific knowledge" (*L* I: 8).
According to Wundt, the three features of logical thinking that set it
apart from all other types of representational connection are its
"spontaneity, evidence, and universal validity
[*Spontaneitat, Evidenz, Allgemeingultigkeit*]"
(*L* I: 76). Let us briefly describe these. Wundt's
notion of the spontaneity of logical thinking is perhaps the most
psychologistic-sounding of the three. Because, as was described above,
thinking is
>
>
> experienced immediately as an inner activity, ... we must regard
> it as an act of will [*Willenshandlung*], and accordingly
> regard the logical laws of thought [*Denkgesetze*] as laws of
> the will. (*L* I: 76-7)
>
>
>
In other words, logical thinking is accompanied essentially by a
feeling of the thinking subject's freedom in thinking. But while
logical thinking may be accompanied by an especially strong
self-awareness of the mind's own activity, this feeling is not
unique to logical thinking, since active apperception more generally
is also accompanied by the sense of subjective activity. By contrast,
logical evidence and universal validity are characteristics possessed
by logical thinking "to a higher degree than by any other
psychic function" (*L* I: 78). By "evidence",
Wundt means the character of compelling necessity accompanying a
logical judgment, what we might call self-evidence (*L* I: 78,
79). A thought (*Gedanke*) may exhibit immediate certainty,
obvious without any mediating thought-acts; or a thought may be
mediately certain, grounded in prior thought-acts. Immediate and
mediate evidence have their source and foundation in intuition
(*Anschauung*): immediate evidence immediately, mediate
evidence mediately (*L* I: 82-3). Intuition is not
identical with evidence, for evidence only
>
>
> comes to be at the moment when logical thinking relates the contents
> of intuition and presupposes the relations of such intuitive contents
> as objectively given. (*L* I: 83)
>
>
>
Wundt thus charts a middle course between, on the one hand, making
logical evidence a "transcendent or transcendental"
function of thinking (as Kant and "recent speculative
philosophy" are alleged to do), and, on the other hand,
considering it an "empirical trait of sensible objects"
(as do empiricists and positivists) (*L* I: 83).
By the standards of such philosophers as Husserl, Natorp, and Frege,
Wundt appears committed to a logical psychologism. But it is worth
considering his response to this charge, for it again illustrates his
monistic perspectivism. While he rejects any interpretation of the
origin of logical principles that would impugn their normative
character of necessity, he also rejects the opposite extreme, what he
calls "*Logizismus*"--the complete divorce of
logical thinking from thinking as it actually occurs in minds. For
Wundt, the logicist makes a metaphysical leap as suspect as it is
unnecessary in conjuring up a "pure",
"absolute", "transcendental", but in any case
*separate* source of logical normativity (cf. Wundt 1910b:
515). Instead of solving the puzzle of logical normativity, he
exacerbates it by adding the puzzles of the ontological status of a
third realm, or of a transcendental ego, or of "pure
thinking", and the *influence* of all of these on your
thinking as you read this. Wundt finds a simpler solution in his
perspectivism. The logical may be considered "purely" from
a logical point of view, i.e., in terms of its normative character,
*or* "genetically" from a psychological point of
view. But there are no logical laws that are not also describable
psychologically, just as there is no psychological phenomenon not also
describable physiologically. But being "describable" in
this sense is not the same as being *explicable*, and it is
this separate task of explanation that falls to logic and psychology,
respectively. The logical description saves the phenomenon of
normativity, just as the psychological description saves the
phenomenon of the interiority of consciousness.
## 8. Conclusion
Wundt's conception of psychology was always controversial. At
least in Germany, the struggle over the status and philosophical
meaning of "consciousness" resulted, on the one hand, in
the exclusion of Wundtian empiricism from philosophy departments,
striving to maintain their speculative purity, and, on the other, the
institutional establishment of experimental psychology as an
independent discipline. This was not the outcome Wundt had desired. He
had wished to reform *philosophy*, not as a synthetic science,
but with a direct, indispensable, juridical relation
*vis-a-vis* both the natural and human sciences. He
never saw his psychological scientism as a threat to
philosophy--on the contrary, he considered his psychology to be a
part of philosophy (cf. Boring 1950: 325), one necessary for
philosophy to take its proper place in the totality of the sciences.
Indeed, philosophy could only assume that position through the
mediating position of psychology (*PP* I: 3). Yet academic
philosophers, denied the possibility of any legislative or executive
functions in the sciences, rejected the juridical ones as well,
bitterly resisting contamination of their pure pursuit by the
empiricism of the new psychology. In Germany, resistance was
especially stiff among neo-Kantians, and later the Phenomenologists.
In the end, the quarreling parties ineluctably assumed positions
similar to their opponents'--though of course in a
"purified"
way.[52]
Let us return to James's mean
remark[53]
about Wundt: he has no *noeud vital*, no central idea, and so
this would-be Napoleon-planarian can never be "killed all at
once". Setting aside Wundt's need to be killed at once or
in bits, a fair and attentive reader will respectfully reject such
scintillating criticisms. For although Wundt has many
ideas--"the theory of actuality", the
"principle of psychophysical parallelism",
"voluntarism", "creative resultants", etc.,
etc.--yet they all do have a single unifying node, namely what I
have here called "monistic perspectivism". If Wundt has a
big idea, it is that Being is a single flow of Becoming with many
sides and many ways of being described. Consequently *we*, as
part of this Being, have many ways of describing and explaining it.
Few have as unblinkingly accepted the consequences of their starting
points, or more doggedly pursued them to their various ends as
Wundt. |
wyclif | ## 1. Life and Works
### 1.1 Life
John Wyclif was born near Richmond (Yorkshire) before 1330 and
ordained in 1351. He spent the greater part of his life in the schools
at Oxford: he was fellow of Merton in 1356, master of arts at Balliol
in 1360, and doctor of divinity in 1372. He definitely left Oxford in
1381 for Lutterworth (Leicestershire), where he died on 31 December,
1384. It was not until 1374 (when he went on a diplomatic mission to
Bruges) that Wyclif entered the royal service, but his connection with
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, probably dates back to 1371. His
ideas on lordship and church wealth, expressed in *De civili
dominio* (*On Civil Dominion*), caused his first official
condemnation in 1377 by the Pope (Gregory XI), who censured nineteen
articles. As has been pointed out (Leff 1967), in 1377-78 Wyclif
made a swift progression from unqualified fundamentalism to a
heretical view of the Church and its Sacraments. He clearly claimed
the supremacy of the king over the priesthood (see for instance his
*De ecclesia* [*On the Church*], between early 1378 and
early 1379), and the simultaneous presence in the Eucharist of the
substance of the bread and the body of Christ (*De eucharistia*
[*On the Eucharist*], and *De apostasia* [*On
Apostasy*], both ca. 1380). His theses would influence Jan Hus and
Jerome of Prague in the 15th century. So long as he limited
his attack to abuses and the wealth of the Church, he could rely on
the support of a (more or less extended) part of the clergy and
aristocracy, but once he dismissed the traditional doctrine of
transubstantiation, his (unorthodox) theses could not be defended any
more. Thus in 1382 Archbishop Courtenay had twenty-four propositions
that were attributed to Wyclif condemned by a council of theologians,
and could force Wyclif's followers at Oxford University to
retract their views or flee. The Council of Constance (1414-18)
condemned Wyclif's writings and ordered his books burned and his
body removed from consecrated ground. This last order, confirmed by
Pope Martin V, was carried out in 1428.
The most complete biographical study of Wyclif is still the monograph
of Workman 1926, but the best analysis of his intellectual development
and of the philosophical and theological context of his ideas is
Robson 1961.
### 1.2 Works
Wyclif produced a very large body of work, both in Latin and English,
a great portion of which has been edited by the Wyclif Society between
the end of the 19th and the beginning of the
20th centuries, even though some of his most important
books are still unpublished -- for instance, his treatises on
time (*De tempore*) and on divine ideas (*De ideis*). W.
R. Thomson 1983 wrote a full bibliography of Wyclif's Latin
writings, among which the following can be mentioned: *De
logica* (*On Logic* -- ca. 1360); *Continuatio
logicae* (*Continuation of [the Treatise on] Logic* --
date of composition: about 1360-63 according to Thomson 1983,
but between 1371 and 1374 according to Mueller 1985); *De ente in
communi* (*On Universal Being* -- ca. 1365); *De
ente primo in communi* (*On Primary Being* -- ca.
1365); *De actibus animae* (*On the Acts of Soul*
- ca. 1365); *Purgans errores circa universalia in
communi* (*Amending Errors about Universals* --
between 1366 and 1368); *De ente praedicamentali* (*On
Categorial Being* -- ca. 1369); *De intelleccione Dei*
(*On the Intellection of God* - ca. 1370); *De
volucione Dei* (*On the Volition of God* - ca. 1370);
*Tractatus de universalibus* (*Treatise on Universals*
-- ca. 1368-69 according to Thomson 1983, but between 1373
and 1374 according to Mueller 1985); *De materia et forma*
(*On matter and form* -- between late 1370 and early 1372
according to Thomson 1983, but about 1374-75 according to
Mueller 1985). Many of these treatises were later arranged as a
*Summa*, called *Summa de ente* (*Summa on
Being*), in two books, containing seven and six treatises
respectively. (On the genesis, nature, structure, and tasks of this
work see Robson 1961, pp. 115-40.)
## 2. Logic
### 2.1 Some preliminary remarks
Late medieval Nominalists, like Ockham and his followers, drew a
distinction between things as they exist in the extra-mental world and
the schemata by means of which we think of and talk about them. While
the world consists only of two genera of individuals, substances and
qualities, the concepts by which they are grasped and expressed are
universal and of ten different types. Nor do the relations through
which we connect our notions in a proposition analytically correspond
to the real links that join individuals in a state of affairs. Thus,
our conceptual forms do not coincide with the elements and structures
of reality, and our knowledge does not reproduce its objects but
merely *regards* them.
Wyclif maintained that such an approach to philosophical questions was
misleading and deleterious. Many times in his works he expressed the
deepest hostility to such a tendency. He thought that only on the
basis of a close isomorphism between language and the world could the
signifying power of terms and statements, the possibility of
definitions, and finally the validity and universality of our
knowledge be explained and ensured. So the nucleus of his metaphysics
lies in his trust in the scheme *object-label* as *the*
general interpretative key of every logico-epistemological problem. He
firmly believed that language was an ordered collection of signs, each
referring to one of the constitutive elements of reality, and that
true (linguistic) propositions were like pictures of those
elements' inner structures or/and mutual relationships. From
this point of view, universals are conceived of as the real essences
common to many individual things, which are necessary conditions for
our language to be significant. Wyclif thought that by associating
common terms with such universal realities the fact could be accounted
for that each common term can stand for many things at once and can
label all of them in the same way.
This conviction explains the main characteristic of his philosophical
style, to which all his contributions can be traced back: a strong
propensity towards hypostatisation. Wyclif methodically replaces
logical and epistemological rules with ontological criteria and
references. He thought of logic as turning on structural forms,
independent of both their semantic contents and the mental acts by
which they are grasped. It is through these forms that the network
connecting the basic constituents of the world (individuals and
universals, substances and accidents, concrete properties, like
being-white, and abstract forms, like whiteness) is disclosed to us.
His peculiar analysis of predication and his own formulation of the
Scotistic formal distinction are logically necessary requirements of
this philosophical approach. They are two absolute novelties in late
medieval philosophy, and certainly the most important of
Wyclif's contributions to the thought of his times.
Wyclif's last formulation of the theory of difference and his
theory of universals and predication are linked together, and rest
upon a sort of componential analysis where things substitute for
lexemes and ontological properties substitute for semantic features.
Within Wyclif's world, difference (or distinction) is defined in
terms of partial identity, and is the main kind of transcendental
relation holding among the world's objects, since in virtue of
its metaphysical composition everything is at the same time partially
identical to and different from any other. When the objects at issue
are categorial items, and among what differentiates them is their own
individual being, the objects differ *essentially*. If the
objects share the same individual being and what differentiates them
is (at least) one of their *concrete* metaphysical components
(or features), then the objects differ *really*, whereas if
what differentiates them is one of their *abstract*
metaphysical components, then they differ *formally*. Formal
distinction is therefore the tool by means of which the dialectic of
one-many internal to the world's objects is regulated. It
explains why one and the same thing is at the same time an atomic
state of affairs and how many different beings can constitute just one
thing.
### 2.2 The formal distinction
Wyclif explains the notion of formal distinction (or difference) in
the *Purgans errores circa universalia in communi* (chap. 4, p.
38) and in the later *Tractatus de universalibus*. (On
Wyclif's formulation of the formal distinction see Spade 1985,
pp. xx-xxxi, and Conti 1997, pp. 158-63.) The two versions
differ from each other on some important points, and are both
unsatisfactory, since Wyclif's definitions of the different
types of distinction are rather ambiguous.
In the *Tractatus de universalibus* (chap. 4, pp. 90-92),
Wyclif lists three main kinds of differences (or distinctions):
1. real-and-essential;
2. real-but-not-essential; and
3. formal (or notional).
He does not define the real-and-essential difference, but identifies
it through a rough account of its three sub-types. The things that
differ really-and-essentially are those that differ from each other
either (i) in genus, like man and quantity, or (ii) in species, like
man and donkey, or (iii) in number, like two human beings.
The real-but-not-essential difference is more subtle than the first
kind, since it holds between things that are the same single essence
but really differ from each other nevertheless -- like memory,
reason, and will, which are one and the same soul, and the three
Persons of the Holy Trinity, who are the one and same God.
The third main kind of difference is the formal one. It is described
as the difference by which things differ from each other even though
they are constitutive elements of the same single essence or supposit.
According to Wyclif, this is the case for:
1. the concrete accidents inherent in the same substance, since they
coincide in the same particular subject but differ from each other
because of their own natures;
2. the matter and substantial form of the same individual
substance;
3. what is more common in relation to what is less common, like
(*a*) the divine nature and the three Persons, (*b*) the
world and this world; and, (*c*) among the categorial items
belonging to the same category, a superior item and one of its
inferiors.
This account of the various kinds of distinctions is more detailed
than that of the *Purgans errores circa universalia in
communi*, but not more clear. What is the difference, for
instance, between the definition of the real-but-not-essential
distinction and the definition of the formal distinction? What feature
do all the kinds of formal distinction agree in? Some points are
obvious, however:
1. The real-and-essential distinction matches the traditional real
difference.
2. The real-but-not-essential distinction and the first sub-type of
the formal distinction (that is, the distinction that holds between
two or more concrete accidents belonging to the same individual
substance) are two slightly different versions of the Scotistic formal
distinction as defined in Scotus' *Lectura* (book I, d.
2, p. 2, qq. 1-4, ed. Vaticana, vol. xvi, p. 216) and
*Ordinatio* (book I, d. 2, p. 2, qq. 1-4, ed. Vaticana,
vol. ii, pp. 356-57; book II, d. 3, p. 1, q. 6, ed. Vaticana,
vol. vii, pp. 483-84).
3. The third sub-type of the formal distinction is a reformulation of
the Scotistic formal distinction as described in Scotus'
*Reportata Parisiensia* (book I, d. 33, qq. 2-3, and d.
34, q. 1, ed. Vives, vol. xxii, pp. 402-8, 410).
The main apparent dissimilarities between the analyses proposed in the
*Tractatus de universalibus* and in the *Purgans errores
circa universalia in communi* are the following:
1. There are three main kinds of differences instead of two.
2. Notwithstanding the presence of the qualification
'real', the real-but-not-essential difference in the
*Tractatus de universalibus* is closer to the formal difference
than is the corresponding kind of difference in the *Purgans
errores circa universalia in communi*, since in the former the
term 'essence' has the technical meaning of real entity
with a given nature, and so is equivalent to 'thing'.
3. The difference between the matter and the substantial form of the
same individual substance is seen as a sub-type of real difference in
the *Purgans errores circa universalia in communi* and as a
sub-type of formal distinction in the *Tractatus de
universalibus*.
### 2.3 The analysis of predication
Wyclif presents his opinion on universals as intermediate between
those ones of St. Thomas (and Giles of Rome) and Walter Burley. Like
Giles, whom he quotes by name, Wyclif recognizes three main kinds of
universals:
1. *ante rem*, or ideal universals; that is, the ideas in God,
archetypes of all that there is;
2. *in re*, or formal universals; that is, the common natures
shared by individual things; and
3. *post rem*, or intentional universals; that is, mental
signs by which we refer to the universals *in re*.
The ideas in God are the causes of the formal universals, and the
formal universals are the causes of the intentional universals. On the
other hand, like Burley, Wyclif holds that formal universals exist
*in actu* outside our minds, not *in potentia* as
moderate Realists thought -- even though, unlike Burley, he
maintains they are really identical with their own individuals. So
Wyclif accepts the traditional realistic account of the relationship
between universals and individuals, but translates it into the terms
of his own system. According to him, universals and individuals are
*really* the same, but *formally* distinct, since they
share the same empirical reality (that of individuals) but, considered
as universals and individuals, they have opposite constituent
principles. On the logical side, this means that, notwithstanding real
identity, not all that is predicated of individuals can be
*directly* predicated of universals or *vice versa*,
though an indirect predication is always possible. Hence
Wyclif's description of the logical structure of the
relationship between universals and individuals demanded the
introduction of a new kind of predication, unknown to Aristotle, to
cover cases, admitted by the theory, of indirect inherence of an
accidental form in a substantial universal and of one second intention
in another.
Therefore Wyclif distinguished three main types of predication, which
he conceived as a real relation that holds between metaphysical
entities. (On Wyclif's theory of predication, see Spade 1985,
pp. xxxi-xli, and Conti 1997, pp. 150-58.)
In the *Purgans errores circa universalia in communi* (chap.
2), the three main types of predication are the following: formal
predication, essential predication, and causal predication. In the
*Tractatus de universalibus* (chap. 1, pp. 28-37), causal
predication has been replaced by habitudinal predication -- a
kind of predication that Wyclif had already recognized in the
*Purgans errores circa universalia in communi*, but whose
position within the main division of types of predication was not
clear. In the *Tractatus de universalibus*, formal predication,
essential predication, and habitudinal predication are described as
three non-exclusive ways of predicating, each more general than the
preceding. We speak of causal predication when the form designated by
the predicate term is not present in the entity signified by the
subject term, but is something caused by that entity. No instances of
this kind of predication are given by Wyclif. Formal predication,
essential predication, and habitudinal predication are defined in
almost the same way in the *Purgans errores circa universalia*
and in the *Tractatus de universalibus*.
Formal predication is that in which the form designated by the
predicate term is directly present in the entity signified by the
subject term. This happens whenever an item in the categorial line is
predicated of something inferior, or an accident is predicated of its
subject of inherence. In fact, in both cases, the subject term and the
predicate term refer to the same reality in virtue of the form
connoted by the predicate term itself.
To speak of essential predication, it is sufficient that the same
empirical reality is both the real subject and the predicate, even
though the formal principle connoted by the predicate term differs
from that connoted by the subject term. 'God is man' and
'The universal is particular' are instances of this kind
of predication. In fact, the same empirical reality (or essence) that
is a universal is also an individual, but the forms connoted by the
subject term and by the predicate term differ from each other.
Finally we speak of habitudinal predication when the form connoted by
the predicate term does not inhere, either directly or indirectly, in
the essence designated by the subject, but simply implies a relation
to it, so that the same predicate may be at different times truly or
falsely spoken of its subject without there being any change in the
subject itself. According to Wyclif, we use such a kind of predication
mainly when we want to express theological truths, like: God is known
and loved by many creatures, and brings about, as efficient, exemplar,
and final cause, many good effects. It is evident that habitudinal
predication does not require any kind of identity between the entity
signified by the subject term and the entity signified by the
predicate term, but formal predication and essential predication do.
So the ontological presuppositions of the most general type of
predication, implied by the other types, are completely different from
those of the other two.
The final result of Wyclif's revolution is therefore an
incomplete system of intensional logic, which he superimposes on the
standard extensional system inherited from Aristotle. As a result, the
copula of the philosophical propositions that are dealt with cannot be
extensionally interpreted, since it does not properly mean that a
given object is a member of a certain set or that a given set is
included in another; rather it means degrees of identity. Only in
virtue of renouncing any extensional approach to the matter were
Wyclif's followers able to give a logically satisfactory
solution of the problem of the relationship between universals and
individuals, which had always been the most difficult issue for
medieval Realists.
### 2.4 Supposition and meaning
The relationship between thought and reality was a focal point of
Wyclif's reflection. On the one hand, Wyclif believed that
thought was linguistically constrained by its own nature; on the other
hand, he considered thought to be related to reality in its elements
and constitution. Hence he deemed language, thought, and external
reality to be of the same logical coherence (see Conti 2006, pp.
114-18, and Spruyt 2008, pp. 24-25). Within this context,
the theory of supposition was intended to explain the different roles
that words (or phrases) can have in relation to language and the
extra-mental world when they appear as extremes (that is, as subject
or predicate) in propositions. Characteristically, his theory of
supposition provides an account not only of the truth-values of a
sentence, but also of its meaning; it is not therefore simply a theory
of reference, but a sort of complex analysis of language viewed as a
semiotic system whose unique interpretative model was the reality
itself. It gives clear evidence of Wyclif's realist choice and
of his conviction that any kind of linguistic and semantic features
must be grounded on ontological structures.
In what follows, I shall consider the most important aspects of
Wyclif's theory of supposition, trying to set it in relation to
the medieval tradition of treatises on signification and supposition
and particularly to its main source, the theory expounded by Walter
Burley in his *De puritate artis logicae tractatus longior*
(composed between 1325 and 1328), which contains an original and
intelligent defence of the old view of signification and simple
supposition against Ockham's attacks.
Wyclif defines supposition as the signification of one categorematic
extreme of a proposition (subject or predicate) in relation to the
other extreme (*De logica*, chap. 12, vol. I, p. 39). This
definition, which is drawn from Burley's *De
suppositionibus* (composed in 1302), sounds partially different
from the standard definition of supposition, as it seems to somehow
equate signification and supposition, since supposition is considered
as a particular kind of signification. On the contrary, according to
the most common view, which went back to Peter of Spain's
*Summulae logicales*, signification and supposition of terms
were clearly distinct functions, inasmuch as the latter presupposed
the former, but it was a *proprietas terminorum* (a term
property) totally different from it. In fact, (1) signification
consisted in the relation of a linguistic sign to what it signifies
apart from any propositional context; (2) a word capable of standing
for something else or for itself in a proposition had first to have
signification; (3) a term only had supposition in a propositional
context; and (4) the kind of supposition a term had depended on its
propositional context. In any case, in a traditional realist
perspective, supposition served to tell us which things are involved
in the truth-conditions of a given sentence: whether they are
expressions, real universals, or individuals.
At the very beginning of the chapter on supposition, like Walter
Burley, Wyclif divides supposition into improper, in which a term
stands for something different from its primary significatum by
special custom (*ex usu loquendi*), and proper, in which a term
stands for something by the virtue of the expression itself. So a term
has improper supposition when it is used in a figurative speech. It is
the case of the term 'cup' in the sentence 'I have
drunk a cup <of wine>'. Wyclif divides proper supposition
into material, when the term stand for itself or its sound (as it
occurs in "'I' is a pronoun" or
"'Iohannes' is trisyllabic"), and formal, when
the term stands for what it properly signifies. Formal supposition is
twofold: simple and personal. Like William of Sherwood, Peter of
Spain, and Burley, and against Ockham and his followers, Wyclif
affirms that the supposition is simple if the term stands for an
extra-mental universal only, as it occurs in 'Man can be
predicated of every man', and 'Man is a species'.
According to Wyclif, in both cases the term 'man'
supposits for the human nature, which is an extra-mental form common
to a multiplicity of singulars. Simple supposition is divided into
equal and unequal. A term is in simple equal supposition if it stands
for the common nature that it directly signifies, as it occurs in
'man is a species'. A term is in simple unequal
supposition when it stands for (1) a less common nature than that it
signifies, as it occurs in 'substance is a species', or
(2) a concrete accident or the characterizing property (*pro
accidente vel proprio primo*), as it occurs in 'this
universal-man is capable of laughing' ('*hic homo
communis est risibilis*') -- where the presence of the
demonstrative 'this' modifies the significate of the
subject-term 'universal-man', so that in the sentence it
supposits for that concrete exemplification (the human nature proper
to an individual man) which is identical with the subject of inherence
(a given human being) of the accidental form, or characterizing
property (in the example, the capacity-of-laughing), signified by the
predicate-term. The supposition is personal when the term which plays
the role of subject in a sentence stands for one or more individuals.
In the first case, the supposition is personal and singular, as it
occurs in 'this man is' ('*hic homo
est*'); in the second one, it is personal and common. The
personal and common supposition is twofold. If the term stands for
many singulars considered separately or for some (that is, at least
one) determinate individual named by the common term itself, the
supposition is *personalis distincta* (or determinate, as
Wyclif calls it in the final section of the chapter 12), as it occurs
in 'these (men) are' ('*isti sunt*').
If the term stands for many singulars considered together, the
supposition is a personal universal supposition (*personalis
universalis*). In turn, the personal universal supposition is
divided into confused and distributive (*confusa distributiva*)
and merely confused (*confusa tantum*). There is *suppositio
personalis communis universalis confusa distributiva* when the
(subject-)term stands for everything which has the form it signifies,
as it occurs in 'every man is' ('*omnis homo
est*'). There is *suppositio personalis communis
universalis confusa tantum* when the form (or property) signified
by the term at issue is affirmed (or not affirmed) equally well of one
of the bearers of that form as of another, since it applies (or does
not apply) to each for exactly the same reasons, as it occurs in
'both of them are one of the two' ('*uterque
istorum est alter istorum*'), where the expression
'one of the two' has merely confused supposition, since
none of the two can be both of them. The confused suppositions are so
called since they involve many different individuals, and this is the
case for the subject of a universal affirmative proposition (*De
logica*, chap. 12, pp. 39-40).
Wyclif takes a resolutely realist stand, as his formulation and
division of supposition (where simple supposition is described as that
possessed by a term in relation to a universal outside the intellect
and personal supposition as that possessed by a term in relation to
one or more individual) make evident. In this way, he stresses the
ontological entailments of Burley's theory. In his *De
suppositionibus* and *De puritate artis logicae* Burley had
adopted a semantic point of view in describing supposition, since he
had defined formal supposition as the supposition that a term has when
it stands for its own *significatum* or for the (individual)
items which fall under it. In the first case, we properly speak of
simple supposition, and in the second, we speak of personal
supposition. Wyclif makes clear what Burley had stated only
implicitly: the *significatum* of a common term is always a
common nature (that is, a universal form) really existing outside the
intellect. This fits in with his theory of meaning and his
ontology.
In the first chapter of his treatise on logic (*De logica*,
chap. 1, pp. 2-7) Wyclif maintains that: (1) a categorematic
term is a *dictio* to which a mental concept, sign of a thing,
corresponds in the soul. (2) Categorematic terms are divided into
common (namely, general expressions), like 'man' and
'dog', and discrete (namely, singular referring
expressions), such as personal and demonstrative pronouns and proper
names. (3) Common terms originally and primarily signify common
natures -- for instance, the term 'man' originally
and primarily signifies the human nature. (4) Categorematic terms can
be divided into substantial terms, such as 'man', and
accidental terms, such as 'white'. A substantial term
signifies a common nature proper to a set of individuals (of which the
term is the name) without connoting any accidental property; while an
accidental term signifies (but we would rather say: 'referes
to') a common essence, proper to a set of individuals, and also
(we would add: connotes) an accidental property, that is, a property
which is not constitutive of the essence referred to. (5)
Categorematic common terms can be divided also into abstract and
concrete. According to Wyclif, a concrete term, like
'man', is a term which signifies a thing that can have
both simple and personal supposition at once. On the contrary, an
abstract term is a term which signifies only a common nature without
connoting anything else, like 'humanity' and
'whiteness'. It is worth noticing that in defining
concrete terms Wyclif a) plainly attributes the capacity for
suppositing to things; b) does not clarify the metaphysical
composition of such things signified by concrete terms; and c)
describes the twofold supposition of concrete terms as a sort of
signification. (6) Finally, categorematic terms can be divided into
terms of first and second intention. A term of first intention is a
sign which signifies without connoting the properties of
being-individual or being-universal which characterize categorial
items. For example, 'God' and 'man' are terms
of first intention. On the contrary, a term of second intention is a
term which connotes such properties and refers to a common nature
without naming it. 'Universal' and 'primary
substance' are terms of second intention.
As is evident, the basic ideas of Wyclif's theory of meaning are
that (1) every simple expression in our language is like a label
naming just one essence in the world; and (2) distinctions among terms
as well as their linguistic and semantic properties are derived from
the ontological features of signified things. He affirms that
everything which exists signifies in a complex manner that it is
something real (*De logica*, chap. 5, p. 14 -- see Cesalli
2005); expressly claims that supposition is also a property of
signified things; and explains the semantic difference between general
terms, such as 'man', which can name a set of individuals,
and singular expressions, such as 'Socrates' or 'a
certain man' ('*aliquis homo*'), which name
just one item, by means of the different modalities of existence of
their different signified things (*significata*). Singular
expressions name and signify individuals, albeit general terms name
and signify common natures. In Wyclif's view, a common term
gives name to a certain set of individuals only by way of the nature
that it originally and directly signifies, and is common to a certain
group of individuals as their own quiddity (*De logica*, chap.
1, p. 7). As is evident from what he says in the first three chapters
of his *De logica* (on terms, universals, and categories
respectively), Wyclif identifies secondary substances (that is, the
universals of the category of substance) with the *significata*
of general (concrete) terms of that category (such as
'man' or 'animal') and individual substances
with the *significata* of singular expressions of that category
(such as 'this man', which refers to a single human
individual only). Furthermore, he holds that (1) common terms of the
category of substance, when used predicatively, specified which kind
of substance a certain individual substance is; (2) individual
substances are unique physical entities, located at a particular place
in space and time; and (3) universal substances are the specific or
generic natures proper to the individual substances, immanent in them,
and apt to be common to many individuals at the same time. As a
result, like Burley, Wyclif thinks of universals and individuals as
linked together by a sort of relation of instantiation. In other
words, he conceives of individuals as the tokens of universal natures,
and universal natures as the types of individuals. This consequence is
common also to many other Realist authors of the 13th and 14th
centuries. But, because of his peculiar reading of the relation
between universals and individuals, Wyclif derives from it an original
conception of the signification and suppostion of concrete accidental
terms, such as 'white', that inspired the new theories and
divisions of supposition developed in Oxford between 14th and 15th
centuries. According to them, any concrete accidental term which
occurs as an extreme in a proposition can stand for (1) the substrate
of inherence of the accidental form that it connotes (*suppositio
personalis*), or (2) the accidental form itself (*suppositio
abstractiva*), or (3) the aggregate composed of the individual
substance, which plays the role of the substrate of the form, and the
singular accidental form at issue (*suppositio concretiva*)
(so, for instance, William Penbygull in his treatise on
universals).
Wyclif ends chapter 12 of his *De logica* with three
*notanda* (pp. 40-42), by which he completes his
treatment of supposition. In the first one, he recalls that
categorematic common concrete terms can supposit both
*personaliter* and *simpliciter* at once
(*mixtim*) when the propositions where they occur as subjects
are universal affirmative or indefinite. For instance, the term
'animal' in (1) 'every animal was in Noah's
ark' ('*omne animal fuit in archa Noe*' as
well as the term 'man' in (2) 'man dies'
('*homo moritur*') can supposit personaliter for
every individual animal and man respectively, and if so, the first
sentence is false and the second true, and *simpliciter* for
every species of animals and the human nature respectively, and then
both sentences are true. In the second *notandum*, Wyclif
contends that proper names, personal and demonstrative pronouns, and
those terms of second intention by which we speak of the singular
items considered as such (namely, expression like
'*persona*' and '*individuum*')
cannot supposit distributively, since they were devised in order to
signify *discrete vel singulariter* only. Finally, in the third
one, he lays down the following rules about the supposition possessed
by the subject-term and the predicate-term in the Square of
Oppositions: (1) in every universal affirmative proposition, the
subject supposits *mobiliter*, that is: it has confused and
distributive supposition, while the predicate has *suppositio
confusa tantum* or simple. The supposition is merely confused if
it does not allow for descent to a certain singular nor a universal
-- in other words, a (predicate-)term has the supposition
*confusa tantum* when it is used attributively of its
extension. The supposition is simple if the predicate-term refers to a
common nature, as it is the case in 'every man is man',
where the predicate 'man' supposits for the human nature.
(2) Both the subject and predicate of a universal negative proposition
have confused distributive supposition, if they are common terms, as
it occurs in 'no man is a stone'. (3) In particular
affirmative propositions, such as 'some man is animal',
both the subject and predicate have determinate supposition. (4) In
particular negative propositions, the subject-term has determinate
supposition and the predicate-term has distributive confused
supposition.
Wyclif's own discussion of the sophism *I promise you a coin
that I do not promise* (*Logicae continuatio*, tr. 3, chap.
3, vol. 2, pp. 55-72; but see also the *Tractatus de
universalibus*, chap. 7, pp. 133-35) makes evident the
realist stand showed by his theories of meaning and supposition. Like
Burley before him, in his *Logicae continuatio* Wyclif defends
the claim that what is explicitly promised in such a promise, 'I
promise you one or other of these coins I have in my hands'
(*promitto tibi alterum illorum denariorum in altera manuum
mearum*), is the universal-coin, and not a singular one, even if I
can fulfil the promise only by giving any singular coin, since a
universal cannot be given or possessed except by a singular
(*Logicae continuatio*, tr. 3, chap. 3, p. 62). Thanks to his
distinction between simple and personal supposition, Wyclif is able to
explain from a semantic point of view the difference between promising
a coin in general and promising a particular coin: in the first case
the term 'coin' (*denarius*) has simple
supposition, and therefore the proposition is true if and only if what
is said is true of the universal-coin; on the contrary, if the term
'coin' has personal supposition (more precisely, personal
and singular supposition), the proposition is true if and only if what
is said is true of *a* particular coin. According to him, by
promising a singular, a universal is promised *secundarie* and
*confuse*, and conversely (*ibid*., p. 64). So, given
two coins in my hands, the coin *A* and the coin *B*,
the proposition 'I promise you one or other of these
coins' is true, even though, when asked whether I promised the
coin *A*, my answer is 'No', and so too when asked
whether I promised the coin *B*. In fact, according to Wyclif,
what I promised is the universal-coin, since the phrase 'one or
other of these coins' has simple supposition and therefore
stands for a universal, however restricted in its instantiations to
one or other of the two coins in my hands (*ibid*., p. 67).
This does not mean that the universal-coin is a sort of third coin
over and above the two coins in my hands. Wyclif had already rejected
this mistaken conclusion in the previous chapter of the *Logicae
continuatio*. He argues that to add the universal-man as a third
man to Socrates and Plato, given that there are only these two
individual men in the world, exhibits a fallacy of equivocation. When
a number is added to a term of first intention (like
'man'), the presence of this numerical term modifies the
kind of supposition from simple to personal; but one can refer to a
universal only with a term with simple supposition. As a consequence
the universal cannot be counted with its individuals - and in
fact any universal is really identical to each one of its individuals,
and so it cannot differ in number from each of them (*ibid*.,
chap. 2, p. 48).
## 3. Metaphysics
### 3.1 Being and analogy
The point of departure for Wyclif's metaphysics is the notion of
being, since it occupies the central place in his ontology. After Duns
Scotus, the real issue for metaphysics was the relationship between
being and, on the other side, God and creatures, as Scotus'
theory of the univocity of the concept of being was an absolute
novelty, full of important consequences for the development of later
medieval philosophy. Wyclif takes many aspects from Scotus'
explanation, but strongly stresses the ontological implications of the
doctrine. Wyclif, like Scotus, claims that the notion of being is the
most general one, a notion entailed by all others, but he also states
that an extra-mental reality corresponds to the concept of
being-in-general (*ens in communi*). This extra-mental reality
is predicated of everything (God and creatures, substances and
accidents, universal and individual essences) according to different
degrees, since God *is* in the proper sense of the term and any
other entity is (something real) only insofar as it shares the being
of God (*De ente in communi*, chap. 1, pp. 1-2; chap. 2,
p. 29; *De ente praedicamentali*, chap. 1, p. 13; chap. 4, p.
30; *Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 4, p. 89; chap. 7, p.
130; chap. 12, p. 279; *De materia et forma*, chap. 6, p.
213).
If being is a reality, it is then clear that it is impossible to
affirm its univocity. The *Doctor Subtilis* thought of being as
simply a concept, and therefore could describe it as univocal in a
broad sense (one name -- one concept -- many natures).
Wyclif, on the contrary, is convinced that the being-in-general is an
extra-mental reality, so he works out his theory at a different level
than does Scotus: no more at the intensional level (the meaning
connected with the univocal sign, or *univocum univocans*), but
at the extensional one (the thing signified by the mental sign,
considered as shared by different entities according to different
degrees). For that reason, he cannot use Aristotelian univocation,
which hides these differences in sharing. Thus he denies the univocity
of being and prefers to use one of the traditional notions of analogy
(*De ente praedicamentali*, chap. 3, pp. 25, 27), since the
being of God is the measure of the being of other things, which are
drawn up on a scale with the separated spiritual substances at the top
and prime matter at the bottom. Therefore he qualifies being as an
ambiguous genus (*ibidem*, p. 29), borrowing an expression
already used by Grosseteste in his commentary on Aristotle's
*Posterior Analytics*. The analogy of being does not entail a
multiplicity of correlated meanings, however, as in Thomas Aquinas.
Since Wyclif hypostatizes the notion of being and considers
equivocity, analogy, and univocity as real relations between things,
not as semantic relations between terms and things, his analogy is
partially equivalent to the standard Aristotelian univocity, since
what differentiates analogy from univocity is the way a certain nature
(or property) is shared by a set of things: analogous things
(*analoga*) share it according to different degrees
(*secundum magis et minus*, or *secundum prius et
posterius*), while univocal things (*univoca*) share it all
in the same manner and at the same degree. This is the true sense of
his distinction between ambiguous genera, like being and accident
(*accidens*), and logical genera, like substance (*De ente
praedicamentali*, chap. 4, pp. 30, 32). Hence, according to this
account, being in general is the basic component of the metaphysical
structure of each reality, which possesses it in accordance with its
own nature, value, and position in the hierarchy of created
beings.
Unfortunately, this theory is weak in an important point, since Wyclif
does not clarify the relation between being-in-general and God. On the
one hand, being is a creature, the first of all the creatures; on the
other hand, God should share it, as being-in-general is the most
common reality, predicated of all, and according to him
to-be-predicated-of something means to-be-shared-by it. As a
consequence, a creature would be in some respect superordinated to God
-- a theological puzzle that Wyclif failed to acknowledge.
### 3.2 Being and truth
According to Wyclif, the constitutive property of each kind of being
is the capacity to be the object of a complex act of signifying
(*De ente in communi*, chap. 3, p. 36; *De ente primo in
communi*, chap. 1, p. 70). This choice implies a revolution in the
standard medieval theory of transcendentals, since Wyclif actually
replaces being (*ens*) with true (*verum*). According to
the common belief, among the transcendentals (being, thing, one,
something, true, good) being was the primitive notion, from which all
the others stemmed by adding a specific connotation in relation to
something else, or by adding some new determination. So true
(*verum*) was nothing but being (*ens*) itself
considered in relation to an intellect, no matter whether divine or
human. In Wyclif's view, on the contrary, being is no longer the
main transcendental and its notion is not the first and simplest;
rather there is something more basic to which being can be reduced:
truth (*veritas* or *verum*). According to the English
philosopher, only what can be signified by a complex expression is a
being, and whatever is the proper object of an act of signifying is a
truth. Truth is therefore the true name of being itself (*Tractatus
de universalibus*, chap. 7, p. 139). Thus everything that is is a
truth, and every truth is something not simple but complex. Absolute
simplicity is unknown within Wyclif's metaphysical world. From
the semantic point of view, this means the collapsing of the
fundamental distinction in the common Aristotelian theory of meaning,
the one between simple signs (like nouns) and compound signs (like
propositions). From the ontological point of view, this entails the
uniqueness in type of what is signified by every class of
categorematic expressions (*Logica*, chap. 5, p. 14). Within
Wyclif's world, it is the same kind of object that both concrete
terms and propositions refer to, as individual substances have to be
regarded as (atomic) states of affairs. According to him, from the
metaphysical point of view a singular man is nothing but a real
proposition (*propositio realis*), where actual existence in
time as an individual plays the role of the subject, the common nature
(i.e., human nature) plays the role of the predicate, and the singular
essence (i.e., that by means of which this individual is a man) plays
the role of the copula (*ibid*., pp. 14-15).
Despite appearances, Wyclif's opinion on this subject is not
just a new formulation of the theory of the *complexe
significabile*. According to the supporters of the *complexe
significabile* theory, the same things that are signified by
simple concrete terms are signified by complex expressions (or
propositions). In Wyclif's thought, on the contrary, there are
no simple things in the world that correspond to simple concrete
terms; rather, simple concrete terms designate real propositions, that
is, atomic states of affairs. Wyclif's real proposition is that
everything that is, as everything save God is composed at least of
potency and act (*De ente praedicamentali*, chap. 5, pp.
38-39), can therefore be conceived of and signified both in a
complex (*complexe*) and in a non-complex manner
(*incomplexe*) (*Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 2,
pp. 55-56; chap. 3, pp. 70, 74, and 84; chap. 6, pp.
118-19). When we conceive of a thing in a complex manner, we
consider that thing according to its metaphysical structure, and so
according to its many levels of being and kinds of essence. As a
consequence, Wyclif's metaphysical world, like his physical
world, consists of atomic objects, that is, single essences belonging
to the ten different types or categories. But these metaphysical atoms
are not simple but rather composite, because they are reducible to
something else, belonging to a different rank of reality and unable to
exist by themselves: being and essence, potency and act, matter and
form, abstract genera, species and differences. For that reason,
everything one can speak about or think of is both a thing and an
atomic state of affairs, while every true sentence expresses a
molecular state of affairs, that is, the union (if the sentence is
affirmative) or the separation (if the sentence is negative) of two
(or more) atomic objects (on Wyclif's theory of proposition see
Cesalli 2005).
### 3.3 Being and essence
Among the many kinds of beings Wyclif lists, the most important set is
that consisting of categorial beings. They are characterized by the
double fact of having a nature and of being the constitutive elements
of finite corporeal beings or atomic states of affairs. These
categorial items, conceived of as instances of a certain kind of
being, are called by Wyclif 'essences'
(*essentiae*). An essence therefore is a being that has a well
defined nature, even if the name 'essence' does not make
this nature known (*De ente primo in communi*, chap. 3, pp.
88-89; *De ente praedicamentali*, chap. 5, p. 43;
*Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 7, pp. 128-29; *De
materia et forma*, chap. 4, pp. 185-86). So the term
'essence' (*essentia*) is less general than
'being' (*ens*), but more general than
'quiddity' (*quidditas*), since (i) every essence
is a being, and not every being is an essence, and (ii) every quiddity
is an essence, and not every essence is a quiddity, as individual
things are essences but are not quiddities (see Kenny 1985, pp. 21
ff.; and Conti 1993, pp. 171-81).
According to Wyclif, being is the stuff that the ten categories
modulate according to their own nature, so that everything is
immediately something that is (*De ente praedicamentali*, chap.
4, p. 30; *Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 7, p. 130);
therefore, he maintains no real distinction between essence and being.
The essences of creatures do not precede their beings, not even
causally, since every thing is identical with its essence. The being
of a thing is brought into existence by God at the same instant as its
essence, since essence without being and being without essence would
be two self-contradictory states of affairs. In fact, essence without
being would imply that an individual could be something of a given
type without being real in any way, and being without essence would
imply that there could be the existence of a thing without the thing
itself (*Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 6, pp.
122-23). As a consequence, the *pars destruens* of his
theory of being and essence is a strong refutation of the twin
opinions of St. Thomas and Giles of Rome. Although Wyclif does not
name either the Dominican master or the Augustinian one, it is
nevertheless clear from the context that their conceptions are the
object of his criticisms (*ibid.*, pp. 120-22).
On the other hand, it is evident that while from the extensional point
of view the being and essence of creatures are equipollent, since
every being is an essence and *vice versa*, from the
intensional point of view there is a difference, because the being of
a thing *logically* presupposes its essence and not *vice
versa* (*De materia et forma*, chap. 4, pp. 184-85).
Moreover, in Wyclif's opinion, every creature has two different
kinds of essence and four levels of being. Indeed, he clearly
distinguishes between singular essence and universal essence
(*essentia quidditativa speciei vel generis*) -- that is,
the traditional *forma partis* and *forma totius*. The
singular essence is the form that in union with the matter brings
about the substantial composite. The universal essence is the type
that the former instantiates; it is present in the singular substance
as a constitutive part of its nature, and it discloses the inner
metaphysical structure of the substantial composite (*Tractatus de
universalibus*, chap. 6, pp. 116-18). Furthermore, he speaks
of four-fold level of reality (*esse*):
1. First, the eternal mental being (*esse ideale*) that every
creature has in God, as an object of His mind.
2. Second, the potential being everything has in its causes, both
universal (genus, species) and particular. This is closely connected
with the nature of the individual substance on which the finite
corporeal being is founded, and is independent of its actual
existence. It is called '*esse essentiae*' or
'*esse in genere*'.
3. Third, the actual existence in time as an earthly object.
4. Fourth, the accidental being (*modus essendi accidentalis
substantiae*) caused in a substance by the inherence in it of its
appropriate accidental forms (*Tractatus de universalibus*,
chap. 7, pp. 126-28).
Thus the identity between essence and being cannot be complete.
Consequently Wyclif speaks of a formal difference (*distinctio*
or *differentia formalis*) -- which he also calls a
'difference of reason' (*distinctio rationis*)
-- between essence and being. More precisely, he holds that:
1. The *esse ideale* is formally distinct from the singular
essence;
2. The actual existence is formally distinct from the universal
essence; and
3. The singular essence is formally distinct from the actual
existence.
In this way, Wyclif establishes a close connection between singular
essence and essential being, on the one hand, and a real identity
between universal and individual (that is, between universal essence
and singular essence), on the other hand. Essential being is the level
of being that matches singular essence, while actual existence is in a
certain way accidental to the singular essence, as the latter is
nothing else but the universal essence considered as informing
matter.
### 3.4 Being and categories
Since Wyclif thought of substance as the ultimate substrate of
existence and subject of predication in relation to anything else, the
only way to demonstrate the reality of the items belonging to other
categories was to conceive of them as forms and attributes of
substance. Accordingly, he insists that quantity, quality, and
relations, considered as accidents, are forms inherent in the
composite substances (cf. *De ente praedicamentali*, ch. 6, p.
48). In this way, just like Walter Burley, Wyclif wanted to safeguard
the reality of accidents as well as their (real) distinction from
substance and from each other, while at the same time affirming their
dependence on substance in existence.
### 3.4.1 Quantity
Among the nine genera of accidents, quantity is the most important
one, as it is the basis of all further accidents, because every other
accident presupposes it. Indeed, quantity orders substance for
receiving quality and the other accidental forms. In his commentary on
the *Categories* (ch. 10, SS 4) and in the first part of
his *Summa Logicae* (*pars* I, ch. 44) Ockham had
claimed that it was superfluous to posit quantitative forms really
distinct from substance and quality, since quantity presupposes what
it is intended to explain, that is, the extension of material
substances and their having parts outside parts. As an accident,
quantity presupposes substance as its substrate of inherence. Like
Burley, Wyclif also denies that material substance can be actually
extended without the presence of quantitative forms in it, thereby
affirming their necessity (cf. *De ente praedicamentali*, ch.
6, p. 50.), and consequently he tries to confute Ockham's
argumentation (*ibidem*, pp. 50-58). He admits that the
existence of any quantity always implies that of substance, but he
also believes that the actual existence of parts in a substance
necessarily implies the presence of a quantitative form in it,
distinct (1) from the substance (say Socrates) in which it inheres,
and (2) from the truth, grounded on the substance at issue, that this
same substance is a quantified thing (*ibidem*, pp.
51-53). He does not give us any sound metaphysical reason for
this preference. Nevertheless, it is easily understandable, when
considered from the point of view of his semantic presuppositions,
according to which, the reality itself is the interpretative pattern
of our language.
As a consequence, the structure of language is a mere mirroring of
that of reality. In Wyclif's opinion, therefore, some entities
must correspond in the world to the abstract terms of the category of
quantity (like '*magnitudo*') - entities
really distinct from the things signified by the substantial terms. In
any case, the most important evidence he offers for proving his thesis
is a sort of abductive reasoning, whose implicit premise is the
following inferential rule: if we can recognize a thing as the same
thing before and after its undertaking a process of change, then what
is changed is not the thing at issue, but a distinct entity really
present in that thing as one of its real aspects. The second premise
is the observation that men are of different size during their lives.
And the conclusion is that those changes are due to an accidental form
distinct from the substances in which it inheres (*ibidem*, p.
50).
### 3.4.2 Quality
Immediately after quantity, quality comes. Following Aristotle
(*Categories*, ch. 8, 8a 25), Wyclif defines quality as that in
virtue of which substances are said to be qualified. The chief feature
of Wyclif 's treatment of quality is his twofold consideration
of quality as an abstract form and as a concrete accident. In *De
ente praedicamentali* he clearly states that quality is an
absolute entity, with a well determined nature, and really distinct
from substance (cf. ch. 7, p. 61). Furthermore, even if incidentally,
against Burley, he notes that qualitative forms can admit a more or a
less, since the propria passio of the category of quality is to be
more or less intense (see *ibidem*, ch. 3, p. 28).
By contrast, in the *De actibus animae* (*pars* II, ch.
4), he seems to conceive of it as a mode of substance, without an
actually distinct reality. Truly, there is no effective difference
between the theses on quality maintained in those two works, but only
a difference of point of view. As what he says about the
real-and-essential distinction and the first sub-type of formal
distinction makes evident, quality considered in an absolute way,
according to its main level of being, is an abstract form, really
distinct from substance; yet, if considered from the point of view of
its existence as a concrete accident, it is not really distinct from
the substance in which it is present, but only formally. In the latter
case,it is a mere mode of the substance, like any other concrete
accident. In fact, in the *De ente praedicamentali* Wyclif
speaks of quality,using the abstract term, while in the *De actibus
animae* he constantly utilises concrete expressions, such as
'*quale*' and '*substantia
qualis*.'
### 3.4.3 Relations and relatives
Aristotle's treatment of relations in the *Categories*
(ch. 7) and in the *Metaphysics* (V, ch.15) is opaque and
incomplete. Because of this fact, in the Late Antiquity and in the
Middle Ages many authors tried to reformulate the doctrine of
relatives. Wyclif 's attempt is one of the most interesting
among those of the whole Middle Ages, as he very likely was the first
medieval author able to work out a concept of relation conceived of as
an accidental form which is in both the relatives at once, even though
in different ways. Consequently his relation can be considered the
ontological equivalent to our modern functions with two variables, or
two-place predicates, whereas all the other authors of the Middle Ages
had thought of the relations in terms of monadic functions. As a
matter of fact, according to Wyclif, relation is different from
quality and quantity, since it presupposes them just as what follows
by nature presupposes what precedes. Moreover, quantity and quality
are, in a certain way, absolute entities, but relation qua such is a
sort of link between two things (see *De ente praedicamentali*,
ch. 7, p. 61).
Wyclif thinks that the items directly falling into any categorial
field are simple accidental forms, therefore he distinguishes between
relations (*relationes*) and relatives (*relativa* or
*ad aliquid*) - these latter being the aggregates formed
by a substance, a relation, and the foundation (*fundamentum*),
of the relation. Accordingly, the relationship between relation and
relatives is, for him, similar to the ones between quantity and what
is quantified, and quality and what is qualified. The relation is the
very cause of the nature of the aggregates (that is, the relatives) of
which it is a constituent; yet, unlike the other accidental forms,
relations do not directly inhere in their substrates, but are present
in them only by means of other accidental forms, that Wyclif,
following a well established tradition, calls 'foundations of
the relation'. In his view, quantity and quality only can be the
foundation of a categorial relation (*ibidem*, pp.
61-62).Thus, according to Wyclif's description, in the act
of relating one substance to another four different constitutive
elements can be singled out: (1) the relation itself (for instance,
the form of similarity); (2) the foundation of the relation, that is,
the absolute entity in virtue of which the relation at issue is
present in the two substances correlated to each other (in this case,
the form of whiteness which makes the two substances at issue similar
to each other); (3) the subject of the relation (or its first
extreme), that is, the aggregate compound of (*a*) the
substance which denominatively receives the names of the relation (in
our example, the substance which is similar to another, say Socrates)
and (*b*) of the foundation of the relation ; (4) the second
extreme (of the relation), that is, another aggregate compund of a
substance and its own foundation, that the subject of the relation is
connected with, (in our example, a second substance which is, in its
turn, similar to the first one, say Plato).
The *fundamentum* of the relation is the main component, since
it (1) joins the relation to the underlying substances, (2) lets the
relation link the subject to the object, and (3) transmits to the
relation some of its properties. Even though relation depends for its
existence on the foundation, its being is really distinct from it, as
when the foundation fails the relation also fails, but not vice versa
(*ibidem*, pp. 62-64 and 67).
Some rather important conclusions about the nature and the ontological
status of relations and relatives follow from these premisses:
1. relation is a truth (*veritas*) whose kind of reality is
feebler than that of any other accident, as it depends upon the
simultaneous existence of three different things: the two extremes (of
the relation) and the foundation.
2. A relation can (indirectly) inhere in a substance without any
change in the latter, but simply because of a change in another one.
For example: given two things, one white and the other black, if the
black thing becomes white, then, because of such a change, a new
accident, that is, a relation of similarity, will inhere also in the
first thing, apart from any other change in it.
3. All the true relatives ( propria relativa) are simultaneous by
nature (see *ibidem*, p. 64), since the real cause of being a
relative is relation, which at the same time (indirectly) inheres in
two things, thereby making both ones relatives.
Like Duns Scotus, Wyclif divides relations into transcendental and
categorial relations (*ibidem* p. 61-62), and, moreover,
like many of his predecessors and contemporaries, among the latter he
contrasts real relatives (*relativa secundum esse*) with
relatives of reason (*relativa rationis*), or linguistic
relatives (*relativa secundum dici* - see
*ibidem*, pp. 62-64). Wyclif defines real relatives as
those aggregates (1) made up of a substance and (2) an absolute
accidental form (quantity or quality), (3) whose reality consists in
being correlated to something else. If one of these three conditions
is not fulfilled, we will speak of relatives of reason (cf.
*ibidem*, p. 63).
In this way, Wyclif eliminates from the description of the relatives
of reason any reference to our mind, and utilizes objective criteria
only, based on the framework of reality itself. In fact he maintains
that there are three kinds of relations of reason, each one
characterized by the occurrence of at least one of these negative
conditions: (1) one of the two extremes of the relation is not a
substance with its foundation; (2) both the extremes of the relation
are not substances; (3) there is no foundation for the relation, or it
is not an absolute accident - that is, a quantity, or a quality
(*ibidem*). The strategy which supports this choice is evident:
Wyclif attempts to substitute references to mental activity by
references to external reality. In other words, he seeks to reduce
epistemology to ontology, in accordance with his realist program.
## 4. Theology
### 4.1 Divine ideas
Wyclif's world is ultimately grounded on divine essence. Thus
there is a close connection between any kind of *truth* and the
divine ideas (cf. *Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 15, pp.
371-74; *De materia et forma*, chap. 2, pp.
170-76). Divine ideas play a threefold role in relation to God
and creatures: they are (i) the specific essences of individual things
themselves, considered according to their intelligible being in the
mind of God; (ii) God's principles of cognition of creatures;
and (iii) the eternal models of creatures. If we also take into
account that in his opinion (iv) divine ideas are really the same as
the divine essence and formally distinct from it, and (v) this
distinction originates from their being efficient (con)causes in
relation to the different kinds of creatures, we can easily realize
why Wyclif's position on this matter leads to heretical
consequences from the point of view of the Catholic theology: (i)
metaphysical and theological necessitarianism; (ii) restriction of
divine omnipotence; (iii) negation of the process of
transubstantiation in the Eucharist. In fact, Wyclif defines ideas as
the divine nature in action, since they are the means by which God
creates all that is outside Himself. In this way, any distinction
between the ideas as pure *rationes* and the ideas as
*exemplaria*, stated by St. Thomas in his *Summa
theologiae* (I, q. 15), is abolished. Furthermore, ideas are the
constitutive principles of divine nature, essentially identical with
it. Thus divine ideas become as necessary as the divine nature itself.
On the other side, ideas are the first of the four levels of being
proper to creatures. Indeed, since God could not help but create this
Universe (as we shall see in Section 4.2), everything which is is
necessary and so is a necessary object of God's volition. Thus,
the three spheres of possible, existent, and necessary totally
coincide. As a matter of fact, Wyclif, having defined necessary truths
as those truths which cannot not be the case, (i) distinguishes
between absolutely necessary truths and conditionally (or relatively
- *secundum quid*) necessary truths, and (ii) tries to
show how relative necessity is consistent with supreme contingence
(*Logicae continuatio*, tr. 1, chap. 11, vol. 1, pp.
156-65). He thought that such distinctions enabled him to
maintain simultaneously the necessity of all that happens and human
freedom (cf. *Tractatus de universalibus*, ch. 14, pp.
333-47); and many times he affirms that it would be heretical to
say that all things happen by *absolute* necessity; but his
attempt failed in achieving its goal.
According to him, absolutely necessary truths are such truths as (i)
those of theology (like the real proposition that God exists), that
are *per se* necessary and do not depend on something else;
(ii) those of geometry, that neither can, nor ever could, nor ever
will be able to be otherwise, even though they depend on something
else (*est ab alio sed non potuit non esse*); and (iii) the
past and present truths (like the real proposition that I have existed
- *me fuisse*), that cannot be, but might have been
otherwise (*per accidens necessarium, quia est necessarium quod
potuit non esse*). On the contrary, relative necessity applies to
those events that must follow certain conditions in order to be or
happen - so that any contingent truth is relatively necessary if
considered in relation to its conditions (*Logicae
continuatio*, tr. 1, chap. 11, p. 157). In its turn, relative
necessity is divided into antecedent, consequent, and concomitant. (i)
A certain truth is an antecedent relative necessity when its existence
causes the existence of another contingent truth (*antecedens ut
causa contingentis, inferens posterius naturaliter*). An instance
of such a necessity is the necessity of volition, as where my
unconstrained will or the unconstrained will of God is the cause which
necessitates something else (*ibid*., p, 158). (ii) A certain
truth is a consequent relative necessity when its existence is caused
by an antecedent (relative) necessity. And finally, (iii) a certain
truth is a concomitant relative necessity when it merely accompanies
another true event (*ibid*., p. 157). These features proper to
the relative necessity are not opposites, and the same truth may be
necessary in all the three ways (*ibid*., pp. 157-58).
Wyclif insists that all three kinds of relative necessity are
contingent truths in themselves (*ibid*., p. 158), yet he was
unable to show how this is possible. He thought he had an explanation,
but he was mistaken. In his *Tractatus de universalibus* (where
he uses all these distinctions in order to try to solve the problem of
the relationship between divine power and human freedom), he
explicitly maintains that in relation to the foreknowledge of God
every effect is necessary to come about (*Tractatus de
universalibus*, chap. 14, p. 333), and the Aristotelian principle
that everything which is, when it is, necessarily is (the well known
formulation of the diachronic contingence), applies also to what will
be and has been (*ibid*., p. 334). Taking into account that God
himself cannot begin or cease actually to know or will something, and
thus He cannot change from knowing that *p* to knowing that
not-*p* (where *p* is a given truth), nor from volition
to non-volition or *vice* *versa* (*ibid*., p.
335; cf. also *De volucione Dei*, chap. 3, p. 149), the logical
result is that in Wyclif's world nothing may happen purely
contingently. It is true that Wyclif insists that even if God can
never change from volition to non-volition, the fact that God wills
*p* is in itself contingent, if *p* is not a theological
truth (*De volucione Dei*, chap. 7, p. 192), but, like
Bradwardine, he maintains that God's antecedent will is
naturally prior to what He foresees. Given that God is immutable, and
hence that the divine power is not affected by the passage of time,
and divine ideas, within Wyclif's system, are as necessary as
the divine essence itself, the logical consequence is that, despite
Wyclif's claims of the contrary, the whole history of the world
is determined from eternity. As a matter of fact, Wyclif's
conditional (or relative) necessity is as necessary as his absolute
necessity: given God, the world's entire history follows.
### 4.2 Divine omnipotence
This doctrine of divine ideas and the connected theory of being had a
significant result also for the notion of divine omnipotence. In the
Middle Ages, one of the most important features of divine omnipotence
was the capacity of annihilating, which was viewed as the necessary
counterpart of the divine capacity of creating. Wyclif denies the
thesis of an opposition between creation and annihilation, and
explicitly denies that God can annihilate creatures. He argues that
nothing is contrary to creation, since the act of creating is peculiar
to God, and nothing is opposite or contrary to God. In fact,
*absolute* non-being (the only "thing" that could
be considered opposite to God) is something self-contradictory, and
therefore logically impossible. Accordingly, there cannot be any
action opposite to creation. The only possible kind of non-being
admitted by Wyclif is corruption (*corruptio*), that is, the
natural destruction of the actual existence in time of an object in
the world (*Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 13, pp.
302-3).
On the other hand, according to Wyclif, annihilation, if possible,
would be equivalent to the total destruction of all of a
creature's levels of being (*ibid.*, p. 307), and thus
would imply the following absurdities:
1. God could not annihilate any creature without destroying the whole
world at once, since universal-being is the basic constitutive element
of the second level of being (the *esse essentiae* or *esse
in genere*) of each creature (*ibid.*, pp.
307-8).
2. Since annihilation would be nothing but an accident, and more
precisely an action, it would be really different from both the acting
subject (i.e. God) and the object of the action (i.e., the thing that
would be annihilated). But any accident requires a substrate of
inherence. In this case, it cannot be God. Thus, it must be the object
of annihilation. Yet, because of its particular nature, if there is
annihilation, its substrate of inherence cannot be, and therefore the
annihilation itself cannot be, since no accident can exist without any
substrate of inherence -- an apparently self-contradictory state
of affairs (*ibid.*, pp. 310-11).
3. God could not annihilate any creature without annihilating Himself
at the same time, because the first and most basic level of being of
every creature is rooted in the divine essence itself (*ibid.*,
pp. 313-14).
The image of God Wyclif draws here is not the Christian image of the
Lord of the universe, who freely creates by an act of His will and has
absolute power and control over everything, but a variation of the
Neoplatonic notion of the One. Wyclif's God is simply the
supreme principle of the universe from which everything necessarily
flows. Within Wyclif's system, creation is a form of emanation,
as each creature is necessarily connected with the divine essence
itself by means of its *esse ideale*. God has been deprived of
the power of revocation (*ibid*., pp. 304-5), and the
only action He can, or rather has to, perform is creation. Because of
the necessary links between (i) the divine essence and the eternal
mental being that every creature has in God and (ii) this first level
of being of creatures and the remaining three, for God to think of
creatures is already to create them. But God cannot help thinking of
creatures, since to think of Himself is to think of His constitutive
principles, that is, of the ideas of creatures. Therefore, God cannot
help creating. Indeed, He could not help creating just this
universe.
Wyclif's rejection of the possibility of annihilation and the
subsequent new notion of divine onnipotence shed light on his theory
of universals, as they help us to appreciate the difference between
his thesis of the identity between universals and individuals and the
analogous thesis of moderate Realists. For these latter theses, this
identity meant that *the* individuals are *in potentia*
universal; for Wyclif it means that *the* individuals are
*the* universals *qua* existing *in actu* --
that is, the individuals are the outcome of a process of production
that is inscribed into the nature of general essences themselves, and
through which general essences change from an incomplete type of
subsistence as forms to a full existence as individuals. This position
is consistent with (i) his theory of substance, where the main and
basic composition of every substance, both individual and universal,
is not the hylemorphic one, but the composition of potency and act
(*De ente praedicamentali*, chap. 5, pp. 38-39), and (ii)
a Neoplatonic reading of Aristotelian metaphysics, where universal
substances, and not individual ones as the Stagirite had taught, are
the main and fundamental kind of being (on Wyclif's doctrine of
the divine omnipotence see A. D. Conti, "*Annihilatio* e
divina onnipotenza nel *Tractatus de* *universalibus* di
John Wyclif," in MT. Fumagalli Beonio Brocchieri & S.
Simoneta 2003, pp.71-85.
### 4.3 The Eucharist
Wyclif's heretical theses concerning the Eucharist are the
logical consequence of the application of this philosophical apparatus
to the problem of the real presence of the body of Christ in the
consecrated host. According to Catholic doctrine, after consecration
the body of Christ is really present in the host instead of the
substance of the host itself, while the accidents of the host are the
same as before. St. Thomas's explanation of this process, called
'transubstantiation', was that the substance of the bread
(and wine) was changed into the body (and blood) of Christ, whereas
its quantity, through which the substance of the bread received
physical extension and the other accidental forms, was now the entity
that kept the other accidental forms physically in being. Duns Scotus
and Ockham, on the contrary, had claimed that after consecration the
substance of the bread (and wine) was annihilated by God, while the
accidents of the bread (and wine) remained the same as before because
of an intervention of divine omnipotence.
Wyclif rejects both solutions as well as the Catholic formulation of
the dogma, since he could not accept the ideas of the destruction of a
substance by God and of the existence of the accidents of a given
singular substance without and apart from that singular substance
itself -- two evident absurdities within the metaphyisical
framework of his system of thought. As a consequence, Wyclif affirms
the simultaneous presence in the Eucharist of the body of Crhist and
of the substance of the bread (and wine), which continues to exist
even after the consecration. According to him, transubstantiation is
therefore a twofold process, natural and supernatural. There is
natural transubstantiation when a substitution of one substantial form
for another takes place, but the subject-matter remains the same. This
is the case with water that becomes wine. There is supernatural
transubstantiation when a miraculous transformation of the substantial
entity at issue takes place. This was the case, for instance, with the
incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, who is God and became
man (*De apostasia*, p. 170). The Eucharist implies this second
kind of transubstantiation, since the Eucharist, like Christ, has a
dual nature: earthly and divine. According to its earthly nature the
Eucharist is bread (and wine), but according to its divine nature it
is the body of Christ, which is present in the host spiritually or in
a habitudinal fashion, since it is in virtue and by means of faith
only that it could be received (*De apostasia*, pp. 180 and
210; *De eucharistia*, pp. 17, 19, 51-52, and 230; for a
description of the habitudinal presence, see the definition of the
habitudinal predication above, Section 2.3 - on the links
between his realism and his eucharistic doctrine see P. J. J. M.
Bakker, "Realisme et remanence. La doctrine
eucharistique de Jean Wyclif," in MT. Fumagalli Beonio
Brocchieri & S. Simoneta 2003, pp. 87-112; see also Kenny
1985, pp. 68-90).
## 5. Religious and Political Thought
### 5.1 The Bible and the Church
Wyclif conceives of Sacred Scripture as a direct emanation from God
himself, and therefore as a timeless, unchanging, and archetypal truth
independent of the present world and of the concrete material text by
means of which it is manifested. As a consequence, in his *De
veritate Sacrae Scripturae* (*On the Truth of Sacred
Scripture* -- between late 1377 and the end of 1378) he tries
to show that, despite appearences, the Bible is free from error and
contradictions. The exegetic principle he adopts is the following:
since the authority of Scripture is greater than our capacity of
understanding, if some errors and/or inconsistencies are found in the
Bible, there is something wrong with our interpretation. The Bible
contains the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so that nothing
can be added to it or subtracted from it. Every part of it has to be
taken absolutely and without qualification (*De veritate Sacrae
Scripturae*, vol. 1, pp. 1-2, 395, 399; vol. 2, pp. 99,
181-84).
In attributing inerrancy to the Bible, Wyclif was following the
traditional attitude towards it, but the way he viewed the book
detached him from Catholic tradition, as he thought that his own
metaphysical system was the necessary interpretative key for the
correct understanding of Biblical truth. In fact, in the
*Trialogus* (*Trialogue* -- between late 1382 and
early 1383), where Wyclif gives us the conditions for achieving the
true meaning of the Bible, they are the following:
1. knowledge of the nature and ontological status of universals;
2. knowledge of the peculiar nature of accidents as dependent in
existence on their substantial substrates;
3. knowledge of past and future states of affairs
(*praeteritiones* and *futuritiones*) as real in the
present as past and future truths, not as things (*res*) that
have been real in the past and will be real in the future (a thesis of
his already claimed in the *De ente praedicamentali*, chap. 1,
pp. 2 and 5; *Purgans errores circa veritates in communi*,
chap. 1, pp. 1-2; chap. 3, pp. 10-11);
4. knowledge of the eternal existence of creatures in God at the
level of intelligible being really identical with the divine essence
itself;
5. knowledge of the perpetual existence of material essences
(*Trialogus*, book 3, chap. 31, pp. 242-43).
Only on the basis of this logical and metaphysical machinery is it
possible to grasp the five different levels of reality of the Bible,
which are at the same time:
1. the book of life mentioned in the *Apocalypse*;
2. the ideal being proper to the truths written in the book of
life;
3. the truths that are to be believed as they are written in the book
of life;
4. the truths that are to believed as they are written in the natural
books that are men's souls;
5. all the artificial signs of the truth (*De veritate Sacrae
Scripturae*, vol. 1, p. 109).
This same approach, when applied to the Church, led Wyclif to fight
against it in its contemporary state. (On Wyclif's ecclesiology
see Leff 1967, pp. 516-46.) The starting point of Wyclif's
reflection on the Church is the distinction between the heavenly and
the earthly cities that St. Augustine draws in his *De civitate
Dei*. In St. Augustine such a division is metaphorical, but Wyclif
made it literal. So he claims that the Holy Catholic Church is the
mystical and indivisible community of the saved, eternally bound
together by the grace of predestination, while the foreknown, i.e. the
damned, are eternally excluded from it (*De civili dominio*,
vol. 1, p. 11). This community of the elect is really distinct from
the various particular earthly churches (*ibid.*, p. 381). It
is timeless and outside space, and therefore is not a physical entity;
its being, like the actual being of any other universal, is wherever
any of its members is (*De ecclesia*, p. 99). All its members
always remain in grace, even if temporally in mortal sin
(*ibid.*, p. 409), as conversely the damned remain in mortal
sin, even if temporally in grace (*ibid.*, p. 139). The true
Church is presently divided into three parts: the triumphant Church in
heaven; the sleeping Church in purgatory; and the militant Church on
earth (*ibid.*, p. 8). But the militant Church on earth cannot
be identified with the visible church and its hierarchy. Even more,
since we cannot know who are the elect, there is no reason for
consenting to recognize and obey the authority of the visible church
(see *De civili dominio*, vol. 1, p. 409; *De ecclesia*,
pp. 71-2). Authority and dominion rely on God's law
manifested by Sacred Scripture. As a consequence, obedience to any
member of the hierarchy is to be subordinated to his fidelity to the
precepts of the Bible (*De civili dominio*, vol. 2, p. 243;
*De potestate papae* [*On the Power of the Pope* --
ca. 1379], p. 149; *De ecclesia*, p. 465). Faithfulness to the
true Church can entail the necessity of rebelling against the visible
church and its members, when their requests are in conflict with the
teaching of Christ (*De civili dominio*, vol. 1, pp. 384,
392).
In conclusion, since the visible church cannot help the believers gain
salvation, which is fixed from eternity, and its authority depends on
its fidelity to divine revelation, it cannot perform any of the
functions traditionally attributed to it, and it therefore has no
reason for its own existence. To be ordained a priest offers no
certainty of divine approval and authority (*De ecclesia*, p.
577). Orthodoxy can only result from the application of right reason
to the faith of the Bible (*De veritate Sacrae Scripturae*,
vol. 1, p. 249). The Pope, bishops, abbots, and priests are expected
to prove that they really belong to the Holy Catholic Church through
their exemplary behavior; they should be poor and free from worldly
concerns, and they should spend their time preaching and praying
(*De ecclesia*, pp. 41, 89, 129). In particular, the Pope
should not interfere in worldly matters, but should be an example of
holiness. Believers are always allowed to doubt the clergy's
legitimacy, which can be evaluated only on the basis of its
consistency with the Evangelic rules (*ibid.*, pp. 43, 456).
Unworthy priests forfeit their right to exercise authority and to hold
property, and lay lords might deprive them of their benefices (*De
civili dominio*, vol. 1, p. 353; vol. 3, pp. 326, 413; *De
ecclesia*, p. 257).
### 5.2 Dominion
As Leff remarked (Leff 1967, p. 546), the importance of Wyclif's
teaching on dominion and grace has been exaggerated. His doctrine
depends on Richard Fitzralph's theory, according to which the
original lordship is independent of natural and civil circumstances
(on Fitzralph's conception see Robson 1961, pp. 70-96),
and is only a particular application of Wyclif's general view on
election and damnation. In fact, the three main theses of the first
book of his *De civili dominio* are the following:
1. a man in sin has no right to dominion;
2. a man who is in a state of grace possesses all the goods of the
world;
3. as a consequence, there can be no dominion without grace as its
formal cause (*De civili dominio*, vol. 1, p 1).
Wyclif defines dominion as the right to exercise authority and,
indirectly, to hold property. According to him, there are three kinds
of possession: natural, civil, and evangelical. Natural possession is
the simple possession of goods without any legal title. Civil
possession is the possession of goods on the basis of some civil law.
Evangelical possession requires, beyond civil possession, a state of
grace in the legal owner. Thus God alone can confer evangelical
possession (*ibid.*, p. 45). On the other hand, a man in a
state of grace is lord of the visible universe, but on the condition
that he shares his lordship with all the other men who are in a state
of grace, as all men in a state of grace have the same rights. This
ultimately means that all the goods of God should be in common, just
as they were before the Fall. Private property was introduced as a
result of sin. From this point of view it is also evident that
Aristotle's criticisms against Plato are unsound, since Platonic
communism is correct in essence (*ibid.*, pp. 96 ff.). The
purpose of civil law is to preserve the necessities of life
(*ibid.*, pp. 128-29). The best form of government is
monarchy. Kings must be obeyed and have taxes paid to them, even if
they become tyrants, since they are God's vicars that He alone
can depose -- so that only secular lordship is justified in the
world (*ibid.*, p. 201). |
wyclif-political | ## 1. Wyclif's Later Works
Government and the relation of divine justice to human law, both
secular and ecclesiastical, figure as occasional themes throughout the
treatises of the *Summa de Ente*. After receiving his doctorate
in theology in 1373, his attention began to focus more completely on
these topics, and his realism continued to undergird his thought at
least through 1381, during which period he wrote the treatises that
make up the second of his great *Summae*, the *Summa
Theologie*. In late 1373, he began *De Dominio Divino*,
which serves as bridge from the later, formal theological treatises of
the *Summa de Ente* to the political, social, and
ecclesiological subject matter of the *Summa Theologie*. He
began royal service during this period, participating in an embassy to
Bruges for negotiations with papal envoys in 1374. Wyclif remained in
the service of John of Gaunt for the rest of his life; the Duke
protected him from the formal prosecution prompted by five bulls of
papal condemnation in 1377. After being condemned for his views on the
Eucharist at Oxford in 1381, Wyclif withdrew to Lutterworth, where he
remained until his death in December 1384. Though still protected by
John of Gaunt, he was no longer in active service after 1379. During
these tumultuous years, Wyclif wrote the ten treatises of the
*Summa Theologie*: four on just human government, two on the
structure and government of the church, one on scriptural
hermeneutics, and three on specific problems afflicting the
Church. Our interest lies in *De Mandatis Divinis* (1375-76),
*De Statu Innocencie* (1376), and *De Civili
Dominio* (1375-76), where he provides the theological foundation
for the radical transformation of the church he prescribes in *De
Ecclesia* (1378-79) *De Potestate Pape* (1379), and *De
Officio Regis* (1379). Towards the end of his life, Wyclif
summarized his entire theological vision in *Trialogus*
(1382-83), reiterating the connections between his earlier
philosophical works and later political treatises in a three-way
dialogue written in language that would appeal to members of the royal
court.
## 2. *Dominium* in Political Thought Before Wyclif
*Dominium* and its generally accepted translation, 'lordship',
suggest the sovereignty exercised by one individual over another, but
Roman law allowed for complexity in distinguishing between property
ownership, its primary referent, and jurisdiction, governance, and
political power. When twelfth-century canon lawyers resurrected Roman
law as the foundation for the ascendant papal monarchy, it was common
to distinguish between jurisdictive authority, secular power, and the
use and possession of private
property.[1]
By the beginning of the fourteenth century, *dominium* largely
connoted property ownership, though this usually entailed jurisdictive
authority. Most political theorists agreed with Thomas Aquinas in saying that a civil lord who
supposed that his jurisdictive authority arose from property ownership
rather than from a constitution would be a tyrant (*Summa
Theologiae* IaIIae, Q.56, a.5; Q.58, a.2). Given that the legal
use of *dominium* referred to property ownership and not to the
authority to govern, it seems odd that Wyclif used the term to do so
much more. The reason may be found in the connection of Augustinian
theology to theories of the justice of property ownership. As the
papal monarchy developed, its theorists, such as
Giles of Rome,
found it useful to identify all earthly justice, including just
property ownership, with the source of justice in creation.
### 2.1 Augustine
Augustine's
*De Civitate Dei* was the basis for relating property
ownership and secular justice to divine authority. Here the division
between two classes of men is clear: some are members of the City of
Man, motivated by love of self, while others are motivated by the love
of God and a contempt for self, placing them in the City of
God.[2]
There is really only one true Lord in creation. Mastery of one man
over another is the result of Original Sin and is therefore unnatural
except in the case of paternity, which is founded on parental love for
a child. Among members of the City of God, the relation of prince and
subject is not political and does not entail the sort of mastery we
see in the City of Man, but rather involves service and sacrifice, as
exemplified by the parent/child relationship.
Property ownership has been united to mastery in the City of Man
because of Original Sin, whereby man turned away from God in the
mistaken belief that he could make claims of exclusive ownership on
created beings. This is not to say that Augustine thought that all
private property relations are wrong; indeed, he is famous for having
argued that all things belong to the just (*De Civitate Dei*
14, ch. 28). But people who own things are not *de facto*
just. Those for whom ownership is not an end in itself but a means by
which to do God's will are freed from the bondage of selfishness
imposed by the Fall. They easily recognize the truth of the dictum
that one should abstain from the possession of private things, or if
one cannot do so, then at least from the love of property
(*Enarratio in Psalmam* 132, ch.4).
Augustine's thought on the relation of ownership to political
authority is open to interpretation. One can easily read him as
arguing that the Church, as the Body of Christ and earthly
instantiation of the City of God, can best exemplify loving
lord/subject relations through its ecclesiastical structure, thereby
justifying a top-down papal monarchy. Likewise, one can read him as
having so separated secular political authority from the rule of love
as to make political and ecclesiastical jurisdictive authority utterly
distinct. Again, one could interpret Augustine's 'all things belong to
the just' as meaning that the Church is the arbiter of all property
ownership in virtue of being the Body of Christ and seat of all
created justice, or one could argue that the Church should abandon all
claims to property ownership, just as the Apostles abstained from the
possession of private property. This ambiguity in interpretation was
the source of some of the competing theories that influenced Wyclif's
position.
### 2.2 Giles of Rome
During the conflict between Philip IV of France and Pope Boniface VIII
in 1301, Giles of Rome wrote *De Ecclesiastica Potestate*,
establishing the absolute secular superiority of the papacy. Giles'
master Boniface VIII was responsible for the two famous Bulls,
*Clericos laicos* (1296), which forbade clergy to give up
property without papal approval, and *Unam sanctam* (1302),
which declared that secular power is in the service of, and subject
to, papal authority. *De Ecclesiastica Potestate* is an
articulation of the concept of power underlying these two Bulls and
arising from one of the two interpretations of Augustine described
above. In it, Giles describes all power "spiritual and secular" as
rooted in the papacy, likening its structure to a papal river from
which smaller, secular streams branch out. The source of this river,
he continues, is the sea, which is God: "God is a kind of font and a
kind of sea of force and power, from which sea all forces and all
powers are derived like
streams."[3]
Not only is secular power reliant on papal authority; all property
ownership, insofar as it is just, is similarly dependent on an
ecclesiastical foundation. The key element in just secular power and
property ownership, he continues, is grace: without God's will
directly moving in creation through the sacraments of the Church,
power and ownership are empty claims, devoid of justice. Although
Giles did not explicitly call the combination of ownership and
temporal power *dominium*, his uniting the two in a consistent,
Augustinian fashion was sufficient for the next generation of
Augustinian theorists.
### 2.3 The Franciscans and Their Opponents
Thirty years earlier, in Bonaventure's
*Apologia pauperum* of 1269, the Franciscans had defined any
property ownership, communal or individual, as inimical to the ideals
of their Order. The Fall from paradise and the introduction of
selfishness to human nature makes property ownership of any type,
private or communal, an abberation. For the Franciscans, "all things
belong to the just" only in the sense that "belonging" entails
non-exclusive sharing (*usus pauper*), not ownership. Within
three decades, the Franciscans were divided on this issue: one party,
the Spirituals, demanded that the friars adopt *usus pauper* as
their ideal of spiritual perfection, while the other, the Conventuals,
argued for a more lenient interpretation of the Rule. The Spirituals,
under the guidance of the philosopher
John Peter Olivi
and his follower Ubertino de Casale, outnumbered the Conventuals by
century's end, and had become sufficiently vocal to attract the
attention of the
pope.[4]
John XXII was deeply suspicious of the Spiritual Franciscans'
arguments, perhaps fearing a reappearance of the communitarian
Waldensian heresy. Private ownership, John argued, was not the result
of Original Sin, but a gift from God that Adam enjoyed in Paradise and
which the blessed still can enjoy, secure in the knowledge that their
ownership is sanctioned by God's *dominium*. This argument was
to have notable consequences. John's eventual controversy with the
Spiritual's champion,
William Ockham,
led to the first important use of the concept of natural right. But
for our analysis, the important thing is that *iurisdictio* and
*proprietas* were united in the concept of
*dominium*. Wyclif would make use of the Franciscans' arguments
for apostolic poverty, as well as of John XXII's idea that divine
*dominium* provides the basis for all human *dominium*,
though in a way that would certainly have displeased both
parties.[5]
By the 1350s, opponents of the Franciscans had broadened their range
of criticism to question the legitimacy of the Order itself. Richard
Fitzralph, (d. 1360) wrote *De Pauperie Salvatoris*, a
sustained examination of the Franciscans' claim to function without
supervision by diocesan bishop in which he argues that if the friars
rely on the justice of the owners of what they use, they are bound by
the same laws that bind the owners. Thus, if the owners of what the
friars use are ecclesiastical, it follows that the friars must obey
ecclesiastical
authority.[6]
Fitzralph's position is important here because it argues that grace
alone is the justification for any instance of *dominium* in
creation, and that all just *dominium* ultimately relies on
God's *dominium*. Both serve as cornerstones of Wyclif's
position. God's *dominium* is a natural consequence of the act
of creating, and with it comes divine governance and conservation of
created being. The rational beings in creation, angels and human
beings, enjoy the loan of elements of God's created universe, but this
is not a divine abdication of ultimate authority since everything is
still directly subject to divine *dominium*.
When the nature of the *dominium* lent to Adam changed with the
Fall, the love defining our natural *dominium* was affected,
but not eradicated. Men devised political *dominium* to
regulate property relations, and although sin keeps them from
recognizing the borrowed nature of any *dominium*, it does not
preclude there being grace-justified property ownership. In some
cases, God infuses the artificial property-relations that we call
*dominium* with sufficient grace to make them generally
equivalent to prelapsarian *dominium*. These grace-favored
cases of human dominium do not replicate the authority of God's
*dominium*, but can exhibit the love that characterizes
it. Fitzralph's expression of the Augustinian papal position makes
grace the deciding factor in ownership relations and ultimately in
political authority, both of which had become nested in the term
*dominium*. Wyclif's interpretation of the Augustinian position
would stretch past arguments about papal authority and the friars,
even past arguments between popes and kings, to stir the very nature
of the church as Christ's earthly body. All of this begins, he would
argue, with an understanding of God's *dominium* as the causal
exemplar of created lordship.
## 3. Divine *Dominium*: Creating, Lending, and Grace
The relation of universal to particular defines Wyclif's conception of
how God's *dominium* causes all instances of *dominium*
in creation. Divine *dominium* is "the standard prior to and
presupposition of all other *dominium*; if a creature has
*dominium* over anything, God already has *dominium*
over it, so any created dominium follows upon divine
*dominium*" (*De Dominio Divino* I, ch. 3,
p.16.18-22). This relation exceeds mere exemplarity, where human
*dominium* only imitates God's *dominium* without divine
causal determination. God's *dominium* has causal efficacy over
all instances of human mastery such that no true created
*dominium* is possible without direct participation in and
constant reliance upon God's *dominium*. The instrument through
which divine *dominium* moves is grace, which instills in human
rulers an essential love defining their every ruling action. Thus,
every case of just human *dominium* entails a constant reliance
upon grace as the hallmark of its being an instantiation of God's
universal *dominium*.
God's *dominium* has six aspects, three identifiable with
lordship's ruling element (creation, sustenance, and governance), and
three that define lordship's proprietary nature (giving, receiving,
and lending) (*De Dominio Divino* III, ch. 1,
p.198.9).7
The necessary precondition for an act of *dominium* is
creation, of which no created being is capable. This makes God's
*dominium* the only true instance of *dominium* and the
source of all created instances of *dominium*. Because the
Divine Ideas and their created correlates, the universals, are
ontologically prior to particular created beings, God's
*dominium* over universals is prior to His *dominium*
over particulars. This means that God creates, sustains, and governs
the human species prior to ruling over -- and knowing --
individual people. This led to questions about determinism that served
as a starting point for many refutations of Wyclif's theology.
The second set of acts that define *dominium* -- giving,
receiving, and lending -- provides the foundation for Wyclif's
argument that all created *dominium* necessarily requires
grace. God's giving of the divine essence in creating is the truest
form of giving because God is giving of Himself through Himself, which
no created being can do. Nor can any created being receive as God
receives; God truly receives only from Himself through His giving. God
gives up nothing in His giving, and acquires nothing in His receiving;
creation is God's self-expression, an act in which the divine essence
is neither decreased nor increased. The crucial act from the created
standpoint is God's lending, for here there is real interaction
between Lord and subjects. What human beings as conscious participants
in God's lending relation can claim as their own is lent to them by
divine authority, which they enjoy through grace.
It is easy to confuse giving with lending because a lord who has only
been "lent" a gift of God for use during his lifetime appears to have
been "given" that gift. God's giving is communicative, not
translative. For us, most giving is translative in that it involves
the giver's surrender of every connection to the gift, making it
natural for us to suppose that God renounces His authority over what
He gives us. In fact, God's giving is communicative, which does not
involve surrender of the gift. Because all that God gives to creation
will ultimately return to Him, it makes more sense to speak of God's
giving as lending.
With any instance of lending, Wyclif explains, the lender seeks
assurance that the borrower truly deserves what is to be lent. Human
desert of the *dominium* they are lent is a matter of some
complexity involving examination of the theological concept of grace.
When a temporal lord lends his subject according to the subject's
worthiness, the subject's merit is commensurable with the lord's, and
the mutual agreement defining the loan can be made according to the
respective merit of each party. The merit that allows the subject
desert of consideration for the loan is "*condigna*", i.e.,
grounded in the *dignitas* shared by lender and
subject. Condign merit implies that the meritorious truly deserve the
reward, requiring the giver to give it to the merited as something
due, as when an olympic athelete earns a gold medal by besting all her
opponents. Such a loan is impossible between Creator and creature,
because there is no way of placing a creature's merit on the same
scale as God's perfect nature; all the creature has, including its
worth, is from God, whereas God's perfection is per se. There is no
way in which a creature can be considered to deserve anything from God
in such a relation. Congruent merit obtains when the meritorious does
not have the power to require anything of the giver. In instances of
congruent merit, the goodness of the act does not require the giver to
reward the agent, though it does provide sufficient cause for the
reward to be given, as when one receives an Academy Award: although
many of the audience members may deserve an Oscar, the winner receives
it because something about her performance is somehow pleasing to the
Academy. Still, Wyclif holds that "It is the invariable law of God
that nobody is awarded blessedness unless they first deserve it"
(*De Dominio Divino* III, ch. 4, p.229.18). We can move our
wills to the good, and from this, Wyclif says, grace may -- but need
not -- follow. Thus, we merit congruently thanks to God's generosity
towards a will in accord with His own. In effect, God lends merit.
Wyclif's theology of grace is the key to understanding how his theory
of human *dominium* relates to divine *dominium*, its
causal paradigm. Man's lordship is at once ownership and jurisdictive
mastery, but when a human lord governs, or gives, or receives, or
lends, these acts are only just insofar as the lord recognizes that
his authority is that of a steward: "Any rational creature is only
improperly called a lord, and is rather a minister or steward of the
supreme Lord, and whatever he has to distribute, he has purely by
grace" ([*De Dominio Divino* III, ch. 6, p.250.25-29). The
essential characteristic of every instance of human *dominium*
is the grace God lends to the individual lord, which itself is
grounded in the grace of the Holy Spirit. The human lord appears to
have proprietary and juristictive authority by virtue of his own
excellence, but this is really only an instantiation of divine
*dominium*, a grace-realized agent of God's lordship. This
makes the human lord both master and servant; from the divine
perspective, the lord is God's servant, but from the viewpoint of the
subject, he is master. Wyclif is tireless in his emphasis on the
illusory nature of this mastery; grace allows the human lord to
recognize that he is, in fact, the servant of his subjects,
ministering to them as a nurturing steward, not lording over them as
would a powerful sovereign.
### 3.1 Natural *Dominium*
*De Civili Dominio* begins with the motto, "Civil justice
presupposes divine justice; civil *dominium* presupposes
natural *dominium*." Man's *dominium* is threefold --
natural, civil, and evangelical -- but comprehensible as an
instantiation of the justice of God's *dominium*. As he moved
into his general analysis of human *dominium*, Wyclif's
thoughts turned to the most fundamental instance of God's loving
governance, the Scriptural commandments. The foundation of all that is
right (*ius*) in creation, he explains, is divine justice
(*iustitia*), so we cannot begin to understand right and wrong
in creation without understanding God's uncreated right. This was a
significant departure from the Aristotelian position that unaided
human reason is capable of justice, and Wyclif explicitly rejects any
conception of justice that does not rely on uncreated
right.[8]
The laws of Scripture are the purest expression of uncreated right
available to human eyes, he explains, and are most clearly expressed
in the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20, and again in the two greatest
commandments of Matthew 22: 37-40. Wyclif's analysis of Christ's law
of love and of the Ten Commandments proceeds directly from his
disquisition on the relation of earthly justice to eternal right in
*De Mandatis Divinis*. That Wyclif uses the same title
Robert Grosseteste
had used in his analysis of the decalogue is no accident; Wyclif's
debt to Grosseteste's conceptions of sin, love of God, idolatry, and
the substance of true faith is obvious throughout the treatise. In
*De Statu Innocencie*, the innocence into which we were created
before the Fall, he says, is the optimal condition for any rational
being. In our prelapsarian state, our wills would have been in perfect
concord with the divine will, so that all human action would be just,
effortlessly aligned with the natural order of creation. In this
condition, there would be no need for civil or criminal law, since we
understood what is right naturally.
This denial of the need for human law is of special import, for Wyclif
later argues that the evangelical lord, or priest, as heir of Christ's
restoration of the possibility of natural *dominium*, should
never be concerned with such matters. In such a state, private
property ownership was unknown. The natural *dominium*
described in Genesis 1:26 is characterized by lack of selfishness,
ownership, or any distinction between 'mine' and 'thine'. The true
sense of Augustine's "All things belong to the just" is most fully
apparent in the prelapsarian natural disposition to share in the use
of creation while acting as faithful steward to its perfect lord. The
Fall was brought about by the first sin, which Wyclif characterizes as
a privation of God's right in man's soul. We are left with wills prone
to value the physical, material world above spiritual concerns, and
the unavoidable result is private property ownership. We no longer
understand a given created good as a gift on loan from God, but can
only see it in terms of our own self-interest, and the unfortunate
result is civil *dominium*, an enslavement to material goods.
## 4. Types of Human *Dominium*
Wyclif's definition of civil *dominium* as "proprietary
lordship in a *viator* over the goods of fortune fully
according to human law" is centered not on legislative authority, but
on the private property ownership enjoyed by the *viator*, or
wayfarer, along life's path (*De Civili Dominio* III ch. 11,
p.178.9-17).[9]
This is because all civil *dominium* is based on the use of
goods owned, which is the basis for all postlapsarian conceptions of
justice (recall that for Wyclif, only God truly owns created things
because creating a thing is necessary for owning it; hence, human
beings are only lent created things and can use them justly, or
unjustly in case they appropriate them for themselves). Before the
Fall, our use of created goods was communal, unencumbered by the
complexity that follows upon selfishness. But now, Wyclif explains,
there are three types of use: that directly consequent upon civil
ownership, civil use without ownership, and evangelical use. The first
two are natural results of the Fall, and the third is the result of
Christ's Incarnation. Before the Incarnation, civil ownership and
civil use were grounded in man-made laws designed primarily to
regulate property ownership. These legal systems tended to have two
general structures: they were either monarchies, as in most cases, or
else they were aristocratic polities. The harmony of the aristocratic
polity is certainly preferable because it most resembles the state
enjoyed before the Fall; the benevolent aristocracy, as evidenced in
the time of the Biblical judges, would foster the contemplative life,
communalism, and an absence of corruptible governmental apparatus.
The most common species of civil *dominium* is monarchy, in
which a chief executive power holds ultimate legislative
authority. This centralized authority in one man is necessary to
implement order; there is no real possibility that the many are
capable of ruling on behalf of the many, given the prevalence of
sin. The point of civil *dominium* is not, as with
Aristotle,
the sustenance of individual virtuous activity. Civil
*dominium* is a phenomenon based on Original Sin, and is
therefore unlikely to produce justice per se. If the government of
Caesar is occasionally just, it is because it has accidentally
realized divine justice. But if civil *dominium* that is not
grounded directly in divine *dominium* is incapable of
sustained just governance, and if natural *dominium* is the
instantiation of divine *dominium* for which man was created,
how can any talk of just civil *dominium* be possible? To
return to the opening dictum of *De Civili Dominio*, if natural
*dominium* is free from private property ownership, how can
civil *dominium* rely upon it in any way?
Before resolving this problem, we will need to address evangelical
*dominium* as yet another factor in Wyclif's conception of
man's postlapsarian state.
### 4.1 Evangelical *Dominium*
Christ restores the possibility of gaining our lost natural
*dominium* both through His apostolic poverty and His
redemptive sacrifice as described in Holy Scripture. Because of
Christ's sinless nature, He was the first man since Adam capable of
exhibiting the purity of natural *dominium*. This Christ shared
with His disciples, who were able to renounce all exclusive claims to
created goods in a recreation of the communal *caritas* lost in
the Fall (*De Civili Dominio* III, 4, p. 51.17-24). This
poverty is not simply the state of not owning things; one can live
sinfully as easily in squalor as one can in luxury. The apostolic
poverty of the early Church is a spiritual state, not an economic
rejection of civil *dominium*. The similarity between Wyclif's
conception of spiritual poverty as the ideal state for Christians and
the Franciscan ideal is noteworthy. Wyclif seems to make a case
similar to the Spiritual Franciscans: Christ's life was exemplary for
all Christians and Christ lived in apostolic poverty; therefore, all
Christians ought follow His example, or at the least have that option
open to them. Wyclif's consonance with the Franciscan tradition is
also suggested in his use of
Bonaventure's
definition of apostolic poverty in the third book of *De Civili
Dominio*, but Wyclif's motives are distinctly different from the
Friars' (*De Civili Dominio* III, 8, pp. 119-120). While the
Franciscans argued that their rule allowed them to regain the
ownership-free purity enjoyed by the early Apostolic church, Wyclif
contended that Christ's redemptive sacrifice enabled all Christians to
regain natural *dominium* itself, not just its purity. This
suggested that the Franciscan life was a pale imitation of true
Christianity, which Wyclif's Franciscan colleagues were quick to point
out. One of the first critics of Wyclif's *dominium* thought
was William Woodford, O.F.M., who argued that Wyclif had gone too far
in equating apostolic, spiritual poverty with prelapsarian purity. The
extensive third book of *De Civili Dominio* is Wyclif's
response to Franciscan critics like Woodford, and in which lie the
seeds of the antifraternalism that would characterize his later
writings.
Wyclif describes apostolic poverty as a mode of having with love,
comprehensible in terms of the individual's use of a thing for the
greatest spiritual benefit. God alone can bring about the love
instantiating divine *dominium*, making grace necessary for
apostolic poverty. Because the church is founded not on the
materially-based laws of man, but on the spiritually-grounded *lex
Christi*, it must be absolutely free of property ownership, the
better to realize the spiritual purity required by apostolic
poverty. Any material riches that the church comes upon as "goods of
fortune" must be distributed as alms for the poor, following the
practice of Christ and the disciples, and the apostolic church. This
is the ideal to which the Church must aspire through the example of
Christ, and some of the harshest invective in Wyclif's prose is
directed against the Church's refusal to return to this apostolic
state. The turning point in Church history was the Donation of
Constantine, on the basis of which the Church claimed to have the
civil *dominium* of a Caesar. Wyclif was vigorous in his
condemnation of the Donation, and would likely have been pleased had
he lived into the early fifteenth century, when
Nicholas of Cusa
argued persuasively that the document was a ninth-century forgery.
### 4.2 Civil *Dominium*
Given the deleterious influence civil *dominium* has had on the
evangelical *dominium* of Christ's law, it is difficult to
imagine how Wyclif would set aside some civil lords as capable of
instantiating divine justice. But apostolic poverty is not identical
with an absence of property ownership; it is having with love. While
the clergy as spiritual lords ought to follow Christ's example of
material poverty, it does not follow that all ownership precludes
love. God can certainly bestow grace on those whom He wills to be
stewards of created goods. Wyclif envisions the just civil lord or
king as the means by which the Church is relieved of its accumulated
burden of property ownership. So long as the Church exists in
postlapsarian society, it must be protected from thieves, heresy, and
infidels. Certainly no evangelical lord ought to be concerned with
such matters, given their higher responsibility for the welfare of
Christian souls. As a result, the Church needs a guardian to ward off
enemies while caring for its own weel-being and administering alms to
the poor. This allows Wyclif to describe just, grace-favored civil
*dominium* as different in kind from the civil lordship
predicated on materialistic human concerns: "It is right for God to
have two vicars in His church, namely a king in temporal affairs, and
a priest in spiritual. The king should strongly check rebellion, as
did God in the Old Testament, while priests ought minister the
precepts mildly, as did Christ, who was at once priest and king." When
he raises conventional topics in political thought, like the
particulars of just rule, the responsibilities of royal councillors to
their king, the nature of just war, and royal jurisdiction in
commerce, his advice is priestly: "[A] lord ought not treat his
subjects in a way other than he would rationally wish to be treated in
similar circumstances; the Christian lord should not desire subjects
for love of dominating, but for the correction and spiritual
improvement of his subjects, and so to the efficacy of the church"
(*De Officio Regis* ch. 1, p. 13.4-8). The king ought provide
few and just laws wisely and accurately administered, and live subject
to these laws, since just law is more necessary for the community than
the king. Also, the king should strive to protect the lower classes'
claims on temporal goods in the interests of social order, for
"nothing is more destructive in a kingdom in its political life than
immoderately to deprive the lower classes of the goods of fortune"
(*De Officio Regis* ch. 5, p.
96.9-27).[10]
On occasion he discusses the king's need of reliable councillors,
generally when discussing the king's need for sacerdotal advice in
directing church reform, but he never mentions Parliament as a
significant aspect of civil rule.
The most immediate concern of a civil lord living in an age when the
Church is being poisoned by avarice should be the radical divestment
of all ecclesiastical ownership. Wyclif is tireless in arguing for the
king's right to take all land and goods, and indeed, even the
buildings themselves, away from the Church. Should the clergy protest
against royal divestment, threatening the king with excommunication or
interdict, the king should proceed as a physician applies his lancet
to an infected boil. No grace-favored civil lord will be disposed to
save up the divested goods of the Church for his own enrichment,
despite the obvious temptation. He will distribute the Church's
ill-gotten lands and goods to the people. This, Wyclif explains, will
be his continued responsibility even after the Church has been purged,
for he is the Church's custodian as well as its protector.
The hereditary succession by which civil lordship passes from father
to son is a problem for Wyclif. People cannot inherit the grace needed
to ensure just ownership and jurisdiction. Primogeniture imperils
grace-founded civil lordship, making lords prone to rule on behalf of
their own familial interests rather than in the interests of their
subjects. The only means by which Wyclif can envision hereditary
succession operating is through spiritual filiation, in which a civil
lord instructs a worthy successor. He suggests adoption as the basis
for the spiritual primogeniture by which lordship is passed on, which
would be preferable to general election, for Wyclif is clear about the
impossibility of widespread recognition of grace in a potential civil
lord: "It does not follow, if all the people want Peter to be their
civil lord, that therefore it is just" (*De Civili Dominio* I,
18, p. 130.6). Central to his ecclesiology is the impossibility of
determining the presence of grace in another's soul, which militates
against identifying members of the elect with certainty, and therefore
against excommunicating any of them from the Church, as well as ruling
out popular election as a means of instituting just civil
*dominium*. Grants in perpetuity, commonly employed by civil
lords to guarantee the ongoing obligation of subjects in return for a
gift of land or political authority, are as impossible as hereditary
inheritance. A lord might reward someone with a grant while acting as
God's steward, but he certainly cannot thereby make his subject's
progeny *deserve* the gift.
### 4.3 Tyranny
History is rich with examples of kings who, wittingly or unwittingly,
lose sight of their ministerial position and wield secular authority
in their own interests, cruelly using the land and church for their
own gain. Such tyrants cause Wyclif some problems, for in many cases
it is difficult for the subjects to determine whether their lord is
acting viciously as a crowned brigand, or sternly, as a physician
purging a patient. For the same reason that Wyclif denies the
suitability of popular elections, he is cautious regarding tyranny: it
is impossible for human minds to gauge the absence of grace in
another. What may look like cruel persecution of a subject may in fact
be just punishment, while what may appear to be benign, permissive
rule may in fact be the lassitude of misrule. Certainly no priest is
in a position to assess the justice of a civil lord, given his
dedication to apostolic ideals foreign to civil *dominium*. In
some cases, Wyclif advises that one must suffer tyrannical rule as a
divine punishment, particularly when a king deprives His subjects of
material wealth. In other cases, especially when a civil lord fosters
ecclesiastical decay by not persecuting heretics or regulating the
Church's goods, Wyclif suggests that resistance to tyranny may be
justifiable: better to focus on the greater danger of priestly
tyranny; after all, a tyrannical civil lord can only do damage to
one's material well-being, but a tyrannical priest can endanger one's
eternal soul. The guardian against priestly tyranny must be the civil
lord, whose responsibility to the Church requires him to monitor the
clergy's execution of its spiritual duties. Those who argue that a
civil lord has no business interfering with spiritual concerns
overlook the fundamental relation holding between just civil law and
divine law: because the civil lord's responsibility is to God, his
first concern must be to ensure that nothing will impede obedience to
divine law. The canon law that has built up over the centuries like
barnacles on a ship's hull is held up as the means by which the Church
regulates spiritual affairs, but this, Wyclif explains, is a
superfluous creation of priests, ultimately hindering the Church by
introducing material structure to what should be a purely spiritual
enterprise.
The king uses bishops, an office justly instituted by the early
church, to monitor the spiritual offices of priests to counteract
problems like simony, pluralism, absenteeism, and heresy. These
bishops ought also to act as royal theological advisors, helping the
civil lord to understand how Christ's law is best implemented in his
own legislation. Just as a civil lord is God's steward and a servant
to his subjects, a bishop is not superior to the laity or the priests,
but a steward whose responsibility is to God and the divine law, which
ordains subservience to the grace-favored civil lord. Wyclif continued
to argue for the centrality of episcopal office throughout his life,
despite his own troubles with the Bishop of London and the Archbishop
of Canterbury. |
xenocrates | ## 1. Metaphysics
Most of what we can reconstruct about Xenocrates pertains to his
metaphysics. We do this largely by identifying views of his that
appear in Aristotle's criticisms of the metaphysical views of his
predecessors and contemporaries, and chaining together with these
other texts that can plausibly be taken as dealing with his views. But
there are a few sources other than Aristotle.
One of them is Proclus, who says, commenting on the
*Parmenides* (Cousin 1864, 888.11-19, 36-38; fr.
30H, 94IP):
>
> But to the ideas both belonged: both to be intelligible and {to be}
> unchanging in substance, 'mounted on a holy pedestal',
> that is, on pure mind, being such as to complete the things that are
> in potentiality and being causes that give them their form; whence
> {Plato} going up to these principles makes the whole of coming-to-be
> dependent on them, just as Xenocrates says, positing that the idea is
> a paradigmatic cause of the {things} that are always constituted
> according to nature ... . Xenocrates, then, wrote down this
> definition of the idea as in conformity with the founder, positing it
> as a separate and divine cause; ...
>
'The founder' is Plato. The phrase 'mounted on a
holy pedestal' comes from Plato, *Phaedrus* 254b7, where
the soul has been likened to a charioteer who sees the Forms of the
beautiful and temperance so mounted. Some of the phrasing is no doubt
neoplatonist rather than Xenocratean, but the formulation, 'the
idea is a paradigmatic cause', seems to be, as Proclus says,
Xenocrates' attempt to capture Plato's intent: see here Plato,
*Parmenides* 132d.
There is disagreement over the rest of the formulation Proclus
attributes to Xenocrates: in speaking of 'the things that are
always constituted according to nature', did Xenocrates intend
to rule out forms for individuals, which are transitory, and for
artefacts, which are not constituted according to nature? This is the
way Proclus goes on to interpret Xenocrates, and it is hard to see how
to get around that, although attempts have been made (see Cherniss
1944 [1962], 256). But there is indirect confirmation of Proclus'
interpretation, at least where artefacts are concerned, from Clement
of Alexandria, who tells us (in *Stromateis* II 5) that
Xenocrates claimed that knowledge of the intelligible substance is
theoretical as opposed to practical 'judgment'; at that
rate, carpenters are not contemplating forms when they make beds and
shuttles, despite what is said by Plato in *Republic* X 596b
and *Cratylus* 389a-b, and (if it is by Plato) *Letter
vii* 342d. But it should be noted that the rejection of forms for
artefacts is in agreement with what Aristotle has to say about Plato
and Platonists in *Metaphysics* I 9. 991b6-7, XII 3.
1070a13-19, and in the fragmentary remains of *On Ideas*
in Alexander (see esp. Hayduck 1891, 79.23-24, 80.6). Likewise
the rejection of forms for individuals squares with Aristotle's attack
on the 'argument from thinking' (*Metaphysics* I 9.
990b14-15 = XIII 4. 1079a10-11, supplemented by Alexander,
Hayduck 1891, 81.25-82.7): if every object of thought is a form,
then there are forms also "for the perishables" (990b14 =
1079b10) or "for the particulars and perishables, such as
Socrates, Plato" (Alexander, Hayduck 1891, 82.2-3).
The version of the Theory of Forms associated with Xenocrates is that
which Aristotle ascribes to the later Plato (see *Metaphysics*
XIII 4. 1078b10-12 for the qualification 'later'),
in which the Forms are 'generated' and are, in the first
instance, numbers. Xenocrates operated, in parallel with Speusippus
and Plato (as Aristotle reports Plato), with a scheme in which two
principles--the One and something called any or all of 'the
everflowing', 'plurality' (Aetius i 3. 23), or
'the Indefinite Dyad' (Theophrastus, *Metaphysics*
vi)--generate these form-numbers, and then, in turn, lines, planes,
solids, and perceptible things.
The talk of generation Xenocrates reinterpreted as a mere pedagogical
device; we hear about this technique from Aristotle, *De caelo*
I 10. 279b32-280a2, and Simplicius' commentary ad loc. (Heiberg
1893, 303.33-34) names Xenocrates in this connection, as does
Plutarch (*De animae procreatione in Timaeo* 3. 1013a-b,
Cherniss 1976, 168-171). Here it is a device for interpreting
the creation story in the *Timaeus*; that Xenocrates also
applied it to the generation of the formal numbers we learn from
Aristotle, *Metaphysics* XIV 4. 1091a28-29 and the
commentary on that passage in pseudo-Alexander (Hayduck 1891,
819.37-820.3).
In trying to understand what Aristotle tells us about formal numbers,
it is necessary to bear in mind the fundamental distinction he draws
between formal numbers and mathematical numbers: both are, according
to Aristotle, composed of units, but formal numbers are composed of
very strange units, such that those in one formal number cannot be
combined with those in any other. The units of which mathematical
numbers are composed can be added and subtracted freely. (See here
*Metaphysics* XIII 6. 1080a15-b4.) And furthermore there
is only one formal number for each of the numbers 2, 3, 4, etc., where
there are indefinitely many instances of each among the mathematical
numbers. (See here *Metaphysics* I 6. 987b14-18.) The
mathematical numbers are the ones mathematicians work with, e.g. in
performing arithmetical operations, and that is presumably why they
are called 'mathematical'. There is a corresponding
division between types of geometrical figures, but we hear too little
about this; most of what follows will be concerned with numbers.
The position that there are both formal numbers and mathematical
numbers Aristotle ascribes to Plato. Speusippus rejects the formal
numbers (and the entire theory of forms along with them; see the entry
on
Speusippus).
The position Aristotle ascribes to Xenocrates is a bit more
elusive.
In *Metaphysics* VII 2, Aristotle tells us, in
1028b19-21, that Plato accepted three sorts of entities: forms,
mathematicals, and perceptibles; in this context that means formal
numbers, mathematical numbers, and perceptibles. He then, in
b21-24, talks about Speusippus' views (see the entry on
Speusippus).
In both cases he gives us the names. Then, in b24-27 he says
this:
>
> But some say that the forms and the numbers have the same nature,
> while the others, lines and planes, come next, {and so on} down to the
> substance of the heavens and to the perceptibles.
>
Asclepius' commentary on this passage (Hayduck 1888, 379.17-22)
tells us that it is dealing with Xenocrates.
The core of Xenocrates' view is that "the forms and the numbers
have the same nature:" that is, the formal numbers and the
mathematical numbers have the same nature. A series of half a dozen
passages in the *Metaphysics* can, in consequence of this
identification, be associated with Xenocrates (see XII 1.
1069a30-b2, XIII 1. 1076a20, 6. 1080b21-30, 8.
1083b1-8, 9. 1086a5-11, XIV 3. 1090b13-1091a5). From
these passages it appears that he is saying that the distinction
between formal and mathematical numbers (as well as the corresponding
distinction among geometrical objects) is unnecessary; he does this by
assimilating mathematical numbers to form-numbers and telling us that
mathematics can be done entirely with formal numbers. In other words,
since he thinks that mathematics can be done with formal numbers, he
feels it acceptable to call formal numbers mathematical numbers.
1086a5-9 makes it sound as if some part of Xenocrates' case for
his position was based on the consideration that all that can be based
on the two ultimate principles, the One and the Indefinite Dyad, is
the series of formal numbers. Without some further comment, it is hard
to see much of an argument here, but we may be able to piece together
a little about the relationship of the numbers to the One. In Eudemian
Ethics (I 8. 1218a24-33) Aristotle attacks an Academic
'demonstration' aimed at showing that The One is the
good itself, i.e the Idea of the good. He calls it
'tricky' or 'bizarre' (translations of
parabolos vary considerably), and it is indeed bizarre: from the
premises that the numbers aim for unification and that "all the
things that are aim for some one good" it concludes that the
good itself must be the One. As it stands, this is gappy, but what is
really bizzare is the first premise, that numbers strive to get their
units to stick together; that is too much for Aristotle (and no doubt
for the rest of us as well).
In the passage of Proclus' Parmenides commentary cited above
there appears a passage dealing with a view that makes the
participants in an Idea 'aim for' that Idea, which in turn
aims for that which 'comes before' it, which must be the
One. So Xenocrates looks to be the source for the
'bizarre' demonstration, and if so he is invoking final
causality in relating the forms (which are formal numbers) to the One.
Aristotle himself has the heavenly spheres move as they do out of a
desire to emulate the unmoved mover (Metaphysics XII 7. 1072a26-b4),
and even says that the matter in a form/matter compound 'aims
at' its form (Physics I 9. 192a16-25), so this use of final
causality was, one supposes, Academic. But about Xenocrates'
'demonstration' Aristotle is merciless: "one should
... not without reason give any credit at all to things it is not
easy to believe even with reason".
It may help a little, but not a lot, to notice that Xenocrates makes
(see below) the soul is a self-moving number. In any case, the
resulting position is possibly quite unstable: Aristotle certainly
thinks so. For Plato and Speusippus, the addition of 2 and 3 is a
matter of putting together a group of units that is a mathematical 2
with a disjoint group of units that is a mathematical 3 (that numbers
are such collections of units is a view that can still be found later,
perhaps most importantly, given his influence, in
Euclid, *Elements* VII def. 2). Aristotle, too, understood
addition in this way, although with a completely different take on the
underlying ontology. We do not know how Xenocrates understood
addition: perhaps as a sort of map telling you that if you are on the
unique formal number 2 and you want to add the unique formal number 3
to it, you cannot, strictly speaking, do that, but taking three steps
on in the series will get you to the unique formal number 5, and that
is what '2 + 3 = 5' really means. There is, as far as I
know, no evidence to support this conjecture, but it has the advantage
of explaining Aristotle's complaint, voiced more than once in
the passages cited (see 1080b28-30, 1083b4-6,
1086a9-11), that Xenocrates actually makes doing mathematics
impossible: he ends up destroying mathematical number, and if the
above guess should be correct about Xenocrates' handling of
addition, it is readily seen how someone of Aristotle's
persuasion might think that Xenocrates is not so much explaining
addition as explaining it away.
Aristotle complains in 1080b28-30 that on Xenocrates' view
it is not so that every two units make up a pair, and also that on his
view not every geometrical magnitude divides into smaller
magnitudes. This has to do with Xenocrates' acceptance of the
idea that there are indivisible lines; this idea Aristotle ascribes to
Plato in
*Metaphysics* I 9. 992a20-22, and Alexander's commentary
on that passage adds the name Xenocrates, in a way that suggests that
Xenocrates' acceptance of indivisible magnitudes was even better known
than Plato's (Hayduck 1891, 120.6-7; see also Simplicius on
*De caelo*, Heiberg 1894, 563.21-22 and many other
passages in the commentators in which this ascription occurs: frs.
41-49H, 123-147IP). As Proclus understood Xenocrates'
position, it applied to the Form of the line rather than to
geometrical or physical magnitudes (see Diehl 1904,
245.30-246.4), but this is very much a minority view: Porphyry
is quoted by Simplicius in the latter's commentary on the
*Physics* (Diels 1882, 140.9-13) as saying that,
according to Xenocrates, what is:
>
> ... is not divisible *ad infinitum*, but {division} stops
> at certain indivisibles {*atoma*}. But these are not
> indivisible as partless and least {magnitudes}, but while they are
> cuttable with respect to quantity and matter and have parts, in form
> they are indivisible and primary; he supposed that there were certain
> primary indivisible lines and primary planes and solids composed out
> of them.
>
This suggests that Xenocrates might have thought he could do with the
notion of a *line* what Aristotle was prepared to do with
notions such as *man*. Aristotle is prepared to say that a man
is indivisible, and so a suitable unit for the arithmetician's
contemplation, in the sense that if you divide a man into two parts
what you get is not two men (see *Metaphysics* XIII 3.
1078a23-26). Xenocrates may have thought the notion of a line
could be made to work in the same way: beyond a certain point,
divisions will no longer yield lines. It is difficult to think how he
could have made this plausible; once again, one can see why Aristotle
might have regarded Xenocrates' position as unmathematical.
Xenocrates' espousal of indivisible magnitudes has led to the
conjecture that the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise *On Indivisible
Lines* is at least in part an attack on him, and that the
arguments recounted in its first chapter in favor of the claim that
there are indivisible lines, which are rebutted in the sequel, might
come from Xenocrates. Unfortunately, those arguments are quite
obscure, and the text itself is not in very good shape (an admirably
concise summary of the first four of these arguments may be found in
Furley 1967, 105). But some of the arguments owe a lot to Zeno of
Elea: that Xenocrates was influenced by Zeno is only what one would
expect, and is confirmed elsewhere (see esp. the passage from Porphyry
cited in part above, *apud* Simplicius on the *Physics*,
Diels 1882, 140.6-18).
In the passage of *Metaphysics* VII 2 quoted above, after we
get the identification of formal and mathematical numbers, with the
formal numbers actually carrying the weight, there is a brief
description of the rest of the universe: "while the others,
lines and planes, come next, {and so on} down to the substance of the
heavens and to the perceptibles." It appears that Xenocrates
pictured the universe as unfolding in the sequence: (1) forms =
numbers; (2) lines; (3) planes; (4) solids; (5) solids in motion, i.e.
astronomical bodies; ...; (n) ordinary perceptible things. Solid
shapes aren't mentioned in this sentence, but they were earlier, in
1028b17-18, and they are a standard stage in this sequence.
There is here an implicit contrast between Xenocrates and Speusippus,
whose universe was to Aristotle discontinuous or disjointed:
Xenocrates' universe is at least a more orderly one (see the entry on
Speusippus).
And something like this rather faint praise is echoed in
Theophrastus' *Metaphysics*. Theophrastus complains that
Pythagoreans and Platonists fail to give us a full story about the
construction of the universe: they just go so far and stop
(6a15-b6). Then he says (6b6-9):
>
> and none of the others {does any different} except Xenocrates: for he
> places all things somehow around the world-order, alike perceptibles
> and intelligibles, i.e. mathematicals, and again even the divine
> {things}.
>
So we have it from Aristotle that Xenocrates' universe showed
continuity, and from Theophrastus that it covered everything. Of
course, we do not know how.
Exactly what Theophrastus means by 'the divine things' is
hard to say. There are two candidates: the objects of astronomical
studies, which would connect with Aristotle's account, or those of
theological studies, about which Xenocrates also had much to say.
These are not exclusive candidates. A passage in Aetius (Diels
1879, 304b1-14) tells us that Xenocrates took the 'unit
and the dyad' to be gods, the first male and the second female,
and also thought of the heavenly bodies as gods; in addition he
supposed there were sublunary *daimones*. These latter were
beings intermediary between gods and men, also mentioned in Plato,
*Symposium* 202d-203a.
We hear more about the gods, *daimones*, and men from Plutarch,
who tells us (*De defectu oraculorum* 416c-d, Babbitt
1936, 386-387) that Xenocrates associated them with types of
triangle: gods with equilateral ones, *daimones* with isosceles
ones, and men with scalene triangles: as isosceles triangles are
intermediate between equilateral ones and scalene ones, so
*daimones* are intermediate between gods and men. According to
Plutarch (417b, *De Iside et Osiride* 360d-f: in Babbitt
1936, 390-391 and 58-61, respectively.), Xenocrates'
*daimones* come in good and bad varieties: they may have had
something to do with the explanation of the existence of evil.
In addition, there are isolated snatches of other views of Xenocrates
that might fall under the heading 'metaphysics'.
Simplicius, in his commentary on Aristotle's *Categories*
(Kalbfleisch 1907, 63.21-24) tells us that Xenocrates objected
to Aristotle's list of ten categories as too long: he thought all that
was needed was the distinction, visible in Plato, between things that
are 'by virtue of themselves' and things that are
'relative to something' (see, e.g., *Sophist* 255c,
and Dancy 1999). The standard examples help clarify this: the terms
*man* and *horse* are of the first sort, whereas
*large*, relative to *small*, *good* relative to
*bad*, etc., are of the latter type.
There was, it appears from a text also preserved by Simplicius (in his
commentary on the *Physics*, Diels 1882, 247.30-248.20,
from Hermodorus, an early associate of Plato's), an internal
connection between these 'old academic categories' and the
One and the Indefinite Dyad. The One was the heading over the category
of things that are 'by virtue of themselves': such things
are standalone entities, *one* thing. The Indefinite Dyad was
the heading over the category of relatives: such a term refers to an
indefinite continuum pointing in two directions. All this is referred
to Plato, not Xenocrates, but if Xenocrates accepted Plato's later
theory, or at least some of it, he presumably accepted this as well,
and saw in Aristotle's proliferation of categories a threat to the
basic two principles he shared with Plato.
A text preserved in Arabic (see Pines 1961) has Alexander of
Aphrodisias criticizing Xenocrates for saying that the (less general)
species is prior to the (more general) genus because the latter, being
an element in the definitions of the former, is a part of them (and
wholes are subsequent to parts).
A long passage in Themistius' commentary on Aristotle's *De
anima* (Heinze 1899, 11.18-12.33) seems to stem from
Xenocrates' *On Nature* (in 11.37-12.1 Themistius says
"It is possible to gather all these {things} from the *On
Nature* of Xenocrates"). This is a discussion of a story
about the composition of the soul from the formal numbers 1, 2, 3, and
4 (although 1 was not normally considered a number), mentioned in
*De anima* 408b18-27. The motivation for this account of
the soul, in both Aristotle and Themistius, is the explanation of how
we can know things about the universe: the universe is derivative from
those numbers, and so, if the soul is similarly derivative, the soul
can know things under the principle that like things are known by
like. This cognitive sort of account is contrasted with another
motivic type of account, that takes as the primary thing to be
explained the fact that the soul can initiate motion.
However, it is quite clear that, even if the story about the reduction
of the soul to numbers stems from Xenocrates' *On Nature*, the
numerical reduction was supposed by Themistius not to be Xenocrates',
but (perhaps) Plato's. Aristotle and Themistius both give separate
mention to the account of the soul that is traditionally ascribed to
Xenocrates: that it is a self-moving number (*De anima*
408b32-33; Themistius in 12.30-33; the ascription to
Xenocrates is supported by a large number of texts gathered as frs.
60H, 165-187IP: e.g., Alexander of Aphrodisias on Aristotle's
*Topics*, Wallies 1891, 162.17). Both Aristotle and Themistius
characterize this account as an attempt to combine the cognitive and
the motivic ways of thinking about the soul; as Themistius puts it
(12.30-33):
>
> And there were others who wove the two together into the explanation
> of the soul, both moving and knowing, such as the one who asserted the
> soul {to be} a number that moves itself, pointing by
> 'number' to the capacity for knowing and by 'moving
> itself' to that for moving.
>
Themistius does not here tell us that this is Xenocrates' account, but
he does later on (see esp. 32.19-34, which refers expressly to
Xenocrates' *On Nature* book 5).
## 2. Theory of Knowledge
As already noted, this heading comes under 'logic' in
Sextus Empiricus. No one reports anything for Xenocrates about what we
would think of as pure logic; Sextus (*Adversus mathematicos*
vii 147-149) gives us a scrap about epistemology. Xenocrates is
supposed to have divided the substances or entities into three groups:
perceptible, intelligible, and believable (also referred to as
'composite' and 'mixed'). The intelligible
ones were objects of knowledge, which Xenocrates apparently spoke of
as 'epistemonic logos' or 'knowing account',
and were 'located' outside the heavens. The perceptible
ones were objects of perception, which was capable of attaining truth
about them but nothing that counted as knowledge; they were within the
heavens. The composite ones were the heavenly objects themselves, and
objects of belief, which is sometimes true and sometimes false.
This scheme descends from that in Plato, *Republic* V *ad
fin*., where the objects of knowledge were differentiated from
those of belief, and from *Republic* VI *ad fin*., where
that division is portrayed on a divided line. In the latter passage,
Plato seems actually to have four divisions of types of cognition and
their objects, but this is notoriously difficult (see Burnyeat 1987),
and Xenocrates appears to have rethought it. His tripartite division
of objects looks like that in Aristotle, *Metaphysics* XII
1.
The phrase 'epistemonic logos' is one Sextus (145) also
assigns to Speusippus; it also recalls discussions in Aristotle (e.g.
*Metaphysics* VII 15) and the end of Plato's
*Theaetetus*. An 'epistemonic logos' is the sort of
account that carries knowledge with it.
The intelligible domain must have included the formal numbers dealt
with above, which was also, as mentioned, the domain of mathematics,
while the special place for the heavens accords with the fact that one
of the items in D.L.'s bibliography is "*On Astronomy*, 6
books".
This picture seems to square with Aristotle's exempting Xenocrates
from the charge, leveled against Speusippus, of producing a
discontinuous universe, and with Theophrastus' comment to the effect
that Xenocrates' universe encompassed everything.
Here again we encounter Xenocrates the theologian: Sextus tells us
(149) that Xenocrates associated the three fates with his three groups
of substances: Atropos with the intelligible ones, Clotho with the
perceptible ones, and Lachesis with the believable ones. This sounds a
Xenocratean touch: it connects with the interpretation of Plato (see
*Republic* X 620d-e) and takes mythology very
seriously.
## 3. Ethics
Here we are very much in the dark: we have only disconnected snippets
to consider.
Aristotle names Xenocrates in the *Topics* in connection with
two ethical views: at II 6. 112a37-38 he ascribes to him the
view that a happy man is one with a good soul, along with (perhaps)
the claim that one's soul is one's *daimon*, whatever that
means; at VII 1. 152a7-9 he ascribes to him an argument to the
effect that the good life and the happy life are the same, employing
as premises the claims that the good life and the happy life are both
the most choosable (a little later, in 152a26-30, Aristotle
objects to this argument).
Plutarch claims (*De communibus notitiis adversus Stoicos*
1069e-f) that Xenocrates made happiness turn on living in
accordance with nature; since this may derive from Antiochus of
Ascalon, whose project it was to assimilate the Academy to Stoicism,
it is suspect. Clement (*Stromateis* II 22) ascribes to him the
view that happiness is the possession of one's own excellence in the
soul. This view bears a family resemblance to Aristotle's (*NE*
I 7. 1098a16-17, 9. 1099b26). The negative emphasis in
Xenocrates' evaluation of philosophical activity as "stopping
the disturbance of the affairs of life" ([Galen], *Historia
philosophiae* 8, in Diels 1879 605.7-8) sounds like a step
in the direction of the Hellenistic goal of undisturbedness. |
xenophanes | ## 1. Life and Works
In his *Lives of the Philosophers* (Diels-Kranz, testimonium
A1), Diogenes Laertius reports that Xenophanes was born in the small
Ionian town of Colophon and flourished during the sixtieth Olympiad
(540-537 BCE). Laertius adds that when Xenophanes was
"banished from his native city" he "joined the
colony planted at Elea" (in Italy), and also lived at Zancle and
Catana (two Greek communities in Sicily). He credits Xenophanes with
composing verses "in epic meter, as well as elegiacs and iambics
attacking Hesiod and Homer and denouncing what they said about the
gods", with reciting his own works, and with composing poems on
the founding of Colophon and Elea. Later writers add that "he
buried his sons with his own hands", was sold into slavery, and
later released from it. By Xenophanes' own account (B8) he
"tossed about the Greek land" for sixty-seven years,
starting at the age of twenty-five.
Diels-Kranz (DK) provides 45 fragments of his poetry (although B4, 13,
19, 20, 21 and 41 would be more accurately classified as
*testimonia*), ranging from the 24 lines of B1 to the
single-word fragments of B21a, 39, and 40. A number of the
'sympotic poems' (poems for drinking parties) (B1-3,
5, 6, 22, and the imitation in C2) were preserved by Athenaeus, while
the remarks on the nature of the divine were quoted by Clement
(B14-16 and 23), Sextus Empiricus (B11, 12, and 24), and
Simplicius (B25 and 26). Other snippets survive in the accounts by
Diogenes Laertius and Aetius, or as marginal notes in our
manuscripts of various authors, or as entries in later rhetorical
summaries and dictionaries. Seventy-four selections, of which the most
extensive is the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise *On Melissus,
Xenophanes, Gorgias* (*MXG*), make up the collection of
*testimonia* in DK. Laertius' statement (A1) that
Xenophanes "wrote in epic meter, also elegiacs, and
iambics" is confirmed by extant poems in hexameters and elegiac
meter, with one couplet (B14) a combination of hexameter and iambic
trimeter. Ancient writers referred to a number of his compositions as
*silloi*--'squints' or satires, and a critical
tone pervades many of the surviving fragments. Three late sources
credit Xenophanes with a didactic poem under the title *Peri
Phuseos* ("On Nature") but not every allusion to
an earlier author's views "on nature" represented a
reference to a single work on that subject.
## 2. Criticisms of Greek Popular Religion
Fragments B11 and B12 describe, and implicitly criticize, the stories
about the gods told by Homer and Hesiod.
>
> Homer and Hesiod have attributed to the gods
>
>
> all sorts of things that are matters of reproach and censure among
> men:
>
>
> theft, adultery, and mutual deception. (B11)
>
>
>
>
> ...as they sang of numerous illicit divine deeds:
>
>
> theft, adultery, and mutual deceit. (B12)
>
The basis for Xenophanes' unhappiness with the poets'
accounts is not explained, but we may infer from the concluding call
to pay due honor to the gods in Xenophanes' B1 that an
attribution of scandalous conduct would be incompatible with the
goodness or perfection any divine being must be assumed to possess
(cf. Aristotle *Meta*. 1072b; Plato, *Rep*. 379b.)
In the well-known fragments B14-16, Xenophanes comments on the
general tendency of human beings to conceive of divine beings in human
form:
>
> But mortals suppose that gods are born,
>
>
> wear their own clothers and have a voice and body. (B14)
>
>
>
>
> Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black;
>
>
> Thracians that theirs are are blue-eyed and red-haired. (B16)
>
B15 adds, probably in a satirical vein, that if horses and oxen had
hands and could draw pictures, their gods would look remarkably like
horses and oxen. B17, "...and bacchants of pine stand round
the well-built house" may represent a criticism of the common
ancient belief that a god could assume possession of a physical object
so as to offer protection to its possessor. The ridiculing of
Pythagoras' claim to have recognized the soul of a departed
friend in the voice of a barking dog (B7), together with the attacks
on divination credited to Xenophanes in A52, reflect the broader
denial of knowledge of divine attributes and operations set out in
B34. Xenophanes is prepared to offer a positive account of the nature
of the deity (see the following section) but his position appears to
be that while no mortal being will ever know about the gods with any
degree of certainty, we can at least avoid adopting beliefs and
practices clearly at odds with the special nature any divine being
must be assumed to possess.
## 3. The Nature of the Divine
So far as is known, Xenophanes was the first Greek thinker to offer a
complex and at least partially systematic account of the divine
nature. We have already noted how an implicit assumption of divine
perfection may underlie his criticisms of Homer, Hesiod, and the
tendency to imagine the gods in human form. Of the positive
characterizations of the divine made in B23-26, perhaps the most
fundamental is B23:
>
> One god greatest among gods and men,
>
>
> not at all like mortals in body or in thought.
>
Although the remark has often been read as a pioneering expression of
monotheism, this reading is made problematic by the nearby reference
to 'gods' in the plural in the first line and the
possibility that Xenophanes sought to highlight not the *one*
god but rather the one *greatest* god (cf. Homer,
*Iliad* 12, 243 for the use of 'one' (Greek
*heis*) reinforcing a superlative). The relevant measures of
divine 'greatness' are not specified, but the two most
obvious choices would be greatness in honor and power, with honor
perhaps the more basic of the two (cf. *Iliad* 2, 350; 2, 412;
4, 515; *Od*. 3, 378; 5,4; Hesiod, *Theogony* 49, 534,
538, etc.). Greatness in power would in turn explain the
characterizations of the divine as perceptive and conscious in all its
parts (B24), able to shake all things by the exercise of his thought
(B25), and able to accomplish everything while remaining forever in
the same place or condition (B26). It is unclear, however, how far
Xenophanes himself realized the interconnections among the different
divine attributes or sought to exploit those connections for didactic
purposes. At least as they have come down to us, none of the remarks
on the divine nature (B23-26) contains any of the inferential
particles (*gar, epei, oun, hoti*, etc.) one would normally
expect to find in a piece of reasoned discourse.
Some later writers (A28.6, 31.2, 34-36) report that Xenophanes
identified his 'one greatest god' with the entire physical
universe--often termed 'the whole' or 'all
things', and some modern accounts portray Xenophanes as a
pantheist. But this understanding of Xenophanes' doctrines seems
inconsistent with his assertion that "god shakes all
things" (B25) that "all things are from the earth and to
the earth all things come in the end" (B27), and that "all
things which come into being and grow, are earth and water"
(B29). On the whole, Xenophanes' remarks on the divine nature
are perhaps best read as an expression of a traditional Greek piety:
there exists a being of extraordinary power and excellence, and it is
incumbent on each of us to hold it in high regard.
## 4. Social Criticism
Five fragments touch on traditional subjects of Greek sympotic
verse--on proper conduct at symposia (drinking parties), the
measures of personal excellence, and the existence of various human
foibles or failures. Xenophanes appears to have been particularly
interested in identifying and discouraging conduct that failed to pay
due honor to the gods or posed a risk to the stability and well-being
of the city (or perhaps both). Although these passages may be
insufficiently abstract and demonstrative in character to count as
'philosophical teachings', they do represent an important
bridge between Greek poetry of the archaic period and the kind of
moral theorizing practiced by many 5th and 4th-century thinkers.
Xenophanes' disparagement of the honors accorded to athletes
(B2), his call to censor the stories the poets tell about the gods
(B1), and counsel to live a life of moderation (B3 and 5, and perhaps
B21) all anticipate views expressed in Plato's *Republic*
(cf. 607a, 378b, 372b.) His criticism of the pursuit of useless
luxuries (B3) also anticipates Socrates' rebuke of his fellow
citizens for caring more about wealth and power than about virtue (cf.
*Apology* 30b.) His cautionary remarks about knowledge (B34)
and reminder of the subjectivity of human taste (B38: "If god
had not made yellow honey, they would think that figs were far
sweeter") also reflect a traditional view of human judgment as
limited and conditioned by personal experience. In each of these
areas, Xenophanes' social commentary represents a continuation
of the Greek poetic tradition as well as a step toward explicit
philosophical theorizing.
## 5. Scientific Interests
We may reasonably conclude from several surviving fragments and a
large number of *testimonia* that Xenophanes was well aware of
the teachings of the Milesian philosopher-scientists (Thales,
Anaximander, and Anaximenes), and sought to improve on them. While
many of the details of his own 'scientific' views remain
obscure, the range and interconnectedness of his interests make him an
important figure in the development of Ionian scientific theory.
Theodoretus, Stobaeus, and Olympiodorus (all in A 36) credit him with
a view of earth as the *arche* or "first
principle" of all things. Yet Galen (also in A36) rejects this
attribution, and B29 equates "all things which come into being
and grow" with "earth *and* water". A
two-substance *arche* would, moreover, be compatible with
the many references to physical mixtures. A33 credits Xenophanes with
a view of the sea as containing many mixtures, while B37 notes the
presence of water in rocky caves, and A50 reports a view of the soul
as earth and water. Insofar as some natural bodies are described as
consisting entirely of water (or of a part of water, as in A46 where
"the sweet portion" of the water is drawn up from the sea
and separated off), it would be best to understand Xenophanes'
"two-substance theory" in a distributed sense: all things
are either earth, or water, or earth combined with water.
Xenophanes appears to have explored many of the same phenomena studied
at an earlier date by the Milesians. B28 presents a view of the nature
and extent of the earth's depths; B30 identifies the sea as the
source of clouds, wind, and rain; B32 comments on the nature of Iris
(rainbow); B37 notes the presence of water in caves; B39 and 40
mention "cherry trees" and "frogs";
A38-45 discuss various astronomical phenomena, and A48 indicates
an interest in periodic volcanic eruptions in Sicily. Hippolytus (A33)
credits Xenophanes with a theory of alternating periods of world-wide
flood and drought that was inspired, at least in part, by the
discovery of fossilized remains of sea creatures at inland locations.
Whether or not Xenophanes himself traveled to Syracuse, Paros, and
Malta where these remains were found, his use of this information as
the basis for a broad explanation of phenomena is an implicit
testimonial to the heuristic value of information gained through
travel and observation.
Many *testimonia* credit Xenophanes with an interest in
meteorological and astronomical phenomena. Not only are these comments
of interest in their own right, they also present us what was arguably
his single most important scientific contribution--his contention that
clouds or cloud-like substances play a basic role in a great many
natural phenomena. The term *nephos* ("cloud")
appears only twice in the fragments of his work (in B30 and 32) but
many *testimonia* either bear directly on the nature of clouds
or make use of clouds in order to explain the nature of other
phenomena. To cite an example of the first type, according to Diogenes
Laertius "he says...the clouds are formed by the
sun's vapor [i.e. vapor caused by the heat from the sun's
rays] raising and lifting them to the surrounding air"
(A1.24-5). Aetius (A46) provides a similar account:
>
> Xenophanes (says that) things in the heavens occur through the heat of
> the sun as the initial cause; for when the moisture is drawn up from
> the sea, the sweet portion, separating because of its fineness and
> turning into mists, combines into clouds, trickled down in drops of
> rain due to compression, and vaporizes the winds.
>
B30 gives us essentially the same view in Xenophanes' own
words:
>
> The sea is the source of water and of wind,
>
>
> For without the great sea, there would be no wind
>
>
> Nor streams of rivers, nor rainwater from on high
>
>
> But the great sea is the begetter of clouds, winds, and rivers.
>
Having accounted for the formation of clouds in mechanistic terms
through processes of vaporization and compression Xenophanes proceeds
to make use of clouds to explain a large number of meteorological and
astronomical phenomena. The general claim appears in the
pseudo-Plutarch *Miscellanies*: "he says that the sun and
the stars come into being from the clouds" (A32), and
Aetius gives us many specific applications:
>
> The stars come into being from burning clouds (A38).
>
>
> The sort of fires that appear on ships--whom some call the Dioscuri
> [St. Elmo's fire]--are tiny clouds glimmering in virtue of the
> sort of motion they have (A39).
>
>
>
> The sun consists of burning clouds...a mass of little fires,
> themselves constructed from the massing together of the moist
> exhalation (A40).
>
>
>
> The moon is compressed cloud (A43).
>
>
>
> All things of this sort [comets, shooting stars, meteors] are either
> groups or movements of clouds (A44).
>
>
>
> Flashes of lightning come about through the shining of the clouds
> because of the movement (A45).
>
>
>
As it happens, clouds are natural candidates for the
*explanans* in a scientific account. Since they are midway in
form between a solid and gaseous state they are easily linked with
solids, liquids, and gases of various kinds. And since they occupy a
region midway between the surface of the earth and the upper regions
of the heavens, they are well positioned to link the two basic
substances of earth and water with many astronomical phenomena.
Another important feature of Xenophanes' cloud-based approach to
understanding natural phenomena is the application of this theory to a
set of phenomena closely linked with traditional religious belief. We
have already seen this in the thoroughly naturalistic accounts given
of the "great sea", sun, moon, and stars, but nowhere is
the contrast of the old and new ways of thinking more evident than in
his comments on "Iris"--rainbow:
>
> And she whom they call Iris, this too is by nature a cloud.
>
>
> Purple, red, and greenish-yellow to behold. (B32)
>
For the members of Xenophanes' audience "Iris"
referred to the messenger goddess of Homer's *Iliad* (2,
686) and Hesiod's *Theogony* (780) and a set of
atmospheric phenomena (halos, coronae, and cloud iridescence) commonly
considered portents or signs of the intentions of divine beings. As
the daughter of Thaumas ("marvel") Iris was the natural
marvel *par* *excellence*. Yet for Xenophanes,
'she' is really an 'it' and a
'this' (the Greek neuter demonstrative *touto*), by
nature a purple, red, and greenish-yellow cloud. It is, moreover,
something that is there for us 'to behold' or 'to
look at' (*idesthai*). Perhaps nowhere in presocratic
philosophy can we find a clearer expression of the character of the
Ionian 'intellectual revolution'--a decision to put
aside an older way of thinking about events grounded in a belief in
divine beings in favor of an approach to understanding the world that
employs wide-ranging inquiry and direct observation and resorts to
strictly physical causes and forces. Having deprived the gods of human
form and clothing and removed the divine to some permanent and distant
location, Xenophanes proceeds to strip a wide range of natural
phenomena of all vestiges of religious or spiritual significance. His
de-mythologized account of natural phenomena is, in short, the logical
complement to his thoroughly de-naturalized account of the divine
nature.
Despite its several virtues, Xenophanes' physical theory appears
to have had little impact on later thinkers. Anaxagoras followed his
lead on the nature of the rainbow (cf. DK 59 B19) and Empedocles knew
(but repudiated) his claim of the earth's indefinitely extended
depths (DK 31 B39). But both Plato and Aristotle appear to have
ignored Xenophanes' scientific views or assigned them little
importance. One factor that may have contributed to this chilly
reception was the absence of any expression by Xenophanes of the kind
of commitment to teleology that both Plato and Aristotle regarded as
essential to a proper understanding of the cosmos. Xenophanes'
universe is controlled by a set of forces, but it is never described
as "heading toward the best" nor is it directed toward
some best result by a controlling intelligence. (Xenophanes'
divine does "shake all things" by the thought of his mind
(alone), but he is never described as in any way directing or
controlling particular events.) It is also obvious that
Xenophanes' heavenly bodies would have fallen far short of the
level of perfection that, with Aristotle, became a hallmark of
classical astronomical theory. Not only are Xenophanes' heavenly
bodies not divine beings, they undergo creation and destruction at
regular intervals. Only from the perspective of a much later period
can the merits of Xenophanes' scientific views be fairly
appreciated. Many centuries would have to pass before an emphasis on
direct observation and the use of entirely natural causes and forces
would become the scientific orthodoxy.
## 6. Reflections on Knowledge
Five surviving fragments and roughly a dozen *testimonia*
address what might be termed 'epistemological
questions'--"How much can any mortal being hope to
know?", "Does truth come to us through our own efforts or
by divine revelation?", and "What role do our sense
faculties play in the acquisition of knowledge?" Unfortunately,
the picture that emerges from many of the *testimonia* largely
contradicts what appear to be the views Xenophanes himself expressed.
According to the summary in the pseudo-Plutarch *Miscellanies*,
Xenophanes "declares that the senses are deceptive and generally
rejects reason along with them" (A32.) Similarly, in his
*Concerning Philosophy* Aristocles reports that
"...since they think that sense perceptions and appearances
must be rejected and trust only reason. For at one earlier time
Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus said something of this
sort" (A49). Similarly, Aetius declares that
"Pythagoras, Empedocles, and Xenophanes (say that) sense
perceptions are deceptive" (A49). Yet, as we have noted, B28
refers without qualification to "the upper limit of the earth
that is seen (*horatai*) here at our feet" and B32
appears to encourage those in Xenophanes' audience to
'look at' or 'observe' (*idesthai*) the
multi-colored cloud that is the rainbow. The realistic description of
the sumptuous banquet in B1 and the wide range of Xenophanes'
reported geographical and geological interests all sit poorly with an
Eleatic "rationalism" that would dismiss all information
gained through our faculties of sense and construct on the basis of
reason alone a view of "what is" as a motionless,
changeless and eternal unity.
Xenophanes' most extended comment on knowledge is B34:
>
> ...and of course the clear and certain truth no man has seen
>
>
> nor will there be anyone who knows about the gods and what I say about
> all things.
>
>
> For even if, in the best case, one happened to speak just of what has
> been brought to pass,
>
>
> still he himself would not know. But opinion is allotted to all.
>
Portions of these remarks were quoted, and thereby preserved for
posterity, by the ancient skeptics who hailed Xenophanes as the
founder of their particular variety of philosophical skepticism.
Recent interpretations of B34 reject the skeptical interpretation in
favor of other less extreme readings. On some accounts, B34 is
concerned to deny only a direct perceptual awareness. Others find in
his comments a distinction between natural science, where only
probabilities can be achieved, and theology, where certainty is
possible. Still others read Xenophanes' remarks as a blanket
endorsement of "fallibilism"--the view that while
each individual is free to express his or her opinion, the possibility
of error can never be completely excluded.
Since B34 opens with the phrase "and indeed..." it is
likely that we do not have the whole of the remark, or all the
premises from which its main conclusion was intended to follow.
However, the use of the term *saphes* ("clear", in
the first line of the fragment) by Xenophanes' Ionian
contemporary, the historian Herodotus, provides a helpful clue to the
logic of the argument. At several points in his *History*
Herodotus speaks of what is *saphes*, or what can be known in a
*sapheos* manner, as what can be confirmed to be the case
on the basis of first-hand observation:
>
> And wishing to gain sure knowledge of these things (*thelon
> de touton peri saphes ti eidenai*) from a point where this
> was possible, I took ship to Tyre in Phoenicia, where I heard there
> was a very holy temple of Heracles. There I saw it (*eidon*)
> richly equipped... Then I went to Thasos where I also found a
> temple of Heracles...Therefore what I have discovered by inquiry
> clearly shows (*ta men nun historemena deloi
> sapheos*) that Heracles is an ancient god. (*History*
> II, 44)
>
Since the gods were believed to inhabit a realm far removed from that
of mortal beings, it would be natural for Xenophanes to hold that no
account of their nature and activities could possibly be confirmed on
the basis of first-hand observation, hence known for certain to be
correct. And since the pioneering cosmological accounts put forward by
his Milesian predecessors held that a single material substance
underlay phenomena in *all* places and times it would be
equally impossible for any individual to confirm such a universal
claim on the basis of first-hand observation, hence know for certain
that it was true--even if in fact it was true. The sentiments
expressed in lines three and four can be read as reinforcing this
cautionary sentiment. Their point would be that no one (moreover)
should be credited with knowledge (of the certain truth concerning the
gods or the nature of all things) simply on the basis of having
correctly described, perhaps even predicted, individual events as they
take place (perhaps a reference to self-styled paragons of wisdom and
predictors of events such as Epimenides and Pythagoras). The overall
message of B34, from its opening reference to "no man" to
its concluding phrase "fashioned for all" would have been
that there never has been nor ever will be anyone who has the capacity
to achieve certainty with respect to these important matters.
Xenophanes' reference to a second-best level of comprehension or
awareness--'opinion' or 'conjecture'
(*dokos*) should not be read as inherently negative or
dismissive. By Platonic standards, opinion--even when
correct--would be an inferior possession, unstable and subject to
removal through persuasion. But we have no reason to assume that
Xenophanes shared Plato's view on this topic. And in fact B35,
quoted by Plutarch in connection with encouraging a bashful speaker to
express his views, appears to present what one 'opines' or
believes in a fairly positive light:
>
> ...Let these things be believed (*dedoxastho*) as
> like the realities...
>
The similarity between the verbal *dedoxastho* of B35 and
the nominative *dokos* of B34 permits us to combine the two
fragmentary remarks into a single coherent view: of course there can
be no knowledge of the certain truth concerning the gods and the basic
principles governing the cosmos, but *dokos*--opinion or
conjecture--is available and should be accepted when it
corresponds with how things really are.
The full sense of B36, however, may never be determined. Neither its
context (a grammatical treatise of Herodian) nor its wording
("...however many they have made evident for mortals to
look upon") provides definitive guidance. Perhaps Xenophanes was
seeking to set an upper limit to the range of things that can be known
by human beings (i.e. to caution others that they could know only as
many as things as the gods had made available to them to experience).
But it is equally possible that the remark was intended (as B32 above)
to encourage the members of his audience to explore and inquire on
their own (i.e. to encourage them to investigate "however many
things" the gods have made available to them to experience).
B18 has often been hailed as an expression of an optimistic outlook or
"faith in human progress"--the conviction that
humankind has made and will continue to make improvements in the arts
and conditions of life generally. Yet none of the other surviving
fragments reflects such an optimism and several (e.g. B2 and 3)
suggest that Xenophanes was not at all optimistic about his
city's prospects for survival. In the light of his reported
repudiation of divination (A52), de-mythologizing of various natural
phenomena (B30 and 32), and evident enthusiasm for inquiry into a wide
range of subjects, B18 is perhaps best read as an expression of faith
in the value of 'inquiry' or 'seeking' as the
preferred approach to gaining knowledge of 'all
things'.
To sum up: Xenophanes' attitude toward knowledge appears to have
been the product of two distinct impulses. While he believed that
inquiry in the form of travel and direct observation was capable of
yielding useful information about the nature of things, he remained
sufficiently under the influence of an older piety to want to caution
others against seeking to understand matters that lay beyond the
limits of all human experience. Here, as in other aspects of his
thought, Xenophanes stands with one foot in the world of the archaic
poet and the other in the "new science" of the late 6th
and early 5th centuries BCE
## 7. Xenophanes' Legacy
Many later writers identified Xenophanes as the teacher of Parmenides
and the founder of the Eleatic "school of
philosophy"--the view that, despite appearances, what there
is is a motionless, changeless, and eternal 'One'. This
view of Xenophanes is based largely on Plato's reference to
"our Eleatic tribe, beginning from Xenophanes as well as even
earlier" (*Sophist* 242d) and Aristotle's remark
that "...with regard to the whole universe, he says that the one
is the god" (*Meta*. A5, 986b18), along with some verbal
similarities between Xenophanes' description of the "one
greatest, unmoving god" and Parmenides' account of a
"motionless, eternal, and unitary being". But the
Xenophanes who speaks to us in the surviving fragments is a
combination of rhapsode, social critic, religious teacher, and keen
student of nature. Euripides' *Heracles* 1341 ff. echoes
his attack on the stories told about the gods by Homer and Hesiod
(B11-12) and a passage of Euripides' *Autolycus*
quoted by Athenaeus (C2) repeats portions of the attack on the honors
accorded to athletes delivered in B2. In the *Republic*, Plato
shows himself the spiritual heir of Xenophanes when he states that the
guardians of his ideal state are more deserving of honors and public
support than the victors at Olympia, criticizes the stories told about
the gods by the poets, and calls for a life of moderate desire and
action. A pronounced ethic of moderation, sometimes bordering on
asceticism, runs through much of ancient Greek ethical thought,
beginning with Solon and Xenophanes and continuing through Socrates
and Plato to the Epicureans and Cynics. Xenophanes' conception
of a "one greatest god" who "shakes all things by
the thought (or will) of his mind" (*noou phreni*) may
have helped to encourage Heraclitus' belief in an
'intelligence' (*gnome*) that steers
all things (B41), Anaxagoras' account of the *nous* that
orders and arranges all things (B12), and Aristotle's account of
a divine *nous* that inspires a movement toward perfection
without actually doing anything toward bringing it about
(*Metaphysics* Lambda.)
In his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697) Pierre Bayle began
the modern philosophical discussion of the problem of evil by quoting
Xenophanes' remark (as reported in Diogenes Laertius 9.19) that
"most things give way to mind" (*ta polla
hesso nou*). Accepting the conjecture proposed by the
classical scholar Meric Casaubon, Bayle took Xenophanes to be
asserting that God was unable to make all things conform to his
benevolent will. Bayle then assembled a set of texts in support of the
view that in fact the amount of evil in the universe far exceeds the
amount of good. Bayle's article sparked a reply from Leibniz (in
his Theodicee of 1710). In his Candide (1759), Voltaire
supported Bayle's view by ridiculing Leibniz's contention
that this is the best of all possible worlds. Although there may be no
direct line of influence, we may also consider Feuerbach's
critique of religious belief as a 'projection' of human
attributes, and Freud's analysis of religious belief as an
instance of 'wish-fulfillment', as two modern successors
to Xenophanes' observation of the general tendency of human
beings to conceive of divine beings in terms of their own attributes
and capacities.
Xenophanes' most enduring philosophical contribution was
arguably his pioneering exploration of the conditions under which
human beings can achieve knowledge of the certain truth. The
distinction between knowledge and true opinion set out in B34 quickly
became an axiom of ancient Greek accounts of knowledge and survives in
modern garb as the 'belief' and 'truth'
conditions of the 'standard' or 'tripartite
analysis' of knowledge. It can be plausibly argued that every
later Greek thinker, at least until the time of Aristotle, undertook
to respond to the basic challenge posed in Xenophanes'
B34--how, given the severely limited character of human
experience, anyone can plausibly claim to have discovered the truth
about matters lying beyond anyone's capacity to observe
first-hand. Xenophanes may also be credited with expanding the range
of topics considered appropriate for philosophical inquiry and
discussion. His Ionian predecessors had initiated the study of
phenomena "above the heavens and below the earth" but, so
far as we know, they did not turn their critical fire against the
leading poets of ancient Greece nor did they seek through their
teachings to correct or improve the conduct of their fellow citizens.
Although many aspects of his thought remain the subject of scholarly
debate, Xenophanes was clearly a multi-dimensional thinker who left
his mark on many aspects of later Greek thought. |
xunzi | ## 1. Xunzi and *Xunzi*
The name Xunzi means Master Xun and refers to Xun Kuang
Xun Kuang , who was renowned in his day as "the most
revered of teachers" (*zui wei laoshi*
Zui Wei Lao Shi ). His precise dates are unknown, and
extant sources contradict one another: in particular, there is
disagreement as to whether he journeyed to the philosophical center of
Qi Qi at the age of fifteen *sui* Sui (i.e. thirteen
or fourteen years of age) or fifty *sui* (forty-eight or
forty-nine). The former figure is more plausible (Goldin 1999:
110n.13; Knoblock 1982-83: 33-34), and would indicate a
year of birth sometime around 310 BCE All we can surmise of his death
is that it must have been after 238 BCE, because he was alive when his
patron, Lord Chunshen Chun Shen Jun , was assassinated in
that year. Virtually all available information about his life comes
either from internal references in *Xunzi*, the posthumously
edited collection of his works, or from his biography in *Records
of the Historian* Shi Ji , by Sima Qian
Si Ma Qian (145?-86? BCE), which is known to
contain serious distortions, especially in its treatment of famous
philosophers (Kern 2015). Hence modern attempts to piece together Xun
Kuang's life (such as Knoblock 1988-94: I, 3-35; and
Liao Mingchun 2005: 535-46) are necessarily tentative.
Sima Qian relates that Xunzi polished his voluminous writings in his
old age, but they do not survive in his own recension. All extant
editions of *Xunzi* derive from a compilation by Liu Xiang
Liu Xiang (79-8 BCE), a palace librarian who located 322
bamboo bundles of text (*pian* Pian ) that he confidently
attributed to Xunzi, of which he eliminated 290 as duplicates. These
high numbers suggest that Xunzi's essays had been circulating
independently for about two centuries (Sato 2003: 27-36). The
general consensus today is that *Xunzi* is a collection of
predominantly authentic essays, but certainly not organized in a
manner that Xun Kuang himself had authorized (e.g., Knoblock
1988-94: I, 105-28). One indication of the diversity of
Liu Xiang's sources is that a few chapters (notably "A
Debate about Warfare" ["Yibing" Yi Bing ])
refer to Xunzi as Sun Qingzi Sun Qing Zi , "Master
Chamberlain Sun", a title that he himself would not have
used.[1]
The chapter divisions, in particular, seem unreliable: whereas some
chapters read like self-standing essays, others do not. In
"Refutation of Physiognomy" ("Feixiang"
Fei Xiang ), for example, only the opening lines deal with
physiognomy; the rest of the chapter seems to consist of stray
passages that Liu Xiang did not quite know where to insert. There are
also some chapters with generic instructional material, as well as
poems and rhymed riddles that are rarely studied (Knechtges 1989). One
of the consequences of this arrangement is that reconstructing
Xunzi's arguments requires reading across chapter boundaries:
taken as a whole, the book conveys a distinctive philosophical
position, but individual chapters are inadequate, indeed sometimes
incoherent, on their own (Kern 2016; Hutton 2014:
xviii-xxiii).
## 2. Human Nature (*xing* Xing )
Chapter
23,[2]
"Human Nature is Evil" (*Xing'e*
Xing E ), is a reasonable point of entry into Xunzi's
philosophy for multiple reasons: it exemplifies some of the textual
problems mentioned above; it addresses one of the core themes of the
collection; and it was, for centuries, the most frequently cited
section of *Xunzi*.
First, the two keywords need to be unpacked. *Xing*, commonly
translated as "human nature", is a term of uncertain
etymology that earlier philosophers had used in subtly dissimilar
ways. Mencius (372-289 BCE?), for example, used it to refer to
the ideal state than an organism is expected to attain under the right
conditions, or perhaps an innate tendency toward that state (Graham
1989: 117-32; Graham 1990: 7-66). Famously, Mencius argued
that the *xing* of human beings is good (*shan*
Shan ), by which he meant that all human beings *have the
capacity to become* good, even though, in reality, not all people
are good, because they fail to exert themselves sufficiently--or
even take the obligation seriously.
In *Xunzi*, "Human Nature is Evil" is framed as an
argument with Mencius (who was probably long dead), and takes the view
that the *xing* of human beings is the very opposite of
*shan*, namely *e*. The basic meaning of *e* is
close to "detestable" (as a transitive verb, *wu*
E means "to hate"); the translation
"evil" is acceptable only with the understanding that
something like an Augustinian conception of evil is not intended.
(Some scholars opt for "bad", another standard antonym of
"good" in English.) But in prosecuting this position,
Xunzi uses *xing* in a fundamentally different sense:
"What is so by birth is called *xing*"
(*Xunzi*
22.1b).[3]
Thus *xing* refers to the basic faculties, capacities, and
desires that we have from birth, which cannot be called
"good" because following the impulses of our
*xing*, without reflecting on them and moderating them, will
lead us to act harmfully (Hutton 2000; Tang 2016: 51).
In effect, both Xunzi and Mencius argued that human beings all have
the capacity to become good, even though some people develop this
capacity and others do not (Graham 1989: 250; Shun 1997:
222-31). The main differences, only recently appreciated, are
that they were not operating with the same implicit definitions of
*xing*, and Xunzi's recommendations for moral
self-cultivation--that is, how to overcome one's inherently
detestable nature--were more complex than Mencius's, as we
shall see. Because of Mencius's subsequent prestige, it was
commonly supposed that Xunzi's definition of *xing* was
heterodox, if not deliberately subversive. But a collection of
Confucian manuscripts recently excavated from a tomb near the modern
town of Guodian Guo Dian and dated to ca. 300 BCE suggests
that it may have been *Mencius's* usage of *xing*,
not Xunzi's, which was considered eccentric in ancient
times.[4]
The Guodian text called *The Xing
Emerges from the Endowment* (*Xing zi ming chu*
Xing Zi Ming Chu ) defines *xing* in a manner
very similar to Xunzi: the set of inborn characteristics shared by all
members of a species (Goldin 2005: 38).
Fixating on the title "Human Nature Is Evil" (which may or
may not derive from Xunzi himself) can lead to an elision of the
second half of the chapter's credo: "what is good [in
people] is their artifice" (*qi shan zhe wei ye*
Qi Shan Zhe Wei Ye ). "Artifice"
(*wei*)[5]
refers to all the traits and habits that we acquire through our own
conscious actions. And if we achieve any goodness, it must be because
of our artifice: whereas
>
>
> obeying one's *xing* and following one's emotions
> must result in contention and robbery ... the transformation
> [brought about by] the methods of a teacher and the Way of ritual and
> morality will result in deference and courtesy, in accordance with
> refinement and principles, and return to order. (*Xunzi* 23.1a)
>
>
>
>
Thus the phrase that is used to denote moral self-cultivation is not
to overcome or abandon the *xing*, but *to transform* it
(*huaxing* Hua Xing ). For this reason, in addition to
stylistic features that trouble some readers, the chapter is
occasionally impugned as corrupt or inauthentic (Robins 2001-02;
Zhou Chicheng 2014).
## 3. Modes of Moral Self-Cultivation: Ritual (*li* Li ) and Music (*yue* Le )
What prompted Xunzi to dissent from Mencius's characterization
of *xing* as good if he ultimately agreed with Mencius's
larger view: that people can perfect themselves and that such an
achievement requires great exertion and self-motivation? Perhaps Xunzi
wished to highlight his conviction that the proper models for moral
behavior lie outside the self, which is fundamentally opposed to a
Mencian notion of Four Beginnings (*siduan* Si Duan )
lodged within the human heart (e.g., *Mencius* 2A.6). Whereas
Mencians have always emphasized looking inwards for moral
direction--sometimes complicated by the acknowledgment that the
heart can be corrupted--self-cultivation in the Xunzian style is
inconceivable without looking *outwards*.
Xunzi held that for most ordinary people, the best guide is the set of
rituals (*li*) handed down by sages of yore (*sheng*
Sheng or *shengren* Sheng Ren ). What are rituals and
why did the sages institute them? In some passages, Xunzi attributes,
in a manner superficially reminiscent of Hobbes or Rousseau, the
genesis of the rituals to the sages' recognition that unbridled
competition produces a globally unsustainable situation:
>
>
> If people follow their desires, then boundaries cannot contain them
> and objects cannot satisfy them. Thus the Former Kings restrained them
> and established for them ritual and morality in order to divide them
> [into classes]. (*Xunzi* 4.12; cf. 19.1a)
>
>
>
Sometimes these rituals are described as efficient social conventions
(e.g., Perkins 2014: 189-97), but this is inadequate for two
reasons.
First, Xunzi elsewhere explicitly denies that an arbitrarily chosen
set of rituals would be effective. Rather, the rituals of the sage
kings are legitimate because they accord with "that which makes
humans human" (*ren zhi suoyi wei ren zhe*
Ren Zhi Suo Yi Wei Ren Zhe ); by
implication, any competing ritual code would necessarily fail.
Specifically, human beings, unlike any other species of animal, abide
by certain distinctions (*bian* Bian )--male is
distinguished from female, old from young, and so on--and it is
altogether natural that we do so. The rituals of the sage kings
confirm the distinctions that we are bound to make by nature (the core
text is *Xunzi* 5.4; see also 10.3a and 19.1c).
Second, rituals, in Xunzi's conception, not only facilitate
social cohesion, but also foster moral and psychological development
(Ivanhoe 2014; Yearley 2014: 92-101). Indeed, if they did not,
they would be mere instruments of expedience, not rituals. These
dimensions become clear when Xunzi begins to discuss specific rituals
and their purposes. We observe regulations concerning funerary
ceremonies and grave goods, for example, in order to learn how to
avoid incivility and miserliness (19.4a-b). Similarly, the mandatory
three-year mourning period for deceased rulers and parents helps us
conduct ourselves properly by providing suitable forms for us to
express emotions that are so deep as to be potentially debilitating:
>
>
> When a wound is colossal, its duration is long; when pain is profound,
> the recovery is slow. The three-year mourning period is a form
> established with reference to emotions; it is the means by which one
> conveys the acme of one's pain. (*Xunzi* 19.9a)
>
>
>
One ritual discussed *in extenso* is the village wine-drinking
ceremony (*xiang* Xiang ). The fact that the host fetches the
guest of honor himself, but expects the other guests to arrive on
their own, underscores the distinctions that need to be drawn between
noble and base. And the detail that each participant toasts the next,
serially and according to their ages, demonstrates that one can align
society according to seniority without excluding anyone. When the
guest of honor retires, the host bows and escorts him out, and the
formal occasion comes to an end: this is to make it known that one can
feast at leisure without becoming disorderly. The clear implication is
that by taking part in the rite, we can gradually comprehend the moral
principles that the sages wished us to embody (*Xunzi*
20.5).
Xunzi's rituals have such an important role to play in our
emotional and moral development that he spends an entire chapter
limning what are essentially rituals of artistic expression. The term
he uses is "music" (*yue*), which is distinct from
ritual, but Xunzi's conception of their origin and purpose is so
similar that we can scarcely speak of one without the other. Thus
"ritual and music" (*liyue*) can only be understood
as two aspects of human artifice (*wei*): "ritual"
refers to cultural forms that affect social cohesion,
"music" to those involving the orderly expression of human
emotions. The crucial point is that the sages created both.
Like all Confucians, Xunzi accepts that human beings have certain
irrepressible impulses (*Xunzi* 20.1), which are not
objectionable in themselves. The problem is that unreflective
outbursts driven solely by emotional responses may cause harm, and
thus we are enjoined to be mindful of our impulses, rather than to
extinguish them (compare *Xunzi* 22.5a). To aid us in this
process, the Sages left behind appropriate musical compositions that
we can use to channel our need to express ourselves. What Xunzi meant
by this is the canonical collection of *Odes* (*Shi*
Shi ), which all Confucians seem to have regarded as a nonpareil
repository of edifying literature (Goldin 2005: 35).
Xunzi's immediate purpose in this section was to counter the
Mohist view that music is wasteful. Xunzi counters that by focusing
exclusively on the material costs, Mo Di Mo Di (d. ca. 390
BCE) and his followers failed to recognize the psychological utility
of music as an instrument of moral suasion (Cook 1997: 21-24;
Graham 1989: 259-61).
>
>
> When music is centered and balanced, the people are harmonious and not
> dissipated. When music is stern and grave, the people are uniform and
> not disorderly. When the people are harmonious and uniform, the army
> is firm and the citadels secure; enemy states dare not invade.
> (*Xunzi* 20.2)
>
>
>
As the last quote intimates, the proper implementation of ritual is
also decisive in politics and international
relations.[6]
In the "Debate about Warfare", for example, Xunzi offers
a distinctive variant of the old Confucian idea that a true king
(*wang* Wang --always a moral term in Confucian
discourse) will succeed on the battlefield without even having to
fight, because the populace will not support a tyrant or hegemon
(*ba* Ba , a lord who rules by brute force). What is
unique is Xunzi's emphasis on ritual as the key to a
well-ordered state. To be sure, earlier writings had also discussed
the idea of ritual as the foundation of statecraft, and the *Zuo
Commentary to the Springs and Autumns* (*Zuozhuan*
Zuo Chuan ), in particular, is famous for its scenes in which a
ruler who is about to attack his neighbor publicly justifies his
aggression on the grounds that he is merely "punishing"
his enemy's intolerable violations of ritual. But Xunzi raises
the significance of ritual to a new level: in his view, the
ruler's ability to govern his state in accordance with ritual is
the sole criterion that will determine success or failure on the
battlefield (*Xunzi* 15.1c; see also *Xunzi* 16.1).
Having established that "exalting ritual" (*longli*
Long Li ) is the true path to order and strength, Xunzi
expatiates in characteristic language:
>
>
> When kings and dukes follow [the rituals], that is how they obtain the
> world; when they do not follow them, that is how they bring about the
> perdition of their altars of soil and grain. (*Xunzi* 15.4)
>
>
>
>
Even advanced military technology is no match for a king who
"exalts ritual and esteems morality".
Accordingly, in two passages assessing the mighty state of Qin
Qin --which would go on to unify the Chinese world under the
infamous First Emperor (r. 221-210 BCE)--Xunzi acknowledged
its power but diagnosed a correctible weakness: it lacked schooled
moral advisors (like himself) to guide the ruler and save him from
self-defeating avarice and aggression. Such counselors, moreover,
should have a Confucian orientation (*Xunzi* 8.2-10 and
16.4-6). The judgment of most ancient writers is that Qin never
corrected this weakness.
## 4. The Source of the Rituals: Heaven (*tian* Tian ) and the Way (*dao* Dao )
Xunzi places so much emphasis on the role of the rituals in moral
self-cultivation that one might ask how the sages managed to perfect
themselves when they did not have such a model themselves. A glimpse
of the answer was already afforded by Xunzi's insistence that
the rituals surpass any arbitrary code of conduct because they accord
with fundamental human tendencies. But elsewhere the question is
addressed more fully. The rituals, it turns out, are the equivalent of
helpful signposts. Just as those who ford rivers "mark"
(*biao* Biao ) treacherous spots, the sages "marked
the Way" (*biao dao* Biao Dao ) by means of
rituals, so that people would no longer stumble (*Xunzi*
17.11).
The Way that Xunzi invokes in this simile is sometimes called
"constancy" (*chang* Chang ). Heaven's
processes (*tianxing* Tian Xing ) do not change from one
epoch to the
next;[7]
thus one must learn how to respond to them with "the right
order" (*zhi* Zhi ), whereafter it would be either
ignorant or hypocritical to blame Heaven for one's misfortune.
When a ruler governs a state well, there are bound to be good results;
when a ruler governs a state badly, there are bound to be bad results.
Disasters can have no long-term consequences because a well governed
state will prosper even in the face of disasters, and a poorly
governed state will be vanquished even if it avoids disasters
altogether. (Xunzi's opinion of foreseeable natural disasters
such as hurricanes would undoubtedly have been that they strike
*all* states, but a well governed state will be prepared for
such an event, whereas a poorly governed state will be in no position
to respond to the crisis.) Consequently, Heaven plays a sure but
indirect role in determining our fortune or misfortune. Heaven never
intercedes directly in human affairs, but human affairs are certain to
succeed or fail according to a timeless pattern that Heaven determined
before human beings existed. "The revolutions of the sun, moon,
and stars, and the cyclical calendar--these were the same under
Yu Yu and Jie Jie " (*Xunzi* 17.4), he notes,
referring to a paradigmatic sage king and tyrant, respectively. The
same is true of the regular and predictable sequence of the
seasons--a particularly significant example, as we shall see.
Next, Xunzi makes a crucial distinction between knowing Heaven
(*zhi tian* Zhi Tian ) and knowing the Way (*zhi
dao* Zhi Dao ). The former is impossible, and therefore a
waste of time to attempt, but the latter is open to all who try. To
cite a modern parallel, it is not difficult to understand *how*
the force of gravity works by carefully observing its effects in the
phenomenal world, but to understand *why* gravity works is a
different matter altogether. Xunzi would say that one should constrain
one's inquiries to learning how gravity works, and then think
about how to apply this irresistible force of nature to improve the
lives of humankind (Fraser 2016: 297-300). His attitude was not
scientific in our sense. Speaking of "those who are enlightened
about the distinction between Heaven and human beings", he
says:
>
> Their aspiration with respect to Heaven is no more than to observe the
> phenomena that can be taken as regular periods (e.g., the progression
> of the seasons or stars). Their aspiration with respect to Earth is no
> more than to observe the matters that yield (sc. crops). Their
> aspiration with respect to the four seasons is no more than to observe
> the data that can be made to serve [humanity]. Their aspiration with
> respect to *yin* Yin and *yang* Yang is no more
> than to observe their harmonious [interactions] that can bring about
> order. (*Xunzi* 17.3b)
>
Thus rituals are not merely received practices or convenient social
institutions; they are practicable forms in which the sages aimed to
encapsulate the fundamental patterns of the universe. No human being,
not even a sage, can know Heaven, but we can know Heaven's Way,
which is the surest path to a flourishing and blessed life. Because
human beings have limited knowledge and abilities, it is difficult for
us to attain this deep understanding, and therefore the sages handed
down the rituals to help us follow in their footsteps.
## 5. Is the Way Discovered or Constructed?
Although this discussion has presented the Way as an unchanging
cosmological reality to which we must conform (or suffer the
consequences), it is sometimes understood, rather, as having been
constructed by human beings. A.C. Graham first raised this issue by
asking, "Is Xunzi saying that man imposes his own meaning on an
otherwise meaningless universe?" (Graham 1989: 243). Although
Graham himself answered his question in the negative, others have
since pressed the point further. This is probably the greatest
controversy in Xunzi studies today.
One passage, in particular, is frequently cited as support for a
constructivist position (Hagen 2007: 11.n31; Tang 2016: 59, 75, 118):
"The Way is not the Way of Heaven, nor the Way of Earth; it is
what people regard as the Way, what the noble man is guided by"
(*Xunzi* 8.3). This seems to say, despite what we have seen
about apprehending the constancy of Heaven and then applying it
profitably to daily life, that we are supposed to disregard the Way of
Heaven, and create our own Way instead. The basic problem is that the
surviving text of *Xunzi* is vague enough to permit various
interpretations, but the repeated references to the importance of
observing and appropriately "responding" (*ying*
Ying ) to the seasons would seem to rule out the interpretation
that natural patterns are not to be taken as normative.
Yang Liang Yang Jing (fl. 818 CE), the author of the oldest
extant commentary on *Xunzi*, evidently recognized this
problem, and tried to soften the impact of *Xunzi* 8.3 by
making it fit with the rest of the text:
>
>
> This emphasizes that the Way of the Former Kings was not a matter of
> *yin* and *yang*, or mountains and rivers, or omens and
> prodigies, but the Way that people practice.
>
>
>
Yang Liang's opinion is surely not decisive: he was but an
interpreter, not the master himself, and his glosses are not always
regarded as the most compelling today. But in this case he may have
been right that Xunzi meant to say no more than that the Way is to be
found not in prodigies and other freakish occurrences, but in the
"constancies" that people can put into practice. Indeed,
the very notion that the Way of Heaven, the Way of Earth, and the Way
of human beings are distinct entities would contradict the frequently
reiterated point that there is only one Way, e.g., "There are no
two Ways in the world, and the Sage is never of two minds"
(*Xunzi* 21.1). This single and holistic Way, moreover, serves
as the enduring standard for all times because all ramified truths of
the universe are unified within it (*Xunzi* 5.5, 21.6b, and
22.6b).
What we need to understand, then, is the Way *as it pertains to
human beings*. Unusual celestial phenomena such as shooting stars
must, theoretically, be explainable by a comprehensive formulation of
the Way--there can be no *violations* of the Way in the
natural world--but this is exactly why we do not aim for a
comprehensive formulation of the Way (cf. Hutton 2016a: 81-83).
We can safely ignore shooting stars as irrelevant to human beings
because they do not provide replicable patterns for use in moral and
social development. Responding to the seasons with timely planting and
harvesting is, once again, a more productive model.
## 6. Portents (*yao* Xian )
In accordance with his notion of the Way as the observable
"constancies" that can be profitably applied to human
conduct, Xunzi argued strongly against the notion that weird
occurrences on earth can be rationalized as monitory signs from
Heaven. Superficially terrifying occurrences such as shooting stars or
squalling trees are merely "shifts in Heaven and Earth,
transformations of *yin* and *yang*, material
anomalies" (*Xunzi* 17.7). We should be concerned instead
with "human portents" (*renyao* Ren Xian ),
a term that would have seemed as counterintuitive in Xunzi's
language as it does in ours. "Human portents" are the many
shortsighted and immoral acts through which human beings bring on
their own destruction: "poor plowing that harms the harvest,
hoeing and weeding out of season, governmental malice that causes the
loss of the people" (*Xunzi* 17.7). Heaven has no part in
such wrongdoing. Now and then strange things may happen in the skies,
but they have happened at all moments in history, and they have never
been sufficient to destroy a prudent and moral society--whereas
an imprudent and immoral society will fail even if it is spared an
eclipse.
Xunzi even extends this theory of "human portents" to
contend that religious ceremonies have no numinous effect; we carry
them out merely for their inherent beauty and the social cohesion that
they
promote.[8]
>
>
> If the sacrifice for rain [is performed], and it rains, what of it? I
> say: It is nothing. Even if there had been no sacrifice, it would have
> rained. ... Thus the noble man takes [these ceremonies] to be
> embellishment, but the populace takes them to be spiritual. To take
> them as embellishment is auspicious; to take them as spiritual is
> inauspicious. (*Xunzi* 17.8)
>
>
>
## 7. Rectifying Names (*zhengming* Zheng Ming )
Xunzi's famous essay on language, "Rectifying Names"
("Zhengming" Zheng Ming ) includes some impressive
insights into the nature of verbal communication (William S-Y. Wang
1989: 186-89), but the primary concern of the chapter is
morality, not linguistics (Fraser 2016: 293-96). The thrust of
the essay is easily missed because a few of Xunzi's comments
sound as though they came out of a modern pragmatics textbook, e.g.,
"Names have no inherent appropriateness. We designate them [by
some word] in order to name them" (*Xunzi* 22.2g).
Although this may sound like something that Ferdinand de Saussure
(1857-1913) could have written, Xunzi was not interested in the
same questions as modern linguists. In "Rectifying Names",
Xunzi also discusses sophistic paradoxes that were rampant in his day
(the most famous being "A white horse is not a
horse"),[9]
dividing them into three typological categories. His conclusion
discloses that his main purpose is not a proper taxonomy of falsidical
paradoxes (for this term, see Quine 1976: 3), but an assertion of the
moral purpose of language:
>
>
> All heretical theories and aberrant sayings depart from the correct
> Way and are presumptuously crafted according to these three categories
> of delusion. (*Xunzi* 22.3d)
>
>
>
The paradoxes of the sophists cannot be used as a basis for moral
governance, and thus would be objectionable even if they were not in
fact false; they are "disputes with no use"
(*Xunzi* 6.6).
The only legitimate purpose of language, like that of government
itself, is to serve as the king's tool in propagating moral
excellence:
>
>
> When one who is a king determines names, if names are fixed and
> realities distinguished, if the Way is practiced and his intentions
> communicated, then he may cautiously lead the people and unify them by
> this means. (*Xunzi* 22.1c)
>
>
>
The task of determining names and then enforcing their use belongs to
the king alone, not to any lord and certainly not to the people.
"One who is a king" (*wangzhe* Wang Zhe )
refers not to the person who happens to be sitting on the throne, but
someone who has lived up to the moral requirements of that office and
duly rules the world by his charismatic example. Accordingly, a phrase
like "leading and unifying the people" refers not to
expedient rulership, but to implementing the Confucian project of
morally transforming the world. Language is useful in that enterprise
because, without it, the people could not even understand the
ruler's wishes, let alone carry them out.
Just as the rituals need to be based on the foundation of the Way, the
ruler's names, though they can be arbitrary as designations,
must correspond to reality. You can make up the word for
"reality", but you cannot make up reality. "Same and
different" (*tongyi* Tong Yi ) are distinguished
by the so-called "Heaven-endowed bureaux"
(*tianguan* Tian Guan ), i.e. the eyes, ears, mouth,
nose, body, and heart-mind. For most of these, we might say
"senses" or "sense organs" in English, but the
heart-mind (*xin* Xin ) is an exceptional case, for it is
said to be able to distinguish "statements, reasons, happiness,
resentment, grief, joy, love, hate, and desire" (*Xunzi*
22.d), which are not simply sense data. The heart-mind will be treated
more fully in the next section.
The suggestion that we rely upon our senses to perceive the world
around us represents a substantial claim on Xunzi's part,
because other philosophers had already suggested that reality is not
straightforwardly discerned; on the contrary, one's partial
perspective on reality necessarily informs one's perception of
it. This was, essentially, the argument in "Discourse on the
Equality of Things" ("Qiwu lun"
Qi Wu Lun ), an important chapter in *Zhuangzi*
Zhuang Zi (e.g., Graham 1989: 176-83). For Xunzi,
however, reality is reality, regardless of how we perceive it. Once
again, some scholars (e.g., Hagen 2007: 59-84) question whether
Xunzi is such a strong realist, but a constructivist interpretation is
difficult to reconcile with Xunzi's repeated assertions that
language must conform to reality and the Way, e.g., "Names are
that by which one defines different real objects"
(*Xunzi* 22.3f).
## 8. The Heart-Mind (*xin*)
In many respects, the heart-mind is the keystone of Xunzi's
philosophy, the one piece that links together all the others. The
Chinese word *xin* means "heart", but Xunzi
attributes such strong and varied mental processes to this organ that
one has to construe it as not only the heart but also the mind. (The
mind was not located in the brain in premodern Chinese
philosophy.)
First, the heart-mind is the organ that we use to discover the Way.
Xunzi's discussion of Heaven presents his argument that moral
self-cultivation is a matter of correctly perceiving and then applying
the Way, but does not explain how we perceive the Way in the first
place. Elsewhere, he states explicitly that we come "to know the
Way" by means of our heart-mind (*Xunzi* 21.5d), which
has three cardinal attributes: "emptiness" (*xu*
Xu ) "unity" (*yi* Yi ), and
"tranquility" (*jing* Jing ). Xunzi patently
borrowed these three terms from earlier discourse, particularly
*Zhuangzi* (e.g., Yearley 1980; Goldin 1999: 22-31;
Stalnaker 2003), and uses them to denote three nurturable faculties
that we all possess from birth, but do not employ to the same degree.
(The title of the relevant chapter, "Resolving Blindness",
refers to the self-destructive acts that people undertake because they
fail to employ their heart-minds correctly.) "Emptiness"
refers to the heart-mind's ability to store a seemingly
unlimited amount of information: we do not have to erase one datum in
order to make room for another. "Unity" refers to the
heart-mind's ability to synthesize diverse data into meaningful
paradigms. And "tranquility" refers to the
heart-mind's ability to distinguish fantasy from rational
thinking. Armed with these powers, we can infer the patterns of the
Way by taking in, and then pondering, the data transmitted to the
heart-mind by the senses.
In addition, the heart-mind is the chief among the organs. It is the
only organ that can command the others; indeed, it is the only organ
with any self-consciousness. "The mind is the lord of the body
... It issues commands but does not receive commands"
(*Xunzi* 21.6a). Because the heart-mind can control both itself
and all other organs of the body, it is the font of
"artifice", or the deliberate actions that begin to
transform the morally deficient *xing*: "When the
heart-mind reasons and the other faculties put it into
action--this is called 'artifice'"
(*Xunzi* 22.1b). The heart-mind is capable of overriding every
human impulse, even the instinct of self-preservation, if it conflicts
with the correct "patterns" (*li*
Li ).[10]
We have the necessary faculties to recognize immorality when we see
it, and if we permit ourselves to tread an immoral path, we cannot
blame our emotions or desires, but must accept that our heart-mind has
failed to exert the requisite discipline. We know that we could have
done better. Indeed, when we speak of "we", we are
speaking of our heart-mind. For the heart-mind is the crucible where
these teeming moral deliberations take place.
Thus Xunzi ends, like all Confucians, with individual responsibility:
in his case, the heart-mind's obligation to process the
principles of the Way and then command the rest of the body to
conform. Because we are not sages, we are advised to follow the
rituals in order to attain this degree of understanding, but,
fundamentally, the path to morality is open to anyone who sees and
thinks (*Xunzi* 8.11 and 23.5b).
Xunzi's conception of the heart-mind also figures in a
distinctive congruence that he postulates between a kingdom and a
human being. A kingdom possesses an initial set of features--it
may be large or small, rich or poor, hilly or flat--but these are
immaterial to its ultimate success or failure, for any territory,
however small, provides enough of a base for a sage to conquer the
world. Thus it is the management of the state, and not its natural
resources, that determine whether it will become the demesne of a king
or be conquered by its neighbors. This management, furthermore,
comprises two elements: a proper method, namely the rituals of the
sage kings; and a decisive agent, namely the lord, who chooses either
to adopt the rituals or unwisely discard them.
In much the same way, human beings are made up of two parts: their
*xing*, or detestable initial condition, and *wei*,
their conscious conduct. They may reform themselves or they may remain
detestable: this depends entirely on their conduct. The management of
the self, just like the management of the state, comprises two
elements: a proper method, which is, once again, the rituals of the
sage kings; and a decisive agent, which chooses either to adopt the
rituals or unwisely discard them. This agent, the analogue of the lord
of a state, is the heart-mind (Goldin 1999:
16-17).[11]
As in the Broadway song, "It's not where you start;
it's where you finish" (Fields *et al*. 1973 [1975:
54]).
## 9. Xunzi's Reception after His Death
At[12]
the end of his life, Xunzi was the leading teacher and philosopher in
the Chinese world. Among his former students were some of the most
influential men in politics, including Han Fei Han Fei (d.
233 BCE), Li Si Li Si (d. 208 BCE), and Zhang Cang
Zhang Cang (ca. 250-151 BCE), as well as transmitters of
several leading redactions of canonical texts, including Fuqiu Bo
Fu Qiu Bo and perhaps Mao Heng Mao Heng (Goldin
1999: xii).
The early Han Han dynasty statesman Lu Jia Lu Jia (ca.
228-ca. 140 BCE) is sometimes said to have been Xunzi's
student as well (e.g., by Tang Yan Tang Yan [1857-1920]
in Wang Liqi 1986: 222-23), but the two men's dates make
this relationship unlikely. Perhaps Lu Jia was a disciple of Fuqiu Bo,
and thus an intellectual grandson of Xunzi. Regardless, the strongest
evidence of Lu Jia's indebtedness to Xunzi lies on the level of
ideas (Li Dingfang 1980). Like Xunzi, Lu Jia appealed to the classics,
the sages' textual legacy, as the best practical guide to
government and moral self-cultivation (Puett 2002: 253-54; Jin
Chunfeng 2006: 73-74). But Lu's most important
philosophical thesis is that human beings bring about auspicious and
inauspicious omens through their own actions.
Xunzi, we recall, argued strongly against the belief in Heavenly
portents. Lu Jia accepted Xunzi's framework, but with a single,
consequential innovation: people bring about their own fortune or
misfortune by emitting *qi* Qi :
>
>
> Thus when societies fail and the Way is lost, it is not the work of
> Heaven. The lord of the state has done something to cause it. Bad
> government breeds bad *qi*; bad *qi* breeds disasters
> and abnormalities. (Wang Liqi 1986: 155)
>
>
>
By adding the element of *qi*--a term that Xunzi rarely
used, and certainly did not build into his metaphysics--Lu Jia
retains Xunzi's volitionless and mechanistic Heaven but forges a
novel philosophical justification for the arcane science of omenology,
which Xunzi mercilessly deprecated. Where Xunzi counseled us to ignore
abnormalities, Lu Jia accepts their validity as
"admonitions" (*jie* Jie ). But, once again,
Heaven itself has no effect on our success or failure. If we are faced
with a host of wood-boring caterpillars, to use Lu's vivid
example, the only way to account for them is to acknowledge that our
government is responsible for their generation through its maleficent
conduct (Zhou Guidian 1999: 51-53; Puett 2002: 249-52).
Two coeval philosophers, Jia Yi Jia Yi (201-169 BCE)
and Dong Zhongshu Dong Zhong Shu (ca. 198-ca. 107
BCE), agreed that human beings are responsible for their own fortune
or misfortune, and thus have no cause to blame Heaven, although Jia Yi
did not refer to *qi* in prosecuting his theory, whereas Dong
Zhongshu did (Goldin 2007).
Dong Zhongshu is reported to have written a paean to Xunzi (now lost),
and writers of late antiquity, such as Wang Chong Wang Chong
(27-ca. 100 CE) and Ban Gu Ban Gu (32-92 CE),
still took him seriously as a philosopher. But thereafter,
Xunzi's star began to set. In later centuries, the two
tirelessly repeated cliches about Xunzi were that he propagated
the anti-Mencian doctrine that human nature is evil, and that, by
serving as Li Si's and Han Fei's teacher, he furthered the
cause of Legalism (*fajia* Fa Jia ) and thus subverted
high-minded principles. Ji Kang Ji Kang (223-262), for
example, obliquely identified Xunzi as the chief architect of
everything that Ji and his group disdained: artificial ritualism,
counterfeit erudition, and an oppressive network of laws that serve
only to interfere with the innocuous enjoyment of life (Goldin 2007:
140-42).
By the Tang Tang dynasty, even literati who admired
Xunzi--such as Han Yu Han Yu (768-824)--were
careful to add that his works contain grave mistakes (Kong Fan 1997:
281; Liu Youming 2006: 48-50). In the Song Song , there were
still some voices that praised him, but the opinion with the greatest
long-term consequences was that of Zhu Xi Zhu Xi
(1130-1200), who declared that Xunzi's philosophy
resembled those of non-Confucians such as Shen Buhai
Shen Bu Hai (fl. 354-340 BCE) and Shang Yang
Shang Yang (d. 338 BCE), and that he was indirectly responsible
for the notorious disasters of the Qin dynasty (Kong Fan 1997:
291-95). For the rest of imperial history, Xunzi was rejected by
the cultural
mainstream;[13]
into the twentieth century, he was criticized by intellectuals such
as Kang Youwei Kang You Wei (1858-1927), Tan Sitong
Tan Si Tong (1865-1898), and Liang Qichao
Liang Qi Chao (1873-1929) as the progenitor of the
Confucian scriptural legacy, which, in their view, had derailed the
original Confucian mission and plunged China into a cycle of
authoritarianism and corruption that lasted more than two thousand
years.
Today the tide has reversed almost completely. Xunzi is one of the
most popular philosophers throughout East Asia, and has been the
subject of a large number of books published over the past two
decades. From a twenty-first-century perspective, this revival of
interest in Xunzi is not hard to explain: his body of work has always
been one of the best preserved, and with the commonplace scholastic
objections to his philosophy having lost most of their cogency, it is
only to be expected that philosophical readers should be attracted to
his creative but rigorous arguments. In this sense one could say that
Xunzi has finally been restored, more than two millennia after his
death, to his erstwhile position as *zui wei lao shi*. |
yorck | ## 1. Yorck's Life
Count Paul Yorck von Wartenburg was born in Berlin on March 1, 1835.
His grandfather was the famous Field Marshal Hans David Ludwig Yorck
von Wartenburg. (The Field Marshal's courageous signing of the
Convention of Tauroggen, originally unauthorized by the king and thus
in effect treasonous, started the Prussian War of Liberation against
Napoleon in 1813. It made the Field Marshal Yorck a national hero.)
Paul Yorck's father, Ludwig David Yorck von Wartenburg, managed
the family's estate at Klein-Oels in Silesia (near Breslau,
today Wroklaw) where Paul Yorck grew up. Paul Yorck's
parents were well-connected to a number of literary, philosophical,
and artistic circles in Berlin and elsewhere. They were acquainted
with Friedrich Schleiermacher, Ludwig Tieck, Bettina von Arnim,
Alexander von Humboldt, Karl August Varnhagen, Johann Gustav Droysen,
Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and Ernst von Wildenbruch, to name but a few.
The family Yorck von Wartenburg belonged to the dominant elite in
Prussia and the German Empire. Yorck's life-long enthusiasm for
history and historical reality must be seen against this biographical
background.
In 1855 Paul Yorck began his university studies in law at Bonn, but
soon moved to the university at Breslau where he also enrolled in
philosophy courses. After passing the second law exam, Yorck published
his exam essay "The Catharsis of Aristotle and Sophocles'
Oedipus of Colonus" (Yorck 1866), the only publication by him
during his lifetime. When his father passed away in 1865 Yorck took
over the management of the family estate at Klein-Oels. He also
assumed his father's hereditary seat in the Prussian Upper
Chamber [*Herrenhaus*] where he participated in political
debates. He took part in the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871);
and he was present at the Proclamation of the German Empire in the
Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in 1871.
In the same year Yorck met Dilthey, who had been called to the
University at Breslau. They quickly became friends and Dilthey was a
frequent guest at Klein-Oels, often staying for prolonged working
holidays. The posthumously published Dilthey-Yorck
*Correspondence* (Yorck 1923) is an impressive testimony to
this friendship.
From the early 1890s Yorck worked on a manuscript on Heraclitus (Yorck
1896/97) and a book about the *Stances of Consciousness and
History* (Yorck
1892-1897).[1]
Before his death, Yorck declared the two works unfinished and not
ready for publication. Published only posthumously, they are, in the
words of Karlfried Grunder (1970, 55), "sketches" of
first drafts for "great philosophical books." Paul Yorck
died at Klein-Oels, September 12, 1897. His grandson, Count Peter
Yorck, who had studied Yorck's unfinished works, was a leading
member of the Kreisauer Circle, the German resistance cell responsible
for the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944.
## 2. Correspondence with Dilthey
When in 1923 the *Correspondence* between Yorck and Dilthey
(Yorck 1923) (abbreviated hereafter as CR) was published as "a
memorial" to their philosophical friendship (CR, VI), it
established Yorck not only as an equal to Dilthey and a faithful
interlocutor and eager co-worker on Dilthey's
project(s),[2]
but also as a philosopher and keen observer of his times in his own
right.
In 1892 Yorck writes to Dilthey:
>
>
> Our time portends something of an end of an epoch. A token of this is
> the disappearance of the elemental pleasure in historical realities.
> The feeling that everything passes [*Gefuhl der
> Verganglichkeit*] haunts the world once again. (CR, p.
> 140)
>
>
>
Dilthey clearly shares this sentiment. In a more extensive note about
the same topic Yorck writes:
>
>
> It is my growing conviction that today we stand at a historical
> turning point similar to the one of the 15th century. In
> contradistinction to the scientific-technological progress, which
> consists in increased abstraction and isolation, a new formation comes
> into being because the human being in his entirety [*der ganze
> Mensch*] once again takes a stand and faces the problems of life.
> Every time it is a new stance towards life [*Lebensstellung*]
> and a new conception of it that ushers in a new epoch, not any old
> discovery or invention, even if it is of the greatest import. The
> thread on which science hangs has become so long and spun ever so
> thin, that now it is snapping in the face of the impetuous question:
> What is truth? (CR, p. 128)
>
>
>
In yet another letter, Yorck claims that, since the Renaissance,
science and knowledge--abstracted from feeling and
volition--have followed an eccentric trajectory, in which they
have lost sight of man, resulting in profound self-alienation:
>
>
> The ripple effects caused by the eccentric principle, which ushered in
> a new age more than four hundred years ago, seem to me to have become
> exceedingly broad and flat; knowledge has advanced to the point of
> nullifying itself, and man has become so far removed from himself that
> he no longer catches sight of himself. 'Modern' man, that
> is, man since the Renaissance, is fit for the grave. (CR, p. 83)
>
>
>
The general thrust of these reflections and the language used are
reminiscent of Nietzsche's descriptions of the "uncanniest
of all guests," nihilism. In fact, it is the usually so cautious
Dilthey who, in one of his last letters to Yorck, remarks that the
true but "horrible word about the age has been announced"
by no one other than Nietzsche (CR, p. 238). There is no reason to
believe that Yorck would have disagreed.
Yorck's and Dilthey's awareness of an epochal shift,
written some twenty years before World War I, could not fail to
impress the generation of students who, in the aftermath of this
European catastrophe, their predicament exacerbated by continued
economic hardship and hyperinflation, returned to studying philosophy
in the early 1920s. This may explain why, much later, in the 1980s,
Gadamer would still speak of the enormous significance of the
publication of the Dilthey-Yorck correspondence in 1923, calling
it an "epoch-making moment" in its own right (Gadamer
1995, p. 8).
According to Yorck, the analysis and evaluation of the contemporary
intellectual-historical situation is integral to philosophy--all
the more so if philosophy self-reflexively grasps its ineluctably
historical nature, which in itself is one of Yorck's main
philosophical interests. The basic idea for the historicity of
philosophy is fairly straightforward. For Yorck, as for Dilthey,
philosophy is "a manifestation of life"
[*Lebensmanifestation*] (CR, p. 250), a product or an
expression in which life articulates itself in a certain way. But all
life is intrinsically historical. Life is inconceivable without its
historical development. Yorck writes:
>
>
> The entire given psycho-physical reality is not something that
> *is*, but something that lives: that is the germ cell of
> historicity. And self-reflection, which is directed not at an abstract
> I, but the entirety of my own self, will find that I am historically
> determined, just as physics grasps me as determined by the cosmos.
> Just as I am nature, I am history. And in this decisive sense we have
> to understand Goethe's dictum of [our] having lived
> [*Gelebthaben*] for at least three thousand years. Conversely,
> it follows that history as a scientific discipline exists only as
> psychology of history. (CR 71/72)
>
>
>
For Yorck, as for Dilthey, human life is incorrectly understood if it
is subsumed under the generic catch-all category of
"existence." The first point is that human life is
inconceivable without temporal and historical development, movement,
and change; life always transcends itself, hence it never simply
"is." The mode of being for humans is "life,"
not
"existence."[3]
And life, unlike existence, is intrinsically historical. Precisely
this distinction is brought home by Yorck's demand to always
observe "the generic difference between the ontic and the
historical" (CR, p. 191). The ontic is what is simply
"there" without inner life, temporality, or history. It
includes the physical entities in the world, as well as abstract
objects, numbers, essences, ideas, etc. The "ontic" is
*toto caelo* other than "the historical."
Yorck's second point is that all history is a development of
human powers or *human psychology*, where psychology does not
mean some inert or fixed "nature," but the constant play
of forces, the ever shifting configurations between understanding,
affectivity, and volition. (See
Section 3.1
below.)
In addition, Yorck emphasizes the "virtuality" or
"effectivity" of history, i.e., the cumulative effects and
results of individual persons exerting power and influence in
transmitting the possibility and conception of life to their
descendants. Successor-generations develop their own stance towards
life in response to what they have inherited from the individuals and
generations preceding them. History is the ongoing transmission of
life's potentiality, including the transmission of power, ideas,
and material conditions.
>
>
> The child gains through the mother's sacrifice, her sacrifice
> benefits the child. Without such virtual transmission of power
> [*Kraftubertragung*] there is no history at all. (CR, p.
> 155)
>
>
>
Yorck does not refer to some anonymous bio-power or power structures,
as discussed in contemporary philosophy, but to the authority,
sacrifice, and direct action and communication through which an
individual person or groups of persons form and shape the lives and
behaviours of coming generations. It is for this reason that Yorck
insists that "person" is the key historical category (CR,
p. 109). History is the history of historical, individual agents,
projecting their power and authority into the future.
Since Yorck understands history as a connecting band of ideas and
conditions passed on from one person to another, and indeed from one
generation to another, his position must not be associated with
historicism. For Yorck, there is one continuous and common line of
historical life--a living *syndesmos*. Past generations
and past persons are not "outside" a present horizon in a
past world of their own. Rather, they live on, as it were, in their
descendents. Moreover, because of this connecting band, one can go
"backwards" by way of what Yorck calls
"transposition" (CR, p. 61), transposing oneself into the
lives of others and thus "re-enacting," as Dilthey would
say, the positions towards life that have been lived by one's
predecessors. That life is historical means that each person is always
already outside his or her own individual "nature" and
placed within the historical connection to predecessor- and
successor-generations. For Yorck, living self-consciousness is, to use
Hegel's fortuitous phrase, "the *I* that is
*we* and the *we* that is *I*" (Hegel 1807,
p. 140).
Consequently, Yorck rejects from the start the transcendental method
in philosophy as insufficient for grasping lived historical reality.
Transcendental philosophy reduces historical life to the merely
"subjective," which misses the genuine characteristic of
*Geist*, spirit or mind, namely its real, historical extension
and connection. As Yorck puts it, "the transcendental
method" merely suspends or sublates "the realm of the
objective," but it fails to "extend the region of
*Geist*" (CR, p. 194). Insisting that "the
character of subjectivity does not even reach the realm of
*Geist*" (CR, p. 194), Yorck clearly implies that the
"realm of history" is the proper domain for
*Geist*. It follows that, despite his criticism of the narrow
confines of transcendental and/or subject-centred philosophy,
Yorck's philosophical conception of history is still inscribed
within the confines of *Geist*-philosophy. Following Hegel, who
argues that everything hinges on the understanding that
"substance is subject" (Hegel 1807, p. 19), Yorck agrees
that everything hinges on the understanding that "substance is
history" or "substance is historical
spirit."[4]
Yorck's primary category of historical life does not only
challenge transcendental philosophy as too-narrow a foothold for
philosophy. *A fortiori*, it also challenges the entire
metaphysical tradition, which presupposes or searches for an ultimate
objective reality (being, idea, substance, and so on), divorced from
the ground of the always shifting historical life. Yorck rejects
claims to "knowledge" *sub specie aeternitatis*.
For Yorck, metaphysics is a flight from the historical reality
'on the ground.' By making historical life primary, Yorck
effectively aims to dismantle the predominance of Greek metaphysics,
including the modes of thought of modern science derived from it.
But Yorck is not content with just opposing metaphysics and
transcendental philosophy. Instead, he attempts to instill and to
cultivate historical awareness in philosophy itself, based on the
principle that all productions of life are as historical as life
itself. He writes: Since "to philosophize is to live,"
"there is no real philosophizing which would not be
historical" (CR, p. 251). More radical than Dilthey, Yorck calls
for the "historicization" [*Vergeschichtlichung*]
of philosophy:
>
>
> Just as physiology cannot abstract from physics, so
> philosophy--especially if it is critical--cannot abstract
> from historicity [*Geschichtlichkeit*]. After all, the
> uncritical *Critique* of Kant's can be understood
> historically only, and thus be overcome. [Human] behaviour and
> historicity are like breathing and air pressure--and--this
> may sound somewhat paradoxical--the failure to historicize
> philosophizing appears to me, in methodological respects, a
> metaphysical remnant. (CR, 69)
>
>
>
It is therefore not surprising that, unlike Dilthey, Yorck
specifically appreciates the emphasis on historicity
[*Geschichtlichkeit*][5]
in Hegel and some of his followers, despite his rejection of
Hegel's speculative or ontical superstructure (CR,
59).[6]
In light of the historical nature of philosophy, Yorck draws two
decisive methodological inferences. First, he rejects as too rigid and
untenable the opposition between theoretical or systematic philosophy
and the history of ideas (CR, p. 251), because, as an ongoing
historical development, philosophy always requires both a genetic and
historical clarification, as well as a systematic and theoretical
account. Instead of a mutually exclusive relation, Yorck sees a
mutually productive combination. Second, because Yorck always includes
the present situation within the domain of history, he calls for a
"critical," and not "antiquarian," or
quietistic mode of philosophizing (CR, p. 19). Speaking for Dilthey
and himself, Yorck argues that this critical work of philosophy lays
the groundwork for the practical intent or the historical vocation of
philosophy:
>
>
> The potential for practical application is of course the real
> justification for any science. Yet mathematical *praxis* is not
> the only kind. In practical terms, our standpoint is pedagogical in
> intent, in the broadest and deepest sense of the word. It is the soul
> of all true philosophy and the truth of Plato and Aristotle. (CR, pp.
> 42/ 43)
>
>
>
In the condensed and all too general format of the
*Correspondence* with Dilthey, Yorck develops the practical
"application" of philosophy in only the most fragmentary
fashion. Its most important part is the actual clarification of the
contemporary situation, the determination of the given historical
possibilities, and the avenues for implementing some of them. Yorck
holds that since the Renaissance and through the works of such
thinkers as Galileo, Descartes, and Hobbes, the self-interpretation of
life has found its centre of gravity in the cultivation of the
theoretical understanding [*Verstand*]. The primacy accorded to
theoretical understanding and what it projects as objective,
unchangeable, and ultimate reality (metaphysical & physical) has
ushered in "the natural sciences,"
"nominalism," "rationalism," and
"mechanism," (CR, pp. 68, 63 & 155). But this has come
at the exclusion of the full thematization, expression, and
appreciation of human affectivity [*Gefuhl*], including
the underlying feeling of human connectivity through a shared life in
history. Blocked-out are questions which affect the temporal,
historical and personal existence of human beings, or what Yorck once
calls "existential questions" [*Existenzialfragen*]
(CR, p. 62), which relate to the life-goals human beings strive after,
the recognition of dependency, and the awareness of human mortality,
finitude, and death (CR, p. 120). The relative sidelining of these
aspects in the psychology of human beings lies at the bottom of
Yorck's diagnosis of the increasing self-alienation of modern
man and the crisis of his time.
With Dilthey, Yorck attempts to highlight the "full human
being" [*den ganzen Menschen*] (CR, p. 157), as opposed
to the rationalistically reduced, one-dimensional individual that has
preoccupied modern philosophy and shaped modern culture. The
historicization of philosophy belongs to this project, as does the
acknowledgment of transcendence. According to Yorck, transcendence
(CR, pp. 120, 144) facilitates the withdrawal from the world in its
objective reality (as represented by thought and metaphysics). It lets
human life pivot around the personal, historical, and affective
dimension, foregrounding personal responsibility and accountability to
the transcendent God. Against the theoretical-metaphysical stance
directed at an ever present objective reality, Yorck insists on the
primacy of the personal, historical relation to the transcendent God.
Yorck's dictum "Transcendence contra metaphysics!"
expresses not only a very strong leitmotif in his philosophical
thought (CR, p. 42); it is actually the very
capstone.[7]
For this reason, Yorck has been interpreted as a religious
existentialist (Kaufmann, 1928). This sets him apart from Dilthey.
Yorck's conception of Christianity is heavily biased in favour
of Luther's theology. According to Yorck, Luther's
anti-metaphysical, historical stance towards transcendence remains a
historical task for the future development of philosophy (CR, pp. 144
& 145).
Since Yorck frequently and conspicuously uses the term
*Bodenlosigkeit* [groundlessness], or *bodenloses
Denken* [groundless thought] to describe the one-sided
intellectualism of the scientific-technological civilization since the
Renaissance (CR, pp. 39, 103, 250, 230, 143), questions have been
raised about Yorck's preference for autochthony
[*Bodenstandigkeit*] and the political implications
thereof.[8]
## 3. Philosophical Fragments on History and Psychology
More than half a century after his death, three philosophical
fragments by Yorck--originally written in the last six years of
his life--were published between 1956 and 1970 (see the
Bibliography).
The most important is entitled *Bewusstseinsstellung und
Geschichte* ["Stances of Consciousness and History"]
(abbreviated hereafter as ST). It addresses the sources and the
development of human history, providing the philosophical underpinning
and more detailed exploration of views that Yorck had mentioned in his
*Correspondence* with Dilthey. The following section presents
the major points of this systematic fragment.
Yorck's main aim is to provide an analysis of the underlying
psychology of human life, which he considers the basis for all
historical development. According to Yorck, particular configurations
in the psychology of man, or stances of consciousness, determine the
dominant shape of historical epochs. In other words, certain positions
adopted on the level of "primary life" [*primare
Lebendigkeit*], the stances taken by consciousness within life,
determine "historical life" [*historische
Lebendigkeit*] at large and can define entire epochs (ST, p. 5;
also pp. 52, 53). Therefore, Yorck speaks of the "psychology of
history" and, the "philosophic history of
philosophy" (which traces the stances of consciousness through
empirical history) (ST, p. 10).
All this is predicated on the supposition of our intuitive access to
psychological or primary life through "self-reflection"
[*Selbstbesinnung*]. Yorck interprets Dilthey's insight
that one cannot go beyond life to mean that one cannot surpass or
transcend "the empirical givenness of self-consciousness,"
which entails that philosophy is "empirical," not
speculative (ST, pp. 8, 3). Evidence can only be found in
self-consciousness. What does not pass the test in one's own
life cannot count as a valid expression of life: The seat of all
necessary truth is "self-experimentation" (ST, 9, also
54).[9]
Not unlike Husserl, Yorck pursues, albeit without an elaborate set of
methodological rules, a "re-duction" of all objectivity to
self-consciousness, where self-consciousness is a living and
historical structure that cannot be restricted to knowing or any other
particular function of life. As Gadamer (1990, pp. 246-269) has
pointed out, despite his critique of transcendental philosophy, Yorck
may be read as actually expanding the transcendental focus, which
traditionally used to be on knowing, so as to include the entire gamut
of human experiences and their necessary conditions in human
*life*. Following Dilthey, Yorck sees human consciousness as a
living structure where the emphasis lies on its
"aliveness," *Lebendigkeit*, which includes not
only outward-directed intentionality towards objectivity
(representation and volition), but also self-awareness, and
self-feeling of inner life. Close to Schleiermacher, Yorck even
specifies that "the ultimate datum" in self-consciousness
is "the feeling of life" [*Lebensgefuhl*]
itself (ST, p. 11).
### 3.1 Psychology of Life
According to Yorck, life is divided and articulated in itself, namely
as an ongoing process of self-differentiation relative to others and
the environment. Yorck writes:
>
>
> The primary and exclusive datum is self-consciousness, which, although
> divided [*dirimiert*] into self and other, soul and lived body
> [*Leib*], I and world, inner and outer, is nonetheless,
> polarity [*Gegensatzlichkeit*] and articulateness
> [*Gegliedertheit*] in one. But self-consciousness experiences
> itself in the play and counter-play of its constitutive factors, that
> is, as something alive [*ein Lebendiges*]. This aliveness is
> the basic constitution. (ST, p. 8)
>
>
>
But there is no way that this aliveness can ever be grasped in its
purity outside the fundamental differentiation. The antithetical
division in "self" and "other" is so
fundamental that one cannot go back behind it.
>
>
> The separation [*Trennung*] of self and other, I and world,
> soul and lived body [*Leib*] is such an early separation,
> indeed, the first act of life, as it were, such that these derivatives
> appear as absolute, autonomous, and self-sufficient. (ST, pp.
> 11/12)
>
>
>
Yorck concludes: "The self is only through the other, just as
the other is only through the self" (ST, p. 11).
Yet "life" remains the primary datum for Yorck.
Reminiscent of German Idealism, particularly Hegel and Holderlin,
Yorck understands life as "differentiated unity"
[*differenzierte Einheitlichkeit*] (ST, p. 38). Life explicates
itself in form of an inner division and polarity. Each stance of life
is a particular configuration of life's original division
[*Urtheil* or *Urtheilung*] (ST, p. 25). Yorck
writes:
>
>
> Observation shows that primary life manifests a double diremption into
> [1] polarity [*Gegensatzlichkeit*] and [2] difference
> [*Verschiedenheit*], such that the character of polarity
> permeates and determines the elements of the articulation. (ST, p.
> 10)
>
>
>
Life *articulates* or expresses itself *differently* in
three "functions" or "comportments"
[*Verhaltungen*], as life is lived in [1] "feeling"
[*Empfinden*] or affectivity, [2] "willing"
[*Wollen*], and [3] "cognizing"
[*Vorstellen*] (ST, 32). Life is *divided* between the
two antithetical or opposite poles of spontaneity and dependence (ST,
p. 9), which, applied to the different comportments or functions of
life, yields [1] the tension between motivation and spontaneity in
volition, [2] the opposition in cognition between objective,
matter-of-fact representation [*Sachlichkeit*] and spontaneous
projection of formed images [*Bildlichkeit*] as the object of
knowledge, and [3] the polarity between dependence on others versus
ownness [*Eigenheit*] in the domain of affectivity (ST, p.
32).
Yorck claims that the three psychological "functions" or
comportments circumscribe the fixed and unalterable "natural
ground" [*Naturboden*], or the parameters within which
all human history is played out (ST, p. 26). There is no history
without such fixed reference points. The economy of the three
functions is not fixed (unlike the functions as such), but is always
open to the play of shifting configurations and imbalances (ST, p. 24
& 54). More specifically, the three functions are neither
reducible to each other nor derivable from another source, making them
in effect equiprimordial. However, they stand in a variable and
inverse relationship to each other, where the relative preponderance
of one function is offset by the relative subordination of the
remaining ones, but at no time can any particular function be
cancelled out altogether (ST, p. 98). This inverse relationship,
coupled with the internal polarity within each function, accounts for
"the restlessness of primary life" (ST, p. 32). Since life
does not exist in some generality, but only as a particular
configuration or alignment of its functions, the overall
"totality" of the shape of a particular life is always
determined by a pre-dominant position of one of its functions (ST, p.
55). This onesidedness, which necessarily fails to express life in its
"entire
fullness"[10]
(ST, p. 54), results in the instability of each particular shape of
consciousness. Each real configuration of consciousness and its
particular bias to one function, as well as one of the antithetical
poles within, lends itself to a new transformation, without ever
reaching a stable or final state. Since "historical life"
is nothing other than "primary life" writ large, Yorck
holds that this inbuilt instability and restlessness in primary life
also constitutes the "motor of history" (ST, 33). (See
Section 3.2
below.)
Yorck holds that two functions of life, willing and cognition, are
"eccentric;" they pursue objects that are projected
outside the felt interiority of self-consciousness (ST, p. 120).
Concerning representation or cognition, Yorck writes:
>
>
> Self-reflection reveals representation [*Vorstellen*] as an act
> of exteriorization, as a projection, which therefore is primarily
> marked by its opposition to feeling. The feature of projection,
> [i.e.,] expulsion from within [*innere Entfernen*], being the
> characteristic element of all representation, is spatialization
> [*Verraumlichung*] as such. (ST, p. 70)
>
>
>
Spatialization is thus necessary for representation or the work of the
understanding, thought. By contrast, temporality (located in
affectivity) is not at all necessary for cognition or
representation:
>
>
> Thought can abstract from temporality. Indeed, every act of thought
> contains [...] an abstraction from [temporality], inasmuch as
> thought involves an expropriation [of inner feeling]. By contrast,
> spatiality is the precondition of all
> thought.[11]
> (ST, p. 147)
>
>
>
All thought is inherently spatial, representing objects at a distance
in space: "Spatiality is the basic character of all
thought" (ST, p. 119). According to Yorck, thought or cognition
may abstract from particular characters of space, such as
"direction" and "place," but it cannot do
without the projective opening of spatiality as such (ST, p. 100). And
Yorck suggests that it is the inherent spatiality in all thought
which, within the intellectualist tradition of the West, has rendered
"space" an unsurpassable "metaphysical"
reality, or transcendental condition of reality as such (ST, p. 100).
Since thought or cognition is an achievement of life in abstraction
from temporality and feeling, space itself appears as eternal, neutral
exteriority.
Yorck emphasizes that cognition of objects in space amounts to an act
of "liberation," because what has been
"placed" at a "psychological distance" in the
realm of an eternal, and neutral objectivity has lost its power over
the representing subject, has no impact on the person's
affectivity, and can no longer excite the feeling that everything
passes away (ST, p. 74).
There is thus a positive correlation between cognition and volition.
Cognitive projection is already an attempt to gain a foothold relative
to "the flight of impressions, appearances, and
strivings," and the fixation of an object in space goes hand in
hand with the search for self-constancy and
"self-affirmation" [*Selbstbehauptung*] (ST, p.
66). Therefore, Yorck holds that philosophy and science, as cognitive
comportments in life, are rooted in the striving for self-affirmation.
He thus attributes an eminent ethical impetus to them.
"Freedom" and "autonomy" are the psychological
motivation for philosophy and science (ST, p. 42).
In contrast to cognition and volition, which are
"eccentric" and directed towards the "outer,"
feeling or affectivity [*Gefuhl* or *Empfindung*]
is the awareness of inwardness or interiority. Yorck writes:
"The essence of the inner [*des Innen*] is feeling
[*Empfindung*]" (ST, p. 71). At the limit, feeling is
object-less and an immersion in subjective life. As Yorck explains,
feelings are only secondarily attached to objects. Pain or pleasure,
for instance, has no "representational content"
[*Vorstellungsinhalt*]. Yorck writes: When "I feel, I
stay within me" (ST, 71)--*chez moi*, *bei
mir*. Feeling is only minimally projective. However, since
polarity permeates all psychological functions, Yorck is quick to
recognize "a relation" to the other, for there is no
"inner" without an
"outer."[12]
But the centre of feeling or affectivity is the sphere of one's
own, pure interiority, not as representation, but as something felt.
Therefore, it is the actual seat of "all things personal"
[*alles Personliche*], the innermost centre of personal
life (ST, p. 85). It is the "central" and immediate pulse
of life, antecedent to the objectifications by cognition and volition
(ST, p. 14). Yorck writes: "The relation of self to feeling is
more immediate" than the subject's relation to
representation (ST, p. 99). Since the personal is something
*felt* in the interiority of one's life, and not
something *thought* or represented and projected outwards,
Yorck concludes that self-relation is not cognitive in the first
place; it is not "knowledge" (ST, p. 72). Therefore, Yorck
also finds it a misguided effort "to grasp natural and
historical communities by means of representation," because it
misses the felt personal attachment, which alone lends reality to the
historical connectivity and relation (ST, p. 72). Already in the
*Correspondence*, Yorck had stated that "historical
reality is a reality of feeling
[*Empfindungsrealitat*]" (CR, p. 113).
Next, Yorck also claims that "time originates in feeling"
(ST, p. 135). But as feeling is non-projective, it follows that,
originally, "temporality" is not
"objective"[13]
(ST, 146). Yorck distinguishes between the feeling of transitoriness,
i.e., that everything passes away
[*Verganglichkeitsgefuhl*] (ST, p. 33), and the
feeling or awareness of one's own mortality
[*Sterblichkeitsgefuhl*][14]
(ST, p. 90). Acquiescence into one's own mortality constitutes
the opposite pole to self-affirmation: "self-renunciation"
[*Selbsthingabe*] (ST, p. 14), which is thus distinct from and
even antithetical to the ethical impetus in philosophy and science.
Yorck argues that the inversion of volitional and cognitive projection
in feeling and its concentration in pure, passive interiority amounts
to a "religious comportment" and the feeling of dependency
(ST, 121). To the extent that the religious concentration of life in
interiority is inversely related to projective representation, Yorck
understands religious life in terms of its "freedom from the
world" or *Weltfreiheit* (ST, p. 81 & 112).
Psychologically, freedom from the world is the precondition for the
consciousness of a world-transcendent God, or the consciousness of
transcendence (ST, p. 105). Yorck only hints at the projection *sui
generis* involved in transcendence. But it is a projection that
has no cognitive or volitional content: God is intended without
becoming "an object," and willing becomes a
"non-willing," albeit without loss of energy (ST,
104).
Drawing on Dilthey and Schleiermacher, Yorck argues that the immediate
and indubitable reality of life is exclusively
"guaranteed" through volition and affectivity alone. Yorck
writes: "That which opposes me or that which I feel, I call
real," because I cannot doubt what resists my will or affects my
personal life, whereas it is always possible to doubt objects
neutrally represented in space outside me (ST, p. 89). What is thought
and grasped as an unchanging, stable and self-same object in the space
of thought does not affect me or solicit a desire. For Yorck,
cognition, in abstraction from feeling and volition, is the realm of
pure "phenomenality," which is always open to doubt in
virtue of its being merely represented or thought (ST, p. 88). Because
"the category of reality is a predicate of feeling and
willing" alone (ST, p. 128), Yorck concludes that it is an
"utterly uncritical" and self-contradictory undertaking to
attempt to prove "the reality of the world" by means of
the understanding (ST, p. 129). What Yorck writes to Dilthey in a more
general vein is also applicable to this particular problem:
>
>
> Thinking moves in circles and the people appear to me like flies which
> always bump into the window pane when they try to get out into the
> open. Someone has got to open the window, but much work and leisure is
> required for
> that.[15]
>
>
>
### 3.2 History of Life
According to Yorck, the characteristics of human psychology and the
economy of primary life delimit the course of history, since
historical life merely repeats or amplifies the primary stances of
consciousness. Although there is thus a natural ground for history,
Yorck is at pains to emphasize that the three psychological functions
outline "possibilities" only, without any inbuilt
teleology or fixed equilibrium, or a relation to "an unchanging
*ordo*" as a permanent backdrop for history (ST, p. 4).
Against such approximations of history to nature, Yorck argues for a
thoroughly historical conception of the historical: "History has
nothing of the isolation [*Selbstandigkeit*] of the
natural [order]" (ST, p. 6), but rather, in each of its phases,
history is self-reflexively involved in its own
historicity--"as the ferment of its
aliveness"--and thus opens itself to the ever new
"historical *contrapposto*" (ST, p. 6). Nothing is
exempt from historical change. Philosophical categories through which
the world is understood are historical products of life and hence
inextricably bound up with the historicity of humankind. For instance,
Yorck explicitly claims that the category of "being" is
itself "a result of life" (ST, p. 8). This liberates
history from all relation to an unchanging, fixed point of reference
outside historical
life.[16]
Although Yorck provides only an unfinished sketch of the empirical
course of the history of life, he marks three decisive turning-points:
(1) The breakthrough to philosophy and science on the basis of the
dominant stance of the psychological function of representation or
cognition, primarily in ancient Greece and India; (2) the predominance
of willing in the Roman and Jewish stance towards the world; and (3)
the focal centrality of feeling and interiority in Christianity,
particular in the Reformation, i.e., Luther. Somewhat like Hegel,
Yorck holds that history unfolds through particular primary stances
towards life which then become dominant in particular historical
peoples.[17]
#### 3.2.1 The Greek World
According to Yorck, in Ancient Greece consciousness displayed a
particular configuration of the primacy of cognition. For the Greeks,
the stance of consciousness towards the world is pure looking. It is
through looking that reality is understood. Affectivity (feeling) and
volition are not countenanced as functions that disclose the world as
such.[18]
Truth lies in the beholding eye alone; contemplation,
*theoria*, and intuition take centre stage.
>
>
> It is as if the clear-sighted eye is expressed in words. On the basis
> of this condition of consciousness, the function of looking
> [*Anschauung*], ocularity [*Okularitat*], becomes
> the organ of all free work of the mind, particularly of philosophy.
> (ST, p. 30)
>
>
>
Yorck finds evidence for the prevalence of ocularity or the aesthetic
attitude, which is centred on plasticity [*Gestaltlichkeit*],
in Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, among others.
>
>
> Form and content constitute the aesthetic dichotomy which governs
> Greek thought in its entirety, the result of the liberation of
> ocularity from all other sensuality, the aesthetic liberation, which
> strikes a chord in everyone who has entered the threshold of Greek
> life. Looking is the essential comportment; hence, Gestalt or Form
> [qualifies as] ousia or
> substance.[19]
> (ST, p. 31)
>
>
>
That Greek metaphysics seeks the unchangeable and impassable is the
result of the relative suppression of feeling and willing latent in
all cognition, which abstracts from desires, feelings, and temporality
(ST, p. 42). Put differently, the structural timelessness of thought
as such is intensified in metaphysical thought where it becomes
"absolute" (ST, p. 42). Yorck emphasizes that
"negation of temporality" marks "the decisive
metaphysical step" (ST, p. 66). Metaphysics constitutes the
counter-move against the feeling of temporality (that everything
passes away), as well as the liberation from the dependence on objects
desired by the will. According to Yorck, the escape from temporality
and attachment determines the entire metaphysical tradition up to and
including Hegel (because even Hegel "ontologizes" life and
renders it ontic) (ST, p. 83).
#### 3.2.2 The Roman & Jewish World
The breakthrough to a form of life predominantly lived through
striving and volition is, according to Yorck, characteristic of the
Jewish and Roman world. Concerning the former, Yorck writes:
>
>
> Whereas the Greek, metaphysical cast of mind abstracts from
> temporality, temporality is the determining element [in the Hebrew
> world], as the non-aesthetic character of the Jewish way of thought is
> already expressed in *Genesis* where time takes precedence over
> space. Yet the moment of time is here placed in some metaphysical
> distance, is, as it were, projected into the future, the realization
> of which is the prerogative of God. Thus, the stance of consciousness
> is one of hope. The messiah, who does not fulfil the law, but, rather,
> delivers on the promise, is hoped for. (ST, p. 20)
>
>
>
Thus, the feeling of time is here aligned with volition and its
projective exteriorization. Relative to the Greek contemplation of the
everlasting presence of the cosmos, the intensive expectation of the
future reality in the Jewish world is "a-cosmic."
Comparing the Greek to the Jewish world, Yorck writes:
>
>
> Here, contemplative, eternal presence; there, intense hope for an
> invisible futurity. Here, knowledge and science; there, coupled with a
> radical devaluation of the object of knowledge, faith as personally
> grown postulate. Here, pleasant expansion and the fullness of existing
> objectivity; there, formless energy directed at the reality
> anticipated. (ST, p. 22)
>
>
>
The unfinished character of Yorck's manuscript is apparent
especially in these passages, for there is no further exploration or
exposition of the Jewish world (let alone anything like a
justification for the juxtaposition of the Jewish world with the Roman
period). Yorck's comments concerning the Roman world are
likewise very sketchy at best. Although Yorck positions the Romans as
a world-historical people of the will, he does not do much more than
to refer to the popular notion of the "imperialist drive of the
Romans" (ST, p. 30). Once, in a letter to Dilthey, Yorck
emphasizes that the Roman pursuit of power locks life into pure
immanence, without temporality and transcendence: "Might is
everything," he writes (CR, p. 120). Yorck continues by
contending that the proverbial epithet of Rome as the "Eternal
City" is by no means a mere saying. Rather, for Yorck, it
captures something of the ostentatious display of Rome's
imperial power--its splendid oblivion of time. Yorck writes:
"Rome does not, just as no Roman ever does,
comprehend--death" (CR, p. 120). By way of historical
contraposition, Yorck then describes, in the same letter, the
"mute, simple crosses" scratched into the walls of the
underground *Carcere Mamertino* by imprisoned early Christians.
Yorck characterizes these crosses as "light-points on the
underground sky [of the prison], signs of the transcendence of
consciousness" (CR, p. 120). The immanence of a life lived for
power and might is contrasted with the interiority of a conscious
feeling of transcendence.
#### 3.2.3 Christianity
For Yorck, the Christian life is the breakthrough to a fully
historical life. Unencumbered by the projection of objective knowledge
(Greek metaphysics and ocularity) and freed from the expectation of a
messiah (hope for the promised future), the Christian lives the
temporality of "absolute aliveness" [*absolute
Lebendigkeit*] in the depths of inwardness or
interiority[20]
(ST, p. 4). Since Christian consciousness has its dominant focus in
interiority and feeling, it is free from the cognitive and volitional
bonds to any objectivity, but free for the rhythm of temporality and
history. The Christian "freedom from the world"
[*Weltfreiheit*] (ST, p. 81) is at the same time freedom
*for* history and transcendence, i.e., the world-transcendent
God, and the personal, felt relationship to him, which is based on the
personal responsibility for one's historical life before God.
Yorck writes:
>
>
> Through Christianity an essentially transcendent stance of
> consciousness is achieved, namely by way of the basic factor of
> feeling. This is a transcendent stance, in contradistinction to a
> metaphysical
> one,[21]
> because feeling [*Gefuhl*]--the focal point of
> aliveness [*Lebendigkeit*]--is here turned inwards, even
> turned against itself and hence free of all givenness
> [*Gegebenheit*]. (ST, pp. 13/14)
>
>
>
The release from cognitive and volitional projection facilitates an
inversion of life's tendency; it leaves behind the goals of
"certainty and security" (CR, p. 143) and grounds life in
the personal and intrinsically historical relationship to God.
On the one hand, Yorck emphasizes the absolute focus on inner life and
individual conscience, and the entirely unpredictable and historical
relationship to God, this side of all objective worldly realities and
public
opinion.[22]
The individual person is singled out in his relationship to God. On
the other hand, Yorck also holds that the Christian inversion of the
projective tendency of life ultimately results in
"self-renunciation" [*Selbstaufgabe*], which
expresses the religious pole, opposite to ethical self-affirmation
through philosophy and science. But precisely through this
self-renunciation, life is lived *as* life, instead of being
lost in the preoccupation with that which is merely intended through
life--the objectively known and desired world. With reference to
*Matthew* (10:39), Yorck writes:
>
>
> He who finds his life, will lose it, he who loses it, will find it.
> This word of the Lord describes the law of life itself, the basic
> condition of all life. Death is a mark of life and the radical
> transcendence of the deepest, the Christian standpoint postulates life
> as a mark of death. (ST, p. 58)
>
>
>
Yorck's well-known love for paradox has its definitive origin
here.[23]
Freed from the bonds to objective representation and the objective
world, Christian religion realizes the most concentrated or enhanced
form of living life *as* life; it is "supreme
aliveness" [*hochste Lebendigkeit*] and thus supreme
historicity (ST, p. 104; CR, p. 154). The Christian life is not
distracted by the aims of cognition (objectivity) or the ties to
objects of desire within the world (in the past, present, or future).
Accordingly, Yorck holds that the historical "origin" and
"supreme" manifestation of life--fully lived as
*historical life*--lies in Christianity.
In his *Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften* (1883),
Dilthey had made a similar, but by no means identical, point, arguing
that "historical consciousness" first came into existence
through the Christian freedom from the outer world (the cosmos) and
the newfound centre of life in inwardness (Dilthey 1959, p. 254).
Dilthey writes:
>
>
> For the Greek mind, knowledge was the depiction [*Abbilden*] of
> something objective, [given] to intelligence. Now [after the emergence
> of Christianity], lived experience [*Erlebnis*] becomes the
> centre point of all interests for the new communities; but this is
> nothing other than the simple, inner awareness [*Innewerden*]
> of what is given to the person in self-consciousness. (Dilthey 1959,
> p. 251)
>
>
>
Yet Dilthey sees this as the first potential breakthrough to a new
science, the science of inner experience and the historical
disciplines, the Humanities or *Geisteswissenschaften*.
According to Dilthey, Augustine's fateful dependence on Greek
conceptuality made it impossible to fully articulate the new Christian
sense of inwardness and history (Dilthey 1959, p. 264). Only through
the work of Schleiermacher and Kant has there been progress in
articulating the original Christian insight into inwardness and
historicity of life (Dilthey 1959, p. 267). Not only does Dilthey
fully accept that the meaning of the original Christian experience is
thus adequately comprehended and harnessed for the understanding, but
he also sees his own work on the logic of the historical sciences as a
continuation and fulfilment of this same project.
By contrast, Yorck eschews all cooptation of the Christian
breakthrough to supreme historical aliveness and historicity for the
establishment of a science, fearing that this would not only
conceptualize life as something "ontic," always present
and available for the understanding, but also ignore the vital
consciousness of transcendence, or bury it in a new
scholasticism.[24]
Yorck, who always regarded Luther's work as the vital
re-affirmation of the early Christian historical life, suggests,
therefore, that instead of Kant and Schleiermacher, a return to
Luther's conception of life is the more fruitful way of
safeguarding and cultivating the breakthrough to historical life.
Acknowledging this difference, Yorck writes to Dilthey:
>
>
> You will not agree when I say that Luther should and must be more
> topical to the present time than Kant, if this present time is to have
> a historical future [*historische Zukunft*]. (CR, p. 145)
>
>
> |
zabarella | ## 1. Life and Works
Giacomo (or Jacopo) Zabarella was born into an old and noble Paduan
family on the 5th of September in 1533. From his father
Giulio Zabarella he inherited the title of palatine count. Zabarella
enjoyed a humanist education and entered the University of Padua,
where he received the doctorate in 1553. Zabarella had many famous
teachers, like Francesco Robortello in the humanities, Bernardino
Tomitano in logic, Marcantonio Genua in physics and metaphysics, and
Pietro Catena in mathematics. Unlike most of his contemporaries who
had studied natural philosophy, Zabarella never took a degree in
medicine. His entire teaching career was spent at his native
university. He began his career in 1564 when he obtained the first
chair (or professorship) of logic succeeding Bernardino Tomitano. Five
years later he moved to the more prestigious and more lucrative second
chair of the extraordinary professor of natural philosophy. In 1577 he
was promoted to the first extraordinary chair of natural
philosophy. Finally, in 1585, Zabarella obtained the second ordinary
chair of natural philosophy, which he held until his death. The
statutes of the University of Padua prevented him, as a native Paduan,
from obtaining the first ordinary chair in natural
philosophy. Zabarella died at the age of 56 on the 15th of
October in 1589.
The publications of Zabarella reflect his teaching in the Aristotelian
tradition. The first of his publications was *Opera logica*,
which appeared in Venice in 1578. Zabarella had time to write this
collection of logical works in 1576, when a plague raged in Veneto
sending Zabarella into the countryside with his family. This was one
of the very few times in his life when he left the city of
Padua. Zabarella's next published work, *Tabula logicae*, came
out two years later and his commentary on Aristotle's *Posterior
Analytics* appeared in 1582. *De doctrinae ordine
apologia,* which appeared in 1584, was a reply to Francesco
Piccolomini who had criticised Zabarella's ideas on logic. The first
of Zabarella's works in natural philosophy, *De naturalis scientiae
constitutione*, came out in 1586. This introduction to the field
was connected to his major opus in natural philosophy, *De rebus
naturalibus*, the first edition of which was published
posthumously in 1590. It contained 30 different treatises on
Aristotelian natural philosophy and Zabarella wrote the introduction
of the book only few weeks before his death. Zabarella's two sons
edited his two incomplete commentaries on Aristotle's texts, which
were also published posthumously: the commentary on *Physics*
(1601) and the commentary on *On the Soul* (1605) (Mikkeli
1992, p. 19).
Giacomo Zabarella followed a very systematic style of writing in his
publications. His idea was to build a coherent body of Aristotelian
logic and natural philosophy. Therefore he was also interested in the
classification of the disciplines and the relationships between
various areas of academic learning. His use of Aristotle and other
authorities was both eclectic and critical. Zabarella's sources thus
included newly recovered Greek commentators such as Alexander of
Aphrodisias, Philoponus, Simplicius and Themistius, as well as
medieval commentators such as Thomas Aquinas, Walter Burley and
Averroes. In Zabarella's view, Averroes, unlike his followers,
accurately understood Aristotle's philosophy despite not knowing the
the original texts or even the Greek language (Martin 2007,
p. 15). Zabarella himself read Greek and could therefore consult the
Greek text of Aristotle and the commentators. He devoted much effort
to presenting what he considered to be the true meaning of Aristotle's
texts. However, he resisted the tendency of the humanists to expunge
all medieval barbarisms, preferring philosophical precision to
classical elegance (W.R. Laird 2000, p. 695).
## 2. Arts and Sciences
The Aristotelian distinction between arts (*artes*) and
sciences (*scientiae*) serves as the starting-point for
Zabarella's philosophical system. At the beginning of his *Opera
logica*, Zabarella draws a distinction between the eternal world
of nature and the contingent human world. From this distinction he
proceeds to two corresponding kinds of knowledge, and two distinct
methods of defining them. Zabarella maintained that, properly
speaking, sciences are concerned with the eternal world of nature and
thus are contemplative disciplines, whereas arts are concerned with
the contingent world of human beings and thus are non-contemplative,
being productive instead. The sciences in the proper sense of that
term, as pertaining to demonstrative knowledge, are limited to those
disciplines that deal with the necessary and eternal or with what can
be deduced from necessary principles. Zabarella notes that Aristotle
requires two kinds of certainty from science. One is in the knowable
things, which are necessary as such (*simpliciter*); the other
is in the mind of the scientist, who must be absolutely sure that
things cannot be otherwise. The necessity involved is therefore both
ontological, with respects to the objects known, and cognitive, with
respect to the knowing subject (Kessler 1998, p. 837).
The hierarchy of different disciplines was a widely debated topic in
Renaissance philosophy. Also Zabarella emphasized the hierarchical
nature of the division between different disciplines; the whole of
active philosophy aiming ultimately at the higher sphere of
contemplation. According to Zabarella, both in Plato and Aristotle
happiness in the active life is not the ultimate goal for a human
being. Instead it is contemplation, which is man's finest objective
that may lead to total perfection. In Zabarella's view the purpose of
active philosophy is to remove hindrance to the acquisition of
knowledge and therefore contemplative philosophy is the ultimate end
and master of all active philosophy. In productive disciplines (i.e.,
arts) it is not necessary to define the objects under production as
strictly as in the contemplative sciences, because the productive arts
do not aim at knowledge, and thus the knowledge they need do not have
to be perfect.
Zabarella identifies therefore the basic difference between arts and
sciences. Science deals with what already exists, but art is concerned
with creation. The subject-matter of a science is immutable, but the
subject-matter of an art is the formation of things as yet
non-existent, but which can be made by human being. The contemplative
philosopher is not interested in initiating anything, but rather wants
to comprehend and arrange the forms of existing, eternal things.
Moreover, the ultimate purpose of the contemplative science is the
pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, but in the productive arts the
end-result is an actual product (Mikkeli 1997, pp. 212-213).
However, Zabarella was not concerned solely with the separation
between the theoretical sciences and the practical and productive
disciplines, but dealt also with the relationships and hierarchy among
the theoretical sciences themselves. The contemplative or speculative
sciences, for Zabarella, are in Aristotelian manner only three in
number: divine science, also called metaphysics, mathematics, and
natural philosophy. Zabarella presents these contemplative sciences as
being the only defenders of true knowledge. Zabarella emphasised in
many instances that each speculative science should demonstrate their
own principles and not borrow them from metaphysics. According to
Zabarella, each discipline can be distinguished from others either
with respect to the object considered (*res considerata*) or
with respect to the way of considering (*modus considerandi*)
(Pozzo 1998). Natural philosophy, which deals with corporeal beings
that have an inner principle of movement, differs from metaphysics
(which contemplates being as being) and from mathematics (which deals
with abstracted beings) in both ways. As a result, natural philosophy
is autonomous and independent of both the other contemplative
sciences.
Zabarella also developed a theory of the middle (or mixed) sciences
that, contrary to the prevailing view, afforded sciences such as
astronomy and optics full demonstrative status despite their borrowing
principles from pure mathematics. Nevertheless, Zabarella's approach
to the study of nature remained causal and qualitative in the
traditional Aristotelian vein rather than mathematical. Therefore he
gave little attention to the possible uses of mathematics as a tool
for understanding the physical world (Laird 1983, Ch. 8).
## 3. The Nature of Logic
Zabarella's introductory treatise on the nature of logic, *De
natura logicae*, is basic to his teaching in logic. He defines
logic as being neither a science nor an art, but, in keeping with the
traditional meaning of the word *organon*, just an instrument
(*instrumentum*) of the arts and sciences. As an instrumental
discipline it furnishes a useful tool of inquiry for all the arts and
sciences. Logic does not have a real subject of its own, but deals
with concepts, which stand for real beings. In this it is comparable
to grammar. The difference between grammar and logic is that the
former is concerned with the perfect verbal expression of concepts,
and hence is a linguistic discipline, while the latter invents second
notions (*notiones secundae*) or second intentions, that are
able to create order among concepts. Therefore logic serves to
recognize the truth and distinguish it from falsehood in every
instance. Logic is thus a rational discipline (*disciplina
rationalis*) that is not itself philosophy, but springs from
philosophy and is devoted to philosophical ends (Vasoli 2011).
Zabarella followed Averroes in dividing logic into two parts:
universal logic, which is common to all subjects; and particular
logic, which is specific to particular subjects. The first three books
of Aristotle's Organon, the *Categories, On Interpretation* and
the *Prior Analytics* constitute the universal part of logic.
Aristotle's *Posterior Analytics, Topics* and *Sophistical
Refutations* are said to deal with particular logic as much as
they deal respectively with the demonstrative syllogism, the
dialectical syllogism and the sophistical syllogism. Following the
Neoplatonic commentators (above all Simplicius), Zabarella also
included Aristotle's *Rhetoric* and *Poetics* within
logic. The former is included because it teaches the use of the
rhetorical syllogism or enthymeme, and rhetorical induction or
example; the latter because it also teaches the use of example, not to
persuasive ends, but for imitation.
Since logic, viewed as the universal instrument for distinguishing
between the true and the false, differs according to the objects to
which it is applied and the ends for which it is used, its nature
depends on the realm of possible objects and ends. Rhetoric and
poetics are special cases because they deal not with knowledge but
with the political disciplines in so far as they are concerned with
the good of the people. Sophistical syllogistic is another special
case, because it is directed towards deception and prefers to use
falsehood as its material. Dialectic and demonstration, however, are
directed towards the expression of truth. Dialectic is aimed at the
production of opinion, and deals with probable and contingent
material; demonstration is dedicated to the acquisition of truth, and
so it is exclusively occupied with necessary, true objects (Kessler
1998, p. 837).
## 4. Orders of Presentation and Methods of Discovery
For Zabarella method also serves to differentiate the sciences from
the arts. The term can be understood in two ways, either in a wide
sense as a method of presenting existing knowledge, which he prefers
to call an order (*ordo*) of presentation, or in a narrow sense
as a method of discovering knowledge, for which he reserves method
(*methodus*) in its proper understanding. According to
Zabarella, *ordo* is an instrumental *habitus* through
which we are prepared so to dispose the parts of each discipline so
that the discipline may be taught as well and easily as possible.
As regards these methods of presentation, Zabarella denies Galen's
view that these are four in number. Zabarella himself recognizes only
two orders, the compositive and the resolutive. The order starts with
what is either necessary or useful for teaching and learning. In the
contemplative (or theoretical) sciences, which aim at perfect
knowledge, order of presentation follows the so-called way of
composition (*compositio*) from general principles to
particular beings; in moral philosophy and in the arts, which aim at
action or production, order follows the so-called way of resolution
(*resolutio*) from the desired end to its first principles.
For Zabarella the methods in the strict sense of the word are
intellectual instruments proceeding from the known to produce
knowledge of the unknown. Such methods have argumentative force and
they deal with specific problems of the disciplines instead of
arranging the contents of a whole discipline, as do the orders of
presentation. As with orders, Zabarella denied the possibility of more
than two methods. He shows that other procedures, like the
composition and division used in the hunt of definitions as well as
the so-called dialectical syllogisms are not genuinely productive of
knowledge and therefore not methods in the proper sense of the
term.
Therefore he recognized only two methods, which he labeled
demonstrative and resolutive. Demonstrative method (or composition)
proceeds from cause to effect and involves demonstration "of the
reasoned fact" or "most powerful" demonstration,
best exemplified in the mathematical sciences. Resolutive method (or
resolution) proceeds from effect to cause and, despite its name, also
involves demonstration, but of an inferior kind, that is called
demonstration "of the fact" or "from a sign".
Related to this alter type of demonstration is the process of
induction (*inductio*), which is helpful for discovering
principles that are known naturally but are not immediately
evident. Zabarella believes that, by the force of induction, human
intellect is capable of distinguishing the universal, which is hidden
in particulars. Induction, or resolutive method makes up the first
phase in the *regressus*-method, which was, in his opinion, the
only proper method for natural philosophy.
It is this very distinction between the method of inquiry and the
order of teaching that led Zabarella to a bitter controversy with his
Paduan college Francesco Piccolomini (1523-1607). They both agreed
that ethical inquiry must proceed by deduction from an understanding
of the end. In Zabarella's view all the disciplines whose end is
action should be explained in this same way. But Piccolomini could
not bring himself to admit that the order of teaching, in ethics as well
as in in other practical disciplines, should follow this order of
apprehension. Thus the fundamental question embedded in this dispute
is the following: Is the order of teaching a particular discipline
necessary or contingent? Zabarella argued for the former: both in
discovery and in teaching, one should follow the synthetic order in
the sciences and the analytic order in the arts. By making a sharp
distinction between the method of discovery and the order of teaching,
Piccolomini instead embraced a contingent view of pedagogical
method. Wishing to teach others, Piccolomini saw his duty as that of
starting out from first principles (*a primis principiis*). In
such a case it is better to begin with the simpler matters and
progress toward the end or goal. (Lines 2002, pp. 254-263)
Through their rival claims about *ordo doctrinae* Zabarella and
Piccolomini revealed as well very different perceptions of academic
and civil order, and very different ways of conceiving and pursuing
the office of philosopher within that order. Zabarella wholeheartedly
endorsed the purely contemplative nature of philosophy and the
superiority of the contemplative life (Mikkeli 1992, pp. 25-35). He
also was frequently dismissive in his treatment of the disciplines he
regarded as active or operative, for example law, medicine, ethics,
politics and mechanics. Piccolomini's position was sharply
opposed. For him, philosophy is, indeed, crucial for the spiritual
perfection of man. However, in the form of *scientia civilis*
it is also the key to the this-wordly perfection that can be attained
in the just administration of the Venetian republic (Jardine
1997).
## 5. The *Regressus*-Method
The so-called *regressus-*method is a model for combining
composition and resolution: the idea of this combinatory process is
found in the Aristotelian tradition from Averroes on, and it was
vitally revived among the Italian Aristotelians and medical authors.
According to this method, the natural philosopher should first infer
from the known effect the existence of the cause of this very effect.
Sometimes he may use induction, but usually resolution, which was also
called *demonstratio quia* or demonstration from the fact. Then
in the second step, in the so-called *demonstratio propter
quid* or demonstration from the reasoned fact (or composition),
the natural philosopher should infer from the cause to the effect. The
effect is now known through its cause, and hence in a scientific
manner (Risse 1983). The crucial problem with this procedure is how to
avoid mere circular reasoning, or rather, how to make sure that the
cause, whose existence is demonstrated in the first step, is indeed
the cause of this very effect. From the beginning of the sixteenth
century, it had become clear that it was necessary to introduce a
third, intermediary step, which involved some kind of intellectual
consideration (*negotiatio intellectus*) (Kessler 1998,
p. 838).
Zabarella also had to face the question, how the intellect in fact
made this mental consideration. He solves the problem in terms of his
psychology of knowledge and calls this third step a mental examination
(*examen mentale*). Since for him the task of this intermediary
step is to make distinct the confused knowledge of the cause that was
acquired through the first step, he refers to his work on the agent
mind (*Liber de mente agente*) in which he develops an account
of the transformation of confused into distinct knowledge through the
analysis of a given whole in terms of its parts. He presents this
process as the specific ability of the human mind. Thus once more
method as a means of acquiring knowledge is based on the cognitive
structure of knowing subject rather than on the ontological structure
of the object of knowledge. In his commentary on the *Posterior
Analytics* Zabarella identified Aristotle's proofs that the
planets are near and that the moon is a sphere as instances of the
*regressus-*method. Other examples of the same method he
analyzed are Aristotle's proof of the existence of "first
matter" (*materia prima*) from substantial change and his
proof of an "eternal first mover" (*primus motor
aeternus*) from local motion (Wallace 1999, p. 338).
The interminable discussion of the methodology of arts and sciences in
the sixteenth century may be seen as an attempt to defend the
scientific status of either the recently found autonomous sciences,
like natural philosophy, or, on the other hand, the empirically based
productive arts. The discussions of orders and methods, resolutions,
compositions and the *regressus*-method are, therefore, not
merely further elaborations of an old Aristotelian tradition, but also
expressions of opinions in a lively debate concerning the changing
relationships between various arts and sciences in sixteenth-century
Italian universities (Mikkeli 1997, p. 228).
## 6. The Science of the Soul
The most influential section in the Aristotelian tradition, where the
relationship between the theoretical or speculative sciences is dealt
with, is the beginning of Aristotle's treatise *On the Soul.*
Aristotle gives two criteria for the hierarchy: the dignity of their
subject-matter and the exactness of their demonstrations. In his
posthumous commentary on *De anima* Zabarella raises the
question of the hierarchy of the sciences. In most cases, in
Zabarella's view, the science with a nobler subject-matter can be
considered superior, but not always. All human knowledge can be
compared and there are no grounds for giving either of these criteria
absolute priority. In the contemplative sciences the nobility of the
subject-matter should be considered superior to the causality of
knowledge. In logic, however, where the instruments of science are
considered, the nobler instrument is the one that is more precise and
produces more certain knowledge.
Zabarella, then, did not give one decisive criterion according to
which all arts and sciences could be arranged into one single
hierarchy. However, when dealing with the place of the science of the
soul among the other sciences, Zabarella gives an description of the
nobility of this part of natural philosophy. Zabarella opposed the
definition of the science of the soul as a middle discipline between
physics and metaphysics. He states that Aristotle did not only wish to
compare the science of the soul with other sciences, but to compare it
with other parts of natural science. In Zabarella's view it is obvious
that the science of the soul is the most noble part of natural
philosophy, the king and emperor of every other part, which are all
dependent upon it, because it shows the first cause and the sum of
everything that is in animals and in plants. The science of the soul
is more exquisite and certain than all the parts of natural
philosophy, because the causes of the science of the soul are more
exact, not only to us, but also according to nature (Mikkeli 1997,
p. 220).
Zabarella's position here can be interpreted as an attempt to raise
the status of an independent natural philosophy by emphasizing the
nobility of the science of the soul. In fact, it seems that he wanted
to elevate the status of *De anima* to that of a special
science among other natural disciplines that is the noblest and most
precise of all natural sciences on which all the other parts of
natural philosophy could rely. What in the medieval times had perhaps
been considered to be part of metaphysics was now the most valuable
part of natural philosophy. Following the Alexandrian tradition,
Zabarella himself left the question of the immortality of the soul to
the theologians, because it did not belong to natural philosophy, and
since Aristotle, as a natural philosopher, had not been explicit about
it (Kessler 2011, p. 52). It is, in fact, hard to be sure, whether
Zabarella himself thought that the soul was mortal. However, in his
commentary on Aristotle's treatise *On the Soul* Zabarella
tried at least to prove that Aristotle himself did not consider it
immortal (Mitrovic 2009; Valverde 2012).
Zabarella reconstructed the process of intellection on the lines of
sense-perception, that is that the intelligible *species*,
produced concurrently by the *phantasma* and the illuminating
agent intellect, moved the possible intellect into cognition. To be
known, the *phantasma,* which was gained by sense-perception,
had to undergo a double process. Itself material and consequently
containing the universal structure needed in science only in a
confused and unintelligible way, it had to be illuminated by the agent
intellect, so that the universal in the individual was rendered
distinct and intelligible. Since the illumination was generally
required for any act of knowledge in the same way, its agent did not
have to be an individual operating individually in the different acts
of intellection, but rather could be an universal one, which rendered
reality in general intelligible, thus serving as an all-embracing
guarantee of intelligibility. The agent intellect could therefore be
identified with God himself as the principle of intelligibility. When
identifying the active intellect with God as the first cause of all
that exists and can be known, Zabarella has clearly in his mind that
the active intellect does no longer play a substantial role in this
naturalistic philosophy of nature after this initial act of intellection (Kessler 2011, pp. 56-57).
Therefore with the metaphysical requirements of intellection taken for
granted, the main epistemological problem shifted to the manner in
which the intelligible *species* was turned into a known
object. Zabarella, considering the agent intellect as the divine
cause of general intelligibility, could renounce innate principles and
retain the Aristotelian teaching of the inductive acquisition of the
first principles themselves. But Zabarella had instead the problem of
restoring to the human mind an active faculty which would account for
the act of judgement. Therefore he redefined the possible intellect as
an active faculty as well. This equally active and passive human
intellect (which Zabarella called *patibilis* instead of
*possibilis*) considered all that was offered to it by the
illuminated *phantasma*, contemplated whatever it wanted to,
and in doing so selected and abstracted those structures it wished to
know and through judging understood them and became itself the object
of knowledge. For Zabarella intellection therefore was not a process
automatically determined whenever an exterior impulse was given, but
rather depended essentially on human will and intention. In
Zabarella's view, the science of the soul was concerned with what was
necessary and therefore always equally present in any human mind, even
if unconsciously. Methodology, on the other hand, was concerned with
the use a human being made of these natural faculties. Since this use
could be true or false, better or worse, truth and error depended
entirely on whether or not the correct method was being used (Kessler
1988, pp. 530-534).
## 7. The Perfection of the Philosophy of Nature
Natural philosophy has to know and teach the very essence of natural
beings. First, it has to deal with their basic principles, such as
matter and motion, which are not natural beings themselves. These
principles of natural philosophy are discussed in Aristotle's
*Physics*. Moreover, natural philosophy has to deal with the
accidents of natural beings understood through their causes. These are
the subject of Aristotle's other writings on nature, from *On the
Heavens* to *On the Soul* (on Zabarella's ideas
on *Physics*, see Biard 2005).
In *De naturalis scientiae constitutione*, the first treatise
in his collected works on natural philosophy (*De rebus
naturalibus*), Zabarella deals in detail with the questions of the
order and perfection of the natural sciences. He claims, for example,
that the book on minerals is necessary because the natural philosophy
would otherwise be incomplete. The place of the book on minerals in
Aristotelian *corpus* on natural philosophy is immediately
after the book *On Meteorology.* Whether Aristotle himself
wrote on minerals is questionable, but he at least recognized the
importance of the subject. However, later both Theophrastus and
Albertus Magnus wrote on this important subject. Thus Zabarella did
not consider Aristotle's works as a complete *corpus* to which
nothing could be added. In *De methodis* Zabarella states that
Aristotle wrote on subjects of his own choice, but it would be an
exaggeration to claim that he was incapable of making
mistakes. Aristotle was not infallible and it would be erroneous to
insist that he knew the truth of everything he wrote. Nevertheless, he
was an outstanding scholar in Zabarella's view, who, for example,
turned the study of logic into a discipline.
In the last chapter of *De naturalis scientiae constitutione*
Zabarella discusses the question of the perfection of the natural
sciences (*De perfectione scientiae naturalis ac de eius
ordine*). Zabarella states that Aristotle's philosophy of nature
may be perfect in structure and form, but it is incomplete in terms of
its reference to natural beings. There is much Aristotle did not
discuss at all and indeed much that was outside his cognisance.
Although he dealt comparatively little with plants and animals, it is
not difficult to pinpoint their proper palces in the Aristotelian
system of the natural sciences. Therefore Zabarella emphasizes that
Aristotle's philosophy of nature is complete at least in theory.
Zabarella compares Aristotle's works on natural philosophy to the
geometry and arithmetic of Euclid. There are many theorems which can
be demonstrated from his works even if he did not himself actually
write them. For Zabarella this is no reason to judge Euclid's geometry
or arithmetic defective or incomplete. If Euclid had wished, he could
have demonstrated all the particular cases, but his book would have
become so enormous that it surely would have daunted the reader.
Zabarella suggests that this is exactly why Euclid entitled his book
*The Elements*, and from this foundation all the other theorems
can be demonstrated.
In parallel view Zabarella thinks that Aristotle's natural philosophy
can be called perfect, since it deals with all the knowledge that is
possible for human intellect to obtain, either in practice or at least
in theory. Also in his logical works Zabarella emphasizes the idea of
a perfect natural philosophy, which consists of a perfect and distinct
knowledge of natural beings through their causes. Zabarella reminds
that scientific knowledge can never be called confused or
imperfect. Therefore the scientific ideal Zabarella presents is
profoundly different from the modern view of a scientist making new
discoveries. According to Zabarella, science can be "new"
only in a restricted sense; the work of a scientist is more like
correcting the mistakes and filling the gaps in a ready-made
Aristotelian world-system (Mikkeli 1992; 1997, pp. 214-215; 2010,
p. 189)
## 8. Natural Philosophy and Medicine
Among the Paduan Aristotelians Zabarella was probably the author who
discussed most thoroughly the relationship between the philosophy of
nature and medical art. While in subject-matter these disciplines were
close to each other, in their essence and methodology they were far
apart. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Zabarella did not consider
medicine to subalternated to the philosophy of nature. Nor did he see
the distinction between theoretical and practical medicine as
accidental; instead he wanted to consider the whole art of medicine as
operational. In spite of medicine's prominent place among the arts;
Zabarella sharply denied its scientific status, and insisted that
writers who claim that medicine is a science are mistaken. Neither the
art of medicine nor its singular parts can be considered as science.
For him it was enough to admit that it is the noblest of all arts.
In his *De natura logicae* (part of the *Opera logica*)
Zabarella attacks writers who put medicine alongside the philosophy of
nature among the sciences. Contemplative philosophy appropriates
nothing from the productive arts, but instead the arts adopt
everything from philosophy. No matter how valuable and precise
medicine may be, it could never be a science because it is practised
not for the sake of knowledge, but for an end product: that is, the
maintenance or restoration of health. If knowledge of the human body
is considered purely for its own sake, rather than for curative
purposes, it should be called natural philosophy rather than
medicine. Even if it were admitted that medicine could be practised
for the sake of knowledge, it could not be called a pure science,
because it does not explain the first causes, and without this
comprehension the other causes cannot be clearly apprehended. Health
cannot be fully comprehended and the goal of medicine cannot be
achieved, if a physician does not comprehend all the parst of a human
body and their nature, composition, purpose, and function.
Zabarella recognizes two different ways in which a physician can know
the parts of a human body. First, he may learn them through perceptive
knowledge and anatomical observations, thereby assimilating the matter
of his discipline without understanding its rationale. A physician can
also become familiar with the parts of human body through philosophy
of nature where he may learn the reasons, which lie behind what he
actually sees. Zabarella thinks Aristotle made the same distinction in
his books the *History of Animals* and the *Parts of
Animals.* In the first he relies on sense perception to classify
the different parts of animals. In the second, he offers causal
explanations for what he is considering. In Zabarella's opinion this
order of understanding results from our own inability to comprehend
everything at once. It is thus better to progress gradually from
confuse to distinct knowledge. In *De rebus naturalibus*
Zabarella points out that the art of medicine adopts the physiological
part from the philosophy of nature. If medical writers want to know
the anatomy of the human body, they must therefore follow Aristotle
methodologically. Therefore they should not study the *History of
Animals*, but instead the *Parts of Animals*, which shows
us the functions of different parts of the bodies in question. The
subject-matter of medicine involves maintaining or recovering health
only in human beings, not in other animals. Since the whole discipline
deals only with the human body, it cannot be a science in Zabarella's
view. What a natural philosopher writes about animals, a medical
writer should apply to human beings.
Zabarella moves from the universal and scientific discussion of
natural philosophy to a consideration of its particular aspects from
the standpoint of operation, not knowledge. Moreover, Zabarella
believed that natural philosophy and medicine differ not only in their
aims and subject-matters, but also in their methods. The resolutive
method is proper to medicine and the compositive method to the
philosophy of nature. A physician does not use demonstrations, and if
he does, he borrows them from natural philosophy. In medical art the
resolutive order of presentation proceeds from knowledge to cure. The
end, that is maintaining or recovering health, is broken down into
principles, on which the operation is then based. In the order of
presentation Zabarella wants to differentiate between the presentation
of a whole discipline and that of a part of it. For example, the first
part of the art of medicine, physiology, has a compositive order as
against the medicine as a whole, which is arranged according to a
resolutive order. In Zabarella's view this shows that physiology
does not really belong to medicine at all, but to natural philosophy,
because in physiology the nature of a human body is studied apart from
operation.
Zabarella's conclusion about the relationship between the art
of medicine and natural philosophy is that the latter must consider the
universal qualities of health and sickness, while the former
concentrates on finding remedies for particular diseases. Zabarella
suggests that Aristotle wrote a book of health and sickness of which
nothing but a small fragment remains. These fragments are on the
borderline of these two disciplines. Zabarella sums this up: where the
philosopher ends, there the physician begins (*ubi desinit
philosophus, ibi incipit medicus*). From the universal
consideration of sickness and health the physician descends to the
treatment of all particular diseases and to knowledge of their causes.
While discussing the principles of medical art Zabarella compares
anatomical principles with principles derived from natural philosophy.
In his view, only the philosophy of nature, not anatomy, can provide a
solid basis for medical practioners (Mikkeli 1997, pp. 221-225).
## 9. Aftermath
From the things considered above, it becomes clear that Zabarella
cannot be considered as a precursor of modern experimental science. In
spite of its empirical basis, Zabarella's natural philosophy is not
concerned with anything akin to experiment. Indeed, if experiments
were to be developed, they would find their place in the productive
arts rather than in natural philosophy. Zabarella did not use
experiments in order to verify or falsify theories in the modern
sense. (Schmitt 1969) However, he made observations of natural
things, but they were just made to exemplify and illustrate the
demonstrative reasoning used in the theoretical natural
philosophy (Rossi 1983, p. 146).
During the past decades Zabarella's name has been linked to modern
science. John Herman Randall published already in 1940 (and again in
1961) his famous idea on "the School of Padua" that would
have been the precursor of modern science. Following Ernst Cassirer,
Randall referred to the Renaissance discussions of
*regressus-*method up to Zabarella as a preparation for Galileo
Galilei's new method of natural science. However, the Aristotelian
terminology and doctrines that Zabarella and Galileo share, seem for
the most part to have been commonplaces of late medieval and
Renaissance thought. Galileo may have known Zabarella's writings, but
far more important source for Galileo was the Jesuit scholars, above
all Paolo della Valle, working at the Collegio Romano at
Rome (Wallace 1999, p. 338).
Instead of overemphasizing the connection between Zabarella and
Galileo, it should be noted that Zabarella's thought had a large
impact among Protestant Aristotelians in Germany and in the Low
Countries during the late sixteenth century and first part of the
seventeenth century (Backus 1989; Maclean 2002). Zabarella's books
were known even in the remote Scandinavian countries surprisingly
early already at the turn of the seventeenth-century (Mikkeli
2002). Zabarella's clear and systematic interpretation of Aristotle's
logic and natural philosophy was used as a basis for numerous
Aristotelian textbooks printed in Germany. Moreover, the Protestant
academics found Zabarella's instrumentalist view of logic useful for
their theological purposes (Kusukawa 2002). Also in the British Isles
the Scholastic revival of the early seventeenth century owed much to
Zabarella's writings (Sgarbi 2012; Sgarbi 2013, 53-78). Recently
there has been some considerations whether Zabarella's distinction
between the objects of science (*res considerata*) and the way
of considering (*modus considerandi*) had an impact on the
distinction between matter and form in Immanuel Kant's philosophy
(Sgarbi 2010). Even some modern scholars of Aristotle have still
consulted his commentaries with profit. |
zeno-elea | ## 1. Life and Writings
The dramatic occasion of Plato's dialogue, *Parmenides*, is a
visit to Athens by the eminent philosopher Parmenides and Zeno, his
younger associate, to attend the festival of the Great Panathenaea.
Plato describes Parmenides as about sixty-five years old, Zeno as
nearly forty, and Socrates, with whom they converse, as "quite
young then," which is normally taken to mean about twenty.
Given that Socrates was a little past seventy when executed by the
Athenians in 399 B.C.E., this description suggests that Zeno was born
about 490 B.C.E. He would appear to have been active in Magna Graecia,
that is, the Greek-speaking regions of southern Italy, during the
mid-fifth century B.C.E. There is otherwise little credible information
about the circumstances of his life. Diogenes Laertius's brief
"Life of Zeno" (D.L. 9.25-9) is largely taken up with
stitching together conflicting reports of his involvement in a brave
plot to overthrow one of the local tyrants, but how much truth these
reports contain cannot be determined. Although Diogenes also says
that Zeno so loved his native Elea that he had no interest in
immigrating to Athens, this report is not inconsistent with his
having spent some time there; and Plutarch's report that Pericles
heard Zeno expounding on the nature of things in the manner of
Parmenides (Plu. *Pericles* 4.5) suggests that Zeno may indeed
have visited Athens and read his famous book, as Plato's
*Parmenides* implies, to a group of intellectually keen
Athenians. Vivid evidence of the cultural impact of Zeno's arguments
is to be found in the interior of a red-figure drinking cup (Rome,
Mus. Villa Giulia, inv. 3591) discovered in the
Etrurian city of Falerii and dated to the mid-fifth century B.C.E. It
depicts a heroic figure racing nimbly ahead of a large tortoise and
has every appearance of being the first known "response"
to the Achilles paradox.
Plato's *Parmenides* depicts Socrates going as a young man to
hear Zeno reading from the famous book he has brought to Athens for
the first time. Parmenides himself and some others, including
Pythodorus (the dramatic source of Plato's report) are portrayed as
entering toward the end of the reading so that they hear only a
little of Zeno's recitation. Plato then presents an exchange between
Socrates and Zeno, the first part of which is as follows:
>
>
> Once Socrates had heard it, he asked Zeno to read the first hypothesis
> of the first argument again, and, after it was read, he said:
> "What do you mean by this, Zeno? 'If the things that are
> are many, that then they must be both like and unlike, but this is
> impossible. For neither can unlike things be like, nor like things
> unlike'? Is this not what you say?" "Yes,"
> said Zeno. "Then if it is impossible both for things unlike to
> be like and for like things to be unlike, then it's also impossible
> for there to be many things? For if there were many things, they would
> incur impossibilities. So is this what your arguments intend, nothing
> other than to maintain forcibly, contrary to everything normally said,
> that there are not many things? And do you think that each of your
> arguments is a proof of this very point, so that you consider yourself
> to be furnishing just as many proofs that there are not many things as
> the arguments you have written? Is this what you say, or do I not
> understand correctly?" "Not at all," said Zeno,
> "but you have understood perfectly well what the treatise as a
> whole intends" (Pl. *Prm*. 127d6-128a3).
While the dialogue's scenario, and thus this exchange, are clearly
fictional, this passage is nonetheless normally taken as indicating
that Zeno composed a single treatise comprising numerous arguments,
cast in the form of antinomies, all purporting to demonstrate the
untenability of the commonsense presumption that there are many
things.
While the later tradition unreliably ascribes other works to Zeno,
there is some interesting evidence in the commentary on the
*Parmenides* by the Athenian Neoplatonist Proclus (5th c.
C.E.) that he was familiar with a work transmitted under Zeno's name
containing forty arguments or *logoi* (Procl. *in Prm*.
694, 17-18 Steel). Much of what Proclus says about Zeno in his
commentary simply recasts what is already present in the above
exchange, but this comment that this work of Zeno's contained forty
arguments, taken with certain other things he says, suggests that
Proclus had access to a work with some sort of Zenonian pedigree, a
work known to earlier commentators as well (as evidenced by Procl.
*in Prm*. 630.26ff., especially 631.25-632.3). If there was a
work available in later antiquity entitled *The Forty Arguments of
Zeno*, it is however unlikely to have been a fair replica of any
original treatise of Zeno's. In the first place, some of Proclus'
apparent references to this work suggest that it fathered upon Zeno
arguments akin to some of those in Parmenides' own elaborate
dialectical exercise later in the *Parmenides*. Furthermore,
Aristotle implies that people were reworking Zeno's arguments soon
after they were first propounded. In *Physics* 8.8, after
giving a basic reconstruction of the so-called Stadium paradox (see
below, sect. 2.2.1) recalling its presentation in *Physics*
6.9, Aristotle then notes that some propound the same argument in a
different way; the alternative reconstruction he then describes
(Arist. *Ph*. 8.8, 263a7-11) is in effect a new
version of the original argument.
Returning to the *Parmenides* passage, it should also be noted
that Socrates' description of Zeno's book, which Plato has Zeno
endorse, indicates that its arguments had a certain structure and
purpose. Specifically, the passage indicates that all Zeno's
arguments opposed the common-sense assumption that there are many
things. It might also suggest that these arguments took the form of
antinomies like the one Socrates specifically cites, so that the
general pattern of Zeno's argumentation would have been: if there are
many things, these must be both *F* and not-*F*; but
things cannot be both *F* and not-*F*; therefore, it
cannot be the case that there are many things. Although this
description has inspired some to attempt to accommodate the extant
paradoxes (of motion, plurality, and place) within a unified
architecture that would have provided the plan for Zeno's original
book, if in fact he wrote only one, none of these attempts have
proved convincing. Since Plato's description is in a number of
respects difficult to square with what we know from other sources of
Zeno's actual arguments, one should be wary of making it the basis
for hypotheses regarding the book's plan of organization. For one
thing, the paradoxes of motion reported by Aristotle do not evidently
target the assumption that there are many things, nor do they take
the form of antinomies. Moreover, only one of the arguments against
plurality elsewhere reported, the antinomy of limited and unlimited,
conforms to the pattern of argumentation exemplified in the antinomy
of like and unlike described by Plato's Socrates (see below, 2.1.1).
The remaining argument, the antinomy of large and small (see 2.1.2),
purports to show not only that the assumption that there are many
things leads to an apparent contradiction, but, rather more
ambitiously, it purports to reduce each of the contradictory
consequences to absurdity. Plato does not actually state, of course,
that all Zeno's arguments took the form of antinomies. In the end, if
the characterization of Zeno's treatise by Plato's Socrates in the
passage above is not quite accurate, there remains no more plausible
view from antiquity regarding the general thrust of his arguments, to
the extent that there may have been a single one. One can, moreover,
easily broaden Socrates' specification of the target to encompass the
arguments against motion and place by changing it to the slightly
more complex thesis that there are many things that move from place
to place. Socrates might easily have been taking it for granted that,
for Zeno, such motion goes along automatically with plurality. What
we know of Zeno's arguments certainly accords with the notion that
they were meant to challenge ordinary assumptions about plurality and
motion. His arguments are quite literally
"para-doxes"--from the Greek *para*
("contrary to" or "against") and
*doxa* ("belief" or
"opinion")--arguments for conclusions contrary to
what people ordinarily believe. What more there might be to say about
Zeno's purposes will be discussed below, after presentation of what
we know of his actual arguments.
## 2. The Extant Paradoxes
The task of reconstructing Zeno's arguments is sometimes
insufficiently distinguished from the task of developing responses to
them. How one reconstructs Zeno's reasoning certainly determines to
some extent what will constitute an effective response. The danger is
that one's idea of how to formulate an effective response may affect
one's reconstruction of Zeno's actual reasoning, particularly if one
imports into his arguments concepts more developed or precise than
the ones with which he was actually operating. In some cases, as with
the one called the Achilles, the paradox's power derives to a
significant extent from the very simplicity of the notions it
deploys. The reconstructions provided here therefore aim to preserve
something of the manner of Zeno's own argumentation as we know it
from verbatim quotation of at least portions of some of the preserved
paradoxes. More formal reconstructions are possible and available. As
already noted, at least one effort at improving Zeno's argumentation
was already known to Aristotle. But such efforts can come at the cost
of historical accuracy, which is the primary goal of this article.
How it might be possible to improve Zeno's arguments will be left to
others. Since it is also essential to appreciate just how much (or
how little) we know of Zeno's arguments, the primary evidence for
each major argument is presented along with a reconstruction.
### 2.1 The Arguments Against Plurality
#### 2.1.1 The Antinomy of Limited and Unlimited
In his commentary on book 1 of Aristotle's *Physics*, the
Alexandrian Neoplatonist Simplicius (6th c. C.E.) quotes verbatim
Zeno's argument that if there are many things, they are limited and
unlimited, as follows: "If there are many things, it is
necessary that they be just so many as they are and neither greater
than themselves nor fewer. But if they are just as many as they are,
they will be limited. If there are many things, the things that are
are unlimited; for there are always others between these entities, and
again others between those. And thus the things that are are
unlimited" (Zeno fr. 3 DK, i.e., Simp. *in
Ph*. 140.29-33 Diels). This is the only Zenonian antinomy
that has the appearance of being preserved in its entirety.
The argument here may be reconstructed as follows. Its overall
structure is: If there are many things, then there must be finitely
many things; and if there are many things, then there must be
infinitely many things. The assumption that there are many things is
thus supposed to have been shown to lead to contradiction, namely,
that things are both finitely and infinitely many. The particular
argument for the first arm of the antinomy seems to be simply: If
there are many things, then they must be just so many as they are. If
the many things are just so many as they are, they must be finitely
many. Therefore, if there are many things, then there must be
finitely many things. Simplicius somewhat loosely describes the
antinomy's second arm as demonstrating numerical infinity through
dichotomy (Simp. *in Ph*. 140.33-4). In fact, the argument
depends on a postulate specifying a necessary condition upon two
things being distinct, rather than on division *per se*, and
it may be reconstructed as follows: If there are many things, they
must be distinct, that is, separate from one another. Postulate: Any
two things will be distinct or separate from one another only if
there is some other thing between them. Two representative things,
*x*1 and *x*2, will be distinct
only if there is some other thing, *x*3, between
them. In turn, *x*1 and *x*3 will
be distinct only if there is some other thing,
*x*4, between them. Since the postulate can be
repeatedly applied in this manner unlimited times, between any two
distinct things there will be limitlessly many other things.
Therefore, if there are many things, then there must be limitlessly
many things.
#### 2.1.2 The Antinomy of Large and Small
In the same stretch of his commentary on Aristotle's
*Physics*, Simplicius reports at length one of Zeno's numerous
arguments designed to show how the claim that there are many things
leads to contradiction. "One of these," Simplicius says,
"is the argument in which he demonstrates that if there are
many things, they are both large and small: so large as to be
unlimited in magnitude, and so small as to have no magnitude. Indeed,
in this argument he shows that what has neither magnitude nor
thickness nor bulk would not even exist. 'For if', he
says, 'it were added to another entity, it would not make it
any larger; for since it is of no magnitude, when it is added, there
cannot be any increase in magnitude. And so what was added would just
be nothing. But if when it is taken away the other thing will be no
smaller, and again when it is added the other thing will not
increase, it is clear that what was added and what was taken away was
nothing'" (Zeno fr. 2 DK = Simp. *in Ph*.
139.7-15). After thus quoting this portion of the argument,
Simplicius continues: "Zeno says this because each of the many
things has magnitude and is infinite [reading *apeiron*
instead of ms. *apeiron*], given that something is
always in front of whatever is taken, in virtue of infinite division;
this he shows after first demonstrating that none have magnitude on
the grounds that each of the many is the same as itself and
one" (Simp. *in Ph*. 139.16-19). Soon after this,
Simplicius records the argument for unlimited magnitude he has
alluded to in the first part of the passage just quoted, as follows:
"Infinity in respect of magnitude he earlier proves in the same
way. For having first shown that, if what is does not have magnitude,
it would not even exist, he continues: 'But if it is, each must
have some magnitude and thickness, and one part of it must extend
away from another. And the same account applies to the part out
ahead. For that part too will have magnitude and will have part of it
out ahead. Indeed, it is the same to say this once as always to keep
saying it; for no such part of it will be last, nor will one part not
be related to another. Thus if there are many things, they must be
both small and large, so small as to have no magnitude, and so large
as to be unlimited'" (Zeno fr. 1 DK, = Simp. *in
Ph*. 140.34-141.8).
Simplicius only alludes to Zeno's argument for smallness, without
setting it out: he says that Zeno derived the conclusion that
"none have magnitude on the grounds that each of the many is
the same as itself and one." Although this is not much to go
on, the argument may plausibly be reconstructed as follows. Each of
the many is the same as itself and one. Whatever has magnitude can be
divided into distinguishable parts; whatever has distinguishable
parts is not everywhere the same as itself; thus, whatever has
magnitude is not everywhere, and so is not genuinely, the same as
itself. Whatever is not the same as itself is not genuinely one.
Thus, whatever has magnitude is not genuinely one. Therefore, each of
the many has no magnitude. The basic assumption here is that to be
"the same as itself" is what it means for something to be
"one" in the strict sense Zeno envisages, whereas any
magnitude, which will have distinguishable parts in virtue of being
spatially extended, will fail to be strictly one and self-identical.
The evidence in Simplicius indicates that Zeno then transitioned to
the antinomy's other arm, the unlimited largeness of things, via the
following lemma: since what has no magnitude would be nothing, each
of the many must have some magnitude. Simplicius's report of how Zeno
specifically argued for the second arm's conclusion, that each of the
many is of unlimited magnitude, pertains primarily to its apparent
sub-argument for the interim conclusion that each thing has
limitlessly many parts, which ran as follows. Each of the many has
some magnitude and thickness (from the lemma). Whatever has some
magnitude and thickness will have (distinguishable) parts, so that
each of the many will have parts. If *x* is one of the many,
then *x* will have parts. Since each of these parts of
*x* has some magnitude and thickness, each of these parts will
have its own parts, and these parts will in turn have parts of their
own, and so on, and so on, without limit. Thus each of the many will
have a limitless number of parts. Whether or not Zeno then made
explicit how the antinomy's final conclusion followed from this, here
is a plausible reconstruction of the rest of the reasoning was
presumably supposed to go: Every part of each thing has some
magnitude; the magnitude of any object is equal to the sum of the
magnitudes of its parts; and the sum of limitlessly many parts of
some magnitude is a limitless magnitude. Therefore, the magnitude of
each of the many is limitless.
Taken as a whole, then, this elaborate *tour de force* of an
argument purports to have shown that, if there are many things, each
of them must have simultaneously no magnitude and unlimited
magnitude.
### 2.2 The Paradoxes of Motion
Aristotle is most concerned with Zeno in *Physics* 6, the book
devoted to the theory of the continuum. In *Physics* 6.9,
Aristotle states that Zeno had four arguments concerning motion that
are difficult to resolve, gives a summary paraphrase of each, and
offers his own analysis. The ancient commentators on this chapter
provide little additional information. Thus reconstruction of these
famous arguments rests almost exclusively on Aristotle's incomplete
presentation. Note that Aristotle's remarks leave open the
possibility that there were other Zenonian arguments against motion
that he deemed less difficult to resolve. More importantly,
Aristotle's presentation gives no indication of how these four
arguments might have functioned within the kind of dialectical scheme
indicated by Plato's *Parmenides*.
#### 2.2.1 The Stadium, or The Dichotomy
"First," Aristotle says, "there is the argument
about its being impossible to move because what moves must reach the
half-way point earlier than the end" (*Ph*.
6.9, 239b11-13). He says no more about this argument here
but alludes to his earlier discussion of it in *Physics* 6.2,
where, after arguing that both time and magnitude are continuous, he
asserts: "Therefore the argument of Zeno falsely presumes that
it is not possible to traverse or make contact with unlimited things
individually in a limited time" (233a21-3).
Subsequently, in *Physics* 8.8, he again raises the question
of how to respond "to those posing the question of Zeno's
argument, if one must always pass through the half-way point, and
these are unlimited, and it is impossible to traverse things
unlimited" (263a4-6), and he proceeds to offer what
he claims is a more adequate solution than the one presented in
*Physics* 6.2. The argument Aristotle is alluding to in these
passages gets its name from his mention in *Topics* 8.8 of
"Zeno's argument that it is not possible to move or to traverse
the stadium" as a prime example of an argument opposed to
common belief yet difficult to resolve (160b7-9).
The following reconstruction attempts to remain true to this evidence
and thus to capture something of how Zeno may originally have argued.
For anyone (*S*) to traverse the finite distance across a
stadium from *p*0 to *p*1 within
a limited amount of time, *S* must first reach the point half
way between *p*0 and *p*1, namely
*p*2.
Before *S* reaches *p*2, *S* must
first reach the point half way between *p*0 and
*p*2, namely *p*3. Again, before
*S* reaches *p*3, *S* must first
reach the point half way between *p*0 and
*p*3, namely *p*4. There is a
half way point again to be reached between *p*0 and
*p*4. In fact, there is always another half way
point that must be reached before reaching any given half way point,
so that the number of half way points that must be reached between
any *p*n and any *p*n-1 is
unlimited. But it is impossible for *S* to reach an unlimited
number of half way points within a limited amount of time. Therefore,
it is impossible for *S* to traverse the stadium or, indeed,
for *S* to move at all; in general, it is impossible to move
from one place to another.
#### 2.2.2 The Achilles
Immediately after his brief presentation of the Stadium, Aristotle
introduces the most famous of Zeno's paradoxes of motion, that of
Achilles and the Tortoise: "Second is the one called
'Achilles': this is that the slowest runner never will be
overtaken by the fastest; for it is necessary for the one chasing to
come first to where the one fleeing started from, so that it is
necessary for the slower runner always to be ahead some"
(*Ph*. 6.9, 239b14-18). Simplicius adds the
identification of the slowest runner as the tortoise (*in Ph*.
1014, 5). Aristotle remarks that this argument is merely a variation
on the Dichotomy, with the difference that it does not depend on
dividing in half the distance taken (*Ph*. 6.9,
239b18-20), and his analysis, such as it is, emphasizes
that this paradox is to be resolved in the same way as the first
paradox of motion. Whether this is actually the case is debatable.
If a tortoise starts ahead of Achilles in a race, the tortoise will
never be overtaken by Achilles. Let the start of the race be
represented as follows:
During the time it takes Achilles to reach the point from which the
tortoise started (*t*0), the tortoise will have
progressed some distance (*d*1) beyond that point,
namely to *t*1, as follows:
Likewise, during the time it then takes Achilles to reach the new
point the tortoise has reached (*t*1), the tortoise
will have progressed some new distance (*d*2)
beyond the tortoise's new starting point, namely to
*t*2, as follows:
The tortoise will again have progressed some further distance
(*d*3) beyond *t*2, namely to
*t*3, in the time it takes Achilles to move from
*a*2(=*t*1) to
*a*3(=*t*2). In fact, during the
time it takes Achilles to reach the tortoise's location at the
beginning of that time, the tortoise will always have moved some
distance ahead, so that every time Achilles reaches the tortoise's
new starting point, the tortoise will be ahead some. Therefore, the
slowest runner in the race, the tortoise, will never be overtaken by
the fastest runner, Achilles.
#### 2.2.3 The Arrow
Aristotle's discussion of the relation of motion and time in
*Physics* 6.8 prepares the way for his objection to the
Zenonian paradox of motion he mentions at the very beginning of
*Physics* 6.9: "Zeno reasons fallaciously; for he says
that if every thing always is resting whenever it is against what is
equal, and what moves is always in the now, then the moving arrow is
motionless" (*Ph*. 6.9, 239b5-7). Aristotle
remarks that Zeno relies on the false supposition that time is
composed of indivisible "nows" or instants
(b8-9), a point he soon repeats in identifying the
argument purporting to show that "the moving arrow is standing
still" as the third of Zeno's paradoxes of motion
(b30-3). In his *Life of Pyrrho*, Diogenes Laertius
reports, "Zeno abolishes motion, saying, 'What moves
moves neither in the place it is nor in a place it is not"
(D.L. 9.72 = Zeno B4 DK; cf. Epiphanius, *Against the
Heretics* 3.11). This report, which Diels and Kranz took to
preserve a genuine fragment of Zeno's book, appears to suggest how
the argument that the moving arrow is at rest may have figured as
part of a broader argument against motion. Diogenes, however, is not
a particularly good source for Zeno's arguments: his *Life of
Zeno* notes only that he was the first to propound the
"Achilles" argument, along with many others (D.L. 9.29).
It is just as likely, therefore, that Diogenes' report depends
on an intervening attempt to couch the paradoxes of motion reported
by Aristotle in the dilemmatic form Plato indicates was typical of
Zenonian argumentation.
Even if Diogenes' report happens to be reliable, we still must rely
on Aristotle in trying to reconstruct the argument that, as in
Diogenes' report, what moves does not move in the place where it is.
(We get no indication from him of any argument of Zeno's to show that
what moves does not move where it is not; perhaps that was thought
self-evident.) And Aristotle's evidence in this instance is an even
more meager basis for reconstruction than usual. Thus, according to
Aristotle, the moving arrow (*A*) is actually standing still.
The argument for this conclusion seems to be as follows: What moves
is always, throughout the duration of its motion, in the now, that is
to say, in one instant of time after another. So, throughout its
flight, *A* is in one instant of time after another. At any
particular instant during its flight (*t*), *A*
occupies a place exactly equivalent to its length, that is,
*A* is "against what is equal." But whatever is
against what is equal is resting. So *A* is resting at
*t*. But *t* is no different than the other instants
during *A*'s flight, so that what is the case with
*A* at *t* is the case with *A* at every other
instant of its flight. Thus *A* is resting at every instant of
its flight, and this amounts to the moving arrow always being
motionless or standing still.
## 2.2.4. The Moving Rows
"Fourth," Aristotle says, "is the one about the
things in the stadium moving from opposite directions, being of equal
bulk, alongside things of equal size, with some moving from the end of
the stadium and some from the middle, at equal speed, in which case he
supposes it turns out that half the time is equal to its double"
(*Ph*. 6.9, 239b33-240a1).
Aristotle's ensuing discussion of what he takes to be Zeno's mistakes
is based on an *exempli gratia* scenario normally taken as a
basis for reconstruction, as it is here. "For example,"
Aristotle says, "let the resting equal masses be those marked
AA, let those
marked BB be beginning from the middle, being
equal in number and size to these, and let those marked
CC be beginning from the end, being equal in
number and size to these, and moving at the same speed as
the *B*s" (Arist. *Ph*. 6.9,
240a4-8).
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|
| |
| --- |
| A A A A |
| B B B B | - |
| - | C C C C |
Diagram 1 | |
| |
| --- |
| A A A A |
| B B B B |
| C C C C |
Diagram 2 |
Diagram 1 represents a plausible way of understanding what Aristotle
envisages as the starting position in Zeno's paradox, even though his
description of this position is somewhat underdetermined. Aristotle
continues: "It follows that the
leading B and the
leading C are at the end at the same time,
once they move past one another"
(240a9-10). This description suggests a final
position as represented in Diagram 2. Since we have no other
indication of how Zeno himself thought he could derive the conclusion
Aristotle reports, that "half the time is equal to its
double," from the description of this situation, we have to rely
on Aristotle for this as well: "It follows," Aristotle
says, "that the [leading] C has gone
past all [the Bs], while the
[leading] B has gone past half
[the As], so that the time is half; for each
of the two is alongside each other for an equal amount of time. But it
also follows that the leading B has gone past
all the
Cs; for the leading C
and the leading B will be at the opposite ends
at the same time, because both are alongside
the As for an equal time"
(204a10-17). Apparently, Zeno somehow meant to infer
from the fact that the leading B moves past
two As in the same time it moves past all
four Cs that half the time is equal to its
double. The challenge is to develop from this less than startling fact
anything more than a facile appearance of paradox. Since it is
stressed that all the bodies are of the same size and that the moving
bodies move at the same speed, Zeno would appear to have relied on
some such postulate as that a body in motion proceeding at constant
speed will move past bodies of the same size in the same amount of
time. He could have argued that in the time it takes all
the Cs to move past all
the Bs, the leading B
moves past two As or goes two lengths, and the
leading B also moves past
four Cs or goes four lengths. According to the
postulate, then, the time the leading B
travels must be the same as half the time it travels. Unfortunately,
the evidence for this particular paradox does not enable us to
determine just how Zeno may in fact have argued. Aristotle thinks the
argument depends upon a transparent falsehood, and one must therefore
keep in mind, if it seems he was right, that Aristotle's presentation
and reconstruction may itself be colored by his desire to bear out his
accusation.
### 2.3 Other Paradoxes
Aristotle also gestures toward two additional ingenious arguments by
Zeno, versions of which were also known to Simplicius.
#### 2.3.1 The Millet Seed
"Zeno's argument is not correct, that any portion of millet
seed whatsoever makes a sound" (Arist. *Ph*.
7.5, 250a20-1). The version of this argument known to
Simplicius represents Zeno as engaged in a fictional argument with
Protagoras, wherein he makes the point that if a large number of
millet seeds makes a sound (for example, when poured out in a heap),
then one seed or even one ten-thousandth of a seed should also make
its own sound (for example, in that process) (Simp. *in Ph*.
1108.18-28). Aristotle's report is too slight a basis for
reconstructing how Zeno may in fact have argued, and Simplicius is
evidently reporting some later reworking. The evidence nonetheless
suggests that Zeno anticipated reasoning related to that of the
sorites paradox, apparently invented more than a century later.
#### 2.3.2 A Paradox of Place
Toward the end of the introduction to his analysis of place,
Aristotle notes that "Zeno's difficulty requires some
explanation; for if every thing that is is in a place, it is clear
that there will also be a place of the place, and so on to
infinity" (Arist. *Ph*. 4.1, 209a23-5). His
subsequent statement of the problem is even briefer but adds one key
point: "Zeno raises the problem that, if place is something, it
will be in something" (Arist. *Ph*.
4.3, 210b22-3; cf. Eudemus fr. 78 Wehrli, [Arist.] *De
Melisso Xenophane Gorgia* 979b23-7, Simp. *in
Ph*. 562, 3-6). Zeno would appear to have argued as follows.
Everything that is is in something, namely a place. If a place is
something, then it too must be in something, namely some further
place. If this second place is something, it must be in yet another
place; and the same reasoning applies to this and each successive
place *ad infinitum*. Thus, if there is such a thing as place,
there must be limitless places everywhere, which is absurd.
Therefore, there is no such thing as place. This argument could well
have formed part of a more elaborate argument against the view that
there are many things, such as that if there are many things, they
must be somewhere, i.e. in some place; but there is no such thing as
place and thus no place for the many to be; therefore, there are not
many things. This is, however, only speculation.
## 3. Zeno's Purposes
The commonly found claim that Zeno aimed to defend the paradoxical
monism of his Eleatic mentor, Parmenides, is based upon the
speculations by the young Socrates of Plato's *Parmenides* on
Zeno's ulterior motives. After the portion of the exchange between
Socrates and Zeno quoted above (sect. 1), Socrates turns to
Parmenides and says:
>
>
> In a way, he has written the same thing as you, but he's changed it
> around to try to fool us into thinking that he's saying something
> different. For you say in the verses you've composed that the all is
> one, and you do a fine and good job of providing proofs of this. He,
> on the other hand, says there are not many things, and he too provides
> numerous and powerful proofs. Given that one says "one"
> and the other "not many," and that each speaks in this way
> so as to appear to have said none of the same things, when you are in
> fact saying virtually the same thing, what you've said seems said in a
> way that's beyond the powers of the rest of
> us. (Pl. *Prm*. 128a6-b6)
Socrates virtually accuses Zeno of having plotted with Parmenides to
conceal the fundamental identity of their conclusions. With so many
readers of Plato accustomed to taking Socrates as his mouthpiece in
the dialogues, it is not surprising that this passage has served as
the foundation for the common view of Zeno as Parmenidean legatee and
defender, by his own special means, of Eleatic orthodoxy.
Unfortunately, this use of the Platonic evidence is unjustifiably
selective, even prejudicial, in the weight it accords the words put
in Socrates' mouth. Plato immediately has Zeno disabuse Socrates of
his suspicions about the book's ulterior purpose.
Zeno this time replies that Socrates has not altogether grasped the
truth about his book. First, he says, the book had nothing like the
pretensions Socrates has ascribed to it (*Prm*. 128c2-5). Zeno
is made to explain his actual motivation as follows:
>
>
> The treatise is in truth a sort of support for Parmenides' doctrine
> against those attempting to ridicule it on the ground that, if one is,
> the doctrine suffers many ridiculous consequences that contradict it.
> This treatise, therefore, argues against those who say the many are,
> and it pays them back with the same results and worse, intending to
> demonstrate that their hypothesis "if many are" suffers
> even more ridiculous consequences than the hypothesis of there being
> one, if one pursues the issue sufficiently. (Pl. *Prm*.
> 128c6-d6)
Zeno's account of how he defended Parmenides against those who
ridiculed him is designed to correct Socrates' mistaken impression
that Zeno was basically just arguing for the same thing as
Parmenides, that the all is one. Zeno is portrayed as trying to
correct this mistaken view of his purposes as born of a superficial
understanding of Parmenides' doctrine. Zeno's arguments against
plurality will seem to entail Parmenides' doctrine only if his
thesis, "one is" (*hen esti*), is taken to mean
that only one thing exists. However, the elaborate examination of
this very thesis, "one is" (*hen esti*), by
Parmenides himself in the latter part of the dialogue shows that
Plato thinks it is not to be understood in any such trivial sense.
For not only does Parmenides end up examining the relation of his One
to other things, which would have been impossible if his doctrine
entailed their non-existence, but the relation other things have to
the One actually proves responsible in a way for their existence.
Zeno cannot be supposing that his arguments against plurality
entailed the doctrine of Parmenides when that doctrine is represented
in this same dialogue by Parmenides himself as something altogether
more involved than the simple thesis that only one thing exists.
Nevertheless, Zeno's description of the persons who attempted to
ridicule Parmenides is perfectly compatible with *their*
having understood the thesis, "one is" (*hen
esti*), as an assertion that only one thing exists. Zeno's
arguments constitute an *indirect* defense of
Parmenides--"a sort of support" (*boetheia
tis*, 128c6)--because they do nothing to disabuse his
detractors of their superficial understanding of his doctrine.
Instead, as Zeno says, he tried to show that the assumption that
there are many things has consequences every bit as unpalatable as
those Parmenides' critics suppose his position has (cf. Procl. *in
Prm*. 619.15-21). Thus, while Zeno accepts Socrates' point that
his own arguments aim to show that there are not many things, he
corrects Socrates' impression that, in arguing this point, he was
just saying the same thing as Parmenides in a different form.
The evidence of Plato's *Parmenides*, then, does not license
the conventional view that Zeno's arguments against plurality and
motion were intended to support the strict monism of Parmenides.
Claims to the contrary have rested upon selective and prejudicial use
of this evidence due to the tendency to privilege Socrates' remarks
on Zeno's purposes over Zeno's own qualifications and corrections of
that analysis. What Plato actually suggests is that Zeno aimed to
show those whose superficial understanding of Parmenides had led them
to charge him with flying in the face of common sense, that common
sense views concerning unity and plurality are themselves riddled
with latent contradictions. Such is, essentially, the judgment of
Jonathan Barnes: "Zeno was not a systematic Eleatic solemnly
defending Parmenides against philosophical attack by a profound and
interconnected set of reductive argumentations. Many men had mocked
Parmenides: Zeno mocked the mockers. His *logoi* were designed
to reveal the inanities and ineptitudes inherent in the ordinary
belief in a plural world; he wanted to startle, to amaze, to
disconcert. He did not have the serious metaphysical purpose of
supporting an Eleatic monism" (Barnes 1982, 236). However,
whether the historical Zeno was actually involved in anything like
the dialectical context Plato envisages for him must remain
uncertain. Even if there were already in Zeno's day individuals who
mistook Parmenides' position for the thesis that only one thing
exists, the idea that Zeno's arguments were motivated by a desire to
respond to such individuals in kind is as historically unverifiable
as the claim Plato puts in his mouth that his book was stolen and
circulated before he could decide for himself whether to make his
arguments public (Pl. *Prm*. 128d7-e1).
Nevertheless, just as Socrates' initial remark that Zeno's
arguments were all designed to show that there are not in fact many
things remains basically plausible, so there are elements in Zeno's
account of his own purposes that have the ring of historical truth
and that square well with other evidence. Plato has Zeno continue his
second response to Socrates (quoted above) by saying, "It was
written by me in such a contentious spirit when I was still young.
... You are mistaken in this regard, then, Socrates, that you suppose
it was written, not under the influence of youthful contentiousness,
but under that of a more mature ambition" (Pl. *Prm*.
128d6-e3). The point is repeatedly made that Zeno's book was written
in a spirit of youthful contentiousness or "love of
victory" (*philonikia*, *Prm*. 128d7, e2). The
more mature Zeno seems a little embarrassed by the combative manner
evident in the arguments of his younger days, as well he might since
that spirit would have come to be seen as typical of the eristic
controversialists who sprang up in the sophistic era. Plato gives yet
another nod to the idea that Zeno was a forerunner of eristic
contentiousness when he has him say that his book "contradicts
(*antilegei*) those who say the many are" (*Prm*.
128d2-3). This suggestion that Zeno was a practitioner of what came
to be known as "antilogic," or the art of contradiction,
is consistent with Plato's representation of him in other dialogues
as something of a sophist. In the *Alcibiades*, Socrates
reports that Pythodorus and Callias each paid Zeno a hundred minae to
become clever and skilled in argument (*Alc*. 119a3-6; cf.
*Prm*. 126b-c). Teaching for payment is of course one hallmark
of the professional educators who styled themselves experts in
wisdom. That Plato saw Zeno as a practitioner of the specific brand
of argument known as antilogic is evidenced by the
*Phaedrus*'s famous description of him as the
"Eleatic Palamedes" for his ability to make the same
things appear to his audience both like and unlike, one and many,
moving and at rest (*Phdr*. 261d6-8). Again, at the beginning
of the *Sophist*, when Theodorus introduces the Eleatic
Visitor as an associate of Parmenides and Zeno and their followers,
Socrates expresses concern that the Visitor may be "some god of
refutation" until Theodorus reassures him that the Visitor is
more moderate than those who spend their time in eristic and
competitive disputation (*Sph*. 216a-b). Plato's references
thus consistently connect Zeno with the rise of eristic disputation,
and it is perfectly plausible that his arguments against plurality
and motion would have been well-known examples of making the weaker
case seem the stronger.
The portrait of Zeno and his tactics that emerges from Plato's
references makes it seem natural that Aristotle, in one of his lost
dialogues, entitled *Sophist*, spoke of Zeno as the inventor
of dialectic (D.L. 8.57; cf. 9.25; S.E. *M*. 7.7). Precisely
what Aristotle meant by this remains a matter of speculation, given
that Aristotle also attributes the invention of dialectic to Socrates
(Arist. *Metaph*. M.4, 1078b25-30) and to Plato
(*Metaph*. A.6, 987b31-3); he says he himself
invented the *theory* of it (*SE*
34, 183b34-184b8). There is also the question of
whether Aristotle viewed Zeno's arguments as more eristic than
properly dialectical. The difference, according to Aristotle, is that
dialectical arguments proceed from *endoxa* or "views
held by everyone or by most people or by the wise, that is, by all,
most, or the especially famous and respected of the wise,"
whereas eristic arguments proceed from what only seem to be, or what
seems to follow from, *endoxa* (*Top*.
1.1, 100a29-30, b22-5). Aristotle clearly
believes that some of Zeno's assumptions have only a specious
plausibility (see *Top*. 8.8, 160b7-9, *SE*
24, 279b17-21, *Ph*. 1.2, 233a21-31,
*Metaph*. B.4.1001b13-16), so that they would
by Aristotle's own criteria be examples of eristic rather than
properly dialectical arguments. For Aristotle, then, Zeno was a
controversialist and paradox-monger, whose arguments were nevertheless
both sophisticated enough to qualify him as the inventor of dialectic
and were important for forcing clarification of concepts fundamental
to natural science. Aristotle's view of Zeno thus seems largely in
accordance with Plato's portrayal of him as a master of the art of
contradiction.
Should we then think of Zeno as a sophist? Certainly Isocrates, the
rhetorician and contemporary of Plato, did not hesitate to lump
Gorgias, Zeno, and Melissus together as among the other
"sophists" flourishing in the era of Protagoras and all
producing tedious treatises advocating the most outrageous claims
(Isoc. *Hel*. [*Orat*. 10] 2-3). While there are
difficulties in giving precise definition to the term
"sophist," one feature common to those normally classed
as such that Zeno lacks is an interest in the interrogation of
cultural norms and values. Zeno's influence, however, on the great
sophists who were his contemporaries and, more generally, on the
techniques of argumentation promulgated among the sophists seems
undeniable. Protagoras' development of the techniques of antilogic,
rooted in his claim that there are two opposed arguments on every
matter (D.L. 9.51), seems likely to have been inspired by Zeno's
novel forms of argumentation as well as by his advocacy of the most
counter-intuitive of theses. Zeno's influence is especially clear,
moreover, in Gorgias' treatise, "On Nature, or On What Is
Not," both in its penchant for argumentation via antithesis and
*reductio* and in its use of premises drawn straight from Zeno
himself (see [Arist.] *MXG* 979a23, b25,
b37). It is even possible that the famous circle of
contemporary intellectuals the great Athenian statesman Pericles
gathered around himself provided a major conduit for Zeno's impact on
the first generation of sophists. Plutarch, at any rate, records that
"Pericles heard Zeno of Elea discoursing on nature in the
manner of Parmenides, and practicing a kind of skill in
cross-examination and in driving one's opponent into a corner by
means of contradictory argument" (Plu. *Per*. 4.5). The
skill Plutarch attributes to Zeno, still evident in the fragmentary
remains of his arguments, is just the kind of skill in argument
manifested in a great deal of sophistic practice. Although doubts
have been raised about the reliability of Plutarch's report that
Zeno, like Damon and Anaxagoras, was one of the many contemporary
intellectuals whose company was avidly pursued by Pericles, there is
little that seriously tells against it. Thus George Kerferd has
argued both that the patronage of Pericles and his keen interest in
the intellectual developments of his day must have been critically
important to the sophistic movement and that Zeno's paradoxes were a
profound influence on the development of the sophistic method of
antilogic, which he sees as "perhaps the most characteristic
feature of the thought of the whole period" (Kerferd 1981,
18-23, 59ff., 85).
The evidence surveyed here suggests that Zeno's paradoxes were
designed as provocative challenges to the common-sense view that our
world is populated by numerous things that move from place to place.
His apparent demonstrations of how the common-sense view is fraught
with contradiction made him an influential precursor of sophistic
antilogic and eristic disputation. It is not surprising that someone
like Isocrates should have viewed Zeno as a sophist to be classed
with Protagoras and Gorgias. To ask whether Zeno was in fact a
sophist, a practitioner of antilogic, an eristic controversialist, or
a proper dialectician is to some extent inappropriate, for these
designations all acquired their normal meaning and range of
application only after Zeno's time. While he perhaps does not fit
exactly into any of these categories, still his development of
sophisticated methods of argumentation to produce apparent proofs of
the evidently false conclusions that motion is impossible and that
there are not in fact many things made it quite natural for Plato,
Aristotle, Isocrates, and others to refer to him under all these
labels.
It is remarkable that, while many of the responses to Zeno's
paradoxes, and even some modern formulations of the paradoxes
themselves, depend on advanced mathematical techniques, Zeno's
original arguments do not themselves appear to have involved any
particularly complicated mathematics. Several of the paradoxes
involve no specifically mathematical notions at all. The Achilles is
perhaps the best example since it employs only very ordinary notions,
such as getting to where another has started from. The other extant
arguments for the most part deploy similarly prosaic notions: being
somewhere or being in a place, being in motion, moving past something
else, getting halfway there, being of some size, having parts, being
one, being like, being the same, and so on. Where Zeno seems to have
leapt ahead of earlier thinkers is in deploying specifically
quantitative concepts, most notably quantitative concepts of limit
(*peras*) and the lack of limit (*to apeiron*). Earlier
Greek thinkers had tended to speak of limitedness and unlimitedness
in ways suggesting a qualitative rather than a quantitative notion.
While one might suppose that Zeno's turn to a more strictly
quantitative conception of limit and limitlessness could have been
inspired by his familiarity with Pythagorean philosophers and
mathematicians in Magna Graecia, we can in fact trace the philosophy
of limiters and unlimiteds only back as far as Philolaus, a
Pythagorean roughly contemporary with Socrates and thus a good deal
younger than Zeno.
Whatever may have spurred Zeno's development of his collection of
paradoxes, his arguments quickly achieved a remarkable level of
notoriety. They had an immediate impact on Greek physical theory.
Zeno's powerful principle that any spatially extended entity must be
limitlessly divisible would profoundly impact the development of the
subtle and powerful physical theories of both Anaxagoras, who accepts
the principle, and the early atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, who
reject it. Zeno's arguments also had a formative influence on
Aristotle's own theory of the continuum and of continuous motion.
More generally, Zeno's arguments made it necessary for Greek natural
philosophers to develop something more than an everyday conception of
the composition of material bodies. His arguments, perhaps more than
anything else, forced the Greek natural philosophers to develop
properly *physical* theories of composition as opposed to the
essentially chemical theories of earlier thinkers such as Empedocles.
That mathematicians and physicists have worked ever since to develop
responses to the more ingenious of his paradoxes is remarkable,
though perhaps not surprising, for immunity to his paradoxes might be
taken as a condition upon the adequacy of our most basic physical
concepts. He may even have offered his collection of paradoxes to
provoke deeper consideration of the adequacy of theretofore
unexamined notions. If so, it is likewise remarkable that he
simultaneously developed forms of argument--most notably,
*reductio ad absurdum* by means of antinomical and/or regress
arguments--that have ever since been fundamental to
philosophical probing of conceptual adequacy. |
paradox-zeno | ## 1. Background
Before we look at the paradoxes themselves it will be useful to sketch
some of their historical and logical significance. First, Zeno sought
to defend Parmenides by attacking his critics. Parmenides rejected
pluralism and the reality of any kind of change: for him all was one
indivisible, unchanging reality, and any appearances to the contrary
were illusions, to be dispelled by reason and revelation. Not
surprisingly, this philosophy found many critics, who ridiculed the
suggestion; after all it flies in the face of some of our most basic
beliefs about the world. (Interestingly, general
relativity--particularly quantum general
relativity--arguably provides a novel--if novelty
*is* possible--argument for the Parmenidean denial of
change: Belot and Earman, 2001.) In response to this criticism Zeno
did something that may sound obvious, but which had a profound impact
on Greek philosophy that is felt to this day: he attempted to show
that equal absurdities followed logically from the denial of
Parmenides' views. You think that there are many things? Then
you must conclude that everything is both infinitely small and
infinitely big! You think that motion is infinitely divisible? Then it
follows that nothing moves! (This is what a 'paradox' is:
a demonstration that a contradiction or absurd consequence follows
from apparently reasonable assumptions.)
As we read the arguments it is crucial to keep this method in mind.
They are always directed towards a more-or-less specific target: the
views of some person or school. We must bear in mind that the
arguments are 'ad hominem' in the literal Latin sense of
being directed 'at (the views of) persons', but not
'ad hominem' in the traditional technical sense of
attacking the (character of the) people who put forward the views
rather than attacking the views themselves. They work by temporarily
supposing 'for argument's sake' that those
assertions are true, and then arguing that if they are then absurd
consequences follow--that nothing moves for example: they are
'*reductio ad absurdum*' arguments (or
'dialectic' in the sense of the period). Then, if the
argument is logically valid, and the conclusion genuinely
unacceptable, the assertions must be false after all. Thus when we
look at Zeno's arguments we must ask two related questions: whom
or what position is Zeno attacking, and what exactly is assumed for
argument's sake? If we find that Zeno makes hidden assumptions
beyond what the position under attack commits one to, then the absurd
conclusion can be avoided by denying one of the hidden assumptions,
while maintaining the position. Indeed commentators at least since
Aristotle have responded to Zeno in this way.
So whose views do Zeno's arguments attack? There is a huge
literature debating Zeno's exact historical target. As we shall
discuss briefly below, some say that the target was a technical
doctrine of the Pythagoreans, but most today see Zeno as opposing
common-sense notions of plurality and motion. We shall approach the
paradoxes in this spirit, and refer the reader to the literature
concerning the interpretive debate.
That said, it is also the majority opinion that--with certain
qualifications--Zeno's paradoxes reveal some problems that
cannot be resolved without the full resources of mathematics as worked
out in the Nineteenth century (and perhaps beyond). This is not
(necessarily) to say that modern mathematics is required to answer any
of the problems that Zeno explicitly wanted to raise; arguably
Aristotle and other ancients had replies that would--or
should--have satisfied Zeno. (Nor shall we make any particular
claims about Zeno's influence on the history of mathematics.)
However, as mathematics developed, and more thought was given to the
paradoxes, new difficulties arose from them; these difficulties
require modern mathematics for their resolution. These new
difficulties arise partly in response to the evolution in our
understanding of what mathematical rigor demands: solutions that would
satisfy Zeno's standards of rigor would not satisfy ours. Thus
we shall push several of the paradoxes from their common sense
formulations to their resolution in modern mathematics. (Another
qualification: we shall offer resolutions in terms of
'standard' mathematics, but other modern formulations are
also capable of dealing with Zeno, and arguably in ways that better
represent his mathematical concepts.)
## 2. The Paradoxes of Plurality
### 2.1 The Argument from Denseness
>
> If there are many, they must be as many as they are and neither more
> nor less than that. But if they are as many as they are, they would be
> limited. If there are many, things that are are unlimited. For there
> are always others between the things that are, and again others
> between those, and so the things that are are unlimited.
> (Simplicius(a) *On Aristotle's Physics*, 140.29)
>
This first argument, given in Zeno's words according to
Simplicius, attempts to show that there could not be more than one
thing, on pain of contradiction: if there are many things, then they
are both 'limited' and 'unlimited', a
contradiction. On the one hand, he says that any collection must
contain some *definite* number of things, or in his words
'neither more nor less'. But if you have a definite number
of things, he concludes, you must have a
finite--'limited'--number of them; in drawing
this inference he assumes that to have infinitely many things is to
have an *indefinite* number of them. On the other hand, imagine
any collection of 'many' things arranged in
space--picture them lined up in one dimension for definiteness.
Between any two of them, he claims, is a third; and in between these
three elements another two; and another four between these five; and
so on without end. Therefore the collection is also
'unlimited'. So our original assumption of a plurality
leads to a contradiction, and hence is false: there are not many
things after all. At least, so Zeno's reasoning runs.
Let us consider the two subarguments, in reverse order. First are
there 'always others between the things that are'? (In
modern terminology, why must objects always be 'densely'
ordered?) Suppose that we had imagined a collection of ten apples
lined up; then there is indeed another apple between the sixth and
eighth, but there is none between the seventh and eighth! On the
assumption that Zeno is not simply confused, what does he have in
mind? The texts do not say, but here are two possibilities: first, one
might hold that for any pair of physical objects (two apples say) to
be two distinct objects and not just one (a
'double-apple') there must be a third between them,
physically separating them, even if it is just air. And one might
think that for these three to be distinct, there must be two more
objects separating them, and so on (this view presupposes that their
being made of different substances is not sufficient to render them
distinct). So perhaps Zeno is arguing against plurality given a
certain conception of physical distinctness. But second, one might
also hold that any body has *parts* that can be densely
ordered. Of course 1/2s, 1/4s, 1/8s and so on of apples are not
dense--such parts may be adjacent--but there may be
sufficiently small parts--call them
'point-parts'--that are. Indeed, if between any two
point-parts there lies a finite distance, and if point-parts can be
arbitrarily close, then they are dense; a third lies at the half-way
point of any two. In particular, familiar geometric points are like
this, and hence are dense. So perhaps Zeno is offering an argument
regarding the divisibility of bodies. Either way, Zeno's assumption of
denseness requires some further assumption about the plurality in
question, and correspondingly focusses the target of his paradox.
But suppose that one holds that some collection (the points in a line,
say) is dense, hence 'unlimited', or infinite. The first
prong of Zeno's attack purports to show that because it contains a
definite number of elements it is also 'limited', or
finite. Can this contradiction be escaped? The assumption that any
definite number is finite seems intuitive, but we now know, thanks to
the work of Cantor in the Nineteenth century, how to understand
infinite numbers in a way that makes them just as definite as finite
numbers. The central element of this theory of the 'transfinite
numbers' is a precise definition of when two infinite
collections are the same size, and when one is bigger than the
other. With such a definition in hand it is then possible to order the
infinite numbers just as the finite numbers are ordered: for example,
there are different, definite infinite numbers of fractions and
geometric points in a line, even though both are dense. (See Further
Reading below for references to introductions to these mathematical
ideas, and their history.) So contrary to Zeno's assumption, it is
meaningful to compare infinite collections with respect to the number
of their elements, to say whether two have more than, or fewer than,
or 'as many as' each other: there are, for instance, more
decimal numbers than whole numbers, but as many even numbers as whole
numbers. So mathematically, Zeno's reasoning is unsound when he says
that because a collection has a definite number, it must be finite,
and the first subargument is fallacious. (Though of course that only
shows that infinite collections are mathematically consistent, not
that any physically exist.)
### 2.2 The Argument from Finite Size
>
> ... if it should be added to something else that exists, it would
> not make it any bigger. For if it were of no size and was added, it
> cannot increase in size. And so it follows immediately that what is
> added is nothing. But if when it is subtracted, the other thing is no
> smaller, nor is it increased when it is added, clearly the thing being
> added or subtracted is nothing. (Simplicius(a) *On
> Aristotle's Physics*,139.9)
>
>
> But if it exists, each thing must have some size and thickness, and
> part of it must be apart from the rest. And the same reasoning holds
> concerning the part that is in front. For that too will have size and
> part of it will be in front. Now it is the same thing to say this once
> and to keep saying it forever. For no such part of it will be last,
> nor will there be one part not related to another. Therefore, if there
> are many things, they must be both small and large; so small as not to
> have size, but so large as to be unlimited. (Simplicius(a) *On
> Aristotle's Physics*, 141.2)
>
>
>
Once again we have Zeno's own words. According to his
conclusion, there are three parts to this argument, but only two
survive. The first--missing--argument purports to show that
if many things exist then they must have no size at all. Second, from
this Zeno argues that it follows that they do not exist at all; since
the result of joining (or removing) a sizeless object to anything is
no change at all, he concludes that the thing added (or removed) is
literally nothing. The argument to this point is a self-contained
refutation of pluralism, but Zeno goes on to generate a further
problem for someone who continues to urge the existence of a
plurality. This third part of the argument is rather badly put but it
seems to run something like this: suppose there is a plurality, so
some spatially extended object exists (after all, he's just
argued that inextended things do not exist). Since it is extended, it
has two spatially distinct parts (one 'in front' of the
other). And the parts exist, so they have extension, and so they also
each have two spatially distinct parts; and so on without end. And
hence, the final line of argument seems to conclude, the object, if it
is extended at all, is infinite in extent.
But what could justify this final step? It doesn't seem that
because an object has two parts it must be infinitely big! And neither
does it follow from any other of the divisions that Zeno describes
here; four, eight, sixteen, or whatever finite parts make a finite
whole. Again, surely Zeno is aware of these facts, and so must have
something else in mind, presumably the following: he assumes that if
the infinite series of divisions he describes were repeated infinitely
many times then a definite collection of parts would result. And
notice that he doesn't have to assume that anyone could actually
carry out the divisions--there's not enough time and knives
aren't sharp enough--just that an object can be
geometrically decomposed into such parts (neither does he assume that
these parts are what we would naturally categorize as distinct
physical objects like apples, cells, molecules, electrons or so on,
but only that they are geometric parts of these objects). Now,
if--as a pluralist might well accept--such parts exist, it
follows from the second part of his argument that they are extended,
and, he apparently assumes, an infinite sum of finite parts is
infinite.
Here we should note that there are two ways he may be envisioning the
result of the infinite division.
First, one could read him as first dividing the object into 1/2s, then
one of the 1/2s--say the second--into two 1/4s, then one of
the 1/4s--say the second again--into two 1/8s and so on. In
this case the result of the infinite division results in an endless
sequence of pieces of size 1/2 the total length, 1/4 the length, 1/8
the length .... And then so the total length is (1/2 + 1/4
+ 1/8 + ... of the length, which Zeno concludes is an infinite
distance, so that the pluralist is committed to the absurdity that
finite bodies are 'so large as to be unlimited'.
What is often pointed out in response is that Zeno gives us no reason
to think that the sum is infinite rather than finite. He might have
had the intuition that any infinite sum of finite quantities, since it
grows endlessly with each new term must be infinite, but one might
also take this kind of example as showing that some infinite sums are
after all finite. Thus, contrary to what he thought, Zeno has not
proven that the absurd conclusion follows. However, what is not always
appreciated is that the pluralist is not off the hook so easily, for
it is not enough just to say that the sum *might* be finite,
she must also show that it *is* finite--otherwise we
remain uncertain about the tenability of her position. As an
illustration of the difficulty faced here consider the following: many
commentators speak as if it is simply obvious that the infinite sum of
the fractions is 1, that there is nothing to infinite summation. But
what about the following sum: \(1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1
-\ldots\). Obviously, it seems, the sum can be rewritten \((1 - 1) +
(1 - 1) + \ldots = 0 + 0 + \ldots = 0\). Surely this answer seems as
intuitive as the sum of fractions. But this sum can also be rewritten
\(1 - (1 - 1 + 1 - 1 +\ldots) = 1 - 0\)--since we've just
shown that the term in parentheses vanishes--\(= 1\). Relying on
intuitions about how to perform infinite sums leads to the conclusion
that \(1 = 0\). Until one can give a theory of infinite sums that can
give a satisfactory answer to any problem, one cannot say that
Zeno's infinite sum is obviously finite. Such a theory was not
fully worked out until the Nineteenth century by Cauchy. (In
Cauchy's system \(1/2 + 1/4 + \ldots = 1\) but \(1 - 1 + 1
-\ldots\) is undefined.)
Second, it could be that Zeno means that the object is divided in
half, then both the 1/2s are both divided in half, then the 1/4s are
all divided in half and so on. In this case the pieces at any
particular stage are all the same finite size, and so one could
conclude that the result of carrying on the procedure infinitely would
be pieces the same size, which if they exist--according to
Zeno--is greater than zero; but an infinity of *equal*
extended parts is indeed infinitely big.
But this line of thought can be resisted. First, suppose that the
procedure just described completely divides the object into
non-overlapping parts. (There is a problem with this supposition that
we will see just below.) It involves doubling the number of pieces
after every division and so after \(N\) divisions there are
\(2^N\) pieces. But it turns out that for any natural
or infinite number, \(N\), \(2^N \gt N\), and so the number of (supposed) parts obtained by the
infinity of divisions described is an even larger infinity. This
result poses no immediate difficulty since, as we mentioned above,
infinities come in different sizes. The number of times everything is
divided in two is said to be 'countably infinite': there
is a countable infinity of things in a collection if they can be
labeled by the numbers 1, 2, 3, ... without remainder on either
side. But the number of pieces the infinite division produces is
'uncountably infinite', which means that there is no way
to label them 1, 2, 3, ... without missing some of them--in
fact infinitely many of them. However, Cauchy's definition of an
infinite sum only applies to countably infinite series of numbers, and
so does not apply to the pieces we are considering. However, we could
consider just countably many of them, whose lengths according to
Zeno--since he claims they are all equal and non-zero--will
sum to an infinite length; the length of *all* of the pieces
could not be less than this.
At this point the pluralist who believes that Zeno's division
completely divides objects into non-overlapping parts (see the next
paragraph) could respond that the parts in fact have no extension,
even though they exist. That would block the conclusion that finite
objects are infinite, but it seems to push her back to the other horn
of Zeno's argument, for how can all these zero length pieces
make up a non-zero sized whole? (Note that according to Cauchy \(0 + 0
+ 0 + \ldots = 0\) but this result shows nothing here, for as we saw
there are uncountably many pieces to add up--more than are added
in this sum.) We shall postpone this question for the discussion of
the next paradox, where it comes up explicitly.
The second problem with interpreting the infinite division as a
repeated division of all parts is that it does not divide an object
into distinct parts, if objects are composed in the natural way. To
see this, let's ask the question of what parts are obtained by
this division into 1/2s, 1/4s, 1/8s, .... Since the division is
repeated without end there is no last piece we can give as an answer,
and so we need to think about the question in a different way. If we
suppose that an object can be represented by a line segment of unit
length, then the division produces collections of segments, where the
first is either the first or second half of the whole segment, the
second is the first or second quarter, or third or fourth quarter, and
in general the segment produced by \(N\) divisions is either the
first or second half of the previous segment. For instance, writing
the segment with endpoints \(a\) and \(b\) as
\([a,b]\), some of these collections (technically known
as 'chains' since the elements of the collection are
ordered by size) would start \(\{[0,1], [0,1/2], [1/4,1/2], [1/4,3/8],
\ldots \}\). (When we argued before that Zeno's division produced
uncountably many pieces of the object, what we should have said more
carefully is that it produces uncountably many chains like this.)
The question of which parts the division picks out is then the
question of which part any given chain picks out; it's natural
to say that a chain picks out the part of the line which is contained
in *every one* of its elements. Consider for instance the chain
\(\{[0,1/2], [1/4,1/2], [3/8,1/2], \ldots \}\), in other words the chain
that starts with the left half of the line and for which every other
element is the right half of the previous one. The half-way point is
in every one of the segments in this chain; it's the right-hand
endpoint of each one. But no other point is in all its elements:
clearly no point beyond half-way is; and pick any point \(p\)
before half-way, if you take right halves of [0,1/2] enough times, the
left-hand end of the segment will be to the right of \(p\). Thus
the only part of the line that is in all the elements of this chain is
the half-way point, and so that is the part of the line picked out by
the chain. (In fact, it follows from a postulate of number theory that
there is exactly one point that all the members of *any* such a
chain have in common.) The problem is that by parallel reasoning, the
half-way point is also picked out by the distinct chain \(\{[1/2,1],
[1/2,3/4], [1/2,5/8], \ldots \}\), where each segment after the first is
the left half of the preceding one. And so both chains pick out the
same piece of the line: the half-way point. And so on for many other
pairs of chains. Thus Zeno's argument, interpreted in terms of a
repeated division of *all* parts into half, doesn't
divide the line into distinct parts. Hence, if we think that objects
are composed in the same way as the line, it follows that despite
appearances, this version of the argument does not cut objects into
parts whose total size we can properly discuss.
(You might think that this problem could be fixed by taking the
elements of the chains to be segments with no endpoint to the right.
Then the first of the two chains we considered no longer has the
half-way point in any of its segments, and so does not pick out that
point. The problem now is that it fails to pick out any part of the
line: the previous reasoning showed that it doesn't pick out any
point greater than or less than the half-way point, and now it
doesn't pick out that point either!)
### 2.3 The Argument from Complete Divisibility
>
> ... whenever a body is by nature divisible through and through,
> whether by bisection, or generally by any method whatever, nothing
> impossible will have resulted if it has actually been divided
> ... though perhaps nobody in fact could so divide it.
>
>
> What then will remain? A magnitude? No: that is impossible, since then
> there will be something not divided, whereas *ex hypothesi* the
> body was divisible *through and through*. But if it be admitted
> that neither a body nor a magnitude will remain ... the body will
> *either* consist of points (and its constituents will be
> without magnitude) *or* it will be absolutely nothing. If the
> latter, then it might both come-to-be out of nothing and exist as a
> composite of nothing; and thus presumably the whole body will be
> nothing but an appearance. But if it consists of points, it will not
> possess any magnitude. (Aristotle *On Generation and
> Corruption*, 316a19)
>
>
>
These words are Aristotle's not Zeno's, and indeed the
argument is not even attributed to Zeno by Aristotle. However we have
Simplicius' opinion ((a) *On Aristotle's Physics*,
139.24) that it originates with Zeno, which is why it is included
here. Aristotle begins by hypothesizing that some body is completely
divisible, 'through and through'; the second step of the
argument makes clear that he means by this that it is divisible into
parts that themselves have no size--parts with any magnitude
remain incompletely divided. (Once again what matters is that the body
is genuinely composed of such parts, not that anyone has the time and
tools to make the division; and remembering from the previous section
that one does not obtain such parts by repeatedly dividing all parts
in half.) So suppose the body is divided into its dimensionless parts.
These parts could either be nothing at all--as Zeno argued
above--or 'point-parts'. If the parts are nothing
then so is the body: it's just an illusion. And, the argument
concludes, even if they are points, since these are unextended the
body itself will be unextended: surely any sum--even an infinite
one--of zeroes is zero.
Could that final assumption be questioned? It is (as noted above) a
consequence of the Cauchy definition of an infinite sum; however
Grunbaum (1967) pointed out that that definition only applies to
countable sums, and Cantor gave a beautiful, astounding and extremely
influential 'diagonal' proof that the number of points in
the segment is uncountably infinite. There is no way to label
*all* the points in the line with the infinity of numbers 1, 2,
3, ... , and so there are more points in a line segment than
summands in a Cauchy sum. In short, the analysis employed for
countably infinite division does not apply here.
So suppose that you are just given the number of points in a line and
that their lengths are all zero; how would you determine the length?
Do we need a new definition, one that extends Cauchy's to
uncountably infinite sums? It turns out that that would not help,
because Cauchy further showed that any segment, of any length
whatsoever (and indeed an entire infinite line) *have exactly the
same number of points as our unit segment*. So knowing the number
of points won't determine the length of the line, and so nothing
like familiar addition--in which the whole is determined by the
parts--is possible. Instead we must think of the distance
properties of a line as logically posterior to its point composition:
*first* we have a set of points (ordered in a certain way, so
that there is some fact, for example, about which of any three is
between the others) *then* we define a function of pairs of
points which specifies how far apart they are (satisfying such
conditions as that the distance between \(A\) and \(B\) plus
the distance between \(B\) and \(C\) equals the distance
between \(A\) and \(C\)--if \(B\) is between
\(A\) and \(C)\). Thus we answer Zeno as follows: the
argument assumed that the size of the body was a sum of the sizes of
point parts, but that is not the case; according to modern
mathematics, a geometric line segment is an uncountable infinity of
points plus a distance function. (Note that Grunbaum used the
fact that the point composition fails to determine a length to support
his 'conventionalist' view that a line has no determinate
length at all, independent of a standard of measurement.)
As Ehrlich (2014) emphasizes, we could even stipulate that an
'uncountable sum' of zeroes is zero, because the length of
a line is not equal to the sum of the lengths of the points it
contains (addressing Sherry's, 1988, concern that refusing to
extend the definition would be ad hoc). Hence, if one stipulates that
the length of a line is the sum of any complete collection of proper
parts, then it follows that points are not properly speaking
*parts* of a line (unlike halves, quarters, and so on of a line).
In a strict sense in modern measure theory (which generalizes
Grunbaum's framework), the points in a line are
incommensurable with it, and the very set-up given by Aristotle in
which the length of the whole is analyzed in terms of its points is
illegitimate.
## 3. The Paradoxes of Motion
### 3.1 The Dichotomy
>
> The first asserts the non-existence of motion on the ground that that
> which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it
> arrives at the goal. (Aristotle *Physics*, 239b11)
>
This paradox is known as the 'dichotomy' because it
involves repeated division into two (like the second paradox of
plurality). Like the other paradoxes of motion we have it from
Aristotle, who sought to refute it.
Suppose a very fast runner--such as mythical Atalanta--needs
to run for the bus. Clearly before she reaches the bus stop she must
run half-way, as Aristotle says. There's no problem there;
supposing a constant motion it will take her 1/2 the time to run
half-way there and 1/2 the time to run the rest of the way. Now she
must also run half-way to the half-way point--i.e., a 1/4 of the
total distance--before she reaches the half-way point, but again
she is left with a finite number of finite lengths to run, and plenty
of time to do it. And before she reaches 1/4 of the way she must reach
\(1/2\) of \(1/4 = 1/8\) of the way; and before that a 1/16; and so on. There
is no problem at any finite point in this series, but what if the
halving is carried out infinitely many times? The resulting series
contains no first distance to run, for any possible first distance
could be divided in half, and hence would not be first after all.
However it does contain a final distance, namely 1/2 of the way; and a
penultimate distance, 1/4 of the way; and a third to last distance,
1/8 of the way; and so on. Thus the series of distances that Atalanta
is required to run is: ..., then 1/16 of the way, then 1/8 of the
way, then 1/4 of the way, and finally 1/2 of the way (for now we are
not suggesting that she *stops* at the end of each segment and
then starts running at the beginning of the next--we are thinking
of her continuous run being composed of such parts). And now there is
a problem, for this description of her run has her travelling an
*infinite* number of *finite* distances, which, Zeno
would have us conclude, must take an infinite time, which is to say it
is never completed. And since the argument does not depend on the
distance or who or what the mover is, it follows that no finite
distance can ever be traveled, which is to say that all motion is
impossible. (Note that the paradox could easily be generated in the
other direction so that Atalanta must first run half way, then half
the remaining way, then half of that and so on, so that she must run
the following endless sequence of fractions of the total distance:
1/2, then 1/4, then 1/8, then ....)
A couple of common responses are not adequate. One might--as
Simplicius ((a) *On Aristotle's Physics*, 1012.22) tells
us Diogenes the Cynic did by silently standing and walking--point
out that it is a matter of the most common experience that things in
fact do move, and that we know very well that Atalanta would have no
trouble reaching her bus stop. But this would not impress Zeno, who,
as a paid up Parmenidean, held that many things are not as they
appear: it may appear that Diogenes is walking or that Atalanta is
running, but appearances can be deceptive and surely we have a logical
proof that they are in fact not moving at all. Alternatively if one
doesn't accept that Zeno has given a proof that motion is
illusory--as we hopefully do not--one then owes an account
of what is wrong with his argument: he has given reasons why motion is
impossible, and so an adequate response must show why those reasons
are not sufficient. And it won't do simply to point out that
there are some ways of cutting up Atalanta's run--into just
two halves, say--in which there is no problem. For if you accept
all of the steps in Zeno's argument then you must accept his
conclusion (assuming that he has reasoned in a logically deductive
way): it's not enough to show an unproblematic division, you
must also show why the *given* division is unproblematic.
Another response--given by Aristotle himself--is to point
out that as we divide the distances run, we should also divide the
total time taken: there is 1/2 the time for the final 1/2, a 1/4 of
the time for the previous 1/4, an 1/8 of the time for the 1/8 of the
run and so on. Thus each fractional distance has just the right
fraction of the finite total time for Atalanta to complete it, and
thus the distance can be completed in a finite time. Aristotle felt
that this reply should satisfy Zeno, however he also realized
(*Physics*, 263a15) that it could not be the end of the matter.
For now we are saying that the *time* Atalanta takes to reach
the bus stop is composed of an infinite number of finite
pieces--..., 1/8, 1/4, and 1/2 of the total time--and
isn't that an infinite time?
Of course, one could again claim that some infinite sums have finite
totals, and in particular that the sum of these pieces is \(1 \times\)
the total time, which is of course finite (and again a complete
solution would demand a rigorous account of infinite summation, like
Cauchy's). However, Aristotle did not make such a move. Instead
he drew a sharp distinction between what he termed a
'continuous' line and a line divided into parts. Consider
a simple division of a line into two: on the one hand there is the
undivided line, and on the other the line with a mid-point selected as
the boundary of the two halves. Aristotle claims that these are two
distinct things: and that the latter is only 'potentially'
derivable from the former. Next, Aristotle takes the common-sense view
that time is like a geometric line, and considers the time it takes to
complete the run. We can again distinguish the two cases: there is the
continuous interval from start to finish, and there is the interval
divided into Zeno's infinity of half-runs. The former is
'potentially infinite' in the sense that it could be
divided into the latter 'actual infinity'. Here's
the crucial step: Aristotle thinks that since these intervals are
*geometrically* distinct they must be *physically*
distinct. But how could that be? He claims that the runner must do
something at the end of each half-run to make it distinct from the
next: she must stop, making the run itself discontinuous. (It's
not clear why some other action wouldn't suffice to divide the
interval.) Then Aristotle's full answer to the paradox is that
the question of whether the infinite series of runs is possible or not
is ambiguous: the potentially infinite series of halves in a
continuous run is possible, while an actual infinity of discontinuous
half runs is not--Zeno does identify an impossibility, but it
does not describe the usual way of running down tracks!
It is hard--from our modern perspective perhaps--to see how
this answer could be completely satisfactory. In the first place it
assumes that a clear distinction can be drawn between potential and
actual infinities, something that was never fully achieved. Second,
suppose that Zeno's problem turns on the claim that infinite
sums of finite quantities are invariably infinite. Then
Aristotle's distinction will only help if he can explain why
potentially infinite sums are in fact finite (couldn't we
potentially add \(1 + 1 + 1 +\ldots\), which does not have a finite
total); or if he can give a reason why potentially infinite sums just
don't exist. Or perhaps Aristotle did not see infinite sums as
the problem, but rather whether completing an infinity of finite
actions is metaphysically and conceptually and physically possible. We
will briefly discuss this issue--of
'Supertasks'--below, but note that there is a
well-defined run in which the stages of Atalanta's run are
punctuated by finite rests, arguably showing the possibility of
completing an infinite series of finite tasks in a finite time
(Huggett 2010, 21-2). Finally, the distinction between potential and
actual infinities has played no role in mathematics since Cantor tamed
the transfinite numbers--certainly the potential infinite has
played no role in the modern mathematical solutions discussed
here.
### 3.2 Achilles and the Tortoise
>
> The [second] argument was called "Achilles," accordingly,
> from the fact that Achilles was taken [as a character] in it, and the
> argument says that it is impossible for him to overtake the tortoise
> when pursuing it. For in fact it is necessary that what is to overtake
> [something], before overtaking [it], first reach the limit from which
> what is fleeing set forth. In [the time in] which what is pursuing
> arrives at this, what is fleeing will advance a certain interval, even
> if it is less than that which what is pursuing advanced
> .... And in the time again in which what is pursuing will
> traverse this [interval] which what is fleeing advanced, in this time
> again what is fleeing will traverse some amount .... And
> thus in every time in which what is pursuing will traverse the
> [interval] which what is fleeing, being slower, has already advanced,
> what is fleeing will also advance some amount. (Simplicius(b) *On
> Aristotle's Physics*, 1014.10)
>
This paradox turns on much the same considerations as the last.
Imagine Achilles chasing a tortoise, and suppose that Achilles is
running at 1 *m/s*, that the tortoise is crawling at 0.1
*m/s* and that the tortoise starts out 0.9m ahead of
Achilles. On the face of it Achilles should catch the tortoise after
1s, at a distance of 1m from where he starts (and so
0.1m from where the Tortoise starts). We could break
Achilles' motion up as we did Atalanta's, into halves, or
we could do it as follows: before Achilles can catch the tortoise he
must reach the point where the tortoise started. But in the time he
takes to do this the tortoise crawls a little further forward. So next
Achilles must reach this new point. But in the time it takes Achilles
to achieve this the tortoise crawls forward a tiny bit further. And so
on to infinity: every time that Achilles reaches the place where the
tortoise was, the tortoise has had enough time to get a little bit
further, and so Achilles has another run to make, and so Achilles has
an infinite number of finite catch-ups to do before he can catch the
tortoise, and so, Zeno concludes, he never catches the tortoise.
One aspect of the paradox is thus that Achilles must traverse the
following infinite series of distances before he catches the tortoise:
first 0.9m, then an additional 0.09m, then
0.009m, .... These are the series of distances
ahead that the tortoise reaches at the start of each of
Achilles' catch-ups. Looked at this way the puzzle is identical
to the Dichotomy, for it is just to say that 'that which is in
locomotion must arrive [nine tenths of the way] before it arrives at
the goal'. And so everything we said above applies here too.
But what the paradox in this form brings out most vividly is the
problem of completing a series of actions that has no final
member--in this case the infinite series of catch-ups before
Achilles reaches the tortoise. But just what is the problem? Perhaps
the following: Achilles' run to the point at which he should
reach the tortoise can, it seems, be completely decomposed into the
series of catch-ups, none of which take him to the tortoise.
Therefore, nowhere in his run does he reach the tortoise after all.
But if this is what Zeno had in mind it won't do. Of course
Achilles doesn't reach the tortoise at any point of the
sequence, for every run in the sequence occurs *before* we
expect Achilles to reach it! Thinking in terms of the points that
Achilles must reach in his run, 1m does not occur in the sequence
0.9m, 0.99m, 0.999m, ..., so of
course he never catches the tortoise during that sequence of runs!
(And the same situation arises in the Dichotomy: no first distance in
the series, so it does not contain Atalanta's start!) Thus the series
of catch-ups does not after all completely decompose the run: the
final point--at which Achilles does catch the tortoise--must
be added to it. So is there any puzzle? Arguably yes.
Achilles' run passes through the sequence of points 0.9m, 0.99m,
0.999m, ..., 1m. But does such a strange
sequence--comprised of an infinity of members followed by one
more--make sense mathematically? If not then our mathematical
description of the run cannot be correct, but then what is?
Fortunately the theory of transfinites pioneered by Cantor assures us
that such a series is perfectly respectable. It was realized that the
order properties of infinite series are much more elaborate than those
of finite series. Any way of arranging the numbers 1, 2 and 3 gives a
series in the same pattern, for instance, but there are many distinct
ways to order the natural numbers: 1, 2, 3, ... for instance. Or
... , 3, 2, 1. Or ... , 4, 2, 1, 3, 5,
.... Or 2, 3, 4, ... , 1, which is just the same
kind of series as the positions Achilles must run through. Thus the
theory of the transfinites treats not just 'cardinal'
numbers--which depend only on how many things there are--but
also 'ordinal' numbers which depend further on how the
things are arranged. Since the ordinals are standardly taken to be
mathematically legitimate numbers, and since the series of points
Achilles must pass has an ordinal number, we shall take it that the
series is mathematically legitimate. (Again, see
'Supertasks' below for another kind of problem that might
arise for Achilles'.)
### 3.3 The Arrow
>
> The third is ... that the flying arrow is at rest, which result
> follows from the assumption that time is composed of moments
> .... he says that if everything when it occupies an equal
> space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always in a
> now, the flying arrow is therefore motionless. (Aristotle
> *Physics*, 239b30)
>
>
> Zeno abolishes motion, saying "What is in motion moves neither
> in the place it is nor in one in which it is not". (Diogenes
> Laertius *Lives of Famous Philosophers*, ix.72)
>
>
>
This argument against motion explicitly turns on a particular kind of
assumption of plurality: that time is composed of moments (or
'nows') *and nothing else*. Consider an arrow,
apparently in motion, at any instant. First, Zeno assumes that it
travels no distance during that moment--'it occupies an
equal space' for the whole instant. But the entire period of its
motion contains only instants, all of which contain an arrow at rest,
and so, Zeno concludes, the arrow cannot be moving.
An immediate concern is why Zeno is justified in assuming that the
arrow is at rest during any instant. It follows immediately if one
assumes that an instant lasts 0s: whatever speed the arrow has, it
will get nowhere if it has no time at all. But what if one held that
the smallest parts of time are finite--if tiny--so that a
moving arrow might actually move some distance during an instant? One
way of supporting the assumption--which requires reading quite a
lot into the text--starts by assuming that instants are
indivisible. Then suppose that an arrow actually moved during an
instant. It would be at different locations at the start and end of
the instant, which implies that the instant has a 'start'
and an 'end', which in turn implies that it has at least
two parts, and so is divisible, contrary to our assumption. (Note that
this argument only establishes that nothing can move during an
instant, not that instants cannot be finite.)
So then, nothing moves during any instant, but time is entirely
composed of instants, so nothing ever moves. A first response is to
point out that determining the velocity of the arrow means dividing
the distance traveled in some time by the length of that time.
But--assuming from now on that instants have zero
duration--this formula makes no sense in the case of an instant:
the arrow travels 0m in the 0s the instant lasts,
but 0/0 m/s is not any number at all. Thus it is fallacious
to conclude from the fact that the arrow doesn't travel any
distance in an instant that it is at rest; whether it is in motion at
an instant or not depends on whether it travels any distance in a
*finite* interval that includes the instant in question.
The answer is correct, but it carries the counter-intuitive
implication that motion is not something that happens at any instant,
but rather only over finite periods of time. Think about it this way:
time, as we said, is composed only of instants. No distance is
traveled during any instant. So when does the arrow actually move? How
does it get from one place to another at a later moment? There's
only one answer: the arrow gets from point \(X\) at time 1 to
point \(Y\) at time 2 simply in virtue of being at successive
intermediate points at successive intermediate times--the arrow
never changes its position during an instant but only over intervals
composed of instants, by the occupation of different positions at
different times. In Bergson's memorable words--which he
thought expressed an absurdity--'movement is composed of
immobilities' (1911, 308): getting from \(X\) to \(Y\)
is a matter of occupying exactly one place in between at each instant
(in the right order of course). For further discussion of this
'at-at' conception of time see Arntzenius (2000) and
Salmon (2001, 23-4).
### 3.4 The Stadium
>
> The fourth argument is that concerning equal bodies which move
> alongside equal bodies in the stadium from opposite
> directions--the ones from the end of the stadium, the others from
> the middle--at equal speeds, in which he thinks it follows that
> half the time is equal to its double.... (Aristotle
> *Physics*, 239b33)
>
Aristotle goes on to elaborate and refute an argument for Zeno's
final paradox of motion. The text is rather cryptic, but is usually
interpreted along the following lines: picture three sets of touching
cubes--all exactly the same--in relative motion. One
set--the \(A\)s--are at rest, and the others--the
\(B\)s and \(C\)s--move to the right and left
respectively, at a constant equal speed. And suppose that at some
moment the rightmost \(B\) and the leftmost \(C\) are
aligned with the middle \(A\), as shown (three of each are
pictured for simplicity).
| | | | | | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| | \(A\) | \(A\) | \(A\) | | |
| \(B\) | \(B\) | \(B\) | | | |
| | | \(C\) | \(C\) | \(C\) | |
Since the \(B\)s and \(C\)s move at same speeds, they will
be aligned with the \(A\)s simultaneously.
| | | | | | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| | \(A\) | \(A\) | \(A\) | | |
| | \(B\) | \(B\) | \(B\) | | |
| | \(C\) | \(C\) | \(C\) | | |
At this moment, the rightmost \(B\) has traveled past all the
\(C\)s, but only half the \(A\)s; since they are of equal
size, it has traveled both some distance *and* half that
distance. The putative contradiction is not drawn here however,
presumably because it is clear that these contrary distances are
*relative* to the \(C\)s and \(A\)s respectively;
there's generally no contradiction in standing in different
relations to different things. Instead, the distances are converted to
times by dividing the distances by the speed of the \(B\)s; half
the distance at a given speed takes half the time. Then a
contradiction threatens because the time between the states is
unequivocal, not relative--the process takes some (non-zero) time
and half that time.
The general verdict is that Zeno was hopelessly confused about
relative velocities in this paradox. If the \(B\)s are moving
with speed *S m/s* to the right with respect to the
\(A\)s, and if the \(C\)s are moving with speed *S
m/s* to the left with respect to the \(A\)s, then the
\(C\)s are moving with speed \(S+S = 2\)*S
m/s* to the left with respect to the \(B\)s. And so, of
course, while the \(B\)s travel twice as far relative to the
\(C\)s as the \(A\)s, they do so at twice the relative
speed, and so the times are the same either way. But could Zeno have
been this confused? (Sattler, 2015, argues against this and other
common readings of the stadium.)
Perhaps (Davey, 2007) he had the following in mind instead (while Zeno
is smarter according to this reading, it doesn't quite fit
Aristotle's words so well): suppose the \(A\)s, \(B\)s
and \(C\)s are of the smallest spatial extent,
'point-sized', where 'points' are of zero size
if space is continuous, or finite if space is 'atomic'.
Suppose further that there are no spaces between the \(A\)s, or
between the \(B\)s, or between the \(C\)s. During the motion
above the leading \(B\) passes all of the \(C\)s, and half
of the \(A\)s, so half as many \(A\)s as \(C\)s. Now,
as a point moves continuously along a line with no gaps, there is a
1:1 correspondence between the instants of time and the points on the
line--to each instant a point, and to each point an instant.
Therefore, the number of '\(A\)-instants' of time the
leading \(B\) takes to pass the \(A\)s is half the number of
'\(C\)-instants' takes to pass the
\(C\)s--even though these processes take the same amount of
time. If we then, crucially, assume that half the instants means half
the time, we conclude that half the time equals the whole time, a
contradiction.
We saw above, in our discussion of complete divisibility, the problem
with such reasoning applied to continuous lines: any line segment has
the same number of points, so nothing can be inferred from the number
of points in this way--certainly not that half the points (here,
instants) means half the length (or time). The paradox fails as
stated. But doesn't the very claim that the intervals contain
the same number of instants conflict with the step of the argument
that concludes that there are half as many \(A\)-instants as
\(C\)-instants? This issue is subtle for infinite sets: to give a
different example, 1, 2, 3, ... is in 1:1 correspondence with 2,
4, 6, ..., and so there are the same number of each. It is in
this sense of 1:1 correspondence--the precise sense of
'same number' used in mathematics--that any finite
line has the same number of points as any other. However, informally
speaking, there are also 'half as many' even numbers as
whole numbers: the pairs (1, 2), (3, 4), (5, 6), ... can also be
put into 1:1 correspondence with 2, 4, 6, .... Similarly, there
are--informally speaking--half as many \(A\)-instants
as \(C\)-instants: \(A\)-instants are in 1:1 correspondence
with pairs of \(C\)-instants. So there is no contradiction in the
number of points: the informal half equals the strict whole (a
different solution is required for an atomic theory, along the lines
presented in the final paragraph of this section).
(Let me mention a similar paradox of motion--the
'millstone'--attributed to Maimonides. Imagine two
wheels, one twice the radius and circumference of the other, fixed to
a single axle. Let them run down a track, with one rail raised to keep
the axle horizontal, for one turn of both wheels [they turn at the
same rate because of the axle]: each point of each wheel makes contact
with exactly one point of its rail, and every point of each rail with
exactly one point of its wheel. Does the assembly travel a distance
equal to the circumference of the big wheel? Of the small? Both?
Something else? How? This problem too requires understanding of the
continuum; but it is not a paradox of Zeno's so we shall leave
it to the ingenuity of the reader.)
A final possible reconstruction of Zeno's Stadium takes it as an
argument against an atomic theory of space and time, which is
interesting because contemporary physics explores such a view when it
attempts to 'quantize' spacetime. Suppose then the sides
of each cube equal the 'quantum' of length and that the
two moments considered are separated by a single quantum of time. Then
something strange must happen, for the rightmost \(B\) and the
middle \(C\) pass each other during the motion, and yet there is
no moment at which they are level: since the two moments are separated
by the smallest possible time, there can be no instant between
them--it would be a time smaller than the smallest time from the
two moments we considered. Conversely, if one insisted that if they
pass then there must be a moment when they are level, then it shows
that cannot be a shortest finite interval--whatever it is, just
run this argument against it. However, why should one insist on this
assumption? The problem is that one naturally imagines quantized space
as being like a chess board, on which the chess pieces are frozen
during each quantum of time. Then one wonders when the red queen, say,
gets from one square to the next, or how she gets past the white queen
without being level with her. But the analogy is misleading. It is
better to think of quantized space as a giant matrix of lights that
holds some pattern of illuminated lights for each quantum of time. In
this analogy a lit bulb represents the presence of an object: for
instance a series of bulbs in a line lighting up in sequence represent
a body moving in a straight line. In this case there is no temptation
to ask when the light 'gets' from one bulb to the
next--or in analogy how the body moves from one location to the
next. (Here we touch on questions of temporal parts, and whether
objects 'endure' or 'perdure'.)
## 4. Two More Paradoxes
Two more paradoxes are attributed to Zeno by Aristotle, but they are
given in the context of other points that he is making, so Zeno's
intent cannot be determined with any certainty: even whether they are
intended to argue against plurality and motion. We will discuss them
briefly for completeness.
### 4.1 The Paradox of Place
>
> Zeno's difficulty demands an explanation; for if everything that
> exists has a place, place too will have a place, and so on *ad
> infinitum*. (Aristotle *Physics*, 209a23)
>
When he sets up his theory of place--the crucial spatial notion
in his theory of motion--Aristotle lists various theories and
problems that his predecessors, including Zeno, have formulated on the
subject. The argument again raises issues of the infinite, since the
second step of the argument argues for an infinite regress of
places. However, Aristotle presents it as an argument against the very
idea of place, rather than plurality (thereby likely taking it out of
context). It is hard to feel the force of the conclusion, for why
should there not be an infinite series of places of places of places
of ...? Presumably the worry would be greater for someone who
(like Aristotle) believed that there could not be an actual infinity
of things, for the argument seems to show that there are. But as we
have discussed above, today we need have no such qualms; there seems
nothing problematic with an actual infinity of places.
The only other way one might find the regress troubling is if one
holds that bodies have 'absolute' places, in the sense
that there is always a unique privileged answer to the question
'where is it'? The problem then is not that there are
infinitely many places, but just that there are many. And Aristotle
might have had this concern, for in his theory of motion, the natural
motion of a body is determined by the relation of its place to the
center of the universe: an account that requires place to be
determinate, because natural motion is. (See Sorabji 1988 and Morrison
2002 for general, competing accounts of Aristotle's views on place;
chapter 3 of the latter especially for a discussion of Aristotle's
treatment of the paradox.) But supposing that one holds that place is
absolute for whatever reason, then for example, where am I as I write?
If the paradox is right then I'm in my place, and I'm also
in my place's place, and my place's place's place,
and my .... Since I'm in all these places any might
seem an appropriate answer to the question. Various responses are
conceivable: deny absolute places (especially since our physics does
not require them), define a notion of place that is unique in all
cases (arguably Aristotle's solution), or perhaps claim that places
are their own places thereby cutting off the regress!
### 4.2 The Grain of Millet
>
> ... Zeno's reasoning is false when he argues that there is
> no part of the millet that does not make a sound; for there is no
> reason why any part should not in any length of time fail to move the
> air that the whole bushel moves in falling. (Aristotle
> *Physics*, 250a19)
>
In context, Aristotle is explaining that a fraction of a force many
not produce the same fraction of motion. For instance, while 100
stevedores can tow a barge, one might not get it to move at all, let
alone 1/100th of the speed; so given as much time as you like he may
not move it as far as the 100. (We describe this fact as the effect of
friction.) Similarly, just because a falling bushel of millet makes a
whooshing sound as it falls, it does not follow that each individual
grain would, or does: given as much time as you like it won't move the
same amount of air as the bushel does. However, while refuting this
premise Aristotle does not explain what role it played for Zeno, and
we can only speculate. It's not even clear whether it is part of a
paradox, or some other dispute: did Zeno also claim to show that a
single grain of millet does *not* make a sound? One speculation
is that our senses reveal that it does not, since we cannot hear a
single grain falling. Then Aristotle's response is apt; and so is the
similar response that hearing itself requires movement in the air
above a certain threshold.
## 5. Zeno's Influence on Philosophy
In this final section we should consider briefly the impact that Zeno
has had on various philosophers; a search of the literature will
reveal that these debates continue.
* The Pythagoreans: For the first half of the Twentieth century, the
majority reading--following Tannery (1885)--of Zeno held
that his arguments were directed against a technical doctrine of the
Pythagoreans. According to this reading they held that all things were
composed of elements that had the properties of a unit number, a
geometric point and a physical atom: this kind of position would fit
with their doctrine that reality is fundamentally mathematical.
However, in the middle of the century a series of commentators
(Vlastos, 1967, summarizes the argument and contains references)
forcefully argued that Zeno's target was instead a common sense
understanding of plurality and motion--one grounded in familiar
geometrical notions--and indeed that the doctrine was not a major
part of Pythagorean thought. We have implicitly assumed that these
arguments are correct in our readings of the paradoxes. That said,
Tannery's interpretation still has its defenders (see e.g.,
Matson 2001).
* The Atomists: Aristotle (*On Generation and Corruption*
316b34) claims that our third argument--the one concerning
complete divisibility--was what convinced the atomists that there
must be smallest, indivisible parts of matter. See Abraham (1972) for
a further discussion of Zeno's connection to the atomists.
* Temporal Becoming: In the early part of the Twentieth century
several influential philosophers attempted to put Zeno's
arguments to work in the service of a metaphysics of 'temporal
becoming', the (supposed) process by which the present comes
into being. Such thinkers as Bergson (1911), James (1911, Ch
10-11) and Whitehead (1929) argued that Zeno's paradoxes
show that space and time are not structured as a mathematical
continuum: they argued that the way to preserve the reality of motion
was to deny that space and time are composed of points and instants.
However, we have clearly seen that the tools of standard modern
mathematics are up to the job of resolving the paradoxes, so no such
conclusion seems warranted: if the present indeed
'becomes', there is no reason to think that the process is
not captured by the continuum.
* Applying the Mathematical Continuum to Physical Space and Time:
Following a lead given by Russell (1929, 182-198), a number of
philosophers--most notably Grunbaum (1967)--took up the
task of showing how modern mathematics could solve all of Zeno's
paradoxes; their work has thoroughly influenced our discussion of the
arguments. What they realized was that a purely mathematical solution
was not sufficient: the paradoxes not only question abstract
mathematics, but also the nature of physical reality. So what they
sought was an argument not only that Zeno posed no threat to the
mathematics of infinity but also that that mathematics correctly
describes objects, time and space. It would not answer Zeno's
paradoxes if the mathematical framework we invoked was not a good
description of actual space, time, and motion! The idea that a
mathematical law--say Newton's law of universal
gravity--may or may not correctly describe things is familiar,
but some aspects of the mathematics of infinity--the nature of
the continuum, definition of infinite sums and so on--seem so
basic that it may be hard to see at first that they too apply
contingently. But surely they do: nothing guarantees *a
priori* that space has the structure of the continuum, or
even that parts of space add up according to Cauchy's
definition. (Salmon offers a nice example to help make the point:
since alcohol dissolves in water, if you mix the two you end up with
less than the sum of their volumes, showing that even ordinary
addition is not applicable to every kind of system.) Our belief that
the mathematical theory of infinity describes space and time is
justified to the extent that the laws of physics assume that it does,
and to the extent that those laws are themselves confirmed by
experience. While it is true that almost all physical theories assume
that space and time do indeed have the structure of the continuum, it
is also the case that quantum theories of gravity likely imply that
they do not. While no one really knows where this research will
ultimately lead, it is quite possible that space and time will turn
out, at the most fundamental level, to be quite unlike the
mathematical continuum that we have assumed here.
One should also note that Grunbaum took the job of showing that
modern mathematics describes space and time to involve something
rather different from arguing that it is confirmed by experience. The
dominant view at the time (though not at present) was that scientific
terms had meaning insofar as they referred directly to objects of
experience--such as '1m ruler'--or, if they
referred to 'theoretical' rather than
'observable' entities--such as 'a point of
space' or '1/2 of 1/2 of ... 1/2 a
racetrack'--then they obtained meaning by their logical
relations--via definitions and theoretical laws--to such
observation terms. Thus Grunbaum undertook an impressive program
to give meaning to all terms involved in the modern theory of
infinity, interpreted as an account of space and time.
* Supertasks: A further strand of thought concerns what Black
(1950-51) dubbed 'infinity machines'. Black and his
followers wished to show that although Zeno's paradoxes offered
no problem to mathematics, they showed that after all mathematics was
not applicable to space, time and motion. Most starkly, our resolution
to the Dichotomy and Achilles assumed that the complete run could be
broken down into an infinite series of half runs, which could be
summed. But is it really possible to complete any infinite series of
actions: to complete what is known as a 'supertask'? If
not, and assuming that Atalanta and Achilles can complete their tasks,
their complete runs cannot be correctly described as an infinite
series of half-runs, although modern mathematics would so describe
them. What infinity machines are supposed to establish is that an
infinite series of tasks cannot be completed--so any completable
task cannot be broken down into an infinity of smaller tasks, whatever
mathematics suggests.
* Infinitesimals: Finally, we have seen how to tackle the paradoxes
using the resources of mathematics as developed in the Nineteenth
century. For a long time it was considered one of the great virtues of
this system that it finally showed that infinitesimal quantities,
smaller than any finite number but larger than zero, are unnecessary.
(Newton's calculus for instance effectively made use of such
numbers, treating them sometimes as zero and sometimes as finite; the
problem with such an approach is that how to treat the numbers is a
matter of intuition not rigor.) However, in the Twentieth century
Robinson showed how to introduce infinitesimal numbers into
mathematics: this is the system of 'non-standard analysis'
(the familiar system of real numbers, given a rigorous foundation by
Dedekind, is by contrast just 'analysis'). Analogously,
Bell (1988) explains how infinitesimal line segments can be introduced
into geometry, and comments on their relation to Zeno. Moreover,
McLaughlin (1992, 1994) shows how Zeno's paradoxes can be
resolved in non-standard analysis; they are no more argument against
non-standard analysis than against the standard mathematics we have
assumed here. It should be emphasized however that--contrary to
McLaughlin's suggestions--there is no need for non-standard
analysis to solve the paradoxes: either system is equally successful.
(Reeder, 2015, argues that non-standard analysis is unsatisfactory
regarding the arrow, and offers an alternative account using a
different conception of infinitesimals.) The construction of
non-standard analysis does however raise a further question about the
applicability of analysis to physical space and time: it seems
plausible that all physical theories can be formulated in either
terms, and so as far as our experience extends both seem equally
confirmed. But they cannot both be true of space and time: either
space has infinitesimal parts or it doesn't.
## Further Readings
After the relevant entries in this encyclopedia, the place to begin
any further investigation is Salmon (2001), which contains some of the
most important articles on Zeno up to 1970, and an impressively
comprehensive bibliography of works in English in the Twentieth
Century.
One might also take a look at Huggett (1999, Ch. 3) and Huggett (2010,
Ch. 2-3) for further source passages and discussion. For
introductions to the mathematical ideas behind the modern resolutions,
the Appendix to Salmon (2001) or Stewart (2017) are good starts;
Russell (1919) and Courant *et al*. (1996, Chs. 2 and 9) are
also both wonderful sources. Finally, three collections of original
sources for Zeno's paradoxes: Lee (1936 [2015]) contains
everything known, Kirk *et al* (1983, Ch. 9) contains a great
deal of material (in English and Greek) with useful commentaries, and
Cohen *et al*. (1995) also has the main passages. |
zermelo-set-theory | ## 1. The Axioms
The introduction to Zermelo's paper makes it clear that set theory is regarded as a fundamental theory:
>
> Set theory is that branch of mathematics whose task is to
> investigate mathematically the fundamental notions
> "number", "order", and
> "function", taking them in their pristine, simple form,
> and to develop thereby the logical foundations of all of arithmetic
> and analysis; thus it constitutes an indispensable component of the
> science of mathematics.
> (1908b: 261)[1]
>
>
>
This is followed by an acknowledgment that it is necessary to
replace the central assumption that we can 'assign to an
arbitrary logically definable notion a "set", or
"class", as its "extension" '
(1908b: 261). Zermelo goes on:
>
> In solving the problem [this presents] we must, on the one hand,
> restrict these principles [distilled from the actual operation with
> sets] sufficiently to exclude all contradictions and, on the other,
> take them sufficiently wide to retain all that is valuable in this
> theory. (1908b: 261)
>
>
>
The 'central assumption' which Zermelo describes (let
us call it the Comprehension Principle, or CP) had come to be seen by
many as the principle behind the derivation of the set-theoretic
inconsistencies. Russell (1903: SS104) says the following:
>
> Perhaps the best way to state the suggested solution [of the
> Russell-Zermelo contradiction] is to say that, if a collection of
> terms can only be defined by a variable propositional function,
> then, though a class as many may be admitted, a class as one must be
> denied. We took it as axiomatic that the class as one is to be found
> wherever there is a class as many; but this axiom need not be
> universally admitted, and appears to have been the source of the
> contradiction. By denying it, therefore, the whole difficulty will
> be overcome.
>
>
>
But it is by no means clear that 'the whole difficulty'
is thereby 'overcome'. Russell makes a clear
identification of the principle he cites (a version of CP) as the
source of error, but this does not in the least make it clear what is
to take its
place.[2]
In his *Grundgesetze* (see e.g., Frege
1903: SS146-147) Frege recognises that his (in)famous Law V
is based on a conversion principle which allows us to assume that for
any concept (function), there is an object which contains precisely
those things which fall under that concept (or for which the function
returns the value 'True'). Law V is then the principle
which says that two such extension objects *a*, *b* stemming
from two concepts *F*, *G* are the same if, and only
if, *F* and *G* are extensionally equivalent. Frege clearly
considers the 'conversion' of concepts to extensions as
fundamental; he also regards it as widely used in mathematics (even if
only implicitly), and thus that he is not 'doing anything
new' by using such a principle of conversion and the attendant
'basic law of logic', Law V. (The CP follows immediately
from Law V.) Frege was made aware by Russell (1902) that his Law V is
contradictory, since Russell's paradox flows easily from it. In the
Appendix to *Grundgesetze* (Frege 1903), Frege says this:
>
> Hardly anything more unwelcome can befall a scientific writer
> than to have one of the foundations of his edifice shaken after the
> work is finished. This is the position into which I was put by a
> letter from Mr Bertrand Russell as the printing of this volume was
> nearing completion. The matter concerns my Basic Law (V). I have
> never concealed from myself that it is not as obvious as the others
> nor as obvious as must properly be required of a logical
> law. Indeed, I pointed out this very weakness in the foreword to the
> first volume, p. VII. I would gladly have dispensed with this
> foundation if I had known of some substitute for it. Even now, I do
> not see how arithmetic can be founded scientifically, how the
> numbers can be apprehended as logical objects and brought under
> consideration, if it is not--at least
> conditionally--permissible to pass from a concept to its
> extension. May I always speak of the extension of a concept, of a
> class? And if not, how are the exceptions to be recognised? May one
> always infer from the extension of one concept's coinciding with
> that of a second that every object falling under the first concept
> also falls under the latter? These questions arise from Mr Russell's
> communication. ...What is at stake here is not my approach to a
> foundation in particular, but rather the very possibility of any
> logical foundation of
> arithmetic. (p. 253)[3]
>
>
>
The difficulty could hardly be summed up more succinctly. It was
the replacement of assumptions involving the unfettered conversion of
concepts to objects which was Zermelo's main task in his
axiomatisation.
Zermelo's system was based on the presupposition that
>
> Set theory is concerned with a "domain" B of
> individuals, which we shall call simply "objects" and
> among which are the "sets". If two symbols, *a*
> and *b*, denote the same object, we write *a* = *b*,
> otherwise
> *a* [?] *b*. We say of an
> object *a* that it "exists" if it belongs to the
> domain B; likewise we say of a class K of objects that
> "there exist objects of the class K" if B
> contains at least one individual of this class. (1908b: 262)
>
>
>
Given this, the one fundamental relation is that of set membership,
'e' , which allows one to state that an
object *a* belongs to, or is in, a set *b*, written
'*a* e
*b*'.[4]
Zermelo then laid down seven axioms which
give a partial description of what is to be found in *B*. These
can be described as follows:
1. *Extensionality*
This says roughly that sets are
determined by the elements they contain.
2. *Axiom of Elementary Sets*
This asserts (a) the
existence of a set which contains no members (denoted
'0' by Zermelo, now commonly denoted by
'[?]'); (b) the existence, for any object *a*,
of the singleton set {*a*} which has *a* as its sole
member; and (c) the existence, for any two
objects *a*, *b*, of the unordered pair
{*a*, *b*}, which has just *a*, *b* as its
members.
3. *Separation* (*Aussonderungsaxiom*)
This asserts
that, for any given set *a*, and any given 'definite'
property of elements in B (more on this below), one can
'separate' out from *a* as a set just those elements
which satisfy the given property.
4. *Power Set*
This says that for any set, the collection
of all subsets of that set is also a set.
5. *Union*
This says that for any set, the collection of
the members of the members of that set also forms a set.
6. *Choice*
This says that for any set of pairwise
disjoint, non-empty sets, there exists a set (which is a subset of the
union set to which the given set gives rise) which contains exactly
one member from each member of the given set.
8. *Infinity*
This final axiom asserts the existence of an
infinitely large set which contains the empty set, and for each
set *a* that it contains, also contains the set
{*a*}. (Thus, this infinite set must contain [?], {[?]},
{{[?]}}, ....)
With the inclusion of this last, Zermelo explicitly rejects any
attempt to *prove* the existence of an infinite collection from other
principles, as we find in Dedekind (1888: SS66), or in Frege via
the establishment of what is known as 'Hume's Principle'.
The four central axioms of Zermelo's system are the Axioms of
Infinity and Power Set, which together show the existence of
uncountable sets, the Axiom of Choice, to which we will devote some
space below, and the Axiom of Separation. This latter allows that any
'definite' property ph does in fact give rise to a set,
namely the set of all those things which are already included in some
set *a* and which have the property ph, in other words, gives
rise to a certain subset of *a*, namely the subset of all the
ph-things in *a*. Thus, it follows from this latter that there
will generally be many sets giving partial extensions of ph, namely
the ph-things in *a*, the ph-things in *b*, the
ph-things in *c*, and so on. However, there will be no
guarantee of the existence of a unique extension-set for ph, as, of
course, there is under the CP, namely *a* = {*x* :
ph(*x*)}.
Zermelo shows that, on the basis of his system, the two central
paradoxes, that of the greatest set and that of Russell, cannot
arise. In fact, Zermelo proves:
>
> Every set *M* possesses at least one
> subset *M*0 that is not an element
> of *M*. (1908b: 265)
>
>
>
The proof is an easy modification of the argument for Russell's
Paradox, using the contradiction this time as *a reductio*. By
Separation, let *M*0 be the subset of *M*
consisting of those elements *x* of *M* such
that
*x* [?] *x*. Now either
*M*0 [?] *M*0
or *M*0 [?] *M*0. Assume
that
*M*0 [?] *M*0. Since
*M*0 is a subset
of *M*, this tells us that
*M*0 [?] *M*. But *M*0 is then a member of *M*
which fails to satisfy the condition for belonging
to *M*0, showing
that
*M*0 [?] *M*0, which is a
contradiction. Hence,
necessarily,
*M*0 [?] *M*0. But now
if we suppose that *M*0 were in *M*,
then *M*0 itself is bound to be
in *M*0 by the defining condition of this
set. Hence,
*M*0 [?] *M* on pain of
contradiction. The argument for the Russell paradox is used here to
constructive effect: one person's contradiction is another person's
*reductio*. Zermelo comments:
>
> It follows from the theorem that not all objects *x* of the
> domain B can be elements of one and the same set; that is,
> the domain B is not itself a set, and this disposes of the
> "Russell antinomy" so far as we are concerned. (1908b:
> 265)
>
>
For, in the absence of something like the CP, there is no
overriding reason to think that there must *be* a universal
set.[5]
But although this deals with the Russell paradox and the paradox of
the universal set, it does not tackle the general consistency of the
system. Zermelo was well aware of this, as is clear from the
Introduction to his paper:
>
> I have not yet even been able to prove rigorously that my axioms
> are "consistent", though this is certainly very
> essential; instead I have had to confine myself to pointing out now
> and then that the "antinomies" discovered so far vanish
> one and all if the principles here proposed are adopted as a
> basis. But I hope to have done at least some useful spadework hereby
> for subsequent investigations in such deeper problems. (1908b:
> 262)
>
>
>
It should be remarked in passing that Zermelo doesn't deal specifically with the
Burali-Forti paradox either, for the simple reason that it cannot be properly
formulated in his system, since it deals either with well-orderings
generally or with the general concept of ordinal number. We will come
back to this below. However, assuming that the known paradoxes *can* be
avoided, another question comes to the fore: if the Separation Axiom
is to be the basic principle for the workaday creation of sets, is it
*adequate*? This question, too, will be taken up later.
There were attempts at the statement of axioms before Zermelo, both
publicly and in private
correspondence.[6]
In particular, Cantor, in correspondence
with Hilbert and Dedekind in the late 1890s, had endeavoured to
describe some principles of set
existence[7]
which he thought were legitimate, and would
not give rise to the construction of what he called
'inconsistent totalities', totalities which engender
contradictions. (The best known of these totalities were the totality
of all ordinals and the totality of all cardinals.) These principles
included those of set union and a form of the replacement axiom, as
well as principles which seem to guarantee that every cardinal number
is an aleph, which we call for short the 'Aleph Hypothesis
(AH)'.
Despite this, there are reasons for calling Zermelo's system the
first real axiomatisation of set theory. It is clear above all that
Zermelo's intention was to reveal the fundamental nature of the theory
of sets and to preserve its achievements, while at the same time
providing a general replacement for the CP.
## 2. The Background to Zermelo's Axiomatisation
### 2.1 Hilbert's Axiomatic Method
Hilbert's early work on the axiomatic method is an important part
of the context of Zermelo's axiomatisation. Hilbert developed a
particular version of the axiomatic approach to fundamental
mathematical theories in his work on geometry in the period
1894-1904 (see Hallett and Majer 2004). This was to be seen as a
distinct alternative to what Hilbert called the 'genetic
approach' to mathematics. (For a short, historically informed
description, see Felgner 2010: 169-174.) Ebbinghaus's book on
Zermelo makes it very clear how embedded Zermelo was in the Hilbert
foundational circle in the early years of the
century.[8]
This is not meant to suggest that Zermelo adopted Hilbert's approach
to the foundations of mathematics in all its aspects. Indeed, Zermelo
developed his own, distinctive approach to foundational matters which
was very different from Hilbert's, something which emerges quite
clearly from his later work. Nevertheless, there are two elements of
Zermelo's procedure which fit very well with Hilbert's foundational
approach in the early part of the century. The first element concerns
what might be called the programmatic element of Hilbert's treatment
of the foundations of mathematics as it emerged in the later 1890s,
and especially with regard to the notion of mathematical
existence. And the second concerns proof analysis, a highly important
part of Hilbert's work on Euclidean geometry and geometrical systems
generally. These matters are intricate, and cannot be discussed
adequately here (for fuller discussion, see both Hallett 2008 and
2010a). But it is important for understanding Zermelo's work fully
that a rough account be given.
#### 2.1.1 Programmatic elements
First, Hilbert adopted the view that a mature presentation of a
mathematical theory must be given axiomatically. This, he claims,
requires several things:
1. The postulation of the existence of a domain, of a 'system
(or systems) of things'.
3. The insistence, however, that nothing is known about those things
except what is expressed in, or can be derived from, a finite list of
axioms.
4. The requirement, along with this, of finite proofs, which begin
with axioms and proceed from these to a conclusion by a 'finite
number of inferences' (i.e., acceptable inferential steps).
5. The rather imprecise notion of the 'completeness' of
the axiomatisation, which involves, loosely, showing that the axioms can prove all
that they 'ought' to prove.
6. The provision of a consistency proof for these axioms, showing
that no contradiction is derivable by a proof constructed in the
system given.
For one thing, Hilbert was very clear (especially in his
unpublished lectures on geometry: see Hallett and Majer 2004) that,
although a domain is asserted to 'exist', all that is
known about the objects in the domain is what is given to us by the
axioms and what can be derived from these through 'finite
proof'. In other words, while a domain is postulated, nothing is
taken to be known about the things in it independently of the axioms
laid down and what they entail. The basic example was given by
geometrical systems of points, lines and planes; although the
geometrical domain is made up of these things, nothing can be assumed
known about them (in particular no 'intuitive' geometrical
knowledge from whatever source) other than what is given in the axioms
or which can be derived from them by legitimate inference. (The axioms
themselves might sum up, or be derived from, 'intuitive'
knowledge, but that is a different matter. And even here it is
important that we can detach the axioms from their intuitive
meanings.)
Secondly, while 'existence' of the objects is just a
matter (as Zermelo says) of belonging to the domain (a fact which is
established by the axioms or by proofs from those axioms), the
mathematical existence of the domain itself, and (correspondingly) of
the system set out by the axioms, is established only by a consistency
proof for the axioms. Thus, to take the prime example, the
'existence' of Euclidean geometry (or more accurately
Euclidean geometries) is shown by the consistency proofs given by
means of analytic
geometry.[9]
Thus, the unit of consistency is not the
concept nor the individual propositions, but rather the system of
axioms as a whole, and different systems necessarily give accounts of
different primitives. The expectation is that when a domain is
axiomatised, attention will turn (at some point) to a consistency
proof, and this will deal finally with the question of mathematical
existence. In any case, the task of showing existence is a
mathematical one and there is no further ontological or metaphysical
mystery to be solved once the axioms are laid down.
Many aspects of Hilbert's position are summed up in this
passage from his 1902 lectures on the foundations of geometry: the
axioms 'create' the domains, and the consistency proofs
justify their existence. As he puts it:
>
> The things with which mathematics is concerned are
> defined through axioms, *brought into life*.
>
>
> The axioms can be taken quite arbitrarily. However, if these axioms
> contradict each other, then no logical consequences can be drawn from
> them; the system defined then does not exist for the
> mathematician. (Hilbert 1902: 47 or Hallett and Majer 2004: 563)
>
>
>
This notion of 'definition through axioms', what came
to be known as the method of 'implicit definition', can be
seen in various writings of Hilbert's from around 1900. His
attitude to existence is illustrated in the following passage from his
famous paper on the axiomatisation of the reals:
>
> The objections which have been raised against the existence of
> the totality of all real numbers and infinite sets generally lose
> all their justification once one has adopted the view stated above
> [the axiomatic method]. By the set of the real numbers we do not
> have to imagine something like the totality of all possible laws
> governing the development of a fundamental series, but rather, as
> has been set out, a system of things whose mutual relations are
> given by the *finite and closed* systems of axioms I-IV [for
> complete ordered fields] given above, and about which statements
> only have validity in the case where one can derive them via a
> finite number of inferences from those axioms. (Hilbert 1900b:
> 184)[10]
>
>
>
The parallels between this 'axiomatic method' of
Hilbert's and Zermelo's axiomatisation of set theory are
reasonably clear, if not
exact.[11]
Particularly clear are the assumption of the existence of a
'domain' B, the statement of a finite list of
axioms governing its contents, and the recognition of the requirement
of a general consistency proof. There's also implicit
recognition of the requirements of 'finite proof'; this
leads us to the second important aspect of the Hilbertian background,
namely proof analysis and the use of the Axiom of Choice.
#### 2.1.2 Proof analysis and Zermelo's Well-Ordering Theorem [WOT]
A great deal of Hilbert's work on geometry concerned the analysis
of proofs, of what can, or cannot, be derived from what. Much of
Hilbert's novel work on geometry involved the clever use of
(arithmetical) models for geometrical systems to demonstrate a
succession of independence results, which, among other things, often
show how finely balanced various central assumptions
are.[12]
Moreover, a close reading of Hilbert's work makes it clear that the
development of an appropriate axiom system itself goes hand-in-hand
with the reconstruction and analysis of proofs.
One straightforward kind of proof analysis was designed to reveal
what assumptions there are behind accepted 'theorems', and
this is clearly pertinent in the case of Zermelo's Axiom of Choice
(his sixth axiom) and the WOT. What Zermelo's work showed, in effect,
is that the 'choice' principle behind the Axiom is a
necessary and sufficient condition for WOT; and he shows this by
furnishing a Hilbertian style proof for the theorem, i.e., a
conclusion which follows from (fairly) clear assumptions by means of a
finite number of inferential steps. Indeed, the Axiom is chosen so as
to make the WOT provable, and it transpired subsequently that it also
made provable a vast array of results, mainly (but not solely) in set
theory and in set-theoretic algebra. To understand the importance of
Zermelo's work, it's necessary to appreciate the centrality of the
WOT.
### 2.2 The Well-Ordering Problem and the Well-Ordering Theorem
#### 2.2.1 The importance of the problem before Zermelo
In one of the fundamental papers in the genesis of set theory,
Cantor (1883a) isolated the notion of a well-ordering on a collection
as one of the central conceptual pillars on which number is
built. Cantor took the view that the notion of a counting number must
be based on an underlying ordering of the set of things being counted,
an ordering in which there is a first element counted, and, following
any collection of elements counted, there must be a next element
counted, assuming that there are elements still uncounted. This kind
of ordering he called a 'well-ordering', which we now
define as a total-ordering with an extra condition, namely that any
subset has a least element in the ordering. Cantor recognised that
each distinct well-ordering of the elements gives rise to a distinct
counting number, what he originally called an '*Anzahl*
[enumeral]', later an '*Ordnungszahl* [ordinal
number]', numbers which are conceptually quite different from
*cardinal numbers* or *powers*, meant to express just the size of
collections.[13]
This distinction is hard to perceive at first sight. Before Cantor and
the rise of the modern theory of transfinite numbers, the standard
counting numbers were the ordinary finite
numbers.[14]
And, crucially, for finite collections, it turns out that any two
orderings of the same underlying elements, which are certainly
well-orderings in Cantor's sense, are order-isomorphic, i.e., not
essentially
distinct.[15]
This means that one can in effect
identify a number arrived at by counting (an ordinal number) with the
cardinal number of the collection counted. Thus, the ordinary natural
numbers appear in two guises, and it is possible to determine the size
of a finite collection directly by counting it. Cantor observed that
this ceases to be the case in rather dramatic fashion once one
considers infinite collections; here, the same elements can give rise
to a large variety of distinct well-orderings.
Nevertheless, Cantor noticed that if one collects together all the
countable ordinal numbers, i.e., the numbers representing
well-orderings of the set of natural numbers, this collection, which
Cantor called the *second number-class* (the first being the set of
natural numbers), must be of greater cardinality than that of the
collection of natural numbers itself. Moreover, this size is the
cardinal *successor* to the size of the natural numbers in the very
clear sense that any infinite subset of the second number-class is
either of the power of the natural numbers or of the power of the
whole class; thus, there can be no size which is strictly
intermediate. The process generalises: collect together all the
ordinal numbers representing well-orderings of the second number-class
to form the third number-class, and this must be the immediate
successor in size to that of the second number-class, and so on. In
this way, Cantor could use the ordinal numbers to generate an infinite
sequence of cardinalities or powers. This sequence was later
(Cantor 1895) called the aleph-sequence, 0 (the
size of the natural numbers), 1 (expressing the
size of the second number-class), 2 (expressing the
size of the third number-class), and so on. Since the intention was
that ordinal numbers could be generated arbitrarily far, then so too,
it seems, could the alephs.
This raises the possibility of reinstating the centrality of the
ordinal numbers as the fundamental numbers even in the case of
infinite sets, thus making ordinality the foundation of cardinality
for all sets. In work after 1883, Cantor attempted to show that the
alephs actually represent a scale of infinite cardinal number. For
instance, it is shown that the ordinal numbers are comparable, i.e.,
for any two ordinal numbers a, b, either
a < b,
a = b or
a > b, a desirable, perhaps
essential, property of counting numbers. Through this, comparability
therefore transfers to the alephs, and Cantor was able to give clear
and appropriate arithmetical operations of addition, multiplication
and exponentiation, generalising the corresponding notions for finite
collections, and the statement and proof of general laws concerning
these.
In 1878, Cantor had put forward the hypothesis that there is no
infinite power between that of the natural numbers and the
continuum. This became known as Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis
(CH). With the adumbration of the number classes, CH takes on the form
that the continuum has the power of the second number-class, and with
the development of the aleph-scale, it assumes the form of a
conjecture about the exponentiation operation in the generalised
cardinal arithmetic, for it can be expressed in the form
20 =
1. The *continuum problem* more generally
construed is really the problem of where the power of the continuum is
in the scale of aleph numbers, and the generalised continuum
hypothesis is the conjecture that taking the power set of an infinite
set corresponds to moving up just one level in the aleph scale. For
example, in 1883, Cantor had assumed (without remark) that the set of
all real functions has the size of the third number-class. Given the
CH, this then becomes the conjecture that
21 = 2.
But adopting the aleph scale as a framework for infinite
cardinality depends on significant assumptions. It is clear that any
collection in well-ordered form (given that it is represented by an
ordinal) must have an aleph-number representing its size, so clearly
the aleph-sequence represents the sizes (or *powers* as Cantor called
them) of all the well-ordered sets. However, can *any* set be put into
well-ordered form? A particular question of this form concerns the
continuum itself: if the continuum is equivalent to the second
number-class, then clearly it can be well-ordered, and indeed this is
a necessary condition for showing that the continuum is represented at
all in the scale. But *can* it be well-ordered? More generally, to
assume that *any* cardinality is represented in the scale of aleph
numbers is to assume in particular that *any* set can be
well-ordered. And to assume that the aleph-sequence is *the* scale of
infinite cardinal number is to assume at the very least that sets
generally can be compared cardinally; i.e., that for any *M*, *N*, either
*M* [?] *N* or
*N* [?] *M*, COMP for short. But is this
correct?
When introducing the notion of well-ordering in 1883, Cantor
expressed his belief that the fact that any set
('manifold') can be well-ordered is 'a law of
thought [Denkgesetz]', thus putting forward what for convenience
we can call the well-ordering hypothesis (WOH):
>
> The concept of *well-ordered set* reveals itself as
> fundamental for the theory of manifolds. That it is always possible to
> arrange any *well-defined* set in the form of a *well-ordered* set is, it
> seems to me, a very basic law of thought, rich in consequences, and
> particularly remarkable in virtue of its general validity. I will
> return to this in a later memoir. (Cantor 1883a or 1932: 169)
>
>
>
Cantor says nothing about what it might mean to call the
well-ordering hypothesis a 'law of thought', and he never
did return to this question directly; however, in one form or another,
this claim is key. It could be that Cantor at this time considered the
WOH as something like a logical
principle.[16] This, however, is not
particularly clear, especially since the study of formal logic
adequate for mathematical reasoning was only in its infancy, and the
set concept itself was new and rather unclearly delimited. Another
suggestion is that well-orderability is intrinsic to the way that
'well-defined' sets are either presented or conceived,
e.g., that it is impossible to think of a collection's being a
set without at the same time allowing that its elements can be
arranged 'discretely' in some way, or even that such
arrangement can be automatically deduced from the
'definition'. Thus, if one views sets as necessary for
mathematics, and one holds that the concept of set itself necessarily
involves the discrete arrangement of the elements of the set, then WOH
might appear necessary, too. But all of this is imprecise, not least
because the notion of set itself was imprecise and imprecisely
formulated. One clear implication of Cantor's remark is that he
regards the WOH as something which does not require
proof. Nonetheless, not long after he had stated this, Cantor clearly
had doubts both about the well-orderability of the continuum and about
cardinal comparability (see Moore 1982: 44). All of
this suggested that the WOH, and the associated hypothesis that the
alephs represent the scale of infinite cardinality, do require proof,
and cannot just be taken as 'definitional'. Thus, it
seemed clear that the whole Cantorian project of erecting a scale of
infinite size depends at root on the correctness of the WOH.
Work subsequent to 1884 suggests that Cantor felt the need to
supply arguments for well-ordering. For instance (Cantor 1895: 493) to
show that every infinite set *T* has a countable subset (and thus
that 0 is the smallest cardinality), Cantor set
out to *prove the existence* of a subset of *T* which is
well-ordered like the natural numbers. The key point to observe here
is that Cantor felt it necessary to *exhibit* a well-ordered subset
of *T*, and did not simply proceed by first assuming (by appeal
to his '*Denkgesetz*') that *M* can be
arranged in well-ordered form. He exhibits such a subset in the
following way:
>
> *Proof.* If one has removed from *T* a finite number of
> elements *t*1, *t*2,
> ..., *t*n[?]1 according to some rule,
> then the possibility always remains of extracting a further
> element *t*n. The set {*t*n},
> in which n denotes an arbitrary finite, cardinal number, is a
> subset of *T* with the cardinal number 0,
> because {*t*n} [?] {n}. (Cantor 1895:
> 493)
>
>
>
In 1932, Zermelo edited Cantor's collected papers (Cantor 1932),
and commented on this particular proof as follows:
>
> The "proof" of Theorem A, which is purely intuitive
> and logically unsatisfactory, recalls the well-known primitive
> attempt to arrive at a *well-ordering* of a given set by successive
> removal of arbitrary elements. We arrive at a correct proof only
> when we *start from* an already *well-ordered* set, whose smallest
> transfinite initial segment in fact has the cardinal number
> 0 sought. (Zermelo in Cantor 1932: 352)
>
>
>
The second context in which an argument was given was an attempt
by Cantor (in correspondence first with Hilbert and then Dedekind) to
show that every set must have an aleph-number as a
cardinal.[17] What Cantor attempts to
show, in effect, is the following. Assume that O represents the
sequence of all ordinal numbers, and assume (for a *reductio* argument)
that *V* is a 'multiplicity' which is not equivalent
to any aleph. Then Cantor argues that O can be
'projected' into *V*, in turn showing that *V*
must be what he calls an 'inconsistent multiplicity',
i.e., not a legitimate set. It will follow that all sets have alephs
as cardinals, since they will always be 'exhausted' by
such a projection by some ordinal or other, in which case they will be
cardinally equivalent to some ordinal
number-class.[18] Zermelo's
dismissal of this attempted proof is no surprise, given the comments
just quoted. But he also comments further here exactly on this
'projection':
>
> The weakness of the proof outlined lies precisely
> here. It is *not* proved that the whole series of numbers O can be
> "projected into" any multiplicity *V* which does not
> have an aleph as a cardinal number, but this is rather taken from a
> somewhat vague "intuition". Apparently *Cantor* imagines the
> numbers of O successively and arbitrarily assigned to elements
> of *V* in such a way that every element of *V* is only used
> once. *Either* this process must then come to an end, in that all
> elements of *V* are used up, in which case *V* would be then
> be coordinated with an *initial* segment of the number series, and its
> power consequently an aleph, contrary to assumption; *or* *V* would
> remain inexhaustible and would then contain a component equivalent to
> the whole of O, thus an inconsistent component. Here, the
> intuition of time [*Zeitanschauung*] is being applied to a process which
> goes beyond all intuition, and a being [*Wesen*] supposed which can make
> *successive* arbitrary choices and thereby define a subset *V*'
> of *V* which is not definable by the conditions given. (Zermelo in Cantor 1932:
> 451)[19]
>
>
>
If it really is 'successive' selection which is relied
on, then it seems that one must be assuming a subset of instants of
time which is well-ordered and which forms a base ordering from which
the 'successive' selections are made. In short, what is
really presupposed is a well-ordered subset of temporal instants which
acts as the basis for a recursive definition. Even in the case of
countable subsets, if the 'process' is actually to come to
a conclusion, the 'being' presupposed would presumably
have to be able to distinguish a (countably) infinite, discrete
sequence of instants within a finite time, and this assumption is, as
is well-known, a notoriously controversial one. In the general case,
the position is actually worse, for here the question of the
well-orderability of the given set depends at the very least on the
existence of a well-ordered subset of temporal instants of arbitrarily
high infinite cardinality. This appears to go against the assumption
that time is an ordinary continuum, i.e., of cardinality
20, unless of course the power set of
the natural numbers itself is too 'big' to be counted by
any ordinal, in which case much of the point of the argument would be
lost, for one of its aims is presumably to show that the power of the
continuum is somewhere in the
aleph-sequence.[20]
Part of what is at issue here, at least implicitly, is what
constitutes a proof. It seems obvious that if a set is non-empty, then
it must be possible to 'choose' an element from it (i.e.,
there must exist an element in it). Indeed, the obviousness of this is
enshrined in the modern logical calculus by the way the inference
principle of Existential Instantiation (EI) usually works: from
[?]*x**P**x* one assumes *Pc*, where
'*c*' is a new constant, and reasons on that basis;
whatever can be inferred from
*P*(*c*) (as long as it does not itself contain the new constant
'*c*') is then taken to be inferable from [?]*x**P**x*
alone. Furthermore, it is clear how this extends to finite sets (or
finite extensions) by stringing together successive inferential
steps. But how can such an inferential procedure be extended to
infinite sets, if at all?
Some evidence of the centrality of WOH is provided by Problem 1 on
Hilbert's list of mathematical problems in his famous lecture to
the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900. He
notes Cantor's conviction of the correctness of CH, and its
'great probability', then goes on to mention another
'remarkable assertion' of Cantor's, namely his
belief that the continuum, although not (in its natural order) in
well-ordered form, can be rearranged as a well-ordered set. However,
Russell, writing at roughly the same time, expressed doubts about
precisely this:
>
> Cantor assumes as an axiom that every class is the field of some
> well-ordered series, and deduces that all cardinals can be
> correlated with ordinals .... This assumption seems to me
> unwarranted, especially in view of the fact that no one has yet
> succeeded in arranging a class of 2a0
> terms in a well-ordered series. (Russell 1903: 322-323)
>
>
>
He goes on:
>
> We do not know that of any two different cardinal numbers one
> must be the greater, and it may be that
> 2a0 is neither greater nor less that
> a1 and a2 and their successors,
> which may be called well-ordered cardinals because they apply to
> well-ordered series. (Russell 1903:
> 323)[21]
>
>
>
And recall that, at the International Congress of Mathematicians in
Heidelberg in 1904, Konig had given an apparently convincing
proof that the continuum *cannot* be an aleph. Konig's
argument, as we know, turned out to contain fatal flaws, but in any
case, the confusion it exhibits is
instructive.[22]
In short, the clear impression in the immediate period leading up
to Zermelo's work was *both* that only the WOH would provide a
solid foundation on which to build a reasonable notion of infinite
cardinal number as a proper framework for tackling CH, *and* that WOH
requires justification, that it must become, in effect, the WOT, the
WO-Theorem. In short, establishing the WOT was closely bound up with
the clarification of what it is to count as a set.
#### 2.2.2 Zermelo's 1904 Proof of the Well-Ordering Theorem
Zermelo's approach to the well-ordering problem took place in
three stages. He published a proof of WOT in 1904 (Zermelo 1904, an
extract from a letter to Hilbert), where he first introduced the
'choice' principle, a principle designed (despite the name
it has come to bear) to move away from the Cantorian
'choosing' arguments which almost universally preceded
Zermelo's work, and which postulates that arbitrary
'choices' have already been made. This paper produced an
outcry, to which Zermelo responded by producing a new proof
(1908a), which again uses the choice principle, but this time
in a somewhat different form and expressed now explicitly as an
axiom. The first three pages of this paper give the new proof; this
was then followed by seventeen pages which reply in great detail to
many of the objections raised against the first proof. These consisted
in objections to the choice principle itself, and also objections to
the unclarity of the underlying assumptions about, and operation with,
sets used in the proof. This paper was followed just two months later
by Zermelo's official axiomatisation (1908b), an
axiomatisation which to a large degree was prefigured in the paper
(1908a).
Zermelo's 1904 proof can be briefly described.
(1) Let *M* be an arbitrarily given set, and let **M** be its power set. Assume given what Zermelo calls a
'covering' of **M**, i.e., a function g
from non-empty elements of **M** to *M* such that
g(*X*) [?] *X*, in other words, what would now be called a choice
function. The argument then shows that such a g determines a
unique well-ordering
of *M*.[23]
(2) Using a fixed such g, Zermelo then defines the so-called
g-sets *M*g. These satisfy the following
conditions:
1. *M*g [?] *M*;
2. *M*g is well-ordered by some ordering
[?] specific to *M*g;
3. If a [?] *M*g, then *a* must
determine an initial segment *A* of *M*g
under [?]; but now g and [?] must be related in such a
way that *a* = g(*M* [?] *A*), i.e., *a* is the
'distinguished element' (as Zermelo calls it) of the
complement of *A* in *M*.
(3) There clearly are g sets:
{*m*1} is one such, where
*m*1 = g(*M*) and
where we take the trivial well-ordering. The set
{*m*1, *m*2} is also a g-set,
where again
*m*1 = g(*M*),
*m*2 = g(*M* [?] {*m*1}), and
{*m*1, *m*2} is given the ordering
which places *m*2 after *m*1. (Note
that
{*m*1, *m*2} with the other
ordering would not be a g-set.) In fact, it is easy to see that
if
*M*' [?] *M* is to be a g-set, then
condition (2)(c) means that [?] is uniquely (one is tempted to
say, recursively) determined.
(4) Indeed, following this, Zermelo shows that of any two distinct
g-sets, one is identical to an initial segment of the other, and
the well-ordering of the latter extends the well-ordering of the
former.
(5) Zermelo now considers the set *L*g,
which is the union taken over all the g-sets. It is not
difficult to see that *L*g itself must be a
g-set, indeed, the largest such. By
definition,
*L*g [?] *M*; but Zermelo shows
that equality must hold. If not, then
*M* [?] *L*g would be a non-empty subset
of *M*, in which case we can consider
g(*M* [?] *L*g)
= *m*1'. Now form
*L*g' *L*g
[?] {*m*1'}, and supply it with the
well-ordering which is the same as that in *L*g,
except that we extend it by fixing that
*x* [?] *m*1' for any
*x* [?] *L*g. Clearly
now *L*g' is a g-set, but one which
properly extends *L*g, which is a
contradiction. Thus
*L*g' = *M*, and so *M*
can be well-ordered by the ordering
of *L*g'.[24]
As Zermelo points out (p. 516 of his paper), the WOT establishes a
firm foundation for the theory of infinite cardinality; in particular,
it shows, he says, that every set ('for which the totality of
its subsets etc. has a sense') can be considered as a
well-ordered set 'and its power considered as an
aleph'. Later work of Hartogs (see Hartogs 1915) showed that,
not only does WOT imply COMP as Zermelo shows, but that COMP itself
implies WOT, and thus in turn Zermelo's choice principle. Thus,
it is not just COMP which is necessary for a reasonable theory of
infinite cardinality, but WOT itself. Despite Zermelo's
endorsement here, the correctness of the hypothesis that the scale of
aleph numbers represents *all* cardinals (AH, for short) is a more
complicated matter, for it involves the claim that every set is
actually equivalent to an initial segment of the ordinals, and not
just well-orderable. In axiomatic frameworks for sets, therefore, the
truth of AH depends very much on which ordinals are present as sets in
the system.
The subsequent work showing the independence of AC from the other
axioms of set theory vindicates Zermelo's pioneering work; in
this respect, it puts Zermelo's revelation of the choice
principle in a similar position as that which Hilbert ascribes to the
Parallel Postulate in Euclid's work. Hilbert claims that Euclid
must have realised that to establish certain 'obvious'
facts about triangles, rectangles etc., an entirely *new* axiom
(Euclid's Parallel Postulate) was necessary, and moreover that
Gauss was the first mathematician 'for 2100 years' to
see that Euclid had been right (see Hallett and Majer 2004:261-263 and 343-345).
This 'pragmatic attitude', which is on display in
Zermelo's second paper on well-ordering from 1908, became, in
effect, the reigning attitude towards the choice principle: If certain
problems are to be solved, then the choice principle must be
adopted. In 1908, Zermelo brings out this parallel explicitly:
>
> Banishing fundamental facts or problems from science merely
> because they cannot be dealt with by means of certain prescribed
> principles would be like forbidding the further extension of the
> theory of parallels in geometry because the axiom upon which this
> theory rests has been shown to be unprovable. (Zermelo 1908a:
> 115)
>
>
>
Zermelo does not in 1904 call the choice principle an axiom; it
is, rather, designated a 'logical principle'. What Zermelo
has to say by way of an explanation is very short:
>
> This logical principle cannot, to be sure, be reduced to a still
> simpler one, but it is applied without hesitation everywhere in
> mathematical deduction. (Zermelo 1904: 516)
>
>
>
It is not clear from this whether he thinks of the choice principle
as a 'law of thought', as the term 'logical
principle' might suggest, or whether he thinks it is just
intrinsic to mathematical reasoning whenever sets are involved, a
position suggested by the reference to its application
'everywhere in mathematical deduction'. By the time of his
second well-ordering paper of 1908, Zermelo seems to have moved away
from the idea of AC as a 'logical' principle in the sense
of a logical law, and appears to put the emphasis more on the view of
it as intrinsic to the subject matter; there it appears as Axiom IV,
and, as we saw, Axiom VI of Zermelo
1908b.[25]
#### 2.2.3 Objections to the 1904 Proof
There were three central objections.
1. Objections to the Choice Principle.
2. Objections to Zermelo's general operation with sets, especially well-orderings.
3. Objections to impredicative definitions.
Let us briefly deal with these.
(a) The objections to the choice principle were of two kinds. The
main objection was put forward by Borel in 1905 in
the *Mathematische Annalen* (Borel 1905), the journal which
published Zermelo's paper, and it is also widely discussed in
correspondence between some leading French mathematicians, and also
published in that year in the same Journal (see Hadamard et
al. 1905). The objection is basically that Zermelo's principle fails
to specify a 'law' or 'rule' by which the
choices are effected; in other words, the covering used is not
explicitly defined, which means that the resulting well-ordering is
not explicitly defined either. In a letter to Borel, Hadamard makes it
clear that the opposition in question is really that between the
assumption of the existence of an object which is fully described, and
of the existence of an object which is *not* fully described (see
Hadamard et al. 1905, esp. 262). In his reply, Zermelo remarks that
the inability to describe the choices is why the choice principle is
in effect an *axiom*, which has to be added to the other principles. In
effect, the position is that if one wants to do certain things which,
e.g., rely on the WOT, then the choice principle is indispensable. His
position, to repeat, is like the one that Euclidean geometry takes
towards parallels.
(b) An objection to the choice principle was also put forward by
Peano. This objection seems to be that since the choice principle
cannot be proved 'syllogistically' (i.e., from the
principles of Peano's *Formulario*), then it has to be rejected (see
Peano 1906). (Peano does think, however, that finite versions of the
choice principle are provable, relying essentially on repeated
applications of a version for classes of the basic logical principle
EI mentioned above (SS2.2.1).
Zermelo's reply is the following. Axiom systems like Peano's are
constructed so as to be adequate for mathematics; but how does one go
about selecting the 'basic principles' required? One
cannot assemble a complete list of adequate principles, says Zermelo,
without careful inspection of actual mathematics and thereby a careful
assessment of what principles are actually necessary to such a list,
and such inspection would show that the choice principle is surely one
such; in other words, a selection of principles such as Peano's is
very much a *post hoc* procedure. The reply to Peano is of a piece with
the reply to Borel, and recalls strongly the invocation in Zermelo
(1908b: 261), that it is necessary to distill principles from the
actual operation with sets. He supports his claim that the choice
principle is necessary by a list of seven problems which 'in my
opinion, could not be dealt with at all without the principle of
choice' (Zermelo 1908a:
113).[26]
In particular he points out that the
principle is indispensable for any reasonable theory of infinite
cardinality, for only it guarantees the right results for infinite
unions/sums, and in addition is vital for making sense of the very
definition of infinite product. That Peano cannot establish the choice
principle from his principles, says Zermelo, strongly suggests that
his list of principles is not 'complete' (Zermelo 1908a:
112).
(c) Another line of objection, represented in different ways by
Bernstein (Bernstein 1905), Jourdain (Jourdain 1904, 1905b) and Schoenflies (Schoenflies 1905), was that Zermelo's general
operation with sets in his proof was dangerous and flirts with
paradox. (See also Hallett 1984, 176-182.) In its imprecise form, the objection is that Zermelo is less
than explicit about the principles he uses in 1904, and that he
employs procedures which are reminiscent of those used crucially in
the generation of the Burali-Forti antinomy, e.g., in showing that if
the set
*L*g [?] *M*, then it can be extended.
(What if *L*g is already the collection *W*?)
Zermelo's reply is dismissive, but there is something to the
criticism. Certainly Zermelo's 1904 proof attempts to show that WOT
can be proved while by-passing the general abstract theory of
well-ordering and its association with the Cantorian ordinals, and
therefore also bypassing the 'the set *W*' (as it was
widely known) of *all* Cantorian ordinals (denoted 'O'
by Cantor), and consequently the Burali-Forti antinomy. However,
whatever Zermelo's *intention*, there is no *explicit* attempt to exclude
the possibility that *L*g = *W* and thus the
suggestion that antinomy might threaten. Of course, Zermelo, referring
to critics who 'base their objections upon the
"Burali-Forti antinomy" ', declares that this
antinomy '*is without significance* for my point of view, since
the principles I employed *exclude* the existence of a set *W* [of
all ordinals]' (Zermelo 1908a: 128, with earlier hints on
118-119) that the real problem is with the 'more
elementary' Russell antinomy. It is also true that at the end of
the 1904 paper, Zermelo states that the argument holds for those
sets *M* 'for which the totality of subsets, and so on, is
meaningful', which, in retrospect is clearly a hint at important
restrictions on set formation. Even so, Zermelo's attitude is
unfair. It could be that the remark about 'the totality of
subsets etc.' is an indirect reference to difficulties with the
comprehension principle, but even so the principle is not repudiated
explicitly in the 1904 paper, neither does Zermelo put in its place
another principle for the conversion of properties to sets, which is
what the *Aussonderungsaxiom* of the 1908 axiomatisation
does. Moreover, he does not say that the existence principles on which
the proof is based are the *only* set existence principles, and he does
not divorce the proof of the theorem from the Cantorian assumptions
about well-ordering and ordinals. Indeed, Zermelo assumes that
'every set can be well-ordered' is equivalent to the
Cantorian 'every cardinality is an aleph' (Zermelo 1904:
141). And despite his later claim (Zermelo 1908a: 119), he does *appear*
to use the ordinals and the informal theory of well-ordering in his
definition of g-sets, where a g-set is 'any
well-ordered *M*g...', without any
specification of how 'well-ordered set' is to be
defined. What assurance is there that *this* can all be reduced to
Zermelo's principles? One important point here is that it had not yet
been shown that all the usual apparatus of set-theoretic mathematics
(relations, ordering relations, functions, cardinal equivalence
functions, order-isomorphisms, etc.) could be reduced to a few simple
principles of set existence. All of this was to come in the wake of
Zermelo's axiomatisation, and there is little doubt that this line of
criticism greatly influenced the shape of the second proof given in
1908, of which a little more below.
(d) The last line of objection was to a general feature of the
1904 proof, which was not changed in the second proof, namely the use
of what became known as 'impredicative definition'. An
impredicative definition is one which defines an object *a* by a
property *A* which itself involves reference, either direct or
indirect, to all the things with that property, and this must, of
course, include *a* itself. There is a sense, then, in which the
definition of *a* involves a circle. Both Russell and
Poincare became greatly exercised about this form of
definition, and saw the circle involved as being
'vicious', responsible for all the paradoxes. If one
thinks of definitions as like construction principles, then indeed
they are illegitimate. But if one thinks of them rather as ways of
singling out things which are already taken to exist, then they are
not illegitimate. In this respect, Zermelo endorses Hilbert's view of
existence. To show that some particular thing 'exists' is
to show that it is in B, i.e., to show by means of a finite
proof from the axioms that it exists in B. What
'exists', then, is really a matter of what the axioms,
taken as a whole, determine. If the separation, power set and choice
principles are axioms, then for a given *M* in the domain, there
will be choice functions/sets on the subsets of *M*, consequently
well-orderings, and so forth; if these principles are not included as
axioms, then such demonstrations of existence will not be
forthcoming. From this point of view, defining within the language
deployed is much more like what Zermelo calls
'determination', since definitions, although in a certain
sense arbitrary, have to be supported by existence proofs, and of
course in general it will turn out that a given extension can be
picked out by several, distinct 'determinations'. In
short, Zermelo's view is that definitions pick out (or determine)
objects from among the others in the domain being axiomatised; they
are not themselves responsible for showing their *existence*. In
the end, the existence of a domain B has to be guaranteed by a
consistency proof for the collection of axioms. Precisely this view
about impredicative definitions was put forward in Ramsey (1926:
368-369) and then later in Godel's 1944 essay on Russell's
mathematical logic as part of his analysis of the various things which
could be meant by Russell's ambiguously stated Vicious Circle
Principle. (See Godel 1944: 136, 127-128 of the reprinting
in Godel 1990. See also Hadamard's letters in Hadamard et
al. 1905.) To support his view, Zermelo points out that impredicative
definitions are taken as standard in established mathematics,
particularly in the way that the least upper bound is defined; witness
the Cauchy proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra. Once again,
Zermelo's reply is coloured by the principle of looking at the actual
practice of mathematics.[27]
#### 2.2.4 Zermelo's second proof of the WOT, 1908
As mentioned, Zermelo published a second proof of the WOT,
submitted to *Mathematische Annalen* just two weeks before the
submission of his 'official' axiomatisation, and published
in the same volume as that axiomatisation. This proof is too elaborate
to be described here; a much fuller description can be found in
Hallett (2010b: 94-103), but some brief remarks about it must be
made nevertheless. Recall that the purpose of the proof was, in large
part, to reply to (some of) the criticisms raised in objection to the
1904 proof, and not least to clarify the status of the choice
principle.
Suppose *M* is the set given, and suppose (using Zermelo's
notation) that U*M* is the set of its subsets
('*Untermengen*'). The basic procedure in the 1904 proof was
to single out certain subsets of *M* and to show that these can
in effect be 'chained' together, starting from modest
beginnings (and using the choice function g); thus we have
{*m*1}, where
*m*1 = g(*M*),
{*m*1, *m*2}, where
again
*m*1 = g(*M*)
and
*m*2 = g(*M* [?]
{*m*1}), and so on. In this way, the proof
shows that one can 'build up' to the whole of *M*
itself.[28] This
'build-up' is one of the things which provoked scepticism,
and particularly the step which shows that *M* itself must be
embraced by it. In the 1908 proof, the basic idea is to start
from *M* itself, and consider 'cutting down' by the
element 'chosen' by the choice principle, instead of
building up. Thus, if one accepts that if *M* is a legitimate
set, then so is U*M*, and there is not the same danger of
extending into inconsistent sets, not even the appearance of
danger. Again the key thing is to show that the sets defined are in
fact 'chained' together and are in the right way
exhaustive.
In the 1904 proof, there are points where it looks as if Zermelo
is appealing to arbitrary well-orderings, and thus indirectly
arbitrary ordinals. This is avoided in the 1908 proof (as it could
have been in the 1904 proof) by focusing on the particular
'chain' which the proof gives rise to. It is this chain
itself which exhibits the well-ordering.
In the modern understanding of set theory, to show that there is a
well-ordering on *M* would be to show that there is a set of
ordered pairs of members of *M* which is a relation satisfying
the right properties of a well-ordering relation over *M*. It is
well to remember that Zermelo's task in 1908 was constrained in that he had to
establish the existence of a well-ordering using only the
set-theoretical material *available to him*. This material did not
involve the general notion of ordinal and cardinal numbers, not even
the general notions of relation and function. What Zermelo used,
therefore, was the *particular* relation
*a* [?] *b* of being a subset,
and it is important to observe that the chain produced is
ordered by this relation.
Why would one expect this latter to work? Well, the chain produced
is naturally a subset well-ordering, for it is both linear and also
such that the intersection of arbitrary elements of members of the
chain is itself a member of the chain, and thus there is a natural
subset-least element for each subset of members of the chain. But the
wider explanation is hinted at towards the end of Zermelo's
proof. Suppose a set *M* is (speaking informally) *de facto*
well-ordered by an ordering relation [?]. Call the set
R[?](*a*) = {*x*
[?] *M* : *a* [?] *x*} the
'remainder [*Rest*]' determined by *a* and the ordering
[?]. Consider now the set of 'remainders' given by
this ordering, i.e.,
{R[?](*x*) : *x*
[?] *M*}. This set is in fact well-ordered by reverse
inclusion, where the successor remainder to
R[?](*a*) is just the remainder determined
by *a*'s successor *a*' under [?], and where
intersections are taken at the limit elements (the intersection of a
set of remainders is again a remainder). But not only is this set
well-ordered by reverse inclusion, the ordering is *isomorphic* to the
ordering [?] on *M*, that is:
>
> *a* [?] *b* if and only if
> R[?](*b*) [?]
> R[?](*a*).
>
Zermelo's 1908 construction is now meant to define a
'remainder set' directly without detour through some
[?]; the resultant inclusion ordering is then
'mirrored' on *M*. The key thing is to show that the
chain of subsets of *M* picked out really matches *M*
itself. But if there were some element *a*
[?] *M* which did not correspond to a remainder
R[?](*a*), then it must be possible to use
the choice function to 'squeeze' another remainder into
the chain, which would contradict the assumption that all the sets
with the appropriate definition are already in the
chain.[29] We
have spoken of functions and relations here. But in fact Zermelo
avoids such talk. He defines *M* as being
'well-ordered' when each element in *M*
'corresponds' uniquely to such a 'remainder'
(Zermelo 1908a: 111). This shows, says Zermelo, that the theory of
well-ordering rests 'exclusively upon the elementary notions of
set theory', and that 'the uninformed are only too prone
to look for some mystical meaning behind Cantor's relation
*a* [?] *b*' (Zermelo 1908a).
One can be considerably more precise about the relation between
orderings on *M* and 'remainder inclusion orderings'
in U*M*. Much of this was worked out in Hessenberg (1906), and
was therefore known to Zermelo (Zermelo and Hessenberg were in regular
contact), and simplified greatly by Kuratowski in the 1920s. We will
have reason to refer to Kuratowski briefly in the next
section.[30]
What about the choice principle? In 1904, this is framed in effect
as a choice function, whose domain is the non-empty subsets
on *M*. But in 1908, Zermelo frames it differently:
> Axiom IV. A set *S* that can be decomposed into a
> set of disjoint parts *A*, *B*, *C*, ..., each
> containing at least one element, possesses at least one
> subset *S*1 having exactly one element in common with
> each of the parts *A*, *B*, *C*, ...
> considered. (Zermelo 1908a: 110)
>
>
>
In other words, the choice principle is now cast in a *set* form, and
not in the function form of 1904.
In the 1908 axiomatisation, the axiom is stated in much the same
way, but is called there (though not in the well-ordering paper) the
'Axiom of Choice'. However, the 1908 paper on WOT does say
that the axiom provides a set (the *S*1) of
'simultaneous choices', to distinguish them from the
'successive choices' used in the pre-Zermelo versions of
well-ordering. It is to be noted that in 1921, Zermelo wrote to
Fraenkel in partial repudiation of the designation 'Axiom of
Choice', saying that 'there is no sense in which my theory
deals with a real
"choice" '.[31]
#### 2.2.5 The Axioms of the 1908 WOT Paper
What axioms governing set-existence does Zermelo rely on in Zermelo
(1908a)? At the start of the paper, Zermelo list two
'postulates' that he explicitly depends on, a version of
the separation axiom, and the power set axiom. Later on he lists Axiom
IV, which, as noted, asserts the existence of a choice set for any set
of disjoint non-empty sets. In addition to this, Zermelo makes use of
the existence of various elementary sets, though he doesn't say
exactly which principles he relies on. In the axiomatisation which
follows two weeks later, Zermelo adopts all these axioms, but adds
clarification about the elementary sets. He also adds the Axiom of Infinity, to
guarantee that there are infinite sets, and the Axiom of
Extensionality, which codifies the assumption that sets are really
determined by their members, and not by the accidental way in which
these members are selected. In addition, as we have noted,
he now calls the Axiom of Choice by this name.
## 3. The Major Problems with Zermelo's System
Zermelo's system, although it forms the root of all modern
axiomatisations of set theory, initially faced various
difficulties. These were:
1. Problems with the Axiom of Choice.
2. Problem with the formulation of the Separation Axiom.
3. Problems of 'completeness', one of Hilbert's important desiderata on the adequacy of an axiom system. Specifically, there were problems representing ordinary mathematics purely set-theoretically, and also problems representing fully the transfinite extension of mathematics which Cantor had pioneered.
The problems concerning the Axiom of Choice were discussed above;
we now discuss the difficulties with the formulation of Separation and
those of 'completeness'.
### 3.1 Separation
The problem with the Axiom of Separation is not with the
obviousness of the principle; it *seems* straightforward to accept that
if one has a set of objects, one can separate off a subclass of this
set by specifying a property, and treat this in turn as a set. The
question here is a subtler one, namely that of how to formulate this
principle as an axiom. What means of 'separating off' are
to be accepted? What are allowable as the properties? As a matter of
practice, we use a language to state the properties, and in informal
mathematics, this is a mixture of natural language and special
mathematical language. The Richard Paradox (see Richard 1905 and also
the papers of Poincare 1905, 1906a,b) makes it clear that one
has to be careful when defining properties, and that the unregulated
use of 'ordinary language' can lead to unexpected
difficulties.
Zermelo's answer to this, in moving from the system of the second
well-ordering paper to the axiomatisation, is to try specifying what
properties are to be allowed. He calls the properties to be allowed
'definite properties'
('*Klassenaussagen*' or 'propositional
functions'), and states:
>
> A question or assertion E is said to be
> "*definite*" if the fundamental relations of the domain, by
> means of the axioms and the universally valid laws of logic, determine
> without arbitrariness whether it holds or not. Likewise a
> "propositional function" E(*x*), in which the
> variable term *x* ranges over all individuals of a
> class K, is said to be "definite" if it is definite
> for each single individual *x* of the class K. Thus the
> question whether
> *a* e *b* or not is always
> definite, as is the question whether *M*
> [?] *N* or not.
>
>
>
Zermelo asserts that this shows that paradoxes involving the
notions of definability (e.g., Richard's) or denotation (Konig's)
are avoided, implying that what is crucial is the restriction to the
'fundamental relations of the domain' (so, e,
=).
The basic problem is that it is not explained by Zermelo what the
precise route is from the fundamental relations e and = to a
given 'definite property'; it is this which gives rise to
a general doubt that the Separation Axiom is not, in fact, a safe
replacement for the comprehension principle (see Fraenkel 1927:
104). This plays into the hands of those, who, like Poincare,
consider adoption of the Separation Axiom as insufficiently radical in
the search for a solution to the paradoxes. Poincare
writes:
>
> Mr. Zermelo does not allow himself to consider the set of all the
> objects which satisfy a certain condition because it seems to him that
> this set is never closed; that it will always be possible to introduce
> new objects. On the other hand, he has no scruple in speaking of the
> set of objects which are part of a certain *Menge* *M* and which
> also satisfy a certain condition. It seems to him that one cannot
> possess a *Menge* without possessing at the same time all its
> elements. Among these elements, he will choose those which satisfy a
> given condition, and will be able to make this choice very calmly,
> without fear of being disturbed by the introduction of new and
> unforeseen elements, since he already has all these elements in his
> hands. By positing beforehand this *Menge* *M*, he has erected an
> enclosing wall which keeps out the intruders who could come from
> without. But he does not query whether there could be intruders from
> within whom he enclosed inside his wall. (Poincare 1909: 477;
> p. 59 of the English translation)
>
>
>
Here, Poincare is referring indirectly to his view that the
paradoxes are due to impredicative set formation, and this of course
will be still be possible even with the adoption of the Axiom of
Separation.
The problem of the lack of clarity in Zermelo's account was
addressed by Weyl in 1910 (Weyl 1910; see especially p. 113) and then
again by Skolem in 1922 (Skolem 1923, p. 139 of the reprint). What
Weyl and Skolem both proposed, in effect, is that the question of what
'definite properties' are can be solved by taking these to
be the properties expressed by 1-place predicate formulas in what we
now call first-order logic. In effect, we thus have a recursive
definition which makes the definite properties completely transparent
by giving each time the precise route from e, = to the
definite property in question. This does not deal with all aspects of
Poincare's worry, but it does make it quite clear what definite
properties are, and it does also accord with Zermelo's view that the
relations =, e are at root the only ones
used.[32]
Fraenkel (1922 and later) took a different approach with a rather
complicated direct axiomatisation of the notion of definite property,
using recursive generation from the basic properties giving a notion
which appears to be a subset of the recursively defined first-order
properties.
Zermelo accepted none of these approaches, for two reasons. First,
he thought that the recursive definitions involved make direct use of
the notion of finite number (a fact pointed out by Weyl 1910), which
it ought to be the business of set theory to explain, not to
presuppose. Secondly, he became aware that using essentially a
first-order notion condemns the axiomatic system to countable models,
the fundamental fact pointed out in Skolem (1923). His own approach
was, first, to give a different kind of axiomatisation (see Zermelo
1929), and then to use (in Zermelo 1930) an essentially second-order
notion in characterising the axiom of
separation.[33]
### 3.2 Completeness
There were also problems with the completeness of Zermelo's theory,
since there were important theoretical matters with which Zermelo does
not deal, either for want of appropriate definitions showing how
certain constructions can be represented in a pure theory of sets, or
because the axioms set out in Zermelo's system are not strong
enough.
#### 3.2.1 Representing Ordinary Mathematics
Zermelo gives no obvious way of representing much of
'ordinary mathematics', yet it is clear from his opening
remarks that he regards the task of the theory of sets to stand as *the*
fundamental theory which should 'investigate mathematically the
fundamental notions "number", "order", and
"function" '.
(See SS1.)
The first obvious question concerns the representation of the
ordinary number systems. The natural numbers are represented by
Zermelo as by [?], {[?]}, {{[?]}}, ..., and the Axiom
of Infinity gives us a set of these. Moreover, it seems that, since
both the set of natural numbers and the power set axiom are available,
there are enough sets to represent the rationals and the reals,
functions on reals etc. What are missing, though, are the details: how
exactly does one represent the right equivalence classes, sequences
etc.? And assuming that one *could* define the real numbers, how does
one characterise the field operations on them? In addition, as
mentioned previously, Zermelo has no natural way of representing
either the general notions of relation or of function. This means that
his presentation of set theory has no natural way of representing
those parts of mathematics (like real analysis) in which the general
notion of function plays a fundamental part.
A further difficulty is that the lack of the notion of function
makes the general theory of the comparison of sets by size (or indeed
by order) cumbersome. Zermelo does develop a way of expressing, for
disjoint sets *a*, *b*, that *a* is of the same size
as *b*, by first defining a 'product' of two disjoint
sets, and then isolating a set of unordered pairs (a certain subset of
this product) which 'maps' one of the sets one-to-one onto
the other. But this is insufficiently general, and does not in any
case indicate any way to introduce 'the' size
of *a*. Russell's method (defining the cardinality of *M* as
the set *card*(*M*) = {*N* : *N*
[?] *M*} (where '[?]' means
'cardinally equivalent to') is clearly inappropriate,
since with a set *a* = {*b*},
*card*(*a*) (which should be the cardinal number 1) is as big as
the universe, and the union set of 1 would indeed be the
universal 'set'. Over and above this, there is the more
specific problem of defining the aleph numbers.
The second major difficulty is along the same lines, concerning,
not functions, but relations, and thus ordering relations and ordinal
numbers. As we have seen
(in SS2.2.4), Zermelo has the
beginnings of an answer to this in his second proof of the WOT, for
this uses a theory of subset-orderings to represent the underlying
ordering of a set. It turns out that the method given in this
particular case suggests the right way to capture the general
notion.
#### 3.2.2 Ordinality
Zermelo's idea (1908a) was pursued by Kuratowski in the 1920s,
thereby generalising and systematising work, not just of Zermelo, but
of Hessenberg and Hausdorff too, giving a simple set of necessary and
sufficient conditions for a subset ordering to represent a linear
ordering. He also argues forcefully that it is in fact *undesirable* for
set theory to go beyond this and present a general theory of ordinal
*numbers*:
>
> In reasoning with transfinite numbers one implicitly uses an
> axiom asserting their *existence*; but it is desirable both from the
> logical and mathematical point of view to pare down the system of
> axioms employed in demonstrations. Besides, this reduction will free
> such reasoning from a foreign element, which increases its
> aesthetic value. (Kuratowski 1922: 77)
>
>
>
The assumption here is clearly that the (transfinite) numbers will
have to be added to set theory as new primitives. Kuratowski however
undertakes to *prove* that the transfinite numbers can be dispensed with
for a significant class of
applications.[34]
Application of the ordinal numbers in
analysis, topology, etc. often focuses on some process of definition
by transfinite recursion over these numbers. Kuratowski succeeds in
showing that in a significant class of cases of this kind, the
ordinals can be avoided by using purely set-theoretic methods which
are reproducible in Zermelo's system. As he notes:
>
> From the viewpoint of Zermelo's axiomatic theory of sets, one can
> say that the method explained here allows us to deduce theorems of a
> certain well-determined general type *directly* from Zermelo's axioms,
> that is to say, without the introduction of any independent,
> supplementary axiom about the existence of transfinite
> numbers. (Kuratowski 1922:
> 77)[35]
>
>
>
It is in this reductionist context that Kuratowski develops his
very general theory of maximal inclusion orderings, which shows, in
effect, that all orderings on *a* can really be represented as
inclusion orderings on appropriate subsets of the power set
of *a*, thus reducing ordering to Zermelo's primitive relation
e.
One immediate, and quite remarkable, result of this work is that it
shows how one can *define* the general notions of relation and function
in purely set-theoretic terms. It had long been recognised that
relations/functions can be conceived as sets of ordered pairs, and
Kuratowski's work now shows how to define the ordered pair
primitively. The ordered pair (*a*, *b*) can be considered
informally as the unordered pair *M* = {*a*, *b*},
together with an ordering relation *a* < *b*. Suppose
this relation is treated now via the theory of inclusion chains. The
only maximal inclusion chains in the power set of *M* are
{[?], {*a*}, {*a*, *b*}} and {[?],
{*b*}, {*a*, *b*}}. Using
Kuratowski's definition of the ordering '<' derived
from a maximal inclusion chain, these chains must then correspond to
the orderings *a* < *b* and *b* < *a*
on {*a*, *b*} respectively. If
[?] is ignored, the resulting chain {{*a*},
{*a*, *b*}} is thus associated with the
relation *a* < *b*, and so with the ordered set (pair)
(*a*, *b*). It is then quite natural to *define*
(*a*, *b*) as {{*a*},
{*a*, *b*}} (see Kuratowski 1921: 170-171). One
can now define the product *a*
x *b* of *a* and *b* as the set of all
ordered pairs whose first member is in *a* and whose second
member is in *b*; relations on *a* can now be treated as
subsets of *a* x *a*, and
functions from *a* to *b* as certain subsets
of *a* x *b*. Thus, many of
the representational problems faced by Zermelo's theory are solved at
a stroke by Kuratowski's work, building as it does on Zermelo's
own.
#### 3.2.3 Cardinality
But there was a problem concerning cardinality which is independent
of the problem of definitional reduction. It was pointed out by both
Fraenkel and Skolem in the early 1920s that Zermelo's theory cannot
provide an adequate account of cardinality. The axiom of infinity and
the power set axiom together allow the creation of sets of
cardinality [?] *n*
for each natural number *n*, but this (in the absence of a result
showing that 20 >
*n* for every natural number *n*) is not
enough to guarantee a set whose power is [?]
o, and a set of power
o is a natural next step (in the Cantorian
theory) after those of power *n*. Fraenkel
proposed a remedy to this (as did Skolem independently) by proposing
what was called the *Ersetzungsaxiom*, the Axiom of Replacement (see
Fraenkel 1922: 231 and Skolem 1923: 225-226). This says,
roughly, that the 'functional image' of a set must itself
be a set, thus if *a* is a set,
then {*F*(*x*) : *x*
[?] *a*} must also be a set, where
'*F*' represents a functional correspondence. Such an
axiom is certainly sufficient; assume that *a*0 is the
set of natural numbers {0, 1, 2, ...}, and now assume that to
each number *n* is associated an *a**n* with
power *n*. Then according to the replacement
axiom, *a* =
{*a*0, *a*1, *a*2,
...} must be a set, too. This set is countable, of course, but
(assuming that the *a**n* are all disjoint) the union set of *a* must have cardinality at
least o.
The main difficulty with the Replacement Axiom is that of how to
formulate the notion of a functional correspondence. This was not
solved satisfactorily by Fraenkel, but the Weyl/Skolem solution works
here, too: a functional correspondence is (in effect) just any
first-order 2-place predicate ph(*x*, *y*) which
satisfies the condition of uniqueness,
i.e., [?]*x*, *y*, *z*{[ph(*x*, *y*)
[?] ph(*x*, *z*)] - *y* = *z*}.
With this solution, the Replacement Axiom will be (as required)
stronger than Zermelo's original Separation Axiom and indeed can
replace it; however, in Fraenkel's system, one can prove his version
of the Replacement Axiom from his version of the Separation Axiom,
which shows that his separate definition of function is not
sufficiently strong. (For details, see Hallett 1984:
282-286.)
Zermelo initially had doubts about the Replacement Axiom (see the
letter to Fraenkel from 1922 published in Ebbinghaus 2007: 137), but
he eventually accepted it, and a form of it was included in his new
axiomatisation published in 1930 (Zermelo 1930). Skolem's formulation
is the one usually adopted, though it should be noted that von
Neumann's own formulation is rather different and indeed
stronger.[36]
#### 3.2.4 Ordinals
Although Kuratowski's work solved many of the representational
problems for Zermelo's theory, and the Replacement Axiom shows how the
most obvious cardinality gap can be closed, there still remained the
issue (Kuratowski's view to one side) of representing accurately the
full extent of the theory which Cantor had developed, with the
transfinite numbers as fully fledged objects which
'mirror' the size/ordering of sets. Once the ordinal
number-classes are present, the representation of the alephs is not a
severe problem, which means that the representation of transfinite
numbers amounts to assuring the existence of sufficiently many
transfinite *ordinal* numbers. Indeed, as was stated above, the
hypothesis that the scale of aleph numbers is sufficient amounts to
the claim that any set can be 'counted' by some
ordinal. There are then two interrelated problems for the
'pure' theory of sets: one is to show how to define
ordinals as sets in such a way that the natural numbers generalise;
the other problem is to make sure that there are enough ordinals to
'count' all the sets.
The problem was fully solved by von Neumann in his work on
axiomatic set theory from the early 1920s. Cantor's fundamental
theorems about ordinal numbers, showing that the ordinals are the
*representatives* of well-ordered sets, are the theorem that every
well-ordered set is order-isomorphic to an initial segment of the
ordinals, and that every ordinal is itself the order-type of the set
of ordinals which precede it. These results prove crucial in the von
Neumann treatment. Von Neumann's basic idea was explained by him as
follows:
>
> What we really wish to do is to take as the basis of our
> considerations the proposition: 'Every ordinal is the type of
> the set of all ordinals that precede it'. But in order to avoid
> the vague notion 'type', we express it in the form:
> 'Every ordinal is the set of the ordinals that precede
> it'. (von Neumann 1923, p. 347 of the English translation)
>
>
>
According to von Neumann's idea, 1 is just {0}, 2 is just {0, 1}, 3
is just {0, 1, 2} and so on. On this conception, the first transfinite
ordinal o is just {0, 1, 2, 3, ..., *n*, ...},
and generally it's clear that the immediate successor of any ordinal
a is just a [?] {a}. If we
identify 0 with [?], as Zermelo did, then we have available a
reduction of the general notion of ordinal to pure set theory, where
the canonical well-ordering on the von Neumann ordinals is just the
subset relation, i.e., a < b just in case a [?]
b, which von Neumann later shows is itself equivalent to saying
a [?] b. (See von Neumann 1928, p. 328 of the
reprinting.) So again, inclusion orderings are fundamental.
Von Neumann gives a general definition of his ordinals, namely that
a set a is an ordinal number if and only if it is a set ordered
by inclusion, the inclusion ordering is a well-ordering, and each
element x in a equals the set of elements in the initial
segment of the ordering determined by x. This connects directly
with Kuratowski's work in the following way. Suppose *M* is a
well-ordered set which is then mirrored by an inclusion
chain **M** in the power set of *M*. Then the first few
elements of the inclusion chain will be the sets [?], {*a*},
{*a*, *b*}, {*a*, *b*, *c*}, ...,
where *a*, *b*, *c*, ... are the first, second,
third ...elements in the well-ordering of *M*. The von
Neumann ordinal corresponding to *M* will also be an inclusion
ordering whose first elements will be
> [?], {[?]}, {[?], {[?]}}, {[?], {[?]},
> {[?], {[?]}}}, ...
(in other words, 0, 1, 2, 3...), and we have 0 [?] 1 [?] 2
[?] 3 [?]... in mirror image of
[?] [?] {*a*} [?] {*a*, *b*}
[?] {*a*, *b*, *c*}
[?] ...
These von Neumann ordinals had, in effect, been developed before
von Neumann's work. The fullest published theory, and closest to the
modern account, is to be found in Mirimanoff's work published in 1917
and 1921 (see Mirimanoff 1917a,b, 1921), though he doesn't take the
final step of identifying the sets he characterises with the ordinals
(for an account of Mirimanoff's work, see Hallett 1984:
273-275). It is also clear that Russell, Grelling and Hessenberg
were close to von Neumann's general set-theoretic definition of
ordinals. But crucially Zermelo himself developed the von Neumann
conception of ordinals in the years 1913-1916, (for a full
account, see Hallett 1984: 277-280 and Ebbinghaus 2007:
133-134). Zermelo's idea was evidently well-known to the
Gottingen mathematicians, and there is an account of it in
Hilbert's lectures '*Probleme der mathematischen
Logik*' from 1920,
pp. 12-15.[37]
Despite all these anticipations, it is still right to ascribe the
theory to von Neumann. For it was von Neumann who revealed the extent
to which a full theory of the ordinals depends on the Axiom of
Replacement. As he wrote later:
>
> A treatment of ordinal number closely related to mine was known
> to Zermelo in 1916, as I learned subsequently from a personal
> communication. Nevertheless, the fundamental theorem, according to
> which to each well-ordered set there is a similar ordinal, could not
> be rigorously proved because the replacement axiom was unknown. (von
> Neumann 1928: 374, n. 2)
>
>
>
The theorem von Neumann states is the central result of Cantor's
mentioned here in the second paragraph of this section. As von Neumann goes on to point out
here (also p. 374), it is the possibility of definition by transfinite
induction which is key, and a rigorous treatment of this requires
being able to prove at each stage in a transfinite inductive process
that the collection of functional correlates to a set is itself a set
which can thus act as a new argument at the next stage. It is just
this which the replacement axiom guarantees. Once justified,
definition by transfinite induction can be used as the basis for
completely general definitions of the arithmetic operations on ordinal
numbers, for the definition of the aleph numbers, and so on. It also
allows a fairly direct transformation of Zermelo's first (1904) proof
of the WOT into a proof that every set can be represented by (is
equipollent with) an ordinal number, which shows that in the Zermelo
system with the Axiom of Replacement added there *are* enough ordinal
numbers.[38]
It is thus remarkable that von Neumann's work, designed to show how
the transfinite ordinals can be incorporated directly into a pure
theory of sets, builds on and coalesces with both Kuratowski's work,
designed to show the *dispensability* of the theory of transfinite
ordinals, and also the axiomatic extension of Zermelo's theory
suggested by Fraenkel and Skolem.
## 4. Further reading
For a summary of the Cantorian theory as it stood in the early
years of the twentieth century, see Young and Young (1906), and the
magisterial Hausdorff (1914); for further reading on the development
of set theory, see the books Ferreiros 1999, Hallett 1984, Hawkins
1970, and Moore 1982. See also the various papers on the history of
set theory by Akihiro Kanamori (especially Kanamori 1996, 1997, 2003,
2004, 2012) and the joint paper with Dreben (Dreben and Kanamori
1997). For the place of set theory in the development of modern logic,
see Mancosu et al., 2009, especially pages 345-352.
For an account of the various axiom systems and the role of the
different axioms, see Fraenkel et al. (1973). For a detailed summary
of the role of the Axiom of Choice, and insight into the question of
its status as a logical principle, see Bell (2009).
This entry will be supplemented by a further entry on
axiomatizations of set theory after Zermelo from 1920 to 1940. |
zhuangzi | ## 1. Zhuangzi's Life and Times
Zhuangzi flourished through the latter half of the 4th century BC
roughly contemporary with Mencius, and the movement known as the
School of Names (Ming Jia *ming-jia* name
school). Zhuangzi shows familiarity with Classical Chinese
theories of pragmatic-semantics and makes his own theoretical
contributions to it. The traditionally recognized figures in this
school included Gongsun Long and Hui Shi--Zhuangzi's close friend
and most frequent direct philosophical discussant. With the recovery
of the Later Mohist dialectical work detailing their theory of
language, we find compelling evidence that the linguistic turn in
Classical thinking was a widespread feature of this mature phase of
the Classical period. The later Confucian thinker, Xunzi, follows
Zhuangzi in reacting to and incorporating this linguistic turn in his
thinking.
Most of what we infer about Zhuangzi's life, we draw from evidence
within the *Zhuangzi*, although the Han biographers did speculate about
his place of origin (the state of Meng) his personal name (Zhou), and
the official posts he held (minor in Qiyuan in his home state) and
period he lived (during Prince Wei reign over Chu--which ended
about 327 BC). Scholars have found it hard to confirm any details of
his life from outside this text and from his being discussed by later
thinkers. The text itself contains scattered stories about Zhuangzi,
but given its frequent use of fantasy, even these we must season with
the salt of textual skepticism. We attribute a large chunk of the
extant text of the *Zhuangzi* to "students of Zhuangzi" but
we have little hint of who his students were or if he even had
students in any formal sense.
## 2. Evolving Text Theory
A scholar working around 600 years later after the fall of the Han,
Guo Xiang (d. 312), edited and reduced what he saw as a haphazardly
accumulated cluster of apocryphal and possibly authentic texts. He
concluded that many were added after the time Zhuangzi lived. Guo
reports compressing that prior collection of writings from fifty-two
chapters to thirty-three. This is the extant text on which our
knowledge is based. Guo divided the chapters he had chosen into three
sections: the "Inner Chapters" (1-7), the "Outer
Chapters" (8-22) and the "Miscellaneous Chapters"
(23-33). He attributed only the first section to the period dating
from Zhuangzi's lifetime--hence possibly originating from
Zhuangzi himself. The second grouping may have included writings of a
"School of Zhuangzi." Modern scholarship assigns various
sources of other influences found in both the second
"outer" and final "miscellaneous"
chapters. Graham drawing on work of the Chinese theorist, Kuan Feng
and followed with some variation by Liu Xiaogan and Harold Roth,
divides these influences into roughly four variously named groups:
* Zhuangzi's students or the School of Zhuangzi credited with
those later writings committed most closely to the views expressed
in the "inner chapters."
* Authors with egoist views associated with Yang Zhu (4th century
BC). The *Mencius* presented Yang's thought
as a version of an ethical egoism that rejected conventional
altruistic social *dao*s.
* The third group Graham dubbed the
'primitivists'. Primitivists share Yang Zhu's antipathy
to social, historical or conventional
*dao*s--typically those supporting social norms
extending beyond agricultural village life--in favor of more
natural ways. This group shares attitudes with the text of the
*Laozi* (*Daode Jing*) mixed with Yangist
themes.
* The final group, dominated the "miscellaneous"
sections, Graham called them syncretists (eclectics) who seemingly
attempted comprehensiveness by combining all points of view into a
single complete *dao*.
However widely assumed, Zhuangzi's authorship of any of the
"inner" chapters remains a speculative hypothesis. Guo's
original assessment that Zhuangzi did not author any of the remaining
sections remains conventional scholarly wisdom, but religious Daoists treat the
entire book as a Canon--The *Nanhua Zhen-Jing*.
Combining all these elements into a single volume reflects a
familiar Classical pattern of embellishing the teachings of a master,
adapting the additions to the namesake's writing style and expanding on his
themes and insights in distinctive ways. The four schools contributing to the extant
text shared an emphasis on natural -usually as opposed to
social-cultural, *dao*s. Yangism or egoism largely rejected
social or moral *dao*s on the apparent assumption that natural
guiding *dao*s essentially recommend self-preserving
behavior. Its paradigm is the anti-social hermit. Motivation by
self-interest was normatively prior to any conventional *dao*. They
preserved their natural purity from social corruption by rejecting society's
mores.
Primitivism similarly rejected social and conventionally moral
daos (mores), but has its own conception of a natural,
pre-social, typically intuitive, way of life that supports rustic,
agricultural, village life. It supports populist and anarchist
political tendencies.
Syncretism does not reject social *dao*s per se, but does
reject any particular *dao* as biased and narrow in contrast to a more,
"rounded," idealized, or comprehensive *dao*. This is often
expressed in an ideal observer form (the sage, perfect human, or Tian
*tian*nature:sky's
*dao*). These views tend toward epistemic
supernaturalism--claims to superlative cognitive or religious access
to some transcendently correct *dao*. Both tend to deny that their
correct *daos* can be expressed and transmitted in language or
words.
The discussions in the "Inner Chapters," particularly
in the 2nd chapter, by contrast, treat language as also natural and
social-conventional *dao*s as themselves natural *dao*s. It
undermines the otherwise presupposed contrast of natural
vs. conventional *dao*s. Humans are naturally social animals and
execute natural causal processes when their walking, speaking,
writing, and other practices leave marks in nature, (like a trail or a
text) which become physically accessible to later *walkers* as
history (stored in memory, legend, writings, or footprints etc.).
The pivotal 2nd chapter draws relativist and skeptical conclusions
from its normative naturalism. It rejects the religious traditionalism
of Confucianism and the Gaia-hypothesis implicit in the Mohist attempt
at utilitarian naturalism. Nature provides us with many ways to go,
but does not favor or *command* our making any choices among
them. *Shi-fei*
Shi Fei (This way not that) judgments
are made by living creatures in nature, not by
Tian
*tian*nature:sky itself. We can find guiding
structures, *dao*s, in nature but not a favored or
dictated *dao* of nature.
Like the later syncretist chapters, the "Inner Chapter"
Zhuangists accept that social *dao*s are continuous with
natural ones, but they do not endorse any imagined or alleged,
comprehensive judgments from everywhere, from all natural points of
view. The cosmic judgement from nowhere is a non-judgment. Zhuangists
are not committed to Laozi's conception of an exclusive choice of
natural (Tian
*tian*sky:nature) over social
(Ren *ren*human)
daos. They are skeptical of any claim of special access to
contextless guiding knowledge by alleged or self-styled sages,
"ideal observers" or perfect exemplars of epistemic
virtues. They accept language but also accept our natural capacity
and inclination to toy with it, alter it, and mould it to our use in
various situations of practical choice.
Zhuangzi's exemplars are butchers, musicians, cicada catchers,
wheelmakers--exemplars of mundane and focused action
guidance. Each is an exemplar of one of the many ways of life
(*dao*s) who execute their particular specialties in a
highly cultivated, precise, smooth, and seemingly easily executed
way. The imagined eclectic synthesis of all the various ways of life
into some total-comprehensive *dao* is no more than
de-facto restatement of their co-existence in a single natural world
as optional ways of life. The cosmos makes no judgment that they
should exist--though it combines them into a cosmic
*dao* that is the history of everything. That the cosmos
has this outcome does not mean it makes a human-like choice which
humans could or should execute. We are ill advised to strive for skill
in *everything*.
The eclectics were probably the last community working with the text,
adding to it and carrying it into later periods. The Laozi had become
enmeshed with a ruler cult worship of The Yellow Emperor. Laozi became
the far more influential figure during the entire Confucian orthodoxy
of the Han (206-220 BC).
## 3. Competing Interpretive Narratives
The wide range of views of Zhuangzi stem from the style of the text
and the ways it has figured in China's intellectual history as well as
the ways it was caught up in the modern interaction between China and
the modern, scientific West.
Zhuangzi's style is the philosophical parable, typically a
brief discussion or exchange between two points of view. There is
slight plurality of humans among the discussants joined by natural and
imaginary creatures. Its fictional characters are usually cleverly
named, some are Confucian icons (Confucius or his alleged teacher, Lao
Dan). Some discussants are animals (real and fictional fish, birds,
snakes), a talking skull, the wind, musicians, debaters, tigers,
trainers, butchers, butterflies, burglars and the myriad "pipes
of nature." Expressive brevity and subtlety of detail enhances
the impact of the often complex and elusive point of the
parables--they seldom explicitly formulate the moral or point
explicitly. Most commonly, the author(s) end discussions in a doubting
tone, a double rhetorical question or some pithy enigmatic parting
shot. They may make their point by having the two parties walking away
shaking their heads, agreeing only to disagree; both appreciating that
they barely understand one another, and yet feeling that something has
been learned from the exchange.
Translation into Western languages invites biases that are hard to
avoid. The main effect is loss of the conceptual cohesion of the
original, but the parables still engage our Western philosophical
curiosity. We get the exhilaration of immersion in an independent
philosophical tradition of comparable antiquity and richness. Readers
in and out of China invariably suspect that the
*Zhuangzi*'s appealing style is infused with
philosophical genius, even as they disagree about its philosophical
upshot. Indeed, much of the *Zhuangzi*'s philosophical appeal
may stem from its seemingly deliberate open-ended texture, the
interpretive malleability of its dialogues which invites, even perhaps
requires, us to join the author(s) in their philosophical
reflection.
This appeal stems only partly from the quality and sophistication
of his episodes; each illuminated a patch of philosophical territory
ending with a question for further pondering--rather like
Nietzsche or the Later Wittgenstein. Each exchange presents or
illustrates shards of insight with open-textured conclusions--all
laced with Zhuangzi's obvious joy in exploring
paradox--particularly linguistic ones of the sort that appeal to
analytic Western thinkers. Each is an expression of some natural, but
perhaps inaccessible, alternative way of life. The frequent enigmatic
conclusions "the answer is X" leaves interpreters arguing
centuries later, Fermat-like, how X can be an answer--or what X
is (e.g., "free and easy wandering," "walking two
paths," "goblet words," "clarity," and
so forth). Each seems easily to fit into a range of puzzles familiar
to thinkers in both traditions. One suspects that we find the correct
interpretation by finding our way, like Wittgenstein's fly, out
of some philosophical bottle. The correct philosophy coincides with
the correct interpretation of Zhuangzi.
The traditional religious Zhuangzi narratives placed him as the
disciple of Laozi, whom they regard as a quasi-divine founder of a
mystical religion worshipping a mysterious entity translators tended
to render as a definite descriptive term, but capitalized it as if it
were a singular name, "The Dao." Compatible
philosophical treatments were versions of metaphysical monism,
epistemic intuitionism (often explicitly anti-rationalist), political
anarchism and a vague normative absolutism--follow The
Dao. The bulk of popular and religious treatments still follow
this interpretive line, treating Laozi as the earliest layer of
"Daoist mystical thought" or "Lao-Zhuang"
thought and situating Zhuangzi as his "follower."
The story of the religious view of Zhuangzi starts a century after
Zhuangzi lived (4th century BC). Philosophical schools were
closed, books burned and thought repressed during the superstitious
Qin dynasty (221-206 BC) which followed the classical
period. This initiated China's philosophical "Dark
Age." The more orthodox Confucian Han Dynasty (206
BC to 220) followed. Over two decades (109-91
BC) the Han emperor's hereditary Grand
Historians, Sima Tan and Sima Qian (a father and son team), wrote an
official history from the mythical Yellow Emperor (c. 3rd Millennium
BC) to the Han. It is in this account that the
classification of thinkers into three concept schools, Daoist,
Legalist, and School of Names first occurs. Graham speculates that the
assumption of an affiliation of Zhuangzi to Laozi may have originated
from the Outer Chapters. There Zhuangzi's students used the mythical
teacher of Confucius, Lao Dan or Laozi, to ridicule Confucius in a
cycle of dialogues.
A cult of Huang-Lao, worshipping the Yellow emperor and Laozi as
divinities, had grown up in the Qin. The father and son historians
were students of Huang-Lao masters. At the fall of the Han the
narrative of Zhuangzi as a follower/elaborator of a semi-divine Laozi
was well entrenched. The post-Han resurgence, known as Neo-Daoism,
began with the editing of the received edition of, first, the
*Laozi* (Wang Bi 226-249) then the *Zhuangzi* (Guo Xiang
d. 312 see above). Neo-Daoist discussion practices and ideas were
influential in bringing Buddhist and Chinese thought into interaction
and Daoism became enmeshed with Buddhism in the popular view
(especially with Chinese Chan Buddhism). A Daoist
"religion", borrowing models of religious institutions
from Buddhism (monasteries, monks and nuns) influenced discourse about
Daoism throughout the period of Buddhist domination of the Chinese
intellectual world (achieved gradually during the Six Dynasties period
220-589 and extending through the Tang 618-907). Neo-Confucians from
the medieval period on treated Buddhism and Daoism as essentially
similar religions.
Modern text theory concerning the *Zhuangzi* grows from two recent
discoveries.
1. The reconstruction of the Later Mohist dialectical works and
2. Archeological reconstructions of the text of the *Daode Jing*.
The following section discusses their twin impact on our view of
Zhuangzi.
Developments at the end of the 19th and early 20th century in
China led Chinese intellectuals to adopt the European concept of
philosophy (Zhe Xue ) with its implicit distinction from
religion. This distinction was seen as pivoting on logic--the
theory of proof or argument. They started to segregate their own
writings which seemed most like argument, inference and logic from
those sustained mainly by credulity and tradition. They began to sort
out the philosophical aspects of their traditional thought from its
more religious and superstitious elements. Sun Yirang's
(1848-1908) 1897 reconstruction of the Mohist Canon provided
convincing evidence that analytically inspired and rigorous thinking
had grown up in Classical China. This example encouraged 19th century
intellectuals like Yan Fu (1854-1921) and Liang Qichao (1873-1929).
They started to emphasize the ancient schools that more clearly
related to the logical paradigms of Western philosophy and Mohist
analytics. Hu Shih (1891-1962) continued this tradition of
reconceiving and re-centering Chinese thought away from the Confucian
scholasticism that had dominated since the decline of Buddhism.
The early 20th century logic-inspired reformation recently began to
influence the interpretation of the *Zhuangzi* and the
*Xunzi* in the west, largely inspired by Angus Graham who had
observed that both ancient texts demonstrated a mastery of the
technical vocabulary of Mohist linguistic theory.
Modern philosophical
appreciation of the *Zhuangzi*, probably stems from Graham's 1969
"[Zhuangzi]'s Essay on Seeing Things as Equal"
(Graham 1969, predating his work on Mohism). Wryly replying to Wang
Fuzhi's speculation that Shen Dao, not Zhuangzi had authored the
beloved chapter, Graham averred that whoever wrote that
philosophically rich text is the person we would want to think of as
Zhuangzi. Graham proposed looking at the text's seemingly conflicting
thoughts as analogous to the "inner dialogue" of a
reflective thinker who formulates a view, considers then rejects
it. Graham also noted the writer's deep involvement and apparent
fluency in the technical language and obscure issues arising in
Classical Chinese theories of language which he then only beginning to
study.
Graham's outlook conflicted overtly with a traditional
Chinese narrative of a disciple Zhuangzi following a semi-divine Laozi
in worship of The Mystical Dao. Zhuangzi, Graham quipped, didn't
know he was a Daoist. Graham later argued that the internal evidence
suggested Zhuangzi had never seen the text of the Laozi (The
*Dao De Jing*) and probably thought of Lao Dan as a
Confucian. Most interpretive disputes are, to a greater or lesser
degree, a result of the tension between Graham's textual
arguments and the traditional Historian's picture of Zhuangzi as a
religious mystical Daoist follower of the semi-divine Laozi, similarly
worshipping "The Dao."
Graham's textual arguments were indirectly supported by
archeological discoveries of different Laozi texts. The discoveries in
the early 1970s and 1990s together implied a relatively late date
for the emergence of the Laozi text--probably some years after
Zhuangzi had lived and perhaps overlapping the composition of a series
of dialogues between Laozi and Confucius in the "Outer
Chapters" section. Graham speculated that Zhuangzi's
students, who were writing the cycle of Laozi-Confucius dialogues, may
have rhetorically chosen to use the legendary Lao Dan (mythical
teacher of Confucius) to give him authority to lecture and ridicule
the revered master.
When we abandon the traditional identification of Zhuangzi as a Laozi
follower, it opens the door for speculation about his relation to the
relativist, linguistic theorist, Hui Shi, traditionally treated as
belonging to the School of Names. Christoph Harbesmeier speculated he may have
been either Zhuangzi's teacher, mentor or fellow student. If he was a
teacher, he came to accept his student as an equal or even
superior. Zhuangzi portrays him as playing a role in Zhuangzi's
philosophical skill development as an intimate philosophical interlocutor and
eventually as a foil for sharpening his analysis. Among those texts
that concentrate on Ming
*ming*names, Hui Shi's ten theses mark
him as a relativist response to Mohist realism on the relation of
names and "stuff"--focusing especially on comparative and
indexical terms.
We can read Zhuangzi's relativism, accordingly as an alternative,
arguably more reflectively subtle, indexical relativism about
Shi Fei
**shi-fei**this-not that
judgments regarding choices of paths (*dao*s) of correct
use of names/words/concepts as guideposts to our
Xing *xing*walking:behavior. This
can both explain Zhuangzi's relativist direction of analysis and his
recognition of sound Mohist/realist responses to Hui Shi's version of
that relativist direction of thought. This article develops and
expands on Graham's philosophical interpretation and emphasizes this
relation to Hui Shi rather than to Laozi.
Between the traditional, piously mystical Daoist religious
interpretation and that view's nearest philosophical neighbors, lies
the bulk of the interpretive historical and religious
literature. Given the philosophically oriented venue of this article,
what follows should not be treated as ecumenical.
## 4. A Modern Philosophical Interpretation
### 4.1 The Background Dispute about Social Normative Daos
Confucian *dao*s were broadly humanist. The earliest
version (Confucius 551-479 BC) traced normativity to
earlier human invention. Metaphorical trails are left by past human
walkings, i.e. social practices. Language was an example of such an
invented social practice which intertwined with routine activities
(rituals) to yield the *correct*, sage-king inspired way of
life--the social Dao *dao*path. A
later version (Mencius 372-239 BC) focused on natural
human psychology. The correct path is that to which our natural moral
psychology inclines us. Humans have a
Xin *xin*heart-mind that is
naturally *shan*good-at normative choice and
practice.
Mencius may have been reacting to Mohism. Mozi (470-391
BC) had earlier initiated a shift in focus to more
natural and objective, less culturally relative way of grounding
normative judgment. His claim that Tian
*tian*nature:sky exhibited a tendency to a
course leading to human utility or well-being. So humans should use
that natural norm, the Bian
*bian*distinction between
Li Hai *li-hai* benefit-harm
in constructing our social *dao*, including the norms of
language.
Correctly using terms is using them to mark the path of cooperative
behaviors that lead to general human benefit--a social
Dao *dao*path utilitarianism, rather than a law or rule version. Nature *intends* us to follow its natural
structures in ways that lead to universal human
Li *li*benefit. Ethical
questions thus have a single correct answer in an ideally engineered
and shared normative linguistic practice. Mohist utilitarian
metaethics pointed to natural realism.
Daoist primitivism (symbolized by the mythical Laozi and the
anonymous text known as the *Daode Jing*) was, as noted
above, a further trend toward a broader ethical naturalism with
anti-language absolutist implications. We should forget or ignore all
social norms and practices, including linguistic ones. Utility
(perhaps egoistic utility) does motivate our behavior as naturally as
water follows the paths created by natural contours of earth. Language
should not interfere in any way with this natural guiding interaction
between us and the course(es) of nature.
### 4.2 The Conceptual Foci of Chinese Daoist Normative Theorizing
Understanding the *Zhuangzi* is made more difficult by the huge
differences not only in the philosophical context, but in the
pervasive metaphors that structure and focus discussions of norms of
behavior in the Chinese vs Indo-European classical traditions. His
positions invite comparisons with modern metaethical naturalism but he
does not focus them with concepts linked to grammatical sentences such
as "laws" or "rules" (sentences in
*all* form) or "facts" (sentence-sized chunks of
reality) or "properties (realities corresponding to sentence
predicates)." Zhuangzi used the traditional Dao
*dao*path metaphor together with the
technical terminology developed in Mohism of
*shi-fei*this-not that,
*bian*distinction and
*ke*permissible.
The metaphor shaping most Chinese discussions of pragmatic knowing,
choice and behavior was *dao*--a path or trail.
Questions we would phrase in terms of moral propositions, laws, or
principles are questions about finding, choosing and following
*dao*s, paths or ways. *Dao*s can be
social or natural structures that guide us in answering practical
questions: what to do or how to do it. As the focus of warring Chinese
conceptions of guidance, *dao* guidance has three
phases. We must find or notice them, choose one from among those we
notice, and then follow or interpret the selected *dao* in
Xing
*xing*walking:behavior. We
Bian
*bian*distinguish, discover and recognize them; choose or approve (*shi*this:right)
them or reject (*fei*not-that:wrong ) them, and
treat them as *ke*permissible or not. Our
capacity to engage in these three processes governing natural guiding
structures, *dao*s, is an internal
*dao*--our
De
*de*virtuosity. Our
De
*de*virtuosity at interacting with the web of
*dao*s reads and interprets the path-marks thus generating our
Xing
*xing*walking:behavior.
The *dao* metaphor corresponds closely with the Western
translation metaphor of 'a way' which, while ubiquitous in
philosophical discourse, is rarely a central focus of philosophical
analysis of normativity.
The salient differences between the two
traditions accounts of behavior are that the Chinese does not focus on
sentential items (actions, events, beliefs) particularly as conclusions of belief plus desire mental arguments. Instead, it focuses on the interplay of
natural processes grounded in the temporally shifting distributions of Qi
*qi*physical stuff that yields path-like guidance structures for living things.
Confucians and Mohists had their own theories of the both the right
*dao*s and the right
De
*de*virtuosity to use together in
guiding behavior. Confucian *dao*s tended to be those
enshrined in past practice and their version of
De
*de*virtuosity tended toward the
intuitive, typically appealing to Ren
*ren*humanity.
Mohists advocated guiding reform of conventional social *dao*s
using a natural normative Bian
*bian*distinction of
Li Hai *li-hai*benefit-harm. For
Mohists,
Li Hai *li-hai*benefit-harm
was a Tian
*tian*natural way of finding, choosing,
reforming and interpreting social *dao*s. In contrast to
Confucians, Mohists sought to elaborate their natural ways of
selecting *dao*-like social practices as operational,
objective, measurement-like processes accessible to ordinary people
and not subject to training and indoctrination.
Chinese linguistic analysis folded naturally into similar
language--it concerns ways of using words--*dao*s
(norms) of linguistic behavior focused on word use. The more
philosophically inclined schools began to see such norms of the use of
words as underlying the explicit disagreements among schools about
which norms or *dao*s to follow and how to follow
them.
The discussion of norms of use are typically couched in behavioral formulations such
as Qu *qu*choose, Ju *ju* pick-out Ke *ke*assertible:admissible
Bian
*bian*distinction
Zhi *zhi*point and
*he*combine. The core psychological attitude
is
Wei *wei*deem:do
which may be expressed as a tendency (in speech, both inner and
expressed) to express a
Shi Fei *shi-fei*this-not
that judgment
regarding the use of a word. A phonetically and semantically related tendency is
Wei *wei*calling it
by the term. Behaviorally, it amounts to dealing with it under that word-concept. Conversely we
can *shi* or *fei* the use of a name of some
contextual object--*wei*call it or
*wei*deem it properly associated with that
Ming
*ming*name.
To Wei *wei*deem:do can be either to
express the category assignment in one's behavior--either
speech-behavior or behaving toward the object as people would be
expected to, given that they assigned the object to that category. The behavior for the category would be found in the social or natural *dao*path
they follow. A Wei
*wei*deem:do state is less a mental picture
of a fact (a belief) than a disposition to treat or identify some
object as deserving the term in question. Instead of the western
reality vs. appearance dialectic, Chinese discussion revolves around
the contrast of natural
(Tian *tian*nature:sky)
*dao*s and human
(Ren *ren*human) or
socially constructed, *dao*s. The human
*dao*s are constructed with the help of
Ming *ming*names
strung together into Yan
*yan*language.
Mozi, as we noted above,
appealed to what he regarded as a natural utility standard to judge
the acceptability of *yan*language use and
Confucius relied more on past usage ranging back to the mythical sage
kings. Problems of justifying approvals and disapprovals of word usage
led such later Confucians as Mencius, to rely more on cultivating an
intuition. Since the account of cultivation typically presupposed
practice in conformity with the social practice requiring
justification, the threat of circularity pushed traditionalists
eventually to teach about and appeal to an allegedly innate or
pre-social human psychology.
By contrast, the craft-inspired
Mohists went on to emphasize the use of measurement tools and
operations as the standards guiding term use. They argued that such
operational standards would be more accessible to ordinary people who
could rely only on their "eyes and ears." The Confucians,
by contrast, were forced to flip between appealing to some cultivated
authority and attributing an innate moral inclination to the existing
conventional language *dao* to such ordinary people.
Shi Fei
*Shi-fei*this-not that judgments can
concern choice of a *dao* or the interpretive
performances of a chosen *dao*. Chinese writers
similarly focused on
Ke *ke*assertible:permissible
which may be said of a *dao*, or of a permissible
walking of some *dao*--including those of language
use. Disagreement could be at the level of *dao*s, or at
the interpretive level--endorsing or rejecting a
Wei
*wei*deem:do. The endorsing-rejecting
Shi Fei
*shi-fei*this-not that and
Ke *ke*permissible
behaviors themselves involve either choosing or interpreting
*dao*s. Each time we make any of these judgments we
contribute to further constructing our socially shared
*dao* with its implied practices of
Ming *ming*names
use.
### 4.3 Zhuangzi's Distinctive Approach
Zhuangzi conforms to the general pre-Han model, using a path
metaphor to discuss normativity in general. This fuels the traditional
view of him as a Daoist. Most of his discussion, moreover, further
conforms to the practice of focusing on social
*dao*s--undermining treatment as religious disciple
of Laozi's insistence we follow only
Tian *tian*natural
*dao*s. What links him to a naturalist theme is his
reluctance to draw the usual contrast between natural and social
*dao*s. (Is it nature? Is it man?). Human social
*dao*s **are** natural behaviors of natural
animals. This grounds Zhuangzi's pattern of talking about and with
other equally natural creatures.
Humans are as natural as monkeys, birds, and fish. "How can
*dao*s be hidden such that there are authentic and
artificial?" he asks rhetorically? (Harvard Yenching
*Zhuangzi Yinde* hereafter HY 4/2/24-5) All the different
social traditions expand the number and kinds of naturally existing
*dao*s. Other animals' walking patterns also
construct natural *dao*s which, similarly, become
available for human finding, choosing and walking.
Zhuangzi's discussion, particularly in the philosophically
most sophisticated second chapter, is mainly about the plurality and
relativity of second-level *dao*s, our naturally
endowed, internal *dao*sways of finding,
choosing and following one of many natural ways of life in the maze or
network presented by nature. This stance makes the complexity of the
natural network only the first level of variety and
possibility. Recursion of *dao*s explodes the
complexity. A tripartite recursion follows because there are many
*dao*s of finding, of choosing, and of translating the
first level plethora. The many layered complexity of
*dao*s of *dao*s yields the human sphere
of life. "Fish interact
in water; humans interact in *dao*s"
(*Ibid*., HY 18/6/72)
He naturalizes *dao*s less by attending to natural physical
guiding structures (e.g. *dao*s of water) than to the
variety of human *dao*s presented by analogy to the
variety of creatures with different *dao*s. Alternately,
he encourages us not to assume we have found all the available ways to
behave or he reflects on the variety of sources of
*dao*s of choice or of different capacities to catch on
and follow within us--our different natural organs and the range
of different ways we may train or habituate them. This complexity of
*dao* structures fuels, in turn, both his skepticism of
absolutes, of authority, of ideal observers, of social dogmas and his
qualified advice to leave the finding, choice and interpretation to a
working out from the variety of perspectives that make up the behaving
units in the particular circumstance. *Dao* choices are
best made from the perspective of walkers.(*Ibid*., HY
4/2/33)
The other distinctive feature of Zhuangzi's approach lies in the
sophistication of his handling the issues of language in explicating
this natural complexity of *dao*s. Graham interpreted a
famous Zhuangzi trope (the pipes of
Tian *tian*nature:sky) as
Zhuangzi's way of positioning language as *tian*
(natural) sound.
> The pipes of earth, these are the hollows everywhere;
> the pipes of men, these are rows of tubes. Tell me about the pipes
> of Heaven.' Who is it that blows the ten thousand disputing
> voices, who when of themselves they stop their talk has sealed them,
> and puffs out of them the opinions that they choose for
> themselves?' HY 3/2/4-9
Graham elaborates:
>
> These are apparently the holes in the heart through which thought
> courses and the mouths which utter it, so that the breath blown by
> heaven through the inner formations of different men issues in
> contradictory utterances. (Graham 1969:149)
Zhuangzi's Daoism, thus, starts by removing
*tian*constant nature from its role as ultimate
normative authority--the role it played in virtually all the
rival accounts of which *dao* we should follow. All
*dao*s that are practically available at the point of
choice for walking (actually existing *dao*s) are
similarly *tian*. *Tian* (nature) generates
*dao*s as it generates the
Wu *wu*thing-kinds
(humans and other animals) that find and follow them. Neither it nor
the cosmos can play the role of an authority, far less of an
anthropomorphic authority commanding or dictating our choice among the
network of naturally existing
*dao*s. *Dao*s are chosen from those found
in nature, but none represents nature's choice for us--none
of the *dao*s in nature is **the** *dao*
**of** nature.
Dialectically, Zhuangzi's replacement for
*tian*'s role as source of normative guidance would be the entire complex network of *dao* structures that permeate the natural world. He situates us at indexed points in this
network seeking paths forward from *here and now*, choosing
from among the plethora of those accessible which, if any, to follow.
The philosophical advantage of Zhuangzi's way of discussing
*dao*s, thus, does not leave him suggesting that what is
natural is moral (analogous to implying "ought" from
"is"). Nature gives us a complex network of iterative
guiding structures among which we are about to *swim*. In our
waking hours, we continue constructing systems of contending,
resolving and agreeing on
Shi Fei
*shi-fei*this-not that
judgments--the rejected ones buried in rubble of ongoing
construction of normative language marking behavioral paths. (HY
3/2/11-13)
We recognize greater and lesser models of both--the more
reflective and engaging vs. a lazier, more wordy type. As we
*walk* through a day, we encounter attitudinal
states--joy, sorrow, surprise, ennui etc. We don't know
what role these play but they seem central to our choosing
activity--indeed to our having a perspective, an
'I'. (HY 3/2/11-14)
When we describe that entire structure, e.g. as resembling a natural
network of links (*dao*s) between temporally and
spatially indexed points we can see how it might generate talk of a
single cosmic dao. All guidance is at a point in the network and
available to and for some emergent object--physical, living,
animal or human. The inner processes of seeking, choosing, and
following *dao*s from node to node are themselves part
of the natural network. We are not sure what the normative point of
our natural reactions in walking through the nature's maze. Each step
or utterance adds a Shi Fei
*shi-fei*this-not that to the edifice of
guiding discourse marking paths for ourselves and for
others. It's as if there is some natural authority guiding the
construction process, though we can't see marks of its authority. We can reliably walk paths or *dao*s but can't see the shape of the authority. We light on paths and react with heart-mind
responses. That's it. (*Ibid*., HY 4/2/14-16)
Human *dao*s of finding, choosing and following are
capacities normally attributed to the
Xin *xin*heart-mind. Zhuangzi
recognizes its involvement in the construction process, but is
skeptical of making it a kind of natural authority. It is, after all,
only one of the natural organs involved--our daily reactions
include being directed by our stomachs, our eyes, etc. Why, Zhuangzi
wonders, should we think they need a single authority? (HY
4/2/14-16)
Even, then, if we take the
Xin *xin*heart-mind as an authority,
it's not clear how it can help us deal with the role of
judgments of greater and lesser wisdom and different ways of using
Shi Fei
*shi-fei*this-not that. Aren't all the hearts
involved in the evolving construction equally natural--the sages
and the fools? (HY 4/2/21-22)
Any output from our Xin *xin*heart-mind
into this
construction of a *dao* to follow from here is itself a
product of our having walked one of a range of possible *dao*s to this point. (HY
4/2/20)
> "To get a Shi Fei
> *shi-fei*this-not
> that from the
> Xin *xin*heart-mind without
> it's having been constructed there is like going to
> *Yue* today and arriving yesterday, like getting something
> from nothing." Even the wisest of mythical sages (Yao)
> can't know how to do that! (*Ibid*., HY
> 4/2/22-23)
There are many natural ways of finding and choosing ways. Humans
naturally exhibit variety in how they find or choose a course of
behavior. This recursive complex of *dao*s of choosing
is part of nature. No single one need be considered *the*
*dao* *of* nature to the exclusion of
others. They may be capacities of individuals or of social groups,
embodied in their social practices. The gestalt set of past
commitments and acquired inclinations to choose and interpret paths is
another component of our situation or location in a complex web of
*dao*s. The given *dao*s of choice are
what Zhuangzi treats as Cheng
*cheng*constructed/mature within our body as
we traverse the nodes of the network of *dao*s. Our
heart-minds reach an indexed point with a given momentum vector--a
speed on an existing trajectory--this is our a point of view or
perspective, complete with prior commitments to
*dao*sways of appreciating and selecting
among available paths.
These second-level *dao*s can also be chosen and walked
correctly or incorrectly. Choosing an epistemic *dao*, in turn, depends
on other a practically available *dao*s for guiding that
meta-choice... and so on. Zhuangzi does not view it as a rational or
logical construction, but a complicated, multi-layered natural one. He
speaks of "eight De
*de*virtuosities" involved in
constructing *dao*s and guiding expressions, starting
with the indexical locatives, left and right, then human relations,
then mores, divisions (categories?), distinctions (disputes),
competition and then strife. (HY 5/2/55-6)
A similar recursion concerns *dao*s of finding and
interpreting *dao*s. This network of recursive natural
guidance structures constitutes the complex network of natural *dao*. We
rely on meta-*dao*s, practically available links in this
network, in choosing and in interpreting practically available
ground-level *dao*s. Humans navigate in a
sea of *dao*s.
Then who or what does the choosing? Zhuangzi's theory here is
similarly detached and natural. He focuses less on the consciousness
or subjectivity of some mental substance or cognitive self or agent,
but on a grammatical locus of judgment, a
Wo *wo*I:me
within the linguistic *dao* structure--the
grammatical indexical marks a choosing point in the conceptual and
space-time structure. Like Hume's self, without the naturally
occurring grab-bag of attitudes, it would not be there to play its
choosing role. The Wo *wo*I:me is
situated in a frame of reference with its own complicated Cheng
*cheng*commitment trajectory in the iterative
*dao*s of choice. The *wo*I:me
that knows-how is situated in existing commitments embedded in an
indexed here-now in the network of ways it will assign to
*shi-fei*this-not that. Each
*shi-fei*this-not that it "shoots out"
further commits it to a path. (The narrator had introduced the above
"pipes of heaven" metaphor
to describe a gestalt he describes as having "said farewell to
my *wo*I:me.")
> "Its eruptions are like a repeating
> crossbow" expresses how it manages
> Shi Fei
> *shi-fei*this-not that
> judgments. "Its resting on them like an oath or treaty"
> expresses how it clings to past winners, "its death is like
> autumn and winter" expresses how it daily declines, a
> weakening brought about by this (the weight of accumulated
> commitments?) and it cannot start the process over. "Its
> rejections are like tightening bonds" puts into language these
> aging channels. As the *xin*heart-mind nears
> death, nothing can restore its dynamism. (HY 3/2/11-13)
>
>
>
> Joy, anger, sadness, pleasure, worrying, sighing, resisting, clinging,
> being drawn to, eschewing, launching, and committing, like music from
> empty holes, dampness generating mushrooms, these day and night
> replace each other before us and yet none can know from what they
> emerge. Let it be! Let it be! They come from where they
> emerge--without these, there would be no Wo
> *wo*I:me and without a
> *wo*I:me there would be no choosing. (HY
> 3/2/13-14)
>
>
For Zhuangzi, the issue is not mind or consciousness, but the
behavioral inclinations and the normative authority of these
roving indexical perspectives scattered within the natural
*dao* network. Their choices of which
*dao*s to walk furthers the construction (
Cheng *cheng*fixing)
of our perspective for the next choice.
> It seems as if there is a natural authority, but we
> cannot find its authoritative source. There is sufficient reliability
> that this is walkable, but we don't see it's
> [authorizing?] shape--it has natural reality but no visible
> shape. (HY4/2/15-16)
The first level paths have a shape, but the *dao*s of
correct choice and performance are inside the performer and not plainly visible.
The trend from social construction humanism toward naturalism had been
gradual. Mozi's argument for basing such constructions on a natural
distinction of benefit and harm was an early step. Graham had
separately theorized that Mencius developed both his response to Mozi
and his account of the role of
Ren *ren*humanity
as arguments that Confucian ritual behavior had evolved from
*tian*natural intuitive response patterns in
the
Xin *xin*heart-mind. This
implicitly endorsed Mozi's reliance on a
*tian*natural ground for the social
construction of morality.
### 4.4 Doubting Intuitionism
Graham's Zhuangzi then addressed this Mencian response in a
passage that extends the Hume-like skepticism about any identifiable
"inner self". That should be what guides the naturally occurring emotive
reactions that are necessary for a *wo*I:me
that chooses. It seems, he says, there must be one, but we find no
evidence of it. We approve of behaviors and place our trust in its
reactions but find no sign of what is authorizing or making them.
> Hundreds of parts, nine
> openings and six viscera included and completed
> (Cheng *cheng*fixed)
> in place in us, with which should I feel most akin? Should I be
> pleased with them all? Is there a *wo*I:me
> among them? Among them, should we deem some as rulers and as
> servants? Are the rulers and servants incapable of governing each
> other? Are they not capable of taking turns as ruler and servants? Is
> there a genuine ruler among them? It's as if trying and
> failing to grasp its real character has no bearing on whether it is
> genuine. (*Ibid*., HY 4/2/16-18)
Mozi had worried that it would be circular to appeal to intuitions about the word use in a social *dao* to authorize that very practice, for example Confucian ritual. Being a product
of ritual training. acquired intuitions could not be a sufficiently
neutral way of justifying our choosing *ritual* as our social
guide. Nor could one trained practitioner have authority over another
in resolving interpretive disputes about how to execute the ritual,
e.g., about how to apply the terms found in ritual texts to concrete real-time
behaviors. He insisted we need a neutral, non-cultural or natural
basis for such meta-choices of social practices of choosing and interpreting practices.
The narrative history of Classical thought found near the end of the
*Zhuangzi* (*Ibid*., HY 90/33/1) takes off from this
dispute between Confucians and Mohists. It welcomes Mozi's
implicit search for neutrality, universality, and greater
objectivity. However, the school viewed the familiar debate between a
utilitarian and traditional morality as interminable because
Mozi's *dao*guide, like
Confucius's, starts from different standards, different Cheng
*cheng*constructed commitments to linguistic
practices. Each relies on their past practice of judging how to use
the key moral Ming *ming*names.
Confucians would reject Mozi's standards because they led to what
Confucians view as the wrong conclusions (e.g., *implied*
Confucians should abandon Yi *yi* moral
rituals such as burial). The Mohists reject burial rituals because
they use Yi *yi* morality of the social
mores reformed according to their standard of general utility. The
pivotal statement of Zhuangzi's position is expressed as a riff
on the relativity or dependence of Shi Fei
*shi-fei*this-not that judgments about
language use on natural circumstances, naturally existing past
practice, commitments and attitudinal gestalt shifts.
> Where can
> Dao *dao*guides hide such that there are
> genuine and artificial? Where can
> Yan *yan*language hide such that
> there is Shi Fei *shi-fei*this-not
> that. Where can *dao*s hide such that they do not
> exist? How can a Yan *yan*language exist
> and not be Ke *ke*assertible?
> *Dao*s hide behind small achievements and language hides
> behind rhetorical flourishes and elaboration. So you have the
> "this is right-that is wrong" of the Confucians and
> Mohists. Of what one says "this is right" the other says
> "that is wrong" and of what they say "that is
> wrong" says "this is right." If you want to
> "wrong" what the other "rights" and
> "right" what the other 'wrong's, nothing
> matches Ming *ming*discerning. (*Ibid*.,
> HY4/2/24-7)
Though balanced in judging this impasse, the *Zhuangzi*'s
interesting target is the Mohist aspiration to objectivity. Many
stories in the text target the notion that *utility* is a
naturally constant value--particularly the *human* utility
that Mozi champions. Among this series of parables, the most famous,
the useless tree, illustrates the relativity of usefulness to Hui
Shi. (*Ibid*., HY 3/1/46-7)
Not only are we implicitly appealing to a *dao* in
choosing to adopt a benefit/harm standard, we are also going to appeal
to interpretive *dao* to judge whether we have followed
it correctly or not. Mozi had treated moral disputes as disagreements
about how to Bian *bian*distinguish in
applying terms like Yi *yi*morality and
Shan *shan*good-at. He had also objected
to Confucian reliance on acquired intuition since it made access to
such judgments esoteric. He argued that standards governing such
evaluative word use should be made by Fa
*fa*measurement standards that are accessible
to the "eyes and ears" of ordinary people. His utility
standard, Zhuangzi is suggesting, is still relative to the
*way* of translating it to behavior.
Others in the ethical debate, notably Yang Zhu and related
Primitivists, also appealed to *tian* (natural constancy)
as a normative arbiter. The growing awareness that norms of behavior
are intertwined with norms of language use, produced another feature
of this strand of thought bringing the natural world into our
guidance. Primitivists came to advocate silence--letting the natural
paths of the world take over completely.
For most of history, the *Laozi* has exemplified this rejection of language. It
treated all social Dao
*dao*spaths as implicit rejections of the
natural Dao *dao*path. Graham has argued
that echoes of this line of thinking lay in the background of
Mencius's thought. That concern led him to attempt to substitute
natural moral psychology (a natural moral disposition in human
Xin *xin*heart-mind) for positive social
mores.
A paradigm of this anti-language, silence trend (cited in the
*Zhuangzi*'s internal history just before discussing the
*Laozi* group ) was Shen Dao. Shen Dao postulated a
"Great *Dao*" (essentially the actual course
of cosmic history from past to future) which "even a clod of
earth" will follow. We all will follow Great
*Dao*. We can (and should) therefore abandon knowledge
of how to make linguistic distinctions (Shi Fei
*shi-fei*this-not that judgments) to
follow Great *Dao*. Shen Dao, based on his version of
logical determinism (i.e., There being an actual complete history of
space-time entails your behavior tomorrow is included) draws an
anti-normative, quietist and stoic conclusion.
Later Mohist writings contain several acute critiques of such a
trending pro-silence posture. Deeming all Yan
*yan*language as not-Ke
*ke*assertible is not Ke
*ke*assertible. The explanation, later Mohists
noted, lies in the asserter's own use of
Yan *yan*language. Rejecting
(*fei*-ing) all *shi-fei* judgments is
*fei* (wrong, to be rejected). Similarly self-defeating is
"teaching not to teach."
Zhuangzi's "pipes of nature" metaphor signals his
departure from these defective *Laozi*-like or Primitivist
anti-language positions. Language is natural and arguments for silence
are self-condemning. So the point of Zhuangzi's own reflections on the
absence of natural normative endorsement of our
*shi-fei*this-not that decisions
should not guide us to stop making them. Making them is what
*we* naturally do when we find *our*
*dao*s *in* nature. It is natural for us to make
a judgment, but not nature making it. Normativity arises from within
nature, but nature only makes all its normative, behavior-guiding
paths for us naturally *available*.
### 4.5 Relativism: It depends on ...
The *Zhuangzi* emphasizes the plurality of natural stances
or points of view from which one may see paths of possible behavior as
"natural." For one of the paths to be available for
*me* will be dependent on where I am and my *given*trajectory in the network. All the appeals to
*tiannature* as an authority are right in
insisting their *dao*s are natural, but mistaken in
using that as a reason to deny a similar status to the
*dao*s of rival normative thinkers. *Tian*
cannot serve as an arbiter of which rival norm is correct since it
equally "puffs" all of them out. This allows each to claim
their choices are of *tian*natural
*dao*s but does not allow them the corollary that their
rival's choices violate *tian*. They, like us,
conform with *tian*'s constancies in being committed
to their *dao*s.
Any
*shi-fei*this:right judgment concerning
a *dao* may be either a Yin
*yin*dependent *shi,* based on
prior or enacted commitments, gestalts orientations, and inner
processes or it may be an arbitrary posited (Wei
*wei*do:deem) *shi*. Dependency
arises from past (*cheng*fixed) commitments
to the *dao* structures through which we worked our way
to our *here-now*. We always encounter such choices as we are
already engaged in walking along some *dao*. Those past
*dao* commitments bring us to a normative stance from
which successive judgments of *shi-fei* and
Ke *ke*permissible vs. not
*ke* arise. Zhuangzi's pivotal illustration pairs
Shi shithis with Bi
*bi*that as near and far indexicals. His use of
another indexical here signals his view that Shi
*shi*this:right used normatively as opposite
to Fei *fei*not-that:wrong is relative to
a commitment index.
Local justifications for having
*shi-fei*this-not that or
*ke*assertible are delivered in accordance our
*cheng*fixed commitment momentum along the
*dao*s that guided us to this point. This relativity of
normative dependence underpins Zhuangzi's mildly ironic,
skepticism of special or extraordinary normative statuses we give to,
e.g., sages. The skepticism must apply even to the quietist posture that
*shi-fei*this-not that judgments are
"bad" or unnatural. We should doubt any transcendent or
allegedly perfect, totalistic epistemic access to nature's
inexpressible normative know-how. There are no naturally ideal
observers.
>
> Will the eventual result be there is both Shi
> *shi*this:right and Bi
> bithat? Will the eventual result be there is
> neither shi nor bi? We can call the situation of neither
> *shi* nor *fei* finding its opposite the
> "pivot of Dao *dao*guides."
> The pivot sets the start of the center of a sphere from which there
> are inexhaustible responses--inexhaustible *shi*
> and inexhaustible *fei*. Hence the saying
> "nothing matches Ming
> *ming*discernment." (*Ibid*., HY
> 4/2/30-31)
This cautious skepticism undergirds Zhuangzi's departure from
the primitivists'. He neither thinks we should conclude that we
must not issue *shi-fei* judgments nor that we must
reject or deny our natural, situational inclinations to
*shi-fei*. We should, however, adopt an attitude of
epistemic modesty in making our perspective based choices and
recommending our interpretations to others. That modesty arises from
*ming*discerning that their perspectives,
like ours, arise from within a immensely complex and complicated
natural *dao* structure. Epistemic modesty also
undergirds Zhuangzi's openness and willingness to interact with
others. If nature has a point of view, it is that one in which all
*actual dao*s of *shi-fei*-ing in
nature are available as natural guiding structures. Hence nature makes
no choice that implies a more absolute, or superior normative status
on either perspective. Nature makes them possible candidate guiding
*dao*s for us to choose and walk.
A question implicitly and repeatedly left to the reader is what
Zhuangzi means by Ming
*ming*discerning. Does it amount to taking
the view *of* nature but of *nowhere* in particular or
is it a naturally occurring, perspective on perspectives, a
recognition of the plurality of natural perspectives? He usually
recommends to our attention insights gained from realizing that our
choice is one among a wide range of naturally available
*dao*s. He provokes us to realize that we may make
progress and improve our guiding perspective by simulating the guiding
perspectives of others. Some tales, by contrast, warn us not to expect
the *dao*s of others to mesh with our capacities and
character--as with the boy from Shouling who goes to learn the
Handan way of walking, which "cripples"
his original ability. Still a third outcome of the interaction, as
with violent gangsters, reminds us simply to keep our distance.
However, in the standard cases, we learn from simulating others'
perspectives, choices and interpretations of the natural
*dao*-structures either from projecting or
communicating--sharing methods and techniques we did not grasp
before (new ways to use gourds or hand-salve or find ways to
accommodate and interact while "walking two ways"). New
accumulated insights about natural structures may improve our range of
options, from our own point of view. Learning can also help us see how
to walk in the natural paths together without getting in the other's
*way*.
In understanding other's trajectories along their
*dao*s, we *may* judge them as correct or
incorrect. First, we do this from our own present perspective. We
neither judge all to be right nor all to be wrong--nor even that all
are equal. Certainly, not all are equally worthy of *our*
choice. We need not judge that all are good choices for those
following them--only that the grounds of their choice may be
different from ours. They might still be dogmatic, careless, or
unwarranted even given the situational grounds of their
choice. Nothing about the *naturalness* of such choices arising
makes them right. All this is compatible with recognizing others as
natural creatures guided by natural inner processes along natural
guiding *dao*s.
We neither seek to follow all at once or each equally--as Hui
Shi seems to suggest. Nor do we resolve to follow none--as Shen
Dao suggests. We do judge that we might gain from being aware of and
engaging in open exchanges--as in Zhuangzi's dialogues. We are more
inclined to follow a path, and given our similarities, think we might
pursue it with benefit when we know some natural being like us found
and followed it. And Zhuangzi clearly does ridicule the social
moralists (Confucians and Mohists) as well as Hui Shi for the
narrowness of their range of choices--their failure to appreciate
the richness and complexity of alternative ways of life.
Our tendency to appreciate and share others' values, to mirror their
behavior cooperatively, together with our awareness of the wide
variety of perspectives, many of which we judge to be worthless,
mistaken, or dangerous, makes it hard to treat any projected
transcendental, comprehensive viewpoint as the single answer.
Zhuangzi's "pivot of
*dao*s," his "view from nowhere,"
is not a final *shi-fei* judgment. It is the point
prior to any *shi-fei* and from which all
diverge. Each commitment propels us down a different path at a
*cheng*fixed momentum. We rely on
*cheng*fixed commitments to prior
*shi-fei* in all
*shi-**fei* judgment. All
*shi-**fei* are indexed within the
network. The judgment from no-where-when is no-judgment.
We learn from openness and exchange because we acquire commitments
from simulating others' path following behavior. That we progress in
such exchanges is something we ourselves judge, not the cosmos. No
judgment comes from some point outside of or everywhere in the network
of *dao*s. We are naturally influenced by others'
evaluations, their judgments of our choices and their behavioral
virtuosity--especially when the others are our parents, perceived
superiors and respected models. These, again, are the Yin
*yin*dependencies on which present judgments
depend.
This gives Zhuangzi's indexical relativism a different contour
from Hui Shi's. The latter structures his analysis mainly on
comparatives. This leads him to a version of normative 'error
theory' -the conclusion that we should abandon normative
semantic distinctions as all wrong. Since the Bian
*bian*distinctions on which they are based
are relative, they are unreal. Ergo, there are no real distinctions
and the world is actually one. Any distinction making judgment, any
*shi-fei*this-not that, unnaturally
divides what is naturally one. Hui Shih's Tenth Thesis is:
> Flood concern on all the 10,000 thing-kinds; The cosmos is
> one Ti *ti*unit. (HY
> 93/33/74)
Graham, relying on his hypothesis that Zhuangzi frequently
considers positions which he later rejects, had already targeted the
stereotype view of Zhuangzi as agreeing with Hui Shi's
monism. Graham's translation reveals the reductio that puts
monism in a "considered and rejected" category. It amounts
to the self-rebutting anti-language stance targeted by the Later
Mohists--the error Zhuangzi's naturalism of all
perspectives (the "pipes of
heaven") was intended to avoid.
> "[H]eaven and earth were born together with me
> and the myriad things and I are one."
>
>
>
> Now that we are one, can I still say anything? Now that I have called
> us one, did I succeed in not saying something? One and the saying make
> two, two and one make three. Proceeding from here even an expert
> calculator cannot get to the end of it, much less a plain
> man. (HY5/2/52-54)
>
>
### 4.6 Zhuangzi on Language
Zhuangzi's relativism expresses choice, commitment, and
interpretive performance on analogy to natural processes involved in
following a path. Commitment is setting off along a path. We have
momentum and a trajectory. The shape of the path combines with these
and *commits* us to walk on or continue in a way that depends
on the discernible shape of the path. Walking a path involves staying
*mostly* within its physical boundaries.
This account allows us
to capture the flavor of Zhuangzi's discussion which does not employ
the familiar Western sentence-based metaphors of laws, rules,
principles with norms of *obedience*, *belief* or
propositional desire. Using the Western idiom, along with the
associated practical syllogism of belief-desire explanation would give
Zhuangzi the basis for a distinction between a cause and a
reason--a distinction he seems not to draw in his talk of
Yin *yin*dependence. There is a kind of
inference from *dao*s of choice, interpretation etc. of
a path and an internal feedback *dao* (our De
*de* virtuosity at)
"reading" external paths to guide behavior.
Zhuangzi
would not make that point in terms of deduction from a normative
premise or principle. The internal and external paths themselves have
a causal and normative relation to our walking behavior. A more
sentential focus would similarly mean describing the outcome as an
action rather than an extended *course of* walking/following
behavior. A sentence would state the action or the intent--rather like
the conclusion of a practical syllogism rather than, as as fits in
this metaphorical space, as performing a role in a play or or part in
a symphony.
Zhuangzi's use of the path metaphor did extend to the
understanding of language but, again, not with a focus on sententials. Rather
than constructing *dao*s in sentential form, Zhuangzi
construes language in *dao* form. The focus of ancient
Chinese theory was on names on the analogy of path markers: "go
past the tree, turn right and then down to the water." Names
take on importance as sign-posts along physical structures. Confucian
social versions emphasized the names of social roles and statuses more
than of natural kinds. Primitivist opposition to social
*dao*s led them into the sweeping anti-naming postures
that Later Mohists showed to be self-condemning.
Graham's interpretation of Zhuangzi's
pipes of nature gave him a way to evade
this anti-language abyss. Human language is a natural sound. Hui
Shi's using relativist premises about names to derive an
absolutist monism which threatened to collapse to the primitivist
anti-distinction, anti-naming quietism. Making everything one is
equivalent to denying Bian
*bian*distinctions thereby denying any real
basis for the *shi-fei*this way-not that
statuses implicit in all
Ming *ming*names and
yanwords:language.
Zhuangzi's naturalism is
anti-dogmatic, it neither denies nor asserts any particular set of
distinctions as authentic. Distinctions arise from indexed here-now
points in the actual network of *dao*
perspectives--by travelers on a trajectory along one of the
*dao*s choosing
Shi Fei *shi-fei* this-not that
from among multiple possible courses of behavior afforded by the
cosmos. The cosmos does not select which way to make the choice.
Zhuangzi's analogy of language and wind, however, had its own
problems. Graham had noted that Zhuangzi returns to the metaphor
nearer the middle of the dialogue, noting that here Zhuangzi seems to
be taking back some of its implications. Having disposed of
Mencius's appeal to intuition and Hui Shi's attempt to
make everything normatively equal, he here addresses a more
challenging position. The Later Mohists advocated a version of
pragmatic-semantic realism. The Later Mohists had also argued that
when a Bian *bian*distinction was
formulated as a *shi-fei*, e.g., one of the
disputants calls it "ox" and the other
"not-ox", one of them must Sheng
*sheng*win i.e., Dang
*dang*hit on it.
The Later Mohists' version of common-sense realism incorporated social
conventions. Conventions set out what
Wu *wu*natural-kind each term
"selects out" or
*bian*distinguishes from the rest. We then
extend that distinction to pick out new objects based on their
objective similarity or difference (those accessible to "eyes
and ears" of ordinary people). This is the basis of a social
standard of correct word use enshrined in past practice.
Hui Shi,
however, had undermined that simple version of realism with his observation that
between any two Wu *wu*natural-kinds we
can find *some* similarity and *some* difference. The
world, in effect, gives us many ways of establishing conventional
distinctions and assigning names. The Later Mohists had failed to find
an adequate account of what similarities would and would not lead to
what they called Kuang Ju *kuangju*wild
picking out . Zhuangzi's analogy of language to the noises
made by wind had seemed to echo Hui Shi's normlessness about
language. In this later passage, however, he revisits the wind
analogy, and retreats, accepting the Mohist insight that language is
more than a "natural sound."
>
>
> Language is not blowing; those who use
> language, have language. (Graham translates: "Saying is
> not blowing breath, saying says something.) That which it languages is
> decidedly not yet fixed. Is the eventual result that they have (there
> is) language? Or there has never been language? Deeming it as
> different from bird calls: does that mark a distinction? Or is
> there no distinction?" (HY4/2/23-4) (This passage is followed by
> the passage cited in the "Intuition" sub-section
> above)
>
>
This frustrating vagueness and signature indecision in the text
leaves interpreters to philosophize about what Zhuangzi's
implicit answer (Ming mingdiscern:clear) might
be. However, the analogy with bird calls is a fortuitous suggestion.
We arrange, adapt and modulate the elements of our language to fit our
environment, abilities, and opportunities (e.g., mating). Would
Zhuangzi have guessed the same about birds?
The claim following that
concurs that the "aboutness" of a language exists but
aboutness is not fixed. This can be explicated with the
above discussion of the indexicals Shi
*shi*this:right and Bi
*bi*that. Zhuangzi carries the diectic
character over to his treatment of the ubiquitous
*shi-fei*this-not that that undergird
the norms guiding how to use names (words). We endorse and recommend
(*shi* this:right) our guiding terms,
language and linked behavior. We may base that on our correctly
following prior commitments to *dao*s of word
use--relying on a Confucian traditional standard, the past and
existing practices of our linguistic community.
In one passage, Zhuangzi allows this appeal to past or existing
common practice but does not endorse it as right--merely as
useful. Conventions are useful because they facilitate
communication. He he adds a tone of "that is all" hinting
we need not regard them as plausible candidates for being absolutely
right--a single transcendent standard of use.
> Only those who "break through" know how to
> communicate with it as a "one." Because of this, we
> don't use that strategy and instead locate things in the
> conventional realm. The
> conventional is useful; the useful, communicable, and the communicable
> achievable. If you hit on the achievable, you are almost there and
> dependent *shi*s end. (*Ibid*., HY 4/2/36-37)
>
Zhuangzi describes our past *shis* of this kind as
"like an oath or treaty." (*Ibid*., HY 3/2/11) They
have "enactment force" committing us to a
*dao* governing their later use. We may conform to
(correctly follow) and further construct our transmitted linguistic
*dao* in expressing or performing (Wei
*wei*deeming) other things as
*shi-fei*. Our trajectory along our paths
incorporates these accumulated commitments to prior practices of
language use. As our *dao*s now bring us to new
situations, how do we know to project the correct indexed choice from
the prior history of differently-indexed behavior? That actual language behavior commits us to a linguistic *dao*-type, but it's not clear what the commitment entails at this choice point. The
Mohists and Confucians are both claiming, from their different
directional perspectives, to be following similar commitments to existing
*dao*s of practice.
Mozi's recommending naturally or empirically available
*dao*s for reforming shared linguistic practice was
itself, Mozi thought, following existing natural practice. He even
noticed that our ongoing linguistic practice rejects treating
something's merely being a shared past practice as automatically making
it right. Our existing evaluation practices remind us that shared and
unquestioned past practices can be wrong.
Mozi appealed to what he would also have regarded as a purely natural
practice. Practical efficiency (*li*benefit) is a standard accessible to all ordinary people's
"eyes and ears." Each time we apply some natural, empirically guided interpretation in practice, we participate in
shaping evolving normative practices (both linguistic and behavioral
practices). Each such decision commits us *and others* to a
*dao* of interpreting our social *dao*. We
understand our commitment to that *dao* as a commitment
to practice and transmit it correctly--where the standard of
'correct' is itself either enshrined in a past practice or
in natural utility. This is the basis for Zhuangzi's claim that
social *dao*s, including linguistic
*dao*s, are natural *dao*s--and there
are many of them. Further, as the *Laozi* would later famously
observe, *dao*s can be interpretively guided. They are
changeable *dao*s.
Humans, in finding ways to walk and walking them, initiate the
construction of social paths, naturally and perhaps unintentionally,
by leaving prints in the natural world. Zhuangzi links the path
metaphor to a society's linguistic practice thus:
> That which we treat as Ke *ke*assertible
> is Ke *ke*assertible;
> that which we treat as not assertible is not
> assertible. *Dao*s are made by walking them; thing-kinds
> are made Ran *ran*so so by
> being called 'so'. (*Ibid*., HY 4/2/33)
>
This sense of the immense complexity and the fluid nature of
normative commitments to a *dao*path underlie
Zhuangzi's skeptical
themes. Ming *Ming*clear:discerning seems
linked to the gestalt in which we accept ourselves as embedded, along
with others similarly situated, in nature's endlessly complex
evolution of guiding structures. How do we know either that our past
practice was correct or that we are correctly following them in this
new situation, here and now, based solely on our eyes and ears?
### 4.7 Skepticism
Zhuangzi's stance toward Mohist formal realism (if we
disagree on a *shi-fei*, one party must Sheng
*sheng*win) becomes clearer now. The Mohists
did not specify any objective mechanism of "winning"
beyond some vague suggestion of tipping a balance. However Zhuangzi's
point in response appears to track the *warning function* of a
norm of truth (even when justified by our best available judging
standards, we may still be wrong). Zhuangzi takes
*sheng*winning as a vague primitive in
arguing that we cannot finally settle skeptical doubts by appeal to
winning disputes. The main mechanism Zhuangzi discusses is appeal to a
judge or authority. We appreciate that all judges will also use terms
like *shi-fei*this-not that indexed by
their acquired commitment momentum. Their judgments, like ours,
express their momentum along a *dao* of using
*these* words *here, now* and projecting the usage to
*that, there, then*.
> Given that you and
> I have been brought to Bian
> *bian*dispute and you win me over and I
> don't win you over, in such a case is your distinction
> substantively Shi *Shi*this:right? Mine
> substantively Fei *fei*? If I win you over and
> you don't win me over; is mine substantively right? And yours?;
> substantively wrong? Are they partly right and partly wrong? Or
> jointly right and jointly wrong? You and I cannot know between
> ourselves, so another human inherently inherits our obscurity and
> doubt. To whom can we go to correct us? Employing someone who agrees
> with you, given that they are like you, how can they correct the
> situation? Employing someone who agrees with me, given that they are
> like me, how can they correct it? Employ someone different from both
> me and you to correct it, given that they are different from us both,
> how can they correct it? Employ someone who is like both of us to
> correct it, given that they are like us both, how can they correct it?
> So you and I and others cannot know, and in these condition on what
> other can we rely? The changing sounds' mutual dependence is like their
> conjoint autonomy. Harmonize them with glances at nature and make them
> dependent on eventual consensus and with that exhaust the
> years. (*Ibid*., HY 7/2/84-92)
It is not clear if the conclusion is supposed to be a solution to the
skeptical problem posed or merely a way to cope constructively with
complexity and uncertainty. The passage rules out any appeal to a
special authority of any other point of view--while giving equal
authority in the construction to all. Even where we all share some
"conventional wisdom" it does not have special
authority--say over other creatures. This, was implicit in Mozi's rejection of socially agreed
*dao*s. Zhuangzi's notorious toying with the perspectives of
animals expanded it (for naturalists).
.
> Gap-tooth asked
> Kingsley, "Do you know that which all natural kinds agree in
> *shi*endorse-ing?"
> He answers
> "How would I know that?"
> "Then, do you know of
> what you don't know?"
> "And how could I know
> that?"
> "So, does no natural kind know
> anything?"
> "And how would I know that? Nonetheless,
> let me try to put it in language. How would I know that what I call
> 'knowing' is not not-knowing? And what I call
> 'not-knowing', is knowing."
>
>
>
> And let me try a question on you. If people sleep in the damp, they
> get pains and paralysis; would eels? If in a tree, they tremble in
> fear; would monkeys? Of the three, does any know the correct place to
> live? ... From where I see it, the origins of goodness and
> morality, painting things as 'this/right' or
> 'not-that/wrong' are, as boundaries, both confused and
> complicated; how could I know how to distinguish them?
> (*Ibid*., HY 6/2/64-70)
>
>
>
This passage reinforces the conclusion that norms of correct word use
is Zhuangzi's core skeptical target. So we may indeed know how
to act, according to some norms of using 'know how' and
not if judged by some other *dao* of correct usage of
the knowing/ignorant distinction. Linguistic skepticism easily
metastasizes to virtually any commitment. According to which
*dao* of projecting past practice should we
judge *this* linguistic behavior as conforming to our commitment or
not. Normative skepticism, in a use-theory is hard to
contain--especially when the model of all judgments is as some indexed
Shi Fei *shi-fei*this-not that
assignment. It sweeps in metaphysics, epistemics, and semantics.
A consequence is that Zhuangzi's skepticism is broad but weak. Broad
because it infects so many judgments, but weak not merely in the usual
sense of denying absolute certainty, but in failing to imply that we
should stop or refuse to make the judgment. It does not rest on any
theory of the probability of an error, but that the concept of an
error is subject to the same concerns as the original judgment. It
neither undermines nor give us reason to withdraw our
judgments. Appreciating that others reach their views as naturally as
we do only removes our status to claim that our judgment is
authentically and uniquely correct.
Temporally, Zhuangzi's
skepticism is buttressed by reminding us of our own past experiences
of learning, of acquiring new gestalts, of realizing that what we had
considered *the* way, was subject to reconsideration and
improvement. The skepticism does not target any specific failure in my
epistemic process. It does not advise me to abandon my present
course. It reminds me only to remain open to the further possibility
of learning more--about what? About the world? We can do that by
learning more about other natural ways of processing and how they work
in the world--other *dao*s.
It counts as
skepticism because it reminds us that we normally err on the side of
overestimating than underestimating our epistemic security. We think
we know and do not more often than we think we don't know and we
do. And that is because we underestimate the range of possible
alternative *dao*s. Hence the pragmatic upshot of his
skepticism is to remind us to engage with more other points of
view.
Zhuangzi's skepticism is weak because it acknowledges that we
may apply different concepts of 'knowing' in different
situations. Implicitly, it does not deny that we could meet
*some* particular standard of knowing, but that we could know
for every situation which standard is the right one. What standard is
the right one to use for acknowledging or denying someone knows well
enough to satisfy, for example, the correct *dao* of
assertion?
This feature of Zhuangzi's skepticism lies at the heart of the famous
debate between Zhuangzi and Hui Shi about the fish-pleasure in which
Zhuangzi *defends* a claim to know against Hui Shi's
challenge. Zhuangzi makes an assertion and Hui Shi initiates the
skeptical challenge. His challenge implies that there is a favored or
correct standard of knowing that turns out to be impossibly
strict. All knowledge must come from inside. It's impossibly strict
because it doesn't allow Hui Shi to issue the challenge in this
conversation.
> Zhuangzi and
> Hui Shi wandered over the Hao River bridge. Zhuangzi said,
> "those mini-fish coming from there and cruising around, relaxed
> and unhurried, are fish at leisure." Hui Shi said "You are
> not a fish; from whence do you know the leisure of fish?" Zhuangzi
> retorted, "You are not me, from what perspective do you know my
> not knowing fish at leisure?" Hui Shi responds, "I'm
> not you, of course I don't know about you; You are not a fish
> and that's enough to count as you're not knowing
> fish's leisure." Zhuangzi concludes, "Let's
> return to where we started. When you said 'from what perspective
> do you know fish at leisure', you clearly knew my knowing it as you
> asked me. I knew it here above the Hao." (*Ibid*., HY
> 45/17/87-91)
>
Graham drew our attention to the role of perspective in this
passage, noting that Hui Shi's challenge to Zhuangzi's assertion
does not use the normal question form, (He
hehow do you know?) but a locative question word
(An anwhence?). This brings the debate into
alignment with Zhuangzi's concern about the various perspectives
from which to deploy a *dao* of word use. Here, as
above, the word is Zhi
*zhi*know. The norm of asserting, as in
English, involves answering the challenge "how do you
know?" What normative conditions allow me, here and now,
correctly to use the term *zhi*know--hence
to make the assertion about these fish below me? Hui Shi both knew
Zhuangzi was relying on a *dao* of using
'know' "from zhuangzi's here" **and**
Hui Shi knew Zhuangzi's situation from his own relevantly
similar "here-now" and relying on **the same** Dao
*dao*norm of claiming to know from a distinct
perspective. Hui Shi cannot consistently insist that a speaker can
only use Zhi *zhi*know when he
occupies the perspective of the thing known.
### 4.8 Perspectives on Perspectives
Notice, the argument about the fish implies we have a perspective
on the perspectives of others. So skepticism grounded in dependence or
relativity of perspective need not be predominantly
negative. Zhuangzi, here, uses it to justify a way of claiming to
knowing. In many other parables, he addresses the kind of knowing that
comes with a gestalt shift, especially when we see our own and
others' points of view as similar--see ourselves as others
see us. This is the more comprehensive perspective Zhuangzi urges on
us. We experience such gestalt shifts especially when we come
appreciate we had been wrong before and now view things
differently. We are confident from our own "now" that we
have made epistemic progress--our new awareness seems
"relatively" improved to us now. We reach a state where we
judge our former perspective to be inferior to our present one. It
includes insight into our relative situations. Evidently, this
awareness of one's own perspective as one of many, equally
natural points of view motivates us to wonder if we have made the
final correction. This enhanced awareness of ourselves as one of many
perspectives is an intelligible candidate reading of Zhuangzi's
Ming *ming*clarity. It is harder to
construct a coherent narrative for mystical and/or dogmatic
readings--those that jump from an improved perspective to a
perfect one.
This kind of gestalt shift leads us to reflect on how narrow our
past perspective had been. It features prominently in the "Autumn
Floods" Chapter 17. The Earl of the Yellow River, having thought
himself as the ultimate, discovers the North Sea and announces his
former error and newfound awareness of his lesser significance in
"the greater path." The North Sea Overlord tells him that
he too sees himself as situated in a modest status in a still greater
scheme and rejects the River Earl's attempts to identify the
North Sea's as ultimate. He casts doubt on there being a final,
ultimately small or large.
> The lord of He river said, "So can I consider
> cosmos 'large' and the tip of a hair as
> 'small'?" North Sea Ruo replied, "No! Thing
> kinds have unlimited measurement (ways of measuring); Time has no end;
> distinctions have no constancy, beginning and ending no inherent
> cause. Because of this great knowing is viewed within a range of
> distant and close. ...We calculate that what humans know is never
> as great as what they do not know, their temporal extent of life is
> not as great as not as much as the time before life, and from the very
> small to try to take in the scope of the very large, is an invitation
> to confusion and disorder and not that from which we can
> gain. (*Ibid*., HY 42/17/14-20)
Can we describe Zhuangzi's *ming* as "having
a sense of our limited perspective?" Credulous, dogmatic and
imperious absolutists do not appreciate themselves as being in one of
a variety of natural perspectives. Broad open-mindedness and mild
skepticism come together in the *ming*clarity
Zhuangzi encourages in us. It has a dual nature--an epistemically
modest perspective on ourselves that arises from improving our
epistemic status and encourages us to continue. It helps us appreciate
that we are still as naturally situated and others with whom we may
disagree and still grow. Further improvement can come from further
exchange of perspectives.
The naive Confucian-Mohist advocates of imposing a single social
*dao* thus disrupt the natural process by which social
*dao*s evolve in real time as we seek a harmony guided
by "glances at nature." Seeing things from another's
perspective both alerts us to how we could be wrong and makes us feel
that we now understand things better than with our former, narrower
perspective. Yet, the *Zhuangzi* repeatedly reminds us not to
abandon epistemic modesty when we make epistemic progress. That we now
see things from a perspective in common with another does not make us
both right. Yet, the more comprehensive our perspective, the
"clearer" the new gestalt should seem.
The search for this kind of perspective on ourselves and others
seems to motivate Zhuangzi's willingness to engage and interact
with others, seeking to understand their perspective as having a
natural status and role for them as ours does for us. This is partly
illustrated by common sense examples of our judging from our own
current perspective that theirs "adds something" enriching
our own perspective by our own lights. Sometimes it's dangerous
to try to mix others' perspectives with your own.
> And have you alone not
> heard tell of those from Shou-ling who studied walking with those in
> Handan? They never mastered the country's skill and lost their
> original way of walking, and stumbled and crawled
> back. (*Ibid*., HY45/17/79-80)
Aside from its frequent usefulness from our point of view, the
main benefit from the self-recognition as a natural creature embedded
as are others at a perspective-point within a natural network
structure is to encourage being open-minded. Part of the value is the
humbling of our epistemic pride, mildly disrupting our judgment
equilibrium. Without such an occasional perspective on ourselves, we
too easily fall into exaggerating our epistemic exceptionalism. The
reminder that we are intermingled with others in a web of natural
perspectives gives us an appropriate, realistic correction. A
Zhuangzi story illustrates such a moment.
>
> Zhuangzi was wandering in Diaoling fields when he glimpsed a
> weird magpie-like-thing flying in from the south. It had a wingspan of
> over seven-feet and passed so close his forehead, he could feel
> it. Then it gathered its wings and settled in a chestnut
> grove. Zhuangzi thought "what bird is that? Massive
> wings of such power and eyes so large it couldn't see
> me." He hiked up his robe and hurriedly tiptoed closer holding his
> cross-bow at the ready. Then he spotted a cicada settling in the
> shaded shelter without a worry for itself, but a preying mantis
> opened its pincers about to grab it, also focused on its gain and
> ignoring its own bodily danger. The strange magpie burst out and
> harvested them both--similarly unaware of the natural dangers he
> faced.
>
>
>
> But Zhuangzi was suddenly seized with this thought, "We natural
> kinds are all interconnected! We two different species are mutually
> seeing things in our own ways." He dismantled his crossbow and
> fled, himself now himself pursued by the game warden shouting out his
> crimes. (*Ibid*., HY 54/20/61-5)
>
>
>
Overall, Zhuangzi clearly recommends open-minded flexibility as
when he scolds Hui Shi for being tied to conventional thinking about
how to use giant gourds. He illustrates it again with his story about
different uses of a salve that prevents chapping. He models such
openness in his conversations with cripples (righteously shunned by
Confucians), freaks, thieves, strange creatures, the wind, a shadow
and a skull. He imagines many other conversations illustrating the
differences of perspectives, capacities and needs.
While we cannot help making our own judgments and commitments, he
seems to see tolerance and accommodation as values that follow from
appreciating other natural perspectives:
> A monkey keeper says (to the monkeys) "I'll
> give you three [rations] in the morning and four in the
> evening." The monkeys seemed angry. "Ok, I'll give
> you four in the morning and three in the evening." The monkeys
> were happy. So with no substantive loss, he could change their anger
> to happiness. This is an example of a *shi* judgment
> being dependent on circumstances. So the sage uses
> *shi-fei*this-not that judgments to
> harmonize and rests in the natural balance. And we can call this
> walking as pairs. (*Ibid*., HY 5/2/38-40)
We are, as it happens, capable of understanding the perspectives
of others well enough to accommodate and cooperate with them, to
borrow insights and to reach agreements. However, the
*Zhuangzi* seems skeptical that we can extrapolate from this
ordinary capacity to broaden our perspective to having some absolute
or comprehensive insight--as it were from *all* points of
view. Nor, as we saw above, can we assume that because the two
disputants come to a resolution or agreement, it constitutes knowing
from a cosmically or absolutely higher perspective. Hui Shi's
relativism, recall, does point to such an infinite expansion ending in
a single universal point of view. Here, however, we are reminded that
while we experience a gestalt broadening of perspective as revealing
something real and significant (like waking from a dream), we cannot
extrapolate from that to the claim to be able to know the final result
of such gestalt leaps to broader perspectives.
Even though North Sea Lord denies there is any final or ultimately
broad perspective from which we can make
*shi-fei*this-not that judgments, the
parable suggests a progressive path toward broader perspectives with
those further along having the epistemic status to guide those with
less comprehensive perspectives. However, arguments in Chapter 2
suggest that progress must always be judged from a moving frame of
reference along a *dao* that is already
*cheng*fixed in our
*xin*heart-mind that *shoots-out* the
*shi-fei*.
Our location and trajectory makes us
receptive to some and not other avenues of learning. The boy was
unable to master the Handan way of walking
because of the way he had already learned to walk. The monkey keeper
could accommodate the monkeys, but still disagreed with them about the
importance of the breakfast-dinner choice. That someone understands
and agrees with both of us does not make his judgment correct. The
final skepticism concerns whether these paths of progress of
perspectives must or will converge on a single outcome.
The epistemic modesty implicit in Zhuangzi's skepticism targets
mainly the paternalistic, superior attitude toward other points of
view exemplified by Confucian and Mohist moralistic posture. When we
have an accommodation (you and I come to a common agreement) you and I
may both rate it as progress. However, it does not imply we have moved
to a higher state of overall insight along an absolute scale--or from
any arbitrary third point of view. Exchange of points of view can be
valuable to each (perhaps in different ways) and broadening
perspective in this way can make us wiser--but always as judged
from our already operative Cheng
*cheng*fixed *dao*s . We can
advise and recommend our normative perspective on others, but their
being able to appreciate and use it depends on their capacities,
options and situation.
At this point, Zhuangzi starts to draw an analogy of dreaming and
waking up to the shift in gestalt that comes when we leap to a more
comprehensive perspective. At awakening, we immediately appreciate the
unreality of the dream, yet within the dream, we can have a similar
gestalt shift and dream of having dreamed and interpreted that deeper
dream.
> How do I know that loving life is not a form of ignorance?
> How do I know disliking death is not a weak farewell of the sort when
> we don't know about the return? Miss Li Zhi cries when she is
> betrothed to someone's son, and when she first goes off to the Jin
> state soaks her clothing with her tears; but then she arrives at the
> kings abode, sleeps with the king in his bed, eats fattened
> livestock and then starts to regret her tears. How do I know the dead
> do not regret their former clinging to life, We dream of eating and
> drinking and on awaking cry bitterly, we dream of weeping and wailing
> and awake in a good mood to go off hunting. When we dream, we don't
> know it as a dream, and in our dreams, judge something else as a
> dream. On awakening, we know it was a dream, and there could be
> another greater awakening in which we know a greater dream, and under
> these the conditions the ignorant think they are as enlightened as if
> they had learned it by an investigation. Gentlemen to shepherds
> inherently do this! (*Ibid*., HY 6/2/78-83)
So, is there an ultimate or final possible such shift in
gestalt--some final state of knowing what to do? Zhuangzi's
relativism is mildly skeptical because he cannot know either that
there is not nor that there is a final or ultimate
"awakening"
The dream theme is memorably carried over to the story of Zhuangzi
dreaming a butterfly and/or vice versa. It seems to suggest that the
gestalt sense of liberation from error may even be reciprocal. Perhaps
our subsequent perspective is one from which most would move to our
former perspective. Adolescent conversion can be to or from a
religion.
> Once before, Zhuangzi dreamt of being a butterfly, gaily
> butterflying and himself embodied in this sense of purpose! He knew
> nothing of Zhuangzi. Suddenly awakening, he then is rooted in
> Zhuangzi. He doesn't know if Zhuangzi dreamt being a butterfly
> or a butterfly is dreaming being Zhuangzi--though there must be a
> difference. This is called "things change." (*Ibid*.,
> HY7/2/94)
Elaborating the complexity this way makes Zhuangzi's
proposals seem disappointing as solutions. They amount to mildly
suggesting that we allow the exchange of views to go on without the
domination of any dogma and with some vague "glances at natural
constancies" and see what comes out "in the long
run."
Zhuangzi's conception of *dao*s in nature, from a
here-now to a there-then, differs from a Mohist (broadly utilitarian)
naturalism. Utilitarianism is a natural constraint, an allegedly
single naturally correct way for all of us to choose our course. In
effect, Zhuangzi is more of a natural pluralist, with the natural
outcome of morality the product of ongoing individual and social
construction.
*Dao*s are in nature but not choices of
nature for us. So the discussion, competition, and even strife between
*dao*s and their advocates are factors in an ongoing
natural Dao *dao*guiding process. We and
our circumstances change as we each find, choose and walk different
naturally evolving paths.
This does not entail we should not advocate our own way. Such
exchanges are part of the natural process of construction of Dao
*dao*spaths and making them available to
others. Such a dialogue of competing *dao*s constitutes
the natural evolutional *dao* of guidance. Realizing
this, we should not flatter ourselves, posing as the Confucian father
shaping his child's character, but as a contributor in this
competition among similarly natural ways. We express perspectives
located in a real world of indexed points from which we choose
behavioral paths.
Some characters in Zhuangzi's dialogues wonder
about exceptional figures who allegedly have abilities that justify
that paternal posture--the capacity to transcend our location in
points of view and to lecture all of us from a privileged
perspective. The *Zhuangzi*'s response typically remind
them that such idealized points of view are neither intelligible to us
nor relevant to what *we* should do. Either these exceptional
observers have their own naturally
*cheng*fixed frames of reference in the
natural world, or they are outside of the natural world in some
unrealistically free realm. If the latter, then their views are both
unintelligible and irrelevant to us. What they would do in our
situation does not constitute helpful advice to us. To advocate
following the advice of these ideal observers is to speak practical
nonsense to non-ideal, actual actors.
Gap Tooth, following Kingsley's skeptical formulation
above says:
>
> So you don't know what is beneficial or harmful, does the
> "fully arrived human" necessarily not know them?
> Kingsley replied, "the fully arrived person becomes pure
> sapience, he could be in a blazing forest and not be able to feel any
> heat, the rivers of our civilization could freeze and he
> couldn't feel any chill, devastating lighting could pulverize
> mountains and the wind raise a tidal wave and he could not experience
> surprise. Someone like that could ride on clouds and air, straddle the
> sun and moon, and wander beyond the four oceans. Death and life
> are not different for him, much less the inclinations of benefit and
> harm."
>
>
>
> Master Ju Que asked master Zhang Wu, "I've heard from
> my teacher that a sagely man does not find social dealings worth
> engaging, doesn't pursue utility, doesn't avoid harm,
> doesn't take delight in striving, doesn't follow
> *dao*s, in silence says things, and in saying things is
> silent, and roams outside the nitty-gritty of the actual world. Master
> regarded this as romantic fantasy but I deem it the execution of a
> mysterious *dao*. My kind sir what do you say of
> this?"
>
>
>
> Zhang Wu replied, "This is something that, were the yellow
> emperor to hear, it would be like buzzing, and so how could the likes
> of Confucius come to know it? Furthermore, you have jumped to
> conclusions... . I'll give you some absurd talk and you absurdly
> listen." (*Ibid*., HY 6/2/71-7)
>
>
>
However, in later chapters, Zhuangzi himself seems to recommend to
us examples of such spectacular capacities--the most beautifully
and elaborately expressed of which is the passage celebrating Butcher
Ding.
> Butcher Ding carved an ox for Lord Wen Hui; his point
> of contact, the way he inclined his torso, his foot position, the
> angle of his knee ... gliding, flowing! The knife sang
> "whuaa" with nothing out of tune. It was as if he were
> dancing the Faun Ballet or directing an opera.
>
>
> Lord Wen Hui exclaimed "Ole! Splendidly done! Can talent
> extend even to this?.
>
>
>
> Butcher Ding gestured with his knife, explaining,
>
>
>
> >
> > "What your
> > servant pursues is *dao*; which is what skill aims
> > at. When I began to carve oxen, what I saw was nothing but the
> > oxen. After three years, I had ceased seeing them as wholes, and now
> > my sapience mingles so that I don't see with my eyes, Sensory
> > know-how ends and my sapient desires take over my performance. I rely
> > on natural guiding structures, separate out the great chunks and steer
> > through empty gaps depending on the anatomy. I evade places where
> > cords and filaments intertwine, much less the large bones.
> >
> >
> > A good cook gets a new knife every year; he chops! Mediocre cooks
> > change knives monthly; they hack. My knife now has 19 years on it;
> > it's carved several thousand oxen and the edge is as if I had
> > just taken it from the sharpener.
> >
> >
> >
> > Those joints have gaps, and the knife's edge no thickness, to
> > put something infinitesimally thin in an empty space?! Effortless! It
> > even allows the edge wander in with ample room to play. That is why,
> > with 19 years on it, this knife's edge is grindstone
> > fresh."
> >
> >
>
>
> (*Ibid*., 7/3/2-8)
The *Zhuangzi* plays several variations on this theme.
Sometimes the virtuoso performer catches cicadas on a sticky rod,
another crafts chariot wheels, there are musicians, debaters, and
thieves. The theme extends to animals, millipedes with their expertise
in coordinating their limbs while maintaining a smooth flow, snakes
flashing by while slithering on their stomachs, One implicit example
is Zhuangzi's own relation with his relativist rival and buddy,
Hui Shi. Bemoaning his loss while visiting his sidekick's grave,
Zhuangzi spins a tale of a virtuoso ax-thrower who sliced specks off
the nose of his crony, but lost his "knack" when his
co-performer passed away. (*Ibid*., HY 66/24/48-51)
The tales often highlight the tranquil state that accompanies
behavior that skillfully follows a natural path. The performances look
and feel effortless. The spontaneity of the flow along a natural path
gives performers the sense that their behavior is
"world-guided" rather than internally controlled. These
behaviors become second-nature. We move beyond anything like
sub-vocalizing instructions, deliberating or reflecting--and yet we
are concentrating intently on the behavior. The range of his examples
reminds us that such satisfying states of performance can be
experienced in even the most low caste and mundane of activities,
including butchering, criminal skills, as well as in the finest of
arts, and philosophy.
Another feature of this theme is the observation that such expertise
in performance always comes with some kind of limitation--not
least that each example is a different person with a different
knack. There is no shortcut *dao* that gives you a knack
at every activity. Cook Ding "comes to a hard place;" the
cicada catcher tries to balance two coins on his stick--if he is
not calm enough, he will have a bad night. The wheelwright could not
teach his son the art; the musician cannot play all the notes and only
reaches true perfection when he dwells in silence. And above all, the
valorization of this kind of specialization in an art pulls in the
opposite direction of Zhuangzi's encouragement to broaden and
enlarge our perspectives and scope of appreciation.
This theme of the limits of virtuosity is pursued explicitly in the *Zhuangzi*'s
discussion of the necessary connection of
Cheng *cheng*completion:success and
Kui *kui* failure:deficiency. The theme of
this weak skeptical relativism plays out smoothly into the classical
Chinese focus on paths as the model of normativity and the objects of
knowledge. Paths are everywhere, but guide natural kinds from particular space-time
locations and can guide a wide range of behavior types, normative
subject matters. Each leads to subsequent choices among
*dao*spaths.
Zhuangzi does not ground his
skepticism in an account of specifically human epistemic
deficiencies. We are one among many natural creatures with different
capacities choosing paths from their indexed point in space and time.
The skeptical theme is the wide range of our different
perspectives. We are limited mainly in the sense that there is no
behavior from the point of view of the whole--there is no omniscient
perspective on the path structure. We may wonder if we have discovered
all the available Dao *dao*spaths. And
we may always wonder if our judgment about which is best now is about
the best in the long run. All we can substitute for this global
perspective is some local consensus.
> Substantively, in the end, is there success and defect?
> Substantively, in the end, is there neither success nor defect?....If
> we can call these successful, then even I am also successful. If they
> cannot be called successful, then neither I nor any other thing may be
> called successful. For this reason, illumination of slippery doubt is
> that which sages target. For this reason, we do not use it and let
> things rest in the conventional. (*Ibid*., HY
> 5/2/42-47)
The weak skeptical conclusion is most strikingly expressed in the
observation that introduces the chapter with the story of Cook
Ding.
> My life is limited and know-how is unlimited. To pursue
> the unlimited with the limited is dangerous. (*Ibid*., HY
> 7/3/1) |
zhu-xi | ## 1. Life and Works
Zhu Xi was born in Youqi in Fujian in October 1130. Many anecdotes
attest that he was a highly precocious child. It was recorded that at
age five he ventured to ask what lay beyond Heaven, and by eight he
understood the significance of the *Classic of Filiality*
(*Xiaojing*). As a youth, he was inspired by Mencius'
proposition that all people could become a sage. In Zhu Xi's
childhood, his father Zhu Song (1097-1143) arranged for several
old friends to educate Zhu Xi after his passing. Consequently, Zhu Xi
was educated by several eclectic scholars who had delved into Daoism
and Buddhism as well as Confucianism, and inclined him to be deep and
wide-ranging in his intellectual predilections and cultural interests.
Later he studied Chan (Zen) Buddhism with the monk Dao Qian of the
Kaishan Temple, and reputedly met with the Chan master Da Hui (Dahui
Zonggao,
1089-1163).[2]
Traces of Huayan's holistic thought can also be discerned in
the formation of Zhu Xi's system (Makeham 2018). Remarkably, Zhu
passed the official *jinshi* exam (the "presented
scholar" exam) at just nineteen, drawing on Chan Buddhism in his
answers.[3]
He continued to pursue Daoism and Buddhism until he met the
Neo-Confucian master Li Tong (1093-1163) a decade later, and
formally became his student in 1160. In fact, Zhu's father had
recommended that he conduct his advanced studies under Li Tong, but
Zhu postponed seeing Li for years until he finally admitted to himself
that he was no longer making progress in his eclectic cultivation and
suffered spiritual doubts. Li Tong was a master in the southern Yang
Shi (1053-1135) lineage of the Cheng brothers' school,
partial to the teachings of Cheng Yi. Importantly, Li Tong convinced
Zhu of the cogency and superiority of the Confucian Way and
cultivation. Meanwhile, having passed the *jinshi* examination,
Zhu was eligible to hold office, and had been assigned to several
prefectural administrative posts. But, since he disagreed with central
court policy on several major issues, he preferred to hold temple
guardianships, which gave him the leisure to conduct Confucian studies
and cultivation in earnest, and shielded him from the ruthless court
politics. Having chosen this career path, Zhu Xi had the leisure to
study and reflect, so over time he made numerous contributions in
classical studies, historical inquiries, literary studies, and
philosophic reflections. He moreover developed into a man of letters
and wrote subtle prose and elegant verse.
A renowned teacher in later life, Zhu taught the classics and
Neo-Confucian thought and practice to hundreds if not thousands of
students. His oral discourses and discussions are preserved in the
*Classified Dialogues of Master Zhu* (*Zhuzi yulei*),
and his poetry, essays, correspondence, and other prose works are
collected in the *Collected Works of Master Zhu* (*Zhuzi
wenji*). He also published critical, annotated editions of several
classics, including the *Book of Change* (*Yijing*) and
the *Book of Odes* (*Shijing*), essential works of
Neo-Confucianism, including by Zhou Dunyi, Zhang Zai, and the Cheng
brothers, and a vital Neo-Confucian anthology, *Reflections on
Things at Hand* (*Jinsilu*). He also edited and annotated
an important early text of inner alchemy Daoism; the *Cantong
qi* (*Unity of the Three*) by Wei Boyang (3rd
cent. CE), which combines the cosmology of the *Yijing* and the
Daoist teaching of *wuwei* (non-intentional action) with inner
alchemy. Zhu Xi remained devoted to his spiritual and intellectual
work virtually to his last breath, pondering and discussing
problematic passages in the *Great Learning* during the last
several days of his life. Throughout his life, Zhu Xi sought to
reestablish the fundamental concepts and values of Confucianism to
restore China's cultural and political integrity as a Confucian
society, especially since people in search of spiritual guidance and
solace were increasingly looking to Daoism and Buddhism rather than
Confucianism, which was perceived as a state ideology and orthodoxy
and had lost spiritual and ethical purchase. Moreover, Zhu believed
that the empire needed the spiritual *elan* of
Confucius' original ethical ideas and values to meet the
challenge of barbarian encroachments. His own sincere patriotism,
commitment to the tradition, and devotion to learning and scholarship
have remained an inspiration to this day in East Asia and throughout
the world.
## 2. Philosophy of Human Nature and Approach to Self-Cultivation
Zhu Xi developed a theory of basic human propensities (nature,
*xing*) to account for both the possibility of human evil and
that of human goodness and perfectibility. On this theory, while
(following Mencius, 372-289 BCE) insisting that people are
basically good (well intended and sensitive to the sufferings of
others), he accepted that the manner in which a person's basic
disposition is manifested is conditioned and at times contained by
their specific *qi* endowment (native talents and
gifts, *qizhi*), family and social environment, and other
factors. Such factors together yield their empirical personality,
intelligence, and aptitude for spiritual-ethical cultivation. Zhu
accepted that there are real differences in individual disposition,
character, as well as aptitude for ethical self-cultivation and
realization, owing to individual variations in
*qi* endowment, environment, etc. Furthermore, he argued that
people can become bad or evil due, for example, to a coarse or sensual
*qi* endowment, the bad influence of ruthless kin or friends, a
selfish or harsh social environment, a cruel streak, etc. Nonetheless,
following Mencius, he firmly believed that anyone who was sincerely
committed to moral self-cultivation and was fervent in their moral practice
would surely make progress in achieving moral realization if not sagehood.
Zhu Xi's teacher, Li Tong, and friend, Zhang Shi (1133-1180),
presented him with different approaches to cultivation based on the
premise of basic still and active mindsets, respectively. But, Zhu
found that both of these approaches were one-sided and flawed. How is
one to leap from quiet-sitting and stillness to making timely moral
responses? When does one have the composure to introspect morally when
their mind is constantly active and engaged? If neither the meditative
approach nor the active approach to cultivation and practice were
efficacious, what path remained open to Zhu Xi? Recent research shows
that Zhu Xi embarked on a careful reading of the works of Zhou Dunyi
during this period of spiritual-philosophical crisis in the course of which he
rediscovered Zhou's doctrine of "the interpenetration of
stillness and activity" for the human mind and spirit (Adler
2014). With this idea, Zhou Dunyi was advocating that whereas the
states of action and rest are mutually exclusive in the case of
physical objects, such states interpenetrate and are mutually
implicative in the case of human mental and spiritual phenomena (Adler
2014). This doctrine piqued Zhu Xi's interest, and he came to
see it as offering a way out of the dilemma between Li Tong's
stress on stillness and Hu Hong's stress on activity in
cultivation and practice, and their respective shortcomings. Zhou
Dunyi's doctrine was particularly exciting to Zhu Xi for it
highlighted the distinctness and potential religiosity of the human
mind and spirit, which Zhou describes as not subject to the same
limitations and restrictions as are physical phenomena. Zhou Dunyi
moreover associates this idea with a vital and well integrated model
of human mind and spirit, self-cultivation, and cosmos. Inspired by
Zhou Dunyi's doctrine of the interpenetration of stillness and
activity and related ideas, Zhu Xi worked out a twofold cultivation
effort that incorporated at once nurturing one's feeling of
reverence (*jing*) to purify mind while investigating things to
discern their determinate or defining patterns (*li*).
Cultivation of reverence, originally a religious virtue associated
with ancestor worship and ceremonial rites, as described in the
classics and taught by Confucius (551-479 BCE), serves to purify
the mind, attune one to the promptings of the original good nature,
and set one to act with appropriateness (*yi*). Moreover, by
grasping the defining patterns (*li*) of relationship and
intercourse that constitute the world, society, people, and proper
conduct, one gains the master key to acting with utmost propriety
(*zhongyong*). The mind that is imbued with reverence and
comprehends these patterns will develop into a good will
(*zhuzai*) dedicated to acting appropriately and with utmost
propriety. Since *jing* takes on connotations of focus,
concentration, and alertness, as well as reverence in Zhu Xi's
discourses, mindfulness has been suggested as the English translation
that covers the fullness of the term *jing* (Kalton 1988) in
Zhu Xi's thought.
In later life, Zhu started to regard this twofold approach to
cultivation and realization as too complicated, gradual, and difficult
to carry out in practice. Like Confucius before him and anticipating
Wang Yangming after him, Zhu Xi came to accept that the sincere
Confucian adept must, on embarking on his or her project of ethical
self-cultivation, first strive to establish his or her sincere
determination (*lizhi*) to realize the cardinal Confucian
virtues and become an exemplary person (*junzi*), that is to
say, a master of appropriateness in interpersonal conduct and human
affairs generally.
## 3. Ethical Philosophy
Zhu Xi's methodology for achieving perspicacity (*ming*)
in ethical judgment and "appropriateness" (*yi*) in
practice can be summed up in his call to investigate things to extend
knowledge (*gewu zhizhi*). Zhu advocated this methodology to
stress the need for people, as prospective moral agents, to notice the
fine details, the distinguishing features of particular situations and
to fashion on that basis the most discerning, appropriate response.
These distinguishing features can suggest alternative moral
considerations to be weighed (Pincoffs 1986). This call lay behind
Zhu's promotion of the *Great Learning* (*Daxue*)
and call for life-long learning and moral reflection in a bid to
achieve a modicum of objectivity and break free of the moral
intuitionism and resultant subjectivism typical of Neo-Confucians of
his generation.
### 3.1 Investigating Things for Ethical Discernment and Practice
Throughout his career, Zhu Xi focused on the twin problems of 1)
determining the conditions of moral agency, and 2) setting forth a
viable program of moral self-cultivation on that basis. Zhu saw moral
agency as the expression of a moral will, which he understood to be
the achievement of an inner self-mastery (*zhuzai*) that forms
the core of a person's moral character, perceptivity,
cognizance, and responsiveness. On this view, self-cultivation that is
aimed at nurturing self-mastery must include forming a concentrated,
reverential mind-set (*jing*) and a discerning sense of
appropriateness. Early on, Zhu had emphasized the need to attain a
working knowledge of the constitutive patterning (*li*) of
reality and society in the light of which the norms and ritual action
(*li*) prescribed for proper interpersonal relationships and
intercourse are devised. He later found that establishing the
determination (*lizhi*) to seek self-realization and conduct
oneself appropriately counted for as much as the long-term cultivation
process itself, during which one can lose sight of one's purpose
and be side-tracked (see Qian Mu 1986: 123-127). Moreover, while
still maintaining the importance of the norms and ritual action for
character-building and the social order, Zhu began to emphasize the
need to build up a sympathetic but realistic grasp of the warp and
woof of real daily human life viewed in the perspective of such broad
Confucian ethical ideals as humaneness (*ren*) and fairness
(*gong*). He understood that, although the norms and ritual
action are broadly applicable and reliable, many situations call for
specifically tailored
responses.[4]
Consequently, against the moral intuitionism prevalent at the time in
Neo-Confucianism, as espoused by his teacher Li Tong
(1093-1163), his intellectual rival Lu Jiuyuan
(1139-1193), and others, Zhu argued that intuitionism is
inadequate for dealing effectively with the complex human affairs that
people are apt to encounter in their
lives.[5]
Rather, he advocated dedicating oneself to the observation and study
of the patterning/patterns (*li*) of relationship, interaction,
and change among all things, among human beings in particular. He
regarded "investigating things to extend knowledge" as the
surest way to deepen and broaden one's discernment of the
patterns that constitute the lived-world. Such knowledge, importantly,
would sharpen one's sense of appropriateness by attuning oneself
to the actual, subtle, distinguishing features of particular
situations.
Again, Zhu Xi conceived the world as a patterned (*li*)
totality made up of a cosmic vapor (*qi*) that under various
conditions condenses and solidifies into countless permutations, from
the purest transparent *yuanqi* (primordial *qi*), to
the *Yin-Yang* poles modulated by the primal *taiji*
(supreme polarity) pattern, to the *wuxing* (five phases), each
of which bears an identifying inner pattern and set of propensities
(*xing*) that involve interconvertability and recombination
with the other four phases, and finally to the phenomenal world:
Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things (*tiandi
wanwu*).[6]
For Zhu Xi, the world presents a vital tapestry of relationships,
cycles, processes, events, and things that are spontaneously arrayed
in aesthetic order. In the nexus of these arrays, *li* are
manifested three dimensionally and present different faces from
different angles (Graham 1986a: 148; Qian Mu 1986: 133). *Li*
are inherently perspectival. Zhu adopts metaphors of the grains in
wood, the lines in jade, the "veins" in a leaf, the lines
in marble, and even the sinewy texture of beef, to stress that *li*
are manifested immanently rather than abstractly, and thus are to be
sought concretely by observing phenomena in the world, not by pure,
disengaged, abstract ratiocination (Needham 1956a: 473). Moreover,
*li* are never presented in their putative optimal pure form.
They always appear conditioned by the degree of purity of the
*qi* through which they are manifested and of the environing
conditions (Wade 2003).
*Li* also structure the human mind, thought, and language, such
that human beings are predisposed to grasp and attempt to respond
appropriately to the things and situations they
encounter.[7]
Objective learning on this view can be understood as a facet of
self-learning: indeed, by the principle of continuity, objective
understanding enhances self-understanding, for by comprehending the
warp and woof of the outer *li* of things, one gains insight
into the inner *li* constituting one's mind and character
(Qian Mu 1971: II 31-38). For Zhu Xi, while *li*
structure the mind, thought, and language, this is not just at the
cognitive level: *li* also structure the inner patterning
(*xing*) and basic impulses that predispose us to have
characteristically human emotions (*qing*), relationships, and
responses (*ganying*) under various sets of conditions (Graham
1986a: 152-154; Qian Mu 1971: II. 25-30). In Zhu's
Confucian view, *li* and *xing* predispose one to be
sensitive and responsive; metaphorically, they provide the hardware of
human nature. Self-cultivation and moral reflection are the means by
which one actively conditions and fine-tunes these predispositions of
sensitivity and response. They thus function as indispensable software
for cultivating personhood.
These are the contours of Zhu Xi's approach to moral
self-cultivation and interpersonal ethics. The standard ethical norms
work well in standard situations, normal families, good communities,
and ordinary social circumstances. But, Zhu also understood that
people are richly complicated and that human affairs often become
complex, get out of hand, and go awry. Life is just not that ideal,
not that simple. We sometimes encounter ethically anomalous situations
to which the standard sets of feelings and responses as prescribed by
the received norms and ritual actions simply do not fit. In many
instances, standing on the norm and being moralistic simply would make
matters worse. Zhu himself said that one must have ample experience
and self-cultivation so that,
>
>
> If, by chance, an anomalous affair should come up, one could
> comprehend it. One wants to be in a position to grasp such affairs
> thoroughly in order to understand their unfamiliar aspects. (YL: ch.
> 19)
>
>
>
Zhu Xi considered how to tailor responses appropriate in problematic
situations under the rubric of *quan* (weighing things up,
discretion, expedient
means).[8]
He noted several kinds of situations in which recourse to discretion
and expedient means might be advisable: 1) extraordinary situations
that cannot be covered by the standard norms and ritual actions, 2)
urgent situations that require a direct violation of the received
norms and ritual actions to be satisfactorily resolved, and 3)
situations in which it would be more humane and prudent not to observe the relevant
norms and ritual actions (see Wei 1986). Situations of the first kind
include those that call for a disruption of the given human order, for
example the removal of an evil authority figure, such as a psychotic
parent or a sociopathic tyrant. For situations of the second kind, Zhu had
in mind emergencies when one would have to violate a norm in order to
perform an emergency action, such as grasping the hand of a drowning
sister-in-law, or shoving an old lady out of the path of a runaway
oxcart.[9]
Finally, the third kind of situation includes those in which it would
be more compassionate to waive or overlook the ritual prescriptions,
such as in cases of condoning the remarriage of a widow who would
otherwise be destined to isolation and destitution.
Clearly, such considerations lead us into unmapped ethical terrain.
How far can one justifiably take such sidestepping of the received
applicable norms and ritual actions? What qualifications and
restrictions might apply? For his part, Zhu Xi mentioned at least two
qualifications: a weak qualification that the expedient adopted not be
otherwise ethically objectionable, and a stronger qualification
stipulating that the expedient adopted be in compliance with the Way,
i.e., that it satisfy some basic moral value, at least as basic as the
values expressed in the relevant received norm and ritual action.
Thus, any exercise of discretion that is undertaken in light of
one's sense of appropriateness (*yi*), if exercised with
sufficient probity and care, should satisfy the moral values embodied
in the Way more adequately than would a routine observance of the
standard norm. Humaneness is the core moral value that was invoked
most often in such cases, but there are a number of others: filial
piety, fraternity, fidelity, empathy, compassion, appropriateness,
etc. Famous examples from the Confucian tradition include
Mencius' reminder that one should overturn the propriety of not
grasping the hand of a member of the opposite sex in order to rescue a
drowning sister in law (*Mencius* 4A.17), and Cheng Yi argued
for an exception to the impropriety of widows remarrying on the basis
of filial piety (Rosenlee 2006: 134). Similarly, Socrates showed that
Justice is not always realized by observance of the proprieties of
truth-telling and faithfully returning a friend's property
(Plato *Republic* 331c).
Nonetheless, ever cognizant of temptation and moral weakness, Zhu
insisted on the well established probity and integrity of anyone who
would venture to use discretion and exercise expedient means. He
stated:
>
>
> Intending to weigh up a situation carefully [in order to exercise
> expedient means], one must have cultivated the inner root daily, so
> that one's mind is sensitive, perspicacious, pure, and
> integrated; [even in that case,] one still must naturally weigh up
> such situations most carefully. As Cheng Yi (1033-1107) said: Be
> reverent in order to straighten oneself within; practice
> appropriateness in order to square situations without. One's
> sense of appropriateness comprises the moral fiber which one expresses
> through sincere ritual action (YL 37, 37:6a, par. 36).
>
>
>
Only those who have extensively "investigated things to extend
knowledge", and who are conversant with the subtle patternings
of the human heart and human affairs would be qualified to consider
exercising expedient means over simply following the norms. (Zhu knew
that this ethical knowledge is as much a matter of practical
experience as of book learning. At times, he told his occasionally
priggish students that well-disposed people, even if morally
untutored, can be more discerning and have better discretion than are
some academicians!)
While Zhu stressed making careful observations in situations in order
to tailor the most fitting responses in context, at the same time he
envisioned a cultivation process whereby one discerns ever more
fundamental and yet far-reaching patterns (*li*) that shape
nature and moral value. That is, Zhu sometimes construed the project
of investigating things to extend knowledge as an ascendant movement
whereby the learner finally arrives at the
pinnacle--*taiji* (supreme polarity) that embraces and
subsumes all derived patterns. To Zhu, grasping *taiji* in this
sense was tantamount to grasping the master key, for it represented to
him the apex of being and value, and bestowed realization and sagehood
on those who sincerely and authentically comprehended and embraced
it.[10]
While this conception charts an ideal path to the pure, compassionate
mind-set of sagehood, it obscures Zhu Xi's usual emphasis on
fine-tuning and sharpening one's moral discernment and
responsiveness in the midst of things--in full view of the
situatedness of people in their daily life. This conception also
neglects Zhu's equal emphasis on the claim that patterns as
inborn propensities (*xing*) are manifested only in concrete
specific *qi* formations, and thus that 1) patterns are to be
discerned in their fine particularity, that 2) the moral impulses are
to be nurtured in the stream of human life, and that 3) the emotions,
when not obscured by desires or obsessions, for the most part are
immediate expressions of the basic natural impulses.
How, too, to square this broad vision of probing inquiry and deep
understanding with the potentially constrictive Confucian moral
psychology constructed tightly round the virtues of humaneness,
appropriateness, ritual propriety, and wisdom, and their attendant
emotions? Zhu Xi likely realized that these virtues functioned as
thematic foci for cultivation as one establishes ones moral
orientation and bearings and a balanced interpersonal stance. One
needs to go through an initial stage of mastering these basic virtues
in order to 1) reinforce one's altruistic impulses and curtail
the egoistic ones, 2) be inclined to seek principled rapport and
harmony in interpersonal affairs, and 3) be moved by a sense of
oneness with others and all things. Subsequently, the more ethical
human phenomena one observes and considers in advanced level learning
and cultivation, the more one feels a broad sympathy for others that
transcends the narrowly-graded love, the so-called love with
distinctions that is attributed to the notion of *ren*
(humaneness) in Confucianism (see *Mencius*, 1A.7, 3A.5, and
7A.45). The more one observes the nuances of human affairs and the
springs of human action, the more one will express deference and
respect in ways that do not necessarily coincide exactly with the
general prescriptions of the norms and ritual actions. In this way,
one will build up a repertoire of conduct that reflects one's
personal ethical discernment and discretion, which expresses
one's personal ethical attainment and style.
Zhu Xi on occasion modeled his ethical conception of observing
situations and fashioning the most appropriate response
naturalistically on the butcher character, Cook Ding, portrayed in the
Zhuangzi as a skilled artisan: just as the sure blade of Cook
Ding's cleaver goes straight to the cartilage between the bones,
the cultivated sense of appropriateness (*yi*) of Zhu
Xi's moral adept strikes right at the heart of interpersonal
situations (see Thompson 1988: 39-40). A.C. Graham once
contrasted Zhu's perception/response model (*gan-ying*)
of ethical action with that of Zhuangzi by suggesting that Zhu's
notion of appropriate response was informed by rigorous adherence to
rules and principles, whereas Zhuangzi's was relatively
intuitive and spontaneous (Graham 1986a: 143-145). This apparent
contrast can be resolved by separating the stages of cultivation and
mastery: Zhuangzi's skilled artisans, such as Butcher Ding, all
had to undergo prolonged periods of rigorously controlled
apprenticeship before they could "forget" the
"knowing that" in an integrated, spontaneous process of
"knowing how". For his part, Zhu Xi knew that the years of
learning and practice--one's moral
apprenticeship--culminates in a responsive moral agent who can
operate as intuitively and spontaneously in his or her personal and
social ethical sphere as do Zhuangzi's skilled artisans in
theirs.[11]
Zhu's moral adept is in effect an artisan of interpersonal
intercourse. Zhu could rightfully claim Confucius as a prime model for
this view. After decades of cultivation, Confucius could say,
"At sixty, my ear was attuned. At seventy, I could give my heart
free rein and without overstepping the mark" (*Analects*
2.4).
Viewed as a quest for knowledge as responsive pattern (*li*)
discernment, enhanced by association, analogical reasoning, and
generalization, Zhu Xi's approach to inquiry dovetails with
recent studies on strategies for learning for effective, ethical
living. Neuroscientist and gerontologist Daniel J. Levitin writes
concerning intelligence and wisdom,
>
> Humans excel at... making associations, taking information... and
> seeing how it interacts with other information. Whenever we encounter
> new information, our brains place it in a conceptual frame and then
> seek to associate it with other things we have experienced. The brain
> is a giant pattern detector.... Our brains add to that the
> ability to form analogies, ... [to perform] analogical
> reasoning. The wisdom we find in older adults follow[s] from ...
> these four things: association, experience, pattern recognition, and
> the use of analogies. And, this is why we we gain more and more wisdom
> as we age. Wisdom comes from the accumulated sets of things we've seen
> and experienced, our ability to detect patterns in those experiences,
> and our ability to predict future outcomes based on them. (And what is
> intelligence if not that?) Naturally, the more you have experienced,
> the more wisdom you are able to tap into.... [Old-timers] have
> been witness to so many things that seem to cycle around again and
> again. Wisdom enables you to handle some problems more quickly and
> effectively than the raw firepower of youth. [In sum, m]aking
> associations underpins learning. To assimilate new information we need
> to associate it with what we've seen before. Life experience gives us
> more associations to make, more patterns (*li*) to
> recognize. (Levitin 2020, pp. 119-120)
On the surface, it appears that while Zhu Xi's method of inquiry
is specialized and prescriptive, Levitin's presentation is
merely descriptive of normal human learning. However, Levitin is
describing the optimal learning strategies of people who remain
sensitive, alert, discerning, and responsive throughout mature life,
traits that some people nurture going forward and that others ought to
make efforts to cultivate themselves in order to be more vital, understanding, and effective human actors and lead more fulfilling lives.
Zhu Xi's appropriateness approach to ethics has several distinct
features. First, one is to be well-versed in the received norms and
rituals that circumscribe interpersonal relationships and prescribe
proper behavior in family and society. Second, one is to have made
ample observations and responses in real life situations. Third, one
is to have examined and reflected on ways in which others act and
respond in situations, for reference. Fourth, through extensive
observation and experience, one is to be cognizant of the range of
considerations that come into play in real life situations: moral
principle, utility, fairness, sympathy, compassion, and so
forth.[12]
Fifth, one is to remain flexible and open-minded as well as avoid
making surmises, being insistent, stubborn, or self-centered
(*Analects* 9.4). According to this view, while observing the
ethical norms and rules of thumb in his or her community, the moral
adept possesses a store of personal ethical sensitivity,
responsiveness, and resourcefulness, by which to fashion the most
fitting responses to situations.
### 3.2 Moral Cosmic Synthesis
In his watershed essay, *A Treatise on Humanity*
(*Renshuo*), Zhu Xi discourses on the classical Confucian
teaching of humanity (*ren*) in a unified cosmic and human
perspective. In concluding, he criticizes alternative accounts of
humanity, i.e., Confucius' spirit of humaneness, on various
conceptual and ethical
grounds.[13]
Following the early Han tradition, Zhu opens by associating humaneness with
cosmic creativity. In its most basic manifestation, humaneness is
characterized as the impulse of "heaven and earth" (the
cosmos) to produce things. By extension, this impulse yields the cycle
of seasons and the pervasive fecundity of nature. Advocates of this
doctrine had found confirmation in the rich, productive Chinese soil
and temperate climate, which supported their assumption that nature
was generally fertile and afforded the right conditions for human
flourishing. Pervasive, the impulse to produce appears in each and
every one of the myriad creatures while in human beings it is refined
into the virtue of "humaneness", which, when fully
realized, involves one's caring attitude and dedicated
responsibility toward others. Zhu Xi moreover correlates
"origination, growth, flourishing and firmness", the
fourfold initial stages of creativity and production in the cosmos and
human nature first mentioned in early commentaries on the *Book of
Change*, with humaneness, appropriateness, ritual conduct and
wisdom, the four cardinal virtues enunciated by Confucius. Zhu Xi thus
portrays the fully cultivated person as at once a complement to heaven
and earth, a vital participant in cosmic creativity, and a catalyst
for the flourishing and self-realization of others. On this basis, he
goes on to formulate the definition of *ren* (humanity,
humaneness) for the subsequent tradition: "the essential
character of mind" and "the essential pattern of
love". The virtue of humaneness thus grounds the disposition of
mind as commiserative and describes the core of moral self-realization
as love for others (other-directed concern), to be appropriately
manifested.
In the closing argument of the *Treatise on Humanity*, Zhu Xi
stresses that while the stillness and activity phases of the emotions
provide emotive stage setting for one's dedicated cultivation,
realization, and practice of humaneness, what is crucial is the
profound insight that,
>
>
> If one could but truly *practice love and maintain it* (italics
> added), one would possess the well-spring of all virtues and the root
> of all good deeds. (based on Chan 1963, 212-227, edited)
>
>
>
Under this premise, Zhu cites Confucius' advice to Yan Hui,
"Master the self by practicing ritual propriety"
(*Analects* XII.1). For Zhu Xi, one masters oneself to rein in
one's naive self-centeredness by paying ritual respect to
others, which in turn spurs a change in the axis of one's moral
concern to other people, especially those with whom one is related and
daily interacts. What is important, then, is *the moral-ethical
axis of one's motivations*. But, how is one to sustain and
manifest this humanity consistently in attitude and practice? Zhu Xi
does not appeal to philosophic reflection but recommends mindful
(*jing*) daily cultivation and practice, i.e., being calm and
focused, respectful in personal life, diligent in conducting affairs,
and dedicated to upholding interpersonal
relations.[14]
Moreover, he considers that the emotions play a fundamental role in
ethical cultivation and performance. After stressing serving
one's parents with filiality and one's elder brother with
fraternal respect, Zhu Xi urges: "Be loving in dealing with all
things", which goes well beyond standard filtered and restrained
"graded" Confucian love.
Humaneness is not just a matter of being thoughtful and considerate and paying one's due respect to others ; Zhu Xi underscores the rigors of conducting oneself sincerely and authentically with humaneness, citing Confucius' examples of not only ministers who had declined official posts to maintain their
integrity but of times when the exemplary person is willing to
sacrifice his or her own life to fulfill humanity (*Analects*
15.8). Nonetheless, the animating spirit of Zhu Xi's
*Treatise* remains: "love people gently and benefit
things", as reflected in Mencius' four incipient ethical
impulses and Confucius' four cardinal
virtues.[15]
## 4. Natural Philosophy
### 4.1 Investigating Things for Natural Knowledge and Action
While Shao Yong and Cheng Yi in the Northern Song had introduced and sketched out the
idea of observation in terms of *guanwu* (observing things),
*fanguan* (reflective perception), and *gewu*
(investigating things), Zhu Xi not only discussed the idea of
observation but offered a multitude of actual observations of
celestial and terrestrial phenomena. In addition, his penchant for
hierarchy and systemization led modern commentators in the twentieth
century to draw comparisons with Plato, Aristotle, and even Thomas
Aquinas. Around the mid-twentieth century, Joseph Needham vividly
presented Zhu's system in terms of process philosophy as bearing
organismic patterns of conceptualization and distinct parallels with
scientific thinking:
>
>
> I am prepared to suggest, in view of the fact that the term
> *Li* always contained the notion of pattern, and that Chu Hsi
> himself consciously applied it so as to include the most living and
> vital patterns known to man, that something of the idea of
> 'organism' was what was really at the back of the minds of
> the Neo-Confucians, and that Chu Hsi was therefore further advanced in
> insight into the nature of the universe than any of his interpreters
> and translators, whether Chinese or European, have yet given him
> credit for. (Needham 1956a: 474)
>
>
>
Soon thereafter, after undertaking a careful study of Zhu's
dialogues (*Zhuzi yulei*), Hu Shih presented Zhu's method
of inquiry, *gewu zhizhi* (investigate things to attain
knowledge) as essentially a process of "hypothesis and
verification by evidence" (Chan 1989: 566), consistent in spirit
with a scientific approach to inquiry. Needham and Hu effectively cast
Zhu's thought and method in a new light, as more creative,
scientific, holistic, and practical than previously thought. Since then, many
have discussed Zhu as a process thinker, but little has been written
to consider the extent to which his system could accommodate a
scientific worldview, and the extent to which his method of inquiry
was consistent with a scientific approach. Yung Sik Kim offers an in-depth inquiry into the
extent to which Zhu Xi anticipated genuine scientific methods of
observation and conceptualization in *The Natural Philosophy of Chu
Hsi* (2000).
Zhu from childhood displayed a genuine interest in natural phenomena
and in raising speculative questions. Later he tended to rein in this
interest, for example by relating features of observed natural
phenomena to human analogues for didactic purposes and by refraining
from pressing his speculations very far, i.e., beyond the scope of
verifiable knowledge and applicability. Zhu lived during a tumultuous
period in Chinese history when Neo-Confucian scholars tended to draw
upon the resources of their own tradition to revitalize the empire, an
effort in which Zhu's *ouvre* constituted a watershed. He
sought to wed the objective and subjective trends of the earlier
movement into a practical synthesis in which objective inquiry played
a key role in subjective cultivation. Subsequently, however, as his
disciples refined his thought into a scholastic doctrine, subjective
cultivation began to prevail over objective inquiry, which was increasingly
redirected into the narrow limits of reading and interpersonal
conduct.
A Neo-Confucian master of the Ming dynasty, Wang Shouren (Yangming;
1472-1529), spurned Zhu's method of inquiry altogether
after he made a futile attempt to observe the *li* (patterning) in the
bamboo outside his gate. Holding that facts are obvious to a
perceptive observer and do not require endless further investigation, Wang
went on to formulate an idealist pragmatism that became influential.
Intending to counter the scholasticism and careerism of his day, Wang,
a military man, stressed volitionism and activism and spurned the sort
of careful objective inquiry Zhu thought necessary to making balanced
judgments and appropriate responses.
Zhu conceptualized nature and natural phenomena in terms of
*li* (pattern, patterning) and *gewu* (the investigation
of things), *qi* (primal vapor), *yin-yang*,
*wuxing* (five phases), *shu* (number, probability,
ratio), *xiang* (images); figures from the *Book of
Changes*), ghosts and spirits (*gui-shen*), heaven and the
sage (*tian-shengren*), stimulus-response (*ganying*),
and transformation and change (*bianhua*). In this context, it
was important to treat *li* matter-of-factly as the intrinsic
patterning of things and events. While the *li* involved with
the identities of things are those facets of intrinsic patterning that
pertain to their basic interactive propensities and functions, the
*li* of a concrete thing form "a gestalt totality"
(Kim 2000), nearly as complex as the thing itself. Thus, whereas
scholars tend to take Zhu's assertion that "for a certain
(kind of) thing to exist, there first must be that *li*"
or "there must be this *li* for there to be that (kind
of) thing" as indicative of a metaphysical principle of
sufficient reason, in this context *li* simply affirm that
things of identifiable kinds bear identifying patterns (*xing*)
that make them what they are and interact as they do. *Li*
indicate reference points for identities of things that influence
their typical patterns of interaction with other things. *Li*
thus conceived do not amount to principles of explanation and are more
involved with definition, so references to the *li* of
phenomena do not add anything cognitive or
scientific.[16]
At times, Zhu did present the idea of investigating things in chapter
5 of the *Great Learning* (*Daxue*) as involving a
step-by-step approach, with an eye to discerning ever higher levels of
commonality among the myriad *li* (patterns), aiming at an
ultimate comprehension of the most basic form of pattern,
*taiji* (supreme polarity). Although this approach lacks the
rigor of a logical categorical system, when viewed together with
Zhu's comments on Zhou Dunyi's *Diagram of the Supreme
Polarity* (*Taiji tu*), it is suggestive for viewing
phenomena and forms in a developmental, almost evolutionary context.
As Needham comments:
>
>
> Chu Hsi [Zhu Xi] wrote:
>
>
>
> >
> >
> > If one peers into the mystery, the *thai chi* [*taiji*,
> > supreme polarity] seems a chaotic and disorderly wilderness lacking
> > all signs of an arranger..., yet the *Li* (fundamental
> > pattern) of motion and rest, and of Yin and Yang, is fully contained
> > within it.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> Innumerable smaller organisms were also contained within it, and
> indeed composed it. Some of them more highly organized than others. In
> fact, the world was no more undifferentiated for the Neo-Confucians
> than for modern organic philosophy; it manifested a series of
> integrative levels of organization, wholes at one level being parts on
> the next. A clear statement of this conception appears in the ninth
> paragraph of the *Thai chi Thu Shuo* [Explanation of the
> diagram of the supreme polarity], which indicated the inapplicability
> of categories outside the level to which they belong. (Needham 1956a:
> 466)
>
>
>
For Zhu, investigating things to attain knowledge involves arriving at
a grasp of their constituent *li*; "knowing" or
"understanding" such phenomena, thus, is a matter of
grasping their *li*. While Zhu often speaks of knowing or
comprehending something in terms of the metaphor of seeing it clearly,
of having a clear discernment of it, which is nothing like rigid
propositional knowledge, he does recognize several forms or levels of
knowing, and regards the basic steps of learning in analytical
propositional terms and the higher levels in more synthetic insight
terms. That is, one first learns facts about the building blocks of
the world and human life, e.g., what things are, what they mean, how
they fit together; then, gradually, one gains insights into the
broader patterns of relationship and intercourse that comprise the
world and human life and that eventually afford sensitive glimpses of
the inner root as well as the larger picture. Zhu's discourses
are as full of detailed accounts of phenomena as they are of synthetic
insights, which should be expected given that Zhu gives equal status
and value to the various sorts of qualities that the Western tradition
divides into primary (quantitative), secondary (qualitative), and
tertiary (qualitative effects).
As noted, Zhu drew on notions of *qi, yin-yang*, the five
phases, *shu* (numbers, probablilities), and images as
conceptual and categorical resources for classifying, characterizing,
and understanding the world, especially cycles, processes, and
particular things and events. Chinese thinkers, especially during the
Han dynasty, used such notions to arrange categories of reality and
compile lists of qualities for each category. While some of the
associated qualities are directly or causally linked, many of them are
arbitrary--perhaps assigned in light of long forgotten events or
decrees. These sets of categories were compiled as systematic indices
for grasping things and events in terms of categorical associations
and imputations. Inevitably, these sets of categories bore a strongly
cultural stamp and bias but were applied equally to natural phenomena,
as if the natural world were an extension of the human world, not
*vice versa*.
Zhu often classified a natural phenomenon in terms of these categories
and associations, and left it at that, unconcerned that the categories
were haphazard and the associations arbitrary and inexplicable. Likely
Zhu recognized that these categories and associations often were
arbitrary and not particularly informative regarding physical reality
but did not find it necessary or practical to pursue the matter. He presumably
contented himself with assigning phenomena to these culturally colored
sets of categories and associations because in those speech contexts
those associations were more significant and interesting than the
probing of purely physical categories and explanations would have
been. These sorts of examples reflect the cultural common sense and
conditions of common speech of his age.
The question arises whether these sets of categories and associations
were more a help or a hindrance to the development of science in
traditional China. On the one hand, their loose criteria and arbitrary
design allowed for easy classifications and "accounts" of
phenomena that would have stymied serious scientific investigation
while, on the other, the associations thus attributed to these
phenomena sometimes might have yielded expectations or hypotheses of
sorts, thus stimulating further inquiry. Interestingly, Zhu often
sidestepped these sets of categories altogether in his serious
thinking about natural phenomena and judged them by what he took to be
the deciding factors in the cases themselves, often in light of
analogies. Striking cases of this are Zhu's discussions on the
structure of the cosmos (heaven and earth) and insightful explanations
of phases of the moon and eclipses of the sun and moon. For example,
Zhu often said that the earth was floating on water; both below the
earth and surrounding its four sides were water, but he also said that
*qi* surrounded the earth. And, he also spoke of vortices,
centrifugal forces, and occasionally of the earth's motion. Zhu
was interested in these accounts of the formation of the world, but
saw no way to confirm any of them. He perhaps thought it was important
to present such accounts as representative of an objective approach to
a question that was more amenable to mystical or religious
approaches.
Zhu's notions of stimulus-response and transformation and change
are noteworthy, for they are counterparts to the concepts of causation
and change in Western science. Construing phenomena as resonant and sensitive,
perhaps perceptive in a rudimentary sense, the notion of
stimulus-response reinforces the interdependence of things. Assuming a
resonance among things in terms of parallelisms among their forms, and
affinities among their *qi*, this notion presents phenomena on
a biological model and conduces to an ecological rather than a
mechanical outlook. While providing an interactive way of talking
about phenomena, it doesn't open the way or impel the inquirer
to uncover the nuts and bolts of causation and change. Also, since the
idea of stimulus-response was usually tied to the aforementioned sets
of categories and associations, it was often vague and applied in
arbitrary and superstitious ways. As might be expected, Zhu's
notions of transformation and change also reflected biological and
human-life models, with transformation indicating gradual change, as
in the growth of a child or the passage of summer, and change
indicating a sudden transformation, as from a caterpillar to a
butterfly or from summer to winter and life to death. From the
standpoint of developing science, by making change seem to be
natural and inevitable, these notions of transformation and change
tended to make further inquiry appear to be unwarranted. In contrast,
Western ideas of eternal substance and inert matter, for example, made the observed
changes on the earth and in the skies problematic and in urgent need
of further inquiry and explanation. More pragmatic in spirit, the
Chinese were concerned mainly with registering and grasping the
observed patterns and sequences of change in and around them so as to
be able to adapt their lives to the ever-changing circumstances.
(The *Book of Changes* was a guide to making such adaptations.)
Zhu Xi posits an ontological and causal continuity between the
celestial and terrestrial realms, as well as between the animal and
plant species and humanity. Indeed, there is no categorical difference
between human beings and other life forms. Against this backdrop, Zhu
carefully observed anomalies and sketched explanations based on the
general ideas available to him. For example, when observing fossils of
seashells atop a mountain, Zhu noted that the area had once been a
seabed and hypothesized that the earth formerly was softer and more
fluid and that, through wave motions, this seabed later rose to become
a mountain top. Meanwhile, the entire earth dried as it grew older.
While this explanation was not rigorous or determinate enough to count
as a scientific hypothesis; Zhu appealed only to naturalistic concepts
and principles in his comments. Zhu also made quantitative measurements of
plant growth. Zhu once heard about a monk's claim that oould see
evidence of the nourishing powers of "night vapor" by
observing bamboo sprouts, which grow twice as fast at night as during
the day. Later, during a stay at a Buddhist residence on Jade
Mountain, Zhu observed that the bamboo sprouts there displayed the
"same rate of growth day and night, exactly the opposite of the
monk's claim". Qian Mu observes that Zhu's practice
of *gewu* (investigating things) was fruitful because he made
observations with questions or hypotheses in mind, adding that Wang
Shouren's observations of bamboo had been fruitless and in vain because he
had no question or hypothesis in mind to test. Wang was just undertaking
bland looking (Qian 1986: 215f, 219).
In contrast to analytical Western concepts used in studying the
natural world, including matter, material quality, motion, and change,
Zhu Xi adopted a holistic approach to understanding the physical world
and phenomena. He drew upon received notions of *li* (pattern)
and *qi* (cosmic vapor) to describe and account for the
material, dynamic, and formal features of perceived phenomena.
*Li* (pattern) refer to the inner patterns of both interaction
and identifying form. As noted, *li* are not general
overarching principles, but inner patternings implicated in things and
events, from the discernible textures--grains in wood, veins in
leaves--to the postulated identifying forms, *xing*, of
things. In terms of dynamic interaction, *li* structure the
primal *yin-yang* intercourse as *taiji*, and the
intercourse among the five phases as their constitutive identifying
forms. Zhu thus conceived of the cosmos as emerging from incipient
*yin-yang* interaction in the initially formless primal
*qi* (*yuanqi*). *Yin-yang* interaction and
further permutations give rise to the five phases, which bear the full
range of material and perceptual qualities and whose interaction gives
rise to heaven, earth, and the myriad things, i.e., the cosmos.
The Chinese system of five phases differs from traditional Western
atomism on several counts. As *qi* (*yin-yang*) operates
in essentially a wave-like manner, the world is manifested as a field
of interacting *qi* forces. Change is a function of the
attunement of forms and resonance of *qi*, and transformation
is viewed according to chemical and biological models. That is, not
only are the five phases derived from *yin-yang* interaction;
they are divisible and inter-convertible. Moreover, while Western
atoms bear only primary qualities in themselves, each of the five
phases exhibits a range of perceptual qualities and effects, and the
tradition attributes a plethora of qualities and associations to
*yin* and *yang*. These flexible and adaptable concepts
do not create the sorts of problems, the kinds of conflicts with
observation, that prompt rethinking and further, more precise
investigations of phenomena. Because perceptual properties of all sorts
are propagated from the formation of the five phases, Zhu Xi and
others in his tradition did not draw the critical distinction between
primary and secondary qualities that formed a crucial linchpin in
physical analysis in the West from antiquity. To be sure, Zhu spoke of
a threshold between perceptible and imperceptible phenomena in terms
of the expressions "above forms" (*xing er shang*)
and "within forms" (*xing er xia)*. "Above
forms" refers not to general principles or primary qualities but
essentially to the immanental moral underpinnings of nature and
humanity, i.e., the inner roots of order and harmony, ecologically
conceived, primary examples of which are *dao* and *li*.
Characterizing these fundamental notions as "above forms",
Zhu insisted that people needed to comprehend them in light of their
manifestations in perceived phenomena "within forms".
Lacking the critical distinction between primary and secondary
qualities, Zhu treated perceptual qualities, such as color and taste,
as equally basic, innate, and real in material substances as any
other, and as such he did not look to underlying principles, causes,
or mechanisms in terms of which to explain these manifest
qualities.
Zhu Xi didn't feel the need to formulate a theory of motion as
such either, because the factors were glossed in his commonsense grasp
of the world and he didn't see any advantage in explicating
them. Importantly, he couldn't conceive of their theoretical
ramifications or especially of their practical implications, such as
for engineering and technology. At the same time, Zhu did have a grasp
of inertia and the relativity of motion, keys to solving the problems
of motion, but it was not adequate to the task. The capacity to
imagine ideal cases and relationships would have been necessary: for
example, Galileo had to conceive of the paradigmatic case of motion in
terms of an object moving in a straight line on a frictionless plane
at a constant velocity, something that can never occur in nature, for
any actual object inevitably will be environed and influenced by a
variety of forces, such as gravity and friction. Essential, too, was
the mathematical plotting of motions in nature that approximate the
paradigmatic motions, such as Kepler's plotting of planetary
motion and Galileo's plotting of the trajectories of
projectiles, to produce precise representations of near-paradigmatic
motions. Necessary, too, was an awareness of the possibility of
mathematical calculation and precise predictions. Zhu's
philosophy involved viewing all things interactively in relative
context. If he had had a notion of paradigmatic (perpetual) motion, it
would have been something like wave motions in the sea or the cyclical
pumping action of the traditional Chinese waterwheel used for
irrigation with rising full troughs of water complemented by the
falling empty troughs (receptacles), which he had used to depict the
*yin-yang* operation of *taiji*. Zhu also lacked the
necessary notions of precise mathematicization, measurement, and
calculation in terms of which to make the theory of motion bear fruit.
Consequently, it is hardly to be expected that Zhu or any one else in
his intellectual circle should have had occasion to formulate anything
like a scientific theory of motion.
Several features of Zhu Xi's thought and his notion of
observation discouraged him from forming a genuinely scientific theory
or making scientific observations. Zhu was loath to investigate the
sorts of fundamental abstract concepts, such as element, compound,
infinity, space, time, void, causality, and law, that were necessary
for making breakthroughs in the scientific revolution. Because of the
Confucian commonsense approach to things, Zhu was disinclined to
pursue or investigate such abstract, intangible, and seemingly
ephemeral notions. He tended to think that focusing on concepts like
void, nothingness, infinity, and space would draw people away from the
world of human affairs and ultimately incline them toward pointless
introspection. Zhu's concern with the real world itself stymied
his investigations into the very abstract concepts necessary for
constructing a better grasp of this so-called real world.
Zhu Xi had a "particularistic" tendency to investigate
each phenomenon on its own terms, without attempting to relate it to
more general explanatory principles, as in his treatment of inertia
and the relativity of motion. In another case, he discussed the
difficulty of boiling rice atop a particular mountain in terms of the
characteristics of the *qi* (cosmic vapor) of that mountain,
without relating the phenomenon generally to characteristics of
*qi* (as air pressure) at high altitudes. Inevitably, this
ignoring of general principles made Zhu less sensitive to the
contradictions that arose when he offered more than one explanation of
a single phenomenon.
Why did Zhu Xi go to the trouble of constructing his elaborate system
and making and discussing all these observations if they didn't
carry him beyond common sense to a deeper and more accurate perception
and account of reality, to go beyond the details of particular cases
to more general principles and truths? Zhu's ultimate purpose
was pragmatic rather than epistemic; that is, he was laying out the
concepts, framework, and practices that he deemed most conducive to
self-cultivation, self-realization, and ethical practice, rather than
formulating objectively accurate concepts, systems, and methods for
ascertaining objective truths about the world. So, he did not have a
practical interest in pushing his inquiries in purely scientific
directions. But, this way of putting it is not completely right
because Zhu had considered a variety of philosophic positions and did
think he had selected the best and most accurate of the concepts and
systems at his disposal. And, he did attempt to render his ideas in a
manner that was faithful to reality, the devotion to which was one of
his core cultivation
themes.[17]
Clearly, he did not have the requisite concepts, framework, or style
of thinking through which to conceive the world under overarching
scientific principles and abstract generalities.
Zhu Xi's working concepts and thought were typified by
immanental patterns (*li*) rather than by transcendental
principles. He regarded reality, the world, not in terms of logical
order, but as manifesting aesthetic order. Reality for him was not
composed of independent atoms operating under general laws; rather it
formed a field in which particulars appeared as foci determined in
context. To Zhu, ours is not an absolute, objective universe in which
particular individuals are subsumed under generalities and behave
according to universal laws; rather, the world unfolds before us in
light of our increasing, expanding perception of the arrays of
particular phenomena around us. The world we experience is a function
of, a field manifested as, the tapestry formed through the resonance
among the foci making up that field. Consequently, the task of
investigating things is a process of unfolding (rather than an
inductive process), an exhausting of the *li* constituting
particular things and events, from their gestalt forms, such as the
symmetrical bilateral forms of most biological entities, to their
identifying forms to their functions and typical patterns of
interaction. Proceeding in this way, we seek not the most general laws
or principles governing particular atomic individuals, but rather the
most basic or common patterns of interaction and formation among
particulars as foci in fields. Consequently, for example, the ultimate
pattern in Zhu's thought, *taiji*, the supreme polarity,
is not an abstract ideal like a platonic form or a law of nature; it
is an immanental pattern that is realized ubiquitously but
distributively, not overarchingly or generally. Zhu was not working
toward a scientific conception of the world, of reality, as
constituted on general principles and abstract equations; he was
traversing an alternative route by eliciting the formations of things
and events in ecological context in a way that would open one's
mind to the intimate resonance and intercourse among particulars as foci in fields. At
the same time, by stressing the expression "*gewu
qiongli*" (investigate things to exhaust their *li*),
Zhu maintained a measure of analyticity in his insights to ensure that
the knowledge people gleaned was nuanced and textured enough to
contribute to life understanding and appropriate conduct.
### 4.2 Philosophic Synthesis
Zhu Xi erected a philosophical synthesis that has been compared
broadly to the systems of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Whitehead,
and others. These "Great Chain" systems are hierarchical
and rooted in the distinction between form and matter. Recent
immanental readings of Zhu Xi's thought have stirred comparisons
with Spinoza and even Husserl (Choi 1999; Yeo 2013). Zhu Xi preserved
the immanental character of his hierarchy by incorporating Zhou
Dunyi's conception of world (and self) as shown in the
*Diagram of the Supreme Polarity* (*Taiji tu*), as a way
to combine the Cheng brothers' concept of *li* (pattern)
with Zhang Zai's notion of *qi* (cosmic vapor) as
organically integrated in a holistic system. In Zhou's treatise,
*Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Polarity* (*Taiji
tu shuo*) (Adler 2014), Zhu discerned a viable account of the
formation of the world in stages from the original unformed
*qi*, to *yin* and *yang*, the five phases,
earth, wood, fire, water, and metal, and on to heaven, earth and the
ten thousand things. Zhu blended this conception with ideas from the
*Book of Change* and its commentaries in setting forth a
comprehensive philosophy of cosmic and human creativity and providing
philosophical grounds for the received Confucian concepts of human
nature and self-cultivation.
Zhu Xi's penchant for thinking in polarities, *li* and
*qi*, in particular, has continued to stir critics to regard
him as a dualist who used two fundamental concepts to explain reality.
For his part, any viable account of the complexity of phenomena must
involve two or more facets in order to register their complexity,
variety, and changes. Zhu generalized the organic understanding of
*li* and *qi* implied in Zhou Dunyi's
*Explanation* under a principle of complementarity, inspired by
Cheng Hao's observation that all things have their complement
(discussed in the next section). At first, Zhu thought this principle
only governed *qi* phenomena as patterned by *li*, but
eventually he admitted that not only were *yin* and
*yang* paradigmatic polar complements but that the supreme
polarity (*taiji*) complemented the *yin-yang* polarity,
and inferred that *li* and *qi*, as the references of
*taiji* and *yin-yang*, respectively, too had to be
complements. This meant that *li* and *qi* were
functionally on a par and mutually implicative. Zhu still felt the
need to prioritize *li* ontologically and ethically, however,
for the reason that *li* underwrites both the possibility of
*qi* ordering (to yield a world and phenomena) and the
possibility of moral feelings and norms (to yield ethics and a system
of rites). Treating *li* and *qi* as full ontological
complements would quite possibly entail a Daoist conception of nature
as pure spontaneity and ethics as just perspectival while prioritizing
*qi* over *li* would be inadequate for understanding the
world and phenomenal orders, and reduce ethics to the received
norms.
## 5. Complementarity between *li* and *qi*, and among related terms
Recognizing *li* and *qi* as complements serves to
underscore their unity in difference and their implicatedness in not
just the forms but in the flow of events comprising the
world.[18]
This complementary relationship, moreover, underscores the basic
holism and power of Zhu's thought regarding the formation of the
world and things.
Zhu Xi was inspired by Cheng Hao's formulation of the principle
of complementarity, which he placed prominently in sec. 1 of the authoritative
Neo-Confucian anthology, *Reflections on Things at Hand* (par.
25):
>
>
> Master Cheng Hao said: The *li* of heaven, earth and the myriad
> things is that nothing exists in isolation; everything certainly has
> its opposite/complement. This is spontaneously so and not artificially
> arranged. When I reflect on this truth late at night, I feel delighted
> as if my hands were waving and my feet were dancing. (based on Chan
> 1967, edited)
>
>
>
Zhu Xi regarded this complementary pattern as describing the most
fundamental ordering tendency of cosmos, phenomena, and self. Notably,
this is *li* (pattern) in a new sense, now more as a
*pattern of creative intercourse* than just as inherent
patterning or order. It generalizes the significance of
*taiji*, though it *prima facie* lacks
*taiji*'s insistent implication of *li* into
*qi* intercourse and derived phenomena. Zhu remarks that Cheng
Hao felt delighted about his insight into this *li*
because,
>
>
> Once he had grasped deeply the truth that, "nothing exists in
> isolation but certainly has its opposite/complement," it seemed
> to him marvelous and joyous. (based on Chan 1967, edited)
>
>
>
*Zhuzi yulei* (Classified Dialogues of Master Zhu),
*juan* 95, contains Zhu's discussions with students on
this Cheng Hao quotation. As mentioned, Zhu usually construes this as
a *li* pattern underlying the complementary relationships among
*qi* phenomena, which *li* itself transcends, hence
implying a vertical bifurcation between *li* and *qi*.
When a disciple asks Zhu whether the complements have to be
"things" or whether, "*Li* too could have a
complement?" The Master replies,
>
>
> As to the categories of above and below, small and great, clear and
> turbid, they also pertain to *things*. But, if we were to say,
> "having the above, there must be the below; having the large,
> there must be the small", that would be purely a matter of
> *li*, that is to say it *has to be* like this, as a sort
> of logical necessity. For example, in nature's production of
> things, there cannot only be *yin*, there must also be
> *yang*; there cannot only be *yang*, there must also be
> *yin*. These [*yin* and *yang*] are mutual
> complements. The contexts of these complements are not themselves
> complementary *li*. Rather, the *li* are the very reason
> by which there are these complements. (trans. by the author)
>
>
>
Zhu also applies this *li* pattern creatively to number,
speech, objects, and games. According to this pattern, "One
complements two", "above forms" complements
"within forms". Any word will bear its semantic complement
within.[19]
And, this object before your eyes has its complements of back, front,
top, and bottom. Moreover, each side has its complement.... Any
single thing bears its complement
within.[20]
For example, the paths on a checkerboard form series of complementary
pairs. In the end, when only one path remains open and it seems that
no other complement remains, this very path still complements the 360
other
paths.[21]
This is called a 'one-many
complement', like the 'Way-implement complement'
(*Zhuzi yulei*, *juan* 95).
At the same time, Zhu hesitates to accept that *li* and
*qi* themselves are complementary, but this primarily reflects
his ethical
concerns.[22]
On the ontological side, he eventually does affirm that *li*
and *qi* are complementary by saying:
>
>
> As to what would be the complement of *taiji*, it is said that
> *taiji* is *wuji* (free of polarity)....
> *Taiji* also complements *yin-yang*.... [Regarding]
> the Way above forms and... utensil within forms... these are
> '*horizontal* oppositions'.... (trans. by the
> author)
>
>
>
This is just like,
>
>
> Having the tranquility of the pre-aroused emotions of pleasure and
> anger, grief and joy, there is the harmony of these emotions when
> aroused in due degree. (trans. by the author)
>
>
>
*Taiji* and *wuji* are opposed, apparently
contradictory, expressions. Signifying the most basic complementarity,
namely, that between *yin* and *yang*, *taiji* is
the most primitive and original form of *li.* It is
quintessential *li*, or elementary form (patterning).
Signifying something unbounded and free of polarity, *wuji*
describes the unformed primal *qi* whence *yin* and
*yang* emerge through the *taiji* impulse. It is
quintessential *qi*, pure potentiality. Hence, Zhou
Dunyi's proposition, "*Wuji er taiji*" (Free
from polarity, and yet the supreme polarity), expresses the identity
of opposites (*li* and *qi*) that gives rise to the
initial impulse of
phenomena.[23]
In the next step of this impulse, *yin* and *yang* are
formed. They complement *taiji* as pure energy to pure form,
thus expressing another dimension of the *li-qi*
complementarity.
Although the distinction between "above forms" and
"within forms" does not strictly mark the distinction
between *li* and *qi*; nevertheless, as the way is
*correlated with li,* and implement is embodied *qi*,
their "*horizontal* complementarity" implies a
similar pattern for *li* and *qi*. Strikingly, whereas
those who take this above-below forms distinction as
"metaphysical" and "physical" would have to
describe the opposition as "*vertical*", Zhu says
plainly that it is *horizontal*, thus imputing a closer, more
interactive relationship between these complements than could obtain
had their relationship been strictly vertical.
A final reason why Zhu Xi's ideas of *li* and *qi*
ought to be taken as horizontal and not vertical complements, that is,
as a complex unity and not as a metaphysical duality, is found when
Zhu makes two seemingly contradictory claims about *li* and
*qi*: (1) *Li* is prior to *qi.* 2) *Li*
is not present apart from *qi* formations. Whereas 1) is
usually regarded as a positive metaphysical claim, it means rather
that *li* in this sense refers to "permanent
possibilities of *qi* formation". For example, for any
particular *qi* formation to have come about, it had to have
been possible for the *qi* constituents to combine in that
particular way to yield those properties and
capacities.[24]
Whereas (2) is often taken to mean that *li* subsist until
instantiated, it means rather that *li* are the patterning of
real processes and things; they exist immanently in processes and
things, though they can be analyzed and discussed separately from
their real contexts. This is why, methodologically, Zhu insists that
learners acquaint themselves with the *li* of things, processes,
affairs, ethics, etc., by examining actual things, processes,
phenomena, etc. He regards the study of *li* in abstraction
from phenomena to be wooden, hollow, empty, etc. Hence, Zhu's
claims (1) and (2) and his methodological strategy all indicate that,
for him, the relation of complementarity between *li* and
*qi* is essentially horizontal.
The "*li*" pattern in the Cheng Hao quotation thus
turns out to be a "meta-*li*" *about* the
dynamic *li-qi* complements that originate and comprise the
world and its constituents, that is, as a second-order abstraction
from the *li* and *qi* that are actually implicated in
phenomena. Again, this meta-*li* confirms the basic unity and
dynamism of Zhu's *li-qi* system. It reveals the pulse of
life at the heart of *li* and affirms the possibilities of form
in the vagaries of *qi* movement. It enlivens Zhu's
system and makes it flexible and conceptually adaptable to experience
and thinking.
We may reflect that Zhu's original notion of *li* as
pattern involves restrictions that conflict with experience or
expression, so he reconfigures it in light of Zhou Dunyi's
*Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Polarity* and the
Cheng Hao
quotation.[25]
To work as intended, *li* has to tolerate and express
simultaneous assertions of "contradictory" complementary
terms. At the same time, this reconfiguration marks a step away from
primarily immanental aesthetic pattern of the *li* conception
to a
more
abstract, more self-consciously meta-pattern.
## 6. Major Interpreters of Zhu Xi
Zhu Xi was an active scholar-intellectual who held discussions and
disputes with other scholars, both in correspondence and in person.
His thought can be understood by contrast with the thought of his
intellectual rivals as well as through his positive views. For
example, his series of letters with Zhang Shi on the topic of
self-cultivation and moral psychology, preserved in the *Collected
Writings of Master Zhu* (*Zhuzi wenji*), provides an
illuminating record of these two dedicated Confucians' quest for
a well-grounded, efficacious approach to self-cultivation. He debated
with Lu Zuqian (1134-1181) on the nature of education. Zhu
focused on the Confucian Way and moral practice in education while Lu
argued for a broader-based humanities approach. Zhu held a series of
debates with Lu Jiuyuan (Xiangshan: 1139-93) on the nature of
realization and moral conduct. Whereas Zhu advocated regimens of
study, reflection, observation, and practice, Lu spoke simply of
reflecting on self and clarifying the mind, considering that once the
mind was clear one would know spontaneously what to do in any
situation. Zhu also corresponded with the "utilitarian"
Confucian scholar Chen Liang (1143-94), who disputed Zhu's
focus on individual moral realization and the received
"Way" with a broader institutional approach that was more
sensitive to empirical facts and conditions. Zhu generally eclipsed
all of the other scholars of his day, partly because he outlived them
and had so many students but mainly because his system was so
compelling. It was comprehensive yet nuanced, tightly reasoned yet
accommodating of individual differences. It preserved the essential
Confucian Way, yet ramified it to meet the challenges of Buddhism and
Daoism as spiritual teachings. Zhu's influence rose at the end
of the Southern Song dynasty and became decisive during the Yuan
dynasty when his edition of the *Four Books* was adopted as the
basis of the imperial examination system arranged by scholars trained
in his approach.
While raising his standing in pedagogy, this focus on the *Four
Books* came at the expense of Zhu's deeper, more nuanced
texts and dialogues, and opened the door to undue philosophic
criticism. The schematic presentation of Zhu's broad theory of
*li* pattern and *qi* cosmic vapor that lay in the
background of his commentary to the *Four Books* easily opened
him to charges of dualism and of reading abstract categories into the
down to earth, essentially practical ancient texts. Because his
commentary was focused on reading and understanding the meaning,
intent, and cultivation message of the *Four Books,* critics
generalized that Zhu and his method were essentially scholastic and
would be myopic and stilted in facing real situations. Anyone who
peruses the corpus of Zhu's writings and dialogues, however,
will find that his ontology is not a crude dualism but a holism built
of complementary, mutually implicative elements that never exist in
separation. Also, his reflections are always informed by knowledge of
history, current events, practical observation, and personal
reflection, as his method of observation applies generally to objects
(and self) and phenomena while respecting texts, which he took to be
handbooks of ethical insight and practice, after all. Even Zhu's
comments on Confucius and Mencius often refer back to the person and
the speech context, and thus are not entirely scholastic. His method
of observation opened the door to breakthroughs beyond the
"verities" of the classics, though he was careful not to
play up this fact because most of his intellectual colleagues
primarily sought the truth in the texts, thinking empirical facts were
distractions from the essential Natural-patterning (*tianli*)
that was reflected most adequately in the canonical texts.
Whereas early generations of Zhu's followers were acquainted
with his broad learning, incisive style, and open spirit, Confucians
of the Ming and Qing dynasties knew him mostly through his edition of
the *Four Books*, through which they targeted their criticisms
of his thought. Zhu's most eminent critic was the Ming
scholar-official Wang Yangming (1472-1529). He rejected
Zhu's approach to observation as too objective and open-ended,
as outward and diffuse and neglectful of concentration and inwardness. It could
be said that, in his criticisms, Wang was reacting more to the
scholastic attitudes fostered by the examination system than to Zhu Xi
himself. Wang ultimately respected Zhu and went on to compile a text
in which he argued that, in later life, Zhu's thought had taken a
a subjective, practical turn that anticipated Wang's
approach.
Scholars of the late Ming through the early Qing period
(mid-seventeenth to early eighteenth century), notably, Wang Fuzhi
(1619-92) and Dai Zhen (Tai Chen, 1723-77), disputed Zhu
on philosophical and textual grounds. Whereas Zhu had allegedly insisted on the
priority of "pattern" over *qi*, (roughly, form
over matter), Wang and Dai followed the Northern Song thinker Zhang
Zai in affirming the priority of *qi*, viewing patterns as
*a posteriori* evolutionary realizations of *qi*
interactions. They thought this account dissolved the threat of any
hint of dualism in cosmology, ontology, and human nature. For his
part, Zhu Xi would have responded that, fundamentally,
"pattern" is implicated in the very make-up and possible
configurations of *qi*, which is why the regular *a
posteriori* patterns can emerge. *Li*
"patterning" provides for the standing orders and
processes, based on the steady interactions of *yin-yang*, five
phases, etc., that give rise to the heaven-earth world order, with its
full complement of ten thousand things. The fundamental *a
priori* patterns are necessary to the world order and provide the
fecund context in which the *a posteriori* forms emerge
continuously. Wang and Dai's *qi*-based view could not
account for existence and the variegated yet systematic given world
order in this sense. At the same time, Zhu did not think that
"patterns" were absolutely determinative. They just set
certain "possibilities of order" that are realized when
the necessary *qi* conditions obtained. For the most part, he
registered the range of randomness and free flow in *qi*
activity that is best exemplified in the randomness of weather systems
and seismic events.
As to textual grounds, Wang and Dai argued that Zhu was so enamored of
his metaphysics of pattern and *qi* that he constantly read
them into the classical texts. For example, Dai said Zhu blandly
associated Confucius' term *tian* (heaven) with his own
notion of *li* (pattern), quoting *Analects* 11:9 where
Confucius, in sorrow over the death of his disciple Yan Hui, cried
that "Heaven has forsaken me". Da questioned how Zhu Xi could
reasonably claim that Confucius was crying that *li* had
forsaken him? Critics tend to find this counter-intuitive
example of Dai's against Zhu's approach to be compelling. However,
consulting Zhu's original commentary, we find that he noted that
this phrase was not literally about heaven but rather expressed
Confucius' utmost sorrow, that Confucius felt Yan Hui's
death as if it was his own son's, without mentioning
"pattern". This example does not support Wang and
Dai's claim in the least. It illustrates that Zhu's
commentary was nuanced and sensitive to pragmatic, situational usages
despite his penchant to see his own notion of "pattern" in
some of Confucius' usages of "heaven". Moreover, as
the intellectual historian Daniel Gardner shows, Zhu's
commentary was not intended as simply a glossary with comments. It was
intended as a guide to self-cultivation. Hence, Zhu sometimes recast
passages in the *Analects* more generally to show their broader
implications for self-cultivation and realization, often with the
isolated countryside student in mind. Gardner shows how Zhu had
effectively enriched the text as a tool for self-cultivation whereas
earlier commentaries of the Han and Tang dynasties had just given
glosses necessary for answering examination questions.
Known in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the West through
the work of Jesuits in China, Zhu Xi's thought and texts were
made more widely available to western scholarship in the late
nineteenth century. Notably, James Legge (1815-1897) based his
translations of the Chinese Classics on Zhu Xi's commentaries,
which he quoted and discussed at length in his footnotes to the texts. Early in
the twentieth century, a Chinese student of John Dewey
(1859-1951) at Cornell, Hu Shi (1891-1962), initially
followed the empirical, textual Qing scholars in viewing Zhu as a
scholastic metaphysician. But, after reading Zhu's
*Dialogues* for himself in old age, Hu contended that Zhu's method of
observation was not scholastic but essentially scientific in nature.
J.P. Bruce, who translated a book of Zhu's collected writings in
the 1920s, viewed Zhu's notion of *li* (pattern;
principle) in light of Stoic natural law. From the 1930s, the eminent
historian of Chinese philosophy, Feng Youlan, interpreted *li*
along the lines of platonic Forms making Zhu Xi appear to be an
idealist and abstract thinker. In the 1950s, Carsun Chang naturalized
the notion of *li* by aligning it with the Aristotelian
"nature" or "essence", thereby locking
Zhu's thought into a sort of rigid descriptive metaphysics.
From the 1960s, Mou Zongsan interpreted and criticized Zhu's
ontology and ethics on Kantian grounds, claiming Zhu had erected an
*a priori* framework but then illicitly sought to derive
further *a priori* knowledge (of patterns) by *a
posteriori* means (observation). In the 1970s, the intellectual
historian, Qian Mu examined and explained Zhu Xi's thought
directly in traditional indigenous terms, without reading western
concepts and logical patterns into his system. Scholars wanting to
read Zhu Xi on his own terms, largely unmediated by western thought,
turn to the five volume Zhu Xi anthology edited by Qian Mu as a rich
starting point.
In 1956, Joseph Needham, a chemist, made a significant breakthrough by
interpreting Zhu's system in terms of a process philosophy,
Whitehead's organic naturalism. Needham successfully recast much
of Zhu's language in naturalistic rather than metaphysical
terms. The cultural, moral dimension of Needham's account has
been developed by Cheng-ying Cheng and John Berthrong while the
scientific dimension has been examined by Yung Sik Kim. In the 1980s,
A.C. Graham offered the most insightful and apt account of Zhu's
terminology and pattern of thought in, "What Was New in the
Ch'eng-Chu Theory of Human Nature?" and other writings.
Graham showed decisively that the term *li* refers to an
embedded contextual "pattern", rather than to any sort of
abstract form or principle. He reminded us that the term *li*
never figures in propositions or logical sequences, as would be
natural for "principle". Rather, *li* are always
conceived as structuring, balancing, modulating, guiding phenomena,
processes, reflection and human discernment and response. For example,
one never finds moral syllogisms in Zhu Xi's writings. Many of
Zhu's discussions thus concern moral emotional intelligence:
attunement, sensitivity, discernment, and response. Joseph Adler views
*li* as indicative of an "ordering" tendency that
may be manifested as "pattern" or as
"principle" in differing contexts. (We might say that
people devise principles in the light of observed patterns.) Adler
also examines the key roles played by the *Book of Change* and
Zhou Dunyi in the formation of Zhu's thought, and joins Thomas
Wilson and Hoyt Tillman in showing the extent to which Zhu Xi
re-visioned, revised, and recast the Confucian Way. Adler shows how
Zhu Xi made Zhou Dunyi a pivotal figure in the succession of the
Confucian Way while Wilson is interested in Zhu's account of the
Way as a sort of educational-ideological revision, and Tillman is
interested in how Zhu's account of the Way eventually outlasted
other competing versions that might have offered more practical and
liberal openings in late imperial China.
Advances continue to be made in Zhu Xi studies in the present century.
On the one hand, intellectual historians, such as Yingshi Yu, examine
Zhu Xi's historical, political, and cultural backgrounds, as well as
his intellectual milieu. Other intellectual historians, such as Hoyt
Tilman and Hans van Ess study Zhu Xi's intellectual collaborators and
rivals. Still others, such as Chun-chieh Huang and his colleagues
examine the differing receptions and adaptations of Zhu Xi's thought by
Confucian scholars around East Asia. On the other hand, philosophical
interpreter Brook Ziporyn has developed a "coherence" reading of
*li* (pattern). Drawing on the parallel model of *li*
and *shi* in Huayan Buddhism, he views Zhu Xi's *li* as
the organizing, cohering element in *qi* phenomena, writ large and small.
Given the intimate connection between *li* and truth in Zhu
Xi's thought, the coherence account of *li* recalls the
coherence theory of truth in 20th century Western philosophy. While
"coherence" is an apt and suggestive account of the organizing and
cohering function of *li*, it cannot serve as a direct
translation of the term *li*. Ethicists, such as Stephen Angle, Yong
Huang, and Justin Tiwald examine Confucian ethics in general and Zhu
Xi's ethics in particular as species of virtue ethics, as conceived in
recent Anglo-American ethical thought. They have identified overlaps
and similarities between these ethical approaches. Other scholars,
such as Ming-huei Lee and the present author have identified Kantian
elements in Zhu Xi's efforts to justify Confucian ethics and
cultivation. Finally, Shui Chuen Lee and others find support in Zhu
Xi's system of thought for a viable Confucian approach to
environmental ethics.
In summary, the depth and range of Zhu Xi's thought were
unparalleled in the Chinese intellectual tradition and around East
Asia. Zhu Xi studies globally continue to be vital, wide-ranging, and
contentious, and continue to attract increasing interest around the world. |
zombies | ## 1. The idea of zombies
Descartes held that non-human animals are automata: their behavior is
wholly explicable in terms of physical mechanisms. But human behavior
(he argued) could not be explained like that. Exploring the idea of a
machine that would look and behave like a human being, he thought two
things would unmask it: it could not use language creatively, and it
could not produce appropriate non-verbal behavior in arbitrarily
various situations (*Discourse V*). For him, therefore, no
machine could behave like a human being. Knowing only seventeenth
century technology, he concluded that to explain distinctively human
behavior required something beyond the physical: an immaterial mind,
interacting with processes in the brain and the rest of the body.
(Importantly, he also had *a priori* arguments for the same
conclusion, one of which anticipates the 'conceivability
argument' discussed in Section 3 below.) If he is right, there
could not be a world physically like the actual world but lacking such
minds: human bodies would not work properly. If we suddenly lost our
minds our bodies might continue to run on for a while: our hearts
might continue to beat, we might breathe while asleep and digest food;
we might even walk or sing in a mindless sort of way (so he implies in
his *Reply to Objections IV*). But without the contribution
made by minds, behavior could not show characteristically human
features. So although Descartes did everything short of spelling out
the idea of zombies, the question of their possibility did not arise
for him. The nearest thing was automata whose behavior was easily
recognizable as not fully human.
In the nineteenth century scientists began to think that physics was
capable of explaining all physical events that were explicable at all.
It seemed that every physical effect has a physical cause: that the
physical world is 'closed under causation'. The developing
science of neurophysiology was set to extend such explanations to
human behavior. But if human behavior is explicable physically, how
does consciousness fit into the story? One response --
physicalism (or materialism) -- is to insist that consciousness
too involves only physical processes. However, the phenomena of
consciousness are hard to account for in those terms, and some
thinkers concluded with Descartes that something nonphysical must be
involved. Given they accepted the causal closure of the physical, they
were forced to conclude that consciousness has no effects on the
physical world. On this view human beings are 'conscious
automata', as T. H. Huxley put it: all physical events, human
behavior included, are explicable in terms of physical processes; and
the phenomena of consciousness are causally inert by-products --
epiphenomena (see James 1890, Chapter 5). It eventually became clear
that this view entailed there could be purely physical organisms
exactly like us except for lacking consciousness. G. F. Stout argued
that if epiphenomenalism (the more familiar name for the
'conscious automaton' theory) is true,
>
> it ought to be quite credible that the constitution and course of
> nature would be otherwise just the same as it is if there were not and
> never had been any experiencing individuals. Human bodies would still
> have gone through the motions of making and using bridges, telephones
> and telegraphs, of writing and reading books, of speaking in
> Parliament, of arguing about materialism, and so on. There can be no
> doubt that this is *prima facie* incredible to Common Sense
> (Stout 1931: 138f.).
>
What Stout describes here and finds *prima facie* incredible is
a zombie world: an entire world whose physical processes are closed
under causation (as the epiphenomenalists he was attacking held) and
exactly duplicate those in the actual world, but where there are no
conscious experiences.
Similar ideas were current in discussions of physicalism in the 1970s.
As a counterexample to the psychophysical identity theory there was an
'imitation man', whose 'brain-states exactly
paralleled ours in their physico-chemical properties' but who
felt no pains and saw no colors (Campbell 1970). Zombies were put
forward as a counterexample to physicalism in general, and arguments
devised to back up the intuition that they are possible (Kirk 1974a,
1974b). However, these arguments fell short of their target because
they depended on much the same cluster of intuitions as the original
idea.
Other kinds of systems were envisaged which behaved like normal human
beings, or were even functionally like human beings, but lacked the
'qualia' we have (Block 1980a, 1980b, 1981; Shoemaker
1975, 1981). (Roughly, qualia are the properties by which we classify
experiences according to 'what they are like': what it is
like to smell roasting coffee beans, for example. Even physicalists
can use this expression, although unlike dualists they take qualia to
be physical.) The most systematic use of the zombie idea against
physicalism is by David Chalmers 1996, whose important contributions
to the debate will be considered shortly.
If zombies are to be counterexamples to physicalism, it is not enough
for them to be behaviorally and functionally like normal human beings:
plenty of physicalists accept that merely behavioral or functional
duplicates of ourselves might lack qualia. Zombies must be like normal
human beings in *all* physical respects, and they must have the
physical properties that physicalists suppose we have. This requires
them to be subject to the causal closure of the physical, which is why
their supposed lack of consciousness is a challenge to physicalism. If
instead they were to be conceived of as creatures whose behavior could
not be explained physically, physicalists would have no reason to
bother with the idea: there is plenty of evidence that, as
epiphenomenalists hold, our movements actually are explicable in
physical terms (see e.g. Papineau 2002).
The usual assumption is that none of us is actually a zombie, and that
zombies cannot exist in our world. The central question, however, is
not whether zombies can exist in our world, but whether they, or a
whole zombie world (which is sometimes a more appropriate idea to work
with), are possible in some broader sense.
## 2. Zombies and physicalism
A metaphor of Saul Kripke's helps to show how the zombie idea
threatens physicalism (Kripke 1972/80, 153f.). Imagine God creating
the world and deciding to bring into existence the whole of the purely
physical universe. Having created this physical universe, did he have
to do any more work to provide for consciousness? Answering yes to
this question implies there is more to consciousness than the physical
facts alone can supply. If nothing else, it implies that consciousness
depends at least partly on nonphysical properties, ones that would not
exist in a purely physical world; it would be a zombie world.
Physicalists, on the other hand, are committed to answering no. They
have to say that by fixing the purely physical facts, God did
everything necessary to fix the mental facts about the organisms
thereby created, including their thoughts, feelings, emotions, and
experiences. In other words, it seems that physicalists must say that
in some sense the purely physical truths entail the mental truths
(Kirk 1974a, 1974b argued that physicalism requires an
'Entailment Thesis' to that effect). If indeed fixing the
physical facts alone is enough to fix the mental facts, then a zombie
world is impossible.
Not everyone agrees that physicalism entails the impossibility of
zombies. One suggestion is that physicalists can concede there are
possible worlds which are exact duplicates of our world in all purely
physical respects, but where the physical properties which give rise
to consciousness in our world are prevented from doing so by
nonphysical items which block consciousness. That would let
physicalists consistently allow the possibility of zombie worlds
(Leuenberger 2008. On such 'blockers' see Hawthorne 2002b;
Chalmers 2010, 163-165). This approach, however, is inconsistent
with maintaining that actual conscious states are either identical
with or constituted by physical or functional states. If my conscious
state is the same as or constituted by a physical state, then there is
no possible world where the latter exists without the former. It is
therefore not clear that physicalists can consistently allow the
possibility of consciousness-blockers. Lei Zhong 2021 takes a very
different approach, challenging the widely held view that physicalism
commits one to the supervenience of the mental on the physical.
But what kind of impossibility is relevant here? Physicalists cannot
just say zombies are ruled out by the laws of nature, since even
dualists can agree they are impossible in that sense: that it is by
*nomological* necessity that the physical facts about us bring
consciousness with them. Physicalism therefore needs something
stronger.
Two further kinds of necessity are usually considered: logical and
metaphysical. Now, many philosophers (largely influenced by the zombie
idea) believe the connection from physical facts to consciousness
cannot be logical even in a broad sense. And certainly the conceptual
scheme of physics does not *appear* to leave room for logical
links from physical to phenomenal (see e.g. Kriegel 2011; Stoljar
2006). However, some argue that nevertheless zombies are not really
conceivable at all (Kirk 2005, 2008, 2013; Tye 2006); Kirk 2013 also
maintains that although the physical facts do not entail the truth
about conscious experience *a priori*, they nevertheless entail
it by logical necessity.
Still, many physicalists hold that what guarantees the impossibility
of zombies is 'metaphysical' necessity. Typically they
maintain that states of phenomenal consciousness are identical with
physical states, and that these identities are necessary a posteriori
as argued by Kripke (see e.g. McLaughlin 2005, and for criticism,
Stoljar 2000). But the vocabulary of possibility and necessity is
slippery. For example there is disagreement over whether logical and
metaphysical possibility are different (section 3.1 below); when
Kripke (1972/80) writes of 'logical' and
'metaphysical' possibility he seems to use those words
interchangeably (Yablo 1999: 457n.), and some use
'logical' where others prefer 'conceptual'
(Chalmers 1999: 477); compare Latham 2000, 72f.).
Many think that if the physical facts entail consciousness by
metaphysical necessity, then physicalists can maintain that even
though zombies are metaphysically impossible, they are still
*conceivable* (Balog 2012; Loar 1990/97; McLaughlin 2005;
Sections 5.1, 5.2 below). To the contrary, Chalmers argues that
conceivability actually entails metaphysical possibility. If he is
right, then that popular brand of physicalism is mistaken. The
so-called 'conceivability argument' for the possibility of
zombies will provide a focus for discussing some of the main problems
raised by the zombie idea.
## 3. The conceivability argument for the possibility of zombies
The simplest version of this argument goes:
1. Zombies are conceivable.
2. Whatever is conceivable is possible.
3. Therefore zombies are possible.
(Kripke used a similar argument in his 1972/80. For versions of it see
Chalmers 1996, 93-171; 2010, 141-205; Levine 2001; Nagel
1974; Stoljar 2001. Michael Pelczar (2021) argues for the same
conclusion without appealing to conceivability.) Clearly the
conceivability argument is valid. However, both its premisses are
problematic. They are unclear as stated, and controversial even when
clarified. A key question is how we should understand
'conceivable' in this context.
Many philosophers are willing to concede that zombies are conceivable
in some sense (e.g. Hill 1997; Hill and McLaughlin 1999; Loar 1999;
Yablo 1999). However, that sense is sometimes quite broad. For
example, a claim that 'there are no substantive a priori ties
between the concept of pain and the concept of C-fiber
stimulation' has been backed up by the point that 'it is
in principle possible to master either of these concepts fully without
having mastered the other' (Hill 1997, 76). By that standard,
though, it would be conceivable that the ratio of a circle's
circumference to its diameter is a rational number, when it
isn't. If conceivability in that sense entailed possibility, it
would be both possible and impossible for the ratio to be rational;
which would make such conceivability useless for the purposes of the
conceivability argument. So understood, premiss (1) would be easy to
swallow; but (2) would have to be rejected. Evidently, the lower the
threshold for conceivability, the easier it is to accept (1) --
but the harder it is to accept (2). So the kind of conceivability
invoked in premisses (1) and (2) needs to be strongly constrained. A
common and useful definition, which will be followed here, is:
*something is conceivable if and only if it cannot be ruled out a
priori.* (For sophistication of these and related ideas see
Chalmers 1999, 477; 2002; 2007; 2010; and 5.1 below.)
Joseph Levine discusses a version of the conceivability argument,
seeing the conceivability of zombies as 'the principal
manifestation of the explanatory gap' (2001: 79). In his view,
what creates this gap is the *epistemological* problem of
explaining how the phenomenal is related to the physical. He sees no
way to solve this problem, and thinks it remains even if zombies are
impossible.
Campbell, Copeland and Deng 2017 argue that, quite generally, for any
conceivability argument there is a corresponding 'mirror
argument' which can be rejected only at the cost of undermining
the main argument, and conclude that all conceivability arguments are
'logically bankrupt'.
We now face two key questions: Are zombies conceivable in the sense
explained? If they are conceivable, does it follow that they are
possible? Only if the answer to both questions is yes will the
conceivability argument succeed. We can take them in that order.
## 4. Are zombies conceivable?
Those who exploited the zombie idea in the 1970s typically assumed
without argument that zombies are not just conceivable but possible
(e. g. Campbell 1970, Nagel 1970). When Chalmers reactivated the idea
he found the conceivability of zombies 'obvious',
remarking that 'it certainly seems that a coherent situation is
described; I can discern no contradiction in the description'
(1996, p. 96). However, he also recognized that this intuition cannot
be relied on. The nature of conscious experience is after all hard to
understand: what strikes some people as obviously possible could still
turn out to harbour hidden contradictions (Nagel 1998; Stoljar 2001).
Clearly, those who maintain that zombies are conceivable must provide
justification, recognizing that, being an epistemic claim dependent on
our cognitive abilities, it is defeasible.
### 4.1 Arguments for the conceivability of zombies
Chalmers (1996) set out five arguments against the view that there is
an *a priori* entailment from physical facts to mental facts
-- and so *for* the view that zombies are conceivable.
Each argument would directly or indirectly reinforce the intuitive
appeal of the zombie idea. The first will be considered shortly; the
other four appeal respectively to the alleged possibility of
'inverted spectrum' without physical difference; the
alleged impossibility of learning about conscious experience on the
basis of purely physical information; Jackson's (1982)
'knowledge argument' (related to the last); and what
Chalmers calls 'the absence of analysis': the point being
that his opponents 'will have to give us some idea of
*how* the existence of consciousness might be entailed by the
physical facts', when (assuming the other arguments work)
'any attempt to demonstrate such an entailment is doomed to
failure' (1996, p. 104).
His first argument goes roughly as follows. Suppose a population of
tiny people disable your brain and replicate its functions themselves,
while keeping the rest of your body in working order (see Block
1980a); each homunculus uses a cell phone to perform the
signal-receiving and -transmitting functions of an individual neuron.
Would such a system be conscious? Intuitively one may be inclined to
say not. Some, notably functionalists, bite the bullet and answer yes.
However, the argument does not depend on assuming that the
homunculus-head would not be conscious. It depends only on the
assumption that its not being conscious is *conceivable*
-- which many people find reasonable. In Chalmers's words,
all that matters here is that when we say the system might lack
consciousness, 'a meaningful possibility is being expressed, and
it is an open question whether consciousness arises or not'
(1996, p. 97). If he is right, then conceivably the system is not
conscious. In that case it is already very much like a zombie, the
only difference being that it has little people where a zombie has
neurons. And why should that make a difference to whether the
situation is conceivable? Why should switching from homunculi to
neurons necessarily switch on the light of consciousness? (For doubts
about the assumption that it is conceivable that the homunculus-head
lacks consciousness, see e.g. Loar 1990/1997, pp. 613f.)
Other considerations favoring the conceivability of zombies can be
found in Block 1995, 2002; Levine 2001; Searle 1992. Chalmers 2010
develops his defense further. Brian Cutter 2020 offers an
anti-materialist modal argument which does not rely on the assumption
that the physical truths are compatible with the absence of
consciousness.
### 4.2 Arguments against the conceivability of zombies
Although in the past it was quite widely accepted that zombies are
conceivable, skepticism has grown. Before considering direct attacks
on the idea, let us briefly recall three views which once appeared to
support the claim that we can know *a priori* that dualism is
false -- hence, on reasonable assumptions, that zombies are not
conceivable.
The first is verificationism, according to which a (declarative)
sentence is meaningful just in case its truth or falsity can be
verified. This entails that unverifiable sentences are literally
meaningless, so that no metaphysical claim according to which
unobservable nonphysical items exist can be true. However, since our
ability to think and talk about our experiences is itself a problem
for verificationism, to presuppose this view when attacking the zombie
idea would beg the question. The second view appeals to
Wittgenstein's private language argument. Although not crudely
verificationistic, it depends on the assumption that in order for
words to be meaningful, their use must be open to public checking. But
since this checkability assumption, if sound, would prove that we
cannot talk about qualia in the ways defenders of the zombie
possibility think we can, it too seems question-begging in the present
context. According to the third view, behaviorism, there is no more to
having mental states than being disposed to behave in certain ways. As
a possible basis for attacking the zombie idea, behaviorism is in a
similar situation to verificationism and the private language
argument. Zombies would satisfy all behavioral conditions for full
consciousness, so that if we could know a priori that behaviorism was
correct, zombie worlds would be inconceivable for that reason. It
seems unlikely, though, that behaviorism can be shown to be correct.
(Dennett 1991 defends a position with strong affinities to
behaviorism, though it might be better classified as a variety of
functionalism).
Functionalism is a much more widely supported approach to the mental.
According to it, mental states are not just a matter of behavior and
dispositions, but of causal or other functional relations among
sensory inputs, internal states, and behavioral outputs. (It is
important to take account of internal functions not necessarily
reflected in behavioral dispositions, otherwise functionalism falls to
the usual objections to behaviorism, such as the
'homunculus-head' described in the last section (Kirk
2005, 2013, 2017).) Now, since zombies would satisfy all the
functional conditions for full consciousness, functionalism entails
that zombies are impossible -- though it would obviously be
question-begging to presuppose it when attacking the zombie idea.
Increasingly sophisticated versions of functionalism are being
developed, however, and any arguments for it are a fortiori arguments
against the possibility of zombies. (For defenses of functionalism
against zombies see Dennett 1991; 1995; 1999; Kirk 2017; Shoemaker
1999; Tye 2006; 2008; for doubts about functionalism's capacity
to deal with zombies see for example Harnad 1995.)
Apart from broad-front functionalist theories of the mental, there are
more narrowly focused attacks on the conceivability of zombies, some
of which are noted below.
*Can we really imagine zombies?* Daniel Dennett thinks those
who accept the conceivability of zombies have failed to imagine them
thoroughly enough: 'they invariably underestimate the task of
conception (or imagination), and end up imagining something that
violates their own definition' (1995, p. 322. Marcus 2004 makes
a related point). Given his broadly functionalist model of
consciousness, he argues, we can see why the 'putative contrast
between zombies and conscious beings is illusory' (325. See also
his 1991; 1999). Consciousness is 'not a single wonderful
separable thing ... but a huge complex of many different
informational capacities' (1995, 324. Cottrell 1999 supports
this approach).
*The 'epistemic approach'.* Stoljar (2006, 2020)
emphasizes that the conceivability argument presupposes we have a
complete knowledge of the relevant physical facts, when it is likely
that we don't. If that is right, we cannot properly conceive of
the possibilities in question, in which case premiss (1) of the
conceivability argument is false. A bonus of this view is that it
leaves us free to suppose there is a reductive explanation of
consciousness -- that the physical facts are such that there is
consciousness in all possible worlds where those facts obtain --
even when we don't know what those facts are.
*Zombies' utterances*. Suppose I smell roasting coffee
beans and say, 'Mm! I love that smell!'. Everyone would
rightly assume I was talking about my experience. But now suppose my
zombie twin produces the same utterance. He too seems to be talking
about an experience, but in fact he isn't because he's
just a zombie. Is he mistaken? Is he lying? Could his utterance
somehow be interpreted as true, or is it totally without truth value?
Nigel Thomas (1996) argues that 'any line that zombiphiles take
on these questions will get them into serious trouble'.
*Knowing about and referring to qualia*. Recall that by
definition a zombie world is just like our world as physicalists
suppose it to be, but without consciousness. Since this implies that
consciousness depends on something nonphysical, it follows that
zombies (assuming they are possible in the first place) could be made
conscious by the addition of something nonphysical, which might as
well be qualia. And given that a zombie world would be causally
closed, these qualia would have to be causally inert: perhaps still
caused by the correlated physical processes, perhaps just parallel to
them. It therefore seems that if a zombie world is conceivable, so is
epiphenomenalism. (Of course this does not require epiphenomenalism to
be *actually* true as well as conceivable.) If that is correct,
objections to the conceivability of epiphenomenalism are also
objections to the conceivability of zombies, the most obvious of these
being simply that experiences have effects on behavior. A less obvious
objection starts from the fact that we *refer to and know
about* our conscious experiences -- which can hardly be
denied, since otherwise we could not be discussing these ideas in the
first place. The objection appeals to the widely held view that
whatever we can know about or refer to must have effects on us, if
only indirectly (Kripke 1972/80). On that basis our counterparts in
epiphenomenalistic worlds could not know about or refer to their
qualia, with the consequence that (given the above reasoning) neither
epiphenomenalistic worlds nor zombie worlds are conceivable.
To this attack Chalmers replies that the crucial consideration is that
we are 'acquainted' with our experiences. This
'intimate epistemic relation' both ensures that we can
refer to experiences and also justifies our claims to know about them.
Since, in contrast, our zombie twins have no experiences, what appear
to be their judgments about experience are unjustified. Chalmers
suggests that even if qualia have no causal influence on our
judgments, their mere presence in the appropriate physical context
ensures that our thoughts are about those qualia. He thinks it also
constitutes justification for our knowledge claims even if experiences
are not explanatorily relevant to making the judgments in question
(Chalmers 1996, 172--209; 1999, 493f; see also his 2003,
2010).
*The problem of epistemic contact*. Just now it seemed that if
zombies are conceivable, then epiphenomenalist and parallelist worlds
are also conceivable. In that case the friends of zombies must explain
how the epiphenomenal qualia in such worlds could possibly be objects
of acquaintance, or indeed make any sort of intimate contribution to
people's lives; and here Kirk (2005; 2008) suggests the zombie
idea faces a further difficulty. This emerges when we consider such
things as attending to, thinking about, comparing and --
especially -- remembering our experiences. These activities bring
us into 'epistemic contact' with them and involve
cognitive processing, which in turn involves changes causing other
changes. Being causally inert, the epiphenomenal qualia themselves
could not do that processing; so if they actually constitute our
experiences (as epiphenomenalism and parallelism imply) then the
necessary processing must be purely physical. The trouble is that the
zombie story appears to make it impossible for such processing to put
us into epistemic contact with epiphenomenal qualia. This is because
the only resources it can appeal to for that purpose are the assumed
causation of qualia by neural processes and their isomorphism with
them: factors which cannot do the necessary cognitive work (Kirk 2005;
2008). If that is right, the notions of epiphenomenal qualia and
zombies lead to a contradiction. They imply a conception of
consciousness which requires people to be in epistemic contact with
their qualia, while at the same time ruling out the possibility of
such contact.
*'Powerful qualities'*. Another interesting
objection to the zombie idea is based on the (controversial) idea of
'powerful qualities': the view that all properties are
both dispositional and qualitative, and indeed that a thing's
dispositions are identical with its qualities. Alexander Carruth
(2016), for example, argues that the conceivability argument
presupposes that while physical properties are dispositional,
phenomenal ones are qualitative. On that basis a zombie duplicate of
our world would instantiate our world's dispositional properties
but not its phenomenal ones. The powerful qualities view rules that
out *a priori*, making it not even conceivable. For if a
thing's dispositions are identical with its qualities, nothing
can instantiate certain dispositional properties without also
instantiating all qualities supposedly identical with them. Countering
this line of argument, Henry Taylor (2017) claims it depends on an
implausible account of the distinction between the physical and the
phenomenal, arguing in particular that the physical cannot be confined
to the dispositional.
For other attacks on the conceivability of zombies see Balog 1999;
Cottrell 1999; Harnad 1995; Kirk 2005, 2008, 2013; Marcus 2004;
Shoemaker 1999; Stoljar 2001; Tye 2006.
## 5. Does conceivability entail possibility?
Premise (2) of the conceivability argument is: Whatever is conceivable
is possible. It has been attacked from several angles, as follows.
### 5.1 Objections based on *a posteriori* necessity
A number of philosophers argue that Kripke's ideas about a
posteriori necessary truth facilitate the defense of physicalism. They
urge that even if a zombie world is conceivable, that does not
establish it is possible in the way that matters. Conceivability is an
epistemic notion, they say, while possibility is a metaphysical one:
'It is false that if one can in principle conceive that P, then
it is logically possible that P; ... Given psychophysical
identities, it is an 'a posteriori' fact that any physical
duplicate of our world is exactly like ours in respect of positive
facts about sensory states' (Hill and McLaughlin 1999, 446. See
also Hill 1997; Loar 1990/1997; 1999; McLaughlin 2005; Webster 2006).
Some philosophers reject even the assumption that conceivability is a
*guide* to possibility, challenging the view that the burden of
proof is on those who deny the zombie possibility (Block and Stalnaker
1999; Hill and McLaughlin 1999; Yablo 1993).
Chalmers has responded in several places (1996, 131-134; 1999,
476-7; 2010, 141-205). His most detailed version of the
conceivability argument (2010) uses the framework of two-dimensional
semantics. This enables him to distinguish two kinds of possibility
and two corresponding kinds of conceivability. In the
'primary' sense conceivability entails possibility; for
example it is conceivable that water should have been a substance
chemically different from H2O. In the other, 'secondary'
sense, it is neither conceivable nor possible that water should have
been chemically different. The difficulty for the conceivability
argument can be expressed by saying that even if zombie worlds are
primarily conceivable and therefore primarily possible, it does not
follow that they are also secondarily possible. And a posteriori
physicalists will typically deny that it follows, on the ground that
only the secondary possibility of zombie worlds would entail the
falsity of physicalism. At this point Chalmers in effect presents his
opponents with a dilemma, which is (crudely summarizing his
conclusions) that either the primary conceivability of zombies does
after all entail their secondary possibility, in which case the
conceivability argument works and materialism is false; or else
'Russellian monism', briefly considered at Section 5.3
below, is true. (See also Jackson 1998; and for discussions, Brueckner
2002; Loar 1999; Hill and McLaughlin 1999; Piccinini 2017;
Sebastian 2017; Shoemaker 1999; Soames 2005; Yablo
1999.)
### 5.2 The phenomenal concept strategy
Many physicalists hold that both the zombie idea and Frank
Jackson's knowledge argument can be dealt with through a proper
understanding of the nature of phenomenal concepts (roughly, the
concepts we use when conveying the character of our experiences: for
example 'sweet', 'the way I see blue').
Exponents of the conceivability argument hold that the supposed
'explanatory gap' between the physical and the phenomenal
-- which is expressed in the idea that zombies are conceivable
-- brings with it an ontological gap. According to the
'phenomenal concept strategy' (Stoljar 2005) there is
really only a conceptual gap: phenomenal concepts have features which
mislead us into supposing there is an ontological gap in addition to
an epistemic one, when there isn't.
Thus it is argued that even if a zombie world is conceivable, it does
not follow that there are nonphysical properties in our world. If that
is right, physicalists can concede the conceivability of zombies while
insisting that the properties we pick out in terms of phenomenal
concepts are physical. 'Given that properties are constituted by
the world and not by our concepts', Brian Loar comments,
'it is fair of the physicalist to request a justification of the
assumption that conceptually distinct concepts *must* express
metaphysically distinct properties' (Loar 1999, 467; see also
his 1997). He also argues that phenomenal concepts are
'recognitional', in contrast to physical concepts, which
are 'theoretical'. Phenomenal concepts, Loar says,
'express the very properties they pick out, as Kripke observed
in the case of 'pain'' (1999, 468). He thinks these
points explain the conceivability of a zombie world, while maintaining
that there is no possible world in which the relevant physical
properties are distinct from consciousness. Chalmers objects that
Loar's account does not justify the view that physical concepts
refer to phenomenal properties (1999, 488). He argues further (2007)
that exponents of this approach face a dilemma. Let C be whichever
psychological 'key features' we have but zombies lack.
Then if it is conceivable that the purely physical facts about us
should have held without C, then C is not physicalistically
explicable. On the other hand, if that is not conceivable, then in his
view C cannot explain our epistemic situation as contrasted with that
of zombies. So either C is not physicalistically explicable, or it
cannot explain our epistemic situation. (For discussions see Ball
2009; Balog 2012; Carruthers 2005; Chalmers 1999; 2007; 2010; Crane
2005; Loar 1990/97; Papineau 2002; Pereboom 2011; Stoljar 2000; Tye
2008.)
### 5.3 Russellian monism
Following Russell (1927), some philosophers suggest that physics tells
us only about the 'structural' properties of things
-- such as their dispositions and nomic relations -- rather
than the 'intrinsic' properties which supposedly underlie
and account for those structural properties. Thus Daniel Stoljar
(2001) argues that there are two distinct notions of the physical and
correspondingly of physicalism, depending on whether one appeals only
to what is provided for by physics or also to the intrinsic properties
of physical objects. He suggests that even if one of the corresponding
two versions of the conceivability argument is sound, the other is not
-- because (roughly) physicalists can always object that, since
we do not know enough about the physical world (in particular, about
its intrinsic properties), we cannot 'strongly' conceive
of the possibility of zombies.
These ideas are exploited in what Chalmers calls 'Russellian
monism' (a variety of neutral monism). In our world, he
suggests, the underlying intrinsic properties might be
'phenomenal properties, or they might be protophenomenal
properties: properties that collectively constitute phenomenal
properties when organized in the appropriate way' (2010: p.
151); while in some other worlds the corresponding intrinsic physical
properties did not provide for consciousness. If the intrinsic
properties which supposedly provide for our consciousness are
nevertheless classified as physical, exponents can deny the
possibility of zombies if these are understood to be our
'full' physical duplicates. At the same time they can
concede the possibility of zombies which duplicate us only in their
structural properties. As he points out, this view is 'a highly
distinctive form of physicalism that has much in common with property
dualism and that many physicalists will want to reject'
(Chalmers 2010, p. 152; see also Pereboom 2011). One obstacle to
counting it as physicalism is that it seems unable to explain why the
special intrinsic properties in our world should provide for
consciousness, while those which perform the same functions in those
other worlds do not: this has to be accepted as a brute fact.
Philip Goff (2010; see also his 2017) suggests that this loophole for
Russellian versions of physicalism weakens the zombie argument. He
recommends instead an argument from ghosts: pure subjects of
experience without any physical nature. He argues that such ghosts are
conceivable and possible, and that they provide an argument against
physicalism which leaves no loophole for Russellian monism.
(Physicalists are likely to object that arguments against the
conceivability of zombies can also be mobilized against ghosts.)
### 5.4 Other objections
*Special factors*. It has been suggested that there are special
factors at work in the psychophysical case which have a strong
tendency to mislead us. For example it is claimed that what enables us
to imagine or conceive of states of consciousness is a different
cognitive faculty from what enables us to conceive of physical facts:
'there are significant differences between the cognitive factors
responsible for Cartesian intuitions [such as those about zombies] and
those responsible for modal intuitions of a wide variety of other
kinds' (Hill and McLaughlin 1999, p. 449. See also Hill 1997).
The suggestion is that these differences help to explain the ease with
which we seem able to conceive of zombies, and the difficulty we have
in understanding the claim that they are nevertheless impossible.
*Conditional analysis*. Another line of objection rests on
conditional analyses of the concept of qualia. Roughly, the idea is
that *if* there actually are certain nonphysical properties
which fit our conception of qualia, then that is what qualia are, in
which case zombies are conceivable; but *if* there are no such
nonphysical properties, then qualia are whichever physical properties
perform the appropriate functions, and zombies are not conceivable. It
is argued that this approach enables physicalists to accept that the
possibility of zombies is conceivable, while denying that zombies are
conceivable (Hawthorne 2002a; Braddon-Mitchell 2003. For criticism see
Alter 2007; Chalmers 2010, pp. 159-59).
*Causal essentialism*. According to the theory of causal
essentialism, the causal properties of physical properties are
essential to them. Brian Garrett (2009) exploits this theory to argue
that the zombie argument against physicalism depends on broadly Humean
assumptions about the laws of nature and property identity which
presuppose the falsity of causal essentialism. If we reject those
assumptions and accept that some physical properties have essentially
the capacity to produce consciousness, then 'we cannot accept
the genuine possibility of zombie worlds' even if such worlds
are conceivable (see also Aranyosi 2010).
*More on zombies' utterances*. Consider a zombie world
that is an exact physical duplicate of our world and contains zombie
twins of all philosophers, including some who appeal to the
conceivability argument. Katalin Balog (1999) argues that while their
utterances would be meaningful, their sentences would not always mean
what they do in our mouths. She further argues -- to oversimplify
-- that if the conceivability argument were sound in actual
philosophers' mouths, then it would be sound in the mouths of
zombie philosophers too. But since by hypothesis physicalism is true
in their world, their argument is not sound. Therefore the
conceivability argument used by actual philosophers is not sound
either. If this argument works, it has the piquant feature that
'the zombies that antiphysicalists think possible in the end
undermine the arguments that allege to establish their
possibility' (502. Chalmers offers brief replies in his 2003;
2010, pp. 159-60).
*The anti-zombie argument for physicalism*. The conceivability
argument -- which assumes physicalism entails that zombies are
impossible -- purports to refute it by showing they are possible.
As we saw, the simplest version of this argument goes: (1) zombies are
conceivable; (2) whatever is conceivable is possible; (3) therefore
zombies are possible. However, 'anti-zombies' --
duplicates of ourselves made conscious by the purely physical facts
(Frankish 2007) -- also seem conceivable. So we have a parallel
argument: (1\*) anti-zombies are conceivable; (2) whatever is
conceivable is possible; (3\*) therefore anti-zombies are possible. But
(3) and (3\*) cannot both be true, since if the purely physical facts
about anti-zombies make them conscious, then the exactly similar
physical facts about zombies make them conscious too, and they are not
zombies after all (Frankish 2007; Marton 1998; Piccinini 2017;
Sturgeon 2000, pp. 114-116). One moral is that we should reject
the inference from conceivability to possibility. (Brown 2010 argues
that if anti-zombies are conceivable, then zombies are inconceivable.)
The most promising reply for exponents of the conceivability argument
seems to be to deny that anti-zombies are conceivable (Chalmers 2010,
180).
## 6. Other issues
The list of 'Related Entries' below indicates the range
and depth of the issues raised by the zombie idea, only some of which
have been touched on in this entry. If zombies are really possible,
then not only is physicalism problematic, so are widely held views on
other topics. Here are three striking examples.
### 6.1 Mental causation
Descartes accepted the common assumption that not only do physical
events have mental effects, but mental events have physical effects
(for example, thinking about the political situation makes me write a
letter). The difficulty for his dualism, it was thought, was to
understand how the nonphysical could have effects on the physical. But
if zombies are possible -- which requires the physical world to
be causally closed -- there is no work for nonphysical qualia to
do. In that case the difficulty is to understand how, in spite of
appearances, the nonphysical could *fail* to have effects on
the physical. Still supposing zombies are possible, it then becomes
hard to see any alternative to parallelism or epiphenomenalism, with
the radical revision of common assumptions about mental causation that
those views entail. True, the friends of zombies do not seem compelled
to be epiphenomenalists or parallelists about the *actual*
world. They may be interactionists, holding that our world is not
physically closed, and that as a matter of actual fact nonphysical
properties do have physical effects. Or they may adopt some variety of
panpsychism, according to which what is metaphysically fundamental is
not physical properties, but phenomenal or perhaps
'protophenomenal' ones (Chalmers 1991, 297--299;
1999, 492; Goff 2017; Strawson 2008) -- a view arguably
compatible with the causal closure of the physical. But neither of
those options is easy. Abandoning causal closure appears to conflict
with empirical evidence; while the idea that phenomenal or
quasi-phenomenal properties are fundamental remains obscure.
### 6.2 The function of consciousness
The apparent possibility of zombies also seems to pose a problem for
evolutionary theory. Why did creatures with qualia survive rather than
those creatures' zombie counterparts? If zombies could have
survived, what's the use of consciousness? Owen Flanagan and
Thomas Polger have used the apparent possibility of zombies to support
the claim that 'There are as yet no credible stories about why
subjects of experience emerged, why they might have won -- or
should have been expected to win -- an evolutionary battle
against very intelligent zombie-like information-sensitive
organisms' (1995, 321): a problem not faced by those who reject
the possibility of zombies. One response on behalf of those who do
accept it is to suggest that there might be fundamental laws linking
the phenomenal to the physical. Such laws would not depend on whether
conscious creatures ever happened to evolve, in which case, arguably,
evolution raises no special problem (Chalmers 1996, 171) --
although the existence of such laws would pose its own problems.
### 6.3 Other minds
If qualia have no physical effects, then nothing will enable anyone to
establish for certain that anyone else actually has qualia.
Philosophers who believe they have a solid response to skepticism
about other minds may therefore conclude that this consequence of the
zombie idea is enough to condemn it. Others may draw the opposite
conclusion and take the skeptical consequence as 'a
confirmation', on the ground that we really are ignorant of
others' minds (Campbell 1970, 120). (Of course not all responses
to other minds skepticism imply that zombies are inconceivable.)
## 7. Conclusion
The intuitive appeal of the zombie idea can be overwhelming. But that
was true once of the idea that the earth stands still, and is true now
of the idea that science can explain events without appealing to
anything nonphysical. Some anti-physicalists believe their
opponents' commitment makes them turn a blind eye to the
difficulties:
>
> Some may be led to deny the possibility [of zombies] in order to make
> some theory come out right, but the justification of such theories
> should ride on the question of possibility, rather than the other way
> round (Chalmers 1996, 96).
>
On the other hand, some physicalists believe the zombie idea exerts an
irrational grip on anti-physicalist thinking, so that
>
> it is tempting to regard anti-physicalist arguments as
> rationalizations of an intuition whose independent force masks their
> tendentiousness (Loar 1990/1997, 598).
>
In spite of the fact that the arguments on both sides have become
increasingly sophisticated -- or perhaps because of it --
they have not become more persuasive. The pull in each direction
remains strong. |