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Etienne Gilson's first principles and Wittgenstein's logic of language

Without the background of what in my jargon is called, Wittgenstein's logic of language this page may not be well understood. It has been thoroughly revised, correcting many of its earlier errors. These are nonetheless early thoughts about their subject.

Outline of this page ...


First Principles (in Thomas Aquinas' words)

So inquiry in all the speculative sciences works back to something first given, which a person does not have to learn or discover (otherwise he would go on infinitely), but which he knows naturally. Of this sort are the indemonstrable principles of demonstration, for example, "Every whole is greater than its part", and the like ... and of this sort too are the first conceptions of the intellect, like being [existence], one [unity], and conceptions of this kind ... [Note 1]

... there are notions ... that cannot be conceived otherwise than as we conceive them, and which moreover, it is impossible not to conceive as soon as one thinks ... If what I cannot not affirm is not true, nothing is. In the order of the principles, truth is identical with necessity. (Gilson, "Can the Existence of God Still be Demonstrated?" p. 12)

According to Gilson, first principles are a matter of seeing something rather than of reasoning to something. First principles are "necessary truths" that we see, not that we demonstrate or justify.

The Relation between First Principles and Reality

Saint Thomas says "naturally known" first principles (or first concepts); Gilson says: We could not so much as even think -- no human being could -- without them. Is that there are such principles an hypothesis, or is it also a first principle?

I think Thomas Aquinas has logical pairs or antitheses in mind, e.g. 'real-illusion', 'one-many', 'unity-diversity', 'alike-different', 'whole-part', 'event-cause'. Of course, these "also" belong to grammar; -- but can one say that all human beings must have such-and-such concepts: thinking is impossible without them? In what sense "impossible"?

Why would anyone presume to say that: reality forces just these concepts on all human beings; there are facts that force this concept formation? Now, can I imagine a language without an 'objects - empty-space' distinction? -- But if I cannot, then why not?

... if anyone believes that particular concepts are absolutely the correct ones ... then let him imagine certain very general facts of nature to be different from what we are used to, and the formation of concepts different from the usual ones will become intelligible to him. (PI II, xii, p. 230b)

If we lived like fish in water, I would not expect us to make an 'objects - empty-space' distinction, given that the sea is a plenum. And it would be possible to describe a tribe of people who regarded the air that way [cf. the counter-factual Fable of the Born-blind People and their use of the word 'know']. And indeed the ether of the physicists is comparable to such a plenum (with the difference that, unlike ether, air has a physical presence -- i.e. is really there).

I want to say no more than that we see through our concepts, or, we see in our language; our thinking, our seeing is "concept-laden". But Saint Thomas (or Gilson) says: these concepts are not "arbitrary conventions"; they are "necessary knowledge".

One thinks that one is tracing the outline of reality, when one is merely tracing round the frame through which we look at it. (cf. ibid. § 114)

Gilson says that the first principles are necessary truths, about which we cannot be mistaken -- or even wrong. But what does 'necessary' mean if not: that one is in the grips of such-and-such concepts -- i.e. that one cannot imagine another way to look at the thing? Might 'necessary' mean something else -- e.g. "we have here got hold of reality"?

If I say, without any special occasion, 'I know', e.g. 'I know that I am now sitting in a chair', this statement seems to me unjustified and presumptuous.

In its language-game it is not presumptuous. There, it has no higher position than simply the human language-game.

But as soon as I say this sentence outside its usual context ... it is as if I wanted to insist that there are things ... God himself can't say anything to me about ... (OC § 554)

It does not follow from "we cannot be mistaken" that "we cannot be wrong" (As we normally use those words, we have the right to say 'I know' although we may later have to say 'I thought I knew' [ibid. § 549]). It is not unknown for a man to be wrong in his foundational beliefs: e.g. my name may not be Robert (although it makes no sense in normal circumstances for me to say that). Why does Gilson say 'truths' when people can be wrong? And why does Saint Thomas say "know naturally" instead of "learn when we learn language"?

What is the first principle or first concept of language -- 'sense-nonsense', is it not? And if someone says that it is thought, not language, that concerns him, then we reply in the manner of the Apostle James: "Show me your thoughts without your language":

Your questions refer to words; so I have to talk about words. (PI § 120)

About what gives words meaning. A word -- i.e. a spoken sound, an ink mark on paper, the bare physical object -- as such is without meaning. What gives the word meaning?

The Relation between First Principles and Faith in God

Gilson's "realism" has its foundation in his religious beliefs: God made us to know that He exists. And we cannot know that he exists if first concepts are conventional; therefore they must (a religious must) be necessary. "The knowledge of the principles naturally known to us has been implanted in us by God, for God is the author of our nature" -- Thomas Aquinas ("Can the Existence ...?" p. 14). Now, that is a possible belief -- but it is a religious, not a philosophical belief. Theology, or "faith seeking understanding", is as much a religious act as praying is.

Yet, at least in Gilson's view, historical studies show nothing if not that philosophers are almost always wrong about the first of all first principles. But if first principles are necessary truths, then how can anyone be wrong about them? How can anyone go so far as even to imagine alternative principles?

The use of the categories of substance and of causality made by the understanding in the doctrine of Kant is just as metaphysical in science as it is in natural theology ... the very meaning of the categories of understanding becomes inconceivable as soon as we try to see them as constituting experience. ("Can the Existence ...?" p. 13)

... it is the upshot of the Kantian experiment that, if metaphysics is arbitrary knowledge, science is also arbitrary knowledge; hence it follows that our belief in the objective validity of science itself stands or falls with out belief in the objective validity of metaphysics. [Note 2]

By 'arbitrary' Gilson means 'conventional'. But that, of course, is precisely what we do find the foundations of science -- which is a way of looking at the natural world -- to be: e.g. it is a matter of convention whether space is Euclidean or non-Euclidean; knowledge enters -- if it does enter -- when we ask whether it is four-dimensionally Euclidean or four-dimensionally non-Euclidean. Gilson regards this as "losing science" (Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience p. 293). But we cannot lose what we never had to begin with: e.g. Newton's "absolute space" (as opposed to relative space frames) and according to most physicists, strict causality (as opposed to probability). We only lose the illusion of knowing what we do not know. And that is what philosophy has been about since Socrates.

Today our choice is ... Kant or Thomas Aquinas. All other [philosophical] positions are but halfway houses on the roads which lead either to absolute [philosophical] religious agnosticism or to the natural theology [i.e. demonstrations of the existence of God] of Christian metaphysics. [Note 3]


Do words have metaphysical uses?

By 'first conception' Saint Thomas does not mean 'the use of a word', because a "first conception" is "something we know naturally without having to learn it". Whereas how to use a word ("use" in the sense of: how to use a tool) is a skill (-- a "knowing how to do something", the "mastery of a technique" (PI §§ 150, 199) --) that human beings learn as children -- or that they do not learn (A human being raised by apes would indeed speak in the primitive way of the Tarzan of the movies I saw when I was a child -- if, that is, he ever learned to speak even that much). Using language belongs to the human "form of life", a fact which philosophers tend to forget: we do not "clothe our thought in language" naturally; instead we learn to think (how and what to think) by learning how to "operate with signs" (BB p. 6) according to rules (conventions) that are public.

It is not language that interests Thomas Aquinas here, but he uses words, and so we have to talk about words (PI § 120). What is the concept 'one' (-- or, if we wish to mystify ourselves, we can use the nebulous expression "the conception of one" --) which Saint Thomas regards as belonging to the naturally known (i.e. not learned or discovered) "first conceptions of the intellect"? Go back to first principles -- i.e. the principles of logic -- i.e. to the logic of language. To begin with we have a sign (e.g. ink marks on paper) -- namely, 'one'. And now the question is: what gives that sign meaning? We ask for a definition of the word -- i.e. for a description or account of how we use the word. For example, how does a child learn to use the word 'one'; -- is it not in contrast to 'more' and such games as "adding and take away" that its mother teaches it?

What is Wittgenstein's method in philosophy? Actually there are many methods, but one is:

What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. (PI § 116)

But that is the very question: is there such a thing as a metaphysical use of language? If there is, such a use would not belong to our day to day usage (acceptation) of language: it would not be the "original home" of words: it would instead be jargon. But is to invent jargon what the metaphysician wants? No, because jargon is nothing but more or less arbitrary definitions, like Wittgenstein's extended meaning for the word 'grammar'. No, the metaphysician does not want to invent jargon, e.g. he wants to use the word 'one' the way we normally do, but at the same time -- Not to say something about the conventional meaning of (or, rules for using) the word 'one' -- but to say something about one (oneness, unity) itself. It is this latter effort -- e.g. "to say something about oneness in itself" -- that Wittgenstein meant by 'metaphysical use' in the quotation above, which begins:

When philosophers use a word -- 'knowledge', 'being', 'object', 'I', 'proposition', 'name' -- and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever used this way in the language-game that is its original home? (ibid.)

If a word -- a sign (e.g. spoken sounds) -- gets its meaning from its original home, then if the philosopher does not intend to invent jargon, he talks nonsense (PP p. 312) when he tries to take that word away from its original home, to talk about the essence of something (of "oneness" e.g.). The philosopher does not understand the logic of our language -- i.e. the relation between "grammar" and sense and nonsense (BB p. 65). [Note 4]

Sense and Nonsense

But is it an adequate answer to the skepticism of the idealist, or the assurances of the realist, to say that 'There are physical objects' is nonsense? For them after all it is not nonsense. (OC § 37)

But of course, if it is not nonsense for them, then it is also not nonsense for us.

My aim is: to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is obvious nonsense. (PI § 464)

And disguised nonsense is what the combination of words (ibid. § 500) 'There are physical objects' has to be shown to be. But how do we make it obvious that 'There are physical objects' is nonsense? We have to tear open the oldest of wounds, to descend into the chaos of our old way of thinking (CV p. 65]), to descend once again into the vagueness and confusion that it cost us so much work to free ourselves from. Because that is what philosophy -- elemental thinking, thinking about the foundations of things -- requires.

Is the combination of words 'There are physical objects' nonsense? Or is it a true statement of fact? And then is 'There are no physical objects' a false statement? Is 'There are physical objects' a statement of fundamental truth -- a very general fact of nature --, a statement of our fundamental knowledge of reality?

To say that we 'know' something means that we have compelling grounds for asserting that a statement of what we know is true or false (What these grounds look like, of course, varies from one type of statement to another). (OC §§ 504, 555) Now, what grounds are there for asserting 'There are physical objects', or, as Gilson would say, 'There are beings'? Gilson would reply that there are no grounds: we simply see this to be the case; it is a first principle, or, postulate: a statement which is not demonstrated, but which is used to demonstrate other statements (as are e.g. the axioms of geometry). But what can be demonstrated using 'There are beings' or 'There are physical objects'? Is Gilson uttering nonsense? And then why do we think we understand him -- and therefore that he is not uttering nonsense ("Nonsense" that can convey meaning is not nonsense)? Would the book "The World As I Found It" contain the statement 'There are beings'?

Every [existential] metaphysics rests on a certain way of understanding the first principle, which is the notion of being ... in Saint Thomas, the act of being (esse) was, within every being (ens), the act of acts ... [Note 5]

Human reason feels at home in a world of things, whose essences and laws it can grasp and define in terms of concepts; but shy and ill at ease in a world of existences, because to exist is an act, not a thing. (God and Philosophy p. 67)

The human mind feels shy before a reality of which it can form no proper concept. Such, precisely, is existence. It is hard for us to realize that "I am" is an active verb. It is perhaps still more difficult for us to see that "it is" ultimately points out, not that which the thing is, but the primitive existential act which causes it both to be and to be precisely that which it is. (ibid. p. 69-70)

The ultimate effort of true metaphysics is to posit an Act by an act, that is, to posit by an act of judging the supreme Act of existing whose very essence, because it is to be, passes human understanding. (ibid. p. 143)

How do we determine whether this is a metaphysical insight or a "grammatical" delusion? Gilson says that the difficulty here is for the human mind; but if his words have a meaning, then their meaning must be as humble as that of any other words (PI § 95) -- i.e. it must be possible to state their meaning in definitions, that is, in public rules for using those words. Again, Gilson does not think that he is inventing jargon: no, he is talking about being (existence).

We feel as if we had to penetrate phenomena .... [But we] are not analyzing a phenomenon ... but a concept ..., and therefore the use of a word. (PI §§ 90a, 383)

As long as there is a verb 'to be' that looks as if it functioned the way the verb 'to eat' does ... (CV p. 15; cf. PI II, x, p. 190, para. 11)

If "the act of being is, within every being, the act of acts" is not jargon -- is it not nonsense? Because that is not how we normally use the words 'being' and 'act': we do not classify the existence of something as an action, and if we speak of "an action within a being" we mean something like a muscle spasm; that is how we learned to use those words -- and how we would teach someone else to use those words. Ask yourself: in which "language-games" do the words 'being' ['existence'] and 'act' ['action'] play parts -- in which language-games are they game pieces, and what are the rules for moving those pieces? Gilson or anyone else is free, of course, to reject Wittgenstein's comparison of language to games, of meaning to rules of a game; but if he does, he then owes us an account of how he distinguishes between sense and nonsense.

Suppose someone now objects: but human beings have been talking this way -- i.e. philosophizing, doing metaphysics -- for more than 2,500 years; how can they possibly have been deluded: how can they possibly have been talking nonsense? Gilson gives an example: before the experiments of Pasteur educated people believed in the spontaneous generation of worms and flies from mud heated by the sun (The Philosopher and Theology p. 223-4). It does not follow from the testimony of the ages that Pasteur was wrong. Gilson would point out, however, that this is an example of a scientific rather than a metaphysical question.

But why anything at all is, or exists, science knows not, precisely because it cannot even ask the question. (God and Philosophy p. 139)

But is the question of sense and nonsense also a metaphysical question? If language is a natural phenomenon, part of our natural history (PI § 25), then isn't this distinction a "scientific" rather than an existential-metaphysical question?

Is there an objective distinction?

How do we determine whether something is common sense or a common delusion? By 'common sense' we mean 'sound judgment'; but what does one judge if not what is true, what false, what sense, what nonsense -- and need one always have grounds?

Here is a momentous philosophical question: not whether Wittgenstein's logic of language is the best way to make this distinction -- but whether an objective distinction is to be made between sense and nonsense at all. Because if it is not, then philosophy -- and indeed, language itself -- is just so much subjective prattle, entirely a matter of "whatever seems right" (without there actually being any right or wrong) to each individual (PI § 258). And if through the failure to make this distinction objective meaning is lost, then so is "objective truth", because before a statement can be true or false -- it must first be meaningful.

Gilson could say that the distinction between sense and nonsense is a first principle, something naturally known, which is to say that the distinction itself is not objective (i.e. not something for which there are grounds); Wittgenstein also regarded the distinction as "a given", one which was indispensable to his way of thinking (PG i § 81, p. 126-7). But that does not answer the question of how exactly the distinction is to be made -- i.e. whether meaning is objective or subjective, or, what amounts to the same thing: how the words 'sense' and 'nonsense' are to be defined (particularly in the context of philosophizing). To this question Gilson might reply with a "theory of meaning" based on his theory of "ways of knowing", and I think his theory would state that distinguishing sense from nonsense is a matter of seeing something rather than of reasoning to something; which is to say that it is not objective. But if Gilson offered a logic of language (a logic of meaning), and if that logic were Aristotle's semantic logic, then it would not withstand criticism. But Gilson and other metaphysicians never offer a logic of language as opposed to a "theory of meaning" -- and so we can find no common ground on which to argue. If the distinction between sense and nonsense were subjective -- and I say "were" because there are strong grounds for rejecting that view, then the exercise of critical reason that we call 'philosophy' would consist of no more than personal testimony.


"What is the first cause of all that is?"

This draws me back to the question: what was the foundation of Wittgenstein's philosophy? Was it some unexpressed "theory of reality"? some privileged "metaphysical presupposition"? some religious faith? What was Wittgenstein's "first principle"? It can be stated in six words:

It is there -- like our life. (OC § 559)

Wittgenstein had so much reverence for the "riddle of existence" -- "What men mean when they say, The world is there, lies close to my heart" (LE/Notes p. 16) -- that he never wanted to make myths about it (A man's religion may take many forms). This was a matter of ethical self-discipline; like Newton's "I make no hypotheses", Wittgenstein wanted to make no myths.

... by his very nature, man is a metaphysical animal. (The Unity of Philosophical Experience p. 307)

Human beings are explanation seekers. By nature they are myth-makers. The theories of natural science are one form their myths take. Religion is of course another. And metaphysics is yet another form human myths take, or try to take.

It is an observable character of all metaphysical doctrines that, widely divergent as they may be, they agree on the necessity of finding out the first cause of all that is. (ibid. p. 306)

A first cause, or principle, is a universally valid explanation for all that is, has ever been, or ever shall be. (God and Philosophy p. 20)

... in all cases the metaphysician is a man who looks behind and beyond experience for an ultimate ground of all real and possible experience. (The Unity of Philosophical Experience p. 307)

This seems to be the essence of metaphysics: the search for "the reality behind reality" (i.e. our humanly experienced reality). But Gilson was not strictly speaking a metaphysician, because at the foundation of Gilson's "philosophy" is his Roman Catholic faith; his program in "philosophy" is faith seeking understanding (His book The Philosopher and Theology is a profession of this). He begins with God, knowing that he is going to end with God: all his work in philosophy is done in this light. [Note 6]

Wittgenstein, on the other hand, begins with human life and ends with human life: in philosophy we only talk about what we know (BB p. 45), what anyone knows and must admit to knowing (Z § 211; PI § 599) -- namely, admitted facts (not theories about them).

Wittgenstein never failed to separate his religion from his philosophy. Gilson's "philosophizing", on the other hand, is a religious act -- and it should be understood that way. But Wittgenstein's own religion and conception of religion was very different from Gilson's.

Are there physical objects?

Of course, none of that answers the question of how 'There are physical objects, or, beings' is nonsense. But if 'There are beings' is a first principle, then according to Gilson:

If what I cannot not affirm is not true, nothing is. In the order of the principles, truth is identical with necessity. ("Can the Existence ...?" p. 12)

'There are beings', then, belongs among the "indubitable truths" (OC § 470); it "cannot be denied".

... what we always do when we meet the word 'can' in a metaphysical proposition. We show that this proposition hides a grammatical rule. That is to say, we destroy the outward similarity between a metaphysical proposition and an experiential one ... (BB p. 55)

The metaphysician claims that there are statements of experience that state necessarily experienced experiences. 'There are physical objects' would be one of these. Such statements cannot be false; they must be true. Are there such statements? And do they include G.E. Moore's type -- i.e. the more humble type Wittgenstein deals with in On Certainty: e.g. 'I have two hands', 'My name is Ludwig Wittgenstein', 'I have never been to the moon'? Gilson can have no logical grounds for objecting to these examples: they are as "first" as any other principles he identifies, by his own criterion: "If what I cannot not affirm is not true, nothing is."

The statements presenting what Moore "knows" are all of such a kind that it is difficult to imagine why anyone should believe the contrary. (OC § 93)

But those Gilson presents are such that it is impossible to imagine why. Why impossible? 'There are physical objects' -- No, I cannot be mistaken about that; but neither can I be wrong about it. And this is the difference between Gilson's examples and Wittgenstein's; and it is why the examples Wittgenstein gives are statements of fact, and Gilson's are statements of grammar. 'There are physical objects' means no more than that the concept -- i.e. the use of a word -- 'object' forces itself on the person who says "I can't imagine another way to think about reality".

"I must first imagine that x exists before I can deny that x exists"

... what is it which the mind is bound to conceive both as belonging to all things and as not belonging to any two things in the same way?

Our mind is so made that it cannot formulate a single proposition without relating it to some being ... we cannot even deny an existence unless we first posit it in the mind as something to be denied.

But if it is true that human thought is always about being; that each and every aspect of reality, or even of unreality, is necessarily conceived as being, or defined in reference to being, it follows that the understanding of being is the first to be attained ... and the only one to be included in all our apprehensions. What is first, last and always in human knowledge is its first principle, and its constant point of reference.

Now if metaphysics is knowledge dealing with the first principles and the first causes ... since being is the first principle of all human knowledge, it is ... the first principle of metaphysics. (The Unity of Philosophical Experience p. 312-3)

That is, of course, tautological. It cannot be falsified, because of the subsidiary rule: "or even of unreality". But it sounds strange to say that before I can deny that there are elves, I must first imagine elves to exist; as if to say: before I can deny that there are ink marks on a blank sheet of paper, I must first picture there to be ink marks on that sheet of paper. This is either grammar (i.e. a new rule for using the expression 'deny an existence', a rule contrary to our normal one) -- or it is nonsense (because again, of course, the metaphysician does not want to invent new rules for talking about things; he wants to talk about the things themselves); at most it is an idle picture -- i.e. one that does not show us how we use the expression 'deny an existence' in our language of everyday.

Socrates to Theaetetus: "And if someone thinks mustn't he think something?" -- Th.: "Yes, he must." -- Soc.: "And if he thinks something, mustn't it be something real?" -- Th.: "Apparently." (Theaetetus 189a quoted in PI § 518; cf. Z § 69: "No, it does not have to exist in any sense.")

Thought can be of what is not the case. (ibid. § 95)

Do elves have to exist "in some sense" before I can deny that elves exist? [Do round squares?] Was that how you learned to deny that something exists, by first pausing to imagine it existing and then as it were drawing a line through the picture you imagined? Why would anyone say that "you must first posit its existence before you can deny that it exists" except because they are captivated by a picture of meaning? But all that is required for you to deny that elves exist is that you have learned the rules for using of the word 'elf' -- i.e. that you know that word's meaning ("grammar" or "logic" in Wittgenstein's jargon or conceptual revision). The meaning of a word is not "the thing the word stands for", even when there is something for it to stand for, which in the case of the word 'elf' there is not. That picture of meaning -- i.e. of meaning as standing-in-for, whether what is stood for is an object or an idea -- is what is behind Gilson's statement (His "cannot" is logical-grammatical impossibility only).

It is as if Gilson were to say: to exist is to not not-be-the-case: I must first imagine the thing not to exist before I can imagine it to exist, because the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" implies that there might have been nothing. Philosophy does not amount to picture invention, and inventing a picture is all that Gilson has done here.

Which Principle is the First: Thought (idealism) or Being (realism)?

The most tempting of all the false first principles is: that thought, not being, is involved in all my representations. Here lies the initial option between idealism and realism ... Are we to encompass being with thought, or thought with being? In other words, are we to include the whole in one of its parts, or one of the parts in its whole? (ibid. p. 316-7)

A metaphysics of existence ... is conducted under the guidance of immutable principles, which will never exhaust experience ... For even though ... all that which exists were known to us, existence itself would remain a mystery. Why, asked Leibniz, is there something rather than nothing? (ibid. p. 317-8)

Gilson: how do we account for there being beings? For we see that there is a beginning and an end to their existences. Mustn't there be a permanent Existence underlying this? It is replied that the only thing permanent is that there is always some being or other existing. But, Gilson says, that cannot go on indefinitely: every series must have a first member. What kind of 'must' is this? Gilson answers: unless I posit a first member, I cannot think, cannot ask my question. He admits that his question presupposes the answer he gives it, that his reasoning is circular; but adds that God is the guarantor that this circle is not vicious ("Can the Existence ...?" p. 13-14). Which shows that this was never a philosophical question: it was always a religious one.

Gilson's "must" is of course a logical must, but logic is grammar: rules of sense and nonsense. Gilson wants to say that his principles, which are actually only rules of grammar -- or what else is 'Every series must have a first member' if not a rule? -- are "necessary truths". But how can one deduce the nature of reality from a more or less arbitrary rule? No less arbitrary would be the rule 'Every series need not have a first member'. Wittgenstein is as distinct from Kant as Kant was from Thomas Aquinas (God and Philosophy p. 110); because Wittgenstein talked only about the logic of language: he did not base his remarks on a "theory of mind" or on a "theory of reality". Thus his criticism is deeper than Kant's. There simply is no philosophy without language, and therefore a critique of language underlies all philosophy; even that a philosopher says nothing about sense and nonsense is itself a critique, because his view is shown to be that: language is merely the transparent clothing of thought. That is indeed the way Gilson writes.

Truth versus Necessity

"If it's true, it isn't necessary; and if it's necessary it isn't true (or false)." -- Why? How do I know that? It is because 'true' contrasts with 'false' (its antithesis), and without its antithesis it is meaningless. The only necessity is logical -- i.e. grammatical -- necessity: i.e. the "necessity" (compulsion) of a rule. Suppose Gilson replied: that rule is appropriate in physics, but not in metaphysics?

Intellect versus Mind, Concepts and Percepts

The burden of the Critique of Pure Reason ultimately is that metaphysical demonstrations are not conclusive because their objects cannot be given in sense experience. ("Can the Existence ...?" p. 5)

"Concepts without percepts are empty" -- but Gilson says that this applies only to physics; Kant tried to apply an inapplicable method to metaphysics -- i.e. the method of Newton's physics --, and so of course it could not work. Gilson says that there is a faculty of mind that Kant has overlooked -- namely, intellect -- that has its own percepts, which are also concepts. The "intellect" does not reason to the truth: it sees the truth. And what it sees are the first principles.

This is where, I think, Gilson does not correctly characterize Kant's criticism: Kant said that those principles "really" belong to the subject not to the object (and therefore that nothing about the object necessarily follows from them, because they are only a frame of reference), whereas Gilson says that those principles "really" belong to the object. But Wittgenstein's criticism was that the first principles and first concepts belong to our human language-games; and that to say anything more than that-- as both realism and idealism try to do -- is to say more than we know (BB p. 45); it is "presumptuous" (OC § 553). All that Kant can do is to distinguish between "analytic propositions" ("rules of grammar", or, definitions) and "synthetic propositions" (statements of fact, or, experience), and to assert that the latter cannot be deduced from the former. And all that Gilson does is to deduce grammatical rules from other grammatical rules: e.g. "Every series must have a first member" from which follows ... (Both realism and idealism are in fact Rationalism.) Neither Kant nor Gilson transcends ("goes beyond") our language to talk about "reality".

Since God is not an object apprehended in the a priori forms of sensibility, space and time, he cannot be related to anything else by the category of causality. (God and Philosophy p. 111)

It is as if Gilson said: The mind is a window to the world: the mind sees the world as it is in itself. And Kant replied: But the glass of the window has characteristics that determine what the mind can see in the world. And Wittgenstein said: There is no clarity to be gained by dragging "the mind" into this (if only because the word 'mind' is not the name of anything; that is not that word's use in our language).

Metaphysics and Knowledge

Now, can one enumerate what one knows (like Moore)? (OC § 6)

If with the word 'know' someone wants to indicate a mental state, say, feeling certain about something, then that is of no interest to the logic of language ("Introspection cannot yield definitions" (RPP i § 212) because definitions state objective -- i.e. open to the public, held in common -- rules for the use of words). But can one list what everyone knows and must admit to knowing -- or rather (because we are talking here about foundational beliefs, which is to say, beliefs for which there are no grounds, and 'to know' means: to have compelling grounds), can one list what everyone believes and must admit to believing? ("My name is Robert, but I don't believe it" is in the normal course of events nonsense.) As natural or cultural history such a list, as compiled by say a Pliny, might be very interesting, especially if it were different from a present-day list: e.g. if once upon a time "The earth is flat" belonged to such a list: there were no grounds for doubting it, nothing could be more certain, etc. But particular foundational beliefs are not what Gilson meant by 'metaphysics': "metaphysics aims at transcending all particular knowledge"; it searches for "the first principles, or first causes, of what is given in sensible experience" (The Unity of Philosophical Experience p. 310, 308); in other words, it tries to discover the "reality behind reality".

When Schlick says "The meaning is the method of verification" -- by the word 'verification' he means what Gilson calls "sensible experience". And therefore Gilson's remark about "Criticism" is also applicable to "Logical Positivism".

... after proving in his Critique of Pure Reason that the existence of God could not be demonstrated, Kant still insisted on keeping God as at least a unifying [principle] in the order of speculative reason and as a postulate in the moral order of practical reason. (God and Philosophy p. 117)

What follows from this except that Kant was also in the grips of a concept, of a particular way of looking at things?

Is 'There are physical objects' nonsense?

'There are beings' -- as opposed to what? Gilson: as opposed to nothing: 'being-nothing'. Rather than 'There are beings', one might say: 'There is a world' or 'I exist'. -- Why shouldn't we say instead: "No, this is not an undeniable truth or a truism; this is nonsense"? Is this a case of making an analogy between forms of expression: from 'There are laughing gulls on the Jersey coast' to 'There are physical objects'? -- But, if it is nonsense, we must show exactly why this is nonsense.

But can't it be imagined that there should be no physical objects? I don't know. And yet 'There are physical objects' is nonsense. Is it supposed to be an empirical proposition? -- (OC § 35)

Gilson's position is, if I understand him, that it is a naturally known, undeniable experience that physical objects exist. It is an example of a first principle. Not all empirical propositions are verifiable; 'I have a toothache' e.g. is not; but does that make 'There are toothaches' a first principle? We can describe a world in which there were no toothaches, but we cannot describe a world in which there are no physical objects. -- But we are using the word 'can' here equivocally, in the first instance we mean "real possibility", but in the second "logical impossibility": what cannot be described is logically impossible (This is a definition).

'A is a physical object' is a piece of instruction we give only to someone who doesn't yet understand either what 'A' means or what 'physical object' means. Thus it is instruction about the use of words, and 'physical object' is a logical concept (Like color, quantity,...) And that is why no such proposition as 'There are physical objects' can be formulated. (ibid. 36)

In other words, 'physical object' = 'name-of-object-word' is a "part of speech" (class or category of language use), as are color-words, counting-words, pointing-words, and so on. To say that "physical objects exist" is to say no more than that the word 'physical object' is the name of a category of language use. (In Wittgenstein's logic of language many very different parts of speech are differentiated out of the schoolbook's general category 'noun'.)

Suppose Gilson replied that "logical concepts" (parts of speech) are first principles, and that it is absurd to claim that they do not embody knowledge of the nature of reality. "So that, if 'There are physical objects' is nonsense, then so is 'There are colors' and 'There are numbers'." If we do not classify black and white as colors, a world in which there were no colors can be described. Suppose Gilson said that if there were no color red, there would be no concept 'red' (i.e. what accounts for our concept formation here is precisely the existence of red colored objects), and therefore 'There is a color red' is knowledge of reality . Can we picture a world in which nothing was colored red? Yes, but only if we imagine other colors or gray-scale to exist. Can we then not, at least in a manner of speaking picture a world that is nothing but void space (i.e. that the world should not exist). But is that picture the meaning of the words 'There are physical objects'? I don't know if that picture is what Gilson has in mind. If it is, then that may be called a metaphysical use of the expression 'physical object'.

Does Gilson employ a different definition of the word 'meaning' from Wittgenstein's? There are many meanings of the word 'meaning', not only 'grammar' in Wittgenstein's sense. I do not believe that Gilson would disagree with this account: "Nouns are names and the meaning of a name is the thing the name stands for, whatever that thing may be. It is not the names that interest us, but the things the names stand for." But to talk about "the things the names stand for" is to direct your attention to "real meaning" (regarding "nominal meaning" as trivial): so for Gilson there are "real definitions" -- i.e. real or true meanings -- of ideas (notions, concepts), meanings that can be grasped by the "intellect".

Nominalists make the mistake of treating all words as names, and so of not really describing their use ... (PI § 383)

It is not only nominalists who make this mistake (because Plato also makes it): it is the fundamental mistake of all metaphysics. (This meaning of 'meaning' -- if there is such a meaning -- was criticised by Blaise Pascal.)

... pure metaphysical notions ... are obscure and incomprehensible ... To penetrate the meaning of the first principles is not required from a mind that wants to know only if the existence of God can be proved. All that is needed to that end is to recognize the existence of such principles and to realize the obvious meaning of their terms. ("Can the Existence ...?" p. 12)

The proposition 'Every whole is greater than its part'. -- If you know what 'whole' means and if you know what 'greater' and 'part' mean, then you know that this proposition must be true. Wittgenstein may say that it is as true or false as any other rule -- i.e. that it is neither true nor false; but according to Gilson: 'Every whole is greater than its part' is not a mere rule of grammar (verbal definition), but instead it belongs to the nature of reality that every whole is greater than its part.

In the order of the principles, truth is identical with necessity. (ibid.)

The only necessity here is the "necessity" imposed by a rule ("logical necessity", but not in the sense of deduction but of definition), Wittgenstein may say. But Gilson appeals to the "principle of contradiction": if a proposition cannot be contradicted, it is necessarily true. (But why "can't" it be contradicted -- what would it mean to 'contradict a definition'?)

Looking at a series of causes, I find I have a choice between saying that the series goes on to infinity and saying that it does not but that it must of necessity stop at a first cause. I decide in favor of the second alternative ... unless I posit a because that does away with all further whys, my mind is not at rest, and I simply cannot think otherwise. The only alternative is to refuse to think of the problem ... (ibid. p. 11-12)

Kant was right in observing that reason could go on indefinitely ... accounting for a particular cause by another cause. Only, at a certain moment, Thomas Aquinas says that "this cannot go on to infinity". (ibid. p. 9)

But Kant's deeper point is that -- regardless of the origins of our first concepts -- what is a "requirement of thought" is no more than a requirement of thought. Nothing about extra-mental reality can be inferred from it. But for Gilson, who philosophizes in light of his faith, the origin of our first concepts (-- but only when we are not wrong about them --) is God, and it is for this reason that we can, despite Kant, make such inferences.

The first principle of Saint Thomas that plays a "decisive part" in all "Thomistic proofs of the existence of God" is:

... in any given series of relations, particularly those of causes and effects, the existence of the series presupposes the existence of a first term without which the series itself would not exist. (ibid. p. 1-2)

For the metaphysician every question is a question of fact. Or again: for the metaphysician there are no rules of grammar. Of course the second version is not correct: it is not that the metaphysician does not distinguish between real and verbal definitions, but that the metaphysician does recognize a rule of grammar when he sees one; which has the consequence that: "The essential thing about metaphysics is that it obliterates the distinction between verbal and real definitions." (cf. Z § 458) If 'Every whole is greater than its part' is not a rule of grammar -- i.e. verbal definition of 'whole' and 'part' --, then what would be?

Human Beings are Creatures, not of Instinct, but of Learning

"Naturally known" implies not learned, or, "known by instinct". Yet human beings not only make mistakes, they also get the fundamentals wrong. We are learning creatures by nature, not instinctual creatures. "Trust your instincts" is bad advice if it means 'Act without reasons for what you do'; and it is hardly any advice at all if it means 'Since you don't know what to do, confidently do whatever seems correct to you'. Human beings are reflective by nature: even when they must act without knowledge, they look for any adjustments they should make along the way, rather than being driven by instincts (i.e. compulsive behavior). Any "theory" claiming "natural knowledge" must account for this. [cf. Diog. L. vii, 86]

We don't "know" first principles and first concepts "naturally"; we learn them when we learn language. An adult revises the concepts he learned as a child. Or more importantly: he can if he wills. For instance, a student of philosophy will revise what are called "logical pairs" above although those distinctions are of the most fundamental: 'real-illusion', 'one-many', 'alike-different', 'whole-part', 'event-cause'. What Gilson calls the "pure metaphysical notions" are of course concepts -- By 'concept' we ordinarily mean 'rules for using a word', or, a "usage" -- and because we can and do revise our concepts, what would it mean to call them "natural" -- because doesn't "natural" imply that they are constant, given once and for all by God.

The division of man from the other animals is found among his earliest recorded myths. Despite the many similarities, human beings are radically different from all other life -- because the notions 'instinct' and 'natural law' do not begin to encompass (account for, or, describe) the human form of life.


Propositions versus Definitions

Is there any difference between metaphysical proofs and the proofs of axiomatic geometry? The metaphysician may accuse Wittgenstein of "denying the possibility of metaphysical knowledge" -- as if he had some opposing theory of knowledge. But the metaphysician never shows us as proof of this anything that is not either grammar or nonsense. So that, all that is denied is that the combination of words 'metaphysical knowledge' is defined.

When the Philosopher [i.e. Aristotle] defines movement as the act of that which is in potency inasmuch as it is in potency, he is saying nothing that is not true, and what he says is a deep truth. Those who do not understand are the only ones to laugh; only, what he says is not science, it is philosophy. Exactly, it is the metaphysical definition of becoming, which is but a mode of being. We should know how to acquire new knowledge without losing the old. (The Philosopher and Theology p. 221)

It is not that Gilson did not recognize the difference between a verbal definition and a "real definition". For example, he wrote:

So long as whatever was written was theology, no particular name was needed to designate it. Saint Thomas himself was not yet used to the change. For though the word "theology" is conspicuous in the title of his Summa Theologiae, it seldom appears in the body of the work. This suggests that a new use was being made of this ancient word. (ibid. p. 195)

It is that Gilson thought there was such a thing as a real definition -- not as a testable hypothesis (statement of fact), but as a "metaphysical judgment", i.e. an insight into the nature of things. So he supposes that Aristotle defined -- not the word 'becoming' -- but the thing becoming (said what becoming really is in itself). It is the assumption that there can be real definitions of concepts that is the foundation of metaphysics.

Pascal's Criticism

How many are [they] who think they have defined motion when they have said: Motus nec simpliciter actus nec mera potentia est, sed actus entis in potentia! And nevertheless if they let the word 'motion' keep its usual meaning, as they do, it is not a definition but a proposition; and in this way confounding the definitions they call nominal, which ... are arbitrary ... with those they call real, which are really propositions by no means arbitrary but subject to contradiction, they take the liberty of making the latter as well as the former; and each defining the same things in his own fashion ... they mix up everything, and ... wander in a maze of difficulties inexplicable. (Blaise Pascal, "On the Geometrical Mind", "On the Geometrical Mind" (c. 1657), tr. Scofield)

Aristotle's "definition of movement" is a nonsensical combination of words, either because I am ignorant of its sense, or because it is nonsense. By 'subject to contradiction' Pascal meant that, unlike a verbal definition, a proposition can be true or false. But whether 'Movement is neither simply act nor merely power, but the act of being in power' (my doubtful translation) can be contradicted, I don't know; -- I cannot imagine a propositional sense for that combination of words: it is not simply that I cannot imagine the opposite, but that I cannot imagine the thing itself.

'I can't imagine the opposite' doesn't mean: my powers of imagination are unequal to the task. These words are a defense against something whose form makes it look like an empirical proposition, but which is really a grammatical one. (PI § 251)

We do not define the word 'movement' nominally, but instead ostensively -- i.e. by pointing to examples of movements. That is as far as instruction in the use of that word in normal circumstances goes. Is there a serviceable nominal definition of the word 'movement'? Perhaps something like 'movement' = 'relative change in location'.

Does Aristotle's definition, even if it be not mere babble of words, tell us what movement is -- or, as always in metaphysics, what movement "really" is?

That a sentence is nonsense, is significant in philosophy. But it is also significant that a sentence sounds strange to the ear. (cf. Z § 328)

Giambattista Vico's criticism of Descartes' "New Way of Ideas"

Vico's criticism of Descartes (in effect): It is one thing to have "a clear and distinct idea" of a triangle, for a triangle is defined by rules, but quite another to have a clear and distinct idea (i.e. knowledge) of extension in space, for extension -- e.g. whether or not there are vacuums in space ("void space" (Pascal)) -- is defined by experience. (The first is a verbal definition, the second a real definition.)

The method of mathematics is the method of inventing rules, but the method of physics is the method of observation and hypothesis. The first is an activity solely of mind and therefore under the control of mind, whereas the second is not.

The invention of a theory is an activity of mind, but the data ("facts" (Goethe: everything factual is already theoretical)) the theory organizes is not an invention of the mind ..... although the relation between percepts (rawest data) and concepts is not so simple to say. (Mathematics consists entirely of concepts). (Cf. Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Modern Philosophy (1960), III, viii, 3)


In Conclusion: Where is Philosophy to Begin?

"The essential thing about metaphysics: it obliterates the distinction between factual and conceptual investigations" (Z § 458), as well as between verbal and real definitions. Gilson would reply: "you have not demonstrated that" (The Philosopher and Theology p. 227). But, of course, it cannot be demonstrated as a generality. However, suppose it were suggested as an hypothesis? Then we could try to disprove it by looking for counter-evidence. And this is precisely what I have not been able to find. Gilson could accuse Wittgenstein of "logicism" (of trying to solve all philosophical problems using methods that are only appropriate to logic), but of course that would have to be demonstrated -- how? Finding something that could be called 'metaphysical knowledge', rather than instead only nonsense or idle pictures or possible rules of grammar (jargon), would demonstrate that.

"Those who do not understand are the only ones to laugh" ... This is all too reminiscent of Bertrand Russell's "language of educated people". Ultimately, this issue is going to turn on a definition of 'meaning', on whether an objective distinction is made by the philosopher between sense and nonsense. Or again: it will depend, not on a "theory of understanding", but on a definition of the word 'to understand' -- i.e. on whether the philosopher accepts objective criteria for saying that someone understands, or whether he leaves it to: "It makes sense to me." The logician W.E. Johnson said when rejecting Wittgenstein's criticism: "If I say that a sentence has meaning for me, no one has the right to say it is senseless" (Recollections p. 103). That would be the death of philosophy.


Endnotes

Note 1: Thomas Aquinas, quoted by Etienne Gilson in "Can the Existence of God Still [i.e. after Kant] be Demonstrated?" in The McAuley Lectures, 1960: Saint Thomas Aquinas and Philosophy (West Hartford, Connecticut: Saint Joseph College, 1961), p. 10. [BACK]

Note 2: Etienne Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience (1937), p. 306-7. [BACK]

Note 3: Etienne Gilson, God and Philosophy (New Haven: 1941), p. 114. [BACK]

Note 4: On the other hand, we might call the pictures that non-name-of-object words ("abstract nouns") suggest to us "a metaphysical use of language" from which words need to be brought back if their meaning is to be understood. For example, Saint Augustine and pictures of time.

Augustine, Time, Metaphors, Apparent-metaphors

Augustine recalls to mind the different statements that are made about the duration, past, present or future, of events. (These are not, of course, philosophical statements about time, the past, the present and the future.) (PI § 90)

Our everyday language is full of metaphors or apparent metaphors (idioms), e.g. "the river of time". These forms of expression suggest pictures to us that the philosopher feels he must penetrate (ibid.) in order to get to the heart of a phenomenon: "What is time?" Augustine asks.

The philosopher is confused by these pictures and apparent metaphors because he expects all words (or at least all nouns) to be names of objects or the names of phenomena, and therefore he believes that he must find the essence of these objects (and state that essence in a real definition).

What we might say is that Augustine is confused by the many pictures he associates with the word 'time'. In answer to the question 'what is time?' he points to these pictures, and he is confused by them. (Philosophy of Time)

What the philosopher wants to say e.g. about "one" is that it has both a nominal meaning and a "real meaning". He follows a misleading grammatical analogy: we can give a nominal definition of 'dog' -- if by that we mean: we can point to dogs -- and then we can investigate dogs without any further reference to the word 'dog'. When we are dealing with a physical object (-- as opposed to what other kind of object? This is a very confused form of expression --), then "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". But the case of "abstract objects" is very different. As was noted in the Synopsis of Wittgenstein's Logic of Language:

Take the word 'one' away from us, and we are left with nothing to cling to. But give us that word and we seem able to grab hold of a ghost. (The False Grammatical Account)

Certainly it is possible to talk about such pictures as exist in our language and others that it suggests to us. But philosophers should ask themselves if that is what they want to do. The Rationalists "endeavored to settle everything by reason, by sitting in arm-chairs and inspecting words -- they let the words speak to them". And whatever the words suggested to them they imagined to be the essences of "abstract objects" and of "occult phenomena" (e.g. "time", "mind", or Gilson's example: "becoming"). We could call that a "metaphysical use of language"; but it would be an instance of meaning as "whatever seems right"; it would not be the objective meaning that Wittgenstein's logic of language seeks -- and it would not show us the meaning of words (e.g. of the words 'time' and 'mind') in our actual language:

What we deny is that the picture ... gives us the correct idea of the use of the word ... We say that this picture ... stands in the way of our seeing the use of the word as it is. (PI § 305)

[BACK]

Note 5: Etienne Gilson, The Philosopher and Theology, tr. Cecile Gilson (New York: 1962), p. 157. [BACK]

Note 6: Gilson's attitude to philosophy is the attitude of a religious believer, not the attitude of a philosopher.

I never confused philosophy with religion. If religion is truly at stake, then our whole life is involved. (The Philosopher and Theology p. 109)

The believing Christian looks to religion to be the inspiration of his life and his guide to conduct rather than to philosophy, however interested he may be in the latter. (Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume III: Ockham to Suárez (1953) XXIV, 1)

Socrates would not have said this. What philosopher would say that if philosophy is truly at stake, then his whole life is not involved. But the religious believer can say this because he believes that the truth has been revealed by God, and that philosophy is mere "groping" toward this truth (Acts 17.27).

The "amen" comes before Christ speaks: "Amen, I say to you ..." His words must be accepted before they are even spoken. But in philosophy, there is no "amen", not in the beginning, not in the end, not ever. Authority is so foreign to the spirit of philosophy that no philosopher would ever want to import it, if that were possible. Further, no philosopher would say that "faith perfects reason" (The Philosopher and Theology p. 168).

The light of faith guides and completes the natural light of reason, since grace perfects nature. (Thomas Aquinas, De Trinitate 2.3c)

If we contrast Socrates with Abraham we find rather that it is reason (philosophy) that perfects faith. This is not because Socrates did not believe in gods.

Philosophy, Theology and her Handmaid

Philosophy is only a tool "Christian philosophers" use to help them better understand what they already believe. (The Philosopher and Theology p. 30-31).

One does not find the sources of religion at the term of any philosophy, but beyond it. If one wishes to speak of religion, one must start from it, which has no source, but is the source. There is no other way to reach it.... faith is not found at the conclusion of any philosophical reasoning. (ibid. p. 109-110, 161)

This is the proper time to remember the wise remark made by Gabriel Marcel, that the less one stands in need of proofs of the existence of God the easier it is for him to find them. (ibid. p. 71)

The necessary condition to insure the future of Christian philosophy is to maintain the primacy of the word of God, even in philosophical inquiry. (ibid. p. 228-229)

St. Thomas certainly did not think that the philosopher could arrive, by valid rational argument, at any conclusion incompatible with Christian theology. If a philosopher arrives at a conclusion which contradicts, explicitly or implicitly, a Christian doctrine, that is a sign that his premises are false or that there is a fallacy somewhere in his argument. In other words, theology acts as an external norm ... (Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume III, I, 1 , i)

... the Catholic philosopher in practice ... philosophizes in the light of what he already believes and he will not conclude to a unity in God of such a kind as to exclude the Trinity of Persons ... his faith helps him to ask the right questions and to avoid untrue conclusions. (Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume II, XXV, 4)

[Christian philosophy is] a certain way to apply philosophical methods to the investigation of faith. [This way] should be: first, that of the Fathers of the Church, then, that of the Scholastic Doctors. (ibid. p. 192) It designates the use the Christian makes of the philosophical reason when, in either [philosophy or theology], he associates religious faith and philosophical reflection. (The Philosopher and Theology p. 198)

The "use made of reason within faith" (ibid. p. 193). But isn't that what everyone calls 'theology'? How is the philosophical use of reason or reflection different from any other use of reason or reflection? It is different at least in this way: it is never directed by an authority, either human or divine.

Why should anyone want to call theology by the name 'philosophy'? It is only when the handmaid has a better reputation than her mistress that the mistress wants to take her handmaid's name. And Gilson writes that this was the history of the expression 'Christian philosophy'; the scholastics had been proud of their title 'theologian' (ibid. p. 178). [BACK]


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