Comparitive Philosophy

¶ … Philosophy

Nietzsche often identified life itself with "will to power," that is, with an instinct for growth and durability. This concept provides yet another way of interpreting the ascetic ideal, since it is Nietzsche's contention "that all the supreme values of mankind lack this will -- that values which are symptomatic of decline, nihilistic values, are lording it under the holiest names" (Kaufmann 1959). Thus, traditional philosophy, religion, and morality have been so many masks a deficient will to power wears. The sustaining values of Western civilization have been sublimated products of decadence in that the ascetic ideal endorses existence as pain and suffering. Some commentators have attempted to extend Nietzsche's concept of the will to power from human life to the organic and inorganic realms, ascribing a metaphysics of will to power to him (Kaufmann 1959).

The insidious process by which we ascribe attributes to our fictitious consciousness has devastating results: "we are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge - and with good reason. We have never sought ourselves - how could it happen that we should ever find ourselves?" (qtd. In Kaufmann 1959). Here Nietzsche anticipates Heidegger's critique of Western metaphysics: metaphysics and consciousness lead to what Heidegger would refer to as a "forgetfulness of Being;" that is, they obscure the truth about ourselves and our place in the world. By denouncing claims that knowledge is something exclusively possessed by autonomous thinking subjects, Nietzsche hoped to rescue us from a hopeless project: the project of trying to make existence fit into the limited framework of the traditional transcendental subject. He was attempting the colossal task of undermining and overthrowing the entrenched but deeply problematic categories of subjectivity and knowledge bequeathed to his century by the conventional Enlightenment.

Thus in the Will to Power, for example, Nietzsche writes that "because we forget that valuation is always from a perspective, a single individual contains within him a vast confusion of contradictory valuations and consequently of contradictory drives" (qtd. In Call [HIDDEN] Perspectivism attacks the conventional, Enlightened notion of subjectivity at its roots. For Nietzsche, the critique of the traditional knowing subject and its conventional forms of knowledge excluded the possibility that thought could constitute a world spread out before the eyes of any spectator-subject that had hitherto been known (Call 1995). Nietzsche was not trying to destroy or abandon the concept of subjectivity as such. Rather, he was trying to postulate a new kind of subject which did not yet exist but whose way was prepared by Nietzsche's critique of conventional subjectivity (Kaufmann 1959). Clearly, this is an area where Nietzsche remains very much a child of the Enlightenment. His dramatic critique of the autonomous Cartesian subject and its epistemology cannot mask the fact that Nietzsche is pursuing his own project of subjectivity, and any such project must necessarily retain important traces of Enlightenment.

Perhaps the most surprising component of Nietzsche's cultural critique of modern science is the way in which he tied science to another great Western cultural tradition, metaphysics. The connection between modern science, which attempts to provide truths about this world, and metaphysics, which makes claims about that which is beyond this world, is not readily apparent (Kaufmann 1959). Yet Nietzsche insists that there is a definite relationship here. Nietzsche does not confront his metaphysics to the tacit metaphysics of science; he wants to contest science in order to surmount metaphysics entirely; in short, he wants to demonstrate the collusion of science with metaphysical thought and show how this compels humanity implacably towards nihilism. Thus the association of science and metaphysics brings a new dimension to Nietzsche's critique of the former; his attack on modern science is now motivated by a desire to overthrow Western metaphysics entirely. And this attack on science and metaphysics is carried out under the banner of a war against nihilism, which as we see above is one of the strongest parts of Nietzsche's cultural critique of science (Kaufmann 1959).

While it would be true, then, to say that Nietzsche's critique of modern science is motivated by an association between science and metaphysics, this assertion is incomplete. We have yet to say what kind of metaphysical tradition Nietzsche means when he pairs science and metaphysics. When Nietzsche says metaphysics, he means religious metaphysics (Call 1995). For him, the Christian truth and what we may call the truth of philosophical metaphysics since Plato is the same thing. And it is this kind of metaphysics that, strangely enough, lies behind modern science. We see that despite their surface differences, science and religion, both of which manifest asceticism, resentment and nihilism, are anathema to Nietzsche for the same reasons.

The relationship between religion and Enlightened science becomes clearer. Both traditions seek to improve the human condition in utilitarian terms by increasing happiness, and both claim to have access to universal truth. Nietzsche's critique of science constitutes a definite attack on the tradition of the Enlightenment (Kaufmann 1959). For Nietzsche, science, Judeo-Christian religion and Enlightenment form a kind of "unholy trinity," each contributing in its own way to the decadence and nihilism of the modern world. If the rationalism of Socrates and Plato is the secularized form of theological metaphysics, then it becomes quite clear that rationalist, modern science can be said to have an extremely strong if subterranean link with the religious tradition. (Call 1995).

A popular myth concerning Kant's development, which helps to breed such misconceptions about his true attitude towards metaphysics, is that he started out as a typical Wolffian rationalist, and only began formulating his "Critical" principles after being jarred by Hume out of his rationalist complacency.

Kant expresses his true attitude towards metaphysics quite clearly in a number of explicit statements throughout his writings. He purports:

Metaphysics, with which it is my fate to be in love, although only rarely can I boast of any favors from her, offers two advantages. The first is that it serves to solve the tasks that the questioning mind sets itself when by means of reason it inquires into the hidden qualities of things. But here the result only too often falls below expectation

The other advantage is more adapted to human reason, and consists in recognizing whether the task is within the limits of our knowledge and in stating its relation to the conceptions derived from experience, for these must always be the foundation of all our judgments. In so far metaphysics is the science of the boundaries of human reason. And...this use of metaphysics...is at the same time the least known and the most important, and...is obtained only late and by long experience. (qtd. In Despland 1973)

Kant saw his contribution to metaphysics in terms of neither positivistic empiricism nor "pure rationalism" (qtd. In Despland 1973). Instead, he sees himself as offering -- to borrow one of his own favorite expressions -- "a third thing" (qtd. In Despland 1973). The label most often used to denote Kant's synthesis between empiricism and rationalism is the easily misunderstood title, "transcendental idealism" (qtd. In Findlay 1981). But this phrase properly refers to just one aspect of his philosophy. A more general and inclusive title would be to call it a "System of Perspectives."

If indeed Kant is the primary figure in the modern Western philosophical tradition, the theologian can hardly ignore him. To interpret Kant in a way that is philosophically acceptable and yet leaves open a legitimate field in which the theologian can work would therefore effectively establish much-needed common ground between philosophy and theology (Despland 1973).

But the respect Kant evokes from philosophers and theologians is not the only reason for recommending a theologically-conscious way of reading this over-worked philosopher. Kant is far too frequently interpreted in a one-sided fashion, especially by those who (conveniently) claim that large portions of his work are irrelevant to or inconsistent with the "truly Kantian" material (Findlay 1981). Because of the confusion this creates, especially for anyone whose primary concern is not philosophical, many theologians and philosophers of religion have ignored or repudiated the importance of Kant. A typical example is Flew's book on the philosophy of religion, which entirely ignores the relevance of Kant's views on the subject: he devotes only two paragraphs a brief description and trite criticism (Flew 1966).

Kant destroyed not so much the possibility of theology as that of the one-sided rationalist spirit of the Enlightenment, under which he himself had been nurtured. His genius, however, was to have done this without going to the opposite extreme of positivism. In the process of working out his new approach, he proposed numerous theories that are highly relevant to the theologian. But because his theological interests are so deeply imbedded within his philosophy, and because the commonly accepted interpretations ignore this and other important emphases, such as the dependence of his arguments on the principle of perspective, it would be necessary to reinterpret his entire Critical System in the light of such issues before bringing into full view all the details arising out of its thoroughly theocentric orientation (Despland 1973).

In exploring the extent and limits of human understanding, David Hume arrives at the conclusion that justification for many common beliefs about the "natural world" is impossible. In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he writes,."..it is not reasoning which engages us to suppose the past resembling the future, and to expect similar effects from causes which are, to appearance, similar." Here Hume states his primary thesis about the so-called "law of cause and effect" -- it does not have a justification through deductive reasoning or a demonstrative argument. Therefore, skepticism regarding natural phenomena, accompanied by a practical understanding of the apparent causal chain in the universe, is the closest thing to justification that humans can have (Huwig 2001).

Concluding this exposition of perceptions, Hume advocates a fundamental empiricist criterion for analyzing the meaning of philosophical terms - he claims that since "ideas...are copies of our impressions," that the only meaningful words are those which refer to actual ideas, which in turn are derived from impressions (qtd. In Huwig 2001). Therefore, transcendent metaphysics is impossible.

Hume claims that seemingly boundless human thought is created through "compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience." He later states that ideas are connected under three principles: resemblance, contiguity in space or time, and causality. The next piece of Hume's argument involves the distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact. To Hume, the objects of human inquiry -- i.e., questions of truth and falsehood -- are either questions about ideas in relation to other ideas, or questions regarding a "real existence...beyond the testimony of our senses." The first sort are represented by mathematical and logical truths, that is, those which are "intuitively or demonstratively certain" by definition and logical deduction alone (Kant would call this "analytic a priori").

Here is an interesting assumption on Hume's part; logical truths and propositions attainable through deductive reasoning alone are unquestionably certain truths. Unlike Descartes, Hume does not even attempt to doubt the efficacy of logic, and so there is irony in the fact that Descartes, whose foray into philosophy was to argue against complete skepticism, may be more psychologically skeptical than Hume, whose philosophy entails a highly skeptical view of objective reality.

Hume's philosophy not only results in skepticism about propositions regarding the "real world," but also an indictment of the possibility of transcendental metaphysics - indeed, the whole of what Immanuel Kant would call "synthetic a priori" knowledge. Kant realized that Hume's argument was very incisive, and he acknowledged that given Hume's empiricist presuppositions, any sort of metaphysics was indeed impossible. However, Kant also pointed out that the skepticism into which the British philosopher had fallen was entirely due to the fact that he did not allow for the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge of truth -- knowledge from reason alone that is truly factual, and not just explication. But what sorts of truths fall into this category?

First, Kant disagrees with Hume about the nature of mathematical truth - Kant claims that such truth is actually synthetic, not analytic. His rationale is that mathematics does not merely proceed from some preexisting ideas, but that the act of constructing new concepts is central to gaining mathematical knowledge. Discovering mathematical truth is not merely a clarification or explication of definitions and logical implications, but instead it genuinely expands the realm of human knowledge; mathematical knowledge is therefore synthetic. Kant writes in Prolegomena, what [Hume] said was equivalent to this: that mathematics contains only analytical, but metaphysics synthetical, a priori propositions. In this, however, he was greatly mistaken, and the mistake had a highly injurious effect upon his whole conception" (1783). The dilemma in Hume's argument, therefore, is this: either there is no such thing as synthetic a priori knowledge, and mathematics should be subject to the same skepticism as metaphysics; or, such knowledge is possible, and Hume's intellectual eschewment of metaphysics was unwarranted. Given the choice between the impossibility of knowing even mathematical truths and the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge, Kant takes the latter. In response to Hume's challenge of metaphysics, Kant concedes, "All metaphysicians are therefore solemnly and legally suspended from their occupations till they shall have adequately answered the question, 'How are synthetic cognitions a priori possible?'" (1783). The whole of transcendental philosophy, free from skepticism, is dependent on the answer.

Having generalized Hume's skepticism about cause and effect in the natural world to a question of the possibility of expansive knowledge without references to experience, Kant then explains how synthetic a priori cognitions are possible about mathematics, the natural world, and metaphysics. He introduces the notion of intuition, or knowledge that is not inferential, but rather direct understanding of an idea - the basis of all synthetic knowledge. But this definition is perhaps misleading. Kant distinguishes between two sorts of intuition: "empirical intuition" (sense perception) and pure intuition (Huwig 2001). Obviously "empirical intuition" must lead to a posteriori judgments, since by definition it is sense experience.

According to Kant, mathematical knowledge (i.e., the branch of knowledge which deals with the implications of quantity) rests on its applications to the pure intuitions of space and time. These concepts must be pure intuitions, because they are independent of, and therefore prior to, the objects to which they are applied, namely the appearances of bodies in motion. So to Kant, space and time are "forms of our sensibility, which must precede all empirical intuition, that is, perception of actual objects, and conformably to which objects can be known a priori, but only as they appear to us." Space and time do not describe some object of sense experience, but rather provide the framework for making our sense experience comprehensible (Findlay 1981)

This, coupled with the proposition "everything which can be given to our senses is intuited by us as it appears to us, not as it is in itself" (representationalism, as opposed to Berkeley's radical idealism), allows mathematics to be completely synthetic and prior to sense experience -- it relies on a priori ideas of abstract truths, but these truths are not deduced, but intuited. The representational nature of knowledge allows such a system to apply to "the real world," since it deals with the form of experience itself, while avoiding the justified skepticism which is directed toward a posteriori empirical propositions. Mathematical pursuits, such as geometry and arithmetic, are essentially studies of the characteristics of the pure concepts of space and time, and what can be known about systems of concepts that include such intuitions (Huwig 2001).

Now that Kant has established the status of the concepts of space and time, he can turn to Hume's skepticism regarding causality in the natural world. Like space and time, the principle of causality does not apply to some object of experience, but rather to experience itself. To Kant,

Hume's mistake was to assume that if causality could not be proven analytically, then it must be based on induction from empirical evidence, and therefore is not a necessary truth. But causality precedes any particular object of sense experience, and furthermore it is not contingent upon the objects of sense experience; therefore it meets Kant's criterion of dealing only with the form of sensibility (Despland 1973). Kant agrees with Hume: one cannot know anything about an object's causes or effects when merely presented with its empirical intuition. This is because causality is not determined by the properties of an object of experience -- instead, it is determined by the form of experience itself.

In order to be called experience, rather than mere hallucinatory sensation, we require that the objects of our understanding conform to things like causality, exclusivity in space, linearity in time, et cetera. To Kant, human beings are like an organism, ingesting sense perception, using some of it to gain knowledge, and discarding that which is not useful because of its incomprehensibility according to the form of experience (Findlay 1981). Our minds are not merely passive empty slates upon which sense experience writes; they are active participants, even architects, of the knowledge they gain.

It is interesting that both Hume and Kant felt deductive logic to be beyond reproach, when such an esteemed rationalist thinker as Descartes at least attempted to bring it under question (Collins 1960). It is also very interesting that Hume did not question the justification of logical rules of inference, while he saw fit to question the causal rules of inference that we apply to empirical observation. We have the benefit of hindsight - Hume and Kant were both in large part products of their times.

It is indeed quite flattering to Hume that the whole of Prolegomena is more or less designed to alleviate the skepticism that resulted from noticing the synthetic nature of causality. I believe that Kant's severe restriction of the scope of human knowledge may not in fact be an improvement over Hume's pragmatic skepticism - in both cases, we remain ultimately ignorant of any "real world" which may or may not exist. Additionally, the skeptical approach is far more fluid in the case of new and unforeseen sense data. Kant's answer to Hume, especially in shifting the subject from a role of passive observer to one of active creator, is very compelling. It deals with Hume's question, "How can one justify a causal principle without reference to empirical evidence?" while simultaneously highlighting many more areas of inquiry, in all branches of philosophy. The matter of cause and effect is an excellent example of how questions, and not answers, are what drive philosophical thinking.